A week had gone by since Amos first crash-landed into Scornpeak. His injuries were recovering apace, though his right arm and tail still itched. He still found himself reaching out for things with his dominant pincer, the phantom of it still haunting and filling his mind with lies. All he had left of it was the bundle of gauze tied around his arm. Losing his stinger was less of an issue, but it still felt off.

His strength returned to him over the course of the week. His legs didn't feel like they had lead weights strapped around the ankles, and he sit up with less struggle. He eventually got a handle of eating on his own without the menace of an Aipom feeding him. He got around to taking laps around the storehouse to get the feeling back in his legs.

Once he was deemed fit to leave, he could go back to his original plan of killing some poor sap and taking all their possessions for himself. He had a long journey ahead of him, wherever it was the Dukes ran off to. He knew hunting after a group of people he barely acknowledged as his allies was a death sentence in the Outlands, but they were the only people he had left to turn to.

Speaking of which, he glanced over to the nearby workstation where Evelot was hard at work on something. She had a set of boxes and vials scattered over the table. She crushed up some herbs and what appeared to be a tooth with a mortar and pestle while mixing colorful liquids together.

Over the course of his time in the storehouse, he hadn't made any attempt to learn anything about his gracious hosts. Evelot was too much of a bundle of nerves, and Phoebe got on his nerves. Still, their situation intrigued them. As far as he could see, the Mimikyu didn't belong in a place like the Outlands.

Without her, the scum of Scornpeak would've killed themselves ages ago and turned the place into a ghost town. No one seemed to appreciate her company even if she was the only doctor in town. They only respected her enough to presumably kill anyone who harmed her simply because she was their only source of medical aid. He personally thought her talents were wasted serving mindless thugs guided by carnal pleasures and intoxicating riches.

Amos glared at the humming Mimikyu before asking, "Why do you bother helping these assholes?"

Evelot jolted. "EH?!" She spun around before sighing in relief. "I sometimes forget you're in the same room as me."

"If I were you, I would've poisoned the lot of them ages ago. They don't seem to hesitate to take advantage of you." He glanced in the direction of the front door where a splatter of dry blood was hidden behind an aisle shelf. "For better or for worse."

Evelot narrowed her eyes sadly before turning back to her work. "I…just want to help them."

"Is it part of a doctor's oath to blow a guy's brains out with a six piece?"

"…" She shuddered. "I don't like guns. I only have one because Phoebe insisted I arm myself. I…guess she was right, but still…"

"You're wasting your time. If you think anything you're doing here is going to make a difference or some shit, you might as well just pack up and leave."

"…Leaving isn't an option."

He raised his brow. "Huh?"

Evelot sighed. "It's…not like I'm doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I just needed somewhere to be safe."

"…Safe? In the Outlands?"

She whimpered. "Compared to everywhere else, this is the safest place I could be. I'm only here to continue my research."

Amos bent his head back and tried to get a good look at her workstation. At the angle he was sitting at, he couldn't see anything beyond the basic equipment. Everything else was either out of view or too low to the table's surface to be identified. "Research, eh?"

"It…It's nothing. Nothing important."

"…Sounds like a whole lot of something if it means sticking it out in the Outlands."

She whimpered again. "This is the only place in the region where I'm safe from the law…"

That caught Amos' attention. He didn't know what kingdom the Mimikyu hailed from, but what law would she be running from that made the Outlands the safest place for her to live?

What does that little doctor know?

Evelot sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, but could we drop this conversation? It's making me queasy—"

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

Amos and Evelot turned in the direction of the door. They shared a look with each other before the Gligar rolled his eyes and collapsed back over his cot. Evelot sighed, shaking off her nerves, and hopped off her seat to greet her customer at the door.

"One second!" She undid the barricade and pulled the door open. "H-Hello. Are you here for a pick—EEP!"

Amos jolted as Evelot suddenly slammed the door shut and dashed across the storehouse. "Wha—"

"PHOEEEEEEEEBE!"

Phoebe pinched between her tired eyes as Evelot quivered right next to her. Her eyeholes were stained with tears, and she clutched to Phoebe's dress like a security blanket.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she wailed.

The Aipom groaned. "It's fine. Ugh." She shook her head and glared at the door. "Dammit, Thatcher. Of course he would pick now while I'm sleeping."

