After clearing out the camp, Boon and Browley returned to Timburr Town where they bought more peppers—for the Pikachu's sake. However, ten minutes after the two entered the gates, the walls of the Mystery Dungeon north of Sigma camp distorted around a lone figure, a Phanpy, as it took small steps back outside the twisted area. At that point of the day the sun was still high in the sky and the Jichi Islands was a beautiful paradise in all locations other than Sigma. Phanpy immediately returned to his team's outpost, gaping in pure horror at what he saw. Blood was everywhere and large stains of ugly dirt replaced what was once green grass. His friends would normally be eating by now, but all that remained of them now were empty husks with lifeless eyes.
"No…" He whispered as tears filled his eyes. "No…" He curled into a ball and rolled throughout the devastated site. The bodies were still fresh and untouched, but they weren't the cause of Phanpy's increasing anxiety. What worried the small elephant wasn't what he could see, it was what he couldn't. "Where's Mareep? What did they do to Mareep?" In his panic the Phanpy lost control of its rolling and came to a tumbling stop outside Delcatty's tent. He pulled his front legs over his eyes as he sobbed, hoping that if he only covered his eyes for a few moments, when he'd open them the events of the day would turn out to be a bad dream. The soft, soothing voice of Mareep would ask him what was wrong and wipe away his tears. Sure enough, a voice did call out to him, but it was definitely not Mareep's.
"Kid? Kid? Phanpy!" The increasingly frustrated voice called. The child looked up to find a ragged Wartortle towering over him, his face somewhere between peeved and sorrowful. Wartortle wasted no time with introductions; he instead opted to ask three words, punctuating each for emphasis: "Who did this?" Phanpy didn't answer, he couldn't. He was too scared, this very same Pokémon warned the team to stay away from the Charmander and Pikachu, yet they didn't listen. One of the large feathered eyes of the water-type twitched in growing frustration; Wartortle bended over to be at eye level with Phanpy. He asked again. "Who did this?" Still, he received no response. The turtle sighed, resting his clawed hands on his knees. "The outlaws did this, didn't they?" Phanpy hesitated for a moment and then he nodded. "Motherfuckers! Fucking again!" Wartortle swore to the clouds above. He knew he shouldn't use such language, much less in front of a child, but with the stress piling up he didn't care. He pulled open the flap of an entrance to Delcatty's tent and gestured inside. "Come on in, we need to talk."
Hesitantly Phanpy stepped into his former team leader's now deserted sleeping quarters. Boxes were thrown around the room with their lids removed and the pile of hay Delcatty used as a bed showed obvious signs of tampering. There was one loose end Phanpy wanted to check on. He walked to the far end of the tent and stamped his hooves on the dirt.
"Mr. Wartortle? Can you dig right here? My leader buried something I can't get with my hooves." The elephant stepped back to make room for Wartortle who got on his knees, running a hand along where Phanpy just stood.
"Right here?"
"Yes." Phanpy affirmed. "Delcatty and Braviary found a box that talks, but they said it only says one thing." Wartortle's eyes widened.
"A talking box? I thought there was only one…" He dug into the ground with his claws, pausing every few seconds to ensure he doesn't dig through the device. About a foot deep he felt his hands collide with something plastic, and proceeded to carefully part the remaining dirt around said object. "Jackpot."
Both Pokémon sat in the center of the tent, Wartortle in possession of the tape. With a single finger he pushed down the play button and the device started up. The voice coming from the speaker was different this time; it sounded deeper and with such a strong accent the words spoken were barely understandable.
"I saw another firefight today, between the N.R.G. and the D.E.R. Ten minutes of men hiding behind rocks spraying at each other. It ended with two rebels running into the jungle and a N.R.G. soldier on the ground shot through the chest. I walk down to him and he was begging me to shoot him." Another voice spoke up in the recording, this one higher pitched and with the gruffness which comes from excessive amounts of chewing tobacco. "So what did you do?" It asked. Nonchalantly the original voice replied, "Shot him. Then I took his money and bought me a new gun. Just in time too, some bitch blew up the weapons convey an hour later." There was a slight pause in the audio, then suddenly, the first voice practically yelled "What are you looking at, outsider?" A third voice fear stricken and much younger faintly responded, "U-uh, n-n-nothing. Nothing."
