Yes, the chapter title did come from a song in the Shrek musical. It helped write these scenes.
By some miracle, Victor and Gloria managed to drag Bede's body across town. They ran into the Stow-on-Side Gym Leaders out for ice cream, and only Allister seemed to have any idea what was going on, as he left without a word, still poking the spoon in the mouth hole of his mask.
They weren't sure if he knew, or if there were just too many people for him to stay. Bea saw nothing unusual, especially now that Gloria was the one dragging Bede like they were a couple, and they made it to Glimwood Tangle without being stopped once.
Once they made it, Victor started digging, using a fallen branch as a shovel. Five minutes later, he looked up, seeing Gloria watching the forest entrance, the glowing mushrooms reflecting as spots of bright color against her glasses. "You could help, you know," he said, and Gloria made an offended sound.
"I'm already helping," she protested. "I'm the lookout. That job's just as important as digging the hole."
"Can't you help me dig and be lookout?"
"Not if you want to leave the entrance to the forest open."
"You can do both!"
"No, I can't!"
And she turned back to the forest entrance. Victor, seeing that his friend was just going to abandon him to the corpse-burying, picked up a big wad of dirt. "Look out!" he shouted as he threw it.
It smacked her in the back of the head, exploding on contact. She whipped off her hat and moved to whack him with it, until she tripped over the body, glasses coming off in the fall. She and Victor both sucked in a startled, careful breath at the sound of an Impidimp laughing maniacally.
"Oh, you think this is funny?" Gloria hissed, as the Impidimp's laughter calmed slightly. "We've got a body to bury, you brat."
She gestured at Bede for emphasis. Impidimp decided that he didn't want to know, and hopped into the hole with Victor, helping him dig even though he had nothing to gain.
She moved to pick herself off the ground, and then she heard something that made her stop in her tracks. "Victor," she said after a moment, removing her leg from Bede's chest. Victor didn't hear. Gloria reached over and pressed her fingers to Bede's neck. She would admit to not knowing how to take a pulse, but she'd seen enough murder mysteries on TV to be fairly certain that dead bodies were supposed to cool off at some point. "Victor, he's still warm! He's not dead, he's just been knocked out!"
Victor stopped digging. Impidimp, noticing that the human had stopped, poked his head out of the hole to look.
"He's...still alive," Victor said slowly, watching as his friend propped the 'corpse' up against a tree.
"Fairly sure," she admitted. "Did you take his pulse before?"
"I don't know how," Victor admitted.
Bede made another sound, and his eyebrow twitched. Gloria shushed Victor and Impidimp, completely unnecessarily. Victor returned to digging.
"I just said he's alive," Gloria protested, and Victor didn't look up when he replied.
"The hole's not for him anymore."
Gloria nodded, seeming to get it. She snatched Rotom out of the air, and, ignoring its complaints, dropped it in the hole and started covering it with dirt. Impidimp, laughing again, switched to helping her instead of Victor. Victor watched in exasperation for a few seconds, then decided that since Rotom was the one who knocked Bede out in the first place, it deserved to be punished.
That's when Bede woke up, and, seeing the people he loathed the most covering a cell phone in dirt while giggling like schoolchildren, attempted to stand. He wasn't fully recovered, however, and he immediately fell again. This got their attention, even the Impidimp.
"Oh, you're awake," said Gloria, her attempt to sound casual coming off a bit too high-pitched to be convincing.
"Yes," Bede said slowly. "I am awake. Unfortunately." He looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. "What's this, then? I remember searching Stow-on-Side for Wishing Stars..."
"We're just past the exit to the city," Victor confirmed. "You must have...er, fallen asleep here. Likely a Shiinotic. Terrible things."
Bede, fortunately, didn't seem to clearly remember everything. "I had a terrible nightmare," he admitted, trying to stand again and succeeding. "The chairman revoked my sponsorship. And to make it worse, you two started talking to me."
Impidimp moved to the chocolate bottle. Gloria nudged him away. He picked up the fallen glasses and handed them to her, as if offering a trade. She took them, but promised him a helping of dirt curry in exchange as she rushed to make lunch.
Bede eyed the bottle, and then everything clicked into place. "That wasn't a dream," he said slowly. "I...I was pulled out of the competition. I did try to drown my sorrows in chocolate sauce. And then you," he hissed, glaring at Victor, "threw a phone at me..."
