The door opened, and a Wigglytuff walked in with a blank grin on his face. He marched straight past us, completely ignoring the guildmaster, and sat down in the guildmaster's chair as though he owned the place. He looked up at us with a wide smile. Magma tried to explain that it was the guildmaster's chair, but it seemed he already knew - according to him, he was the guildmaster. To prove it, he took a giant, shiny apple from a drawer and balanced it on his head (as you do). After that display of complete incompetence, Magma seemed completely clueless as to why I was hesitant about joining. "Wait, why?" he said, "You'd be able to catch even more criminals like that Hudson guy, and stop others from doing what he did to you." Donovan pushed his way in front of us and announced that he wanted to join, too.

"Yeah, but I'm not good at that stuff," I said. "I can't catch outlaws. I just like exploring and finding cool places, you know?" Then I leaned closer to them and whispered, "I think we need to leave. I don't like this - I think something shady is going on here. It was chaos earlier. Stuff like that doesn't happen in real guilds." On top of that, I had also just met them. Magma and Gren were okay enough, but Donovan looked like he wanted blood. Magma introduced himself to the Cutiefly that was waiting at the door, and I gave her a nervous smile.

Magma had accepted the Wigglytuff's authority just like that, and he was already talking like he was a guild member. Meanwhile, I hadn't been here for a day, and already I'd run into a pickpocket, an out-of-control guild, and a fake guildmaster. Even the ocean looked like it wanted to kill us. Compared to this place, Scale City's crime rate was a joke.

“Arceus,” Rebecca cursed. “These guys really don’t know when to quit!” She threw out another Dazzling Gleam and huffed at the dragon types. She saw the room light up from one of Nina’s crazy light attacks, and turned her gaze to her, noticing that she seemed to be focused on something.

“What’s up Nina?” Rebecca asked quickly. “Any ideas?” She heard a pained growl and shifted her attention back to the battle.

“Crap,” Rebecca snapped, “Sorry Dexter!” Embarrassed that she didn’t manage to block that one, she let out another Fairy-Type blast and sent a metal paperweight sailing straight into the Salamence’s face for good measure.

This place was weird, no doubt about it. Gren knew it could be quirky but this place... It almost felt dangerous. There was no denying that a lot of these pokemon were strong, stronger than him, or anyone else he's known before. But damn if they don't seem too unhinged. He didn't 100% agree with the gibble, but he wasn't entirely wrong either. Gren had hoped maybe this place was going to be more stable. If the guild was suppose to catch bad guys with crazies like this in charge, who knows what sort of jobs they might send them. Maybe they'll have to go stick up an orphanage or something, Gren didn't want to put himself in that position.

Still he was already in too deep. Best thing for them to do now was to split and figure stuff out, so Gren went over to the gibble and nudged him on the side, whispering. "Yeah I think this place might be too weird. We should go. Quickly." Before anyone could rope him into any crazy stuff, Gren spoke loudly and backed towards the door. "Right okay sooooooo we'll just be outside doing mission stuff then, now that we're members and all. Let's go guys, figure out where to go from here."

[Anthony]

With Devon's help, I eventually made it out of the icy cave, and into the... actually really warm city where Josh was trying his best to hug Keira. I made my way over to him, and said "You know, it's a good thing we got that other team to help us... sheesh, I don't think we'd be able to take on Reshiram or Kyurem on our own, and... hey, one more orb thingy down, two to go, right?" Keira seemed confused at the term 'orb thingy', but I left it up to Josh to explain it. Devon then wandered around town, introducing himself to everyone there while Daniel just sat perched on a street lamp, apparently comfy up on there, and it finally hit me... we can finally take a break, can't we? I smiled at that thought and just headed over to one of the buildings, and simply entered it. Inside that building was an F-shaped unown, and a crystal ball sitting on a table with a purple tablecloth... the unown seemed to be trying to get me to stand on the opposite side of the table, even saying things like "A hero like you... it would be an honor to see into your future..." and "I won't even charge, this time... please... let me see..." and... eventually, I decided to play along with it, standing on the other side of the table, across from the unown, who seemed to focus on something... soon enough, after a bit of mumbling and general psychic phrases, it eventually said "Ah... you should be careful who you trust, young dragon... ...as one of your teammates... someone you don't think would ever betray you... will do exactly that... one among you will betray you in the end... but who? I cannot say, for even I have limits," well, that wasn't a very heartwarming reading, now was it? I didn't want to believe him, and I just headed out while he did his best impression of a smile and said "I wish you the best of luck! See you some other time, I hope!" and I soon rejoined Josh, and once I got there, I just... shook my head.

