A Reminiscence
Chapter Ten
Invaluable Data
()()()
With Greybeard's crew placated for the moment, we all decided it would be wisest to next visit the library so that we might find out where, exactly, Celebi was located, and how we might get her to help us.
Once we were able to find it, we were quite impressed, as the library itself was a fair-sized institution, whose architecture and color called to mind the Ancient Romans, what with the large arched windows, the cupola that served as a roof, and the Ionic pillars that contained the front doors, two massive slabs of expertly-carved mahogany. In fact, I doubt I shall ever see another educational institute quite so sharp as that one, unless I were to do some very intense searching. Anyway, with its astute appearance, we quickly assumed it would have the information we require, and we entered into its near-silent domain, observing its equally nice interior. It was a two-story building, with the cupola and its mighty chandelier dividing the top level into two sections, while the bottom floor remained as one. Impressively tall, well-organized bookshelves lined the walls and floors of both levels, containing all their great wisdoms.
"Uh…" Anne said, looking around at the impressive construction. "Where do we start?"
"It might be wise to start in sections having to do with myths and legends," I noted. "Where else would information regarding a Legendary Pokémon be?"
'That doesn't sound right," Jack opposed. "Myths and legend are going to be, like, fairy tales and stuff. We'll want, like, historical records."
"Valid historical accounts of such are few, though," I countered. "It would be wisest to search for a larger volume containing all information possible rather than scattered accounts from people desperate for attention."
"Makes sense to me," Ralph said. "I think we should look in that sort of section. Here, let's find out where it is." He vaulted for the front desk, and we followed suit, finding an elderly woman drinking from a small cup of tea.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Yes?" She turned to us, setting down her tea.
"We were wondering where we might find the section for myths and legends?"
"Oh, of course!" she said cheerfully, looking up at the floor above us. "It's right up there, the second bookshelf from the wall." I thanked her and we started to walk away, and she waved at us as we did so. "You kids enjoy your Halloween, now!"
"Halloween?" Jack asked.
"Probably him," I said, looking over my shoulder at Greybeard. "Very conspicuous, all things considered."
"I have to be, else I wouldn't have fear on me side!" he proclaimed as we ascended the stairs. The old lady shushed him, and he scowled. "I never liked libraries much," he said, now in a whisper, "far too quiet and boring."
"Well, you may as well get used to them now, because it will likely be the thing that will save your life."
"Hm." Greybeard grunted. "I'll believe it when I see it. If this idea of yours does manage to lead us somewhere, I'll be damn impressed by it."
"Well, here we are," I said, gesturing towards the correct bookshelf, which proclaimed its contents as "Legends and Myths".
"Where should we start looking?" Jack asked.
"In the C-section, no doubt." Upon some odd looks, I clarified. "I mean in C for Celebi. Honestly, people."
"What?" Ralph asked. "It's arranged by author, isn't it?"
I looked, and saw that he was indeed correct; the "C" part of the shelf would only render us Carreras and such, which was not likely to be related to our search.
"Ah…yes," I mumbled. "My apologies, I was a bit excited."
We awkwardly walked into the shelves, and we started looking, trying to find as many books on the subject as possible Unfortunately, many of them were not quite what we were looking for. As I rifled through something that was probably written closer to Greybeard's birth than my own, and had the dust to show for it, Jack tapped my shoulder and showed me what was very obviously a children's book about Celebi, rather than anything especially useful.
"Somehow, I get the feeling this isn't quite what we're looking for," he said, crossing his arms.
"Well, why did you bother to pick it up, then?" I asked. "What was it even doing up here? Surely it ought to be downstairs. They had a children's section down there, didn't they?"
"Considering that old lady, I think we ought to count ourselves lucky this was even up here," he said. "This is starting to look kind of hopeless, Larch."
"Are you giving up?" I asked, putting my book back.
"What!" he cried. "No, I'm not giving up! I'm just saying that this is looking more and more like a complete waste of my time!" He threw his arms outward, loudly hitting the shelf next to us. He recoiled in pain, while I recoiled in horror, expecting the entire thing to domino over. It failed to do so, luckily, only producing the loud "thumps" of a few books hitting the floor.
"It did not fall over?" I questioned, straightening back up.
"Of course not," Jack croaked, "these are all bolted to the floor. Breaking my hand against it won't do much."
"Hey, what's this?" Ralph asked from the other side. Jack and I quickly made our way to him, and saw he was holding an old, brown-colored volume that looked quite important indeed, especially since its title was "Upon The Nature of the Forest Guardians".
