Lidra, the Sandslash

I don’t know which of the many deities created the Sun, but whoever it was, they must have had a vendetta against me.

The heat was unbearable. I couldn’t stop sweating, and my feet hopped around every now and then to avoid touching the burning sand. I was a ground-type, and more specifically, one that was supposed to be good at traversing the desert.

And yet, I felt so done with this trip.

“C’mon Lidra, pace yourself, we’re almost there.”

“You’ve been saying that for the last hour, dickhead.”

The Rhydon laughed, much to my annoyance. He was a nice guy, but I learned the hard way how much of a nightmare it was to have him as a boss.

“Larry, can you please slow down? If a damn Sandslash is already tired of the desert, imagine the rest of us.”

“No can’t do. We’re on a tight schedule, and we gotta use it properly.”

Rachel groaned exaggeratedly, part of it was real frustration, the other part was her trying to lift the mood of the group, which somewhat worked.

“Want a ride?” Tony asked. I didn’t even notice him approaching me, the Camerupt was very things, but loud wasn’t one of them. “I can carry you the rest of the way, I don’t mind.”

“No, thanks, I think Larry would make more of a fuss if I let that happen, heh.”

“Eh, wouldn’t be the first time.” He shrugged, all while keeping that teasing tone and smirk.

I chuckled, punching him lightly on the side. He was as much of a jerk as when we were kids, but I guess that’s why we were still friends.

“Yo! Everest! Everything alright back there?”

The Baltoy jumped at Larry’s booming voice, they were probably deep in thought, like always. “Y-yeah! So far so good.”

“Alright, just one last push. You’ll see how good the walk back will go. Ha!”

‘Wait… Oh, crap, we do have to walk all the way back after this, don’t we? Shit…’

---

Apparently, even though we were ‘almost there’ as Larry said, it still took us thirty whole minutes to arrive at the tunnel. It looked like just a random cave with a set of stairs going down into the darkness. Only reason why we managed to find it was because of a map Larry used to guide us, and it had to be recent too considering how he used random trees to orient himself.

“Uh, Larry?” Rachel said while looking down the entrance. “Didn’t your contact tell you that there were no dungeons?”

“That’s what she said, yeah.” He took a look at the stairs again before turning his gaze to us, checking us out carefully. “I mean, we’re strong enough to get through a dungeon if we need to, but I’m confident in my contact, she wouldn’t get us in danger on purpose.”

I was not in the right state to fight right now, so I took a preventive measure. “Okay, but can we stop for a bit before entering? My feet are gonna fall off at this point.” I didn’t even wait for a confirmation before sitting against the wall of the cave.

“Okay, fine, but just because we might need it.” Larry rummaged through his backpack while the others plopped down with me. “You all good on water or do you need a refill?”

We all had our own canteens, but the boss also carried a big container, just for situations like these. It was a good strategy, it kept us light-weight, and Larry didn’t mind putting the big bottle in his backpack, so it worked out.

I checked mine. Only a bit left, so I chugged it immediately. Warm water is surprisingly good when you’re in the middle of nowhere and it’s your only option for hydration. “I could use a refill.” I threw my now empty canteen to Larry, who easily caught it.

I took that moment of waiting to look at the horizon. Nothing but sand and a couple palm trees in sight. The breeze was… weird. It was appreciated when in the middle of the heat, but it was still suffocating, getting sand all over us and making me have a sort of gross, cold sweat.

I’d been doing this for years and this one was one of the worst trips so far.

I was interrupted from my thinking when Larry gave me my canteen back, completely full this time. “Anyone else?” He asked the rest.

“I’m fine.”

“Yep, good here.”

“You know I don’t drink anything.”

Larry laughed. “But I wouldn’t be a good boss if I didn’t ask anyways, would I, Everest?” The Baltoy could only sigh as Larry kept cackling to himself. “Alright, are we all ready to go?”

“I’d say so.” Tony responded. “How ‘bout you, Lidra?”

I stood up, hopping around a bit to see how I was feeling. My feet were still sore but there was a definite improvement. “Yeah, I think I can go now.”

“And you two?”

“I’ve been through worse.” Rachel responded as she stretched.

Everest didn’t say anything, opting instead to nod.

“Alright!” He shouted. “Let’s get it done!”

‘Arceus, Larry, why are you so damn loud all the time?’

Without hesitation, the Rhydon hopped down the stairs followed by the rest of us. It quickly dawned upon us that there was indeed no Mystery Dungeon down here. I was very grateful for that, even with a break, the trek to get here drained all my energy.

When we got to the bottom what we saw was… really cool, to put it lightly.

“Woah…” Tony exclaimed. “Look at this place!”

It was a temple, the main room of it, at least. The place was huge, decorated with engravings of distinct figures as well as multiple pillars supporting everything that were incredibly tall. No wonder the stairs were so long.

But the most strange part of that experience, is that between the awe of the group, Larry kept a frown.

“Something wrong, big guy?” Rachel asked.

Larry hesitated. “This… this isn’t right.” We all turned to him when we heard that. “I mean, look at everything here. Yes, this is a temple, but in honor of who? Which deity were they worshiping here?”

I looked around. Now that he mentioned it, it was true. There were no items to indicate any sort of religious intent, and the engravings I was so wonderstruck by were clearly tampered with after a second look.

“And look at the architecture itself, it’s all broken down. This isn’t a temple, these are ruins. It wouldn’t be that surprising if my contact didn’t specify that it was preserved in perfect condition, but she did, and I know for a fact she’s never lied to me.” His frown deepened, starting to snarl. “This place got RAIDED!”

