Tommy marveled at the picturesque beauty of the quaint village behind Professor Hemlock. The two buses had landed in the middle of Mahogany Town in front of the modern Pokémon Center; it resembled the one in Goldenrod in every way down to its red tiled roof. That single building was where the similarities stopped though. The remainder of the village was cottages and cabins, the Mahogonians clearly a proud and hardy people who had braved the cold for centuries. A great mountain range extended eastward, the town settled at the beginning of the sierra, and he immediately noticed how much colder it was here as he desperately tried to return some warmth to the tips of his already numbing fingers.

Professor Hemlock ushered the class into the blissfully warm Pokémon Center and Tommy sighed in contentment. He had brought his tent as he had been instructed, but certainly wouldn’t object to sleeping in one of the hotel rooms in the heated building.

“Professor Hemlock!” A voice called out from across the lobby. “It’s great to see you again! I’ve been expecting you!”

“Pryce,” Professor Hemlock smiled cheerily. “Congratulations on your new appointment.”

The man named Pryce made his way over to where Professor Hemlock was standing and clasped her forearm. He was young, maybe a year or two older than Tommy, and rather short with spiky hair that was white as snow. He was dressed warmly, a heavy fur parka and wool pants and boots covering him from head to toe. He beamed at the students who were gathered in front of him.

“Pryce here is a graduate of the program, one of the brightest students I’ve ever taught.” Professor Hemlock introduced him to Tommy and everyone else who was gathered around her. “He finished top of the class just two years ago, and at eighteen years old he’s the youngest gym leader Johto has seen in the last century.”

“Professor, please,” Bryce chuckled awkwardly and scratched the back of his neck. “Students, it’s nice to meet you all. Let me be the first to welcome everyone to Mahogany Town, my home!”

Tommy mumbled an uncomfortable ‘thank you’ along with the rest of the class who all seemed unsure what to say or do in front of one of Johto’s rising stars.

“Well, it was great to see you again Professor! We’ll have to catch up soon, but duty calls. I have a gym challenge this afternoon I should prepare for. Best of luck this weekend students, stay warm!” He smiled jovially and waved goodbye and then promptly exited the front door of the Pokémon Center.

“Pryce is truly a genius,” Professor Hemlock smiled. “He just received his appointment this past summer, an outstanding alumni that the school is proud of…”

“Anyway, you have only a single task this weekend,” she gathered her wits. “There is a cave system through the chain of mountains that is a two-day hike due East from here. It is known simply as the Ice Path and is so named because it is frozen year round and is the home of many powerful ice type Pokémon. In the center of this cave complex, Pryce has placed twelve trophies that are to be collected by you students. The goal for your team is to collect a trophy and bring it successfully back to the Pokémon Center. The distance to the Ice Path from here is about twenty kilometers which means your total journey will be 40 kilometers round trip.”

“We have 15 two-man teams which means that the three groups who are not able to collect a trophy and successfully return will be expelled,” Professor Hemlock told the class. “Now it is not all about who can be the fastest, as you may also engage your fellow classmates in a Pokémon battle to try to steal their trophy away. In this case an equally viable strategy may be to camp out in the forest for a few days and attempt to steal one from your classmates who are returning back to Mahogany. Of course be aware of the risks, if you are unsuccessful in your attempts to steal then you may no longer have enough time to complete the trek through the mountains yourselves.”

“Each of you will be provided with a flare,” she said, passing around a box. Tommy took what looked to be a long skinny tube with a fuse on the end of it. The device reminded him of the time his father had bought fireworks to signal the start of the New Year. “You may use the device to signal your withdrawal from the competition at any time if you feel that you are in danger or you get injured. Light the fuse end and point it skyward, it will launch the flare into the sky and someone will be sent to collect you. You’ll be expelled of course if you give up.”

“Mahogany Town is considered a neutral zone, no Pokémon battles may occur inside of the village so if you can successfully get the trophy inside the town limits then you are considered safe.” Professor Hemlock informed. “The deadline for everyone’s return is noon on Sunday, as we will be leaving for Goldenrod on Sunday afternoon. If you finish earlier than Sunday, however much time you have remaining you may use as you see fit to explore the village. Also the first team to return will receive a prize upon returning to Goldenrod.”

“Good luck students!” The professor nodded. “The first snowfall of the year is expected sometime within the next few days, possibly as early as today. There are changing rooms in the back of the Pokémon Center. Stay warm!”