"Where was this?" I asked, taking it from him.
"It fell down right next to me, but I didn't see it on the shelf," he said. "It must have been on top and fell when you hit it. By the way, what the hell did you do that for?"
"Uh…heat of the moment?" Jack tried to answer.
"Moving on, I believe this might play a part in our investigation," I said.
"This looks important, too," Anne said, walking up next to us with a book, this time a more middle-aged one called "Myths of Olivine".
"Aye, as does this," Greybeard said, producing a final piece, a quite modern book titled "Truth in Fiction: Legends of Johto".
"Most excellent!" I said. "With this knowledge in our possession, it should be utterly trivial to find out where Celebi can be found."
"Let's head downstairs," Jack suggested. "There was a table there where we can get everything organized."
"I have no doubt the librarian would offer us some paper and pencils for this purpose," I said. "It would be quite smart indeed to start collecting the information immediately. We may only have a limited time, after all."
We soon agreed this course of action was wise, and headed downstairs to begin sifting through what little information we had managed to find.
()()()
Roughly an hour later, we had condensed the books we found into a consistent notion of what Celebi was and how she might be found. To summarize our notes, as their acquisition was a long and uncomfortable process indeed, there was a particular shrine somewhere in the middle of a nearby forest that had several sightings of Celebi in the past, though few were confirmed, and it contained a mysterious inscription that had yet to be translated. We figured said shrine would be as wise a place to start as any, so by the time we completed that connection, we were about ready to leave.
"Well, I think this is more than sufficient to go start looking," I said, collecting some of our notes into a folder.
"This is getting pretty weird," Jack said. "I mean, ancient shrines in the middle of forests? What's next, are we gonna find the Ark of the Covenant?"
"Those were not even remotely the same film," I said. "How did you even draw those two ideas together, honestly…"
"Oh, hello!" a very exaggerated attempt at a posh voice interrupted. We turned, and saw that it came from none other than Lord Wolfgang von Genocide, a.k.a. Larry. "How fortuitous I should find you all here."
"Uh, Larch?" Jack asked. "Why is Emo Mozart here looking for us?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," I muttered. "What are you doing here, uh, 'Wolfgang', was it?"
"Lord Wolfgang von Genocide, yes."
"What the hell?" Jack deadpanned. "Seriously, did I miss something? Was something in that fish we had on the ship? I knew something was off with that stuff."
"I affirm you, I am no hallucination brought upon you by tainted seafood. I am, in fact, your doom!"
He produced a black cylindrical shape, and although Ralph, Anne and I recognized what it was and ducked down, Jack and Greybeard had no recollection of such a thing, and were thus helpless when he released the smoke grenade, filling much of the room with a thick grey cloud.
"What the hell is this shit?!" Jack cried, flailing helplessly, unable to see anything. Luckily, my glasses prevented me from being entirely blinded by the smoke, but it was still very difficult to see what was going on.
"Where does he keep getting these goddamn smoke grenades?" Anne questioned, trying to find her way around them. "I'm sick of them!"
"You are hardly alone in that aspect, Anne!" I cried. "Show yourself, Wolfgang!"
"As you wish," he said from behind me. I turned around, terrified, and he expertly punched me in the throat, sending me crumpling to the floor, along with my folder of notes. Although the combination of smoke and pain had nearly blinded me, I could still tell when he leaned down and picked up the folder, chuckling unpleasantly.
"Oh, damn it all," I croaked as he walked away. Soon after his exit, the smoke dissipated, and we slowly recovered. We gathered up again, most of our number trying to get the remaining residue out of their eyes, while I uncomfortably rubbed my throat, and Ralph ran off after the very strange villain.
"All right, Larch, I want to know exactly what the screaming fuck just happened," Jack demanded.
"Are you boys having fun over there?" the elderly woman called over to us, evidently quite out of the loop.
"I wouldn't have any idea if we were or not with these jokers," Jack called back. He turned to us once more, quite annoyed. "Seriously, anybody want to get me up to speed on that?"
"What manner of weapon is this?" Greybeard asked, holding up the empty grenade.
"To answer your question, Greybeard, that is a smoke grenade, quite an ingenious invention, and as for yours, Jack, that is somebody who has inexplicably decided to play eighteenth century composer and has declared me his rival."
"Which translates to stealing our notes with a smoke grenade?" Jack asked, unconvinced.
"Apparently so. Wait, damn, our notes!"
"What about them?"
