"Yahoo! Haha, haha!" I exclaimed out of excitement while jumping down from the height of a waterfall into a medium sized water pool below. This particular waterfall we had discovered on an exploration mission set not too far from Treasure Town and quite close to Apple Woods. The exploration had turned out less than eventful as we had hoped, but the waterfall was fun...well, at least I thought so. Alex didn't seem to like my rash decision to just jump off of it for "thrill".

"How could you possibly know that there would be enough water down here to support you? Much less the chance of you missing and crashing into the ground. Wouldn't have been too pleasant if you had landed wrong either." Alex practically scolded, a worried expression still plastered on his face.

Ugh. He was right about one thing at least... "You're right, it wasn't pleasant..." I readily agreed as I painfully waded over to the edge of the small pool and pulled myself out, holding my belly with my paw soon afterwards. Alex just sighed.

"Hehe, but it was still awesome!" I exclaimed, quite to his amusement.

"Ugh, what am I going to do with you? Your parents would kill me if-" He was about to say when suddenly a beeping sound was heard coming from his arm. He lifted it up to eye level and checked the wrist-band like badge that was confirmed as the source of the beeping. He quickly tapped on the screen and Wigglytuff's Guild emblem appeared followed by our team logo. Not long after, a holographic projection of Luke appeared before him.

"Hi Luke!!!" I shouted at the projection, stopping to laugh when he suddenly jumped back and hit the ground. "Haha! Gotcha!"

"Ugh. Very funny Eve. You really gotta stop doing that. Eevee ears are sensitive ya'know." Luke complained, slowly getting back up after his startled fall. He must've sat his badge down for this since the projection didn't shake when he fell.

"Hey Eve, Alex! How'd the mission go? Find anything of interest?" Esuna chimed in, entering the field of view. "You guys sure look like you've been through at least three dungeons."

Alex sighed. "Eh, not today. Dungeons is about it I'm afraid, unless you consider fifty poké, two reviver seeds and Eve scaring me half to death on a waterfall discoveries.

I frowned at that statement. "Hey, it was fun! If you were so scared for me, why didn't you just jump with me?" I complained.

"Well for one thing, you run too fast, and for the other...I guess you have a point there. My bad. Ehehe." I just sighed and nuzzled his side.

"You're just no fun." I teased, making him blush. "Anyway." I turned back to the projection of Esuna ad Luke. "Anything happen where you guys are?"

Esuna laughed. "Nothing really. Luke just kept complaining about not being able to learn some spell. Believe me, it was quite annoying at the time. Even Ella was having trouble keeping it together around him."

Luke pouted. "That's not how I remember it..."

Esuna patted him on the back a bit too hard, causing him to gasp out in slight pain. "Regardless, you guys should come back soon. Chatot said that area wasn't exactly friendly if ya stayed too long." She informed.

Alex nodded in agreement. "Alright then. We were just about to leave anyway. We'll see you guys in a few minutes."

"Ok gotcha. See ya then. " Esuna said before Alex tapped the screen again and the projection ended, the screen turning black.

"Why don't you grab a towel Eve? You're kinda, well, wet." Alex suggested, pointing at my bag which conveniently held such a thing. I fake frowned and looked at him with a disapproving eye.

"What? You don't like how I look when I'm wet?" I asked with a bit of playful sarcasm. He didn't seem to catch it though as his face lit up with anxiety.

"N-no! That's not what I meant at all! It's just-" He protested, but I didn't give him much room to make his case. I kinda felt bad about making him worry, even though he'd surprisingly missed my obvious sarcastic tone in the statement.

"Wet hug!" I exclaimed as I jumped straight at him, making him tumble to the ground. We rolled a bit before stopping, nose to nose on the ground with me on top. "I was just kidding. Heheh." I confessed, letting out a cute laugh.

Alex laughed as well. "Ugh. Ahh, ok. Now I'm wet though...and partially bruised. Ehehe. Sticks and pebbles aren't the best things to land on..." He scowled in discomfort of the awkward landing before smiling up at me, probably noticing the guilty expression that had crept up upon my face. "I'm fine though. It's no problem." He leaned in and gave me a small kiss to cheer me up. "We should really get going. Ok?"

