It drifted through narrow tunnels like a nighttime fog, cold and impenetrable and so very, very dark. Brushing against moss and stale water, bereft of light.
So unlike the tear in space from which it had emerged. Hollow though that light was, it had been a promise. For more light, real light, not this pale imitation which insulted it so.
Yet all that awaited outside was stone. Dark, rough, ugly-
Where was the sky? Came the barest sliver of thought, an echo of a fury to rip the world asunder. Where was the light of the heavens it so craved? Who had dared snatch away the sun, the moon, the stars?
So it drifted on, until stone gave way to grass. On, until grass gave way to trodden dirt.
On, on, on, towards a sole candle flickering atop a windowsill, little more than a glorified pile of wax.
It was a misshapen, pitiful thing, desperately moulded back into shape time and time again until it no longer resembled what it had once been. And once – it must have been beautiful then, bright and proud.
Once – but it had been too long.
The candle was almost burned to its base, now. Spluttering, flickering out – but too late.
Too late. And it pounced.
Hissing. Clawing. Throwing itself upon the light, choking out that paltry flame in a forgotten rage.
In a moment, a single soul would awake, roused from their sleep by the terrible noise.
In the hour after, a hundred would fall silent one by one.
Lightning hissed and screeched as the air grew dark around Mount Thunder.
Plumes of ash met shadows above Mount Blaze, the growls of the volcano matching the wingbeats of the great bird upon its peak.
The north wind graced the land, blowing in from an island across the sea.
Purity Forest dimmed, then brightened, shining with indignation as the world itself sang.
A great tower of clouds trembled against a cracking sky.
And the world awoke to a nightmare.
"..."
"-Connection's finally stable. Better be urgent, you're interrupting communication with the Rescue Team Organisation."
"..."
"Wha- Damn. Damn. Grass Continent got hit too?"
"..."
"Damned prideful Exploration Teams. Damned 'decentralisation' of- Is the psychic relay network over there even functional?"
"..."
"Emergency channels? How many do they have?"
"..."
"What – how many?"
"..."
"No, no, I heard you the first time. What kind of patchwork operation – no, doesn't matter. I'm guessing you have critical information on your end?"
"..."
"Yeah, checks out about the Mystery Dungeons. Air Continent's corroborated that."
"..."
"Wait, back up a second. What?"
"..."
"They think that it's the-"
"..."
"...How likely?"
"..."
"That's – the sun's almost setting over here. Hold for a minute, I have to-"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Our future-seers aren't getting anything. It's – same over there? Damn, damn, damn-"
"..."
"Full alert's called, we're preparing. The major towns'll know within the hour. Messengers are getting scrambled for the smaller ones."
"..."
"Mist Continent? I- no, they're as far away from us as you are. We can't- We're already burning our emergency communications capacity with you and the Rescue Teams, and if your info is right we'll be pulling most of it intra-continental soon."
"..."
"Wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you. They have the damned Equinox Society over there, they'll figure it out soon enough. We'll tip them off-"
"..."
"-Sand Continent? I – I'm sorry. There's exactly one relay-capable settlement there on our record, and their psychics only pay enough attention to catch us once a month."
"..."
"They'll see them coming, at least. Not much cloud cover in the desert. Or anything else."
"..."
"I'd say aid's coming soon, but-"
"..."
"Yeah. Give it a day at best. Two days. There's a few fast couriers on their way already, but the high-quantity stuff going by Lapras..."
"..."
"Fair winds and clear skies to you two as well. Stay safe. Lively Town out."
And Postmaster Sandslash ran on, pushing himself harder than he had for a long time. Houses passed by almost in a blur as he weaved over the dirt roads.
Almost, but not quite. If only he were younger, more fit – well, he'd be running supplies from the Post Center instead of just a message. But he'd be doing it faster.
Here, in the first stages of the emergency – this was where speed mattered the most. One tiny slip-up, and a dozen more dying Pokemon drifted out of reach. A minute too slow, and ten graves turned into a hundred.
Not here, not yet, but soon. The memories stuck with him still. So Sandslash ran, buying time with each painfully short step.
Slow, so slow – but truthfully, this was the task where speed mattered the least. Or it had been before the scale of the disaster made itself known. The Rescue Teams stationed at the Rescue Center would notice a part of it, but not as much as Sandslash had. And the calculations he was running through on the fly...
Sandslash stopped thinking on it and pushed himself faster. Faster.
Not fast enough. Never fast enough.
Yet Postmaster he still was, and that wasn't a title lightly earned in this town. His mentor, the Postmaster before him – she'd made well sure of that.
