worktodo | 001 | New Bark Town

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001 | New Bark Town | Video;

[Good morning, Johto! Today, for your viewing pleasure, we have...what appears to be the rather dark and damp interior of a Poochyena's mouth, complete with glistening teeth and a tiny smear of drool at the edge of the camera feed. Not a very decent view, but that's okay, because there's plenty of audio to make up for that — and it seems we've tuned in right in the middle of some rather belligerent ranting...]

—ow what kind of game you're playing here, lady, but I have neither the time nor the patience to stand around while some overzealous kitchen marm tries to stuff me full of animal crackers and ship me off to elementary school. I want to know who you are, I want to know where I am, and most importantly I want to know how the hell you got me here to this godforsaken boondocks in the first place. I have plenty of work to do, and I do not have time for your inane prattle. Just give me some answers so I can be on my way.

[There is some background chatter here, which careful listeners may recognize as Mom's standard speech.]

Listen, June Cleaver, I'll make this very clear: I could not care less about these Puggymans you insist on rambling continuously about. The question is simple: where the hell am I?

[More background chatter! Are we sensing a trend?]

Hn. Forget it.

[Footsteps begin to tap across the linoleum, and in response, the camera begins to shake; evidently, the owner of those teeth is trotting over to give her own greeting to this rather angry newcomer to Johto. And it appears, when the footsteps pause, that he's just noticed her.]

What do you want?

[More shaking of the camera, and then suddenly there is bright light and a whole lot of twisting and rotating as the man apparently takes the Gear out of the dog's mouth and turns it over in his hand, twisting it every which way and tapping it as he inspects it. People who get motion sickness, this is really not the video for you.]

...what is this, a toy or some kind of Star Trek — HELLO.

[And hopefully no one had their volume turned up on their gear, because the man holding it is using his Outside Voice as he addresses the microphone that is apparently about three inches away from his face at the moment.]

I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU'VE GOT SOME ANSWERS FOR ME, MR. SCOTT?

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_{[Dale Cooper had never actually expected someone he knew to appear in Johto. In some ways certainly because he was usually the singular person to which these things tended to happen - although he'd most definitely not been the only one with visions and dreams correlating to the supernatural or otherworldly, he'd been one of the few who had them with such regularity and clarity. And while being dragged into a completely different world was ... well, out of the unusual, it had made a strenge sense as time went on that he was there and not anyone he knew.]

[That's usually how it went, after all. How these things worked.]

[But naturally, Johto would always find ways to keep surprising him.]

[First with the regular missing three days, when he'd first met Audrey. He remembers it clearly, her presence and his followed bewilderment. And then, the third time, he'd met her again. She'd been different but still very much her, and as strange as it was to meet her after being away from Twin Peaks for so long, it had been strangely nice, oddly comforting.]

[Then, of course, there was last time. Two months ago. With Windom Earle and Albert Rosenfield. Cooper's still, at times, worried about the former; scared that he's actually in Johto, implausible as it is by this point. He would have said something, made himself known, sent a message and demanded the game to be continued.]

[Albert, though, he'd been sure would be there for just that window of time, the same as with Audrey. And the Little Man, when he also chose to make an appearance. The same as BOB, as worrying as that was. A glitch, as he'd learned to call it, something fractured in space and time that was momentary and unlikely to last.]

[Cooper is, of course, not quite himself right now. The fire simmering beneath his skin is palpable, but at least it's under control by now. He'd had a hard time with it, before, earlier -- had almost burnt himself out in the most literal of ways until he could get a painful grip on how to deal with the changes that had happened in him. And thanks to that, to everything that's happened the past few weeks, the many many things that's clouding his mind that he's trying to work out, just trying to work through, he almost doesn't check his gear today.]

[But he does, thanks to luck, fate, or coincidence (they're all the same connection that runs through everything, really, just known by different names), and it only takes him a second to recognise the voice rattling off on the other end of the connection.]

[Because Albert Rosenfield is nothing if not distinctive. His work is always precise and meticulous, his speech perhaps even moreso, sharp and scathing as it may be, but you can count on it to always have that certain quality to it: a superior condescending tone and the rhythm of impatience, speaking plainly of the attitude he carries and presents to others and hiding well the deeper philosophy that he chose for himself and that Cooper always felt was admirable.]

[Which can't be said so easily for his social graces, but coming from Albert, Cooper honestly wouldn't have expected anything less than the verbal abuse he's now listening to with a tired but bright grin.]

[He lets go of his many many thoughts for a little while, or at least most of them, to allow himself to just listen to the rant that he suspects will be one of all too many. Allows himself comfort from it, because while Albert is a great many things and isn't perhaps even more, he's someone Cooper considers a friend.]

[And that means a lot in a place like this. Even more given the situation.]

