Updated 12/8/2023.
It had been barely noticeable at first. Just a trickle of something dark, snaking through the grass. An odd patch of foliage that didn't quite reflect the light of the moon.
Something creepingly gradual, that you didn't notice until you its ragged breath grazed your nose. That you didn't hear, until you realised the sounds of the night had gone quiet.
Something that you didn't see, never saw until it overwhelmed your vision. And when you did look, when you finally saw...
You'd find it staring straight back.
Sandslash had felt such moments before. Many, many times. It was that moment before lightning struck, when you felt the building static prickle your hide. The moment before an earthquake hit, as the slightest of foreshocks trembled through the ground.
That instant when the sound of frantic wingbeats reached your ears, when time slowed and your mind raced, reaching for the understanding that something... was terribly wrong.
Just a single second. Perhaps less.
Before all hell broke loose.
"What- Sound the alarms, there's something out there! Get up, Pelipper, they're-"
"...ScreeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-"
The shadows leapt, flooding across the grassy plain in a tsunami of darkness high enough to devour the stars. Closer, closer... Pelipper's eyelids fluttered for the longest of moments, before they snapped wide open and the air began to roar.
Sandslash turned as Pelipper jumped into the sky with a squawk, buffering the shadows with gale-force winds. He ran, as the other Pokemon on watch sprang up with calls of alarm, flinging half-formed orbs of elemental force.
Yet the moment was still there, hanging in the air. Sandslash felt it, that gaping dread that the worst was yet to come. So he ran, desperately, for the Rescue Center. For the Rescue Teams still peacefully, obliviously asleep.
How nostalgic it all felt. Yelling his throat sore as he ran down the street, a storm building at his back. Running, then sprinting, then half-diving through the road, buying precious seconds with every move he burned through. Rapid Spin. Drill Run. Agility.
In his wake, Pokemon jolted from their sleep, roused by the sound of the familiar, frantic voice. A nightmare from the past, made real once more.
Sound the alarms. Sound the alarms.
A crisis has come again.
Two hours after midnight.
Two hours since the floodgates had opened.
Two mere hours, since the first of the apparitions had crawled through the nearby Mystery Dungeons, breaching into the outside world.
Of course, Sandslash, Pelipper, all the denizens of the town – none of them could have known that. They didn't watch the Mystery Dungeons at night. And the night-dwellers who did – they'd long since fled back to their own nocturnal villages, hurrying to rouse them into action.
Two hours. For some, it was three. Or five. Because 'midnight' as locals called it changed as you walked east or west. A certain Ninetales from Mount Freeze had been blazing through the things for several hours already, a half-formed vision in his sights. In Pokemon Square, an Absol rubbed at a headache that only worsened as midnight approached.
Psychic messages had been flying west for hours at that point, to the coasts of the Air Continent and far beyond. Yet most were fragmented by sheer distance, made incoherent by fright. Far too weak to ever reach their destination.
The messages that did get through weren't much better, sending the recipients clamouring for clarification. What shadows? How do Mystery Dungeons factor in – Rescue Teams on their way. Repeat; where are you?
Alarms were sounded, decade-old contingencies cracked open. Far too slowly, or barely in time.
A little less than two hours to the west, the nightmare was just beginning.
And they'd only gotten a glimpse of what was to come. Behind them was a gaping wound in the earth, bleeding dark ichor into the world around. Creatures spawned of shadows arose from it, tasting the air of the mountain and the light of the moon.
Something out of a horror movie, Maia thought. Something dredged from the darkest parts of the mind. Ethereal, insubstantial – until its clammy grasp was on your shoulder.
Really, the currently-a-Chinchou was being much less panicked about it than she should've been. It might've had something to do with the whole 'currently-a-Chinchou' thing. And... everything else after that.
It had been an awful, awful lot of everything. The past half day had stretched Maia's view of the world to its limit, and no matter how much her overworked subconscious tried, the existence of eldritch horrors refused to be crammed in alongside everything else.
Besides – there were more pressing things to panic over. No matter how scary the lurking shadows might be, when compared to the very real, very solid, and very rapidly-approaching mountainside?
"What- slow down! Slow do-"
"I'm trying! Stop- squirming-"
Well.
"Mirage! Left, now-"
"Why- Ahhhhh!"
