Skòll sighs. Skòll is happy that he does not have to babysit but he is sad that he will not teach the youth anything. "Bye Shani and bye Iron. I am off to train on my own. By the sounds of it, it is an easy battle if the alpha needs the children to help. Maybe I can go to the beach to find a water-type pokemon so I can train with it." Skòll starts to walk out of town towards the beach.

NPC
The Ursaring's feet pounded on the cave floor, making a boom each time they took a step. The first one, Brock, had his hands clasped around the Litwick's mouth so she couldn't talk, or worse, scream. He then put her in a glass, soundproof compartment and he tied it to the ceiling.

"There We go. Another light."

"How much longer?" the younger one asked eager to know. He had been waiting for the special moment when it would happen.

"Our eyes still need to adjust a bit more, then we're good to go"

The smaller one laughed in excitement, eager to see the burning ball of hope again.

Iron

Nodding his head furiously Iron ran towards the forest as fast as he could. "Come on! We have to go before we're too late!" Iron ran as fast as he could, careful to avoid his Stealth Rocks. "Watch out for my traps! They're to protect the village. And remember to stick with me too. It's gunna be dangerous and I will protect you!"

Eventually Iron managed to follow some of the adults into the forest where Luke was. "Alpha! I'm ready to fight! Let's go let's go let's go!" Iron seemed really excited at the prospect of battle, considering that he's never really been in a serious fight before.

Shani nodded along with Iron and followed him out to where the Alpha was, though his ‘extremely fast running’ was no more than a pretty excited jog for her. She barely dodged the Stealth Rocks the small aron had put up, and that was only because the little ant-like creature told her where they were. The fire-fox told the smaller pokemon as they ran, “You’re really good at putting traps up, Iron.”

Shani let Iron take the lead once they got outside of the village proper, following him as he seemed to know where he was going. They tagged along behind some adults, though her mother wasn’t among them – probably still out helping with the berry picking – until finally they reached where the Alpha and the others were waiting. Shani shrank slightly underneath his narrowed gaze but stood her ground. She wanted to help too, and nothing and nobody would stop her now!

“Where to first, Mister Alpha Luke?” She asked him, almost saluting the older male but deciding against it at the last minute.

Excluding Luke, that's one of the best things anyone's ever called me, Akira thought, referring to the pink Buneary's overly florid addressing of the Ninetales.

However, the Alpha's mate became very confused for a multitude of reasons. Summed up nicely, Honey Buns had ran towards her, yelled said overly florid addressing, placed a basket on the ground in front of Akira as if it was an offering, fallen asleep, and then floated away. After blinking two or three times, Akira concluded that it must have been Aster's doing...but why? She completely ignored the commotion of young Pokemon running into the forest under her, and the smoke coming from the forest itself, in favor of inspecting this basket that was apparently for her. There were some nice treats in it, but before Akira could begin eating them (obviously) the Buneary apparoached to her...again?

"Alright. What...?" The Ninetales was clearly confused. Finally noticing everything going on in the distance outside of her me-bubble, Akira closed her eyes and sighed, before opening them and looking at the Buneary approaching. "Care to explain to me what's going on before I start contributing to the flames? It looks fun, at any rate," Akira said to the shiny Pokemon. "And what's this basket? Is it for me?"

Shizuka and Masa woke up suddenly in Aster's den. They had no idea what had happened aside from the obvious: they fell asleep and were taken to Aster's den. Masa was on guard but Shizuka was calm, knowing that she was safe. She could guess that Aster must have found her and brought her away from the fighting. It was a shame, but she suppose it was for the best. She noticed a bunch of the other children leaving, prompting Shizuka to leave as well. "Come on Masa, let's go."

The village seemed to be bustling with a bit more life then before, though maybe that was because everyone was awake now. Shizuka noticed her father in the distance running towards the forest. She was a bit worried and went to make a note of it. That's when she realized, much to her horror, that she had left her notebook in the forest. "Masa, we need to go back into the forest! I left my journal behind!" "Right!" Masa quickly attacked herself onto Shizuka and they both teleported back into the forest.

Honey Bun

When Akira turned her attention to Honey, he could see the fire in her eye and cowered. He feel onto his back and got into a submissive posture, tears in his eyes. He didn't want the Alpha's mate to hurt him. "T-t-there's a fight in the forest! Something was making a fire. I don't know anything else, I swears! A-and yes, Madam Alpha Master. My parents made treats and wanted me to... Give it to you... If you like it." Honey continued to cower, not making direct eye contact for fear of having Akira attack him if he did.

