~

Feeling the light on his head dim down towards a dull glow of peace--
the first time it had done that, really, after having been on alert 
so long--he strode out into where he saw a few of the nidorans, 
including little Skip. And that dear little...green Sunkern, was it? 
who had liked his light before, was there too, playing with Skip and 
the nidoran male, Flailer's... uncle-who-wasn't-really-the-uncle that 
Chirin had forgotten the name of.

If Tachiguy was here he should find him and talk to Spirit and 
Celesteon. No way was one ootachi going down alone to face Bangaa, 
even if Phos himself had entered his body to endow him with divine 
Light power. It didn't have to be like in the first days. He didn't 
have to march alone.

He ducked into the treehouse. "Spirit? Celeh...oh..." he trailed off, 
ears drooping, as he saw a Marowak asleep on the floor in the corner, 
wearing the biggest and sharpest-toothed skull mask he'd ever seen on 
one. "Pardon me. Phos's light to you."

He ducked back out quickly. Selden looked at his startlement, read on 
the flicker of his light, and gave the treehouse a fearful glance.

"There's a Marowak asleep in there, let's go," said Chirin, motioning 
them away from the tree. The fire burned closer now and Chirin knew 
there had been talk of stopping its progress. Had they left to do it 
already? Did they need his help? How would he be able to help with 
that? He lacked water powers. All he had was lightning, and that 
*started* fires. 

What they needed was rain. But Chirin had never been taught anything 
about how to do a rain dance. If done wrong it simply didn't work, 
and it was easy to do wrong. Besides, he had already exhausted his 
efforts, pleading the spirits to help them save the world. He could 
not heap spell upon spell that way--that was nagging the spirits. 
They would extend their powers of rain when they wished. Right now, 
they were simply angry at Bangaa's violations.

"Hi," he said to the small group of pokemon. He hated to ruin their 
playing, but they had to know of the danger. "I..." He brushed one 
flipper with the other one, his ears wiggling. "I was away--down the 
beach--there was--"(Burakuru)"--a demon there attacked us." He didn't 
want to scare these babies and he wasn't sure if the name Burakuru 
meant anything to anyone here anyway. "We got rid of...the demon 
and... his... pack, but I think there's still one houndour down there 
and Sharra--do you know of Sharra? She went to the demon's side again-
-or I think. She's down there too. I thiink...the demon's dead, but 
I'm not sure, I was just trying to get us away from them alive."

Suddenly he felt bad. He had left that monster, Burakuru or the very 
son of her--to possibly revive. Now that he and Selden were out of 
immediate danger the guilt was racing into him. Was Sharra even now 
administering a spell, calling Burakuru's spirit back to wreak more 
havoc?

"I should've made sure he was dead," said Chirin, watching the 
darkening beach down the way for any sign that the shadow ones were 
making their way up here. But he hadn't even had the heart to finish 
off that drowning houndour. He had even pushed her back above the 
water in half an effort to save the poor possessed soul. What kind of 
a light-creature was he?