Oh, well hello there

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Team Epsilon

Event 6 "Seeds of a New Beginning" Part 1 of 3


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It took a couple of hours for the little Drifloon to carry the two brand new Explorers all the way over to Tao. The continents weren't very far about, only separated by a thin strait, and Caelum City was on the northernmost part of the continent. The friendly Drifloon finally set them down near the entrance to the village. Chrysstal was amazed, and kind of dumbfounded at the sight of the village. Most of the buildings were... in the shape of pokemon. Certainly not something she expected. But, she figured that way it would be easier to remember what pokemon are where... and what services they provide and all. She thanked the Drifloon as it floated over to its main outpost, respectively in the shape of a Drifblim.

As she looked around, she spotted several other teams running around, doing whatever duties they had. She spotted this beautiful statue in the front of the village, well more like a gazebo... thing. Whatever you would call it. She walked under it, and noticed along the legs and ceiling of the inside were words engraved. No, not just words, names. Were these all pokemon? She wondered why they would have their names engraved. Were they, like, famous heroes or something?

As she trotted over to one of the bridges that crossed over the moat that surrounded the village, she noticed just how many pokemon were in this village. Several of them began looking in her direction. She suddenly had this strange, naked feeling. She felt exposed, embarrassed. But then she remembered, she actually was. It was still a... different feeling, having no hair or pants. She thought cutting her hair off was a good idea at the time, she felt it was the first step to this new life, and felt like a completely different person... but now she wished she had never come here. She didn't know anyone, and she was afraid they were all going to make fun of her like they did in Caelum City. Only difference is that she didn't have any friends, other than Artemis, to console her.

She shyly continued into the village, looking around, feeling lost. She must've looked pretty lost to everyone else too, she noticed several pokemon look at her then snicker to their friends. That didn't help with her humility at all. She looked around, trying to find whoever was in charge of the Rescuers guild. She couldn't find a building in the shape of that dinosaur with the silly hat or the rodent with the awesome shades anywhere. She saw the building designed after the purple lizard, so she knew she was in the right place, but...

She was cut out of her thoughts by someone almost flying into her face. "Whoa!" She exclaimed as she took a step back. The green petite pokemon stopped right before colliding with her, then backed up and floated in the air, taking on a cute pose as if she were sitting in a floating chair.

"Oh! Well hello there, you must be one of the newbies, huh?" The little fairy spoke to Chryss. She looked kinda like an onion, with the shape of her head, but she had antennae and a big blue flower on the left side of her face.

"Y-yeah," Chryss stuttered, trying to figure out what kind of pokemon this was.

"Well you should be getting to work!" The little nymph puffed. "These trees aren't gonna plant themselves you know!" She closed her eyes and wiggled her finger. Chryss still thought it was cute how this tiny creature was acting so mighty. "And don't forget, when it's all bloomed, we'll have a big festival!" She seemed to jump out of her invisible chair as she spread her arms and legs wide, as if she were emphasizing the word "big."

Chryss blushed a bit. She just got here, and now she was being ordered around? She hadn't even turned in her application yet... But this creature looked so familiar, she couldn't quite remember where she had seen it. Perhaps in a storybook somewhere...?

But before she could even respond, the fairy creature already zoomed off, probably looking for some other pokemon that were being lazy to scold. Chryss looked around. She noticed that the forest all around her was pretty decimated. Trees were broken, fallen over, torched, scattered, any word you could think of. It seems like a tornado had come through here recently. Yet, the village itself looked untouched.

She looked around, searching for help. She spotted a busy little Ralts, and decided to ask, "Hey, excuse me, sorry to bother you," She flustered. "Do you know where the Rescuers Guild is?"

"Oh! Of course, it's that big tree house right over there." The little gowned pokemon didn't actually speak, but she instead used some sort of psychic ability to speak into Chryss's mind. She pointed to a tree that had this neat spiral staircase around it that lead up to the huge headquarters at the top. Chryss wondered how she didn't notice that before.

"Oh, okay, thanks!" Chryss said to the little Ralts, but she stopped Chryss before she ran off.

"Hey, you're a newbie aren't ya?" She inquired.

"Yeah, sorta. Not really sure what im supposed to be doing." Chryss rubbed the back of her head, reminded that her hair was cut off.

"Well, do you have a team name yet? I imagine you and that Treecko on your back are together." She interrogated.

"T-team name? No, not really. I didn't even think about it." She admitted.

"Well how else are we gonna set you apart from all the other teams?" The Ralts joked. Suddenly, her partner ran up next to him.

