"I'm so sorry!" Aya shouts and pulls me out of the snow. "I should have told you that it's actually really soft and you can fall into it."
"I'm all right," I say numbly out of courtesy, unsure of whether I actually am.
"Let's quickly find a cave and start a fire!"
"Yes." I hold my arms together close to my chest. My touch feels surreal. I thought I could land on the white stuff but to my surprise, I just fell into it. It was surprisingly cold, and the momentary fervour I felt when inside it was extreme. But now I just feel slow and dumb.
"There's one!" I wasn't even looking for it, just trying to stay aloft while following Aya's trail. It's a good thing that she found it, because I'm starting to regain my senses more acutely and the chill is getting to me.
By the time we reach the cave, I feel freezing and shove myself against the wall.
"I'll go get some wood now," I hear her voice.
"Wait! Stay with me," I beg. "Please."
"Okay." She sits down next to me and I lean into her. For the past few nights, her warmth has been comforting in this cold climate, so I've learned to cherish it.
I'm not normally like this, but it wasn't just the cold, it was also the shock. I need someone next to me.
Out of pure coincidence, this cave seems much larger and comfortable than the ones we used before, even bigger than the one on the day we first met. It's much better than simply sleeping under an alcove. Though the stars were nice, I feel safer in this environment. It feels more stable and solid. Especially with her around. I snuggle in closer to her side, wanting as much of the warmth as possible.
"…so obvious to me that I forgot to mention it, but obviously, I should have. Are you feeling better?"
"Huh?" I realise I had been zoning out. "Yeah, it's warmer."
"Good."
As my thoughts gain coherence, I suddenly notice how close I'm leaning into her. A little embarrassed, I consider pulling away, but her warmth is too comfortable to leave.
"We won't fly anymore today," Aya says as she turns to face me. "I'll go get some food soon."
"But it's only the afternoon. We could get more distance covered."
"You need to conserve your energy in cold places, remember? We won't be as strong in these harsh conditions. Plus, it's your first time at a place this cold, so take it easy."
"Okay." I don't have the strength to argue.
She doesn't respond to that, and we just sit there silently. That makes things more awkward and after a few more minutes I feel that I'm leaning a bit too close to her. I shift in position and my antennae flicks her in the face, making it even worse.
"Sorry about that," I say as I finally pull away.
"Sorry for what? We're here for each other." She smiles again, and it's infectious. "Now, just rest here. It's harder to hunt in this environment so I might take a bit of time. Stay inside."
I still crawl over to the entrance of the cave and see her take off with those flaps of her wings. Aya. She's such a good friend. We've only met for a few days, but she takes so much care of me… Maybe friend isn't the right word. More like a companion. Whatever. I just want her around. And she is.
I find myself smiling as I think about her. …She's just a nice person to be around. That's why I smiled. Why does this matter? I'm just not thinking very straight because of accidentally falling into the snow; it's still a bit cold.
"Hey, Nova!" Aya's voice sounds as she appears in the entrance of the cave. "I got some wood first, so you can warm up more easily."
"Thanks," I say as she places the branches on the floor.
I feel a little guilty for not doing anything, but the thought is dashed from my mind when I see her simply breathe some fire on the wood. And it bursts into flames.
We haven't used any fire for the past few nights, what with keeping each other warm. I remember always having to start fires with a certain tail, not our own breaths.
"I thought dragon breaths aren't normal fire?" I ask out of curiosity.
"Oh, they aren't. I've simply learnt a different breath. Maybe I can teach you later, but I'll go get food first!" she says cheerfully. "Keep warm!"
I end up gazing at her again as she flies off. I really can't thank her enough for all that she has done for me. At first, maybe there was some doubt that she wouldn't follow up on her promises, and I'd have to fly back, but now I'm convinced she'd hunt for me for the rest of eternity.
What is it with me? Of course she's not going to do that. We'll have to part ways eventually. …Thinking about that makes me shiver, so I retreat back and lie next to the fire.
The radiated heat on my body takes my mind off my previous thoughts for a few moments, but they come back. Why did I assume we have to part ways? If she discovers I'm psychic, I swear she'll continue treating me the same way.
There's an anxious feeling welling up as I think about the moment. It'll probably be another time when I'm forced to use it, and it will only be to protect her. Does she need protecting, even? Depends if she can actually fight, or if she just says she can. Why am I asking? Of course she can, she hunts at an efficiency that's even higher than Silex.
I wonder how Silex is doing.
She can handle herself, she's psychic as well. Am I psychic because of her? Probably not. She seemed surprised when I wasn't frozen. Then why are both of us psychic? Is it just a coincidence, or are more Flygon psychic for a reason? Maybe there are other psychics but I just don't know about them?