---

[Spruce]

Thankfully, I managed to take the hit just fine, and Celes even managed to blast the sneasel with moonblast, knocking it out, and scaring the others, a bit. She then suggested we show them who they just decided to mess with, and I simply responded "Right," before I attacked one of them with void whip, knocking that one out, albeit with a critical hit... the others then tried to attack all at once, all of them trying to use beat up to capitalize on their superior numbers, but, given what type Celes was, if I could take that sort of beating, then she was doing just fine with it... given that the move would not be very effective on her... heck, I even managed to leech seed everyone who used beat up on me without them knowing, and the seeds immediately took effect, giving me back some of the health I lost from them just... ganging up on me over and over again. "Oh, well... would you look at that? It seems like it's our turn, again," I said to them, which only served to intimidate them even more. A couple of them even just decided to run away from that, but, of course, there were still plenty more, unfortunately. Between the ambush, and the cold, I honestly wished that this mission could be over much, much sooner, but, of course, that wasn't going to be the case... we had to be here for even longer... of course, the fewer their numbers, the easier it was to get more of them to flee, but even then, we had to work our way to where they'd just all flee from us, first.

---

[Nina]

It seemed as if Dexter caught yet another dragon by his teeth, but only after the thing nearly one-shot him with its attack. It then tried its best to get rid of Dexter, either via flying around the place, or trying to smash him into one of the metal walls of this place, and, while I wanted to help defeat either the salamence, or the hydreigon, Dexter needed more help... and not necessarily with that. I looked around in my bag, and eventually found a single Oran Berry sitting there among the status healing berries, and after taking it out, I shouted "Dexter! Over here! Catch!" I then tried to toss the berry over to him, but unfortunately, the salamence ALSO heard me, and they seemed to want the berry, too. The hydreigon then tried to use flamethrower on Rebecca, however, I got in the way, since I knew she was more important... but... ow... yup, it really hurt... like... REALLY hurt. In fact, I was probably screaming due to being on fire, but still... at least we still had our room-clearing fairy. After the flames died down, I noticed the salamence get hit with a metal, cube-shaped object that seemed to hit them right between the eyes, dealing a lot of damage, and even confusing them... good... maybe now, Dexter can get that berry... speaking of, I noticed that a LOT of the skin under my fur was charcoal-black after that, which can only mean that I got a residual burn from that flamethrower attack... thankfully, the guild loves providing new recruits with a set of berries to heal anything, so I took the blue, bitter, rawst berry, and eventually managing to get the nasty thing down my throat. Once that was done, the burn seemed to go away. That was when I remembered that Rebecca asked me something, and I responded "Well... not so much an idea, but... um... I saw that the door behind that hydreigon read 'Danger', and it seemed to have a picture of that... THING on it... I... I think they're keeping either it, or a large chunk of it behind there," I answered, though, that probably wasn't what she was hoping to hear.

---

[Blaze]

It seemed like the more... vicious of the two aron was willing to join, but neither the gible, nor the other aron seemed to want to, unfortunately, and I could see why. Once they headed out, I headed out with them, and I tried to convince them with "Look... I know everything kind of got off on the wrong foot, back there, but can't we give it a chance, at least? If they don't improve, and if we don't like it, then the three of us can just leave, okay?" while I was asking them to join, I was apparently 'using' my pheromones without even knowing it. Had I known, though, I certainly would have tried to stop myself from doing that, since I didn't want to use them to force pokemon to do things that they didn't want to. Of course, just from heading out, I noticed just how much calmer the guild seemed to be... everyone was apologizing to the bidoof who they were throwing around, earlier, they were also cleaning up, and a few of them were taking their usual spots in the place while others headed towards the mission board, passing us as they did so. Soon enough, it was as if the chaos had never happened, but... how did they undo all of that so quickly? Heck, they were even telling everyone which pokemon was coming in, and occasionally arresting criminals who were stupid enough to try to enter the guild, that way... two minutes after the real guildmaster arrived, and they're already back to arresting criminals, somehow...

---

[Bonnie]

Tini IMMEDIATELY went for the hugs as SOON as he figured out that he had arms to officially hug things with, that is, after a short stint of holding two objects at once, and Eralion mentioned that we should probably buy some supplies for a long journey, and that seemed to make the most practical sense, but it seemed to be a waste to do that with a newly-gained fortune... and then I got a funny idea, what if we tried to start a guild of our own? Meh... it probably wouldn't work out, too well, anyways, and for all we knew, we'd need more money, and the other guildmasters were probably tougher than us, anyways. "Sp-speaking of long journeys... ow... maybe we SHOULD go on one... there's... ack... apparently a weavile who was working for my dad from all the way near Kyurem's cave... maybe he... ouch... has information, or something..." I said that while being more or less forced to stare at the criminal board thanks to Tini's death hug. I then tried to say something to the effect of 'I'd like to be able to move,' or 'Could you please not crush me?' but, unfortunately, Tini tightened his grip, which... made it hard for me to speak after I told them about the criminal.