I sighed in defeat. "Alright fine." I laughed as I got off of him. He stood up and pressed a button on his wrist-badge.

"Ya know, maybe I should come up with a name for this thing. 'Badge' doesn't really fit anymore." He suggested before bringing his wrist closer to his face. "Transport to Treasure Town." He spoke into its microphone.

In a matter of seconds, a small beeping sound was heard, a projection of the layout of Treasure Town popped up, and we were teleported away in a flash of light.

Treasure Town had increased dramatically in size from when I had first arrived here to join the guild. More shops had been added, all the houses and old shops had been renovated and improved, and quite a few lamp-posts were added here and there to help ensure safety at night. Even though nature was relatively stable nowadays, there were still quite a few outlaws out there. It still wasn't completely safe. Some buildings and houses seemed to tower over the rest comparatively, though it was nothing compared to anything I had seen in Krakto, a technologically advanced country that we had visited on vacation after stopping the destruction of time. The old crossroads were replaced when the town expanded its borders, but the guild's massive steps and the path leading to the beach had remained untampered with to preserve the originality of the town.

We stopped by my mom's house to meet up with Luke and Esuna who had been studying magic while we decided to go out on a mission. Apparently, Luke had his share of fun with a spell while we were gone. I mentally laughed at the thought of what could've possibly happened whenever he got that spell wrong. Oh how fun it is to have a brother. I walked up to the door and proceeded to knock.

The door was answered by Esuna who walked out followed by Luke upon seeing us. "Uneventful huh? Gee. I would say it was just a bad day if it hadn't been happening for the past week. You really didn't find anything?" She asked again, as if digging down deep for one last bit of hope.

"Nope. Nothing but an awesome waterfall. It didn't have a secret like the first one, but it was still fun. I still wish we had found something interesting though. Being an independent team is hard..." I complained. This past week really hadn't been all that interesting. We went to every place we could think of, but came up with nothing. It's like we hit a dry spell or something.

"At least it seems so here. The areas around Treasure Town have been explored by many exploration teams over the years and for all we know, anything worth searching for in those areas could be long gone. We might want to consider going farther out." Alex suggested. Of course, the idea of going farther out sounded awesome, but the missions would easily take more than a couple of days...

"I guess so. When we weigh our options, taking a longer trip and actually discovering something does sound better than continuing this dry spell." Luke considered. "Anyway, have you heard from any of the others at all?"

Alex crossed his arms and shrugged, seemingly having doubts about the topic. "No. Haven't heard from them in a while. I would guess that they're pretty busy. After all, even the guild seems to be pretty lively nowadays. Things are pretty high-strung as it seems." He let out a sigh. "In any case, we made an agreement..."

"Haha! I just had an awesome idea!!!" I suddenly exclaimed, interrupting Alex and simultaneously making all three of them jump in surprise. "Oh, did I scare you or something?"

I was rewarded with a couple of blank stares before curiosity crossed all of their faces. Esuna, being the brave soul that she was, volunteered to ask me about my idea. "Ok... So Eve. What is this idea you came up with and why is it so awesome?"

I was so excited with my thoughts that I was practically jumping up and down in front of them while giving my explanation. "Well ya know how Alex was saying that we should explore farther so we can discover stuff?"

This time, Luke was the one who volunteered. "Yeah. I thought it was a good idea. Sure it'd take longer, but we'd make more discoveries."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, but I have something even better in mind for what we should do. It would still involve going farther out, but it would really take some time. I think it would be so fun though!" This time, all I received were silent, confused looks. "I think we should set out to sea and travel the world like a real team! I've always wanted to do it, and it would be so awesome! We would be just like Team Raider and Team Charm! I mean, think about it! There's so much we could do and see out there! There's so much we haven't seen!" By the time I had finished explaining, I really was jumping out of excitement. Everyone else seemed a bit surprised however.

Alex looked at me uncertainly. "Around the world Eve? Are you sure? That would certainly take more than a year at minimum, and I don't even know if we're qualified to do that or not."

"We're not." Esuna stated bluntly. "One rank from it to be exact. You have to be at least master rank to attempt national travel for such a long period of time. That's why you're not really considered professionals until you reach that rank, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure about the idea myself. I mean, traveling the world isn't as easy as it would seem Eve. Ya have to know how to manage and navigate you're own ship. Then there's the matter of supplies and other necessities such as money."

