Unleash the Sea Muscles (Preview) (Patreon)

“Hey, wait a minute! Haven’t we met before?”

“Hmm? Have we?” The clerk scratched her chin. “Humans tend to blur together after a while, sad to say.”

“No, I’m sure!” Josh gasped. “Yeah! You’re the green lady from that odd store before!”

She giggled. “You’ll have to be more specific! I work in a lot of places~.”

Josh was definitely sure he had met this green witch before. For one thing, he hasn’t really met a lot of witches or green women in his day-to-day life. For another, checking the nametag revealed her name as Traci. He had definitely met her before.

In particular, it was a year or so ago. He had bought a copy of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate from a peculiar shop she worked at. The game resulted in some… curious and, admittedly, fun outings for him. For a time at least. The effects had long since worn off, and the game didn’t provide the same results as it used to. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

Either way, it felt like a small world for Josh. He wasn’t expecting to see her again, and definitely not in this thrift shop at the very least.

Still, no time to reminisce about the past. He got straight to business. “Look, I haven’t been to this store before. You do have VHS tapes, right? Where are they?”

“Oh, that’s over there in the corner near our gaming stuff!” Traci pointed off into a distant corner of the store, one blocked by a lot of shelving. “Looking for some old movies and shows?”

“Something like that.” Josh gave her a nod and walked over to the area, moving around a rather maze-like area built out of shelves. Eventually, he found himself in an area with row upon row of VHS tapes as far as he could see.

“Careful! Don’t make too big of a mess! I just finished cleaning and reorganizing that whole area this morning!” Traci called, completely out of sight by now.

Josh rolled his eyes. I won’t.

Besides being an avid gamer and collection of video game merch, Josh had another hobby. He liked collecting VHS tapes. Despite the digital age and things being more available than ever to access, a lot of old shows and movies were still lost, only found on old media like tapes. He definitely liked seeing if he could find old stuff he’d never heard of.

He took his time, skimming through what was there. He grabbed a couple, mostly for old anime shows that aren’t licensed anymore or had different dubs back in the day. He turned to leave, satisfied with his finds.

But then he noticed something else behind him. So distracted by the tapes, he failed to see the gaming section behind him. It was filled with old stuff he never heard, probably nothing that was too valuable. A couple of uninteresting games, CDs in nondescript cases, and…

A Master Ball?

It was a replica of a Master Ball from the Pokemon series and a pretty good one at that. It looked shiny, brand-new like it was made yesterday. It stood out immensely amongst the other used items hanging around.

Josh set the tapes down and took the ball. Curious, he pressed the button on the center. It didn’t open. It felt like something was inside of it, and from what he could tell, the ball looked like it could open.

It only made him more curious. Might as well. He thought, grabbing his tapes again. At the very least, it would look nice on one of my shelves~.