2.3 - Hold Up

Simmons threw both claws up. He wasn't surrendering to the aipom: he was surrendering himself to the universe, a heartfelt plea to be zapped by Raikou's lightning. Meanwhile the spectacle of my first Xanadu heist left me too excited to be afraid.

"Come on." Sim slapped our table hard. "Just cut it out, Junnie!"

The aipom dove behind the counter and rifled through an unlocked payment box. "Screw…" he threw his tail above the counter. One of its hand digit things, the middle one, stood proud. "You!"

"What's that mean?" I asked.

Simmons drank deep from his coffee. His rage likely evaporated the brew before it ever hit his tongue. "It's a sign of disrespect."

I looked down at my claws. Two giant spikes… two, meaning no middle one. Why was my life so inconvenient compared to everyone else's?!

My anger turned itself towards the thief. Straddling the table, I pointed one of my ineffectual claws at Junnie.

"Get out of here," I said. "We're all having a nice morning."

The aipom popped his head back over the counter. "Yeah? That ugly purple fur you're rocking is giving everyone headaches. Didn't know stupid came grape-flavored."

"Wow. Alright, then. Patrons!" I put on my best commander voice. "On the count of three, we save this coffee shop, and perhaps the world." And my self esteem. "One… two…"

Everyone stared at me. A ruse, of course, to lure the thief into a false sense of security. In reality, my force of caffeinated beasts slavered for me to say one, to launch them into a frenzy. Or maybe my ability to take charge impressed them–

Sim hooked my leg and swept me off the table. I smacked face-first into the wood on my way down.

"Chill out," he said. "We don't fight in buildings. The damages would cost them a lot more than a morning's profit."

"First, ow. Second… seriously, ow. That wasn't cool, dude."

Sim sighed. "Sorry. I hate cleaning up indoor splashes. I like this place, too."

"If you like it so much," I said, "are you really gonna let him do this?"

The sandshrew made for the door. He casually sidestepped a flung mug. The shards rained down from the doorframe with ceramic plunks. "I'll wait outside and give chase."

"Won't he just wait you out?" The aipom could hide out indefinitely, sated on old pastries and stale coffee.

Another mug crashed against the wall–Quil was going to be real pissed she missed all this mug destruction.

His mug trick not grabbing Sim's attention, Junnie hopped up on the counter and shook a small bag of coin. "Try and catch me, you walking egg glue. Or this coffee shop will have to declare bank eruption."

"He's after attention, not money," the sandslash told me. "I'm so sorry. Wait here."

And he raced down the steps, abandoning everyone else to the sound of the barista's snoring.

For my first Xanadu crime, this was such a let down. It bored me to tears! Even the robber lacked investment in his own misdeeds, sitting down on the counter and waiting like a good little criminal.

I threw Junnie a disdainful glare. "This robbery sucks. You suck, buddy." I walked back over to my table and plopped down. "You had such a cool entrance, with the sleep powder and stuff."

A herdier laid a crescent-moon pastry back on a napkin. He scraped crumbs out of the bustle of fur around his chops. "Shucks, I wouldn't consider it too impressive. That sleep powder costs more than he'll likely score from this."

One table over, a squirtle sidled closer. Despite wearing an explorer's guild armband, with its telltale green fabric and badge clip, she chose chitchat over justice. "Hey, speaking of powders, you land that pharmacist gig?"

The herdier chuckled. "Assistant to a pharmacist. All I know are the price tags. For now," he added, chest pushing outward.

Humble!" The squirtle exclaimed. "Just let me know if you ever want to give guild medicine a shot. I can recommend ya to our doc."

A makuhita stepped in and interrupted the pair. Despite his ovalness, the sag in his back was clear as day. "Hey, you're a pharmacist? I've been getting really bad headaches." His balled-up hands weren't suited to a mug, so he drank from the same kind of saucer plate pastry dog did. "But it's not the labor doing it, I guess? I clear the debris left behind after demolitions, and it's tough going. Feels like they're demolishing my skull, too."

"Uh, well," the herdier stammered. "Again, I'm not really a professional–"

"Entei's ember, what is happening here?" A new voice asked, joined after by the click of his hooves on the wood. It was a girafarig, his long neck poking through the door that led to the patio.

"That asshole's robbing the place," I kindly informed him.

The aipom shoved that rude gesture in my direction.

Meanwhile, the makuhita chatted far more than any fella with a headache should be capable of. "I just, well, the team has mini-contests based on rubble poundage cleared. The winner earns a free lunch and everyone's respect. Winning would be neat, but I can't! Not even skipping breaks, all because–"

"All of you shut up," Junnie spat. He gunned us all down with his magical gesture. "You have food all over your mutt face. You're too short to be on a guild team. And you, I hope you never, ever win your stupid contest. Your head is so round and yellow."