"If he is able to successfully locate Celebi, it could spell doom for us all!"
"Oh, yeah, I'm definitely afraid of Mr. Halloween Costume over there," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "Come on."
"What you fail to realize, Jack," I explained, "is that he is most likely entirely deranged and if he managed to get his hands on one of the most powerful Legendary Pokémon in all of existence, it could very easily spell doom for us all."
Jack considered this for a moment, realization dawning upon his face. "Holy shit, that would be a disaster! It's like giving a mental patient a machine gun!"
"Except probably much, much worse," Anne noted. "We need to look for him as soon as possible, or else."
"Ralph has already made very good work on getting him," I said. "Likely, if we find him, we find Wolfgang. I have no doubt he cannot resist taunting us some, which will likely prove advantageous to us if we use it right."
"Well, what be we waiting for?" Greybeard asked. "Let's get that lubber and string him up!"
"Uh, that may be a tad on the excessive side, Greybeard…" I suggested uncomfortably.
"Hmph," he grunted. "Fine, we'll just go get him. Happy?"
"Very well." The four remaining of us made haste for the exit, the librarian calling "Have a good time, now, you kids!" after us. Soon enough, we found ourselves outside, in a lovely circular pavilion surrounded with small apricot trees.
"All right, where are you?!" Jack yelled, and the four of us began looking around for any sign of the two rather odd men we were looking for. After a few minutes of looking around, we saw nothing readily obvious that would imply Wolfgang had been there. In fact, if we did not know better, we might well have said that they had disappeared entirely.
"Damn it, how far did they go?" Jack asked. "We weren't that far behind them, were we?"
"They must have been going quite quickly," I reasoned.
"Well, yeah, of course they were, they were chasing after each other," Anne said.
"Wait, are you telling me that the lanky guy in all black outran a Special Command operative in this weather?" He gestured to the clear sky, which rendered the day quite warm.
"He must have had something else. A moped, perhaps?" I wondered.
"Not as if he could lose any more dignity," Jack drawled.
"Well, in any case, I think we can all agree with that," I said. We heard a rather villainous laugh, and turned to find its source, seeing a very odd sight indeed: Ralph trying to jump up to Wolfgang, who was again being supported by Gliscor and Tyrranus.
"Try as you might, you will never be able to get upon my level!" he cried, laughing again. "Dance, dance!"
"Okay, seriously, what the screaming hell?" Jack asked. "There was definitely something in that fish…"
"Ah, Jack!" Wolfgang greeted, his Pokémon turning so he could face all of us. "And all the rest of you as well! Oh, what fun indeed! Say, do you want this back?" he asked, pulling out the folder containing our research.
"Give it back, ye lubber!" Greybeard cried, pulling out a flintlock pistol.
"Jesus Christ, have you gone insane?!" I cried, instinctively ducking down.
"What do ye mean, 'gone'?" he asked, firing a shot at Wolfgang. It missed entirely, but the noise was enough to frighten Tyrranus and Gliscor both, who started flapping about frantically, attempting to get away from the source of the noise. Wolfgang quickly became annoyed as they did so, nearly releasing the folder.
"Stop this at once, you fools!" he cried in anger, flailing his limbs about in attempt to strike them and get them back under control.
"That was much more effective than it ought to have been," I noted. "Can you fire another shot?"
"Aye, that I can!" Greybeard produced a second flintlock, dropping the first one to the ground, and quickly took aim, letting off a shot that actually managed to hit something, in this case Tyrranus' hat-like crest. In a greater panic than ever before, he released Wolfgang and started flying around all over the place, while Wolfgang himself, without the support of his other Pokémon, began falling, only just getting caught at the leg by Gliscor. The folder, as well, fell to the ground, releasing its invaluable contents everywhere.
"What the hell is going on here?!" a cop, a powerfully-built black fellow, demanded, entering the scene.
"Your guess is as good as mine!" Jack responded.
"Tyrannus, you imbecile, get back here!" Wolfgang yelled, flailing about as Gliscor barely held onto him.
"I don't get paid enough to deal with this shit," the cop muttered, pulling out his radio. "Station, this is Monroe, I have…something going on outside of the library."
Some unintelligible response came out, and he looked around at all of us, very confused. "Yeah, I don't think you're gonna have this anywhere in the book."
"I am Wolfgang von Genocide, damn you! This is completely undignified!"
"Oh, yeah, now it's undignified," Jack said.
