Sojaveña Wilds Las Picaras Bandit Camp

[Chibi Pika]

A wide, flat expanse of dirt and scrubland stretched in every direction. To the north, a series of cliffs and canyons snaked its way across the frontier, with the only water for miles. To the west, through the heat-haze, the distorted glimpse of a settlement on the horizon. The midday sun beat down on everything without mercy. The occasional movement flickered through the brush, but otherwise most creatures preferred to sleep through this time of day.

Tucked behind the shady side of a rocky outcropping, well off the beaten path, was a scattering of dusty tents, carts, barrels, and the remains of last night's fire. By all accounts, an unassuming campsite. The locals knew better than to take things too slow when traveling these parts, though. More than one trader had lost everything on the road to Frontier Town...

<><><>​

With nothing more than a shimmering gold-and-silver haze and a faint popping, five bodies came tumbling out of thin air, landing in an uneven heap. An Eevee, a Roggenrola, a Cyndaquil, a Buizel, and a Toxel all sprawled out in the dirt, some landing under a tangle of dry scrub. There wasn't any sign of the rest of their team--hadn't there been a lot more of them in the nexus? Perhaps they'd appeared somewhere else, closer to town, maybe.

Not too far from the other five, a lone Sneasel fell unceremoniously to the ground behind a pile of barrels.

The campsite's residents weren't anywhere to be seen. Were they sleeping the midday sun away...?

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Lyle hit the ground and tumbled, coming alight briefly as he rolled and came to a stop. His body felt much shorter now, and from how big the nearby scrub looked, he was guessing the Voice made good on its promise to stick him in a new body.

He got up and tried to steady himself and reach for his head... right, his arms were short like they were back when he was growing up. The air felt dry and the sun was beating down hard, much harder than he'd have expected it to be in the autumn he'd left behind back in his world.

Though from his surroundings, for a second he could've been fooled from the things he'd heard of some of Varhyde's more southern provinces.

"Wait, are we in a desert? What is this place?"

 

[Virgil134]

"Ngh..."

Rodion groaned as he got up off the ground, having landed face first into one of the scrubs.

"Well, that's one way to enter a new world..."

He brushed some dried leaves out of his face fur and around his head, before beginning to dust the rest of his body off. Immediately, he noticed his now orange paws and his flotation sac that no longer went around his back. So he really was a Buizel again...

Rodion began to look around, noticing the tents and carts, but without any Pokémon in sight aside from the ones he arrived with.

"It sure looks like a desert," Rodion sighed, wincing slightly at the idea of having to spent time in a place so dry. "I guess we landed in some sort of camp. Are we supposed to be staying here?"

 

[Cresselia92]

[TLTR: Silver tastes dirt, learns how to navigate his body, and approaches the others. Perhaps dust would taste better if baked?]

---

Many a time Silver had shouted at his opponents that he would have made them taste dirt, and materializing in the freaking sky and then crash-landing face first into the desert floor gave him a golden opportunity!

As he slowly raised his head and spat out a clump of sand, he realized that he could pride himself of the unique knowledge of the flavor of dust.

It was dry and gross. Plain and simple.

“Gack…”

Silver coughed once more, his throat a boiling oven and his eyes still blinking out stars. Woozily, he reached out for anything that was nearby, and he heard the clear sound of claws digging through wood.

…Oh. Right. He was a Sneasel and those claws were his claws. Alright.

“That’s gonna take a while to get used to,” he mused, frowning at his new physique. “…Hmph. Whatever. It’s a challenge like any other, and I’ll get through it!”

Using the barrel as support, Silver slowly stood back to his feet. It took him a while to find the center of gravity with that new body, but he got used to his new legs much quicker than he expected. Perhaps that cloud gave him some pre-installed knowledge or something?

He felt his ear and head feather flicking; someone was talking! Peeking from behind the barrels, he saw a Buizel and a Cyndaquil talking to each other.

