If and When, Part 2 (Team Covenant M6)

A Stygian darkness enveloped Martin as he awoke. He coughed fitfully, wincing as he shifted his broken wing. Immediately, Theo came to his side, ministering to the Spearow as gently as he could with the darkness pressing in on them. "How are you?" grunted Theo, standing by uneasily. Despite his efforts, the Venipede could do nothing to help his friend, and it was frustrating him.

"Not very well," said Martin, terse with pain. "But I'll live." He blinked furiously, trying to pinpoint Theo's face or indeed any aspect of his surroundings, but the inky blackness was like a veil pressed right up against his eyes, muffling and suffocating. "Would you mind enlightening me on the nature of our current predicament?"

"Well...there was a cave in," said Theo. "If anything else was going to fall, it would have, so at least we're safe from death by crushing. I hope."

"Inspiring," said Martin, dryly, and a sharp twinge of pain cut short his little streak of sarcasm. "Anything else?"

"I don't know if there's a way for fresh air to get in here..." muttered Theo, scraping his feet on the gravel. "And I have no idea how big this little pocket is."

Martin's heart began to flutter at the thought of being cut off from the sky. It was natural for Flying Pokémon to have some extent of claustrophobia, and Martin's breathing came fast and hard at the thought of suffocating to death underneath a pile of rubble...

"Martin, shh," said Theo, firmly. "We'll be OK. Someone's bound to have noticed and there are rescuers everywhere, so just...relax."

"Oh, yes, I'm quite tranquil, this serendipity is the most wonderful accident that could have ever occurred on our first day on the job," babbled Martin, feathers akimbo as he tried to drag himself into a more comfortable position. "Don't mind me, I'm positively serene."

Theo was quiet for a moment and then he said, half-heartedly, "Well, at least we know that it'll take a LOT to fix this place up, huh? I'd say we did a....a pretty good first job."

Martin snorted and curled up on his side, cradling his broken wing.

The dusty silence returned, broken only by the occasional fitful cough from Martin or the scraping of Theo's legs on the bare dirt.

"I'm going to try and see how far this extends," said Theo, slowly. "I didn't want to go too far in case I lose you, but...just call out if you need anything. And talk to me if I need to find my way back. Is that OK?" Theo looked at the silent Spearow pensively. "I'll stick with you if you need to rest or something," he added, hesitantly.

Martin waved the Venipede away with his good wing, not saying a word, and slowly, Theo backed away. Antenna brushing the ground in front of him, Theo walked slowly but surely, keeping up a steady and constant monologue fluctuating between assurance and anxiety. "This'll be a story to tell, once we start getting to know other teams, won't it?" Theo said, with his head still buried in the dirt in front of him. "Oh, yeah, we just survived an entire building falling down on us on our first mission, it was nothing, really." He laughed at his own joke, stopping to comb the dust and little grains of rock from his antenna.

A few meters away, Martin breathed very deeply, sucking in great, noisy gasps of air through his beak.

"Don't, eh-heh, use up all the air, Martin," said Theo, moving forward again. He figured that if he kept moving in a straight line, he would hit some kind of wall eventually, and then he would follow it around the little air pocket. He hadn't hit that wall yet, which was good news, although, then again, Theo hadn't been walking very fast and for all he knew Martin could be lying right next to the opposite wall in the pitch black. "We wouldn't want to suffocate to death in here, would we?"

Suddenly, Martin choked and he began breathing very hard and fast, moaning to himself.

"OK, that was a bad choice of words," Theo admitted, and his antenna brushed up against a hard, compact, and vertical wall of dirt. Theo raised a claw, scratching experimentally, and the sheer slope crumbled away slightly. It was possible to climb up to the top of the crumbling slope, but combined with its steepness and his blindness, it would be extremely difficult. Instead, Theo began his slow patrol around the perimeter of their little confined area, saying, "Look, Martin, we're getting out of here, OK? I'm telling you, it'll take an hour, tops. I'll tell you what's not going to happen, though. We're NOT going to d...we're not going to be trapped down here, OK? We're getting out. That's final." From Theo's mouth, it was a statement of fact, an eventuality that had yet to occur.

"Do not waste your breath on such trifles," said Martin, finally. He winced as he shifted again, and after a pause, continued. "Whether we escape from these abyssal confines is a matter entirely in fate's hands now. The best we can do is prolong the inevitable in the hope that some happy bystander will intervene before then. As you previously mentioned, we 'don't want to use up all the air.'"

