"You're going to the woods."

Treecko was fuming and said as such all the way up the hill to the woods. It made sense to Ryan, that two Pokémon from the woods should deal with the problems within the wood, but even he could see that the Guild were coddling them.

Ryan could see the separate stages of grief hitting Treecko's face as he took in the mission assignment. Ryan, for one, was pleased. This meant that hopefully he wouldn't be in any unnecessary danger whilst he figured out this whole human turned Pokémon issue.

Treecko still held the letter the Guild had been sent. He refused to let it go, instead choosing to read it over and over again as he worked himself into a minor tantrum.

"It's okay," Ryan said as they climbed the hill, "I'm sure every team has to go on at least one easier mission before they're allowed access to the tougher ones. These missing Pokémon are just as important as any other, no matter the supposed danger of the job."

"I guess you're right," Treecko said, "but he was so smug. Did you see Machamp's face? Did you? I did and for one…"

Ryan allowed Treecko to work out his temper as the sun cooked down upon them. It was harder to cool himself down when he was covered in fur.

With Ryan struggling to sweat off the heat and Treecko still rambling on about the rudeness of Machamp in the mess hall. Apparently, he had made fun of Treecko's meal of choice, and its size, Ryan's too. Ryan hadn't noticed as he had been too focused on eating as a Pokémon during that meal. He had been given a bowl of berries after not deciding on what he wanted to eat. As his stomach growled slightly going up the hill, he knew he hadn't eaten enough of them.

Their morning had been spent with the dreaded paperwork that Pangoro had mentioned, signing off various health and safety agreements for their team, now that they finally knew what the name was. As the job was dangerous and Treecko and Ryan were willingly heading into the danger to help others, the Pangoro Guild wanted to protect themselves in case either of the Pokémon got injured. According to Espeon, it was a completely normal thing for teams to have to sign, although she did also note that they didn't usually rush to get the teams to sign even before their very first mission.

"It's possibly your size," she said thoughtfully and slightly dismissively. Against the wishes of his pride, Ryan had to agree.

Treecko was short and Ryan was even shorter. They could stand on top of each other and not come close to the average size of some of the Pokémon teams that worked at the Guild.

The shadow of the woods came as a welcome relief for Ryan, with Treecko continuing to stew over the treatment they had received that morning.

"I guess I didn't really notice it," Ryan said in one of the breaks in ranting, for Treecko to catch his breath.

"What was with that, anyway?" Treecko asked, "you just seemed to completely zone out for the entire meal. You barely spoke a word."

"It's nothing, really," Ryan said, shrugging, "I just have a lot on my mind."

"Hopefully nothing that would get in the way of our dangerous mission," Treecko said, breaking out into another rant. Ryan hoped quietly that the shade would help cool Treecko's mood as it was also doing to Ryan's overheated fur coat.

"How do Pokémon deal with this?" Ryan wondered out loud.

"Sorry, what?" Treecko said, pausing mid-ramble to listen to Ryan.

"Nothing," Ryan said quickly. "Hey, what sort of mission would you want for a first time instead of this one, then?" He continued, attempting to steer the conversation away before he dug a hole that he couldn't undig.

"We're grass Pokémon. We're brave. We deserve respect. Something close to water, I guess? Perhaps a rogue group of Pokémon have kidnapped someone important to the guild and we get tasked to save them?"

"How do you know we aren't on the lookout for kidnapped Pokémon right now?"

Treecko paused, stopping in his tracks.

"It's a good point, right?" Ryan said, hoping to have gotten through to Treecko's irritation. "Every Pokémon is impor-"

Treecko held a hand up to quieten Ryan.

"Do you smell that?" Treecko asked quietly.

"No, why?"

"Try sniffing, Ryan."

Ryan held his head up to get what he thought would be a better angle of sniffing the air, although he had no idea what Treecko was talking about. Then he smelt it too.

"Smoke."

Treecko nodded.

"From the way the wind was blowing as we walked up, it has to be in…" Treecko spun with a pointed hand outstretched, like a compass. He then stopped, turning and began walking. Then jogging. Then sprinting.

"Shouldn't we get more help?" Ryan shouted after Treecko. "It's a fire. We aren't going to be much use."

Treecko did not heed Ryan's calls as he ran through the trees, following the scent of smoke.

Ryan, getting better at running on all fours each passing hour, narrowly avoided colliding with Treecko as he stood at the edge of a clearing. No, not a clearing.

A deep chasm had split open in the forest, separating portions of the forest from each other. The ground was dry enough to cause Ryan to cough at the dust cloud made from them stopping. The trees in the area were devoid of leaves. Devoid of life. Thick cracks ran up each trunk of the trees nearest the split in the land.

Worst of all, Ryan could now see the Pokémon that they were looking for. Two Pokémon larger than their team, one a deep red and another orange, stood trapped on an island in the middle of the chasm. Completely split from all sides, and with trees ablaze, a Combusken and a Scizor fought to stay on the eroding stack of rock, whilst Scizor also attempted to keep away from the flames that were quickly taking form on the dead wood of the trees. Combusken looked to be panicking, unable to effectively help, and was screaming out small bursts of flame as a reflex, worsening the situation.

"Oh, this is so much worse than simple missing Pokémon," Treecko muttered, his mind racing to think of a solution. Ryan was completely frozen in fear. A risky drop to his death, followed by landing on platform that could collapse at any moment, or burn him alive, to save a Pokémon that could also burn him alive, somehow.

"…yan…Ryan!" Treecko shouted beside him, dragging his attention away from the numerous layers of the death trap and up at his partner's face. "What's the plan, Ryan?"

