Trouble

Ollie had heard of Arceus, of course he had, what pokemon has not heard of their primal main God. But he had even further knowledge of the celestial through his friend Anthousai. It’s crazy even thinking about it, but not only did he get to meet Arceus himself and speak to the legendary, but he was gifted an egg from them.
And that egg, little Artem, well he’s one of the sweetest children Ollie knows, even if he doesn’t actually know many, it’s almost crazy to think he’s the child of the all powerful Arceus. Or, well it would be if he didn’t have such striking features replicating and resembling the gods.
So, when Ollie heard rumours that a legendary had been spotted at the other end of the town, he wanted to be nosey. Out he headed, listening in to the rumours or discussions, from the seems of it nobody has actually seen them up close, and for that Ollie wants to be the first one. He claims it is simply because he wants to see Arceus, see their primal legendary up close and bask in the glory, but in reality, it’s because he secretly hopes that he too could be gifted and egg. A child intrusted upon him to take care of and raise as he sees fit, honestly just someone to love & who can love him back. He shakes his head, there’s no point thinking like that, there’s not even any confirmation that it even is Arceus, just a lot of so & so told me that this person heard, that this person saw… it’s just a whole bird’s nest and he knows that they’re not often true, but who is he but to live in hope that it really is Arceus.
Looking around the town square, he tries to spot Barben, they’re a strange Chimera ‘vee but apparently, they know the most about this supposed rumour. Which of course they do, they are also pretty shifty, but Ollie’s pretty sure they’re also rather harmless, that’s when he finally spots them,
“Hey, Barben can you put a pause on!” Ollie calls out, and Barben stops in their tracks, literally the second they hear their name and a couple people behind them nearly crash into them. It’s head then snaps towards the sound and as soon as it spots Ollie, a wide smile appears on his muzzle.
“Ollie, my friend.” They call out as he approaches, Ollie steering them along slightly as well as to get out of the way rather then just being stood in the middle of the main pathways. Ollie gives Barben a gentle nuzzles by their ear, pushing about the petals growing off the flower there, which makes the other one laugh softly. “So, what is it that you want of me today, my friend, I have a couple of things I could…” Barben starts up before Ollie cuts him off,
“I’m not being shelled any of your left-over tatt Barben, I’ve fallen for that once and I won’t again. No, I’ve heard that there’s a big rumour going about and that you are a brilliant source for it all.” Ollie smiles, and that gets Barben to light up.
“Oh so you heard. Now, I’ve not seen it myself, but this is a reliable source that I’ve gathered it from, but Arceus has been spotted in the woods to the north, by the river, not too far from here it seems.” Barben explains out, “If you want to go confirm this, I would love to come with you, this would truly be an experience of our lifetimes, and I want to be a part of that.” They add on, slightly worried that they might be excluded from something so big, they haven’t chosen to do it themselves though, because no one would believe them if they truly saw Arceus. That as well as the fact that he’s a little worried that something might go wrong and or scary, which is not something that they want.
Ollie sighs softly, of course Barben hasn’t seen them itself, and that it want’s to come with him, though that’s not necessarily a problem for Ollie, it might be quite fun for the two of them to go together anyway.
“Fine, but one promise to me Barben, you stick beside me and don’t cut me out of any future stories you tell about these interactions.” Ollie stares Barben down as he says it, but Barben quickly responds to it with an excitable nod.
“Of course, of course. Now, let us get going in case he leaves before we arrive!”

The two of them have been walking for longer than Ollie wanted, his paws aching slightly, it doesn’t help that Barben has not stopped talking since they started walking, not a single second of piece and not caring that Ollie gave up responding quite a while back there. It’s not the worse thing in the world, and Ollie knows that they would probably shut up if he asked kind enough, it’s just he can’t really be asked to tell them either, so on they keep going with Barben chattering on and on and on. Eventually Barben comes to silence and then stops, causing Ollie to turn to look at him and pause his self.
“What’s up, Barben?” Ollie asks with a head tilt, Barben glances around a bit before nodding and rocking on his feet.
“We should be here, we should be able to see Arceus any moment now, you are my proof of honesty, I am so excited.” Barben grins, his single wing flaps happily, now bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Alrighty, alrighty,” Ollie can’t help but laugh softly at their reaction, “Calm yourself or you’ll embarrass yourself Barben, shall we start looking around a bit?” He adds on, and Barben freezes before nodding enthusiastically.
“You know, if I spot Arceus first I’m holding this over you Ollie!” They grin out, and Ollie just nods, he doesn’t really care about who gets to see Arceus first, just the thought of actually meeting him fills him with excitement. Though there is a gnawing sense of doubt building in the back of Ollie’s head, there is a very real possibility that it isn’t even Arceus, that there’s nothing here, or there’s someone trying to pull a prank.

