Team Phosphorus Mission 5 Part 1

It didn't even hurt anymore.

When Ganymede had first started this journey, his legs had felt broken. The ice, which was a ferocious, biting creature of teeth and nails, had clawed at them, and fatigue had burdened them, and if he had been able to, if he had thought if it was even an option, he would have succumbed. But hours had passed, and then a day, then two, and then it had stopped. It had simply stopped.

The Stantler had been walking so long that his legs now seemed mechanical—unfeeling, and automatic, and cold. Someone had told him about muscle memory once, though he hadn't listened very carefully because at the time he hadn't really cared, but he liked to imagine that that was what this was. Beaten into them like the steps of an impossible dance, or the rhythm of an indescribable song, all his legs recalled now was walking, and so, instinctively, that was all they did.

So Ganymede kept going forward and forward and forward, unthinking, because he simply didn't know how not to anymore. Even if he had wanted to stop, he doubted his legs would have let him. If, maybe, his body gave up on its own, and refused to go on not because it did not want to, but because it could not, he supposed his legs would have simply broken off, and kept on walking without him. Truth be told, the Stantler didn't even mind the idea that much. Even if he'd been left just a body, lying limbless in these rolling, blizzard snows, he did not think he would spend his last moments pining hopelessly for life.

No. At least, in dying, he would be free of this. He raised his head slightly, and as he had grown accustomed to, he saw nothing. Nothing but the bitter white of snow. If death meant not being here anymore, then maybe death was the way to go.

But then again…he turned his head as far as it would go, and looked at the bundle he was carrying on his back. Even from close up, it was difficult to see Havelock under the thin black cloth he'd curled himself into. All that revealed the young Snivy was the top of his pale green head, and his stupid ginkgo leaf tail curling out from the back of the cloth. Given that he was both reptile and grass, the cold hadn't been very good to him. It was impossible to tell if he was hibernating or just sleeping, but really, it was all the same.

The Stantler wrinkled his nose at his partner, sulphur-green eyes narrowing to slits. Being demoted to Havelock's chauffeur was not exactly what he had been expecting when the two of them had decided to leave their home for Tao. If it had been up to him, he would have bucked the stupid grass-type off his back and let him hoof it the rest of the way. The Stantler had been walking for, what, three days straight? And Havelock, an aristocrat to his very core despite being born to nothing and growing up with even less, had been asleep the entire time.

"I should have just left you," Ganymede said, looking forward again. He regretted talking even while he did it, tasting blood coming down from the cracks in his mouth, but if there was one thing that no force, not even this obscene blizzard, could stop him from doing, it was speaking his mind. "As it stands, you've been nothing but a dead weight, and frankly, if I had my druthers, I would just leave you here. And you could do something for yourself for once, and then—" His saliva began to freeze in his mouth, and his voice cracked. "And then you would see how terrible it would be—" He blinked, the first time he could remember doing so for ages, and his eyes started to burn. "—without me."

The Stantler dropped his head slowly to swallow in a breath, trying to get back the air that he'd wasted on speaking. When he lifted it again, he looked around. Actually looked. But it was all the same. On one side, snow dunes and curling winds. On the other, a howl and the bitter cold. And ahead, white. Not sound, not sight, just white.

Nothing.

For the first time in a great while, he wanted to stop. And just as he'd predicted, his legs kept walking on their own. His mind stayed stationary, though, and all it wondered was, "Where in the world are we?"

"This is absurd," Ganymede said. His breath, white from cold, blew backwards into his face. "We should have reached Tao ages ago. It's not even supposed to be winter there yet. Why is it—"

Something flashed in the distance and that time he stopped for real. He'd never heard of a snow mirage, but he wouldn't put it past himself to be going a little mad from sensory deprivation. Or maybe, he thought wryly, it was a light from the great beyond. That didn't stop his heart from rapping tremulously against the inside of his chest, didn't keep his body from remembering that it was a living thing again. Suddenly, Ganymede was in pain once more, and exhaustion set upon him so quickly that he felt he'd been crushed. Still, he had just enough energy to hope.

