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The oldfolk say there's something special about this mountain, and I'm inclined to believe them.

I started ranger work up on Mount Coronet years back; I love pokemon, but the whole trainer thing never was my speed, nor was the contest circuit, and studying nursing to work in a pokemon center was just too much to get my head around. The ranger gig, though? I get to see and help pokemon and people of all different stripes. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of days of trudging across the mountainside and back again come rain or shine, but being there when someone's at the wrong place at the wrong time and getting them out of their binds makes it worth it.

People love their pokemon, and I don't want to take that away from anyone, but in this line of work you need the sort of trust you can lay your life on the line for. Ranger work is dangerous work. The bonds you make with them will be tested relentlessly as you face perilous rescues and dangerous wild pokemon (and sometimes both), and for me? There's no one on this earth I'd trust more than my partner pokemon.

After going through some basic trade schooling, us greenhorns got to pick our partner to start forging that trust through joint training. I picked the fire-type they had available, seeing as I'd likely be spending some chilly nights under the stars on that mountain (I never fared well in the cold having grown up in balmy Sunyshore), so quilava and I began the intense apprenticeship. Grueling hikes toting heavy packs and dragging litters, learning to navigate with fewer and fewer tools, foraging, mock-rescues, tactics for surviving battles against vastly stronger pokemon, and all of the above in every weather condition that hit Mount Coronet; it put us through the wringer. I don't think it ever really got easier, just less overwhelming and with a greater understanding of my and quilava's abilities. The hardships galvanized our bond, and by the time we graduated I rarely gave a thought of keeping her in her ball.

Despite her fiery countenance, quilava was always personable and more than a bit of a cuddlebug. While on patrol she seemed to get more stoic, professional almost (her always crawling into my sleeping bag on overnight outings notwithstanding), but at home she would unabashedly seek attention with plenty of affection to give in return. She never really liked battling much despite her strength and competence, and never was really up to spar with other rangers' partners outside of mandatory training sessions to stay fighting fit. I wasn't about to force her to, either. We'd stay clear of wild pokemon unless explicitly tasked with driving out "problem pokemon," and even then we'd try to resort to less direct measures first. Unfortunately, sometimes battle is unavoidable.

It was just after sunset (as best as I could reckon), the light was fading and the snow was coming down hard and heavy, wind bitter cold and dashing us with the coarse ice like it were a sandstorm. We were high up, making for an old cabin that was uninhabited but a solid unofficial way station for patrolling rangers or hikers. We were getting close, when suddenly it felt like my snowcoat had turned into a t-shirt. Quilava felt it too, her hackle-like flames sparking to full force in mere moments, but even the intense heat I knew her fire made wasn't warming me in that moment. We stood unmoving, heads on a swivel, when an echoing wail, an eerily human-like cry that was equal parts despondent and wrathful, cut though the howling winds, through our cores, and in the tempest we saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes glaring.

Quilava immediately leapt between myself and the eyes, which grew brighter as they drew nearer to us, their owner's darkened silhouette seeming to materialize out of the blowing snow itself. Its posture was that of unnatural grace and serenity as it floated, unflinching and unaffected by the vicious winds, the froslass stared coldly before opening its mouth again and letting loose a baleful scream and charging us.

Instinct for us both took over, as no sooner did the command leave my mouth did a jet of intense flame leave quilava's, forcing the froslass to weave to one side but only serving to slow its advances. Another flamethrower missed its mark as the swirling snow rendered its body almost entirely invisible in it, forcing both me and quilava to dive out of harm's way. I called out for quilava to use swift, an attack that always finds its mark, but the barrage of glowing starlets harmlessly passed through its body and faded into the roiling gray. With its malicious gaze fixed on us, the froslass held its hands out before it, and between them a writhing darkness coalesced into a sphere that seemingly flung itself at quilava with tremendous speed and grim accuracy. It struck hard.

We both cried out as her body was thrown from the impact and rolled through the drifting snow, and that was the first time in my career that I'd felt a deep, visceral fear. I'd always "known" this line of work meant that I or my partner wouldn't make it home one day, but this encounter was driving it through my gut like an icy stake. Quilava staggered to her feet, flames sputtering but reignighting and casting off inklike vestiges of the blow she suffered, but I could tell another square hit like that would take her out of commission. I ripped her ball from my belt and recalled her before sprinting for my life.

I fumbled with my pouch, frantically digging for the strongest potion I had. I didn't look back and I didn't have to; I could feel the aura of malice pursuing, gaining on me. I begged my terrified, shaking hands to steady just long enough to connect the nozzle of the potion with the front of the pokeball, and after countless misses, the two finally clicked together with a quiet hiss of the canister emptying. Then I was struck next.

Shards of ice tore through my frame backpack, my jacket, and ripped into my back, making me stumble forward and fall on my face, fumbling quilava's ball in the process. I blearily crawled forward, arms desperately feeling through the snow for my partner's ball, but the froslass was already on top of me. This was it. They might not find me, but I was hoping they'd find her.

There was a flash of light under the snow ahead of me, and a wheel of fire burst forth and roared over my head, followed by an impact and that haunting cry filled with pain and surprise. I scrambled to my feet to find quilava blazing furiously, breathing heavily and glaring at the froslass trying to reorient itself. I wasn't about to give it the time. More fire washed over it as it attempted to recover from the surprise blow and sent it reeling, but it once again righted itself and to my dismay, looked more enraged than wounded.

