Crime Sometimes Pays

by FallenKoala

Giovanni was expecting the latest experiment to provide him with powerful and rare pokemon. It ends up spitting out a strange man instead. Never one to waste an opportunity and a chance to recoup some losses, the boss puts him to work as a new grunt and test subject. Team Rocket's newest employee must find his place in the team, without screwing too much up in the process.

12. Chapter 12: Foreign Man Ruins Everything

AN: This chapter is where the fic starts to earn the 'M' rating, heads up.

---

John found himself on another mission stuck guarding a truck again.

'Least this time it's in a lumber yard instead,' he thought to himself while he gave the gloomy insides of the large shed he was standing in another lazy sweep of the flashlight. Pallets of processed wood planks sat shoved up against the tin sides, covered by plastic tarps of assorted colours while a row of fixed saws and woodworking equipment took up most of the floorspace in the middle.

Lumber operations had been temporarily halted for a month as part of some local environmental ordinance, at least according to the B-rank agent in charge of the small team of Rockets now calling the yard home for the night, and that combined with the location nestled away in the middle of a forest ten minutes' drive from the main highway down a dirt road meant that any unexpected visits from nosy trainers were unlikely. The only other place of possible interest nearby was an old quarry that had seemed inactive as well, located in-between the yard and the small city that was the target of the night's job. A good hour's drive away apparently, with the B-rank leading the main bulk of their group in the actual thieving which left Vivian in charge of just him and Max in the slightly eery lumber yard.

Even the power to the place had been shut down, leaving them reliant on flashlights and the full moon for lighting.

Wood chips crunched under John's boots and he flicked his torch off as he approached the short end of the shed. Going purely off moonlight the grunt stuck his head out through the open loading bay doorway to peer around the outside yard. It was surrounded by a study wire fence and was just occupied by the piles of uncut logs stored in neat piles under more tarps, but he still wasn't game to just step out and wave a light around despite the isolation.

While the immediate area around the yard was cleared of forest with only grass and stumps dotting the ground there was still plenty of activity in the surrounding trees despite night falling a few hours prior. Chirps and hunting cries of nocturnal creatures seeking prey, clattering branches and brushing leaves, even faint buzzing that sounded like it came from an insect far too large considering the distance the sound carried. Despite his admitted fondness for huntsman spiders John wasn't exactly keen to meet whatever insectoid beast was lurking in the dark or for any stray torchlight to attract any giant moths. Max had told him about some of the bug types that thrived in the Kanto forests during the van ride to the yard earlier in the day, and while he had said that the majority of them were fairly chill most of the time save for the apparent flying-cunts that were beedrill, it hadn't exactly put John's mind at ease.

Large butterflies and moths the size of dogs spraying poison and paralysis powders were intimidating enough before learning that some were also able to use 'psychic' attacks like telekinesis and fucking laser mind-beams.

"Maybe it's for the best that Weave and Viv are on outside patrol duty," John muttered to himself with a final glance around the still-empty logging yard. The more he learnt the about the magical creatures that shared the world with the local humans the more he started to question his own reluctance to just give in and get one of the little buggers for himself. Sure he hadn't even gotten a handle on effectively controlling a rattata, apparently 'the' iconic poke-noob starter, but if it came down to swallowing his pride and just learning how to with the alternate options potentially consisting of being set on fire, frozen, being tossed around by a psychic, or just going through a good old-fashioned mauling…

'Least I have something for now in the meantime.' He gave his right pocket a quick pat with the thought, feeling the bulk of the full-sized pistol nestled within. Or at least he assumed it was a full-size handgun compared to a compact, he hadn't exactly seen any others that existed in the new world yet and he didn't exactly have the option of asking about firearms or searching it up on the internet like he could before. He had a figured out some things about it during a few late-night sessions of finger-fucking it and reading through the manual of the maintenance kit that had come with it though.

For starters, despite looking somewhat like a black and generic Glock-brand handgun it still had a manual safety lever on the side and single-stack magazines, meaning that despite being a nine-millimetre it only held ten rounds with an additional one in the chamber. The bullets seemed to be fairly normal, lead core with a brass jacket, nothing fancy but at least they were familiar. On that point John was still relieved that the metric system and by extension the designation of ammunition sizes seemed to match up with his previous world's, last thing he needed was for his extremely illegal firearm ammunition to be measured in something like 'poke-feet'.

It was however only a nine-millimetre, not that he himself would find particular comfort in that fact if he was the one being shot with it, but the internet forum autists and real-life gun-nut friends he used to rub shoulders with loved to talk about how you'd need at least a ten-millimetre or God's own forty-five to not just tickle the PCP-ingesting druggo charging at you. John had yet to verify the presence of PCP or even a Panadol equivalent yet, but he guessed that a man-sized fire-breathing lizard or a giant snake made out of rocks would probably be at least around the same level of resilience and danger.

Not that he ever intended to actually try and shoot a pokemon unless it was a dire emergency, that is. Partially out of concern that it wouldn't actually do anything for bullshit magical reasons except make the targeted creature even more pissed off, and partially because he doubted that he could bring himself to try and kill one of the disturbingly sapient creatures.

It wasn't like his previous experiences of hunting rabbits, camels, and culling feral pests like dingos and wild horses. Pokemon weren't just simple animals, he'd managed to hold a semi-conversation with Weave and even a rodent pokemon like Ratterick could understand the words he said with acknowledgements communicated back with body language and adorable squeaking. In John's mind they were closer to aliens than to the animals he used to know, even if 'animals' were the role that they seemed to fulfil in his new homeland.

Plus all of the ones he'd met so far had been pretty bloody cute, even the angry ones with spikes and the Max-bothering gremlin. Now feral camels, those he could dome with a thirty-oh-six without a hint of remorse. As ugly as they were mean. Disgusting creatures.

Bolstered by the comforting presence of the handgun regardless of the technical concerns, and further emboldened by the reminder of just how much he fucking hated camels, John returned to the dark interior of the main lumberyard shed with his flashlight flicking back on. His quick check complete, he made his way over to the far end of the shed where a small delivery truck and single grey van were parked side-by-side next to another closed loading-bay roller door. As he approached a figure jumped down from the rear of the truck through the single open door, another flashlight beam washing over him.

"Nothing?" Max asked after quickly pointing his light away from John's face.

"Nothing. All clear still." Stepping over towards the truck and standing beside the other uniformed grunt, John shined his torch into the cargo space. "Everything still accounted for in here?"

"Of course. Ratterick and I've been standing guard as ordered."

The mentioned pokemon was the first thing John's light illuminated in the rear of the vehicle, Ratterick's red eyes and white pupils glinting along with his pearly-white teeth. Predictably the rodent had much better vision in the dark than the pair of humans, making him ideal for guard duty even if he wasn't exactly intimidating on a physical level. While sitting down on his haunches the rattata smiled at John and raised a forepaw up to his head in an attempt at a salute, the squeaky 'tatta-tat!' said with a puffed-out chest and a nod towards the items already safely stowed away.

There wasn't a lot stashed in the truck yet, a few members of the stealing-team only having made one trip back to the lumber yard to drop off an initial haul roughly an hour previously before heading back to Pewter City, but thankfully this time it wasn't a bunch of pokemon that they were after. Instead there was just a few wooden boxes and crates, sealed and marked 'fragile' alongside a heavy-looking metal cannister that was labelled 'Fossil Sample Three-A'. The only other item was the strangest of the lot, being a fairly sizable black cone that looked to John like the tip of a space rocket.

True to Team Rocket tradition himself and his two friends hadn't been told anything about the actual theft target apart from the expected 'guard the truck' and he didn't have a clue as to their objective aside from 'steal stuff from somewhere', but if the higher-ups wanted to raid rocket factories and museums then it was fine with him. Boxes and rocket parts were easy and quieter to load and watch over than unhappy pokemon after all. Although the first 'dream team' assignment was shaping up to not be as exciting as the trio had been expecting their first shared mission to be and none of them knew exactly why they were there, at least they were left in the dark together without any other grunts being present to try and lord over them. It had almost been relaxing, even with the lack of lights and the surrounding forest being filled with magical insectoid monsters.

Satisfied that everything still seemed in order John smiled and nodded back at Ratterick before flicking off his flashlight, leaving just Max's one left as the single light source. Stepping back from the truck's loading door he stood beside his fellow grunt and watched the younger man draw a few random patterns with it on the metal ceiling high above.

"Don't suppose Viv popped back in to say hi?"

Max shook his head, attempting to make a pattern in the shape of a pokeball with his torchlight. "No she didn't, she and Weave are probably having too much fun stalking some poor pokemon or slinking around in the bushes outside." A smile and a light huff of amusement. "Besides, no way would she have come back without giving all of us another 'inspiring' motivational team speech, that wouldn't be like our 'cool team leader' at all."

"I 'spose so," acknowledged John with a light snort of his own. "And here I was thinking that the designated team cheerleaders were the ones in charge of team moral."

"Rattata-ta! Tatta-ta!"

Max glanced away from the light on the roof above to look back into the truck, and John couldn't help but grin at just how indignant the pokemon sounded.

"Oh yeah I know Ratterick, we had no say in the matter at all." Turning to John, Max sighed. "No point arguing with her though, when Viv makes up her mind that's the end of it. Just be thankful that she made you support mascot instead."

John's gloved hand was halfway into his left pocket to fish around for a snack, and he paused to tilt his head at that.

"How is that any better?"

The following scoff from Max seemed amused in nature, but there was a slight undercurrent of actual concern.

"She probably won't try to make you decorate your uniform with sequins and glitter. Probably." John didn't fail to notice Max shiver, the beam of light aimed at the ceiling jittering when the hand holding the torch shook slightly. "You want to know a quick pokemon fact? Tauros don't like glitter. Or sequins. That's one bit of information that I didn't learn from a book." With that Max returned to sweeping his torchlight over the support beams of the roof above them, but he seemed to be distracted with his attention elsewhere and his stare glassy.

"…Righto then." Taking hold of a protein bar, John busied himself with opening it while he waited for his co-worker to return from whatever hooved hell he was mentally reliving. Taking a bite he tasted some sort of unidentifiable fruit flavour alongside a hint of spice, Max jolting with a start and a quick shake of his head a few moments later. Mouthing something silently to himself the young grunt returned his focus to John, an eye raising as another bite was taken from the bar.