So he waited there, standing, moments turning into minutes. He bit down on his lip as his legs started to give out beneath him and his consciousness wavered, but he refused to fall apart just yet. He refused to give up, refused to lie down, not when the sliver of hope he'd just now gained could be rewarded—and it was. The light was there again. Red. A glimmer, practically invisible, but it was there. Not in his head, but right in front of him, clear as the sun he hadn't seen in days. He didn't know if he was really seeing it or if he was just crazy, but if it was there, then it meant they were near civilization. They were finally near Tao.

"Ha!" he choked out, voice giving away the weakness he refused to succumb to, and threw his head back to look at the Snivy. "Ginkgo, we're almost there. I told you it was just a matter of time, I—" He saw the small reptile shudder against the frost, and it was all he could do to keep the wind from being knocked out of him. He continued to stare at Havelock anyway, waiting for him to open his eyes. To give the Stantler that weary, exasperated look that he always did when he woke him up too early in the morning.

All the Snivy did was shiver and curl tighter beneath that blanket that wasn't nearly thick enough. Ganymede said nothing—couldn't say anything—for a few moments, then he looked away.

"Don't worry," he whispered, forced his legs into motion, brought his head down and charged the snow. "We'll be there soon."

The Stantler moved faster than should have been rightly possible in two feet of snow. He could physically feel his insides coming to pieces within him, but as long as his skin was holding him together, that was more than enough. For a little, foolish while, he thought that red light in the distance was unshakeable proof that in minutes they would be in Tao. He ignored the usual cynicism of his heart—that it was too good to be true—and then went on even to ignore his senses when he saw the strange silhouette just ahead, and heard a low rumble, deeper and more frigid than even the blizzard's howl.

If he could have, he would have kept ignoring it forever. When the rumble started to sound like a roar, a low Gyaooo, beneath the frosty Whooo his ears perked up. He narrowed his eyes when he heard it again, a bit louder than before, and slowed his pace a little to raise his head. He did so just in time to notice another light, but this one was a burning orange and looked like it was dropping from the sky.

"What," he breathed as he watched the object's path in dubious silence, "in the world is tha—"

The object zoomed past and hit the ground with an explosive bang, sending snow and earth flying in all directions. A few stray clods knocked the Stantler on the side, and if he'd been startled into silence before, that was enough to snap him out of it. He spun his head forward again, and cried indignantly, "What in the the world is—"

Without warning, a glowing boulder came at Ganymede from the side and slammed right into him. He hadn't even felt the impact before he was flying through the air and then gracelessly crashing into the ground. Incredibly, that boulder hadn't crushed the Stantler's entire left side, but it was a hollow victory. Once his head had stopped spinning enough for him to open his eyes, he looked up and paled.

He didn't know what he had been expecting to have sent a meteorite crashing down and a rock hurtling into him. He had been expecting something familiar at least, but the thing that loomed before him and moved laboriously across the land was utterly alien. He wasn't even sure it was a pokemon. It was just a monster, ferocious, with eyes glowing of vengeance that burned ice-cold. In fact it was a creature of ice itself. It was all shattered around the edges, ice-block wings and head sharp and uneven. The blizzard didn't beat it, but embraced it instead as though they were brothers. Even the wind howled at its side, and when one of its roars shook the earth, the gale wailed as if in pain.

Running near the ice-dragon's feet was the source of the red light: an Ampharos with a scarf around his neck and a small Stunky sitting inexplicably on his head. There were other Pokemon too, all engaged in some suicidal attempt to aggravate the monster, and if Ganymede had had the energy, he might have run over to knock some sense into them. However, right now he felt just a wee bit disinclined to waste his strength on anything other than getting the heck away from here.

"'Ey!" Ganymede turned his head to the voice to see a Gabite with a black pirate hat running alongside the Ampharos. "'Ey, you! What're you doin' 'ere!?" The gabite roared, wild golden eyes flicking between Ganymede and someone else. "What're ya, sunbathin'? Get out o' the way, ya bleedin' landlubbers, 'fore ya get yerselves killed!"

"Do you think we need to be told twice?!" the Stantler wanted to scream, but the words wouldn't come.

Something was wrong. Not the obvious, that there was some kind of vicious beast tromping about what ought to have been Tao, something else entirely. He looked back and forth, trying to place it—he could feel the scarf around his leg, his antlers were still intact, his heart was still beating—and then it occurred to him: Havelock. He spun his head around to look at his back, but he already knew what he would see. The Snivy was gone. That rock had knocked him clean off.

