“Calm down, little brother. What do you mean?” Mr. Krabs asked, adopting a deeper tone in accordance with his new form. “Last time we checked, there was enough food for a couple of weeks. It can't have just disappeared.”

  "That's the problem, Big Brother!" the Corphish excimed, clearly surprised by his brothers' evolution, but not wanting to go off the rails. “This afternoon, one of the little ones was still a little hungry after lunch, so he went to the storeroom for a snack, but it was empty!”

  “That’s… worrying,” Pincitas murmured. “As the elder brother said, things don't just disappear. That means that, if we haven't eaten the food, there's only one other possibility…”

  "Your food has been stolen, boys," Cap said bluntly, strangely annoyed. “Freshwater ruffians! That goes against the Yezalel Accords!”

  “Yezalel Accords?” I asked, somewhat curious about the new term. “This is the first time I’ve heard of it.”

  "It's nothing too serious, it's just a set of rules that an old Fairy established on the isnd to ensure peaceful coexistence," expined Mr. Krabs. “Simple things like not competing to the death to expand the territory, avoiding unnecessary conflicts…”

  —…Or steal your neighbors' food… —Pincitas interrupted, beginning to understand the seriousness of the situation and getting angry as a result.

  "Exactly," continued the older lobster. “We hadn’t told you because, after agreeing on our own deal and getting to know each other a little better, I assumed you weren’t going to start breaking the Accords on your own, since they can pretty much be summed up as ‘don’t be an asshole’. Still, I apologize for not informing you in advance.”

  “Apologies accepted. I don't think being a good Pokemon is that complicated, anyway,” I said with a smile, which turned somewhat sinister as I continued talking. “Speaking of our deal, I think this is a good time to put the second part of it into practice.”

  "Sandy…" the crustacean leader sighed, seeming to want to refuse for a moment before resigning himself. “I guess you're right. First, you must accompany the little one home and find out who it might have been. Just… don't be too harsh with the compensation you'll ask for.”

  “It all depends on the severity of the matter?” I sang, already anticipating my juicy reward. “Are you coming with me, Cap?”

  “I pass. My presence would be redundant until you find the culprit, and even then, you alone are more than capable of trivializing almost any problem that may arise on this isnd now,” the zy seabird refused, brandishing a smile that matched mine. “I'd rather stay here to make sure that The 24 Cws don't skip leg day. It would be a real tragedy if they did, wouldn't it?”

  "You're right, you're right," I nodded, grabbing my head with one hand and leaving it on the sand. “I guess I should keep an eye on them too. They've already paid for today's lesson, reneging on my end of the deal would be dishonest on my part.”

  "You're very generous, Sandy," Cap said with a ugh, sitting on my skull as he always did. “You can go investigate this thing in peace, I will make sure that these scoundrels don’t sck off in their training in your absence.”

  "It's not like we're going to do that," Mr. Krabs said with his characteristic ugh. "Pincitas and I still have to get used to our new form, this is no time to rex."

  “True… Well, see you ter, I guess. After I sort this out, we need to pn a nice party to celebrate your evolutions,” I said goodbye, turning to the little Corphish. “Lead the way, rearguard of Team 14. Don't worry about speed; I'll keep pace.”

  “Of course, Sandy!” excimed the lobster, instantly beginning to accelerate at ridiculous speeds.

  With one st look at my half-built raft and my friends/students acting like idiots, with Cap sitting on my skull enjoying the spectacle, I began to follow the sprinter crustacean much faster than I could have even imagined just a week before. I was somewhat curious as to what the Corphish Mojo Dojo Casa Cave House would look like, but the trip seemed like it would take a few minutes even at that breakneck pace, more than enough time to get deep into my thoughts.

  The progress I’d made during those days had been wide and varied, but none had surpassed what I achieved after breaking my ribs from Cap's attack.

  My connection with the Ground-type had always been more intuitive than my connection with the Ghost-type; it had always felt more natural, although I’d recently begun to understand the true nature of my main type. Still, even with the idea of ??controlling my skeleton by enveloping it in my sand, I had completely missed the subtle link that the Ground-type has with bones.