[Albert himself could probably use a friend himself, by the sounds of it.]

[Coop wastes little time connecting the audio. There are two reasons for that, one of which is his state, and the other being that Albert won't have to yell at the Gear if it operates mostly like a phone.]}

Albert.

_{[And you know what? Getting to say his name is something in and of itself.]}

You don't have to yell. We can hear you perfectly fine.

[The hell is — okay, so it is some kind of Star Trek doohickey, apparently, or possibly some kind of utterly streamlined portable phone, except it looks like it's got a TV built into it too and —

You know what, forget it, because he knows the voice on the other end of this line and if anybody's going to have some answers, it's him.]

Coop?

[There are approximately a dozen questions all wrapped up neatly in that single incredulous iteration of the name: what's going on, where am I, what is this, why are you apparently on the other end of whatever the hell this gizmo is, and oh, lest he forget, why do you sound like death warmed over.

Because yes. He noticed.]

Hopefully you've got more answers for me than Betty Crocker over there.

_{[Of course he noticed. There are very few things Albert misses, and that's what makes him excellent at what he does. So no doubt will he miss the small smile in Coop's voice, too, because he hadn't realized how much he'd missed this man until he waltzed into his consciousness two months ago.]}

I do. But I suspect you're not going to like them.

_{[And it's funny, really, how that can make him feel positively gleeful. Albert's here, and he'll probably not be able to stand it, at least to start with. It's a weird sense of normalcy in the middle of everything that's happened lately.]}

Let me guess. They came to you in a dream.

[Because really, this is just what they need right now, Windom Earle on the loose and Coop's shooter still at large (and Coop insisting on pulling the beatific martyr card and absolving her of all her sins when Albert would like nothing more than to just go bag the bitch right now), and now on top of it he's in a house with Marion Cunningham and plucky music emanating from a source he can't identify.

Oh, and the dog, who at least seems to be well-trained, if the fact that it's sitting at his feet and trying to wag its tail while it's currently trapped beneath its butt is any indication.]

Start with the basics. Where am I, and where the hell are you?

No. From asking around.

_{[Imagine that, Albert -- real investigative work, without visions or rock bottles to identify the facts.]

[It's been a while since he greeted a newcomer, now, but he still knows where to start and he gives the facts with practised ease.]}

You're in a town called New Bark. I'm in Ecruteak; that's about a two week hike on foot, which is the usual method of travel.

_{[He pauses, and remembers telling Albert this two months ago as well. His voice is a little ligher now than back then, because he knows that this time, it's probably not just for three days. And despite what this world has done to him, he can still find it within himself to be awed at the fact that that's exactly it - a world.]}

It's called Johto, Albert. It's a completely different world.

[A two-week hike on foot is largely irrelevant information, as far as Albert is initially concerned, because naturally Albert does not travel on foot, because that would be ridiculous. It's not until the second or third moment afterward, right about when Coop hits the part about it being a completely different world, that something goes click and Albert remembers that this is Coop, who details the exact contents of his lunch for his secretary with meticulous precision and delivers his findings in at least a reasonably straightforward manner. It's something that Albert likes about him, because Albert dislikes wasting time on pleasantries and fluff when they could be getting down to business.

But if Coop is describing his journey by foot, then that means one of two things: either Coop's doing one of his commune-with-nature things again and legitimately doesn't know how to get to the city he's in except by trekking through the woods like some visionary shaman in a trench coat (which isn't likely), or he's not giving directions of how to get there by car because there are no cars with which to get there.

And with that realization, Albert's day just got ten times worse.]

Thirty seconds ago we were standing in the hallway of the Sheriff's Department and now you're telling me I blinked and we're in a completely different world. What, am I supposed to click my heels together three times and send up a plea to the good witch of the north?

[Because if it were anyone, anyone but Dale Cooper telling him this, he'd have long since tuned it out...and yet...]

There better not be a yellow brick road and crowd of vertically-challenged welcome-wagoners when I go look out that door, Coop.

_{[It strikes Cooper as kind of funny, the way Carmen is fond of the very same metaphor Albert is now using.]}

It's not yellow bricks, but you'll find a path called Route 29 that leads through a forest to the next town.

_{[There's a small pause where he thinks about it, recalls his own journey through that forest. It had been cold and alien, but surprisingly easy to embrace. Then again, that was a thing Coop was notorious for doing, and he knew it. Knew he was often referred to as odd for reasons much like that one.]

[Albert will have a harder time with that. Will take a long time to even accept his starter, of Cooper knows him right. He'll have to ask about that later and consider ways he could help out (maybe ask Carmen to lend her Salamence so he could pick Albert up himself - it seems kind of like a good solution for everyone involved), but for now he understands the need for clarification and the most important details.]}

I don't know what caused us to wind up here, much less why, but trust me when I say that it's real.