Celes just shook her head as she looked at the group that attacked them, annoyed at them. "You guys are boring me... Attacking us like that..." she said before moving forwards, forming a moonblast attack. "Pity I can't attack all of you at once." she says before blasting one of them, full force with the moonblast, aiming on knocking out one of those jerks and make them consider running away. At least some of them considered that, but with the amount of them that was left, this would probably take time. Spruce seemed to at least have healed back from the damage he took, so that was good. She looked at the pokemon that did the ambush with a evil look. "Maybe I should strangle one of you to make you understand that we have no time for you jerks..." she then said to them, hoping to intimidate them.

---

Eralion felt the hug that Tini was giving them, and tried his best to not have issues, but also saw how Bonnie was getting a bit of issues right now. "Tini.. your. hugging too much... we are having problems breathing..." he was then able to say, hoping that he would let go and let both of them breath. Sure Eralion's body is bigger then Bonnies, but Tini being a fairy type... it kinda felt like that hug was too tight for him. He was not sure why though.

Kamina

Kamina winced. They had just saved this place, and now they had to rob it. "I don't like this...I don't like it one bit" he sighed, in a rare (for him) moment of melancholy "I don't suppose we can try talking to them; explain why we need it and everything?" Kamina suggested "Just taking it from them doesn't sit right with me at all. I'd much rather convince them to let us take it if we can."

---
Tini

The sudden distress of his teammates made Tini drop them like they had suddenly become scorching hot "Gah!" he let out a panicked sound as he began making other distressed Tini noises. The all stopped when he looked at his hands again, got another idea, and then started hugging himself "Hahhhhhhhhh..." He sighed "Self hugs...so wonderful" he then began making silly giggling noises.

“Thanks!” Rebecca said as Nina took a flamethrower for her. “Also sorry… Are you oka-” Thankfully, she had some berries to eat. She was about ready to find some water for her… actually, she was getting really thirsty, herself. Fighting so many Pokemon is hard work! She wiped the sweat from her brow and tried to use Dazzling Gleam again, noticing that using the move was starting to get a bit harder. Nina brought up that there was a door that seemed like it was worth investigating.

“Actually,” Rebecca mused. “Yeah, let’s check it out and figure out where we’ll go from there. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing all these sparkly poses, you know? I can definitely cover you for now, though.” She teleported over to the door and made sure to open it, seeing as she was the only one around with hands or anything similar.

"Got off on the wrong foot?" I whispered, "you didn't see this place earlier - they were this far from killing each other!" I held out my hand, my fingers barely an inch apart.
"Golly guys, no need to get all worked up over me," A Bidoof said by the ladders. Standing next to him were the Sunflora and Louded that had thrown him at me earlier; they were actually apologizing to him. All around, people were suddenly working together to clean up the guild and restore order. It was strangely calm. However, it was soon broken by a Chatot, who flew straight through the room and almost knocked the Bidoof over.
"He's back! Thank heavens, he's back!" The Chatot screeched, flying into the Guildmaster's office and slamming the door behind him.
"Loudred, sentry duty," a Diglett said. "I don't want to be here when he gets back out." The Loudred gave the Guildmaster's door a nervous glance and followed. The Bidoof waddled off down a hall, and the Sunflora looked ready to leave as well before she spotted us.
"Oh my gosh, new recruits!" She ran over, almost tripping over her own feet. "I'm Sally! Nice to meet you!"
"Oh, actually we're not, uhh..." I trailed off. She wasn't listening to a word I was saying.
"Oh, you guys'll love it here! I know it!" She said. An angry squawk came from the Guildmaster's office, causing her to jump. "Eek! Ohhhh, now's not a good time to join. Charlie isn't going to be very happy with us, with what happened today. Here, follow me! I'll show you where the rooms are!"
I couldn't really see any way out of this; she wasn't going to take no for an answer. "C'mon then," I said to everyone else, "let's not get separated in here."

Gren did a sort of shrug with his shoulders. "I mean... Yeah sure maybe they got off on the wrong foot, but I think maybe we should come back later? When things are a bit less... Weird." Gren says to Blaze when she suggests trying to join the guild properly. It's not as if he doesn't want to, but maybe he should see them in action first? He just sort of got tangled up in this strange thing after getting lost in the forest. He still wasn't entirely sure where he was at. He just wanted things to make a bit of sense and for him to be able to gather his thoughts before he goes overboard. Though oddly enough he also felt... Drowsy? He wasn't entirely sure, but he just chalked it up to being a very busy day. Soon a Sunflora came over and eagerly introduced herself to the group, which made Gren uneasy again. But when she mentioned that she was going to show them to their rooms well, Gren did want to finally have a nice nap after his long journey. "Yeah... Resting would be nice, wouldn't it?" Gren would follow Gavin for now, looking back towards Blaze. "I guess we could at least talk about this more in the rooms."

