Chapter 6: Team Reverie

Jeana knew what to expect when she felt the icy dew soaking into the fur on her back again.

She sat up, to see Uxie and Azelf staring at her. Their sister was nowhere to be seen.

“Greetings Uxie, Azelf. It is good to see you again. Where is Mesprit?” Jeana asked. She was secretly relieved that the pink Legendary was gone. Something about her simply perturbed Jeana.

Azelf grinned, and waved at Jeana. “Hey, it’s good to see you too!”

“Mesprit went to check on Xerneas,” Uxie explained. “Speaking of Xerneas. I assume that you would like to know why, exactly, he dragged you into this situation, and what this situation is?”

“Yes. Please,” Jeana asked.

Uxie nodded. “Well. It started rather recently. First, I’d like to apologize for your being brought here on such short notice. There is a long history of humans being brought to save a world of Pokemon. Most of them face overwhelming odds. So first, know that you are not the only one to have experienced something like this before. Each time before, the human has prevailed. The odds are on your side.”

Azelf smiled at Jeana encouragingly.

“Second, the situation.” Uxie sighed. “Occasionally, a Legendary will decide that they can do a much better job of being leader than the others. This has happened multiple times, so it’s usually the same or similar Pokemon revolting. However, something different has happened this time. Yveltal, who was always one of those to talk the upriser out of the revolution before now, and Darkrai, who has always been too withdrawn to concern himself with revolutions, have teamed up with Giratina, extremely notorious for being a catalyst for most rebellions.”

“Yveltal seems to be the one in charge of the rebellion,” Azelf picked up where Uxie left off. “Darkrai and Giratina are acting as her henchmen, doing most of the things she actually wants done. However, Darkrai has a sister, Cresselia. And Yveltal has a brother, who you’ve met, Xerneas. Cresselia and Xerneas must’ve discovered their plans beforehand, because the first thing Yveltal had Darkrai and Giratina do was to capture and imprison Cresselia so she couldn’t warn anyone. Cresselia’s really… odd and a bit crazy, but she didn’t deserve that…”

“At any rate, Yveltal, Darkrai, and Giratina were momentarily distracted by capturing Cresselia. Putting question of her mental stability aside, Cresselia is quite good at fighting,” Uxie continued. “She bought time for Xerneas to summon a human, you, to the Pokemon world in order to either defeat the three rebelling Legendaries, or talk them out of it. And he asked us to assist you.”

“A lot of the time, it’s only one or two Legendaries rebelling. Or if there are more, they’re all minor ones with a smaller goal. Like all the times Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres tried overthrowing Lugia,” Azelf mused. “I don’t think three Legendaries of Darkrai’s level and higher have ever tried rebelling! So that’s why Xerneas went to us for help, he thought you’d need it since this is a slightly unique case…”

Jeana nodded. “If you don’t mind,” she asked, “I have a question.”

“Yes?” Uxie asked.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is Yveltal doing this?” Jeana asked. “What is her motive? Or her overall goal? Do you have any idea?”

“We don’t, sadly,” Azelf said. “We’re trying to avoid her and her henchmen.”

“I see,” Jeana said. “And would it be possible for me to return to the human world before this is over if I find this all to be too much?”

“No,” Azelf responded. “Xerneas brought you here, so he has to send you back.”

Jeana sighed. “I suspected…” she muttered. “Thank you for the information.”

Azelf smiled. “You’re welcome!”

There was something about all this that seemed slightly suspicious to Jeana. Some detail niggling at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite get a grasp on it.

“I was wondering,” she asked, “if we could please end this session now. I found the information rather useful, but I am rather tired right now.”

“No problem!” Azelf spoke. “‘Night!”

---

The next day, Jeana met her other new team member.

Jazz the haunter seemed to mean well. However he spoke his opinions in ways that came across as being blunt, rude, or just plain creepy. It was therefore difficult to tell his compliments apart from his insults. In addition, despite being blunt Jazz still managed to be rather confusing while speaking, and take a frustratingly long time to say what he needed to say due to having a bit of a stutter.

