The morning air held a slight chill as it whipped up against Bonnies now tear-stained face. No one else seemed to care about the others. About anyone else. They acted like everything was fine, but it was not.

She couldn't deal with them right now.

She heard a few muffled noises coming from the others in the village but paid them no head.

She had thought everything through, so much that it made her crazy, but yet she did not know what to do next. She just knew to keep running.

Serena's voice faded into the background as Bonnie ran past the terrain, and ducked behind cover. It was a small crevasse in the rocks, and she was just able to fit in. All she wanted was to be alone for a while.

-

Max turned the corner, and immediately something caught his eye. Bonnie was huddled in a corner, just besides where he was.

"You need to come back with us," he said, looking directly at her.

"And why would I do that?" Her icy reply matched with an equally cold glare.

"Because we need you, we care about you-"

"You don't care about me. You guys didn't care at all about the others, you just-"

"Oh we care about the others. We just know that if we run away like this, we risk losing even more"

"So you're just going to go on some glorified suicide mission?"

"We're just going to do our best, as a team, and we need you to help us. So please just come back with me"

***

The trek was not an easy one, but aided by the people of Axeil it was passable. Finally, though, they had reached as far as they could go with the aide of the foreign people.

"We wish you well" the village leader said, bowing to the group of friends "we are unable to get such a large group across this water body, but I'm sure you all can manage,"

Brock nodded back, thanking the people for their help.

"Now time for phase two" misty said, pulling out a pokeball. She tapped it open, releasing her golduck.

"Use your psychic power to lift us across this river" misty said, and golduck did exactly that.

It was well trained, lifting the group off of their feet and above the water.

When they finally touched down on the other side, the water duck Pokemon was exhausted. It struggled to move after using all of its psychic power.

"You did well," misty said "return," the Pokemon was pulled back inside of its pokeball.

It was back to hiking.

-

Misty turned to Brock, "How much farther ahead is this place?"

"It should be just over there" he replied, pointing upwards at a large rocky cliff side.

"And we have to get up there?" Max said.

"Yes we do, but remember, we still have our Pokemon to help us,"

"That's true" misty said, "Brock is a rock Pokémon master"

The group paused at the bottom of the cliff side, Brock passing out some of the food he had stored.

"So Onix should be able to carve a path up this mountain" Brock reached around his pants pocket to find the rock Pokémon's pokeball "And after that our destination should be in sight,"

"Perfect" Cilan said, "I just want a warm bed to sleep in,"

"I don't know about warm, but they'll have something" Brock nodded, readying his Pokemon.

"Go, Onix!" He said, tossing the pokeball towards the cliff side "please make a path upwards"

"On-nix" the Pokemon said, beginning to crush the boulders in its way, and creating a pseudo staircase up the rocky mountainside.

When the path was cleared, Brock returned his Pokemon and the group started their was upwards.

It was not easygoing, and Serena found it hard to maintain a solid footing. Each step could be the one to send her tumbling down to near certain death.

Max screech as the stones shifted, throwing him off balance. His body tipped back, and panic filled his eyes.

Bonnie reached out, grabbing ahold of his arm and allowing the boy to stabilize.

"Th-thanks" he said, trying to keep focused on the path ahead, instead of the ground below.

"We should stay together, the ground seems unstable" Cilan said, and the rest of the group nodded in agreement. Slowly they inched together, continuing their awkward shuffle up the cliff side.

Finally arriving at the top, Serena chanced a glance downward, feeling a sudden rush from how high up she was.

'Not much longer from here,' she thought to herself, trying to make out where exactly they needed to go.

Brock squinted, peering off into the distance. "I think it's this way" he said.

"You 'think'?" Misty replied.

"Seventy five percent sure"

"So there is a one in four chance we're just lost"

"Essentially"

"I'll take it" max added optimistically.

"Guess we'll just see..."