The air cackled as they lurched to the side. The buzz of strained wings mixed with the shearing wind in a nauseating symphony as a burst of pain hit Maia, courtesy of her bulbs meeting rough fabric – and then the ribcage of the Zorua on the other side.
"Uff- Up! Up-"
"-can't see with you waving your paws- Stop squirming, Klei- Maia, you too!"
But the words were just another drop in the torrent of sensations assaulting her. The sickeningly sweet smell of old Oran stains, the pain ringing in her unfamiliar earholes and her all-too-familiar mind, the sheer terror of falling from a literal mountain – did she mention that yet? Bouncing all around the bag with no view of the outside, aware that at any moment, she was liable to find herself flattened into a pancake before being smeared across half the mountainside like Chinchou jam across a – a Kyurem-blasted MOUNTAIN-
"We're falling too fast! Mirage-"
"I know, I know-"
Noise. Noise. So much- Maia's panic was building. Again. Something was buzzing in her bulbs, but she pushed it down, stuffed it as far down the abyss as she could manage-
Just like before, when she'd first appeared in those woods, disoriented and confused and deafened by thunder. Just like before, when she'd clung on to that rough Dungeon wall, ignoring the lancing pain as she scraped dust and grit from her wounds. Refusing to let herself cry.
Yet willpower was hardly infinite. And though Maia had refused to shatter, the cracks left behind were prying themselves open bit by painful bit.
"...top talking, Kleis! It's bad enough with the wind-"
"You try falling from the top of a mountain-"
There. A jerk to the side, and her stomach lurched, sending its contents halfway up her throat. Pain, bright pain as Maia reached out to steady herself – only for the bag to give and leave her tumbling upside-down. Some part of her observed, with no small amount of hysteria, that her two rescuers were bantering.
The last clear thing Maia would remember was a lucid certainty that she was going to die. The buzzing in her bulbs reached a peak, then vaulted right over it. The world went white, the shouts outside faded away and-
-And then...
...And then, Maia was floating.
For the first time Maia had known since she'd woken up, she felt a sense of true calm wash over her. Not the facade she imposed on herself, but a confident, unquestioning, glorious calm that dimmed the outside world, ever-so-gently yanking her worries out of reach.
Just for a moment. Yet that moment stretched on and on. Maia felt almost – drunk – on relief. It was the pleasant tingling in her scales, the feeling of being awake and invigorated and so wonderfully alive. How she wanted to stay here, with the sweet smell of... ozone... in the...
"Kleis? Klei-?"
"Keep- flying-"
Something felt off, but Maia couldn't quite see it through the fog over her mind. Did it have something to do with the paw spasming against the bag, jabbing her painfully in the stomach?
What about the strained voice just outside murmuring – oh, yes, murmuring through gritted teeth, contrasted by the increasingly panicked chatter right above?
Maia frowned, though not for the reasons she should have.
Just- the voices were so loud, still. Annoying. Who cared about complicated words like 'Discharge' or 'Paralysis'? And – sure, gravity was being a little ruder than usual, which was mildly concerning. But that kind of problem tended to sort itself out fairly quickly, one way or the other.
A pause, then Maia felt herself being pressed into the bottom of the bag. See? Nothing to worry about. They were already pulling up. The ground could kiss her scaly, currently nonexistent ass just a bit later. And more gently. Hopefully.
That was a problem for future Maia. Current Maia was more concerned with the shiny lights wobbling in front of her eyes. And the rest of the world wobbling against her body. And her stomach wobbling around inside her body. And the mushy mass of Oran berry inside trying to wobble out.
Wobbly. Wooo-bbly. Maia felt like giggling wobblyingly. She felt wobbly, her senses felt wobbly, the air felt... wobbly? Well, wobblier. Not as bad as the wobbling Oran, but Maia still didn't like it. She stared sternly at the voices outside, as if that would stop them from wobbling the air.
It didn't work, to her deep dismay. Maia continued staring anyways. Harder. As if simply concentrating on her annoyance would let her adequately convey it.
When that didn't work, Maia started glaring. Half-heartedly, but she had to register her annoyance somehow. Suffering in silence helped no one, she pontificated as sagely... sagely-ly? - as she could manage. Her mom had told her that.
