Author's Note:
It never came up until now, but I don't think pokemon would have the same calendar humans have (or have a calendar at all, for that matter). Of course, they still need to measure time somehow, so pokemon will measure time based on things they can clearly see: days, seasons (around 100 days), and years (4 seasons or roughly 400 days). With that explanation out of the way, on with the chapter!
"Crest? Hey Crest, come on, wake up, it's morning," I heard as I struggled to get out of bed. I don't think I'll ever get used to how early morning comes this far north. At least Brandon can wake me up before Loudred does.
"I seriously don't understand how you aren't tired right now," I said, finally getting up.
"Sunlight. At least, I think that's what it is," he answered. Looking toward Brandon's bed, I saw that the window lined up perfectly for the sun to shine on it in the morning. That probably would make sleeping difficult.
Although we were awake before Loudred came around, we weren't as early to the morning briefing as we usually were. Being early never did anything for us anyway, and Team Skull was there this morning too. The last thing I wanted to do was spend more time around them then I had to. The meeting went mostly the same way it always did, though Wigglytuff did mention that the expedition members would be announced soon.
With the briefing over, everyone went to their usual tasks and Chatot approached us for our assignment. "Ah, Team Strength. I have a special mission for you to do today," Chatot began. "Last night the guild's food supply dropped sharply. Specifically, our stock of perfect apples has completely disappeared. Your job is to go to Apple Woods to collect perfect apples."
"Aren't perfect apples extremely rare? How are we going to find them?" I asked.
"There is a tree at the end of the mystery dungeon that grows perfect apples. Collecting them should be easy," Chatot answered. "Despite that, I suggest you take this mission very seriously. The Guildmaster tends to get… irritable… if he doesn't have perfect apples."
So, today's mission was mostly for Wigglytuff then. That meant if we did well, he would almost certainly choose us for the expedition. "In that case, we'll get the perfect apples, no problem!" I assured my supervisor excitedly.
"I hope so, because if you don't," Chatot shuddered midsentence, "Err, best not to think about it. Just don't mess up, okay?" With that somewhat ominous warning he left us to our preparations.
Brandon and I took the ladder to the upper floor, but he stopped me before we left the guild. "Hey, since we just have an item retrieval mission today, I think now would be a good time to ask Chimecho about team assembly," he suggested.
"That's a good point, we really aren't in any rush today," I agreed. We turned away from the ladders and walked over to Chimecho's desk.
"Oh, Crest and Brandon, how are you two doing? Team Skull isn't causing trouble again, are they?" She asked when we reached her station.
"No trouble yet," I answered. "We were actually here to ask about team assembly. You mentioned something about it yesterday, right?"
"Of course! I keep track of the pokemon you recruit for your team. With my help, you can designate a team leader and track who enters certain mystery dungeons," Chimecho explained.
"What does designating a leader do?" Brandon asked. I was just as confused; we had done just fine so far without specifying a team leader.
"The leader gets to choose who can and can't join your team. To avoid potential conflicts between teammates, our guild does not allow its teams to recruit new members unless the team has a leader," Chimecho answered. "In addition, you can only change your team leader once per season, since changing leaders too often would defeat the point of having a leader in the first place. However, you can still have any pokemon you want lead individual explorations."
I guess that makes having a leader pretty important. "In that case, we should probably choose a leader," I said, "and I think we can all agree Brandon is better at leading than I am."
To my surprise, Brandon objected to that idea. "But wasn't forming a team your idea? That alone should make you leader, I think. Besides, your Pokesh is better than mine and I can still barely read footprint runes."
"If I may interrupt, that kind of thinking is why you would be a good leader, Brandon," Chimecho chimed in. "On top of that, you seem a bit more confident as an explorer than Crest. If he isn't interested in being leader, I see no reason why you shouldn't fill that role."
Being more confident than me doesn't take much. In fact, Brandon is far from a confident explorer. He just isn't as timid as I am. Still, when he realized I wasn't going to nominate myself as leader, he accepted the position. I wasn't getting out of this completely though, because the first thing he did as leader was appoint me as co-leader.
"So now that we have a leader, we can recruit new members, right?" Brandon asked as we finished reorganizing our team.
"That's right," Chimecho confirmed, "If you meet an explorer that wants to join your team, just bring them here and I'll give them a badge."