Victor fought the urge to whistle innocently, and put on what he hoped was a concerned face. "Sweet Arceus, he's hallucinating."
"I am not!" Bede insisted.
"You are," Victor said, "because I never threw a phone at you. The Rotom living in my phone tackled you so hard it knocked you out. We decided to take you to Hammerlocke with us, pulling a few Weekend at Bernie's antics..."
"And what did you plan to do after?" Bede demanded. "Did you think I would want to watch your matches like your friend there? Be a faithful cheerleader?"
"Not exactly," Victor admitted, "but I was thinking you might have a chance at working on how to get the chairman to take you back. And until then, we can feed you." He looked over at his friend, who was currently going through her ingredients while her Drizzile and Hatenna were fanning the flames. "Gloria! Got enough for our guest and his team?"
"If we all have small helpings," she answered as the fire reached proper curry-making height. "I know you all love dirt curry, but that thieving Rotom makes it difficult to afford everything I need to feed a proper army."
Rotom snickered, admitting its guilt. Victor dumped another armload of dirt on it. Bede almost left them to it, but something about the promise of food made him stop. "You do owe me for knocking me out and dragging me here against my will," he decided. "I'm off to train. Come and get me when the curry's done."
Victor did call Bede back. Gloria gave the Impidimp the first portion, and he danced in joy after the first bite. Hattie cheered when her plate was put down, but she kept her attention mostly on Bede, trying to figure out what to make of him.
Bede was trying to figure out what to make of Hattie, too. "How did you get a shiny?" he asked, trying to be insulting but too impressed to do so.
"Bribed her," Gloria answered immediately, scooping up a plate of dirt curry for Bede's Hattrem, who unlike her trainer was not that impressed with Hattie's alternate coloration. "How did you get a Ponyta?"
"Came here to train before Allister. How could you bribe her if you can barely afford to feed your travel partners?"
"Found some food. I'm actually rather good at it. Victor loves it enough to let me come along with him."
"And you went along with it?" Bede snapped, glaring at her with hate filling his admittedly pretty eyes. "Oh, that's a novel in the making. Bored little girl tags along with her boyfriend -"
"We're not dating," Gloria interrupted.
"Good for him," Bede said without missing a beat, before continuing on his rant. "Following her pet hobo around, having nothing better to do with her privileged little life -"
"Not privileged," Gloria hissed. "Try living in a flat with month-to-month living, getting by on just enough to not go hungry..."
"Try actually going hungry."
Gloria stopped talking. Despite his situation, Bede smirked. Ok, so the orphanage had fed him, and the food was better than the slop in the films, but it wasn't until Rose had sponsored (and funded!) him that he'd been allowed to eat as much as a teenage boy could want. He ate his portion and gothungry a few hours later, and that was a fact of life.
"So what did you do for a shower, then?" Gloria asked. "Your hair looks decent enough. My parents and I have to borrow Victor's family's shower."
Victor rolled his eyes at her lie. Their water heater was terrible, but they had never showed up to use his, except the one time the pipe broke.
"So you have parents."
That wasn't something Bede admitted to unless it was to prove a point. Victor's eyes widened, and he pulled Gloria aside.
"Don't get into a 'life sucks' contest with an orphan," he warned. "There is no way you'll win."
Gloria ignored the warning completely. "Ah, so you're one of those sleep-under-the-stairs cases."
"Exactly." He'd shared a small bedroom with one other boy, which one changing whenever one of them got adopted or couldn't stand living with Bede anymore. "Now take your parental love and go home."
"You're not the only one sleeping in a cupboard." Victor struggled not to facepalm as Gloria scooped up another bowl of curry. "I have parents, but that's about it. Don't even have a toilet, we use an old chamber pot."
That was marginally true. Gloria's family had a toilet and Gloria had her own bedroom, but she actually was living in a cupboard - figuratively speaking, since her bedroom was really only big enough for her, her bed, and her wardrobe.
"So you have a home." Victor actually slammed his head into the dirt as Bede continued this stupid little contest. "My orphanage was two layers of large cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, with the word ORPHANAGE written on it. In crayon."
It was a brick building with constantly-chipping wall paint, since all the money they got went into keeping the orphans fed and the roof repaired. But it's not like he was going back, especially not if these idiots would be coming with him.