I just laughed at her concerns. "Eh, we'll be fine. Don't worry about it. We've saved up quite a bit of poké from missions and we've got plenty of food. Also, I checked and the mission we went on today gives us enough points to move up a rank, so we qualify." I explained without a worry. Esuna still seemed to have some concerns though.

"But what about the ship? We don't exactly know anyone who knows how to navigate, much less handle an entire ship with sails and everything. Now I'm not afraid of water, but the sea isn't exactly the safest place on the planet."

Alex slowly raised his hand. "Actually, I think I might be able to navigate such a thing." We all turned to him in a flash, incredibly surprised and confused at his statement. It seemed to startle him a bit. "Well it's not like it's anything professional, but you have noticed that I almost never use a map or the compass on my badge right? I think something in my past has given me a naturally acute sense of direction. I have no problem predicting the weather either. In fact, I think the only thing we'd have to worry about is learning how to handle a ship."

Esuna raised her paw in front of him as if to stop him. "Wait, so you're actually considering this?"

Alex shrugged. "Well it doesn't sound like too bad an idea, and Eve really wants to do it. She has said in the past that she's always wanted to travel the world, so..." Good ol' Alex. Always on my side. That's one of the reasons why I love him so much. I smiled to myself at the thought.

"I think it sounds like a great idea." Mom spoke up so suddenly that we all jumped. She laughed at our surprised looks when we turned around. "Eve should really go after what she wants, and if she isn't getting that here then she should go. Besides, you're qualified as a master rank team from what I hear. You shouldn't have a problem."

Luke tilted his head in confusion. "You'd be fine with us leaving again for another year or so?" He inquired. Ella smiled.

"Yes. While I do suppose I'll miss you guys, like I do every day with Ally and the others, this is part of growing up. All children leave their parents at one point or the other. You're an exploration team, it's only natural that you'd do this sort of thing." She seemed to phrase her sentences carefully, as if to not dissuade us from going. "Speaking of being an exploration team, you might want to go see Wigglytuff about this so he can rank you officially as a master rank team. Surely he'll need to be informed as well. Also, here." She suggested before reaching into a bag and pulling out what looked to be a rolled up map. "This is a world map. It's a little outdated, so you might have to update it yourself, but it should help." She handed it to me.

"Thanks Mom! We'll make sure to come back and say goodbye before we leave." I turned to Esuna and Luke. "So, you guys coming or what?"

Esuna sighed. "I'm not so sure I would like being a two person team here in Treasure Town, so as much as this idea uneases me, I guess I don't have a choice. Ehehe." She gave in. "And I'm certain that Luke won't want to stay here alone?" She asked smugly.

Luke surprisingly looked excited. "Whelp, looks like we're going on another adventure. I just need to go grab a few things from the library and my room. Might need to check the void too. You guys can go on without me since you plan on coming back here anyway. Oh and make sure to ask Wigglytuff where we can find a place to buy a ship. That's pretty important." He then followed Mom into the house and shut the door.

"Alright Alex, Esuna. Let's go to the guild!" I said excitedly before running off. They were right behind me...hopefully, but if they weren't, they'd catch up eventually. At what used to be the crossroads, I turned left and started towards the stairs, almost tripping on a couple of them on my way up, which luckily I didn't. I would rather not start off this adventure with broken bones.

Once I had made it up the always massive staircase, I was met with the sight of Chatot...too bad I was going so fast that I couldn't slow down in time to stop and ended up slamming right into him. We were sent tumbling into the tent from the velocity of the impact and, by chance, we fell straight down the hole leading to the first floor and crashed hard on the ground. "Ugh... Sorry Chatot..." I apologized as I managed to get off of him and steady myself on the ladder. Poor Chatot seemed unable to even do that. I assumed it was because I had landed on top of him. I frowned at that. "Oh come on! I'm not that heavy!" I complained angrily.

"Umph..." He uttered as he tried to push himself to his feet. When he finally did, he dusted himself off and glared at me. "Now Ms. Grace! What is the meaning of this?! Why were you in so much of a hurry that you caused such an incident?!" He scolded.

