Author's Note:
As you may have noticed, I'm cutting out some of the filler and sentry duty days. This means that it's already time for Waterfall Cave (and by extension time to give Brandon some much needed level-ups). Most importantly though, this chapter introduces a new character, one who wasn't in the original story. After all, Team Strength has to recruit new members eventually.
Despite everything that happened yesterday, I found myself wide awake long before Loudred made his rounds. Where this energy came from was a mystery to me, but I suspect it had something to do with my transformation into a pokemon. Perhaps it was photosynthesis from the sunlight peeking through the window, or maybe I've never needed much sleep to begin with. Either way, it was good news for Crest; I could wake him up before Loudred got here.
"Hey, Crest, wake up," I said, shaking him awake.
"Huh?" Crest replied sleepily, "Brandon? Why are you up so early?"
"It's not that early," I defended. "Just thought you'd rather not be woken up by Loudred. He'll be around pretty soon." Just as I finished I heard Loudred's usually wake-up call down the hall, followed by some equally loud complaints from Corphish.
Crest seemed to notice too. "I guess I can't really argue with that. Still, I don't understand how you're not tired…"
"I don't know either," I said, "but it doesn't really matter. Besides, it means our mornings have a chance to be a bit more peaceful." By now I had the treasure bag and was just waiting for Crest to get out of bed.
"You forgot the best part: whatever Loudred's reaction will be to us already being up when he gets here," he said, suddenly ready for today.
That was one thing Crest was wrong about though; the best part about being up early was that Loudred was standing behind Crest right now. "You MIGHT be a bit disappointed then, Crest," he said. Meanwhile I was trying my hardest not to laugh. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought Piplup could fly after seeing how high Crest jumped.
"Now come on Crest, you even knew he was coming," I jabbed, noting that Loudred was just as amused as I was.
Of course, Crest was completely flustered. "Let's just go to assembly now, okay?" he said, trying to hide his embarrassment.
We were a bit early for the morning briefing, but it didn't really change anything. We still took our spots at the end of each line and recited the cheers, just like normal. When everyone else departed for their daily tasks, Chatot approached us with today's mission.
"Ah, you two. As I believe I mentioned yesterday, the Guildmaster has a special mission for your team. An exploration mission, in fact," Chatot began. He paused for a few seconds, probably expecting Crest to interrupt him, before continuing, "Open your wonder map."
I used a vine to retrieve our map from the treasure bag and Crest unfurled it in front of us. He was so excited, I half expected him to tear the map with how quickly he opened it. This was our first exploration mission; the one thing Crest has wanted to do since we formed a team. Between that and our success yesterday, even I could barely contain myself.
Chatot pointed to a spot on the map. "This is where you will be exploring. Follow this trail, and you will eventually reach a waterfall. Your mission is to investigate that waterfall. Any discovery made, no matter how small, will be considered a successful exploration. Barring that, I expect a thorough report on the area. The Guildmaster will review your report and decide whether or not your examination of the waterfall was sufficient. Are there any questions?"
Chatot actually did leave us time to respond, but we had no questions to ask. Crest was shaking with anticipation though, so Chatot left us to our preparations. We made our way to Treasure Town and bought two oran berries and a sleep seed from the Kecleon Shop, then put our remaining Poke in the Duskull Bank before we left for the exploration.
Following our map, it didn't take long to reach the waterfall we were supposed to investigate. The trail Chatot mentioned led straight to it. In fact, the path ended in a small cliff at the base of the waterfall.
"Well, it looks like we're here," Crest said, admiring the power of the falling water. I was just as awestruck. Simply standing near the downpour was a difficult task. I found myself wondering if Crest's Water type attacks would ever be this powerful.
"Looks like it," I answered to Crest, "but where are we supposed to start?"
"At the waterfall, of course!" an unfamiliar voice answered me. Surprised and confused, we looked around for the source of the voice until an Omanyte crawled up from the cliff in front of us. "Are you two explorers too?"
"Of course we are!" Crest replied excitedly, "Our guild sent us to explore around this waterfall. What about you?"
"I'm here on my own accord," the Omanyte answered. "I love to explore water-themed mystery dungeons and heard a rumor there was one around here. Haven't found anything yet, but I know there has to be something. Anyway, you two have names or should I just call you Piplup and Chikorita?"
This time I answered, "We do have names. I'm Brandon and that's Crest."
Omanyte gave me a strange look before introducing herself. "Well, my name is Spiral. Not to sound rude, but do you have some sort of speech impairment? It was a bit difficult to understand you there."
That explained the weird look. I knew my Pokesh was far from perfect, but was it really that bad? "I'm fluent in Knownun, not Pokesh. Don't bother asking why, because I don't know. I lost my memory a short while ago," I said, this time in Knownun.
