Mischief Managed [Halloween S4 2019]

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Tonight was going to be fun, Chance thought to himself with a snicker. He spent quite a fair amount of time on just collecting data about the kill-joys of the evening, now was the time to act against them! He couldn't do this alone, however, fortunately, he knew exactly who to ask along with him. It took him all day to put together the note for Osiris, even more just to sneak it into the dratini's room without his mother noticing.

...That was probably very illegal to do, but what did he care? He was gonna be the world's best outlaw! The zorua donned his cape and flash emblem, slapped on his false-oversized fangs, and picked up the pumpkin shaped basket. The innards of the carrier was empty, however, so he flipped the object up onto his head-effectively transforming it into a hat.

He sneaked out of the house and into town square, a careful and cautious eye looked to and fro. This was a Top! Secret! Meeting! He had to make sure nobody was following him...Once he was satisified with his three second search, he slipped into the alleyway he told Osiris about. He searched around the boxes and barrels briefly before he located the one he scouted out several days before. A grin stretched across his expression, the "X" he marked on the crate still ready. He reached his fore-paws up onto the edge. With a keen and careful eye, he made a move to jump in...

Of course, he failed. The box flipped over with the wrong move and trapped him inside. A surprised cry escaped him as he dashed forward in a blind panic. He rammed into the side of the box and sent it flying with him across the alleyway. the box struck another barrel. The rumbling sound of wood struck fear into him as he heard something heavy drop on top of his box.

...

uh-oh.

"Not really," Osiris said after a moment of thought. "Just like spices and cookbooks and stuff."

It wasn't that hard of a decision, although he did feel a little bad kind of lying to Kiba. It wasn't that he thought the zorua would steal money from the guy, but rather he didn't want to be the person who was like "hey what about this money do we take this" and have to be shot down like he was the bad guy just for considering it. And he wasn't a bad guy - it was just Halloween! If you had no candy, you deserve to get tricked.

"Watch out, I'm gonna hop down." the dratini warned, pushing the money pouch up against the back of the cupboard so as not to bring it with him on accident on his way down. He bit down hard on the edge of the cupboard and slowly let his long body dangle before dropping down, hitting the ground with a soft 'oof.'

Resolutely, he stuffed his head back into his diglett helmet, feeling good about his choice not to straight-up steal from someone. "He's gotta have something that can pass as candy," Osiris said. "He runs a restaurant, right? There's gotta be somethin' sweet around here."

"Yeah, somethin..." the zorua echoed as his devious little mind went to work on where to look next. His first idea was to look for a lower level to the shop-or even an attic-but there was a slight problem he was worried about...they were burning precious moonlight hours! If they took too long looking for other things, then the original target might go back inside and go to sleep! He wasn't ready to just leave this goat un-tricked, however.

"Whaaat ifff...we ask him?" The zorua's smile grew twice as wide, "We let him back in as an exchange for the goods...yeah?" he looked to the dratini for confirmation on how brilliant his plan was. They were going to give his shop back anyways, but how great would it be if they tricked him into giving it to them for free? He was still unaware of the fact that the skiddo was still inside the shop, which put an awfully big hole in his plan...

----

He could hear the fiends wrecking his precious kitchen. He could identify each crash and shatter of pots and glass. Oh-that was the pepper...and that was the Combee Honey he bought just yesterday. Oooh not the Pamtre Juice....

This was only a portion of the thoughts that raced through his head as he pressed his horns harder and harder against the door. It almost looked like some attempt to push it open, but the reality was that the ache of his horns was all that could ease the crippling fear that plagued him. He just wished he would pass out already, that way he wouldn't have to face his demise while conscious.

This dice is not existing.

"That's not a bad idea," Osiris responded, nodding along thoughtfully. It was even kind of nice when he thought about it - they weren't going to leave the guy out there locked out of his house all night! All they were making out with were some candy that they should have gotten in the first place, and some seeds he was going to throw out anyway.

And the skiddo would learn a valuable lesson about Halloween and what you should do when kids knocked on your door. Everybody wins! "It's pretty good, actually," he said, agreeing with the plan wholeheartedly. The dratini slithered up to the door and was just about to reach up to open it when a thought struck him. "We should let him in through the front while we slip through the back, though. Just in case he's a sore loser and tries to pick a fight - he's a lot bigger than us."

This dice is not existing.

The idea was a good one to consider, though there needed to be a bit more to it. He could feel it. The zorua's thinking cap was put on once more as the wheels in his mind turned out yet another diabolical scheme. "Yeah...you go listen at the door and I'll go around out the back and talk to him. I can avoid any attacks easy and you can go real fast, so I can not get hurt and you can bolt out of there when it's time to let him in."

