Yeah, I'm pretty much through with disclaimers by now. But I'll still be sure to say the word at the beginning of each chapter. Y'know, for, uh... reasons. Religious or something? I can't imagine what kinda religion would forbid not saying "disclaimer" BUT.

Patsy wasn't shy about pushing through the crowd to reach the job boards, but Mort and I definitely were. Unfortunately, Mort was the only one who had an idea of what the heck kind of job we wanted. Patsy's growls were not enough to change our opinion. ("Oh no, my attack dropped," Mort said, rolling his eyes. I was confused.) Then I happened to glance at the other side of the room, where there was another bulletin board and no crowd. I pointed it out to Mort.

"Oh. Geez," he said, biting his lip. "Uhmm, that's the Outlaw Notice Board. I don't know-"

"Well, I hope you're happy!" yelled Patsy. "There aren't any more jobs!"

Mort was stunned. "Uhhh... but wouldn't some of those be too high-leveled for these guys?" The thought seemed to terrify him.

"So, ya wanna go check 'em out?" I asked. "The outlaws, I mean."

"Well..." he said, "it's just that..." He winced and trailed off.

"Yes?"

"It's just that these are a lot harder than regular jobs, and we're in a lot of trouble no matter what we choose."

I put on a brave face, trying to lift some spirits. "So when we come back with the criminal, it puts us that much higher on the list."

"Well..." he said again. While he hesitated, I filled the irate Patsy in on my idea. Then Patsy, upon seeing Mort still indecisive, spoke up. "Mort says yes, bounty hunting is bad-a. Scoot." With that, he began pushing Mort toward the board.

"Okay, well, logic dictates that since it's decided we're sleeping here and all that, we have to do something," he finally decided, when he would have taken off to the wall had he not suddenly found himself there. "Right," he said, looking what I considered far too close at each outlaw's poster.

"What's he doing?" I asked Patsy.

He snapped his paw. "Oh, he's probably blind! You see-" He froze, stared at me for a while, and turned away. "Never mind."

"What, you—you don't want to talk about it?" I said, suddenly embarrassed.

"That's the safest way of putting it, yeah."

It didn't seem a good idea to inquire further. Instead, I asked, "So why does he know all this stuff?"

"See," Mort called, "I'm what you'd call a-"

"Nerd," Patsy finished.

"Scholar," Mort corrected, "but I guess nerd also applies. Anyway, here's one. Waterfall Cave. Most baddies should be easy for us. Outlaw's a Sandslash, which... hmm. Two of us are weak to."

Shrugging, Patsy said, "Yeah, so what? It's not like I mind playing hero all the time."

"Um, no," he replied. "Actually, he's immune to electric attacks."

Luckily, Patsy's mouth hung open in shock and gave me a chance to speak. "Like I said. It just makes our victory that much greater!"

Mort almost began another overly long hesitation, but stopped at the extended "well". "Is that Treasure bag properly equipped?" he asked.

I glanced at the bag slung over my shoulder that I probably should have mentioned in chapter one. "What do you mean?"

"Mostly just lots of Oran Berries and Reviver Seeds."

"Uh-huh," I said slowly, digging around. "Lessee. Moon Stone. Apples. And here's the berry stash." Pulling out a handful, I asked, "Which ones are Orans?"

"Are you kidding me?" Mort panicked.

Eventually, we got it all sorted out. Mort gave me a crash course on identifying berries ("You studied instead of fighting and you didn't research this?") and found us short. ("No Reviver Seeds, even.") He also found us short on Poké and, in his words, referring to the rest of my stuff, "Ugh. These aren't even worth selling." Plastering on a grim smile, he proclaimed, "We're doomed!" And he led the way anyway, getting to the cave before we realized we were marching. Of course not literally, silly.

And he was soon humming to himself, stopping only once to say, "No, wait, I think that's the Crystal Cave th-" and then stop in his tracks before continuing as if he had said nothing.

Patsy, with a bored expression, shot a bolt of lightning at the first moving thing he saw. It was a smashing success, flinging the victim Poliwag into the far wall. He was shocked for a moment, but the shock quickly changed to giddy joy as he frolicked about, zapping everything else he could find.

"Don't bother saving any juice for the boss!" Mort called.

"Don't bother letting the rest of us get combat experience," I muttered.

"Oh, yeah," said Mort. "With death on the line, and me being the most effective against the boss-"

I had meant to cut him off earlier, but was a little too stunned for a few seconds. "Death?"

"Okaywell I guess this world happens to be pretty forgiving and stuff, so I guess rest assured, uh..." Before I could speak, he made another sudden subject change. "Patsy, ever thought you should stop trying?"

The Pikachu seemed to have hit something of a speed bump, in that pumping electricity into a Tangela is not very effective. He couldn't seem to come up with any other techniques, and the Tangela, enraged, started slapping him around with as many Vine Whips as he could muster.

"Get in there!" Mort shouted. "Meatshield formation!" He didn't really check for my bewildered look, instead realizing, "Wait, that's me," and charging in between the two fighters. He did his best to block the attacks with his own Vine Whips, but... let's just say was definitely as scholarly as he said. He looked like he was taking a lot more pain than he should have been. I wasn't worried, though. It was surely an elaborate scheme to-

"Do something!" Mort shouted.

Then I started worrying.

I rushed in there as fast as I could, only to to stop as soon as I was in range. "D-do what?"

"You're poisonous! Just spike it or something!"

