Eyes Like the Fire by Rafterman

For added ambience in the prologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E77jmtut1Zc

Yes, that's right, you put them branches so they intersect one another, like a little teepee, so they should be. No, its fine to start a fire using petrol. Your ma's just overly cautious, that all.
There, ain't that nice?
This story?
Oh, it took place a plenty long years ago from now, a time recalled by few and witnessed by fewer.
Yes sir, a long many years ago, this was, when the world was new and fresh to all of us, and we didn't carry quite the burden of comprehension which chains us now. Simpler times, I'd even venture.
None of this cell-fi digital baloney you kids blab on about, hah!
Just the feeling of cold wind on your back and your partner beside you, as you set out wherever to get job herdin' stock, harvestin' crops or fossickin' for gold, whatever a man could think to get the scratch for beer and cornmeal in his coinpurse.
There was a clarity, a certainty to that you'd be hard pressed to find nowadays.
This being said, I suppose nostalgia might cloud these old eyes something fierce. Might shelter my thoughts from the more duplicitous dimensiosn of that time.
It was a wilder country back then, understand. We'd just started to poke out easterly-ways, us poor fools what thought there was gold, fame or glory to be found in those unwelcoming lands, that we could become some sorta storybook hero or millionaire, shape and carve that country into something what fit our own agenda. Even the odd idiot with their head fulla poetry books and not a good lot else, what thought there was a kind of "savage beauty" to them grasslands, swamps and snowy forests.
Pah!
Lemme tell you boy, that was the kind of place where a fellas worth, no matter if you was Man or Pokemon, was weighed by the skin on his brow, the calluses on his hands and the gumption in his guts. You wasn't worth it, weren't up to it, well son, life'd grab you by the short hairs plenty quick and pull, if'n you understand my speaking.
The romanticism which all men hold in their hearts, why, it tends to fade when you have to march through six hours of mud up to your knees, with just about half the ocean belting down on you from above.
Same could be said for worming your way through a mineshaft to dig up shiny things for some other man, dust in your lungs, scrapes about your knees and palms and an egg forming on the back of your head where you didn't duck quite low enough at that last corner.
Or huddling close to the campfire with your back to your partners and a blunt hatchet to hand, eyes flicking to glimpses of something stalkin' you beyond the treeline. Something a good deal bigger 'an you are, with hunger in its growls.
Hell, looking back I nearly wonder how me an' Diggersby here got through all'a that without the loss of a few limbs, vital organs, or those precious parts of the soul to which the pysche is pained to continue without. Can think of a few guys who weren't quite so fondly looked upon by our lord Arceus in that respect, m'hmm.
You remember my friend Shamus, what was here with your Grandpa on my birthday, when you came over? Yes, the one with the shirtsleeve tied in a knot, and nothin' beneath it. No, its not rude to stare. That'll happen to you, get yourself caught beneath a half ton of rampaging Aggron, oh yes. He'd a been twenty two at the time, and cause of a moments hesitation, he'd done made himself an invalid.
Still, never stopped him from being one of the best auctioneers out these parts though. Or from whupping my tanned hide at Baccarat, for that matter. That was the measure of worth for us idiots out there. Grit. Not some quantifiable factor of muscle or intelligence, but the bitter tougness that kept a man clingin' on when all else was torn away. Shamus had that by the spoonful, oh yes.
There were a few who were even less fortunate than old Shamus, who by the unknowable will of our good lord, or the spite of some other boggart of those empty lands, breathed their last out there. Good men and monsters, they was. Some just didn't have the grit, their waylaying, though unfortunate, being little else than an expression of natural order. Some did, but still fell. You could have it all, so you could, but it mightn't matter all the same. The land didn't always care.
A lot of the time, you didn't quite know what happened, weren't given the morbid certainty of their dead body. They just up and vanished, and nought hide nor hair ever were seen of 'em again. Dead? 'Prolly so. But one hears stories, so they do.
Some of 'em was your near enough your age, know that? Yes, they was...
You either toughened up out there, you left, or well, you didn't. That was just how things were.

Ah, where was I?
Oh, yessiree.
Now, no one understood this simple law of the place better than Team Rocket.
Team. Hah.
Oh, they used to call themself the Rocketeer gang, I tell you, took to preying on the poor souls who passed through Mount Denarus. Y'know, that great big one down south from here. You been that way before, h'aint you boy? Mmm, never mind that.
Truth is, no one cared what they was before. No point. Granted, they musta done something fierce, as to get the power what they ended up having, but no one had enough of an inclination as to go about poking through their past, oh no. Had enough of a time thinking about what them boys was then, at the time.
They was a menace, you understand me? Oh they still poke around today, sure, steal some snot-nosed kids pidgey or caterpie, or throw a rock through some Pokémon centre's window, but they's just glorified delinquents, so they are. Just about a step above them Team Skull goons I saw on the nine-o'clock television feature the other day, after this weeks episode of The Nortons.
Well, back then, understand, it was an untamed place, unshackled by the limitations of government, taxation and lawfulness to which we are beheld in these civil days. No one group had the hubris to claim municipality, control, or regulation over any part of those wilds. You couldn't really. You had townships, villages, farmsteads and the like, a few of them family clans what came down from the mountains, and even the odd company what saw fit to wring what little coin they could from the land.
But the notions of government and federality, with their fancy committees, agencies, and departments? Oh, no.
Why, we didn't have no Police Officers, nor any Gym Leaders, or hell, any groups to whom the primary objective of their organisation was the location and elimination of such skullduggerous individuals.

They knew that, those thugs, bandits and bushrangers, and with nobody to tell them h'what to do, they chose to do everything.
Now you had your stick ups, and your robberies, and all those more domestic offenses which your petty thugs still do today. But they didn't stop at that, no sir.
You'd have entire herds of beasts vanish to the wind, their herders nursing unconscious Pokémon in bruised arms.
Farmsteads, fossickin' camps and villages were hit up, drained of anything worthwhile and then some.
Supply coaches would have swarms of young men and monsters descend on them from wait, hooting and hollering like they just seen Giratina himself, oh yes. Had to sit through that once, was mighty fearful.
Oh, and they had battlers 'bout them, no doubt to that. Liked 'ta call emselves Aces, wore their clothes fancy and their boots embroidered, and fought with a ferocity as you'd expect from a Tyrannitar. Didn't matter how good your Pokemon was 'gainst them sort of numbers. Most just gave in, let them take what they took, do what they pleased. Some folks, though, of a particularly stubborn or courageous constitution saw fit as to resist these scoundrels. Do you recall what I mentioned about those less fortunate souls?

There was a time in some of the worse places where one of them Rocketeers, cause thats what they called 'emselves, could walk into a store, and without the presence of a single threat or unpleasantry, ask for a bottle of something nice and doughnuts to accompany, and mosey on out with not a cent paid. And the shopkeep would consider himself lucky!
H'oh yes my boy, they was wild times. On top of the weather and the sickness and the stones in your boots, you had those hooligans to deal with. Musta' been hundreds of 'em at their peak. No one was quite sure who they were led by, who was the sheepdog to this mob of lowlifes and pistoleros. Guess he took care to keep it quiet-like, else someone decided to do something violent.
Whats that? Why didn't we just get rid of 'em? Hmm.
Well sure, people tried to stand up to 'em, but a single man, or a farmsteads worth, what could they do against a horde of them boys, when all they knew was drinking and fighting, same way a carpenter knows wood, or a butcher does meat?
They could be damned clever too, knew what would happen if us law-abidin' folks decided we felt that the sacrifice required to have them vanquished was well worth it. They wouldn't have that be happening, oh no.