‘Are they part of my group?’ He stared at them for a moment, contemplating what to do, before shaking his head. ‘Well, I guess there’s only one way to know…’

“Hey you!” he exclaimed, walking cautiously toward them. Once he got close enough, he crossed his arms. “Did a talking cloud dump you into this stupid desert, too?”

 

[RJr3:2]

"I think our experiences are selfsame." A rock lying on the ground interjected.

Aige had landed on her face, and as her legs flailed in the air, she realized that she was down to two stubby feet. The Roggenrola was silent for a moment before rolling over and righting herself with some effort. "I guess it's just like was said," she murmured.

"Um," she started hesitantly, looking at the others. "It looks like this is it. We're down a few though."

 

[ShadowVulpi]

Lavender picked himself off the ground and dusted himself off with a full body shake. Still an Eevee, still had that fur that was too bushy for his liking. He looked at the ones with him and remembered that he didn't think much of any of them when everyone was together. Except the Sneasel. He was someone he wanted to keep an eye on.

"Separated from the others, for whatever reason," he said to the others. He forced back a grimace at his own voice. Too squeaky. He sounded like he was ten all over again. "We should be fine until we find them again. We're a well-rounded group. No panicking for us, understood?"

 

[Cresselia92]

TLTR:

- Lone Wolf Silver is actually glad to not be so lone now.
- Nope, it’s only the six of them! Where are the others?
- Let’s find some supplies! 7.8/10 — Not enough water!

---

Silver nodded. As the initial daze began fading from his mind, he sorta recalled seeing them in the Nexus, even if he didn’t really give them much attention back then.

Well… That was somewhat comforting, he had to admit. As much as he craved his solitude and he wasn’t quite the team player, being stuck in a foreign body and stranded in a foreign world wasn’t really what he would consider an ideal scenario.

"Um," she started hesitantly, looking at the others. "It looks like this is it. We're down a few though."

“More like a few dozens, it looks like,” Silver pointed out, trading glances with the Roggenrola’s… hm, eye? Was that even an eye?

He quickly diverted his glance to study the surroundings, in search of any sign of other heroes. But nothing. It was only the six of them, the silent tents, and the dry gusts.

You had one job, you stupid cloud! I wonder where the others ended up crash-landing…

"We should be fine until we find them again. We're a well-rounded group. No panicking for us, understood?"

Silver chuckled dryly. “Tch! It’s not like panicking would be of much help, wouldn’t it? That’s just a waste of energy that could be better spent in figuring out what to do.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “But yeah, I agree with your assessment. Let’s work something out, shall we?”

Silver focused once more on the group, and began tapping his claws on his chin as his analytical Trainer mind kicked into high gear.

So, the group was made of himself as a Sneasel, a Cyndaquil, a Buizel, a Roggenrola, an Eevee, and that… purple reptilian feline hybrid whatever. Though, his main concern went to the Buizel. As a Water-type, for how long would he have been able to take the heat?

Silver gestured to the tents. “So, this is a settlement, which means that someone has been here or might be around. And since we have no clue how long we’ll take to find the others, we should focus on gathering some supplies. Especially water; we’re gonna need it.”

 

[Chibi Pika]

It seemed that the voice that had summoned them needed to work on its aim, because the rest of the team was nowhere to be seen, indeed. But the ragtag group that had appeared suddenly in the wilds was about to get an altogether different sort of company...

A single ill-placed footfall when approaching the camp was all it took for a series of ropes to slip from their pegs and a precarious board to clatter to the dirt, sending a cascade of empty cans rolling noisily throughout the camp, most of them clattering into one tent in particular.

An explosion of sparks flew from the opening flap, followed by a yellow lizard bolting upright, neck frill unfurled. “I swear we wasn’t sleepin’ Sonora, honest!” he cried.

At his rather loud exclamation, the rest of the tents flew open and a scattering of Pokemon emerged, all of them on high alert. A pair of Capsakid, darting around excitedly. A Growlithe, immediately inspecting the tripped trap. A Scovillain, last to lumber out from their tent, one head yawning widely while the other squinted in the harsh sunlight.

