Such a Strange Thing Life Is
Chapter One
Collection
()()()
With Ruthers and Wolfgang taken care of, all that remained to do was collect items that would be useful on such a massive quest, so they might be prepared in the inevitable event that it went the same way as the last one they did. To accomplish this task, and hopefully not find themselves caught within a web of nonsensical intrigue, they headed for Lavender Town's rather small but varied commercial district to see what items they might be able to procure.
"Well, here we are," Larch said as they all stood dead center, Slick cleverly disguised as a completely unassuming man. "How shall we do this?"
"I say we split up," Slick suggested. "That way, we can cover more ground at once and get more stuff."
"What if we all try and get the same thing?" Anne wondered.
"Do you really think we'll think anything in the same way?" Slick countered. Anne realized that the possibility was unlikely, and thus said nothing more, giving Larch the floor.
"Very well, we shall split up and see what we can find!" he said, prompting the rest to run off and begin searching for things, leaving him behind to contemplate. "Now…what would be useful…" Upon realizing he had not actually thought of any useful items, he paused, and groaned as he recognized his mistake.
()()()
Anne immediately knew what she wanted to acquire; being a trainer, she naturally had an interest in perhaps capturing the Pokémon in the foreign area they were heading for, and she needed the items provided by the PokéMart to accomplish that task. Thus, she headed straight for the local one, which, though rather small compared to some of the multi-level monstrosities in the larger cities, was still fairly big, as Lavender Town was one of the first areas where the translator was introduced, and they got a large head start on selling them.
Anne had no need for one, however; in fact, she totally ignored the section selling them as she observed the other items; ropes, UltraBalls, and the enigmatic Master Ball, a strange device that Silph Co. claimed could perfectly capture any Pokémon on the first try, with no possibility of failure. Few believed this outlandish claim, and even fewer got to test it, since they were prohibitively expensive and not available in many places. In fact, the Lavender Town PokéMart had only one available for the sum of five thousand dollars, a fee Anne was not remotely willing to pay, considering UltraBalls were going for a mere fifteen dollars each.
"Okay, I'll want a bunch of these," she said to herself, pulling several off the shelf and putting them in her bag, "a couple of these," this time it was a collection of normal PokeBalls, "maybe this thing…" and finally, a Repel device, which could prevent unwanted Pokémon encounters when activated.
"Are you finding everything you need?" a store assistant, a male teenager, asked, practically teleporting in next to her. Anne jumped quite a bit, nearly losing the items she had collected, but she held her grip and turned to him, trying to put on her best smile. "Yes, I'm doing just fine, thank you for asking."
"Is there a problem?"
"Uh, no, you just…scared me, a little bit, is all. No biggie."
"Well, then, I'll leave you to your shopping!" the assistant was about to leave, but they both heard a distinctly British voice yammering rather aimlessly about things, and they turned to its source, seeing none other than Professor Berkeley Larch himself appear at the other end of the aisle, looking around at the things he could buy, before he caught sight of Anne and immediately grew sedate, before proceeding to grow quite annoyed.
"Damn it!" he yelled. "You had this idea, too?"
"Well…yes, I'm a trainer. What did you expect me to get, strawberries?"
"This was the only thing I could think of! Now what will I go look for?"
"We have a number of translators on offer, sir," the assistant offered, but Larch obviously had no interest in them.
"Translators? I invented those! I could make a hundred of those if I so chose! What possible use would I have for one?!"
"Well…I mean, they're still useful…"
"Oh, never mind, I will just go look for something else!" And with that business complete, he ran out, leaving a rather uncomfortable Anne and a confused assistant.
"Was that a friend of yours?" he asked.
"Well…kind of, yeah, in a way. It's strange."
()()()
Jack, in the meantime, had gone to a very different location. He recalled his frequent time spent at shooting ranges with rented weapons, a hobby allowed by his recently increased wealth, and decided that getting his own gun at last would be a fair idea. Standing just outside the very out-of-the-way location that he heard of from a friend of a friend, he reflected that if he weren't in such a hurry, he would never come to such a location, but as it stood, this would be his best bet.
