The nauseating grumble from the lava started again, crackling and squelching from the smallest movement below. It got louder as I knew danger came closer again. Then, suddenly it emerged.
That big, dopey, Yoshi-like snout breached the surface, accompanied by those red eyes and eerie foam pouring out of its mouth. The Slugma again? So it had survived that last assault. Only… was it that big before?
No, it wasn't. I knew that because the Slugma itself suddenly resurfaced, joining the new foe. It had brought in reinforcements. Well, fat luck that would give it!
"That's a Magcargo!" Chloe announced. "It's part Rock type, so be careful, guys!"
Despite my confidence and the cave's heat, I got goosebumps. Rock type was the one type most of the team had a crippling weakness against. The sole exceptions were Lola and Valérie— the two of them not having any specific resistance to it. If Hidden Power was indeed completely random, we'd gotten way too lucky that Valérie had landed on Water type.
"Behind me," Mr. Henry growled. Never mind his typing disadvantage or sometimes anxious demeanour. The adult was taking the reins confidently and we could suddenly all get behind that.
Almost immediately, a column of water shot into the lava, sizzling into a dense fog right in front of the two bosses.
"Do we have a plan?" Valérie asked, lowering her arm. "Improv smokescreen won't work forever."
"I think same as last time?" I suggested, looking back at Mr. Henry.
"Yes," the Charizard nodded. "Lure them both on land."
The mist dissipated and two boss Pokémon came into view again. God, two of them! Was that one per portal? Could that explain the portal already open back in that tower? Had there always been multiple bosses stalking around in the shadows?
I noticed a dark gray rock taking up most of the Magcargo's body, serving as a shell but being fragile enough to have cracks in it, with a slew of stray magma streams pouring out of it. With an ordinary (and presumably evil) snail, attacking the shell would be counterintuitive, but to me the Magcargo's heavy load screamed weak point. The rock's texture seemed well-polished, yet clearly there was some way to get through to it. Something about the fissures informed me that the shell was brittle.
Hopefully I'm right.
"Aim for the shell!" I yelled to anyone listening.
"Valérie!" Chloe shouted.
"On it!" With a single swing of her arm, huge globs of water flew at the Magcargo.
The Magcargo answered with surprising agility, spreading itself thin into simmering zigzags and moving the rock shell away from any attacks. The Pokémon itself stayed in the same spot, but its tail and shell were dodging everything with ease!
"This is impossible!" Valérie groaned.
Before anyone could reassure her, the Magcargo started glowing with a red hue that overpowered the lava's light. I squinted at the sudden wave of heat that followed, only to observe through nigh-closed eyelids… a white flame. Though it was far from me, it was as if I could tell the minutest crackle and burst from any temperature change. That's how condensed and powerful that white flame was. The fireball was suddenly ejected from the Magcargo's maw and smashed into the ceiling directly above it, spreading into a wide circle before dissolving into red and yellow flames. When those disappeared too, so did the heat. I finally managed a glance at Valérie again, but she'd taken a step back. She didn't look wounded. However, her arms had returned to her side, the Hidden Power having completely evaporated. More than that: utterly disintegrated. There wasn't a remote trace of vapor left.
It didn't mean she couldn't try again, but it sure was a warning to whoever stayed within firing range.
"We still want to bring that thing closer?" Gab asked anxiously. She'd only taken a few steps back since the bosses had rejoined the fray.
Although the Emolga's voice was quiet, Valérie heard it loud and clear. "It's either it or us, and we're not advancing here," she muttered. "How do we get them, though? We barely have anything long-range as it is."
I heard the familiar noise of claws scratching rock, and Lola whizzed past me. "Short-range, then!"
Despite our protests, she was already halfway there, taking the long way round to presumably attract attention. It worked. Another Flamethrower was pelted at her by the Slugma, but she jumped out of the way, a faint blue glow in her red eyes.
Oh my god! Right! She had Detect!
The Absol's dodging had actually shortened her distance between her starting point and the Magcargo quite a bit. She leapt at it and landed a Quick attack, accompanied by a flurry of Scratches. However, she ran back to us straight after. Was she… limping? She dodged another attack and finally arrived, and I saw some fur around her front paws was burnt and reddened.
"I'm fine," she immediately stated, trying to conceal a wince. "This isn't sustainable though. I'm not sure it felt the hits at all."
Sure enough, the shell looked no different than before Lola had taken a crack at it.
"That one tactic we used against… the thing?" Gab suggested, hand rummaging in the backpack. "Where I'm on your back while you run and I do quick fly-by shocks?"
Jesus Christ, just say Gardevoir.
Lola shook her head. "I don't know if Detect accounts for the both of us when dodging. Can't risk it."
"Uh…" I knew I would regret saying it, but it was the one tactic we'd won with that we hadn't tried. "Bide."
"… Bide?" Valérie breathed out. "You really think it's safe?"
Gab came forward. "We… we have Rawst and Oran berries. If you're willing to through with this—"
"We don't have another option," she cut her off.