@Driving Park

Iron

"C'mon, I think there tracks lead to over here!" Iron lead the way into the forest following the Ursaring tracks. They weren't hard to follow but there were a lot of tracks going in different directions. However the good thing was that Iron was able to spot the burn marks on the various trees; a sure sign of the Litwick that was captured. Iron continued onwards until they reached a clearing to a cliff side. The path ended at the cliff which seemed strange to Iron until he looked over the edge and noticed there was a ledge with more Ursaring tracks. "Those Ursaring must have climbed down here and moved into a cave or something. Let's go Shani, but let's be careful. I think I see a slope over there we can use."

@SpiritedDream

Shani followed the little Aron determinedly, following the tracks he had spotted. The burn marks they left on the trees from the captured Litwick still had tiny flecks of ember in them, but not enough to start another forest fire, and provided a very good indicator for the pair to follow.

When they reached the cliff side and Iron pointed out the cave over the edge, Shani grinned. "Right! I can get down there easy-peasy! Come on, Iron."

The fire fox loped over to the slope Iron had pointed out, easily jumping from and exposed rock to a little ledge a bit further down. When she went to jump again though, her legs tripped her up and she tumbled the rest of the way, landing at the bottom in a heap. "Oh, owww."

She rubbed at her head, and glanced up at Iron before glancing at the cave. From her position at the bottom of the slope, all on her own, the cave looked a bit scarier than it had from above with Iron.

Iron

Iron showed no fear, though he did at least take the slope and slid his way down. Thanks to be fairly heavy and having a low center of gravity he was able to descend to the bottom no problem. He met up with Shani who was klutzy enough to actually jump down and fall on her butt. "Shani, you need to be more careful. Now c'mon, I'm sure the Ursarings are in here. We have to be very quiet though, get a jump on them and stuff." Iron looked into the cave, seeing nothing but darkness. He could understand why the Ursarings would want a litwick: It was so dark in there!

Though a bit scared, Iron was the first to go inside. He moved carefully, listening to the echoes underground. He could hear the Ursarings, but he was too far away to make out any anything they were saying. But as they grew closer and closer, Iron could see more light. But strangely, it wasn't just the light of a fire. But multicolored lights, different hues, constantly shifting. That's when Iron and Shani would arrive to a massive cave filled with strange crystals. These crystals seemed to... Glow in the dark. However only faintly. And not too far away were five Ursarings, standing around the lone litwick suspended from the ceiling. They seemed to be waiting for something, just starting at the litwick who was sitting in fear in her glass prison.

"This is is Shani. I think we could take out two of them in one shot if we catch them by surprise..." Iron instinctively eyed a section of wall not too far away. He thinks that if he could run into it, he could cause some of the crystals above the ursarings to fall on top of them.

Shani poked her tongue out at her friend and slunk along behind Iron as he led the way into the cave, keeping her belly low to the ground. The crystals littered around the cave provided her with plenty of spaces to hide behind in case an Ursaring came out of nowhere suddenly, and the young fox had to shake her head to focus on the task at hand. They were so pretty though!

As Iron outlined a surprise attack, Shani nodded. "I can whip them with my tail, if you wanted. That might distract them from whatever you do? And then I can tackle another one."

Skòll made his way to the beach. The sun is well above the horizon over the area. Skòll wanted to train here but something told him otherwise. Skòll finds a nice spot to enjoy the serenity of the softly crashing waves. He thinks to himself "I have never seen a sunset on the beach nor the stars here at night. It is a pity that I am going to experience this alone." Skòll signs. Skòll gazes over the shimmering horizon and daydreams the rest of the day.

Iron

Iron nodded his head. This sounded like a good plan. "Alright, I'll get ready then. As soon as you distract them, I'm going to make some of those crystals fall on them. Just be careful not to get hit by them." Iron ran to a spot closer to where he needed to go. Right now if he tried to make the crystals fall the ursarings might be able to dodge them as they fall and it'd blow their cover. but if Shani distracts them long enough Iron can take out two, she takes on one, and then Iron would head up and the two would battle the other three. It wasn't going to be easy, but Iron was confident that they got this. Nothing was going to stop them now.

Shani took a deep breath, carefully stretching out her limbs whilst still making sure to not attract attention. This was what she dreamed of - well, she usually dreamed of a trainer being right there with her, but Iron was a good substitute in this case. Now she had to just not stuff up.

"Here I go." The little fox told her friend determinedly, and darted out from behind the crystal she had been taking cover behind. She focused entirely on her task, charging towards the Ursaring who were slow to react to the sudden appearance of the Fennekin. When the small fox pokemon was close she leapt high and spun midair, whacking one with her tail and drawing the attention of the others to herself. Shani used the chest of the one she hit to bounce back from the group, trying to get away from where Iron would be showering crystals any moment now. Though she tumbled a bit with the landing, the firefox was well clear of the drop zone, and any retaliating attacks by the Ursaring.