Jack set that aside, and observed that nothing about the building would ever imply you could acquire guns there, or indeed, that anything was actually in it at all. Considering the sheer illegality of the business within, that was probably wise, since he was well-aware they sold full-auto assault rifles, which only law enforcement and the military were allowed to own. He had no interest in such a dangerous weapon, though; it would immediately attract attention, and a handgun could probably do just as well.
After removing his wallet and ensuring he had sufficient funds, he entered, and walked up to the counter, where a middle-aged, portly, balding man sat, absent-mindedly flipping through some sports magazine. Upon noticing Jack, he quickly set the magazine away, and looked him up and down, soon finding approval for…something, at least.
"Uh, hello?" Jack asked, not sure what to make of this fellow.
"What do you want?" the man asked in a gruff tone.
"I'm looking to purchase a handgun…" Jack began, soon interrupted by the portly man.
"I've got just what you need," he explained, slowly and carefully getting up from his seat and walking over to a large rack of various handguns, many of which could practically qualify as assault rifles in their own right.
"This is…quite the assortment," Jack noted, observing some of the smaller handguns and hoping that would be the recommendation.
Alas, it was not. The portly man instead chose to take down a colossal weapon nearly the size of his own head and held it out proudly. "Here's what you want. Desert Spearow, Mk. 1. .50 caliber, custom finish, and it can blow a guy's head off at 20 yards, easy."
Jack observed the cannon, and quickly decided he needed no such weapon, since snapping his own wrist upon firing it would not be worth any of the benefits it afforded him.
"Do you have anything more…reasonable?" Jack asked. "That's a bit much for me."
"Too rich for your blood, huh?" The portly man replaced the weapon, and promptly retrieved a revolver that could probably be used for anti-aircraft if it was mounted on wheels.
"What the hell is this thing?" Jack asked.
"Raging Tauros. .44 Magnum, nickel-plated finish, and it can do about the same thing as the Spearow."
"I'm not looking for a revolver, I need something that can protect me in a firefight."
The portly man grimaced, but relented and set the weapon down, then pushed past Jack to retrieve a much smaller weapon that looked far more reasonable. "4th Generation Clock 20, twelve round magazine. This particular model is chambered for .40. It's made of plastic and it's cheap, but it'll protect you."
"That's what I'm talking about," Jack said retrieving his wallet, a sight the other man was quite welcoming of.
"And that's what I'm talking about. Where's your licensing?"
"Licensing? What do you need that for? Isn't this all off the market?"
"I wanna make sure you can shoot a gun before I give one to ya."
"Uh, let me see…" Jack quickly rifled through his wallet, eventually pulling out several documents. "License to own and operate, concealed carry, ID…"
The portly man took these and looked them over, carefully observing them and eventually deciding that they were legitimate.
"Looks good. Do you have cash?"
"Yes, I do!" Jack said, pulling out a vague wad of cash. "How much is that, again?"
"That'll be four hundred dollars. I'll just ring that up later." The man took the money and selected a few of the hundred-dollar bills within, handing the rest to a startled Jack.
Four hundred? He thought. I guess he can get away with whatever price he wants, there's no regulation here.
"Now, you're gonna need ammo," he continued. "Like I said, that's chambered for .40, so I'll go around back and get you some magazines."
"Uh, thanks," Jack said, as the portly man disappeared behind a door, and soon returned loosely clutching several magazines containing the appropriate ammunition, which Jack eyed warily.
"Should you really be handling those like that?"
"Look, kid, I've been doin' this twenty years. You wanna start telling me how to do my job?"
"…I'm thirty-seven…"
"Whatever. Look, you want these, or not?"
"Thank you. How much for…two of those?"
"Forty dollars."
"Jesus, you're making a killing off of these things."
"There's a lot of precision engineering stuff at work with these, and that costs a lot. And yes, I do make a killing."
With how nonchalant he is about all this, that's not surprising. Jack dismissed this thought and proceeded with another inquiry. "What kind of holsters do you have?"