A clicking signified the end of the recording. Wartortle stared at the device for a handful of seconds then tossed it over his shoulder. "I still can't figure out what the hell these things are talking about."
"You heard one before?" Phanpy asked inquisitively.
"Yeah, yesterday actually. It's scary how quickly those two took out both of our teams."
"What do we do?" Phanpy wondered standing up. "They… they killed everyone. And Mareep-" Tears choked up the elephant before he could finish the thought. Wartortle paced back and forth resting a single claw on his lip.
"Our teams couldn't do it; we're just rookies after all." He looked north, and an idea popped into his head. "That's it… we get help! We need to get to Station Eight and report those two—get an official bounty placed on their heads. Then we'll have every damn Explorer looking to cash those ass-wipes in." The turtle grinned, which rubbed off on the Phanpy, causing the child to shyly smile. "If we leave now we can get there in three days. We'll avenge Team Kitten Wing and Team Shellfire in no time!"
Phanpy and Wartortle began their trek immediately, exiting Sigma camp and heading northeast towards Station Eight. Along the way, they prevented boredom by discussing each other's lives, learning about one another's history.
"And that's how I became an Explorer!" Phanpy finished. Wartortle was too busy examining his now-empty bottle of Pecha juice to have heard neither the recolection nor Phanpy's following question.
"Huh? What?" He asked the elephant without moving his eyes from the glass container.
"I said, 'Why did you become an explorer?'"
Wartortle sighed, the thought alone of his history shameful enough to assault his conscious. "Redemption." He simply stated. "I did some things I'm not proud of, and a friend of mine suggested I join an Exploration Team to turn my life around. Nobody wanted a criminal though, so I made a team of my own. It used to be just me—a lone wolf—catching outlaws left and right. But then Vulpix joined the Hariyama Guild and they assigned her to me. And then a Spoink, Skitty, and Baltoy joined, but I never gave a fuck about them. Vulpix did." Phanpy's cheeks puffed as he frowned.
"Why do you use bad words so much?" The water-type stared at the grass beneath his feet for a moment.
"I don't know." He confessed. "It's an old habit of mine. I've gotten great at controlling it though." Phanpy snorted. "I did! You'd be surprised how many Pokémon I met who can't stop swearing. You know what I think it is? I think it's stress. A Pokémon swears more when put in high levels of stress. The stress lasts too long, the swears get stuck, and you get Sir Swears-a-lot." This answer pleased Phanpy, so Wartortle decided to ask a question of his own. "How long have you been on these islands?"
"There's more than one island!?" Phanpy exclaimed in shock. "Uhh, I think my team left the Ordova region in January."
"Ordova ?" Wartortle frowned. "I've never been there. Is it nice?"
"You bet! The Exploration Team Federation is everywhere! Everyone gets help!" The child smiled wide in pride. "You have to visit! Please?"
"Sure thing, kid." Wartortle chuckled. "Sure thing."
I awake to my third day in Africa with a sore back. For safety reasons I slept on my journal, but now that I have had time to rest I begin to wonder if keeping one is a good idea. On the one hand, I can turn over the book to authorities once I leave this country. On the other hand, if Darrell finds it and gets offended I'm fucked. That psycho is the type of guy to snatch it from me and read it in my face too. That settles it—I'm getting rid of this thing. I grab the backpack full of camping materials (yet curiously no portable tent, not that cloth would be good cover in a warzone anyways) and strap it to the back of my Kevlar vest. The body armor has an indeterminable amount of bullet holes in it because I stole it from one of the men I had to kill yesterday. Eugh, I'm still shivering. I'm going to the town today, against my better judgement. While technically it is considered a cease-fire zone, that didn't stop the Draft of Espoused Resistance from shooting that soldier anyways. I shouldn't be complaining; it did give me an opportunity to escape whatever torture they were planning. Regardless, I have to go back there and go to the church. If anyone is going to help me in this country, it's them. Besides, I am running dangerously low on Quinine pills. It will do me no good to be sick with Malaria and I heard from the man who saved my life yesterday that the priest has an entire stockade of pills. Whether or not that is actually true remains to be seen, but it is worth a shot. Before opening the door to the hut I spent the night in, I take stock of my inventory. Colt? Check. (I have the nagging feeling that's not the proper name of the gun, but I'm not going to ask anyone and risk getting shot) CETME? Check. Flamethrower? Rusted as all get out, but check. I unlock the door and walk out with my rifle in hand. To the right of the doorframe a shirtless white man roughly in his forties (?) wearing a cowboy hat wakes up.
