Chapter 2: A Beginner's Duties
Dawn's light filtered through the windows. Sally sat up and stretched. She looked down at her new teammate; Stacy wasn't quite awake yet. The human picked up a pair of small devices and tucked them into her ears. Then she took the Pecha Scarf and worked on it for a little while with tools from her small tool box. It was quiet, peaceful…
"IT'S MORNING! WAKE UP TIME!"
Sally shuddered and touched her hearing aids. No humming started, although her mind hurt from the sheer volume of the voice. Stacy jumped out of bed and ducked into her shell, frightened. Various groans from other rooms cropped up. "WHAT IN GIRATINA'S NAME WAS THAT FOR?!" she heard Kip yell in the room next door.
"TIME FOR THE DAILY MEETING! I'M NOT GETTING IN TROUBLE BECAUSE YOU NEWBIES ARE LATE IN GETTING UP! SO GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUMS AND GET IN MOTION!"
"Larry, cut it out!" one of the other apprentices called.
"NOT UNTIL YOU'RE UP AND AT'EM!"
"I hate you…" another voice said.
"Ugh," Stacy groaned, shuddering in her shell. "G'morning Sally."
Sally waited until her teammate had come back out of her shell to sign the same back. Hopefully she could guess at the meaning. She put her project away and crawled out into the hall.
The daily meeting consisted of announcements, reprimands, praises, and lessons. "And I want to remind everyone," Charlie said, "that if you get an escort mission to unknown places, it is dishonorable to learn of the location, but then refuse to take the escort with you to explore."
"But what if it's a really dumb escort?" Larry the Loudred asked. "I mean, like it's a Magikarp who wants to see Amp Plains?"
"Eek, no one would be that dumb," Flora the Sunflora insisted.
"But some of them are."
"Quiet," Charlie stated. "You should accept any escort who wishes to go along with you if you choose to do their job request. That is the proper work ethic."
"Or, just don't do suicidal escort missions," Bartleby commented.
"Guildmaster!" Charlie said in an astonished tone. "You can't honestly suggest that."
"But then, who asks to go on a suicidal mission?" he went on. "The staff is pretty good at dissuading truly idiotic requests. So if an escort mission makes the boards, it must be a determined Pokemon who knows about the dangers they are getting into. If the job request includes an escort, you should take that Pokemon along with you, protecting it as if it were your own friend with you. And who knows? That escort might just become a new friend!"
"Ah, yes, of course that is so," Charlie said, looking relieved. "All right, it is time for the daily cheer! Give it your best shot so the new recruits learn it quickly."
"ALL RIGHT!" Larry shouted.
"Not right into meeee…" Chiaka the Chimecho whimpered, wide eyed with her glass-like body ringing.
"Um, you, not at full volume," Charlie stated, pointing a wing at Larry.
"Aw rock smash," he grumbled.
"Together now!" Wigglytuff cheered.
The four recruits listened as the staff and the rest of the apprentices shouted out the daily cheer. The only look of displeasure was Larry, who still didn't like being told to not shout. "ONE, DON'T SHIRK WORK! TWO, RUN AWAY AND PAY! THREE, SMILES GO FOR MILES!"
"All right, Pokemon," the Chatot added, "let's get down to an honest day's work!"
"HOORAY!" everyone cheered, jumping or pumping their fists in the air.
"Um, seriously? We have to do that every single freaking morning?" Kip asked in a quiet voice as the others went on to their jobs.
Charlie looked at the four who remained. "And for you, today you get cleaning duty."
"What?" Stacy asked.
"Cleaning duty?" Kip complained. "That's for scrubs."
"You're to learn you way around the guild building and to always give your best, no matter what. Remember, don't shirk work."
"Fine," Stacy said. "Where's the cleaning supplies?"
Later…
"Why do we have to do stuff like this?" Tray asked as he swept around the second floor. "We're supposed to be learning to explore, not doing menial tasks."
Stacy was nearby, polishing a desk. "Don't complain! Do you want to be thrown out right off the bat? They could be testing our resolve to be explorers. So we have to get through the menial stuff first."
"Daff cuff beff," Kip tried to say around the brush that he was holding in his mouth. He dropped it to say, "Sally, quit showering dust all over us!"
The human chuckled, a slightly odd sound. As the tallest of the group, she was dusting off the high places. Apparently, that hadn't been done in a while.
