"They said they'd be here…" Riptide said as the four pokemon sat in the guild's main hall. "Who said they'd be here?" Jonah asked, stretching.
"Sol and Luna, before you came back we made plans to go out to eat." Riptide said slouching over. "What's taking them so long?..."
"Is food all you ever think about?" Ivy asked.
"Well sometimes I think about you…" The totodile said, smiling and giving a wink. Ivy's cheeks turned a deeper shade of green as Riptide and Dusty started to chuckle. "NOT FUNNY!" Ivy yelled, punching Riptide in the shoulder.
Jonah watched as the three bantered. He began to think back to before all this happened. Back when he and his colleagues… no, his friends… had a conversation similar to this. "I swear, sometimes they act just like them…" The buizel thought.
"Hey guys." said Luna as she and Sol walked towards the group. "Sorry we're kinda late. Sol won't pull his head out of this damn book." The umbreon said looking over at the heliolisk, whose face was still buried in said book.
"Remnants of the beasts that command time and space, I call upon thou to transcend our reality..." Sol said to himself as he continued to read.
"Did he just say what I think he said…?" Jonah thought.
"So I was thinking we could go to this place we found called… Embertail, I think it was." Luna said, putting a paw to her chin. The three members of Team Mire went wide-eyed, and began to slowly look at each other.
"Is there a problem?" Luna asked.
"Oh.. uh, no. No it's nothing…" Said Dusty. "Right guys?..."
"As long as it's not too far… Everything still hurts after what Ashe did to me…" Jonah said rubbing his back.
"Well here we are." Said Luna.
"Yeah… Here we are…" Riptide said under his breath. As Sol, Luna and Jonah walked inside, Riptide, Ivy, and Dusty stood and stared at the doorway. "Why does this feel… weird?" Riptide Said.
"I mean, I know we're on good terms now but…"
"Hey, what are you guys still doing out there?" Sol asked as he opened the door. "Oh, sorry." Said Dusty as the three walked in.
The three made their way over to a large table in the corner where the others were waiting for them. Looking around, they noticed that there wasn't anyone else present. "Looks like things are kinda slow right now." Dusty said as he looked around.
"Whatever, that just means more for us." Riptide said as Ivy rolled her eyes.
"Seriously Sol?" Luna said as she watched the heliolisk take his book out of his bag.
"Alright, alright, I'll put it back." The heliolisk said, stuffing the book back in his bag.
"What's that book about anyways?" Asked Jonah.
"Here we go…" Luna said to herself.
"It's about the legend of the guardians of time and space." Said Sol. "And how the massive battle they had shaped our world." Jonah simply stared at the heliolisk like he had two heads. "Huh…"
"The Great War of Time and Space." Sol said, waving his hands out as his frill slowly opened. "I mean there are a few other stories in there, but this-"
"Wow, look at this." Luna said, waving a menu in front of Sol's face. "Check it out. They have tamato berry curry, your favorite!" Jonah suddenly felt ill at the mention of tamato berries, putting a paw to his chest remembering what happened after trying one last night.
"Alright fine." Said Sol, grabbing the menu. "There's no need for you to get… heated." His response earned a loud groan from the umbreon as she visibly cringed.
"Hey guys." Flare said as he walked up to the group of six.
"Hey Flare…" Riptide said, smiling nervously.
"So, have you all decided on something?"
"You could at least try to be more gentle with him." Said Cobalt. He and Ashe were sitting outside on a bench sharing some dried berries.
"If I was gentle, he wouldn't learn anything. And besides, he's getting better… kind of…" Ashe said as she popped one into her beak. "I have a question."
"Ask away."
"You finally figure out how he got here?"
"I didn't realise you were curious." Cobalt jokingly said.
"Well it's not every day I get to train a human." Cobalt shook his head and gave a slight smile.
"Well to answer your question, I haven't asked yet. Lilac and Lance want to wait a bit longer, give him more time…"
"Hey, doesn't Lance have that thing soon?" Ashe asked.