"Another one already?" Even if it was judgemental, the observation was accompanied by a slight smile. "How can you even fit that many into your pockets?"

John paused mid-chew, well aware of the contents of his pockets that night.

"Trade secret," he answered with a nod and a swallow. Shifting the half-eaten bar to his right hand alongside his torch he slapped the remaining stash in his uniform pants. "You're not packing enough protein in your pants unless randoms on the street are asking you if you've got something in your pocket or if you're just happy to…"

He didn't finish, bar frozen near his mouth as he strained his ears.

"What?" Max asked, before he too froze as his ears picked something up. Barely audible, even with the wind pretty much dead and the shed silent save for them and the occasional groan of metal.

Then in the sudden lull of conversation they both heard it again.

A click. Clunky. Almost mechanical.

The half-eaten protein bar fell to the ground as John whipped his flashlight up and flicked it on in one motion, aiming it towards the far end of the shed where the open doors led out towards the main storage yard. The light illuminated the pallets loaded with tarp-covered planks and the assorted machinery in the middle space, the grunt holding the torch sweeping it across the indoor space in a horizontal motion.

Max was a little slower off the mark but he quickly recovered with just a tiny fumble of his own torch. The ceiling was abandoned as his beam of light joined John's, although rather than a steady scan he instead darted it from pallet to standing saw to pallet again as they both searched for the sound's origin.

"Viv?" hissed Max, more to John than in any real hope of it actually being the third member of the group. "Or Weave? Playing a prank?"

"Better not be," John murmured under his breath just audible enough for Max to hear. "One of the bug types from the forest, or a bird?"

"Or a ghost maybe."

John's torchlight passed over another standing saw, the teeth of the serrated disk glinting under the light. "Ghosts aren't real, Max." As soon as the name left his mouth he was already second-guessing himself. "Right?"

The answer from Max as the younger grunt focused his torch on the far-right corner was not the one John wanted.

"Ghost ghosts maybe not, but ghost types certainly do. Ratterick!" At the whispered hiss of his name the pokemon deftly leapt out from the back of the truck with his paws barely making a sound on the metal. Landing almost silently on Max's shoulder with only the faint rustling of cloth, John could just see the pokemon's vibrant red eyes out of the corner of his vision. Evidently the pokemon had overheard them or picked up from their behaviour that something was amiss, Ratterick's purple ears twitching rapidly as he followed their line of sight out towards the middle of the shed. "If it's a ghost type then at least we can hit it with Ratterick's Bite attack, it's not much but it's something."

'Bite the ghostly spectre' wasn't exactly a plan that John would normally class as reassuring, but he wasn't about to doubt Max's knowledge of pokemon considering the lack of his own. Reshining his light back towards the left side of the shed, he just managed to catch a shimmer of one of the tarps covering a stack of planks shift slightly. He wasn't sure if it was a result of the bright-blue material catching the light or if his previously hampered eyesight had improved along with his general physical health, but he was certain that something had just moved near the pallet. Keeping his torch moving as if he'd failed to notice the oddity, he held it steady on a stack of planks a few rows before the area in question.

"Ratterick, Max," he whispered out of the side of his mouth. The only indication that the large rat had heard him was a twitch of an ear and the flash of a white pupil glancing at him, and Max likewise remained quiet but nodded ever so slightly. "Two stacks back from the one I'm pointing the torch at, the blue tarp covered one just before the green one. Don't act like it, but I saw movement. We should check it out."

"Ratta," came the hushed squeak in reply.

Thankfully Max had the sense to not dart his torch over to the indicated pallet at the announcement, instead the young grunt lifted up his left hand to lightly brush a finger on Ratterick's shoulder.

"Ratterick, you're up. We'll be right behind you."

After a quick nod to his master the pokemon dismounted from Max's shoulder, some sawdust disturbed by his landing but the sound essentially inaudible. Keeping away from the torchlight the rodent snaked off towards the left with his curled tail bobbing in the air behind, John and Max both holding their breath while the intrepid rattata stealthily navigated his way around pallets and table saws to disappear into the gloom.

A few seconds passed in relative silence, no hint as to if Ratterick had found anything amiss. Slowly John opened the side of his mouth in preparation to whisper to Max if they should move up and check themselves. "Hey-"

A high-pitched squeal echoed around the metal shed, both grunts unable to stop themselves from almost jumping out of their skins. A figure tumbled out from behind the pallet John had pointed out to Ratterick, the shriek of alarm giving way to a grunt of pain as a limb smacked against the metal base of a standing saw. Twin beams of torchlight homed in on the uninvited guest as the pair of Rockets tried to figure out just who or what they were dealing with.

Thankfully neither ghost type nor apparently an actual ghost if the meaty smack against table saw stand was anything to go off, the pair of grunts instead found themselves staring at a man dressed in a pair of dark slacks and a brown trench coat. With the matching brown fedora knocked off his head in the tumble they could see that his short cut hair was starting to thin, and the torchlight glinted off the odd silver hair in the stubble around his chin. What caught John's attention in particular was the large camera with a fat lens hanging off a strap around the interloper's neck, the black device certainly not one that an amateur was likely to carry around. Even in his fall the man had shielded the camera from damage with one hand, the other grasping the clasp of the small satchel bag slung over a shoulder.

"Rattata!"

The reason for the man's shock darted out from behind the pallet he'd been hiding behind. Ratterick, hunched down low ready to pounce as he fixed the intruder with a glare, twitched his curled tail as he repeated the name of his species with heavy focus on the 'R'. The squeaked growl from the rodent was more adorable than intimidating to John, but then again he wasn't currently the one only a few metres away from the pokemon's sizable twin fangs. The unknown man certainly seemed to hold a similar opinion about said teeth and scrambled backwards with the sawdust on the floor sticking to his clothes, the hand not guarding his camera slamming down to the floor in an attempt to push himself up to his feet.

As the intruder did so with Ratterick taking a step forwards and squeaking at him again John managed to recover from the surprise, Max a second behind as the two of them remembered their mission orders.

"Oi!" shouted John with a finger pointed squarely at the man, not that it would likely be seen with the torchlight directed at him. "Who the bloody hell are you!?" The person addressed froze halfway up off the ground, wide blue eyes tearing away from Ratterick to stare at the two equally surprised grunts. "Yeah, you cunt! What the fuck do you think you're doing sneaking around in sheds at night spooking blokes!?"

The man quickly glanced to Ratterick then back to John and Max, his mouth opening to speak but then closing a moment later with nothing said but a strangled grunt of confusion. John meanwhile took a step towards the interloper, his voice conveying all of the irritation that was lost from his glare thanks to the aimed torch.

"Come on then, out with it!"

Max joined in before an answer could be coaxed, the younger grunt pointing at the camera around the man's neck. "The clicking sound, he was taking pictures of us and the truck!" All four pairs of eyes focused on it, the stranger going pale.

"Yeah, I think he was." Taking another step forwards, John let out a huffing snort. "Stalking people and playing candid camera is pretty messed up, and probably illegal too." Not taking his eyes off the interloper, he remembered to try and not use real names. "Mate, your thoughts?"

"The camera." Lowering his torch but managing to sound far more sure of himself than usual, Max gestured with his hand towards the mentioned device. "Hand it over, please. You can't just- hey!"

If John's initial shouted challenge had frozen the man in place then Max's polite request lit a fire underneath him, the trench coat-wearing individual jumping up from his crouch and bolting for the open doors leading to the outside yard. The fedora was abandoned and left behind in the sawdust as the owner made his escape, and Ratterick rushed past it to give chase a moment before he was commanded to by the pair of grunts breaking into their own pursuit.

"Use Tackle Ratterick!"

"Sic him Rat!"

The stranger had a good lead on the pair of humans as they navigated around the stationary woodcutting equipment while trying to keep their torches up, but he wasn't fast enough to outpace Ratterick who was unhampered by the dark. The pokemon's small size enabled him to deftly duck and dodge around any obstacles in the way as opposed to extra care the humans involved had to take, the purple rodent leaping over a cluster of power cables snaking across the floor and catching up to his quarry a few paces before the open doors leading out to the lumberyard itself. With a cry of 'Tatta!' he launched himself square at the fleeing man's back, who grunted and stumbled when the pokemon smacked into him with great force.

Even though rattata weren't the largest pokemon around the tackle attack proved to do the job, the human tumbling forwards with Ratterick digging his small claws into the back of the brown trench coat to follow him down. Unlike when he was first discovered however the unknown man handled the fall with far better grace, and he landed and rolled off his shoulder with the precious camera shielded from the impact by an arm. There was still Ratterick to deal with however, the normally reserved rodent rapidly squeaking and gnashing his teeth while scrambling over the fallen human in an attempt to get at the same device.

"Hang on Ratterick, we're coming!" John shouted out as he dodged around a row of bins meant for discarded branches, Max somewhere to his right with his flashlight's beam jittering everywhere while he ran. He had dropped his own torch quickly into the chase after nearly catching it on a stray dangling power cord and so was left with just the moonlight for illumination. Thankfully it was enough to avoid running straight into a table saw or any of the other power tools, and it grew brighter still near the open side of the shed were Ratterick and the stalker guy were currently squabbling on the floor. As he raced to help out the pokemon member of their team, John managed to catch a glimpse of a hand reaching into the unclasped pocket of the sturdy leather satchel. "He's going for the bag!"

John, and likely Max and Ratterick as well, had been expecting the man to bust out a pokeball or similar to release his own pokemon to aid him in fighting the rodent off. Such was the norm so far. As such to say it was a bit of a shock to see the man pull not a ball out from his bag but instead a bright yellow handheld object that was vaguely rectangular with two glints of metal on one end.

Ratterick was the only one of the trio to get a flashed glance at the device close up, front teeth dug into one of the sturdy camera straps as he scratched at the man's white undershirt with his claws, and he was just able to make out the smiling face of a pikachu right before it was thrust at him. He felt two stabbing pricks of pain lance into his chest, but it was nothing compared to what came a second later with what felt like a thunder shock hammering into his torso.

