The Ice
Espeon drifted into the waking world gradually at first, the heat of her curled body and insulating fur that kept the cold at bay impeding her normally swift transition into awareness. The comfortable warmth was almost like hiding under the thick blankets of a Pokémon Center's bed, sluggishly dozing the hours, years, eternities away on the wondrous brink between the perceptive mental state and the dream-locked mind where every nonsensical happening has an understandable reason.
Then she felt something pulse around her, a brief flash of electric blue and a wave of soul-freezing water drenching her mind, sending her subconscious into alert, and speeding her to full awareness with the smooth ease of a fighting Pokémon waking on the battlefield.
Immediately, the rapture of the bizarre and familiar world of color-tasting dreams began to bleed away, and the crisp, stagnant air of the frosted cavern slithered into her lungs, chilling her throat and sinking icicles into the sleepy fog. Registering the cold and the threatening pulse of energy, her sleep-encrusted mental gears and cogs swiftly spun up, the low whine of psychic power at the back of her mind rising to a crescendo before passing into a range beyond her own abilities to detect. Her eyelids flicked open, instincts processing the sight before her, evaluating threats, seeking safety, and then signaling the all-clear to her coiled muscles, all before her higher mental functions could comprehend her surroundings.
The cave was utterly bare, with the exception of her master and Pikachu; there was no sign of what had startled her into wakefulness.
Cautiously descending from her place in her trainer's lap, Espeon sat still, pondering the previous night's visions. Both had indicated a grave outcome, and for several minutes she was paralyzed by fear, for herself and her master, before she gained enough self-control to force the emotion into a dark place within her mind. She couldn't allow anything but the future to be at the forefront of her focus; distractions might cost everything… the one person she held dear.
Shaking her head, eyes tightly closed, she contemplated the possibilities at hand. The first timeline had revealed a future where her master… where her master fell, and the boy that must be down the mountain had retrieved his team, herself included, before dying at the hands of an unfamiliar figure. The latter was similar in its exposition, with the entire team assembled around their master, but asleep, and her master had… no… not fallen, jumped. He had not jumped! There had been a battle of lights, between a flash of purple fur and a lurid monster as terrible and unyielding as the icy mountain itself, and the trainer with the typlosion had continued on up the mountain, and… and….
Her eyes opened. She knew what was necessary.
Padding over to the cave's gaping maw, she gazed at the faint glow reflecting off the snow just outside, and at the cloud-filled sky that was already beginning to leak snowflakes and ice. With a reference to her internal clock, she determined it was around 5:00 AM. She had time, then.
Returning to her master's side, she cautiously pawed at his belt, knocking the latched pokéballs to the stony floor, one by one; she kept a wary eye trained on his face should he wake up. Fortune was on her side, however, and he did not stir further than the unintelligible mumbles and shifting of a dreaming man.
Lightly tapping the release button of Charizard's ball, she siphoned a small amount of psychic energy into her forehead gem, which began to radiate dully with a ruby glow. The dragon materialized in a burst of crimson, his fanged maw gaping wide to roar a challenge to some anticipated challenger… only to snap shut with a tooth-jarring clack as Espeon held it closed by applying a minor telekinetic burst, turning what would have been a magnificent and intimidating roar into little more than a strangled cough. His eyes burned with fury as he looked down at her, a growl of displeasure rumbling through his throat as his tail-flame brightened in an obvious threat.
Unperturbed by the charizard's rightful irritation, she hissed up at him, gesturing at their slumbering master with her tail as she said, "Be silent! He needs his rest, and you would have woken him had I not shut you up! Now, if I let go, will you stay quiet?"
He glowered at her balefully, and then nodded reluctantly, making no sound when she released his jaws from her psychic hold.
Turning her attention to the other pokéballs, she freed Venasaur, Blastoise, and Snorlax repeating her silencing technique with each. …Though she discovered that it was entirely unnecessary for Snorlax, as the gargantuan Pokémon was still sleeping deeply when she let him from his ball. Umbreon, due to his being Dark-type, would have to be kept quiet some other way.