"In any case, why don't we work together?" Crest suggested. "Since we're both exploring this area anyway, it would be easier on all of us."
"I don't see why not," Spiral agreed. "The path here made me think there might be something under the waterfall, but nothing has come up yet."
"Under the waterfall seems unlikely to me, but maybe there's something behind it," I suggested. "Either way, I think you have the right idea by following the path." I took a step forward in an attempt to see through the waterfall. Unfortunately, I got a little too close; some rushing water splashed upward and threw me away from the cliff. When I tried to get back to my feet I was overcome by a dizzy feeling.
Crest rushed over to me. "Are you okay? The waterfall got you pretty good there."
"Honestly, don't go underestimating water just because you're a Grass type," Spiral chastised.
Meanwhile I was just trying to recover from the blast. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath only to be greeted by another vision. It was a bit difficult to make out, but the vision showed someone jumping through the waterfall to find a cave on the other side. When I opened my eyes the dizzy feeling faded. "There is definitely something behind the waterfall."
Spiral was skeptical of my claim. "And what makes you so sure of that, exactly? Were you able to see past the water before it hit you?"
"Well, no," I tried to explain, "I just had some sort of vision about it. That vision showed me a cave behind the waterfall."
That was pretty much the best explanation I could give, but I could tell Spiral wasn't convinced. Even Crest was hesitant to believe me, and he knew about my previous visions. He decided to question me further. "Not that I don't trust you Brandon, but if you're suggesting we jump through the waterfall, I'd like to know that there is a cave back there. Imagine what would happen if you were wrong; I might be able to swim out of that current on my own, but you would probably be in a lot of trouble."
"Of course I know that, but it shouldn't be too difficult to prove there's a cave," I reasoned. In an attempt to prove my point, I used Razor Leaf on the waterfall. Unfortunately, the attack was too weak to get through, instead getting swept into the river beneath us.
Spiral was understandably unimpressed by my performance. "Seriously Brandon, there's more to life than type matchups. Watch this: Ancient Power!" she exclaimed before launching three rocks straight through the rushing water. The impact was just enough for us to catch a glimpse of the hidden cavern.
"Well, regardless of my inexperience, it seems I was right," I said.
"Okay, but how do we get back there?" Crest questioned.
"Jump through it, obviously. If my Ancient Power could get through, we should be able to, too," Spiral answered. I had my doubts though. Sure, the figure in my vision jumped through the waterfall, and Spiral could probably make it, but Crest and I were much weaker than she appeared to be.
Crest had the same thoughts. "Jump through it? No way, that's way too scary! There has to be something else we can do."
"I thought you said you were explorers," Spiral responded. "If you want to explore that cave, then jumping is the fastest and easiest way to reach it."
"This is our first exploration," I explained. "You might be able to get past the waterfall, but you're also much stronger than we are."
Spiral seemed a bit surprised to hear that. "You're rookies? Could have fooled me, since you found the place so quickly. Still, I guess I could help you through the waterfall. Just jump through when I use Ancient Power and you should make it easily."
That sounded like a decent plan to me, but Crest seemed hesitant to jump. Still, between my vision and Spiral's confidence, I suspected we would have little trouble reaching the cave. "In that case, I guess I'll go first. Just tell me when to jump," I said as I walked near the cliff.
"Alright then, ready?" Spiral answered, preparing her Ancient Power. "Go now!"
I leapt forward and, thanks to Spiral's rocks, made it past the waterfall. Unfortunately, I hadn't expected to get through so easily, and as a result had a pretty rough landing. You would think that I could have landed on at least one of my four legs, but no. I tumbled forward a short distance before coming to a stop. At least I wasn't injured.
"Hey Brandon, are you alright?" Crest called from outside.
"Yeah, just lost my balance. There's actually a lot of space back here," I shouted back. A few minutes later, Crest joined me in the cave, a little shaken from the jump but otherwise completely fine. Spiral quickly followed, though instead of using Ancient Power she just jumped through the waterfall shell first. With everyone here we began to explore.
"Just as I thought, it looks like this is the entrance to a mystery dungeon," Spiral noted.
"What do you think is at the end?" Crest asked.
That was a good question. There could be anything, or even nothing, past the dungeon, so I gave the safest answer I could think of. "Water."
Crest just laughed it off. "Well, I hope it's at least a bit more exciting than that. Let's just start exploring already."
The dungeon itself was not much of a challenge. Most of the hostiles were Water types, so it was a great chance for me to catch up to Crest after Mt. Bristle gave me so much trouble. Even without my Razor Leaf, Spiral was much stronger than any of the enemies here. Thanks to her help, we didn't need to use any of our items. We even found a reviver seed and two blast seeds as we explored.
The ease at which we explored gave us a great chance to just have fun and get to know each other. "So, where are you two from? I've never seen a Piplup or Chikorita around here before," Spiral asked.
