Heroes of Darkness

XXX

ALEXANDER

He was cold again, in the tunnels, but he wasn't scared. It was dark, but the walls seemed to give off a faint blue glow. He tried to remember the last time he was here, it was when he visited his mother's memories on Mt. Pyre. He tried to recall the twists and turns in the cold halls. Alexander Specter couldn't remember.

He ran and ran, but his feet seemed like they were slower than usual. The fine powder underneath him absorbed his footfalls. He stopped, gasping in the dark, his breath glowing a faint blue in the chill. He was looking for a way out, or a way through...

What am I looking for? he wondered. The ghostly face of his mother swam in his memories. Perhaps she was here. "Mother!" he called, voice echoing through the labyrinthine cave. "MOTHER!"

She didn't answer, but the voice that came back to him was icy and sharp. "Remember who you are," it said, again. Was it calling to him through the cave, or was it in his head?

"I am Alexander son of Susan Forrest!" He called back. Forrest... Forrest... Forrest... his answer echoed.

There was no answer. Alex felt the temperature drop suddenly, and a mist began to swirl down the hall. It was approaching him, shimmering in pale light of the icy walls. He wanted to confront it, to stand and fight it, but in the end, he knew it would consume him. Alex turned to run, but again, the powder under his feet slowed him down. "Mother!" he called out. She could help him... It was her memory that brought him here last time. "MOTHER!" he was so scared.

The cold mist was suffocating...

Alex awoke with a gasp, the sword he had fallen asleep cleaning fell off his lap and clanged to the stone floor. The candlelight was far across the room on the wooden table filled with maps, but he could feel its warmth. He welcomed it.

"Miss your mummy, do ya?" asked the man armored with a golden sigil. An Odaran. He seemed annoyed. The Odaran commander looked at Burningtree, who had brought Alex along in his mission. "There's no place for mummy's boys in our army. Quite the company you Brightflames keep."

The bald man with the burly Blaziken, Burningtree's brother, scowled at the backhanded comment. Burningtree stared at Alex, his facial tattoos shining in the light. "He is my hostage," Burningtree said. Alex couldn't tell if he meant it or not. "His captivity will ensure the Draconids fight on our side or not at all."

That was the part that Alex didn't understand. What made him so important to the Draconids? He was a dispossessed and presumed dead former nobleman's son. If anything, he figured he was more dispensable, a bounty to the Empress or his father at best.

He watched as Brandon Brightflame, who was Burningtree's older brother, apparently looked over the Mt. Chimney map studiously. That makes Burningtree a former royal, he thought. He was a member of a great family, and the lean, swift Blaziken that was his Spirit Partner confirmed it. And a member of a Great House. Alex's mother was a Forrest, belonging to one of the three Great Houses of legend, but his father was fat Lord Specter.

Alex scowled. He had tried to forget that the fat slob was his father, who was a disgrace in the young man's memory. He hated him. On the journey to Meteor Falls, he had replayed the fight with his father over and over. Next time, he wouldn't hesitate. He had experienced his father's fighting style first hand, and next time would be different... But I don't have a Pokémon anymore. If it was hard to think of Specter as his father, it was even more difficult to accept the fact that Bannette was dead and gone. They had grown up together, played together. We should have died together.