Fer' example, You had this one group, callin' themselves the Finnegan Corke Detective Agency, they was hired by the township of Hadley. Good trainers, good Pokemon, a few what came overseas from that nasty fighting in Paldea, with the know-how to show for it. Thorn in Team Rockets side for a time, they was. People started to remember life without fear, without robbery, without some nineteen year old and his Pokemon loiterin' in wait on the street askin' anyone pass by real smug like if you could spare some change, and doin' something about it if you couldn't
Well they were soon persuaded to change their opinion mighty fast, those poor bastards, after a force three times theirs jumped them out Flick Gulch way. Fellas didn't stand a chance, even as tough as some of them was.
Most of 'em tough ones, the ones with grit, they didn't make it out that canyon.
The ones that were left after it all were done, they was rounded up, and they was marched back West, to Marlow City, where most considered the line between civilisation and not, paraded through every town on the way with due purpose, to let us all see their shirts all ragged and boots tattered, their captors crackin' whips at their heels and hollerin'.
Hell of a message, huh?
Said it before, say it again. Them Team Rocket boys, they was a menace.

Oh? What's that?
No, no, it was a good question, son.
You're right. Why am I bringing up these low-lifes, if I'm 'bout to tell you a story?
No, isn't that, none of them bandits had any stories worth telling, least of all to a good boy like yourself. They got something to do with it, though.
Y'see, if the legends are to believed, those thugs weren't the only thing crawling about them hills.

In whispers, some spoke of a thing, a creature brought down from someplace not like ours.
Features claim depending on the teller. A hat might become a helmet like some ancient warrior, boots might be cloven hoofs, things like that. I'll tell you what the version I first heard said about him.
He, (because it's always a man), was a figure larger than any human you'd ever seen, swollen with muscle and fearsome to look upon. A great long hat hid his features, and a poncho or cloak of sunshine red adorned his mighty frame, revealing only two boots of dark leather inlaid with gold. The ponchos supposed to always be flapping, even if there weren't any wind to drive it, and the patterns on the boots spiraled and slunk like serpents, if'n you looked too long.
Some claimed his teeth were made from smoking brimstone, and his eyes dripped the flames of some other world. Some, oh, they claimed he had none at all.
Some said he had nothing but rags and straw under his skin, and that you couldn't kill him with knife or stone or bullet, that he'd just stitch himself back together. Or maybe he was a being of tarnished bronze, like one of those old statues.
Some said he was a servant of Arceus. Others reckoned he was the bastard child of Giratina. One theory was that he had clawed his way out of the ground one still night, was the East itself made manifest, made from its stones and dirt and grass to enact its will with fell and economical purpose.
I heard one fella reckon he was a dead man, made angry enough to come back to life 'till his deeds had been done. A revenant.
Did he have Pokemon with him? Maybe. If they were, they might've been every bit as fearsome as he was, though no one can never agree what they would've been. Mean ones, likely.
Other tellings said he need but look real stern at anything what gave him strife, even something mighty fierce like a Charizard, and they'd drop quivering and shakin' like some baby. That he could do worse if he felt like it. That he did, sometimes. Some say he had arms about him. A gun that could shoot . A mighty axe that could fell any tree with a single swing.

Who knows, huh? Thousand different stories, for a thousand different story-tellers, but only one truth, ain't there? Maybe he weren't real, and your grandpa got fooled by his friend what was telling this story to him. Joe did seem the type, being truthful. Bastard still owes me two-hundred dollars, son of a bitc- yes, bud, I know thats a bad word. Yeah, I'll get back to the story.
So, only one detail was ever very clear, ends up in every telling; his quest against those Team Rocket thugs.
A crusade, if you want to be fancy about it. Wherever he was reckoned to have gone, see, Rocket outposts ended up burnt and destroyed, raids and thuggery ceased, and frightened young men found themselves lawful forms of employment to buy their Pokémon medicine, and strayed away from misdeeds against their fellow man ever again.
Anyhow, to the menfolk and their children, the farmers and shepherds, and miners and goldpanners and fossickers, swagmen and roustabouts and drifters who stalked them lands, and especially to them Team Rocket gangsters and brigands and bushrangers, he had a name, one whispered by campfires on the prairie as the nights dinner stewed, loggers cabins up north-a-ways as they lay in them itchy woolen beds, and in the corners of dark, musty pubs, over the tips of frothy mugs and behind smoking cigarettes.
Judge.
No, not "The Judge". Judge. Yes, yes, because he judged the Team Rocket gangsters.
Wha- look, would you just let an old man tell a story? We don't get to have these moments all that often, not since your ma moved to the city.
See, that weren't his only name. The Pokémon, oh, they had a name for him too, of course. They was the ones fighting him, weren't they? It was direct, straight to the point, like they so often are.
What'd they call him? Why:
"Eyes-Like-the-Fire."

Ch 1

Jasper Perkins hated the world at that moment. Not the incorporeal, effervescent disdain which was normally the most one could muster to the tides of fate and forces of nature which inconvenienced them, but the condensed fury which one could normally only direct at a person or thing; something material.
He felt he was not unreasonable in being this way, seeing as how fate had put him in one of the least eventful, immaterial places in existence. My prison He thought miserably, wet eyes flicking languidly about his surroundings. Around the outpost, they were surrounded in every direction by naught but endless rolling hills as long as the eye could witness, covered in haggard, stubby sheathes of yellow-gray grass, which clung to life more from vitriol than anything else. Above this, the daylight sky a perfect, unchallenged hue of aquamarine across the entirety of its breadth. It would be cloudless, were it not for a minute, pitiful wisp which travelled laboriously above him.
As he watched, its thin, vaporous swirls uncoiled and unrooted, slowly parting as they dissolved into but more air, consumed by the blue that surrounded them. The skies vacant singularity was uncompromised once more, its reaches stretching to meet the rolling hills at the horizon, twin ellipses of monotony.
He'd take another dust storm over this nothingness.
The heat did little to help, far surpassing the state of pleasant warmth that invited slumber, to reach a range of temperature which made salty sweat run from the stomach, forehead and armpits into every conceivable crevice into which the body could hide it, his eyes in particular, where it stung and itched. Taking his shirt off hadn't helped; it just made the sweat stay on him; form puddles that lingered about his body and formed crusty patches of salt when they dried. His Venomoth looked slightly wilted around the edges, as it perched on an uncomfortable footstool across from him, self-pity blatant in its mandibled features, only further affirming Jasper's beliefs as to the injustice of his situation. Even the splintering hardwood beams of the supply room creaked and groaned painfully as they warped in the heat, the glassless windows offering no protection against the broiling air. He felt the sweat pooling in the small of his back, aided by the arid warmth of the feed sack on which he lay, didn't do anything to resolve it, knowing the pointlessness of the endeavor. There was nowhere in this place that was cold, cool, or even lukewarm. Only less hot.
It was in this way he lay splayed on that lumpy pile of sacks, miserable and spiteful in the almost self-satisfied, smug way that one is when they know they cannot improve their situation, nor quell their discomfort. And so it was that this was where he was when the man called out in his bass, gravelly tones.