"We're from Treasure Town," I answered. "It's actually not that far from here."
"Okay, but what about before that? I mean, it seems like there should be more Chikorita than just you if you've lived here a long time," she continued.
I wasn't sure how to answer that. From what I could tell nobody knew about humans except for me, so explaining my true origin was probably more trouble than it was worth. "Like I said before, I lost my memory. I don't know where I was before Treasure Town."
"Oh yeah, sorry about that. What about you, Crest?" Spiral asked. Come to think of it, I didn't know where Crest was from either.
He was a bit hesitant to answer though, as if he was hiding something about his past. "I'm from Blizzard Island," he eventually answered.
"Blizzard Island?" Spiral repeated. "Isn't that part of the Sea of Wonders?"
"Yes," he answered simply, "What about you, where are you from?" Evidently Crest didn't want to talk about his hometown.
"I'm from Brine Cave," Spiral replied, "but I haven't been there in quite a while. Been busy exploring, you know? Besides, explorers often mistake me for a hostile when I'm near home."
Speaking of exploring, it wasn't long before we reached the end of the dungeon. We found ourselves in an open room with multi-colored gems scattered across the floor. While Spiral and I admired the room, Crest ran ahead to a massive pink gem half buried in a wall.
"Brandon, look at this! Imagine if we brought this back to the guild with us," he said, already trying to retrieve the crystal.
"I don't know, it looks pretty stuck to me," I said as I approached the wall. Extending a vine, I tried to move the gem even a little bit, but to no avail. I did, however, feel a familiar dizziness when I retracted my vine.
By now I knew that the dizzy feeling meant I was going to have a vision, so I closed my eyes to focus. Suddenly, I saw a flash of white light accompanied by a sharp ringing sound. When it faded, I saw the vision much more clearly than any of the previous ones. A Wigglytuff entered this room, approached the giant gem, and was washed away by a sudden flood of water. The vision ended with another flash of light, and I woke up as if nothing happened.
My mind was racing after the vision ended. I was sure that the Wigglytuff I saw was the Guildmaster, which all but confirmed my previous theories about him. He was probably the pokemon in my previous vision too. But where did the water come from? The only thing here was that crystal Crest was messing with...
Everything suddenly made sense when I heard a clicking sound from the wall, followed by a low rumbling noise. "Um… what was that?" Crest asked.
"The gem was trapped!" I exclaimed. "We need to get away!"
"Away from what?" Spiral questioned.
I didn't have to answer though; the tidal wave was practically on top of us before I could say anything.
Just as I finished my question we were hit by a massive wave of water. Normally this would not be a problem for me; my heavy shell can protect me from almost anything. But this time, I was caught completely off guard. This dungeon was easy, and we were at the exit. We should have been safe!
As I was swept up by the current, I lost track of the pokemon I was exploring with. If I couldn't handle this current, they were probably completely helpless. Even a Piplup wasn't that strong of a swimmer. My thoughts were confirmed when the water launched us into the air, where I could see the utter chaos of our situation. They were still recovering from the force of the wave and hadn't even noticed we were airborne.
I hadn't fully processed what had happened either; we were moving too quickly to make sense of our surroundings. Instead, I just set up a Protect shield when I knew we were nearing the ground. I was pretty sure we all had the defenses to survive the fall, but the shield would help soften the landing. Luckily Crest and Brandon were close enough to be encased in the shield too.
To my surprise, our crash landing turned out to be somewhat soft. We landed in a hot spring, and my shield, or more appropriately now my bubble, was floating on the water's surface. The barrier quickly faded, dropping us into the warm water below.
Crest wasted no time running out of the hot spring, probably because he was used to swimming in cold water, but Brandon just stayed put. "What… just happened?" Crest asked.
"You sprung a trap that washed us to… well wherever we are now," Brandon answered.
"We're at Treasure Springs," I explained, "a hot spring not far from Treasure Town."
"Well now," an older voice called out, "you certainly know how to make an entrance, don't you Spiral?"
"Hey Torkoal! Sorry to 'drop in' like that. My last adventure didn't end so well," I responded cheerfully.
Torkoal chuckled at my comment. "I can see that. Why don't you and your friends rest here for a while? Your tales always seem to liven up this ol' place."
"I think I'll pass, I hate hot water," Crest answered. "Besides, we need to get back to the guild."
Brandon was a bit disappointed. "The water isn't that bad, but you're right. We really should get going."
"Well, I'm going to stay at the spring for a while," I said. "but I'm sure we'll meet again. I'm a bit of a regular here and often go to Treasure Town for supplies, so see you around I guess."
"Yeah, see you later," Crest replied as the pair left.
As I took my usual spot in the spring, Torkoal turned to me with a smile and asked, "So, just how did you end up in the sky?"