Ten seconds, the Marowak had said to a younger, louder Sandshrew, in that gruff voice which brooked no compromise. Ten seconds from when a messenger flaps in here, half-asleep or piss-drunk or what-have-you. If you can't kick them out in ten seconds fully stocked and ready to fly, I'll expect no delusions of you being good enough to take my place.
It was a standard Sandslash had kept himself to from the start, even though he hadn't quite understood why it was there at first. Then his first emergency arrived on ragged, scorched wings, and Sandslash learned just how heart-wrenchingly long ten seconds was when it mattered.
So the Postmaster made himself a promise and pushed, whittling it down to nine. Then eight. Then six. Then four.
Messenger bags were slow to slide on. So Sandslash had commissioned new ones designed to be grasped by beaks or talons in a pinch, well-balanced and aerodynamic enough to be carried like so at emergency speeds for an hour straight.
The overhead exit used to be awkward to fly through at high speed, the opening narrow as could be to keep the rain out. So Sandslash had sought out an experienced architect, installed a mechanism to slide the sloped roof down and away when the situation demanded it.
The flight schedules had been adequate, but merely 'adequate' didn't – couldn't – cut it. So Sandslash had reworked them, ensured that in addition to the flier kept in reserve at all times, at least one more would be routed high enough or close enough to the Post Center at any time, ready to catch the emergency signal when it inevitably went up.
And the emergency signal – well, it didn't exist back then. Nor had a younger Sandslash seen the point in formalising one, not until the chain of natural disasters which was the Meteor crisis struck.
Thus: a plume of soot-black smoke when the sun was up, and a blinding alchemically-derived flare when it wasn't. Both of which could be pulled at a moment's notice by a messenger on their way out, both of which triggered the roof's opening mechanism in the same motion.
Over-prepared, some Pokemon had chastised him over the years. Notably, Pokemon who hadn't had to coordinate responses to earthquakes or rogue thunderstorms twice a week at the height of the Meteor crisis. Actually over-preparing would mean adding a giant gong on top of the visual alert and maintaining a stockpile of Dungeon supplies to put Gold-rank teams to shame.
...Which to be fair, wasn't happening solely because of the Post Center's objectionably low budget. Bronze was expensive, and experienced enough metalworkers even more so. As for supplies enough to survive the greatest Dungeons on the continent?
Not in a hundred years. Not if he wanted to keep the Post Center in good shape. But Sandslash had given his messengers every advantage he could.
He took a bit of pride in it as the Post Center lit up like a beacon behind him, half the flares in reserve cracked and hurled against the screaming dark while the spare torches outside blazed to life one by one. Hours of planning burned for precious seconds.
And Sandslash ran, drawing on a sense of youth long since lost. Cramming moments more into the count.
When he finally lurched to a stop, it was within the Rescue Center, gasping for breath as the Ivysaur at the counter wrangled the half-asleep teams into their gear.
"Postmaster," she greeted him with a curt nod, one of her vines snatching Orbs and Berries and Wands from the storeroom behind her while the other quickly shifted pieces about on a map. "News?"
The Rescue Center turned to him, old hands and nervous rookies alike gripping their equipment tight. Sandslash took a single breath.
"Huff- Worse than we thought, Magnolia. Elemental attacks don't do much, fire burns 'em until they swallow it. Torches work, but unless you have a bunch-"
The Ivysaur was already plucking every Illumination Orb from the shelves behind her as the rookies paled. Increasingly worried questions began to fly, and Sandslash's answers only added fuel to the fire.
They'd expected the disaster to be sudden, of course, but not so soon. Not like... this, crashing towards them like a... tidal waves were a distant dream this far inland, but Sandslash couldn't possibly imagine one higher than what he'd seen.
"So it's bad," the Ivysaur summarised half a minute in, impatiently flicking a vine towards the door. "Time's ticking. We'll adapt, it's nothing we haven't-"
Magnolia was good at her job, Sandslash would freely admit. But she hadn't seen the shadows surging forth, making a yawning abyss out of a billowing plain. The Postmaster met her eyes, and what Magnolia saw there finally made her hesitate.
"That bad – no, wrong question. Pelipper?"
"Holding 'em back," Sandslash grimaced, "Barely." While wielding a Tailwind to humble even Gold-rank teams. A Tailwind which had humbled Gold-rank teams, whenever some upstart passing by presumed themselves better than a legend 'past her prime'.