She left the students standing in the lobby and went to go speak with Nurse Joy who was standing at the reception counter.

“Well it sounds simple enough, though I doubt it will be,” Aubrey sighed. Many students had begun to head to the changing rooms. “Come on, let's change as well. We don’t want to fall too far behind, we’ll go for a trophy and maximize our options.”

Tommy nodded in affirmation. “Yeah, and if anyone steals the trophy from us we can just try to steal one back from another group I guess.”

The two of them changed quickly and left the Pokémon Center heading east as the professor mentioned. Tommy didn’t see any students as the two of them were walking through the town so they were either far ahead or far behind already.

“Ready?” He asked Aubrey. They were standing at the edge of town and a massive forest of pine trees and other conifers was spread out in front of them. He called Houndour and Yanma out of their Pokéballs so that they could all walk together.

“Yeah, good idea!” Aubrey said. She called out her Chikorita and from her second Pokéball a Drilbur appeared.

“Wow, a Drilbur. That’s cool!” Tommy smiled as they took their first steps and began to pick their way through the endless forest in front of them.

“Yeah, I caught her on our last excursion in Ecruteak with Jon and Darius. She’s strong!” Aubrey smiled. “Your Yanma is cool too!”

“Thanks!” He offered. “Maybe we can have a battle someday?”

“If you want me to crush you that badly sure,” Aubrey shrugged, making him laugh.

The rest of the morning and the early afternoon passed quickly. They were making good time even though they had been hiking uphill since setting out from Mahogany and they only had to stop to rest once or twice. There was a beautiful lake that the Pokémon stopped to water at, so Tommy and Aubrey stopped and ate lunch while watching their Pokémon interact.

“It really is weird how calm they are when you’re around,” she told him. “Why do you think that is?”

“Can we please talk about anything else?” He begged her. “It makes me mad just thinking about it. Especially since I have no idea what it is.”

She shrugged and the two of them lapsed into silence while they finished their lunch of dried meat and cheese.

After eating they continued on for the entirety of the afternoon. The two of them eventually came to the edge of the forest in the early evening and Tommy climbed up the next hill and looked back, admiring a stunningly beautiful sight. An ocean of pine trees spread endlessly before him and he could see the lights of Mahogany Town way below where he now stood. He wondered how far they had walked.

“You think we’re halfway at least?” He asked. They had been walking all day but he still felt pretty good, he was used to exercising now.

“Yeah, look a signpost,” Aubrey said. The trail continued at an even steeper incline as it wound its way up the side of the mountain. He walked over to the signpost that Aubrey was standing beside.

Ice Path: 8km, the sign said with an arrow pointing up the side of the mountain.

He checked his watch and saw that it was 5pm. It didn’t appear that there was much shelter away from the trees and he didn’t know if they should continue on or not. The sun would be setting soon and he didn’t fancy stumbling around the side of a frigid mountain after dark.

“A storm,” Aubrey pointed out the dark clouds that were moving in from the far side of the mountain. “I think we should find shelter, those clouds look like bad news.”

“Do you want to go back to the forest?” He asked. “There may be a place where we can set up camp under a big tree or something.”

“I don’t know,” she hesitated and bit her lip. “I don’t want to be exposed to whatever those clouds are about to drop. But I don’t have any other ideas.”

“Could we use our Pokémon for something?” He offered aloud.

“Yeah, I’ve got it!” Aubrey shouted after a moment of thought. “Let’s use our Pokémon and see if we can scout out a cave, something small that we can hole up in.”

“Yeah that sounds way better than sleeping under a tree, excellent idea Aubrey,” Tommy nodded his head. “You take Yanma and Drilbur. Yanma can maybe locate a place with his good eyesight and then Drilbur can dig it out with her claws if it isn’t big enough. Give me Chikorita and I’ll go chop down a tree so we can have some firewood.”

“Yes! That’s perfect!” She smiled. “Chikorita, go with Tommy, listen to what he says.”

They split up and set about their various tasks. Tommy trekked back down towards the forest where Chikorita was able to make quick work of a tall tree. He, Chikorita, and Houndour scooped up as much wood as they could carry and started to haul it back uphill. The clouds were almost directly overhead now and little flakes of snow began to drift down from them.

“Tommy, I found the perfect place!” He heard Aubrey yelling from up ahead. She was coming back downhill with Yanma and grabbed some of the wood that the Pokémon were carrying. “Just like you said. Yanma has great eyes. He found the perfect place and Drilbur is there now excavating it. I kept it pretty small, so we could trap the heat inside.”