Ganymede's heart leaped so high into his throat that it threatened to squeeze out from between his teeth.

Then where—

He looked one way.

Then where was—

He looked the other.

Where was Havelock?!

The ice-monster was so close that its every step made the ground rumble.

Where did he go?!

As though struck by yet another stone, Ganymede remembered the Gabite had been looking in two different places while talking to him. Half at Ganymede, and half at—

He wrenched his gaze around to where the Gabite had been looking. For a few seconds he was blind. He frantically tried to blink away snowflakes as if they were tears, and then there it was. A flash of green, half-hidden in a mounting pile of white. The Stantler tried to swallow down his relief. They were only two or three meters apart, he would be able to reach him. It was just a matter of standing up and—

As he rose, his legs gave out beneath him.

With that, his mouth went completely dry.

Ganymede tried again, more desperately, but he wouldn't budge. He fought against the numbness and fatigue as though his body was itself an enemy, but his legs wouldn't have it. They absolutely refused to go on. All they did was tremble pathetically under him. The Stantler wanted to shriek, but he couldn't even muster the strength to sob.

The Snivy didn't stand a chance. If he wasn't crushed beneath the advancing monster, then he'd be buried beneath the snow in a matter of minutes.

The tremors in the ground increased. The ice-dragon was so close now that its harsh breathing was audible, along with the unnatural mutterings beneath. The shouts of the Pokemon surrounding it were amplified tenfold. Somewhere within them, Ganymede heard the Gabite again.

"I thought I told ya to move it!" Came the yell.

The Stantler's eyes did not lift from his partner. In a whisper, he answered simply, "I can't."

Ganymede had always hated clichés. He hated the philistine and laconic phrases that populated every story and every mind, because what was the point of life if you weren't going to live originally. At that moment, though, all his airs deserted him. Right now, he didn't care whether things were witty or not, whether they were clever or poignant or wise. That was why only thing that filled his head was the most asinine cliché of them all: this isn't fair.

He was so close—so close—so why couldn't he reach him? If he could walk, if he could at least crawl, then he could save him. If he just had some control over his own body, then none of this would be happening. They could be out of here. They could be safe. Now, they were both as good as dead, and it was all his—

He choked on the thought that this could be his fault. If Havelock died right then, and he lived, he didn't think he would be able to keep going with that on his conscience. It was utterly illogical, he knew that, but as soon as it occurred to him he bucked the blame onto the one least deserving of it: Havelock.

Havelock was always doing this, the Stantler rationalized. Always making things difficult for everyone. It wasn't like the world would miss him. In fact, it would probably be glad he was gone. He was such a nuisance, Ganymede himself probably wouldn't have missed him either. Without him he could start over. Live without having to constantly baby a child that didn't even want his help. Finally, he could start living his life for himself.

The dragon roared so near that the very sound of it was painful.

Without thinking, Ganymede tried to scramble onto his legs again. Without thinking, he started biting back tears.

That stupid Havelock—

He was beginning to lose sight of the Snivy within the snow.

—that idiotic, guileless, careless, thoughtless, moronic, stupid—

"Havelock!" the Stantler cried out with all his might, louder than all the storms that raged in all the world, and just like that the Snivy opened his eyes. The grass-type's tail whipped against the snow, and with the motion a dozen razor-edged leaves swept into the air. They cut through the ice, kept rising and rising, and then stopped. For a moment they were suspended there above Ganymede and Havelock. Edges glinting like knives, they did absolute nothing. Then they dropped.

They hit the earth in a circle surrounding the two partners, and that should have been the end of it. Ganymede realized he had underestimated his partner's tenacity when instead, they just kept going straight through to the other side. There was a loud crack in the ground beneath the snow, a tremor not caused by the monster. For a moment, Ganymede looked at Havelock, and Havelock looked wearily back. With that, the earth gave out beneath them and they tumbled down like lead.

From the cascade of darkness that surged up to meet the two, Ganymede stared at the retreating sky above. He noted the tumultuous grey of it and how once it had been blue, but then the beast moved over the hole, and then that too was black.