"I said no, Lucky," Scolipede said sternly. He glared down at the blue lion cub pokemon before him as he continued his paperwork, writing with the appendages on his neck. The shinx, in turn, gave an annoyed look back.

"Scolipede, if you would just give me a chance, I could prove that I can do this!" the shinx argued.

"A chance to do what?" Scolipede asked. "Waltz into a mystery dungeon alone, get lost and never be seen again?" Scolipedes tone hadn't change from the flat, expressionless way it normally was, but Lucky could feel the guild masters rage radiate off of him like heat off a fire type.

"Who said I had to go alone? Blair runs solo, I can go with her! Or another team!" he suggested, a bit more cheery.

"Let's face facts Lucky. If one of the other members went with you, they'd end up doing all the work. And if you went with them, they might not be able to protect you. So the answer is no," Scolipede explained.

Lucky ears drooped, and he looked at the floor and sighed. He knew that Scolipede was right, and that just upset him even more. Scolipede could clearly tell how disappointed the shinx was, and with a sigh, he continued.

"But," he started. Just the word made Lucky perk up a bit. "I do have arrangements made to get you a partner sometime soon. So I just need to ask you to be a bit more patient," he calmly stated.

"Yeah, alright..." he whispered. "I... guess I better go do my job now, huh?"

Scolipede just gave him a smile and a nod, and returned to his work. Lucky took his leave and exited the room.

As he closed the door behind him, he felt like beating his head off a wall. It was official now, there was no way he was going on a mission any time soon. He peeked around the counter, and was relieved to find that the guild hall was empty. He hated when the guild members saw him upset. They had a tendency to baby him, trying to "cheer him up." The last thing he wanted was more pity.

After weaving through the forest of chair and table legs that cluttered the lobby, he looked up at the mission board at the other side of the room. As he had expected, various papers littered the board, each with missions such as the typical escort, retrieve, trade, and others. However, Lucky's eyes quickly met with a mission near the top of the board, a bounty mission with a picture of a weavile.

"Vladimir... leader of the outlaws..." he thought out loud. While he was preoccupied looking over the description, he failed to notice a tall pokemon approaching from behind.

"Hey Lucky!" it said, patting him on the back. Instead of a chill, a strong electric shock climbed up his spine, and the other pokemon quickly pulled their hand away. Lucky turned his head to look at them, and was greeted to a gardevoir, holding their singed hand.

"Oh, Yumi!" he said, surprised. He honestly thought he was alone. "Sorry about that. You snuck up on me..."

"No no, it's alright," Yumi said, sucking on a burnt finger. When they took their finger out their mouth, they started shaking it, as if to shake the pain off. "Sorry for sneaking up on you. So, how did it go with the guild leader?"

"Same as the last time..." Lucky answered, trailing off.

"Well, Scolipede probably has his reasons," they reminded him, bending down to Lucky's height.

"As always... I guess I'll have to wait some more..." he said, frustrated.

"Yeah, but hey, at least you get to go eventually," Yumi said.

Just then, there was some unintelligible yelling, and an ampharos barged in through the front doors.

"Hey Yumi! Would you hurry up in-" he stopped yelling, noticing the gardevoir to his far left. "Yeah, we gotta go do that WORK thing?" he scolded.

"Yep, coming Mike!" they yelled back. "Well, gotta go! Wish me luck!" they told the shinx in front of her. They patted Lucky on the head (despite knowing he hated that), and took off out the batwing doors to join their partner.

Lucky sat in the comfortable silence for a while, contemplating if he should take this time to read, before any of the teams got back. But then he remembered that he had patrol, and he followed Mike and Yumi out.

As he pushed the doors open, a familiar sea breeze blew by. The guild sat at the end of town, closest to the ocean, and he could see many buildings lining the street. It was a small town, consisting only two cobblestone streets, with a quaint little stone fountain where the two met. Despite it's size, the town had everything a guild town needed. There were shops, a storage and bank, even a move tutor.

Lucky only gave the view a passing glance. It was nothing new, as he had lived in this town for as long as he could remember. He leapt down the short wooden staircase, then made his way into town.

All seemed normal, with pokemon walking around and conversing, merchants buying and selling goods, and the like. At one point he heard a deino call out to him from across the street. Lucky didn't respond. The dieno had promised that the day Lucky officially got into the guild, his goods would be half off for him. Today wasn't that day though, and Lucky took the left street out of the town.