"So you had a second floor. My parents and I have to share a single dishwasher box."
"So you have a dishwasher."
"Of course we do." Gloria pointed out the Linoone. "My mum found him digging around in the garbage...that we eat from. We named him Dishwasher because he licks our plates clean."
"So you have plates."
Instead of commenting again, Gloria shoved a plate into Bede's hands. He looked down in distaste. "What is this?"
"The reason I never went hungry," Gloria said shortly. "My mum's recipe for dirt curry. Altered for less dirt, of course."
"Eat it," Victor ordered. "No one can hate Gloria after tasting her dirt curry. It might make you a better person."
"I'd rather keep hating her, thanks. She kidnapped me."
"Victor's Rotom kidnapped you," Gloria reminded him, leaving out the fact that she was indeed part of the kidnapping. "We're the ones who got revenge for you by tossing it in a ditch. Now eat it or starve."
Bede kept eye contact with her as he reluctantly took a bite. This was a mistake, as the anger turned to surprise quickly, and the second bite followed the first.
"It's...edible," he told her.
That was the highest compliment he'd ever given, so she chose to accept it and continue dishing up the curry, this time to her own team.
She didn't notice his Hattrem, previously shoveling dirt curry into her face, take a break from her eating to give Bede a playful nudge. He felt the meaning behind her actions through a wave of psychic energy - "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, after all."
He glared down at her. "Don't even try," he warned, and Hattrem giggled. "And don't eat with your hands like that, it isn't ladylike."
Hattrem responded by using her tongue to scoop up some curry. Bede was almost proud at such a spiteful action. Like trainer, like Pokémon.
Victor had thought that the "life sucks" contest was over. He was wrong.
"So your mother taught you to cook," Bede said, even as he continued to eat the curry. "I had to eat dirt curry made from actual dirt once Samuel Santiago died."
Samuel had been the one roommate he hadn't hated, and had indeed made pretty good curry. Bede hadn't heard from him since Samuel got adopted, but it wasn't like they'd been actual friends.
"We ate real-dirt curry," Gloria stated as if it was a fact. "Until Mum decided that it was worth getting mauled by Pokémon to actually have food."
The MacCallan family had been tired of eating bread and oatmeal and her mother had thrown random things into a pot.
"Your mother risks her life to keep you fed, does she? Mine traded me for a new computer."
His parents had loved him and died in a plane crash.
"My parents nearly ate me to survive."
Not even remotely true.
"The only remotely parental moment my parents had was when I was born. In the car, because they were looking at new computers."
He'd been born in a hospital like most human children and had papers to prove it.
"Your parents had a car? I was born in the alley behind a liquor store because my parents tried to walk to the hospital. They didn't make it."
Her parents' car broke down on the way, but they got a ride and she was also born in a hospital, if fairly soon after they'd made it. She'd heard the story when her mother was trading stories with Victor and Hop's mothers.
"The best day of my life was when Chairman Rose ran me over in his car."
"I'm calling bull on that," Gloria said. "No one would willingly associate with someone who ran them over."
"I'm calling bull on all of it." Victor cut in. He held his plate out to Dishwasher, who happily licked up the leftovers, before putting it back in the pile where it would be washed as soon as they got to a place with running water. "Do you know whose life really sucks? Mine! I have been stuck here, listening to you two go on about how terrible you've had it, all while resigning myself to beating the tar out of an old lady. I was the one who wasted time and effort on digging that hole, which was absolutely useless because Rotom got out, and I've spotted a Phantump and I don't want to become one! Or hear it scream."
Bede and Gloria admitted that he had a point, because it was all true. Not that either would say so out loud.
Victor seemed to know anyway, and pointed at Impidimp. "Now, I need to get to Ballonlea. She needs to come with me, and he needs...well, he needs a new personality, but we can deal with it."
Impidimp stared blankly. Victor wondered if he understood. But then he turned and started walking, occasionally looking back to make sure the humans were following.
"My life's still worse than yours, though," Bede whispered, and Gloria gave him a shove just gentle enough to not send him falling again.
Victor: Dash (Cinderace) Corvisquire, Drednaw, Excadrill, Axew
Gloria: Ace (Drizzile) Dishwasher (Galarian Linoone) Rogue (Thievul) Hattie (Hatenna)