
	Those affected by the battle migrated to the medical ward, with the help of the nurse.  It was a quaint room somewhat larger than the average quarters the guild provided, with little to get in the way of her work besides her materials, and several sick beds lining its walls.  Despite her Heal Pulse healing some of her patients' wounds, she wanted to analyze their conditions more thoroughly for signs of shock her technique couldn't treat.  

	She laid the guildmistress down first by the right-hand wall, with her assistant right beside her; Delphox, and later Scyther and Oran, were placed gently along the left wall.  Most of the more delicate medical attention went to the Bug-Type, as the nurse's Double Team clones started applying Rawst juice over some of his crusty exterior,  while the rest had nothing more than a few examinations.  

	The Riolu laid in his cot motionless, as if he was taking a power nap.  Underneath the nurse's healing rays his flattened legs started popping back into their original forms, as if they never broke in the first place.  Pecha watched in a slightly disgusted intrigue, listening to what sounded to her like his tibia's being broken in reverse.  It fascinated her, but at the same time, it left a nauseating pit in her stomach; good thing she never had plans of becoming a nurse when she grew up.

	“All right,” the nurse sung in a happy tune, “he's all fixed up, good as new!”

	“But why isn't he waking up?”  Pecha asked her, pointing at his closed eyes.

	“Sometimes Pokémon will faint from just the pure shock of pain,” Blissey educated her.  “It'll take some time: maybe he'll wake up in the next few seconds; maybe he'll wake up in the next few days?”

	“D-days?” she squeaked.

	“Days, sometimes months,” Blissey continued.  “In fact, I've even seen one or two Pokémon not wake up at- oh?”  She peered down, and saw the Buneary stand there in sniveling silence.  She was struck with a bad shivering fit, her paws continually trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

	Looking at her, Blissey realized she went a little too far with her story.  She wrapped her flippers around the distressed rabbit, holding her close, in an attempt to comfort her.  “It's gonna be okay,” she told her in a motherly whisper, “I'm sure he's strong enough to pull through it.”

	Pecha continued to cry, her wails muffled by the Blissey's round stomach.  “I-I didn't think he would do it,” she said.  “I heard him argue with Loudred, but I didn't actually think he would do it!  It-it's my fault he ended up like this!  Ambipom, Scyther, Oran;  If I wasn't so focused on those stupid iron barbs, I would have-!”

	“That's enough, now,” she told her, pulling her in closer, “you don't need to blame yourself so harshly.  If you stand by him, I bet he'll recover out of this as if it never happened!”

	Pecha paused from her sobbing, to look up at the nurse with watery eyes, “Y-you really think so?”

	Blissey nodded.  “Of course.”

	The Buneary sunk her head back into the nurse's stomach.  Though her tears still flowed slowly, she felt the weight on her chest lighten up a little.  Maybe the nurse was right, she just needed to stick by him.  Maybe that would help him wake up faster.


	Lono's broken rib kept him pinned to the floor in pain.  His and Pele's eyes were glued to the fight in front of them, watching as it devolved from a fight between equal individuals to a long-winded struggle between predator and prey.  He wondered how long they've been at it: ten minutes?  Twenty minutes?  He was lucky the fight never drifted towards them; he had to get away before that happened.

“Pele, we need to get out of here, somehow,” he told his sister, his voice shook with worry.

	“What?  How are we gonna do that?”  She asked him back.

	“Try your Flamethrower to thaw yourself out,” Lono told her.

	“O-okay.”  Pele wiggled her head back and forth, trying to find a decent angle to aim her attack with.  The ice kept her neck stiff and locked in place; wiggling was all she could do.  She stopped, letting out a large breathe, “I can't do it,” she told her brother in defeat. “I can't get a good angle!  My Flamethrower won't be able to come into contact with the ice.”

	“All right, lemme try something.”  Lono's arms shook as he lifted his heavy torso off the ground, a discomforting groan slipped through his clenched teeth; he managed to get on all fours, but nothing more.  His chest burned, his lungs felt ready to pop if he took too big a breath.  

	As the fighters occupied each others' attention, he crawled over to his frozen twin sister while the pain in his chest stabbed at him with each inch he made.  He perched himself against the block of ice, and started to chip away at her prison with his right claw.

