“Valerie! There you are!” Maxie approached the girl with a worried tone, “What were you thinking?! Running in like that was really stupi-...” She stopped short as her head turned and finally stopped dead on the Tyranitar tail peeking out underneath the boulder, “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.” Valerie nodded, rubbing her eyes and consoling the still crying Larry as Nick and Arin approached behind Maxie.

  “Valerie! I guess we've found what we're looking for?” Arin asked, when Maxie pointed to the boulder without a word, his brows raised in surprise, “Alright, I guess that explains why it was so hard to find her.”

  “It also probably is what got Larvitar so worked up?” Maxie eyed the trainer and Pokemon duo, and Valerie nodded back.

  “We've got to get her out of there! We don't know her condition.” Valerie urged the group.

  “It is what we came here for.” Arin and Nick approached the boulder as they released their Pokemon again in a flash of light, “Let’s get this done!”

  “Larvi-Larv!” Her Pokemon cried out with a shake of its head, emotions flowed into her mind. Fear and Indecisiveness at the prospect of unearthing its mother came into Valerie's mind once again.

  She had been far too panicked and focused on calming down her Pokemon before acknowledging the fact, but now that everything had calmed back down, she couldn’t hold back her questions, ‘What is this connection between me and Larvitar? Why can I feel its emotions?’

  It certainly wasn't telepathy, considering Larvitar was the only one affected. Her Pokemon’s concerned expression stopped her. She shook her head, ‘Ugh, let's get to the bottom of this later…This is important.’

  “It’s alright, Larvitar.” Valerie calmed down her Pokemon, “You wanted to come here exactly for this, right? We were going to be forced to face your mom eventually, no matter how we found her.”

  Larvitar wanted to retort, but eventually relented with a nod. He stood up and walked over to the boulder, where both Lairon and Graveler were being guided by Arin and Nick.

  Valerie sat up again as well and walked over to Maxie's side as she brushed at her face to clear it from the dust and sand. Maxie handed her a bottle of water from her backpack. “Here, wash off your hands and face with this.”

  “Thanks…” Valerie cleared off the sand, dust, and grime as Arin and Nick directed the Pokemon on how to move the boulder.

  “Alright! Lairon, you and Graveler lift while Larvitar pushes to the side!” Arin guided Maxie and Valerei to the side and pointed towards the lakebed filled with rocks, “We’ll reinforce the wall of boulders, so they will stay up there. Next, we’ll drop the boulder towards the bed of rocks, and then the Tyranitar should be free.”

  Shucking off the water from her hands and face, Valerie followed Maxie, who was guiding her to the side, “Couldn’t we simply put her into a Pokeball?”

  “Pokeballs only work if you can see the Pokemon’s entire body.” Maxie spoke simply as they cleared the way for the boulder, “It's also pretty questionable how she'd react if she were caught.”

  Valerie simply hummed back in response, “You think she's alive?”

  “Lairon!” The Steel-Type cried out, as it had managed to reinforce the wall of boulders so not collapse without the large boulder the Tyranitar had been crushed underneath.

  Maxie shook her head, “No idea. But we're about to find out.”

  “Alright, we’re ready!” Arin announced, “Push in 3-2-1…GO!”

  …

  All the Pokemon pushed at the boulder, but it didn't move an inch. ‘Ugh! C'mon!”

  Larry pushed more and more Rock-TE into the rock, but it felt like water on a hot stone as the energy was simply sucked up into the large mass of the boulder.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Arin waved his arms around, “This isn't working, it's not moving at all! We're going to need more Pokemon!”

  “We can't just leave her here!” Valerie argued, forcing a cry of agreement from Larry as well, “What, you want us to go back to the ranger station and request more Pokemon?”

  “Arcanine isn't going to cut it, he doesn't have the kind of moves to move a giant boulder.” Maxie pointed out with her hands on her hips.

  Behind the group, the wild Pokemon made their presence known with short cries. The rangers turned to the Pokemon before understanding dawned on Valerie's face, “Ah.”

  “Yup,” Arin grinned at her before turning to Donphan, Ursaring, and Phanpy, “You guys up for helping the others move the boulder?”

  Larry gave Donphan and his group a pleading look, but the wild Pokemon didn’t even hesitate.

  “If she needs help, she will get it!” Donphan answered with a clear, “Phaan! Don!”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Let's hope she is alright!” Ursaring commented as it approached the boulder, “Urs! Ring!”

  “Let's help Tyranitar!” Phanpy replied with a trumpet of its trunk, “Phan!”

  All the Pokemon agreed immediately, more than happy to help Larvitar reunite with its mother.

  …

  “Alright, once again! Three-Two-One!” Arin counted down, “GO!”

  All the Pokemon pushed at the boulder, and finally it began to move, first with a few jiggles and a slight rocking, before finally lifting with a loud groan of exertion from all the Pokemon.

  “Push!” Arin called, and Larvitar and Phanpy pushed the stone to the side, forcing the boulder towards the large bed of rocks they had just traversed and away from on top of his mother.

  “Now! Pivot, guys!” The Pokemon on the falling side released their grip and fled from the boulders' fall.

  BOOM!

  The boulder crashed back into the ground as they released, and tipped over ever so slowly, before smashing into the ground with an even louder crash of noise, splintering apart due to its own mass, and kicking up a gigantic cloud of dust.

  BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

  “Woo! There we go, baby!” Arin hollered as the other humans cheered in kind.