Iron

Iron waited until he saw Shani go and cause her distraction. As soon as she jumped off the chest of one of the Ursaring Iron rammed his head into the wall, causing a fissure to form up the wall and to the ceiling. This cave the crystals just enough room to budge and fall. The urasrings never noticed, as they were flailing around trying to smack the little fennekin. One roared very loudly, so loudly that it made more cracks in the wall and even made the glass prison begin to vibrate. He stopped roaring however when a large crystal fell on him and another ursaring, taking both of them out.

Luckily it seemed like Iron's attack managed to take out the boss ursaring, but before he fell unconscious he shouted out an order. "Get rid of the intruder!" The other ursarings roared and got ready for a fight, all of them trying to swing for Shani. Most of them couldn't catch the small pokemon, and the only one that was about to got slapped in the face with mud, courtesy of Iron. "Hey you big ugly bully! Let that Litwick go!" Iron shouted defiantly from behind Shani, running up to defend her as the uras wiped the mud off his face and growled at the two. They were outnumbered by just one, but these ursarings were waaaaay bigger then Shani and Iron combined.

Shizuka teleported back into the forest right where her journal was. Dusting off the dirt from it she was going to go back to the village when she noticed Shani and Iron run into the forest. "Now where are they going?" Masa looked up and noticed the burn marks on the trees. "It appears that they are following the ursarings. They must have captured some sort of fire pokemon, who left behind burn marks. Shall we go investigate?" Nodding her head Shizuka followed the burn marks to a cliff. Her telepathy was picking up some errant thoughts, and looking around she found some obvious trails that someone was here recently. Four legs, small creature, weighs quite a bit. Like a certain aron. "They must have gone down this cliff. I see a cave entrance not too far away. We should proceed with caution Shizuka." Huffing Shizuka took Masa out of her sheath and slid down to the cave. "Of course. Steel yourself Masamune. I suspect that we will run into trouble."

Shizuka and Masa crept into the cave quietly, with Shizuka using her telepathy to make sure nothing gets the jump on them. She was ready to use use a protective psychic barrier while Masa was ready to start slashing. Thy felt a tremor going through the ground, and assumed that some pokemon must have used a powerful ground-type move. they ran quickly and saw Iron and Shani fighting three Ursarings. "Stupid little kids! They're in way over their heads!" Shizuka said under her breath. She saw one of the Ursarings about to land a hammer arm right onto Iron, which Shizuka knew would do some serious damage to him. Fortunately she and Masa were in sync.

Before the ursaring would land his attack Shizuka teleported right in front of Iron, and Masa had detected the attack in time to parry the blow away from the aron. "You two get the other ursarings! Me and masa will take care of this one!"

Shani jumped a bit in surprise as the Kirlia and Honedge appeared in front of the two of them, but heaved a sigh of relief as the duo stopped the Ursaring from hitting Iron. That attack looked like it would have hurt a lot, and Shani didn't want to think about what might happen to her if the Aron fainted. She wasn't that strong yet!

"Right!" The little firefox exclaimed, turning her attention to the other two Ursaring while Shizuka and Masa focused on that one. She should be able to take one out, right? She could tackle, and she might even pull off an ember this time!

The Fennekin charged at one of the larger pokemon, darting between the crystals that had fallen to the ground. Her legs seemed to work just fine when she had some speed up, so she wasn't tripping over herself just yet, which Shani was extremely happy about. The little fox pokemon lept and tackled the Ursaring right in the chest headfirst, bouncing back off the thick fur it had with an, "Oomph." She growled lowly to herself, too low for the Ursaring to hear, and lept at it again with her front claws extended for a scratching attack, latching her teeth into the bear pokemon's arm.

It shook her around, trying to dislodge her teeth from its arm, and finally managed with a final wave. She flew back, taking a chunk of fur with her as she bounced and rolled along the cave floor, slightly away from the others. "Ah, owies..."

Iron

Iron braced himself for when the Ursaring was going to crush him, confident that he could take the blow, when out of the blue a kirlia and honedge teleported right in front of him. "Whoa! Where'd you come from?" Iron shouted, but there was no time for questioning. Sure enough this even the odds a bit more and Iron was going to take advantage of this the best he can. Iron started by creating a small sandstorm around him, kicking up dust and dirt to both hide him as well as hurt the ursarings. He charged forward to attack, but the ursaring he was fighting wasn't so foolish to be able to miss Iron. He readied a hammer arm and swung at Iron, hitting him square on. Just as Iron intended.

