Basement Dwellers [Midnight Crew HQ]

[Spades Slick]

♪ Ante Matter _{added by Clubs}


There is a poster on the wall in the Rocket Game Corner in Celadon City. It's a poster of a bloody spade, because Spades Slick is nothing if not a master of subtlety. Behind that poster is a small concealed switch, and that switch operates a hidden hatch in the floor. Down a short ladder from there lurks the hidden basement headquarters of the Teamidnight Rockrew. Midteam Crewket. Team Rocknight. The Midnight Rocket. Oh, fuck it, the hidden basement headquarters of Spades Slick, Diamonds Droog, Hearts Boxcars, and, of course, the inimitable Clubs Deuce.

Within the bowels of this concealed fortress the aforementioned Spades Slick is hard at work. Hard at work planning plots and plotting plans. His intricate scheming is going more or less as smoothly as it always does, by which I mean he's stabbing the latest heist plans repeatedly with a truly creative variety of sharp objects.

He might also be growling at something.

Yep, that's definitely growling.

[Hearts Boxcars]

<sub>On stand-by, the carapace sat in a chair near a dark corner of the room. He had been reading his usual magazine, finding himself entranced by it. He paid no mind to Slick, and he wouldn't have even noticed someone enter. That was until Spades Slick began to resume the usual schedule: Stabbing the plans. Whatever those poor, innocent plans may be. It would take a hell of a time to go and try to figure out what it was trying to say after Slick was done. Sounded like he was growling too. Ugh, what was a man supposed to do?

Rolling his eyes, he flipped a page, and spoke without raising his eyes from it: "Keep it down, will ya'? I'm tryin' to DO SOMETHING HERE. An' whaddaya' you think yer doin'?
"And 'ey, what's on the strategy plate today while yer at it, Chief?"</sub>

[Clubs Deuce]

Scoooooot! Clubs drags a chair across the floor, climbing up atop it so he can reach the poster. Almost every time he comes up here, he's tempted to slam his fist down on the poster to press the button underneath. It would surely look all kinds of badass.

But then he sees the bloody spade, and he's reminded of Spades Slick. He doesn't have it in him to punch Spades, even just a SYMBOL of spades. So instead he delicately presses his fingertip against the spade to push the button underneath, wincing one eye shut as he does it.


The hatch opens, and moments later, Clubs takes hold of both side rails and slides his way down the ladder. "Wheee!" The walls and furniture down here are painted dark, and the lighting is dim. Just how the MC likes it!


The hatch closes again, and Clubs comes up to the table, which is almost short enough for him to access properly. Almost. At least it's better than the counter in the Game Corner upstairs. "Hey, hey boss! Guess what, I have been super busy lately with all sorts of Crew business!" Closing his eyes in a pleased expression, Clubs balls up his fists and wiggles left and right. "You are going to be soooo pleased with me, I just know it!" He looks up at the ceiling and starts to count on his fingers. "There was this girl who got a super top score in the Game Corner, so I gave her the rare Porygon prize...! Ooh, there was a huge hubbub in the Department Store, but I made a sale anyway...! Aaaand, I paid a visit to Darkleer, and made a sweet deal of my own!" That may not sound like a lot, but Clubs only has three fingers to count on, so it's a lot from his perspective.

[Spades Slick]

Slick was narrowly saved from having to give a cogent answer to Boxcars (Who is, after all, the fucking heavy, who's he to be giving lip?) by virtue of Deuce choosing precisely that moment to... be Deuce. He wasn't sure if that was any better.

He stabbed the plans one last time for good measure.

"Okay, let's take your 'great accomplishments' here one at a time," he snorted, laying on the sarcasm thick, but probably not thick enough to penetrate Deuce's aura of obliviousness.

"First, was this girl you're talkin about made of money? Because unless she was goddamn vomiting the stuff out of every stinking hole you do not give away the fuckin Porygons."

He leaned back in his chair, massaging his forehead.

"I'll have Diamonds check the machines, make sure they're still set on full bilk. Fuckin Porygons."

He held up two fingers, grimacing slightly more than usual.

"And secondly... actually, fuck secondly, I don't care what shit happened to the Department Store as long as you didn't burn it down."

He stood then, muscles tensed and the servos in his mechanical arm grinding, prepared for the worst news.

"Now give me the lowdown on what kind of deal you're talking about with the Gym Leader."

[Clubs Deuce]

Clubs takes a moment to peek over at Boxcars, lifting his arm high and waving across the room. If Hearts is even paying attention to anything other than his magazine, that is.


"Oh, but boss! But she did! Money everywhere! When she opened up that coin case, gold spilled out like an...upchucking...Golem!" Okay, Clubs isn't so quick on the clever vomit-based wordplay. Slick has always been better at that. Wait, are game tokens even made of gold? "I counted them up, she had 9999! Crazy, right? She must be some kind of pinball...magician!" So close, Clubs. So close.


The second point is skipped over, and Deuce is fine with that.


The third, however. "Oh yeah! That one is the best one of all." He balls up his fists and bounces a couple times, but then forces himself to calm down and explain the sweet. deal.