I rolled my eyes. "That last one's hardly even an insult."

"It's observational humor, Grape Boy."

The long-necked fellow now wore a long face. "What a scurrilous devil. Shall someone do away with the creature?"

"Simmons-a patroller–is headed downstairs," the pastry dog said. He ducked down and furtively combed his fur over.

The makuhita punched his table. "Pay attention to me! Ever since I moved here, it's been impossible to get noticed for anything. Even when I flat out plead for help, the best I get is comments about my head. Maybe I should rob a coffee store, then someone would mind my headaches."

I stomped over. Sim didn't need two disgruntled attention-seekers wreaking havoc. "You're slowly suffocating yourself, moron. Buy some common energy root, a chesto berry, toss some snow in and smash it all up in a bowl. That's for altitude sickness usually, but it should help here. More importantly? Take your breaks, weirdo. Now what else is wrong? Do you need a bathroom? Need help eating your yum yums?"

He moved his food away from me. "Thanks, jerk..."

"You know, okay, I see it now," Woot said. The rattata had slipped over to the counter, totally nonplussed by the aipom glaring down at him. "You and Sim work nicely together. Seems you've both got a unique approach to helping fellas."

I whipped around. "Listen, pal, I ain't a patroller. I don't work with him." Stupid really did come grape-flavored.

Woot cocked his head. "No, I meant 'work together,' as in da–"

"Hey, Junnie?" The girafarig was back. I hadn't even noticed he left. "The sandslash is downstairs. He says he's ready to beat you up."

Junnie grinned and wiped his nose. "That's what that blob of ice thinks. Shame he wasted money on a coffee, because in the end? He'll still find himself snoozing and losing, baby."

Rather than head downstairs, the aipom broke for the patio. He became lost in the slight surprise of the outside patrons, who shot up and made to leave.

He shot out of the mass of silhouettes. Not down, but up.

He planned to escape using the roofs. The stairs lacked access.

Woot padded over to the sleeping waitress. "Dang. Looks like Simmons is gonna be stuck here all day. But not me-hey, wake up" He shook the audino back and forth. "You got a business to run, orders to fulfill…"

A whole day spent begging a petty thief to come down from a roof: it sounded miserable, and just a little bit unfair. The robbery still lacked excitement, but it certainly heated me up. Why would Xanadu give its biggest fan such a shit deal?

I marched out onto the patio. The cold bit immediately, relieved a tad by the body heat left over from the customers.

Roof's ledge was twelve feet up. Besides a sign about halfway up, there was no other notable purchase in the smoothed stone.

"Dude!" I called up. "Come down here. I just wanna talk."

"Grungy?" Sim called up to me. "Please, Arceus, tell me he's not up on the roof."

I draped myself over the balcony's rail and threw down a sympathetic smile.

The sandslash growled and raised his voice. "Junnie, please, I'm sorry! Don't do this to me."

The robber's shrill voice finally joined us, cast over the roof's ledge. "You forgot about me. This was our time."

"I did, I, I just wanted to have fun with my new friend, okay? I just really, really needed a break from work."

"I'm just 'work' to you?"

Simmons didn't hear those hushed, quick words, but I did.

The next were plenty loud enough: "I'm not coming down!"

A few more bodies up and left the patio, likely not interested in sipping coffee to the sweet music of an active crime.

The girafarig from before also had his fill, abandoning his tall table. "It will take forever for a flying patroller to get here. Whatever happened to this district, it used to be much nicer-excuse me? What are you doing?"

The table made a terrible screech against the wood as I shoved it up against the balcony. "I need this," I said. "Gonna climb up there."

"Doubt it. The aipom used his tail to swing up and onto the roof. You hardly share his toolset."

"It's a cake walk. Watch."

Well, that was a lie. I never navigated a climb in the snow before. I shoved my hind paws against the wood, testing my callouses against the grain. The friction promised to be there for me. But the table? And the sign?

The sign was for the coffee shop, a mug and a saucer sloshing some sort of rainbow liquid. The bright cheery colors, likely to help the sign be seen during heavy snowfalls, shimmered from its layer of frost. The top threatened to be quite slippery. Even the table, inundated in the patio's heat, had a gloss from its varnish.

I mapped out the movement I needed to do, and crouched low. At least if I fell, I could make everyone laugh.

"Excuse me," the girafarig said, "you are honestly going to hurt–"

I sprang forward into a dash for several steps, before leaping up and towards the table. Had to land on its edge. On the outer fringes of the patio I saw the world below, distant, the space between my feet and the packed, hard snow beneath a daunting, yawning gap.

