Chapter 3: Day by Day

Team Sunrise did return to Midnight Forest a few days after their first attempt, and managed to make it through, thanks to coming much better prepared. Luminous orbs to light up the dungeon, zinc bands to better withstand the barrage of Silver Winds, a bigger stash of healing items, and a little bit more luck than they’d had last time.

At the end of the dungeon, they reached a clearing with several rare kinds of berries growing. While colbur, kasib, and enigma berries weren’t particularly helpful for Team Sunrise, the Kecleon brothers were willing to buy them for a decent price. Not quite as grand a discovery as Melody had hoped for, but not bad. At least now they knew how deep the dungeon was, and what was at the end, and they could share that knowledge with other explorers.

Days and eventually weeks continued to pass in a steady rhythm. The nature of their guild work ensured they never truly had a dull day, whether they were rescuing a lost pokemon, or tracking down a wanted outlaw, or whatever other tasks needed doing.

They only had one day of sentry duty in that time, thankfully. Neither of them were all that good at identifying footprints, but then again, neither was… most of the guild other than Diglett, really. It wasn’t really a skill they practiced much. Sentry duty was also rather boring, just sitting in the sentry post all day watching for visitors. Though at least they had each other for company.

One evening, after a particularly exhausting mission, Melody was barely keeping herself awake by the time they got back to the guild. It didn’t help that she hadn’t slept very well the night before. As they waited for Chimecho to finish dinner, the Skitty tiredly rested her head on Flynn’s side, almost starting to doze off. Flynn blushed, though he didn’t exactly mind her leaning on him like that. After a while, Melody realized what she was doing, jolting to her feet and whispering an embarrassed apology. Though she was a little too late, as a few of the other guild members had already noticed. Sunflora in-particular had found the scene adorable, and had continued to lightheartedly tease the two of them about it since then, much to their embarrassment.

On this particular day, just over a month after Flynn’s return, they’d accepted an escort request from a Smeargle, who wanted to see Crystal Cave.

“Oh, wow! Look at all this!” The Smeargle looked around in awe, admiring the surroundings. The walls and ceiling were all composed of glittering crystal, of a multitude of different colors. “This place is just as beautiful as I’d heard.” Melody looked back and smiled at Smeargle, who was currently walking just behind her, while Flynn was a short distance ahead.

As the trio entered a wide, empty room, Smeargle noticed a stray chunk of crystal that had broken off from the wall. It was laying on the floor on the opposite side of the room, next to something Smeargle thought was just an oddly shaped bit of blue and gray rock. He started to run over to take a closer look, hoping to maybe pick up a little memento from this visit.

“Whoa, hold on!” Melody called out, making him stop in his tracks. The ‘oddly shaped bit of rock’ turned out to be a sleeping Cranidos, which woke up because of the noise. It stood up, looking at the three intruders before growling aggressively and preparing to charge. Smeargle let out a startled yelp, backpedaling towards Team Sunrise. Both explorers rushed in-front of him, and the combination of a Flamethrower and a Thunderbolt quickly knocked out the Cranidos before it could attack.

Smeargle sighed in relief, and Melody turned to look at him. “I understand your excitement, but please stay close to us,” she warned. “As pretty as this place is, it’s still a mystery dungeon. There could be traps, or wild pokemon in hiding, and it’ll be hard to keep you safe if you run off like that.”

“S-Sorry. I’ll be more careful.”

Melody nodded at him, and the three of them continued onward. Smeargle mostly stayed toward the back of the group, letting the more experienced duo keep an eye out for trouble. The presence of rock-types did make things a bit tricky, since neither Flynn or Melody could really hit them that hard. But they’d had practice dealing with rock-types, and even resisted hits could still pack a punch, especially if the two of them worked together.

After a while, Smeargle spoke up again. “It must be so cool, getting to see places like this all the time.”

“It is.” Melody replied with a grin. “I always dreamed of being an explorer, ever since I was little.” At the head of the group, a warm smile formed on Flynn’s face. Melody continued, “You know, you could always join a guild too, if you really want to be an explorer.”

Smeargle shook his head emphatically. “Oh no, no. I wouldn’t want to do what you do, I wouldn’t last a day. Like you said, as pretty as this place is, it’s still a mystery dungeon. It’s a bit intimidating, even with you two doing all the fighting. I only wanted to come here so I can see this place for myself, and maybe paint it later.”

“Ah, I see.”