"Silence! I will have my revenge upon all of you, as soon as I reach the—" Gliscor, already straining to hold his master, finally let go, sending him plummeting towards the "GROUND!"
He fell to the earth below us with a great "thud", putting him quite out of it in an instant. Monroe carefully pulled out his handgun and approached Wolfgang's crumpled form, quite hesitant.
"All right, can you hear me?" he asked. Wolfgang grunted out something that may have been "yes", which was good enough for Monroe. He began pronouncing an arrest, leaning in slightly to ensure his quarry did not move away. This, however, proved to be a mistake, as Wolfgang revealed he had recovered quite handily and leapt up, kicking the handgun out of his hands before he was able to react.
"Holy shit!" Monroe cried as his weapon flew off. Wolfgang smiled, standing up quite tall considering his recent plummet, and expertly delivered a roundhouse kick to Monroe's temple, sending him to the ground in a crumpled heap. Using the sheer audacious shock of the moment to his advantage, Wolfgang ran off with Gliscor and the far less panicked Tyrranus as we all gawked rather uselessly at him.
"Wait, what the hell?" Jack asked. "After him!"
We shook away our shock at the recent turn of events and began our chase anew; at least, everyone else did, as I had made the decision to stay behind and ensure Monroe was okay.
"Officer?" I asked, carefully inching towards him. His eyes bolted open, and he shot up, soon clutching his head in pain.
"Aw, damn, what the hell happened?" he asked, voice strained.
"That person you were trying to arrest just roundhouse kicked you right in the head."
Monroe turned to me, shocked. "What? Where the hell did that dork learn to do that?"
I shrugged. "There are many ways to do so. He might have even been self-taught."
"He taught himself to be a goddamn black belt or something?"
"Well, he had plenty of time to himself, and he was hardly the type to attract attention. Quite a lot of potential to become very, very dangerous, there."
"What was in that folder he had?" Monroe asked.
"Information on the location of Celebi, which would obviously be a poor thing for him to get his hands on. Of course, as you can see," I gestured to the scattered sheets around us, "he is not likely to find much use for it now."
"Good thing. I wouldn't trust that guy with a spork, much less a Legendary Pokémon."
"Likely a wise decision," I said. "Shall we give chase to him?"
Monroe looked to his left, and his eyes widened in shock. "I don't think we'll have to!"
I looked in the same direction, and saw that, indeed, Wolfgang was running back to us, Pokémon flying above and that Uzi in his hand. He was being followed not only by my current group, but also numerous policemen, and all of them seemed quite annoyed. Monroe dived for his handgun, while I stood frozen in shock. Soon, we were all gathered around, Wolfgang surrounded on all sides, with no viable opportunities to escape.
"Give it up, you!" Monroe shouted, inching closer. "You're surrounded on all sides! Put your hands up and come peacefully!"
"Put my hands up?" Wolfgang asked, putting on a very sarcastic sort of "innocent" voice. "Now, why ever would I have need to do that?"
"Put your hands up and come peacefully!" he repeated, inching closer. "You have ten seconds to comply!"
"Ten seconds? Oh, well, that is not very much time at all. I suppose I had better just come over."
Wolfgang did indeed raise his hands, but I noticed a slight glint on a wire leading from his hand to something stuck within his shirt.
"Wait, no!" I cried, but it was too late. Wolfgang yanked up hard, releasing the pin on yet another one of those damned smoke grenades. The whole area was filled with smoke, and a few of the police let off some shots, but it was no use. A bright flash was produced from within the cloud of smoke, and when it cleared, there was no trace Wolfgang had ever been there.
"Damn it!" Monroe cried. "He teleported away!" All of the policemen quickly regrouped, Monroe delivering instructions for them to put out APBs and such. Soon, they were searching the area, and Monroe walked back to us.
"All right, I'm gonna need somebody to come back to the station to help us answer some questions."
"I'll go," Ralph offered, "I've been in situations like this before. You guys go get Celebi, I'll meet up later."
"Thank you," Monroe said, wiping his brow. "Care to tell me what the pirate's about?"
"Ah, yes, that…" I began. "Have you perhaps heard any news about one Professor Berkeley Larch?"
Monroe's eyes widened in recognition. "That's you? Shit, I thought most of that stuff was just rumor, but I guess not."
"I cannot possibly blame you for holding doubt," I said. "I myself still have some trouble believing it."
Monroe nodded, walking away with Ralph.
"Good luck with that dork!" Anne called back, as the remaining four of us headed for the forest, wondering what inevitable oddity would find us there…