So I got around to thinking, and as when I do when I think, I commonly come back to the subject of writing. I enjoy writing, but I dislike sticking to plans and having to come up with complicated story elements like 'plot' and the such.

Also, given my replying of some choice Pokémon games, I wanted to write again about our favorite furry (and scaly and blubbery and whatever-elsey) critters, but not in the cliché’s trainer adventure stories that I'm so very bored of.

This was the mental compromise I made.

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The Adventures of Chase Locke, Pokémon Investigator
Part 1 – Andy Light Kai
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The problem with time is that it only goes one way.

Think about it metaphorically for a second. Say you’re a guy in a canoe. Or one of those one-manned canoe things. A yak boat or whatever. You’re going down a river, which we’ll say represents time (that was one of those things that they always pressed upon me in English class). If you were on a normal river, one that was flowing just with water, you would, with enough muscular fortitude, be able to paddle upstream.

It doesn’t work that way with time. Which is really a bit of a shame, because if time did work like a river or some other sort of double conduit (like an internet connection? I’m not that good with technology), you’d be able to know important details about the day that you were going to have before you had it. And that would be ultimately a good thing, because with that kind of information you’d be able to decide whether you were going to face the preknowledged day or stay in the warm, sweet embrace of your bed covers.

Today, I should have stayed under the covers.

It’s not like I’m knocking today, as a general thing. I’m sure plenty of people are having very nice days today. I just don’t happen to be one of them.

For that matter, the man pointing the gun at me doesn’t really seem to be having a nice day either. He seems very tense, which is definitely not the mood that I want someone with a loaded firearm to have. I have a very strong position on firearms: they shouldn’t be pointed at me. You’d be amazed how many people find that position inconvenient to their jobs. In turn, I find that very inconvenient to my job.

You see, I’m a Pokémon Investigator. Which you normally wouldn’t think would involve people pointing firearms at you, but you’d be surprised.

Anyways, the man who is currently pointing his firearm at me seems to be a bit aggravated. Probably because of me. Some people say that I have a strong personality, which is what they say when they’re trying to be polite. I would try to reason with this man, but I have the feeling that that would only aggravate him further. And that’s something I’m trying to avoid.

Yup, I’m definitely in a pickle here. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, my day didn’t begin with a man pointing his firearm at me. No, that’s only the end (though hopefully not the final end, if you get my drift) of a very long and strange day that has more radical twists and turns in it then any rational man should be able to comprehend.

It all began with a knock on the door.

In all accuracy, though, the knock on the door was proceeded by a few events that, given the nature of the day, are somewhat lost in my memory. To be fair to you, I will transcribe the proceeding events from my notes (as a Pokémon Investigator, I keep notes on pretty much everything. You never know when they’re going to come in handy):

-Need more milk.
-Bus late. Beginning to notice a pattern.
-Many suspicious-looking people present on bus. Potential suspects? Note: many more people give me suspicious-looking looks while writing notes. Note: People begin to move away from me. Have I showered today?
-Collective sigh of relief when I exit bus. Shower status seems to be okay. Recommend more cautiousness on bus: evil is everywhere.
-Office door seems to be more locked then previously thought. Note: Need bandage.

As my notes can show you, I had already been beset by hardships before the aforementioned knock occurred. My mind was already hard at work considering the suspicious nature of the other patrons of the bus, and my forehead was exhibiting more pain then usual.

That’s when the knock occurred.

I glanced up from my work (currently I was doing the jumble: the word was ‘OSNRCIOP’) and calmly (I always try to maintain an air of professional calm) stated “Enter.”

And then she walked in.

For some strange reasons, investigators like me always seem to attract beautiful women that have some sort of problem that they can’t take to the local police force. My current working hypothesis is that beautiful women often get involved in a great deal of things on account of their beauty, and some of those things are somewhat less then legal. My other hypothesis is that having a police force full of identical clone-ladies unsettles anyone.

