Beast watched silently behind an assortment of bushes, staring daggers into the bucket hat-wearing Chansey sitting 15 feet away from him, blissfully in her little world as she fished out of a puddle. After what felt like an eternity, she got up and waddled back into the village, leaving the coast clear. Beast got up from behind his hiding spot, a large flowery painted sign reading “CUSTARD TOWN."

The presence of a Chansey and the suspiciously themed name of the village made Beast certain that he was still on the same island and had found the village of the general population. The easiest path back to the hotel was most likely through town, so Beast was willing to risk sneaking through. He dove into the next bush and began the best attempt at stealth an old Munchlax like himself could muster.

Between heroic dives behind bushes and fences, Beast would look out into the village. As to be expected, it was a cute little utopia, with Chansies going about their peaceful little lives with smiles on their faces. Beast found it odd that they could live comfortably like this while ruled by that lunatic Blissey.

Her influence could be felt even out here as well, with what looked like black ropes bulging out of the ground running every which way connected to strange, shiny contraptions, some even going inside of houses.

Beast would have to keep a low profile, given the consequences would be deadly if he was caught. He needed something to defend himself just in case…

It was then that he noticed the window of a house he was sneaking behind was wide open. If he was fast enough, he could hop in, find a weapon, and hop back out of the window without anyone noticing. Getting onto the very tips of his little clawed toes, he was just about able to get a grip on the windowsill, pulling himself onto his belly where he rapidly kicked his feet until he fell face-first into the house.

Getting back onto his feet, he found himself in the house's kitchen. Several potentially lethal instruments of cooking were scattered about, giving him lots of choices for a weapon. He wanted something easy to use but would still do some serious damage. He saw a cleaver that looked appealing, but it felt a bit too grisly for someone of his taste. The rolling pin was an old classic, but it looked too brittle to risk committing to. But finally, his eyes fell upon the perfect middle ground:

A cast iron skillet! It was just the right amount of weight, was easy to swing, and at worst would dent if he swung it too hard. It was the perfect tool for the job. He took it off of the hook and gave it a good twirl in his hands, feeling much higher quality than he expected for a regular household pan. If everything stayed on the island, did they really gather the raw materials and cast these locally?

Unfortunately, Beast was not able to give it any additional thought, as his ears were assaulted by the screams of the understandably terrified Chansey who lived in the home Beast had broken into.

“Hold on, wait! Calm down!” Beast begged the screaming egg. “I’m not going to hurt you!”

The Chansey continued to scream.

“P-please, quit with your screaming!” Beast insisted.

The egg-like creature stopped for a moment, but only to catch her breath so she could scream even more.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…” Beast muttered with a facepalm as the answer became clear to him. Pulling his pan back in a motion that resembled a knight readying his sword, he gave the pan a swing that sent the Chansey flat on the ground with a satisfying clang, followed by sweet, sweet silence.

“My my, I think I’ve found my souvenir!” Beast said, impressed with his new tool. He wiped sweat from his brow, leaning a hand against the wall…

…only to feel the satisfying click of a button against his palm, making him look up to read the words “EMERGENCY POLICE CONTACT” printed right above the big red button.

Beast stumbled backwards, both terrified at his mistake and surprised by the audacity of the existence of the switch.

“Oh, you CANNOT BE-”

Beast could not finish his sentence as a crowd of police officers surrounded the house on an impossibly short notice, bursting through the windows and front door, quickly surrounding the chefugitive and pelting him with their batons until he fell to the ground, going unconscious for the third time in a 12 hour period.

Beast now found himself face down on a cold stone floor, with nothing but the sound of a strange hum coming from overhead. He rolled onto his side, opening his eyes to see that he was now in a different jail cell, which seemed to be constructed for the actual purpose of imprisonment rather than the repurposed hotel rooms he was shoved into. The area outside the bars of his cell stretched out into a large complex of other jail cells, all completely empty, judging by the absolute silence the massive room offered.

“Where…did they put me this time?” Beast muttered to himself, believing he was alone.

“We’re somewhere underneath the police station.” Answered a familiar voice from behind him

“Spinda!?” Sputtered the chef, rolling over to see two familiar swirls staring down at him from her cell bed.

“The one and only!” the panda responded. “I'm flattered you came all the way out here just to look for lil' old me…”

“Me getting arrested was simply a very unfortunate coincidence.” Beast growled in response as he got up to his feet. “How did you of all people end up here, anyhow?”