[Nina]

Rebecca seemed to want to head towards the door, and considering the situation we were in, I simply nodded and followed her as she teleported there, and opened the door, revealing a small room with a somewhat broken glass container that seemed to have some weird... stuff... that looked like it came from the THING we saw, earlier. The container was marked 'MISSINGNO. CHUNK #02' with a yellow label, and despite its surroundings, the label and the text on it looked relatively new. Our client seemed to follow us in and he was stunned, and speechless. "Th-they... have... THAT!?" I blurted out, after which, a familiar group consisting of a mudkip, snivy, and bulbasaur ran into the room, and past us due to some sort of super speed. "So... this is the treasure you were trying to get to, huh?" the snivy asked with his usual smug smile. However, before I could tell them something to the effect of 'wait, no!' or 'don't touch that!', they all went right for it... the weird substance seemed to flow into them as if it were a fluid, and it seemed to... corrupt them, somehow. Chunks of them were colored strangely, pieces of them seemed to blink in and out of existence, and once in a while, they seemed to be replaced with other things... or even pieces of a thing, or worse, pieces of multiple things that don't even physically connect to each other. The snivy, if you can still call it that, seemed to speak to the other two before teleporting away with what used to be a bulbasaur, leaving behind the... 'mudkip'... for lack of a better word to apparently deal with us, as the thing tried to attack me with... something? I had no idea what hit me, but it felt sharp, and it felt icy, somehow.

---

[Blaze]

It seemed like they were on the fence, but before I could tell them anything else, a sunflora named Sally showed up and assumed we were new recruits... much like everyone else seemed to assume. It seemed like everyone else was just about ready to head to the rooms, and that felt like a good place to discuss everything, so, agreeing, I said "Yeah, let's head there, and plan things out... I... really hope you want to join with me. It's not going to be easy doing this on my own," Sally seemed oblivious to us as she talked on and on about 'more newbies' and how 'these ones will stay! I know it!', and oddly enough, she started almost every sentence with the words 'oh my gosh!' or some variant of that. The rooms weren't too far from the guildmaster's room, and they seemed nice. Ours had four beds that looked comfy enough, and four bags that seemed to almost be full, already. Each bag also had a gleaming, white badge on it with the guild's symbol in the middle. I wasn't entirely sure what the badges did, but from what I've seen, these things were absolutely MAGICAL, they sometimes spoke to their owners, and let them teleport both themselves and other pokemon away to who-knows-where. It wasn't easy for me to hide my excitement as I ran up to one of the bags and tried to see what it had... disappointingly, it only had some berries, including a couple that I would probably never have to use, though, there also seemed to be an odd ribbon or bow, and a map that seemed to be mostly fog for some reason. The only places that weren't foggy on the map were Birchwood forest, the town and guild, and the northern volcano... where I previously lived. Thinking that this was some sort of clue that I was a wild pokemon, I stashed the map and tried to make sure that nobody else saw its contents, after which, I asked "So... what did you want to talk about? Erm... any concerns? As I said, I'm going to join, a-and I'd like it if you could, too,"

---

[Spruce]

After our display of strength, most of the ambush seemed to flee, leaving just one guy behind. That one guy decided to use sucker punch on me, dealing a bit of damage, and causing me to just counter with a vine whip, which has since become an oddly powerful move, and which he couldn't exactly take. "So... with that distraction out of the way, where do you think that arcanine might have gone? I'd look for tracks, but the constant snow in this place would probably have covered them by now," I point out to Celes, who was the one who made them flee with her intimidation. The place seemed to have a bunch of ice types running around, but we both knew that there was at least one insane arcanine in this place, still. I tried to look around, but, unfortunately, found no luck. I tried to listen for anything unusual, maybe a random shout of "BARRY!" from him, but again, nothing... where could he be? Why would he want to avoid us? Did he think we were the police? Then again, considering the state of this world, we might as well have been police... so... maybe that's why he was hiding from us.

---

[Anthony]

Since it seemed like Josh didn't have anything to say, I considered the mission complete, and used the badge's teleport function to FINALLY teleport back to Wally's guild. That was certainly a long mission, and I was looking forward to something a bit more straightforward this time. As I headed back to the rooms, I looked around, having missed the old place in the time I was gone. The warmth, the safety, heck, even the other guildmembers. I slid across the wooden floors, thankful that it wasn't snow, ice, or super-heated metal for once, and went right to my bed, which seemed oddly unchanged during the time my team was gone. "Well... I'm glad we did that, but if you don't mind, I'd REALLY like to be able to come back to the guild tomorrow, too, heh," I said to Josh as he most likely went to sleep, something I would really like to do, myself. Maybe tomorrow, he'll get to talk to his newly-rescued girlfriend some more, and maybe we'll find the location of another orb, too.

