Chapter 2

Clare slept in late the next day, possibly to see if all of yesterday was true.  It was; she was still a Chikorita.  After eating a couple berries left out in a bowl and drinking some water in a jar, she headed outside.

She wasn’t expecting to find Giovanni fast asleep right outside her door.  

“Uh… wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey…?” She poked Giovanni’s shell a bit.

Suddenly, the Water-type sprung to consciousness into a battle pose. “Whoizit?!  Who’s there?!”

“Giovanni, it’s me, Clare.”

“Oh.” With that realization, he relaxed. “Sorry, I was so excited to start rescue team work, I got up super early and came here!  I guess I fell asleep.  But anyway—“ He got Clare into a loose headlock. “Today, Rescue Team Soup starts its journey to become the best rescue team there is!  WE GOT THIS, TEAM!”

“Woo-hoo, yeah,” Clare cheered less enthused, releasing herself. “So, how does this whole rescue team thing work?”

“Well, we need job offers!  …Which we don’t have yet.”  

“That makes sense,” she thought. “We just started yesterday…”

“We can check the mailbox!  Maybe there’ll be something!” The Squirtle raced over to the mailbox, the Chikorita tagging along behind.  Clare hadn’t actually noticed there was a mailbox when she first saw the house; she guessed she was too busy with the complete dilapidation.

There was something inside: a big box with a strap.  Giovanni’s eyes sparkled. “YES!  A Rescue Team Starter Set!  You always get one of these when you start a Rescue Team!” He started to dig around in the box and then tossed a round object to Clare. “Catch!”

Clare caught it with her big leaf.  It looked like a badge with a pink center and wings on the sides.

“That’s your Rescue Badge.  That shows you’re on a rescue team,” Giovanni explained while he pinned an identical badge onto his scarf.  He then held out the box. “This Toolbox will let us hold things we find in dungeons.”  He put the berries Butterfree had given them inside, and then pulled out a newspaper. “And then this is a copy of Pokémon News!  It has useful info for rescuers.” He shoved the newspaper back into the mailbox. “You can read it later, though.”

“I guess you’re really into rescuers if you know all this off the top of your head.”

“Psh, since I was born!  But is there anything else in here…?” A few moments of poking around determined the negative.  The Water-type sighed. “Guess not… Rescue jobs usually get sent directly to rescuers, but since we’re so new, I guess—“

Giovanni stopped with the sound of flapping wings and the two turned to see what it was: a Pelipper.

It flew over their heads and landed on the mailbox.  It shoved something into the slot with a thunk, and then the bird flew off again.  It was Clare’s turn to check the mailbox.

Inside was a single letter.

“Is it a job request?!  What’s it say?”

“Keep your shell on, I’m opening it.”  Clare started to read the letter aloud.

“I HEARD ABOUT YOU FROM CATERPIE.  PLEASE.  WE NEED YOUR HELP.  MAGNEMITE IS IN TROUBLE. A STRANGE ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE FLOWED THROUGH A DUNGEON AND IT STUCK TOGETHER MAGNEMITE AND MAGNEMITE.  THAT ISN’T ENOUGH TO FORM A MAGNETON.  IT’S NOT COMPLETE THE WAY IT IS NOW.  PLEASE.  WE NEED HELP.

FROM MAGNEMITE’S FRIEND”

Included was a map of where to go.  The two didn’t say a word.  They just looked at each other… and took off to do the request.

…

Two Magnemite were outside a large rocky cave looking worriedly inside.  Hearing approaching Pokémon, they turned.

“OH, YOU ARE HERE.” One of them greeted the rookies. “MY FRIENDS ARE IN THIS CAVERN.  THEY SHOULD ON THE SIXTH BASEMENT FLOOR.  PLEASE HELP THEM!” After every sentence, electricity jumped between their magnets, making the buzzing sound.

And with that, off the two went.

Clare thought the dungeon wasn’t that bad, but maybe that was because she had a resistance to Electric-types… a luxury Giovanni did not have.  Either way, after going through a lot more foes than the Tiny Woods and learning some new moves, they came to their destination.  In a dead end were two Magnemites stuck together.