The portly man smiled at this question. "Now, let me tell you a thing about holsters. It used to be, every single handgun needed a different kind of holster because they were all shaped funny. But these days…" he then ran over to his counter and pulled something out from behind it, holding it up to reveal a strange sort of thing that certainly looked like a holster, but had the texture of loose nylon.
"What the hell is that thing?" Jack asked.
"The Silph Co. OmniFlex Nylon Universal Holster."
"That's quite the name for it. What's it do?"
"Simple. There are metal bands located through the structure, which can hold the nylon into any shape, but are still flexible enough to easily shift to that. All you need to do is simply put your weapon inside, and it shifts to fit. Almost any size handgun is acceptable!"
"Damn, you got articulate in the last ten seconds."
The portly man huffed at this. "I memorized the sales pitch, sue me."
"Won't this render other holsters obsolete?"
"It will when it actually comes out."
Jack started at this revelation. "Wait, you mean this thing isn't actually for sale yet?"
"Well, it's a prototype, and I managed to get it from a particular friend of mine—"
"Okay, I knew this place is kind of off," Jack interrupted, "but this is getting weird. Do you sell drugs?"
"Why, you want any?" the portly man asked, causing Jack to stare in abject horror. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Look, you want the holster or not?"
Jack considered it for a moment, before relenting. "All right, I'm still suspicious of this whole thing, but I'll take one. How much? One-fifty? Two hundred?"
"I'll give it to you for a hundred dollars."
"Shit, really? That's it?"
"Like I said, I got it from a friend, so any price I give is a profit."
"Then why not sell it for more?"
The man shrugged. " Hell, I'm not greedy, and besides, I don't need it, I can get more."
"…How, exactly?"
"I know people."
"Do you not realize how suspicious everything that comes out of your mouth sounds?"
"I am an honest businessman, damn it!" he cried, slamming his fist down onto the countertop. "Now, let's ring up your sale."
Jack warily stepped up and handed over the appropriate amounts of money, and after the man checked over his IDs again, received his purchases. Jack quickly noticed the gun was quite lightweight, and after attaching the holster, he also found that it fit inside perfectly. He thanked he portly man, and quickly dashed for the door, but not before Larch entered, looking quite joyous as he observed the weapons.
"This is going to be perfect!" he said, before noticing Jack looking at him oddly. "Oh, damn it, not again!" And he ran out once more, cursing all the while.
"Who was that? Friend of yours?" asked the portly man.
"Uh, sure, let's go with that."
()()()
Slick had gone for a very directly practical approach; thus, rather than a gun store or a trainer store, he had chosen OmniMart, the largest department chain in Kanto (easily recognized by its identical white-colored buildings), and the one place where one could buy almost everything. As this would easily include the items he needed, Slick wasted no time in entering, rather viciously eyeing the "no Pokémon outside of PokeBalls" sign located on the automatic doors, which was irrelevant due to his ingenious disguise.
"Discrimination, that's all that is," he muttered as he grabbed a plastic bag for his purchases. After getting one, he looked down the rows, seeing that the first several contained lamps and vacuums and such things, which were of no practical use to him.
Luckily, it didn't take him long to find one extremely useful item: "Duct tape!" he cried, rushing into the aisle to pick up several rolls of the powerful adhesive tape. "Now we can do anything!"
Slick's eye caught another, almost equally beautiful, sight a bit further down that aisle, which he also rushed for, this time a can of WD-40. He immediately seized several cans, and soon found that the cans fit perfectly within the rolls of duct tape to create the ultimate engineer's tool.
"Try and stop us now, world!" Slick said as he observed his creation. "Now, what else would be useful?"
"What's this about useful?" a fellow wearing a trucker cap, courdroy jeans, and a plaid shirt asked, walking up to Slick.
"I'm going someplace and I need useful things," Slick answered, tensing up somewhat.
"Well, that's a good start, but what you really need is a crowbar."
"A crowbar? Why?"
"You can use a crowbar for almost anything if you put it together with that stuff," the trucker explained. "My crowbar saved my life more times than I'd care to count."
