CARSON

            It was dreadfully hard to run in the sand.  It was hard to gain your footing, and so he had helped out his little Torchic by holding it in his arms.  He had just escaped from the raging sandstorm on the outside, and the grains had embedded themselves in his black leather pants, in his shirt, and in other places that made running most uncomfortable.

            Even the floor of this rocky maze was sandy, and soon all the light from the entrance to the tunnel gave out.  Sensing his need, Pyro the Torchic let out little balls of fire every couple of seconds, illuminating the tunnels and walls for just a split second at a time, but it was enough.

            I have to find it… I have to find it… was all Carson Brightflame could think.  Twists and turns there were in the dark tunnels, forks in his road but each decision that he made he knew was the right one.  He never circled back to where he had started. 

            Then he found what he was looking for, and he remembered.  The Stone Giant had called to him for many nights now, and finally he had found it.  Torchic hopped out of Carson’s arms and they slowly approached it.  Yet just when Carson was about to open his mouth to speak to it, only a loud horn could be heard.

            He awoke with a start, there was commotion outside the tower on Lavaridge’s Castle where Carson slept.  The sound of men shouting, the ringing of metal and the cries of Torkoal, Slugma, Numel and countless other Pokémon.  Carson tried to shut his eyes again, it was too early in the morning for such disruptions.  He would have a talk about that with his father later.

            Carson’s thoughts tried to swim back to the sandy tunnels, to find the Stone Giant again, but it was all in vain.  The noise was too much, and it was getting louder.

            The youngest Prince of the Mt. Chimney Kingdom sat up with a start.  Pyro was awake as well, and uncertainty was in its eyes.  “What’s wrong, boy?” Carson asked. 

            Torchic ran over in the dark and hopped onto the bed, pulling at Carson’s bed sleeves.  The ten year old was too tired to sleep, so he followed his Spirit Pokémon’s lead. 

            Out the tower window, he could see Lavaridge Soldiers in their black stone armor guarding the gate, shouting orders at each other.  He could see fires in the town beyond the castle gates. 

            “Those don’t look like blacksmith fires,” he said unsurely.

            “Torchic tor,” Pyro whispered as it ran back inside the tower from Carson’s balcony.  He followed Pyro back into the darkness of his room. 

            “Pyro,” he whispered, he had lost sight of it.  Perhaps it was all a game.  Maybe Pyro couldn’t sleep either.  “Pyro?” He looked for what seemed like hours until he looked over by his empty fireplace.  Torchic poked its little orange head out of the ashy rocks and once again pulled at Carson’s sleepwear. 

            Carson Brightflame braced himself to make impact with the back of the fireplace, but he felt Pyro’s sure tug pull him along.  It was almost as if he was in a completely different room.  No, he thought as he felt all alongside and above his head.  This is a tunnel.  A secret tunnel!  There was excitement in him now, and his dreams disappeared into the mist of memory. 

            The tunnel went on for what seemed like an eternity, but Carson knew he was spiraling his way down the tower.  He had his hands on rough rocks that jettisoned out from the smooth walls when the incline became steeper.  Occasionally, Pyro would stop and expel a little bit of fire to make sure that its Spirit Partner was still following. 

            Eventually, the tunnel leveled out, yet it kept moving.  On and on they went.  It was only until Carson could hear the vague shouting coming from above him did he realize he was underground. 

            “Bloody traitors,” the one voice was yelling.  “Shoot them down! Shoot them all down!” Came the voice of another. 

            Perhaps I am still in a dream, Carson thought.  This time he was able to tone the voices from above out from his head.  His adventure with Pyro was the only thing that mattered now. 

            Pyro was named after Pyro Brightflame, the first.  It was said that Pyro raised the black stone castle from the heart of Mt. Chimney itself, after he had founded the Mt. Chimney Kingdom.  His older brother Brandon hadn’t named his Spirit Pokémon, nor his father, King Carlos.  Carson didn’t care, it made him feel more like a friend to his Torchic. 

            At long last, the tunnel began to climb upwards again.  Suddenly, Pyro stopped, and the roof over Carson’s head was gone.  Slowly, the young boy stood up and stretched his arms and legs, it seemed like it had been forever. 

            “Where are we, boy?” he asked Pyro excitedly.  The orange chick wasted no time lighting up the room they found themselves in with an impressive burst of flame.  Carson gasped at what he saw.

            The stones were no longer black, but tan so as to paint on.  There were Spinarak webs all in the corners where the light of Pyro’s flames could barely reach them.  Nobody has seen this place in ages, Carson knew.  At the far end of the hall where Carson was standing, there was a painting of a Blaziken, fists ablaze and pointing at two separate tunnels, and it stood on one foot.  At least, it looks like father’s Blaziken.  Yet the coloring had black on it, and the feathers on its head stood up rather than lay down.  Strange…

            Pyro sniffed at the tunnel on the right, then the left, and decided to take a left.  Carson didn’t know why the Pokémon chose this tunnel, as it was so stinky.  It was hard to navigate too, going up, down, up again, and finally descending to a stop.  Torchic set the end of the tunnel ablaze in light, and an old stone stair was revealed.

            Pyro hopped up the stones easily enough, but Carson felt weighed down by something.  A voice called out, yet he couldn’t make out the words.

            “Child of Fire, bringer of Freedom.”

