Chapter Text
I'm writing this because... Well, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I need this story to be known. It's hardly a secret. It's just one of those stories that you might tell your children before they go to bed. It's an entertaining story.
Maxie put down his pencil and stared out the window ahead of him. What a stupid way to start a story. It was boring and sounded more like a history lesson than anything else, let alone something exciting. He had never been much of a writer, never seemed to have time. Plus, he was just plain bad at it. Sure, he could, but it was never descriptive like he wanted it to be, and it was never exciting. This was the sort of story that should start off with a big cops and robbers scene (and in fact that's what it did start with), but all he could seem to do was monotonously tell it the way it happened. Maybe he should have had Tabitha do it.
But no, there were too many parts of the story that Tabitha didn't know. It would have been incomplete. Maxie had to do it himself. A year ago he would never have guessed he'd make friends with a wandering band of outlaws.
It had been in the middle of january, colder than what they were used to there, but nothing no one couldn't handle. There never was much snow out in the midwest, and even this day in particular had nice weather. When he came here 5 years previously, he had been struck by the probability that this town hardly needed a sheriff, since everyone seemed too caught up in their normal lives to even think of doing something illegal. He soon learned, however, that he wasn't there necessarily for the townspeople, but rather for the section of railroad that ran past right outside town. Maybe it was because the town was so small, and so remote, that bandits assumed there wouldn't be any backlash from attempting to hold up or steal from the trains that roared past on occasion. Maxie certainly had his work cut out for him. The first few weeks were torture. Luckily there was a girl by the name of Courtney living there already, attempting (but failing by herself) to handle all manner of situations on her own. She already seemed to be used to the level of activity the job required, and had a few laughs at Maxie while he was still getting used to it.
They were joined 2 years later by a young man named Tabitha who was dropped off by overbearing parents who had him in a skirt. Maxie quickly solved that problem by telling off the parents and assuring them that even though the boy was less than 15 that he was perfectly capable of making his own choices and deciding who he was. Maxie discovered later that he would take such a liking to Tabitha that people would assume he was his son.
The three of them made a pretty good team, and while they by no means reduced the amount of crime, they certainly caught a lot of criminals.
But back to january, when this story starts. It was fairly nice weather that day, the sun was out, there was hardly any wind at all, meaning if there was going to be a problem they had to solve, Maxie wouldn't have to tie back his hair to keep it from whipping in his face. He hated when he had to do that.
Maxie decided he was going to find something else to do other than sit around at the office all day waiting for something to happen. The office and station were the same room in a building, just a desk and some cabinets, and two cells, on opposite ends off the room. Upstairs were the bedrooms (3 of them) and in the back there was another smaller room with a wood stove and a pantry. Behind the building was a small fenced in area, and a larger fenced in area, in the smaller of which he kept a camerupt and a numel. He had come to own them when their previous owner, arguably the town drunk, decided to move back into the city for reasons that he chose not to explain to Maxie. Truthfully, the man had only given Maxie the camerupt, named Sir Sniffles. And for a while, Maxie believed it was just a large male, but after a while it turned out that it was, in fact, a pregnant female. He renamed it more appropriately as Susan. Eventually when the numel was born, Maxie let Tabitha name it, but at this point in time the boy still hadn't decided yet.
Suddenly, there was a horrific screeching crashing sound that came through the open window, shaking Maxie from his thoughts. It thundered through the walls and vibrated up through the floorboards. A piercing, metallic, wrenching noise, it was high-pitched almost enough for it to hurt despite the distance.
Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Any bird pokemon, or any pokemon in general, in the area had fallen silent. The noise must have scared them all half to death. Even the wind was still as if holding its breath. Maxie began straightening himself out, smoothing down the front of his vest, and becoming aware that he had stood up from his chair in surprise. Almost simultaneously, the door to the balcony upstairs slammed open and shut, and there was another loud noise, a crashing, almost like an explosion, and more metallic wrenching. The ground shook and dust fell from the ceiling. Maxie let go of the breath he was holding, and shook the ringing out of his ears, swallowing down the nervous panic creeping up into the back of his throat.
Maxie barely had time to remove his glasses -with the intention of wiping them off, something he probably did too often because it was something to occupy his hands- before Tabitha came stomping down the stairs, an expression of worried excitement on his face, not that Maxie could see it. Upstairs there was a sort of balcony where Tabitha liked to keep plants and probably fed bird pokemon from, even though Maxie always told him not to, since they bothered Susan. From up there was a decent view of the tracks, and most recently, a train wreck.
“Boss! The train-” the boy trailed off.
Maxie looked up at the multi-colored blob in front of him. “Got it.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose bridge, focusing the blob in front of him into Tabitha. “Where’s Courtney?” he asked, rolling down his sleeves.