"But are you willing?" Kieran asked, suddenly focused again. His antennae twitched when Valérie shrugged condescendingly at him.
"Look," she started. "I'm not super comfortable with it either, and I know once I launch it I won't be able to do anything once it's over. But for God's sake, what else do we do?! Lola can dodge, but she can't outright block. None of us can."
"Mr. Henry?" I asked, only to be answered with dead silence.
I turned my head, scanning the area for our teacher. He was nowhere close. There was no asking him for an adult viewpoint, or a danger-free suggestion. No, off in the distance, Mr. Henry had run off toward the boss, armed with no moves that we knew of and a quadruple weakness.
And just like that… I could never find the words.
The Magcargo launched its Rock type attack for the second time, with a shower of boulders leaving no chance for escape. They hit their mark obscenely well. The Charizard was sent backward, hitting the far cave wall and indenting it.
I saw the impact, but the sounds were what would plague my nightmares, simple and quick.
A sickening sequence of snaps.
Mr. Henry let out a cross between a scream and a roar, pain tearing at his voice. This was a sound far too distressed for me to comprehend that an adult could expel it. I breathed without any air entering my system. There was no noise anymore.
I don't know when I started running. Whenever it was, it was on pure instinct, like running was what I did when no thoughts were occupying my mind. I had the Slugma and Magcargo in my sights. A Noble Roar spread from my mouth, adding even more red and orange and… if it was possible: heat.
My skin was aching, my eyes dry, my lungs numb. And yet, when I got closest to the magma-borne enemy, I found strength. I clamped my jaws on the Magcargo's shell and didn't let go until a piece crumbled in my mouth.
I reared back and spat it out. I could only stare at the Magcargo, its red eyes not denoting any emotion, blending into its molten body perfectly well. Its shell had a third of it bitten off now. My ear flicked at a telltale noise from behind.
The water orb hit the Magcargo head-on. It hissed and sizzled in pain, and I found myself bearing a nervous smile.
Our pyrrhic victory was short-lived.
The two Pokémon retreated into the lava.
"Again?!" Valérie exclaimed. She fell to her knees.
They were out of sight within seconds. We were back at square one, but with a heavy loss.
Kieran hurled Poison Stings at the lava until he'd run out of energy. He breathed heavily, barely blinking while staring at the lake. With the mirage-like waves in the air, the ever-changing tone of the opaque lava, and the fact that our boss Pokémon were under the surface, no one could tell if any of them were successful. Scorched eyes weren't worth it for a view that was so inconclusive.
What else was there to say when your body was scrambling as much as your mind? What else was there to do? We must've shared that thought as much as the air we breathed.
"We wait," Gab croaked out. "We do the same as we would've done anyway."
There's something to be said about the fear of waiting, or the fear of results. At some point, I told myself that I'd take whatever news came to us, no matter how bad, and I felt awful about it! This was someone's life. Wishing for the worst news to satiate my worry? That was never a justifiable feeling. God, even in a middle-best-case scenario, what would happen when we got back to Earth? Would our teacher's back be broken?
"Would" and "could" were the opposite of "if only", yet they still ate at my stomach. At least "if only" had answers. We had lost a battle. We had amassed our first big injury and were helpless to handle it. I wanted news. Information. An excuse. I wanted something to focus on other than this desolate inferno. Because then I could do something other than try and predict every possible outcome, and deny anything involving endings.
Foresight was soft relief and sharp panic, working together to suffocate us.
An unknown future was agony.
I don't know how long we stayed in the new cave carved by the rocks' impact. We didn't have a day and night cycle like back in the first level. It was a constant blazingly sunny day next to the light of molten rock. We tried to rest as Mr. Henry recovered. Whether or not we did, we counted those moments as nights.
My estimate was that we stayed a full week. A full week of simmering bubbling worry, of burning questioning, of insurmountable dread.
There were moments where things were looking up. Most of the time, Mr. Henry was all but bedridden from the pain, but sometimes he'd sit up and chat with us a little, and eat the berries Gab passed him. Though few instances those were, we were running low on food. Sometimes it looked like he was about to wake up again, his tail flame suddenly channeling more intensity and light, but would resume its previous level within seconds.
Those were the moments his brow sweat more and more, and he mumbled a name in his sleep, too indistinct for us to make out.
I was keeping watch for the Slugma and Magcargo duo when a new development changed the whole situation.
Valérie shrieked out a volley of swears. Our attention gathered, she rushed us into the dark cave.
"Something's wrong," her hoarse voice trembled.
The cave was too dark. The tip of Mr. Henry's tail only had a flicker of flame still persevering. The knot in my throat threatened to snap from the tension. Maybe, just maybe, the news would turn out good, and the fire would redouble after this. That's what was insidious about "could" and "would." No matter how much you thought of them, they could or would not change reality.
His tail flame went out.
And just one second later, it reignited, casting a red glow inside the cave, joined by ominous red eyes.