As the story begins, Spruce (Snivy) is already a member of Arnold’s Guild in Allure Town. He’s currently in a one-Pokémon team named “The Odd Ones Out.” Soon, Celes (Eevee) and Kamina (Magikarp) enter the guild and decide to join Spruce’s team. Having left his village of racist plants, Milloon (Magnemite) enters the guild and causes an all out war between the guild members within seconds. While Arnold and Archie calm the fighting, Milloon unofficially joins Spruce’s team. They then go to bed.

The next day, they wake up to the beautiful sight of Arnold cooking gummies on the guild’s roof in the heat. Josh (Skrelp) and Matt (Reuniclus) join the guild. Matt is really just there to carry around Josh in the bucket right now. Hex (Combee royalty) enters town and joins Josh and Matt’s team, “Team Scarab.” Both teams take separate missions that lead to Beach Cave. There, everyone meets the outlaw, Mister Mudkip, who had kidnapped an Emolga and tricked Anthony (Goomy) into working for him. They beat Mister Mudkip in a boss battle, rescue the Emolga, and Anthony joins Team Scarab. They all go back to the guild to sleep.

Side note: Spruce buys Celes a Hidden Power TM she wanted, Celes almost accidentally sleeps in Spruce’s bed (it was dark and she couldn’t see), Spruce makes her a scarf out of vines, and takes an attack for her. I think I see a pattern here... (This had better happen, people!)

Around this time, Beedrill from Hex’s hive come to the guild looking for Hex. Celes’ parents put out a missing poster for her on the mission board. Arnold believes a Bidoof from the guild is behind these “mass kidnappings”, so Arnold ties him to a chair and drags him into the guildmaster’s room for interrogation. Kamina is as blissfully unaware to what’s really going on as Arnold is.

The Odd Ones Out take a mission in Foggy Plains, where they meet a Gible who needs protection to go get a treasure. The treasure, it turns out, is a void crystal! Before they can decide what to do with it, an Absol named Desia and a Haxorus named Quartzil attack. Although Spruce is immune to their shadow attacks, it removes all his color and turns him gray. Desia and Quartzil quickly dispose of the team. Before they can steal the void crystal, Davis (a Porygon fashioned into a war machine by humans) defends the crystal from them. By the time Desia and Quartzil defeat Davis, the void crystal is gone and the void is already creeping into this dimension. The two would-be thieves run away. The unnamed Pokémon who stole the crystal had already evacuated innocent Pokémon from the area, and arranged for Denise (Dragonite) to bring The Odd Ones Out to safety. There’s so many plot twists here it felt like Explorers of Sky all over again! (In a good way.)

Meanwhile, Team Scarab got a mission statement for Crystal Chasm. An exploration team there had found the camp of a suspicious Pokémon and wanted help investigating. They head off to the cave, followed by an Amaura named Carrol, who had just joined the guild and been told to join Team Scarab for the day. All of them get items from the team in Crystal Chasm, and head off to the Tyranitar.