Pizza.

She had been made aware of the presence of pizza.

Pizza was the holiest of holies. The most treasured treat. The highest of highs, and the best thing she could think of. Of all of the garbage she ate, pizza was her favorite. Or maybe hot wings. But where there were hot wings, there was usually also pizza. So it was probably just secondhand pizza high that made her crave hot wings.

Maybe there would be wings here too?

She had to hope.

Meet Goon.

Meat Goon.

Haha.

Meat.

Was it meat lover's pizza?

That would be pretty cool. Maybe it would have pineapple on it too. Or peanut butter. She liked peanut butter. Maybe it was hot wings pizza? Maybe the wings were ON the pizza! That would give it a really good crunch. Very nice.

Wait, no.

Right.

Meet Goon.

She's lived in Littleroot all her life as well, mostly, technically, except for the times she doesn't remember where she didn't.

Also, she technically doesn't live in Littleroot, she lives beside it. In the woods. And sometimes in the town's many delicious dumpsters.

But regardless, she will not be living in Littleroot for much longer, although she herself is unaware of this coming change. For her life has been touched by fate. Or destiny. Fatestinity, some might say. And her fatestinity is intertwined with that of one Jonathon Beckert, although she is also unaware of that fact.

She is unaware of many things.

Including the fact that this pizza giveaway comes at a heavy, steep, cost.

Which she would also later learn.

For now, though, she sniffed her way up to the boy's lawn, eyeing him and the handful of townsfolk near him with caution, as she slowly crept towards the pizza, never taking her eyes off of the humans.

She had learned to work around the existence of humans. And also the fact that she was one, which was quite a shock to her. It had taken some learning, but over the years, she had adjusted to their presence. And while most of her scavenging was done at night, sometimes she found herself brazen enough to warily pick through some tasty wastebins during the day.

But now she didn't need to do that!

Because this pizza was free! Allegedly!

Ever so carefully, she- nah, who am I kidding. She reached the pizzas, and grabbed the entire topmost box, scampering off to crouch behind Jon's grill, where she began to rip into her sweet bounty with zeal. Immediately, her POCKET BERRIES activated, filling the yard with trash.

Or well, her Trubbish trio came out to get in on this pizza-pilfering action, immediately hounding her for slices, as she tried to eat around them.

They had also taken some getting used to.

Pokemon ownership in general was still a concept she wasn't entirely familiar with, honestly. But she at least remembered to let these guys out sometimes to eat and hang out. She was surprised she hadn't managed to traumatize them when she'd initially figured out they were inside the little berries.

She had immediately attempted to rip them open and see what scrumptious snacks she could find inside, not realizing that they were living actual things, and not just magically animated trash. Boy, that was a mistake she didn't make twice.

These three chucklefucks, however, were not her only Pokemon.

Nor were they the only ones present, it seems.

A shattering vase caught her attention immediately, and she turned to see a Tyrogue beating the shit out of some pottery. "Punch-Punch!?"

As if on cue, her own Tyrogue responded to his name by bursting forth from HIS Pocket Berry, appearing before the strangely aggressive other Tyrogue. Goon could only really watch, mostly because she was more curious than concerned, and also more hungry than curious, so she just kept eating her pizza.

"Rogue!"

For the viewers at home who don't speak Pokemon, it can be pretty succinctly summarized that this was an incredibly offensive declaration of war. But he said it in such a friendly tone, it was pretty easy to mistake for a happy greeting.

What was not easy to mistake for a happy greeting was Punch-Punch grabbing the entire remaining cake from the table where all the food was, and sticking it right into Jon's Tyrogue's face. This was in no way intended to be friendly, happy, or any other kind of nice greeting.

Luckily, Goon was there to leap into action immediately.

"Whoa! There's cake!?"

Clearly seeing this as the most rational and logical course of action, the dark-haired girl launched herself at the stranger's Tyrogue with hunger in her eyes, attempting to eat the cake off of its face, as it became Punch-Punch's turn to stare in confusion at his trainer's baffling lack of self-preservation instincts, before moving to intercept before her face was likely clobbered in by the vase-vanquishing vandal.

What a party.

Cake.

