Oscar was the first to wake this time, and he quietly walked out of the dark room so he wouldn't disturb his teammates. The cavern was bustling with activity, and Oscar saw many Pokémon he did not recognize sitting together and eating breakfast. Or was it lunch?
Pleased/welcoming/serene Espeon pinged him. As she walked over towards him.
Pleased/curious/hungry he responded.
Friend/home-longing/favored she returned hungry/satiety/companionship welcoming
hungry/satiety/companionship welcoming/anxious he returned the feeling with some extra.
"Come, let me show you to the rest of our little group." She said as he followed her to the returned team. The Pokémon were talking excitedly, it sounded to Oscar like they were recalling some adventure. They stopped to look at the Espeon and Fennekin when they got close.
"Team Venom, this is Oscar the Fennekin. Oscar, Team Venom."
"A pleasure." Oscar said, inclining his head.
"Oh great, a blueblood. We should get him to sell the stuff." Said a Nidorina, put off by Oscar's greeting.
"Oscar, this is Nidorina. Team Venom's namesake and leader." She gestured to the other Pokémon. "This is Thievul, three guesses for what he does. Drizzile is the soul of the team." The Drizzle lifted his head up to show his neck, a gesture Oscar knew to carry the same meaning as flipping the bird. "And last and certainly smallest, Dreepy the scout."
"Hi Espeon!" The dragon-ghost waived excitedly. Oscar had a black heart, but he had a soft spot for the entire Dreepy line. Such a shame they were so hard to find, he could never get one.
"Hey sweety. I heard you did even better than usual this time."
"Yeah, I killed it!" She flexed her tiny dragon-ghost arms.
I want to hug the Dreepy. I need to hug the Dreepy. Oscar thought to Espeon, he was serious.
Later. She'd love it.
"Pleased to meet you all. And you would not want me to handle the bartering. I would walk in with a TM and walk out without my fur." Nothing like a little self-deprecation to grease the social wheels.
"Heh, maybe you aren't so bad. This the one?" Nidorina asked Espeon.
"This is the one." Espeon confirmed. She sat down with the group and grabbed some food, inviting Oscar to do the same. He joined them and helped himself to all the meats he could get, getting sick of berries.
"I have to admit, you don't look like the world saving type." Nidorina said.
"Or the world ending type!" Chirpped Dreepy.
"Certainly not!" Thievul added, speaking for the first time. Oscar feigned indignation as he continued to eat.
"Well, apparently the circumstances behind our arrival do not match the previous times. I do not think you need to worry about the end of the world any time soon. Besides, the kid is more likely to destroy the world by tripping over a rock and smashing his face on some divine artefact than I am."
"The kid?" Espeon asked.
"Yeah, the other human brought here. Some 16-year old punk with a hero complex. Didn't Gaia tell the others?" She did not, it turned out. "Oh, must have slipped my mind. Another human got dragged here with me and brought his team with him. He ended up as a Riolu."
"Wait, there are two of you?" Nidorina asked, "Has that ever happened before?" she asked her team. They just shrugged. "Is that bad?"
"The kid and his team joined the Guild, and are apparently trying to hunt me down. But the Guild is already trying to hunt you all down, so I do not think it matters that much for your situation here."
"Is it because of all that messed up stuff you did? With the Furret or whatever?" Nidorina asked.
"No, he does not know about any of that. Even if he did, what I did was not a serious crime where I am from." Oscar didn't know this to be true. There was precedent set for poaching lesser Pokémon like Furret and the punishment for that was relatively tame. All the cases of researchers being busted for experimenting on Pokémon involved beloved lines like Eevee or Pichu. What fool would invite that kind of heat? Not Oscar. Pick the Pokémon no one cares about. "Now if I did that to, say, Charmander or spirits-forbid Eevee, then I would have half the world out for my blood. No, the kid thinks I was going to destroy the world, ironically enough. He is wrong of course, but you know how those types get." They all nodded, self-proclaimed heroes could get funny ideas about the motivations of others.
"Hey, runt. I see you met the rest of our little outfit." Boss walked up behind Oscar and gave him a firm pat on the withers, sending him sprawling.
"Uff. Hello, Boss." He said getting back up. "Yes, we were just getting acquainted."
"Good. Now we are all one big, happy family. Nidorina, my den, come. Sableye is waiting." She grunted as she got up, and followed Boss into the center. They passed Cinder, Stumpy and Gaia on the way in, and stopped for a few moments to introduce Nidorina to Gaia. After that, they made their way over to where Oscar was sitting and joined the. Gaia was introduced to the rest of Team Venom, and the new additions joined in brunch, as Oscar found out the meal was.