"Yes, and I'll be going with him."
"So let me guess, ya want me to come and help with the guild 'cause ya don't want to leave Lilac by herself." The blaziken said, holding up a talon. "Look, I'll do it. But you owe me Blue."
"Thank you. Just… try not to wreck the place okay…"
"Aww… Don't you trust me?" Ashe said, giving a devilish grin."
Cobalt turned his head and sighed. "Maybe this was a bad idea…"
As the six pokemon waited, they continued to talk. Sol kept going on about the tales in his book, one of which was about a Bagon who longed to fly so badly he created a pair of wings made from wax and a skarmory's feathers.
"Wax and feathers… Huh, I guess they have their own variations of these stories." Jonah thought as Sol was reading.
"But as he glided over the ocean, he wanted to see just how high he could go. So the bagon flapped his new wings as hard as he could. He had done it, he had begun to ascend. He was focused, nothing was going to stop him from touching the sun.
But as he went higher, the wax had begun to melt. The bagon watched as the wings he had built fall apart as he plummeted into the sea below…"
"Well that was sad…" Said Ivy. "Are all of our ancestor's stories this depressing?"
"Well it's a cautionary tale about being overly ambitious… Should I have gone with a different story…?"
"So Jonah, we hear you might be joining the guild." Said Luna, trying to change the conversation.
"Yeah…"
"Something wrong?"
"I'm just a bit worried about this whole test thing."
"Eh, It's not that bad." Said Ivy. "As long as you have some idea of what to do inside a dungeon, you really just have to worry about the combat test."
"So I'm screwed." Jonah said looking down.
Ivy then leaned over to the buizel. "I thought you said you used to be a treasure hunter."
Jonah then looked up at the treecko and gave a forced smile. "Well it's not like I've had to fight others with elemental attacks before. I don't even remember the last time I got into an actual fight." He thought. "Well, aside from earlier today if that counts…"
A loud growl was soon heard by everyone at the table and everyone turned to look at Riptide. "You're lucky we're the only ones here right now." Said Ivy.
"Sorry…"
Flare soon walked up to their table carrying two plates." "The rest will be out soon." Flare said as he placed them down. He then walked over to Riptide and leaned in. "Is it cool if we talk later? It's… important…"
"I'm telling you. You can't get this kind of stuff at the guild." Sol said, gesturing with his spoon.
"Yeah, no kidding." Said Riptide.
"Your actions in the dining hall last night say otherwise…" Ivy muttered.
"Ivy, if you're in love with me just say so." Riptide sarcastically said.
"Are they always like this?" Luna asked.
Dusty nodded. "You get used to it…"
"I have no idea what a custap berry is, but now I must have more…" Jonah said after taking a bite of a pastry. Despite being extremely sweet, it had a slight bitterness that kept it from being too overpowering.
"I'm glad you like it." Flare said as he was clearing off a nearby table. "It's actually the first time making them…" The charmeleon said as he moved on to another table.
Jonah watched as the chameleon weaved between tables as he cleared them each off, his tail raised up and close to his body so as to not ignite his surroundings. "Uh… Flare right…?" Asked Jonah.
"Yes, do you need something? If it's about my tail, it kind of teaches you to be aware of your surroundings."
"Well actually, is Torch here by any chance?"
"Oh Yeah, my dad's in the back. I can go get him if you-"
"Flare, get ready to start closing up after your friends leave." A charizard said he walked out from a large wooden door.
"Hey dad, this guy wants to talk to you." Flare said, gesturing to Jonah.
Torch stared at the buizel for a brief moment before walking up to him. "Jonah, is it?" The charizard said in a gruff, slightly intimidating voice.
"U-Uh, yes sir…" Jonah said smiling nervously.
