Chapter 2-2

Something Stinks

Chatot tensed as he heard the telltale sounds of Konstantin coming down the ladder. "Welcome back, Team Crusa-" Chatot blinked in confusion, seeing Kon carrying a knocked out Luke. "What-"

"It is not important." Kon replied, reaching into Luke's back to take out the letter. "Cave behind the Waterfall, water trap leads to a hot spring, and Torkoal told us to give Guildmaster Wigglytuff this letter."

The flying type was floored. Not by them figuring out the secrets so easily but the fact that Kon had spoken so much to him. "Well, yes. You two have passed with flying colors!" He took the letter. "Please, wait right here while I give the letter to the Guildmaster." He then took the letter and went in, closing the door behind him.

Kon sighed, putting Luke down and nabbing an apple out of his bag, just a bit peckish, with dinner hours away.

...

Chatot hopped out of the room, trying to hold in the nervousness he felt, seeing the strange charmander counting out coins.

"Someone tried to kill Konstantin." Wigglytuff had a grim look on his face as he said that, still holding Toarkoal's letter.

"W-what?!" Chatot himself couldn't believe it. Yes, Konstantin was violent, rude, and overall an oddball of a pokemon, but he obviously had a good heart. He probably had made enemies but had done nothing to have someone make a death attempt.

Wigglytuff took a string out of the envelope, a string that Chatot realized came from the Water Resistant Bag he had given Kon yesterday afternoon. Only, it was cut in several different places, with only the slightest bit of hemp holding it together.

"His bag was tampered with. Someone tried to kill him with the trial."

"C-congratulations! Your team is now Bronze Rank!" Chatot tried to inject as much cheer into his speech as possible. "In a few days, you two will be able to take more challenging missions and, most importantly, you will be on the list for future Guild Expeditions.

"Why a few days?" Konstantin asked, Chatot cursing the mask slightly for not being able to let him see even the slightest bit of the charmander's face.

"Chatot, we can't let our precious Apprentices get murdered. I will get help from someone who should be able to protect them." Wigglytuff looked pleased with himself, grabbing a piece of paper. "Please make sure that Team Crusaders doesn't go anywhere too dangerous or far from town."

"B-But, how will I explain it to Konstantin?" Chatot exclaimed.

"I trust you to come up with a good excuse." Wigglytuff hummed. "He's not the kind to let a death threat go without retaliation."

Chatot gulped.

"W-well, we have to get the papers to the Guild Headquarters and they have to adjust your paperwork over there according!" the flying type flapped his wings slightly.

"We'll still be able to take missions. Right?" Konstantin growled. "There's a Church that needs building, and we need coin to do so."

"A-a-actually, in order to keep things in order, you will be restricted to simple missions around Treasure Town and Beach Cave for now!" Chatot explained quickly.

The masked lizard looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. The fact that his mask hid his rage did not help at all, in fact, it only made him seem even more menacing.

"H-HOWEVER!" Chatot coughed. "However, you can team up with a higher ranked team to do better missions while splitting the reward with the other team! Y-yes! And with all the friendly teams in town, I am sure you will find a team to help you." Chatot chirped.

The Charmander took a deep, deep breath, before speaking. "Then I will find a team and... Convince them."

"Good! Good! Now off you go, to wait for dinner!" Chatot waited for Konstantin to leave with Luke before exhaling. "Such a scary pokemon…"

[hr]

The door to the duo's room smacked open as Konstantin barged in, dragging Luke with him. First moving over to one side of the room, he let the Pikachu slump into the hay, before closing the door.

He needed to think. And he wanted some quite to do that.

He lumbered over, and sat on his blanket.

So he had faced death. But why did he not feel mortal terror? If anything, it felt...

Stale. As if he had experienced it so many times it had become as dull as a rusty blade. He felt like he should be concerned about that, but he couldn't find himself able to care.

He turned his head toward the still knocked out Luke. At least he felt he could trust the yellow rat. He couldn't even think of abandoning him at this point.

And that odd, godlike being... One who shepherded the souls of the dead. And they both had seen that other Human who had up and disappeared. He had seemed familiar, but it infuriated him that he could not remember why.

Either way, that kind being had given him a mission, and he was more than willing to see it to its end.

With his thoughts settled, at least for now, he stood up and began to leave the room. He'd let Luke rest, he needed it.