---

[Bonnie]

Tini finally let go, and started hugging himself, finally letting both Eralion and I breathe. "Whew... er, I mean, thanks, Tini... hey, it's been a long day, maybe we should get some rest for tomorrow. Who knows what that might hold, right?" I then tell Tini and Eralion as I head down to the rooms. I ended up passing by a familiar-looking sligoo, and a new group of pokemon, one that consisted of a female salandit, a male aron, and a male gible... and I shook my head as I heard them talking. That salandit probably just used her allure to force those two poor pokemon to work for her... sure, I occasionally used attract, but only to stop enemies, not force my friends to form a team with me. Using something like that on one's own friends, or even complete strangers to try to get them to do things like that was low, not as low as my father, but still low. Soon enough, I found my room among the others, and somehow, it still had a few bits of shed skin here and there from when William first changed... poor fool hasn't been the same since. That bit of nasty, shed skin also reminded me of another... a treecko who got us into trouble by nearly burning down the plains... and eventually just... wandered off, never to be seen again. I wonder if we'll ever figure out where that treecko went after he left my team... and didn't that sligoo team used to also have a combee in it? Odd... I thought as I tried to get some sleep, though, remembering those few pokemon who I'd likely never see again was kind of keeping me up at night.

Celes give a soft sighed as she then perk her ears up, trying to hear where Barry might be. She moved forwards, listening. "For a guy that kept screaming about Barry before... he sure is silent now." she then said to Spruce, moving forwards, staying close to Spruce as she kept searching. She though about it a bit more. "Once we find him though.. he might end up trying to fight up considering how crazy he is so... we best be ready for him." she then adds as she looks at the ice type around here. At least they weren't all trying to attack, cause that would be bad and it would also waste some time on finding that guy. So the goal right now... find orange with black stripes in a place of snow. Should be easy, right? Well with the area they neeeded to search.. not really.

---

Eralion breath deeply once Tini let go. He shiver a bit. "Just... be careful... alright? You got much stronger now." he then says to him as he then gives a yawn. "Well.. you heard Bonnie.. sleep time." he says before giving a large yawn. "And we will really need to get some rest. Never know what mission we will get next." he then says calmly before going to head to sleep, tired right now, looking at the group of pokemon, seeing the saladite, aron and the gible. He just kept going, just staying calm. He didn't want to end up having any pheromones affect him right now, that is for sure. He just went to his bed and started drifting off to sleep a bit, before noticing that Bonnie was having issues sleeping. He raised his head a bit. "What wrong Bonnie? Something bothering you?" he then said

Kamina

"Ahhh...nothing feels quite like the afterglow of an adventure" Kamina sighed as he made his way over the the team's room "It was a blast adventuring with you guys, I hope we can do it again, only with our full team. It wasn't quite the same without Spruce and Celina" He told the other team before he was out of speaking range. Once he got to their room, he flopped on his bed for a mighty and hotblooded rest.

---
Tini

Tini nodded as he looked at his arms again "I must use this power for good!" With the adventuring done for the day, he hurried off the bed, so that tomorrow could come sooner

***
When Tini awoke, he found himself siting atop a golden throne that itself was on top of a massive shrine. With countless Pokemon below him and bowing. "All hail He who Hugs!" They chanted

Tini took a few seconds to digest this before saying "Yay, hugs!"

"Yay, hugs!" The Pokemon below changed their chant

Once they arrived into the room Gren settled down into a bed. It was comfy, if softer than what he’s used to. He was always more of a “mat on the floor” type of mon, so having these sort of Springfield beds was unusual for him. But it’ll due. On these beds were bags that had what he’d guess to be the guild badges, some berries, and a map. An incomplete one, but he supposed that since they are adventurers, they need to explore and open up the map more.

Thinking about that made Gren remember why he was here in the first place. He didn’t leave home just to find somewhere to chill in peace: he wanted to see the world and all the new things he’s never witnessed before. Admittedly some of the things he’s seen thus far is strange and a little bit scary, but what was he some sort of coward? If he gets scared off by good but weird Pokémon? He’d never be an adventurer! But he did have concerns.

”Well... I was just want to know if this is going to be normal here. Being teleported around and having to deal with weird Pokémon who... Maybe aren’t entirely safe people to be around? I mean I’m no coward, I’ll fight anyone if I have to, but I just thought this guild would be a bit more... I dunno... Professional? It seems very chaotic and I’m worried that when it comes time to get work there, no one really knows what needs to be done. I hate the idea that I join this place and ultimately do nothing because everyone is off doing their own thing instead of helping each other, especially us little guys.”

Rebecca took a quick peek inside the room after she opened the door.

“Actually maybe don’t go in,” She cautioned. “One of the containers is bro-GAH!” the wind was knocked out of her by some strange… things that zoomed past her at lightning fast speeds. What kind of unholy power were they up against now? Shedinja assassins? Actually, wait, it was just those guys… How in the world did they get here? Wait, treasure?

Before Rebecca could even process what they meant, they went straight for the goop. They were all, as she expected, transformed in very unsettling, chaotic ways that seemed to defy all sense of biology or even reality. They still seemed to be perfectly capable of communicating in some strange language, though, and two of them teleported away, leaving what used to be a mudkip. It attacked Nina, somehow, and Rebecca gasped, reflexively responding by going back to her tried and true tactic of using Confusion to fling a random object at the creature.

“Nina!” Rebecca cried. “Are you ok?!” She hoped that this weird thing wasn’t contagious or anything, in which case she doubted things could get any worse.