"Boy, we got some-think comin' this way"

He went only by Malloy. His voice carried as much expression as his face, which had been in an accident years before that left it paralysed across its entirety. The man had been perched on the leaning lookout tower above their squat, ramshackle accommodation, as he nearly always was, seemingly oblivious to the unchecked malice with which the sun beat at his hairless skull, thoughts elsewhere, as he peered around a hawk-like nose to survey the unmoving emptiness for some sign or minutiae of which only he knew. He never tanned nor blistered, as if the sun itself found contact with his skin repulsive, leaving his gaunt frame the unattractive hue of overcooked porridge.
He dismounted the roof by way of a rickety ladder, his Arbok curling down behind him through a window, with a hydraulic fluidity which Jasper never quite got used to. A long, bony finger gestured to their north, tipped by a dirty fingernail.
A cloud of dust rose proud, immediate and conspciuous against the barren landscape, like the banner of some oncoming army, tendrils of detritus branching off as it reached ever high. The dirt of these lands was thin and crusty, and crunched below foot and tore towards the sky at the slightest provocation, as if it too wished to escape these empty hills, coating one in a sour, clinging dust which took forever to remove from the boots, pants-cuffs and socks.

The old man wasn't wrong. Some-think was coming.
They heard it before they saw its , the yawning inclines and angles of the land carrying sounds farther than they should have, as if to taunt its occupants to the sheer distance of things, how isolated they really were out here. So it came, the mechanical rise and fall of hoofbeats driving against dirt, pushing the beast forward and the dust to the heavens.
He came on a rapidash. If he'd had a hat, it had long since blown off, as he clung to the equines torso, arms wrapped about its neck for good measure to stop him from falling beneath its hoofs.
But by the Lord Arceus, if he was not racing, the steeds mighty legs a churning blur in the heat-haze as he sped directly towards them.
Proximity rewarded them a measure more context to his origins. He bore the insignia of their group, a capital R painted in block letters across his shirt front in the colour of blood, with two red sashes interlacing his shoulders for good measure. No point being careless, not when you was riding the plains at a distance where sight was a difficult thing, and not with companions like Jasper and Malloy.
Don't shoot the messenger. That'd been a childhood song of his back home, had it not? Jasper licked his lips. Whatever this man wanted, he doubted it'd be a grace to his ears. Good news didn't come this fast.
Regardless, his heart still jumped, the excitement of a new variable to his dull existence welcomed.
The rider was a man his age, from what he could make out behind the poultice of sweat and desert-dust that had glued itself to his face. Two eyes were all that could be made out, looking like a pair of single-digit dominos as their dark, strained pupils jerked inside pools of white.
His message had made it out of his mouth several times before he jerkily dismounted, each less coherent than the last. "Drink, boy" commanded Malloy, producing a canteen that soon found its way into the rider's mouth. His spit came out brown and gritty, and was accompanied by a reprise of coughs.
"Spf-I- you fellas- pff- convoy- I-I" Malloy's open palm found the spot where the canteen had been at some speed, knocking the boys face about. It came away dirt-streaked.
"You'se try speaking something good out them pretty teeth, or I loosen em up nice and well for you, y'hear?" Wasn't any malice in them words. Not a threat, a statement. The rider took the instruction to heart, taking several deep breaths and a second swig of water before talking.

"Judge. He's coming".

Jasper burst into laughter, breathy gulping guffaws that rang out from the deeper parts of the lungs. Tears came to eye, only to be evaporated by the sun, as if it scorned his mirth. He continued like this for a good five seconds, before pausing. Neither of his companions were laughing. For Malloy that was a granted, but the messenger? There was a somberness in his eyes that made Jasper deeply uncomfortable. He grabbed the young man by the lapels and shook him something fierce "Hell he is, you dumb son of a bitch". They had no need to ask which Judge, for it was a name all knew.
Yet, it was the name of a man nonexistent, a boogeyman, one of the many legends that writhed in the inky corners of the minds of men, only to emerge from drink-addled pranksters and the foolish psyches of the young and naive.
"You'se think I rode out all this way for a vision?" The rider snapped back with a startling ferocity. "Me an' Brandy" he gestured to the Rapidash, which glared at Jasper as he clutched at the rider's lapels "We'se on patrol like always, only when we coming back to our outpost, which is out yonder an afternoon away, (He enunciated this with a gesture to the direction he'd rode from), well, we hear the sounds reach us of some almighty melee"
Even behind the dust, the exsanguination in his face was clear. "He was there when we get there. Same as the stories, so damnedly big, with that hat o' his. Rex and his Fearow, they was on the ground afore him, unmoving like. I hadn't seen what he done to them, but he didn't have no Pokémon 'bout his self, so whatever it was-" The boy shivered. "Then he turns to me, all quiet-like. Don't say nothing, move, make any notion of seeing my person. Just stares.". "I run, out this-a-ways, don't stop once, trying to reach this here outpost." He sneered "And I get here, where you kindhearted fellas call me a liar and rouse on me. You'se wanna tell me just what the hell that was, if it weren't him?"
Jasper balked, letting go of the boy's shirt. Even Malloy had gained something of an expression of concern, one shared by his Arbok, which curled about the verandah post, listening intently.
The fear in the rider's eyes was real, as was the exhaustion which permeated him and his Rapidash. Something had attacked them, that was probable. His dubious claim to this assailant's identity was likely the cause of some fear or terror which had been inflicted on him in his flight . Whatever it was that they'd seen, it spooked them, deep enough to send them hurtling over the hills like Giratina itself had come after them.
Something altogether irrational stirred inside Jasper. If this boy weren't wrong about Judge, it might just be.

Night. It was Jasper's reckoning that for every blade of grass in this hellhole there existed a star in the sky, so numerous were they. The sun had sunk below the horizon like a guillotine blade, a metaphor which Jasper cursed his mind for making. That sun, which Jasper had so cursed hours before, he would have wept were it to have sprung up into the sky and vanquished the stars, brought light to these lifeless plains.
Not lifeless yet. Soon though... He'd have taken a slug of gin (or four) to ease these treacherous thoughts, but panicked as he was, he knew he needed his mind unhindered by the mistress that was inebriation, were he to have an inkling of seeing this next morning.
Out here at night, the unchanging dark of the plains melted into the dark of the skies like wax, making a man feel like he floated in the bubbling pot of some colossal chandler. You could look down and reckon you saw stars, and turn up to see the blades of grass waggle at you above your head like fingertips. On these nights, Jasper spat frequently, if only so he could see the spittle collide with the ground, the impassable fact of gravity an anchor in this abyss. Sometimes, he could have sworn it went up instead. Facts weren't often worth a lot in these parts.

Malloy took charge. He'd been one of the Rocketeer Aces, once, before he'd been stationed out here in the wop-wops. His only callbacks to this time were the scars on his forearms, his Drapion and Arbok, and a steel fighting knife, and whatever memories had lodged themselves in that hairless, ageless skull, but these were all they had, and so Jasper clung to them and their resultant expectations.
The scars were obvious enough. Everyone had scars, Jasper included. Malloy's were jagged, gouging things, like he had brought up his arms to stop the onslaught of some ferocious beast. Jasper's was not predisposed to knowledge of the various sorts of Pokemon, but whatever the mystery beast had been, it had been thirsty for blood, and more than capable of drawing it. A Weavile, perhaps?
The Pokemon were amiable enough, but not of a disposition as to invite socialisation, except with their master, with whom they frequently sat on his lonely vigils, and with whom he talked in their strange tongue. Jasper had seen him fight with them only once. He wielded them with a ferocity and expertise akin to most Aces.
The knife was the most interesting to Jasper's mind. It sat in a oiled leather sheath with the initials R.K stamped into it. The knife had a cut emerald in the handle, and that was all Jasper knew, for he'd never seen Malloy touch it, nor use it, yet it hung about his waist most every moment he waked or slept.
Jasper had never asked exactly what had pushed Malloy from the life of an ace, knew the response he'd get would come in a closed fist. He had pondered it though, these questions unanswered, as he sat the weary hours away in their arid outpost.
He supposed it had to with the paralysed face. He reckoned "R.K" might as well. His mind played with a thousand half-fledged theories in the lonely days out there. Of Richter Karamov, Malloy's brother and partner in crime who he had betrayed. Rachel Kelly, a long-forgotten lover he left back in the civilised places with a promise to return he never intended to fulfill. Royale Korps, the cavalry unit to which Malloy was its stalwart sargeant until scandal had driven him from it. Rhoderland Knoll, where his fortune of gems and gold lay buried. All so deliciously interesting to think about. All fiction, made to make sense of a man with no past.
Such were the thoughts of a bored young man in the desert.