Her mom was a good mom. Her dad was also a good dad. She'd give them both a big hug if she got home.
...Actually, come to think of it, her rescuers were suffering too, weren't they? Maia was falling, and by the laws of... space, and... associativity, that meant that they must be falling along with her. Falling was supposed to be terrifying, Maia was pretty sure, and thus the two Pokemon were likely terrified.
Some part of Maia began to wonder why she herself wasn't terrified, but a voice in the back of her head – sounding awfully like herself – was telling her that it probably wasn't a good idea. Later, it insisted very insistently, and Maia mentally shrugged.
For now, she basked in the vague sense of pride that solving the mystery of the wobbly air gave her. Great! The two Pokemon outside weren't suffering in silence. Good for them.
Too bad it didn't make her want to puke any less. Small victories, Maia thought, as she buried her face in the side of the bag. What was she supposed to do now? Oh, right. Count down. From ten. That always worked. When she got to the end, everything would be alright.
Calm. Calm. That was what she was. Ten, nine, eight, seven...
Six-
"...lmost at the river, you two! Get re-"
Five-
"What- Not there, you'll break every single bone we- Left, left! To the trees-"
Four-
Increasing noise as directions came at a breakneck pace, nausea as the course corrections matched them step for step. A gravity-defying push made itself known as vertical velocity was traded for horizontal velocity, then whittled away yet further wingbeat by wingbeat.
Th- Three...? The words finally registered, and the terror shelved away began to writhe.
"Brace!" came the call. A Vibrava folded his wings tight against his back, and a Zorua hugged his bag to his chest. A Chinchou tensed instinctively, though she didn't quite understand why.
The facade was falling, the delirious euphoria beginning to drain away. Calm, Maia thought, continuing to count. Calm. Calm.
Two- and then they were in the trees. Tumbling, tumbling-
Crashing through the foliage, leaves and sharp branches harshly cushioning their fall. Points of wood glanced off scales, snapped against fur, poked against fabric-
And into her, a barrage of forceful impacts jabbing into every part of her. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt and Maia curled into herself, kept on counting. One-and-a-half. One-and-a-third. One-and-a-quarter-
-Slowing down quickly as they approached the last of the leaves. Then they were falling through open air again, gravity reasserting itself. Mirage and Kleis disentangled themselves from their death-grip, the Vibrava opening his wings as the Zorua twisted.
Maia felt the thump echo through her body, partly cushioned by soft fur. For a second, there was no sound in the forest save for that of laboured breaths.
Then disbelieving, hacking laughs layered themselves on, a shaky triumph slowly growing steadier. They were alive. They were-
One-and-a-tenth. One-and-a-twentieth. A fin slapped desperately against the inside of the bag, and the whoops of celebration slowed. Embarrassed, the Zorua ripped the top of the bag open.
A thoroughly tenderised Maia flopped out, white as a sheet and squished flat enough to match. She took a moment to take in the sensation of being on sweet, solid ground.
...Very muddy ground, actually, after the rains of the night. But it was close enough that Maia hardly cared.
One, she weakly nodded to herself, before emptying the contents of her stomach onto the ground.
He was bruised and hurt and shaken beyond belief, but he was alive. His body ached like nothing else. But he was alive.
Kleis took just another moment to savour the feeling. To remember it.
Then he rose, heaving himself onto his haunches as he got to business. Checking over injuries. After all, a mountain was – a long way to fall.
Yet besides a few shallow scratches, he was miraculously free of injury. Infection could – and would – set in, given the amount of mud he was wallowing in, but a wash in the river would stave off the worst of it long enough.
The Chinchou beside him, then. She was...
Well, alive. In the broadest sense of the word. She looked like a giant bruise, seemed almost on the verge of hyperventilating, and was sagging like the saddest sack of Orans the Zorua had ever saw.
It had been a patchwork bag made of half-dead leaves, with exactly half an Oran inside. Kleis supposed it fit the Chinchou in front of him, given how half – or all – of that particular Oran was lying on the forest floor.
Still, for someone with as little knowledge of Mystery Dungeons as she did – and just what kind of remote village had she come from for that? - Kleis thought she was doing fairly well.
She didn't need immediate help on the physical front, as far as Kleis could tell. Unless there was internal bleeding, but there was little he could do to help with that. Unless her Aqua Ring...
