The Great Bulk, Interlude 3: Ecoterrorism for Dummies

This takes place during Part 3 of the main story; time has passed since Nickel and Cobalt met.

A New Client

After I had recruited Cobalt, I started him out on easier robberies, alongside robbing a few of my own kin for the Gimmighoul Coins I needed to evolve. Squabbles between them for Coins were common, but I was smarter; more sophisticated – my servant not only provided enough muscle to beat them into submission, but I wouldn't have to sacrifice my mobility like those chest-dwelling losers did! Sadly, the yield was not great. Between eight different victims of my own species, I had only gathered a measly thirty Coins. Either I was unlucky, there were slim pickings in Capim, or someone was hoarding them all. None of those possibilities comforted me in the slightest.

On one of our quieter days in Capim, Cobalt and I came across a most unusual scene. A Mudbray was grazing on some flowers, either ignorant or tuning out the Floette nearby that was yelling up a storm. “I thought I told you to quit eating all the flowers in town!” She screamed. **”I yelled at you, I tripped you, and I sprayed you with mist, but you won't quit! What in Arceus' name is the matter with you? Did your parents drop your egg?”

My lackey drew closer to the two, curious about the noise. “Is something the matter, miss?” He asked.

“That Mudbray is what's the matter!” She said scornfully. “He's a sick, depraved Pokemon who enjoys chewing on all the flora in town! I've tried all tricks but one in my playbook, and none of them phased him! Doesn't he know how important flowers are, or how much love others put into them? It's disgusting!”

“That Pokemon sounds really inconsiderate,” I lied. “What kind of monster ruins someone's hard, honest work just because it tastes good to them?” Truthfully, I found her flower obsession to be bizarre and idiotic, but I didn't feel like getting into any arguments today.

The Floette thinks upon my words, then snickers. “I know you think I'm nuts, you silly thing,” she playfully chided me. “I can tell you're just trying to get on my good side. However, you and your buddy can do something that'd make me feel better; I can even pay you for it. How about I lead you three away from that flower-muncher, hm?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Cobalt mumbled dismissively. He followed her to the outskirts of town, with me riding along on him as usual.

Cobalt the Buzzkill

When we got to our destination, the Floette who guided us cleared her throat. “The name's Thicket. I sorta know who the big guy is already – there have been weird rumors about a Clobbopus robbing Gimmighouls specifically for their special Coins,” she explained. She pointed an arm towards me. “I'm assuming you're a friend of his, or his boss? You're the whole reason why I think he's the one, you know.”

Cobalt raised his tentacles, entering a defensive stance. “Boss, she found us out,” he told me. “What do we do?”

I shook my head. “She doesn't seem strong enough to beat you in a fight, and if that previous scene was a setup, it was an unusual one. Let's hear her out, but remain cautious,” I commanded. “Anyway, Thicket, the name's Nickel. The other guy is Cobalt; my muscle and first recruit to the prosperous gang I'll surely have in the future.”

“Well, as a fellow businessmon, I got a deal you'd be foolish to refuse,” She stated. “I got a package at my place that needs to be delivered to Mudbray's house. I'll pay you 700 Poke, and give you something extra.”

“Extra?” I asked. “What do you even mean by that?”
“I have some Gimmighoul Coins, about 80 of them to be precise. One of my old customers was a Gholdengo with a drinking problem, you see. He ran out of Poke one night and paid me in those coins instead,” Thicket explained.

“Can't they literally create coins from nothing?” Cobalt asked. “I sure wish I could do that. I wouldn't need to clobber suckers anymore, then.”

“Well, the coins they make are distinctive enough that you can tell them apart from geniune currency,” Thicket informed him. “Anyway, are you two gonna take this job, or no-”

“Heck yeah we will!” I yelled, cutting my client off mid-sentence in my excitement.

Cobalt stirred in place, looking a bit unsure. “Are you sure this is a good idea? This job feels kinda sketchy, especially with that “bonus” the chick's promising you. How do you know this isn't a scam, or her trying to pin something on us?”

I sighed, rubbing my head. Of course that idiot lackey of mine didn't see the opportunity before me us! “Well, we gotta go to her place to pick up the package, calamari-for-brains,” I scolded. I looked back at Thicket, putting on the best cheerful face I could muster. “You will show the Gimmighoul Coins when we get there, right?”

She nodded. “Scamming others will just give me a bad reputation, and that's the last thing my business needs right now.” Thicket began to float off. “C'mon, you two! Follow me!”

