The Thief, The Friend, The Victim, and The Savior
Chapter 4
Author's Notes: Well, here's the next chapter. We'll see lots of Hombre here, and we'll move this story along. It seems that something doesn't want me to complete this story. A whole bunch of things have come up, leaving me little time to work on anything much. Once again I almost forgot about this story, but hopefully I can finally get the ball rolling and make some progress. Also, I'm adding some of the new pokemon from Diamond and Pearl in this chapter, and you can expect to see a few more as the story goes on.
Bright and early, Hombre was out on the streets, rustling up some breakfast. He spied the perfect victim as he snuck from back alley to shady back alley, watching the brighter morning sidewalks. A tired-looking Luxray commuter holding a Frost Shoppe donut bag in-between his teeth. The only target easier than a groggy commuter were oblivious tourists, which sadly, were nowhere to be found this morning.
Hombre walked out of the shadows and onto the street, eyeing the Luxray, whose eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
"Excuse me." Hombre stepped in front of the Luxray. The Luxray stopped and jumped back in surprise. People bustled around them.
"Could you take a look at this, and see if it's infected? Thanks." Hombre said this so quickly as he turned around and showed the navy-blue cat his tail, that the commuter had no choice to at least glance at Hombre's supposedly injured tail. When the Luxray leaned closer, Hombre slapped him across the face with his strong tail.
Hombre leaped up, grabbed the small bag of donuts from out of the dazed pokemon's mouth, and leapt into the safe shadows of the closest alleyway. A clean getaway, as far as he was concerned. He would have a much easier time thieving if he could turn invisible, but the sunlight prohibited him from using most of his powers. He was weak in the day, but Hombre lost none of his cunning reflex and agility.
After sitting on a trashcan lid and savoring his breakfast of a chocolate glazed donut and a custard-filled one, Hombre licked his paws clean. He may have been an impoverished thief, but that was no reason not to look as good as he could muster. Besides, people would immediately right him off as a bum if he looked scraggily, and he could not effectively rob them.
Hombre believed that his thieving mentality was unlike any other common thug. He was smart, and he could have been somebody: a constructive member of society. But it was all about the family into which he was born. His mother was a Glaceon, and his father was a Umbreon. He was abandoned when the Scarr Mobsters killed his father. The Scarr Mobsters were the main criminal organization in Goldenrod City, and had been known to make private dealings in Azalea Town and Ilex Forest. Thelonias James Scarr, a Zangoose, led them. Thelonias was the source of all the problems in Hombre's life, up until the point of Regalia rearing her ugly head. Anyway, after his father's brutal execution, his mother fled and left him, along with his father, to die. Hombre, then a young Eevee, managed to survive though. By begging for handouts on the street (nobody would deny a cute Eevee some change) and spending most of his time in secluded darkness, he became a Umbreon, like his murdered father.
For many years, the Scarr Mobsters had been after him, and yet he didn't know why. Could it have something to do with the small rock his mother had given him? But Hombre could not see the significance of a rock. The only reason he didn't toss it away was because it was the one thing that connected him with the family and life he could've had. Besides, there was just something he liked about that oddly shaped rock. It was very, almost perfectly round, and had one thick groove running all around it. The groove widened in one area, and a small circular rise appeared in the middle.
But life goes on, and Hombre could not be thinking about the past again if he wanted to survive the present. He moved on to another alleyway, watching for anyone interesting. Eventually, after finding nothing in the alleyways, he moved out onto the sidewalk, a bit emptier now that most commuters were at work, and most people were up to something in general. He heard sirens begin to blare, and by their steadily increasing volume, Hombre guessed the sirens were coming this way. Some police chase, no doubt.
He walked among rows of vendors, mostly bored with the complete lack of anyone in particular. They were all lazily reading magazines. There were some apples, there was a fish stand selling fried fish, and there was a vendor selling fruits that were less common in Goldenrod City, such as pears and pineapple.
Suddenly, Hombre's quick reflexes and powerful senses told him something was wrong. And when something was wrong, he high-tailed it away from wherever he was. He leapt into a nearby alleyway, just as a siren flared deafeningly loud and a scraping and crunching sound shot through the surrounding area. Pears and pineapple flew everywhere, and a few made it into the alleyway that Hombre was now tearing recklessly down as fruit rained upon him. Then, the noise ceased and the fruit stopped falling. There was a small moment of complete quiet, and then there were shouts and screams. Hombre decided to figure out what had happened.
He inched back out into the sunlight and looked over at the vendors' carts. Several were overturned, and the one carrying the exotic fruits was completely obliterated. The Pinser who manned the cart was pinned between the wall of a bed-and-breakfast and a police cruiser – the one that smashed the cart. The Pinser was invariably dead, and so was the Machop policeman whose body lay mangled on the sidewalk, thrown clear of the cruiser.
Bad driving? Hardly, it seemed. That police chase, whatever it was about, was getting pretty major. And where there were crimes and chaos, Regalia was sure to be there. Hombre thought for a moment, and decided that he would rather like to see how things turned out. But he had no idea where things were headed, and figured it would be futile to play cat-and-mouse with a police chase all day. He snatched up a chunk of pineapple and bounded back into his alleyway.
Oh for God's sake. The stupid Golduck didn't get out of the way. Well, what was Regalia going to do? Stop and go back and apologize to the corpse? She took a corner hard. In an attempt to mimic her, a police are spun out of control and burned rubber across the opposite street. There was no way they were going to get her. These were just naïve policemen. Sure, she could have just payed a fine for breaking into the hotel room instead of turning things into a high-speed hit-and-run chase, but where would the fun be in that?
There was no chance the police were going to get her though, so there was nothing to worry about.
"Is the barricade set?"……… "Well hurry it up then! That Sneasel is going to be coming this way any minute! Also, tell the men to make sure they've loaded their automatic rifles this time!" The formidable Machamp standing behind the hastily constructed sea of sandbags, spike strips, and armored police trucks knew he had loaded both of his rifles.