Paul and Dawn: First Light

Chapter 59: Rising

Chapter 59: Rising 

We edged closer to the entrance and found Tom squatting down far enough away so that he was unseen by anyone coming near the mouth of the cavern. 

"Good, you're conscious." He smiled at Dawn. 

"Where are our Pokemon?" I asked sternly. 

"Commander Fuller has them with him. He's always carrying a satchel on his hip. His Houndoom is usually out of its Poke Ball, guarding it. Obviously, no one ever messes with the Commander because he's, well, ruthless." 

Tom held out his burnt arm, which was a shiny, blood red. Dawn gasped at the sight, her body leaning instinctively towards me. She looked away from his arm, trying not to shudder at what his arm now represented. That's what we'd get, if not worse, if we were caught.  

"Is my Piplup in his Poke Ball now?" Dawn asked worriedly. 

Tom hesitated. "I think so." 

It wasn't very convincing. I glared at him. 

"Hey, I just joined. I don't know the inner workings of this little rag tag team yet. Really, this isn't even Team Magma anymore. It's just psychotic people getting together to cause mayhem, run by Fuller who's the most twisted guy I've ever met." 

"Do you have any Pokemon?" I asked. 

"No. Roger gave them all to Commander Fuller as soon as he tied me up. And you better watch out- Fuller may be crazy, but he's raised some extremely powerful Pokemon and doesn't care if he's attacking a Pokemon or a human. You've seen that for yourself." He nodded to me. 

"The only Pokemon I have is my Bagon who's still extremely weak from when you kidnapped Dawn," I said, hoping to hear actual information that could help me form a plan. "When is your group going to go to sleep and how many people will be on watch?" 

"They're not going to sleep for at least another hour and by then someone would come to replace Roger and notice we're gone so we can't wait for that." Tom sighed. "Does your Bagon know any fire attacks?" 

"Yeah, Flamethrower. Why?"  

"If we start a fire, maybe we can get everyone to scatter. They don't own any Water Pokemon since they hate the ocean. When everyone's trying to run away, maybe we can grab Fuller's satchel, get our Pokemon back, and then we'd stand a chance against him." 

I considered the plan. The fire could get very out of hand if we didn't rescue Piplup in time to help put it out. The fire could kill us all and the Commander might flee, our Pokemon lost forever. 

Sighing internally at our lack of options, I stared at Dawn. "What do you think?" 

She frowned. "I don't like the plan, but I can't think of a better one." 

I grimaced. "Let the world burn, then."

We found Bagon once Dawn and I had all snuck back into the forest and walked far away enough so that the other Team Magma members wouldn't go looking. His body trembled and I frowned, wishing I had some Oran berries to give him some energy and stop his constant shaking. 

"Listen, Bagon. I'm going to need you to set the forest on fire. Just a small section to distract Team Magma. If you don't, we might never get the rest of our friends back," I said urgently. "I know you're tired, but we might have to fight. Are you ready?" 

Bagon nodded, but looked fearful. 

I put a hand on his head. "You're strong and you've come so far, Bagon. I'm really proud of you."