I found myself in a strange place, a long metal hall of some sort, with alarms blaring and people shouting. The voices were indistinguishable from one another as shadowy figures of various shapes and sizes, most with vague outlines, began to appear in the hall out of thin air, some running away, some staying and sounding angry. The voices began to distinguish themselves as the shadowy figures stopped showing up and only four were left nearby.
"-and we need to evacuate this location," I heard one voice say.
"Ok, just make sure civilians take priority," I hear another voice say.
"Boss, what do you want us to do?" a third voice asks.
"I'll stay and fight," I hear my own voice say, but it comes from one of the shadow people, not from me. "Help Omega Squad evacuate the facility."
"You can't do that Steven!" The second voice says. "You're strong, but you're not that strong!"
"I'm not going to stay long," shadow Steven says. "Besides, I have Flameheart and the rest of my team with me."
"But-" the second voice protested.
"I'll be fine David," shadow Steven reassures him. "Now go, I'm not going to hold this position forever, and there's still a lot of people to evacuate."
"Yes sir!" shadow David replied, turning and moving down the hall with two others, leaving just shadow Steven behind.
A popping sound can be heard, along with a bark of excitement as another shadow figure appeared, different in shape from Steven. It was almost shadow Steven's height, but vaguely dog-like. Steven reaches out an arm and appears to pet the creature, who nuzzles up to him, growling lowly, clearly happy to see him.
"Hey buddy, how are you doing?" Shadow Steven says. A low bark is the response of the other creature, followed by more nuzzling. "I know buddy, I'm sorry. We'll go home once we take care of this, ok?" A short bark is the response, to which shadow Steven says "Ok, let's do this Flameheart. Here they come." A loud howl of excitement is heard. "Flameheart, use Flare Blitz!-"
This was the last thing I heard him say as I began to rise, passing through the ceiling of the hallway, going too far to hear any more of what was happening. I kept rising, when a light appears in the direction I'm going and I hear a new voice, this one deep and commanding.
"Don't forget," it says.
"What? What do you mean, don't forget?" I ask in confusion.
"Don't forget, you-"
"-usk. DUSK!" I hear, suddenly waking up, drenched in sweat, Eva poking my side with a paw.
Looking around, I was back in Eva and Sparky's room and it was the middle of the night. Both of them were sitting next to me, looking down. I was breathing heavily, and slowly began to catch my breath.
"Are you ok Dusk?" Eva asked worriedly. "We called your name multiple times, but you wouldn't wake up."
"Yeah I'm fine, I think," I answer.
"You're not fine man, you're crying and calling out 'No' in your sleep," Sparky told me. "Come on, I'll take you to Doctor Urian."
"I'm fine," I tell him, wiping the tears off my face. "Just a bad dream, I guess. I can't even remember what it was about." I feel bad lying to them, but what else am I supposed to do? I hardly understood what happened in my own dream, who's to say anyone else would get it? "Sorry for waking you two up."
"Well, if you say so," Sparky says reluctantly, clearly suspicious.
"I'm just glad you're ok," Eva said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I'm sure you've been through a lot these last few days. If you need help, don't be afraid to speak up."
"Ok," I tell her smiling. "I'll make sure to do that."
They both go back to their beds and lay down, going back to sleep. I lay there, thinking about the dream and what it means. Was that shadowy figure with my voice me? Who's David? What is Flameheart? And what did that strange voice mean by 'Don't forget'? That dream left me with more questions than answers, and I had a bad feeling that there were likely to be more of these in the future.
Unable to get any answers, I finally lay my head down and closed my eyes to go back to sleep. When I finally did fall back asleep I didn't have any more dreams. I woke up a while later, getting prodded by a paw.
"Dusk," I heard Sparky call out to me. "Come on, time to get up buddy."
I opened my eyes to see that it was just starting to get light outside. Yawning, still just a little sleepy, I looked up at Sparky standing next to me.
"Sorry," I say, getting up, stretching. "I'm up now."
"No problem," he said cheerfully, smiling. "You feeling better?"
"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," I replied.
