Ready To Rumble: Errand 2 (April 23rd-27th)

    "Maaaaaaan..." Patterson whinged, as he and Whitaker prowled down the street. "I'm so hungry that I could eat a Roggenrolla. Alive. Whole."

    "Will you be quiet?" Whitaker snapped, his stomach growling angrily at him. "My stomach can hear you. Don't encourage it."

    "I can't HELP it!" Patterson yelled, prompting a couple of confused glances from various other Pokémon. "We have money! Why can't we buy food?"

    "We've got six starcoins!" Whitaker responded. "And have you seen the prices around here? City prices... robbery..." He muttered under his breath.

    "Well, why can't we go scavenge something out of the fog?" Patterson retorted.

    "Because there's gonna be new jobs posted some time soon, and I don't want to miss them." Whitaker answered. "That'd mean that one of us would have to go scavenge, and the other would have to note down the jobs. I don't trust you to do either of those things." Whitaker said, jabbing Patterson in the chest with one finger.

    "You're lucky I'm hungry right now." Patterson growled. "I've not got the energy to kick your ass."

    Whitaker's shoulders slumped. "Good, because I wouldn't have the energy to stop you. Let's just go see if there's a new job and pray that it pays well."

    The two sidled up to the Errand board, both of them perking up a bit when they noticed that there was in fact a new entry on the board. Whitaker peered closely at it, reading it carefully.

    "Well? What is it?" Patterson said, spreading his arms wide and taking an impatient step forward.

    "Tch." Whitaker grunted disappointedly. "Nothing interesting. Apparently there's some festival on. That scrawny weasel that runs the Hunter's guild wants us to paint eggs for kiddies, or put on some kind of cookery show." Whitaker grimaced. "If it was somebody cooking for us, I could understand.

    "Yeah, but what does it pay?" Patterson asked, putting his pride to one side for once.

    "One measly Starcoin." Whitaker growled, as Patterson put his face into his gloves.

    "That's it." He moaned. "I'm going to starve to death here. It wasn't meant to end like this."

    "Will you stop moaning?" Whitaker shouted. "There's more. One Starcoin... and all the eggs... we... can... eat."

    The two fighting types slowly turned to face each other, before cracking two huge grins. The two settled in side by side, seemingly reinvigorated by the prospect of free food.

    "Hey, let's show these suckers some nomadic-style cooking with eggs!" Patterson suggested.

    "Yeah, how about the old stone-cooked omelette that we used to do?" Whitaker added.

    "Oooh, and remember that time we managed to find those dud Geodude eggs? Remember what we did to crack 'em?"

    "Haha, yeah!" Whitaker chuckled. "The schmucks in the crowd will lap that up. We'll make first place for sure!"

    The two fighting types walked, almost ran, towards the festival area, conspiring eagerly all the way.

---

    "Come one, come all! Check out our signature dish, a delicious stone-cooked omelettes! It's a cracking good meal!" Patterson called out to the crowd, giggling slightly at his own awful pun. Whitaker rolled his eyes as he finished setting up the fire pit on the ground, setting up a broad metal pan on a tripod just above the flames. Despite Patterson's awful attempt at wordplay, a small crowd had gathered, murmuring with interest.

    "What's more, ladies and gents, is that we've get a special way of of mixing the contents. It makes for a knockout meal - not to mention good practice for fights! Whitaker, are you ready?"

    Whitaker walked over to a bucket of eggs set a little way away from the fire pit, and Patterson took a position at more or less halfway between the two, only a little off to the side. Whitaker picked up an egg, and gave a nod. Hefting it up to his shoulder, he hefted it bodily through the air towards the pan. As it reached the halfway point, Patterson speared out a lightning-fast Mach Punch, shattering the egg in mid-flight. The egg burst open, eggshell bursting out in numerous different directions, but the mass of egg-white and yolk contained within continued to sail through the air, most of it landing in the pan on the fire pit. It began to sizzle noisily as the crowd raised an appreciative applause, an impressed murmur spreading throughout the crowd as Patterson raised both arms in triumph, a smug look crossing his face.

    "Now now, folks." He smirked. "Save your appreciation for later, because there's more where that came from!"

    For the next few minutes, Whitaker threw eggs at varying angles, and Patterson continued to pick them off mid-flight, the egg's contents landing in the bowl neatly almost every time. The crowd grew, the applause growing louder and louder with each tossed egg. Patterson was clearly enjoying the attention, and the final egg Whitaker threw was in a high arc that Patterson intercepted with a leaping Sky Uppercut. By the time the last egg was thrown, a bubbling pool of egg had accumulated in the pan.

    "Alright." Whitaker said as he examined the dish closer. "Now I just need to add spices for flavour. Hand them over."

    "Ummmm... spices?" Patterson said dimly. Whitaker's jaw dropped slightly.

    "What, you didn't get any?" He asked nervously.

    "No." Patterson replied flatly. "I thought you'd just flavour it the same way you always do."

    "What the hell were you thinking?" Whitaker hissed back. "I can't do that here! There's no way these guys will be able to handle it! And I've got to add flavouring of some sort, this is gonna be bland as hell otherwise!"

    "Well, just use a little, then." Patterson shot back. "I'm sure they can deal with it just fine."

    "God damn it. Fine. But if somebody dies, it's your own fault." Whitaker turned back to the pot, making sure to shield what he was doing from the crowd using his body. He extended one claw, letting it hover over the pan. A small drip of purple poison beaded at the end of it.