"Sera! What'd you go puttin' the wake-up call so close to my tent again?" Heliolisk complained in a high, chittering voice, shooting a glare at the Growlithe.

"Never mind that, Rillo!" Sera yapped, jabbing her paw at the new arrivals. "We've got company!"

 

[Virgil134]

Rodion flinched from the loud racket, reflexively taking a step back. Yeah, he supposed he should have expected whoever set up the camp to have an alarm in case someone walked in.

The Buizel looked over the small scattering of Pokémon as they exited their tent, before raising a brow. Were these Pokémon supposed to be the welcoming party?

"Er... hi," Rodion said. "We were sent here to help... apparently."

 

[RJr3:2]

Any responses Aige was thinking of faded away as the multitude of Pokémon appeared. Mentally making a note of how they addressed each other, the Roggenrola shot a glance at the Buizel as he addressed the group.

“What he said is correct,” she added, trying to make herself smaller. “Though we aren’t too sure of the best way to do so.”

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Things had been going awfully quickly since crashing to earth here. First it was just him, then it was him and the Buizel. And the Roggenrola. And the Eevee. And then the Sneasel that crash-landed among the barrels. Why it made it a bit hard to wrap his head around where to start at first.

Silver gestured to the tents. “So, this is a settlement, which means that someone has been here or might be around. And since we have no clue how long we’ll take to find the others, we should focus on gathering some supplies. Especially water; we’re gonna need it.”

Well, we're in a camp of some sort. If we need supplies, we might as well start looking around here-

It seemed that the voice that had summoned them needed to work on its aim, because the rest of the team was nowhere to be seen, indeed. But the ragtag group that had appeared suddenly in the wilds was about to get an altogether different sort of company...

A single ill-placed footfall when approaching the camp was all it took for a series of ropes to slip from their pegs and a precarious board to clatter to the dirt, sending a cascade of empty cans rolling noisily throughout the camp, most of them clattering into one tent in particular.

An explosion of sparks flew from the opening flap, followed by a yellow lizard bolting upright, neck frill unfurled. “I swear we wasn’t sleepin’ Sonora, honest!” he cried.

At his rather loud exclamation, the rest of the tents flew open and a scattering of Pokemon emerged, all of them on high alert. A pair of Capsakid, darting around excitedly. A Growlithe, immediately inspecting the tripped trap. A Scovillain, last to lumber out from their tent, one head yawning widely while the other squinted in the harsh sunlight.

"Sera! What'd you go puttin' the wake-up call so close to my tent again?" Heliolisk complained in a high, chittering voice, shooting a glare at the Growlithe.

"Never mind that, Rillo!" Sera yapped, jabbing her paw at the new arrivals. "We've got company!"

Lyle flared up with a start at the new arrivals. For a second he thought that the Heliolisk was Dalton who'd somehow made it here after all, but between the voice and the name 'Rillo', he was pretty sure that was a false alarm.

That was going to make this really awkward really quickly. Especially since something about the strangers' reaction felt deeply familiar.

And if that feeling was right, the thing that they needed most right now was to make these five think that they belonged.

"Tut mir leid, we didn't see the trap," he said. "Though relax, we're not here to cause trouble, we'd have come a lot better prepared than this if we were."

Lyle couldn't tell whether or not the five were buying things or not, but it was too late to walk things back. Might as well keep up the act.

"A friend of ours steered us your way and didn't tell us about the trap," he said. "My understanding was that we were supposed to be getting the lay of the land and talking... business."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Rillo glanced back and forth between Rodion and Aige, perplexed. "Help? For our next job?"

Sera sat back on her haunches, tail flicking. "Sonora did say we were gonna need help cuz it was a big one..."

"How come she ain't with them, then?" Rillo pressed.

A friend of ours steered us your way and didn't tell us about the trap," he said. "My understanding was that we were supposed to be getting the lay of the land and talking... business."

The Scovillain seemed to take an interest in that. He stamped forward, his thick boots kicking up dust while his comrades moved aside. He surveyed the newcomers for a few moments as though waiting for something, and the camp fell deathly quiet as everyone waited for him to speak.