"Ratterick!" Max cried out from John's right while the pokemon's screech of pain echoed around the inside of the shed, accompanied by the rapid zapping of a high-powered stun gun and the smell of burning hair. A yellow arc of energy seemed to zip right through the hapless rodent as he twitched and spasmed on top of the stranger, sending his fur shooting straight up and even causing his normally curled tail to go stock straight. John's left hand smacked against something in the gloom but he barely even felt it as he found a burst of speed, and he closed in on the man in the trench coat as the stranger pushed the still twitching pokemon off his chest to scramble to his feet. The stun gun clattered to the floor to land beside the fallen rattata, its owner already resuming his escape and bolting outside into the yard.

John followed, racing past Ratterick and ignoring the downed comrade, half in confidence that Max would stop to help the poor bugger and half in desire to chase the one responsible down and give him a solid thrashing. Said rodent-roasting runner likely guessed most of the large grunt's motives when he gave a quick backwards glance over his shoulder, his eyes going wide and his already speedy sprint quickening when he spotted the mass of angry grunt somehow still hot on his tail.

"You fucking Cunt!"

John's words were also not de-escalating the situation, nor were they providing a compelling argument to just stop and give up peacefully.

Unfortunately for the pissed off grunt and despite his newfound fitness, stamina, and invigorating anger, the man responsible for sneaking pictures of him and electrocuting his friend's rat was apparently used to running the fuck away from dangerous situations. The gap between the two started to widen as they ran straight through the empty yard, the sound of a pokemon being recalled into a ball confirming that Max had indeed given up to look after his four-legged friend instead. There were no more backwards glances from the stranger who was focused straight ahead of him. Or rather, on the pile of stacked logs that formed a convenient 'staircase' of sorts right up against the tall wire fence.

'Shit!' John mentally cursed as he realised the man's plan. 'If he gets over and into the forest there's no way we'll track him down! He'll have evidence of us and the uniforms, the truck, and whatever the fuck else he's got!'

He wasn't about to let some scummy night crawler torpedo the team's first mission together and run his perfect track record in one foul swoop, the guy had to be stopped.

For the Dream Team.

For Team Rocket.

Most importantly, for John's continued good-grunt shield against the consequences of his own actions as well as the resulting scorn from the Boss.

'No other option then.'

He honestly surprised himself when he managed to not fumble or otherwise fuckup when drawing the handgun from his pants pocket, all of the hours spent practicing in front of the tiny mirror in his small ensuite while misquoting Dirty Harry, Tony Montana, Schwarzenegger, and Forest Gump evidently paying dividends.

Coming to a stop with one foot forward and gripping the weapon with both hands he raised it up before him, his thumb taking half-a-second to flick off the safety while he tried to aim down the sights at the fleeing target. The gap between the two was now at least fifty metres away, the stealth photographer having almost reached the pile of logs that would allow him to make it over the fence with satchel bag swinging by his side and the incriminating camera still clutched to his chest. With pistol outstretched a tiny voice in John's mind questioned whether a shooting was really the right way to address the problem just as he went to pull the trigger.

It was drowned out by the bang of the primer igniting and the resulting crack of the bullet leaving the barrel, the used cartridge ejecting out to his side while the slide slammed back to re-chamber the gun with another round. The whole process only took a second, but to John it seemed to play out for far longer while the aftermath rang in his ears. The gun had barely moved in his hands apart from the slide and a slight jolt, and it was almost like watching in slow motion as the man he'd just shot at twisted mid-run and collapsed over onto his side in the moist dirt.

There was a brief moment of silence with even the noise from the surrounding forest seeming to have paused momentarily. Then the screaming started.

The intruder shouted and yelled in pain and shock as he rolled on the ground, camera forgotten as both hands grasped his injured leg with a patch of deep crimson already spreading through the black material of his pants. Spreading rapidly at that, along with almost rhythmic pulses of bright red blood spurting out from between the fingers to splash down on the dirt. A perfectly skilled shot just above the knee, no way was he going to be climbing any log piles or jumping fences now. Or at least it would have been a perfect shot, if only for the fact that John had actually been aiming for the centre mass of the man's back and nowhere near the leg he had actually hit.

"John!"

Gun still held out before him, the large grunt didn't move or respond to his colleague's stammering cry. He wasn't even aware of Max rushing up behind him until the younger Rocket peeked out over his shoulder with a gasp and his face ashen, John's own eyes locked on the bleeding man rolling on the ground while the shot stranger grunted and groaned.

"John!? John what did you do?" Voice dropping to an unsure whisper, Max's eyes continuously flashed from the man on the ground to the gun in the other grunt's hands. "John? You… you…" The blonde grunt's breaths started to speed up and the question devolved into pained wheezes and unintelligible stammers of disbelief.

Meanwhile John still hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from the man in the trench coat, the flow of blood from the bullet wound not slowing down as more of the vibrant vital fluid pumped out to soak into the damp earth. The stranger's movements started to slow, the rolling ceasing while the unfortunate photographer's breaths started to pick up in pace just like Max. Only these were interspersed with grunts and agonised yelps rather than panicked whimpers.

John opened his mouth to reply to Max, vaguely aware that the lad seemed a little put out by how he had decided to prevent their stalker from escaping, but any sort of excuse or cobbled-together explanation died in his throat before it could come forth. Closing his teeth back together with his mouth all of a sudden feeling very dry, he stared at the moaning shooting victim for a few seconds longer. Then he felt his grip on the handgun relax, John lowering the weapon as he swallowed the lump in his throat before finally saying something.

"I shot him, Max. I shot him with a gun."

If the strangled whine in the back of the other grunt's throat was anything to go off, the verbal and very blunt confirmation of what had happened wasn't exactly reassuring. Additionally, it was exactly then that the final members of their sentry team finally stumbled onto the bloody incident of the night.

"Johnny, Max! What the fuck was that…" The rest of Vivian's query didn't finish leaving her tongue as she stormed out from the dark interior of the lumber shed with her weavile right on her heels. Their female teammate and semi-official group leader halted and went stock still when she reached where they were standing, her eyes widening as she observed the grunting man lying on his back in a patch of bloodied dirt under the bright light of the moon. Weave, nose and scarlet ear-feathers already twitching well before she actually spotted the injured human, likewise froze and locked onto the scene with her black pupils widening to the point where they almost overtook the red irises completely.

"Holy shit!"

Viv's gasped summary of the situation was fairly on point, John still silently staring and Max shaking and hyperventilating as she tore her eyes away from the bloody scene to stare at the pair of them with her mouth open.

"What the fuck did you two do to him!?" Neither of the male grunts provided a response straight away, but Vivian hardly needed one as she found the answer a second later when she laid eyes on the black handgun still held in John's hand by his side. "And why does John have a gun? What fucking happened!?"

'It's not quite bloody calculus, is it Viv?' John's eye twitched but the thought stayed silent. Instead he managed to look away from the still-bleeding man to glance first to Viv and then to the gun in his hand, before nodding back to the wheezing photographer.

"I shot him, Viv."

"Yeah no fucking shit you shot him John," Viv snapped at him with a low hiss, one hand running down her face while she returned her focus to the wounded guy by the logs. "It doesn't exactly look like he just tripped over so you pulled out a gun for emotional support!" Standing by her side, Weave slowly looked up to stare at the expressionless grunt with the gun. "I'm asking you just why there's a man fucking bleeding a shit-ton of blood right over there! Why did you fucking shoot him, you idiot!?"

"This… this is fucked," said Max to no-one in particular in-between gasping breaths. "This is fucked. We're so fucked."

Viv's hand shot out towards her younger colleague palm first, the movement giving Max something else to focus on. "Max, not now okay? Hold it together. Shit…" Even though it wasn't gentle and her swear had its own gulp of disbelief her words appeared to have an effect. Max, hand resting on the red R on his uniform shirt, shakily nodded at her before he took a few deep breaths in an attempt to get his breathing under control.

John had returned to just looking at the wounded man without another word, leaving Viv to grit her teeth and quickly shake her head at him before trying again with Max.

"Oh, okay, okay," Max started with his chest heaving, his eyes teary as noticed her refocusing on him instead. "I just… Oh shit Viv, I'll try. I'll try, I'll…"

"Max."

Another deep breath from Max, the young man exhaling slowly before speaking again.

"We… we were just watching the truck, he was watching us, there's a camera, he… Ratterick he…"

Both Weave and Vivian instantly snapped onto Max at the last words, eyes lidded with concern. Viv's next question was quick with a low tone.

"What about the rat? Where is he?"

With shoulders sagging in a sigh of relief, Max continued to pat his chest with one hand. The other tapped the pokeball holstered on his belt.

"He got hurt, shocked, but I think he'll be fine." All three of them relaxed just a tiny bit as one small piece of tension was thankfully banished. "We tried chasing…" a floppy wave and a grimace towards the man laying down, still breathing and groaning over by the logs. "…him, and he zapped Ratterick with some kind of stun gun to get away. I stopped to see if Ratterick was alright while John kept running after him and then just after I returned him I heard…"

He trailed off, Vivian and Weave returning their gazes to John. In Viv's case, the attention was quickly diverted towards the weapon the large man still held onto.

"Why the fuck does he have a gun?" she repeated to no-one in particular, however this time John actually started to answer after a jolt.

"I-"

"Actually, I don't want to know right now. You can explain it later, John. And boy, it better be a damn good explanation." Looking back at the man covered in his own blood, Vivian couldn't suppress the wince that accompanied her next words and the hand gesture towards the gory scene. "Come on, we've got to do something about him."

She led the way over to the logs stacked against the wire fence with Weave following a second behind after a parting glance at John, with Max wringing his hands together before hesitantly starting to walk over as well.

Even John, who had still not quite finished processing what he had just done, made to follow after a blink of his eyes and a steadying of his subtly shaking hands.

He'd barely placed one foot ahead of the other before the man's groans transformed into yells and shouts once more, the grunts with the weavile along with them likewise joining in when they reached the fallen night stalker.

"Ah! Ahhh! Argghh!"

"Hey, calm down we're not going to- Holy Arceus that's a lot of blood!"

"Aah!" Aaah!"

"Viv what do we do? What do we do!?"

"Ahhhhh!"

"Vile-weave eave-ile weave!"

