-Chapter 3: Small Steps-

-Connor's POV-

I was sleeping soundly, having finally fallen asleep last night, when suddenly my ears broke, "HEY! HEY THERE! RISE AND SHINE, PRINCESS!"

I shook my head, my eyes still closed, "Gah!"

"Why are you still ASLEEP?! WAKE UP!"

I shot bolt upright, my ears ringing, and Vulcan shook his head, "Talk about a wake-up call…"

I got a clear look at the pokemon shouting at us, and it was fairly large, purple skinned, with a mouth that could swallow a watermelon whole.

"Snap out of it! I'm Loudred, a fellow apprentice, and self-designated alarm for any ROOKIES that decide to sleep past the morning CHEER! You'd better HURRY! Guildmaster Wigglytuff has a BIG temper, so if you make him lose it… YOWEE! That's scary just thinking about it!"

He seemed to shake a horrifying image out of his head, and continued, "ANYWAYS, I'm not getting in TROUBLE because you ROOKIES were late! SO GET IT IN GEAR!"

I buried my head in the hay, and Vulcan rolled out of bed, and fell over, "My ears are broken…"

I groped at my head, "You're tellin' me…"

Vulcan continued, "What was he talking about…? Something about getting ready?"

I shot straight up, my chest exploding into even worse pain than my ears, "We apprenticed here yesterday!"

Vulcan looked at me, "That means…!"

We both said in unison, "We overslept!"

We both dashed to the main room, where the apprentices were lined up. Loudred shouted, "You're late, ROOKIES!"

We stood in line, and Chatot shushed him, "Your voice is too loud, Loudred!"

The purple pokemon humphed, and Chatot continued, "Everyone seems to be present… Very well! We will conduct the morning address! Guildmaster! The Guild seems to be in perfect attendance!"

Wigglytuff walked out of his room with his usual smile, eyes wide open, and Chatot smiled, "Thank you Guildmaster! Please address the crew!"

We all turned our attention to the pink fluffball, but when we did so, he seemed to be… Snoring? There were murmurs from the other apprentices.

"Guildmaster Wigglytuff never ceases to amaze me!"

"Yeah, you got that right."

"Looks like he's wide awake!"

"Eek! But he's asleep! With his eyes open!"

Chatot continued to act as if this was a normal occurrence, "Thank you sir, we value your... words of wisdom!" He turned back to us, "Alright, Pokemon! Take our Guildmaster's words to heart! Finally, let's not forget our morning cheers! All together now!" I shook my head in confusion, Morning cheers?

Chatot continued, his tail flicking to a beat, "A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three!"

The other apprentices said in unison, "ONE! DON'T SHIRK WORK! TWO! RUN AWAY AND PAY! THREE SMILES GO FOR MILES!"

Chatot applauded with his wings, "Alright Pokemon, let's get to work!"

We all raised our badges and cheered, "HOORAY!" Before wandering off to do missions, or whatever posts they had around the guild.

Vulcan turned to me, "So… What are we supposed to do? We weren't ever told what was going to-"

Chatot fluttered over to us, "Connor, your wound is worse than yesterday… Let's fix that! Follow me!"

I shrugged, not really arguing, "Alright…"

Chatot took us to a room that was hidden behind some vines, with a Chimecho floating throughout the room, using psychic to move tools around.

Chatot smiled, "Chimecho! This Mudkip needs medical attention!"

The Chimecho was a female, its high-pitched voice sounding like bells slightly, "Will do! Thanks, Chatot!"

She gestured to a mat on the floor, and I laid there. She floated over me, "Oh my goodness, your chest! How are you walking after such an injury?!"

I humphed, "It's not that bad, right?"

She chided me, "Oooh, it's way worse than you think. I can see straight through your center mass! That would kill most pokemon that went untreated!"

Vulcan looked nervous, and I smiled until Chimecho actually touched it. I shouted in pain, and she floated backwards, "Hold on, honey… You need a reviver seed..."

She pulled out a plain yellow seed with a pink dot on the center of it, and placed it in the wound. Immediately, my skin began stretching over the hole, and before long, it was just a pale scar. I threw up the seed in a torrent of water, and Chimecho threw it out using her psychic, "There! All better! Reviver seeds are infinitely useful!"

I thanked her, and stood up. My chest felt fine now, and Chatot walked back in after a little while, "Alright, you two! Time for your first mission!"

We followed chatot, climbed the ladder to the second level of the guild, and he walked to one of the boards with notes posted all over it.

Chatot plucked one off with his beak, mumbling, "You're just beginners, so we'll start you off with this assignment…"

He handed it to Vulcan, since I didn't exactly have any thumbs, and continued, "This is the job bulletin board. Pokemon from all over Immanis post jobs here for us to do! You're aware of the massive outbreak of outlaws, correct?"