Barben sniffs around the bushes, before starting to step back slowly as a shadow appeared over it, large and impressive, pointy and deerlike. Barben starts to vibrate slightly on the spot, muttering just under their breath, that ‘oh my Arceus, that’s really him, that’s Arceus’, just loud enough for those around them, though not quite loud enough for Ollie to hear them, from across the clearing. Slowly the shadow continues to emerge before a face appears and Barben’s excitement drops,
“You’re, you’re not Arceus, you’re just a Sawsbuck, a real pretty one, but no Legendary.” Barben states, loud enough that this time it get’s Ollie’s attention who turns around to look at the emerging Sawsbuck, who looks faintly embarrassed.
He comes further out into the clearing, before stopping and shifting awkwardly,
“I never expected anyone to actually get this close, you know, I’d really appreciate it if you could go back and claim you totally met Arceus, but don’t send anyone this way again, that uuhh, he left but was here.” He manages to stammer out and Ollie gets closer to him, glaring.
“And why should we do that, lie to the rest of our village, defraud Arceus’ name?” Ollie snaps, slightly irritated. Of course, he knew that this was a high possibility, however, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t incredibly irritating, especially being told to lie about it. The Sawsbuck backs up from Ollie’s hard stare, despite Ollie only being about half his stature.
“Look, I just, this is really embarrassing for all of us. If you do this for me, I can probably offer you a gift, a repayment of sorts. All you need to do is confirm the rumour as true, or at the very least not deny it.” He pleads and Barben looks over to Ollie.
“That’s rather tempting Ollie, and hey, if you don’t want to tarnish your name, leave all the convincing up to me.” Barben smiles, tail wagging behind itself, it even seems that its flowers are blooming slightly more then they were earlier and Ollie sighs.
“Fine, but this reward best be worth it, and you best then not be spotted by anyone else, because it will be highly embarrassing for all of us if this comes out, your pleading even more so.” He adds with a slight bite, “Right, Barben lets head back before we’ve wasted our whole day on this sham.”
With that Ollie already starts walking off, and Barben smiles up at the Sawsbuck,
“Don’t you worry Mr, we’ll make sure that people are convinced of your legendary status, even if it’s not true.” It grins, before running up to catch up to Ollie, only slightly tripping as it catches one of its claws as it goes.

As the two get back into the town, Ollie’s second guessing this agreement, at least he can just no say anything and leave it all up to Barben, they’re very good at twisting a tail, and as long as this Sawsbuck’s sham isn’t completely revealed, Ollie’s sure that they’ll still get a reward of some sort. Barben’s already running off to the first person it seems, telling them about having seen Arceus in the woods, but please don’t go, he doesn’t want to be swamped with the ‘vees after all, he is an almighty legendary and has many things to do. Ollie’s impressed with how easily these others are swallowing down Barben’s story, clearing adding Ollie’s name gives them lots of credit, this is however a little embarrassing for him, he didn’t realise his name would carry that much power among the others of the town, even though he’s still relatively new and bad at socialising. Ollie does a little confirming, but he doesn’t really spread the word too much himself, as if the sham comes out, he will be incredibly embarrassed, this way it just seems like I can’t be asked to deny it. Ollie also uses this as an excuse to grab some shopping, slightly confirming to the cashier that yes, he did in fact go, but he doesn’t want to be bothered anymore so not to go. This was fine by him, he wasn’t saying that it was Arceus he saw, he wasn’t lying, simply omitting some of the truth from the equation, and that isn’t a full lie.
A small part of Ollie does question, even though the town now believes that it was truly a legendary & that it was Arceus, how does this Sawsbuck know that they have done it to be given their reward. He says goodbye to Barben, leaving it to tell their tail, before then heading on home, maybe they truly have been swindled by the Sawsbuck, but if that’s true, well it’s not the worse thing in the world.