"Yes Weave that is fucking bone, and no it is not helpful to point at it!"

"Viv what do we do!?"

"Gaahh!"

"I don't fucking know alright Max? It's hard to think right now!"

John stopped just barely a metre away from the fallen stranger's black-shoed feet, the man's bloodshot and unfocused eyes darting around at all of them while he futilely clasped his drenched hands above the wound that was still gushing blood. It was vibrant in colour and forceful in exit from the ragged hole in his thigh, the sheer volume that squirted out in bursts almost astounding considering the fairly small size of the hole in the flesh itself. It likely didn't feel very small to the owner though, the man's voice almost horse from all of the inarticulate yelling.

While the other grunts both panicked in their own ways with Max's repeated choking questions answered by curses of frustration and even a few insults, Weave just stared at the injured man in silence with most of her focus being on the wound itself as well as the small pool of vital fluid that was soaking into the soft ground and the man's clothes. John also remained quiet while he looked down at the close-up result of his actions, still consciously aware of the handgun's weight in his right hand. To the outside observer it might have appeared as if he was unfazed by what had happened, treating the grizzly sight as a mere spectacle, but inside his mind it was a different story.

'Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…'

---

"I've got it," Vivian announced after a few curses of her own along with a short and shaky laugh and a clap of hands. Beside her Max stopped his stammering with a sniff, while John and Weave were still just staring at the now-wheezing owner of the bullet wound. "We've just got to stop the bleeding and then everything will work out fine! Right?" She pursed her lips at Max, far from the false grin she had attempted. "Yeah, just stop the bleed."

"…Can we?" Max asked with a shudder, not able to look back at the injury they were discussing. "Do you know how?"

"Pretty sure yeah, yeah! A makeshift tourniquet, we don't have a medical kit but we can improvise!" Vivian's hands were shaky, first unclipping Weave's minimised ball from her grey uniform belt and shoving it in a pocket before she fumbled with the buckle.

Viv glanced over first at John when the large man let out a quick grunt of realisation before she looked over the soon-to-be patient again. Her hands almost slipped off her belt buckle when she noticed just how deathly pale the shot man now was but she pressed on with her attempt. Returning her full attention to getting her belt off, Vivian smiled down at herself when she managed to finally unclip it. "There we go! Now all we need to do is-"

The loud and unexpected bang of the handgun discharging caused her to shake and let out a sharp and uncharistically girly squeal that was rivalled only by the one from Max at the same moment. Even Weave, being no stranger to loud and difficult pokemon battles, fell back onto her rump in the dirt with a strangled cry of her species' name.

Whipping back around on her feet Vivian stared at John with wide eyes and open mouth, the third human member of their supposed 'dream team' still standing over the stranger who had been sneaking around taking photos of their operation. The highly illegal handgun that he had somehow managed to acquire despite not being bright enough to train even a Rocket-bred rattata was pointed at the head of the stranger laying down, the incoherent panicked pleas and babbling now replaced by a single deep and hauntingly long groan from the dead man's lips. There was no further movement from the fresh corpse, save for a last few squirts of blood and the twitching of a couple of fingers.

Initially nobody moved or said anything for a few long seconds, and once again the previously noisy forest surrounding their fenced-in lumberyard was so quiet that you could hear nothing but the leaves rustling in the light breeze. John was the first to recover, his thumb pressing the safety of his pistol back on before he made to put it silently back in his pocket.

The second was Maxwell, who promptly staggered a few steps away in the opposite direction of the body before he hunched over and vomited out the contents of his stomach.

The smell of the sick mixed with the scent of combusted smokeless powder in Vivian's nostrils, and she wasn't sure to be thankful or not of it chasing away the coppery tang of blood that had been prevalent for the last few minutes that seemed to have lasted hours. She watched the man's foot twitch, though there was no way it was anything apart from post-mortem spasms given the fresh new hole that had been plugged smack-bang in the middle of his forehead.

"John," she breathed out, Max still retching up his guts behind her. "What the fuck."

He took a few moments to answer her, monotone voice lacking his usual mirth but otherwise fairly normal considering what he had just done.

"First shot hit an artery, too much blood loss."

"But the tourniquet," Viv replied with a quick glance down to her belt. "We had a plan."

His gaze shifted from the dead man towards the soaked dirt the body was laying on. "Right. Then what, call an ambulance? Put him in the van, pop on down to the local hospital, walk up to the front desk in full uniform then just tell them he had a fall? Then if that's not enough he lives to tell everyone what happened."

Vivian tried to think of a counterpoint, but none came. Instead she frowned while Max threw up behind her.

With a pinch of his upper nose John continued on. "Shit. Not that it matters anymore. I... We'd be better to focus on what to do now and worry about the other stuff later."

"John… 'other stuff'?" Viv narrowed her eyes and thrust both of her hands towards the body. "We've got a dead corpse here! Because of you!"

"Better than a live corpse."

There was no trace of humour in the wisecrack, with it seeming to come more as an automatic response than anything else. With a wince Vivian squatted down on her haunches and traced her eyes over the bullet holes, the stranger's eyes glassy and lifeless. Beside her Weave hadn't moved from her earlier spot, the weavile's rear and foreclaws still planted in the dirt while she stared at the dead human's face with her eyes still dilated.

"Fuck…"

Shaking her head, Viv took a second to bury her face in her hands before muttering her thoughts out loud.

"I need help with this one, Arceus we all need help with this one. Shit." Letting out a low hiss, she kept her face hidden while Maxwell continued to dry-heave. "I don't know what to do. We're definitely going to have to tell the others when they get back, maybe lie. They'll probably call the boss though, get him to send-"

"No."

Her hands dropped to her knees and she twisted her head to the right to look up at grunt responsible for the whole mess when he interrupted her. John's brow was furrowed with a frown down at the corpse, and she noticed that both of his gloved fists were clenched at his side.

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Another wild gesture of her hand towards the cooling corpse laying before them. "You just killed a dude! Murdered him with a fucking gun of all things! Just a 'no' isn't enough!"

He didn't answer her at first, his eyes briefly closing as he ran a hand down his face and breathed out slowly. Then his reply came, heralded by a grunt.

"The others don't have to find out that this happened. At all." John followed up before she could even open her mouth. "Without a body it will be like nothing went wrong, they won't ever know. All we have to do is…" His eyes seemed to light up with a flash of an idea, one finger waving in the air as he twisted on his feet to stare back into the lumbermill's shed behind them. "Huh, maybe…"

"John!" Viv hissed at him, standing up and getting his attention. "There is no way that anything we do will work! I mean look at what you did to Max!" Both of them glanced over to their mentioned comrade in crime, the youngest member no longer heaving but he was down on all fours above a pile of vomit with wet wheezes escaping his mouth. "Even if we knew what to do he's in no state to help, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Not that I blame him, we can't just hide a body around here and hope that no-one will find it!"

A shiver went down her spine as her brain replayed the memory of the sound the man made when the air escaped his dead lungs. "And we can't just not tell the boss. I have no idea how we're even going to start that talk, but if the cops get even a whiff of this going down then we're fully screwed bribes or no bribes." Her hands balled up into fists and she bit her bottom lift, her eyes back to staring at the bullet hole in the corpse's forehead. "Shit, even by being here when you did it means at least a decade in the slammer at least. That means…" Viv's gaze flicked over to Weave, the weavile still sitting down in stunned shock beside her. "They don't exactly let prisoners keep their pokemon, John, usually they get confiscated until you get out.. or released. A month or two I can deal with, but not any more than that." With teeth gritted she tore her eyes away from the body to look down to her left. "I can't go to prison over this."

Vivian didn't know what she had been expecting to gain from telling him that, as if pointing out that being incarcerated was not ideal was some form of foreign concept to the large grunt. Then again the man she had thought to be her fun-loving, laid-back, and third-best friend had for some reason thought that shooting a fleeing man in the leg and then executing him like some sort of psychopath because he was dying too slowly was a good response to a few candid photographs, so maybe the very real possibility of imprisonment needed clarification.

What she certainly hadn't been expecting was for John to grab her shoulder in response, and to find his small blue eyes looking directly into her own when she turned back towards the man standing beside her.

"You won't, I'm not going to let either you or Max take the fall for this so don't start talking about it like it's a done thing. Sure this isn't exactly something any of us was expecting to happen tonight, but there's no use in panicking about prison while we could be focusing on fixing things instead." Pausing for a few seconds to glance at the body and almost managing to hide a grimace, John returned his attention to her. "Viv," he continued with his hand lightly squeezing her shoulder and starting to sound like his old self. "Look, just trust me. I know I've fumbled the ball on this one and I'm not going trying to sugar-coat it, but I've got a plan to fix it. You trust me, right?"

Vivian blinked; it could have just been the moonlight, but she swore she could almost see a pleading look in his expression. She alternated her gaze to the body, then over to the pocket of John's pants where the handgun had been ghetto holstered, and finally back to meet his expectant eyes.

"Fuck no."

Despite the situation they found themselves in, the snorted scoff from John carried just a hint of amusement.

"Well, shit," he muttered with an inhale of air through clenched teeth. "That's going to make things difficult." Turning around to face the corpse on the ground instead, John kept his hand on her shoulder. "I wasn't lying when I said that I have a plan though, so I'm going to have to ask you to believe me at least this time. This one, single time." A moment passed, the next word taking a while to say. "Please?"

Vivian breathed out in a long, deep, sigh.

"…It's not like I've got much of a choice at this point I suppose," she grunted out. Noticing how John seemed to brighten, she bit back a criticism and instead frowned down at the body before them. "But you're going to have a damn good plan for this one, John. If we get caught with a body…"

The reminder hung in the air for a few moments, John loosening his shirt collar with a wince before waving it off.

"She'll be right. I've read books about this stuff so I sort of know what to do." The hand grasping her shoulder let go after a few friendly pats.

Whipping her head around ready to quiz him on just where and when he managed to find books that dealt with topics even loosely connected with nighttime corpse disposal, Vivian was stopped when he held up both palms towards her.

"Viv, just… trust me. I sort of semi-know what I might be possibly doing, alright?"

'You never know what you're actually doing,' was the first thought that popped into her head, with John managing a pretty good guess at it even if it wasn't vocalised. Gesturing towards her pockets with a hand, he jerked his head back towards the shed.