Either way, my business is bolstered by beautiful women like the one who had just walked in the door. She was tall, with long silky hair that managed to hide her eyes without any noticeable loss of depth perception. She wore some sort of slim black dress that some sort of living creature must have given its life for and carried a purse made out of the same expensive-looking dead creature. As she walked towards my desk, she gave the room an appraising look that seemed to compare it with the fetid corpse of a particularly repugnant Pokémon. Poison type, I’m guessing.

Then she glanced at me. “Your forehead is bleeding.” She said, stopping in front of my desk.

I smiled. “Indeed I may be. But I’m sure you’re not here to talk about my personal problems. Please, sit down.” You see, an air of professional calm works very well in these situations.

As she sat down, I glanced back down at my work. A small drop of blood fell onto it, presumably from my forehead, obscuring my current solution (‘O SNP RICO’, which I had thought somewhat unlikely. If the newspaper did have a friend named Rico, he’d probably alert him somehow other then a cryptic message through the jumble). I frowned, giving myself a mental note to stop bleeding. Then I resumed my air of professional calm and looked up to my guest.

“And what seems to be the nature of your Pokémon emergency, Ms. ….”

She blinked, almost as if in surprise. “My name is Danielle Vancouver. And I don’t have a Pokémon emergency.”
“Then I’d say you’ve come to the wrong place, haven’t you?”

She blinked again, this time most definitely in surprise. “…You are a private investigator, right? I mean, your card says so.” She reached into her dead-creature purse and pulled out a business card, one of many that I had had printed when I was in a better financial situation and was able to order frivolous things like business cards and fast food. I took the business card and inspected it. As I did, a drop of blood fell on it.

“Ah, no, you see, here’s the problem. You misread it.” I turned the card to her, showing her the problem. “You see, it clearly says ‘Chase Lock, P.I.’ You misread ‘P.I.’, thinking it stood for ‘Private Investigator’. It stands for ‘Pokémon Investigator’. That’s what I am.”

“…A Pokémon Investigator.”
“Yes. I investigate Pokémon problems. I certainly don’t investigate privates, that would be downright indecent. I suggest you find someone of less moral standing to take your little private problem.” I attempted to hand the business card back to her, but she strangely refused.

At that point I assumed she would be exiting my office, so I turned back down towards my current work (‘P RICO SON’, which might denote some sort of Hispanic pride on the part of the jumble’s writer) and was much surprised when it turned out that she didn’t leave and in fact was saying something.

“-and I’ve tried everyone else, so you’re the last person I can turn to.”
“Oh.” I pondered this for a second. “As you can imagine, ma’am, my skills are more fine-tuned towards the field of Pokémon Investigating, so any sort of deviation from that would represent a significant factor in the terms of my pricing.”

“I’ll pay any amount.”
I prudently decided to take the case.

A smile. “Excellent.” She told me the case. I took scrupulous and accurate notes, as an investigator of my skill should.
“And I’m sure you understand the importance of my problem.”

I glanced up from my notes, which for some strange reason, were becoming more and more blood-stained as time passed. “I’m sorry, was that last sentence in the declarative sense or the interrogative sense?”
She blinked again, this time mixing the standard surprise with a bit of confusion. “Excuse me?”

I sighed, then leaned back in my chair. “It’s actually quite a simple question. In the spoken word that we’re forced to communicate in right now, there is no visible punctuation that gives an indication as to what sense you’re speaking. You must rely on vocal inflection to differentiate between such senses, but I was unable to decipher your inflection. I’ll repeat: was your last sentence spoken in the declarative, which would be a simple statement ended by a period that would express confidence in my abilities as an investigator; or was it spoken in the interrogative, which would be a question ended by a question mark that would convey some sense of doubt towards my abilities? In a grammatical sense, it’s a very straightforward question.”

There was a pause before she spoke again.

“…you’re insane.”

I’m pretty sure that that was in the declarative sense.

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End Part 1
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<3 andy.

pls finish stry thxz!
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