"There's a ranger at the front." Nifa said.
"No, really? I thought the person with a capture stylus and goggles was an ice cream salesman." Charcoal snapped back, irritable after losing a race to the grovyle.
"Quiet." Celebi said, surprising everyone. "Here's how this is going to work. Fanta, Charcoal, you go in, find what we're here for, and get out. Nifa and I will distract the ranger."
Everyone stared at her for a minute, and then nodded. "Alright, I'll go out first. If it comes to blows, Fanta, Charcoal, just keep going." Nifa said.
Fanta nodded, glancing to the dark hole in the ground that Omen had called a cave. Nifa jumped out of the brush, and Fanta and Charcoal dashed for the cave. There were already snarls between the rangers four pokemon, Nifa, and Celebi.
Fanta and Charcoal dived into the shaft like tunnel, following it deeper and deeper into the ground, until they could see a distant red glow, and crystals intermingled with evolutionary stones.
"Found a firestone." Fanta said, beginning to dig.
"I'll find the thunder-" Charcoal was cut off by a dull roar, and Fanta turned to see the warm glow now a ball of fire hurtling towards them. Fanta dug frantically, finally pulling out the firestone and throwing it to Charcoal.
She was too stunned to realize what he had done. She was wrapped in a veil of glowing energy, and when that dissipated, in her place was a ninetails.
Now evolved, and strong enough to absorb the fire that would surround her soon, she could survive the fireball hurtling towards the pair.
The eevee who had sacrificed, he thought at least, his life for Charcoal, not so much. The flames overtook them, blasting them back out the way they had came, hundreds of feet into the air.
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And back on the ground, Nifa and Celebi saw them start to fall.
"No." Nifa said, knowing neither of them could survive have survived that much fire as they were. He saw the ninetails falling, and assumed, at least in part,what had happened, and realized that one of them would survive.
"Save them." The ranger ordered.
For a wild second, Nifa thought she was talking to him, but then he saw the flygon and altaria shoot off towards the two falling pokemon.
They did indeed catch both of them. The flygon dropped, none too gently, the snarling ball of white-orange fur that was the newly evolved Charcoal, and the altaria placed the burnt body of Fanta gently on the ground.
Charcoal was at his side almost as soon as he was on the ground.
He was barely recognizable as an eevee. All of his fur had been burnt off, and there were deep gouges when he had been dashed against rocks and the wounds had been cauterized. His ears were gone, only a pair of ragged holes where they had been, and his eyelids, and eyes had been burned severely.
The ranger threw another pokeball, this one a kirlia. The kirlia knelt at Fanta's side, oblivious to the other three pokemon there, Celebi having joined them.
"I need more power." The kirlia said, hopelessly. "This damage is too much for me alone."
"Take mine." Charcoal said. Everyone turned to her, and the kirlia nodded. Charcoal was still glowing from the massive amount of fire she had absorbed, and kirlia used that power, slowly and cautiously at first, and then more quickly, until the scars were you gone from all but his eyes, though he still did not have ears or fur.
"I cannot restore what the body cannot heal." The kirlia said. "He will live, but his eyes, and his ears, they cannot be fixed."
"But he will live." Charcoal repeated.
"Yes, after a long while unconscious, maybe a week, he will awake." Nifa leaned back. The ranger cursed.
"This was not how this was supposed to go." She said.
Charcoal wiped to her. "What did you say?" She snapped, even though she knew the trainer would not understand.
"Ninetails, this is my human ally." Omen said, jumping from one of the few trees nearby, having watched the events thus far unfold.
"Yeah, great." The ranger said. "Omen you need to make better introductions."
Charcoal growled at them both and Omen said. "Come, I have much to explain."
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    Fanta took a few unsteady steps, learning on Charcoal for support.
Kira, the kirlia that had healed him, picked her way across the ground.
Omen watched from a tree, Celebi and Nifa standing at Fanta's goal, a rocky outcropping a few dozen feet away, and the ranger from before, Sara Golden, standing near.
Charcoal had accepted the trainer as a necessity, especially since it was one of her pokemon that had saved Fanta.
Omen on the other hand, not so much.
Charcoal had pinned most of the blame on her, at least partially rightly so, and neither of them spoke more than monosyllables to each other.
"I hate this, if my ears were actually normal, maybe not so much, but without them being blind sucks." Fanta said, putting another foot in front of the other.
Charcoal had never realized how much she, or Fanta, relied on their ears. Fanta could still, of course, hear, but not as well as any other pokemon.
"We'll figure it out." Charcoal said.
"Well, there might be a way to fix his ears." Kira said uncertainly. "And his eyes. But it's a long shot."
Charcoal looked to her. "How?" She asked, stopping and nearly sending Fanta tumbling. Kira fiddled with something in the leaf woven sack that she carried with her, something for her to keep a few things of value, since she was leaving her trainer. She had made that decision not long after Fanta had awoken, telling her trainer, who had been resistant to her, and the zangoose that would join her, until Omen had threatened her. Long story short, Kira and her 'friend' Scar would join the bunch. Kira pulled a firestone out of her bag, fiddling with it.
"You think evolution will heal him?" Charcoal asked.
"Maybe?" Kira responded. "Probably not. Like ninety five to five odds."
"What stone do you have?" Fanta asked.
"Fire." Kira and Charcoal said at the same time.
"I thought it'd be appropriate." Kira said.
Fanta nodded, trying to turn to Kira and ending up falling on his side. "A little help?" Fanta asked, slowly rising as Charcoal helped him.
"Here." Kira said, holding out the stone.
    Charcoal took it in her mouth, placing it on Fanta's forehead, holding it there until Fanta was enveloped in the same light Charcoal had been, and then backing away.
A few moments later, in the eevee's place, stood a blind, and still earless flareon.
"Didn't work." Fanta said. "But this is so cool."
Kira's head dropped, and she said. "Sorry, I thought it might work." Fanta shook his head, and lowered himself until his now much larger and much poofier mane touched the ground, and then deciding the was a better way, stood, and lowered his head to the ground.
"No, look." He said. "My whiskers are so much longer than they used to be. And with this mane, and tail, and a lot of practice, I should be able to get most of what I used to from sight from touch."
Charcoal eyed him skeptically, but Scar, the zangoose who was staying with Kirs, and who had been standing on her other side, nodded. He tapped his eyepatch, apparently from an old costume he used to wear, now a part of his normal one-eyed look.
"It will work." He said. "It is what i used to do." He poked one of his razor sharp claws into the ground, the other three clicking against their pair.
"Then we should start." Fanta said. "Just start walking towards my voice."
Nifa said, backing away enough to be at the start of a hill. "You're right there, right?" Fanta whispered to Charcoal.
"Always." Charcoal replied, brushing his now fluffy and long tail with a pair of her own.