He'd keep an eye on the Chinchou just in case. The damage seemed more mental than physical, anyways, and his teammate was far better with that sort of thing than Kleis himself was.
"Are you alright? Maia? No, wait, stupid question. Need any help?" Mirage floated to the ground, quietly speaking to the Chinchou. "Uh, you don't have to answer if you don't want to. Take your time, calm down a little..."
"'M fine," came the simple reply. "Sorry, I-"
The Chinchou contorted strangely, mortification and horror seeping into her face. "O-oh. Did I zap you? I zapped you, didn't I. I'm really sorry-"
That was what she was worried about? Kleis shrugged as best as he could, hurrying to cut the Chinchou off.
"Friendly fire happens. We were falling from a mountain." And the Chinchou definitely wasn't trained for adventuring, or possibly even travelling. Now, doing it mid-air and within the confines of a bag, for a species suited to living in open water?
It wasn't even a particularly nasty Discharge. It hurt, certainly, but well, of course it did.
"Just don't do it again," Kleis said, hauling himself up. Trying not to narrow his eyes at the odd despair those words seemed to inspire in the Chinchou.
...Could she do that again? Release a Discharge?
Surely not, Kleis thought, unaware of the exact same train of thought pulling into Maia's mind.
Nobody's control could be that bad, the Zorua continued thinking, oblivious to the Chinchou's internal despondence.
Then Kleis paused, and thought again. Considered the distinct lack of attacking moves she'd displayed-
He shook it away. Large as the Chinchou-shaped pile of mysteries was, it didn't matter at the moment. Not as much as the shadows on the mountain. Descending from the mountain?
"Mirage, could you fly up and check? We're not safe yet."
"Wh- Oh!" The Vibrava's eyes widened, and his wings flung open immediately. Up through the canopy he dashed, the sound of buzzing wings quickly fading away with his departure.
...He seemed healthy enough, Kleis thought. Just a few scratches, the same as himself, and Dragon-types tended to be more resistant to infections.
Nothing serious, so Kleis put the issue out of his mind and started picking through his bag. The surroundings weren't as clean as he would've liked, but... it was time.
For within the bag, a thick, well-worn book awaited. A simple, rough affair, made to last for years on the road yet paranoiacally swaddled with fabric nonetheless. Not wet, thankfully. If Maia had used water instead of electricity...
Well. Their chances of survival would be lower, for a start. The Zorua dragged himself over to a nearby tree, wiping his paws dry on the bark before delicately extracting the book from its fabric shell.
What was the point of adventuring, after all, when you got down to it? Gold? No, there were easier, less risky ways to earn gold. Recognition? No, the exploration community in the Air Continent was not as extensive as in some others, and the native Rescue Teams made a name for themselves by sticking around and helping out the same community of Pokemon.
Adventuring held a deeper sort of allure than that, Kleis well knew. He'd started his life travelling, after all, walked icy tundras and scorching sands with his parents before they finally settled down.
It was... the feeling was hard to describe, sometimes, but Kleis had had his whole life to mull over it.
It was – the people you met. The stories you saw unfold. It was the smile on your face as you stared into the endless horizon, the memories you made as you slept counting the stars.
It was the moments you experienced that would stay with you wherever you went, unique and novel and indescribably, undeniably yours. And experiences, however vivid, were all too easily eroded with time.
Kleis flipped open his travel log to the very first page, catching the tightly-wrapped container of ink inside before it could hit the ground. Old wonder glinted in his eyes as he teased open the richly-inked map tucked inside the page, expanding it out, and out...
He would've been able to wrap himself in it twice over at the end, with room to spare. It was detailed, too; Old symbols clustered around villages and towns hidden from view, and his newer ones traced a straight line east, all the way from the town where their journey began. So far away, now.
Kleis hardly registered the squelch of mud as a Chinchou shuffled closer. She hovered right behind him for a moment, hesitating before quietly clearing her throat.
"Is- Is that a map?" she asked, and the world finally caught up.
"...What? Yes. Yes, it is. What else could it-"
Then he fully took in the Chinchou's face, and how... sick she looked. Sicker than before, actually, with a streak of bleakness flashing over her features that set off every single alarm Kleis had.