I realized that the question was towards Vulcan, and he nodded, "Yeah; Something about time going all out of whack, right?"
Chatot nodded, "You would be correct, although I wouldn't use those words exactly… In addition… It is unknown if this is due to time's influence, but there has also been a mass outbreak of… Mystery dungeons."

I shook my head slightly, pawing the ground. Time is out of whack? As in minutes and seconds? What is going on in this world?

Another question popped into my head, "What are mystery dungeons?"

Vulcan placed a hand on my back, "You know where we got my relic fragment back? That's a mystery dungeon. They're mysterious places that seal themselves until you reach the end. If you're defeated by any of the wild pokemon, then you get kicked out and lose half your items and money. It's pretty risky, but that's where all the missions on the boards take place."

He unfolded the note, and read it aloud.

"Hello! My name is Spoink!"

"An outlaw has run off with my most prized possession. My precious pearl! That pearl is life itself… To me! I just can't seem to settle down if that pearl isn't in proper place atop my head! But I've heard that my pearl has been sighted! It's on a rocky bluff! But I also heard that this bluff is extremely unsafe! I could never go somewhere go frightening! Oh, friendly readers, would you be so kind as to go to the bluff and get my pearl? I beg your help, Exploration team members!"

Vulcan's hands began glowing, so I took the paper in my mouth before he burnt it to ash. He grunted, "What's this? We have to go get some item that a pokemon lost? I mean, I know that we're not super experienced, but do we have to do this? When I think of Exploration teams, I think of actually… Exploring unknown places, uncovering ancient treasures, that sort of thing."

Chatot hushed him, "It's important that you rookies pay your dues! Now, pay attention! I'll repeat the warnings to make sure that they stick! You'll both be sent out of the dungeon, back here if either one of you faints! You'll lose half of your money, and half, maybe more, of your items! I'd suggest being careful! Now, if you've understood all that, get on with it!"

I nodded, "Yes, sir. Let's go, Vulcan."

We both exited the guild, and when we reached the crossroads, Vulcan walked over to the well in the corner. A book and quill floated up, and he picked it up, "An adventure log… That's so cool…"

He scribbled some writing down in it, and he put it back in the water. It vanished, and we looked at the wonder map after I spread it on the ground. "Alright… So Drenched Bluff is… Where?"

I pulled out the job from my backpack, and Vulcan read it again, making sure to keep cool, literally, and he pointed to a spot on the map right below a weird waterfall, "Here. The mission says it's here."

I nodded, and rolled the map up, putting it in a slot in my backpack that fit it perfectly.

We began walking, and along the way, I put the Stamina band- That's what Vulcan called it, anyways- Around my head finr. I hated being hungry, that much I remembered from being a human. Vulcan pulled off the blue bow pretty well, wearing it around his neck too. Blue and Orange… They match surprisingly well.

When we arrived, Vulcan held up the job description, "Spoink's note says that it's on the seventh floor."

I shrugged, "No time like the present to get it done!"

When we went in, there were enemy pokemon like lileep, along with Chingling, Anorith and Shellos. Most of them only knew normal-type attacks, with the exception of Anorith knowing mud sport, so Vulcan wasn't too scared. It just threw mud everywhere. It didn't do much more than just tick us off.

Vulcan learned smokescreen on his way through, which would be helpful in the future against tougher enemies.

The enemies weren't too tough; We sent most of them packing with little effort. We both quickly found out how useful the Treasure bags were. We found three oran berries, a couple blast seeds, and a few new seeds. Vulcan said that they were sleep seeds and heal seeds. One was grey with blue wavy lines, the other was green, like and under-ripe apple.

We stashed those in our wonder bags, which we found out shared a pocket dimension of sorts, so whatever we found, either one of us could pull out of our bags.

I smiled, "That's useful."

We found a big apple, which I gave to Vulcan. I heard his stomach growling, and my stamina band helped me stay full longer, so he scarfed it down after crisping it up over his tail flame.

Soon, our treasure bags were full, and we reached the bottom of the dungeon where Spoink's pearl was. We picked it up and the dungeon warped us back to the entrance of the Guild.

When we got back, Spoink was already in the guild waiting for us. How, I don't know. He accepted the pearl and placed it atop his head, "Oh, thank you! That pearl must be propped on my head, you see. I missed it so much! I just couldn't settle down without it up there, so I was just boinging and sproinging everywhere! But thanks to you, that long nightmare is over! You have my sincere thanks!"

He handed us three little bottles, a protein, calcium, Iron, and a huge bag of… Vulcan flipped out, "Whoa! 2,000 Poké!? All this is for us?"