"Shit! Overslept!" He grunts as he fumbles in his khaki shorts for something. He turns his back towards me for a brief second in his stumbling panic, but it's long enough for me to see he's going for his gun. I point my rifle in his general direction, avert my view, and for good measure close my eyes.
BAM-BAM-BAM!
I open my eyes and look at what's left of the man. The sight makes me wonder who invented the term 'clean kill'. The man is anything but clean—blood showers from three holes in his chest, painting the African landscape red. I cover my mouth and back away slowly. I try as hard as I can but I can't pull my eyes away from the scene. I just barely woke up and I killed someone! Fucking shit… this is going to be a long day.
Phanpy finished slurping up his share of stream water through his trunk as his new team leader patiently waited.
"You ready to get a move on?" The elder of the two asked.
"Yep! All set!" Phanpy confirmed vigorously nodding. Seemingly out of nowhere, the child's head drooped and he bit his lip in an attempt not to cry. "Mareep and I always got water together…" He recalled. Wartortle scratched at the back of his neck, he knew he shouldn't ask but he just couldn't help himself.
"You talk a lot about her. What was she to you?" It took a moment for the elephant to answer, but when he did Wartortle's hatred for the Pikachu and Charmander skyrocketed.
"…My mommy. I never met my real parents."
"Those motherfucking pricks. Those fucking cunts!" Wartortle said through clenched teeth. As far as he was concerned, it was one thing to kill a Pokémon, but to kill a child's parent? Especially a previously orphaned child's parents? Now that was crossing the line. His hands clenched into tight fists and his words dripped with venom. "I'm going to kill those two. I'm going to fucking end them!" Phanpy backed away from the water-type with fearful eyes.
"Mr. Wartortle, you're scaring me…" He whispered. Wartortle walked back south, not even stopping to look if Phanpy followed.
"Good. I want to make those assholes squeal."
"What about going to Station Eight and getting help?" To Phanpy's surprise, the enraged turtle stopped walking, but still refused to make eye contact.
"Fuck Station Eight. This is personal. They killed my friend and your mother. It is on."
"B-but isn't it wrong to kill? That's why we're doing this—to get help arresting them, right?"
"Not anymore." With that Wartortle left, leaving Phanpy alone once again, not even halfway to the next major Exploration Team camp. The child didn't try to follow however, instead he continued pressing on north with new resolve.
"I'm not going to kill them. I'm going to get help. I'm going to do what's right—like Mareep would want." This was not about revenge. This was about justice, and no matter how terrible things would get, Phanpy was determined to do things correctly, because nothing was going to make him comparable in any way to his team's killers. The Explorers of Time never sought vengeance, and neither would he.
Author's Note: I realized that because I have so much happening in the next chapter, it is probably going to take a little while. Rather than leave this story without any sort of update for another month or two like I did last time, (Which is kind of shameful as not much actually happened) I decided to write a short chapter in the third person point of view, focusing on what is happening with Phanpy and Wartortle. I kind of wanted to do this anyways so it all works out in the end. I also added in a little more about Browley's history in this chapter because he needs one. I can say with 100% confidence this isn't going to be the last chapter told from someone else's point of view, but it will be a while before another one pops up. I also realized destroys formatting, such as indents. Oh well, what can you do? Okay I'll shut up now.