Pokemon: Fate's Path

Chapter 15

Jay Wolfe

The next morning was awful to put it simply. My wounds, which I had been glad had gone unnoticed by my parents, felt stiff when I woke up and I had nearly collapsed when I started walking. Curse used her heal bell upon noticing and the pain soon faded, allowing me to move normally as I finished getting ready before meeting the others in the front of the Pokémon Center, though only Freya and Soren were currently out there. Ivan joined us shortly after while dragging Josef behind him.

"Ready?" Freya asked as she started walking. "Come on, let's go before they think we aren't stopping by."

I followed behind them, the dull throbbing pain slowing me slightly as I walked, and I could tell Soren noticed the small change in my walking pace. I refused to look at him, if I did that he would question me... he could question me anyway- probably would. Curse brushed against the side of my leg as if to emphasize and I crouched down to pick her up, letting her sit in her normal place on my shoulder. The extra weight wasn't comfortable with my bruises but I wasn't going to give anyone a reason to ask if I was 'okay'.

"Jay, Jay, look!" Freya shouted a few minutes after walking in silence- still tired from waking up so early- and I followed her finger to see smoke rising just outside of Iceshore... right in the area my house would be in.

"Let's go." I picked up the pace to a run, the others following suit soon after.

The flames were already consuming the buildings beyond the point of saving when we reached my home. Firefighters and their water type pokémon had managed to tame the fire but it was too late to salvage most things- if any. We stayed back as the fire slowly died out and injured pokémon were taken to the Pokémon Center, though I didn't see my parents... not until the very last embers were gone and most of the people had started to leave. Their burned bodies were loaded into a medical truck and taken off to Iceshore's morgue, the only way I even recognized them as my parents was the fact it was their house.

"Jay?" I felt a nudge on my arm and hesitated before turning to look at Soren. "I'm... I'm sorry you lost them."

I looked back at the burned out ashes, the buildings looked like rotting skeletons of some large pokémon. Without speaking I started walking towards them, careful not to be noticed by the remaining police and medics as they left. I went over to the barn, as it was the least burned down, and made my way inside. I could hear the others following behind me but none actually caught up to say anything. I wasn't sure what I was doing in here, I wouldn't find anything, I should just leave before the building broke in or something.

Curse stiffened suddenly before jumping down, her ears perked up in what I first thought was alarm, before dashing off to the back of the building where the newer cement wall had withheld most of the fire. I followed after her until she came to a stop in front of a stall.

She turned to look at me. "Eon...!"

I moved closer to take a look at what she'd found: a dead lycanrock lying on her side- well I took it to be a her considering the two babies curled up against her stomach fur. They didn't seem too burned, which could be due to their rock typing, but they were still dead. Probably trapped or sleeping when the smoke killed them. The two rockruffs didn't even look like they'd hatched from an egg that long ago, perhaps even this morning.

"Come on Curse, there's nothing to do about that." I turned away before wincing as Curse swatted her paw at me, obviously making sure to hit a bruise. "Ow, what?"

"Umber." She turned back and walked closer before nudging the rockruffs.

I was glad the others had spread out in their own examinations of both the house and the barn so they couldn't see me crouch down and wrongfully think I was crying, though I could tell Soren was keeping an eye on me from the other side of the barn even if he was pretending not to.