"I'm sorry…"

Phoebe patted her head. "Shh, shh. You're fine. Let me handle this."

Amos glared at the women. "Mind if I ask what this is about?"

Phoebe glared. "I believe you answered that yourself when you first showed up: none of your business. Now, pipe down and—"

"We have to pay rent," Evelot mumbled. Phoebe facepalmed.

"Rent? You have to rent to stay in the Outlands?" Amo asked, almost flabbergasted by the news.

Phoebe ran her hand down her face before groaning. "If you must know, there's a small gang running Scornpeak. In order to stay in Scornpeak, we need to pay rent every two weeks. We have this crummy building all to ourselves under the condition we pay up the agreed upon amount." She rolled her eyes. "Of course, Thatcher tries to scam Evelot into paying more, so I'm the one that handles negotiations."

"I'm sorry…" Evelot mumbled.

Amos glared. "I know certain sections of the Outlands still use currency, but what could a gang need with a racket like this?"

Phoebe shrugged. "Hell if I know. I just don't want this place catching fire while I'm asleep." She reached into one of the nearby shelves and pulled out a spiked club stained with blood and…the rotting ear of a Jolteon still pinned to it. Or at least Amos thought it looked like a Jolteon's ear. "Anyway, this shouldn't take more than ten minutes. Come on, Eve."

"R-Right…" She meekly followed behind the Aipom.

Phoebe poked her head back around the shelf and smirked deviously at Amos. "Oh, and if you raid my room while I'm gone, I'm going to shove this bat up your ass. Cool?"

"…Understood," he grumbled.

"Perfect." She ducked back and carried along her way.

Amos listened as the door opened and closed, leaving him alone in the storehouse. He glanced over at Evelot's unattended workstation. "Hmm…"

As soon as she slammed the door shut, Phoebe propped the spiked bat over her shoulder and glared up at the trio of thugs looming over her. Evelot cowered behind her skirt, the head of her costume flopping about. Phoebe showed no fear facing the menacing Carnivine, Golbat, or Magcargo. She tightened her grip on her bat and smirked.

"You've picked a bad time to bully us out of our money, Thatcher," she hissed. "I'm not a very nice person when someone interrupts my sleep."

The Carnivine narrowed his eyes. "Tch. And here I was hoping that little alchemist would be too scared to come running for you." He lowered down to her level. "Were you planning to bash our brains out with that little weapon of yours? Like with my last guy?"

Phoebe shrugged. "Maybe teach your men to keep their paws to themselves. I'd say splattering his brains over the road was a fair trade."

Magcargo growled. "He didn't even die from the first hit! You kept beating him over and over until his head was flattened!"

Phoebe pulled the decaying ear off the bat. "Well, he shouldn't have touched me. I'm not seeing the issue here."

The Golbat hissed. "Don't get too big a head, Burkhard. The only reason you're not dead is because of your little friend there. You've got a lot to answer fo—ACK!" Phoebe causally tossed the rotting ear into his gaping mouth, to which he accidentally swallowed it. "AAAGH! OH GOD! AAAAAAGH!" He dropped to the ground and collapsed onto his knees, heaving as he tried to make himself vomit. "That's DISGUSTING!"

Phoebe smirked. "I bet you can still taste some of his brain on that."

Thatcher narrowed his eyes. "Don't push your luck, Burkhard. Our patience with you has a limit."

"I'm sure it does, but this is what happens when I don't get my eight hours of sleep." She pointed the bat at the fly catcher's head. "Or when you pick on Evelot." She glared. "She may not have much of a backbone—"

"I-I am right behind you," Evelot murmured.

"—but I'm not going to let you bully her." She slammed the bat down and leaned against it. "Now, I believe there's the matter of rent."

"…Of course." He held his hand out. "You know the deal."

Phoebe nodded at Evelot, who pulled out a sack of coins from under her costume. She grabbed and handed it over to Thatcher. "Two hundred bits as promised. Now get lost." She turned and started pushing Evelot back into the storehouse.

Thatcher opened the coin bag and quickly sifted through the coins. A smirk stretched over his face. "Oh, uh…where's the rest?"