No Rescue Team in the town could match that. Exactly one had brushed up against the prestigious rank, but Silver and Gold were a world of difference. As for Gold and... Pelipper, when she truly put her back into it?
Through the sound of the distant, wrathful wind, something wailed. Quietly – but it was the quiet of a creeping horror, piercing through the din of the winds with a contemptuous ease.
Amidst the silent room, Magnolia laid a vine on her map, closing her eyes. The sigh that followed echoed once...
Twice...
"I see," the Ivysaur murmured simply. When she opened her eyes, they burned with a steely determination so fierce it hurt.
"So it's come to this again," she said curtly. "Postmaster?"
"It's your decision, Mag. But... yes."
Magnolia turned to the half-emptied storeroom without another word, feeling around the wooden floor. With a creak, a floorboard shifted, pried open by a vine. And with a great yank-
The gathered work of decades came into the light.
"Fierce Bandanna. Detect Band. Sneak Scarf. Four Reviver Seeds," Magnolia listed off as the few murmurs left behind her fell silent. One by one, she lifted the items out of the moist, muddy alcove, dust and dirt sloughing off with a gentle shake to reveal pristine fabric and uncracked shells.
Each of the items glowed in a way that sight alone could not describe. They looked ethereal, otherworldly... and they were. Pried from the deepest of Dungeons, where reality itself bent out of shape.
Supplies to put a Gold-rank team to shame, Sandslash thought again, smothering the vague stab of envy that followed. It didn't belong, not here.
"The Fierce Bandanna makes moves stronger, the Detect Band enhances perception, the Sneak Scarf draws attention away. The Reviver Seeds – you've all heard the rumours. If anything, they underexaggerate."
Magnolia took a few seconds to cast her gaze around the room, meeting the eyes of every Pokemon staring at her. When it came to Sandslash – the Postmaster held her gaze steadily, matching the Rescue Coordinator's resigned stare with one of his own.
"If you never knew these were here – I'm sorry to say they're not for you. If you did..."
Paws twitched towards the shining artefacts, yet none dared reach any further. They wouldn't, couldn't; anyone who dared steal them would have every other Rescue Team in the town and the Rescue Coordinator herself on their tail.
"...If you did, you know the stakes far better than I."
Grim looks were already finding their way to the most experienced among them. Knowing glances and whispered words bartered themselves around, reassurances for what was about to come.
"So," Magnolia said, vines clasped together in a stranglehold. Looking up at the Pokemon in the room for all she held them in her trance, hard eyes made harder by the mystical light twinkling against them.
Yet still they shone, for a moment, an eternity – laughing softly at a joke so very few could see, and fewer yet would understand. A joke foreign yet familiar, distant in name if not in actuality.
A bargain you would never quite find in yourself to refuse. In the moment, Sandslash faintly recalled how much of an oddity keeping a name was, in this town.
The thought resonated, but ever-so-faintly, and the moment vanished.
"So," the Ivysaur seemed to repeat, eyes grim and sad and so terribly mundane.
"Who wants to go on a suicide mission?"
Blaziken, Houndoom, Manectric. The first two were veterans of the Meteor crisis, rescuers from Sandslash's generation who could've been Gold-rank if only they hadn't chosen to settle down in this quiet town. The third, a relatively new 'mon who'd made his mark helping all around town. Sandslash remembered that one fondly, from when he'd asked to try deliver a few letters for the Post Center.
It didn't go well – he didn't have the endurance, turned out – but it was the thought that counted. And Manectric had delivered the letters all the way before returning. Sandslash had made sure to give him double pay, a very vigorous pat on the back, and a quiet commendation backed by all the weight a Postmaster had.
They didn't do farewells, not on so little time. Ten seconds were set aside for pawshakes, hushed words – then they were gone.
And the world went on.
"Post Center's holding, but the flares won't last," Sandslash started, an eye on the top of the Post Center still burning bright in the distance. "They'll run dry in... an hour and a half, if we keep two burning at a time. Magnolia?"
"I don't have as many as you do. We have two Illumination Orbs left, the other three are with the teams on guard. Scenario A?"
That was the one assuming that they could stop and repel the disaster. Completely, or close enough.
"Didn't catch much. But if it's A – it's an awful lot of it."
"So B? Can we hold off well enough to assume B?"
"'Til the sun rises? Can't tell. Haven't seen enough of the shadows, haven't seen enough of those... accessories in action. Any tricks you haven't told me about yet?"
"No. You?"
Sandslash paused, thinking. Not of the plan – it had been in his mind from the start – but whether their situation was desperate enough to call for it.