"Hey, I do. Look, moving on, you've got the van keys on you yeah?"

Vivian double-checked the pocket of her uniform skirt with a hand while already nodding, her gloved fingers brushing against the pair of metal keys nestled within. "Yeah? B-rank said to only use them in an emergency though."

John gave a pointed glance down towards the bloody body in front of them. "Somehow I think this counts as one."

"Sure, I suppose," Viv grunted in affirmation, before she glanced back over her shoulder to spy Max sitting down on the ground next to his puddle of sick with his face buried in his hands. "What do we need the van for? We're meant to be guarding the truck, and we can't exactly leave Max here like this either to do it for us."

"We're not going to need to go far, just down the road a little bit." John himself looked over to youngest grunt of their group. "I agree about Max though, bloke's munted right now. Get him up and moving, we'll have to take him with us. You should take him to the van, pop him in the passenger seat up front, and then back it up as close as you can to the doors on this side. I'll take care of…" he loosely gestured at the body. "This… issue." In response to that Viv raised an eyebrow and was about to question his rather simple term for the fresh body of a murder victim, but John continued before she could. "Oh and check the racks of tools for a few good shovels as well, I think there's one in the van but it would be best to make sure. Also, I'll need to borrow Weave for a bit."

The realisation of why he was being particular about having shovels was chased away by the latter request.

"What, why Weave?" Vivian and John both looked down at the mentioned pokemon, Weave finally shaking her head and tearing her eyes away from the dead stranger to stare up at them with her fangs showing in open-mouthed confusion.

"Nothing major, just to help grab some stuff since you'll be busy helping Max."

'Makes sense,' Viv thought, even if she wasn't used to letting anyone else control her only pokemon. "Um," she tilted her head at Weave, her weavile still sitting down and looking out of it. "Weave, could you help John… do whatever it is he needs you to do?" It took a few moments and some rapid blinking from the pokemon in question, but Weave eventually replied back with a shaky 'ile' and a hesitant nod of her head. Vivian could understand the reaction to the unusual request, it was a highly unusual night after all. "Thanks girl, I owe you one."

"No, I owe you one. Both of you."

Both Vivian and Weave focused on John, the large grunt having returned his attention to the body lying before him. Even though he seemed to have returned to the same, normal John (or at least what passed for 'normal' when describing the weirdo), and his expression was neutral and fairly ordinary, Vivian couldn't help but notice the way his eyes kept darting around to look at the two bullet wounds… and the way that both of his hands were shaking despite the thick gloves he was wearing and the night's comfortable temperature.

"Okay then, I'll get Max into the van and find a few shovels." Turning around and about to approach the mentioned grunt, Viv stopped to angle her head sideways at John. "Are you, uh, sure you're okay there?"

His reply came with a small smile, but it was betrayed by the way John quickly shoved his hands into his pockets when he noticed her looking.

"Yeah, perfectly fine." The following chuckle was short and shallow. "You know the saying, no use crying over spilt milk… or blood, ha ha." He fidgeted on the spot while turning back away to look at the corpse again, his hand leaving his right pocket to tap against it instead through the fabric of his uniform pants. "Don't worry about me Viv, focus on getting poor Max back up on his feet and into the van. Me and Weave will get right onto cleaning up. She'll be right."

Viv didn't know how else to respond to that apart from nodding with her own half-baked smile, before she started to approach Max as he sat on the ground with John and Weave being left behind with the deceased ex-photographer.

'She'll be right.'

John's final phrase repeated in her mind, Viv slowing down and transitioning into a low crouch as she came up behind Max while the stench of fresh vomit grew stronger in her nostrils.

She desperately hoped that his prediction was correct.

---

John exhaled as he watched Viv help Maxwell to his feet, the female grunt of their group talking to the shaking lad in a low mutter. It didn't take long for her to convince Max to head back inside the lumberyard shed and towards the van inside, and the self-appointed leader of their grunt group threw an uncertain look back over her shoulder at him while she guided Max indoors. As shook and confused as she understandably was, John was thankful that he least one of his co-workers had managed to hold it together enough to help him try to cover up his mistake. It even made him feel a little bad for not being entirely truthful to her about how little of a plan he actually had with the majority of it being a mix of 'oh fuck' and the rest primarily being ninety-percent bullshit.

For starters, he doubted Vivian would have agreed to help if he had revealed that his knowledge of hiding a body and covering up a murder was solely based on watching a season or two of TV crime shows and reading his mum's collection of serial-killer books when he was nine. But, as he had rationalised once before, what she didn't know wasn't really going to hurt her.

He still winced internally at the thought however, and the loaded handgun in his pocket felt heavier than before despite lacking two rounds that it had started with.

With that John looked back down at the corpse, the stranger's eyes wide open in shock with the colours already pale just like cooling skin of the face. It was an odd feeling that he felt as he looked over the expensive camera, the blood-soaked clothing, and the fatal wounds that he was responsible for. Not one of sadness, remorse, or regret for anything apart from the potential consequences that he might have caused for himself and his colleagues. No perverted joy or glee at having taken his first human (or xeno-human) life either, unless his jittery hands and pounding heart were an indicator of something aside from the pure adrenaline dump injected into his system earlier. He was fairly certain that you were supposed to feel one of those two groups of emotions, not just a slightly uncomfortable feeling of butterflies in the stomach coupled with a small amount of panic.

Landing a decent shot and dropping a feral camel at least felt like an achievement. This was just flat out awkward.

'Come on, keep it together John.' He took another slow breath, pinching the bridge of his nose again since Viv wasn't around anymore to worry. 'Losing your shit isn't going to help, just remember the plan: Make it hard to find out who it is, make it hard to find them in the first place, and better yet make it look like nothing even happened to begin with so they don't even try to look. Easy steps, just like following a recipe to bake a cake.'

Unfortunately, he hadn't baked cakes in years, and he had just promoted himself to head chef of a very spicy kitchen with one of his sous chefs down for the count. A bit of a raw deal.

"Fuck it, shit analogy anyway," John muttered under his breath with a shake of his head. Feeling a stare on him he glanced down to his right, and he blinked when he was met with a pair of red eyes looking back. "Oh, Weave. Uh…"

The weavile was still sitting on her rump in the dirt supported by her foreclaws on either side, her two crimson tail-feathers flat upon the ground. She blinked back at him with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open just enough for him to see her sharp teeth, John unable to get much from her expression save for some shocked confusion. It did bring an odd idea into his head though, bringing him to a pause long enough for the pokemon to question him.

"Wea… weave?"

John didn't answer her at first, a hand going to his chin as he returned to staring at the fresh body next to the pair of them. Weave blinked at him again and tilted her head to the side, before she deftly pushed herself up with both forearms into first a crouch and then standing back up fully with some certainty creeping back into her voice.

"Vile?"

"I was just thinking… you know how pokemon like those water turtles and fire foxes can just store huge amounts of water, fire, and other magical crap inside of them somehow? I mean I saw a picture of a starfish looking one filling up a pool ten-times its size which is apparently normal, and they even use them like firehoses."

A slow nod from Weave.

"Is that something only they can do? Or can all of you pokemon just break the laws of physics to store massive amounts of metaphorical shit inside of you?"

He looked at her, the pokemon visibly struggling with the questions as she blinked her eyes again with her brows furrowed. Then after a few moments, still watching him with uncertainty, her furry shoulders rose in an unsure shrug.

"Ile-eave?" She glanced at the body then back at him with her head tilted to the side again. "Vile-weave?"

"Well, because I remember Viv saying that you liked to hunt other pokemon; she called you a predator." Another nod from Weave to confirm that was indeed the case. "Right, so I can assume that you're a, ah…" John's eyes quickly flicked to the corpse, but not quick enough to escape Weave's notice. "A carnivore yeah? You eat meat."

The nod from Weave was this time far more hesitant, and she tapped her claws together along with an uncomfortable affirmative. "Weave?"

John's eyes lingered on the deceased stranger for a second or two, the lens of the camera glinting in the moonlight.

"Great. I don't suppose that you happen to be hungry right now then? You know, two birds with one stone."

Weave's claws froze mid-tap and she glanced to the stranger then back to him. Then she repeated the motion, before pausing for a few uncomfortable moments as her stare settled back onto him. Slowly, ever so slowly, she shook her head from side to side with her mouth twisting into a wince.

"Balls," John grunted with his idea ruined, but feeling rather relieved at the same time. "Worth a shot asking. Plan B then." He tried to force a smile at the uncomfortable weavile while she awkwardly shifted from one clawed foot to the other. "Okay, next question: Could you do me a massive favour and swipe a decent sized tarp or two and a shovel from the shed? Tarp is…" he gestured in the air with his hands. "Those colourful sheets of plastic covering the log piles. Got small ropes or string on the corner bits."

With a soft grunt Weave's eyes shimmered and she nodded quickly, likely just happy to be able to answer a normal question at last.

"Righto, awesome. If you can't find a shovel Viv will probably have one in the van, if you grab it she'll probably understand." With a nod of his head John gestured towards the corpse. "I've got to sort this out, thanks for lending a hand, paw, claw, whatever. You know what I mean."

Seeming relieved to have a task to distract her Weave gave him a final nod before she scampered off towards the shed, and John waited for the red feathers to disappear into the gloom of the unlit interior before he knelt down onto one knee beside the body. Scanning it over once more and letting the sight sink in further, he grimaced at the realisation of what he was about to do.

'Fucking hell, what a cock-up.'

"Sorry mate," he muttered to the corpse before he lifted the back of the head up to slip the strap of the camera up and over, but he paused when he felt something wet through his glove. After gently removing the camera and placing it down beside him on the ground he let the head drop back into the dirt, before he gingerly pulled his gloved hand away to stare at it. The darkening blood was just starting to dry, and he didn't want to dwell on the speckling of wet and grey tissue that accompanied it.

It meant one thing for sure though; the single nine mil had possessed enough energy to blow out the back of the skull in a sizable exit wound. Once more his glove went under the back of the dead man's head, although this time his fingers were more focused on shifting through the gore-soaked soil beneath it. It took only a few seconds to find his prize, John bringing the slightly squashed copper-coloured cone up to get a better look at the expended bullet.

