Early in the morning, it was becoming colder as winter approached. In just a few short weeks they would start to see their first snowfall of the new season. Saphire walked alongside Chanler, the gravel path shifting and making crunching noises with each step taken. The Eevee would keep looking left and right as they passed by houses. She knew that eventually, she would be walking to the guild alone on some days if Chanler and Johnny went out on a critical mission together. For this, she had to remember the path from their house to the guild.
Chanler huffed next to her, rubbing her paws together while making sure her red knitted scarf was wrapped snugly around her neck. “You’re lucky you have such long fur.” The Pikachu told her as she wrapped the tail end of her scarf around her right arm and had her left arm crossed over her chest. “I always hated the cold.”
Saphire giggled at what Chanler had admitted to her. “Really? You always looked so comfortable in the last few winters!" Her first attempt at sarcasm with Chanler and Saphire didn't think she did too poorly.
"Oh, not you too!" Chanler complained a bit, but it was followed by the Pikachu’s own laugh. “I swear Johnny should’ve never told you what sarcasm was!”
By the smile on Chanler's face, Saphire could tell that she wasn't actually upset and laughed with her. When they were done laughing, they had just reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to the guild and began climbing with haste. Saphire always thought it was weird that they had to make the guild so high up instead of having it at ground level like the rest of the city. "Ms. Chanler, Why did they have to make all of these stairs?" After a moment she could see that her question was a bit flawed and might not have gotten the answer she wanted. "I mean, why can't the guild be closer to the rest of the town?"
She thought about it for a moment, the Pikachu closing her eyes and smiling before opening her eyes to look up at the five lookout towers that the guild had. “Because of those.” Chanler must've seen the look on her face, Saphire thought because she continued after a moment. "You see those five towers? They're called lookout towers. I'm sure I've told you this before, but they look out over the town and farther to spot threats to the city. To be able to see past the city limit, they need to be up high in the air, and as such, they built the guild on top of a rise."
Saphire was still confused though at the reason why it had to be on a guild. “Couldn’t they have just built super tall towers then? Wouldn’t it have been easier to do that than to build the guild on a hill?”
Chanler rocked her head from side to side. "I can see why you would think that, and there's a reason why we don't just make supertall towers." She looked down at the steps as she came upon a split in half piece of wood. Bunching up the muscles in her leg, Chanler jumped up to the next stair, skipping the need to risk stepping on splinters. "It's because they've already done that.
"The original guild was built with those tall towers, but because of the plains that are to the southeast of us, the winds are powerful. Those strong winds would keep bullying the towers until one day they collapsed, and three of the eight sentries that were on duty inside the towers died from the fall. So it's because of those winds that the previous Guildmaster decided that they needed to relocate the guild to on top of the hill to get a high enough vantage point on the city. At the same time, the guild sitting there also symbolizes a message to the Pokémon of Great Usarus."
Saphire cocked her head to the side as she looked at Chanler. “What’s that?”
Once more, Chanler looked up at the guild, it becoming closer as they reached the top of the stairs. She stopped on the top step and stared up at the central tower with a smile. "As long as this guild remains standing, there will always be hope." Saphire looked up to the central tower with Chanler and smiled as well. It was a beautiful meaning, but she had to wonder to herself: What will happen if the guild does fall?
She didn’t get a chance to think about it for too long as Chanler ruffled the fur on top of her head. “Come on, Saphire. It’s time to meet your new team and start your first day as a guild member.”
Saphire nodded and followed after her into the guild. The sentries on duty again were Lucarios, and both of them gazed at Chanler and Saphire as they passed through the two large doors. Inside, the guild was busy as per usual even in the cold, but as she got walked further into the gathering hall, it got warmer from all of the body heat trapped in the guild. She would've expected it to be colder since the guild doors didn't open until dawn, but it was as warm as it was yesterday.
As they walked through the crowd of Pokémon, Saphire could feel as though someone was watching her again. She looked left, right, and then left again trying to find if she could see someone watching her from afar to no avail. After a few moments, she gave up and continued on after Chanler to reach the bottom of the spiral staircase in the center of the gathering hall. Up above her, she could see the platform on which Michael's office was and could look out on the Pokémon below. “Was he the one watching me?” She wondered to herself.
Sitting in front of the stairs were two Pokémon of which she had no idea who they were. A Ninetales sat on the right; closest to the first step of the staircase, and on the left was an Umbreon. From what she remembered Chanler telling her about Pokémon, Ninetales was the evolved form of Vulpix, and Umbreon is one of an Eevee’s many possible evolutions. Saphire walked up to the both of them; Chanler walked beside her up until they were only a few feet away from each other.
