Act 49: Rotten Meat

"Alright, we can stop now, Lemm." Luca said, making the cart come to the stop here in the camp.
"Finally...pushing this thing in the heat wasn't too easy..." Lemm huffs.
Pachi is not physically tired, but she could really use some shade right now. "Kinda thirsty, to be honest."

"Well, this cart was carry water, if I recall correctly..." Ranii says.

"Oh, for real?" The electric squirrel jumps onto one of the barrels. "Wonder which of these are it..."

Now that they're safely at the base, Ranii joins the squirrel in inspecting their catch...

There is food here, berries...but some of it is also meat. Pachi is a tiny bit repulsed by seeing the meat, she doesn't even want to think about where it came from. Touching one of the barrels, she hears it's contents slosh. "I think the water is in this one."

... Meat? Ranii can smell it. She rips the barrel off the car and lets it fall onto the sand, spilling its content all over the place. She puts her hand on her hips and shakes her head.
"Okay I know this isn't meatvine." She says. "And since we already know that non-sapient food animals aren't a thing on this planet." She growls with disgust. "... Is there seriously no law to which these guys won't sink to? And who was this even meant for? The soldiers, or the local lord?"
She shakes her head again. Too many questions, too little answers. 
"Well, whatever. We should bury that meat. Whoever died to provide that deserves a proper burial, at least."

Luca comes over and looks down at the meat that was in the barrel, he finds it just as sickening. "Is this all the meat there is on this load?"
"It seems so. All other barrels don't have any meat in them." Pachi said.
"I think this was separated for someone..."
The Pachirisu raises a brow as she looks to Ranii. "What's meatvine?" 

"It's... uh...." Ranii is caught off guard by that question a little bit. It's putting them on the spot. As far as most know, she's still a kind of odd looking Hawlucha and not some space-faring Avali. She thinks for a moment on how exactly to respond to that without giving away the fact that she's an alien.
"Erm, look, that's not really important right now Pachi. What is important is getting rid of this." Deflection it is.

"Alright..." Seems like the deflection of the subject worked. "You do it thought, I don't want to touch that."
Luca is not averse to picking up the pieces of raw meat dirtied with sand though.

Ranii thinks about taking out her matter manipulator, but she came close to blowing her alien cover with her mention of meatvine already. 
"Does anyone have a shovel? Or is otherwise capable of digging a hole?" She asks out loud.

"No need, l can just dig with my paws." Luca was about to walk off to look for a place outside the camp to bury this meat...
"Hey..." A Sandslash with shifty eyes approaches them. "You need to dig a hole?"

"Yeah, that would be heavily appreciated." Ranii replies.

The Lucario is not sure about this 'mon, he feels something strange about him. "Just come with me." He leads them out of the camp, not very far, just far enough to bury this meat.

Ranii, before, was content to just let this mon do his business... but seeing the look on her partner's eyes, she decides to come with.
Ansel meanwhile has long since left the group to go back to his own room to chat up some of the rest of his comrades, so he was not around for this whole drama with the meat. 

Likewise Lemm has also went of to take a break after all that pushing.
"Say... you guys wanna bury this meat? Why?" The Sandslash questions all of the sudden.

"Because we're talking about dead innocents here." Ranii says. "Honestly I'm not even sure why this is a question."
She's also starting to suspect there's something up with this guy too.

"But that would be a waste!" The Sandslash said. "Look, maybe I can get some water to clean that sand off and then I can roast it by the fire." 
Luca narrows his eyes, he is not happy with what this pokemon is going on about. "What?"

Ranii's eyes narrow as the spear is summoned in her hand, and she wastes no time points it directly at the sandslash. "What... Did... You... Just Say?!" She growls.

"Woah! Hey!" He raised his claws, not in a way that shows he wants to fight though, he is pretty much holding them up in the air in surrender. "Alright alright i get it!"

"Right. First, burial. And then..." Her eyes narrow. "We're going to have a little 'talk'. The three of us."

He groans. "Alright..." He obliged and dug a hole in the sand for them.
Luca drops all the meat he is holding down into the hole. "Now cover it up." He ordered.
With a sigh, the Sandslash fills the hole back up with sand, and now there is no more hole. "What a waste..." He grumbles under his breath.

"Yes, tell us why you wanted to eat that meat." Luca says to him, sounding firm and harsh.
"Is this just because I wanted to eat something?" He deadpans. "Look, I just ate meat a few times, okay? A friend offered it to me..."

"And who did you or your 'friend'' She makes 'quote' marks with her fingers while still hanging onto her spear "Kill, huh? Who had to die to fill your stomach? Was it some little dungeon dweller? Some homeless mon? .... One of ours?!"

"Geez I don't know..." He sounds very annoyed by all this questioning. "My friend sneaked bits of it from the mansion in Sandstone in the time that the nobles ran the place."

"And who was this... 'friend' of yours?" Ranii questions.

He raised a brow. "Why do you want to know? He is all the way back in Sandstone." It kind of sounds like he is trying to avoid talking about this.

