Chapter 2: A Procrastinator
"What a pitiful boy, see him walking all alone."

The sound of the waves drifted through her ears. Her vision was blurred. She tried to move her head. She couldn't. She couldn't move at all. Not a hand, nothing. "...Where...Where am I? Can't...Sleepy...Drifting off...Help me...Partn-..."

A Pokemon opened his eyes. He groggily looked down at his chest, then at the sky. Realising it was almost dusk, he suddenly became alert. "...Oh, no way! I fell asleep here, in the rain?" The Pokemon quickly ran over to a small pond in a far corner of his home, and peered in. The flame on his back was still burning fiercely, thank goodness. He straightened up and breathed in. Yes, today's the day I'm gonna do it, he thought. Today's the day I'm going to join the guild. He gathered the few possessions he had and stuffed them into a worn out duffel bag, walked to the entrance, and put his left foot on the steps. Sun, Sea, Clouds, wish me luck. He looked around, saying goodbye to all that he'd known for the past few years. Then he remembered. There was one thing he'd almost forgotten. He ran to a bush in the corner of his little cave and fished out an engraved piece of stone about the size of his palm, tucking it safely into the bottom of his bag. Looking back out the window one last time, he took a deep breath, and set off.

A Pokemon paced back and forth, nervously. He'd been lingering outside the Guild entrance for at least an hour already. It was a really stupid thing to do – and he knew that. It was just too hard. He thought it was similar to something he'd heard about, the Caterpie's Dilemma, in which a Croagunk asked a Caterpie how it managed to move all its legs and – no, he couldn't get distracted. He slapped himself in the snout and took a deep breath. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Maybe he should take some kind of -
No! He had to concentrate. He slapped himself again. He couldn't, he refused to let himself be paralysed by this any longer. He was going to step forward, they'd figure out what kind of Pokemon he was, they'd tell him to go down and then everything would be just dandy. It'd be easy.
He took another deep breath and hesitantly stepped onto the grill.
"POKEMON DETECTED! POKEMON DETECTED!"
"Whose footprint? Whose footprint?"
The Pokemon shrieked and jumped backwards, dashing towards the steps.

"Huh. The dude ran off."
"Did you see what type of Pokemon it was?"
"I'm sorry, not enough time. You know, I swear I've seen that footprint lots of times before. It's probably a coincidence though."

"...I guess I can't work up the courage to go in, after all..." the Pokemon murmured softly.
He knew he'd told himself that this was the day, but in the end...
Ruffling around in his bag, he took out the rock and held it up to sky.
"I thought my treasure would help me, but..."
He'd thought that this rock, his treasure, his own little piece of the world, would ignite the courage in him to go forward, but nevertheless he ran away.
"I'm such a coward."
He put it back in his bag with a sigh. How discouraging. Dusting off his bag, he stood up, and he walked away.

"Hey, Zubat."
"Yeah, what, Koffing?"
"That little wimp pacin' around... he had somethin' good, right?"
"Yeah, he had somethin', that's fo'sure. Looked like some kinda treasure."
"So then", Koffing said, turning to Zubat, "We goin' after it?"
"We are."