"So I remembered the next big job you were talking about. The one, you know? And I thought best way to do it would be to have a...basically an army. Or a troop? OOH, no, a SQUAD, a squad, that's the one.

So I went up to Darkleer's office, uh huh? And it turns out he is having money troubles. Because of all that expensive construction. And all the construction workers are Durants - really big, really strong buggies who work super well in a team - and I think they climb real good too.

So you know what I did? You know what? I rented some! Darkleer says we can swing by his gym any night we want, pick up thirty Durants, and use them for one night, for anything we want!"

[Spades Slick]

Slick never ceases to be amazed at just how painful it can be to hear Deuce talk. He tipped his hat back and rubbed his forehead even more forcefully. Goddamn he had a headache.

"Deuce, do you remember what we do?" he asked, "Do you remember what this crew is?"

He walked around the little man, circling to the other side of Clubs and emphasizing his (relative) height.

"Do you even remember what the fuck we're planning to do at the contest?"

He leaned down to get on Deuce's level, to really look him straight in the eyes, or straight in one eye anyway (damn eyepatch).

"We steal Pokemon, Deuce. We don't rent them."

He slammed a knife into the table in front of Clubs, just for emphasis.

"And for fuck's sake, he's a gym leader! We coulda asked our dame on the inside to muscle the Durants out of him if we were gonna play it that way. I'm sure she'd have gotten a better deal than whatever you offered the schmuck."

[Clubs Deuce]

"Who says that we cannot do both?" Clubs spread both arms wide, or as wide as they'll go anyway. "See what I was thinking. If we arrive at the contest with just the four of us, it would be hard to grab more than a few Pokémon. But now."

Clubs looks to the table that had been so generously stabbed, and the papers atop it. He rifles through them until he finds the layout of the Contest Hall building. A few Monopoly tokens serve as representations of the MC:

Slick as the Scottie dog,	Droog as the Top Hat,	Boxcars as the Battleship,	and Clubs as the Thimble.

Clubs dumps a scattered pile of matchsticks onto the plans, which can serve to represent the Durant in a pinch. "We can use the Durant we have RENTED, as a way to STEAL more OTHER Pokémon." Clubs explains. He arranges the matchsticks to scatter about the Contest Hall, both stage and audience. "What if we came in through the top? And all the Durant can crawl along the walls and the floor. Then everyone would scream! Then we can take whatever we want."

He's not done. "You know what else I was thinking? We should wait a little bit. If we come in the middle of the contest, we would not have much to take. But, if we come in at the end!" Clubs puts a penny on the stage. "Then they will have the prize out! And I do not just mean the award money..." A shiny Cat Monopoly token joins the penny in center stage. "That is when the BEST Pokémon will be out! The winner! If we are going to steal anyone, it should be a WINNER, right?" The other Monopoly tokens I mean Midnight Crew members, surround the penny and Cat token, stealing them away and making a getaway while the matchsticks continue to cause a panic.



After he's finished playing with his toys-- I mean, lying out the brilliant ploy, Clubs digresses. "I did not know you had a lady on the inside. Is she pretty? Maybe you could still use her to get the Durant. I am pretty sure my check will bounce anyway... So..." Clubs Deuce, you brilliant buffoon.

[Spades Slick]

Slick snatches the scottie dog off the map. He entirely intends to start berating Deuce post-haste, but there's only so much self-control a man can show in the presence of such a fine specimen. Turning it over in his hands, hoping the action looks more contemplative than obsessive (it doesn't), he begins to lay into the smallest member of the Crew.

"Deuce, what in flipping hell is keeping us from just stealing the Durant to begin with, and then usin them to steal the contest pokemon? Answer me that."

He drops his voice down into that intentionally growly tone that's supposed to sound threatening and ends up sounding more like Christian Bale.

"You'd better hope that check bounces. You remember what happened last time. We don't have enough greenbacks for you to just be going around shedding them like a dog in summer. Or, uh. Like fleas off a... Like..."

He shook his head vigorously, snarling.

"Whatever, anyway, dame on the inside, you know, the boss? Our covert backer from the corporation? The top troll in the land? These stinkin gym leaders ought to practically work for us."

[Clubs Deuce]

Clubs presses a matchstick against his chin, in lieu of a thoughtful finger. "I did not think about that. That is pretty smart, boss."

He turns over this new, stunning plan that no one saw coming in any way. "I do not think Darkleer would suspect that. He told me we could drop by tonight and collect the Durant. So even if he saw us taking them, he would expect it to be BORROWING instead of STEALING like it really is."

He looks up at Slick again. Oh yes, the tall troll lady he's heard about. "I actually have not met her yet! So does that mean you are NOT the big boss after all?"

[Spades Slick]

"Clubs you-"

Slick is already starting into another round of insults when the gears in his head finally meet.

"You... shit, that ain't necessarily half bad an idea. If your check bounces... and we swipe the Durant anyway... then somehow despite you bein involved we aren't out any loot. You might have just lucked into something here Deuce."

After a few seconds more, another gear slips into place.

"I AM the boss! I built this damn organization up from a bunch of dumb punks with big red Rs on their chest into a real gang of toughs. She's just... she's just the money. We don't need her."