“A tragic story, really.” Spinda began. “I mean, escaping that hotel is pretty easy, I know that for sure since someone like you was able to. But those damn cops caught me in town trying to negotiate with one of the locals to open a franchise…”

Beast rubbed his face in exasperation. “Your greed and your hubris continues to astound me every time I speak with you.”

“Well, I call it initiative.” Spinda retorted. “If you had half the initiative I did, you'd still have a restaurant and not be working for some random explorer's guild.”

“You leave that place out of this!” Beast hissed as he walked up to the cell bars, staring out into the levels and levels of empty cells. A guard standing right outside gave him a sneer as she came into view.

“Pretty crazy, huh? Spinda stated as she walked up behind him, lowering her voice. “Theres probably as many cells are there are people on the island. She looked over to the now occupied guard, then to the chef, getting an idea.

Without warning, Spinda reached into Beast's back, searching within the depths for something.

“W-what the, what in the lord's name are you doing!?” Beast squawked, trying to keep his voice low to not attract interest.

“You usually keep something useful in here, right?” Spinda asked as she continued to root through his fur, her hand hitting various items.

“Yes, but I did NOT give you permission to look in there!”

“Oh, quit being such a baby.” Spinda insisted before finally yanking a salt shaker out of his back. “Now, be quiet…”

Reaching between the cell bars with the salt shaker in her hand, she aimed carefully and hucked the salt shaker at the guard as hard as she could. The glass container collided right with the side of the guard's head, splitting into two pieces as salt spilled everywhere, leaving a well-seasoned unconscious prison guard.

“HA! YES!” Spinda proclaimed in celebration. “Beast, help me get her keys.”

“You could at least not react so positively to violence…” Beast grumbled as he reached between the bars to drag over the guard.

“Sometimes you need to leave your heart at the door in order to gain an advantage.” Spinda explained as she wrestled the keys from the guard's holster. “You never apply that, so you never get ahead.”

“Well, pardon me for having a moral compass!” Beast replied as he took a key from spinda and used it to unlock the door, making them free chefs.

“My hero!” Spinda exclaimed as she left the cell with a lazy twirl. “Who knew we could make such a good team?”

“Save your blithering for your memoir.” Beast growled as he looked down into the rows of cells. “We still need a way to leave the building, but I can’t imagine a way out that isn’t fiercely guarded. It was a miracle they only assigned one person to watch us.”

“Oh, I think I know a way, but knowing you, you’ll probably just complain.” Spinda replied.

“Enlighten me, my spotted inferior.” Beast inquired.

Spinda led Beast over to a large garbage chute deposit and opened the hatch, which was unfortunately just big enough to fit their little bodies.

“You are NOT suggesting-”

“You got a better idea?” Spinda hissed, cutting Beast off.

Beast massaged his forehead in frustration and begrudgingly followed suit as Spinda crawled in. However, he made the mistake of thinking that the chute would have any sort of curvature and unexpectedly fell straight down the chute and into the dumpster outside, right onto Spinda.

"Dammit, I thought you'd have the sense to wait after I went down!" Spinda yelled.

"Forgive me, my day has been a bit chaotic…" Beast replied, rolling off of his rival, his back colliding with…his frying pan. Beast scoffed at the idea of his captors simply throwing away such a good pan and grabbed the handle, reclaiming it for himself.

“Whatever, ‘snot like I could get any diriter anyway…Is that a frying pan?” Spinda asked as she climbed up onto the edge of the dumpster.

“They took it from me when I was taken in.” Beast explained has he followed suit, throwing his arms over the edge.

“Alright it’s your turn, what’s next on the agenda?” Spinda asked as she slid off the dumpster’s edge and onto the ground.

“I haven’t the slightest.” Beast admitted as he awkwardly hopped down to the ground, his aging foot-ankles not taking well to the pressure. “But first we should get somewhere where the police can’t-”

Beast froze briefly as he got down from the dumpster next to Spinda to discover that the police were smart to Spinda’s idea and had surrounded the dumpster outside.

“...find us…”

Beast quickly took to a defensive stance, quickly pushing Spinda behind him and waving his pan wildly at the several Chansey surrounding them.

“Stay back, I know how to use this!” Beast insisted, flailing his skillet. Spinda gave Beast a quick tap on the shoulder.

“Spin me.” The Spinda requested.

The chef turned his head to his polka-dotted-partner-in-crime with confusion. “Pardon me?” Beast replied.

“Spin me!” The panda insisted.

“Why do I-”

“There’s no time to argue, spin me!” Spinda interrupted.

