CHAPTER 13: THE TWO TEAM TRIP

“I must lend some congratulations to Team Seekers,” guildmaster Felix said towards the end of the day’s morning meeting, “for all the hard work and bravery they have shown in the last month. There’s a good chance that they could achieve silver rank by the end of next week if they keep it up!”

The eevee, pachirisu, sneasel, and litten stood proudly, unable to decide what to say in response. It had been just over one month since the accident, causing Ryan and Terry to find themselves in the world, and the bodies, of pokemon. Although he still considered himself a human, at least on the inside, Ryan had finally become entirely comfortable with his still relatively new form, even being able to perform many daily activities as if he had been an eevee his whole life. On top of that, as the lucario had said, the silver rank was just within the team’s grasp. Then, the real search for a way home, aided by the teleportation functionality that the next rank’s badges provided, could begin.

“…or…” the lucario added, “I could give them a way to be fast tracked.”

Ryan tilted his head quizzically, allowing his ear to flop down. “…what do you mean?”

“I have two options for you. Either you can continue to do boring old regular missions and reach silver rank the old-fashioned way… or, you can take a special mission, which, upon completion, would grant you the silver rank immediately.”

Before Ryan even had a chance to think about it, Ben blurted out, “Special mission! We’ll do the special mission!”

“All right!” Felix said confidently. “I’ll be taking you and Team Waterburn aside for your mission. Everyone else, the meeting is adjourned! Go do your best!”

“Yeah!” the other teams all shouted before scattering in every direction. Once only Team Seekers and Team Waterburn remained, Felix motioned them to follow him to his office. Upon opening the door, Erin was already seated atop the desk, holding a page that, Ryan assumed, contained whatever their mission was. The meowstic greeted the septet and began to read off the page she held.

“In the far north of the continent, where snow frequently blankets the ground even in the summer months, there is a town relatively secluded and surrounded by a thick forest. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the guild branch up there, so we suspect that something is amiss. That’s where your teams come in: we need you to journey up to Pojoin Town and check on guildmaster Ingrid and the rest.

“Once you are done, tell us how things are going up there and if anything is actually wrong. In either case, there will be no further action required from either of your teams on this front, and as for you, Team Seekers, you will obtain your silver badges upon returning.”

“Yes!” the Ben exclaimed.

“You will spend the rest of today preparing yourselves for the journey, both physically and mentally,” the she-meowstic continued. “There are several routes one can take, but on all of them the trek should be three days each way in the best conditions, with a day that you will stay in the town itself. Although there is a storage box in Pojoin Town, it may not currently be active, and conditions may not be ideal, so make sure to pack enough for at least one day extra than you expect to be gone.”

At least I won’t have to spend my twenty-first birthday travelling, Ryan thought, then sighed with a bit of disappointment. Too bad I won’t be able to enjoy it as a human back home, though.

Quincy muttered something. Ryan didn’t hear what it was, but Felipe did, and he was not happy about it.

“Hey! It’s not my fault that I have to eat so much to keep my internal flame going!” the fuecoco snapped.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get right on that, Ms. Erin!” Sofia said enthusiastically as she wedged herself between her teammates to prevent a fight from breaking out in the crowded office.

“Yes… and I do sincerely hope you three aren’t too much trouble for Team Seekers, hm?” the she-meowstic replied.

“Don’t worry, we won’t be,” Felipe said, saluting. “As long as none of them try to claim I’m fat,” he muttered afterward.

Ryan shook his head in disbelief. Such friends those two are… how did they ever get gold rank? One thought led to another, and this left the eevee with a question. “Assistant guildmaster-“

“Please, just call me Erin. I feel bad whenever mons feel like they have to use that mouthful of a title,” the meowstic said.

“Erin,” Ryan corrected himself, “doesn’t Team Waterburn have gold rank? Doesn’t that mean they can just teleport us to Pojoin Town?”

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t work. I already tried to teleport there, but nothing happened when I selected Pojoin Town. I even tried Miobach City on both mine and Felix’s badge, and both of those trials worked, so it definitely isn’t the badges.

“Plus, even if that wasn’t an issue, the badge can only teleport its owner, their teammates, and any registered escorts they have with them. Guildmates also can’t be registered as escorts, before you ask.”

