CHAPTER 6: END OF THE FIRST DAY

Moon Continent Explorers Guild, West Coast Branch – Mess Hall

The quartet passed through the double-doors that led into the mess hall and found many circular tables that looked like someone cut down a tree with a very wide in diameter trunk and sliced it into table-sized pieces. The tables were surrounded by pokemon of many different sizes, including an unlikely duo of a tyranitar and joltik that were sitting at one near the door. It also seemed like whatever the dinner meal was that day had yet to be served. Ryan and company couldn’t find an empty table, so they had to settle on one with three open spots, while Terry would have to sit on top of it. The one they ended up going to had the other spots occupied by a green kitten, a red chili-pepper-shaped crocodile, and a duckling like pokemon with a teal head crest.

“Mind if we sit here?” Ryan asked, propping himself up by placing his forepaws on the table. “We’re a new team and don’t know anyone here…”

“Go right ahead!” the sprigatito said, and the eevee, sneasel, and litten sat on the stools that surrounded the table while Terry climbed on top of it. “I, for one, would love to get to know new pokemon!”

“Aw, yeah!” the fuecoco agreed loudly. “New friends! Woo!”

“Settle down, Felipe,” the quaxly said, looking over at the fire croc and motioning with his wings for Felipe to pause. “I don’t want you to scare them off like you did to the last newbies who tried to sit with us!”

Felipe lowered his head apologetically. Terry was the next one to speak.

“Well, Felipe sure seems… excited,” the pachirisu said.

“Tell me about it,” the quaxly said, rolling his eyes in annoyance before extending a wing in a gesture of greetings. “The name’s Quincy, and she’s Sofia,” he finished, glancing over at the sprigatito.

“And together, we form…” Sofia announced, before all three pokemon shouted, each raising a front limb into the air, “…Team Waterburn!”

“Team Waterburn? What kind of a name is that?” Ryan asked skeptically, tilting his head.

“Oh, Quince and I go way back,” Felipe said excitedly. “We’re practically brothers at this point, and we came up with the name ages ago, long before we formed our team!”

“That doesn’t really answer-“

“I wouldn’t go that far, but we have known each other for many years… even I’ve lost track of how long it’s been,” Quincy chuckled. “He is right about the name thing, though. That said, you probably already know that this guild requires its prospective exploration teams to have three members. So, we had to invite our next closest friend, Sofia here.”

“Don’t worry, I think it’s a stupid name too, but they had their hearts set on Waterburn, and I didn’t wanna disappoint them,” the sprigatito whispered to Ryan as if she didn’t want her teammates to know.

“Enough about us,” the croc pokemon said. “I wanna hear your team name now!”

“Oh, uh…” Ryan had been caught off-guard with that question, as none of them had come up with one as far as he knew. He started slowly. “Our team name is… uhm…”

“Team Seekers!”

Ben’s teammates looked over at the litten, who propped himself up with his paws on the table with an air of confidence that started fading as the trio continued to stare.

“What? Is that… not a good name?”

Lena shrugged. “I can live with it.”

“I agree, I like it, even if it is a bit unoriginal,” Ryan added, and Terry nodded to show his approval as well.

“You seriously didn’t have a name for yourselves previously?” Quincy asked in a skeptical-sounding tone.

“Hey, it’s been a long couple of days for me, okay?” the eevee said defensively, pressing his paws onto the table. “Heck, a couple of days ago I was… I was someplace else entirely!” He shook his head, backing off of the table again. “But enough about that, because yes! We are Team Seekers!”

Just then, the doors in the back of the room burst open, and out marched several legions of falinks, with each individual falink carrying two plates, each holding two kebabs and a slice of rawst berry cake, instead of the shields they normally hold. Each of the helmeted spheroids tossed the plates into the air in sync with their fellow falinks, the aforementioned utensils landing in front of each and every pokemon present without spilling their contents, before all of the falinks retreated in an orderly fashion back to the kitchen.

“Huh,” Ryan mused as he watched the door close behind the last of the legions. “Never thought of falinks as making good waiters, but I definitely see the utility.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sofia said, nodding, “they’re very efficient at their job. It’s why the guildmaster sought them out for kitchen duty.” She looked over the other direction towards a stage, where Felix stood in front of a microphone, a pair of magnemites floating on either side of the lucario. “Speaking of Felix…”

When the lucario tapped the microphone, the feedback made Ryan wince. Normally it didn’t bother him much, but his new body clearly had more sensitive hearing. Gotta get used to that… he thought.

“Everyone, I’ve come to make an announcement!” Felix announced through the mic as the lights dimmed and he directed one of the magnemites to float to the table shared by Teams Waterburn and Seekers and cast a spotlight with flash. Lena had to raise an arm to cover her eyes. “I’d like you to meet our newest recruits, Ryan the eevee, Ben the litten, Lena the sneasel, and Terry the pachirisu! Starting today, they’ll form our newest exploration team called Team…” The lucario paused upon realizing that he never got a team name from them.

“Seekers!” Ben called out, leaping into the air.

“Yeah! That!” the punchdog said, trying to act like he knew that this whole time. “Put your paws, claws and whatever else together for Team Seekers!”