The Ninetales gave Chanler a curt nod and a smile. “Greetings, Captain.” He said to her before looking down at Saphire. “Greetings, young Saphire.”
“Good morning, Karsel.” Chanler greeted him with her own nod and smile.
Saphire’s body went abnormally rigid when she heard his name. “Why does that name sound familiar?” She asked herself in thought. It was right on the tip of her tongue, and she couldn't get it out of her head. Surer than not, Saphire knew that she heard that name somewhere before, but where?
“Saphire, this is Jack.” Karsel’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts and dragged her attention to the Umbreon. He was standing rather slouched compared the Ninetales beside him who sat ‘prim and proper’ as she’s heard it called. “He will be your partner while you train as well.”
The Eevee looked at Jack with a smile, while Jack didn’t exactly return the smile. He only gave a roll of his eyes as he tried to look elsewhere. “It’s nice to meet you, Jack.” She greeted him, but again, her greeting fell on deaf ear as he didn’t seem to want to interact with her.
Chanler seemed to notice the awkward silence and spoke. “Right. Well, I'm going to head out and give the sentry a meeting." She turned to look at Saphire. "Behave yourself, and listen to what Karsel says. He's a very experienced trainer, and he knows just about everything there is to know about being a good guild member."
Karsel chuckled when he heard Chanler’s compliment. “Alright, Ms. Chanler, I will!” Saphire responded with a smile and a quick wag of her tail.
The Pikachu nodded, petting the top of Saphire head and scratching behind her ear a little bit before turning to walk towards the northwest tower. “Take care, Saphire! I’ll see you at the entrance before dusk!”
Saphire smiled and hopped up onto her hind paws, managing to balance there for a few short moments as she waved her forelegs in the air in a crossing pattern. "Bye, Ms. Chanler!" She landed back on her paws softly and turned to sit in front of Karsel, her paws neatly placed in under her chest as she looked up at the Ninetales. Jack just gave a gruff and short laugh as he looked towards the door. To her, it seemed that Jack wanted to be anywhere but inside the guild with how much he stared out through the open threshold. If he wanted to leave so badly then why was he a guild member?
"Alright you two, follow me if you don't want to be left behind," Karsel told them as he began to walk away towards the south end of the gathering hall. Saphire followed after him quickly, sticking by his side so that she didn't get lost, while Jack followed after them at a slower pace.
He led them to a wall where the two sets of stairs that started running into the ground along the wall and then both curved down into the ground. There was a sign above each with the right sign reading ‘JAIL' and the left sign reading ‘Underground Training.' Karsel leads them down the stairs leading to the underground training and quickly walked down each step with his long legs. Jack took the stairs just as easily whereas each step was about a body stretch to reach the next without doing a tumble roll down the entirety of the staircase.
About half a minute of stair descending later; Saphire came to stand at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t get a moment of rest however as a loud voice shouted from far away. “Hit the ground!” Saphire immediately ducked to the ground, and a heartbeat later a glowing blue ball with a purple center shot over her head. She looked to her left to follow the orb as it passed over about five more Pokémon and exploded as it hit the wall over a hundred feet away.
A small voice shouted out, a young boy. “Sorry! Sorry, everyone!" Saphire looked to her right as she stood up, and could see a Riolu standing with a Lucario next to him. From the look on the Lucario's face, she could guess that the Riolu throwing something like that to the side was a common occurrence.
When she looked away from him, Saphire finally got her first good look at the area she was in. She was standing in large, open room where solid rock made up the floor and halfway up the wall, and after that, it was compact dirt with thick wooden beams keeping the ceiling and walls from collapsing. In front of her was a long room that stretched at least a hundred, if not more feet until it would hit the back wall. Wooden walls were placed in specific places in the ground, spaced out by at least fifteen feet and out from the rear wall about another twenty feet. Down the line of one of the spaces between the wooden walls were circular pieces of metal with red and white coloring forming rings until it hit the center with a single red circle.
To her far right was a doorway and to her far left was another doorway, both leading to places she didn't know about yet. Behind her was the staircase she had come down with a sign that read ‘Gathering Hall.' As she looked around, she couldn't see any sort of opening for light to come through and wondered how she could see so easily. It was then that she noticed that there were lines of upon lines of rocks that were burning with fire. The fire was brighter than any she's ever seen before, and all of that fire lit up the room with its glow.
Karsel began to speak, and Saphire turned her head to look at him. "As you may have already read on the sign before we walked down the stairs. This is the underground training grounds. These are reserved for members of the guild to use any time of the day. This here is called a range." He explained as he walked between two of the wooden walls where there wasn't a Pokémon. With a paw on one of them, he continued. The stretch of area in front of me is the lane I can use. You can tell where your lane is because there is a white painted line that travels from your two dividers down to the other side of the room."