The next morning…
"IT'S MORNING TIME! UP AND AT'EM!"
"I hate you…" a voice grumbled again.
This morning, the recruits were able to copy the others in the daily cheer. Charlie spoke to them after the meeting. "Okay, today, you are filing reports made yesterday. Ask Mimen about the forms."
They went to one of the hidden rooms on the second floor, a large space of filing cabinets and desks. A Mr. Mime was there. "Oh, thank goodness, I was running behind. Okay, here's the form that the teams fill out after every mission." He then went on to explain about referencing the cards and arranging the forms correctly.
"I hope we don't mess up," Stacy said, after they were left on their own.
Trey shrugged. "It's like the library sorting system. It's not too bad when you get used to it."
"I feel my brain melting into primordial ooze…" Kip drawled, thumping his head against the table.
Sally smiled and patted his head.
"Oh sure, it's nothing for you to worry about," he muttered at the floor. "Your paws are perfect for handling those pencils with ease. And the lizard has a sticky grip so he doesn't lose the things. My paws keep slipping."
"Why'd you join the guild?" Trey asked Stacy.
The Squirtle ducked her head back a little. "Why me?"
"I'm just curious."
"Well," she brought her blue head back out. "I'm helping to support my family. My mom is sick and we needed some extra money. So I came out here for recruitment, although I didn't think I would actually make it. So why did you join?"
He patted his snout. "Nothing as selfless as that. I want to have some adventure, but mostly… well, I want to be a ninja."
Kip lifted his head up and laughed heartily. "What, that?"
"Hey, get back to work!" Mimen called.
They went quiet, although the Skitty was snickering while Trey seemed torn between fuming and blushing. Then Kip nudged him. "Don'tcha have to join a ninja clan to become a ninja?"
"Well yes, but how am I supposed to find a ninja clan? I hoped that becoming an explorer might get one to notice me. It is silly, I guess, since I'm a major bookworm."
"I don't think it's silly," Stacy said. "It's a good plan, and maybe you can become ninja-like even if they don't find you."
Sally passed over a note she'd written. 'Ninjas have to know a lot of stuff, so it's good that you can study well.' She had added a little smiley face as well.
Trey smiled. "Thanks."
The next day…
"IT'S MORNING! GET UP ALREADY!"
"I hate you…"
After the daily meeting, Charlie told them, "Okay, today you're going back to the Dojo for dungeon practice. Since you're in a group, you'll be set up in Dungeon Two. Go through it until Bartholomew is satisfied."
It became known between the four trainees as crazy hard training… repeating the same dungeon maze over and over… it never relented. They usually got back before the other apprentices did, and were sent to do various chores, like taking over sentry duty for a while, or helping the office workers with their jobs. While Kip grumbled that he was too experienced for such newbie nonsense, Stacy worked hard at it.
One evening, she took a moment to look at pictures along the work floor walls. They were drawn by local artists of notable teams. Over in one of the halls, there was a drawing of a Blastoise, a Azurmarill, a Lunatone, and a Lanturn. The label under it said, 'Team Tidal. Redone in honor of those who have fallen. Rest in peace, friends.'
Stacy felt sad at seeing the picture here. Three of the four Tidal members had disappeared on a mission several months ago; their deaths had only been confirmed several weeks ago. And she knew them. They had trained her, although she had taken it all for a game when she had still been a child. However, these people, her family, were gone now.
"I'll give it my best, always," she promised them quietly. "I won't let you down."
Almost at the end of two weeks…
"IT'S MORNING! TIME TO GET UP!"
"I hate you…"
"OKAY, I'M GETTING TIRED OF THIS! WHO'S THE ONE MUTTERING THAT YOU HATE ME?!"
Sally and Stacy looked at each other, but there was silence in the dorms.
"WHO IS IT ALREADY?!"
No answer.
"Coward," Larry mumbled.
After the daily meeting and cheer, Charlie spoke to the recruit team. "Okay, you've all been doing nicely! Today, you are to go on an exploration of a real Mystery Dungeon."
"Really?" Stacy asked, excited.
"Yes, really." He rubbed his beak. "Go south of town, along the beach, and you will find Beach Cave. Go in and explore around, then come back in the evening and report what you've found. It's a simple little dungeon, so you can make due with the items you find inside."
"It's where I found Sally," Bartleby noted. He smiled at the human. "So maybe going inside will help you remember stuff."
