Maybe it was the new location or maybe it was Sosharu's snoring, but something woke Plasma up before everyone else. As he opened his eyes, he looked around the room. He almost didn't remember where he was.

Patona had rolled on to Plasma's bed in her sleep, Sosharu was sleeping in a strange position on his back with his legs stretched out around him. The magby that Plasma still didn't know the name of was in a position similar to Sosharu, except on his belly.

Plasma began to stand up, and as he did, Patona yawned.

She moaned drowsily, then looked up at Plasma. "Up pretty early...?" She was still half asleep.

"Yeah," Plasma replied. "Did I wake you up?"

"I was using you as a... a big pillow..." She wrapped her forelegs around one of his. "So... warm..."

"Um..." Before Plasma could protest or respond, she was already falling back to sleep. "Patona?" He pushed her a bit.

"Hm? Oh!" Suddenly she sprang to her feet. "I-I'm sorry! I can be... grabby, sometimes." She looked away, embarrassed for a moment. Shortly after, she smiled confidently. "Well! Ready for our first day on the job?"

"I am," Sosharu said, rolling to his feet. "But Ember isn't!"

The magby mumbled something under his breath. He began to get up and said "I'm up... you..." The last words were incomprehensible nonsense.

"Oh, good!" Patona grinned. "Now that everyone's up, we can go to the job bulletin board."

Ember moaned, but Plasma and Sosharu agreed.

Team Everlast walked out of their room and down the hall to check the available jobs. Plasma thoroughly checked the board and saw several different kinds of jobs. Some were for missing items, others were labor like fixing walls or cutting grass, but one stood out to him.

"We're doing that one," Plasma stated, staring at a paper to the left side of the board.

"Hm?" Patona looked at the paper and suddenly looked intimidated. "Th-That one?" The paper had 'MISSING POKÉMON' written in large letters. It described a location north of the guild that was barely explored.

The job summary read "Pokémon have been disappearing in a place called Deep Cavern. It is unknown why. If an exploration team can bring back the missing pokémon, and/or finds out what is causing these disappearances, they will be rewarded handsomely at a minimum of 5000P total."

"Hey guy," Ember poked Plasma's side, "you realize that's a high-paying job, right? That's most likely extremely difficult."

Plasma took down the paper and started walking to Masuta's quarters. "You register the job with the guild master, right?" he said.

"Are you sure about this?" Patona asked.

He turned around to face her. "There are pokémon out there alone. They need our help. If no one else has helped them yet, we might as well try." He ran into Masuta's quarters.

No one followed him in, so the rest of the team could only guess what was happening.

"That guy's crazy," Ember scoffed.

"Hey!" Patona yelled at him. "He just wants what he thinks is best! His heart's in the right place..."

"Whoa." Ember took a step back. "Jeez. Since when did this guy mean so much to you?"

"Hmph." Patona blushed and turned away.

Soon enough, Plasma came back out with a determined smile on his face.

"That can't be good," Ember remarked.

"Let's pack up," Plasma said, holding out a stamped paper. The stamp on the paper symbolized that the job had been accepted and registered with a team.

"Ho-ly Miltank," Sosharu said. "We're really doing this..."

"You know it."

The team headed back to their room to gather their belongings. The trip was sure to be long, so by the suggestion of Ember, they spent personal money on berries and drinks. Ready for the journey, they stood at the northern edge of the guild's land.

"Here we are..." Plasma said. "Our first job. In a practically uncharted land..."

"We get it," Ember said.

"Oh, hah. Sorry."

Patona stood next to Plasma. "You're even more excited about this than me. You've got a strong drive..."

Plasma smiled at her. "One step closer to the rest of my new life. Who wouldn't be excited?"

"True..." She nuzzled him happily. "Let's go."

"Right!"

Team Everlast then headed into the forest, hiking to their first true mission as an exploration team. They were ready for anything.

-Note

I've been pretty busy, which is why this took so long to write. I'm most likely going to get more and more busy, so don't expect frequent updates anymore. I'll try to update this (at the very least) monthly. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked this chapter. (Also, the next chapter should be MUCH longer than this)