The women stopped halfway. Phoebe glared over her shoulder. "Don't pull that shtick with me. I counted up the coins myself. It's two hundred exactly."

Thatcher chuckled. "Oh dear, I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

He stashed the bag into a satchel he was wearing and crossed his arms. "I've decided to raise the rent for this week."

Their eyes widened. "What?!"

"You heard me. There's an extra amount you need to pay. If you don't want anything bad happening, of course."

Phoebe growled. "Bastard. We paid what we owe. You're not swindling another coin out of me!"

Thatcher laughed. "Oh, I'm not asking for more money. You need to pay up with something else." He pointed at Evelot, who flinched and hid back behind Phoebe. "I want something from you."

Her eyes widened. "You want…what?"

Phoebe gasped. "Wait, what are you—"

"You heard me. I want the recipe for the Faucher family's special energy binding potion."

Curiosity was a dangerous mindset, and Amos would be pushing his luck snooping while the girls were absent. Still, in the week he had been recuperating for, he never got the opportunity to explore more than beyond his sad excuse of a cot. It was a rare treat to be alone without one or both women keeping track of him.

He made his way over to the Mimikyu's workstation, finally getting an eyeful of the scientific equipment scattered atop the table. Beakers, vials, mortar and pestles, matches, and jars full of varying ingredients. If he had to wager a guess, he was looking at the setup of a skilled alchemist.

"Hmm…" He picked up a jar and inspected it. It was packed full of Mareep wool. Picking up another jar, he found it full of Dragonite scales. Each jar had a collection of something picked off from a Pokémon, whether collected naturally via shedding or…means Amos was sure weren't legal.

Alchemy had always been a strange process to the outside observer as it effectively utilized material found on fellow Pokémon to create potions, yet the results weren't to be scoffed at. Modern medicines were derived from the dedicated practices of alchemy, and some of the worst explosives and poisoned devised came from twisted minds pushing the boundaries of science.

Seeing the setup, Amos had an even harder time believing someone like Evelot would station themselves out in a godforsaken town like Scornpeak. With the right connections, she would be a renowned alchemist all across Virdis. Anyone would pay anything to get a talented alchemist to work for them, especially kingdom rulers.

"What brought you here?" he wondered. "You ran away to hide yourself from the law. What could you have possibly been doing to get you in trouble with the law?"

He combed through the equipment until his eyes were drawn to a half-open box sitting off to the side. He raised his brow, seeing a low light being emitted from within. Curious, he pulled it closer to the edge and pushed the lid open.

His eyes widened. "What in the…?"

Inside the small box was a set of bullets, each one laying evenly apart from each other. Based on the depth of the box, there were a couple more trays stacked underneath the topmost, each one also holding a bullet. However, what stood out about these bullets was the odd glow they emitted. Each one produced a faint light of varying colors.

Amos picked up a bullet glowing in an icy blue light. To his surprise, it was as cold as ice. It didn't seem to give off any chilling aura, either. It was only cold when he touched it.

"What in the world…?" He studied the bullet until he noticed ice crawling over his pincer. "WHOA!" He dropped the bullet and covered his frozen pincer.

The bullet struck the floor, and a bright blue flash erupted in front of him. Amos acted fast and stepped out of the way as ice suddenly formed over the floor. He stepped back into the workstation and shielded his eyes until the light subsided.

When he uncovered them, he was met with another surprise as he stared at the aftermath of the rogue bullet. His eyes widened, studying the unusual pattern of ice that had taken shape near his feet. "Who…the hell is this chick?"

The bullet had released a blast of cold over the floor. It took on the shape of a bite mark made of ice.

"The…The what?!" the women gasped.

Thatcher snickered. "Did I stutter?"

"Oh no…" Evelot whimpered.

Phoebe stepped forward and brandished her bat. "How do you know about that?! Only a select few people know that formula exists!"

"And did it ever occur to you I might know someone who was familiar with that formula?" He leaned down with a smug grin. "My employer happened to recognize the name of Faucher when I brought it up in one of my letters to him. He told me all about the Faucher family."

Evelot's eyes widened. "Oh no…"

"I always thought it strange why a couple of ladies like yourselves would sequester in a rotten part of the region like this. Now I understand why." Thatcher laughed behind his hand. "Must be my lucky day. A score like this will earn me favor with the boss."