He had used one of his nine tails to motion at the other ‘divider' he spoke of, as well as the white line that she had failed to notice upon her first look of the room. "The metal red and white circles you see downrange are called targets, and they are what you are aiming to hit with your attacks. This specific range is for accuracy at long range, so any ranged attacks such as Swift or Shadow Ball should be practiced here." Karsel looked to Saphire to make sure she understood everything that was said, and she gave a reassuring nod back. “Any questions?”
Saphire stepped up a little bit as she spoke next. "What are those other two rooms?"
Looking between the two he started with the left one as he flicked his head towards it. "To the left, we have the close combat training. Over there you practice all of your attacks that require you to hit your target head-on with your body or an item." He then looked over to his right. "Then to the right we have area attack training. These are attacks that can hit multiple targets at once such as Dark Pulse or once again Swift. It's also where you can practice creating your own custom moves."
It was understandable to most but was utterly unheard of to Saphire. "Custom moves? What are those?"
Karsel raised a curious look on his face when she asked him that, but he must've realized that he was talking to a kid after all and explained himself. "Custom moves are ones that consist of move variations or multiple moves combined into one to make new moves. For example, My family has a special type of fire that has been passed down for generations. I'll show you what I mean if you'll wait for a moment."
Saphire stood to back behind him to his left as the Ninetales walked back into the lane he had stepped out of before. He placed his paw on one of the metal pieces that was sticking up out of the ground at an angle and pressed it into the ground. After a moment, one of the targets that laid flat on the ground popped up. It was roughly halfway down the lane he stood at, and Saphire could barely see the center circle on the target. “Saphire you may want to shield your ears.”
Even though she was warned, Saphire didn't do that and continued to watch him. Karsel looked at her for a moment before staring at the target once again. He opened his mouth slowly, and the sound of a high pitched whining began to come from somewhere inside. A sharp blue flame started to form from inside of his mouth and pointed towards the target. As the whining grew in pitch, Saphire unconsciously folded her ears down in an attempt to keep the sound from hurting her hearing. About ten seconds after the whining had started, a large, blue barrel of fire shot out of his mouth and at the target. The flame hit its mark, and the fire even began to spread out in a circle as they bounced off of the metal.
Karsel only held the attack for about another ten seconds before letting the flame die out and closing his mouth. Saphire had squinted her eyes as well as trying to shield her ears from the intense heat that the Flamethrower attack let out. She finally had a chance to open them fully now and looked at the target. What was once a dark piece of metal with red and white paint now had no color left on it, and the metal itself was glowing a bright orange. There was a moment of silence before some of the other Pokémon in the room cheered on Karsel for such a formidable attack.
“Whoa! That was so cool!” Saphire looked to her right to see the Riolu from before standing near Karsel and looking right at him. “You almost melted the target completely!”
The Ninetales chuckled and turned to look at him. "You think that was cool? I can make a flame even hotter than that, but I don't use it in a battle for that reason alone."
Even as Karsel grinned, the Riolu’s eyes and smile just grew bigger in admiration. “That’s so cool!” The Riolu’s smile and wide-eyed expression didn’t leave him for an instant as he spoke. “My name’s Theo! Can you teach me how to do that? I want to be able to use that purple fire attack my dad does too!”
There was a moment of confusion on Karsel’s part as he looked at Theo, but then he seemed to recognize who Theo was. “Ah, I see. You’re the child that Arias took in. What are you doing here though? I thought that the Guildmaster said Arias’s brother Liam was going to train you at his guild.”
“He is! Liam is away on some mission with a guy named Johnny.” Theo explained before adding: “I’m staying with one of Liam’s friends while I’m here.”
A smile formed on Karsel's face as he looked at Saphire briefly. "I see, so Liam is working with the captain's younger brother." He then looked back at Theo with the same smile. "Well, I don't think I should keep you from your training. If Liam is training you, then you have big shoes to fill when you grow older."
Theo balled his hands into fists and held them in front of his chest, almost like a defensive guard. “I will do my best to be as strong as them both one day!" He said as the Lucario Theo was with before finally tapped his shoulder and began to lead the little Riolu back to their own lane in the range. Karsel looked at Saphire, and then at Jack who had been sitting near the wall and resting his left side on it. Apparently, he didn't feel like paying attention to Theo and Karsel's little talk together.
“Alright then.” Karsel started, looking between the two of them. “Time to test your skills in aim and control. So who wants to go first?”
