Warrior Eevees #1: The Storm of Fire

19- Entei's Rest

Avalanche was much more tolerant with Emmy's struggles through the snow than his fellow Mountain Tribe members and deliberately took paths where the snow was the shallowest and warned her where the ground grew icy. Her pelt was still soaked from the snow coming down from above, and now the sun was beginning to set. It would be a cold walk back to the Warm Cave, but Avalanche assured her that he would get several other Glaceon to walk with her for warmth.

"This is important to all of us, we'll keep you safe," he said, gesturing with his tail to a cave Emmy hadn't noticed.

She hadn't noticed because it was very small, a thin vertical crevice between two boulders, barely wide enough to accommodate Avalanche's solid frame.

"We think Entei has been there since the mountain was young," Avalanche explained to her. "And that the cave grew around it. Stone grows, slowly, of course, but it does grow. You will find Entei at the bottom. It's a straight path. I will go call for more Glaceon to escort you away, and we will await you here. Good luck."

Without anything else to wait for, Emmy pushed her way into the narrow stone path. The rock brushed her pelt on either side as Emmy forced her way deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain. Unlike the Warm Cave, the walls did not widen, and no light penetrated this deep. She was feeling her way along with her sensitive pelt and whiskers.

The air was growing warmer, fortunately. And now, her she could pick up a sound deep in the cave, the sound of very slow breathing. Slower, deeper breathing than anything that should be alive, but breathing none the less. Emmy took that to be a sign that she was going in the right direction, for better or for worse, and picked up the pace.

What do I even say to it? she thought as the passage spiraled further and further down. She must have spoken a human language once, and racked her brains to remember it. One word came to mind: "Hello." A word of greeting. She didn't remember what the language was called, but that was part of it. She really hoped that once she started speaking, the language would come naturally to her. Language wasn't usually remembered consciously, after all. Maybe it would work. It had to.

The stone beneath her paws seemed to pulse with heat, or some great heartbeat. The breathing was louder, now, and she took another bend and realized that light was emanating dimly up the passage from somewhere. She could see the faint outlines of the jagged stone walls that pressed close to her shoulders and glowed red.

The heat in the still air was stifling, and Emmy could no longer hear the wind or anything from above. She kept determinedly on the path, her nose full of the scent of stone and fire and the faint scents of Mountain Tribe members from across the ages, treading downward on their mission to prevent the Storm of Fire in moon cycles past. Now, the task fell on her shoulders, and hers alone.

No place could have been more different than the territory of the Forest Tribe, and she dearly missed it. The ocean of whispering ferns, the leaves fluttering in the breeze, the tall trees that seemed to hold the whole sky above the world, the ample prey and sound of birdsong in the morning... She couldn't think about it, it would make her cry.

Now, a new scent flooded her nose. Something ancient, hot and fiery, and something alive. Barely alive, but certainly so. The scent and heat thickened as she carried onward- and finally stopped with a gasp.

Before her was an immense cavern. Like the Warm Cave, a broad pool sat in the middle- but this was a pool of red-hot magma. The molten rock roiled and spat sparks and smoke, a writing mass of red and yellow light, chewing at the cave floor. Jagged islands broke it up in places, but there was no telling how deep it was. It was so bright that Emmy was almost distracted from the head of the great Pokémon that rested on the cave floor.