“Sure,” I quickly replied, putting my shovel in my chest. “Although it is more than likely that the culprits are at the end of this tunnel.”

  “…So the noise may have alerted them… We need to come up with a better pn than just storming in,” she said, following my thread.

  “Exactly,” I nodded, happy to see that, at least for this, we were on the same wavelength. “I propose that you gather the best teams from The Red Tide. I will go out alone to test the waters, and if I find that I cannot recover the food by myself (which I doubt), I will blow this thing up as a signal that I need reinforcements,” I finished, tearing my coccyx from my spine and infusing it with some of my own sand before handing it over to the disturbed GM.

  “Isn’t there a better way to call for reinforcements?” she said, staring at the bone in horror, as if it were going to explode at any moment… Which was very fair, to be honest.

  “Maybe, but this is faster, it allows me to verify part of a theory that just occurred to me and, above all…

  "It's funnier," she and I said at the same time, overpping our voices a little and making us both let out a light ugh.

  “Yeah, yeah, Sandy. It's not a bad pn, I guess. The only thing I'm worried about is your proficiency being sneak…”—I interrupted her turning almost invisible— “forget it. How in the distortion world did you do that?”

  “Hehehe, Ghost-stuff, that’s how,” I whispered behind her neck, making her shiver to my delight. “If the exploding-bone thing doesn’t work, just wait until the noise stops or until I come back. See you soon, GM.”

  Before she could reply, I slipped through the narrow tunnel that the thieves had dug, having to resort to a hybrid form between my ‘human form’ and my ‘Pokemon form’.

  The only advantage my almighty 154 centimeters of height offered me was the power to get into tiny pces, but even with my small stature I couldn't fit through a tunnel barely the size of a barrel without having to crawl, and I wasn't going to do that if I could literally move my bones with my mind.

  After a short distance, the tunnel luckily widened enough to allow me to stand up. Assembling the bones of my skeleton, I returned to my bipedal form and took a brief pause, wanting to check if I was still translucent and verify my connection with my tailbone.

  Both remained stable, making me slightly regret not having infused my skull with my sand before leaving the beach. It would have been the perfect opportunity to test the maximum distance at which the sand on my Pokemon's body could still be mine, but ideas come when they want and I couldn't do anything to change it.

  Not wanting to ment over spilled milk, I began to imbue all the bones of my skeleton with my sand as I moved through the tunnel. This also allowed me to check if this was a hidden condition for the evolution I was looking for, though I didn't have much hope for it. If it wasn't the case, it still had a couple of benefits, so it was a win-win.

  Just when I finished infusing the st bone I was missing in my kneecap with my sand, I heard a slight sound up ahead.

  “…worrying for nothing,” I managed to hear after moving forward a little, slowly, without making any noise. “It's still early, I doubt they've even found the tunnel. If the elder brother is right, the Ghost is helping them, but, even with that abomination of nature ‘guiding’ them, they shouldn’t have been able to find the passage so quickly.”

  “How do you expin the noise, then?” asked a different voice, noticeably skeptical.

  "Maybe they've spread out all the little ones around," a third voice joined in, somewhat jovial. "With their numbers, a little shaking wouldn't be out of pce."

  “You may be right,” the second voice agreed. “Still, we should…”

  Letting the voices argue, I continued approaching the pce where they came from. A few twists and turns ter, I found myself in front of a rather rge underground chamber. It was illuminated by hundreds of colored gems set into both the ceiling and the walls, giving it an almost dreamlike appearance.

  That pce would be a paradise for a Sableye.

  A good handful of those shiny stones resonated with me, mainly the brown and purple ones. I quickly assumed that those must be the fifth generation gems, the ones that increased the power of a move of the same type as the gem in exchange for consuming it after one use.

  I almost burst out ughing when I saw that such valuable items had been relegated to mere exotic light bulbs, but I stopped myself when I remembered that, at least, I had to complete my reconnaissance mission before alerting the thieves to my presence.