After some time walking, my minion and I had reached our destination – a field of flowers in the wilderness with a small, odd-looking section of grass located to the left of it. “This is it?” I questioned. “Did you seriously drag us out from Capim to the middle of nowhere, just to look at some flowers? I know you love them, lady, but you can't make a home out of a flowerbed!”

Thicket stared at me. “Have some patience; it's a virtue,” she chided. “Besides, the best things are hidden in plain sight. Observe!” The Floette began to concentrate, and I saw the strangest thing – motes of energy began to pour out of the flowers and grass around us. Her body began to absorb them, soon becoming engulfed in a light glow. As soon as all of the energy was absorbed, vines shot up out of the ground and wrapped itself around the grass patch from earlier and lifted it up, revealing it to be a mere false covering. The summoned flora moved the false grass to the side, unveiling a hidden trapdoor before withering away into nothingness.

“That's actually pretty damn clever,” I opined. “Although, I still don't know why your home's all hidden. You said one of your customers was an alcoholic, so I'm assuming you're some sort of moonshiner?”

“That's both true and false,” Thicket told me. As she drew in breath, Cobalt opened up the trapdoor, and pointed a tentacle towards the staircase below, which seemed to stretch on forever into the darkness.

“You two can blabber while we travel down,” Cobalt said, tension mounting in his body – he must still be assuming this was a setup of some sort. He began to walk down the staircase, Thicket floating right beside him as she continued to talk about her profession.

“I do brew alchohol to sell in Capim, and it is “illegal” by their rules because I'm selling without a license, but Pokemon-kind has an Arceus-given right to make their own booze!” She yelled passionately. “There was none of this license nonsense back where I came from. I'm from a long line of vintners, although I've branched out from wine and made a few drinks I could've patented, if those jerks in town didn't want me to cough up a few grand for some crappy certification!”

“If you're so pissed off at Capim's laws, why don't you just ply your trade somewhere else?” Cobalt questioned. “You're getting yourself into danger for too little benefit.”

“Well, I already have all this infrastructure here,” Thicket replied. “Plus, I'm not exactly welcome back home. One of my signature brews isn't meant for drinking at all, you see – the first time I crafted it, I didn't have the proper proceedures to handle it in place yet, and I blew up part of my family's home. They banished me, because they couldn't see my genius. They cared more about tradition than innovation.”

After a couple minutes we reached the bottom of the staircase, a door blocking our path. Cobalt was clearly nervous, and when more vines sprouted from the floor to open the door, he flinched. He walked in after Thicket, and my eyes met a rather sparse room with a table and some seats. “Lemme show you around!” She beamed.

Her and Cobalt walked from one room to another – one was a room with a bunch of hay beds, another had food and water stockpiled within it, but the third one was something special. It was larger than any of the other rooms so far, and was stocked with a still, alongside numerous labelled barrels and kegs. “This is where the magic happens,” Thicket told us. “All sorts of drinks are made here. There's your normal types of booze, alongside my more... unique products. I can make drinks that can give you a last stand against your enemies, sharpen your vision, increase your strength, and so much more. I'm hoping once you complete my job, that you two can become customers as well.”

I took a moment to think on her sales pitch. Items were important in getting out of tough scrapes, and if they're as unique as she said they were, that offered an even larger advantage – how could foes counter the usage of something they didn't know about? “I can see why you think your family and the authorities in Capim are stupid,” I said. “You're sitting on a goldmine of products not even the Kecleon brothers know of. We're definitely coming back here, but you still haven't shown us the coins you told me about.”

Thicket looked shocked. “Oh, right! I was so wrapped up in conversation that I forgot!” She blurted out anxiously. “They're back in the storage room, let's go take a look!” The Floette floated off in a rush, with Cobalt struggling to keep up. Once we were at our destination, Thicket pointed at a sack. “Just look inside! They're all in here, although I wouldn't try robbing me if I were you. I'm not a fighter, but I'm not defenseless.”

My talent took a look inside, and sure enough, there were Gimmighoul Coins. He dumped the contents onto the floor, which made our client glare at him. “What'd you do that for?” Thicket asked. “It'll take a while for me to clean up that mess!”

“It's insurance of my own,” Cobalt muttered. “I've seen scams where the top of a bag of Poke has the actual coins, but the rest is just filler.” He then looked over his shoulder, at me. “Don't go blaming me for being distrustful of a gal who blew up her family's house.” He glanced back at Thicket, narrowing his eyes. “Now, where's the package we're supposed to deliver?”

“You're a real piece of work, you know that?” Thicket scolded, sounding annoyed. “That incident was an accident, thank you very much!” She pointed towards a small cask, which Cobalt picked up.