She had been made aware of the presence of cake.

Cake was the holiest of holies. The most treasured treat. The highest of highs, and the best thing she could think of. Of all of the garbage she ate, cake was her favorite. Or maybe frosting. But where there was frosting, there was usually also cake. So it was probably just secondhand cake high that made her crave frosting.

Maybe there would be frosting here too?

She had to hope.

But not too hard, because she was definitely aware of the frosting covering the delicious spongey cake, which she managed to grab a handful of before Punch-Punch narrowly deflected Champ's attempt to grab and toss her over the house. It was delicious cake. And... strawberry icing? Good choice. Very nice. She shoveled it into her face hole, and stepped back as a third Tyrogue joined the fray.

Which could only mean...

She looked over to see Breanna's approach, and stared at her, cake sticking out of her mouth, as she watched the dark-haired teen with caution.

She remembered her from the fight thing where she met Punch-Punch. But she also remembered her from all the times Breanna threw things at her when she snuck into the girl's backyard to snatch her trash. She had a lock on her trash can anyways, so it was always a futile effort. Not like the boy she was talking to- he made it easy to get to his food, which made her question why he was so bad at stashing his food away for later. She was a little concerned for him, actually, he was probably always pretty hungry. Maybe she should stop stealing his food. Then again, if she did that, then she would be hungry, and that was just unacceptable.

She retreated to her hiding place behind the grill, where Trub, Trubb, and Trubby were bouncing frantically in a circle, spewing little bits of funky trash juice and funk everywhere, with each hop. In the meantime, the three Tyrogues were duking it out, by which I mean the unnamed Tyrogue showed up and kicked both of the other Tyrogues' asses with a well-placed kick, leaving them in a heap of Tystosterone and smushed cake on the ground, as the newcomer leered at the pathetic duo.

Breanna said something and looked at her, which prompted her to stare back, through the space beneath the top of the grill.

It sounded rude, but she was far enough away that she actually wasn't really paying much attention.

The benefit to this, though, was that now she was looking in that general direction when the boy called out her name. She, of course, flinched, and ducked down a little lower, though it was clearly ineffective, as the bottom of the grill was too low and narrow to hide behind.

He was always doing that.

She didn't even know how he knew her name! She'd had a few brief encounters with him, and one longer one, but they were generally pretty one-sided conversations. She didn't really talk much, mostly because she was usually just trying to grab some munchies and run. He did help her out of the dumpster that one time, though, which was pretty cool.

Hmmm...

Despite her strongest instincts telling her to bounce, she narrowed her eyes and crept a little closer to the pair, hunched over and crouching.

"Am Goon. Punch-Punch making friends."

She nodded, affirming her own statement.

Punch-Punch would disagree, of course.

He was not making friends, he was trying to scramble to his feet, so that he could run up to Breanna's Tyrogue and knock its head off its shoulders. "Rogue! Ty, ty!" He stuck up his dukes again, gesturing for the unnamed Pokemon to come towards him. While none of the humans present would know what he was saying, he had effectively just told the clearly superior Tyoruge that he couldn't beat the shit out of it without coming closer.

That was clearly going to go well. No worries there.

In the meantime, Goon slowly worked her way towards the other two, and once within range, leaned in to sniff Breanna, slightly distrustfully, but mostly out of curiosity.

Maybe she had snacks in her pockets?

Goon flinched backwards at about the same time Breanna did, landing a few feet back on all fours, and hissing at the other girl. She'd startled her! It was incredibly frightening! And an uncomfortable experience, overall. She had no idea what this girl's deal was, to be honest, but she was definitely going to keep her distance if she could.

No amount of tasty treats were worth getting spooked by someone so scary.

Luckily, it seemed the strange boy was friendlier than her. Her eyes, wide and wild, flickered towards him as he spoke, and she leered cautiously at him for a moment, before scuttling to the opposite side of him from Breanna. He said something about meat, which made her hungry, and then his name, to which she nodded.

Jon Beck.

What a dumb name.

She had never heard any Pokemon say that name before, which meant it was probably just some fake made-up words he picked to sound cool. She wouldn't tell him that, though, because he probably worked pretty hard on it.