"There's no need to be formal with me. So you're that buizel Ashe is training right?" Jonah nodded. "Arceus help you…" Torch said, smiling and shaking his head. "Don't get me wrong. As much as I like Ashe, she can sometimes be a bit much…"
"I'll catch up with you guys in a bit." Riptide said as the others left. Flare walked up to the totodile and pulled up a chair. "So, what did you want to talk about?" Riptide asked.
"It's King… I ran into him earlier today."
"And?..." "I just want to warn you, he seems like he's gonna blow soon…"
As they walked back to the guild, Jonah started to think about the stories Sol mentioned in his book earlier. "Hey Sol… Do you mind if I borrow that book?" Jonah asked.
"Sure. You like this kind of stuff too?"
"Well let's just say there's something in there that's got my attention."
So today was my first day of training for the guild's acceptance test. I got my ass kicked… several times… I mean, it's not like I was expecting this to be easy. But did Ashe really need to go for the face? But she seems to have some faith in me, so I guess that's something. Apparently she used to be in the Cascade Guild.
I also got my hands on something called a TM. They said it's supposed to let me learn some new attack called Ice Punch. It kind of looks like a CD, but I have no idea how I'd use it in place like this. I swear things here just get weirder and weirder. But I really hope I can pass this test. If I can't get back, I'd at least like to be able to go back to what I used to do before all of this…
We also went out to eat with Team Shine today. And all I can say is that the more time I spend with Dusty, Ivy, and Riptide. The more they remind me of you guys… Seriously, they're almost just like you. It's weird, but also kind of refreshing in a way. It's almost like you're still here…
Oh yeah, Sol also lent me this book that has some interesting stuff in it. I think it might help me better understand what happened to me.
"Shit…" Jonah said to himself as he looked through his jornal. "I'm running out of pages… They probably have extras here right?" He thought. The buizel rolled off his straw bed to begin his search for a new journal.
"Where are you going?" Asked Dusty, looking up from his sketchbook.
"Oh, I was just gonna go see if there's anything I can use to replace this." Jonah said holding up his journal.
"I think there were some in the archives." The cubone said looking back down.
Riptide soon walked into their room, passing Jonah.
"There you are." Said Ivy. "I hope you didn't…" Riptide just slowly walked to his bed before collapsing on top of it. "You alright?" The treecko asked.
"Yeah… It's nothing. I'm just… kinda tired…"
As Jonah entered the archives, he started looking around through desks and boxes for a new journal. "Seriously, nothing… How many do these guys go through?" He then turned his attention to a crate over twice his height sitting in the corner. "Maybe there's some in there." Jonah thought as he walked towards it.
The buizel looked up at the crate and then down at his short orange legs. "Fuck…"
"Need some help?" A voice called out. Jonah turned around and saw King carrying a small stack of books. Jonah raised a brow as he stared at the piplup. "Sure…" The two then began piling up surrounding books for Jonah to stand on.
Looking inside, Jonah bent forward and reached inside grabbing a notebook. As he did so, he felt his feet lose contact with the large books beneath them. "Hey King, I think the stack fell…" Jonah said, sounding slightly concerned.
He was now stuck on the edge of the crate as it began to dig into his abdomen. "King… King… He's gone isn't he…"
"Nope, still here." The piplup said.
"Well are you going to help me or not? This is starting to hurt."
"Here's the thing, word around the guild is that you plan on joining. So I'll help… If you have a battle with me."
"Jonah's sure is taking a long time." Ivy said. "I wanted to ask him about more human world stuff…" The door to their room soon creaked open as Jonah slowly walked inside tightly holding a notebook against his stomach.
"What happened to you?"
"King happened." Jonah groaned.
"What. Did he do…?" Riptide angrily asked.
"It's what he didn't do." Jonah said as he plopped face up on his bed. "I got stuck on the edge of this massive crate… And he wouldn't help me down unless I agreed to have a battle with him."
"And you accepted?!"
"No. I didn't… I rolled off the thing and told him to shove it."