The former ace commanded the two younger men with a tone made all the more commanding by its monotonous apathy. It spoke to a hundred similar ventures much like this. A hundred survived.
The bronze fire brazier on the verandah had been extinguished, so too the tallow candles that dotted the shack. With light to reveal them in this sea of dark, plugging their illuminated silhouettes would be just like a carnival game for any rifleman worth their brass.
Sacks of animal feed and gravel had been arranged on the verandah to block coming projectiles. Born of corrugated iron and desert-parched wood, the outposts walls would not turn any attack nor provide any shelter when it happened. Every pokemon the trio had, Malloy's two and the other twos singular, had been roused to attention, told of the urgency of the matter. The rider, John he said his name was, whispered assurances into the ear of his frightened steed. He'd moved it atop their ramshackle fortification at Malloy's imploration. Any clever attacker would take it down first, leave them trapped here with no method of quick escape. Jasper's Venomoth fluttered somberly above his head, compound eyes flitting regularly out to the wastes. Though glossy and insectoid, the fear in its eyes was clear, and he knew it well, for it was the same that curled about his, strangling his heart and mind like barbed wire. He tried to keep a brave face, for its sake. Tried.
Malloy didn't crouch in cover, merely sat on the sole, splintering chair, which he had dragged to the verandah, hand to his knife, partners still at his side as he waited, face as blank as ever, eyes glinting against the stagnant desert, and its dreadful, theoretic contents.
And it was in this way they waited, crouched in the dark to meet a myth, a man who did not exist.

The bootfalls had been the first sign of approach. Spurs, rather. Tinkling, metallic things that clicked daintily with every step. The sound carried further than should have been possible. There was no other way they could ring so loud, so clear. So concise. Where before the hills had taunted him with how far things were, then, now they teased him with the closeness of those boots, and whatever creature was in them.
The sounds were a puzzle to follow, with each step nearly seeming to come from a different direction from its predecessor, some far away, some close enough he could swear he heard the soil crunch beneath them. And yet those spurs always remained.
There were times where they seemed to move away, and Jaspers heart raced, the threads of hope in his mind begging that Arceus please, he had made a wrong turn, lost them. But make no mistake, they were getting closer, slowly reaching their final destination, his final destination.
It was the tracks Jasper thought dismally, realisation like a lance through his gut. In John's mad ride to their outpost, his Rapidash had trampled the fragile ground straight. Judge had seen John from his outpost, had but to follow him, oh and the dirt, the dirt had left a veritable trail for the man to follow, one that led him nice and prettily to their front door. He gulped. He opened his mouth to warn Malloy of this, but the old man just jerked his head and leered, gnarled finger to his lips, not a sound escaped, and yet, a hundred words hid in the creases of that emotionless face.
He knew.
Thats why he sat stock still in that chair, straight in the open. Thats why he stroked his Arbok's head, with a tenderness Jasper had thought the bent, cruel man incapable of.
For those spurs remained, and they came closer.
For he was the setting of the sun, He was every grey hair, every creak of the joints and worn down peg of a tooth
He was the stale, decaying last breath that every man took. He was inevitable, unstoppable, a sole certainty in this mad world.
For he was Judge, and all wept before him.

Jasper could remember the first time he heard that name, with a clarity which startled even him.
It had been in a drinking house. Not a bar, nor a pub, nor saloon, no anything quite so refined as to garner a name, but a drinking house, for that's what it was. Team Rocket kept a multitude of them in maintenance and supply, on the outskirts of towns and along highways, where their members could gather and indulge in the wildness which all young things knew when they formed large groups, and squander their ill-gotten earnings in such a way as to profit Team Rocket somewhat. Quite a few of its patrons were not Rocketeers, rather, men of more amiable means lured by the promise of cheap hangovers and lively company. They were tolerated so long as they paid, filled their cups frequently and patronised the card tables.
Sweat-browed bartenders worked fervently behind a lacquered wooden counter producing countless mugs of lukewarm, frothy beer and shot-glasses of sour-smelling liquor, their customers uncaring of their contents save that it made their heads spin and thoughts fade.
In the centre of the establishment, a half-dozen gambling tables stood as shrines and monuments to the games of Baccarat, Three Card Monty, Blackjack and Faro. Their inhabitants clutched playing cards to their chests with the maternal tenderness of newborn children, the sternness on their faces proportional to the size of the ante, unsmoked cigars smouldering in static lips as their eyes weighed infinite possibilities in their hands and others.
On a raised corner, an assembly of musicians played wildly in a seeming group trance, a careening castrophony of fiddles, banjo, guitar and double bass that beat the clamour of conversation and clinking glass into submission in 10/4 time signature, as its composers swayed and teetered ominously to their tune. The drinking houses Voice was away tonight, else, she might join, bring the celebration of muscial sensation to an ethereal otherness.
Man and monster partook equally in these ventures, sharing beer glasses, lounges, hookah, and card tables with impunity and brazenness. In these candle-lit places hidden from the moons scrutiny, the facts of anatomy and physiology, and even the statutes of the divine that divided man and Pokemon, they were forgotten.
They was just facts, after all, and facts weren't worth a lot out here.
They certainly didn't mean a good lot to the man roaring about notions of cheating and nonexistent sportsmanship from the far side of a card table, as his competitor, a singularly smug Floatzel, drew its winnings to its chest with a languid self-satisfaction.
Nor did they matter to a patently drunk Toxtricity, as she drew her long mouth up to taste the insides of a humans mouth, as he laced his hand behind her smooth head. She curved into him, wrapping her short thigh his as he pressed her against a wall, before leading the similarly inebriated and impassioned man, an ace were the boots to be considered, to one of the several rooms which adorned the upper floor, rooms with cheap, dirty beds, lockable doors and thick adobe walls, meant solely for the indulgence of such baser instincts as nearly all are inclined to at times, should we be honest with ourselves.
Such was the way things often were in these parts.