  That pce screamed ‘hidden boss room’ from the rooftops, though I didn’t detect any presence more powerful than my own. In the chamber was only a group of Krabby, about 20 or so, talking around a huge amount of barrels and chests filled with fruit, berries and fish.

  When Mr. Krabs mentioned that they had food for a couple of weeks, I hadn't fully realized what it would take to keep all the Corphish fed for that long. I had imagined a few barrels at most, not a literal mountain of supplies.

  How did all of that fit into the retively small supply room, even? That was a question I could live without ever knowing the answer.

  Looking away from the food (and making an instinctive gesture of wiping my mouth despite not being able to produce saliva), I focused on the robber crabs again. They seemed organized, with a clear command structure, but they didn't seem too strong to me. I must admit that my standards were skewed, but I highly doubted that these crabs would outperform the 12 hardest-working lobsters I’d ever seen.

  At least it was clear that I wasn't dealing with a random group of thieves, as I’d suspected, and that raised its own arm bells. What was the point of doing this if, according to GM, they had no supply problems? Was it part of a bigger pn?

  Racking my non-existent brain, I tried to find some higher purpose in their actions, but couldn't think of one. Maybe they were just idiots, but they seemed to have put too much effort into all this if the no-natural feeling the cave gave me was right, and I couldn't underestimate the intelligence of the Pokemon after spending so much time talking to Cap and Mr. Krabs either…

  I could always ask them after I beat them up.

  Making the wise decision to strike first, ask questions ter, I began to think about how to approach the impending confrontation. Fighting alone against rge numbers was nothing new, more than once I’d done the mythical ‘all of you against me alone’ to The 24 Cws to have a little fun and see how they had progressed.

  Next time promised to be a legendary battle, with Pincitas and Mr. Krabs evolved. I couldn't wait to finish this to do it...

  Refocusing my thoughts, it all came down to whether I wanted to take advantage of my pseudo-invisibility to effectuate a surprise attack, or if, on the contrary, I announced my presence to give them, at least, a sense of ‘chance’ to defeat me. Both methods had their own strengths, as the first one could easily become a horror show if I staged it right, but there was also a certain charm in announcing your presence as if you were the minor vilin of a story…

  Picking up a suitably ft, round stone from the ground, I marked one of its faces with my sand and tossed it into the air, catching it with practiced ease. With a smooth move, I pced it on the back of my hand and revealed its result; Tails.

  “The coin has chosen,” I thought. “Maybe they can offer a good warm-up, although I doubt it.”

  With the decision made, there was only one thing left to do.

  “Hey, you morons!” I shouted, becoming visible again and entering the rge underground room, ready to fight. “Surrender peacefully and maybe I won’t hit you too hard!”

  “Shit, you were right! We've already been discovered!” the one closest to the tunnel excimed to the companion next to him.

  "Everyone to your positions!" the rgest of them ordered almost instantly.

  In mere seconds, 6 of them made a semi-formation around the stolen supplies, guarding them, while the rest rushed at me head on.

  I had to admit that they knew how to work as a team. They weren't as skilled at it as the teams of The Red Tide, but they were good enough not to get in each other's way, or throw out random attacks that could hurt their comrades.

  Too bad that was futile in the face of overwhelming force.

  Taking the spade out of my chest, with all the calm in the universe as I watched them approach, I hardened it even more than usual with a mix of Iron Defense and Harden, smming it hard on the ground and adding some Ground-type energy into the impact. This produced a brief but powerful Bulldoze, and the sudden jolt threw the crabs off bance, as I expected, causing them to stumble and ruining their attempts to get close to attack me.

  I’d already verified a few days ago that an abrupt decrease in Speed ??had an effect simir to 'flinch' in real life, but I wanted to see in more detail why the Speed ??was still reduced after the move ended. Turning on my extrasensory sense, I watched that the remnants of my Ground-type aura used in the attack were infused into the yer of protective aura on their legs, hindering their mobility more than would be natural.

  That was interesting, as I hadn't yet looked into how the secondary effects of offensive moves and ‘debuffs’ worked on their targets exactly. It was good to keep that in mind for the future.