"Psychic". It's such a strange phenomenon. It's always… I want something to happen, and it happens. The movement of my hands during telekinesis, or a gaze at your target during mind-reading, they're just to make you focus and concentrate. Does it really work on sheer willpower?
Regardless of the mechanisms, I'm more surprised that they disappeared from Evitern. Shouldn't powerful psychics easily fend off the strongest of dragons? Something bad must have happened to wipe them out of existence.
A thud outside interrupts my thoughts. I push myself up, well warmed and ready to greet Aya with her fresh catch, but stop myself. Aya said she'd take longer… and I don't think Flygon make that much noise when landing.
I peek around the corner. My suspicions are correct – a Salamence stretches his wings as he lands. I'm momentarily surprised, but a subconscious flick of a finger towards a branch in the fire tells me that despite the lack of practice, it's still working. I can fend him off easily.
It's a bit more suspenseful when he suddenly shouts, "Who's there?" He must have seen the light from the fire. I hide behind the corner of the wall, trying to make a decision. I'm fairly confident I could take him on, but… something's stopping me.
What a lack of foresight I have. How could a conveniently large cave like this one be unoccupied? Of course some other creature would have made this as its home!
The Salamence seems somewhat hesitant coming in as well. From his voice and the brief glance I got at him, it seems that he clearly isn't young, definitely older than Spire. Maybe Sylar's age. Ah, what does his age matter? This might be his home, but when it comes down to it he's going to attack me. I'm going need to find a way to get out. Flying past him doesn't seem like a bad option, but he might attack me if I don't get out quickly enough.
His footsteps become louder and I keep myself close to the wall. Even though I haven't practiced in a while, I might have to use telekinesis on him. Better than getting slashed like last time…
As he walks past the wall, I immediately flick my wrist at his body, trying to push it inside…
…but nothing happens.
Reflexively, I try it again, and he still doesn't move. I don't have any time after that, because he immediately charges at me and I jump out of the way. But it's hard to manoeuvre properly in such a closed space, and more than once I bump into some rock on the ground or the wall.
It doesn't make sense! I thought I had everything under control. But… but it doesn't work?
I can feel my heart beating faster. He turns around and readies another attack. Even though I know it's futile, I try moving him again. Sure enough, my arm simply slides into air and I refocus my attention on getting out of the way. But as I land, a particular piece of protruding rock hits me in the side. It doesn't hurt that much but is enough to make me discomforted. I actually might get injured, now. Ugh…
"Who are you?" The Salamence suddenly asks and I almost answer before he charges at me again. It wasn't meant to be answered. This is going to hurt. I hope my powers can still work on a smaller scale, so I can twist his claws…
But he suddenly lets out a loud cry of pain before he manages to close in. In my peripheral vision I see some projectile hitting him in the backside. I immediately stand up and dive around him to the exit. I see Aya's face and almost want to hug her before remembering we have a Salamence to deal with.
"Nova, get behind me!" she yells, and I obey. I watch closely from behind her as she breathes in a huge breath and then releases some sort of bright, pulsing shockwave that travels through the air and hits the Salamence again as he lets out a wail. Then she does something to the ground beneath that Salamence, and I decide I don't want to watch this and go outside.
Staring anxiously at the entrance of the cave, I keep wondering what Aya just did. But it's less than ten seconds before the Salamence scuttles out and immediately flies off into the distance. Aya comes out immediately and runs towards me. "Are you hurt? Did that Salamence manage to get you?"
"No, I'm fine. Thanks," I mutter, suddenly feeling a bit ambivalent now that the danger is gone. "Isn't this the Salamence's home…?"
"Well, he was attacking you. I knew there was trouble when I saw a Salamence fly here. Don't worry about it. You feeling better?"
I nod.
"Just be on guard, maybe stay outside if you want; I'll continue hunting."
"…All right." I see her smile and try to do the same when she flies off, but frankly I don't feel well. It's worse than the physical feeling of cold, but rather a strange emptiness. Are we really doing the right thing, taking over a cave? Isn't that kind of what happened in the Shallows? On top of that, what happened to my psychic powers?
After Aya is out of sight, I fidget slightly with the thin blanket of snow on the ground with my powers; I can twirl it around fine. But as I gather more of it, it because harder to control delicately, and once it becomes larger I even have trouble lifting it off the ground. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, because that's how it always has been when I practiced. I can't move too large a mass.
…But then, how did I manage to lift full-grown Salamence and Flygon before? Was it the rush of adrenaline? Or was it something to do with my state of mind? More importantly, why haven't I noticed this until now? Maybe it's because when I used telekinesis on other dragons, the situations weren't exactly appropriate for reflection…
What's more, I couldn't do anything against that Salamence today. It shouldn't be caused by lack of practice, because surely I'd still be able to push him around a bit.