Snow began to fall more heavily now and Tommy shivered as the temperature began to drop even lower than it already was. “It’s about half a kilometer ahead. Come on, hurry!”

The wind began to howl viciously around them and darkness fell faster than Tommy thought possible. Snow was whipping all about them and he was already beginning to lose the feeling in his fingers even through his heavy gloves. Aubrey led them off to the side of the trail and set the wood on the ground in front of her. She bent down on all fours and crawled forward into a small hole that Tommy knew they would never have been able to find without the help of their Pokémon. He bent down and started handing the firewood inside to her. After all of the Pokémon were ushered inside he crawled through the hole which opened into a small room. The room wasn’t big enough for him to stand in but he was able to crouch and move around easily enough.

“We need to get a fire started,” He said. “Also Drilbur needs to dig a small tunnel that the smoke can escape through, otherwise we’ll suffocate in here.”

“Yeah, smart.” Ashley agreed. She told Drilbur to do as Tommy had suggested while he began to arrange the firewood. A few minutes later once he had the wood set up, Houndour ignited it and a hearty fire was soon providing light and warmth to the cave’s occupants.

“The cave’s only big enough for one tent,” Tommy noticed. “Are you going to be comfortable with that?”

“Yeah, I kept it small to conserve heat,” Aubrey said. Tommy saw that her cheeks were slightly flushed, but he hoped it was just from the snow. “We should probably sleep together to share body heat anyway.”

He awkwardly cleared his throat. Though he didn’t have feelings for his friend, Aubrey was still an attractive girl and he tried to quickly distract himself by talking about something else.

“Well at least with the fire we can cook dinner tonight. We can save our dried food for the daytime. Do you want to cook dinner or set up the tent?” He asked her.

“I’ll do the tent,” she smiled. “Everyone is always bragging about what a good cook you are.”

“Fair enough,” he laughed. He pulled out a pan from his backpack and tossed in some onions and carrots that he chopped up with his hunting knife. While they cooked down he produced a cut of beef that they had bought from the Mart yesterday. He seasoned it and tossed it into the pan with everything else, then started preparing food for his Pokémon.

“Smells good,” Aubrey said as she settled herself next to Tommy by the fire. She had a bowl of the generic Pokémon food they had bought from the Pokémon Mart and was about to give it to her two Pokémon.

“Save that for later,” He said, stopping her before she gave the food to her Pokémon. “I made some homemade food, enough for your Pokémon too.”

“Thanks,” Aubrey smiled as she accepted the food Tommy passed to her. She gave it to her Pokémon and watched as they happily devoured it.

“I’m glad they like it,” Tommy smiled as he gave some to his own Pokémon. He then returned his attention to their food. He stirred the pan and added in more butter; his mouth was watering as he started to baste the beef.

“Is it done?” Aubrey leaned in close next to him. She was eyeing the steak hungrily.

He pulled it off the fire and let it rest for a few minutes, then plated up everything and handed it over to Aubrey. He didn’t realize how hungry he had been, the steak all but vanishing within moments.

“Okay, yeah. Maybe you can cook a little bit,” Aubrey sighed contentedly and leaned back against the cave wall. “Do you think that all of the other students are okay out in the storm?”

Tommy closed his eyes and listened to the snow and wind howling outside the entrance of their cave. He shook his head, grateful that they had found a cave and weren’t camping out in the open.

“I hope so,” he muttered. “It sounds like it’s really coming down out there. The hike up the mountain is going to be really difficult now.”

She nodded her head and then glanced over at their tent. “Are you tired?”

“Yeah, I could sleep,” he croaked embarrassingly; he tried to clear his throat.

He blushed slightly when he looked over at Aubrey, but began to strip his wet clothes off, laying them out by the fire to dry. He had stripped down to the skin tight thermal pants and tank top that made up the innermost layer of his outfit. Aubrey blushed and looked away.

“No big deal, right?” He smiled awkwardly. He reached into his backpack grabbing a dry pair of socks and his bedroll.

“No big deal,” he heard her mutter behind him. He heard her clothes rustling and focused as hard as possible on laying out his bedroll properly inside of her tent. It took up the entire thing.

He shook his head to try to clear it and then crawled inside the tent, getting inside the sleeping bag and arranging the blanket.

“It’s no big deal,” Aubrey said aloud. He looked up to see her wearing a sports bra and skin tight leggings, her light brown hair hanging loose about her face. He inhaled sharply and then started choking on his own spit.