Jasper was fresh and new to the area, and hence his apprehensiveness granted him a great enough sobriety as to resist the call of games of chance. He had found himself sat around a table, not the type for cards or dice, but a wide, circular slab of a thing, meant for full mugs and thick coasters to be set and stories regaled. A Breloom had nudged its way beside him, and sat chattering conspiratorially in its inexplicable speech to a Pidgeotto, which replied between frequent dips of its curved beak into a tall frothy glass of lager. The tables other occupants, an assortment of Rocketeers, Pokemon and labourers, acted similarly, conversing among their small groups of acquantainces. This changed when one of the roustabouts turned to the greater table, a gentle tap of his drinking glass serving to draw attention his way.
"You fellas ever heard of the ghost of the East?" The query came from a stocky, dark-skinned older gentleman across the table from Jasper, clad in an unwashed linen suit. Answers came by way of a multitude of "No sir"s and "The hell's that"s, a few inhuman utterances to the same effect, and one chirp.
The suit man grinned, "Any of you'se whats headed out that ways, you sure will wish you had". He drained the dregs from his glass, and settled back in the way a man does before he prepares to talk a great deal.
Conversation died down around the table, its occupants settling in to listen to this story. The man waited a few seconds before beginning, waiting to increase the anticipation.
Jasper felt a tap on his shoulder and turned. The Breloom offered him a hand-rolled durry, which trailed smoke gently. Didn't smell like tobacco. He puffed regardless, mindful of the dangers of rejecting gifts in new places, before offering it to the man beside him in turn, who thanked him. He felt a slow rush come about him, as his head blinked and felt fuzzy, like he'd had a half-kilogram of cotton put into it. He felt he knew what was in that cigarette paper.
"Out farther from here. You all know what happens out those-ways, don't you?" The suit man was an excellent orator, as men in suits often are, a rich texture to his voice as he savoured his sentence like a well-cooked steak, with an accent that spoke to the swamplands. An odd reverbaration sounded about his words in a sense not altogether physical, a sensation which Jasper felt attributable to accepting a cigarette from a fungal stranger in the back corner of a drinking-house.
"Time can be a little funny like, distances weird, and the realms of the physical, not altogether as solid and opaque as we might understand. The unknowable objects which separate ourselves from the places of emotion and spirituality, some reckon they get rubbed a 'lil thin out there, same way a boots sole might after a thousand miles over mountaintop. Some reckon it was the first thing our Good Friend Arceus made when he created the world, that it came out a little, pardoning my blasphemy, inexperienced."
"Others that it came last, that he'd near about run out of material and energy. That he, again pardoning my blasphemy, ahem, cut corners."
There was a grumble from some of the listeners at this display of faithlessness, and the man quickly moved on from the topic of theology.
"Point is, things aren't often liable to make much sense. Why, I once had a friend what shepherded out on the grasslands, and when I come to meet him one day after a good many years, he's gone and turned into a Pinsir through some machination of great inconceivability to myself or him".
"Why, he claims he had been one his entire life, like I hadn't just seen his hairy head and impressive moustaches not three summers ago. Still out there herding, he is. Visit him sometimes."
This brought a snort of derision from one of the company, and a dismissive coo from the Pidgeotto. Most were of the mind this last claim was of the tall-talk these drinking houses were known for bringing. Sensing the loss of control over his narrative, the storyteller continued.
"Well, theres one of these abnormalities out there, a thing which takes a form altogether more human as it partakes in its actions."
"They call him Judge" The name sent murmurs about the table, utterances of recognition, ridicule. Fear.
"Way I'm hearing it, used to be a gunslinger when that was still the fashion, some distant life ago, when we was all but thoughts of lust floating about our fathers heads. Made a life as a hired gun, fighting wild Pokemon, madmen, and the outlaws we would come to know as the Rocketeers. Found gunfight and battle, time an' again, and walked away still breathing. Not untouched though, mind you."
"Over time, y'see, he got shot so much, his body filled up with the lead and cordite that couldn't get pulled out, till slowly, and this was over a good amount of time I must stress, there weren't nothing left of what he was before. Left him some sort of creature made of bullets all smashed together, embedded with brass casings and rusted pistols and the like. He's embarassed about it, horrified, see, so he hides himself behind a long cloak and a wide ol' hat. Got his face hid behind a wooden mask painted like what he remembers it to be. He can't much remember it, though, on account of his brain being made o' lead, an' all."
The storyteller let out a self indulgent little chuckle at that, and took a a cheerful puff from the cigarette, which had found its way to him. The circle stood quiet, entranced in the tale.
"Way the story goes, he stalks the fringes of the East now, the only sort of place a creature like him could exist. He on the hunt for you Rocket boys, you understand" He gestured to Jasper and the two other Rocketeers at the table. Despite himself, he felt a pit of dread in his stomach.
"You're the ones what did it, see, shot apart every warm and soft bit of him in those gunfights, made him the way he is, and he is of quite the temperament about it. See, he don't like being made o' lead any more than you or I would. Feeling them bullets twitch around his bones, the cartridges rattle in his skull and stick between his ribs. He hates it."
"And, so, my boys, he find you, well, he'll do just about what you'd expect from a being born from gunfire."
There was a pause then. The music and the conversation and the rowdiness, it all seemed to have subsided to a hollow, the thud of the double bass like a sick, rhythmic heartbeat to the building. Had the candles and oil-lamps darkened? It seemed that way, though for what reason his mind could not quite comprehend. He scarcely wanted to admit it, but his less reasonable parts thought they could just about hear the thumping of footsteps outside. Only they weren't feet, but the misshapen gunmetal hooves of a thing, a looming, angry thing, a thing named-

"You're fulla shit, y'know that don't you fella?" It came from one of the other Rocketeer's, a tall fellow of larrikin appearance, with a half dozen golden teeth, which he bared in a drunken smile. "Man made outta bullets - Ha! - I don't know you old timers come up with half these things, I tell you what, I just do not"
The storyteller seemed a scratch disappointed his tales conclusion had been met with derision, but put on a jestful smile regardless.
"It's just a story, my boys.". He paused then, leaned in dramatically; "Isn't it?". This earnt him a round of mirthful groans and chuckles, as conversation resumed to its previous normality, the previous beat of tension subsided.

Jasper got up from the table with a nod to the storyteller, step slightly unsteady as he trotted to bar. Thoughts of that story sapped from his substance-addled brain as he laid focus on the Baccarat table with greedy eyes, a glass of something cold and alcoholic(What exactly, he was uncertain) in one fist and his wallet in the other. He had no mind for some old fools fairy tales. He was feeling lucky.

He was here. Judge.
He made no notion of trying to hide as he approached, a clink of the spurs to each step. Far too cheerful and light a sound, for this dreadful creature.
His silhouette stood larger against the horizons than any man should have. A wide, shapeless hat covered his face, save for the occasional gleam of eyes in the starlight. Sickly yellow, an unnatural colour unknown to the features of mankind. Were those brass casings. where his eyes should be?
He kept his arms within the heaping mass of cloth that obfuscated the form of his body, didn't seem to wield any weapons. He wore a cloak, or a poncho of some description, one covered in jerking, jagged patterns and lines, which twitched and stammered with each step he took.
Jasper could only see glimpses of strong, broad arms beneath, obscured as they were by the darkness. Taut muscle? Or was it the unyielding, tarnished surface of lead, of a thousand bullets which made their mark? The moonlight flitted between the cloth, and he swore he could see the dull sheen of metal. He nearly knelt down and prayed to Arceus, but in this sort of place, where that sort of creature could exist, he knew it a futile gesture.
And then, not fifteen paces from the outpost, Judge stopped stock still. Not a single movement , as if he were a being trapped in time. A moment passed, Jasper staring hysterically at the thing, and it back in turn, surveying him with its inscrutable features.
Words fell from its lips, if such a thing even had the devices.
A voice, a deep booming one, but undeniably that of a man. And yet that seemed all the more worse than the wordless, hateful cry of some netherworld being; made it clear that this might once have been human.