The pit in my stomach gets larger. I thought I'd always at least be able to defend those around me if we were in danger. But now… I'm not even sure anymore.
I wish I had time to practice and figure this out. Though, being around Aya isn't bad at all. In fact, she's the one that just defended me. What were her moves? Psychic? Hah, as if. It seemed something like a breath, but different. I'll ask her when we're eating. Maybe she can teach me! It seems convenient to be able to fight without coming into contact with the opponent. It definitely was when I could still fling people around.
It's getting cold again. I want to be near the fire. It's not like another Salamence is going to come around, so I simply drop down back into the cave and sit next to the fire.
"Got too cold for you?" Sometime later, Aya's voice sounds. I was gazing into the fire; it was reminding me of someone's tail. I turn my head over and see her walk in.
"Yeah." I respond, somewhat slow to react, and take one of the pieces she hands me. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," she says and sits next to me. "The company more than makes up for it."
"So, what were those attacks you did?" I ask as I take my first bite.
"Oh. You don't recognise them?" she responds. "I thought you lived with Flygon?"
"Yeah, but… they all attack with claws and bites and stuff. They breathe fire sometimes, but I haven't seen them use it in fights."
"What about you?" she continues questioning. "If you don't want to see any blood, they're the perfect skills to learn!"
"How do I learn them? Breathe in a special way?" I ask back, confused.
"I'll teach you after we finish eating, if you don't mind. It'll take a while, but really useful!"
"Okay. But, uh, what exactly are they?"
"They're different. One is just pulses of energy, while another collapses the earth beneath your enemy… You know, Flygon used to be able to summon sandstorms very easily? But now, they don't even seem to know they can."
I didn't know. In fact, I've never seen a sandstorm in my life, despite living in the desert. But I'm not saying that, it would just make me look stupid. "So, can you?"
"Sure! Not in the mountains, obviously. But I don't think living in the desert is good if you wanna become stronger." She puts her food down and looks me straight in the eye. "I have a serious question. Do you know what the Flygon's most devastating weakness is?"
The question catches me completely off guard. "…Killing each other?"
"It's not a metaphorical question. Take another guess."
Her gaze is so serious it makes me put my food down as well. "Well… I don't know. Water?"
"That's closer. But the correct answer is simply the cold. We are immensely afraid of it, which many Pokémon have learnt to use in the form of ice. That's why I wanted to come to the mountains. So we can become more resilient to our weaknesses. I know of a Charizard who learnt how to swim…"
So we continue talking, like the other days, and when we're finished with our food, the light coming in from the entrance has dimmed significantly. The walls of the cavern are painted yellow by the warm glow of the fire.
"Do we have to go out?" I ask, sitting contently against the wall with a full belly. "It's too cold."
"Didn't I just tell you we needed to overcome the cold?" Aya says and sighs. "Fine, we can do it in here."
"I'm watching."
She stares at the wall intently with her mouth open. I can see a faint glow coming from inside her mouth as she immediately spits it out to the wall.
"How do you do it?" I ask.
"It's very different from breathing fire. Instead of trying to spit something out, you try to suck something in then spit it out."
"But I feel like I'm just sucking in air," I say and inhale deeply.
"You need to be concentrated! Stand up." I push myself up from sitting and stand in a place she points to. "Focus on the energy around you. Gather it in your mouth. It's not breathing!" she adds as I inhale again.
I try and shape my mouth in a way that does what she described, but it just doesn't make sense. "I don't know how!" I tell her.
"Fine. Why don't you try moving some earth, instead?" She casually gathers some pebbles from the bottom of the cave, and brings them up into the air. "Though, this isn't as easy-"
"Yeah it is," I respond and grin as I take over the control of the pebbles. "See?"
"Nice! Have you done it before?"
"Yeah, I've tried it before. A few times, but… only when I was bored." I suddenly feel somewhat uncomfortable lying, but I don't want to directly say to her that I'm psychic.
"Let's practice this one first," she suggests. "You can either throw rocks at them or mess up their footing…"
The exercise is not particularly strenuous, if only because of my feigned incompetence, but I'm still tired from the events of the day. It might not sound very busy compared to events that have happened in the distant past, but it was at least more than yesterday.
When we sleep, I don't keep as close to Aya, since we're in a closed warm environment, but she's still next to me. The familiar body soothes me into sleep, her tail over mine.
But suddenly I feel a tugging feeling wake me. "Nova! Get up, get up!"
"Huh-" I hear a Salamence bellow and sit up immediately. "Wait, what's going-"
I see Aya ready a blast and release it directly in the face of a Salamence that is crawling in through the entrance. It collapses and conveniently blocks the way for the one behind it, but also the way out for us.