"Where are we?" she asked, voice trembling, and any remaining sparks of wonder went out the window.
"Right... here," Kleis replied in his usual nonchalant tone, jabbing a claw at the map. "I... assume you're not familiar with the area?"
"No. N-no."
No nearby village to get help from, he subconsciously noted. Unless the Chinchou was lying, but the emotion in her voice was so raw that a small part of Kleis kicked himself for even considering it.
"Of course not," she continued quietly, sounding for all the world as if she was seeing herself die. Kleis glanced at her sharply – then flicked his gaze away, pretending not to hear.
"That's... ahem, inconvenient. If you are certain..."
He turned his attention back to the map. Reluctantly, but Mirage was likely on his way back. The Chinchou – however distressed – wouldn't have to wait long.
"Yes. I- Where are we, again?"
She wanted to talk, still? If it helped distract her – Kleis answered as if nothing was wrong.
"Here. Mount Steel. A day's travel from the nearest known town, three days from the second nearest. The latter – that's the one Mirage and I passed by last."
"Passed by last?"
Oh. Kleis supposed that would be strange. "We're a travelling Rescue Team. Bronze rank officially, though that's most likely a bit outdated by now. I'll admit it's rare, but the two of us are rather suited to it."
"So you... travel around?"
A strange line of questioning, Kleis wondered. Was she- ah. "Oh, don't worry. We'll get you back home, wherever that is. Or, ahem, if we can't, we can definitely find someone who can."
Even if it was for comfort, he wasn't going to make any promises he couldn't keep. With how little they had in the way of supplies- that was the most painfully unconvincing smile Kleis had ever seen, and that was saying something. What did he say that...
Oh.
Oh.
Surely nobody was so ignorant of the world of their own volition, and with how the Chinchou seemed to wither at the subject of home...
Had she run away? It seemed possible, and she was turning away and shrinking ever-so-slightly and Kleis hurried to juggle the thoughts into something coherent-
"Of- Of course, that is an issue that can be put off for as long as need be. We will get you somewhere safe, regardless."
The Chinchou - Maia stiffened just a little, and Kleis felt his mind kick into overdrive, every thought spontaneously combusting as he focused on the Chinchou, trying to figure out where and how he'd misstepped again-
Then she relaxed, and Kleis had the novel feeling of a dozen different thoughts scrambling to de-combust at once. Then re-combust all over again cautiously, because overwhelming stress tended to make people do strange things. Such as relaxing.
The world waited, Kleis's heart thumping loudly in his chest as he tensed.
"I-" Maia began after an eternity. The words seemed to tremble, seeping out. "I- Thank you."
"It's our job," Kleis answered simply. Silently, he breathed out that sigh of relief he hadn't dared utter. That had been...
Not... a disaster. Just - almost a disaster. And Mirage still wasn't back yet.
But there was no sense in worrying overmuch, Kleis reminded himself. Mirage would do his part, and he would do his.
With a last look, Kleis turned away from the quiet Chinchou and began to think.
A phantom zipped across the sky, dipping below the canopy as he angled for his targets. Winding between the tree branches, twisting this way and that.
The flight back to the mountain had been a surprisingly long one. But then, they'd been travelling fast on their way down, with gravity on their side.
The Vibrava kinda wanted to try it again, diving from so high up. How fast could he go, he mused, if he was leaning into the fall instead of fighting it?
After they were safe, of course! After they got Maia back to her family and relayed the news of the disaster to the Rescue Team Organisation.
He wondered if they'd believe them, though. With what happened, Mirage hardly believed it himself. Some kind of unprecedented disaster at Mount Steel? And two – three – underprepared Pokemon managed to survive it?
Maybe they'd accuse them of seeing shadows, he thought with a nervous chuckle. The jaded veterans didn't tend to take Bronze-ranks seriously.
Well, he'd whack them until they listened if it came down to that. Maybe even literally, if they were condescending jerks about it. But hopefully not.
That was probably the near-death jitters speaking anyways, Mirage reasoned. Having two near-death experiences in one hour was a bit too much for him. He still remembered the panic of snap-firing his Solar Beam when the darkness fell on him-
Wait, no. It was three, actually. If you counted the part just before the descent and the part during it as separate bits of near-death. Should he? Maybe.