	“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” she screamed at him.  “What do you think you're doing?”

	“Breaking you out,” he told her, “do you want out or not? I'm not leaving here without you.”

	“But you might turn me into Pele cubes-!”

	“Better than Ku turning you into Pele steaks,” Lono quipped.  He hammered away at the ice, chipping off chunk after chunk, watching the crack in its shell grow with each strike. 

	With his remaining arm Ku summoned another stream of sand to engulf Lopunny in.  She memorized his routine: the Sand Tomb itself was just a diversion.  After which, he would either go straight for a Dragon Claw, or a surprise attack with Dig.  “Sand Tomb again?” 

	Before the ravenous storm reached her, the Lopunny leaped straight up, thinking she was safe from his attack.  To her surprise the dragon followed her into the air, where she left herself open.  A brutal uppercut to her chest painted the air in a fine rain of red mist.  Her yelp caught the Gabites' attention, and they watched both fighters  crash back down to the floor.  

	Ku felt weak in his knees, wobbling for a moment after landing.  His vision blurred for a quick second or two, disoriented by a rush of lightheadedness before shaking it off; after pushing himself to defeat his opponent for so long, the loss of blood started to take it's toll.  

	He stepped over to the Lopunny's left side.  She sprawled out across the hard, rocky floor, unable to move from landing on her back.  A large gash from where he stuck her stretched across her chest, her brown fur turning red from soaking up excessive amounts of blood.

	Something light tapped him on the head.  He looked up out of curiosity: small pebbles fell from the ceiling.  During his fights, his Sand Tombs worsened the pre-existing cracks in the walls; the cave could collapse on top of him with just the lightest touch.

	“Ku,” Lono's grading voice called out to him, “there's not much time left!  Forget about that Lopunny for a second, and help us es-!”

	“I thought you killed over already,” he replied agitated.  “No matter, after I'm finished with this rabbit, I'll finish you off properly.”  He raised his right foot over her rib cage, ready to put her down for good.

	Another rush of lightheadedness disoriented the Garchomp.  His vision blurred, one Lopunny split into several others, it was hard to keep focus on the real one.  Keeping his foot elevated over her chest proved difficult, growing heavy from his declining strength, and hovering listlessly with little control.  The ground crushed underneath his stomp when he decided to bring it down, but the attack missed her chest by a few inches.  He lifted it back up, and went for another stomp- another miss.

	Lono cried out to him, “are you even listening?  Forget about her, the cave is gonna-!”

	Before he could finish his sentence, a large chunk of rock the size of a Tyranitar plummeted down from the ceiling, crushing the Garchomp in a blink of an eye.  Lono stared at it in dumbfounded shock, it happened so fast.  The thought scared him: the same could happen to him at any moment, and it would flatten him quicker than he could realize he was hit.

	“Lono, you idiot, quit gawking at the stupid thing,” his sister barked, snapping him out of his trance.  “Get me outta this thing!  Do you want us to end up like him?”

	“R-right.”  His sister had a point- time was running out.  The longer he stood there paralyzed, the less time they had to escape.  

	The giant headstone that marked his leader's demise exploded, shattered into dust and pebbles.  The Gabite twins drew their eyes toward the Garchomp, who demolished the boulder with one swing of his claw.  They thought he was crushed- the rock only fell in front of him.

	“I've had enough of  you,” Ku told Lono, his calm demeanor masking his rising anger.  “Every time I hear you speak, it's like listen to a crying Whismur up close.  Just the sight of you now disgusts me to my core,” he said while pointing to his open chest scar.  “I've become weak from losing so much blood, but I still have enough strength to kill y-!”

	Something climbed onto his back.  One of their tiny arms coiled and tightened around his neck, and the other tucked underneath his left arm, pulling him back with all their weight.  “Get off me!”  He flung himself around to try and break free from the Lopunny's hold, but she stuck to him like glue.  Even while being thrown about in the air like a sac of feathers, she kept her grasp tight.

	“You guys,” she called out to the Gabite twins, “Get out outta here as fast as you can!  I'll try to keep him busy!”

	Pele yelled back, “Are you nuts?  The cave will collapse on top of you!”