"We shouldn't have stayed here. I should have known better," Aya laments. "Of course that Salamence would come back to find us!"
Blinking a few times to wake myself properly, I ask, "So what do we do if we can't get out?"
Now that I'm more awake, the fear is getting to me. I want to clasp onto Aya but I'm afraid I'll ruin her attacks. Right after that thought, she waves her arm in front her and I can see cracks forming in the ceiling of the tunnel. After a few seconds they become bigger and collapse in on it. The voices of the Salamence suddenly disappear, and I stand meekly beside her with the small fire shining a much dimmer light on the walls.
"Too bad they can't manipulate earth," she scoffs.
"But what are we going to do? They're going to tunnel through after a while," I say, worried.
"No they're not," she refutes. "Their progress will be at a pitiful rate without any fingers. But that doesn't mean we can stay here," she says before I can relax. "We'll suffocate."
"So what now? Fix the passage and fight the rest? How many of them are there?"
"Lots. I can't fend all of them off. So we'll have to find another way out." She taps her feet with her arms crossed, her voice with much less caring than usual. "Nova, I know you're tired, but I need you to break open the ceiling."
"Aren't you better than me? And won't it fall on us?"
"I'll be holding it together so it won't collapse. This cave isn't like the one on the side of a hill; it's on a flat piece of land. I reckon you'll only need to tunnel a metre or two before you get through."
"I… okay. Are you ready?"
"Yes. Go."
I flex my fingers slightly and start to pull on the rocks above me. The crack comes easily, but breaking pieces off is hard, and that's without feigning incompetence. Collapsing a thin tunnel seems a lot easier than this. It's at least a minute before I manage to break the first big piece down.
It wasn't enough to collapse the cavern yet, because Aya is still idling there, staring at my handiwork. But after the second piece she gets her arms in position. And then goes the third, and fourth, and then I lose count, but soon enough the other parts start loosening easily. Aya has it under control, though.
The fear has long since left me since the cavern was sealed. It is as if we aren't even under attack.
A beam of moonlight shines in finally after the last piece is broken off, followed by a little snow falling in. I look back at Aya who seems to be extremely concentrated.
"We need to fit through there!" she says like it's the most obvious thing ever. She's right, so I don't complain as I thrust my arm forward and push the hole larger.
There are the shouts of Salamence, undoubtedly coming from the sealed entrance. "Good thing they didn't notice this hole," I comment before trying to push the dirt out of the way.
"There!" I say after a few more minutes. "Now let's get up."
Aya is still focused on holding the cave together. She must be doing a really good job, because I can only see a few small cracks next to the path I dug. "Shh, not so loud. You go first. I'll catch up."
"Okay." I give one last glance at her before preparing my wings. It brushes againt rocks a few times in my ascension, but I try and ignore it.
Immediately, a blast of cold hits me, but I hold myself together and sit at the edge, looking down for Aya. I can hear the Salamence down there even more clearly, which makes me remind myself to stay absolutely silent.
"I said go!" Aya gets out surprisingly quickly and shoots in to the sky as the dirt beneath me starts crumbling. I lose balance but my instincts bring me to follow Aya up.
A glance behind tells me that the Salamence are not on our trail. One of them seems to have just noticed that the cavern collapsed and has flown above to see its remains, but that's when we're already far up high into the night sky.
I focus my attention back on the Flygon flying in front of me. It was actually a fairly dire situation, but it didn't actually feel dangerous, because Aya was here with me. I don't know what I'd do without her.
She starts slowing down after a while and lands on the edge of a hill, seeming a little shaken. "Sorry," she says to me immediately as I land. "I should have known better."
"It's my fault too!" I say, tugging on her arm. "And we weren't really in danger at all."
"I supposed you're right," she says, her voice regaining some of her usual cheer. "Now, do you think we can sleep under that overhang?"
I feel a pang of disappointment, knowing that I'll have to spend another night out in the cold, but at least I have Aya. "Yes, let's go. We need to sleep."
This time, we're much closer, if only because needing each other to stay warm. But as I wrap my arm around her, I feel something inside me that's content, despite the cold floor we sleep upon. I open my eyes to glance at her sleeping face.
I could stay with her forever.
But how could she stay with me? Be willing to feed and train me, a stranger she met a few days ago?
"Aya… why do you do so much for me?"
I feel her breath on my neck and suddenly feel very self-conscious. I'm lucky she's asleep. Why would I ask such a question? She has already explained. And I don't want to feel awkward with her.
Taking a final glance at her peaceful face, I close my eyes, and snuggle into her neck.
…
Brother…