  I couldn't bme myself too much for that, since there were only like 3 bone-reted moves and the only one I knew how to use was a Ghost-type, but I should have realized sooner how much my aura resonated with my own skeleton. When my ribs were broken, I felt anger for the first time in this life, but it was quickly overshadowed by sheer disappointment.

  Disappointment with myself for not knowing how to see the obvious.

  In retrospect, infusing Ground-type energy into my bones to move them instead of trying to simute a human body with my sand seemed obvious, but I hadn't imagined how much it simplified things. Forget about trying to recreate every little muscle fiber and ligament, with this method I could literally use my femur as a throwing weapon if I wanted, as it allowed me to treat every bone in my skeleton as if it were sand, granting me absolute control over them only limited by what I liked to call my ‘Special Attack’.

  After understanding that, healing my ribs was a trivial matter. Almost exactly as I’d done with my shovel, only using Ground-type energy instead of Ghost, I separated a small portion of the sand that made up my Pokemon's body and, bending it to my will, I used it as glue to repair my broken bones in seconds, thus learning a prototype version of Shore Up.

  My spade worked miracles when it was whole, after all.

  That experience also gave me a somewhat wild idea; one I hadn't yet had time to put into practice. What if I infused all the bones in my skeleton with my sand? Would I finally evolve?

  I could feel that I was very close, and watching Mr. Krabs and Pincitas do it only solidified that feeling.

  If I remembered correctly, Sandygast evolved at level 42, which was quite te for a normal Pokemon, and learned Shore Up at level 55. I couldn't pinpoint my current ‘level’ based only on the speed at which I was learning moves, as there were other factors at py and I suspected my learning speed was a bit above average, but I could tell that, if I wanted it hard enough, I could become a Palossand right then and there.

  Obviously, I didn't want to do that. The goal of my efforts was to achieve an alternative evolution, after all, but the option was there, shining in my mind, as if I just needed to stop pressing ‘B’. Therefore, strength was not what I cked to achieve my goal, but something else, and it was quite likely that that something was reted to the skeleton I had been dragging around since I was reborn into this world…

  “Sandy… Sandy!” the Corphish shouted, cutting off my thoughts. “We’re here!”

  “Uh. Right. Sorry kiddo, watching your brothers evolve has given me a couple of things to think about…” I replied somewhat dazed, realizing that, indeed, we had already arrived.

  In front of me was a cave, and it was a miracle that I hadn't even noticed it until the Corphish called me. This was at one end of the beach, right at the bottom of the cliff that bordered it along with the forest. It had a natural look, as is normal for a cavern, but I could see that Mr. Krabs and his brothers had done something to smooth out the walls and floor, as the texture seemed much less rough than a normal cave would have.

  Maybe they had done it with pressurized water? All I could say was that it turned out pretty well for having managed without machinery… Or opposable thumbs, in fact.

  The entrance itself was quite wide, enough to allow The Red Tide to pass through without colliding with each other, although it wasn’t very high, and it led to a rge common room. All the Corphish were gathered there, some more worried than others, but they all seemed to brighten up when they saw me. A pretty noticeable difference from our first meeting, hehe.

  “Yes, it was a surprise to see that they have finally evolved. We have to celebrate!” excimed the crustacean next to me before becoming a little discouraged. “When we get our food back, of course…”

  “Haha, sure. Don't worry kid, that's what I'm here for” I said, patting him on the head and heading into the cave, ready to work.

  Scanning the room a little further after I entered without problems through the somewhat low entrance, I noticed that the main chamber was decorated with a rge variety of objects, probably collected by Mr. Krabs after being washed ashore by the waves. From bottles, compasses, chests and telescopes, to a damn anchor and a photography of a young sailor with a Zorua on his shoulder.

  So that's what he meant when he said he'd only seen a human into a hyper-realistically drawn, huh?

  Looking around the walls, I discovered that there were two tunnels connected to the main room, which functioned as corridors. The one on the right led into a spacious chamber with what looked like straw beds spread neatly across the floor, so I assumed that was the bedroom. The one on the left led to a storeroom of sorts, visibly empty, with only a few barrels and chests scattered carelessly everywhere.