But he had a Church to build. Time to, ah, sweet talk some other Teams into letting him join them.

'Threatening' was such a harsh word, after all.

[hr]

Skuntank, Koffing, and Zubat were standing in from of the regular mission board, staring at the one mission that was up there but only available to Bronze ranked teams and up.

Perfect Apple collecting. Five hundred coins per apple, though the price doubled if the larder specifically made for Perfect Apples. After all, no one wanted to see Guildmaster Wigglytuff go without his favorite food.

Which is what the team was expecting to get, having Zubat and Koffing sneak in to steal the Perfect Apples late last night.

"Chief, I got a bad feeling about this." Zubat muttered, looking rather sheepish.

"Well, I didn't see anything last night, Zubat!" Koffing responded, trying to soothe his comrade. "You probably got spooked by that Croagunk guy!"

"Well, he is almost as spooky as that charmander." Zubat shuddered. "But I swear it wasn't Croagunk."

"Bah!" Their leader scoffed, turning. "I saw that charmander the other day. He's probably just a displaced kid from the Northern Islands. All the pokemon from there are weird."

Zubat turned to say something but squeaked in fear instead.

"What is it now, Zubat?" Skuntank laughed. "See a human with a sword?"

The harsh sound of someone clearing his throat came from behind him.

As he turned in surprise, he saw the Charmander, armored, armed to the teeth, and sporting a rather intimidating mask.

"You're taking a mission." He droned. "Since you're Bronze rank, Chatot says I must go with a team so I may help them and split the rewards fairly."

He stomps up to the board, looking at the posted job. After a moment, he gives a huff, before tearing it off.

The lizard turns toward the three poison types, and he gives a thoughtful hum. "You'll do." Is all he says.

With that, he turns and begins leaving. "Let's go. We have packs to fill with apples."

"Wait just a moment!" Skuntank growled out, spitting off a horrible stench. "You can't just order us around!"

"Chief…" Koffing moaned in fear.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Chief!" Zubat pleaded.

"I'm destruction in pokemon form! I'm-"

"CHIEF!"

"WHAT?!" The poison type turned to his two teammates.

"He's the charmander that worked with that wimp!" Zubat explained with a whisper.

"Y-yeah, he saved our hides!" Koffing shuddered.

Kon sat there, rather patiently as the three whispered among themselves. Then, the leader turned around.

"Well, mister…"

"Konstantin."

"Konstantin. It seems we do actually owe you a debt. Going on this mission with you and your little partner tomorrow would be a pleasure, if only to remove the debt." Skuntank was going for something. "However, if you would like to transfer to our team after this, we would graciously accept you!"

An invisible eyebrow was raised.

"I mean, it must be hard to do anything with such a weak pokemon chaining you down, one who's all about following the rules and being nice to everyone."

Kon stayed quiet, actually thinking about what to say. Then, "I will think about it."

To Team Skull, they actually thought that the power hitter of Team Crusaders was actually interested in joining.

To Kon, it was his way of saying, "After our business is done, I will punch you in the face."

[hr]

Luke looked irritated at who Kon had gotten to go with them when he got up the next morning.

"Kon… a word?" Luke walked a little bit a way before whisper yelling, "WHY?! Why my bullies of all the teams you could have gotten!"

"Two of them do owe us their life." Kon pointed out.

"Yeah, but I would have rather gotten them to just leave me alone, not take us to gather Perfect Apples!" Luke peeked back at Team Skull. "I mean, we don't know if they'll actually take it seriously, even with you here!"

"They will not betray us." Kon dryly responded. "If they do, I will-"

"No maiming or killing!" Luke exclaimed. "I don't like them but I don't want them hurt or dead!"

Kon snorted. "Suffer them for one day, so I may build my Church."

"... Fine, but only if they play fair!" Luke looked back at the three poison types.

"Hurry up! We're burning daylight better spent gathering apples!" Skuntank spoke up.

"It is a deal." Kon grabbed Luke and spun him around. "We are ready."

"Good, let's go then!" Skuntank started walking off, Koffing and Zubat following.

Luke groaned a little before starting to follow them.

[hr]

"Mail call!" Pelipper yelled as she landed on the floating wooden house, just a mile off the coast of the southmost Northern Islands. She had a special perch there, since, this was where Rescue Teams who came to help out on the islands rested.