“That must be them.  Let’s get them out.” Giovanni led the way out, mainly because he wanted to be as far away from the Electric-Steel types as possible.

The four Magmemite rejoiced once the two that had been stuck together separated.

“OUR BODIES SEPARATED.  REJOICE!” One of them cried.

They all cheered, and Giovanni hid behind Clare in case a stray spark shot out.

“BE THANKFUL, YOU TWO.”

“YOU ARE OUR HEROES.  THANK YOU.”

“It’s all in a day’s work,” Clare assured them.

The Magnemite shared with Team Soup 500 Poké, a Reviver Seed, and a Big Apple, and then left.  Giovanni finally relaxed.

“Man, that was so scary…  But I’m glad it went so well, with this being our first mission and all!”

But Clare wasn’t listening.  It looked like from behind a rock, a black… thing was glaring at her.  It looked lean and muscular, and it was too far away to make out many details.

“Hey Giovanni…” She turned to get his attention, but when she looked back, whatever it was was gone.

“What’s up?”

“…Nothing.  Think I was just seeing things.”

…

That night… Clare had a strange dream.

She was in a multicolored space, sleeping but she could still sense everything around her.

“… … … … … … Where… am I…?  This… is a dream, right…?”

Suddenly, Clare could sense someone else with her.  But they were very faint.

“Hello?  Who are you?  Do I know you?  Should I know you?”

They attempted to speak, but it was barely audible with how far away they were and how soft their voice was.

And Clare was always beginning to wake up.

…

The Chikorita sat up in her bed.

“I dreamed about something,” she muttered to herself. “But I can’t remember what it was about…” She stared at the basket full of Apples and berries for a while.  Finally, she shook her head. 

“I shouldn’t be worrying about that right now,” she internally decided. “Let’s just worry about rescue work for now.”

She went outside to check her Mailbox.  She found it was void of anything new, so she decided to read the newspaper Giovanni was telling her about yesterday.

“You’re up early.” Peering over the paper, Clare found Giovanni looking at her with a small smile. “Anything in the Mailbox?”

“Nope.”

The Squirtle sighed. “Yeah, I kinda figured… We’re still really new to this.” Then he perked up. “Hey, why not head to Pokemon Square?  It’s a super helpful hub for rescue teams, and the Pelipper Post Office usually has jobs posted outside.”

With no better ideas, Clare followed behind Giovanni.

…

Luckily, the Square wasn’t far at all.  They followed a short path and crossed a small wooden bridge over a creek.  Giovanni pointed out all the different shops: two Kecleon ran the item shop (one sold general items, and the other sold Orbs and Technical Machines), Persian ran the bank, Gulpin ran the Link Shop—

“Link Shop?”

“Gulpin can link moves together.  If moves are linked, you can use them at the same time!  Just, ask Gulpin if you wanna know more; he explains it better than me.”

Kangaskhan ran a storage shop.  

“If you store any items with Ms. Kangaskhan, they’ll never get lost!  It’s super important that we store any items we don’t want to lose with her in case we faint.”

And finally, Makuhita ran the dojo.

“He can help train us or teach us about stuff in dungeons.”  

As Giovanni and Clare came back to the town center, he noticed the Chikorita’s eyes darting away from others and using her leaf to hide her face. “Everyone’s super nice here; don’t be so nervous!  They just want to help.”  

He then started down the east road, Clare following behind. “And down here’s the Pelipper Post Office.  They’re super up-to-date on rescue information.  We should be able to get some jobs on the bulletin board.” Giovanni began to pluck off some papers from the board.  

“…What do you think we should do about the grass?” Clare finally piped up.

“What grass?”

“The dead grass in front of our base.  We should probably start thinking about fixing up the whole base, yeah?  We can start small with the grass.”

“Hm… Good point.  Why don’t we focus on that today instead of a job?”

That was how the team spent the next few days, alternating between repair of their base and rescue offers.  It kept them both busy, and it kept Clare’s mind off her strange dreams.