Nature Used Blizzard! Trouble For Popcorn! Chapter 2
"Popcorn, what exactly do you think you're doing?" A frantic Hina attempted to cling to the elbow of her friend as the Pokabu added a second layer of pants and sweatshirt to her garb. Popcorn wiggled slightly, and then finally poked her head out from the sweatshirt, casting a somewhat dazed look to Hina. It took her a moment to respond, though it was clear she was unsure of herself as her voice wavered.
"I'm... going to get... Hitomi's flute?" She said it questioningly, hesitantly. It sounded crazy, especially when she tried to put it into words. She was going to go out into a blizzard to go find a small item, likely buried under several feet of snow. All the while more snow would be piling down on top of it. It was a nearly impossible task. How did she think she was going to manage.
"Hitomi, where do you think you might have lost it?" she would ask, glancing over to the Charmander, who was now curled in a ball on Hina's bed. Hitomi would look up, eyes glazed over from her intoxication. She was a lightweight, as anyone could tell. She hadn't even drank that much, and already she was so far gone.
"Umm... By... my house... I think..." It was a miracle she managed to respond, her head bobbing up and down. Likely, she'd be asleep by the time Popcorn left the house. The Pokabu would sigh, the clue not very helpful, but... if it helped her come back alive, then...
After feeling that she had geared up as much as possible without hindering her movement to a fault, Popcorn began her final trudge through the house. She passed through the halls with a silent Hina following right behind her, one hand clasped tightly onto the sweatshirt that Popcorn wore. A solemn look upon her face told the Pokabu that going out into a storm to find the flute hadn't been what Hina had had in mind when she'd called her best friend over.
"I'll do my best to come back soon," Popcorn started, a fleeting glimpse of hope showing in Hina's face as she looked up. But she found that Popcorn still intended to go, and her gaze dropped, her tight grip going somewhat limp. She'd bite her quivering lip, outside of Popcorn's vision.
"If I do-"
"DON'T GO!" Hina suddenly cried, flinging herself upon Popcorn. The Cyndaquil's arms wrapped tightly around Popcorn's neck, which was luckily protected by two scarves, or she might have actually been choked to death. She was caught off guard, but somehow maintained her balance, and could not help but return the affectionate hug with a tight squeeze of her own. The two would embrace for several moments before Popcorn gently pushed Hina away, the Cyndaquil letting go as she was overswept with emotion.
"I treasure your friendship," Popcorn said with a smile... A smile torn between masking the sadness she felt from knowing she may never see her friend again and the joy she felt from knowing how much Hina cared for her. Hina held back her tears as Popcorn pulled the door open...and then was gone. The Cyndaquil would slip to her knees and sniffle as she just stared, wishing that the door would re-open any second, and Popcorn would come back.
"Way to go, Popcorn... Way to go." Popcorn watched the small tendrils of steam rise from in front of her, and then disappear into the falling snow. She was forced to look back down as the flakes of ice began to collect on her lashes, threatening to fall straight into her eyes. A hand would rise to shield her eyes, and she squinted off into the distance. She was pretty sure that she could make out a building at the edge of her field of vision...
Trudging forward, she lowered her head as she strained to lift a foot and move forward. Each minute she stayed out the worse it was going to get. The wind was wild, stopping for several seconds at a time, and then blasting in any random direction. It was hard enough just to keep standing, much less actually moving. Her progress was slow, and the sense of danger weighed heavily on the Pokabu's mind... But her heart won the battle against sensibility, and she pushed forward.
It seemed like ages, but after the few minutes had dragged by, she finally noticed that a shadow seemed to be engulfing the area around her. Lifting her head brought the cabin into view. It was a welcome sight. She recognized it as Hitomi's house, which meant that the first step of the journey was finally over. So now it was the tough part...
The snow was already nearly up to her waist, and it was hard enough telling exactly where the house was, much less where the path leading towards school was. That was where she needed to start, since it seemed the most likely place that she'd find the flute. Popcorn was almost positive that if she was going to find the darn thing, that it'd be at the side of the road, rather than the center. But that also meant she had to search carefully, and cover both sides of the road.
She pushed through the stacked ice, once again shivering as a gust of wind shot down her back, even with two scarves wrapped around her form. Arms clutched at her sides for a brief moment, but were then extended to help her wade through the sea of snow. It felt like it had taken a whole day to move even ten feet away from Hitomi's house when she looked back to make sure she was moving the right way. Twenty feet more, and she was finally ready to start her search.
When she was fairly certain that she'd found the round, Popcorn would reach up and grasp the scarf around her face. Inhaling through it, so as to retain some warmth, she'd pull the material away from her mouth and then exhale a blast of fire, which created a steaming cone of water all the way down to the ground. There was no hint of a flute, but Popcorn had indeed found the round. As soon as her breath was done, the snow around her blast radius tumbled in and erased what she had done. Her frown was hidden as she replaced the scarf around her face.
"This is going to take forever," she whispered to herself, already feeling that much colder from releasing some of the heat from within. She wondered if she'd be able to make it back to Hina's, or even anyone's house before she fainted from the cold. A deep breath was all she needed to push the thought to the back of her mind and focus at the task at hand. She waded a few steps forward, outside of her original cone, and once again blasted the snow out of her way.
The process continued, the only exception being that Popcorn would backtrack every couple of fire breaths and then move to the opposite side of the buried road. It was mindless, exhausting work, but she was determined to see it through. Before long she would feel light-headed, never having used that much fire. The cold air didn't help, nor did the snow piling around her, making it that much more difficult to move. She'd begun to lose her focus of reality, her mind wandering and her body moving of its own accord. Popcorn could only go on for so long before exhaustion took its toll, and she found her muscles giving in, her body finally toppling backwards into the snow.
"Sorry... Hitomi..." she said, staring up into the black sky, speckled with falling white dots. Popcorn's eyes began to droop as she gave in to the thoughts of failure. She hadn't been good enough to find Hitomi's flute... She was going to die in this blizzard...
Just before everything went dark, Popcorn could have sworn that she felt something soft land upon her snout. As unconsciousness claimed her, she dreamt about a bright orange light.