	“I know,” Lopunny shouted.  “If it means keeping this psychopath from hurting more Pokémon, from hurting my kids, it's something I have to do!  Hurry, get outta here-! ” 

	“I told you to get off me!” Ku struck the Lopunny in the face with his elbow, loosening her grip enough to throw her over his shoulder.

	Slamming onto the hard surface back first stunned Lopunny, knocking the air out of her lungs for a moment.  She opened her eyes to the dragon's foot plummeting straight down toward her head.  Rolling to her right, his stomp missed her, the rock beneath his foot shattered like frail glass.

	Lopunny performed what looked like a strange dance move to get back on her feet, hopping forward to stand on her hands before launching herself in the other direction like a spring.  Wobbly, she stumbled backwards a bit while landing, trying to regain a steady posture.  But her weight tipped her to fall on her knees, with one hand grasping over her bleeding wound.

	“You're a real nuisance to kill,” Ku told her.

	Underneath her winded pants, she gave the dragon a faint smirk and replied, “I consider that a good thing.”


	Working at an exhausted rhythm, Lono carved away at his sister's frozen shell.  His right claw sank deeper with each strike, breaking larger chunks from the mass, but it still wasn't enough to free her.  He stopped, huffing on the ice while pressing against it, the jagged pain in his chest began to overwhelm him.

	“Lono, what do you think you're doing?” Pele barked.  “Breathing on it won't get us nowhere!  Stop goofing around!”

	“You try doing this with a broken rib,” Lono replied in a pained huff.

	By the second more debris from the ceiling fell like hail, some barely the size of pebbles, others big enough to cave a Pokémon's head in on impact.  The cave itself groaned in agony, with cracks climbing up its crumbling walls, creating even more hazards to avoid.

	“Lono, we don't have time for this,” Pele shrieked,  “get me outta this thing!  Hurry!”

 	He returned to his routine of breaking large amounts of ice from Pele's restraint, carving into the crater he created in the ice.  His chest continued to scream in pain for him to stop, and arms burned with fatigue, but if he and his sister want to survive, he had to suppress it back for a few more moments.  

	He raced against the crumbling state of the cave, more and more debris fell from above with no telling where they'd land.  Clawing at the frozen mass, he managed to carve a Pele-shaped cavity into her casing, though she was still contained in its grasp.

	“Lono, hurry up,” she told him, “I can't handle this any longer!”

	“Just,” he huffed, “hold on for just, a second!”  Lono cleared most of the front side of the iceberg; all that's left was to pull his sister out from her mold.  He hooked his claws from behind her shoulders, pulling with a tender tug that gradually increased in harshness.

	“Ow, ow, ow!” Pele didn't realize how well ingrained she was into the ice.  Like a slowly removed bandage plucking off a few arm hairs, being gradually split from her mold took a few scales off her shoulders and back, though her dorsal fin slid out with little confrontation.  With her arms and legs freed one at a time, she plopped on top of her brother, a heavy groan of discomfort leaving his mouth.

	She barked to his face, “You could have done it a lot quicker than that, you idiot!”

	Underneath a pained breathe, he replied, “Get off, you're hurting me.”

	As much as she wanted to get off, Pele couldn't.  The ice had drained all of her strength from her body, her muscles were numb and cold.  The best she could do was strain herself to roll off his fractured chest, after which she laid on the ground, vulnerable to the cave's fall.  

	She couldn't feel it, but Lono wrapped his left claw around her middle frame, helping her stand as her crutch.  Her weight pushed down on his chest, the stabbing sensation returning to torment him.  Lono refused to move, but not because the pain paralyzed him.

	“Lono, what are you doing?” She asked.  “Go!”

	“I'm thinking,” he said, his voice crackling in discomfort.  He pointed his snout toward the Dungeon's tunnel, and said, “We can't exit that way: the cave will collapse on top of us by the time we get there.” His eyes traveled to the burrow his team dug, several yards away from the exit, “We can't exit through there, either: that's a thirty foot drop.”

	“I'd rather break my neck from a fall than get caved on,” She told him in a harsh manner.

	Lono would have joked about how she could only feel from the neck up, but time was slipping out of his grasp.  “Then it's settled, I guess,” he muttered, carrying his heavy sister over to the hole where they entered through.