And that’s where the mistake happened. Larry, all blind in rage, punched one of the pillars near the entrance with all his strength. That was all it took. The pillar broke and bent in itself, immediately making the whole thing shake.

Me and Tony looked at each other, we knew what this meant. “Shit. SHIT! CAVE-IN! EVERYONE OUT! QUICK!” I yelled, running to the door.

I heard a loud crack, but I couldn’t stop to see what it was. I could only focus on getting out.

But I wasn’t able to, because next thing I knew, I got tackled back by Tony. I had my eyes closed from the impact against the ground, all I could hear was the rumbling and the impact of the stone against the floor.

And suddenly… silence. A deafening silence, only interrupted by my own breathing.

When I opened my eyes, I saw what had happened. The entrance was blocked, and the sight wasn’t pretty.

The only part of Larry I could see was his arm, poking out from under an enormous boulder, all covered in a pool of blood. Rachel had her torso visible, but her lower body was still crushed. And Everest… I couldn’t see them fully, only… portions of them.

“L-Lidra! Are you okay?” I only just realized that Tony was hugging me close. He saved my life. “Did I get you out in time?!” He stood up, inspecting me closely.

“T-Tony, the… the others, I…” I couldn’t talk properly. I was panicking, breathing way too rapidly, which in turn made me even more nervous.

I didn’t finish the sentence. I stood up, almost tripping over myself, and ran to the fallen debris. Larry was the closest, making me wince immediately due to the massive amount of blood. I made contact with his wrist. I was in denial, there HAD to be a pulse, he just HAD to be alive.

But there wasn’t, and he wasn’t.

“L-Lidra…” I fell back, hugging my knees. Tony’s tone tried to be reassuring. I could feel his warm fur beside me, but it wasn’t helping. I couldn’t stop staring at what remained of Lary. “W-we can’t give up, let’s check Rachel.”

I heard the Camerupt run to where I saw Rachel, but I didn’t follow. I felt numb, simply focusing on the fast inhaling and exhaling that came from my mouth. I was scared that if I stopped focusing on that, I would completely lose it.

“Lidra! Help me! Rachel… Rachel is still breathing! We need to get her out!” I shivered at hearing his stress, it was very very rare for him to lose composure. The good thing is that it was that stress that made me force myself to stand up and help.

While every step was difficult, I managed to get close to the Excadrill. There was also a bit of blood oozing from under the rocks, it wasn’t as much as with Larry, but it was enough for me to grimace.

“Do you think you can lift the boulder a bit for me to get her out?”

I tried to respond verbally, but my words wouldn’t come out, so I resigned myself to answer with a nod.

Part of me was scared. Scared that if I moved the broken rocks even just a little bit, the rest of the temple would come down on us. But I also knew that if there was even the slightest chance to save a life, I needed to take it.

“Okay.” Tony breathed heavily. “At three. One. Two. Three!” I pushed, tilting the boulder back slightly. It was fortunately enough for Tony to bite onto Rachel’s metal horn and pull her out.

Her state was… bad. Both of her legs bent in unnatural and unnerving ways, all accompanied by multiple deep gashes that were definitely the cause of all the blood.

But even with all those things, she was alive.

“Only with us for a month, and she already got into a major accident… Poor girl, really.”

“Please, do something, Tony. You’re the one that knows medicine here, I’m begging you.”

“I’ll try, but this isn’t something I can just cure in a blink of an eye.” You know things are bad when not even Tony is optimistic. “I know this is hard for you, but do you think you can try to retrieve Larry’s backpack? He’s supposed to have that thing, right? The emergency thing? On his badge?”

Right, as the leader, his badge had a button to send a psychic emergency signal. He, however, being as stubborn as he was, never liked to wear it. Something about strangers behaving differently when they saw said badge. And now that stubbornness was coming back to haunt us.

As Tony tried to work his magic on Rachel, I approached the Rhydon’s corpse again. The urge to empty my stomach was there, but I tried to ignore it. I’d have time to break down later, I needed to make sure we were going to be rescued first.

With an audible gulp, I pushed at the boulder, just enough so I could use my foot to retrieve Larry’s backpack. But instead of using my peripheral vision to spot the cream-colored bag, I made a mistake and looked down fully. Why was it a mistake? Because I caught sight of Larry’s disfigured, bloody, and lifeless face. It almost made me lose focus, which would have tilted the boulder back to me, potentially hurting me badly. I had to forcefully close my eyes and manage my breathing before I could try to grab anything.

Once the bag was out of danger, I slowly dropped the boulder back where it was, making me shiver as I felt the corpse below it get crushed again.

The bag was wet, a look inside confirmed my suspicions. The big bottle that Larry carried got demolished, leaking the water everywhere. It didn’t take too long to find his badge, hopefully the psychic signal worked even when wet. With a click, it got enveloped in a pink-ish hue. I could only pray that that meant it was working. With luck, they’d be here tomorrow, maybe the next day if problems arose.

I went back to Tony. He emptied his satchel and ripped it open to have something similar to a cloth. He used it as a makeshift towel to clean the blood. Of course, since that got soaked, it meant that he had no way to cover the gashes, but at least she stopped bleeding and the wounds weren’t getting infected. Rachel desperately needed medical attention, I was glad that she was lucky enough to not have to be awake during this nightmare.

I slumped against the closest wall, with Tony staying close. I wanted to scream, to tug on my quills until I ripped them off. Everything went wrong in just a moment, and now the panic was coming back.

So, now that there was nothing else to do, I cried. I sobbed, I yelled, I wailed, I did all I could to get this grief and this fear out of my insides.

Tony curled against me, providing me a warmth that I desperately needed. But as much as his company helped, I couldn’t contain my sadness.

Everything went blurry after that. I ended up crying myself to sleep.