Mike walked his way toward the familiar Kecleon-themed hut, with thoughts about the night. As he did, he could hear the murmuring of the many Tao Village residents as they saw him. He kept his focus on them as he walked... for far too long, though, as he bumped into somebody who was well endowed.

"Oof! Hey.. is that.. Malt?" Mike noticed the brown colored Miltank that he had accidentally assaulted. It was hard to not mistake such a rare sight for someone else. "Why are you here?"

“Er.. I work here. You’ve been gone a while, huh?”

"You work here now? That's... great? Haha... I didn't know you were into this sort of stuff! Well, I kinda need to hurry back to my Rescuing Duty, so I need to know where PK is. Do you know?"

“Oh, yeah, PK... she’s in her office. But, uh... do you really need to see her? I mean, she’s kind of busy lately, and when it’s not about work, she’s prone to, um, well, you know.” Malt had an upset expression plastered across his face that was as easy to notice the brown on his body.

"Well, I'm a customer, so she'll make time for me!" Mike walked past Malt, and turned around to walk backwards for a bit in order to say... "Thanks, I hope you do okay!" And with that, he went inside the hut and straight to the door that had 'Office' emblazoned on it. This was it. He had to do it, but he could feel his tail flame, confidence, and practically everything else of him shrink while he was in front of the door.

Knock knock, as his knuckled claw beat on the door. And it opened to reveal a rather expectant Kecleon whose facial expression shifted into a multitude of colors until it finally settled on black disappointment. Woah, that was a neat little color show for a welcome back, huh?

“What, you’re not...what are you doing here? What do you want?” PK exclaimed.

Mike sighed upon hearing that. "Yeah, it's still the... same? PK, why are you still black? Are you sick??"

“...” PK glared into his eyes with such vigor that it felt like she was burning her latent anger into his soul. “I’m just fine, thanks. Did you have business here or not? There’s about a million things I could be doing--and would rather be doing-- besides talking to you.”

But I...! was what went in Mike's mind before he switched rails to actual speech as he pulled the bag closer to his chest. "H-hey! That's not nice! And you should treat me better than that because I'm at least a customer with a lot of money right here! So let's make a deal or two."

PK took a good glimpse at his bag, and then made a decision that Mike believed was business-like. “A lotta money, huh? What type of deal are you trying to pull off, then?”

Okay! That's the first step, and now the second step! "Well... this is pretty heavy, so will you let me in your office?"

“Mmmm... fine." PK stepped closer to Mike. "But let me take a peek first. Gotta make sure you’re not wasting my time. Time’s money and all that jazz.”

Yes! The second step! Good! "Okay, look at this!" He reached into the bag and pulled out a large and fantastic emerald from it. "How's that for money? Think I can have an audience with now, YOUR MAJESTY?" "Kheh heh... that's a good one, oughta use that line some more!"

She stared at the large emerald with a rather calm expression. “All right, looks real enough. I’ll have to check them up close for myself too. Now, what exactly are you hoping to... buy? With all those?” She walked into her own office.

Mike had to trail behind her with disappointment in his head as he wondered if that emerald was a bad first impression. He looked for somewhere to sit at, to be customary, and found small wooden chairs for him to situate himself. Not bad. But he had to step up his game, now. "Okay here, look at these." Mike pulled out more and more gems from the bag, with a color choice that avoided green. That was the unlucky color already set in his mind. They were not all smooth like the emerald, but at least he placed them in an arrange for PK to feast her eyes on. "Sorry these are so rough, me and Opal couldn't really cut all of these so fancily, but wait until you see her work!"

“Opal?”

"Aha... Opal... she... ahahaha..." Mike couldn't help but try to laugh to cover up his inner conflict. Argh, that's right. I never considered what PK would actually think about Opal... ah...

PK seemed to notice that he actually liked Opal, and she seemed to become mad at that fact. Mike became nervous. Urgh, did I blow it already?!

“Oh... I see. Whatever. Are you going to buy something or are you messing with me?”

Mike felt like he was losing the deal already, but she mentioned the word 'buy,' so it was still salvageable, right? "Ah!! Sorry. Okay, look. First off, I wanna say that I brought Opal with me from Gambitville to take up residence with me in Tao Village... thing is, I know that "residence" isn't really ours, and it's just on loan from you." "Well, I promised to return victorious, so!!" "So, the first deal is this." Mike emptied the bag of all it's gems on top of PK's table. "All of this to pay off the treehouse." Yeah, how's that?!

PK seemed to get all wide-eyed, but she maintained a straight face as the silence brooded. Then, she tapped her claws along the desk as she looked at the wall for a bit.

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Part 2 of Mission 6 Epilogue by
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