"You sure?" he asks me, clearly concerned for me.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," I tell him. "I honestly don't know what came over me. Sorry to disturb your sleep last night."
"Don't worry about it," Sparky smiled. "It happens to all of us. I'm just surprised you don't remember what happened in your dreams to cause you to be like that."
I just shrug, not yet ready to tell anyone what I saw in that dream. "So, what's up first?" I ask him. "And where's Eva?"
"She left already to go eat," he told me. "We should go too, and see if we can't catch up with her."
"Ok," I say as we quickly make our way to the dining hall. Rushing inside, I see Eva grabbing a bowl of berries from the counter and waved at her. She saw us and waved back, pointing to a table nearby. Sparky and I each grabbed a bowl of assorted berries and went to go sit down with her.
"Morning sleepyhead," Eva said to me as we sat down. "Feeling better?"
"Yes, thank you," I say, before digging into the food before me ravenously. She giggled as she and Sparky began to eat as well. When we all finished we took our bowls back over to the counter we got them from and left for the atrium.
At the atrium, Eva left to go behind the desk and Sparky had me follow him to the Guildmaster's office. Knocking on the door, we entered and saw Drake asleep on the desk, snoring quietly. Sparky went up to him and gently prodded his side with a paw.
"Hu-huh?" Drake said, waking up. "Oh, it's you two. Sorry about that, I had a very busy night."
"Sorry to bother you Guildmaster, but it's sunrise, and if you were up late, you're going to need to eat to replenish your energy," Sparky said. "You know how Pat gets when people try to come get food late."
"Oh, right," Drake replied, laughing. "Probably best not to get her angry, or all I'll get to will be fresh apples for a month."
"Are you sure you've slept enough?" I ask the Guildmaster.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," he tells me. "I'll just catch up on it later this week, when things calm down. For now, we still have a lot of work to do." He got up, stretching his large body. "Speaking of work, I need you two to go help Eva at the front desk today and run paperwork for her while I go try to issue orders and get caught up on what was completed last night."
"Roger that," Sparky replied, saluting the Guildmaster with a paw. "You can count on us." Turning to me he said "Come on Dusk, let's get started or we'll be overrun with paperwork."
Sparky bolts out the door, and I follow him, glancing back at Drake. He sees this and gives me a thumbs up and a smile. "You'll be fine, just follow Sparky's lead," he called as I turned and chased after my friend.
We met up with Eva in the lobby, where we found her surrounded by a mountain of papers, piled as tall as the Guildmaster all the way around. She looked at us and smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry guys," she said as we got close enough to hear her. "I just got started, and this is about all I've gotten to so far," she told us, pointing to a stack of papers as tall as me on the desk.
"Well, we gotta start somewhere," Sparky said, shaking his head. "Just focus on finishing the paperwork and we'll handle all the heavy-lifting."
"Got it," Eva said, getting back to grabbing papers in thick stacks.
"Come on Dusk, let's go find the sled," Sparky told me as he turned to leave.
"The sled?" I ask, confused.
"Yeah, pokemon like you and me can't walk on two legs and carry paper at the same time, so we use a sled when we have to move a lot of it," he tells me as he guides us to a door down the hall labeled 'Storage'.
Opening the door he stepped inside for a moment, coming back out with a rope in his mouth, pulling a sled almost as long as himself behind him. He smiled at me and started walking back to the lobby, as I quickly close the door behind him and ran to catch up.
The three of us worked for the rest of the day by Eva filling out the papers and Sparky and myself putting the completed papers on the sled and dragging them to the Records area, where other pokemon would take them from us. When Sparky would get tired, I would take the sled from him and vice versa. By the end of the afternoon, the mountain was gone and only a few small stacks remained, but the three of us were exhausted. But even though we were exhausted, we wanted to finish quickly so that we could be done for the day, so we pushed through the last three piles.
When we were done, we all collapsed on the floor behind the desk. Laying on my back, exhausted, I looked up at the ceiling and wondered if every day was going to be like this. I shut my eyes for a moment, then heard a voice grunt at the three of us from across the counter. Opening my eyes I see the Guildmaster with his arms propped against the counter leaning over it, looking down at us, smiling.