When Oscar asked what Nidorina and Boss were doing with Sableye, Espeon explained that they were splitting up the loot. Nidorina's team had just returned from a job, where they stole 50 Poke from a Tyranitar about a weeks journey northeast. She Explained that when Luxio and Servine returned from fencing the other goods the outlaws had stored up, there would be a payout for all of them. She said normally newbies would get a pittance for their first few payouts, but that they had impressed Boss with the underhanded way they got the iron and that she expected they would get more than normal for newbies.
Gaia asked what the outlaws did with their money, noting that there did not seem to be much to spend on around here. Espeon agreed, which is why the outlaws would 'disband' for a couple of weeks after the payout. It gave them time to relax and spend their hard earned poke. At a time determined by Boss, they would all meet back up and start the process all over again. Oscar asked who defended the hideout while everyone was gone, and Espeon explained that Boss had a relic from a Zoroark clan that would hide the entrance to their hideout. It only had charge for a month or so at a time, which is why they disbanded for as long as they did. Luxio and Servine would be back in about a week, and while they couldn't leave in that time to protect the hideout they were unlikely to be sent out on another job.
This started a conversation on what everyone would be doing with their time off. Stumpy and Cinder liked to go to Baram town and hang out in Salazzle's tavern. They had a lot of friends there, and by the time they made the trip, hung out a few days and came back, they were ready to get back to work. Sometimes there would be a boat they could charter to take days off their trip at the nearby coastal town, but usually not. Now that they had other members of their team, they were not sure what they wanted to do just yet.
Drizzle mentioned he had a little sister he visited every chance he could, and that he would be bring some money and cool stuff for her.
Theivul liked to spend that time scouting for marks, as this was best done alone. He was married to his job and got plenty of socializing done here. He said that there were Theivul dens all over the continent, and he would visit some of them for more intimate company if he got the chance.
Dreepy just liked company, and would go wherever the largest number of them went. Sometimes that meant a trip to Baram, sometimes that meant staying here. She was just happy to have friends.
Espeon said she would be staying at the hideout. There were some techniques she wanted to work on and that she just couldn't focus on with work on her mind.
Gaia confessed that she didn't know what she wanted to do. She didn't know this place very well, and would probably end up doing whatever Oscar did.
"You should probably take that back, if you do not want to be bored out of your mind. I will be staying behind as well, there is a project I want to work on." The other pokemon's eyes started to get wide, and he moved to elaborate before their imaginations ran wild. "Relax, it is perfectly safe. You will like it, I promise. The only one in danger is Machoke after I blow his mind." They continued to stare. "Figuratively." He stressed. "I want to work on some techniques as well. Delphox are known to use their psychic abilities to augment their pyromancy, and I want to get started on that training."
"When is the last time you took a vacation?" Gaia asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to tease Oscar a bit.
"The winter boat parade, I think. Every day is a vacation day when you love what you do, Gaia." She blew a raspberry, she knew.
"Figures our trainer would stay back when everyone else is having fun and work on secret evil projects." Stumpy joked. "Are you sure you don't want to do something social?" He added.
"I would, actually. But what I want to do will take two weeks minimum on my own and I cannot pass on the chance. The good news is once I am done, I will not need to deal with it much afterwards. I can socialize next time. I guess we will be keeping each other company, Espeon."
"Good, you can help me with my techniques."
"Are they going to scramble my brain?"
"Not likely."
"Sounds fun, I'm in." Espeon laughed.
"Well, I have some catching up to do." Cinder said, looking around at all the evolved Pokémon. "I think I will stay behind as well to train. The tavern can wait 'till next time, we were there not too long ago after all."
Gaia said it sounded like the team was staying behind, and Stumpy reluctantly agreed, but said he would probably take off to visit the nearest village for a few days at some point, he liked to meet new Pokémon.
The Pokémon continued to socialize while eating, no issues requiring their attention. Soon, Boss, Nidorina and Sableye came out of the center carrying some small bags. They walked up to the sitting Pokémon and Nidorina handed each one of her teammates a bag, which Oscar found out later contained five Poke each.