“Besides,” Sofia interjected, “it’ll be fun to get to go on an expedition together!”

Terry nodded. “Preach!” Ryan facepawed.

---

After the two teams packed everything they believed they would need- independently from one another- they reconvened in Team Seekers’ room a few hours later to take a look at the map and decide which route to take.

“So, any of the routes we could take to Pojoin would have us travel along the beach for most of the first day before heading inland near the end,” Quincy explained, “and there’s a conveniently placed lodge near where our route could possibly take one of two directions. Then, on the second day, we can either take the right path through the Wistful Winterlands mystery dungeon, or stick closer to the beach with the left path which would take us through Worrisome Wetlands.

“Either of those paths would have us reach another lodge by nightfall. After that, it’s a straight shot through to Pojoin Town, so even if there’s a snowstorm that night, we should still make it by the end of the third day.” The duckling turned to Ryan, who looked a bit anxious. “And Ryan, if you’re worried about evolving, don’t be. Neither route takes us close enough to an ice or mossy rock. Besides, don’t you have an everstone in your bag?”

Ryan’s anxiety turned to confusion. “No, I don’t have one.”

The quaxly had an smirk on his beak as if he knew better. “I’m… pretty sure you do. Check your bag again.”

Not bothering to use his badge, which was clipped to the silver scarf that covered his tuft of chest fur, Ryan instead checked his actual bag. Sure enough, he found a small, smooth grey rock buried under his money pouch, berries, and a box of assorted seeds.

“Huh, I don’t remember putting this in here,” he said, turning it over in his paw. Ben cleared his throat innocently as if he had nothing to do with this. The eevee then placed it back in his bag, saying, “I don’t remember picking up one at any point, but I guess I’ll hold onto it.”

“Good call, since Felipe nearly evolved you the last time we were near one of those rocks…” Lena said.

“Oh, come on, that was a month ago, you icy weasel! Let it go,” Felipe complained.

As the pair of teams continued to discuss what their plans were for their journey up to the north, they had no idea that they were currently being watched by an invisible pair of eyes.

---

Pernautica Mass-Transportative Space Station, Command Bay, 15 Minutes Ago

“Beldum’s cool and all,” Martin said to his intern as his computer booted up and his new machine prepared to launch, “but you know what’s cooler? Metang! You see, Kori, as much as I may dislike Chief Reynolds, I’ll always accept new toys from the Federation to mess around with. And guess what just arrived from HQ?”

Kori pretended to think for a moment, but she already knew the answer.

“Let me guess, a CSP-375?” she asked.

“Precisely,” the commander answered excitedly. “This machine is like the last one, except it has the form factor of a metang instead of a beldum. It also comes with the advantages metang has, including a wider array of defensive mechanisms, dual cameras, a more resilient cloaking mechanism, and most importantly, arms! All this in addition to the features the CSP-374 has!”

“You seem pretty excited about this new machine, boss,” Kori responded.

“You would be exactly right about that! When I was told about it a month ago, I requested for it to be painted in the shiny colors in case it ever gets spotted by those pokemon from before again. This way, they’ll just think the beldum they saw before evolved.”

“Makes sense,” the intern admitted. “But what’s the mission for today anyways?”

“Actually, it’s more like a longer-term mission. I’d like to keep an eye on that sneasel and try to keep her safe from afar. It’s only right, if she actually is my missing daughter as I suspect.”

“Sounds… draining. Wouldn’t you have to be piloting it at all times?”

“If we were still using CSP-374, I would. But, CSP-375 has autopilot functionality that’ll give it its own consciousness and allow it to work even when I’m not controlling it!”

Kori rolled her eyes. That’s totally not going to end horribly, she thought sarcastically.

Not too long after launching, thanks to having faster-than-light tech out of the box, the faux-metang ended up levitating above the beach. A quick scan showed that the humans were in the same location they were on their last encounter, so CSP-375 was sent there. Only, instead of smashing through the window, it stopped just before hitting it, as it had better wall detection capability and could now detect windows. Having invisified as soon as it reached the beach, it watched as the two teams planned their trip. Once the teams went their separate ways, the metang was maneuvered to sit on the roof, where it could safely be placed into sleep mode.

