Tenebrous shadows moved hurriedly through the smouldering debris, almost totally obscured by the thick, sable pall which lingered motionlessly throughout the wreckage, save for the glare of a cigarette’s tip, and the keen swish of a pokémon’s tail. 
Reynard had been the first to brave the shroud, his breed immune to the fell lick of a blaze, sheltered from heat and flare alike by the aegis of their remarkable fur, and an ability known colloquially as “flash fire”: Shawn had been in quick pursuit, but not nearly at the same pace. 
The Growlithe’s footfalls were heavy, and determined, his padded forepaws dampening the igneous cracked stone beneath them, and his tail brushing aside the broiling ashes and embers which hung precariously in the still night. 
This was a routine he knew well: One all military “fire-hounds” did. 
At one time, Reynard might have performed this exact manoeuvre to excavate a collapsed bunker, or explore a ruined quarter of Phenac in the hopes of unearthing some gravelly injured survivor… 
Today, Shawn hadn’t an idea what to expect. 

But he followed, walking the safe path his pokémon had carved out for him as it weaved amongst the destruction and searched tirelessly for some- any- indication of life below the surface. 
And his senses- canidae, and thus highly elevated beyond those of any simple man, Shawn included- did not fail him. 
As though he was still a cub, he soon began pawing at a meagre outcropping: A small collection of weighty, charred stone, perhaps owed to what had at some point been one of the station’s supporting pillars. 
And once Shawn had reached his side, he glanced up at his trainer searchingly: It was an unspoken language the two shared, an inaudible signal which begged the question, “Is it friend, or foe?”
Shawn moved his cigarette to the other side of his mouth, and exhaled a small, inconsequential cloud of gunmetal smoke. 
“We aren’t soldiers anymore, little guy,” he assured his companion, his voice calm despite every nerve in his body entreating him to acknowledge the opposite: That war never ended, not on the coasts nor the mainland.
He took another drag of his cigarette, and knelt down beside Reynard.
“Dig away.” 

And so he did, his heavy paws shifting and shovelling away at the seared mass beneath his feet, until finally he smothered all remnants of flame in the process, and Shawn joined him with his bare hands. 
After a few long moments of travail, their combined efforts broke apart the stone tomb beneath them, and disinterred a womanly figure: Although she was a curious one, because a flu mask obscured the lower portion of her face. 
Although he’d found her, Reynard was powerless to drag her free: That was the duty of a creature with thumbs, and one that Shawn took upon himself as the Growlithe rushed off again in search of further survivors. 

Shawn hauled his newfound, disentombed charge from her newly built sepulchre, and knelt down at her side as he laid her across the path Reynard had left for him. 
She seemed conscious, that was good: But he couldn’t quite make out whether or not she was breathing- as indeed, the rising of a chest could just as easily have been the writhing of warm air- and so endeavoured to remove her flu mask… and reveal her scarred features.

Perhaps had it been anyone else who’d unearthed her, they might’ve been a little more surprised; But soldiers saw scars so very often in their lifetimes that, for men like Shawn, they became a meaningless embellishment; Equivalent to the colour of a person’s iris, but with a slightly more interesting story behind them. 
Still, she looked to be a civilian, so he supposed the injury was slightly sadder in that respect. 
But that didn’t matter right now: He could see she was breathing, that was the important part. 
He waved a hand in front of her eyes slowly, just to ensure she wasn’t concussed, and then smiled encouragingly down at her, as embers hovered above his head. 
It was the same, inexplicably calm gesture a fireman offered the victim of a house fire, totally serene through routine. 
“Hey there,” he greeted, loudly and above the crackling hiss of their surroundings, as he shifted his cigarette to the other side of his mouth again, “Can you hear me? I’m going to try and get you out of here: Can you walk?”

He offered his hand to her- it’d been blackened by the effort of exhuming her- before his attention was sharply drawn by something else. 
[i]”Yelp!”[/i]
A moment of panic took over, as the trainer threw a glance over his shoulder to find his Growlithe…
… a little soggy. 
Some creature, external to the flames, had begun to dampen the outlying blaze, although in the centre it burned too brightly for the efforts of a solitary team: And Reynard, being a fire pokémon, was not so cheerful to be in their path. 
Still, he looked unharmed: Shawn offered him a sympathetic smile, and a gentle shrug, before the two returned to their duties.
Reynard barked into the night, as if to alert the pokémon on the other side that he was there, before he continued his search.

“Find the Joy!”, Shawn ordered, before turning back down to the figure at his knees. 
“Again: Can you walk?”