At least, until the tiny voices of the Capsakid duo piped up from behind: "Ey, they got no valuables!"

"Not a single coin to 'em! And no supplies, neither!" And, it was true. The new arrivals had no possessions at all, and if it hadn't been for a scarf on the Buizel, they were completely lacking any clothing, too.

At this, the Scovillain's right head let out a barking laughter while the left head narrowed his eyes.

"Wanderin' the desert stark naked without a hint of vittles, now ain't that somethin'," said the green head, still chuckling.

"Mighty suspicious if you ask me," the red head grumbled.

"Ah, where's your sense of humor, Nero?" the green head replied jovially, turning back to the newcomers. "So tell me, how'd you lot make it all the way out here in such a state? Ya get mugged on the way?"

 

[Virgil134]

Rodion gave the Scovillain a small smirk, before sitting down on a nearby barrel.

"We fell from the sky, obviously. Certainly beats traveling overland."

He sized the group up carefully, his smile unwavering all the while. Help for their 'next job', huh? Given the way these guys were talking, he was starting to get the feeling they weren't all that different from him, even if they obviously operated on land. Did that mean that cloud had misplaced him? Even if it did, that didn't necessarily have to be a bad thing...

 

[Cresselia92]

So, Silver learned an important lesson of Pokémon anatomy: Sneasel have an extremely sensitive hearing, since those blasted explosions sent his heart straight into his throat!

He yelped in astonishment, his ear and head feather shooting upright, while his claws began tingling. Why the heck were they tingling?

Quite a few curses boomed in his mind and were ready to pour out, but he restrained himself and let the others speak. That didn’t mean he couldn’t glare warily at those unknown Pokémon, though!

"A friend of ours steered us your way and didn't tell us about the trap," he said. "My understanding was that we were supposed to be getting the lay of the land and talking... business."

Hm. That Cyndaquil got the right idea. It was best to lay low and prevent any potentially dangerous situation. Besides, it’s not like he didn’t have experience with that kind of people.

He straightened his stance and held a paw to his hip, all the while flashing the biggest weasel-y smirk he could muster.

It was time for the younger Silver to raise from his ashes… for the time being, of course.

"We fell from the sky, obviously. Certainly beats traveling overland."

“Yeah. A case of teleportation gone wrong,” Silver added, shrugging. “We ended up here without stuff, that’s all.”

Technically, that wasn’t a lie.

“Anyway, this job of yours,” he leaned forward, his ear swiveling forward and his smirk widening, “how about explaining how we can help out?”

 

[ShadowVulpi]

Rodion gave the Scovillain a small smirk, before sitting down on a nearby barrel.

"A friend of ours steered us your way and didn't tell us about the trap," he said. "My understanding was that we were supposed to be getting the lay of the land and talking... business."

Lavender couldn't help but give the Buizel and Cyndaquil a short glance when they had become so casual and used very particular wording around these admittedly intimidating strangers (not helped that Lavender didn't even know what the Scovillain was. Was that supposed to be a Pokemon?). Either Rodion and Lyle were very good actors or...

Well. He'd worry about that later. It wouldn't have been the first time he had to spend an extended amount of time around shady company.

"And apologies for setting off your trap and unnecessarily startling all of you. We were careless. Disoriented from the fall, you understand."

 

[Keleri]

Tarahn hadn't really been listening to anything the glow cloud was saying, although it had mentioned food and battling to get stronger, which was a relief. He'd worn power limiters before for practice or to help younger or weaker pokemon catch up to baseline, but being transformed entirely was new and he missed his bells. But things could get really boring at ranger school, doing the same exercises over and over, so something new would be fun!

The glow cloud shone and expanded, transforming him into energy, and then dumped his matter body in some dirt. Ow. Usually Teleports weren't that bad unless you were dumb enough to help a newbie practice, but that seemed to be what this was, everybody transformed into a little guy and working together. This new place was a lot warmer, which was more like it, and he decided he'd like a good roll, but as he flipped onto his belly, the mixture of scents in the dirt became obvious: spicy fire-type scent with a hint of charcoal, bitter green plant-types, and numerous others who used the space.