The zorua's instructions were quick and clear, but he waited for the dratini to head through the door before he took off towards the back door. He scampered along and bounded around the corner only to come to a skidding halt with wide eyes.

The skiddo was inside. Chance froze to the spot in sheer terror, but he was quick to realize that the skiddo...wasn't exactly turning around. Curiosity tickled him as his ears perked back up. The goat's shivering form and quiet sobs seemed...well, the complete opposite of what he would expect from the skiddo. Exactly how long had he been there exactly?

Despite his better judgement of taking the opportunity to back out while he was unseen, he spoke up, "Hello?"

The skiddo practically jumped right out of his fleece! A mortified bleat escaped the goat, but it seemed as if it got itself into a bit of a pickle. The horns of the goat were stuck in the woodwork of the door. "OHMY-p-please don't hurt me. I-I don't have anything oh god, j-just please leave me alone. Oh dear, oh god..." The skiddo's voice quivered in sheer terror as the grass type tried to do all he could to push himself away from the gored rattata, even going to far as to bend his neck at an uncomfortable angle.

Chance...didn't really know what to do. He stared at the terrified skiddo as the grass type broke into tears once more. A sickly feeling sprouted in his gut as a weight seemed to wear him down. "Are...you okay?" he questioned the grass type.

"Please don't touch me. Please don't hurt me. Please don't kill me. Please don't touch me. Please don't hurt me. Please don't kill me," the skiddo repeated the words over and over again as if it were some sort of mantra. The goat's eyes squeezed shut as he quivered and shook in the spot.

Chance's ears fell as the smile that once graced his expression shifted into a distraught frown. He expected the skiddo to be angry, like all the other adults usually were with him, not...whatever display this was. Once again the gears in his head turned with the unpleasant company of guilt to weigh him down. "Uhhh...you...wait here, okay?" he requested to the skiddo.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry," the skiddo continued on in his terse whispers.

"...Okay cool," He took that as a yes. The zorua pivoted around and bolted towards the door that led out to the dining hall, where Osiris had gone to. He wasted no time in bursting through the doors and declaring loudly for all of one little dragon wyrm to hear, "BLUEBERRY! I think we hecked up!"

The plan was for Osiris to hang by and listen just in case, so that was what he did. Of course, he was listening at the front door, but there were no voices out there. Instead, he heard Kiba talk to the skiddo in the other room? The dratini was immediately drawn from his post, and he simply transitioned from eavesdropping in one spot to eavesdropping in the other room.

He swallowed a thick lump in his throat when the zorua burst in - he agreed wholeheartedly with him. "Sh-should we just leave, you think?" Osiris hedged, not wanting to drive the skiddo any further. "We spooked him pretty bad, and I think that's enough of a trick. Plus, we got what we came here for..." he proposed, whispering that last bit quietly just in case the goat pokemon was listening.

Maybe they could even say sorry on their way out. Honestly though, the skiddo didn't seem that bad when Osiris talked to him at the front door a few minutes ago! Maybe he just scared easily... or maybe Kiba's weird transformation as a dead ratatta was just that scary. It was certainly believable enough, that was for sure.

The zorua considered Osiris' idea with yet another look of intense thought. This was probably the most thinking he had ever done in his life at this point. They could just leave with what they originally came here for, but he couldn't help the heavy feeling in his heart. That goat was absolutely mortified and he knew from first hand experience that wasn't pleasant. That skiddo was probably even more scared than when he nearly drowned!

Sure this was the month of spooks, but even Chance knew there was a line between okay and downright wrong. "Well we can't just leave him like that, I think his horns are stuck in the door or somethin..." he had no idea how the skiddo did it, but surely they should at least help him out...right? "I uh...think we did a little too much 'tricking' on him too..."

"So we... yank him out?" Osiris half-asked, half-suggested. He had a sneaking suspicion that manhandling the goat for his own good would not go over well considering how worked up he was. "I don't know if I'm that strong... how did he even pull that off?" he went on, trying to wrap his head around the skiddo's dilemma.

It was a pretty poor response to a robbery in his opinion - which is what the skiddo thought they were doing (and kind of what they kind of were doing, honestly). "We should talk him through it at least," he went on, whispering quietly. "Let him know we're not trying to like eat him or whatever, and say sorry for scaring him even, maybe." That last bit was a bit of a nervous suggestion on his part - his guilt for scaring the poor shopkeep was leaking through, even if it wasn't the cool thing to do on the way out of a Halloween prank.