Riptide gritted his teeth and started walking towards the door. "Yow better not be doing what I think you're doing." Ivy said as she hastily approached the totodile.
"If he wants a battle so bad, I'll give him one!" Riptide said, storming out the door. Dusty shot up out of his bed and chased after him.
"Riptide, please don't!" Dusty said running down the hall, trying to catch up to the totodile. "You'll just be giving him what he wants if you do this…"
Riptide then came to a stop and looked down. "Fine…"
Back in their room, Jonah and Ivy were talking more about the human world while they were waiting for Riptide and Dusty to come back.
"So… Anywhere in the world… You can just communicate?"
"Pretty much." Jonah paused as a thought crept into his mind. "So… I know you guys don't like King, given the whole "cave incident". But I feel like Riptide hates him more than you and Dusty do. Did something else happen?"
"Well… From what Rip and Dusty have told me, most of it happened before I met them. But, Rip says the worst of it started the day they met Dusty. Believe it or not, the two of them actually used to be friends…"
It was an eventful day in Bluefield Town as many of the young pokemon who lived there were gathered near the town square. The crowd had formed a large circle and were cheering the names of the four pokemon battling in front of them.
"Come on King and Riptide!"
"You got this Ray!"
"Take them down Belle!"
King fired a beam of cold energy from his beak at an opposing roselia. And Riptide charged forwards with a rush of water beneath him, hitting a blitzle dead in the face. The blitzle and roselia both collapsed, and lay on the dirt field.
A scraggy walked up to the fallen pokemon and stood over them. "Ray and Belle are down! Riptide and King win!" The majority of the crowd erupted with excitement as King held out his flipper before Riptide slapped it.
"Yeah that's right, suck it losers!" King yelled. Riptide rolled his eyes.
"You know, you can at least try to be a little nicer when we win."
"Come on Rip, the two of us are the best in town." King said slapping the totodile on the back. "And they need to know that this is what happens when you mess with the best!" The piplup said as he turned to face the crowd, who began to cheer his name.
After a few minutes, the group of pokemon began to disperse. While King and Riptide went their separate ways back home. Riptide soon approached a wooden house where a feraligatr stood outside waiting for him. "Riptide, where have you… You out roughhousing with your friends again weren't you…?"
"Well mom, I like to think of it as training under real life combat conditions." Riptide said, puffing his chest out. Earning a chuckle from the feraligatr. Something soon caught Riptide's attention as a skull-covered face peeked out from behind his mother. "Who's that…?"
The feraligatr slowly stepped to the side. "This is Dusty." She said gesturing to the shy cubone. "Your father found him during a rescue mission. Apparently he can't stay at the guild so he's going to stay with us."
Riptide slowly walked up to the cubone and smiled as he held out his hand. "Hey, I'm Riptide." Dusty slowly held out a shaky hand. "H-Hi…"
"So as you can probably tell, after a while the two of them became closer. Like, anyone who looked at Dusty wrong had to deal with Rip close."
"Wait, so what does this have to do with King?" Asked Jonah.
"I was getting to that." Ivy bluntly said. "Anyways, King really didn't like Rip hanging out with Dusty so much. And…"
Ivy paused when she noticed Dusty standing in the doorway. A look of shock crept over her face as she and the cubone locked eyes. "How much of that did you hear…?"
Dusty just stood there silently lowering his head. He turned to close the door before walking towards the two, sitting on the floor and taking a deep breath.
"Riptide and King had plans to be an exploration team together… And Riptide suggested to King to let me join…
"Him. You want him to join us…?" King said, crossing his flippers.
"Come on King…"
"Fine, but I'm gonna have to test him." The piplup said, smirking.
"Just don't go too hard on him alright."
"Yeah whatever…" The piplup said as he walked towards the cubone.
"Alright Dusty. You want to join us, right." The cubone took a step back and nodded. "Then show me what you've got." King said, taking a battle stance.