"You tell the newbies what's up?" He asked the group, and Espeon confirmed they had been told. "Good. Luxio and Servine should be back within a week, and we will split the loot then. We are running a little low on supplies, so I want everyone to come back with some. In the meantime, newbies, you are on hunting duty. And no small game!" He stressed, singling Cinder out. "They literally don't have enough meat on their bones. I need Fearow, Marowak and other similarly sized Pokémon to dry the meat right. The four of you should be enough to reliable hunt these." Oscar was surprised, he did not think Boss was the type to get his wingarm's dirty when it came to the more mundane aspects of management. "Don't you look at me like that, Fennekin." Huh, did he make a face? "We're a small group, and while that carries a lot of advantages it means everyone has to pull their weight. Speaking of, we have clean up to do. And by we, I mean you. Waste buckets need to be emptied, and the bones from the last season need to be disposed of."
"Aww," Stumpy protested, "can't Espeon do it? She doesn't have to get near them."
"I would, but I'm just so weak right now, I don't think I could handle the strain." She put the back of her paw on her head and let out an exaggerate sigh.
"There a problem, Fennekin?" Boss said, "Too cultured to move waste?"
Oscar did make a face this time, he was not looking forward to this. "No, no. Waste management is the foundation of any healthy home. But I would like to keep some of the bones around, I have a project I could use them on." Boss didn't look upset, just disappointed.
"No evil projects at the hideout! No doomsday relics! No forbidden rituals!" He accentuated each command with a point. "You want to make an army of tortured ghosts bound to bones, you do that after you retire from the group, and preferable on a different continent. We get enough heat from the Guild and the Guardians as it is." Oscar assured him that it was nothing at all like that, and the bones were going to be burned anyway. Nothing even remotely evil, he promised. Boss reluctantly agreed, but said he wanted most of the waste and bones taken care of before Luxio and Servine returned. Gaia said that they would get right on it, adding mentally to Oscar that she just wanted to get this out of the way. They spent a few minutes going over the logistics on where the waste was to be dumped, where the most common areas to find large Pokémon were and the like.
The team changed their plans a bit after seeing this situation. Perhaps a hundred clay-ceramic chamberpots were stored near the back of the cavern, with a couple of carts used to transport them. Oscar suggested that he and Stumpy work on the champerbots, while Cinder and Gaia worked on the bones. He reasoned that he could move the disgusting things without touching them, and Stumpy could pull the cart as he was the strongest. The strongest at pulling carts he specified, after Gaia snorted. Oscar told the two on bone-duty to leave the older, drier bones behind for him, and the two pairs got to work.
By the end of the day the work was done, and Oscar was really wishing for a bath now. He didn't touch any of the pots, but simple proximity had left a lingering odor. Apparently, they were not expected to get it all done in one day. Usually teams on clean-up duty would space the work out over several days to preserve their sanity, but Boss mused later that they must simply be masochists.
When Oscar asked where they got their water, Boss said that there was an underwater stream pretty close to the cavern, connected by a few hundred meters of cave. Oscar asked where the cave was, and Boss directed Cinder to show him. They got to the stream after ten minutes of walking, and Oscar saw a quickly flowing stream about one meter across and half a meter deep at a dead end in the path they had taken. He thanked Cinder for leading him there, and got in the freezing water to clean himself. His fire typing made the cold water especially unpleasant, but he had standards and resolved to make a habit of coming here as often as he could tolerate.
"Isn't that uncomfortable?" Cinder had asked.
"Not as uncomfortable as being an unwashed cave-dweller." Oscar responded. Cinder got that feeling again, and cautiously joined the other fire type in the cold water. Oscar emerged after a few minutes looking like wet dog, but Cinder came out of the bath with his scales looking shinier and a deeper orange after removing weeks of dirt and grime. Cinder offered to dry Oscar off, and few low-powered Embers later the Fennekin's fur was similarly looking brighter than it had before, if still a little floofy. When they got back Drizzle teased them and asked if they had fun in the cave. Cinder stuttered but Oscar simply laughed and promised they would be in there longer than that if that were the case. Boss joined in the teasing and asked Oscar if he was very practiced to be so confident, and Oscar replied that he was nothing if not cosmopolitan in his tastes.
The outlaws separated to sleep soon after that, and the next day Oscar's team left the hideout to hunt. They spent most of the day scouting the area's recommended to them by Boss, but were unable to find anything other than small game and came back empty clawed. They had more success the next day, and found a wild Marowak den a few hours after leaving the hideout. Oscar used this opportunity to practice his Scratch, which he finally learned the previous night after some coaching, but found the damage lackluster. The rest of the team agreed he probably would not be the strongest physical attacker, and should focus on his special attacks instead. This suited Oscar just fine, it was safer that way. Oscar and Cinder took turns dragging the Marowak back to the hideout, so they could build their psychic and physical endurance respectively.