The glowing yellow eyes became streaks in the darkness as they closed the distance to quilava with shocking speed, one of its hands cloaked in the shadowy silhouette of a wicked claw again striking quilava and sending her tumbling through the deepening snow. She got on her feet more quickly this time, but another ball of malevolent energy dashed itself against her. She was in a bad way. I needed to get her back in her ball, back to safety. I crawled on my hands and knees where I thought I'd seen her burst out before. I looked back over my shoulder as I felt around blindly, the day's last light all but gone, hoping to see her fire spark once more. The eyes floated closer to her. No fire. My hand smacked something metallic that clattered away and I dove on it, wheeling on and leveling the ball in her direction as she shakily rose back onto her own feet. Quilava was bathed in the red light of the pokeball's recall, but...

Nothing.

My heart dropped into the yawning pit my stomach had become. Did I break it? Did she break it? I was running on pure adrenaline, clambering to my feet and sprinting recklessly to my partner's aid, ready to throw myself on top of her to save her from that murderous specter if I had to. Quilava's flames sparked, alight but weak, backlighting the tendrils of malevolent energy that stubbornly clung to her. When I finally got close her eyes met mine, and she gave me a look that gave me pause. One of reassurance. Then something happened I can't to this day explain.

Quilava's flames grew stronger, bigger, brighter. The fire swallowed the shadowy energy, but instead of burning it away it was subsumed, the tendrils of black a now streaks of bright purple in her blazing hackles. She reared up onto her hind legs. The fire grew brighter, swallowing her form as well and becoming almost hard to look at, but in amongst the flames I could see she was glowing almost as bright. She was wreathed in a swirling, dancing blaze of purple and orange that refused to bend to the whim of the storm that grew larger, and larger, and larger, until finally it exploded off of her in an inferno that even managed to make that relentless froslass recoil.

Where quilava once stood was now a tall silhouette, her spiky, orange, jet-like flames that sputtered against the wind nowhere to be seen, but instead possessing a wild mane of bright purple fire that writhed in long purple tongues with a seeming mind of its own. Bead-like orbs of flame that encircled her neck around the front underlit her face, showing her expression of steadfast resolve, but a kind of tranquility as well. Quilava had evolved, but not into any sort of typhlosion I'd seen or even heard of before. But there wasn't any time, as the shock was wearing off for the froslass too.

I shouted, I don't even think it was a clear order at that point, but typh stared at the froslass and her flames billowed up, and with a roar a barrage of flaming orbs with skull-like visages burst forth from it and converged on the froslass. Their impacts were not as easily shrugged off as they had been previously. Jagged shards of ice formed in front of the pokemon and flew at typh in retaliation, but a powerful flamethrower cut though the attack and again struck the froslass.

It was wounded, refusing to back down, throwing ice and shadowy energy at typh that she either expertly dodged or weathered much better than she had before evolving, closing the gap between her and the aggressive pokemon. As though not enough bizarre things had happened that night, I can't even say with confidence today this is what I'm certain I saw, but typh approached this wounded, aggressive froslass that was hell-bent on killing us both and... embraced it? She held it, and her flames exploded into an inferno that enveloped them both and raged for terrifying few seconds before shrinking back. The froslass wasn't knocked out by it--I'm not even sure I'd call it an attack--but it stayed there a moment longer, then just... turned and left. Like nothing had happened. I was dumbstruck.

With the threat finally gone, typh bounded over to me through the snow, her stoic face having given way to one of deep concern, and only when she hugged me and I tried to hug her back did I realize how badly I was shaking. The adrenaline had worn off, my jacket was in ribbons on my back, we'd been chased off the trail and into the heart of a snowstorm with no way to get our bearings and make it up to the cabin, and the snow was too shallow and too fluffy to dig a proper shelter in. I started digging anyway, hoping the work would warm my muscles and that lying on the stone would give me a better chance than on the snow. Typh immediately picked up on what I was doing and helped clear a patch with her flaming breath.

I untied and unrolled my heavy sleeping bag, which was blessedly intact in spite of the assault, praying it'd hold what little body heat I had left through the night. Zipping myself in, I had the passing thought of quilava always pouting at me if I didn't let her into my sleeping bag first, and how she couldn't if she wanted to now. Suddenly, typh's shadow loomed over me, still silhouetted by her eerie purple fire despite the battle being long over, before she laid herself on top of and almost completely covering me. At first I squirmed, worried the beads of flame around her neck would scorch or light up my sleeping bag with me in it, but found they warmed like sitting next to a healthy campfire. Her arms wrapped around me as best they could and squeezed gently, holding me as the deep chills that wracked my body slowly subsided. She laid on me that entire night, keeping her fire lit to keep us warm enough.

The next morning the storm had blown through and typh helped me hobble down to base camp. They had quite the shock seeing both the shape I was in and that I'd come back not only with a different pokemon than I'd left with, but with a pokemon they'd never even heard of before. I was put into the infirmary to recover for a few days and they debriefed me, and that whole time typh refused to leave my side or even get in her ball. She seemed disappointed her new size kept her from easily crawling up onto the little cot with me, but she was never beyond an arm's reach.

Typh saved my life twice that night, without a second thought for her own safety. I can't even begin to hope to repay that, but I don't think she's thinking about that either. Even at thrice her old height and ten times her old weight she's just as enthusiastic about (trying) getting up in my lap for love while off-duty, and by arceus I give it to her. I wouldn't trade my partner for the world.