"Huh?"
King then fired a fast stream of bubbles at the cubone. Dusty waved around his bone club as an attempt to block the attack. It soon however became too much, and the bone club was knocked out of his hands.
King then lunged towards the cubone with his beak pointed out and began to spin rapidly, landing a direct hit. This caused Dusty to fly back, hitting a small tree. King then shot a beam of cold energy at Dusty, and ice soon began to form around the cubone's body, pinning him to the tree.
KIng then looked up and raised his flippers as a massive vortex of water began to form. Seeing this, Dusty frantically tried to free himself, but to no avail. King then flung the watery vortex at the tree. And with that, it was over.
King then walked up to the cubone and put his foot on his chest. "What was that about wanting to join us again?" The piplup said in a voice that was somehow even colder than his ice beam.
"King!" Riptide yelled. King looked back at the totodile and got off of Dusty before walking away.
"What the hell was that?" Riptide angrily asked.
"What?" King was met with a glare from Riptide.
"Don't think I don't know what this is about. Ever since Dusty showed up, you've been acting all weird whenever he's with us."
"Because I'm not gonna be replaced by some weak ass pokemon who couldn't clear a low level dungeon! I mean seriously, why'd your dad even fucking bother with-" Before he could finish his sentence, King was spayed in the face with a blast of water.
As Dusty caught his breath and sat up, he could see Riptide and King exchanging blows. He looked to the side at his bone club laying on the ground.
"And I threw it at King… it missed, but then Riptide hit him in the face with ice punch."
"Oh, that reminds me…" Jonah said as he took out the TM. "Since Riptide knows ice punch, you think he can show me how to do it?"
"I guess…"
"Great, where is he?"
"He said he wanted to be alone for a bit…"
Riptide stood in front of one of the many wooden doors that lined the guild's halls. He knocked on it and waited for a response. King soon opened the door and scowled upon seeing the totodile. "The fuck are you doing here?"
"You wanted a battle right…?"
"I don't know…" King said, smirking. "I think you've gone soft from hanging around Dusty and… what's his name, for so long… In more ways than one might I add." The piplup said as he eyed Riptide up and down. "But then again I've been wanting to do this for a while."
Dusty, Ivy, and Jonah made their way to the dining hall to look for Riptide, but found no sign of him there.
"That's weird… I thought he'd be here…" Dusty said as he started to think. "Unless…"
"Unless wha-" Ivy said before the realisation hit her. "Oh…"
"What?" Jonah asked.
"We need to go. Now." Dusty said as he rushed out of the dining hall. The others soon followed as the three ran upstairs.
Dusk was shifting about in his bed, trying to sleep. But he just… couldn't. The zorua soon sat up and sighed. "You said you wanted nothing to do with this Dusk…" He said to himself.
"Fucking hell, I can't belive I'm doing this…" Dusk muttered as he got up. He soon heard a knock at the door. Opening it he wasn't completely surprised to see who it was.
"If you're looking for the blue idiots, they're not here."
"So where are they?" Ivy said, crossing her arms.
"Look, I'll take you to where they went. But only because this won't end well if they aren't stopped."
Outside, it was starting to get dark. Riptide and King made their way through the near empty streets of Cascade. "Damn, it is surprisingly quiet out here…" Riptide thought. The two soon found themselves in front of a large white tent, with a blaziken's likeness on the front.
"Hey Ashe!" King yelled. "We need to use the battlefield!"
"And you're sure they came here?" Ivy asked Dusk as she stared at Ashe's dojo.
The zorua nodded. "Look, I have nothing to gain from lying or even being here right now… I Just wanna go to bed…" Dusk said, yawning.
"You could have just stayed in your room and told us where to go." Jona said, crossing his arms. "And yet here you are."
"Don't fucking sass me…" Dusk said, bumping into the buizel as he walked past him and into the tent.
"More of you? Shouldn't you guys all be in the guild or somethin'?" Ashe asked.
