Another fire, again?

This was getting out of hand, honestly!

The exact same thing had happened previously, and it was around this same time of the year as well, to boot. Lars could only sigh as he saw the smoke rising out from the direction of Oldale—thank hell he was close by being over in Petalburg at the time—before he cut through the short path.

Unballing the Swampert, he pointed at the direction of the smoke.

“Ryujin, go, help put that fire out!” he said, before the dual-type rushed forward, summoning a pack of storm clouds before she let loose with a localized Rain Dance around the area where the smoke was coming from.

This was enough to give him time to catch up, as the Metagross followed soon after.

“If there’s anyone who needs help, go help them, Ro,” he said as the hulking silver beast appeared, before folding in its legs and going after the Swampert.

Hopefully he wasn’t too late…

It didn’t take too long for the Metagross to catch up to the Swampert, who was now focusing her attention on localizing the downpour around the burning building.

As the dual-type kept her attention on the gray clouds above the temple, the Metagross noticed another Pokémon enter the burning building before a funnel of flames—at least that’s what it looked like—shot out from somewhere, headed into the sky; only to be extinguished by the pouring rain.

Finally Lars reached the structure proper in time to see someone come out of the burning structure.

“Ryujin! Focus the rain on the structure!” he continued as the Metagross saw a falling beam and caught it just in time with a Telekinesis gesture, setting it upright.

A third Pokémon emerged from his presence—this time, a Gardevoir. “Life Dew,” he said in Lynette’s direction, before she released a soothing dew around the other two.

“Is there anyone else inside?” he asked the other man, who was helping the temple worker to sit up.

“What?”

That was his first exclamation. Was this old-timer nuts?!

“Are you crazy?!” he exclaimed a few moments later. “I don’t think your companion agreed there either,” he pointed out, tilting his head in the Houndoom’s direction. Clearly the canid was distraught.

“You stay here, I’ll go in there instead!” he continued. “Don’t risk yourself!” he added. “You look like you’re about to collapse!”

With that, he squared his shoulders and saw that the Rain Dance from earlier was coming down harder.

“Ryujin! Crank it up!” he added a few moments later, shrugging off his jacket and tying it around his waist. “You stay right there!” he called to the older man before heading towards the structure.

Lars had already made up his mind to go into the burning wreck to see if there was anyone else inside—he was younger, not to mention faster, but—

“What?!” he exclaimed, seeing that he wasn’t alone when he’d arrived at the edge of the temple. “Are you for real?!” he called after the older man. He would be fine on the most part, but all the same—

Another burst of red light emerged; this time it was his Gallade.

“Keep an eye on him for me, will you? I’ll be fine! I swear! Go!” he said in the Gallade’s direction, who gave him a ‘are you serious?!’ look before shrugging and following the other man as they went left. “Get him out of the place if anything bad happens to him!” he called out.

The rain continued to pour down in earnest. Well, it was time to face the fucking fire.

“Here goes,” he muttered to himself, before plunging into the burning wreck. Even if a certain deity was displeased at being so close to the flames, what could he do?! He had to check if there was anyone else inside!

The Gallade continued to follow the older man quietly. Of course he was going to follow the other man around regardless of what he said! The Pokémon deflected an incoming piece of burning debris in time, knocking it away with a Psycho Cut attack.

Looking straight ahead, another burning piece of falling infrastructure was about to come crashing down where the other man was, so moving as quick as possible, he unfurled a Protective screen, shielding him and the other Pokémon he heard.

Over where Lars was—

Thankfully, there was nobody human inside that part of the temple. The smoke was making it hard to see, so he had to crouch down lower to the ground—and then he heard it.

A wailing coming from somewhere.

“Ah, shit!” he hissed. With the Swampert outside causing the rainfall; his Gardevoir with the temple worker outside and the Gallade who knew where—he had to do something.

Having so many Pokémon out all at once was a challenge but he knew they were all capable. Sending out his Altaria, the fluffy cloud let out a shriek of surprise.

“Freeze it. Just—go. Freeze the closest thing you can!” he said, and the Altaria fired off an Ice Beam. Thankfully there was nobody else around to see what he was about to do—

Slipping a glove off his hand, he then touched the point of contact where the ice had formed. Knowing that ice would melt into water, he hoped this harebrained insanity would work! The ice that had already accumulated spread out, an attempt to stabilize the creaking wood.

One part of the temple was slowly, very slowly, turning into an icy wonderland. The Altaria shivered, but Lars held his ground.

“Nami, stay close. I can’t guarantee you’d not freeze over,” he said absently, taking his hand off and away from the point he’d touched. The ice shuddered to a stop, but it was melting due to the heat of the fire. He thought he heard the wailing noise intensify, and so he went in deeper, cloudy dragon by his side.

Over where the Gallade was, he saw the Houndoom re-enter, take a Persian by the scruff of its neck and bolted out, harnessing the flames and keeping it away from the other Pokémon as much as possible. Looking over at the human—was he out of his—whoa!

Backing up slightly, he felt the unconscious man’s weight on him, before flashing a look of—was this other man going to be alright?! Blinking a few moments, the Gallade used Teleport to wink out of the temple, appearing next to the Gardevoir who was standing guard near the crying temple staffer.

The two exchanged a look, before the Gallade crouched down and let the unconscious man slide to the ground—and then Teleporting out again, to return to wherever the crazy man had gone off to.

No way was he going to let the other die on his watch!

He wanted to kick the door down.

However, he knew how brittle ice made frozen structures, especially if they were made of wood.

So…

Lars knew he had to handle this carefully! Hopefully the thing wouldn’t come crashing down on him as he inched the frozen door off to one side—and then the splintering, shuddering, cracking of wood happened.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, before the Altaria fired off another Ice Beam to prop the door up. Right in the room was—a little girl!

“What the—” he exclaimed, quickly walking over to her and picking her up. “We’re getting the hell out of here. Nami! Go!” he called to the Altaria, continuing to fire off Ice Beam after Ice Beam to keep the place steady.

Over where the Gallade had reappeared—there was a pile of rubble instead. Where was the man—he heard a voice.

Groaning, the Gallade took aim at the pile of rubble, before releasing a precisely-aimed Psycho Cut and sending the fallen wood flying off and away from where it had fallen down.