"Thanks for the help Chimecho," I said, turning to leave. "We'll see you at dinner later."
As we made our way through Apple Woods, I found myself wishing that we learned about Chimecho Assembly sooner. An extra teammate would have been a huge help here, but alas, this was our worst dungeon yet. It was filled with Bug, Poison, and Flying types to give me trouble while Crest struggled against the Grass types. I didn't see a single pokemon that didn't resist my Razor Leaf, so I had to rely on Tackle to defend myself. At least Poison Powder kept the hostiles at a distance (in the rare cases that they weren't immune to it, anyway).
Suffice to say we spent most of our time avoiding the hostiles instead of fighting them. Our collective disadvantages cost us three of our oran berries, and a Butterfree's Sleep Powder nearly forced us to use our only reviver seed. At least powder moves didn't work on me; if they did, we might have been ejected from the dungeon right then. Despite all that, we managed to reach the end of the dungeon, and we even found an oran berry and two heal seeds along the way.
"Okay, we're out of the dungeon now," Crest said as we stepped into a clearing.
"That means the perfect apple tree should be around here somewhere," I concluded. "What makes it different from all the other apple trees again?"
"The apples it grows should be much bigger than the others we've seen," Crest answered. "You'll know it when you see it."
We wandered around the clearing for a while before finding the tree we were looking for. It was pretty far from the dungeon's exit and slightly taller than the normal apple trees around us, but what really stood out were the perfect apples among its branches. The apples were huge, almost as big as our treasure bag, and they almost seemed to sparkle when the sun shined on them. If they tasted half as good as they looked, then it was easy to see why Wigglytuff loved these things.
"This is it, but how are we going to get those apples? The tree is too tall to reach them," Crest wondered. "Can your vines reach that far?"
"I doubt it, I've never had to extend them more than a body length from me," I answered. "What if we cut them down with Razor Leaf or Bubble? Could that work?"
I was about to try my idea when a malicious voice interrupted me. "Chaw haw haw! Why make things so difficult on yourselves?" The voice said, stepping out of the foliage and revealing itself to be Skuntank. "Watch this, trees are no match for explorers like us."
I saw Zubat and Koffing flying behind Skuntank and expected they would retrieve the apples, but to my surprise they didn't move. Instead, Skuntank used his Night Slash on the base of the tree, causing several apples to fall to the ground.
"Whoa ho ho! That certainly is generous boss," Koffing praised.
"Yeah, now the wimps can collect the apples they need for the guild!" Zubat added.
Skuntank then turned toward us expectantly. "Well, what are you waiting for? Pick them up."
Crest and I didn't move. Team Skull has caused nothing but trouble for us before, and we had no reason to trust them now. This was clearly a trick.
A trick that Crest didn't hesitate to call them out on. "What do you guys actually want? After everything you've done, we know better than to trust you, so just leave us alone and let us complete our mission."
That seemed to catch Skuntank off guard, at least for a moment. When he recovered, his team dropped the helpful act. "Saw right through it, huh? Oh well, it's not like you can do anything about it." Team Skull got into battle positions, and we took a defensive stance in response. Crest was clearly intimidated, and I wasn't faring much better, but we couldn't back down now. "Take this! Our noxious-gas combo!"
Zubat quickly flew up and away from the battlefield. Below him, Koffing and Skuntank unleashed a massive cloud of their combined poisons. The cloud flew forward and engulfed us before we could react, and before I even knew what happened the battle was over.
Sometime later, I woke up still in front of the perfect apple tree. "Uhg, what happened?" I said before getting hit by a wave of purple sparks. So much for our last pecha berry…
"Team Skull knocked us out. I recovered on my own a moment ago, but I had to use our reviver seed to wake you up," Crest answered, handing me the berry. "At least we weren't in the dungeon. If we were, our badges would have forced us out and we would have lost our items."
"And we can still grab some apples to take back with us," I added.
Crest just shook his head. "I doubt that. Look, all the perfect apples are gone."
Gone? Wait, did Team Skull actually take all of the apples? Looking around, I saw the tree was picked clean and the ground was just as empty. "So, we failed our mission then. I guess we shouldn't have picked a fight with Team Skull. We should have just used our escape orb when we had the chance."
"Yeah…" Crest agreed. "Let's just go home. The last thing we need is for Chatot to get angry because we returned to the guild late."