Deciding to leave him for last, Espeon approached the tranquil yellow form of Pikachu, pausing for a moment to gaze at the rodent's relaxed posture, the unhurried rise and fall of his chest as his lungs filled and emptied, pulling in vital oxygen and releasing waste carbon dioxide. Her eyes wandered across his face, his calm expression lending her the sense of one tired finally reaching a place of rest. The flash mouse's muscles were not tensed and set for battle, but loose and ready only for sleep, and for dreams
Gently prodding him in the side, she almost slipped a psychic grip around his jaws, before hesitantly deeming it unnecessary. Pikachu rarely spoke to anyone, these days. Let alone her.
His eyes flickered, slid open, and his muscles tensed, the intervals between his breaths accelerating. He glanced around, impaling the espeon with a questioning look, then examined the gaunt, resting face of their trainer. With a small sigh, he lightly leapt out of their master's lap and onto the rocky ground. His head cocked to one side and ears twitching, he looked at her for an explanation of the entire team being awake. She replied by addressing the entire group in a whisper, "Give me one moment. I'll explain after I let Umbreon out."
Nudging the release button of Umbreon's ball with the moist tip of her nose, she immediately pounced onto the materializing form of the other 'Eon, endeavoring to keep his mouth shut while explaining that he had to stay silent. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly, in hindsight), Umbreon believed himself to be under attack, and struggled franticly, ignoring Espeon's hissed explanations, and yowling for help. For a moment, it seemed that their master would awaken due to the commotion the two 'Eons were causing…. That is, until Venasaur extended a powerful vine to encircle the umbreon's muzzle and drag Espeon out of his reach.
Despite having his mouth fastened tight by the Grass-type powerhouse's vine, Umbreon was still a ferocious sight, his crimson scleras glinting as he glared first at Espeon, then the venasaur holding his mouth closed. The sharp, sickle-shaped claws at the end of his lithe legs were extended, and the rings spread across his body were fluctuating between a sickly yellow light, and a blinding, near-white tint. Everyone fixed him with their stares, and the silence of heaving breaths reigned.
"Umbreon, calm yourself, and I shall release you" Venasaur spoke at last, splitting the silence asunder with the low thunder of his voice.
Scowling fiercely at each of the other Pokémon in turn, Umbreon nodded, wrenching away when Venasaur loosened his toughened vine from around his muzzle. "Bastards," he spat, tone brimming with malice. Umbreon in one of his more cheerful moods, all things considered; he was widely regarded as the most ill-tempered Pokémon in their band of seven, more so even than Charizard.
It was hardly a surprise, considering the circumstances of his joining their group; following Blue's departure from the livelyhood of a trainer to go work in his grandfather's lab, he had released nearly all of his Pokémon, with Umbreon being the sole exception. Eventually, however, Blue had become so engrossed in his research that he rarely returned to his house, let alone paid any mind to his last Pokémon. When Red had arrived in Pallet Town visiting family, he'd stopped by his former rival's home, only to discover a weakened Umbreon and a thin layer of dust coating nearly every surface. Storming into Blue's lab, he'd immediately launched into a tense discussion with the professor, which eventually culminated in his gaining guardianship over the Umbreon. Aquiring a license that allowed him to carry seven Pokémon at a time, so long as one was a registered noncombatant (Umbreon, in this case), Red had then proceeded on a long and arduous journey to the peak of Mount Silver. During this weeks-long expedition, Umbreon had gradually warmed to his new comrades, though he still held a seed of fury within his heart for Blue, and that seed often surfaced at the slightest provocation.
Espeon sighed quietly and averted her gaze from the dark 'Eon and annoyed companions, unsurprised by their foul mood; her method of rousing them had not been the most kind, true, but the more accurate reason for their tempers was the state of their master. All of them were anxious and concerned for his wellbeing, especially considering that he had not eaten in days, and rarely strayed more than a few yards from the cave. His features were gaunt and pale, and his sleep had been restless and sparse.