“I can feel liquid sloshing around inside,” Cobalt observed. “I thought you hated that Mudbray. This seems more like a present to me.”

“Oh, it's a present of sorts!” Thicket said mirthfully, chuckling to herself. She then handed off some paper to me, with an address written on it. “First off, here's the offender's address. Secondly, when you get to his house, you need to follow these instructions exactly: Make sure he isn't inside or around his home, transport the barrel inside of it, shake it as vigorously as you can, and then run away as far as possible! Don't shake the barrel before it's at its destination, either – that's a good way to get yourself hurt, and you'll fail the mission!”

“Boss, are you sure about this?” Cobalt asked. “These are some suspicious-ass directions. This whole mission is so fishy, it puts my old neighborhood back in the sea to shame.”

“I'm 200% sure of it,” I reassured him. “We're building connections to a future ally, getting access to new items, and cutting out almost 10% of the work needed to get me to evolve. There's no way this could possibly go wrong.”

“If you say so, boss,” Cobalt replied dejectedly, slowly carrying the barrel towards the stairs. Hopefully, he wouldn't trip.

An Explosive Outcome

After a couple boring hours of watching my lackey drag the barrel, we finally reached Mudbray's address. I nudged Cobalt. “Look around the house and make sure no witnesses are around,” I ordered. “I'll scout the house and see if the dude's inside.”

“Why're you sticking your neck out now?” He queried. “It isn't like you.”

“Unlike you, I'm actually good at sneaking around,” I revealed. “It's one of the reasons I never got caught back on the Sand Continent. Most people couldn't keep a bead on someone as “insignificant” as me, and even when they did, my legs were too fast for them.”

“Alright,” Cobalt responded. “Good luck, I guess.” I climbed out of his pack and ran towards Mudbray's home, climbing up into one of the holes that served as glassless “windows”. I took a quick look around the house, and seeing no sign of its owner, I scrambled back out and waited for Cobalt to finish his patrol.

Once he returned to the front, I got back inside his storage. “The coast's clear,” I informed him. “You can drag the barrel inside now.” Cobalt grunted and lifted it up, carrying it to the front door. He tested it, finding it to be locked, so he did what came natural to him – he punched it down, and finished transporting his cargo.

He set the barrel down in the middle of the home and shook it as hard as he possibly could. Hearing its contents begin to bubble, he ran out of Mudbray's house, while I took a look behind him. As he got further away, I saw the dwelling engulfed by a massive explosion, shards of the building flying in all directions. Mercifully, none hit either of us, and when Cobalt got to the town outskirts, he stopped.

“You told me we had to keep low profiles, but so much for that!” He yelled. “You thought nothing would go wrong here, but this job was sketchy from the start! I warned you over and over, but you cared more about those stupid coins instead of using your brain! We're lucky there were no witnesses around, or else we'd be rotting in jail cells right about now!”

“Well, being a businessmon is all about taking risks!” I replied. “Sure, we didn't know she wanted to blow up that dude's house, but now we got a supplier, and I'm going to be much closer to evolving. You won't have to work alone forever.”

“You're lucky I got no one else,” Cobalt muttered back at me. “The moment a better opportunity rolls around, I'm out of here.”

Just then, Thicket drifted into our view, clutching onto her white flower as though it was her lifeline. “I've been watching you two the whole time, and I actually want to add another offer. I won't ask you to blow up any more houses this time, I promise – Mudbray was just really stubborn about his crimes, even after I dosed him with a spritz or three of some mist that made him have a bad trip.”

Cobalt groaned. “That and you spying on us makes me want to trust you even less,” he grumbled. “What sort of offer could possibly make up for almost landing us in jail?”

“Well, there's two more rewards I wanna add on,” Thicket said. “The first, is that you two can have any items I produce for free within reason – don't take two dozen at once, and you'll be fine. The second, is that I wish to join your gang, if you're willing to have me. I'll even let the both of you and any friends you bring along sleep in the guest room.”

“It's not like I have much of a choice, although sleeping on an actual bed does sound tempting,” Cobalt mused. “Just keep your word about not bombing Pokemon, and I'll try to tolerate you. Even if I said “no”, Nickel would overrule me anyway.”

I thought about Thicket's offer for only a moment, quickly coming to a decision. “I'm in, too,” I affirmed. “I need recruits, and this deal will give us both a base of operations and a competitive edge. Heck, if we get more members, maybe they could help you produce and sell your goods.”

“Sounds like a deal to me!” Thicket exclaimed. She began to float back towards her home, with Cobalt following her. I slept in his bag the entire time – I had enough action for one day.