Scolipede's just never going let me go, is he? Lucky thought to himself. As he thought, we walked along a simple dirt trail through a large grassy field, cut through the rolling hills that made up the landscape. I've never read a rule saying you need a partner to start. Why doesn't he trust me? He thought again.

It was times like this that Lucky would climb up one of the hills and stare out into the ocean. The hills were rather small, so it wasn't all that hard to reach the top and look out to the north, the deep blue of the sea clear to see. The effect was almost hypnotic on the young shinx. He could stare out into the sea for hours, lost in his own thoughts.

Scolipede's probably just worried, he reasoned. Just looking out for me...

Suddenly, a noise from the not-to-far off forest made his ear unintentionally twitch, and snapped him out of his trance. Curiosity lead the way, and he walked down the hill to the edge of the forest. The sound of twigs breaking and leaves being crushed told him that it was in a hurry, and it was getting louder. Closer. He was supposed to run back to the guild to tell someone when something like this happen (which was almost never), but there was no way he was doing that. Whatever this was, he was going to stand and face it, friend or foe.

Tai felt as if he had been running for hours. His feet and paws ached each time they hit the ground, but he knew he couldn't stop. As much as he wanted to, his mother had told him to keep going until he reached town. Problem was, he didn't know how far town was! His lungs felt like they were going to burst out of his chest, and his breaths had become a wheeze.

But there was hope now, as he could see the end of the forest now. But also at the end of the forest, he could see some kind of pokemon. Like a litleo, but... blue? He squinted to see what the pokemon was, and soon realised just how quickly he was approaching. He tried desperately to slow himself down, but collision seem inevitable.

Lucky was not about to be rammed so easily, however. He had seen this other pokemon coming, and just as it seemed the shinx and sliding sneasel were about to hit, Lucky dodged out of the way, leaving his back paw behind to trip the dark type.

It worked flawlessly, and Tai landed face-first into the grassy earth. He lifted his head back up, only to have it forced back down before he had a chance to breath.

Lucky looked down at the dark type with glee. "Ah... ha... haha! I-I caught you, Vladimir! " he exclaimed. If he wasn't pinning Tai down, he would have jumped for joy.

Tai was very confused at the remark. He lifted his head to try and speak, but Lucky pushed his head back down.

"Save it, weavile! After I bring you in, there's no way that Scolipede can say no! Not after I bring in the outlaw leader!" he said. A few sparks leapt from Lucky's claws, stinging Tai's back ever so slightly.

Questions raced through Tai's mind. Who's Vladimir? The weavile I saw earlier? Why would this pokemon be looking for him? When he finally realized the shinx wasn't holding his head down, he spit out a mouthful of grass and spoke.

"Hey, listen! I'm not Vladimir, I don't lead anyone, and I'm not even a weavile!" he yelled. "So could'ja get off?"

Lucky was taken aback by the statement, but then pushed Tai down again again. "How do I know you're not lying? Dark types do that!" he said accusingly.

Tai, again, lifted his head up. "'Cause I'm a sneasel!" he stated crossly. "Weaviles have that frill thing on their head. I don't."

The shinx stopped and thought back on the picture of Vladimir, and remembered that it did, indeed, have a frill. He looked down at the sneasel and found that he, in fact, did not have a frill. He had made a mistake.

He was shocked by his own carelessness. Immediately, he started to climb off of Tai's back. "I… I'm sorry…" he mumbled.

Tai had just started to get up when a voice rang out from the forest. A now familiar voice to Tai.

"Don't bother going any farther, Tai. You're coming with me." From the forest shade stepped a white foot, with three black claws. When the speaker fully emerged, Lucky recognised it as an absol. Tai recognised that it as the black-clawed bounty hunter.

They had returned.


Sorry for the slight delay, I *insert personal problems you don't care about*. I don't really like this chapter 100%, but I don't know how to fix it so... here it is! And that's for all this amazing initial support, I really love it guys.

Oh, and Mike and Yumi belong to BlackGeneralNocturna, while the so far unnamed absol belongs to St. Elmo's fire, submitted through my closed SYOC. So special thanks to them. I hope to hear from you guys soon, and I'll post chapter 3 in a week-ish. See ya!