The window shutter popped up with a Psychic touch, allowing the mail carrier inside. "Thanks, Pelipper!" The alolan raichu floated over, placing down a plate of pancakes. "So, how are your kids?"

"Kids are doing fine, oldest recently left to join a Rescue Team." Pelipper responded, taking mail out. "Okay, got a letter for you from your son and one from his Guildmaster. Also, some mail for Swampert when he comes back around from visiting his boyfriend."

"Thanks, Pelipper!" The raichu took the letters, putting Swampert's mail in his In Box. Then she opened the one from her son.

"Aww~! He's gotten to Bronze Rank already." The raichu cooed, still reading the letter. "Konstantin sounds like a fun partner for Luke. I can't wait to meet him!"

Then, she placed the letter in her box with her son's name on it before opening the letter from Wigglytuff.

And her blood went cold at what the letter said.

After a few seconds, she slammed the letter down, surprising Pelipper. She pulled out two more sheets of paper and started writing.

"W-what's going on, Rita?" Pelipper, remembering the only time the former human having that look before was when the dragon incident happened.

"Someone tried to kill Luke's partner." Rita said, her voice filled with steel as she wrote. "Wigglytuff's worried that someone will try to kill him again or go after Luke directly."

"Wha-why would anyone do that?!" Pelipper asked, remembering meeting the adorable pikachu back when he was just a pichu.

"Might be his connection to me, might be because Konstantin is a former human like me, might be for an abstract reason. I honestly don't know and I have to go over there." Rita sealed up the first letter, signing Wigglytuff's name on it before starting on the second. "I have to be there for him. Being close to death is not fun at all."

"But, who's going to take your place?"

Rita smirked. "A guy who owes me big time." She finished the letter, signing a name on it after sealing it. She handed the letters over to the mail carrier pokemon. "One for Guildmaster Wigglytuff, one for Gengar of Team Meanies."

[hr]

"I'm starting to regret this deal, Chief." Zubat mumbled to Skuntank, all three poison types turning to look at the masked charmander, who was busy viciously headbutting a particularly daring weavile into unconsciousness. "He's scaring me more."

"Dude, all she wanted to do was have us do a survey!"

"At least, he isn't aimed at us." Koffing muttered, Luke grabbing Kon from behind and dragging him away. "I really, really don't want to fight him."

"Seriously, we aren't even to Apple Forest and you've drawn blood!"

Skuntank stayed quiet, contemplating their plans for knocking them out. It was looking worse and worse by the moment.

"Kon! Don't kick her! Don't give me that look! She's obviously a female!"

Team Skull turned away, shuddering. "We...we're going to give them the payment."

"Don't beat up the hoppip! He didn't even see you do anything!"

Skuntank was now seriously thinking about rejecting Kon's offer if he actually wanted to transfer to their group. He liked being in charge.

[hr]

The meowth was shaking like a leaf, not really understanding why he, of all the pokemon around, had been conscripted into an Exploration Team.

"You!" The scary charmander had yelled, stomping up to him. "You're going to help fund a noble cause to spread the faith, get in line!"

"B-but.. I-I..."

The charmander didn't seem to like that, and took what seemed to be some kind of weapon and pointed it right in his face, clicking back something on the side of it.

"Get. In. Line."

And that was how he found himself following a crazy charmander, a pikachu, and three poison type pokemon into the woods, apparently to get some Perfect Apples for a reward.

"I'm sorry about Kon." Luke muttered to the meowth. "He's just… really motivated to build a building. Just say the word, and I'll remove you from the Guild Register when we get back."

"You run and I'll shoot you myself, coward!" Konstantin boomed, spinning to glare at the poor meowth through his scary mask.

Luke got in front of the cowering normal type. "Kon! Don't say that! Of course he's going to be scared! You just forced him onto the mission by threatening him!"

"He serves a greater purpose! In the name of the Light, he will contribute to it!"

"You are acting like a complete lunatic! Look past your religion and actually look at the pokemon you're trying to force to help!"

The young meowth was crying at this point, terrified of dying by the charmander's hands.

Konstantin gripped the sides of his head, visibly shaking. "I need this Church, oh sweet Saints, you don't realize how important it is... If I can't get it built, I-I..."