She burst out laughing and clenched her exposed stomach. “You’re so stupid, make room I’m freezing.”

He smiled and laughed at himself, holding open the sleeping bag and scooting over to make as much room as possible. She crawled into the sleeping bag with him and he zipped it up on the two of them.

Her body pressed into his and his mind immediately went back to last month and the similar scenario that he had been in. He blushed as his body betrayed him once again.

“Sorry, I-I can’t help it,” Tommy sputtered, he closed his eyes and wanted to die of embarrassment, especially after their talk on the bus earlier today. “Well if this isn’t the bonding moment that we needed then I don’t know what is, right?”

“Tommy,” Aubrey stated. “Shut up.”

She grabbed the blanket and pulled it up over them. He could feel her shivering in the cold so he wrapped his arm around her and held her as close as possible, trying his hardest to block out all thoughts except for sleep.

Tommy awoke early in the morning, same as always. He smiled at Aubrey who was fast asleep, clenching his hand tightly against her chest. He had been worried that she wouldn’t be able to sleep very well but was glad to see that she was sleeping soundly now. He checked his PokéNav which told him that it was 5am, no surprise there, and wondered whether it would be better to wake her up or let her sleep a little bit more. All of their Pokémon were asleep around the fire which was burning low and Tommy passed some time watching the smoke rise up through the little vent in the ceiling that Drilbur had dug out last night.

“Aubrey, let’s wake up and get moving,” Tommy whispered to her. “If we get started early we may be one of the first to get a trophy.”

“Five more minutes,” she mumbled sleepily, backing herself into Tommy and squeezing his arm tighter. She flipped over not even a minute later though and glared daggers at him. “Do you know how hard it was to sleep with that thing pressed into my back all night? Plus you were snoring right in my ear.”

“Good morning to you too?” Tommy asked hesitantly. They stared at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“Can I expect the same five-star treatment tonight on the way back down?” Aubrey flashed her straight white teeth.

“You mean to say that you didn’t enjoy the deluxe package?” Tommy wiggled his eyebrows.

“Idiot. You’ve been spending too much time with Jon,” she giggled and shoved him. She looked into his eyes momentarily and then down at his lips. She kissed him lightly on the lips and then blushed furiously, flipping back over to face the tent opening, “Go grab me some breakfast.”

“Uh…Yeah let me use the bathroom first,” He hesitated wondering what that had been about. “I’ll check and see what it looks like outside the cave too.”

He climbed out of the sleeping bag and threw on his boots, crawling his way out of the cave and into the morning air. Everything was completely white and snow was still falling, though they were only small flurries. Shivering, he did his business off to the side of the cave and then crawled back inside to the smoldering fire.

“It’s freezing out there, it’s still snowing,” He told Aubrey. He moved over by Houndour and rubbed his hands against her fur, trying to warm himself up. “Do your business and then let’s be on our way.”

While she went outside Tommy started to break down the tent and pack everything up. Aubrey came back in, swearing under her breath and sat next to Houndour to warm up while Tommy looked through his bag for some clothes. After everything was packed up and he and Aubrey dressed they exited the cave with their Pokémon.

“I can’t even see where the path is,” Aubrey groaned. She had the hood of her parka pulled up over her head and she was rubbing her hands together. They were standing in snow that went well past their ankles.

“Yanma, can you see anything at all? Can you see the path? Use Foresight,” Tommy’s teeth chattered. Yanma’s eyes changed from blue to red and it buzzed in affirmation. “You found the path?”

Yanma bobbed up and down in the air.

“Thank goodness,” Aubrey said. She recalled her two Pokémon and clipped them to her waist. Tommy followed suit, returning Houndour to her Pokéball so she could be rested if he needed her later.

“I know it’s cold but we need you to lead the way Yanma,” Tommy told the dragonfly. “Without your eyes we won’t be able to make it to our destination. I’ll give you a rest once we get to the Ice Path.”

Yanma set off slowly and Tommy followed right behind him. He had to wade through the snow and after just five minutes he could barely feel his feet. He forced himself to push on though, Aubrey walking right behind him. It felt like they were moving at a crawl, especially compared to the speed they were moving at yesterday, but slowly and surely they made their way up the side of the mountain. They didn’t stop at all, not finding any sensible place to rest and after hours of trekking Yanma trilled in excitement.