Better safe than sorry, naturally. But with so many Rescue Teams within earshot, especially the younger ones who'd signed up for the dream but not the obligation...
Sandslash lowered his voice as much as he could.
"...We've got lots of flammables gathered everywhere. If we fly it out there, set it on fire – you think the grassland's wet enough to contain it this time of year?"
Magnolia was, of course, a Grass-type. So her first reaction was to stare at Sandslash as if he was mad.
Her second, more professional reaction was much the same.
"...I – no. Absolute last resort, Postmaster. We're not burning the farmland."
"Figured you'd say that."
The Rescue Teams set off, battle cries and orders guiding the way. The ones who couldn't or wouldn't – those were relegated to running messages and supplies, a few quick gestures from Magnolia sending them off in all directions.
Towards their friends and families, for some of the youngest and most distressed, though Magnolia never showed a hint of it on her face. Nor did Sandslash, when he noticed.
Sometimes, you didn't – couldn't – step up when the call came. Sometimes – but those Pokemon had rallied to the Rescue Center in the face of Xatu's prophecy. That in itself counted for more than they knew.
"...Not going yourself, Mag? You ain't half bad at fighting."
"Not to disparage, Postmaster, but with what? Solar Beam? At night? I'm much more useful here."
"...Ah."
A moment passed in relative silence, the howl of wind and gurgling screams carried faintly through the air. Sandslash's heart thumped painfully in his chest.
"Not going either, Postmaster?"
"Old," Sandslash replied only half-jokingly. "Tired."
The Ivysaur beside him snorted. A vine grazed against his side, pressing firmly, and the soothing pulse of a Synthesis squeezed its way through.
"Better?" Magnolia asked when it was over, heaving from the exertion.
"Better," Sandslash replied, though his spirit yearned for just a minute more. Just – something before returning to waltz with death again. He'd arranged everything so it would work without his direction, surely a minute...
But it would work better if he was there, and that was all that would matter in the end.
So Sandslash stretched his muscles, feeling them complain. A bit of exercise would do him well, he noted as something creaked uncomfortably.
"Sure you don't wanna save that for someone else?"
"You're practically pulling double duty as a Rescue Coordinator yourself, I'd feed you a Reviver Seed to get you going if I had to."
"Please don't."
The Ivysaur's eye-roll and harrumph made her opinion clear.
"Well. Goodbye. Good – no, luck is overrated. Just do what you usually do, Postmaster. Can't ask for more than that."
Sandslash – smiled, and it was the smile of someone who'd seen too much and lived too long, tired and pained and wistful all in one.
"Same to you, Magnolia. See you on the other side."
And then he was away.
There was a word for what he did, even if he didn't know it. One foreign to this world, yet as familiar to Sandslash as the spines along his back.
Logistics.
It seemed simple at first glance. Something needed to be done, and so you moved things around to get things done.
Then you realised that the things had to get done in the right order, at the right time, at the right place, and in a way such that one thing didn't get confused for another similar but very fundamentally different thing because people could be idiots even at the best of times.
Then you realised that the above was assuming a standardised, formalised system with widely-understood protocols and rules set in place to smooth the process along, not a single Pokemon using terms and jargon developed on-the-fly.
Then you realised that that still was assuming near-optimal conditions, where everything was polite enough to not be burning down – sometimes literally – and there was no eldritch scream of a hundred thousand vengeful souls or whatever it was wailing close enough for you to pick out the blasphemously off-pitch and discordant tones within.
So, yes, Postmaster Sandslash might have been just a bit annoyed by the-
"One-Room Orb? Why would they need- One-Shot Orb! Send over a One-Shot Orb!"
Then the massless blob of bleed-his-ears-dry screamed again, and Sandslash resisted the urge to rip apart the map in front of him.
It was more for reference than of any real use; he'd memorised the town layout long ago. It was crumpling like a rotten Oran anyway, however much Sandslash tried smoothing it against the roof of the Post Center below. Shredding it to bits would help with the anxiety and irritation-
"The old bird's drawing back! Torches-"
A wave of bright yellow flame met the dark tide before him, exploding as three messengers took over the Tailwind battering the shadows back. For a moment, the edge of the grassland was set ablaze-
And then the tide surged forward again, snuffing it out.
Twenty torches, each soaked lightly in Blast Seed oil and then further catalysed with Flame Burst. The most effective volley so far, but considering the time it took to make them and the very limited amount of the oil they had – enough to make roughly fifty-six more-
"Postmaster! Switching back to regular torches!"