Phoebe clenched her teeth. "If you try anything, I'll—"

Thatcher cupped her chin in his hand. "Now, now, my dear. There's no need for violence. This is business. I'm willing to negotiate for the recipe."

She smacked his hand away. "No deal!"

"You didn't even hear my proposition."

"I said no deal!" she shouted. "I don't care what it is! You're not getting that formula from Evelot!"

The trembling Mimikyu poked her head out. "Um, if you want me to upgrade one of your weapons instead, I could compro—"

"Sorry, little alchemist~," Magcargo teased. "We're not here for upgrades. We want the actual recipe for your family's formula. No exceptions."

Evelot shook her head. "N-No. I don't want anyone misusing the formula. M-My family went to great lengths to keep it secret! If it fell into the wrong hands—"

"Whatever happens is none of your concern," Thatcher said. His smirk grew. "It's not like you won't be compensated. In fact, I could even put in a good word to my boss. If you don't want to give up the recipe, you could always work for us."

"N-No!" she gasped.

Phoebe growled and shoved Thatcher back with her bat. "I'm giving you ten seconds to back off before I pin your guts to this thing!"

He scowled. "Then I guess your lives are forfeit." He snapped his fingers, and Golbat and Magcargo advanced toward the women.

Phoebe and Evelot backed up against the door, feeling the intense heat of the lava snail as he neared them. Phoebe closed her eyes, wracking her brain for a solution, before gasping. "W-Wait! Wait!"

Thatcher glared. "Pleading for your life won't save you."

She held her hand out. "Hold on a moment, then! Just hear me out!"

"…" He snapped his fingers. "Stand down." Golbat and Magcargo nodded and backed off, giving the women space to breathe. Thatcher crossed his arms and glared down at them. "You only have one chance to speak your piece. Use this chance wisely."

Evelot looked at her friend unsurely. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Just trust me," she whispered back. She took a deep breath before glaring up at the Carnivine. "How about this? We won't just give you the recipe."

He raised his brow. "Eh?"

"WHAT?!" Evelot screamed.

Phoebe nodded. "Come back later at midnight. If you do, we'll have the recipe ready for you plus ten barrels worth of the potion."

Golbat's eyes widened. "Ten barrels worth?!"

"Do you know how many weapons we could craft with that much?!" Magcargo exclaimed.

Thatcher massaged his chin. "My, my. That is a worthwhile deal." He glared. "A mighty convenient one, too. You can't possibly have ten barrels made by midnight."

Phoebe glared. "It's not like there's anywhere for us to escape to. We'll have ten barrels made up before you arrive at midnight. You can take those and the recipe to your boss. I'm sure he'll be most pleased with the haul."

"…" Thatcher closed his eyes and considered the offer. "That would land me in his good graces."

Evelot frantically tugged on Phoebe's skirt. "What are you doing?!" she whispered loudly. She shrugged the panicking Mimikyu off.

"In exchange—" Phoebe continued. "You'll lower our rent and give us access to your personal storage of food. I'd say that's a fair enough deal to compensate."

"…" Thatcher sighed and reached his hand out. "I suppose that would suffice. Very well, Burkhard, you have a deal." Phoebe reached out to shake his hand, but he immediately clenched it in his grip. "However…if we come back and discover you were trying to trick us, you're going to end up like my last henchman. Do we understand each other?"

Her expression was firm and unchanging as she glared back at him. "Clearly."

"Hmph." He released her and turned away. "We'll be back by midnight. You better keep your word." He snapped his fingers, and he and his thugs went on their way.

Phoebe waved to them with a shit-eating grin. "Oh, I always keep my word." She felt more tugging on her skirt and looked at the panic-stricken Mimikyu. "Eh?"

"Phoebe, you're my best friend, so let me just say…HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!" she screamed. "I can't make ten barrels in half a day! It takes double that amount of time just to make ten vials! Why would you do that?! And why would you promise them my recipe—" Phoebe slapped her tail over Evelot's face.

"Will you calm down?" she grunted. "I'm not actually going to give them the recipe."

Evelot pushed her tail aside and stared up in confusion. "Y-You're…not?"

"Of course not. I'd be an idiot to let them get their hands on it."

"Then…what are we going to do when they show up at midnight?"