I nodded in agreement with Gren. "That's what I was thinking. This doesn't seem like a regular guild," I said. "A guild is supposed to teach you about exploring and help you along. This isn't really what I thought it'd be like."

Magma clearly still wanted to join, though. I don't know about him, but what I needed was organization and direction, and this place had neither. The entire guild went insane just a few hours ago, and I still didn't know if that was normal or not.

Yet somehow they had been organized enough to set up a room for us. On my bed, there was a bag with an explorers' badge pinned proudly to its side. This wasn't the great Scale City Explorer's Guild I'd always wanted to join, but it was something. There was an explorer's badge there for me if I wanted it. Even a map. I carefully took the map and unrolled it, feeling the rough paper in my hands and examining every little detail of its markings - this was what real explorers used. I put it back. It all looked so perfect I didn't want to touch anything else.

If I went back to Scale City, what were the chances I would actually join the guild? Maybe this is what I'd been waiting for. Nobody would notice if I was gone for a couple days - certainly not my parents. They were probably still upset with me.

"I'll try it," I said to Magma. "I'll see where it goes. Maybe I'll stay. I don't know. But I'm not making any promises, okay?"

Unfortunately, I couldn't find Anthony's whereabouts or the rest of his team. When I said everyone scampered off, it really seemed they just immediately left the cave and went elsewhere, possibly on more adventures or taking a break elsewhere. I didn't even notice Kamina's disappearance as I was lost in my thoughts, alone in the dimly lit cave - it seemed darker and eerie, with the ice that helped brighten up the cave melting and disappearing without Kyreum's influence. The air became still and a bit damp, not exactly forgiving on my steel coating but certainly warmer than before. If we hadn't just fought a good portion of ice Pokemon in existence, I wouldn't have recognised it as Kyreum's dungeon.

I let my magnets droop, eye furrowed as I scanned around the cave, coming up empty about the creeping darkness. Scowling to myself and with not much else to do, I hovered over closer to the pedastal. "Just you and me crystal." I whispered to myself, keeping my eye on its points. It seemed to be out of place against the rounded rocks and wind-carved walls, and if anything it seemed better to take it away for aesthetics. Even if we were saving the world, the idea of taking it didn't sit well with me: Last time we took a crystal, an entire ocean somehow got replaced by Giratina's dimension. I'm surprised we haven't been targeted for that.

With a croak in my first word, I spoke out. "Tell me... is this the right thing to do?" No response from the grey crystal, floating and bobbing in the air without wavering. "Are there alternatives? How do we limit the damage? Only five minutes in and I'm already talking to myself." I knew it was a stupid idea to talk to a hunk of glass, but at least it wouldn't judge compared to the townsfolk, who might do more than politely disagree with what I was about to do. (They had no idea, but if I informed them then they probably wouldn't want me to create an exclusion zone to stop some unknown threat.)

Something else came to mind: What if I was just overthinking it? Am I just melodramatic? Would anyone really miss a dungeon being a potential exclusion zone? It wouldn't really be the end of the world compared to something we were trying to prevent. Yes, my thoughts were careless, but I couldn't quite disagree with myself - the more time I spent waiting, the less time we would have to convince Giratina to stay away from our realm.

So with that, I picked the least worst option. I slowly reached out to the crystal with unease, magnets facing flat beneath the points. The next moments were quite surreal, remembering only a rush of grey beyond my vision as my magnet impulsively slammed at my badge. A quick white flash distracted me from blinking as I suddenly found myself within the familiar warmth of Arnold's Guild, noticeably quieter than usual as I took deep breaths. Potentially dooming a whole town was worringly easy, and I didn't even have the guts to warn anyone. "Arceus damn... I hope it was worth it." I muttered to myself, keeping to myself as I passed by the local board and some watchful Pokemon, heading to our room. I was somewhat surprised to see Kamina splayed just beyond the massive-size bed he was on, and I was sort of expecting someone else from our team to be around to talk to. There wasn't really anyone though.

I settled myself in, hovering into our room and closing the door as we came in. Our placed looked as diorganised as before, with blankets strewn around and a few of our belongings in the wrong places. I eyed Kamina for a moment as I set the crystal down with a clink not far from the door, as I lied down in bed and tuckered a blanket or two over myself. It took a while for me to fall sleep in the dull grey light of the crystal as I closed my eye, troubled at both what I just did and the dreams that followed.

[Josh]
With Kiera on his back, Josh teleported back along with the others. It seemed like forever since Josh had been to the guild. He'd almost forgotten what it looked like. Almost immediately, Anthony went to bed, and Josh didn't blame him. He was exhausted too, but he didn't feel right leaving Kiera in the dark until morning. "Hold on a moment, Anthony. I think Kiera should at least know what's going on before we head off to bed, don't you think?"

Kiera nodded in agreement. "You all seem to be good friends with Josh, but I've never met any of you. I'd rather not wait until morning."