'That's one,' he silently counted before he gave it a wipe down with the stranger's white shirt-collar and plopped it into his left pants pocket with no better options coming to mind. With a look to the leg wound he considered searching for that one as well but given the time constraints and the much larger area to sift through it probably wasn't going to be worth the trouble. Besides, the goal was to conceal the crime adequately enough that hopefully no-one would even be looking around for a spent bullet in the lumberyard to begin with. With that decided John used the hem of the trench coat to wipe off his soiled glove as best as he could, his attention turning back to the corpse itself and the contents of its pockets.

He started from the outside and worked inwards, the trench coat's pockets yielding nothing but a single pen and a few tufts of lint. Another pen and, more importantly, two small notebooks covered with tan leather were stored in the dead man's shirt pocket. John took a few moments to open them up and flick through them, the first almost completely filled with notes in hastily scrawled and barely readable handwriting while the second listed dates, names, and times. A calendar and schedule he figured, with the two notebooks joining the camera on the ground after the brief investigation.

Finally it was just the pockets of the corpse's pants left, and John once again gave silent thanks for his uniform gloves as he sank his hands into the blood-stained pouches. His uneasy search resulted in a small set of keys linked by a single ring, unremarkable save for the little figurine of a brown-coloured owl of some kind, and a thin wallet made from the same kind of leather as the notepads. Due to being stored in the pocket of the leg that had received a bullet said wallet had an unhealthy amount of blood covering it, the leathery material certainly going to stain as a result. Such a loss wasn't going to be bothering the former owner and it wasn't the main concern of John's either, the grunt pausing to wipe most of the blood off on a clean patch of the body's white shirt before he cracked it open.

"Shit, you're not seriously robbing him as well?"

John jolted on the spot at Viv's accusation, not having heard the other grunt approach up behind him. Still kneeling on one knee his lowered the wallet and turned to look at her, the stare directed at him still uneasy and loaded with judgement.

"No, I'm not." He waved the wallet at the camera and leather-bound notepads stacked next to him. "I'm removing everything that can be used to either incriminate me or help identify the body: Notes, a phone if he has one, any rings," he held up the stained wallet. "A wallet with a driver's license, bank cards, other cards, that sort of stuff."

"Oh." With a barely audible sigh of relief Viv held a hand to her forehead. "That's… good? I suppose at least that's not why you did it." He noticed that she was trying to look anywhere but the body, and that she was shifting on her feet. The accusatory hint in her tone was also something he failed to miss. "You're putting a lot of thought into this. Do you… think it will help much?"

Neglecting to open the wallet like he had planned, John sat it down with the camera and briefly pondered the question. He couldn't exactly claim to be an expert on the robustness of local law enforcement investigations nor on the forensic technologies that existed to aid them. Hopefully they weren't super-advanced but going off how the world worked he really hoped that there wasn't just some pokemon that you brought to a crime scene that could form a magic recreation of the entire crime with nothing but its mind and colourful liquid secreted from its pores.

"Every bit helps," he finally settled on as his initial answer. Finished with his search, John wiped his gloves on a clean bit of trench coat and stood up. "I'd prefer this guy to forever be a Falconio, but just in case it can't hurt to muddy the waters as much as I can. Within reason, don't want to be too extreme."

He doubted Vivian would be down for witnessing him bash in the corpse's teeth with a hammer or other blunt instrument to try and distort any dental identification for one, understandable considering that he himself wasn't certain if he could even stomach the act no matter how effective it may be. It was probably a good doubt to have; murdering a man with a gun was one thing while taking the time to thoroughly defile the corpse afterwards was an entirely different kettle of fish. The closest he'd got to something like that was finishing off a roo or two with the shovel after they had jumped out in front of the bull bar.

She wasn't that impressed with his consideration, however. "Too extreme…" she scoffed with her arms crossing in front of her chest and her nose wrinkling into a grimace. "Sure."

With a sigh, John turned to face her with no energy left for further apologies and the noticeable weight of the handgun in his right pocket. Behind Viv and lit by the moonlight he could make out the open rear of the grey van parked just inside the large lumber shed.

"You didn't take long with the van, ready already?" A flash of guilt shot through him. "How's Max?"

"Not the best he's been, John. Not the best." Viv's blue eyes, colder than John had seen before, fixed themselves on his own. "I managed to get him in the front seat without much problem, his breathing's back to normal, and there was no more vomiting. Max isn't tough most of the time and seeing Ratterick attacked, and the guy who did it killed in front of him… yeah, not the best."

"Oh…"

He hesitated and tried to think of how he could apologise for the whole thing again, but he got stuck with just an 'um' glued to his tongue. With Vivian's eyes still watching him carefully, her brows furrowed with the same wary caution normally shared only by young toddlers eyeing the approaching family pit bull, he looked down and tried to find a distraction of any sort. The glint of brass under the moonlight caught his eye, a silent breath of thanks leaving his lips while he used the walk over towards it to cover up his wince.

"Yeah, I… I can't really judge him for it Viv. Hopefully after this is all done and behind us, he'll be able to forgive me. Bloody hell, poor bugger…"

John bent down and picked up the first expended case from the soft dirt, its brother a metre away joining it in his pocket a moment later. Vivian didn't answer him during the entire time or bring up anything else, the uncomfortable silence only broken by the soft patter of clawed feet on earth and the flapping of plastic in the soft midnight breeze.

Approaching from the shed, Weave had a pair of bright blue tarps bundled up under one furry arm with a small shovel gripped in the other claw. Smiling with relief at the arrival of another welcome distraction, John pointed to the ground a couple of metres away from the feet of the corpse. "Ah, thanks Weave, those look like they'll do the job. Just set them down there for me."

The weavile did as he asked and dumped the scavenged items in a loose pile before returning to Vivian's side. Both her and her trainer watched John load up his pockets with the things he'd pulled off the photographer, the camera's strap going over his neck to secure the incriminating device. Neither said anything when the large grunt next went for one of the pilfered tarps, although Viv did give Weave a reassuring pat behind her feather crown while John shuffled around the corpse on the ground to unfold and carefully place one corner of the tarp under the dead man's head.

Gingerly letting go after slipping the front edge of the plastic sheet under the head wound, John gritted his teeth and winced in anticipation of the next part. Standing with both boots each planted firmly on either side of the flat tarp he crouched down and slipped his gloved hands underneath the body's armpits, before slightly lifting the man's torso off the ground and shuffling back while remaining sure to keep the damaged head from splattering anything on his uniform. A curse was muttered under his breath, and he noticed Vivian turn her head to look away with a grimace when something wet dropped to the tarp with a splat, however he didn't stop to look with the offending thing disappearing under the back of the trench coat as the body was dragged onto the tarp fully.

'At least this guy is lighter than he looks.'

Probably not the best observation to be making, but it was true that he found it remarkably easy to lift and move the body of the full-grown human(?) male. The tarp unfortunately turned out to be a bit small, falling just short of reaching the dead man's ankles, but at least the body parts with bullet wounds in them would be adequately covered when rolled up. Before that could happen however he still had one left to do, John going for the second tarp while his two co-workers and now co-conspirators watched him with confusion joining the mix of emotions in their eyes.

The second sheet of tarpaulin plastic was then placed underneath the corpse's shoulders, in between the body and the first tarp with two thirds of it still lying on the ground. Then John paused when a thought popped up and he looked to the dead man's pants, or more specifically, the silver belt buckle that shone under the light of the moon.

He heard Vivian suck in air through her teeth when he straddled the body, his gloves fumbling to undo the belt while he started his answer with a sigh.

"Relax, I just need the belt."

It came off with only a minimal speckling of dried blood on the brown leather, John dropping it to the ground and returning to the tarp with Vivian breathing out in relief. Her brief uneasiness turned into more visible confusion when John folded the remaining half of the sheet over the top of the man's head, sort of like a tacky burial shroud. The two sides were then folded over, leaving just the bottom edge that was facing down to the man's feet as the only open end. Even Weave had tilted her head to the side while watching, and John grunted out a brief explanation for the two of them as he manoeuvred around to the left side of the corpse.

"Just in case something leaks from that end, hopefully it'll work."

He left it at that. Then, after bending down and gripping the middle of the edge of the tarp in one hand and supporting the body with the other, he rolled the corpse over onto its front and to the right. The sheet of tarp went with it, wrapping the dead man up in a plastic blanket with the second tarp covering the head crinkling while it rubbed against the material of the first. John ran out of tarp after only three rolls, but it proved to be enough as the entire corpse save for the socks and shoes was now fully covered by three layers of the sturdy and waterproof blue material. The head and shoulders were completely encased within the second tarp as well, and with the edges folded over inside there was hopefully nowhere for any blood or brain matter to slip out.

"Prettier than every yiros I've ever wrapped," John muttered to himself with a slight smile which lessened when, despite the incredibly morbid circumstances, his stomach gurgled with a quiet reminder. "Damn, I could kill for a yiros right about now."

It was too soft for Vivian to overhear, but unseen to John Weave's ears twitched and her eyes widened just a fraction more. Was a 'yiros' that valuable to humans? What was it, and had the dead human been suspected of possessing one?

John was of course unaware of the feline-weasel's silent questions, and he instead was focused on straddling the middle of the corpse-burrito with the dead man's belt in one gloved hand and a shoed-foot in the other. With his legs on either side and his groin touching tarp, John lifted up the bottom half of the body up and slipped the belt underneath the plastic sheet, before he dropped it back down and grabbed both ends of the belt to drag it towards him. All the time he'd spent rolling up swags paid off, the belt quickly pulled taut and secured nice and tight. Puffing out a satisfied exhale of air, John stepped back and took a moment to admire his handiwork.

All that was left to do was to use the shovel, which he grabbed from its spot on the ground. John spent a quick minute upturning any bit of earth he could see that had been touched by the man's blood, churning up the soil and breaking it all up so there wasn't just a massive wet patch shaped like a rough and very suspicious outline of a body. A few other 'bits' from the head-area were also hidden under the earth before the topsoil was patted down with the flat of the shovel as smooth as he could make it without it looking unnatural, and John stored the spade underneath one arm after checking to make sure it wasn't coated in any blood or grey matter.