It did creep Jeana out somewhat that Jazz had two hands, both seemingly not attached to his body by any visible means whatsoever, and both capable of hovering with no obvious means of propulsion.

When the trio arrived at Chesnaught’s Dojo to train, Chesnaught requested that they train in the yard behind the dojo, instead of inside. Jeana soon found out why. Shiver was very talented with creating and controlling far more plant life than the average Grass type of her size and age. However, while most plant life conjured by a Grass type faded a few minutes around creation, Shiver’s stubbornly clung to existence. A Fire type who apparently worked at the dojo sent her creations up in flames when she was finished with using them.

Jazz tended to be exceedingly brutal in his fighting. He prevented his foe from fleeing or healing with Mean Look and Embargo, and then sent a merciless barrage of status effects at them before finishing them off with a powerful Hex attack. He was so fast and relentless with his attacks, it was difficult to avoid any of them.

Jeana was starting to see why Shiver had claimed Team Reverie was famed for being rather good battlers.

In comparison to them, she knew she looked like a rather poor fighter. It was true, her Frustration attack was slowly becoming larger and easier to aim, and her telekinesis nearly always allowed her to score a hit on her target with graveler rocks, however her move repertoire was admittedly limited compared to Shiver and Jazz.

Shiver immediately noticed this problem, and offered a solution. “Jeana, if you would like a new move, I believe that we each have one we could possibly teach you, which most Pokemon are capable of easily learning,” the snivy offered.

“I would find more moves to be useful,” Jeana affirmed. “Which would these be?”

“Toxic and Protect,” Shiver stated.

Jazz decided to go ahead first and start with teaching Jeana Toxic. “This is the one move that any P-pokemon c-can learn, so it should b-be easy f-for you. Then again you b-barely know anything, so it’s f-fine if it t-takes some t-time. You op-pen your mouth large, like this!” Jazz opened his mouth impossibly huge, his tongue lolling out and making it even harder to understand him. “An’ ‘en, you aim wi’ your ‘angs! ‘An you ‘oot-t ‘e ‘enuh out! Like ‘is!”

Jazz followed that up by shooting two small streams of Toxic out from his needle-sharp canines. The liquid neatly hit a leaf on the ground, before eating away two holes in the leaf with a hiss.

“...Excuse me, but can you please repeat that?” Jeana asked.

Jazz huffed, but did so. “You shoot and aim the T-toxic with your c-canines,” he rephrased.

“How?” Jeana asked.

Jazz flung his hands up in the air, quite literally. “I d-dunno! It’s inst-tinct f-for me now! I d-don’t even think ab-bout it and it-t happens!”

Jeana was rather disappointed by that unhelpful explanation. Jazz probably would not be much more help now. She decided to try the advice she had received from Lina and Mesprit concerning Frustration and telekinesis. Namely, to visualize the move.

Jeana opened her mouth as wide as she could, and felt a tingle in her fangs. She focused on that tingle, locking her eyes to a spot on the ground and envisioning a stream of Toxic shooting from her fangs to that spot on the ground.

A drop of Toxic squeezed its way from one of her fangs and fell onto the inside of her mouth.

Jeana’s eyes immediately teared up as she tried spitting out the drop of venom. It tasted disgusting, and just a small bit of it was already making her feel lightheaded and slightly nauseated. It was a very potent poison.

Jazz seemed oddly delighted by this. “You d-did it! First t-try! It was a suck-ky small one, but you d-did it!”

Jeana, after some wretching and rubbing at the inside of her mouth with her paws, finally managed to get the disgusting taste out of her mouth. She had no intention to use that move on a foe until she had much more training with it, for fear that she accidentally poison herself next time she used it. She understood for the first time that just because a Pokemon was capable of using a move did not mean they were capable of using it offensively.