"Where's Riptide and King?!" Dusty frantically asked.
Ashe turned around and gestured to the four to follow. The blaziken opened the back end of the tent, giving them all a clear view of the now heavily damaged battlefield.
"I'm gonna head out for a bit." Ashe said, turning around. "I trust you guys won't do anything stupid. Right…?" The blaziken said glaring. The four pokemon rapidly nodded in response. "Good." Ashe said as she smiled and left.
Riptide and King stood on either side of the field catching their breath, suggesting their fight had gone on for a while.
King charged at Riptide with drill peck, the totodile blocking with ice punch. Riptide soon retaliated with waterfall, launching the piplup into the air. King then attacked with ice beam, landing a direct hit on Riptide.
King immediately followed up this attack with drill peck. But as he came barreling towards the totodile, Riptide reared his arm back and threw the hardest ice punch he possibly could.
"You sure… you wanna keep this up Rip…? Your hand's bleeding…" King said between breaths.
"You don't… get to… fucking call me that…" Riptide said panting. "And you're one to talk… So's your face…"
King put a flipper to his forehead and felt around. Bringing it back into view, there was a splotch of red amongst his blue feathers.
As the two stood there, bright lights began to come off their bodies. As the glow continued, their forms soon started to change.
"Are Rip and King-"
"They're evolving…"
When the light faded, a croconaw and prinplup now stood on the battlefield.
While catching his breath, King saw out of the corner of his eye that the rest of team mire and Dusk were watching the brawl.
"Hey… Rip… The last time we fought like this… we were interrupted by a certain spectator… Let's make sure that doesn't happen again…" King said as he turned towards their "audience". The prinplup inhaled deeply before firing off ice beam.
Dusty's eyes widened as the beam of cold energy sped towards him. The cubone braced himself, and held his club in front of him to try and block the attack… But nothing happened.
Dusty lowered his bone club and saw Riptide shielding him from the attack before collapsing.
"Heh… I… win…" King said between breaths as he slowly walked towards the fallen croconaw, putting a webbed foot on his stomach.
"You really have lost your edge…" The prinplup said as he ground his foot into Riptide's middle. "But hey, at least we both got something out of this…" Said King as he went to make his leave with Dusk.
"Well, I hope got what you fucking wanted." Dusk whispered, sounding annoyed.
"I did, actually."
"I thought I told you-"
"Hey, he came to me. Listen Dusk, you might be scared of him. But I'm not." The zorua just stood and glared at him. "Egh, fine. I'll lay off for a bit, happy? But only 'cause that was actually a decent battle."
Dusk simply rolled his eyes. "Whatever…"
Ashe soon came back and immediately felt the tension in the air. The blaziken looked around at the six pokemon and sighed. "Yeah… Let's not tell Lance and Cobalt about this…"
For Team Mire, the walk back to the guild was silent. Dusty looked behind him as Riptide lagged behind them.
The croconaw looked at the bandages on his arm, and then behind him at King who immediately looked away. Upon returning to the guild, Ashe turned around and inhaled.
"Remember. If anyone asks what happend, you were training with me."
Later in their room, Dusty, Ivy, and Jonah stood around Riptide.
"Why?" Dusty said with a hint of frustration in his voice. "I told you if you did this, you'd just be giving him what he wants."
"I just-"
"He was gonna keep fucking with us whether or not you did that!" Dusty then saw Riptide look down.
"Riptide, we're not mad… It's just… I don't want you to get in trouble, alright…" Riptide slowly nodded. "Come here…" Dusty said as he hugged the croconaw. "Just don't do anything stupid like that anymore."
"Yeah… I'll try…" Riptide said. "But hey, look on the bright side… I finally evolved." He said smiling, before Ivy lightly smacked him in the back of the head.
"I think you might be missing the point here buddy."
"And to think all this all started today because I wanted a new journal…" Jonah thought.