Ryan tried to hide his face at the applause, as he really didn’t want the attention drawn his way. I just want to eat in peace, he thought. His mood was further soured when he overheard a couple of remarks about how eevee and its evolutions are very rare on this side of the Lairondacks.

Oh great, me just being an eevee will draw even more attention my way. Fantastic… he sighed before turning his back on the stage to focus on his meal. That was when he noticed that the kebabs have steak pieces on them. That’s a bit unsettling, considering this is basically me eating a sapient being… maybe I should just eat the cake…

As if to read his mind, Quincy spoke up between bites. “Oh, Ryan? If you’re worried about the ethics of the meat, don’t be. It’s all synthetic.”

Ryan sighed with relief, not even bothering to question how that was possible. “Thanks, I needed to hear that,” he replied before digging in, and he was glad he did. After he wolfed down the incredibly flavorful meal, he felt fully sated for the first time since arriving in this world. In fact, he had finished long before his teammates, but that wasn’t new to him, as he was always a quick eater. Soon though, the others had finished, and now they had to figure out what to do with the last couple of hours of sunlight left. Terry suggested heading into town, as he hadn’t been there yet, and the others agreed.

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“An ice stone? What pokemon living in a tropical environment like this one would even use that?” Ryan asked, staring at a clear, light blue stone with a snowflake pattern nestled in a display case alongside other stones. “…well, besides me, but I don’t plan to evolve.”

Team Seekers had chosen to enter the Item Emporium and were browsing the wares.

“Then don’t buy it?” Lena told the eevee. “It’s not like we have enough money right now, anyways.”

Then, Ben chimed in. “Well, I, for one, have my eyes on that teapot with a green number two on it.” He gestured towards a teapot that fit Ben’s description, which sat on a shelf opposite the evolution items. The aforementioned shelf was labelled ‘human era relics’, and the pottery itself sat between a chest-shaped box with red, green, and blue gems embedded in the lid, and a scale model of a spaceship with x-shaped wings.

Terry, perched on Ben’s shoulder, looked the litten in the eyes. “Do you even drink tea?” the pachirisu asked.

“No, but I just think it looks cool.”

“That’s what I thought. You seem more like a coffee per- er, mon.”

“Besides,” Lena added, “it costs over 2700 poke; that’s more than the evolution stones!” She picked up a pair of goggles sitting next to them, which had a tag attached reading ‘500 poke.’ “This, though, is an acceptable price.”

“Give me those!” Terry exclaimed, trying to climb up the shelf a bit too carelessly. It started to tip forward, and could’ve crushed the pachirisu, but Lena moved quickly to prevent that outcome. Ryan tried to rush between them to rescue the teapot, but before he could catch it in his maw, a pink aura surrounded it just before it hit the hardwood floor. The eevee, along with Lena and Ben, still propping the shelf up, and Terry, looked over to the counter and saw, standing on it, a bipedal cat-like pokemon with a white fur coat, folded over ears, and a stoic expression on its face. Its right paw was extended, surrounded in the same pink aura that surrounded the teapot.

“Gyah!” Ryan exclaimed in shock. “T-that meowstic wasn’t there before!”

Ignoring what the eevee said, she asked, “Who of you is responsible for this?”

After shoving the shelf upright, Ben and Lena both pointed at Terry, and Ryan did as well.

The pachirisu gasped in fake shock. “Et tu, Ryan?” he stated, saying Ryan’s name as ‘Ree-ann’ as if he had an Italian accent.

“You were the one who thought jumping off Ben’s shoulder was a good idea,” the eevee said, swishing his tail impatiently.

“Yeah,” Lena agreed, “what were you thinking?”

Terry looked away from Ryan’s gaze. “I just wanted the goggles…”

After the cat ESP’d the teapot back onto the shelf where it belonged, she said, “That’s it? You could’ve just called out for someone and I would’ve gotten it for you!”

The pachirisu stared down in shame, and the meowstic knelt down beside him.

“Look, you can’t just act all rowdy-like in a shop like that. You gotta be more careful,” she said as she used her telekinesis to bring the goggles to his level, “especially with fragile items.”

“You’d think I’d know that by now,” the pachirisu said, referring to his years of experience working with fragile technological components, as he took the goggles in his tiny paws.

“Also, I noticed… you sound a bit older than the other three.”

“Funny you should mention that, I’m actually the eevee’s uncle.”

“I see.” The she-meowstic looked around at the other pokemon. “Anyways… who here is paying.”

“Oh, right,” Ben said, pulling out a pouch of coins. Instead of using her ESP, she took the coins from him herself.

“Thank you for your patronage,” she said as Ben helped Terry put the goggles onto his forehead and the quartet left the store.

“So, what now?” Lena asked.

“Oh, I know!” Ben said, Terry once again perched on his shoulder, “we should go take Terry to see the sunset! I mean, he hasn’t yet, right?”

The pachirisu struggled to hold on as Ben began sprinting toward the beach, and Lena and Ryan had to keep up as well. Back at the beach once again, the quartet just watched as the scarlet orb in the sky sank below the sea, as their first day as Team Seekers came to a close. However, none of them paid any mind to what appeared to be a shooting star, crashing onto an island some distance from the coast during the sunset.