First Contact: Chapter Two

										Chapter Two, Part One: Letters to a Faraway Place

	Jawey awoke in a confused stupor. After rubbing his eyes and stretching out a bit, he felt something hugging, clinging would probably be a better word, his arm. It was his cast. As he started to remove it to reveal a perfectly fine, if a little stiff, arm, he took a moment to reflect on his current predicament. It had pained him to lie to his best friend and partner, he thought, but in this case, the ends justified the means. He had to pull some verbal gymnastics to convince Blissey and Chanssey to keep quiet about his false aliment. In the end, however, he could not risk having another one of these odd dimensional screams occur during an expedition in the middle of Arceus knows where. Usually, these were triggered by his interaction with an object, and would allow him to see into the future, but here? He had no idea what he was seeing, and these incidences seemed to occur randomly. He needed to find out what these visions meant. Smiling and looking over towards his desk, he was quite hopeful he would get an answer soon.

	After grabbing a few berries for breakfast, Jawey didn’t bother to check which ones, he took his seat in front of the desk, and, after sticking his hand behind a part of it, retrieved several very important letters, one of which he was in the process of writing. To refresh his memory, he once again glanced over the note on the top of the stack, which was addressed to him.

	To my colleague in exploration John,
So far, I have not quite been able to pin down everything you have seen in your visions, but I have been able to determine to good confidence what the figures from the seaborne crafts were. It seems that you were seeing a group of humans…

	That was all he had to read to gain the motivation to continue his own research. And today was the day. It was the day he was going to covertly investigate what were rumored to be the ruins of a human structure on the Air Continent. He had no time to waste. He began penning a new letter, completely forgetting about the one he was nearly finished writing, addressing it to the Pokémon he had contacted for an insight to the screams in the first place. The nearly-completed letter he had chosen to ignore for now was a sort of dream and dimensional scream journal he had started to his new associate, a researcher across the waves who specialized in human studies, among other things.

	To my Dear Friend and Associate Dr. Mawile,
My latest documentation of these recent dimensional screams shall be attached with this note. I am due to begin my investigation of the human building in Air

	His writing was cut off by the emergence of a voice from the ceiling behind him.
	“Mr. Jaws, Mr. Jaws!”

	Immediately Jawey, or John as he preferred, recognized who had snuck up behind him. Who else would call him Mr. Jaws? He supposed the kid’s father was just trying to teach him to respect his elders, but it did come off a little disrespectful. He turned up to face the Diglett. Since they had met, Diglett had barely aged at all, perhaps only three years in all this time compared to how quickly Jawey had aged.

	“Didn’t your father teach you that it’s rude not to knock?” He inquired, a bit thrown off by the concerned look on Diglett’s face. Jawey then realized that he was not wearing his “cast”, so if he was just coming to check up on the supposedly-injured Feraligator, he would be in deep trouble.

“What is it boy? I’m in the middle of some work.” He replied, trying his hardest not to sound callous.
“You need to come quick! Right now! My dad and Toxicroak are right near here, just follow me! They saw some things over the—”

	Before Jawey could even ask for more details, the overexcited ground-type had skirted back up through the top of Sharpedo Bluff to the surface, where his father, Dugtrio, and his friend Toxicroak were waiting. All three were current guild members who had witnessed many unbelievable happenings in their lifetimes, (with the exception of Toxicroak, who had graduated years ago and was on vacation from working for the Expedition Society on the Water Continent) and if they had seen something that Jawey had to come see while he was supposed to be recovering, it must have been big.


	Big it was. Or, rather, they were.

	“Should we alert the guild?” Jawey asked.

	“It’s your call, boss.” Toxicroak calmly replied.

	“What are those things?” Diglett piped up. “Dad, are they ships?”

	His father replied, his three heads unmoving, “Son, I have never once seen any ship or anything built by non-legendary Pokémon nearly that massive.”

	Gazing from the right side of Sharpedo Bluff, one could easily see at least three, no, four large vessels, the two smallest of which were the same size, with the largest two having quite the difference in heights. Jawey observed that the largest one, located to the left of and behind one of the small ships, seemed mostly flat. While Jawey tried to wrap his head around how any ships got there without sails (Wailords, maybe?) or if they even were ships, he noticed that in the few minutes they had been standing around gawking, they had been inching closer by the second.

	“You three stay here, I’ll go tell the Guildmaster.”

	There were no words or grunts of acknowledgement. Jawey rushed back into Treasure Town and bolted towards the Guild. Could these have been those “seaborne crafts” or ships from his scream? He needed to figure out what these recent strange happenings meant.

End of Part One


													Part Two: Strangers at the Door

	It had been roughly 45 minutes. Yet here she was, still taking the brunt of one of Chatot’s never-ending diatribes. While the Music Note Pokémon continued his rant, Chik questioned herself why Team Jaws had kept themselves under the overbearing wing of Wigglytuff’s Guild instead of establishing themselves more internationally and actually keeping most of what they earned. She made a mental note to herself to question Jawey about it later. In the meantime—

	“Hey, PAY ATTENTION HERE YOU SSS-QUA DELINQUENT! I’m still disciplining you here! SQUAK!” In a barrage of feathers, the Guild’s second in command brought Chik back into reality, much to her dismay.

	“I must say,” Chatot continued, “I e- expected a team with your pedigree to act far more m-maturely. Don’t forget, the ma-main reason you’re where you are today is due to t-the Guild’s generosity.”
The old bird had developed a bit of a stutter in the past year or so; his age was showing more day by day. Before he had a chance to continue further, however, Chik interceded.