“I saw her outside, she was heading over to the tracks,” Tabitha answered, smoothing down his hair, “she saw me, she knows we’re coming.”
“Good,” Maxie acknowledged, straightening his jacket after pulling it on.
“S-sir this never happens, it’s never crashed before, you don’t think that-” Tabitha worried.
Maxie cut him off. “I’m sure it’s just a little malfunction, no big deal,” he assured the boy as he holstered his revolver.
“A little malfunction? Maxie, the train is on its side! If this is little, I’d hate to see what a big malfunction is!” Tabitha argued, trailing Maxie to the exit.
Maxie stopped in the doorway. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Well, whatever it is, I’m sure we can deal with it appropriately when we get there.”
“But don’t you think this is a little serious?” Tabitha raised his voice upon exiting the building, stumbling down the front steps after Maxie.
Maxie called back after Tabitha as the boy caught up, “You think this is going to be a big problem? Like what, train robbers?” He said it as a joke, although criminals of that type were all but uncommon in the area. He chuckled when Tabitha failed to come up with a retort.
“Maxie!” a woman’s voice came from about four feet off the ground, under bright purple/pink hair. Courtney grabbed Maxie by the sleeve and yanked him down behind a large rock. Almost definitely sandstone, just like every other rock around for miles, Maxie decided. Tabitha followed as if the two of them were connected, getting pulled down when Courtney did so to Maxie.
“Careful, they’ll see you,” whispered Courtney, “There’s three of them; we’re gonna need some kinda strategy.”
“Are you sure?” Maxie asked, peeking over their makeshift barricade. There was a man and a woman engaged in a rather charged argument, the woman yelling insults laced with french expletives, and the man yelling back with what summed up to be ‘What? It’s just a shotgun!’
She was wearing a long skirt with a slit in the left side almost to the top of her thigh and another to her knee on the right, a simple blouse, buttoned down to show an almost obscene amount of cleavage, and a blue bandana tied around her right arm. She had long, thick, dark hair with blue streaks, half of which was tied up in a messy bun. The man was wearing a long, dark coat and a black vest over a blue shirt, with a blue bandana hanging around his neck. He had short, dark hair and a scruffy but maintained beard. He had what could be scars but could be shadows across his nose bridge.
There was another young man wearing a white hat with a blue band, sitting cross-legged on the ground a few feet away, carving at something ridiculously small. He wore a brown vest over a collared shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his biceps, and white boots.
All three of them were dark-skinned and their clothes were dirty. They were probably runaways. Maxie sat back down.
“They don’t seem to be very, how would you say it…. assembled.” He loaded his gun and re-holstered it. “I say we just get it over with and take them by surprise.”
Tabitha raised his eyebrows. “Good idea! They’ll never know what hit them, right?”
Courtney grabbed Tabitha’s wrist, yanking him back down. “That’s a terrible idea, sit back down! Maxie, you always underestimate people- Hey!” But Maxie was already jumping out into the open.
“Stop!” he yelled. The woman looked over, smacking the man in the chest when he didn’t respond immediately. “And just what do you think you three are doing?”
“Who’s askin’?” asked the man, furrowing his brow and taking a half step back so he was facing Maxie. The woman showed complete disinterest, but still turned her head to face him as well. She looked strangely familiar.
“Sheriff; you’re under arrest,” he stated. He didn’t have to look behind him to know Tabitha and Courtney were close behind him.
“Really?” the man smirked, walking forward and cracking his knuckles. “I didn’t know the law enforcement around here was so small.” Maxie said nothing. “How about it, shorty? One hand behind my back,” he continued. He looked over at the other young man, who was standing now, and gave a sly grin. Behind him, Maxie heard Courtney direct Tabitha to the engine to help if any was needed. When Maxie still hadn’t responded, the man, now standing in front of Maxie, crossed his arms and cocked his head, as if daring Maxie to answer. Instead, Maxie reached into his pocket. Without breaking eye contact with the taller man in front of him, he pulled out his gloves and started putting them on. The young one stifled his laughter, then turned to the woman, gesturing to Maxie with his thumb, “Ha ha, Shelly.” So that’s how he recognized her. Her wanted poster was on the front wall of the station.
Maxie tightened his muscles. It didn’t matter right now.
The young man kept his eyes off Maxie and his arms folded across his chest. Terrible form. Despite Shelly’s attempt at drawing his attention back where it should be by keeping her eyes on Maxie and hissing his name, “Archie!” the young man continued, “Looks like someone’s getting pretty serious ove-”
Maxie saw his opening, and took it, cutting the taller man off mid-sentence with a left hook placed right under his cheekbone. Caught off guard, Archie found himself on the ground, his revolvers kicked out of their holsters and to the side, the heel of a boot pressed into his chest, and staring down the barrel of the sheriff’s gun within seconds.