Luckily, the Tangela was more concerned with Mort as I thought. I almost went for a headbutt, but suddenly remembered I had lost my forehead horn when I evolved. That left the spikes on my back. And so, I turned around and fell over backwards with the impressive battle cry of "Blarg."

Finally the Tangela was out cold. You know what else was out? The stuff that had previously been in my Treasure Bag. Mort, glaring, picked up one of those Oran Berries he had been so concerned about earlier. "Before we take another step, we're discussing tactics!" He stomped a foot to punctuate, squishing another berry. This did nothing to cool his temper.

True to his word, Mort didn't allow us to move on until Patsy had learned he could use his body to attack, I'd learned to bite, kick, and scratch, ("What did you study?" Mort demanded. I bit my lip and had no answer.) and he had taken a few experimental swings with his vines. Then he explained his meatshield tactic, where the least weak (type-wise) member of the team would try to take the hits. Then we had to discuss type advantages for Patsy's sake. Sensing hostility, I convinced Mort to let us go on before he figured out an effective way to murder Patsy.

We stuck together for the rest of the trip, and with our new fighting prowess (not to mention Patsy's head in the right place) we made it without mishap. Well, not any mishap until the outlaw Sandslash.

We all got the hint when Mort started sneaking, and peeking around corners before traveling down them. We were getting close. After a certain peek, he put a claw over his lips just to be sure, silently cursed about something, and motioned us closer.

There he was. Our target. Thankfully, not looking in our direction.

Mort thought for a moment. Then, he pointed at Patsy, mouthing, "Distract."

Clearly, Patsy couldn't read lips.

Barely remembering not to sigh out loud, he pushed Patsy forward, who charged, launched into an unlikely flying kick, and screamed, "Hi-ya!"

We didn't see what had happened, because we had wisely decided to duck back behind the wall, but we certainly didn't hear any sounds of pain except from Patsy.

"Well, well. Another bounty hunter, I see. Why do my foes keep getting weaker and weaker?"

The ground shook. It was probably much harsher in there, judging by the noises Patsy was making.

The next noise Patsy made was "PikaCHUUU!" for some reason, and then the far-too-familiar sound of his zapping.

The noise probably covered ours up, so I tried to mutter something about Patsy, stupidity, and our tactics discussion not fifteen minutes ago, but Mort spoke first. "C'mon, that's our chance! Let's go!" He rushed in, with me close behind.

Patsy finally stopped shooting lightning everywhere, panting. It had done nothing to hurt our target, but judging by his reeling, it did blind him. Mort swung his vines around Sandslash's throat, yelling at me to do something again. Swinging all my limbs wildly, I did many somethings. As many somethings as I could possibly do.

The ground shook again. It was painful. I flew across the chamber and knocked my head on a rock, making myself pretty useless for the rest of the fight. Patsy, who had already taken one of these, fainted. But Mort still seemed to be holding his own somewhat. But his hold was weakening. As he pulled back his vines to get a tighter grip, Sandslash took his chance to slash at his face.

"Argh!" Mort stumbled back, baring his teeth. The look on his face said "I need a new plan," but he had no time to think. And he realized it. He pushed against the floor with his vines, launching himself into a powerful tackle that took Sandslash completely by surprise and knocked him to the floor. Before the latter had time to recover, Mort went into a frenzy, lashing out with Vine Whips until they both passed out.

Leaving me as the only one conscious.

I fed myself one of the Oran Berries, getting an instant surge of energy. I felt all tingly. My head was buzzing as I got to my feet. I was going to have to get used to this.

I force fed the other two berries, and as they spluttered back to consciousness, I asked how we planned to get back.

"We use the Explorer... Badges... Which we got from the Guild when we signed up." By the end, he was hanging his head, having realized what he was saying. "We carry him, then." There was a collective groan.

We changed it to dragging fairly early on. Dragging by two of us at a time. The other watched our backs and swatted Sandslash whenever he woke up. Which was a lot. Mort didn't do much dragging, but I guess he did have the best type advantage around here. Basically we got out unscathed. Or without further scathing.

By the time we got back to Wigglytuff's Guild, I didn't even want to move anymore. Mort didn't seem too sprightly either, but Patsy pushed us on. He was awfully energetic for having been the only one knocked out earlier today.

Chatot was busy looking unimpressed at everyone else's work when we arrived, and dismissed everyone to meet their clients inside. Well, it was definitely a good sign he was unimpressed. "Hey!" Patsy called as Chatot hopped inside after them.

Chatot turned. "Oh, I must have missed-" Then he saw Sandslash. "Y-y-you—you were the ones who went after Sandslash? And you did it?"

"Yup." Patsy grinned smugly.

Chatot fluttered in surprise, trying to spit something out. "Admirable!" he finally said. "I believe Magnezone is still here. I will inform him." He hopped off, still in shock.

"Team pose!" Mort cried, squatting down with a huge grin on his face. Patsy seemed unamused. I just giggled. "We'll need to work on that, too," Mort mumbled.

Well, to make a long story short, we were hired. We were awarded Explorer Badges and Treasure Bags, and even given our own room. ("That's not awkward at all," said Patsy.) And to top it all off, we weren't even late for dinner. "Get to sleep. You will be up bright and early tomorrow morning," Chatot advised us. Of course, we were pooped anyway, and needed no prompting. I myself was asleep before I even hit the bed.

Author's notes:

Gee, has it really been almost a month? Well, now that school's out, I'll have plenty more time to work on this. I'm looking into experimenting with it a little. Probably have one chapter=one day. Maybe switch the point of view. I'll definitely try to get at least one chapter a week. Again, I love reviews and I'm not afraid of flames. See you next week!