He barely left them a nod before turning to the Pokemon set up in the Post Center behind him. "Ten more Blast Seed oil, inexact, prioritise speed. Change back to standard oil-cloth after."
They were lacking supplies. Or, at least, useable supplies. There was plenty of firewood to spare, but firewood alone didn't catch fire fast enough to be useful. Perhaps if they'd set it in place beforehand – but they hadn't.
Something to remember for tomorrow, if they lasted that long. And although they were holding off just fine for the moment, judging by their steadily-depleting inventory...
They couldn't defend the whole town. Not like this, not until the sun rose – if the disaster would even abate by then. There were just too few experienced Rescue Teams and too much area to cover.
"Noctowl! How's the evacuation going?"
"Slowly, Postmaster! North is getting overwhelmed!"
"Mag ain't supplying them?"
"Busy! And they're asking for the flares!"
Their most valuable resource. Burned quick, burned bright, simple to use. But they were specialty items, bought from an alchemist who lived a town over.
"Bag 1, one set! Make it last, we only have twenty-two more! Take the Tunnel Wand – twenty-six uses left!"
It wouldn't outright banish the shadows, but it could disperse a large chunk for a time. Which was significantly better than some of the other Wands in stock.
Like the Slumber Wand that the healing tent kept on hand. Or the mishmash of Wands laying around in the Rescue Center, useful for Dungeon diving but not much else.
"Postmaster! Torches requested from the Rescue Center, two hundred!"
"What? Calling a resupply again so soon?"
"Yes!"
"...Tell Mag to hurry the evacuation! To the area around – argh, give me a second!"
Sandslash drew a few quick lines on his map, marking out the stretch of land between the Post Center and Rescue Center. Larger than they'd originally planned; having so much fire clustered in a small area was just asking for trouble. But – hopefully – still small enough and walled-off enough to be defensible.
"Bag 2, ten sets!" he called down right after handing the map off. Not that they were using actual messenger bags for the bulky torches anymore. Just spare cloth, wrapped haphazardly around the equally haphazardly put-together torches.
It wasn't enough. In perhaps one hour – Sandslash called out as Noctowl returned.
"We need more people here!"
"Can't do, Postmaster! No more craftsmon to call on!"
"Volunteers?"
"It's been an hour, things are still messy! Lots of tiny spots being contested-"
"Anyone you can, ain't the time to be picky now! Ask the craftsmon how experienced they need them!"
Another wave of flame roared as Noctowl dove down. And Sandslash used the breath of air to take stock of their situation.
Wood wasn't running out. Post Center supplies were running low, but stockpiles were nearby. From a few of the lesser-hit areas... Sandslash took note from his perch, rolling the messenger routes around in his mind.
Later. They couldn't afford to spare messengers, not when half the town was still folding behind Sandslash. They needed coordination between Rescue Teams and civilian groups fending for themselves, messages on the changing situation, supplies...
It occurred to Sandslash that for all his worrying over disasters far away, he'd never prepared specifically for disasters right at his doorstep. Or for anything as – dynamic as this. That was going to change, he swore.
"Noctowl! South should be running low, get one of Bag 3, loop around to them after you get the volunteers!"
"On it!"
Bag 3 was, ironically, the category in the least danger of running out. It included all the miscellaneous things you needed to keep a Pokemon in fighting shape, Elixirs and Orans and Heal Seeds bundled in a neat package.
Thing was, Rescue Teams knew how to use those supplies efficiently, knew how to conserve their energy as best they could. But individual items, especially lower-impact ones like the torches? Better safe than sorry, they'd say, and Sandslash couldn't begrudge them for it.
Logically. He couldn't logically begrudge them for it, but Sandslash was not feeling particularly logical in the moment.
Then a great plume of fire erupted on the other side of the town, blowing back the shadows and sending several houses up in flame. Sandslash tried not to twitch. They had a firefighting plan in place, bucket chains and Pokemon with Water-type moves stationed around every large source of fire they'd set.
His self-control snapped when the first of the water quenched the flames, revealing a cluster of painfully bright spots smoking stubbornly in the middle. Flares, all out of their casing and alight.
"Which. Moss-brained. Idiot. Set off all the flares – Bag 1, two sets. East! They'll need it."
Nobody answered for the first time that night, and Sandslash breathed out. His claws itched for something to rip to shreds. But he'd given away his map.
A groove scored itself into the roof of the Post Center with a murderously quiet screech. The Postmaster breathed, cursing under his breath, thinking, calculating-
"...Three minutes. New batch'll be there in three minutes. They better hold out until then."