Josh heard his stomach growl. It had been a long time since he'd had a full meal. "It's been a while since we've eaten. Aren't you hungry too, Anthony? It's not that late. I'm sure they'll still have food in the mess hall."

---

[Dexter]
As Nina and Rebecca went on to another room, Dexter hung behind. He had to take a minute to recover after that last battle. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something on the floor - the berry that Nina had thrown to him earlier. He walked over and popped it in his mouth, and began to feel the effects almost immediately as the pain from his injuries began to fade.

Just as he was about to rejoin the rest of his team, a trio of blurry figures dashed past him. He knew who they were almost immediately. They were the ones that had stolen their mission yesterday. "Sneaky little fuckers!" He began to run after them. "Get back here! I'm gonna kick your asses!"

He followed them into the room Rebecca and Nina went into, only to find that they'd been warped and distorted, just like that Buneary from a few days ago. As two of them teleported away, the Mudkip stayed behind to fight them - at least, that's what Dexter thought it was. With how badly it had been warped and mutated, it was hard to tell. Normally Bite would be Dexter's go-to attack in this situation, but he really didn't want this thing anywhere near his mouth. Flame Wheel would have to do, type disadvantages be damned.

---

[Donovan]
They were all led to a room, which had a bed for each of them. The others seemed like they were just about ready to go to sleep. Maybe the ass kicking would have to wait until tomorrow. He was about to go wash the paint off his face like he did every night, but then he realized something. The only reason he did it in the first place was because his mom made him, and she wasn't there. He could leave the paint on all night if he wanted.

Grinning to himself, Donovan took a look at the bag and badge sitting next to the bed. Taking a look at the badge first, he noticed that it had several buttons on it. He wasn't entirely sure what any of them did, so he pushed a bunch of them at random. "What do these do?"

"What do these do?"

He looked over as he heard a second voice copy him. It came from over where Magma was, but it sure didn't sound like Magma. "Who said that?"

"Who said that?"

Donovan rushed over to Magma, and looked around. He couldn't see where the voice was coming from, though. "Is someone else hiding over here?"

This time, the voice came from Donovan's bag. "Is someone else hiding over here?"

He hadn't quite realized that the voice he was hearing was his own. He'd probably end up running back and forth for a while, unless one of his teammates stopped him.

[Anthony]

I was just about ready to get in bed when Josh suggested that we eat... I guess it wasn't QUITE time to sleep yet, and to be honest, I WAS very hungry, so I agreed with "Yeah, I guess we should get something to eat, first, and we can finally introduce ourselves to your... um... friend," I then turned around, and Kiera talked about how she didn't know anyone but Josh, and I answered with "Yeah, we're kind of... a rescue team that your friend is a part of, we're Team Scarab, and I'm their leader by default, Anthony," Just after that, Static decided to poke his head out of my bag, again, and he seemed to glare at Kiera for a moment before whispering "She knows where one is," and forcing me to introduce him as we headed to the mess hall. "The, uh, pichu isn't really a member of the team, but he's important, nonetheless... he told us about our OTHER mission, this one involving those 'orbs of balance'... his name's Static, and he says he acts like a map for them, but he hasn't... really... been doing that," I added that second part after recalling what he's been up to and how little he's actually helped us on this journey. We then finally make it to the mess hall, and it seemed like they were getting ready to close for the day, but, upon seeing us, the chef said "Oh, THERE you are! It's been AGES, Anthony, here, I'll stay open just a little bit late, I'm sure it's been AGES since you've had a proper meal," I smiled at the chef, and took a freshly-made dinner plate before heading to the closest seat, since all the seats were available at this time.

---

[Nina]

I flinched as the thing bit me, unfortunately missing my opportunity to attack, but it didn't seem like I changed, at all... my pendant was glowing, but that was normal... wait... maybe that's what protected me. "Well, guys, I've got some good news, and some bad news... good news, that glitch stuff doesn't seem to spread, at least, not to me, but uh... bad news, that thing can still use some of its old attacks," I said as the... sign... psyduck... statue... THING seemed to start charging something up. Whatever it was charging, that was probably not going to be good... but how were we going to stop the attack, especially with me flinching like I did back there? Dexter then ran into it with Flame Wheel, and surprisingly enough, this thing didn't seem to resist the attack, despite having once been a mudkip. Rebecca then asked if I was okay, and I answered "I... I'm fine, just a little freaked out," after that, a mug found its way onto the creatures... top part. That part might have been the head, or it might not have been, either way, the object did some extra damage to the creature as it continued charging whatever it had planned for us, next. I decided to try to search the room for anything useful, only finding weird tubes, and glass containers of the... stuff... and, for some reason, mugs, plates, and other stuff dealing with food. Usually, you wouldn't leave food in a place that has weird, probably poisonous stuff in it, but these guys apparently didn't care.

