Chapter 23
One Problem Ends
Alex and Blaze had finished lunch and were at the crossroads preparing for a notice board mission when they saw a crowd of pokemon, led by Ivan approaching. They looked behind him, and their jaws dropped, Nigel was tied in ropes and gagged with a group of six Pokemon neither Alex or Blaze recognized surrounding him. They were bipedal Pokémon with dark purple bodies, armed with razor shap claws on their hands. they were retractable in the sense that they could sharpen their fingers at will. They had pale blue, gemstone-like eyes, however all of them had an eyepatch over one of their eyes, some over the right eyes and some over the left. They had red gemstones on their chest, and their backs had blue and green gemstones as well as another red one. However, one of them was a goldish yellow color with a light yellow gem eye on the right and an eyepatch over the left. This pokemon had a green gem in its chest instead of the traditional red of its comrades.
"You got him!" Alex exclaimed.
"We got him, if you will excuse me we need to make some preparations for the journey home. Beryl, follow me." He said to the yellow Sableye before turning towards the forest near Treasure Town and floating away.
"Going home?" Blaze asked, forgetting the recent revelations in the excitement of Nigel's capture.
"Going back to the future I'm afraid," Vine said somberly as she and her team arrived with Wallce in tow.
"Oh.." Alex said in a sad voice as the realization hit him. Ivan's mission in the past was complete and he needed to go back to his own time. The idea of time travel was still so absurd to the former human.
"You finally beat him huh" Blaze commented with a look at Team Go-Getters.
"Unfortunately, that accomplishment goes to Wallace" Wave admitted as the Guildmaster was happily dancing in place.
"I saved my friends! Simple as that! I'll tell Tesla and Lana" Wallace stated before trotting off towards the guild, getting a collective sigh from everyone present.
"Eccentric, but powerful" VIne said bluntly.
"That's our guildmaster," Blaze admitted.
Paul turned to his team and said "i'll meet you guys at the beach, Tesla and Lana will be there soon, give me a sec with these two"
Vine and Wave recognized their leader's serious tone and left without another word.
"I've got a present for you two, as a three star master ranked explorer, I have some sway uptop, when I contacted the exploration federation this morning to report Nigel's capture, I had a small request" Paul began.
"What are you saying?" Blaze asked, his voice rising in anticipation.
"You two's performance has far exceeded the expectation for a bronze ranked team. After you ranked up to bronze level from beating Mento you have two constantly overcome the greatest of challenges. Blaze was able to keep up with Tesla and Lana in the Northern Desert and Alex defeated Uxie's illusion that even gold ranked explorers have failed against in the past" Paul continued.
"That's right, after Fogbound Lake was discovered, Wallace compiled a list of people Uxie encountered. He had everyone break down base camp while he talked to Uxie" Alex recalled.
"You two have not only earned SIlver Rank, but exceeded it, pull out your badges" Paul requested.
Alex and Blaze did as instructed, Paul held out his badge and held down the center button saying "authorization code one, zero, one, zero, rank up two zero"
On cue a beam of light shot out of his badge and zapped the two apprentices' badges, when it stopped, both badge's center orbs were golden instead of bronze.
"Did you just…." Blaze was at a loss for words.
"We're gold rank, just like that?" Alex asked, stunned.
Paul smiled and said "yup, you two would have easily passed the rank up tests so Wallace and I decided to pull some strings"
"I don't know how to thank you…" Blaze admitted.
"Keep working as hard as you have…" Paul replied.
Out of the corner of his eye Blaze saw Lana and Tesla walk by towards the beach, he was too caught up in the moment to talk with them though.
Alex and Blaze took a moment to look at the badges in their hands, it was an amazing moment for both of them.
"Let's go show everyone!" Blaze exclaimed, but before they could run off, Paul grabbed Alex by the shoulder, stopping both apprentices in their tracks.
"Can I speak to Alex alone for a sec, it's about...our stuff" Paul said as vaguely as possible.
"Ah, I'll meet you at the guild later" Blaze said, he got what Paul was insinuating. This was something that the former humans alone needed to talk about.
"I'm gonna be heading back to the Air Continent today," Paul revealed.
Alex was taken aback and asked "why?"
"Well, Nigel is captured and my work here is done, Tesla and Lana are taking the same way home as well" Paul explained.
"Oh,ok" Alex said, slightly depressed, it was nice to have Paul around, another Pokémon who used to be human was a rather comforting feeling.
"Me and my team have work to do elsewhere, but remember what I told you, you're here for a reason, you'll get the answers you're looking for eventually" Paul assured him.
Alex gave a deep sigh and replied "I hope so, how long did it take you?"
Paul chuckled and said "I work up in the woods, and within about six months, I was getting dreams telling me of my role. How long have you been with the guild?"
"Five Months" Alex admitted.
"Exactly, whatever sent you here will make itself known soon, I'm sure of that" Paul assured him.
"Will you ever be back here?" Alex asked timidly.
"Probably not for a while, but I promise that I'll find a time to come check on you, maybe I can come when you get to ultra rank" Paul considered.
"How high is that?" Alex asked, he didn't know how many tanks there were besides that master and then guildmaster were the highest.
"Well, after you do a certain amount of missions for gold rank, Wallace will judge you and then decide a rank up exam to diamond, then eventually super rank and then there's graduation" Paul began to explain.
"Graduation?" Alex asked, he had never heard that term from Blaze or anyone in the guild.
"Once you reach super rank, your guildmaster will assign a graduation exam, if you pass, you will be granted the Ultra Rank and be able to work completely independent from your guild and have your own base" Paul finished.
Alex understood what he meant, but one thing was off, he put his hand to his chin and said "why has no one in the guild mentioned this?"
"Because no one has ever graduated from Wallace's guild, you're not allowed to say what the exam was and he changes it every time" Paul admitted.
Alex went wide eyed but as he considered it, it made sense, The Wigglytuff Guild was recognized as the best in the world so it would be obviously hard to graduate.
In the direction of the beach, a jet of water shot up from behind the rocks that surrounded the shoreline.
"That's the call for all aboard. See ya again sometime Alex!" Paul said before shooting into the air and flying towards the beach.
Alex waved until Paul was out of sight behind the rocks. This was a good day, but little did he know that the next day would start him a journey that would change everything….
Author's note- That will likely be the last appearance of team Go-Getters for the foreseeable future, but they may come back later, who knows ;), this is the reason I gave them the spotlight in crystal cave. I don't know how long Red Rescue takes place over, but there is certainly a few months between him arriving and Sky Tower. After all we know Team ACT was gone to Magma Cavern at least a week, so I made a rough estimate. For those curious, it's been about 5 years since the meteor was destroyed. Mystery Dungon DX made that scene a thousand times more awasome with the wide shots of the hyper beam and the meteor. a side note, can anyone do pixel measurements on that scene? I wonder if that meteor is bigger than the delta episode one, im sure you could get the size by scaling to the nearby clouds. I hope I did justice to Team Go-Getters for all you red and blue rescue team fans!
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