            “Pyro? Did you just talk?” Carson whispered in wonder.  Pyro stopped and looked down at its partner in the dark and cocked its head to the side as if to ask “what are you talking about?”  Carson thought he must be getting tired again, yet he pushed on.

            At the top of the stone stair, the ceiling closed in on him.  The poor boy did bump his head slightly, but then the ceiling seemed to slide out of its way with the sound of stone grinding against itself.  They were in another chamber, and as soon as the sound of the stone ended, a deep growling came from somewhere close by. 

            “P-Pyro?” he asked.  Pyro let out its ball of fire, yet Carson was confused about what it illuminated.  He was in some kind of a jail, with intercrossing bars of hard iron behind him…

            And in front of him was a dark shape with angry red eyes. 

            Torchic ran out of breath just in time for the eyes to glimpse Carson.  When Torchic let out another breath, the eyes were right in front of the Prince of Mt. Chimney Kingdom.

            The rumbling of Swampert’s voice was like an earthquake it seemed.  Carson was frozen with fear.  It was much bigger from up close, twice as tall as he, even though Swampert was on all fours.  It was even skinner in the week that it had been here, for lack of food most like.  The light of Torchic’s flame went out again, yet Carson could see the marks of the torture it had received: red gashes, fresh whipping wounds that still oozed blood and puss, and of course the chunk of missing back fin that Starfall’s Salamence had torn out from before.  It sniffed at Carson, inspecting every single bit of his clothing.

            “I… I’m sorry… I’m not going to hurt you…” he said, and his leg was warm from wetting himself.

            “AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOGH!” Swampert roared and Carson knew he was going to die.

            So it came as a shock when he didn’t and Torchic breathed another flash of light.  Being in the dark so long, Carson knew that the Pokémon welcomed the light, and Swampert must hate the darkness it was confined to. 

            “HOLD THIS DOOR, DON’T LET THEM IN!” came a voice from outside the room with the prison inside.  Brandon’s voice, Carson knew his brother when he heard him.  “DON’T LET- AAAARGH!”

            What’s happening? I’m scared… He felt the stones in the floor shaking, and he knew Swampert was moving at the sound of the voices outside.  When the sound of a lock on a door moving about was heard, the huge blue Pokémon began to panic.

            I can’t let them hurt his poor Pokémon again… Carson thought.  The Torchic lit up the room again as banging at the door was heard, and Pyro ran back down the stone stair that was hidden in the floor. 

            “Swampert… Come, please!” Carson whispered to the tortured beast as he ran back towards the stair in the floor.  For a minute Carson didn’t know whether he wanted to trust him, or eat him.

            The stone ceiling slid shut again as Carson, Pyro, and Swampert descended.  As soon as Swampert caught a scent, it turned once more at Carson, growled, and made off into the darkness of the tunnel.   

            I could get into a lot of trouble if father found out… Carson thought, then smiled.  If he found out.  There was some little voice in his mind, however, and he knew that he did the right thing. 

            When they came back to the room with the painted Blaziken, Carson found that he was not tired anymore.  “Pyro, let’s go down this tunnel now!”  The tunnel to the strange Blaziken’s right eventually split into two more: one up, and one down.  Carson decided to go up.

            Through twists and turns, Carson finally found himself coming out of another fireplace, and he recognized the smell of the room: it was the King’s. 

            There was a heavy, staggered breathing.  Is that father?  Torchic took to lighting the candles in the corner, and Carson gasped at what he saw.

            Blaziken was lying lifeless on the floor, one of its arms torn off, and its eyes wide open with a blank expression.  Smoking blood pooled all around the body. 

            “My son…” Carson turned towards the gasping.  Proud King Carlos Brightflame was resting right next to the sooty fireplace where the ten year old had emerged.  He was sweating profusely, and in one hand he held the Red Orb.  The ball seemed to flicker and dance in the light of the candles.

            “Father? What’s wrong?” He said, words beginning to choke up on him.  But he already knew the answer: Blaziken was dead, and soon, his father.  “What happened?”

            Carlos Brightflame scowled.  “That coward… That… That traitor, Starfall,” he said.  He held up the Red Orb and gestured to Carson.  “You must… You must be brave, son- AACK!” He said as he gasped and coughed up blood that splattered on Pyro’s little wing.  “Go back to bed, son…. He won’t hurt you.”

            Carson’s tears were hot like lava on his face.  “No, papa, we can help you, like we helped Swampert!”  He didn’t know why he said it.  His father was about to die, and it was a curse to lie to a dying man, much more family. 

            His father took a deep breath, however, and Carson was surprised at his answer.  “Good… That’s good… Never wanted… to kill… the Marshes… had to make them… understand… Sootopolis…”  He gasped again, then, and Carson knew it wouldn’t be long.  The ten year old couldn’t help himself, and he began to cry.  He went to hug his father. 

            “Run, child,” was Carlos Brightflame’s final words.  “Go to bed, now… Papa loves you.”

            He didn’t even remember the long journey back through the tunnel to his bed, he didn’t care that he never ran into Swampert in them either.  He did remember, however, the next morning and he wept because it wasn’t a dream. 

            Strange guards woke him the next morning to drag Prince Carson Brightflame into the throne room with Pyro.  Carson never forgot the way Miguel Starfall sat in his father’s throne with his father’s lava-stone crown, or the way the traitor smiled with satisfaction as Salamence roared to his right side.