	Broken and exhausted, Lopunny struggled to defend against the Garchomp.  She collapsed to her knees gripping her scar, hoping to stop the blood pouring profusely from her chest. her head felt light like a Drifloon, and the room started to spin around her.  It was a miracle she was even breathing, despite each huff for air being thin.

	Ku loomed over her like a scarred tower.  “I win,” he boasted to her.  “You gave me a good fight, I'll admit; the fun's over, now.  Prepare to die.”

	After a few short gasps, she broke away from her pain for just a moment to ask, “You keep saying you'll kill me, but why haven't you done it yet?  Don't say you grew attached to me.”

	“Don't worry about that,” he said, raising his remaining claw up high.  “For now- worry that I'll grant your request.”

	While focusing on his talon, Lopunny's eyes caught a glimpse of something in the background, and she knew immediately what they were- the next batch of rocks falling from above- and they seemed big enough to crush even a steel-type flat.  If she could push the Garchomp underneath their paths, she'd end this long-winded battle once and for all.

	She roared at the dragon, “I take back my request!”  With the last of her strength, she hopped into the air, driving both of her feet into Ku's chest with a quick drop kick.  The ice covering his scar broke wide open, spraying driblets of blood as all air in his lungs escaped him.  He stepped back several steps, stumbling to his knees as his breathing returned.

	A growing shadow encompassed him, taking his attention.  His eyes opened wide, gazing at the large chunks of death raining down on top of him, at a rate too quick to avoid.  Before he knew it, the stones crushed him underneath their weight, burying him instantly under their mound.

	Lono, with his sister wrapped around his shoulder, was near the hole where they entered from, when he felt a tremor from the earthy rain.  Before they could turn their heads around to witness Ku's burial, the ground beneath gave in without warning, causing them to plummet into the hole.


	Lopunny laid on her stomach, barely conscious enough to breathe.  Her body was numb from pain and exhaustion, not a single muscle could move; it'd be a miracle if they could even twitch.  “I-I'm spent,” she spoke slowly to the ground.  “I can't get back to the guild; I'm gonna be buried here.”  

	Her eyes welled up with tears, the streams were soaked up by her delicate fur.  She howled as if her heart was broken in many pieces, muddying the ground around her head with a rampant flood.  “I'm stupid,” she screamed in realization, “I'm stupid for letting this happen!  Why didn't I just escape the fight, and get back to my kids?  I deserve every bit of this!”  She calmed herself from her screams, though her sniffling and huffing still rang through the crumbling cave.  “I'm sorry, Oran.  I'm sorry, Pecha,” she whimpered.  “I became too careless, this time.  Please: grow up for me.”  Pequeño Cave couldn't bare its own weight anymore and collapsed, burying Lopunny with the last of its ruin.


	Pitch black darkness.  The cave-in sealed all light from streaming down the escape hole.  It's narrow walls did a good job from keeping most of the ruin from reaching the twins, though the interior creaked in stress.

	Lono's closed eyes twitched every time he was pecked in the forehead by a small pebble, though it wasn't enough to open them.  A softball-sized stone struck him in his right eye, causing him to jolt up in pain.  “O-ow!”  He gave his injured eye a little rub and a few blinks; his left eye could see perfectly well in the dark, but the vision in his right was foggy.  His eyelids wanted to latch closed, and so he let them. “That hurt,” he groaned to himself, giving it another gentle rub.

	He spotted his sister, Pele, unconscious not too far from him to his left.  He crawled toward her; despite his dragon body being built to endure punishment, falling from thirty feet with a broken rib didn't put him in a comfortable position.  At least she was lucky enough to have her body numbed.

	At first glance, when he got close to her, she seemed to not move at all; maybe she landed on her neck and broke it.  He prodded her fave gently with his right claw to see if she reacts to it: she twitched.  

	“S-stop it, Lono,” she groaned.  “Can you- can you pick me up?”  she still couldn't feel her own body.

	“Sure.” Like before, he wrapped his sister's arm around his shoulder as he stood up.  He wasn't in any condition to push himself, but if he wanted to escape alive, he had no choice.  He knew this tunnel only had one route- he hated the thought of going back- but he had no choice.  “Get those legs movin', Pele,” he told her as he walked with her at a slow pace down the tunnel.  “I can't keep dragging you around forever.”
