Valiant and Haile came upon a large pink building in the shape of a pokemon's head. Valiant didn't really know what it was, but it had long pink ears with white tips, and big, cute eyes. The ground gave way to a grate, and there were tiki poles made up of other pokémon surrounding the structure.
"So, what is this place again?" She asked, poking one of the tikis.
"The Wigglytuff guild! It's the coolest place ever!" Haile replied, his eyes growing, yet again. He tentatively took a few steps forward, resting his feet on the grate.
"Pokémon detected! Pokémon detected!" A slightly nasal voice cried from below the grate, causing Haile to visually tense.
"REALLY? WHAT POKEMON IS IT?" A louder voice called from the same place, making Haile seem more nervous.
"Pikachu! I repeat, the pokémon is Pikachu!" The first voice replied. Haile looked as though he would possibly faint, and Valiant took a step or two toward him.
"HEY! WHO'S YOUR FRIEND? C'MON, STEP ON THE GRATE," the second voice called up. Haile turned his head toward her shakily.
"Please step on it so they'll stop yelling," he whimpered quietly.
"Gaheez, you are a wuss," she scolded him, stepping on the grate. Strangely, silence floated up from the hole.
"WELL? WHAT IS IT?" the second voice boomed.
"Uh, I… I don't know," the first voice said, softer than before. The two discussed their situation for a few minutes before Valiant cut in.
"Yo, goof balls! I'm a squirtle," she yelled between the grate rails.
"Come to think of it, the foot print does look like a squirtle print," the first said, barely audible to the duo up on the grate. "Strange, squirtle don't usually come around here…"
"YOU'RE FREE TO ENTER," the second bellowed. The gate blocking the door opened slowly.
"Finally!" Valiant complained, stretching the syllables out. Before they could even go down the ladder inside the first room, a bird pokémon flapped its way up to them.
"Let me save you some trouble, we don't want what you're selling," squawked the bird, which had an array of colorful feathers and a head shaped like a music note. "Good day," it said, turning to go back in the building.
"Wait!" Haile cried loudly, surprising Valiant. The bird erupted in a collage of feathers and squawks of anger.
"Did I not just tell you to leave?" It asked, rounding on her companion. Haile grew as stiff as a plank of wood, clearly intimidated after angering the bird.
"We came here to form an exploration team," she intervened, stepping closer to Haile. The flying type calmed down a bit and looked the duo up and down once or twice before motioning them inside.
"Sorry for earlier," it apologized, "we've been getting a lot of sales people lately. Anyway, I'm Chatot, and what might your names be?"
"My name's Haile and this is Valiant," he replied cheerily, already relaxed.
"Ah, Haile the pikachu and Valiant the squirtle. That's a pretty good match up for an exploration team," Chatot responded, heading down the ladder. The two pokémon followed him slowly; neither of them could really use a ladder.
"This is the first floor," Chatot told them when they reached the bottom, "this is where exploration teams can traverse, pick new missions, and adjust their team members."
"Wow, cool," Haile squealed, looking around. The room was large, had grass floors, and multiple pokémon milling around. "Whoa! There's a window!" Haile ran over to the window, leaving Valiant to wonder if this is how he reacted to windows, how he would react to meeting the Guild's inhabitants.
"How can light get in? We're underground, aren't we?" He asked as Valiant and Chatot got closer.
"Technically, yes, but the Guild was built on a cliff," said a soft, melodious voice, "so we can see outside. Hi, I'm Chimecho." Valiant glanced at the floating pokemon, it was small, blue-ish gray with red markings, and had a yellow ball on its head.
"Hello Chimecho, these are two potential apprentices, Haile and Valiant," Chatot replied for them. "Chimecho organizes your team and cooks everyone's dinner. Okay, moving on."
The three of them then proceeded to one of the boards tacked up to the walls.
"This is the job bulletin board. Here you choose what missions to go on," Chatot said, gesturing to the many slips of paper on the board. "These missions range from item finding, to escorting, to rescuing lost pokémon."