    I hope this doesn't land me in jail, was all Whitaker could think as he let it drop into the boiling eggy mess below. He began to stir the mixture, his heartbeat racing. After a few minutes, he hefted the pan up from the flames, hauling it towards a table with plates already arrayed on it. Whitaker was barely able to control the shaking of his hands as he prepared an omelette.

    "So, who wants to be first to try?" Patterson cheerily asked the crowd.

    "Hey, you guys gathered a pretty big crowd!" A youthful sounding voice called out from the group. "Mind if I try?"

    Whitaker gulped as a young, but clearly important Weavile stepped forward. It was Sundance, the leader of the Hunters guild. He was having a much harder time controlling the shaking of his hands now.

    "Of course, step forward, junior!" Patterson said, gleefully ignoring the small flash of annoyance on Sundance's face, and the murmurs of amusement passing through the crowd.

    "It smells good!" Sundance said, as Whitaker nervously handed him a plate and a fork.

    Please don't kill him please don't kill him please don't kill him was all Whitaker could think over and over as Sundance deftly clasped the fork between his claws, speared a chunk of omelette and took a bite. To Whitaker's relief, Sundance's face seemed to brighten up a bit.

    "Hey, this is pretty good!" Sundance said, taking another bite. The relief Whitaker felt was like a boulder being lifted off his back. "Flavour's a little strong, but not bad." Sundance's face suddenly soured, and Whitaker's heart sank again. "Very strong, actually." Sundance continued. "Maybe a little too - hUUURK..." HE ballooned his cheeks suddenly, his eyes bulging. "I gotta go to the bathroom." He squeaked out quietly, as he suddenly sprinted away from the scene. The crowd followed his sudden departure silently, before suddenly turning back to the sheepish pair of fighting types managing the stand.

    "So, errrr..." Patterson muttered. "Does anybody else want some?"

    It took a matter of seconds for the crowd to vanish.

    "Shit!" Whitaker shouted, panicking. "Shit!"

    "Did... did we just poison the head of the Hunters guild?" Patterson said, sounding a little nervous all of a sudden. He turned towards Whitaker, pointing an accusatory glove. "This is all your fault!"

    "What?" Whitaker yelled. "This was all your idea!"

    "Hold up, this isn't a time to play who-blamed-who!" Patterson said, the hypocrisy lost upon him. "We gotta get out of town before we end up with our throats slit in a back alley!"

    "It's no use!" Whitaker mourned. "If what I've heard about these Hunters is right, then we're basically dead pokes walking already! Game over, man, game over!"

    "Are we gonna die, Whitaker?" Patterson asked, his voice quavering.

    "Patterson." Whitaker said solemnly, placing his hands on his friend's shoulder pads. "Before we go, I just want you to know that..."

    "Er, you guys?" A tired, but familiar voice said suddenly. "I'm not interrupting anything important, am I?"

    Both fighting types yelped suddenly, turning to face the newcomer with a start. It was a somewhat queasy-looking, but still very much alive Sundance. Both of them began to stammer apologies and explanations of various sincerity, but Sundance silenced them both with an upheld paw. "So, er, that's some pretty strong stuff there." He said. "What's in it, exactly?"

    "It's, er..." Whitaker stuttered. "A... secret recipe?"

    "It's Toxicroak venom, right?" Sundance said, cutting straight to the point.

    "Well, er..." Whitaker's shoulders slumped. "Yeah. It tasted good when we did it out in the fog, I swear!"

    "Yeah, but you guys are probably used to strong stuff like that with your background, right?" Sundance said, startling Whitaker a little.

    "What do you know about our background?" Whitaker replied.

    "Enough." Sundance said nonchalantly. "We like to stay in the know when it comes to, ah, interesting guys like you. But that's besides the point. I know a little about cooking with mild poisons. The venom's yours, right? You've got a nice flavour."

    "That's what she said." Patterson smirked. Whitaker elbowed him.

    "Anyway, here's the one thing you're missing." Sundance continued, holding up a pink fruit. "A little Pecha juice. You'll keep the taste, but you'll lose the, ah, unfortunate side effects." He took a bite out of it, and started to look a little less peaky almost straight away. "See?"

    "Oh." Whitaker responded. "Thanks?"

    "No problem!" Sundance said, cheerful again. "I doubt you're gonna win any prizes today, but well, Kara likes to eat things like this, just without the Pecha. She's got a taste for strong food like this. Would you be willing to part with what's left of that omelette for a starcoin?"

    Patterson and Whitaker exchanged a glance, then a shrug. "Sure." Whitaker finally responded.

    "Thanks!" Sundance said, tossing them a Starcoin while reaching for the pan. "Just try and be a little more careful next time when you're cooking! See ya!" He said, hefting the pan and walking away, giving a cheery wave as he went.

    Whitaker gave a huge sigh of relief. "Well, we get to live another day, at least." He said. "And somehow we still got paid."

    "Yeah, but what about all the egg we could eat?" Patterson responded. Whitaker's stomach growled as if attempting to back up what Patterson just said.

    "Well, that sounds like something I can still get behind." Whitaker assented. "Let's go!"

    Patterson grinned, before starting to job towards the next nearest stall. "Last one there is a rotten egg!" He yelled.

    Whitaker could only sigh, and wonder if Patterson had been exchanging idea with Teresa lately.