"Leave this place, and never you return. "

Judge was once again silent, and still.
Jasper blinked. Mercy? Or was this some trick, the beast about to play with its food, have them flee so it could enjoy the thrill of running them down.
Whereas Jasper pondered this, John listened immediately, leading his Rapidash down the verandah, towards the side of the outpost furthest from the nighttime visitor.
Jasper, waited but a second, then relented following his peer, nearly unbelieving of this change in fortune. The rider shot him a glare, but didn't make to abandon his compatriot. He had a strong enough mount for two, he knew that. Not only that, but it wasn't right, leaving a man to that sort of fate, that sort of thing while you turned tail and ran.
Malloy didn't. Focused as he was on the thing from the desert, Jasper had not noticed the change in the old man's demeanor. The appearance of that silhouette had done something to his person that seemed just about antonymous to what any being in posession of their sanity would expect. A flaring of the nostrils and hardening of the eyes, at first. Following this, a loathful sneer, and a great tightening of the neck muscles. Just then, he reached his peak, as he roared in a voice inflamed with a passion and fury that Jasper had never once seen, nor imagined, coming from the ex-ace.
"You think you better than me, you son of a bitch!" He sprung from the chair with a jerk that drew Jasper's attention from the apparition, as the chair fell with a clatter. Judge did not react.
"You think I gonna roll over and let you be, that I weak now, huh? I some forsaken coward that can't fight anymore than he can smile, is that right?" Foam flecked at the corners of his mouth, though still no expression came to his face; couldn't, in truth.
"Finnegan Malloy kneels for no man, no Pokémon, and not you, whatever the hell you are! Oh, no, no sir, not you, you bastard of the wastes, You aberration, you sinful beast, you - You... Hellion!"
It was with that that he attacked, bearing down as he cried out to his Pokémon. Of a similar mental constitution as their master, they charged bravely against this foe, as dark and fearsome as it was. The Arbok slunk low to the ground, before rearing into a mighty pounce. Judge turned his head to them. A burst of light shone from the horizon, difficult to truly gauge in the darkness, and the serpent went slack. Its momentum carried it on, however, and its face carried through the dirt for a half metre. Through this all, Judge did not move.
The Drapion paused in trepidation, reconsidering this target instead of diving for it. In these vital seconds, that hat-hidden head rounded on the arthropod with a jerk. It bucked as the sand about its segmented feet collapsed and softened, crying a vengeful hiss as it wallowed ineffectively in the newly-formed pit, claws gouging frantically at solid ground. This was cut short as the dirt beneath it was displaced by an object, a mighty pillar of stone colliding with its midsection. This hit with a fearsome force, driving the creature from the ground sprawling, it plates rattling as it slid. It got back up again with a cry of unadulterated aggression, claws bared, only for a smaller stone, perhaps the size of a human fist, to fly from the ground and drive into its chest, denting the exoskeleton. Still it stood, dazed, confused, but very much still empassioned with rage. At this, Judge deigned to raise his arm, directing a single wretched digit to his foe as it tensed its arms to strike. Another strike of light lit it, for but a second, and it wobbled once, before collapsing. It lay still then, twitching weakly.
Malloy roared at that, and drew his knife. It was long and thin, unadorned by any of the niceties or decorations of which fighting knives had no need. With a cry that screamed of fearless determination, he charged, charged with a swiftness unbecoming to a man so long of tooth. A scream that spoke of no fear of death. In that moment, as aged and wounded as he was, Finnegan Malloy felt he had once again earned the title of ace, regardless of what might come about him once his blade met this demon, death most likely. He felt euphoric. He saw a flash of light, tasted static in his mouth and oil in his brain as it tried to shut down, but through a force of sheer effort ignored it, overruled it, let his brain focus on little else but the still figure before him, arm tensed to drive steady into its neck, whether it had one or not.
A small outcropping of rock slid up from the ground before him, at a perfect ankle height, and he ran right into it.
There was a faint whoosh, as his boot left the ground.
Malloy had but a second to look surprised, roused from his berserk rage, before his nose met the ground at a great impact.
Whoomp.
He lay unconcious, the sheer speed of his charge having driven his head into the dirt at some velocity.

Throughout this entire debaucle, Judge had not moved in the slightest. Now, he turned to Jasper and John, and though he spoke none, his gaze said a lot. They froze in their departure, as if his gaze alone transfixed them from escape. Jaspers mind screamed at him, told him this was it, that it'd look at him the same way it did that Arbok and Drapion, and explode his heart -
"Leave now, sons of man. You change your ways, or we shall meet again" The voice did not change from its last, solely unperturbed by this recent attack. This was not a command, nor some challenge or threat.
It was a mere recital of fact.
And so, through a dark desert with no sky and no ground, they fled.

Ch 2

"Shit, did you see the look on that man's face?"
A young man asked the question from behind grinning teeth, stripping himself of the poncho under which he had hid. A large straw hat lay discarded at his feet as he struggled to pull the garment, its red and white striped form flapping gaily from his efforts.
He stood by a bronze brazier, which crackled merrily in the cold night. In the foreground, the outpost stood empty, save for the occasional rustling that arose from it.
To ponder him, the first thing the mind made apparent was his size. The boy, for that is what he still was regardless of mass, loomed over most everyone, at a height of six feet and ten inches. This was exaggerated by his current apparel, great sturdy work boots, which, through a deliberate trick of cobblery, had been built to exaggerate his height by some amount. Lean muscle clung to his arms, the undefined but powerful form that spoke of steady meals and frequent manual labour. This was supported by his wear, an rough, unadorned linen shirt and stiff work pants, the attire of many a farmer and miner in these lands.
Of his face, not much could be spoken of, save for the breadth of his ears, the patchiness of his beard, and the yellow-shaded glasses which adorned his eyes.
"Not robbers"
The statement came from behind him, from a thing that crouched in the outpost. A writhing, pulsing shape, entirely unnatural to the realms of clean air and dry dirt. It entered the light of the brazier, revealing its tapering, boneless body, and the tentacles which flitted about his head. A Malamar, as the humans might call him. His name was Rathbone, though he objected to anything except Rat.
"What then, would we call them no-good low-lives? Highwaymen?"
"That would require a highway"
"Bushrangers?"
"Bushes, of which there are none as far as the eye can see"
"Desperadoes - perhaps?" The young man enjoyed this verbal jousting.
"It implies a certain bravery, or pluck. Our adverseries ran at the sight of us, save the bald one"
"Surely you would not object to Gangsters?"
"I would indeed. It's an urban term, and we speak under starlight, do we not?"
"What then, my friend? What is the etymologically correct term for a coward in the middle of the desert far from any highway or plant life?"
The tentacled being paused momentarily, though it already had its answer.
"A bandit. Brigand, works also, should one wish to invoke the old world in their speech."
Rat couldn't "invoke the Old World in his speech", for he did not talk, his mouth being a rigid, curved beak. Instead his words came by way of psychic emanation, which pushed into the mind with a static fizz.
"But do you wish to invoke the Old World?" queried the boy.
"Goodness, no. Too much disease there for my liking."
"You say that as if there are no maladies here."
"New ones. The ailments of the Old World have remained much the same for time immemorial, and hence lost a good amount of their charm. Here, we have the honor of experiencing new fevers and plagues, a colonial pleasure which none can ever claim to have felt before. I can excuse adversity, but unoriginality?" What passed as a smile crossed the reaches of his crooked beak.