Fortunately, despite the adverse effects of coming into contact with a drop of her own Toxic, Jeana did not actually become poisoned or badly poisoned. Once Shiver had become certain of this, both the snivy and espurr were rather relieved.

“Protect is another move that most Pokemon are capable of using, although less than Toxic,” Shiver began to explain. “You in particular should be able to make rather powerful Protects, certain moves don’t necessarily rely on latent Psychic powers, but grow more powerful with them, and espurrs are notorious for having extremely powerful latent Psychic powers.”

Jeana nodded.

“This move is usually used defensively, but some Pokemon can get extremely creative with it,” Shiver continued. “Outlaw hunting Pokemon teams use it to keep dangerous Pokemon contained. Medics can use it to transfer Pokemon too injured to walk on their own. Once I heard of a Pokemon so skilled at Protect, they could use it to fly short distances.”

“That’s… interesting,” Jeana muttered.

Shiver nodded. “Yes, very. I don’t use Protect very often, overall I feel more confident with my Grass moves, but… You need to very clearly and purely imagine exactly what you want the Protect to do. If you let it up for a single second, it could falter. If you get distracted, it will vanish. If you forget to imagine the Protect in a certain area, then there will be a gaping hole there. You need to be very specific about the Protect, or it could fail catastrophically.”

Jeana nodded, and decided to try using Protect now. She imagined a curved shield in front of her, translucent but strong as steel. She reached out, and managed to touch it. She moved her paw up and down, feeling the smooth concave substance.

Shiver reached out and touched the Protect shield as well. “Good. That’s good.” The snivy smiled.

And then Jeana finally noticed it. The ringing in her ears. It was there, not as loudly as she was used to it being, which was why she hadn’t noticed it at first.

Her breath hitched. What set it off? Is-- is it going to happen again?

No. I don’t want to. I DON’T WANT--

The Protect vanished and the ringing faded.

Shiver’s face fell. “Oh. Well, you got the basics down. You managed to make a Protect manifest. And that’s great!”

Jeana nodded.

Shiver looked at the sky. “It’s too late to go to a dungeon now. I wasn’t planning to today, though. I’ve got a longer mission lined up for us, so we can use the rest of today to prepare for it. We’re escorting a young Pokemon from Meadowville to Mind City.”

Team Reverie spent the afternoon first having a nice lunch at Rose Cafe, and then purchasing supplies from various shops. They bought a large amount of healing berries, seeds, and apples from Verdant, some orbs and wands from Kecleon, and even managed to get a few graveler rocks for Jeana. Shiver gave Jeana the idea to carry a few seeds in her bag as well, in case she was up against a more powerful enemy, and wanted an extra effect, such as paralysis, or a soporific effect.

The team had a filling dinner and went to bed. That night in dreams, Jeana managed to get in some practice with both Frustration and Toxic with Mesprit. Jeana was mildly pleased that she very nearly managed to poison the immature Legendary.

The next morning, Shiver woke her team up rather early. They got a breakfast of a chesto each from the kitchens to wake themselves up, and headed out to the lobby, where the client would be waiting.

In the lobby, there were exactly two Pokemon. A drowsy looking lampent behind a desk, illuminating the entire room with his blue-violet flames, and a familiar looking eevee in a cloak.

“Hi, Jeana! Congratulations on getting into the Meadow Guild!” Eona greeted Jeana with an enthusiastic smile.

“You know the client?” Shiver asked Jeana.

Jeana shrugged. “We met once before.”

“You’re the one who wanted to be escorted to Mind City, correct?” Shiver asked. Eona nodded in confirmation, and Shiver smiled.

“Hello, c-client! You’re v-very small. And you smell… d-different from other eev-vees,” Jazz hummed. “What’s your name?”

“Eona,” she said.

“Well, that’s excellent. I’m Shiver, the haunter is Jazz, and that, as you know, is our newest member, Jeana,” Shiver introduced them. “We’re Team Reverie.”