Author's Note: Ah! The first chapter of the last 1/3. Enjoy!

About an hour later, we reached the foothills of the massive mountains. Blood and I regrouped with his team. They didn't seem very interested and largely ignored me, save for the Charizard, who introduced himself as Flame and welcomed me into the team.

Flame was very interested in me, although he seemed to sense my feelings, and left me alone for the first few days. But as the days of tiresome travel wore on, Flame became the closest to a companion I had in the group. During the long, back-breaking hikes through treacherous mountain passes, Flame would always be close by, following up the end with me as we talked about what life would be like.

From him I learned about my future home: it was an abandoned ruin that might have once been a castle, carved into a snowy, freezing cold, barren mountainside where blizzards ravaged the land nearly year round. But despite the harsh conditions, life was "alright", Flame claimed. "You'll get used to it," he would say to me. "It just takes a while."

At night, Flame kept the whole camp warm, using his tail as a makeshift campfire. Blood surrendered his spot, closest to the flames, to me, and resorted to patrolling aimlessly around the trail, claiming that he "wasn't tired". But I knew he was worried; I could see it in his eyes, no matter how closely guarded they were. Worried about what, I didn't know, but I could guess: he was deep in thought about just exactly how he would train me into the fighter that he'd promised that I'd become.

Finally, after two weeks of traveling, we arrived at that barren mountainside. Standing in the lifeless valley below, I looked up at the mountainside. It took me an hour before I found the castle itself: nestled into a rocky crag, just barely different from the snow-swept mountain around it. We trudged up the mountain, following an ancient, ruined road, all the way to the castle itself.

Within the crumbling walls, I was surprised to see that there was nothing but a few campfires that had long since snowed over. Blood smiled at my bewilderment. "Relax, Minun," he said. "The civilization that built this castle - whichever civilization that might be - also carved tunnels into the rock underneath the castle, perhaps to hide from the weather, or enemies of some sort. We use these ancient tunnels, which are exceedingly spacious and well-hidden, as our shelter." He walked over towards a pile of rubber close to the corner of the castle, and in one fluid attack, levitated all the broken stones aside to reveal a gaping hole large enough for even Flame to fit through. "Enter," he commanded, and I filed in with the rest of the team. Blood entered last, and shifted the rocks back, leaving us in darkness.

For a moment, I panicked. How would I know where I was going? Then a low glow came to life: Flame's tail, which was only smoldering in the cold outside, was slowly heating up to provide a warm, flickering goal. Using his tail as a torch, Flame led the procession down the ancient, musty tunnel, which quickly tilted downwards into the earth.

After what seemed like an eternity, the tunnel suddenly opened out into a gigantic chamber. A dozen smaller tunnels branched out from the chamber itself. "Welcome to our team base," Blood announced. "As you can see, these tunnels all head in their individual directions. From what we have explored, the tunnels lead to a massive dungeon underneath the mountain, full of wild Pokemon. But you needn't worry: we have sealed off the entrances to the dungeon, and use the smaller chambers scattered around the tunnels as our rooms, safely hidden from weather and wild Pokemon."

Blood turned to face the team. "Team," he said. "This journey has been long and arduous. Disperse to your rooms and rest." The team members began to file off into the various tunnels, but Blood wasn't done. "Flame," he said. "Stay here. You seem to be the friendliest with Minun. Show him around and assign him a room, please."

Flame nodded, and Blood abruptly disappeared into one of the tunnels. Flame waited until he was sure Blood was gone before he spoke. "He's not as strong as he wants you to believe," Flame said quietly. "Sometimes...well, we worry about him. The team, I mean. We're worried that someday he might break down. Absol are sturdy, strong Pokemon, but they're not impervious to everything."

Flame paused. A concerned look had spread across his face. "He never gets enough to eat, never gets enough rest. He seems to dedicate his whole entire life to training us, perfecting us...throwing his own health to the wind. And, as you know, the wind around this desolate place is harsh and unforgiving."

Flame shook his head. "Anyways. Sorry, I tend to ramble. Let's get on with your room."

When we finally arrived, I was surprised. My tiny little niche was less than half the size of my already small room back at the village. It contained a bare blanket, an old pillow, and one small, wooden shelf, all colored a drab brown. Flame gestured to the blanket. "You'll sleep there," he said, and he grimaced with sympathy when he saw my face. "Well, you'll get used to it," he said. "We all do."

Briefly, I imagined Flame trying to fit into such a tiny space. It seemed absurd, but I was too tired to laugh.

"Well, you better get to sleep. Blood wants all of us to wake early. It's part of our training," Flame explained, and gestured towards the blanket again. "Get as much rest as you can. See you next morning." With that, he left.

Long after he'd gone, I was still lying in my threadbare blanket, feeling the cold seep into me from the icy stone below. A thickness permeated the frosty air of the cave. I shivered as a cool draft passed over me: the cave slowly ventilated itself through some ancient system. Evie had told me about them once: about how one exit was higher than another, or something along those lines, causing air to flow through the caves.

Suddenly, a surge of thoughts rushed into my head. Evie! Throughout the weeks of traveling, I was so tired that I hardly had time to think of what I was doing, let alone the life I left behind. I was so exhausted at night that when I fell asleep, my numb, frozen skin warmed by Flame's fire, I had no dreams. Only a murky, darkness that exist for my few hours of sleep, before Blood woke us all up the next day before dawn to continue.

But now that I had arrived, I was free to think of Evie, of the village, of the look on Albert's face as he sent me off. I wondered what Evie was doing now that I was gone. She was probably waiting for the next rescue team to arrive in the valley so she could leave with them. And after she was gone, the hut would be empty and desolate: an abandoned memory from past times. Briefly, I wondered if she was thinking of me too, but I already knew the answer. The pain, the grief, the separation itself were all still fresh in her mind, and so was I.

It was these thoughts that were in my head as I drifted off into an exhausted sleep, full of the murky darkness that I had become used to during my long, tiring trip to Blood's rescue team base. But now, there was a faint voice calling out to me in the darkness: Evie, already fading from my thoughts, our lives growing farther and farther apart by the second.