"Well?"
The espeon started, returning from her thoughts to find Blastoise looking down at her, the immense turtle locking the water cannons at his shoulders into place with a sharp clack to gain her attention further. He gruffly repeated the question.
"I have to leave here for a while… and…" For a moment, the espeon faltered, her smooth voice trailing off as she reflected on her visions. Her voice hardened, and she continued. "I want you to keep him safe, if only for a few hours. I ought to be back after… after that."
Espeon looked over at their master, then at the six Pokémon before her, the only people in the world she would be willing to name as her family. They were veterans, rough and battle-scarred, with hard eyes and muscles like steel, bound together by the vocal hands of Red, their leader and master, trainer and friend. They were comrades that shared the blood in their veins, the compass in their hearts; their hearts beat in perfect synchronization with each other.
Blastoise's heartbeats boomed within the solid confines of his impenetrable shell, each thunderous pulse reverberating and echoing against his bony plate armor, which had shielded both himself and the fallen forms of his comrades when all seemed lost to the Rocket Gang.
Charizard's hot blood was pumped through his veins with the force of a steaming geyser, his heart rumbling almost continuously, as though a volcano were about to explode within his chest, threatening to sear the flesh of enemies and allies alike with its fury.
Venasaur's heart crept along between each hammering beat, like the slow but implacable growth of some vascular titan, each thump cradled within his tank-like rib cage signaling the birth of a new ring in the timber stem of his spinal flower.
Umbreon's lifeblood flowed smooth and swift throughout his limbs and bloody eyes, eternally surging within the darkness of his arteries and veins, pulsing thick and vital, and giving him the strength he so longed for as an eevee: the strength to avenge... and to protect, even though he was loath to reveal it.
Snorlax's heart boomed like the clock tower inLavenderTown, a great bell tolling the hours of rest to the world, his half-ton heart supporting the massive body around it, a body that so often served as a massive pillow for friends and exhausted allies.
Pikachu's heartbeat was small and quick, like the pitter-pattering of rodent feet alongside the sure footsteps of a brother, an equal; his heart pounded like the muted thunder of a distant storm, like the pulse heard in a father's chest when the storm overhead terrified a child enough to cling tighter.
Espeon smiled softly. Yes, they would keep Red safe. It was her duty to safeguard them all.
Pikachu stepped forward, opening his mouth to speak, but held in his words when the espeon raised a delicate paw, then stared into his eyes, his brown eyes, full of trepidation and curiosity. Her pupils flashed, and the electric mouse slumped to the floor, eyelids drooping as the Hypnosis took effect, luring him into a fitful sleep.
Not waiting for another heartbeat, she expanded her psychic awareness, reaching out towards Venasaur's massive flower and seizing hold of the powder lining its inner petals, the dust the sandman used to ease restless humans into slumber. She then grasped the stagnant, frigid air of the cavern, spinning it around and caging her friends in a circle of quietly whirling air currents, into which she siphoned the tranquilizing powder. She clamped down on their vocal chords, preventing them from alerting their master, and ignored their wide, uncomprehending eyes. Within moments, they were all embraced by the gentle pull of sleep.
Espeon wait for a few minutes, allowing time for the sleep powder to settle before she padded past her dormant companions to her master's still form. Climbing gracefully into his lap, she affectionately licked him on the nose, and nudged his worn cap from his head, spilling his tousled black hair. Pressing her cool gem against the pale skin his forehead, her eyes fell closed. Inside the boundaries of her mind, she called her happiest thoughts, her most joyful moments, her pride and respect and understanding of the world around her. She called forth her memories of training to be the best, to be just, to represent the most skilled trainer in the entire world. She called the memories and emotions, and they came, flocking to her mental banner; she replicated them, copying the essence of every blissful heartbeat and smile she had witnessed, and molded the silvery strands into a sphere, which she then grasped with the fork in her tail.
