Warrior Eevees #1: The Storm of Fire

17- On the Mountainside

Rogue's wings beat mercilessly, riding the scraps of headwinds for every inch of height. The cliffside rose beneath them, so that they were never too high off the ground, although Emmy's ears were popping as they gained altitude.

The landscape below was fascinating, rocky, craggy, at first so hot that her fur felt like it was melting, but now the air was quickly cooling. Now there were trees beneath them, a scraggly deciduous forest that grew exactly where the temperature was right for it between the hot sand and the freezing snow. It was almost like a miniature world, with thick bands of biomes at different temperature ranges.

Possibly more fascinating was her new companion, Aqua. Aqua didn't say much and had flattened his fins and frill to his body against the wind, laying low over Rogue's back. Despite that, he fortunately did not appear as sickened as Sycamore had been by flight. The spines along his back he had raised, and Emmy could feel the wind part around them.

The air currents were sending a lot of information to her brain, now, actually. She could feel the way Rogue used the air to fly, the specific positions of his feathers, and even predict when he would flap his wings or hold them out to soar next. She could feel living things below in the forest, moving and whispering. Possibly prey.

The Sand Tribe had fed her and Aqua before they had begun the flight, a small snake Pokémon called Silicobra. Emmy had barely been able to force it down, the scales crunching beneath her teeth. Aqua had no complaints, possibly used to scales from his diet of fish, and possibly just being Aqua.

The deciduous trees grew more and more interspersed with conifers as they continued to climb, a light dusting of snow peppering the needles. Then the pines grew sparser and sparser, the snow beneath them deepened, a shimmering vertical field that concealed any pitfalls and cliffsides in the white blanket.

"Rogue, look out!" Emmy warned, suddenly feeling the shift in the air.

"Look out?" he repeated, flaring his wings just in time as a massive gust of wind rocked them in the sky.

Rogue squawked indignantly as the cold that sliced through his feathers tried to tip him over, half-folding his wings and fanning out his tail to try to plow through the air toward the land. Flying was impossible for him without the shelter of the trees to block such intense winds, and his wings shook badly as he drove through the gale toward the mountain.

Slush and ice were driven into their faces, Aqua tried to flatten himself further, his claws digging into the feathers. Emmy pressed to Rogue's back, squeezing her eyes closed against the driven snow and flattening her ears.

Suddenly, there was a slight bump, and she realized that Rogue had reached solid ground. His breath was coming in ragged breaths from beneath them, his feathers fluffed out and his wings shaking.

"This is as far up as I can fly," he said apologetically. "But we've reached the snow fields. It can't be far..."

Here on the ground, the wind currents were easier for Emmy to feel. There were creatures moving on the mountainside, for sure, somehow. And her nose agreed, there was a frosty, stony scent of some kind of life from somewhere.

"We can walk," she insisted, forcing herself to leap off the bird's warm back.

She instantly sunk up to her belly fur in snow. In a way, it was an odd relief, sheltering her from the wind. Still, she was instantly soaked. Her pelt was thick enough to offer some protection, but not long enough to keep her warm. She didn't think she was immediate danger, unless night fell, however.

To his credit, Aqua joined her in the snow, which slid off of his sleek pelt like water.

"I wish I could clear a path," he said stiffly, despite his chattering teeth. "But I never learned Scald, and I think any other Water-Type attack would just turn the path to ice here."