"Hey, Chell, whatcha doin'? We still got all these seeds to plant!" The Snivy said to the Ralts, carrying some seeds.

"Oh, I'm just helping the new kids out." She pointed to the embarrassed Sneasel next to her. "By the way, I didn't catch your name." She directed at Chryss. "My names Chell, and this is my partner, Wheatley. We're actually a Rescuer team as well!" She introduced.

"My name's Chrysstal, but you can call me Chryss," The two gave a quick snicker, which sort of annoyed her, but she continued anyway. "And this is my buddy Artemis." She pointed to the creepy Treecko resting on her shoulder. "Pleased to meet you both." She said with as much politeness as she could possibly muster. These were just kids, after all.

"That's such a cool name, Artemis! Sounds familiar somehow, were you named after someone?" Wheatley inquired.

Artemis just stared at the pair, Unnerving them a bit, until Chryss remembered to speak up. "OH! Sorry, Artemis isn't really big on words. I don't think he ever really learned how to speak." Chryss sweated a little, she wasn't really used to explaining Artemis's mute problem. People usually either found out on their own, or just didn't care.

Chell spoke to her mind again, "Oh no, that's fine, we understand. I'm actually mute myself, and, in fact, I think there's a Rogue team that also has a mute." She thought aloud. "Anyway, so how about that team name? We're Team Aperture Science, by the way."

"Oh, right..." Chryss nuzzled her claw in thought. What would be a name symbolic of Chryss and Artemis? That's all they were ever called anyway, "Chryss and Artemis." Her first thought was to name themselves something music-related, but that reminded her too much of the band. Too many emotions. So she thought more of Artemis. He was so mysterious, since he couldn't really talk to share any experiences. Then she thought of the other Artemis, the great Grovyle she named her Treecko friend after. Then her mind wandered to this ancient text she once studied once upon a time. She remembered the letters, and each letter represented a different quality of one's personality. What was it... Alpha was like the everything, the origin, Beta was like the shadow of the origin... there were more... Theta was like, potential or something like that... oh! That's right!

"Epsilon!" She accidentally said aloud, which startled the two youngsters in front of her. "Oh, sorry!" She flustered, "I was just thinking aloud. Epsilon. Team Epsilon. How does that sound?" She asked for verification.

The two looked at each other thoughtfully, then the Ralts said "That sounds pretty darn awesome actually! What made you think of it?"

Darn. Such an odd word to hear. She forgot that she was around kids, and that cussing was a big no-no. "Well, I was thinking back to this ancient language I was studying a long time ago, and I remembered the word 'epsilon' represented memory, or something like that. I like that because memories are the one thing we should always keep close to us, right? Without memories, we really aren't our own person." She really pulled that right out of her ass, but the word representing memory was true. For the most part, at least. She couldn't remember the whole thing.

The two chuckled a bit. Maybe they realized that she pulled it out of her ass. But they didn't seem to care, they encouraged her anyway, "That's even more awesome!" Chell said. "Oh, by the way, you should look for Mike. He's the Charmander that's running the Rescuers. You can't miss him, he wears this big cowboy hat," The Ralts motioned her head, as if she were wearing that big cowboy hat, "and a green scarf. Hes pretty iconic, really!" She joked to herself.

"Okay," Chryss said before looking toward the huge tree house again, "Thanks a bunch! I really do appreciate it." She thanked.

"Anytime!" The Snivy called to her as she walked towards the tree headquarters.

She began to look around again to get reacquainted with the surroundings. Several pokemon were scurrying about. She spotted a little penguin pokemon running around with another Treecko, though this Treecko looked much different from Artemis. It looked more... civilized, sophisticated, not-creepy. Peering to her left, she spotted a little bird pokemon that looked like it had clouds for wings, and this strange green orb pokemon. Near to them was a bipedal burghandy and black-striped alligator and a little male Nidoran, although it seemed that its spikes were rather small... Glancing back to her right she noticed an Oshawott and an Eevee helping pick up a bunch of seeds that she inferenced the Riolu and Pikachu next to them dropped. There was also this group of a Gulpin, Trubbish, and some strange purple gooey pokemon picking up trash, she thought, around the village.

She finally reached the front of the tree house, a little proud of her personal accomplishment, and began to peer around for the Charmander that was described to her. What did that Ralts say his name was again? Mike, right?

She was right though, it was hard to miss that Charmander. But when Chryss spotted him....

~

CAMEO'D
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sorta cameo'd
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