  “Koff! Koff! Oh god, rock dust!” The three helplessly wiped at their faces again as the cloud of dust engulfed them.

  The Pokemon, who were all Rock/Ground-Types of some kind or had made the caves their home, were far more used to the rocky dust of the caves, with only Arcanine sniffing aggressively in revulsion.

  The dust dissipated, and Larry immediately ran to his mother to check on her, the others followed suit.

  ‘Oh god!’ If he wasn’t sure if his mother was dead before, then he’d be sure of it now.

  Where previously her skin had been the same olive green as his, it was now a burned, ashy brown or grey, as she seemed to have been practically cooked inside of her hard shell like a Lobster. That wasn’t even the worst of it, though. Tyranitar’s skin had spiderwebbing cracks all over it, blackened, burned skin peeked through the cracks, and she’d been laid on top of a long-dried red splotch underneath her.

  Her mouth was particularly cracked, with the cracks along her jaw armor revealing missing or cracked teeth. She lay in the dried puddle of her own blood quite peacefully, her eyes were shut, and even with the rock above her removed, she hadn’t moved an inch.

  “Phew!” Arin whistled as he approached, only to be punched in the arm by an angry Maxie before he could release an uncouth comment, “Ow! Sorry!”

  “Larvitar…” Valerie knelt down next to him as he hugged his mother. She didn’t expect such a grotesque scene either, being far more used to the family-friendly scenes of trainer battles, “This…”

  “Let’s take a look at ‘er…” Arin drawled out, he wasn’t the best with tense atmospheres, so he simply got to work checking out the Pseudo-Legendary, “Arceus, she really took a beating in that fight, didn’t she?”

  Larry let the rangers do their work, retreating away from his mother with Valerie comforting him all the while.

  …

  Arin, Maxie, and Nick got to work inspecting the Pokemon. They had a hard time working with her, as Tyranitar were such rarities that even finding medical procedures for them wasn’t easy.

  The rangers whispered to eachother, to not disturb the still mourning young Larvitar behind them, “How did a Moltres crack a damn Tyranitars armor?!”

  “No idea,” Arin shook his head, “They’re not physically strong, so it's gotta be something else.”

  “I didn’t do the medical training, guys,” Nick covered his mouth with his arm, already green in the face, “You know I can’t handle this type of stuff.”

  “It ain’t pretty,” Arin confessed as he poked at the Pokemon with a stethoscope, “but this is gonna change the dynamics of Mt. Silver, with no Tyranitar to lord over the mountain, the other Pokemon are going to get more opportunistic.”

  Maxie sighed, “More work…Lovely…And Drews gone too…”

  “He’s done for?” Nick asked quietly, looking away from the Tyranitar.

  “His entire back’s burned off, man,” Arin pointed out in a dark whisper as he checked along the Pokemon’s body with the stethoscope, “Dude’s gonna be in rehabilitation training just so he can just lie down on his back again.”

  “Damn…” Nick commented as his eyes turned to Valerie, consoling the Larvitar sitting between her legs, “Poor girl then, her dad's gonna be out of commission for a long time.”

  “She’ll be alright,” Maxie commented, “Val’s a smart girl and she’s planning to go on her journey now that she’s got a Pokemon. By the time she’s back, Drew’s gonna be walking on his own two feet again.”

  “You think so?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah,” Maxie answered with a smile, “He loved his work, I know nothing can keep him away long.”

  “Even debilitating injuries?” Nick pointed out.

  “Well, we’ll see…” Maxie said more unsurely.

  “Holy shit…” Arin suddenly spoke up.

  “What?” Both Maxie and Nick parroted back.

  “There’s a fucking pulse!” He quickly threw the stethoscope off his neck and crawled over to the Pokemon’s head. He ripped a glove off his hand and held his hand before the Pokémon's mouth, “Very weak breathing!”

  “What?!” Both Maxie and Nick exclaimed at the same time.

  “What's up?” Valerie approached them with Larvitar following in tow, attracted by the commotion.

  “There’s a very, very weak pulse!” Arin repeated, “I almost missed it ‘cuz we were talkin’!”

  “What?!” Valerie repeated, just as surprised as the other rangers.

  “Larv?!” Larvitar also cried out next to her.

  Arin fished around in his backpack as the others talked among each other.

  “How is she even alive?!” Nick complained, “She looks like a damn corpse!

  Maxie nodded back, “I know! I’ve seen corpses in worse condition than her!”

  Valerie was consoling her Larvitar, which looked far more hopeful now that its mother was confirmed to be alive, “It’s alright, Larvitar. She’s safe, we’re here with her, let’s get her safe.”

  “Is she stable?” Maxie asked.

  Arin finally found what he was looking for in his bag and released a Pokeball with a camo top. He expanded the Pokeball and quickly tapped it onto Tyranitar's skin, catching her in a flash of light.

  Pulling out a PokeDex, he tapped the Pokeball to it and the device released a swath of information. The information on the Tyranitar’s health, though, made him grimace. Locking the Pokeball, he clipped it onto his belt and finally stood up.

  “We’re going to need to hustle and get a move on! The Pokeball is the only thing keeping her alive right now!”

  “Larvi! Larvi!” Valerie's Larvitar jumped around excitedly, tears in its eyes at he prospect of its mother surviving.

  “Alright! Let’s go, guys!” Maxie announced as they packed up and went on their way, “No sleeping breaks this time around!”