  Only a few leftovers of what looked like apples and other fruit remained in the pantry, along with some fish bones…

  “Wait a minute… Are those fish bones from normal fish?”

  “Of course,” GM replied, approaching from the center of the common room. She was the oldest Corphish in The Red Tide and the one in charge of coordinating them when I was busy with my things. “What would we eat if not? Other Pokemon?” she asked, cocking her head and rolling her eyes.

  “Haha. Yeah. Sure. Of course. How ridiculous, huh?” I said with a somewhat stiff ugh, entering the pantry. “Good to have you here, GM. Any leads on who the perpetrator might have been?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” she said, staying in the tunnel as she watched me start to search the room. “Obviously there must be several Pokemon involved in this, as just one couldn't have been able to move so many things in a single morning, but other than that, I have nothing.”

  “An organized group, then…” I muttered, moving the few remaining barrels and chests to see if I could find anything, without much success. “Do you have any problems with any specific group?”

  “Not really. We have some run-ins with the Tentacools, and Pelipper's flock is pretty standoffish, but…” she began to answer, stopping halfway and bringing a cw to her chin. “I don't think they were the robbers, right?”

  “Who? Pelipper's flock?”

  “No, no. I was thinking about Kingler's family,” she crified. “They are the owners of the other half of the beach, and something like our cousins. We got along pretty well, but Kingler got mad at Mr. Krabs when he found out about our deal with you…”

  "And why is that?" I asked, stopping my futile search to concentrate on the conversation. “If they also wanted my tutoring, they could have asked for it. I’m here all weak, try the veal. I don't charge much too…”

  "That st one is debatable," GM said with a smile that quickly died. “I doubt they would have accepted, anyway. Especially considering that he got angry because we were associating with a, and I quote, ‘vile and disgusting creature born of spite and perdition that only knows how to spread misery wherever it is’.”

  “Wow. That is by far the most discriminatory thing I’ve ever heard in this life,” I said in an eerily deadpan manner, frowning the eyebrows of the head I had formed with my sand. “Refreshing in a way, but insulting nonetheless. Not even Pincitas dared to go that far.”

  “Yes, I know. It seems that he had a bad experience with Ghosts in the past…” the crustacean murmured, half apologizing for her distant retive and half trying to justify him.

  “That sounds more like his problem than mine, to be honest.”

  “You're right, Sandy…” she resigned with a sigh, accepting that, perhaps, her cousin was a potential piece of shit. “I doubt it was them, anyway. Their problem is more with you than with us, so what would be the point in stealing our food? They're not short of supplies, I think.”

  “I see… Well, there’s only one way to find out,” I finished, opening my extrasensory sense and starting to scan the aura residue floating in the supply room.

  Aura is love, aura is life. It was in everything and everyone, so it was somewhat difficult to distinguish its origin, much less its purpose, but it could be easy to deduce when it didn't quite fit in with the rest. Things like a dodged Bubble Beam would leave a trail of Water-type energy in the sand it hit. Things like Dig would leave a rger buildup of Ground-type aura than usual if done on a cavern wall…

  “Hijos de… So this is how they did it, huh?” I muttered as I approached the back wall of the pantry, focusing on a seemingly normal corner.

  Confirming my suspicions, I pulled the shovel out of my chest and covered it with a thin yer of Iron Defense. That was a little trick I discovered after a few battles with Cap. It took a lot of concentration and wasn't all that useful in combat yet, but it ensured I could use my shovel with all my strength without risk of breaking it, so I'd practiced it a bit.

  After making sure I had done it right, before GM's somewhat incredulous eyes, I swung it towards the completely nondescript stone wall with all my might, revealing a hidden tunnel.

  Sharing a gnce with the Corphish standing at the entrance, she said, “Well, I guess we have a path to follow now. Shall we go in?”

  Hey, the writer here. Just wanted to say that chapter 8 was getting really long and I had to split it into two (I didn't want a nearly 5000 word chapter, thank you very much). Things have calmed down and I can get back to my regur schedule now, so, well, that's it.

  Thanks so much for reading this smoke, it's getting a lot more readers than I initially expected, and I appreciate the healthy feedback.

  Regards; Lichant