He lets his hands fall to his sides, and after a long moment, he turns back around and begins walking toward the woods.

"We'll talk about this later." He drones, his tone devoid of emotion.

"Okay." Luke sighed, feeling like he had diffused a very tense situation.

Then he saw the look that Team Skull was giving him. "What?"

All three of the poison type pokemon looked away, each of them commenting about how nice the sky/trees/ground/etc was.

Luke just gave them a confused look before helping the poor meowth up, telling him to stay right behind him.

[hr]

After a small incident where Skuntank and Kon almost started a forest fire with their tails, Kon had grumpily agreed to stay in the back, far from Skuntank's stench.

Of course, the trip after that hadn't taken much long, given most of the pokemon there were grass types and the three leading pokemon had a type advantage.

"We should be close to the ripest tree." Skuntank spoke up, having come here before to scout out the best places for Perfect Apples.

"Good. Then we can go on and build that church." Luke sighed, knowing that he'd have to talk to Kon soon about what he had done.

Said charmander was silent, smelling the air. It was thick with the Skuntank's stench but there was something else he knew intimately in the air.

Blood.

"W-What the heck?!" Skuntank suddenly spoke up.

Konstantin ran around the poison type and froze. There were several bloody starly feathers on the ground, along with egg shells and a burnt out campfire, littering the ground.

The meowth was backing up at the scene. "S-s-someone killed them!"

Luke turned his head to try and soothe the meowth before noticing something. "EVERYONE DOWN!" He yelled, tackling the normal type to the ground.

Kon grabbed Koffing and pulled him down while Skuntank jumped on top of Zubat, bullets whizzing by them.

"Well, damn!" A barking laugh echoed from the forest. "I thought we were going to have a good free lunch today!"

Then, out from the forest, came a strange pangoro, only it was wearing a green hood attached to a thick golden necklace. It was also wearing green and tan pants being held up by two black belts, one of the belts holding a strange four ended whip that had dried blood on it. It was holding a smoking flintlock pistol, it's paws caked in dried blood.

"I really want to see what that cat tastes like." Came another voice, as a sneasel and a krokorok walked out as well.

The sneasel was clad in green, shaggy clothes as well, overlaid with some kind of crude leather armor, he sneered maliciously as the two, wicked looking short swords he held glinted in the light, slick with blood.

The krokorok wordlessly growled, he too, was armed. Clad in green hooded clothes like the others, it looked shabbily reinforced with bits of rusted metal. A bandanna concealed the no doubt bloodthirsty grin on his maw, and he leveled a blunderbuss not unlike Konstantin's own at the group of Explorers.

"Eeek!" The meowth was freaking out at the mention of the three pokemon eating him.

"How could you!" Luke shot up, cheeks sparking. "How could you kill and eat innocent pokemon and their children!?"

"Aw, look. Th' rat thinks it's people." The krokorok laughed maliciously. "Sit still, little rat. I was the best at shooting 'em."

"Brigands!" Konstantin howled. "Scum! Killers!"

Quickly upholstering his own firearm, he levels it and pulls the trigger, mercilessly blasting the krokorok fusilier in the head.

"Ah, bitch!" The ground type grabbed at his head and with that, the battle started.

Luke charged right in, the meowth clinging to his back, hitting the pangoro bloodletter right in the center of mass with a Volt Tackle, followed closely Zubat flying up to the dark type's face and using supersonic.

Skuntank just shot a flamethrower at the other two, using Kon's tail rather rudely as a match.

Konstantin charged toward the cutthroat, dagger in hand. But the cruel sneasel was faster, and raked his swords across the charmander's breastplate. Howling in rage, the fire-type headbutted the dark type, and, without mercy, drove his dagger deep into the sneasel's neck.

The pangoro bloodletter let out a deep, bellowing laugh as he viciously whipped at closest poison types with his Cat o' nine tails, raking Skunktank and drawing blood.

Skuntank hissed in pain before noticed Koffing diggin through Kon's dropped bag. "Che!" He smirked before hitting the bloodletter in the face with poison gas.

The fusilier snarled, and fired off his load of buckshot with a blast of fire and sound, raking Luke and missing the meowth. Those two were climbing all over the pangoro, the two using moves every chance they got.