He had a plan, a real daredevil maneuver. A trick he learned to fight against bad guys like these ursarings. With the sandstorm around him, the ursaring was buffeted by bits of rock and crystals. Iron knew that he couldn't avoid the ursaring's attack, but he also knew that he could withstand it. He took a hit straight to the face, but that meant little to him as he was sturdy and steadfast. "Waaaargh!" Iron hit the Ursaring with as much Endeavor as he could muster, despite his critical injuries. Iron's attack combined with the sandstorm whipping the Ursaring in the face was enough to knock the big pokemon out and into the wall. And over all the chacaphony of fighting, Iron's little shell bell rang, reminding him of why he fights. Of the home he protects. Of the people he's relying on him right now.

Turning towards the others he noticed that Shani was thrown to the wall. This made Iron angry, and in his anger he charged towards the Ursaring. "I'm going to take you down!"

Shizuka and Masa attacked their ursaring as soon as Iron and Shani went to deal with their own. Shizuka fought defensively, serving as the shield for Masa as she whittled down the Ursaring with Fury Cutters. Their teamwork was almost flawless; even has the Ursaring quickly figured out that Shizuka could Protect herself and Masa all day, while Masa circled around the two of them to slash up the Ursaring. If only he was faster so he could catch Masa, as she her blows became stronger and stronger the more she landed her fury cutters. Eventually the Ursaring fell onto his knees, almost finished. "Now, go to sleep!" This was Masa's cue to use a rock smash on the Ursaring, knocking him into the ground. Though uninjured their breaths were heavy, and Shizuka turned to the others to see how they handled their opponents.

”Waaaaargh!”

Iron charged straight towards the Ursaring, confident that he could take him down the same way he took down the other one. But what Iron didn’t expect was for the Ursaring to fight defensively; instead of trying to smash Iron into the ground, he raised his arms up as Iron tackled into him, doing very little damage. ”Whah?” From there, Iron was too slow to react to the brutal beat down.

The Ursaring grabbed Iron and tossed him into the ceiling. He smashed into a crystal before falling down, but instead of hitting the ground the ursaring smashed Iron with a sky-uppercut, once again bashing Iron against the roof. As he fell the Ursaring grabbed Iron, slamming him onto the ground before stomping on Iron. “Stupid little runt! Back into the dirt with you! Now… Where’s that other one?” The Ursaring turned towards Shizuka, figuring that Iron and Shani were done for.

Iron was broken. His face cracked, his shell shattered, and a red/black mineral leaking through his body. He was bleeding. It was questionable if he was even alive; his mangled and broken body certainly looked dead.

Shani shook her head to clear the slight dizziness that accompanied being flung across the cave and looked up just in time to see her friends body get stomped on. She called out in dismay as the little Aron went limp, “Iron!”

The firefox glared up at the looming Ursaring, who had focused on the teen pokemon instead. “You hurt my friend.” She growled lowly. The Fennekin pushed herself back to her feet, her ears folded back and tail waving angrily as she spoke. “I won’t forgive you!”

’Focus. Feel the power, condense the energy.’ She thought to herself, reaching for the fire that always burned within but she could never pull out. ’Iron needs help. I can’t fail him.

The fire burned in the back of her throat, and Shani was quick to spit the small embers at the Ursaring. Though they weren’t large, or overly powerful, the fox pokemon kept up a stream of them as she ran around to one side of the Ursaring, getting in closer whilst also avoiding being in an easy-to-reach position. It would do Iron no good if the young Fennekin got hurt the same way.

The Ursaring growled in irritation, small patches of fur smoldering under the pepperspray of embers, and he turned to face Shani, swinging a large paw at the small pokemon. Shani used her smaller size to duck between a pair of close-standing crystals, and the Ursaring roared as his paw struck them instead.

Quickly seeing her chance while the bear pokemon was distracted by the shards of crystal currently embedded in one paw, Shani darted at the large pokemon. Lowering her head, she rammed into his shoulder, knocking the larger pokemon off balance. A tail whip aimed at his feet when she landed again tripped the unstable Ursaring up, and he fell back with a mighty crash. The cave shook, more crystals raining down on the pokemon within as Shani released a final ember into the downed Ursarings face.

“And stay down!” She commanded him as his eyes fluttered shut, the combined damage finally adding up to unconsciousness. The little firefox gave a decisive nod before turning to her friend. “Iron! Oh no, Iron. Wake up!”

She nudged at the limp body of her friend, and whirled on the Kirlia. “You have to help him!”