High Society: The tales from Victory

TEMPORAL [Part VII] (Chapter 28)

Suffocating. His lungs were empty, brought on by the lack of air. His throat was compromised, gripped tightly around his airway. There was nothing but darkness and coldness in his mind. 

Yet somehow a voice still stirred. 

It's not time yet. Don't you give up my body. 

His eyes flew open and he began to wheeze desperately for air. He put a hand on his chest, feeling the frigid touch of ice. Movement was pain, but there was something else. A warmth kept it from being utterly miserable.

He laid down as he watched a white flame flicker in his view. It slowly heated him, making sure his body didn't die from temperature whiplash. Or allow frostbite to win over.

Slowly he was able to push himself up. He grabbed his head, the world whirling around him. Blue light splayed across the snowy white floors and ice layered walls. He looked at his pale hands and brushed his blond hair to the side.

"Ponder?"

A hispanic voice called, the R being held a moment too long. Ponder looked up from his hand to land on a Hispanic devil with unpigmented licks of ember. The glow keeping Ponder warm, but in the flames the silhouette of the devil's hands were blackened bones, with jagged claws.

With a sweeping motion, Jeremiah extinguished the flames. Smoke lingered with a stench of seared flesh. However his skin was unscathed.

Ponder threw himself back against a wall. He suddenly grabbed his throat, unsure of what had happened or why he reacted this way. Yet, some aura of danger emanated from the Hispanic menace.

Jeremiah got to his feet, extending his arm with the sleeve rolled up and white dragon tattoo exposed. He held a pyre in his hand, offering warmth.

"Ponder, what are you doing? We're caught in a blizzard… in a cave! You could have froze to death." He voice genuine. His eyes purple. His aura of menace faded.

Ponder pressed his hand against the ice wall and pushed off. However the touch against the ice felt like an inferno; so cold it burned. He got to his feet and, like a mothim to a flame, he approached Jeremiah. 

The warmth surrounded him, fending off the whirling ice winds around them. Jeremiah had an aura of warmth around him that Ponder stuck to. Ponder gave a weak and, he wasn't sure why, scared gesture of appreciation.

Jeremiah strutted forward, speaking with a smug tone to his voice. "But of course. I'm happy to show what I'm capable of." As he walked he had a notion of the power he had in this situation. Power over Ponder, a thrilling revelation Jeremiah had come to.

Ponder began to walk with Jeremiah, as he was some sort of beacon of survival. Ponder looked back to the area where he was found. It wasn't long before he noticed the stream of water carving through the cave that was frozen over. A faint imprint of his own silhouette, presumably, in that frozen stream. 

North of the impression were stones of azure hue. They reached for the ceiling, but pointed out a large slab that read TEMPORAL. Something felt off about that, his fingers began to rub his earlobe. He turned back to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah quickly, with a fleeting smile, explained that their items, their Pokemon and their friends were absent. That brought Ponder's mood down tremendously, but Jeremiah didn't seem to mind. He cared on obliviously, or seemingly so.

Before the two men was a large brown archway with two slates as doors. Jeremiah put his hands on the stone and began to push with all his might, slowly pushing it open. Ponder's gaze landed on something else. The door was decorated in carved snowflakes and illustrations dedicated to Dialga, God of Time.