Before the fusilier could get his aim back, Zubat slammed into him, biting his arm. "You little shite!" He tried to rip the bat off, partially succeeding until Koffing slammed into him.

"Whoa-ho-ho!" Koffing laughed before hitting the krokorok right in the face with a sludge attack.

The krokorok was starting to concede that maybe they should have stuck to eating the birds and their eggs.

The sneasel was writhing beneath Konstantin as he gurgled, drowning in his own blood. With several more vicious stabs to the neck as the charmander pinned him down, he finally stopped moving.

The pangoro bloodletter howled in rage, and was able to get hold of Luke, and threw him away, before turning his wrath toward the meowth, raising his blood covered whip.

Luke hit the tree before falling to the ground, motionless… where Kon saw the entire thing happen.

Reacting on pure instinct, the normal type jumped off just as Skuntank slammed the pangoro right in the face with a sucker punch.

The fusilier screamed in pain, and fired off another wild blast of buckshot as he writhed about, blinded.

Zubat started draining the kororok's blood while Koffing attempted to keep the ground type down. As soon as the ground type passed out from blood loss, the two got off him.

"Blech!" Zubat started coughing up the blood. "Tastes like raw sewage!"

The bloodletter grabbed Skuntank when he bit down, throwing the poison type to the ground. He took out his pistol, pointing it right at the downed pokemon's head, laughing. Said laugh turned into a scream of pain, Kon stabbing the dark type pokemon in the back with his dagger.

Another howl of rage left the charmander's throat as he clambered up further, and repeatedly drove his dagger into the back of the pangoro's neck.

As the bloodletter reached for the charmander, Sunktank got up and tackled the pangoro.

It fell, Kon still stabbing it like a pokemon possessed, moving to start stabbing it in the face. He was still roaring when a small voice broke through the hate filled haze.

"Kon...stop…"

Kon's dagger froze right over the dead pokemon's face, his head slowly turning to see Luke getting up. He was wobbly on his feet and he looked dizzy, but he was alive.

He dropped the dagger before running right over to the pikachu and hugging him, not even caring if the electric type winced in pain.

"I'm fine. Might have a bruise though." Luke smiled, hugging the blood soaked charmander back. "It was just a tree."

"Um… is it safe to come out now?" The meowth asked timidly, hiding behind a tree.

Luke gave a nervous laugh at the meowth as Kon broke the head. "Yes, it it."

The meowth slowly came out, avoiding looking at the dead bodies, focusing more on Skuntank eating some oran berries.

"Saladin!" The armored charmander says, as he begins collecting the fallen Brigands' weapons and gunpowder. "You have to bring the Guild here! They must see this! If there are more of them, Treasure Town could be in grave danger! I will stand guard here."

"M-me?" The meowth, now christened Saladin, pointed to himself.

"Yes!" Kon growled. "Now go!"

"Y-yes sir!" Saladin scurried off.

"Koffing, Zubat, follow him and make sure he stays safe!" Skuntank barked.

"Yes, Chief!" The two poison types shot off, following the meowth.

Luke was tying up the remaining Krokorok, making sure he wouldn't die from blood loss as well.

There was a tense silence in the clearing, only broken by the movement of Kon as he deftly grabbed anything of value off the corpses.

"We're even now, okay?" Skuntank suddenly spoke up, confusing Luke for a second before the skunk pokemon continued. "We saved your lives just like you two saved Koffing and Zubat."

"Then the debt is repaid. Besides, we still have a reward to split." Huffed Konstantin, as he handed Luke the bloodletter's pistol.

"Here, Luke. I'll teach you how to use this later." Then the charmander went to gather the rest of the weapons together.

"O-Okay…" The pikachu looked at the pistol, the weapon just feeling weird in his paws.

Soon, they were all sitting down, waiting for the Guild and Officers to show up.

A/N

Ahahahahahahaha, look at those rails we fell off of.

Anyways, Next chapter is going to be a bit of down time for Team Crusaders, mostly dealing with the aftermath of the events here.

Nightmares abound for Team Skull. No last minute theft from them.

Zara?

Zaravan : Brigands have run of these lanes, keep to the side paths, the Apple Tree is just up ahead!

In all seriousness, the Brigands' appearance is foreboding. Where there's three, there are doubtless many, many more.

Left unchecked, any town in the Region is at risk of being sacked and burned.