Probably higher than he can count, anyway, Slick thought. "A crowbar, right, that'll be good. Thanks for the tip."
"No problem," the man said, smiling gently as he walked away. Slick looked around, and soon found that such a device was nowhere to be found in that aisle. He growled subtly, and ran back down to the front, then proceeding to run along the aisles until he noticed them. Luckily, he soon did, and found that they had a wide selection, specifically in the tool aisle.
"Hello!" he said as he walked down the aisle, observing the drills, shovels, and et cetera that they had on offer for some rather obscene prices. It was, therefore, a good thing he had no interest in those, and a crowbar would probably be more versatile than any of those.
"Hm, let's see…hello!" He pulled a particular down from the rack, one that nearly glowed silver in the light from the warehouse lamps overhead, and which was perfectly engineered and molded to be nearly unbreakable. It certainly wasn't shaped like a traditional crowbar at all, but rather was in a more modern shape, including a hammer-like head on the top, and a nail puller behind that.
"What's this thing? 'Ultra-Heavy-Duty titanium alloy utility bar?'" he read aloud from the label, looking up in awe. "Shit, this thing's got titanium in it? How much is it?" Slick observed the price, and hissed slightly as he saw the remarkable price. "Ouch. Hm…Anne did give me a lot of money, though, and the other stuff I got isn't that expensive…" As he considered the options, he felt a feeling overtake him. He couldn't identify it, but it forced him to pause, and when it passed, he looked back down at the crowbar. "What the hell have I got to lose?" He shrugged, and made his decision, putting it with his other items, forcing the plastic bag to nearly burst open under the weight of it all.
"Yeah, that won't work," he said, observing the nearly-broken bag. "Do they sell duffel bags here?"
"Indeed they do," said none other than Berkeley Larch, walking down the aisle. Slick was initially surprised, but grew intrigued as he saw that Larch was carrying a roll of copper wire, as well as a strangely gun-shaped bulge in his pocket.
"Whatcha got there?" he asked, prompting Larch to take out the gun, which was soon revealed to actually be a novelty lighter.
"A lighter and some wire," Larch explained. "I figured they may be useful, and I have had some poor luck with choosing to purchase items that the others already did, so I am glad I got to them before you did. What have you purchased that is so heavy?"
Slick reached into his bag, and pulled out the crowbar, the bag itself retaining its stretched-out shape. "Titanium alloy crowbar. This thing kicks ass, lemme tell ya."
"Titanium alloy?" Larch asked. "Why would you need something so exotic?"
"It's titanium!" Slick shouted. "This thing could pry open a space shuttle! I'd say I'm set for life."
"You would have to be to afford that thing," Larch noted. "What else do you have?"
"WD-40 and some duct tape."
"Not bad. Oh!" Larch pulled something else out, a strip of gauze. "I managed to find several of these. If we are injured, this will likely save our lives."
"Wow, we're really going all out, aren't we?" Slick asked.
"I would very much liked to have had half of these items on our last 'trip'," Larch said. "Given that whole mess, I do not think we are overdoing our preparations even slightly."
"Fair enough. So, who did you meet up with?"
"Well, Anne got some Pokémon training items, Jack bought a gun, and you have bought some more general tools, I see."
"Honestly, if you ask me, I think you and I are the best off with this stuff."
"Indeed. I can hardly think of a scenario in which at least one of these items would not be useful."
"Uh, sure thing. Now, what would Ralph be doing?"
"Something strange and unique, I am quite sure," Larch said.
()()()
The professor was not entirely wrong, as Ralph had gone to a sports utility outlet. However, he had no plans of engaging in a game of baseball on the trip; rather he was looking for forms of protection for him and his friends.
Regrettably, the body armor was spectacularly expensive, and getting a set for all of them would be far beyond his wealth at that time, not to mention the fact that they probably couldn't all fit into them.
"Okay, that won't work," he muttered. "Wouldn't stop a bullet, anyway. Probably not much point in getting that."