She made a sign with her hands, to which he clapped in approval.
"So you found Sally in Beach Cave?" Stacy asked.
"Right," Charlie said. "She was unconscious and when she got up, she didn't recognize where she was. Bartleby was able to figure out her name, but then she can't remember anything else."
"It's odd to have a human around here," Bartleby added. "But she's nice, so we don't mind."
"I was excited until he said that we had to explore Beach Cave," Stacy said as they walked along the sandy beach south of town. Her Yellow Bow was tied up and attached to her curling tail. "Me and my brothers have gone down in there plenty of times. You have to run if a lot of Pokemon show up, but it's not that bad."
"We aren't supposed to run as explorers," Trey pointed out. He wore his Detect Band as a headband, claiming it was what a ninja would do.
"I guess," she said, thinking.
"Newbie dungeon for newbie explorers," Kip said, then laughed sarcastically. "I've been in much much nastier places than Beach Cave." He spoke the name with heavy disdain.
"We have to start somewhere. Right Sally?"
The human had been gazing off to where the sea met the horizon. But on hearing her name, she looked down and nodded. Then she looked back out to sea with a puzzled expression.
"Do you remember anything?" Trey asked.
Sally put her paw to her chin. While she had been walking slowly to stay with them, she went ahead to the water's edge and knelt down. She scooped up some of the seawater and looked into it. But then she sighed and got back up, shaking her paws to dry them.
"We could send her in alone," Kip noted. "She could probably finish the dungeon in a third of the time with her great big steps."
"No, we're a team," Stacy said. "We have to stick together."
A cackling laughter came from behind. Before they could react, a Zubat came rushing at them, crashing into Stacy. Squealing, she was knocked down. A small circular stone was knocked out of some hiding place in her shell. "Whoops, heh heh, sorry," the Zubat said, snatching the stone up.
Stacy's head was in her shell, along with her limbs. "Oh, um," a muted voice came.
"Hey!" Kip tried to dart forward and smack the Zubat, but it flew off. "You doofus, that was the dumbest trick in the book!"
"Give that stone back," Trey said.
The Zubat flew off, meeting up with a Koffing and a Ghastly. "Hah, losers. Can't even keep yourselves from getting fleeced." The Zubat added a hiss at them as an insult.
The Ghastly snickered while the other sneered. "They must be weaklings," the Koffing added. "Come on, let's scram." They rushed off into a cave entrance.
"What happened… my lucky charm!" Stacy came out of her shell, looking panicky. "I lost my little treasure!"
"Cause of some bum dumb jerk-offs," Kip said.
"Come on, they went into Beach Cave," Trey said. "We'll catch up to them in there."
The group raced to the Mystery Dungeon. Sally got there first but she paused, looking inside warily. As the entrance, it seemed little more than a large cavern with a tunnel heading further in. But the wild magic could be felt even before entering the maze.
"It's an easy dungeon," Trey reassured her. "And it ends in a dead end, so they won't be able to get away. Come on!"
Beach Cave was a damp area, something a Water type like Stacy felt at home in. Water trickled along the floor, dripped from the ceiling, and gathered into little pools. Some areas were dim, while others were lit by holes in the rocks above. Occasionally, they heard echoes of laughter from the three crooks ahead. When Trey put his finger to his lips, they all agreed. It would be better to go quietly and not alert the crooks.
Five times, they encountered a stone stairway with trickling water, which led to lower levels that went deeper into the cave. It was a rule about the structure of dungeons that they had learned. An explorer could only go so far in a level before he or she wasn't making any more progress forward. At that point, one needed to find a passage point, like these stairs. It had something to do with the wild magic that formed these places.
At the bottom of the fifth stairway, they found a cavernous beach area. Soft white sand covered the floor, while sea tides came back and forth in a soothing rhythm. The cave extended several yards into the sea. A hole at the end let light through, but rocks at the bottom of that exit kept the tides calm and smooth. By the edge of the tides, Zubat, Koffing, and Ghastly hovered, discussing the round stone charm. "What's it worth, you think?" Zubat asked.
"Eeeehehehehehe," Ghastly cackled.
"Your opinion only counts if it makes sense," Koffing taunted.
The Ghost Pokemon hissed back.
"Stop squabbling," Zubat said. "We should sell it; we'd get the better deal that way."