“But I’ll admit I’m a little jealous. You’ve probably seen so many other amazing places that I can only imagine or read about…”

Melody couldn’t deny that. Exploring like this was tough, and sometimes terrifying, but she and Flynn had certainly seen a lot of unforgettable sights in their journeys. They’d been to lush forests, tall mountains, vast lakes… They’d explored the dark depths of caves, and the shifting sands of the desert.

Out of everything, the place that really stood out in her mind the most was Fogbound Lake. It was probably the single most beautiful location she’d ever seen, in her opinion. The light from the time gear shining up from underwater, combined with the geyser, and the Volbeat and Illumise flying around… She remembered how satisfying it had felt, finally reaching the lake at the end of that expedition, and just taking in that view. Even though they hadn’t walked away with any ‘treasure’, everyone in the guild agreed the view alone was treasure enough.

Most of all, though, Fogbound Lake stood out strongly in Melody’s mind… because that night, gazing out at the lake, with her partner sitting right beside her… that was when she realized she was starting to fall in love with Flynn.

As time had gone on, and with everything they’d been through together, her feelings had only gotten stronger. And especially lately, now that Flynn was back, it was sometimes difficult to keep just bottling it up.

Melody felt a pressure build in her chest, glancing up at the Cyndaquil leading the way. (…I still want to tell him how I feel. But any time I try, I can never find the words… I always chicken out. And… I’m still not sure it’s a good idea, anyway. After finally getting Flynn back, I probably shouldn’t risk messing everything up.) She let out a faint sigh. (But, at the same time… what if he does feel the same way? I… still want to know…)

It was an argument between her head and her heart that had been going on since Flynn’s reappearance. Her head was telling her that it was too risky, and she should try to ignore her feelings and be happy with their friendship. But her heart was still telling her to go for it. And of the two, her heart was much louder.

She was so lost in thought that she almost bonked right into the wall as the group turned a corner in one of the winding corridors of the dungeon. She shook her head, trying to focus on the mission.

The three of them continued through the cave, Smeargle staying out of trouble and trying to commit as much of the scenery to memory as possible while he could. Things went fairly smoothly for the most part, and they made it through most of the dungeon without incident.

At one point, they were fighting a couple of wild pokemon. Melody knocked out a weakened Beldum with Feint Attack, while Flynn was busy dealing with a Graveler, who was firing out a multi-hit Rock Blast with fairly poor aim. Most of the rocks missed, but one of them did slam into Flynn, forcing him backward a couple steps. He was about to retaliate when a very distinctive click sounded out from under his feet. He had just enough time to glance downward before he found himself warped away in a burst of light.

Smeargle gasped, and Melody felt her heart sink. She knew it was only a warp trap, but seeing Flynn vanish like that still brought back uncomfortable memories.

Trying to focus quickly, she dealt with the Graveler that Flynn had been fighting, while being careful not to step on the trap as well. She felt a bit of her old timidness resurface without her partner by her side, but she managed to quell it.

She knocked out the Graveler with a Normalized Thunderbolt, which it didn’t bother trying to dodge, since it thought it would be immune to it. After checking on Smeargle, Melody set the treasure bag down, looking through its contents as she talked to him. “It’s okay, this isn’t a huge problem. This kind of situation is exactly why we brought one of these.” She took out a rollcall orb and activated it.

There were a few more bursts of light, as Flynn was teleported back to the group, and Smeargle was warped an inch or two closer to where the orb was used, disorienting him a little.

Flynn was grimacing slightly, and steam was coming from the flame vents on his back, which drew some concern from Melody. “What happened?”

“The trap dropped me into water.”

Melody winced. There wasn’t even much water in this part of the dungeon, most of it was in Crystal Crossing. “How deep was it?”

“Not too deep. Didn’t get much in my flame vents, thankfully.” The steam had already stopped coming from his back, replaced by flickering fire, which then faded away once the Cyndaquil was satisfied that the water was gone.

“That’s good,” Melody responded with a sigh of relief. She still remembered their visit to Waterfall Cave, so long ago. After the flood they’d gotten caught up in at the end, Flynn had been so waterlogged that it had taken most of a day before his fire was back to full strength, and the experience had clearly not been pleasant for him at all. He’d been under the weather enough that he needed to lean on her for most of the trip back to Treasure Town. They’d made a point of not going back to that dungeon again.