"Plan?"

"Yes," Treecko said urgently, "we don't have time to be zoning out right now. Here and now, got it?"

"Yes."

"So, the plan?"

"I don't see how we could do it. I don't see at all."

"You can fly, Ryan. They don't call you a Sky Shaymin for nothing," Treecko said, as if he were explaining the color of the sky to him.

"No, no I can't," Ryan said, stumbling for a reason why he couldn't just fly over. "They're both too big for me to carry, even one at a time."

"I guess that's true…" Treecko quietened for moment as he thought, the distractingly loud shrieks from the Combusken piercing Ryan's ears. "I've got it, but you won't like it."

Ryan wanted to reply with something cool and witty, but could barely handle a nod of acknowledgement as Treecko set about explaining his plan.

"We only have one shot at this and must do it quickly or we'll end up stuck on the pillar too, or also setting the rest of the forest up in flames. Got it?" Ryan almost nodded as Treecko continued. "Loads of these trees are dead, or at least look like they are. It isn't a huge distance to the pillar, it's just too big to jump across. So, we walk."

"No. No, that's insane!" Ryan started to stammer.

"It's what we need to do to get this done. We are a rescue team and look over there-" Treecko pointed to the flaming trees and stuck Pokémon, "-rescuing them is our first priority. Are you in?"

Ryan looked over at the two Pokémon; both were panicking, scared and on the verge of falling into the chasm below, or getting scorched on the now roaring fire behind them. He nodded.

"Then let's rescue them," Treecko said firmly.

Ryan could see the same glint of fear, that he could feel coursing through his entire body, in Treecko's eyes, but the green Pokémon had swallowed it. Harnessed it. Now was not the time to be afraid, or much worse could occur with little more than a gust of wind in the wrong direction.

Treecko went to finding the right tree to attack, trying to figure out the angle they had to make it fall. Ryan shouted over to the two panicking Pokémon to get their attention.

"Hey," he yelled, "we're here to help. We're from the Pangoro Guild."

Combusken stopped their fire bursts, looking over at the surprise visitors.

"Do you have any way to stop the flames?" Ryan shouted. He watched as Combusken began kicking up an incredible amount of dust and dried rock towards the lowest parts of the flaming trees, but to no avail. The fire had spread too much to get a good angle on them. "No worries," Ryan continued, "we're going to get a path over to you, be ready to dodge out of the way, or run up at as soon as you can."

Ryan watched the stressed, hesitant nods from the two Pokémon and then ran to help Treecko. Together they hit the tree Treecko had picked out. Once. Twice. Thrice. It then began to crack at an awkward angle, the dead wood making it unpredictable. As it began to tilt, Ryan dove one way and unleashed an almighty flurry of his magic leaves in an attempt to knock it back on course. Treecko did the same, throwing his entire body into the impact, pounding the tree trunk and, whilst they dented it, threatening to break it off entirely, it righted its course and crashed down on the dry island.

The Combusken and Scizor, both larger Pokémon and fast on their feet, dodged behind the burning trees for a moment, avoiding the worst of the collapsing tree. Combusken ran up the trunk, their fast feet and powerful legs driving them across the chasm. Scizor followed immediately after, keeping her eyes forward, on Combusken.

As they collapsed on the other side, with Treecko and Ryan checking on them to make sure they were okay, the horizontal tree trunk caught fire. They watched as the fire ripped through the dead tree rapidly, however the burning wood collapsed in half, tumbling into the chasm below and taking a portion of the stack of land with it. As Ryan and Treecko were still looking in that direction, they noticed other Pokémon on the stack, stranded once more.

Ryan spun and got up close to the Scizor that was coughed, attempting to recover from all the smoke.

"You knew there were others over there and didn't help them get off too?" Ryan shouted, but the Scizor only looked at him with confused, innocent eyes.

"We were the only ones," Combusken said, the fire not affecting him.

"Then who are they?" Treecko asked out loud, still looking over at the Pokémon, silently watching them, unbothered and unmoving among the flames.

The stack began to collapse more, the falling tree being the catalyst. The Pokémon stepped back, among the flames. As they stepped out of sight, the rock cracked and split, sending the flames down into the depths and, Ryan at first presumed the Pokémon too; until he saw what was still hanging there, above the chasm.

A rip in the air, bright enough to be hidden in the fire, now wide open for the four of them to see. The leg of the last Pokémon jumping through the tear was all they saw before it pushed itself back together, the normal air pushing in on it until the tear was no more.

The fire was out; the Pokémon found and rescued.

Not bad for their first official mission.

On their way back to the Guild, whilst still under the shadows of the trees and long after they had bid farewell to Combusken and Scizor, Ryan perked up a little.

"Not bad for The Woodland Wanderers," Ryan said and Treecko laughed out loud, making Ryan jump with the suddenness of the laughter.

"You know," Treecko said, giggling, "maybe that's why they asked us to go to the woods as our first assignment. Woodland Wanderers, what were we thinking?"

"Too late to change it now," Ryan said, "and anyway, I think it fits quite well."

The two continued to walk and talk about what they had just experienced and then more about Treecko's home area.

Just as Treecko was reaching a very important point about why one food stall provided better berries than its rival in town, a rumble cut him off.

The rumble continued, gradually getting louder. The vibrations of the rumble transitioned from Ryan and Treecko being able to feel it in their chests, to being able to see it in the trees as the entire ground shook violently.

Ryan hurried towards the base of a tree trunk and curled up, trying to protect himself as best as he could from any falling branches that were being snapped off. Treecko joined him at the tree base as they tried to ride out the earthquake...