"Ehehe. Sorry Chatot, but there's something that I really wanted to talk to Wigglytuff about and I was pretty excited, that's all. I didn't expect you to be there at that moment." I explained with my apology.

Chatot looked enlightened. "Ahh, yes. The mission you completed proved less than successful, but from completion you earned enough points to move up to master rank. I assume that's what's made you so excited?" He inferred inquisitively.

I nodded. "That's part of the reason at least. I have a major request to ask of him that's making me really excited. Is it really true that master ranked teams can travel the world?" I questioned.

"Hmm? Oh, I see. You want to travel." Chatot realized. "Well achieving master rank does qualify you to do such a thing, but are you sure you can handle it?"

"Yep! Alex, Luke, Esuna and I have it all worked out already. We'll be fine! Besides, if anything happens we have wizards in our group. There's a lot of things we can do with magic that can protect us if we get in too much trouble." I reasoned. Chatot seemed to understand my reasoning as he led me down the second ladder and over to Wigglytuff's chamber.

"Yoom-Tah!" Wigglytuff exclaimed when he heard the news. Ya know, I had known the guy for years now, but his hyper voice still caught me off guard. I still wanted to see Chatot get blown into the wall like he did when we first arrived though...

Anyway, it seemed I had left Alex and Esuna behind after all, seeing as they came into the room looking quite annoyed, panting from chasing after me. "What took you guys so long? I thought you were right behind me?" I complained.

Alex raised his hand to interject. "Again (huff), you run too fast..."

"I'll say." Chatot commented off to the side. I stuck my tongue out at him, stopping when Wigglytuff continued a second later. Chatot noticeably rolled his eyes.

"So ya wanna travel the world huh?!" He asked with a bit too much enthusiasm. I nodded and he shouted again. "Yoom-Tah! Excellent idea! You'd be an official team that way!" He seemed to take on one of his rarely seen serious expressions for a second, which wasn't really a good sign. "But you should really be careful. The world is a dangerous place, I think we can all agree, but out there you'll likely be out in the elements for a majority of the time so you'll have to be extremely cautious. You have to be careful with your food supply and keep track of your money, and weather conditions out on the sea can change pretty frequently. Also, besides everyday criminals, there are a surprisingly vast number of rogue teams out there who are able to operate completely undetected by the Federation. Team Skull was an example of one such team. You should be careful about them as they often love to make 'examples' out of teams who are out to help others or go after dreams."

My blood boiled at the thought of the mockery of exploration teams by such bad pokemon. Team Skull had turned out not so bad after all, but just the thought of it ticked me off. That they could get by with destroying the reputation of the Exploration Federation and ruining people's dreams. I knew it really couldn't be helped if the Federation couldn't find them, but...

Wigglytuff's expression drastically brightened at that moment. "However, there are teams like Team Raider and Team Charm who go after and capture those sinister teams. I personally think that's more fun, but Chatot's boring and thinks everyone should stay away from them." Chatot just rolled his eyes at his friend's blatantly immature comment. "Now, do you guys need a map?"

Alex shook his head. "Not really. Ella gave us one before we left the house. It'll do for now."

Wigglytuff nodded in approval. "Ok, well there's not much else to say so I officially rank you guys as a master rank team and permit you to travel wherever you wish to go! Yoom-Tah!" He exclaimed. There was a flash, and our badges suddenly projected out in front of us a display of our current rank. The display showed the text "master rank" along with our team name and a picture of the original badge design with a black button in the center.

I looked on in awe. "I'll never understand how you do that."

Alex turned to Chatot with an inquisitive look about his face. "Say Chatot. Do you perhaps know anywhere where we could possibly buy a ship?"

Chatot seemed to ponder this for a second. "Hmm... Well if I remember correctly, there should be a ship yard in Mikado Town. It's a nice port town a good distance between Beach Cave and Drenched Bluff. On the coast of course."

My eyes lit up. "The coast! Alright then guys, let's go find that town and get us a ship!" I shouted before attempting to rush out of the room. If it hadn't been for Alex reminding me about Luke and to say farewell to my mom, I would've just left. "Oh yeah! Let's go do that first. Then it's off to Miko Town!"