The time after that passed in a blur. Sending supplies, delegating tasks, making notes as teams at the front and the Pokemon working to produce torches rotated out, all while the shadows encroached on them, unrelenting.
Eventually, the defenders tired. The blobs of shadow breached through the first line of defence, a hastily-erected wooden palisade-
And reared back as it went up in flames. Within a minute, a pre-prepared set of stakes found themselves thrust into the ground, building up the palisade anew.
Sandslash had allowed himself a tiny smile, then. Not so the second time. Or the third, when one of the Pokemon manning the palisade got himself caught in the shadows' lunge – and then the fireball launched in retaliation.
They had a healer on standby, of course, and water buckets to spare. All the same, on the fourth time, everyone retreated far, far back before nailing the palisade with a burning flare.
At the same time, stories trickled in from behind Sandslash, of monsters which mimicked Pokemon, stalking through the streets too quickly to catch. Of fragments of the dark sky piercing through hurricane-force winds, grotesque screeches descending in their wake.
Rescue Teams were never far behind, but as the minutes passed the distance only grew. For all their skill, Rescue Teams had always been trained to dive into danger, not hold the line.
So Sandslash asked for torches to be sent off with the messengers to drop along their routes. Behind them, bands of volunteers cautiously followed, planting a small beacon with every torch driven into the earth.
It didn't stop the shadows, but it did tie down the few wisps which slipped past the Rescue Teams' defensive line. And as the defensive line drew back, the torches bought time as they splintered against the oncoming tide.
Smoke in the air. Fires licking the ground. Occasionally, a Blaziken or Houndoom or Manectric blazed past Sandslash, taking pressure off the palisade for a minute before rushing off to another hotspot. Sandslash made sure to have a small table of energy-replenishing Elixirs set aside for them amidst the chaos, fully stocked. And another designated bag in the Post Center for Pelipper alone.
They were holding on, remarkably. The Rescue Teams had adapted, ravaging the morphing shadows in turns before withdrawing to the relative safety of the torch line. Within their shortened perimeter, Pelipper and the other Tailwind-wielding messengers smashed down descending shadows with targeted strikes.
And somewhere along the line, Sandslash had called for the craftsmon below to slow down and catch their breath. Torches burned bright, but oil was precious and firewood lasted longer. Bonfires began appearing in a strip across town, flames stoked by Fire-type moves and fanned to even greater heights by the messengers' winds.
The hours passed as Sandslash stared into the dark, determination seeping into his gaze. No more ragged grooves joined the one carved beside him, and the shrill wails slowly faded into background noise.
The claw at their throat had been wrenched away. As the sun began to peek over the horizon, a rallying cry rose up from the Rescue Teams stationed everywhere.
Silence. Then the air shook as the shadows screamed. The languid wave of attacks turned into a riptide as the shadows reached at them, past them, towards the taunting sun. Sandslash let a hard-earned smile grace his face as his town met the challenge head-on.
Portions of carefully distributed Blast Seed oil met bonfires, fireballs blooming like morning glories all the way from the Post Center to the Rescue Center. Hundreds of different moves flew out in a storm, Water Guns and Mud Slaps and Struggle Bugs striking in tandem with Thunders and Fire Blasts and Solar Beams. High above, clouds shifted as a great hammer of air came slamming down, shredding the shadows with pure force.
They screamed, reaching – but not close enough. Never close enough. The second and third portions of Blast Seed oil never had to be thrown, the numerous backup bonfires scraped together never set ablaze.
Day arrived, and the shadows fled. Retreating across the grassy field far quicker than they had arrived, flattening down against the too-short grass in a formless sludge as they shied from the vibrant sun. With a grunt, Sandslash slid his numb body down from the Post Center.
The shadows – hadn't vanished. Not truly, and Sandslash would soon have his suspicions confirmed by a messenger limping in from a distant psychic relay town, half dead from exhaustion and haunted from their flight through the clawing night.
Fears were already leaching into Sandslash's ponderings, thoughts of other towns and villages making one of his claws twitch. He urgently waved down the messengers as townsfolk around him cheered.
Yet in the bare few moments before they arrived, Sandslash closed his eyes, taking in the smell of crisp air wafting away smoke, the feeling of sunlight soothing his spines.
Messages, and perhaps aid, to the nearest towns. After that – a monumental undertaking awaited the world, one which Sandslash had seen just a sliver of this night.
But it was the first few seconds that mattered the most. And here, and now, they'd made it through.