On the third day, they started to get an idea of what tracks to look for and where their prey would hide. They took a couple of Fearow, Oscar pinning them in place so they could not escape while whoever acted first would finish it off. Team Venom joined them the next day, but soon split off to cover more territory. It was another lean day for them, but Team Venom returned with several Marowak having chanced on a gathering. Boss said they had enough after that, and all the Pokémon in the hideout spent the rest of the time before Luxio and Servine's arrival helping Boss clean and prep the bodies. It was during this time Oscar discovered that the Pokémon of this world didn't use leather, the elastic bark of a few plant species serving the role instead. As no such plants were near the hideout, Oscar showed the Pokémon how to make leather from the Marowark skin and wood ash. They were mortified initially, and he was beginning to get the nickname "Butcher" because of his macabre fascination with the flesh and bones of dead things. Machoke at least seemed to appreciate the knowledge from the get go, thankful he had some more material to fix things with.
Preparing the dried meat continued into the next day, and the leather the day after that. They now had a stockpile of dried meat that would last them several months if supplemented with fruits and seeds, and seven cured Marowark hide that at this point was too tough to cut even with Machoke's iron knife. Luxio and Servine arrived around the afternoon of the next day to much applause, backpacks bursting with goods. Boss took them back to his den along with Sableye, and they spent the next few hours there while the other Pokémon busied themselves with speculating how much they would get and what they would buy.
Finally, it was time to split the loot. The Pokémon were invited to speak individually with Boss, who would remark on their performance and how this affected their payout. Luxio, Servine and Sableye had already taken their share when conferring, and Team Venom was next to go in order of seniority. Espeon and Machoke were next, followed by Cinder, Stumpy and then Oscar.
Boss said he was generally pleased with his performance, and did not have any real complaints. He was happy someone was around to direct the energy of the two previous most junior members. If he had one complaint, it was that Oscar was a little creepy and he should probably be more tactful when suggesting things he should know by now would unsettle Pokémon. Oscar admitted to laying it on a little thick, and agreed to tone it down 'just a bit'. He was sent out with a bag containing 5 Poke, and told that if things stayed the same he could expect twice that on the next payout and that from there it would be strictly performance based. Oscar thanked Boss, and left the den.
Gaia was the last to see Boss, Oscar assumed due to being the most junior member of the group. She emerged a little later to stand with the rest of the Pokémon in the reception area. Boss followed a few minutes later, and stood at the apex of the stairs overlooking the rest of the Pokémon. He gave a short speech once again welcoming their newest members, and congratulating them all on a profitable season. He said that they were to be back in two weeks if they decided to leave, and reminded those who left to bring food back with them.
The gathering began to dissipate after that, it still being early enough in the day to make good distance in the light. Boss made his way to the mouth of the cave, carrying what looked like a wooden Zoroark head with its teeth bared. Oscar was curious, and decided to follow to see how this would work.
"You look like you've never seen a Zoroark relic before." Boss said without turning his head.
"I have not. We knew Zoroark could maintain illusions, but it never crossed my mind that they could imbue and object with that power."
"I'm not sure they can, at least not alone. I think these veiling relics were gifts from a Legendary, because it doesn't seem like the Zoroark clans can make new ones. More's the pity for them they lost this one." The Gabite chuckled a bit, before making it to the mouth of the cave. He set the relic down on top of a stone with a flattened top, and then inserted what looked like a dark stone into its mouth. Oscar didn't notice anything flamboyant to show it was working, but the air did seem to shimmer a bit.
"Those stones are valuable, are they not? You use them to power this relic?" Boss just shrugged.
"This is an impure stone. It has Dark-type energy but it isn't concentrated enough to trigger an evolution. Impure stones like this are pretty common and relatively cheap. A few poke, tops. And I'd say I get my money out of it." Oscar had to agree, cloaking technology like this would command a princely sum back home. A few poke to cast an illusion for weeks was more than a bargain.
"Well," Boss interrupted his musing, "I'm off. Remember what I said, not evil experiments, no undead armies."
"I will try my best, sir." Boss just sighed and left the Fenniken alone. Oscar stayed for a while to watch the other Pokémon leave the hideout, and lingered thereafter to take in the view. Desolate, but peaceful. And entirely too undeveloped. He had work to do, and he would begin… tomorrow. He was still tired, and hungry. Good thing there was a storage room full of preserved meat just waiting for him.