"It's Mikado Town Eve..." Esuna corrected with a noticeable sigh.

"Whatever. Let's just get going already! I'm bored..." I complained, urging them, or rather pushing them, out the doorway.

"Ok, so it took you that long just to grab a few books and a wand? Which brings me to the next question. Why the wand anyway?" Esuna was practically interrogating Luke when we got back to the house. I felt kinda bad for him, but then again he did skip out on going to the guild just to get a few items.

I had already gone to my room and packed all of my bows and my hair brush into my treasure bag when the interrogation started, so I'm sure I missed a few things.

Luke looked pretty nervous under her stern gaze. "W-well for one thing, these books in particular are extremely important and it took me a while to find them. The wand is, well, just in case..."

Esuna looked pretty confused about his explanation on the wand, but let it go as we headed for the door.

Mom was waiting for us outside when we closed the door. Dad was apparently out on business seeing as I hadn't seen him anywhere all week. I was a bit afraid of how he'd react to me just up and disappearing, but figured that I'd just be receiving a worried call on my badge sooner or later, so the fear was forgotten. I walked up and hugged Mom. "Be safe Eve. Try not to be reckless out there, ok?" I nodded as I let go. "And Alex. You'll make sure she doesn't do anything reckless, right?"

Alex laughed nervously. "Ehehe. Well I'll certainly try..." I seriously doubted his ability to keep up with me if I got too excited. He couldn't even keep up with me when I got excited about asking Wigglytuff if we could go or not. I'd hate to see what would happen if I, well, you know...

"Well then, I don't know about you guys, but I want to get to adventuring. Let's go!" I exclaimed, starting on my way towards the town's exit. I made sure to wave back at Mom and to check if the others were indeed following me. Luckily they were, and Mom waved back.

"Good luck Eve! Come home safe!" I heard her say before we walked out of sight.

"This is gonna be awesome!" I shouted out in excitement.

"This is not awesome..." I complained while panting as we walked along the coast to Mikado Town. "Why is it so hot?"

"Umm, maybe because it's summer? But look on the bright side. At least ya stopped running." Esuna laughed. I glared at her.

"You're only laughing right now because you're a fire type and you can handle this type of heat. And Alex is the type of pokemon who photosynthesizes, so I guess he likes it too..." I whined.

Alex tilted his head in confusion for a second before looking back at his tail. "Hmm? Oh yeah, I forgot my tail could do that. That's isn't why I'm not bothered by the heat though. It actually feels good to me. Can't say the same for Luke though. He seems to be having the same problem as you, but don't worry. I think we're almost there."

Surely enough, a few more seconds of walking rewarded us with the image of a town skyline appearing on the horizon. "Mitoka Town! Race you guys there!" I didn't give them much more notice before shooting off towards the town like a bullet.

"I thought you were tired!!!" I heard them yelling behind me as they struggled to keep up. I laughed back at them.

"Hahaha! It's gotta be cooler there! I'll be tired once I'm not hot!" I yelled back as we approached the town. As we got closer, I could start to make out the shape and color of the buildings. The town seemed to be mainly composed of tall, white and teal buildings, some having interesting architectural designs built into them. There were flags atop some of the buildings, and there were two bell towers on opposite sides of the town from what I could tell. When we got a bit closer I saw the docks, which had many different kinds of ships in them. The only kind of boat I recognized however was a ferry marked 'The S. S. Merry'.

"Hey Eve! Watch out for that-" Alex started before I brought my head down from looking at the buildings, only to face-plant right into one. "building... Eve, are you ok?!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine..." I replied unevenly as I got up unsteadily and nearly fell down again. Luckily, Alex caught me before I could. "Hey...are stars supposed to circle around your head like that?"

Alex looked at me with a bit of worry. "Nope, you're not ok. You've really gotta watch where you're going." He said as I shook my head to clear the 'stars' from my vision.

"Yeah... I should probably stop running too... Hmm?" I looked up and found a lucario wearing a fedora, seemingly meditating or something right behind Alex. I think I might have disturbed him considering he opened his eyes and was now staring us down. "Uhh, excuse me. Did we disturb you?"