A devilish grin stretched over the Aipom's face. "We're going to give them exactly what they want."

Amos stared at the odd formation of ice on the floor, kneeling over it to get a better look. He picked up the bullet, now drained of its blue glow and lacking that cooling touch. Curious, he grazed the back of his pincer over the ice formation, getting a feel of the ice.

"That's definitely Ice Fang," he mumbled. "But how? Pokémon can imbue their weapons with attacks, but I've never seen a case of someone storing an attack. There's no way an Ice Fang could've been kept inside a bullet without an active user. How the hell did she…?"

He glanced over at the lone box before standing and overlooking the assortment of bullets inside. There was a great number of them, each one likely storing powerful moves that can be released at a moment's notice. He wondered what would've happened if they were fired out of a gun. Would the effects be magnified by the speed and power generated upon firing? And what kind of moves were even stored inside the bullets?

"Something like this has potential," he mumbled. "This has military applications. It could increase the lethality of firearms. Something like this could change the course of wars. You wouldn't need to fire regular cannonballs at your enemy. You could fire something like…an Ice Fang cannonball to rip your enemy to shreds in ice."

He stared at the bullet box closely, his attention being drawn to a bullet glowing in a purple aura. It…reminded him of something. Something he never understood fully before, but…now the pieces were coming together.

"Or…it could be used to make a—"

"HEY!"

Amos barely looked over his shoulder in time as a spiked bat came flying at his face. He ducked as Phoebe nearly took his head off in one shot, but the feisty Aipom struck his chest with the bat's handle and knocked him against the wall. He reached out and stopped the bat as she went for another swing to his body. He struggled to hold her back with only one arm.

Phoebe snarled as she tried to push the spiked back into his chest. "What…are you doing?"

Amos scowled. "Well, I'm not…disobeying your orders, am I?"

"You were snooping. How much do you know?"

He glanced down at the patch of ice under them. "About enough."

"Then this is where I kick you out…with your brain spilling out from your ears!" She reached behind herself and pulled out a dagger. Amos' eyes widened as she produced the blade, which glowed orange in a searing heat. She reared the dagger up and prepared to plunge it through his head.

Shadow arms reached out and grabbed Phoebe's arm before she could execute him. "Phoebe, no!" Evelot cried. "Don't kill him!"

"His life doesn't mean anything!" she growled. "Besides, he knows too much. We already have Thatcher breathing down our necks. I don't need this asshole running his mouth about what we're doing."

Evelot shook her head. "Phoebe, please! He's still my patient! Don't kill him!"

"Evelot—"

"Please!"

"…UGH!" She stabbed into the wall beside Amos' head, burning his cheek with the edge of the dagger. She let out an annoyed huff before pulling the dagger away and dropping Amos. "Fine." She sheathed the dagger and stepped away.

Evelot reached out to the Gligar as he collected himself. "Are you okay—"

He slapped her hands away. "Don't touch me."

"S-Sorry."

He picked himself back onto his feet and glared at Phoebe. "I thought there was something odd about this whole set up. You're not doctors, you're alchemists."

She glared back. "She's the alchemist. I'm just her assistant."

"Lovely. So, mind explaining to me why the sudden interest in executing me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. I've been waiting to do that all week. Still am."

Evelot stepped between them and held her hands out. "Both of you, stop! No fighting, please!"

"…Fine," Phoebe muttered.

"Whatever," Amos grumbled. "What the hell is going on around here? And what's with those bullets?"

Phoebe glared. "That's still none of your business. And if you want to leave with both your legs intact, you'll keep it that way."

"…" He closed his eyes and sighed. "My name is Amos Lancaster. I'm thirty-one years old. I was a member of the Dukes of Buzzard, black market dealers who worked with alchemists. I was on a job helping with the shipment of a special drug being tested for my boss' superior called Wraith."

Evelot's eyes widened. "Wait…Wraith?"

Amos glared. "I don't know a whole lot about Wraith, but I know about its components. Microscopic pieces of elementium stored with poison. It's set to go off several months after being first administered into a target, then release a toxic cloud from the deceased target to infect nearby targets with the neutralizing poison. It's design to incapacitate."

