Bronze puts a hand on my shoulder. "Do you need my help? I'm sorry about what I said, it's just... I compare my team to hers, so it kind of... it comes up everywhere."

I shake my head with an air of finality. "We both do, but I think I'm getting over it now.I do not need his help on this one and my own Pokemon are far faster than his. He nods and turns back. "I'm going to go find Shauna," he calls, "And explain the situation. Best of luck." He runs back, kisses me on the cheek, and takes off in the opposite direction.

I turn to my team. "Pich, can you take the air?"
"On it!" she says, soaring upwards quickly with a violent flap of her wings.

"Nico, can you still feel her aura?"

He nods.

"Rune, Chrona, Crypt, that leaves you for back-"
Crypt rushes past me into the woods. "Niiiina!"
"Well I guess we're going it alone." Rune says sarcastically. "Honestly, though, we need to go now."

I nod. I imagine the golden bonds in my mind, hoping to find Nina's guiding us to her. However, they seem to be looser the further away my Pokemon are and though Nico's is strong, I can only sense Nina and even that is hazy. Something cold and terrible builds in my throat when I think about what else it could mean.

I continue walking, trying not to think about anything but finding her.

Rune swings his stick around in the growing darkness. Sunset is clearly here by now and the tree coverage grows thicker seemingly with every step. It makes me feel nervous, and my fear seems to be echoed by my teammates. I only have Rune and Chrona by my side, but seeing either of them freaked out is rare and both at once feels unnatural.

I take a deep, shuddering breath and hear calling in the distance. "Niiina? NIIIINA, COME OUT! NINA!"
I clear some undergrowth, pushing it aside before Rune just flat out sets it on fire. Chrona stomps on it, shoots him a look, and slaps him across the face with a vine.

Crypt stands, desperately wheeling around in the clearing. He pants, his head bobbing up and down and his whole body shuddering. His tail lashes several times against the ground in panic and I run to him.

"You haven't seen her?" I say, disappointed.

"You have?" he asks, hopefully. "Please say you have. You've seen her. She's over there. Waiting."

I look into his eyes, illuminated by Rune's fire, and see bared teeth the size of kitchen knives and large pupils dilated to enormous size.

"No, but we'll find her. It's okay."

"You have to have seen her!" His tail whips around, like a wild snake, and Chrona surrounds it with her vines before it can hit me. Rune goes on the defensive immediately.

"Crypt, calm down!"
"She's gonna- we have to- and she-" He lets out a loud roar and the teeth open and stop suddenly three inches from my face. Rune is holding him back with a stick, placing it between his open jaws, and for all his biting power Crypt seems unable to close them. His head jerks up, thrashing wildly while Chrona is struggling to keep his massive tail still.

He coughs up the stick and it returns to Rune's hand like some grand boomerang, slamming against his hand with a loud thwip.

Rune holds it up, set ablaze on both hands, while Crypt yells, "You've seen her, you've seen her, you've-"

He's cut off by a tree to the face. Bird Pokemon fly away from it as it falls over, chopped neatly by a single kick. Nico, his paws covered in aura, looks at Crypt with simple, cool emptiness. "I have."
Crypt's pupils return to normal size and he says quietly, "Please take me to her."

Nico looks up and says nothing else. Blue aura erupts around his paws, and he leaps away into the forest as Crypt gets to his feet, racing after.

We follow, at times relying on Rune's smell. As we continue I begin to feel dread emanating from both Pokemon, to the point where when we finally get there, the answer no longer comes as a shock but a perhaps even more terrifying absolute.

There's a periwinkle form on the ground, blue tinted from the aura light and scarlet from wounds running up and down its sides. Blood no longer pours from the cuts, but I can see where each blow from an enemy Pokemon landed.

My brain disconnects from it immediately. It's not her. It can't be her. Two deaths in two days isn't possible.

"Liepard," says Nico gravely. "They travel in packs."

I remember Ashley jokingly talking about a book series with the same premise once, but now, seeing this Pokemon in front of me, dead, it feels more like a book than reality. Nina, this tough, dangerous rodent, shot down in one night. I see Toxis dead before me, and then I realize she's alive.

Bloodshot eyes look up at me mournfully. There's a shuddering breath as they shift to Crypt.

"N-nina!" He wails, pressing his head against hers. "D-d-don't go!"

A loud groan echoes from Nina's throat, a beastial wail that carries no message but pain.

"Nina?"

She looks into his eyes and a hand on the ground begins to rise, ever so slightly, as if to grab a hold of Crypt and pull him down with her.

There's another wail, this time more suppressed and more sad than angry, and then her eyes close.

There's a second of silence and shuddering breath and then Crypt erupts into anger. His tail hits Rune in the head and an angry mouth full of teeth opens again, waiting to slice something open.

A loud, angry roar echoes from his throat, so loud and primal that every bird Pokemon takes to the sky and the trees seem to bend. My heart stops for a second, feeling our connection snap and then pure terror at the monster I've unleashed.

I have no idea what to do, but Nico throws Crypt's Pokeball at him. It hits him in the side of the head with a loud thwack and surprisingly, he goes in. The Pokeball shudders as if I had just caught him for the first time before clicking shut.

Nico looks into my watery eyes. "Don't let him out."

"He- he needs to say goodbye too."

"Then you'll be burying two bodies."
I look down. "Bronze is right. This never- n-n-n-" I can't get any further. I begin crying hysterically, wailing with Rune dumbstruck and moisture sizzling off of his fur; Chrona with her head dipped; and Pich, now beside me, perched on the body with her wings folded.

We stay there until another light graces the forest and I see Shauna and Rune approaching, Shauna with a flashlight and Thistle using what appears to be a reverse Synthesis, generating a huge amount of light.

Bronze holds me tight as he looks at the body, and Shauna solemnly sets up the tents. I sob myself to sleep clutching the sleeping bag, with only Crypt's wildly shaking Pokeball beside me.

((the hiatus is over. blame school but mainly pokemon conquest. i actually have a long ass plot that links goldeneyes to ransei which is, at least in my mind, an entire REGION of goldeneyes where people are searching for the Pokemon they once were in hopes of unifying. also elemental tribes and blood feuds, yada yada yada, there isn't enough conquest fic out there. anyhow there's my monologue, have character death, I'd promise I won't do it again but it's a nuzlocke. I'm going to attempt to go back to updating every day buuuuut don't count on it.))