	“Excuse me Chatot, but do you not think that giving our team a bit more freedom in our explorations would be for the best? We have years of experience, as you know, and there are still plenty of mysteries left to uncover on these continents that our scholars can’t answer.”

	Chatot was quick to reply.

	“Well, possibly, but that would be the Guildmaster’s decision, not ours. And from what you and your lily pad friend over there have told me, you were acting on a rumor.” He pointed accusatorily at Lombre with his wing. The Jolly Pokémon simply rolled her eyes in retort.

	“If you had actually r-reesearched this topic more in advance and had a r-reeasonable amount of confidence that you would find something of interest to the great good or to the presser-rvation of the heritage of all Pokémon, then I would have allowed such an investigation. However, this was just a ru-umor, and nothing more.”

	Chik was about to remind Chatot that mere rumors had aided their team’s adventures in the past, but was interrupted by the sound of musical humming emanating from a door behind Chatot.

	“Oh, it sa-sa-seems the Guildmaster has awoken. Just wait until he hears that SQUAK you’ve been disobeying orders and shirking your work!”

	He turned around before he paused, sighing. “I su-uuppose I may be wrong in being this harsh on you. After all, young love can envelop a person. Why, I remember when I was your age, it had m-me seduced with its vices and warmn-ness. Oh yes, how is he, anyway. Ha-as his a-arm gotten better yet?” Chatot turned his head back to Chik, smiling for once.

	A flustered Chik scrambled to respond. “We’re not with each other that way! I-I don’t know what you think you are saying, but-“
As Chatot was about to open the doors, they swung open in front of him, sending him flying backward and ending what would have been an awkward conversation. Bayleef smiled to herself. The Guild never had this problem with the old doors, but these ones were heavier and thicker for security reasons, and sometimes the Guildmaster would accidently bump Chatot with them. Lombre was not as subtle in her bemusement, and as Chik looked to her comrade, she could see that Lombre could barely contain her laughter. ‘Serves him right’ she mouthed to the Bayleef.

	After Chatot got up (which he did so quickly Chik did not even notice), the three Pokémon turned their attention, or rather stood at attention, to the Guildmaster, Wigglytuff, the Guild’s namesake and leader.

	“Hello friendly friends!” The man hadn’t changed in all his life. “I’ve heard a lot of commotion out here! What’s wrong Chatot? Is somebody being a big ol’ meanie?”

	“No sir,” Chatot replied firmly, “but one of our most skilled apprentices neglected their o-obligations to the G-Guild. I believe that s-strict disciplinary action must be enforced, even if they are our best.” Chatot once again pointed his wing, this time at Chik.
Chik struggled to reply before Guildmaster Wigglytuff could make a judgement.

	“Sir? I, um, we were going to investigate some credible reports about mysterious Pokémon in Oran Forest. I know we should have asked for permission first, but-”

	“CREDIBLE? A-ARE YOU SERIOUS?” Any amount of friendliness Chatot had been trying to resurrect with his playful prodding about Jawey and Chik’s relationship flew out the window.

	“C-Credible means backed up with evidence, not s-spouted from the mouth of a Pokémon who still hasn’t graduated in a decade!”

	“Chatot…” the Guildmaster interjected, looking disappointedly into Chatot’s eyes. “That’s not a very nice thing to say, especially considering all that Bibarel has done for the Guild. Who pulled your head out of that tiny barrel of Oran jam during Toxicroak’s graduation party?”

	Chatot winced, remembering that embarrassing episode.

	“Bibar-rel…” Chatot replied, stuttering quietly.

	“That’s right,” Wigglytuff said calmly, a tiny smile manifesting itself across his large face. “You’ve been rather cranky lately, Chatot. Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?”

	“No sir, I-“

	“Oh, come on, don’t play dumb with me. You can tell me anything Chatot.”

	Chik had a life outside of the Guild and its proceedings, so she didn’t have time to be amused even when Chatot himself was being scolded… well, if you could call whatever the Guildmaster was doing to get something out of him “scolding.”

	“Um, sir? May we take our leave now?” Chik inquired to the large, pink Pokémon that was their Guildmaster. Wigglytuff’s gaze immediately shifted to Chik and Lombre.

	“Well, I suppose you’ve had enough. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure this ol’ meanie Chatot understands that it’s wrong to harass our guild’s members.”

	Chatot, now shaking, started to murmur a reply. “I’m-m so sorry sir, I-”

	A sizeable amount of commotion was heard from above, and within a few seconds, a large, blue body made its way down the ladder. Chik recognized it as her partner, but couldn’t think of why he was so out of breath, or sweaty. Also, where was his cast? And why was he out of bed?
The large form that was Jawey paused to take a few rapid breaths, before standing straight and addressing the Guildmaster.

	“Sir, I-We’ve seen some huge ships, we think, off the horizon, coming straight for Treasure Town.” Jawey paused again to catch his breath. A month out of action can do a lot to a man. “I’ve left Toxicroak, Dugtrio, and his son to await their arrival-“

	Just then, a brown head spontaneously popped out of the ground.

	“Hey everyone,” Diglett exclaimed, “I don’t know if Mr. Jaws here explained it to you yet, but-“

	Jawey shot him a glance. “Yes, boy, we’re in the middle of discussing it.”

	“Uh, sorry, Mr. Jawey. Well, the ships got a little closer but they stopped. They sent out a few smaller really fast ships and they’re approaching the beach now.”

	The beach. There was a small port there that could support at most 9 or so smaller trading vessels, but it was nothing like Lively or Caprim City had.

	Jawey was about to say something, but the Guildmaster enthusiastically beat him to it.

	“Very well, we shall honor these visitors with the friendliest Treasure Town welcome!”