The Spoink nodded, "Of course! Of course! That's nothing compared to my pearl's value! Farewell!"

He sprung up the ladder, leaving us as Chatot glided in, "Well done, team! Now, hand over that money, if you'd please!"

I stood there, shocked, "Huh?"

Chatot sifted through the coins, "Most of the money from jobs goes to the Guildmaster, you see. And your team's share of the money comes down to this much… He handed us a small pile, and Vulcan whined, "Wha-?! Only 200 Poké? That's not fair!"
"Well, that's the guild's rule. You'll simply have to accept it."

After he flew off to the lower levels with the bag of money, Vulcan sighed, "Should have figured… Only ten percent."

I sat down next to him, "Hey, look on the bright side of things. We got some awesome power boosting potion things! They could be useful!"

He seemed bummed out, "Yeah… I guess."

I stood up, "C'mon, let's go talk to Team Core."

He smiled slightly at that prospect, "Alright."

We walked up the ladder, and Sunflora, one of the apprentices here, called up to us, "Hey, dinner is in about an hour! You don't want to miss that!"

We both nodded, and walked into Treasure town, deposited our money with Duskull, and went to talk to Team Core.

We walked into the tent, and this time I saw a Volcarona, a huge, white, legless insect pokemon with orange wings and blue insectoid eyes on one of the beds. It rolled over, "Who's that, Quint?"

The Absol eyed me, "Ah, Connor! Vulcan! How was the first day of guild training?"

Vulcan sighed, "We only get ten percent of the reward money… Is it like that for you guys?"

Seth laughed so hard, he sat down, "Oh, gosh, Vulcan, you don't know the half of it… We only get ten percent of the reward even now, but when you get rewards like 8,000 Poké for a star 7 rank outlaw, 800 is a pretty big haul, so it's not all that bad, especially when you start tackling several missions at once. Did Chatot give you some seemingly insubstantial item fetching mission for your first assignment?"

I nodded, and the Volcarona humphed, "I don't like the guild rules. Never did."

It was a female from its voice, and Quint chimed in, "Yeah… First days are tough for any team, especially one consisting of unevolved pokemon like you guys… No offense."

Vulcan smiled, "None taken."

The Delcatty, Maris, purred, "Well, Vulcan… You'll get to capturing big-name outlaws eventually! You need to stay strong!"

I saw him thinking about this statement, and I tapped his shoulder with my head fin, "Hey, Maris is right. We need to stay strong. We can't just quit, Vulcan."

He nodded, "Yeah… Getting thanked by spoink was what really made my day anyways… I can't believe I got distracted by money."

Seth laughed and hopped down off of his bunk bed, "Don't you worry, lad. Money is something that can be earned, found, whatever. It's not important. You have a good heart, Maris sensed that in you. You're capable of great things, especially with this Mudkip. Connor, was it?"

I nodded, and his eyes grew bigger, "Ah, I see that Chimecho healed your wound. How were you able to walk with that hole goin' through you?"

I shrugged, "I dunno. It didn't really bother me."

The Volcarona, whose name I deduced was Lucerna, whistled, "Impressive, little pokemon. Your strength is astounding."

I smiled sheepishly, "Thanks…"

Vulcan's tail lit even brighter, and Corphish dashed into the tent, scaring the crap out of me and Vulcan. Quint's horn glowed, and Maris had yellow stars glowing and floating above her head, and he raised his pincers, "Hey, hey, hey! Sorry for the intrusion, Team Core, but Chatot sent for you two!" He pointed to Vulcan and I, "Connor, Vulcan, dinner is about ready, so come on!"

We both looked at each other, "Food…" and took off after Corphish.

After a delicious meal of oran berries and apples, the guild members filed off, going to sleep.

I laid on my hay bed, staring at the shadows cast along the wall from Vulcan's tail, making dancing shadows along the walls.

He obviously couldn't sleep, because I kept hearing him rustling, and he turned, "Hey, Connor… Today was pretty major, wasn't it? We did our first mission, first try. Nothing I would really consider a huge success, but I'm glad we pulled it off. The whole money thing made me a little upset, but after that talk with Team Core, and I actually think about it… Hearing Spoink's thanks really made my day. He yawned, "I'm actually tired… We should probably sleep too. Let's have a great day tomorrow. G'night."

"Goodnight, Vulcan."


A'ight. Chapter 3, people! The first mission! I think it went pretty well, but feel free to let me know how you think it went with a quick review or PM!

Once again, spoilers for the story of the game are imminent, so if you haven't played it yet, and are planning to, I'd suggest not reading my story yet!

Anywho, if you have any OC ideas that you want to see in any sequels to come, PM me the descriptions! The template is on my profile. Much Love!

-PL