"I-I don't know..." Chance admitted. To be quite frank, he didn't want to go back into that room. He felt as if he couldn't leave the skiddo there after what they did, but he also didn't quite have the courage to go back in there himself. Immediately the idea to simply scare the skiddo in the other direction somehow came to mind, but he dismissed it. That was horrible idea. Why did he think of that?

"Y-You go talk him down or through it!" Chance suddenly decided to instruct the dratini, a bit of pressure behind his words. He didn't even know where to begin with the skiddo. The way the kid's voice quivered when he spoke struck a chord with him. It unnerved him.

"A-And I'll see if I can find something to help out here..." he spoke. Maybe Osiris could fix it without him being there to screw it up?

"Uh... oookay," Osiris cautiously agreed, a little put off by the force behind his friend's words. Did he just not want to do it, or did he think the dratini was the better talker between the two of them? "D-don't go too far, alright? Just in case he flips out on me when he gets his horns free - he looked a lot bigger than us when I got a look at him." The dratini acquiesced. It wasn't like he expected the skiddo to rampage out on him, but he was pretty distraught. It was just a safety precaution.

Plus, he'd rather not have to hunt Kiba down through the house after the skiddo was unstuck. "Okay, I'm gonna go. Be ready to bounce when I'm, uh, done with him, I guess." he finished. With that said, the dratini cautiously snaked around the corner of the door that Kiba had come through, hesitant despite the zorua's insistence that the skiddo was physically stuck. "This way, yeah?"

He felt bad that he was making Osiris do this alone, but he neither spoke up nor changed his mind about it. He nodded to the dratini's words slowly, the weight in his gut only grew heavier. He nodded again when Osiris questioned if he was going the right way. Normally he would have made some quip about it being the only way, but at this point he just wanted this situation to be over with as quickly as possible.

He looked to the door then back to Osiris, his breathing was quickly becoming difficult to regulate. He could still hear the skiddo's sobs from here every now and then. He just wished it would stop. He hoped Osiris could make it stop. He hardly even paid much attention to what the dratini said prior, if things were to go too far down south...well, Chance wasn't going to be much of a help.

Osiris slithered onward, ducking through the doorway and following the sounds of... well, of a crying skiddo. It was a very pitiful sound, and it made Osiris go from vaguely but definitively disappointed in himself to incredibly guilty. All they were doing was playing a trick on this guy, which was okay on Halloween, wasn't it? The way the shopkeep was carrying on, though, made him feel like a super bad criminal.

Well, if that was the case, maybe he should play the part. "Ehh-ahum, hegh-hey, listen, goat-boy," Osiris started off with, clearing his throat roughly as he tried to find a way to mask his voice appropriately. He was shooting for grizzled robber, but he probably came off as a poser-kid in a diglett costume hiding from a crying skiddo on the other side of the door. "We're playin' a trick on you for not havin' no candy, and we've done what needed to be done. I just, ah, my partner heard you blubberin' away in here an' I figured I could let you know that we're not gonna hurt you. You, ah... you gonna be okay?"

He'd intended to talk the skiddo on the other side through an extraction process or something, but more than that, he just wanted the guy to know it was okay. Nobody was going to hurt him and the "bad" pokemon were going to leave soon. The dratini swallowed nervously, hoping desperately for a good sign from the shopkeep. Maybe he'd have a surge of courage and break himself out of the door, and chase both him and Kiba out through his front door. That'd help Iris feel better about all of this.

A surge of strength came to the skiddo alright, but instead of being put to work at brawling, it went to bawling. A new wave of fear struck up the Skiddo's emotions. The deep gruff voice might have been childish, but the skiddo was far too afraid to pick apart the sense of it. To him, it sounded as if a large intimidating pokemon was just nearby-one of the robbers that could easily do him in if they wanted to.

"Please-I'm sorry-I couldn't afford-Im so sorry!" The skiddo struggled to speak through gasps of breath. His lungs pained him at this point. His head felt light as he struggled to stay on his feet. What did he ever do to deserve this? Why did this have to happen when Yera was gone? The one time! He should have gone with her. He should have just given the weird diglett anything and everything he had. His life was more important than his shop! The voice said that things...they had to be euphemisms. Sugary ways that were meant to taunt him.