Melody looked Flynn over a bit more. He wasn’t really hurt that much, but between getting dropped into water, and having been smacked by a Rock Blast earlier, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to rest just a little. She glanced back at the treasure bag, before adding, “You could have an oran berry, if you’d like.” She wasn’t surprised when Flynn shook his head. Flynn was probably the bravest pokemon she knew, but he could be a little stubborn, at times, and would often save their healing items for her unless he really needed it. (Though, to be fair, I’ve done the same thing for him more than once,) she thought with a lopsided smile.

But if he wasn’t going to eat an oran berry, Melody could at least make sure he didn’t push himself too much. “I can take the lead for a while, at least. Let you rest for a bit and walk it off.” Flynn nodded in response, giving her a grateful smile.

The rest of the dungeon went pretty smoothly, and they reached the crystal puzzle that would lead to Crystal Crossing. Team Sunrise didn’t point out that there was more beyond that point. Even though there was no longer a time gear at Crystal Lake, they figured it would be best not to bother Azelf like this. Smeargle spent a few minutes just poking around, examining the giant crystals. He got particularly excited when he found out they could change colors. Eventually, he was ready to leave, and Flynn warped the three of them out with the team’s badge.

“And three! Smiles go for miles!” The whole guild cheered in unison, as they did every morning.

“Ahem. Now that the morning cheers are done, there’s something I’d like to announce.”

Chatot’s statement peaked all of the apprentices’ curiosity. Melody and Flynn exchanged a quick look, wondering what this was about.

“I’m guessing many of you visit Spinda’s Cafe fairly often, and may have already heard about this, so I’ll be brief. Their ‘Project P’ has cleared the path to a place called Sky Peak, and the Shaymin Village at the mountain’s base, which have been inaccessible for years after a large rock slide. Their Team Frontier has finished exploring the mountain, and Spinda’s Cafe shared the location of the path yesterday, so many other pokemon have already started heading to Sky Peak.”

Indeed, most of the guild members had heard about that. Melody really wanted to go see Sky Peak for herself, but they had guild work to do, so she didn’t have time. Right?

Chatot continued, “Now, ordinarily, this wouldn’t really be part of our guild work. The mountain has already been explored, so there’s no new discovery to be had, or treasure to be found, and we don’t have any specific job requests there yet. But the Guildmaster has decided to have a guild expedition to Sky Peak regardless. He pointed out that, with so many pokemon wanting to check out Sky Peak, there will likely be plenty who will need help. Although…” Chatot fired a slightly tired glance over at Wigglytuff. “…I suspect that the Guildmaster’s main reason for this outing is that he simply thinks it will be fun.”

“Yep!” Wigglytuff answered bluntly, with a wide grin on his face. “Seeing a brand new place alongside friends, and meeting a whole village of new friends… Oh, I can’t wait! It’s been too long since our last expedition!” He danced around, spinning and hopping from one foot to the other.

Chatot rolled his eyes, but smiled slightly. “It hasn’t even been a year, Guildmaster.”

“But it’s felt like it! Besides, after everything that’s happened since then, don’t we all deserve a fun break like this?”

“Very well.” Chatot didn’t really feel like arguing, he knew Wigglytuff had made up his mind already. And besides… Chatot was looking forward to seeing Sky Peak as well. Not that he’d admit that out loud.

Excited chatter broke out from the group. But before they could get too distracted, Chatot loudly cleared his throat. “We’ll be leaving in an hour, so make sure your supplies are ready and meet up back here by then.”

With a loud cheer, the guild members left for Treasure Town, preparing for the journey and eagerly talking about their destination.

“Oh my gosh, this is great!” Sunflora was clapping her leaves together in excitement.

Melody nodded in agreement. “Nobody’s been able to even go there for years. Just think of what there might be to see there!”

“Hey hey, I’m looking forward to seeing the view from the summit,” Corphish said. “Do you think it’ll be as good of a view as we got the last time we had a guild expedition like this?”

Bidoof wasn’t sure he’d go quite that far. “As pretty as Fogbound Lake? I don’t know… I’m excited too, but I reckon that’ll be mighty hard to top.”

“Y-Yeah. Fogbound Lake was… in a league of its own,” Melody added.

As they all got their supplies in order, they continued to speculate among themselves about every aspect of the impending trip. What Sky Peak would be like, what the Shaymin would be like, which of them would make it to the summit first, and so on. Eventually, everyone was ready, and they all headed back to the guild to meet up with Chatot.