Adrenaline shot through me as my hind legs made contact with the front edge of the table. It amped me right the fuck up, and I let my tongue hang free as my momentum carried me forward.

The first quarter of a second, I planted my weight into my claws, the hard surface skating the wood top. As the end of the table flew up to me, I leaned back, braking with my pawpad.

The girafarig let out a startled cry.

"Ent–"

To him, it must look like I had bungled the whole thing, and was now sitting-and-sliding into a nasty fall. The yelp hit my ears, as I came right to the lip–end of the line. Within a quarter of a quarter of a second, I felt my weight pitch slightly downward.

I leapt. The open air greeted me with its chilly-ass teeth, and as I waited in those instants to see whether I would succeed or fail, I thought about how the worst part of falling would be freezing my ass off for those couple of plummeting seconds.

Luckily, I was pretty dang good at this. Over the last few years, I did my own kind of whittling to my front claws, sort of like how Sul made his pretty figurines. I chipped and pruned, introducing a teensy curve you wouldn't find in your regular old Linoone.

The sign creaked loudly as I slammed into it, my curved claws hooking around its top curve.

"-ei's emb–"

Cool! My dumb ass, planted against a sign four stories high, with the hardest part of my run to come… damn, had I been waiting for an excuse to climb all around this city! My heart drummed twice, hard, and I shot back into action.

Basically, the sign was bending from the impact. It would snap back and buck me off in a moment.

I dug my claws into the sign's top and, hind paws against its logo, exploded upward.

I flew up above the sign, and tried not to be distracted by the sea of colors beneath me. Sim was there, running forward. To catch me. What a kind dude! And the passerby crowded him, the pupils on the biggest species dotting themselves amongst the bushes of shaggy winter coats.

The sign snapped back beneath me. I watched, soaring, waiting for that precise moment to kick downward. Another teensy wobble, and it settled.

"-ers! What–"

My hind legs smacked into the sign. I pivoted as I pushed, throwing myself up into the air and towards the building's wall. Only six feet to go. The kicker? I could go through all this trouble, find out this wall had no friction, and fall anyway.

Luckily, the stone was butt-ass freezing, but climbable. My jump carried me up three feet. Scrabbling against the wall, I scraped together another two. The last hurdle, the overhanging ledge, was one foot away.

Young Grungy, still practicing Grungy, panicked here. He would try to jump up straightaway, afraid of compromising even an inch of the height he'd earned. Young Grungy faceplanted here, giving everyone an impressive yet ultimately tragic show.

Me Grungy, though, was fine. I'd mastered this shit.

I let myself slide down a foot. As my force into the wall tapered off, as gravity started to take me, I gambled everything on my dragging claws. I grinded the wall by claw-tip, earning as much purchase as possible–before, finally, chucking myself upward.

My jaw snapped open, and I clamped right down on the ice stuck to the underhang.

Master Grungy used teeth!

I tugged upward, snapping the ice in my mouth, and stretched my claws for the goal. I lacked a middle one for rude gestures, but they certainly made up for it with length. They hooked onto the ledge, and with one last tug upward, I rolled onto the roof.

"-are you doing?"

Junnie's paws crushed down the packed-on snow blanketing the roof. He retreated and guarded himself with his tail.

"How are you here?" He asked. "How did you get up?"

I threw all four limbs up in the air and let out a celebratory woop.

"Yeah, yeah!" I cheered. "I climbed, baby, climbed right up!" I scrambled around, to peer down at the world below. "Hey, Sim!"

The sandslash was hard to make out from all the white. He exuded a hard to miss air of panic, though. "Grungy, that was dangerous!"

"Thanks! Hey." I nodded back. "Are we allowed to fight on roofs?"

"...Just don't break anything," he answered, after some soul-searching.

There were fliers in the growing audience, who could have just flapped their wings up here. It occurred to me that what I was doing might be illegal. Vigilanteism, they called it.

I wasn't about to let my effort go to waste. I stood up and faced Junnie.

"Think that's impressive?" I asked, stalking towards him. "I used to do that while outrunning whole packs of stained Pokèmon." For effect, I licked the snow from one of my claws. "Thing is? I was fleeing for their sake, not mine. The ones who caught up to me regretted it. So what'll it be, buddy? Surrender, or a quick trip to a whole new world of pain–"

Anyway, his tail-hand slammed into my face. I fell backward onto my back. I marveled at how, like, some snowflakes glimmered like stars, and some did not.

"There's your free hit," I informed Junnie. I wiped my bloodied nose and wobbled back up to all fours. "My steely chops means that you just hurt yourself a lot more than you–"

I saw Junnie shift again, his tail coming from above. Didn't matter how quickly I darted away: the tail moved faster, flying down and connecting with the top of my head before I even had the chance to lean away.