"J-Just take anything but me, p-please, th-there's poke in one of the cupboards-" he broke down into squeaks and sobs again. He could hardly even breathe as his total breakdown continued. He wished Yera were here. He wished Skylar would jump in and save the day. He wished anybody would come in and help. He was far too weak to do anything himself-Too weak and too cowardly. "I don't want to die."

----

He could hear every word of the skiddo crystal clear. The zorua shrank away from where he stood, each step slow as he backed farther and farther away. He backed himself under the table of a booth-like seating along the wall and into the little corner. He didn't know why he felt so...wrong about this all of a sudden, but it horrified him.

He felt as if he shrank against the wooden boards as he waited for Osiris to handle the mess he'd created for him. Technically they both had a hand in it, but this was his idea. The zorua's paws lifted up over his ears as he attempted to block out the sound.

It didn't work.

"It's - it's okay, it's okay, we're, uh... nothing like that is going to happen to you. We're not that kind of bad." Osiris came very very close to apologizing to the skiddo, but opted to reassure him instead. It stung him a little that he was technically speaking the truth; they weren't the kind of pokemon to kill someone, but they sure were scaring the heck out of this shopkeep. It was an accident, though... so they weren't that bad, right?

"We didn't... take anything, not really. We're not taking you or your money, okay? Just played a little prank. And we're, uh, we're just gonna... go. But we don't want you stuck or anything - I heard you got your horns in a bad way over there." Osiris went on, swallowing the bulk of his nerves and resolving to just get this over with as fast as possible, and to heck with the consequences. "D'you think you can pull yourself out, or do you need some help?"

Just a little bit more of this and he and Kiba could get to work pranking people who actually deserved it. Osiris bit his lip and leaned his diglett head against the door, the weight of the situation he was in gnawing at him a little. His stomach was doing flip-flops.

The filthy criminal was insistent on playing up this charade. He didn't know what to do. It was entirely possible that it wasn't a fake, but he knew his luck too well. The fact that they sounded so intimidating only confirmed it to him. They're going to take everything, but at this point, he didn't care. He just wanted to stay alive.

B-But what if they hurt him for not playing along? His legs shuffled themselves, each movement feeling as if it could cause him to collapse. Hesitantly, he attempted a feeble pull. The horns remained stuck, "Ahhh-ow...ow..." he cried out loudly as he immediately gave up on his attempts. They were going to kill him for this weren't they? They were going to hurt him-just like those pokemon back at Monochrome Ruines did...

"I-I can't. I-I'm sorry p-please don't kill me..."

----

Chance's eyes squeezed shut as he tried to ignore the sounds. If anything, they seemed to get even louder. He would have thought that the lack of sound besides the voices would have been nice, but it just felt agonizing. The tell-tale feeling of impending doom began to creep up on him. The skiddo was going to be angry wasn't he? He was going to kill Osiris and he wouldn't be able to help. This had all been his idea too. His heart began to race to the point where it felt as if it'd jump out of his chest. His lungs begged for air, but he wanted to keep quiet. Gasping for breath certainly wasn't quiet.

He wanted it to stop. He wanted that skiddo to shut up. He just wanted to grab Osiris and get out of here, prank or not. This wasn't fun anymore. This was just miserable. Why didn't Osiris handle this already? Was Osiris going to get hurt? He curled up into the corner as he tried to restrain himself, begging for it all to just stop.

And it did.

"Y-yeah, okay, hold on, buddy," Osiris muttered in his silly voice, chewing on his lip as he gave the matter thought. He was going to have to go around and tug on the big guy to try and pull him loose of the door. The dratini sighed, his large diglett head sagging slightly with the motion. Nothing for it, he supposed.

Resolutely, Iris circled 'round to the other side of the door and slithered up behind the skiddo, keeping a careful eye on the shopkeep's back legs. He did give a glancing look at the pokemon's horns, though, and grimaced when he saw how they were stuck. This wasn't gonna be fun. "Alright, now, I-I'm gonna help you get loose and then we're gonna be on our way, alright?" he informed nervously, very slowly looping his tail around one of Aries' legs and tightening it. The pressure of being around such a large pokemon in such a tense situation was strong enough that he forgot to keep his persona going, for all the good it was doing. "On three, we're gonna pull, okay? And we'll pull for five seconds. If that doesn't work, we rinse and repeat until you're out of there and we're out of your hair. Capiche?"

He didn't want to start tugging until he got the skiddo's consent, though, very wary of just being around a pokemon that could probably smack him around as soon as he got a burst of confidence. Osiris knew that Kiba was around here somewhere and would rush to his aid if something happened, but it was still a nerve-wracking situation that he didn't like being in.