---

[Spruce]

"Yeah, it's a real shame... it would be so much easier to find the guy if he was his usual loud, insane self," I replied to Celes, who seemed to be a bit mad that our client was suddenly silent when we needed to find him. I then tried looking everywhere for the guy, and the few times where I thought I heard someone shout something, I later found out that it was just the wind. Worse sill was the fact that the sun seemed to be going down, which really didn't help someone like me, who hated the cold. The snow under my leafy feet grew even colder as the day became night, and it was clear that we weren't getting anywhere with this today. "Maybe we should just make a camp, and get some sleep here... it's... g-g-getting l-late a-and c-c-cold," I suggested as I used my vines to gather some relatively dry branches for a campfire. I then started just tossing the vines used in my vine whip attack on the pile, as well. It was getting late, and if I wanted to be anywhere near warm, I'd have to get this fire started, and keep it going throughout the night... in the distance, I could almost hear something approaching, but, that could be ANY pokemon, and knowing our luck, it probably wasn't our client.

---

[Blaze]

Gren seemed to have a few concerns, but it seemed like Gavin was on board, at least. I started to explain what little I could gather from what happened here, today, and answered with "It seems like the badge teleports us, and it probably teleports us here... so, seems like we'll at least be teleporting on our own terms, from here on out, as for the... chaotic pokemon, I feel like there's an option to not deal with pokemon like that in our missions, and this seemed like an exception, rather than the rule... erm, at least, it seemed like it was to me," after that explanation, the other aron, whose name I didn't get, started playing with the badges, pressing a button to have his voice sent to... my badge... odd. I had no idea they could do that. "I... think the badge is making that voice, um... actually, what IS your name, sir?" I told him in response, though, I also had to know... if we were going to be on a team, we might as well know each other's names... then again, I was, at this point, hiding behind a more manly name, but that was for a good reason, and I'd probably respond to "Magma" anyways. It's not like I'm a criminal for hiding behind a different name, right? I'm just using it so they don't know that I'm female... that's all... I thought as I noticed a lopunny, of all things pass by our open door... she seemed to ignore us, though, but I suppose we WERE new here, so that was probably going to be normal.

Celes frowned as she heard Spruce getting cold. Being a grass type, he probably was getting lot of issues with the cold here. She just moved forwards and just stayed near him, trying to go and warm him up, trying to make sure he would be ok. “I guess we could get some sleep, but please do stay very close to me. “ she said before going and helping him to make the fire, using some sticks and trying to rub them quickly to start the fire. It was then that she heard something coming towards then. She raised her ears, on her guard. “We are not alone.. something coming… I am not sure what it is.” She then said before looking towards the direction where the sound was coming from, making sure to stay close to Spruce as she look forwards. She was getting worried here. What was coming near them... This could be very bad considering how Spruce was feeling right now. She just hoped that she could go and deal with the thing and help Spruce here.

[Josh]
Anthony explained to Keira what their mission was well enough, but he didn't tell her what exactly the orbs of balance were, or what they did. As they all sat down to eat, Josh took it upon himself to explain. "There are four of them, and my understanding they give life force to four different kinds of Pokemon. If any of the orbs break, all Pokemon of that type will slowly wither away. That's why it's so important that we find them, so we can protect them. There's one for regular Pokemon, like you and I, which we've already found. There's also the Void, Shadow, and Light Orbs, though we haven't found the latter two yet."

Keira looked down, as if lost in thought. "The Shadow Orb, huh?"

"Yes... that's one of them. We haven't found the Light Orb either, though." He found it odd that she would focus only on that one. He then remembered what Static said earlier. Could it have been true? "Keira, if you know even the smallest detail of where it might-"

"Zane knows where the Shadow Orb is."

For a moment, everything went silent. Several seconds passed before Josh finally spoke up. "Are... are you sure about this?"

Keira nodded. "I was hiding from a couple of Zane's lackeys, and overheard them talking about it. It's in a dungeon about a day's swim from the reef, but they never mentioned which direction." She looked up at the others. "I do have some good news, though. Even if he is after it, he's probably far too preoccupied with us to even consider going for it right now. Also, I don't think he knows how important it is. He sees it as just another treasure for him to throw in his vault."

---

[Dexter]
Flame Wheel, for some reason, did a lot more than Dexter was expecting. Whatever this thing was now, it didn't resist his fire anymore. Dexter grinned, but that grin disappeared when that thing began charging something up. It could end badly if this ended up hitting someone. There didn't seem to be anything in the room they could take cover behind, either. Thinking quickly, Dexter took a running start to build up speed before using Flame Wheel. He was going to try to knock this thing off balance and throw off its aim, even if he wasn't entirely sure that it was possible.

---

[Donovan]
Donovan hadn't realized until the Salandit asked for his name, but none of the people in the room had heard of him. That was to be expected. He wasn't a gladiator yet, but one of these days, people around the world would know his name! He stood up on the bed, and spoke loud enough that everyone in the room, and probably neighboring rooms as well, could hear him. "I am Donovan Steele! Remember this day. When I'm a world-renowned gladiator, you'll be telling your kids about the day you met me!"