Author's Note:

I tried to pay more attention to how I write the sentences this time. I was told that they are a little weird sometimes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon

Chapter 4

Cin and Kage woke up to a bell-like sound that was coming from the hallway. Kage immediately put on his "defense mode" staring at the doorway. Then he remembered that he had heard the sound before. It was the Chingling who was waking others up.

"Shouldn't we get going?", the Umbreon said to the Vulpix who was rubbing the sleep off her eyes. The fox Pokemon just nodded to him. Kage picked up the treasure bag and the two of them walked off the room.

Everyone had gathered in front of the Guild-master's room waiting for the morning briefing to begin. The two of them walked to the back of the crowd. Kage took the usual few meter distance from others. Cin was unsure if she should go further back with Kage as his partner or not.

"Everyone seems to be here now.", Thunder said. "Today Team Hagane will be on guard duty. As always, do your best and don't forget your limits."

With that said, everyone went upstairs. The briefing was short because there was nothing important to announce. Cin and Kage followed followed others up to the ground floor. Only a Skarmory and a Mawile went on the second floor. Cin assumed they were the Team Hagane. They went to the job bulletin board to look for a job. Kage found a suitable job pretty quickly.

"This should be easy enough for us.", the Umbreon said and pulled the job post off the bulletin board and handed it to Cin. "Someone lost a Max Elixir in the nearby forest."

Cin took a look at the job post. At the top there was the clients information and the guild's estimation on the difficulty of the job. Next there was a brief explanation on what happened. At the end there was the reward promised from the job. The client seemed to be a Marill. It's understandable why he wouldn't want to go to the forest to look for the lost item on his own.

"Okay. Let's go.", the fox Pokemon said.

"Wasn't there a town nearby. We should go buy some supplies.", Kage said as they walked out of the guild.

"Yeah, Seaside Town is just few hundred meters away from the guild.", she replied. "We need to turn left from the crossroads ahead."


Once they reached the Seaside Town they walked to the shop held by the two Kecleon. Kage took a look around to see what other services were available. It was pretty much the same as in most towns. Shop, storage, bank, café and a move linking.

"It'd probably be best that I do the shopping. What supplies should we buy?", the Vulpix asked.

"Apples, Oran Berries, Max Elixirs and an Escape Orb. At least two of each except for the Escape Orb.", he answered. Kage stopped before the shop waiting for Cin to buy the supplies. He was looking around him because he was cautious. No one seemed to pay attention to him, but he still didn't want to put his guard down.

"Okay, I got the supplies.", the fox Pokemon said as she walked to the Umbreon. He was waiting for the Vulpix to put the supplies to the treasure bag he had around his neck.

"There.", she said closing the treasure bag. She took a step back and looked at Kage. "Hm? Did you just...?"

"No!", the Umbreon said looking away. "Let's just go already..."

"O-Okay.", the Vulpix said and they started walking towards the forest. Cin thought that she saw a faint blush on his face for a moment. She was standing very close to him, but she didn't notice any kind of physical contact. She wondered if he blushed when she was sleeping next to him.

"Okay, we're here...", the Umbreon said once they arrived to the entrance of the forest.

"Huh?", the fox Pokemon said. She was in her own thoughts and didn't notice that they had arrived to the entrance of the forest. Kage was looking at Cin with a 'seriously?' expression on his face.

"Try to pay a little more attention to what's happening around you. If you keep spacing out like that you'll get easily ambushed.", he said.

"Sorry...", the Vulpix apologized. "Let's go!"


Inside the forest, both Cin and Kage were looking around trying to spot the Max Elixir. They had no luck so far, but they kept their eyes open just in case. They were still heading towards the place where the client had reported they had lost the item.

"Stay on guard in case of hostile Pokemon.", Kage said.

"Aren't the residents of this forest peaceful?", the Fox Pokemon asked.

"Most of them are.", he started. "It is normal begin targeted more often when you are in an exploration team."

"What would they want from explorers?", she asked.

"Mostly money and items.", the Umbreon said. As soon as he said this, they were attacked. Kage barely dodged the attacker.

"A Beedril!", Cin said in a surprise.

"It's no surprise that it targeted me first.", Kage said. "Let's take care of it and keep going."

"Right!", she replied. As soon as she said this, the Beedril attacked again. This time it charged towards Cin. She attempted to fire Ember at the Beedril, but it dodged it. It was too fast to be attacked directly.

"Let's try this then...", she said to herself and charged towards the Beedril. When the fox Pokemon was right in front of the Beedril, she vanished leaving the bee Pokemon to look around confused. Soon it received a hit in it's back. The Beedril stumbled to the ground. Faint Attack never fails; It gets the opponent by surprise!

"My turn!", the Umbreon said running towards the fallen bee Pokemon who was about to get up. Kage's tail started to glow white. Few meters away from the Beedril, he did a somersault and slammed his Iron Tail on the Beedril.

"Let's keep going.", the Umbreon said after making sure that the Beedril wasn't going to get up anymore. The Vulpix nodded to this and they kept walking deeper in the forest.


"This should be it.", Kage said as they arrived to a small clearing.

"So, our client lost the Max Elixir around here?", Cin asked.

"Yes.", he answered. "Let's look around."

The two of them started searching the area around the clearing for the lost Max Elixir. They searched for quiet a while until Cin found it.

"Kage! I found it!", she shouted to the Umbreon to get his attention. He ran over to the Vulpix who was standing in front of a thorny bush. "I'll burn the bush so we can get the Max Elixir."

"Wait!", Kage said. "There are too many flammable plants around. You'll just set the whole forest on fire."

"Then how are we going to get it?", she asked.

"I'll just lift one of these branches and you'll go and get it.", he answered and carefully lifted one of the branches. "The opening is just big enough for you."

"Just make sure the branch doesn't slip from your paw.", she said and crawled under the bush carefully and reaching her paw out trying to grab the Max Elixir.

"Got it!", she said as she got a hold of the Max Elixir. She crawled off under the bush and stood up. Cin was about to put the Max Elixir in the Treasure Bag, but before she could, Kage took it from her paw and did it himself.

"Let's go.", the Umbreon said. The Vulpix nodded to this and the two of them started heading back to the guild. Cin was a little surprised of her actions. He did let her put stuff in the Treasure Bag before. She didn't have much time to thing about it more because she still had to be on the look out for hostile Pokemon.


After returning to the guild, Cin and Kage returned the lost item to the client. Then they stored the reward money to the bank and decided how to spend the rest of the day. Kage went to take a walk while Cin returned to the guild. She chatted with the other guild members until the dinner was ready. She didn't see the Umbreon in the guild so she went to look for him. She went to check the beach first because it was the easiest place to check.

"There you are!", the Vulpix said as she spotted the Umbreon. He was just sitting there looking at the sunset.

"What are you doing?", she asked and sat next to him.

"I just needed some time to think about few things.", he answered. "You really are making me feel uncomfortable, you know."

"Can't you even trust me this much? I'm your partner so you should get used to having me close to you.", she replied. "Well, whatever. The dinner is ready so we should head back to the guild."

The Umbreon nodded to this and the two of them started heading back to the guild.

I guess that's it for this chapter. I'm kind of ashamed of how long it took me to finish this chapter. I've had a lot of exams and stuff so I guess that's to be expected.