Mirage rolled the thought around in his head. Literally, as he absentmindedly corkscrewed through the trees.
On the one wing, three sounded more impressive than two. On the other, near-death experiences didn't seem like something you boasted about.
Mirage imagined it. Flying into a bar with Kleis in tow, getting slightly drunk and very loud. "Oh, yeah! I nearly died three times! That's three more times than you have!"
...
...It sounded worryingly tantalising. And also the sort of thing only a crazy 'mon would say.
Three still sounded cooler in his head, though, so three it was.
One more on top of that sounded a bit too much, though. Especially for Maia, the poor Chinchou. He hoped Kleis hadn't been too careless with his words around her like in the Dungeon.
Well, all the more reason to push himself faster. His endurance could take a little more speed. Not too much, though. They were Team Phantom, not Team Nomad or Team Tailwind or anything like that.
Sneaky and fast, that was their calling card. Not that anyone had called on them yet, but Mirage didn't mind it that much. It meant they weren't needed, and wasn't that what the Rescue Teams' end goal was in the first place?
Plus, appearing from nowhere as unknown strangers to save the day made him feel kinda cool. Like a dashing wanderer from the stories his village elder told.
...Not that Mirage would ever say that out loud. The first thing was more important anyways.
A tense few minutes later, the leaves gave way to the open air of the clearing and Mirage reversed direction, slamming to a quick stop just above the ground. Kleis had turned to him even before he'd appeared – Zorua hearing, he grumbled good-naturedly – and Maia was turning over now.
She looked fine, to his relief. A bit better than before, actually, which was great! Though with the way Kleis was looking anywhere but her, something had happened. Which was possibly less great.
They had more urgent issues for now, though.
"We're safe for maybe... fifteen minutes? Er, if we keep staying here. The shadows are pretty fast. And, uh, numerous. Really numerous."
A bit like a second stormfront, which was mildly intimidating. At least the tide of darkness wasn't as fast as they were, but Mirage suspected the shadows wouldn't tire half as easily. Or at all.
"We'll have to go now, then," Kleis said, folding his map away.
"You have a plan?"
"Three viable ones. Probably two. I am using 'viable' very loosely."
Mirage didn't – couldn't – whistle, but he buzzed his wings in a close enough imitation. "...That bad?"
"Yes. First plan would be to go through the forest. Going directly away from Mount Steel puts us on course to the nearest town. It's big enough that we could find a Rescue Team there to help."
Maia was listening in attentively. Mirage noticed her listening attentively, and noticed it just pointedly enough for Kleis to notice him noticing.
The Zorua shook his head almost imperceptibly. "It is the one we were heading to."
"Oh." Mirage sneaked a long glance at Maia before dragging his attention back to his partner.
That was... a very long way to travel on so little energy, and through irregular terrain no less. The relatively fast pace forced by the shadows made it much worse.
"Second option – this is the dubious one – the river we saw on the way down? We could swim down it to the town."
"But it's slow enough to swim in?"
"It seems slow enough to swim in," Kleis corrected. "It just rained all over Mount Steel, and that river is one of only two major rivers feeding from it."
"Oh."
"Um," a small voice cut in, "I don't mean to interrupt – That's the second option? Certain death? Not the last?"
Observant, Mirage thought. Kleis grimaced.
"Yes. The last is... simple. Simpler than the others. Hide and hope we don't get noticed. The shadows can be tricked, my illusion gambit established that. If they do not expand indefinitely, they could thin out."
"But," Mirage prompted.
"But we have absolutely no idea how much they can be tricked. Or whether hiding will put us in a better position. For all we know, we could get swamped by the shadows, end up in a new Mystery Dungeon from all of them flying around, or it might not work at all. We don't know."
"Oh." Mirage said again, just to keep up his patterns of 'oh's. Quietly, because he suspected the humour really wouldn't land well. Because of the oncoming doom. And all.
Did this count as a fourth? He'd have to ask Kleis what exactly counted as a near-death experience. Later.
Three options, and the clock was ticking. It was a dilemma that... well, Mirage didn't think it was a dilemma at all.
"You think it's still our best chance? Hiding?"
"Yes," his partner replied. "Escaping is looking... difficult." Which was an understatement if Mirage had ever heard one.
"Well, I'd say we hide. Maia?"