He was thinking about this when someone took the opportunity to knock something metal over with an almighty clatter that blasted every strand of fur off Tarahn's tail (or would have, if he had any), and he immediately scurried under the scrub to watch the stranger pokemon emerge from the campsite.

They seemed eager for a fight, and normally Tarahn would be glad to have a little scrap to see where everyone was at, but at the moment he wasn't sure if he could even manage a Growl, and everyone's body language said it wasn't a good time to test it.

 

[Chibi Pika]

The pair of Capsakid looked aimless; with nothing to steal from the newcomers, they scurried back into the campsite.

The Scovillain stroked one of his chins with a leafy arm. "Mighty strange accident to land ya here without gear," the green head remarked.

The red head, Nero, scoffed. "Don't much care how they got here. And not that we don't appreciate the offer, but strange mon falling outta the sky aren't exactly high on the list of recruits."

"But if Sonora sent 'em--" Rillo piped up.

"Sonora didn't send them, you walnut," Sera yapped, smacking the Heliolisk's tail.

"Even so, might be worth givin' them a shot," the green Scovillain head mused.

Nero stared at his brother, deadpan. "Hob, you been drinking?"

He was thinking about this when someone took the opportunity to knock something metal over with an almighty clatter that blasted every strand of fur off Tarahn's tail (or would have, if he had any), and he immediately scurried under the scrub to watch the stranger pokemon emerge from the campsite.

While Tarahn stayed hidden under the brush, one of the stray cans happened to roll in his direction. It smelled faintly of stew.

 

[Virgil134]

"Look, I understand you not wanting to blindly trust a bunch of strangers, and I'll admit the way we got here is rather unusual... but it’s nothing we can't talk about over some drinks," Rodion insisted, spreading his arms with a toothy grin. "If you genuinely need the help for your next job, it wouldn't be smart to turn us down, now wouldn’t it? I can speak from experience how difficult it can be sometimes to find recruits that are actually worth their share."

 

[Cresselia92]

Silver shot a quick glance at the Buizel. The way he talked with so much confidence while facing those strangers made him curious. He looked… totally at ease. Silver made a mental note on that; it was something worth investigating when it was the right time.

In any case, the bravado alone wasn’t enough to convince those tent-dwellers. Nothing surprising, though. After all, who would trust some random guys who fell from the stratosphere?

So! That meant starting to talk real business! The way she would handle matters.

“Heh… My comrade is right,” remarked Silver, waving his free paw. “We all know how difficult it can be to find the right partners. What with all those spineless idiots and moronic weaklings who can only flail helplessly when they can’t rely on numbers and sheer strength.”

Silver couldn’t help but feel an immense sense of satisfaction. Ah, how much he relished trash-talking about Team Rocket! It was always such a mood booster!

Wait… Team Rocket? A lightbulb shone into his mind, and a low chuckle resonated in his throat.

“Okay, then! How about this?” he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes in defiance. “Let’s have a brief discussion about that, and if you aren’t convinced yet, you could give us some quick task so that we can prove our worth. I bet we’re gonna pass whatever test you’ll give us with flying colors!”

Or at least, he hoped so…

 

[RJr3:2]

While Aige found herself in silent agreement with the others as they made their case, she couldn't shake a growing sense of unease over how eager some of them seemed to be to help out a group of bandits, judging by the Capsakid's actions and comments.

It was frustrating that the best option was to go along with them rather than arrest them on the spot like she would have done, and the Roggenrola wished that she had had the foresight to pretend to be a rock so she could have at least gotten some help. At the very least, she was glad she wouldn't give any of her misgivings away now that she had no features that could betray her by unnecessarily emoting.

"You heard them," she said, resolving to let the others handle it for the most part since they seemed confident enough. "Not many downsides, wouldn't you think?"