"Oh! Cool! So, what's the other bulletin board for?" Haile asked curiously.
"I was getting to that," he answered, flapping over to the second board. The other two followed behind, disrupting three poochyena. "This is the outlaw notice board. Criminal pokémon's wanted posters are pinned up here. You two should step back," he warned.
"Why?" Haile asked, the two of them scooting back.
"Diglett's father, Dugtrio, changes the notices on the board around this time of day," just as Chatot answered, the board flipped backwards, revealing its back. In a few seconds, the board flipped back over, all the previous papers replaced with new ones.
Valiant looked over all the wanted posters until her eyes rested upon a green pokémon with a single leaf sticking out of its head and leaf blades on its arms. "Who's that?" she asked, pointing to the mystery pokémon.
"That's Grovile," Chatot answered, his voice becoming darker, "he is a notorious thief and one of Magnezone's most wanted."
"Well, he looks nasty scary," Haile commented, studying the picture.
She couldn't remove her eyes from his picture, he seemed oddly familiar, but how could she know him? She shook her head, losing all thoughts of Grovile.
"Let's go to the next floor," suggested Chatot, already over by the second ladder. The two of them followed him down the ladder. They emerged in a large room that was similar to the one they were just in. Chatot hopped over to a hole, "this is where we check a visitor's footprints," he said.
"HEY CHATOT!" a large purple pokémon with speaker-like ears on its head said as it stomped past the trio.
"Oh, hi Loudred. Loudred and Diglett control who enters the Guild," Chatot explained. "This hole leads down to below the grate outside, Diglett looks up at the foot prints of entering pokémon to see who it is while Loudred says if it's okay to go in or not."
"And that," Chatot said, pointing to a black cauldron, "is the Croagunk Swap Shop."
"What does that do exactly?" Valiant asked, studying the pokémon-like structure that enclosed the cauldron.
"Well, it's a long explanation, so listen up," he began. "You see, when you go into dungeons you can sometimes find treasure boxes. These boxes usually contain special items for certain pokémon. If you put two items for one pokémon in the cauldron, they will be swapped for one stronger item," he finished, hopping to yet another thing that had to be explained.
"This is the Guildmaster's quarters, are you ready to meet him?" Chatot asked, stopping next to a door built into the rocky wall.
"Yeah sure, whatever," she answered, inching toward the door, Haile following behind tentatively.
The door opened slowly, and they continued through. This room wasn't as big as the others, but had a grass floor with flowers blooming in little bundles here and there. Two huge windows, four small red and yellow banners, and one huge banner with a face on it covered the walls. Two colossal treasure chests and two unlit torches made up the rest of the furniture.
"Why, hello there friends!" a loud goofy voice reverberated from the center of the room. Valiant studied the Guildmaster quizzically. It looked like a pink bunny with a white belly and ear tips. Atop its head was a swirl of fur, and its eyes were big aqua circles. She instantly recognized it as the pokémon the outside of the building was designed after. Frankly, she couldn't understand how something so cute could be all powerful, or male.
"Guildmaster Wigglytuff, these two would like to start an exploration team," Chatot said, breaking the silence.
"Yay! More friends!" Wigglytuff cried happily, dancing around. He threw two things to Valiant and Haile.
"What're these?" she asked, the object was circular with wings sticking out of both sides.
"Those are Exploration Badges," Chatot answered for the dancing Guildmaster. "And this is your treasure bag," he said, handing them a bag.
"Have you thought of a name yet?" Wigglytuff asked gleefully, suddenly in front of them.
"I didn't think of that," Haile responded, throwing himself into deep thought to come up with something. "Oh! I know! How about team Pokepals?"
"Haile, that's not a cool name," Valiant said.
"Okay, then what do you have?" he retorted.
She thought quietly for a few seconds, and came up with something she believed was suitable for the two of them.
"Team ThunderStorm."