She startled, blinking at Mirage's encouraging look. "Um...? You're the experts."
"Okay! Where're we going, Kleis? Trees? Bushes? Cave?"
"Underground, if you can manage it? They couldn't pass through walls."
"Ooh. Gimme a minute. We can't do it here though. Way too muddy. Over... there!"
Mirage was rusty with digging, had been growing rustier ever since he'd evolved. He'd dug little hideouts like that with his sister back home, though. He didn't forget.
He got to it as soon as he found a relatively dry patch of land in front of a tree, digging his claws in and using Dig to tunnel down. He remembered the nostalgic feeling of gliding through the earth, then shook it away, shifting the Ground-type energy to fling the dirt he dug out behind him.
The soil was still wet, prone to collapse, but the trick to that was simple. Mirage kept digging down and forwards until he hit the tree's roots, then burrowed into the soil between them. Quickly, he pressed a claw against the nearest root, watched it flare up with muted green energy.
The root was thick, but – unfortunately for it – it didn't know how to dodge. Mirage slashed his claw over it, scoring a shallow groove on its side.
Then he did it again.
And again.
On the fourth stroke, the Fury Cutter cleaved through the root effortlessly. On the fifth Mirage twisted, putting a second slice through the root as far from the first as he could. With a grunt he heaved the severed root section away.
"Kleis! Can you pull this-"
"Got it."
The Zorua squeezed in and wrapped the strap of his bag tightly around the root, bracing to pull it out. Mirage continued digging around the empty spot left by the root, expanding the little hideout.
Grunting. Scraping. A thump as the root left the burrow and smacked onto the ground.
A Zorua poked his head in. "Progress, Mirage?"
"Almost done!" Just a bit more dirt to be moved, and...
"Done!" The space they had was small, but big enough at least that the three of them wouldn't be squashed against each other. As big as it could be unless they dug out another root, which, considering the doom that was so rapidly approaching...
Maia tumbled in through the opening, shining a faint, shaky light onto the earthen walls. Not a second later, Kleis squeezed in, yanking his bag in after him.
The rest of the soil left went to the entrance, patching it up. Mirage packed it in as loosely as he could, poking in a few airholes as well.
For a moment, all that existed was a faint light – and the sounds of laboured breathing.
Kleis cleared his throat. Quietly. "Maia, your bulbs."
A startled look, before the Chinchou looked down, concentrating.
"I- I don't think I can turn them off."
"Mirage, would my bag blocking the entrance work?"
"Uh, don't think so. It'll block the air too much."
"I think I can hide behind it...?"
Quiet sounds of shuffling echoed through the tiny burrow as the trio shifted about. Painfully loud, it seemed to Mirage, regardless of how carefully they moved.
"What do we do now?" Maia asked after a minute of silence.
"Wait," came Kleis's simple reply. "Sleep. Ah - could you use your Aqua Ring again? Maia? I have a few cuts I'd rather not get infected."
"My... Aqua Ring? Again?" The Chinchou paused, blinking. "Oh, the water thing- I can try?"
"Guys, there's something outside. Shush. I'll take first watch."
Mirage settled down near the airholes as the sounds abruptly cut out. Kept looking through them then back inside, as Kleis grimaced from pain and Maia grimaced from effort.
Mirage kept looking as the sounds of the forest were silenced one by one, as Maia fell into an uncomfortable sleep and he exchanged a series of increasingly significant looks with Kleis about her.
Mirage worried a thousand worries, then swatted them down one by one. He kept his eye on the shifting shadows, patiently waiting for dawn to arrive.
When the Zorua's turn came and Mirage went to sleep himself, a shaky but confident determination carried him to rest. After all, the Rescue Teams of the Air Continent were tough.
It'd take a few Gold-rank teams, but Mirage knew they could do it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. One disaster, however... weird it was, would never match the preparation and training and experience brought to bear by the veterans of the Meteor incident.
So Mirage tossed and turned in his sleep. Haunted, but determined.
Peaceful, though the world whirled like a hurricane all around him.
Proud, though it had clipped his wings and slammed him to the ground time after time after time.
And above it all,
Blissfully,
Agonisingly,
Unaware.
...
...
...Just a pity that it wasn't only one disaster setting the world aflame.