Theo opened and closed his mouth mutely, but there really was nothing he could say to that. "That was kind of depressing," he said, finally, coming to a halt somewhere along the wall. He didn't know where he was and his mental map was slightly skewed, but the cavern seemed spacious enough that they wouldn't have to worry about air for a long time, although whether or not that fact was comforting Theo had yet to decide. There was no food or water or way out. They had nothing to do but play the waiting game, and as far as the adamant Venipede was concerned he was not going to spend the entire time meditating or praying or whatever it was Martin was doing.

"Want to...I don't know, play a game?"

"A game?" repeated Martin, testily.

"Yeah, a game. We could, you know, play that one game where I say a word, and then you say the first word that comes to mind, and then I say a word..."

Martin harrumphed and said nothing, which was the closest thing to agreement that Theo was going to get. He plunged resolutely onwards. "OK, I'll start. Um...flowers."

"Asphyxiation."

Theo rolled his eyes. "Martin."

"Please, Theodore! I am in no mood to frolic along with you in whatever fabricated verdant field your heat oppressed brain is currently residing in," snapped the Spearow from his position on the ground. "Leave me in peace!"

"No!" Theo shouted back, voice cracking slightly. "I'm not going to let you mope on the ground like this forever! You get back up and you try to have some spirit, Martin, and heaven help you, maybe while you're pretending you'll get some."

"Get up? In case, you haven't noticed, Theodore, my wing is currently broken. It is causing an inordinate amount of pain that I am doing my very best to quell, and I think under the current circumstances I am coping EXTRAORDINARILY well." Martin turned his head to the side, sulking almost audibly.

Growling, Theo continued his patrol around the outskirts of the cavern. Martin was injured, fine. He had a right to feel pain. But the stupid little bird was always grousing about every little thing! If he just got up and worked, worked like a decent honest man for once, instead of flipping his lid every single time the tiniest thing went wrong...

Theo almost missed what his antenna brushed up against as he pounded along. Hesitantly, he stopped, stroking the strange mass blindly. It wasn't dirt or stone, that was for certain. Extremely cold to the touch, freezing almost, the thing had probably been lying down there for quite some time, without ever seeing the light of the sun. Theo traced its contours, saying to Martin in a resolutely cheerful voice, "Hey, Martin! I think I've found something!"

"What now?" grumbled the Spearow, his voice muffled as he spoke in the opposite direction, refusing to turn over.

"I said I think I found something! Maybe an Ice Pokémon left it behind or something, I think it'll help us!" Theo continued to trace the thing. It was long and thin, although smooth to the touch, yet oddly stiff when he tried to move it. It rolled in the dirt, awkwardly, and the Venipede touched it gently. What was this thing?

Then he felt the frozen hand lying limply at the end.

Theodore stumbled backwards, feeling the bile rising up in his throat. It was some poor person's frozen arm, and it was not connected to the rest of the body. The Venipede shook his head, scrubbing at his antenna almost neurotically until he was afraid he would tear them off, tear them off and leave them there frozen and dead like- like...

"Theodore?" asked Martin, concern slipping into his voice as silence answered him. "Theodore, what'd you find? Theodore?"

The Venipede didn't answer. He couldn't. If the arm was there...

Theo crawled forward, shuddering as he touched the severed limb. He came across another hand, a mutilated body, even what felt like a single, chilly finger in the dirt. And then, thrown up against the wall in the same undignified pile as the broken furniture, like rag dolls strewn by a giant's hand, the cold, swollen corpses.

He didn't know what Pokémon they were. He didn't know their faces or names or families. He probably never would.

Theo shook his head, trying to fight back tears, but they welled up, hot and prolific, anyways.

"Theodore? Theodore, I am not joking! Answer me!" Martin cried.

"They're- they're dead, Martin," stammered Theo, backing away blindly through the dark. His head was swimming, his brain was clouded, his antenna were dirty with death. Theodore the Venipede was not complicated, but his simple emotions were nevertheless profound. "They're dead, Martin, they're dead. Oh, Arceus, they're dead."

Martin stopped sulking after that. "Who's dead? Theodore? Theo!"

"He m-must have frozen them," Theo said. "D-during the blizzard. They must have died, then, and then f-fell down o-or something. It was quick, right? It was must have been quick. They didn't feel it. They didn't feel it when he- he..."

A hushed whisper came from Martin. Solemnly, he was praying.