The lucario's eyes lit up, as if he had recognized my voice. He laughed heartily at my concern. "No Eve, it's quite alright. I was just taking a moment to think to myself, that's all. I'm glad you're ok though. Clumsy as ever I see." I looked at him with narrow eyes for a second, puzzled as to how he knew my name before it hit me.

"Lucario?!" I asked him in surprise. He nodded. "What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be running the Rescue Federation."

"Well I suppose I should be, but you see everyone deserves a little vacation every once in a while." He smiled. "So... What brings you four here?" He asked, looking more at Esuna than anyone else.

"Well we came here looking for a ship so we could travel the world. We recently got rewarded the master rank, so we qualify to travel as a professional team. Chatot said to come here." I explained. Lucario didn't seem too surprised.

"Ahh. You always were the adventurous one. I'm surprised to see such a small group here though. You sure you four can handle going out to sea as such a small group?" He made notice that our numbers were low and used that to try to make me uncertain about my decision. Such an obvious trick.

"Nah, we'll be fine. We weren't always such a big team and we did just fine, so there's no need to worry. We'll become as famous as Team Raider in no time!" My display of determination seemed to amuse him.

"As famous as the great Team Raider huh?" He asked rhetorically before taking off his fedora. "Such big ambitions for one so small as you. It's quite admirable if you ask me. There are a lot of explorers who could learn a thing or two from you." He then took the fedora and placed it on my head. "Tell ya what. You take this hat, and protect it till the end of your journey." He suggested, shocking me. The hat must've been important to him or something. Thinking back on it now, I had seen him wearing it in the newspaper. "Now listen Eve, this hat is very special to me. Don't go losing it or getting it torn up somewhere, ya here me?"

"Got it. But why give it to me?" He looked as if he had been expecting me to ask that from the beginning.

"Eh, because I've been thinking that hat could use a bit of adventure these days. I don't move about very often anymore...at least, not as much as I used too. Since you're going to be traveling the world, it'll go all over with you." He spoke as if the hat itself were alive.

"Wow. You speak as if this thing were a person." I laughed. "Well Lucario, we gotta go buy a ship. Do ya know where we could find the ship yard?"

"Ship yard?" He reiterated. "Oh no. There'll be no need for that. I've got the perfect thing for you guys. Come with me to the docks." He requested, getting up and heading into town. He stopped and turned around when he noticed we weren't following him. "Well come one then. You want to get started on your adventure don't you?" He really didn't need to ask that.

"Haha! You don't need to tell me twice! Hurry up and take us to the docks! Let's go!!!" I exclaimed. Lucario didn't appear to like being rushed, but he seemed even more opposed to annoying me. He was probably right to be cautious though. I was so ready to get this adventure started.

Author's Note:

And Eve is the leader! It's gonna be chaotic, I know.

Eve: Chaotic? What are you talking about? I'm an awesome leader! I get things done way faster than Austin or Alex.

Me: That's what worries me. Anyway, this story is yet another one of my most anticipated stories to write. Some of you may have noticed that this story is written a bit different, not just in style but in theme. Yes, there is a major theme in this story that I am honestly a complete nerd about. I might just be willing to give special sneak peaks of future chapters of my work to the first five people to correctly guess the theme. There isn't a time limit for this so think hard guys! (Note: Please post your answer along with your reviews so I can keep track of them. PM's just get too messy, plus reviews get put in order if I'm correct)

Eve: Ooh! Can you guys put me in a review?

Me: Why do they have to put you in a review?

Eve: Because I like being in the review room. It's so neat and orderly.

Me: Eve, I swear if you've been disorganization the reviews again!

Eve: Relax. I haven't done that since you posted Imagine.

Me: What?!

Eve: Nevermind...

Me: Ugh... Well don't worry if this chapter seemed a bit dull to you. You guys probably know how introductions work if you've ever written a fic or have read a lot of them. (They're often slow) I'll likely post a prologue that'll spice things up, but as to how I'll incorporate it, you'll just have to wait and see. ;) Fun times!!!

Alex: Did Eve come through here? I just finished re-organizing the reviews.

Me: Ugh. EEEEEEEVE!!!!! *runs off angrily*

Alex: Uhh, I think I'll just go ahead and umm...end it here. Ehehe.