"No you won't, ya dumb bums!" Kip shouted.
"You're going to give that back to Stacy," Trey added.
The three crooks glanced at each other, then laughed. "Hoo-hoo!" Koffing said. "The weaklings think they can intimidate us."
"We do outnumber you," Trey said.
"Doesn't matter when we have the power!" Zubat taunted. "I mean seriously, you might have a really tall friend, but she looks weak and probably can't do…"
Sally stepped over by Zubat and punched him right in the face. She had a fluid and graceful movement, like the masters of the Fighting Pokemon and it seemed that she had power too. Zubat was knocked out of the air, cursing.
Everyone else joined in on the fight after that. Kip darted in and took the stone charm away from Zubat while giving him a nasty claw scratch. Behind him, Stacy shot a Water Gun attack at Koffing, who retaliated by emitting a strange gray-violet cloud. Sally started gasping immediately and stumbled back in pain. Ghastly emitted a scratchy screech, causing the group of recruits to grimace. Towards the edge of the battle, Trey was caught in a problem of not wanting to get too close to the Poison Pokemon, but knowing only a few close-range and no ranged attacks. He settled on throwing a Geo Pebble at the Ghastly.
In short order, the four recruits had defeated the two thugs. Sally was still gasping Koffing's attack. She fiddled with the device around her neck, putting it over her nose and mouth. Then she sat on the sand and closed her eyes. The other three were a little scratched up, but not as badly as Koffing, Ghastly, and Zubat.
"Aw darn," Zubat grumbled, accompanied by an eerie wail from Ghastly.
"You only won cause there's so many of you," Koffing sneered. "Fine, take the stupid thing. It's probably worth nothing. Come on, guys, let's skedaddle." The three of them rushed back for the stair passage.
Stacy accepted the stone charm from Kip. "Oh, thank goodness. And thanks, guys. I don't know what I would have done if I had lost it completely."
"What is it?" Trey asked.
She showed it to them. "I don't know, but it's my little treasure. I found it one day while I was on a walk. I'm not sure exactly what happened... but I want to know what it means. See the symbol on it?"
They each looked at the odd symbol engraved on the stone circle. "It's like some wheel with wings," Trey said. "Or windy mountains. I don't know what it means."
"Looks like nothing I've seen," Kip added. "And I've seen lots of treasures."
Stacy turned to Sally. "Are you okay? You sound like your breath has calmed down."
She opened her eyes, then moved her hand so they could see her smile. Then she pointed to the stone and indicated that she'd like to see it too.
"Good, I was worried." She came over and showed the stone to her. "Maybe you've seen it where you humans come from and it'll help your memory."
Sally touched the stone to adjust how she saw it. For a moment, she seemed to be examining it deeply. Then she lowered her head and shook it. She didn't know what it was.
The guys came over as well. "What about this cove?" Trey asked. "Does any of it look familiar?"
She looked around, then waved her hand about.
"What?" Kip asked. "You want to spin around?"
Sally shook her head, then thought for a bit. Then she wrote in the sand, 'time'.
"Oh, give you some time to think?" Stacy asked.
The human nodded, so the Pokemon decided to enjoy the hidden beach while their teammate got up and looked around. At the end of it, though, she seemed to have not figured out anything.
When the recruit team came back to the beach leading to town, they came upon a marvelous sight. The sun was setting in an orange glory, turning the sky around it pink and purple with silver clouds. The ocean was calm, displaying a golden path to the sun that rippled gently. Below their paws, the sand sparkled in reflection. Above the beach and some distance away, the jagged outline of Sharpedo Bluff was taking on a warm glow. And in the air, hundreds of glistening bubbles filled the air. They were fragile treasures that drifted in the warm breeze but collapsed into tiny water droplets when touched. From far away in the sky, the sun touched the bubbles and magnified their beauty by giving them gold, silver, and rainbow highlights.
Kip tried to sniff one of the bubbles, but it popped on his small pink nose. "Holy frijoles, this is just about the dandiest sunset I've ever seen."
"You've never seen this before?" Trey asked.
Stacy's eyes sparkled with wonder. "On nice evenings, the Krabby clan come out here to blow bubbles at sunset. I never get tired of seeing this; it's wonderful."
"Yeah, it's always beautiful," the Treecko said, watching the bubbles as well.