  As I turned my attention back to the battle, I saw that the older members of the group were already getting up, not looking like they were willing to give up. A few, somewhat more intelligent, saw that getting closer was counterproductive at the very least, so they began to accumute a torrent of Water Guns and Bubble Beams, which the rest of their brothers joined in with once they understood the pn, powering up the moves even more by consuming Water Gems and unching them all at once…

  Ha, fools.

  Not even bothering to block or dodge, I opened my arms and leaned back slightly, ready to show them why it wasn't a good idea attack me with Water-type moves while I was letting out my best “Wryyyyyy!”

  A real rain of attacks hit me, almost completely flooding my cave section. The Krabbys, thinking that this had been enough to defeat me, stopped their moves after a few minutes and let out a collective sigh, half tired and half relieved, happy to have been able to deal with the menace (me).

  Their relief died quickly when they saw me slowly emerge from the puddle they had formed, completely untouched. Like a sponge, before their incredulous faces, I began to absorb all the water magically created by aura until the st drop, boosting my Defense to its absolute limit.

  I had never used my ability to that extent, and I could say that I’d exaggerated a little, but intimidation was an important part of a fight after all, and not just the ability one.

  Looking at my ‘skin’ with curiosity, I saw that my special-sand? had turned dark like vantabck, almost like that of the shiny ones in the Sandygast line. Was this how they turned shiny, or did they perhaps need an external factor to keep this color permanently?

  My Poke-mind was getting distracted too easily…

  “Thank you, guys. I was a little thirsty,” I said with a mocking ugh before returning to my 100% serious and professional attitude. “Would you do me another favor and surrender without resistance now that you've seen what I'm capable of? I don't feel like knocking out Pokemon if I can avoid it, and I have better opponents to fight against, no offense… Pff, nah, I really did mean to offend.”

  “Shut up, monster!” the biggest of them excimed, seeming to act as leader and part-time spokescrab for the group. “We will not give up without a fight, especially against a disgusting being like you!”

  “Oh, no. My feelings…” I said in a monotone voice while clutching my chest in an exaggerated manner. “Anyway. What can you even do against me, you bunch of weaklings?”

  “Hahaha…” the big Krabby ughed, with a ugh much more sinister than I expected for a Water-type Pokemon. “I was hoping to eliminate you with our ultimate-combo-attack, since I know that we are no match for you, spawn of Giratina. However, not everything is lost, since all we need is to… Buy time.”

  Before I could reply, one of them pulled out a Rock Gem from somewhere while I was distracted listening to the monologue, covering his cw with a thick yer of dark-brown energy and hitting a wall of the cavern, unleashing a Rock Tomb that blocked the only exit from that pce.

  Ah, I see. So that was the ‘biggest pn’. It was just… Very stupid.

  “Hahaha, now you’re stuck with us!” the skeptical voice from the beginning shouted, somewhat unhinged, as if I had fallen right into his 10,000 IQ trap. “Our initial pn may have failed, but our contingency pn is foolproof! You will stay here until our magnanimous elder brother Kingler finishes his negotiations with our distant Corphish brothers. Once he opens their eyes, we will decide what to do wi—”

  “Are you guys really trying to leave a Ground-type Pokemon trapped underground?” I snapped, interrupting his third-rate vilin speech. “I don’t think you’ll be able to get out of here easily, either… That means I’m not stuck with you; you’re stuck with me.”

  …

  An awkward silence fell over the chamber as the stupid crabs processed my words.

  “Boss, I think we should have thought all this better,” the jovial voice murmured to the biggest crustacean.

  I was about to reply with a sarcastic remark, but just then, one of the subtle bonds I had with all my bones before infusing them with my sand broke. Focusing a little more on that feeling, I discovered that the thin link I had with my skull had just… disappeared, which was not a good sign at all.

  The change in my aura must have scared the Krabbys, as they took a half step back while holding their breath. Games were over, I needed to check what was happening on the beach.