Concentrating, the benevolent espeon lowered her mental barriers slightly, just barely enough for her to weave a psychic bridge between herself and the mind of her master, whose inner turmoil and lurid nightmares were spilling against her shields and breaking like tidal waves against rocky cliffs, spectral claws and gnashing teeth screeching against her internal defenses. Even so, the negative energies radiating from her master's brain were strangely potent for a human's relatively weak psychic threshold...
Whispering a prayer to Mew, to Arceus, to Cresselia, to any other deity of the Psychic-types, Espeon hurled the silver orb of smiles and laughter across the bridge, molding it into a focused spear of empathy and care that lanced deep into the roiling black mists and shrieking past memories of her master's sleeping mind. The luminescent javelin pierced the mist with little struggle, and was soon gone from the edges of her perception, and in the depths of her master's fogbank of nightmare, she glimpsed a supernova of mercurial webs spreading through her master's mind like wildfire.
She smiled. Perhaps he could have a sweet dream for once, while she was gone.
And then, the mesh of silver stopped, beads of ebony liquid affixed to each strand like dew on a spinarak's web in the morning. Bulky bars of electric blue slammed through the delicate constructs, crushing many of the fragile strands and snapping others; vicious wires slithered out of the abyss of his subconscious, coiling around the silver and dragging it into the deep. The boiling miasma crept back, obscuring Espeon's view into the maleficent coils and crackling bars.
Fury welled inside the psychic 'Eon, a stream of molten hatred siphoning into her will, solidifying it and renewing her determination to carry the future she desired forth into reality. This nightmare, the dreams of horror and loss that had plagued Red ever since they had first arrived upon the mountain, the depression which had caught him so tightly… it was all the work of a ghost. An ectoplasmic being that was the mountain and the ice, that despised the heat of the living, but bore a far greater hatred for the beating heart of a human, a human too well-protected by his loyal comrades to be frozen outright, too determined and with a deeply seated belief in right and wrong to be possessed and forced to die by his own hand. Nightmares and depression had to make due instead, to slink into his soul and chill it into nothing but a shell and a heartbeat, with no will to live anymore.
Her master was in pain during every sleeping moment, she realized, and for a split instant was tempted to wake him, to save him from the nightmare gnawing on his sanity. But then she recognized the action already laid down for her in the timeline, the only way to keep him alive…. He was too close to the edge now, and wakefulness could very well seal his fate. He had to stay asleep, with the pain.
A tear rolled down Espeon's cheek as she thrust a psychically armored tendril deep into his mind, ignoring the sharp impacts of the Nightmare against her defenses, reaching into his subconscious, tapping into the portion of his brain that controlled his sleep. Twisting her mental lance, she manipulated him, twitching nerve endings and brain cells and synapses and so many other things, all to make him sleep, and writhe in pain so that he might live.
Retreating from her dance with his mind, she rested in his lap for a moment, leaning against his bony chest as tears of righteous wrath and earnest sorrow and regret blazed trails down her muzzle, the droplets that fell from her face freezing and crystallizing and forming tiny snowflakes of individuality, crafted by an innate psychic field she didn't know she possessed.
Eventually, she rose, slipping off of his lap the stand in the midst of her dormant companions, her family. Pressing her gem to each of their foreheads in turn, she gifted them with mercurial spheres, sweet dreams of high spirits and contentment. Umbreon was the most difficult for her to endow her gift, as his mental barriers were impossibly strong, Dark-type that he was. She managed though, and soon the sleeping Pokémon at her feet all bore soft smiles of the fondly remembered events in the dreamscapes.
Padding silently to the cavern's dim opening, toward the rising wind and plummeting temperature, the espeon bid her family farewell, lingering in the light to look back at them, committing the image and their peaceful likenesses to her memory for eternity.
Moments later, the entrance to the cave was clear, and the blizzard outside howling like a banshee, as if in delight at a new victim.
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Author's Note: Well, that's the end of part two! I was working on it earlier, and I realized that I wanted to split it into three parts, instead of my originally planned two. As it is, part two would have gone on for much longer had I not made that decision. I hope you enjoyed it~