Even if it was pretty bad.

Still, he was being nice, and he also gave her lots of food, so she hid behind him for moral support.

Until he walked away, and she was left in the open, defenseless.

The Trubbish Bunch continued hopping around frantically in a panic, while the two Tyrogues still standing began to square off. Goon was actually not entirely sure what was going on with them, but it seemed like they were getting along pretty well, from her perspective.

She flinched again, as the dark haired girl shouted some words at her about beating her, which was alarming, and highly concerning, but then the girl backed up and started yelling stuff at her Pokemon, so Goon just stayed back and moved out of the way.

The other Tyrogue flew forward with a powerful kick, but Punch-Punch was just a little bit faster, coolly leaning out of the way as the other Tyrogue shot by, missing him entirely. He cocked a big grin, pounding his fists together before rushing after his opponent, to try and deliver a huge haymaker to the back of the other Pokemon's head.

"Good job Punch-Punch! Make friend!"

She had never been more proud of her little trash berry punching thing.

Hmm...

So he'd survived his own reckless flying kick, and managed to dodge the heavy blows thrown by Punch-Punch. The smaller Tyrogue grinned, amused at the challenge set before him. This was a tough opponent to face down, but he was confident he could win this thing. The unnamed Pokemon went for a tackle, in riposte to his failed haymaker, but where Breanna's Tyrogue was bulkier and hardier, Goon's was quicker and more agile; he dodged the attack again, with ease, just dancing around the blows as he sought for an opening.

Unfortunately, this left him vulnerable for a surprise attack from the sidelines...

Which Goon probably could have warned him about, if she were actually paying much attention to the duel. She frankly had no fucking clue what was going on, or why Breanna was so focused on their Tyrogues punching each other. Her Tyrogue punched lots of things, this didn't exactly seem all that special to her.

She was more concerned with the other girl saying something surprisingly nice to her. Or well, it was kind of nice. It felt like a compliment. She didn't quite get that the hissing and eating garbage bit was supposed to be insulting, because it was true, but she was fairly certain that "not bad" meant "good," and that calling someone good was a nice thing to say.

So she decided that Breanna was now her friend.

Even though she was still very scary, and Goon couldn't really predict what she was going to do next, at any given moment. Very different from her family... Zigzagoons were relatively predictable. People were not.

Jon Beck came back and started talking to Breanna, with a tempting plate of food in hand, before she shooed him away again, prompting him to set the food down. Goon's eyes followed it, and she started to move towards it, but noises from the battle distracted her instead- Punch-Punch had managed to pin down the bigger Tyrogue somehow, before he was shoved off, and sent back to square one.

Which was a perfect opportunity for Champ to rejoin the melee.

Punch-Punch saw the second tackle coming, just like the first, and dodged out of the way of it easily enough, but was unsure of why the unnamed Tyrogue suddenly took a step back. Was it a taunt? Or was he retreating? Punch-Punch grinned, pressing forward, ready to annihilate this jerk with his fastest series of punches yet, but all of a sudden, he felt a powerful impact crashing into him, sending him hurtling to the ground, pinned beneath the throw-happy Tyrogue he'd caked earlier.

Well now. How the turns have tabled.

Meanwhile, as Punch-Punch struggled to free himself from Champ's wrasslin' tactics, looking a little worse for wear thanks to the cross-body, Goon turned her attention towards Jon Beck spraying her Trubbishes with... Something. They seemed incredibly uncomfortable with this, which compelled her to hesitantly move to check on them, concern worn easily on her furrowed brows as she tried to figure out just what the hell he was doing to her Pokemon.

The trio babbled incessantly, as she stealthily drew closer, trying to see what was going on.

Stealth was never an option, though, as she ended up simply walking straight up to the boy and her Pokemon, still crouching, and carefully moved to sniff her little trash pile, held in his hands.

She immediately recoiled a bit in surprise, twitching her nose.

Not from the usual dumpster smell, which even she tried to avoid sniffing directly most of the time, but from the overwhelming scent of... clean. It smelled weird, and gave her a little headache. She just stared up at the spray bottle in confusion.

"What are you doing...?"