He looked around for a moment, trying to see if there was anything else that might come in handy, and realized that, though the body armor was far too expensive, there was still something that would be useful: sports gloves.
"Ah, here we go!" he said, taking down several pairs of the heavy-duty versions, attempting to match them up in his head to the sizes of his friends. Confident that he had succeeded, he promptly walked to the register and purchased them, completely without any further incident.
As he walked out of the store, new purchases in hand, he considered that nothing strange had happened at all.
"Man, I got lucky," he said. "Nothing stupid at all."
"Ralph!" Larch cried, having suddenly noticed him from quite far away.
"Never mind."
"I say, what do you have there?" he asked, running up along side him, as did Slick. Ralph noted that Slick had a backpack on, several items protruding out of it, though he could not make out what exactly they were.
"Sports gloves. These should be useful."
"Clever!" Slick said. "Here, gimme."
Slick rudely grabbed one of the pairs and looked it over, noting that they would likely not fit on him correctly. "Uh, buddy, I don't think these are gonna fit very well on me."
"But you have hands," Ralph pointed out.
"No, I have claws. These are just illusions. I'm still shaped the same, it just doesn't look quite that way."
"Oh. Well, I guess we have a spare, then."
"Here, let me have those." Larch took the useless pair that Slick had, and tried them on, finding that they were quite comfortable, while still feeling very durable. "Ah, yes, this is a truly useful item! Thank you very much, Ralph."
"So…what's in the backpack?" Ralph asked, ignoring the compliment.
"It may be wise to go and meet up with the others and share our purchases," Larch noted. "Much more efficient, that way."
"That's a good idea," Slick noted. "So, uh, where are they, again?"
"I know Anne was hanging about the PokéMart, and Jack was getting a gun," Larch said. "They are probably still around those general areas, so we should start there."
"Let's do it!" Slick proclaimed. "Oh, man, Anne is gonna freak when she sees this stuff!"
And with that, the three bolted off in the direction of the PokéMart, hoping their friends were not too far away.
()()()
On the other side of town, within the police station, Lord Wolfgang Von Genocide had been detained once more, and was currently waiting to be brought back to the prison where had once resided. He had handcuffs on his wrists, and two armed guards immediately behind him, assault rifles at the ready (though not pointed at him).
"I do not suppose you gentleman would ever consider letting me go?" he asked, knowing they would not respond, not that they had to. "Not very talkative folks, are you?"
He smirked, looking down at the handcuffs that he had already broken out of, unbeknownst to them. "That is a terrible shame, of course. Think fast!"
The guards would never be quite sure what happened next; one of them knew, at least, he was suddenly hit in the face with the handcuffs, and the other knew that Wolfgang leapt up and kicked both of them in the face, sending them straight to the floor. "I would have loved to have a conversation with you two, but obviously that is no longer an option."
"Hey!" another cop shouted, running in with his gun drawn. Wolfgang turned, and leapt up again, running across the room and punching the cop in the gut before he could react. Initially, the villain was ecstatic, but looked in horror as the cop's head smashed against the wall, and he crumpled to the floor, unmoving.
"Holy shit," he whispered, breaking character in a very rare moment for him. "Oh god, oh god, oh god…"
His horror was abated when he heard another cop yelling down the hall, and he knew he would have to leave or he would be in a far worse situation. Knowing this, he dashed for the window, opened it, and jumped out, leaving the other cops to observe the situation.
"Holy shit," one of them said, looking over the chaos within the room. "What the hell happened here?"
"Corman's down," said another, observing the cop on the floor. Leaning down, he could see that he was still breathing ever so slightly, and was bleeding from the head. "Looks like a concussion, we need medical in here."
"What about the suspect?"
"Send out a search team. He's gotta be priority number one at the moment."
The other cop rested against the wall, taking a breath and observing the mess. "Shit, how the hell did he do this?"
"He's incredibly good at what he does. Come on, let's clean this up."
And as they did, a search team went out after Wolfgang, while he ran away, terrified at the very thought of what apparently happened, and what the consequences would be now…