“Since it’s still cloaked,” the commander said as he closed out of the CSP-OS virtual machine, “nothing should attack it. We don’t need to do anything else with it right now, but I want to keep it down there so we can make it get going in a moment’s notice.”

Kori decided to now discuss what the two exploration teams were doing. “There’s a lot to unpack right now from this trip so far… let’s review. It seems that those pokemon are members of an organization, kind of like ours, except instead of the interstellar reaches of space, they explore, and do missions inside of, those mystery dungeon things. And, they are currently planning for an extended expedition to the north end of the Moon Continent, which is apparently what they call it, to a ‘Pojoin’ Town.” She raised her fists to near her chest excitedly, a broad smile on her face. “This is a massive discovery! Who knew pokemon could form such an organization like this?”

The gardevoir who was standing in the back of the room made a pouty face at the implication.

“Tell me about it,” the commander agreed. “It’s the kind of discovery that makes me remember why I joined the IEF all those years ago!” He opened up word-processing software on his computer and began typing. “It’s the kind of discovery that deserves to be shared with everyone!”

When he finished typing around an hour later, he printed it out and placed the page into a business-class envelope. “Send Gardy to take this to the mail ship. It’s faster than sending it over the internet, given that we still can’t make data move faster than light.”

Kori handed the envelope over to the gardevoir. “You heard ‘im, Gardy. Do what you gotta do!”

The gardevoir saluted and left the room to seek out a mail chute.

---

Moon Sea Shoreline, somewhere north of Luneria Village, the next day

“On the road again…” Terry sang. “Going to places I have never been… uh… um… I don’t remember what comes next.”

“Eh, that’s quite alright, uncle,” Ryan answered.

“It’s too bad he doesn’t know the rest, though,” Sofia added. “Sounds like the perfect travellin’ song.”

The two teams had left bright and early so that they could quickly get going. After all, they had a long day of travelling ahead of them, even if much of it is a straight shot along the western shoreline of the Moon Continent. The beach was peaceful, with the crashing of waves, the sound of pawsteps in the sand, and the beating down of the sun’s rays, which were occasionally blocked by the few clouds that lingered in the bright blue sky. Even though it was still relatively early in the day, it was already beginning to feel less intense than Ryan had grown accustomed to in the area around Luneria village. He had good feelings all around on this nice day, despite knowing that he had likely put on an extra pound or two from all the sand in his fur, and he felt optimistic overall about the trip.

Later in the day- around two in the afternoon, if the badges’ clocks were any indication- they found the path they would need to take to head for the first lodge, and eventually Pojoin Town. As one would expect, it led away from the beach as that sandy feature gently curved westward, into a forest that had a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees.

How has the plant life changed so drastically so soon? Ryan thought to himself. There’s no way we’ve walked more than 20 miles… which is another thing…

“Is anyone feeling tired?” the eevee asked back to the others, as he had taken the lead position at this time. He got negations from most of the other pokemon, but only Terry, who was perched on Felipe’s shoulder, thought to ask him back. “Why, are you?”

“No, and that’s just the thing: I would’ve assumed that this body of mine would’ve been tired out long before now. How am I not feeling much exhaustion at all?”

Terry hummed in thought. “I bet it’s all the physical exertion you’ve been doing, building your endurance by fighting in those dungeons. Maybe the cleaner air? Healthier diet? All of the above, even.”

“I mean, maybe, but… I could see feeling less tired than in the past, but… we’ve been walking for at least twenty miles, nearly nonstop except for one break for lunch, and I’m not feeling tired at all. In fact, I could probably keep walking for another twenty before I even start to feel tired.”

“That’s good to hear,” Quincy added from overhead. He had opted to take to the skies instead of walking. “Because we still have about fifteen miles to go until we get to our first stop.”

“Then let’s go!” Ben said as he ran forward before doubling back. “I… probably shouldn’t get too far ahead, though,” he added sheepishly.

The metang, currently still under the control of the commander, continued to follow the two teams as they continued down the path. It was able to do so entirely undetected thanks to its cloaking device, although it did get dangerously close to the airborne duckling pokemon at some points. Surprisingly, this leg of the trip ended up being very uneventful, but unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you want to look at it, that uneventfulness wouldn’t last.