Evelot trembled back against Phoebe, collapsing to the floor. "N-No. Oh no…"

Phoebe glared at Amos suspiciously. "How do you know about Wraith?"

He glared back. "Why do you sound like you know about it, too?" He crossed his arms. "I realized there was something familiar about those bullets. They're made the same way Wraith is. You two have something to do with it, don't you?"

"…" She closed her eyes and groaned. "Alright. You do know more than we thought. Now, give me a good reason I shouldn't bash your brains in for distributing that crap."

"How do you think I ended up here in the first place? I was being chased down by my gang's former employer. I escaped prison last week. I was trying to find my gang, but I was too delirious from the battle to figure out where I was going." He scowled. "The way I see it, we both have a connection to this Wraith nonsense, so I'd say it's now my business."

"Listen, you! You don't get to call the shots around here when—" Phoebe started until Evelot raised her hand and silenced her. "Huh?"

"…" The Mimikyu wiped her tears and picked herself up. "My name is Evelot Faucher. I am…the last surviving member of the Broken Glass Alchemical Company, founded and ran by my family for three generations. We specialized in creating potions for warfare purposes and selling them to the highest bidders. We didn't have any allegiances. We only made profit off war. My parents taught me everything I know about alchemy, including the secrets to the Faucher family's greatest potion."

Amos glanced at the bullet box. "It has something to do with those?"

Evelot nodded. "My family got into the business of studying elementium. When we realized its potential to hold and maintain the elemental energy produced by Pokémon, we sought to find a way to infuse that energy into a more stable form. We call it Rainbow. With the right dosage and elementium, so long as it exists moderately in a metal, we can infuse elemental energy into it. Like how…Wraith was made using concentrated Poison-Typing."

"I see." He glanced at the floor. "Then what about this?"

"My design," Evelot admitted shamefully. "For the last five years in the Outlands, I've been perfecting the transferring process. I came to the realization that by adjusting the formula, I could do more than just store elemental energy into objects. I could store entire moves into it. It took time and lots of trial, but I eventually got the formula down. All it requires is someone who has access to a copy move like Mimic, as the process of using Mimic grants someone the power to convert that move into its purest form."

Phoebe sighed, deciding to step in. "That's why I stalk and rile people up. If I catch them using an interesting move, I just copy and bring it back to Evelot so we can mass produce it until I run out of time. We have a lot of bullets store in this place."

"For research purposes?" Amos guessed.

"Exactly."

"Hmm." Amos crossed his arms. "So, Last Autumn didn't create Wraith. They stole the formula your family made."

"Mmm," Evelot mumbled. "It's made up of two components. The first is a poison meant to neutralize the target and render them incapacitated. It's made with a special plant only grown under certain conditions. The second component is the concentrated Poison-Type stored in the microscopic elementium pieces. With the body sufficiently weakened, the eventual release of the stored poison would induce an instant heart attack. It was made primarily for ransom purposes."

Amos glared. "But you can't make Wraith without Rainbow."

She shuddered. "Exactly. They stole samples of Rainbow we had in storage."

"Now that I think about it, we had to give the alchemists the necessary supplies to reproduce Wraith. They didn't know what they were making, only that they had to follow our instructions," Amos mumbled. "They could easily create the poison, and we would transport it to the criminal underworld."

"Of course, their supply is limited," Evelot explained. "If they've been using it on just the Wraith and smartly, they have about a couple years' worth of Rainbow left."

"Couldn't they just reproduce it themselves? They have the formula, right?"

Evelot grimaced. "Annnnd, that's the reason I'm out here. See, my parents were smart. When they realized the potential of Rainbow, they couldn't allow anyone but themselves to reproduce it. So, we've committed it to memory. And…since they're both gone, I'm the only one left who knows the recipe."

"A skilled alchemist could just replicate it."

"Not without accidentally blowing themselves up."

"Huh?"

Phoebe smirked uneasily. "Rainbow is extremely volatile. If you mess up the mixture, it will detonate. There's too many steps involved to get the mixture right. Thus, the only people who can reproduce it are the ones who perfected it. Evelot is the only one who knows the formula."

"…" Amos glared. "And now those goons want it for themselves."

She glared back. "They want it for their boss, apparently."

"…That's not suspicious," he mumbled.