Beast rolled his eyes and reluctantly took Spinda by the hands, using his ballroom experience to give Spinda a good twirl and flinging her toward the crowd. She took off like a top, whirling into the group of eggs and chaotically bouncing between them. It gave Beast an opening to fight his way through the crowd as well, which he took happily. While he fought, he spotted a cowardly looking Chansey cop watching Beast fight from around the corner talking into some sort of egg-shaped trinket. After finishing off the last couple of Chansey, he snuck up to her and hit her with a nasty overhead swing, forcibly fitting her head into her helmet and making her stumble off aimlessly, the egg-shaped trinket falling out of her hands.

Beast walked up to the strange trinket, picking it up to inspect it further. It had a clamshell-style opening like a jewelry box with a strange metal rod extending from the outside, and the inside of it contained several square buttons on one side and a strange metal webbing on the other. Beast wondered if Spinda might have had an idea of what it was, so he went back to check up on her.

“Ah, that was a fine warm-up!” Spinda said to herself as Beast returned to the sea on unconscious constables. “I haven’t had a spar that good in ages…”

“Since when do you dance-fight?.” Beast inquired.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Beastie Boy,” Spinda responded.

“Speaking of which, do you know what this thing is?” Beast asked, holding out the open device for Spinda to see.

“Can’t say I have,” Spinda answered, looking equally puzzled as she saw the device for herself.

“I think the police all carry these, but I can’t tell why.” Beast explained.

Beast and Spinda continued to inspect the device in silence before it suddenly spoke to them, much to their surprise.

“Vice-3, do you copy? Is everything alright on your end?”

Startled by the voice, Beast accidentally dropped the trinket, the device landing on its hinge and shattering on the ground.

“Beast!” Spinda chastized.

“It scared me, give me a break!” Beast shouted, defending himself. “We should get moving before these officers wake up anyway…”

"I dunno, you probably knocked 'em cold with that-wait, you were using that pan?" Spinda asked as she noticed the skillet in Beast's hand.

"Well, yes? What of it?" Beast said, pulling the pan towards himself defensively.

"Why fight with a frying pan, of all things?" Spinda asked.

"Well, the way I see it, the frying pan is the natural predator of an egg.” Beast began to explain. “A tool forged for the exact purpose of smiting our enemies. It’s also something I’m familiar with, so…”

“Let’s get going, Sir Beast The Pretentious.” Spinda remarked. “Where are we going, anyhoo?”

“It hurts me to say, but I think the nearby jungle is our best bet,” Beast explained.

“Ugh, really? I hate jungles!” Spinda complained.

“I hate them as well, but town is a lost cause right now.” Beast reminded her.

“Fair…hey, who knows? Maybe we’ll only get a couple diseases!” Spinda joked.

“That’s good thinking,” Beast remarked. “Come along now, It’s a short walk east of here…”

Awkwardly climbing the fence, Beast and Spinda skipped town, plunging into the jungle to parts unknown.

“Uhm, Miss Bliss?” said a guard as she entered the scientist’s messy study, piles of books and crowds of notes pinned to the walls.

“What is it, dear?” Asked Miss Bliss, peering over her pile of books.

“We’ve got uh, good news and bad news.” Answered the guard.

“What’s the good news?” Inquired Miss Bliss, turning back to her book.

“We finally got that clone fella all tied up, so he isn’t smashing everything anymore.” The guard answered as another pulled in the restrained clone on a rope. “Want us to put him back into the tube thingy?”

“Oh, I don’t have much use for him anymore.” Miss Bliss explained as she put down her book and walked over to the clone, leaning in close to his snarling face. “He’s a failure, not worth any more of my time. Toss him into the chemical runoff, he’ll wash up in Poacher’s Jungle eventually.”

“Yeah, about the jungle…” The guard began. “You know that Munchlax fella we thought died goin’ out the window?”

“He’s not dead?” Asked Miss Bliss, her voice taking a more serious tone.

“Not only is he alive, he grabbed the other chef we had prisoner and escaped into Poacher’s Jungle…”

“WHAT!?” The scientist yelled, quickly turning to the guard who was scared by her reaction. The scientist noticed this and quickly apologized.

“D-don’t worry, I’m not mad! I just got a bit carried away. You all try your best for me, and that’s what matters.” Miss Bliss explained.

“Thanks, Miss Bliss…” The guard replied with a sniffle.

“Besides, I wouldn’t worry too much about those lousy escapees anyway.” Miss Bliss added, looking outside of her study’s window. “They won’t last a minute amongst the jungle’s wildlife…”

Next chapter: https://rentry.org/uuvy565p