"Righto," he announced with a small sigh and a short nod, looking away from the wrapped-up body and towards Vivian and Weave. "At least that's done and dusted. Let's get him in the van."

---

"Going to shoot up, up, up to the top! With my pokemon at my side I can't be stopped! We'll fight in the grass and battle long in the snow! My pokemon are with me wherever I go! Yeah! Yeah! Pokemon rock!"

John remained silent as he sat in the back of the van on the bench seat bolted onto the left side, a shoe belonging to the corpse leaning up against the wall beside him lightly bonking him on the head when the vehicle went over yet another pothole. His hands were folded over each other in his lap with the previous shakes having died down to an occasional twitch of a finger instead, a bit of dirt still on the gloves while the handgun responsible for the night's murder remained snug in his right pocket. Not even blinking when the shoe tapped him again at yet another bump, John allowed himself a light frown while he tried to focus on the crinkling sound of the tarps rubbing against each other rather than the radio.

It was almost enough to make him want to trade places with the dead man, honestly.

"Pokemon rock! Aim for the top! Going give it my all and take my best shot!"

Max might have been feeling the same with how the youngest grunt would shudder in the front passenger seat and audibly suck in air through his teeth every time a word remotely related to guns or bullets would pop up, a shame considering the entire point of the radio being on was to 'try and distract him from what had happened' as Vivian had claimed despite John's initial protests. To be fair the idea had merit and John hadn't fought that hard given how any chance to make things easy for Max was a good one to take, but no battleplan every survives first contact with the enemy.

The advertisements for a lotto that included a prize of one 'Bullet Seed TM', the following talk show discussion about unconventional uses of String Shot, and of course a line-up of utterly garbage musical 'hits' that all seemed to be overly liberal with words such as 'shoot', 'shot', and even one that was essentially just a chorus of 'Dead, dead, dead in the dark! We're spooky and kooky and just want a laugh!'.

Apparently 'Ghost-boppin' by 'Gengar and the Cool Ghouls' had made the weekly top ten.

Somehow.

'I fucking hate this place,' John silently grumbled to himself once more, pushing the topic of terrible radio out of his mind and instead focusing on the weavile sitting on the opposite bench seat. Viv had decided to keep Weave out of her pokeball for the short van trip, perhaps just to have a familiar pokemon around since Ratterick was still recovering from his surprise stunning. Part of him wondered if the real reason was because Vivian didn't trust him to not fuck up again and as such wanted a set of eyes on him while she was up front driving the van.

Well, even if the thought was just a paranoid one Weave was certainly doing a bang-up job watching him. She had been staring right at him ever since they'd sat down after loading the wrapped corpse, her red eyes only darting away from his face to glance at his hands every time a finger twitched. Her expression was unreadable, even for a pokemon, but she at least seemed to have calmed down a little since the whole 'murder' thing had happened. The uneasy atmosphere wasn't helped by the fact that neither them nor the two grunts up front had attempted to make any small talk in the last twenty minutes since leaving the lumberyard, but to be fair the tarp-covered body that smelled strongly of blood mixed with the rancid stench of a voided bowel probably had more to do with it.

John grunted softly to himself when the song on the radio thankfully ended and transitioned right into a news report, the lady on the air mentioning something about League politics and a scandalous affair between two movie celebrities. Not exactly thrilling listening, given that he'd yet to even see a single movie or even a TV set yet. Instead of paying any further attention John instead shifted a hand towards his left pocket, Weave watching it the entire time even if he was just pulling out a wrapped protein bar to snack on.

Up front and in the driver's seat, Vivian heard him open the wrapper of the delicious compact treat. "John," she started without looking back, halting him just as he was about to take a bite. "Don't tell me…"

"What? It's just a protein bar."

Max mumbled something under his breath while he remained curled up in the passenger seat, and John caught a glimpse of Viv's sharp blue eyes staring back at him through the rear-view mirror.

"…How are you even hungry right now?"

He decided against telling her that rolling up a freshly killed body in a tarp and lifting it into a van with only the moonlight helping him was hard work, and that it had sort of reminded him of a delicious Mediterranean lamb wrap, so he instead went for the smarter option.

"Road trips make me hungry, always love a good feed during my road trips." To emphasise his point he took a quick bite, chewing a little before another thought popped into his head. "What about you guys? I've got a few to spare if you're peckish."

The van went over another pothole, and the shoe narrowly missed his ear.

"Uh, yeah I think I'll pass on that," Vivian replied bluntly with an eye raising in the rear-view. A few moments passed with no reply from Max at all, so John turned his head back to look at Weave and waggle his half-eaten bar at her. The weavile blinked before shaking her head in a wordless negative, so he popped the rest of it into his mouth with a shrug before stowing the wrapper back in his pants. "Anyway, I'm guessing this is the turn-off we want looking at the signs. Are you sure about this?"

The van slowed and John continued to chew as he leaned over to the side to stare over Vivian's shoulder out the windshield. The twin headlights of the vehicle illuminated the deserted stretch of highway and the beforementioned signs, one stating 'Quarry – two miles' while the other simply warned 'authorised vehicles only'. Both pointed to the right towards an area seemingly sparse in trees, the single-lane road snaking off from the highway thankfully sealed and not just dirt.

"Yeah," answered John mid-chew. "Briefing said it was closed and not in use anymore, remember? Let's give it a shot." Both of them glanced to Max when the young lad sucked in another breath of air, his face hidden in his uniform cap. "Shit, sorry Max. My bad."

Viv didn't add anything and instead turned the van onto the road, headlights and the moon leading the way down the road bordered by a decent smattering of different sized rocks and boulders. A minute onwards and the grassy fields started to give way to a more rockier and arid environment, the number of trees drastically thinning with the replacements being just more grey stones of differing shapes and sizes. It only took another minute more and the van slowed to a stop, John once again peering out and spotting the tall wire fence that blocked their path.

It was adorned with signs warning of numerous falling dangers and the consequences of trespassing, and through the wire he could just make out the numerous holes and rocky outcrops of cleanly-cut grey stone at the edge conical light provided by the van's headlights. A single heavy chain was looped around a ring attached to the gate blocking the road, John not even waiting for Max to stir when Vivian looked back at him with a raised eye.

"I'll check it out," he offered while getting up from his seat and hunching his back to shuffle through the too-small van. The poor vehicle rocked on its wheels when he did so, and the grunt sitting in the front passenger seat was roused when the rear doors opened.

"H-huh? Is it over?"

"Almost Maxie," Viv answered softly while John dismounted the van. "We've just reached the quarry."

"Oh." As John walked around the side of the van towards the chain barring the gate, Max looked out at him through the van window before switching his gaze the numerous warning signs. "Should we really… be here at night?"

Chain in gloved hands, John lightly snorted with amusement and relief. Firstly because of the question, and secondly because the chain was merely secured with a clasp and not a padlock. No need to try and bust anything open with a shovel or some wrenches.

"Don't tell me you're worried about trespassing, Max?"

"Of course not! Not with… well, with what's already happened." The young grunt's scoff was short lived before he lowered his voice towards the end, but at least he was speaking in full sentences again. Progress. As he undid the clasp and started to untwine the chain from the fence, John paused at Max's following explanation. "I mean, it's a quarry. There's going to be a lot of holes, right? There's some moonlight but there's still some danger."

John took a second to gather a reply in his mind to try and sooth his colleague's concerns. "Ah, yeah you've sorta got a point I guess. Still, I wouldn't worry too much. We'll stick to the path for the most part and we've still got a torch, and Weave." The chain dropped to the ground and the gate was swung open, and John tried to give Max a reassuring wink. "It'll be fine, Max. Only one person is going to end up in the ground tonight."

It wasn't exactly the right thing to have said, John realised, after Max turned away with a wince. The other grunt in the van peered out from beside the blond grunt and aimed her unamused frown right at him, the shake of her head and silent sigh likely deserved.

He sighed. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Shouldn't have said it." Lumbering back to the van it screeched on its wheels when he climbed up into the back, loud enough that Weave cast a concerned look to the metal floor from her bench seat. "Look, everyone copes with stress differently, alright? You also seem to be doing fine."

Max didn't respond, once again going silent while he focused on staring out the window. Viv however scoffed.

"Different is putting it lightly," she grumbled, also putting the van into gear and edging it forwards past the fence line. "Most people don't crack jokes after killing someone, John."

"…Maybe they do? Have you met many murderers?"

From the backseat he spotted her mouth twitch, but he wasn't sure if it was a slight show of dark amusement or barely restrained irritation.

"Just one so far, and he needs to talk a lot less without thinking. Now shut up and focus on keeping us all out of the slammer, I've got no idea what we're looking for."

Deciding that it would be best for everyone involved if he followed her advice, just this one time, John withheld his further comment about 'deep holes in the ground, Viv' and instead leaned forwards to get a better look out the windshield past the two front seats. Thankfully the bright moon was helping out a great deal, his eyes scanning over the numerous rocky piles of dirt and stone as the van slowly drove past them on a winding dirt road mostly formed from the old footprints of tracked heavy machinery. He was half expecting to see one of the bouncing rocks with dudebro arms or another rock-type or two, but the quarry seemed just as devoid of life as the former photographer leaning up against the van wall next to him. It was probably for the best as he'd rather not have any witnesses aside from his fellow Rockets, even if said possible witnesses were just wild pokemon.

He still hadn't figured out how he was supposed to judge if a pokemon was sapient enough to grasp the concept of 'crime'. Last thing they needed was for the local fist rock or mutated caterpillar to waddle off and report them to the fire-breathing police dogs.

The thoughts of every tree and bush containing a set of prying eyes and ears just waiting to dob him in were banished as soon as he spotted it just to the front left of the upcoming path corner.

The hole.

What a hole it was, previously having been dug out by an excavator of some kind judging from the smooth sides. Slightly muddy, a few fresh growths of green were already budding out from the dirt piled up around it. A few rough-cut blocks of stone sat next to it in a stacked heap, with a far larger pile of round offcuts and small boulders scattered around next to them. As they passed it by John rose a little in his seat to give it a better look, both Vivian and Max noticing with their gazes following his own.

"This one?" The van slowed to a crawl with Viv's question, but it sped back up when John nodded his head with a gesture of his hand to keep moving.