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Think about it. I'm being hunted by the people who made Wraith, and you're being threatened to hand over a formula to something those guys shouldn't know about. If I were a betting man, I'd say our paths have suddenly intersected."

Phoebe huffed. "Are you saying Thatcher and his goons are working for the people who want you dead?"

"Last Autumn has been contracting thugs from the Outlands to act as expendable muscle. It wouldn't surprise me if someone out here was carrying out their orders."

"…" Phoebe glared at the floor. "Thatcher did say his employer recognized the name Faucher. The only people who would have a keen interest in a Faucher—"

"—would be the people who stole Wraith and destroyed your alchemical company," Amos finished.

She groaned. "What a tangled web we've found ourselves in."

Evelot shuddered. "What do we do?"

Amos leaned against the wall. "The way I see it, a truce is in order. We both want Last Autumn gone, and there's no escaping these guys if you refuse to hand over the formula."

Phoebe scoffed. "A truce? With you?"

"You need me to get rid of them."

She laughed bitterly. "Oh, is it because we're two defenseless women who need a big, strong man to protect us?"

"It's to buy us time."

She frowned. "Huh?"

Amos nodded. "Think about it. If we kill them, they'll send mercenaries after us within days. We'd be woefully unprepared for an escape. You two alone won't make it out alive in the Outlands, much in the same way I'll die out there. My cunning, your ruthlessness, and her intellect. That's how we'll survive."

"And what do you propose we do after we kill Thatcher? We can't exactly hunt Last Autumn down by ourselves. Besides, I'm not listening to a gunman who can't fire a gun."

He growled, cradling his stub. "Listen you, I—"

"I…know someone who might be able to help you." They looked down at Evelot, who was nervously pressing her fingers together. "I've…had some contact with a frequent customer of ours back when the Broken Glass Alchemical Company was still running. A young prodigy of mechanics."

Phoebe frowned. "First I'm hearing of this. Who?"

"His name is Caractacus MacGyver. I've heard rumors he experiments with prosthetic limbs, only these are made out of metal."

Amos' eyes widened. "Metal prosthetics?"

"Mechanical, to be accurate. He could probably get you back into fighting shape if we find him."

"Where do we find him?"

She crossed her arms. "Erm…if I remember right, somewhere around…Copper Gorge?"

"Copper Gorge?!" Phoebe gasped. "Are you mad?! We can't go there! That place is near where the Dead Men Soldiers are stationed! We'd be killed on sight if we got close to their territory!"

Evelot whimpered. "As long as we don't go near their base, we're fine. Caractacus supposedly lives inside the gorge. Apparently he went into hiding because he was being hunted by someone."

"How does that make this better?!"

"If we want to all survive out there, everyone needs to be in fighting condition!" Evelot pleaded.

The Aipom groaned. "Good grief. Even if I go along with this, what are we supposed to do? We can't just hunt down a criminal organization."

"…" Amos closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "Then what if we just hunted down one of their highest-ranking officers?"

"Eh?"

He glared. "We draw out someone with authority within Last Autumn. We could interrogate or flat out kill them. Either way, taking out a major piece of their organization is a start. Besides, they'll be too busy with their plans to focus on small fry like me. And if they get desperate for Evelot…"

"…We'd lead them into a trap," Phoebe finished as the plan clicked into place.

"We're not going to them. If they want her recipe so badly, they need to come to us."

"…" She groaned. "This is absolutely insane. However, it's my job to protect Evelot, and staying here will be a death sentence anyway." She glared at the Gligar. "Alright Lancaster, I guess you've got yourself a deal. You help us kill Thatcher, and we help you get repaired."

"Then we draw out Last Autumn together," he finished.

She smirked. "Just don't pull anything while our backs are turned. Give me a reason, and I'll kill you."

"Same to you."

Evelot nervously tapped her fingers together. "S-So…are we friends now?"

"No," they growled.

"O-Okay. Sorry…"

Amos glared. "Now, I don't suppose you have a plan for our eventual guest?"

Phoebe smirked. "Remember what I said about Rainbow being volatile? We're just going to give them a gift basket for all the wonderful moments I've contemplated bashing their brains into soup."

Amos smirked back. "Sounds like my kind of evening."

Evelot shuddered. "For two people who hate each other, y-you're scaring me…"