Tommy looked up from the snow he was plowing through and saw the mouth of a cave, much bigger than the small cave on the Whirl Islands. He looked back at Aubrey, gave a thumbs up, and then pushed the last few meters up to the cave entrance.

“You did great Yanma, take a rest now,” He unclipped the Ultra Ball from his belt and recalled Yanma to it in a flash of red light. He and Aubrey walked inside the cave which unfortunately wasn’t any warmer than the side of the mountain they just left. Professor Hemlock hadn’t been lying when she said it was covered in ice, everything looked slippery and cold and he was already dreading the fact that he would be slipping around everywhere while trying to find some trophy in near total darkness.

“Hey let’s eat before we go any further,” Aubrey said. “It’s getting close to lunchtime.”

They took a seat just inside the cave entrance and slipped their packs from their back, rifling through to find something to snack on. Tommy wanted something warm to eat but all he and Aubrey had readily available were dried meats and cheese. They ate in silence, shining the flashlights on their PokéNavs around the room looking at everything.

“This is going to suck,” Aubrey complained. She stood up, brushed herself off and reshouldered her pack. “They just expect us to stumble around in the dark until we come upon the trophy? What Pokémon live here anyway?”

Tommy shrugged and called out Houndour. She would hopefully be able to keep them safe from any powerful ice-type Pokémon. Aubrey called out her Drilbur and they set off, following the path deeper into the bowels of the cave.

Not even five steps in, Tommy slipped and fell on his ass and he quickly lost count of the number of times that he and Aubrey fell down while trying to navigate the slippery path. His tailbone hurt something fierce and he was glad he was wearing gloves otherwise he knew that his hands would be sliced to ribbons. Houndour tried to melt some of the ice that was on the path in front of them but the ambient temperature was so cold that the water froze again almost immediately. He told her to save her energy in case they got in a fight. It seemed that they ran into at least one Zubat in each room that they explored, but Houndour was able to scare them away with Ember. At one point, they ran into a Golbat which the two of them had to work together to successfully bring down.

“Thunder Fang!” Tommy told Houndour who leapt into the air and bit down onto Golbat’s wounded wing. The bat screeched in fury but collapsed to the ground in paralysis where Drilbur wasted no time jumping on the wounded Pokémon and raking it across the back with her sharpened claws. Golbat fell into unconsciousness and Aubrey and Tommy sighed in relief at the hard fought battle.

“Thunder Fang?” she said, sounding a bit surprised. “You haven’t used that one yet have you?”

“No, keep it a secret though,” Tommy begged his friend. “I’m going to need the element of surprise when I have to fight Nessa or Ashley.”

“You say that as if it’s a foregone conclusion,” Aubrey sneered. “You’ll have to get by me first before you can fight either of them.”

“I know, that won’t be an easy fight either,” Tommy sighed as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a Potion. He sprayed Houndour a few times with it and then handed it over to Aubrey. “But Thunder Fang won’t help me against either of your Pokémon anyway and Golbat wasn’t going to be knocked out without me using that. He was too fast and kept dodging Ember.”

“Hmm, fair enough,” Aubrey conceded. She sprayed her Drilbur with the Potion and then handed it back to Tommy. The two of them gathered their bags and then set off again.

Finally the path opened up into a grand chamber with thousands upon thousands of ice crystals hanging from the ceiling. There were torches in this room and Aubrey pointed out a pedestal that was placed directly underneath a huge ice formation that hung from the ceiling. On the pedestal were a collection of silver trophies.

The two of them slipped and slid their way over to the pedestal where Aubrey promptly grabbed a trophy and held it out proudly.

“We did it!” Tommy whooped, grinning cheerily as his voice echoed around the cavern. This experience had been a thousand times worse than being on the Whirl Islands. He was chilled to the bone and dreaded the fact that they were now going to have to hike all the way back down the mountain to Mahogany Town. Not to mention other students would probably be challenging them to battles. He counted the remaining trophies and not counting the one in Aubrey’s hand, there were ten left. That meant one team had beaten them here even though Tommy knew he and Aubrey had made amazing time. One team was better than them. He didn’t have to think hard to figure out who it was.

“Alright let’s head back,” Aubrey said. “I’m cold and not having a good time anymore.”

“Well, I was never having a good time,” Tommy said. “I’m ready to leave here and never come back.”

As they were about to leave, they heard a scuttling noise coming from behind them.

“Aubrey, look!” Tommy pointed out across the frozen room.

A Snorunt waddled out from around an icy pillar.