Turned out there was indeed pavement under all this snow. I swam through the powder around me, attempting to figure out the recently forgotten art of standing.

Junnie used type energy to propel his quick attacks. It was child's play, the first so-called 'move' a lot of newbies learned along the way to greater things.

In the cases of a few poor schmucks, the connection between their trifecta-body, mind, and type-proved too piddly to properly 'move' anything.

I was a part of that club. If Junnie didn't fear my bluff, then had nothing else to fear.

He coiled his tail around my throat and dragged me close. I wished I had some energy root and chesto berries with me, to treat my sudden lack of air.

"You're garbage," the aipom snarled. "I'm gonna knock you the fuck out. Then, I'll toss you back down. Don't want Sim to miss his new best friend, after all."

I articulated nothing but a desperate wheeze. My heart, which never quite calmed down from my climb, raced too fast. I couldn't find a calm thought-just the thrill of battle and the angst of losing again.

But maybe I didn't need to.

I flung out my arms and squinted my eyes shut. Quil claimed, right to my face, that my cool purple fur granted me new powers. What better condition to discover those in, than a full battle?

I expected nothing at best. But it was as if, just by thinking about its potential, my recolored fur sparked to life. My hackles tingled with a powerful current, all of me firing on all cylinders to muster up a move.

Even Junnie sensed it coming. He backed away, keeping me at tail's length.

I let loose my mysterious power, letting out a raspy yowl as a freakish sensation coursed through my front paws. It felt as if I had dipped them both into warm honey, except a thousand percent less sweet. The thick warmth coursed along my paws as a current, starting slow, then ramping up the pace.

In the span of a second, it happened. My great recolored attack. Junnie's tail loosened enough to let me breath… but all I'd struck was a funny bone.

"Dude!" The aipom howled with laughter, barely able to speak. "What the heck did you do to your paws?!"

I opened my eyes and looked.

Rather than my curated, precious claws, I now boasted two purple balloons for hands. Each one had three prongs. In fact, they looked familiar.

After all, Junnie had been making rude gestures at me with them just a couple minutes ago.

"Oh fuck," I choked out. "Ah. My perfect c-claws. Are you kidding me?"

I flopped my new tail-hands around. On an instinctual level, I knew their new weight, and how to move each digit as I always had weird mutated monkey fingers. These were my extremities, just… transformed.

Thus, there it was, my awesome new power. I could exchange my claws for hands. A part of me, when I heard Quil explain my recolor, bought into the fantasy that my new look put me on par with everyone else. Instead, I gained a new party trick.

Junnie summed it all up for me:

"That move's trash, fella!"

Except Junnie didn't know. The world ought to know, but it liked to assume otherwise:

I'd scavenged and wormed my way through a war I had no right to live through, and to a bottom-feeding survivor like myself, there was no such thing as trash.

I sparked up the energy again. This time, I recalled Quil in the alley. Her small, sharp claws, and their poisonous jabs into my belly. The honey current returned, and I flung my hands to the tail coiled around my neck.

Junnie laughed at my struggle. Then, he whimpered. Then he howled, as my new salandit stabbers dug right into his tail.

I used the second feature of quil's hands, one that I had never experienced with my own set: grabbing stuff.

I clenched Junnie's tail and-before he could muster up another move-spun it around my wrist. The aipom was still screeching in pain by the time I yanked him into my grasp. I threw my free arm over his chest.

"Sim," I called out. "Cushion me!"

"What?" Junnie asked.

The steps we took towards the ledge were answer enough.

"Dude, no, please–"

My haunches tensed and released, sending both Junnie and me off the roof.

He screamed. I screamed, but mostly because I was having a blast. I spun the aipom around midair, angling his face downward. That way, it could have a proper meeting with the ground.

We missed the patio, thankfully. And Sim heard my callout: rather than smashing Junnie into the street, the two of us smacked right into a giant mound of powder snow.

"Get clear!" The sandslash shouted.

I rolled free of the mound. Junnie popped free, too, pointing at me.

"Are you insane?"

Simmons tackled the poor fella to the ground. I stretched out and grinned.

"I guess crazy comes grape-flavored," I told him.

"It certainly does," Sim grunted. He crammed Junnie's face down into the snow. The aipom let out muffled, defeated cries. "You're lucky I understood what you meant."

I gawked at my salandit-hands, at the long metallic-looking spikes coming from the end of each thin digit. After I was done marveling at them, I focused on my move again. They glowed bright white-then faded back into my tried and true claws.

"Luckier than you think," I said under my breath.