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Lorne beamed wide, looking down at the Ninetales and sitting on his haunches excitedly. His doughy, round belly spilled out in front of him, sagging all the way onto the ground and mostly covering his thighs from view. The green bandanna around his thick neck just reached past one of his broad shoulders, looking small and almost silly in comparison to the Mightyena’s bulk. Lorne’s paws waved animatedly in the air, tail thumping on the ground behind him as he spoke. “Oh man, I actually… wait no, yeah I’ve got one! The most awesome thing I ever did before was just about a year ago now, boy time really seems to fly doesn’t it?”

He barely even seems to take a breath as he speaks, seeming to be thrilled to have an audience again, primarily one that hasn’t heard the story already. “So I was getting chased by this group of Rescuers, it was really over a big misunderstanding actually, not anything that needs to be worried about. I actually can’t even remember what the whole thing was over. But anyway! There was this big Arcanine, three times my size and and way heavier, and remember back then I was just a scrawny little twig of a Yena! Not the big, healthy canine standing before you right now!” He stated proudly, a paw slapping into the side of his furry gut. His belly wobbled and sloshed about heavily, letting out a wet groan as the contents inside settled back into place.

“Er… where was I again? Oh right, the Arcanine.” Lorne’s grin grew even wider. “Anyway, even as big as I am now, this guy had about four times the size on me. Massive Arcanine, and fast too. I was running and running but he was still catching up to me. I thought, there’s no way this guy is gonna listen to reason. I’m the innocent one here, but all he seemed to want to do was eat me! Well, by the time I’d been running for about thirty minutes or so, I decided that enough was enough. I was going to have to take a stand against Pokemon who treat the innocent like they’re guilty! So I stopped, and I waited for him. I got right up in the big canine’s face and I told him flat out, I said, ‘Look pal, I didn’t do what you were accusing me of! So why don’t you stop wasting your time with me and go off to fight the real crimes!”

“Well, he didn’t really think much of that. Our relationship kind of deteriorated at that point. He was already lifting his paw to deal the fatal blow! But what the big lug didn’t realize was that I had a move of my own. So I waited, and waited… he obviously wanted to see me running but I just stood my ground. So finally he gets sick of it and decides he’s going to take care of me once and for all, the paw comes swinging down, claws out, ready to take my head off in a single blow…”

“And WHAMMO! Sucker Punch right to the kisser!” Lorne demonstrates with a violent swing of his paw, mimicking the blow that he’d dealt to the apparently giant Arcanine. “One good hit was all it took. That’s one thing lots of people don’t know, hit the right spot with the right force and anyone’ll go down in a heap! And boy did he ever. Felt like an earthquake when he hit the ground. My paw hurt like hell afterward but it was worth it you know?”

Lorne gave a half-shrug, as if knocking out Arcanines was a normal thing for him. “Well by then his friends… oh, I forgot to mention that he had friends. Well his friends show up, and I’m feeling really jazzed now, right? Like I could totally take on a Quilava and Ninetales and Camerupt. But then as I looked down at this poor Arcanine I actually started to feel a little bit of regret, you know? Like, I put on a whole thing about being innocent and then the first thing I do is knock out someone who dedicates their whole life to the defense of the town? That’s kind of shitty of me I’d think.”

He had a glint in his eye now, the wide grin on his face fading to something more like a smirk. Both of his paws finally laid to rest against his belly, each toe stretching out to knead and rub into his vast pudge slowly. “Because you see, the most awesome thing I ever did wasn’t knocking out the Arcanine. Although let’s be fair, still pretty awesome. But no, the most awesome thing I ever did was I turned myself in. I came clean about what they thought had happened with the little wooden carving I st… found. And I even apologized for the fight. I let them put me in jail, I decided to take the time for everything that had happened. It was only fair, I didn’t want the town to think they were in any danger because of me.”

“And you know what they did? They let me out! They were so moved by my heroism and sacrifice that they dropped all the charges on me! Even the Arcanine became one of my close friends, we’re always hanging out at the bar together. And the town was even so happy with me that I became the second-in-command of one of the biggest Rescue Teams in Stony Plain! So now you see where a little honesty and humility can get you nowadays, huh? Just remember this next time you find yourself in a bit of a bad situation.” The big Mightyena winked, his amber eyes looking up at the sky happily for a moment as he sighed in contentment. “Just do the right thing, and everything’ll open up for you. And that’s the truth!”