"Guildmaster," Sparky exclaimed, scrambling to his feet, with Eva and myself following suit.
"Hey, calm down you three," Drake said, "I'm just here to say good job getting through all those papers today." He tossed us each a brown-speckled yellow, pear shaped berry.
"A sitrus berry?" Eva asked skeptically, looking up at him, holding hers between her two front paws. "Are you sure Guildmaster? Don't they need these for the refugees that are injured?"
"Yes, these are from my personal stash, so don't worry about it," he replied.
"What's so special about this berry?" I ask.
"It can both heal you very quickly, restore your energy, and can boost your strength," Sparky tells me. "It's also quite rare and expensive. Which begs the question, what do you really want Guildmaster?"
"Guilty as charged," Drake said, smiling and sticking his tongue out. "Well, I was going to wait until you three had eaten, but I guess now that the game is up I might as well tell you." He paused for dramatic effect. "I'm sending you three on an emergency mission, effective immediately. I need you to escort Casey and the rest of the medical staff to Audrey at the village where the attack occurred, which is currently where they are needed most. After the mission is complete you are to return and bring any field reports the Guild members there have back to me directly. Once complete with both of these tasks the Guild will pay you an appropriate amount each, along with a couple vacation days of your choosing."
"When do we leave?" Eva asked, sighing.
"Ten minutes," the Guildmaster said in a jolly voice, grinning.
"Well, shit," Sparky said, taking a bite out of the sitrus berry. "We better grab our gear then Eva." Already halfway through hers, she nodded in agreement and as soon as they finished their meals they dashed off in the direction of their room. I began to eat the berry as well, surprised at its rich, sweet flavor, and began to feel less exhausted immediately. Scarfing down the rest of it, I licked my lips clean of the juice and looked up at the Guildmaster.
"Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome," he replied with a smile. "Actually, I have a couple more things for you." He hopped over the desk with ease and kneeled down next to me, pulling a plain blue scarf and a round badge with mini wings out of a bag on his waist. He put the scarf around my neck and pinned the badge to it.
"Perfect," he said, looking proud. "You now look the part of a Guild explorer. The scarf will boost your speed, and the badge will let you communicate with your team if you ever get separated from them. Just press the circle in the middle three times and it will connect with the other two members of your team. Press it once more to end communication with them."
"Um, thank you very much!" I say nervously, looking up at him.
He nodded at me, turning to leave, when he turned back smiling and said "Oh, and I have some good friends asking around about your necklace. We should have some definitive answers by the end of the week, so don't loose hope." As he walked away Sparky and Eva came rushing back, out of breath.
Eva was wearing a pink scarf, while Sparky had a red one, each with a badge just like mine on theirs. Sparky was also carrying the bag I saw last night slung over his shoulders. They came up to me an motioned for me to follow them.
"Come on Dusk," Eva called out. "We've got to go. Everyone's already outside waiting."
"Coming!" I shout back, running to catch up with them as we all ran out the front door of the Guild.
Exiting into the town, it was bustling with pokemon of every species, and the roads twist and turned, making navigation confusing, but I followed closely behind Sparky and Eva as we tore through the streets, the sun starting to set. Eventually we made it to a gate at the edge of town where Casey, Spooks and Urian were waiting, a sled on the ground behind Casey and a bag around Urian's shoulders. Waving at us, they smiled.
"Thanks guys," Casey said when we caught up to them, breathing heavily. "We appreciate you escorting us."
"Yeah," Sparky heaved, "no problem."
"I'm sorry it has to be you guys, but all the other teams are busy over in the village," Urian told us with a bittersweet smile.
"Well, let's get this over with," Eva said with a sigh.
"Yay!" Spooks shouted, smiling. "Adventure time!"
We set off together, Sparky taking the lead, with myself and Eva taking the middle of the group and the rear respectively. I wondered where this path I traveled would lead me next as the sun fell beneath the horizon and the night sky began to take over.