"Looks like a beaut for sure, but don't just stop here. Drive up a bit further past a few more then turn back around." He anticipated the follow-up query and continued when she glanced back at him with an eye raised. "That way there's not just a set of van tracks stopping right next to a certain freshly-filled hole."

Viv snorted, and even Max glanced back with surprise while she did as John instructed. "Wow John, how do you think of this stuff so easily? If you put even half the effort into planning out your moves in a pokemon battle you'd finally be able to beat Max." Max blinked, not knowing if it was a compliment or not, but Viv continued as she turned the van around. "Are you sure this is first time you've done this?"

Answering with an eyeroll even as Max's eyes widened and the lad audibly gulped at the thought, John huffed.

"I'm pretty sure, yeah. Like ninety-nine percent sure." One of course had to account for the times he'd gotten blackout smashed on the piss and woken up with lost days, and besides, it helped to maintain his amnesia cover. "Stuff like this is just common sense."

Another mouth twitch from Viv, the van coming to a stop just ahead of the hole off to their right. "Sure, common sense. Feel free to start applying it to everything else in your life whenever you're ready."

"All in due time."

The three of them made their way out of the van, boots crunching on dirt and occasional pebble. Correction, the four of them, Weave wrinkling her nose and sighing with relief as she joined Viv in taking in a deep lungful of fresh night air. The three humans and one pokemon carefully walked a few metres over towards the hole John had picked out, the largest grunt of the lot letting out a low whistle when he peered over the edge.

"Perfect, must be at least three or four metres I reckon," he announced with a nod. Indeed it was decently deep from the first look of things, even if one of the walls had a few white boulders jutting out from it hallway down. The nearby piles of dirt and small rocks evidently unfit for whatever the previous quarry was for in its former life certainly a plus as well. "Might not even have to do much shovel work."

His few weeks spent as a casual labourer digging holes for the national broadband network had not been the highlight of his life.

Grabbing the shovel wasn't an issue, but none of his comrades made a move to help him extract the corpse from the van and lift it over towards the hole. In fact they gave him a wide berth which only increased when he dumped the cargo down into the earthen darkness head-first. Maybe it was because of the lack of ceremony about it and the admittedly rough handling of the body, but more likely it was probably because of the cracking sound that broke the relative silent night as the skull bounced off one of the boulders on the way down.

'Whoops,' John thought while casting an apologetic wince towards both Max and Viv, the former a bit pale. 'Hope he doesn't chuck again here.' Turning back to look at the final resting place of the unknown stranger, John eyed the bundle of tarp that was leaning up against one of the hole's straight walls almost fully vertical. 'Well, on the bright side, maybe the teeth might not end up being a concern after all.'

Another of the group joined him at the edge of the pre-dug pit, John surprised to find that it was Weave who had first moved up to peer at the body. The weavile's claws were clacking together and her eyes were frowning down, her mouth moving with barely audible mutters. Eying the thigh-high pokemon out of the corner of his eye, John had to wonder as to just how much Weave was able to gather from what had happed. Viv had mentioned multiple times that Weave was not just a meat-eater but also a hunter as well, so she surely had killed fellow pokemon before. He had seen exactly zero sign of any 'normal' creature existing alongside the supernatural magic animals after all, but to be fair his knowledge of the world outside of his Team Rocket base, books, and assignments was lacking to say the least.

Weave and himself were soon made a trio when the pokemon's trainer found the strength of stomach to move up to them, John's pressing question of 'Do pokemon understand the concept of homicide (or pokecide)?' getting cut off before it escaped his mouth when Viv got in first.

"…Shouldn't he be lying down?"

"Ah, no?"

"You sure?" Viv looked away from the upside-down body with a frown and raised both eyes at him. "Because I'm pretty sure people get buried lying down. On their back. Horizontal."

John had a retort about someone being an apparent burial expert primed and ready to go, but to the surprise of the three of them it was Max who spoke up with a shiver audible in his voice.

"This… this isn't exactly a normal burial." He even managed to step forwards towards them a few steps, becoming more bolstered when they looked at him. "For one, there's no coffin, just… blue plastic."

Nodding and raising a single finger, John took back over with a thoughtful hum. "Max is right Vivian; we're sort of winging it here. For starters, I doubt anyone here is an ordained priest, rabbi, or imam by any chance?"

He only received stares in return, Viv sharing a blank look and shrug with Max.

"My uncle said he saw Arceus once if that counts. But he also claimed to have seen a group of clefairy fly over his house in a spaceship a week later so I don't think he was telling the truth."

Max blinked at the revelation, and John waved it off with a hand.

"No idea what an 'Arceus' is, or a clefairy either." Rather than wait for someone to explain, he instead pushed on. "But that doesn't matter. Yes, this isn't exactly something condoned by many churches or other religious institutions, but there's a better reason for the 'head down, feet up' approach: ground penetrating radar."

A moment passed.

"What's that?" both grunts asked, with Weave nodding along with a claw on her chin as well.

John allowed himself a lightly smug smile as he bent down to pick up the shovel, answering the query while starting to fill the hole with dirt.

"Something they use to find bodies and other stuff that's buried in the ground, hence the name. Now here's the good part: Everyone expects bodies to be generally buried all horizontal like, right?" With a wink to Viv, he booted a few rocks down into the pit to join the dirt. "But I've put the poor bastard in headfirst, and with all these rocks it's going to look more like a stack of stones." The shovelling was going so well that he had already started to cover the exposed feet and shoes, the speed aided by the piles of dirt just sitting around waiting to be returned to the hole they probably originated from. More rocks were kicked in, before John dropped the shovel to start dumping more in with his hands. "Feel free to lend a hand instead of just gawking, by the way."

Of the three, only Weave actually stepped up to help him out. A questioning look and a tilt of the head was aimed at Vivian, but the trainer only shrugged at her pokemon's silent request with the female grunt's arms crossed as she and Max just continued to observe John gibber to himself while chucking stones. Seeing the weavile walk up to the edge of the pit with a decent sized rock in her claws and a confused peer at the other rocks in the makeshift grave below, John smiled at her.

"Thanks Weave, a few more should do it. We just need enough to get a good blanket of stones going." Chucking another two into the hole as Weave looked at him and dropped hers in as well, John continued with his explanation also directed towards his fellow human criminals. "More concealment and also helps keep any scavengers from digging up an easy meal. Don't want to have all our hard work spoiled from some beastie just pulling him up like a fresh carrot." It also went unsaid, but there was the additional hope that a decent layer of hefty stones would stop any 'rising from the dead' shit that had a more-than-zero chance of happening considering the munted unnatural state of the world.

Rock clacked on rocks, Vivian sighing behind him while Max sucked in a quick breath of air before his stammer.

"I… I didn't really need that picture in my head, John."

Dusting off his hands and standing back up with the shovel, John hummed in agreement with the transfer of dirt into the hole restarting. "Fair enough, just like he didn't need our pictures in his camera's memory."

No-one else said anything until John had finished putting down a few final spades of earth. With a quick few boulders moved over to sit on top of the now well-hidden grave, John chucked the shovel into the back of the van and dusted off his gloves.

"Righto then, it's over." Breathing out, he felt some of the butterflies in his stomach go away when he examined his work. "No one will even know what to look for, let's get going."

But of course, there was one last thing that needed to be tended to.

"Wait…" Turning back to face the grave, John saw Max standing off to the side. The young grunt was staring at the burial site with his rocket hat in his hands, the cap thankfully made of strong fabric and not in any threat of tearing with all the twisting it was going through. "We should say something. None of this is right but… I feel like we should," he gulped down a lump in his throat. "We should say something at least. Make it feel a bit more… normal."

John had to fight the urge to scoff at the 'normal bit'. 'Chill out, Max is just understandably shaken up. Don't be too hard on him.' Vivian however had no such restraint, one hand giving Weave a reassuring pat on the shoulder while the other rubbed her own temple.

"Don't look at me, you do it if it matters so much Max. I just want to be done with this."

"Same here," John added, moving over to lay a hand on Max's back. "Come on mate, we've already spent too much time away from the truck. We better be getting back."

The way a shiver went down Max's spine when John's hand made contact with him did not pass without notice, but still the youngest grunt looked up at him a few seconds later with his eyes on the verge of tears.

"John… please?"

He could only sigh and pull away from Max, John taking his own cap off his head before standing before the freshly churned patch of rocky dirt.

"Here lies an unknown man, fond of taking pictures without permission and tasing innocent purple rats. Nobody knows his name because I haven't had time to root through his wallet for any ID, but I'm sure he lived a life full of excitement with many albums of photographs people didn't want him to take. But unfortunately the stealthy shooter became less-than-stealthy shootie, and now he will forever stay in this quarry with his final peace forever undisturbed. Or at least I fucking hope so. So rip, gesundheit, and good morning sirs. Gone, and hopefully very, very, forgotten."

'Forehead, gut, left tit, right tit.'

Making a cross on his body with his right hand, John returned his Team Rocket cap to his head.

"Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. Amen."

Was it some sort of blasphemy, profane even? Probably. But he didn't really know any better, and he was well beyond caring. Refocusing on Max, he was met with the lad looking like he was trying to catch a few flies with his mouth. "There you go Max, happy?"

Closing his gob, Max looked down at his feet.

"Not really John, no." Then, after a quick sniff, he looked back up and wiped his eye with a finger. "But it's probably the best we can do, so let's just please leave this place. I wanna go back."

John could only nod and get the passenger side door for him. As Max was climbing into the van, Viv passed them both on the way to the driver's side. "Great job, truly moving," she snarked with a whisper. Rolling his eyes, John shot a quick grunt back before going for the rear doors with Weave already jumping inside.

"Yeah, whatever Viv. Now speaking of moving let's just get this van back on the road, last thing we need is to get back to the truck late."

---

AN: John messed up. RIP photo man, and RIP Dream Team.

Hopefully I didn't go overly descriptive with things, and I hope that with the last two chapters of foreshadowing this wasn't a complete surprise to readers. Also because this has to be said given the M rating, this fic isn't going to have anything to do with 'pokephilia' save for the kinds of jokes and references that are already present. I can't write smut to save my life anyway.