"Enough of your games, you two." A dark, looming shape sat by their campfire. It was only a small amount shorter than the human, but its mass far superceded his. Only a single hand reached into the light of the brazier. It was coated in thick, armoured hide and crowned by broad, spadelike claws. Currently, these grasped a ladle, with which it idly stirred the contents of a cooking pot set above the fire source on a tripod.
"You found what you were looking for, I trust?" It did speak, unlike Rat. Like many of its kind, it knew of the human tongue, but also how to shape it in the mouth so as to converse, or enough of it to hold a conversation for the boy's sake. Its words were slow, weighted, as if each were considered before release.
"Yes, of course" Rat produced a folded sheet of paper, which fluttered as his prehensile, jointless limbs set it down for the ladle-holders benefit.
The shape leaned into the light to look. It was covered in slabs of rocky skin, with a great crest of horns and keratin alighting upon its cranium. Tiny slits of eyes peeked out from deep recesses of bone with a shrewdness that belied his brutish physique. Every inch the image of a mighty Rhydon, which the graying of his armor plates and flaking of his nasal horn did little to dampen. He had once been called Bonecrusher Morton. Now, he went by Lawrence, bereft of any surname, and took great offense at any mention of his identity.
Lawrence looked sagely upon the paper, nodding once at some unknown cue as he scanned it. He then turned back to his compatriots.
"What's it say? You know I'm not of a reading disposition."
"Should we be believing the smartly written signatures and shiny wax seals, this a document developed by the Ludlow Printing House, on the order of the esteemed Santiago Rivera, Ace of Team Rocket, and licensed attorney. A cargo itinerary." Rat annunciated each syllable of the word as comprehensively as one can when their main form of speech takes the form of telepathy. "One detailing the route whereby a convoy shall be making their way through this decidedly barren part of the world, on their way to Marlow City."
"Ah. This is the convoy then. The one which we've been following after?"
"Oh, but naturally. For what other reason, do you suppose to think, would a criminal organisation bother to post buildings and men out here? When they proceed out on their ventures they can transport whatever them through terrain that would otherwise prove inhospitable and quite impossible to traverse, by virtue of these slipshod dwellings. Once the initial investment of scrap timber and young fools is paid for, the profit attained from shortened routes is well worth it"
He gestured to the outpost, which was filled with massive bags of stock feed, butter beans and hardtack, and the stubby well that lay close to it. "A caravan might stop at one of these and renew their food before continuing on through the wilds, and thus shorten their load considerably moreso than any trading group which had to take the various highways and their exorbitant supply houses. One might almost admire this system, were they not using these for their decidedly unsanctimonious and despicable ends."
The boy leaned over. "And this itinerary, this caravan timetable, it shows that we're on time?"
"Correct, my osseus companion. We've beaten them here, and by virtue of our previous attack on the nearby outpost, have left them quite isolated. We must but now wait."

The three huddled over the brazier, Lawrence and Billy balancing steaming tin bowls on their knees. Rat, at odds to do so, deigned to form a ledge of his crest tentacles, from which he sipped leisurely. Not a sound could be heard, for some time, save that of the clattering of spoons and slurping of soupy vegetables.

Billy spoke up first, gravy staining the fine hairs of his upper lip "It is a fortune that those Desperad -ahem- bandits were so keen to flee at the sight of my haunting attire, would you not agree? That rat-faced gentleman with the Venomoth might have caused you a good deal of unpleasantry were he to have proved a sterner foe, my molluscan friend."
Rat accented his doubt with a click of the beak. "I observed them close whilst you traipsed about in those ridiculous boots, keeping them distracted. Were I of the mind they would prove more stiff opposition, I would have advised an otherwise. The fear on those faces could be seen from Hadley".
"The old one is interesting in that regard, wouldn't you say? He sees a veritable thing of legend, a being to which stories of all creeds have attributed it a mean and vengeful beast, one which brought down his Pokémon with but a look. His response, what else but to run at it with a knife and a warcry? Not to even mention his ignoring my hypnosis"
"He's typical of our older generation." the Rhydon commented "It's merely that the youth of nowadays are of a cowardly and weak disposition. It is one which belies their brittle bones and watery musculatures. No to mention their affixation with secondary pursuits such as card games and sexual gratification. It would have been different had we attempted this venture at a more dignified era. For instance, the years of my youth. We would have faced opponents of a more masculine standing, and dear Billy would be swallowing his teeth with that wine"
"Oh, so I'm numbered among the youth of nowadays of which you speak so poorly, eh?" The boy questioned, swirling the liquid about his mouth, as he palmed the bottle to Rat.
"That you are, my young friend." answered Lawrence warmly.
"I am as always glad to hear your opinion. A thousand thanks as usual for your cookery. Your stew is as hearty and undecorated as one could hope for on this plaintive night. What do you think of your efforts?"
The Rhydon huffed. "Just about as well as any stew could be, when its chef has but hardtack, carrots, garlic, red wine and butter beans to work with. Accursed highwaym -ahem- Bandits had a small stash of pepper sauce. For shame, they had neither the manners nor grace to leave any for our small party, save the empty bottles." He snorted with pity. "Makes one wonder how they did not go quite insane, having gone this long without the company of a fresh vegetable or herb. Were it not for our frequent acquisition of such goods, I might just have done so already" He accentuated this point with an extra ladleful of the meal into his dented tin bowl, brimming with juice-soaked carrots. "I've always had an opinion of those sorts, man and Pokémon, who live off nothing but beans, bread and salt pork. It's impolite, but I'll share it nonetheless. They tend to attain a pallor not quite unlike these things, sort of greasy and soft, with a tint of greyish beige to the skin. Starchy, if you will."
The "It does make one wonder how such ruffians come to possess a fine drink such as this.
"Could be , the product of some unscrupulous robbery."
"Banditry" Interjected Rat.
"Shush, you."
Shush, yourself." The comment came from Lawrence. "Does there have to be a reason that they had a vintage wine? Some sort of explanation or rationale to it? Why, might I ask?
Can you explain it any more than rainfall or sunsets? Or why you're so damnedly tall, friend? Why do you feel the need to give reason to it? Can filthy desert outlaws not simply enjoy a fine, supple red any less than you or I?"
"Hmm" murmured Billy from behind his stew bowl.
It was at this moment the captive Malloy, chose to awake. He'd been lay beside the three of them, his broken nose up in the air, dust still ensconced about his eye sockets and temples. He gasped like he'd been held inside a water trough, and tried to propel his hand to the sheath at his waist by some subconcious instinct. He would have and realised it quite empty, were it not for the tangling knots of rope which coiled about his arms and forced them behind him. He blinked confusedly, legs. Couldn't, considering the ropes about them also.
Instinctively, he turned to aggression. "Tarnation's going on, if you playin' a trick on me Jasper, you fool boy, why I'll-"

Lawrence turned to him, a fresh bowl in hand. "Stew?"
Malloy stopped dead.
"Oh, no thank you" He stated in a voice which entirely lacked its previous offense. It sounded confused, sort of. Most would.
He then blinked several times. Following this, he turned his head once, twice, eyes settling on each of them, the Rhydon with the ladle, the floating cephalopod gulping greedily from a bottle of wine, the boy giant with the yellow eyeglasses and the big grin.
They then turned back to the bowl of stew. This took all of five seconds. That was about how much time it took his mind, in all likelihood somewhere in the stages of concussion, to gain a faint comprehension of what exactly was happening.

Without the slightest change in his facial expression whatsoever, Malloy proceeded to recite some of the most debased and foul language any an ear has ever heard, even in years since.