Theo shook his head, trying to gain control over himself. "That's not happening to us. We're not dying down here. We're not! And they shouldn't have, either! It's...it's not fair. What did they do wrong? What did they do wrong to deserve...?"

"They are with Him, now," Martin muttered, eyes shut tight. "Amen."

For a moment, the two Pokémon sat there, alone and cold in the tiny little air pocket under the suffocating weight of rock and earth, where no one could hear them yell or pray or cry. For a moment, they felt utterly alone, as if they were already inside death's murky bosom.

"Look at me," said Theo, barking a short, harsh laugh. "Crying over some people I don't even know."

"It is fine to mourn, Theodore. We have lost much lately," said Martin, lying back down and staring upwards into nothing. "We have lost so much."

"It kind of makes you want to sit down and just give up, you know?" Theo said. He had stopped his patrol and was lying morosely on the ground, waiting for time to pass, waiting for help to come, waiting for who knew what. "I mean, what's the point of going on if we're all going to end up like that?"

Martin said nothing, deep in thought.

"But...but that's the wrong way to think, isn't it? You can't just give up. You don't. It's just...not right," said Theo, feebly. He was scratching his antenna again and thinking very hard. "You're not supposed to give up," he repeated, again, as if it would somehow become the truth by repetition. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Martin, I completely forgot- how's your wing? How're you feeling?"

"Weighed down in both spirit and body," grunted Martin, "But I think I can persevere for a little while longer."

"Don't be afraid to fall asleep," Theo said, looking around even if he couldn't see anything. "It's not like I'll leave you behind when help comes."

Martin chuckled ruefully. "If, Theodore. If help comes."

"When, Martin, when," said Theo, and he couldn't help himself from smiling. "You get some rest. I'm going to keep looking."

"For what?" asked Martin, perplexed. "What else could you possibly find in this dismal abyss?"

"Stuff," Theo said, simply, and with a snort Martin laid his head down to rest. Soon after, his snores began to echo throughout the cave. Theo checked to make sure he was asleep, and then began walking back to the pile of corpses. Even in the total darkness, the path towards the pile stood out in his mind like a trail of red paint. It wasn't exactly something that he could easily forget.

Closing his eyes, Theo took a deep breath and took hold of the frozen arm. He considered it for a moment and then, resolving himself, began to dig.

The hole was shallow, at best; stubby Venipede legs were not the best for excavation, but Theo managed to dig a hole large enough for the arm to rest in, and then laboriously smoothed it over with dirt.

Sweat dribbling down in front of his eyes, Theo moved forward and dragged a heavy corpse from the pile. It was stiff and awkward, but, determined, Theo shifted the corpse away from the pile and began to dig again. The hole had to be much deeper and wider this time; too many times, Theo accidentally fell in his own hole, causing the side to subside and doubling his workload. All the same, the Venipede did not stop digging. He didn't know what would happen if he stopped digging. He didn't want to stop to find out. He had work to do.

If the first corpse had been hard to bury, the second one was hell. Every muscle in his body ached, his breath came hot and clammy. If he had used up the air in the cavern already...but, no, there was plenty of air. Theo wasn't about to give himself excuses. He kept digging. If one of them had gotten a proper burial, then they all deserved one, and that was final.

When Theo got to the third body, he began to wonder just how many had died down in this dank cavern. How many had been caught in that single cold blast, frozen into a living sculpture, their lungs turned to ice before they could draw breath to scream? Doesn't matter, Theo thought. Keep digging.

By the time he reached the fourth body, Theo had to rest. There were stars popping in front of his eyes and his vision was bleary. Little splotches of light seemed to be illuminating the cave, but of course they were nothing except whiteness on a black canvas. Except...the light was moving, purposefully, towards him. It moved and shifted, but it was consistent. Theo blinked.

"Hello?" asked a voice, and suddenly there was hope! It blinded Theo with its brightness, but he could not stop watching the wonderful, wonderful streak of light. Martin shifted, on the edge of consciousness but bound to his sleep by the pain in his wing. "The Rescuers outside asked me if I could come in and take a look, after the cave-in."

The Tynamo looked around as Theo almost began to sob with relief. "It's none of my business, really, I'm supposed to help the Rogues gather up the bodies, but-."

"Oh," said Theo, wobbling. He looked at the shallow grave he had dug. "I'm afraid...you'll have to dig them up, then."

And then he collapsed, out of some combination of relief and exhaustion.