Sally sat down in the sand facing the sunset, but when she looked at her teammates, she seemed puzzled.
"I know what's bugging you," Kip said. "I mean, when the hell did it become evening? We got up, were sent straight to this dungeon, didn't spend all that long in there, and all of a sudden, it's evening?"
The human nodded.
The Skitty twitched his ears. "I dunno what to say. Time slips happen, but they only bug me when I notice."
"It's because time is breaking down," Stacy said.
Kip looked at her. "Are you kidding me? How can something so basic as time break down?"
"I don't really understand it, but that's what people say." She fiddled with her Bow. "The breakdown of time is why there's so many bad Pokemon these days and why nobody can evolve anymore. And why there's so many Mystery Dungeons showing up. That's what they say."
"No one knows why time is breaking down," Trey said. "But no one can deny that something is up. The old Pokemon say that things are different now, even though we've lived with this all our lives." He shrugged. "Me and Stacy, anyhow. How old are you two?"
"None of your beeswax," Kip said snippily.
Sally started to sign, paused, then wrote in the sand. "19"
"Days?" Kip teased. When she shook her head, he asked, "Weeks, months?" She denied both of those. "Centuries?"
Sally laughed. It was an odd hoarse sound.
"It's probably years," Trey said.
She nodded to that.
"Wise guy," Kip muttered. "Okay, since you're such a smartie, what's going on with time breaking down?"
"I already told you, no one knows why. But I can tell you about the effects." The Treecko paused, rubbing his chin. Then he looked out to the setting sun. "It's like today; we shouldn't have spent all day in a small dungeon like that."
"Tiny cakewalk dungeon," the Skitty said snobbily.
Trey pointed west. "But it seems that we did, somehow. More time passed than should have. But then there come some moments when time doesn't seem to pass at all, when everything comes to a standstill. I mean, you can still move about and stuff, but it feels like the world has slowed down around you. You think it should be noon and feel like you've been working all day, but it's still early morning."
"My brothers say that happens whenever they have to do chores," Stacy said with a fond smile.
"Like the other day when we had to make files," Kip said, shaking his head. "That afternoon dragged on for-ev-er."
"Sometimes it's just because you're doing something you don't like," Trey pointed out. "But other times, it's because time isn't working right. And then there's the bigger effects, which nobody noticed until a famous writer saw that something wasn't right with her journal entries."
"There's bigger effects of time breaking down?" Stacy asked.
He nodded. "The cycles of Nature are running amok."
"Amok, amok, amok," Kip said in a silly tone, prancing around in the sand.
Trey ignored him. "The moon doesn't follow consistent phases anymore. One night, it will be a new moon, the next night, a full moon, then a crescent, then full again. And the seasons don't always come in order. This changes from place to place. Some places get locked into winter, while others get locked into summer. In other places, you'll have an autumn windstorm followed a few days later by a spring shower. And no one seems to be certain of dates any further than a month ahead, sometimes not even a week."
"I haven't noticed that," Stacy said. "But then why wouldn't I? You think you'd notice if it suddenly went from winter to summer."
"It doesn't happen suddenly; it happens over the course of several days. Like when we went to the Dojo, the trees were showing that it was autumn, but today, I saw some spring daffodils blossoming on our way here. Some people think that it's because the shifting seasons are so illogical to us that we really don't notice it. Like we try to ignore the strangeness that the decline of time is causing. The best explorer teams are said to be investigating this matter."
"Eh, so us bunch of newbies probably won't get involved," Kip said. "Well good. I wouldn't want to mess with something as potent and intangible as time."
Sally seemed thoughtful, but also puzzled as she tried to figure out the concept of time breaking down. Then she looked out and pointed. The sun was still hovering over the horizon, orange and glorious, while the Krabbies still blew their bubbles. The tide was regular; at least, they felt that it was regular while it seemed to crawl back and forth at the edge of the beach. Behind them, the trees seemed to have stilled despite the warm breeze moving by them.
"Yeah, this is one of those moments where time has slowed," Stacy said. "The sun should be gone by now."
"We Pokemon know how time should flow," Trey thought aloud. "And yet, sometimes we miss this uncertainty."
"Whatever," Kip said, breaking the mood. "If it's going slow, good for us. We'd better get back to the guild before my parole officer blows a gasket because I didn't get in before dark."
"We should, also to make a report before dinner time," Stacy said. "Let's go."