"I gon' cut you down you no-good-sonuva-bitch-demon-bastard-bescumbered-scum-sucking-yellow-bellied-maggot-feeding-pigeon-livered-son-of-gun! When I'm done with you there won't be enough to sneeze, ya' hear me? You'll have sleep in a jam jar and bathe in a shotglass! Theys'll be finding bits of you over the next seventeen counties for the next fifty years! They'll have to bring you down to Giratina in a wheelbarra'! Two of em, actually! I'll fold you like a book! I'll hang you up by the short hairs! I'll bread and fry you and feed you to my Rosebud! I'll dip you in honey and leave you by an antmill! I'll hammer you down like a railway tie and run the twelve o'clock express over you! You understand that, you slope-brained mongoloid! You lobotomised imbecile! I'll bed down your mother, your sister, your Arceus-damned father, why, every relation you call yours stretching back time immemorial, and all the ones to come too! Even the ugly ones! And I'll whup 'em too, while I'm at it! I'd bed your wife too, you cuckold, but we both know you'se don't got one! Arceus-damned flapdoodle, thats what you is boy! Limp dick and nothin' behind it, you hear me? Why I oughta - I will - You I gonna' - You -
"We done?"
He was done. Still, he looked back up at them, catching his breath as he looked up at his captors. Emotionless as ever, one could still see the hatred on his face.
"Where's Rosebud and Landers? You plug 'em?"
"Rosebud and Lan- who?"
"My Pokemon. You killed em, didn't ya?"
Billy looked mildly offended "Good Friend Arceus, no, we didn't kill 'em. We've jus' got 'em trussed up by the shack, same as yerself." He motioned towards the shack. A pile of sore-looking chitin and spikes lay prostrate and unconcious, encircled by tight rope. Beside it, a large sack, previously used to hold butter beans, from which a great amount of angered hissing came as it jostled about futilely against the knots that held it shut. Its exclamations were of similar vulgarity and enormity as its trainer, as Lawrence and Rat were all too aware.
Relief seemed to wash over the outlaw when he saw his two incapacitated companions. He perked up in recognition as he heard a particularly lengthy and complex string of hisses and raspy exclamations. He could speak The Tongue, then.
"No, I'se fine Rosebud!" He cried out, causing the Arbok to cease its onsalught of serpentine slandering.
"They ain't killed me yet! They didn't kill you did they?"
Hiss.
"No? Okay thats good! Oh, Landers is fine too? Great!"
Momentarily distracted by the uplifting news, he seemed to remember the weight of his situation, turning back to his captors. A negotiatory scowl came to him.
"What's your angle?
A cheerful grin came across the boy's face "Why, we're just simple travelers, mate. Came to this empty part of the world on business, and we see your dwelling, figure we might ask for some hospitality on this lonely night. We come over here and see you and your partners slumped prostrate, bound as you are now. We left you tied up, as we weren't sure if you were a lunatic or murderer or something of the sort, figured we'd ask you when you woke."
Malloy nodded grudgingly. "Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Whilst you coming over here, you see anything coming this way? Some kids on a Rapidash? A gigantic man in a great big hat and a poncho?"
Billy shook his head thoughtfully, nudging his hat behind himself all the while "Nothing of the sort. Why?"
Malloy thought for a second "I done been attacked. A humungous man. With him, four other fellows, and musta been twelve Pokémon, all came at me before I could blink. Nearly beat 'em, we did, but they had another guy stalk around behind me, put a rock to the back of my head, done knocked me out. Then I wake up, and an overgrown child decides to take charge of my outpost" He sunk a bit of venom into that last sentence "One who sees fit to leave me tied up, and interrogate me. And can't recognise a good knot to save his life."
With that, Malloy stretched, spreading his hands, and the ropes slunk from about them to fall into his lap.
Billy froze in surprise, and Lawrence prepared to dive at the man at the vaguest indication of violence. The haggard outlaw, however, seemed passive enough, merely turning to look at the boy with an annoyed expression.
"I oughta whup you for leaving me tied up you know that, bleeding drifter."
He sprung from the ground, then, and passed by them all towards the shack, realigning his dislocated thumbs with a wet cracking noise. "Not only got a phantom gunning for my hide, but can't even trust my fellow man" he muttered, as he clambered the steps towards his bound partners.
Malloy produced his knife, which at some point unknown to Billy had materialised back inside it sheath, and cut Rosebud and the unconscious Drapion free. He roused the battered Drapion to waking, before rounding back on the others, his Arbok faithfully at his heels.
"Now, you sure you didn't see nothin', boy? I'se part of the Rocketeers, you'd do well to be truthful-like to me, hear?"
"No, sir" Billy repeated his previous statement, to which Lawrence and Rat firmly agreed.
The outlaw seemed to accept the answer without much struggle, bounding down to the fire once again. The three turned their heads to watch him, expressions that of muffled amusement.
"Ste-" Lawrence once again offered a bowl to Malloy, who snatched it as he walked past without stopping.
He then proceeded in a revolution of the outpost, crouching low to the ground as he stalked about taking hefty slurps from the bowl, juice running down his chin.
Billy watched with interest from his, nursing from the wine bottle once again. "What you doing?"
"Looking 'fer tracks. Got some vengeance to enact, I do"
"Oh, you going to kill that big guy who whupped you, are ya?"
Malloy nodded sagely "That I am. Also, It was fellows, plural. A lot of 'em. Not just him and his friends, too, but the rat bastards who left me for dead, rode away as I fought."
"Neat. You see where they went?"
"No." Malloy rounded the outpost several times. His grumblings about impossibilities and the paranormal implied that he found nary a bootprint denoting Judge's departure.
The Arbok, Rosebud had slithered over to the brazier, having grown tired of following her trainer in his Sisyphian task. Lawrence produced yet another bowl, chipped enamel this time, and ladeled another helping of his meal, which he held to her. She looked at him with an expression best described as that of an armless creature being offered a bowl.
He promptly set it to the ground.
"Thankth" Rosebud hissed, sipping carefully. Contrary to popular belief, serpents did not overenunciate their "s"es. They (and many of their reptilian brethren) tended to lisp their words, by virtue of their lengthy tongues.
Lawrence waited for her to eat before pursuing conversation. If his voice was gravelly in the throes of human language, to speak his own it was , akin to the sound of stone scraping on stone.
"Must ask, sister, what exactly happened to you? I'm not sure if I trust what your trainer says." He gestured to Malloy, who swayed in a concussed manner "Begging apology, he seems less than composed."
"Yeah, no, he'th fucked up" Rosebud tipped her head upwards from the bowl. "Muthta been the thame thing which attacked uth" She hesitated, eyes flicking. "Eyeth-Like-The-Fire"
"Goodness, no"
"Goodneth yeth. Thome punk comes riding by claiming he'th been raided by him, that he'll coming for uth too. Sure enough, he doeth."
"I dived at him, but then there'th thith great flash of light, and I jutht... fall athleep, I gueth. Wake up in that bag."
"Really? I thought he was supposed to kill his victims. What's he look like?" Hard and rocky as his face was, he found it difficult to keep the twinge of amusement from it.
"Only one, dethpite what Shamuth ith going on about. Thcary motherfucker. Got eyeth that shine, look like they're on fire, like the thtorieth thay that he'th thupposed to. Huge bathtard, too. Taller than you, I'd thay. Oh yeth." A indeterminable expression came to her.
" Come to think of it, he'd be around the thize of that human you got with you, wouldn't he?"
"Maybe, I guess. How's the stew?" interjected Lawrence suddenly.
"Lovely."

Elsewhere, Billy had joined Malloy in his futile searching, traipsing around the night-bleached surroundings in dogged circles. Rat watched them scornfully.
"There ought to be something here, I know it" Malloy mutterings were half to his companion, half to himself.
"Yep" Billy didn't even bother to keep the
"

Well, we'll be off.
"You oughta stay here, know that. Theres bad things walking the hills tonight"

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Pub: 17 Dec 2022 11:56 UTC
Edit: 04 Jan 2023 04:14 UTC
Views: 1115