Ranii again points the spear directly into his face. "I'm asking the fucking questions here, cannibal. And possible murderer. Do you fucking understand?!"

He starts getting all defensive again. "Aaah! Look i didn't murdered anyone okay?! My friend is a Gligar called Glig!"

Ranii looks over to Luca. "Looks like we'll have to alert the guildmaster of a possible meat smuggler running around. I'll include it in the report." She looks back a the Sandslash. "And just how many did you eat, huh?"

Luca nods to that. "Indeed..." 
The Sandslash is getting visibly frustrated again. " I think...i think it was just six small pieces of roasted meat, dunno what the meat was from exactly. When he got some he always gave me two. Could eat them both in one bite."

"And you DO know where meat actually COMES from, right?!" Ranii asks incredulously. "A subtle hint: It doesn't come from a plant..." "Well, not until very recently." She adds under her breath. "But nevermind that."

"So?!" He protests. "Is it my fault if whoever it belonged to is already dead?!"

"Okay... then how about we kill you and eat you?! I mean, you'd already be dead..."

"What?!" Now he is acting incredulously at what she is saying. "N-no! I mean..." 

"Yeah. Not so callous when it's your life's blood on the line, now is it?" She growls. However, by this point she is out of questions. 
"Captian..." She turns to Luca. "What do you say we do with him?"

Luca walks over to the Sandslash and put a paw on his shoulder, his grip on it is tight. "Don't try anything, you are going to be detained and the generals will figure out what to do with you.'
"Don't you think you are overreactiong?!"
The Lucario growls. "Don't talk back to me."

"And once again, if you try anything, you'll be as dead as the poor souls you just buried." She growls as she stays behind him spear drawn. "Oh, and I find it dug up and distubed, you can bet your sorry cannibalistic ass that you're going to be blamed and punished for it."

The Sandslash has nothing else to say, he is too frustrated and doesn't want to dig himself in a deeper situation. He then starts getting dragged away by the Lucario.

Ranii follows him, not keeping her eyes or ears off of him in case he tries to pull a fast one as he's lead away. "Damn, and this day was going so well too." She grumbles under her breath.

They take this Sandslash to the commanders' tent, and this time it's just Aceo who is there to see them.
"Huh?" The Glaceon raises a brow when he sees them forcefully bringing anohter pokémon along. "...What's going on?"
"This soldier has displayed some inappropriate behavior..." Luca stated, might be an understatement. He waits for Ranii to give more details.

"We have a cannibal on our hands." She growls. "Admitted to it and everything. First started when we brought home that shipment we took from the Grove. It... had some meat on it. Still not sure who it was for, or who it used to be, but it doesn't matter. We asked around if anyone had a shovel or if they could dig a hole. This guy offered to dig one, but soon we found out he simply meant to take it and eat it!! We questioned him further and it turns out he's in cahoots with someone back in Sandstone."

"Please...sir. Just please give me a chance to explain!" The Sandslash pleads.
The Glaceon just...facepalms. "Wow, where did this come from now?"
"What do we do with him?" "Luca asks. He doesn't expect himself to have to hold this mon forever.
"Alright look..." Slowly, Aceo walks over to this ground-type. "Now I remember that there were complaints about you, Slasher. But this..." He is giving a very disapproving look. "This breaks the Camerupt's back."
"O-oh, so you know my name..." The ground-type nervously mumbles. He is desperate to get out of this, it doesn't bode well for him. "Look, please don't send me away! I really looked forward to working with the Four Eyes!"

Ranii simply narrows her eyes at the Sandslash. She has nothing more to add at this point in time. However, seeing that she's among several people, she lowers her spear.

With a fierce glare with eye contact, Aceo starts putting this mon in his place. "If you even want a ghost of a chance at NOT being sent away as a prisoner you are going to shut up, right now."
There is not another peep from the Sandslash now, looks like that worked.
"Alright so..." He looks far more relaxed addressing Luca and Ranii now. "I will sort this out. Also how was your mission? Tell me everything that happened." It's debriefing time now it seems.
"After me and my team left, we had to knock out a scout to get by, he did not got a good look on all of us. We managed to capture all the supplies, they are out there in a cart. There were no injuries for us." And that's Luca's report.
He smiles. "Alright, that's very good. For the moment we don't have anything left for you two, not while some of the other teams are still out there doing their thing. Go get some rest and tomorrow we will summon you here, Captain Luca."
"Understood." With that said, Luca let go of the Sandslash, shoving him forward a little. He then turns to leave this tent, expecting Ranii to follow so they go worry about relaxing rather than having to deal with this cannibal problem which is out of their hands now.

Ranii gives a polite little bow before turning away and following Luca. Either for some rest or for some sparring to stay fresh, or something. Something to get her mind off this cannibal crap. The sad thing is that if this planet had non-sapient creatures living on it, like cows, chickens, or even things like gloops or poptops, they wouldn't have had to make such a big deal on this. Oh well....