We're just magically on some vision quest to this godforsaken — what did you call it? Johto?

[Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go. Bad enough driving for hours through the middle of nowhere to end up in Twin Peaks; now he's supposed to play Little Red Riding Hood en route to whatever is going to pass for civilization around here?

A path. He called it a path. Jesus Christ.]

All right. You've clearly got a far better idea of what's going on here than anyone I'm likely to meet in my current surroundings, and dragging it out of you in bits and pieces isn't going to do anything but waste time for both of us. Just give me everything I need to know to get the hell out of here and up to this...Ecruteak City, wherever that is.

That's more than a two week hike, Albert.

_{[He pauses, then makes a mental note to find Carmen as soon as he's walked this forensics pathologist through the basics.]}

I can probably pick you up, if you give me some time. _{[SURPRISE: INSTEAD THIEF GET. ...And then, a slow grin on his end.]} How do you feel about dragons?

Dragons.

[His experience in this place called Johto thus far is having the annoying effect of turning him into an echo machine. But seriously, did he just say dragons?

Giants. Dwarves. Dragons. Next it's going to be a fairy princess.]

I guess that depends on how tasty I look, doesn't it?

_{[Oh, he'll probably run into one of those sooner or later, too. Rapunzel was here once, after all.]}

Not really. The creatures here don't eat people.

_{[Creatures, not animals, which Albert is probably quick to note.]}

Only creatures I've met so far are Betty Homemaker in there and this mutt at my feet. Apparently "Mom" is a dog person.

[But, sensing her master's acknowledgment (AT LAST), the Poochyena yips excitedly and wriggles even more, trying to wag her tail despite it being otherwise trapped.]

Oh, don't you start.

It seems like this world thinks you are.

_{[He has to smile at that, too, because he has to assume this is a Poochyena, the same pokémon he had when he met Albert so briefly what feels like quite a while ago now.]}

That's your dog, Albert. We're all given a companion when we arrive.

Great, so now Toto's coming with me, too.

[Silently, the Poochyena hopes that is not actually her name. She doesn't feel much like a Toto, but of course her trainer would know best...]

Okay. So you're telling me I should just go find a hotel and stay put for the next...however long it's going to take you to go rent a dragon and fly down to whisk me and my pooch off on a magical adventure in dreamland. Does that about cover it?

[And Cobra thought he was loud. Wow.]

Sssstop yelling! What is wrong with you? Are you trying to make everyone go deaf?

[Whoa, hello, who is this idiot in the mask looking back at him? What does he think this is, Halloween?]

What's wrong with me? I get picked up from a treehouse in the middle of nowhere and whisked off to what is apparently the one place in the universe that actually manages to outdo it in sheer idiocy, and you, dunderhead, you're going to ask what's wrong with me?

[Okay, let him think about that for a moment.

Done.]

Yesss, I'm going to ask what's wrong with you! I don't care where you've been taken from or how idiotic thisss place is! At what point did yelling as loudly as possible into the PokeGear seem like a good idea?

Right about the time it started getting me answers.

[Though he can't say much for the current source of it.]

Nice outfit. Halloween already, or just a case of pervasively bad acne?

Yelling isn’t going to get you answers! It’s just going to get you people telling you to be quiet!

[Which really doesn’t deter Cobra from doing it so feel free to disregard that advice.]

And this is a uniform, you idiot! Not ssssome sort of costume! And what may or may not be wrong with my face is none of your business!

[The chowderhead remarks, as he's yelling. Okay. Evidently he is now waging a battle of the wits with an unarmed opponent.]

Yeah, it's a uniform — if the carnival's in town. Which one are you, the killer ape or the bearded lady?

Neither! I am Cobra Commander, and as you'll find out, the penalty for mocking me is most severe!

_{[.... WOW, Mister, WOW.]

[Heather just sort of listens in quiet awe. It's fairly normal, she thinks, to have a brief, surreal and likely-aggravated conversation with 'Mom' upon arrival, but this guy takes it to new levels. It's probably a good thing you can't piss Mom off even if you TRY.]

[Evidently Albert's snark has won him Heather's attention, though, because of course she can't resist responding.]}

Sorry, Kirk, can't beam you up right now.

Your voice is blowing out my speakers.

Oh, you're the snake charmer. I should've guessed from the hissing.

[Which just goes to show that it is not physically possible to piss off Mom, because by god, if anyone could do it, it's Albert Rosenfield. Still, she's off cheerfully darning socks or whatever it is she does (he's not in the least bit interested in finding out), and right now his attention is on figuring out where he is and how —

Oh, great, someone else is talking to him now. Since when is this phone thing a conference call?]

A magical world full of dream-people and the most creative thing any of you can come up with to say is, "Gee, mister, you're loud." Color me impressed.

_{[HEY THERE ALBERT have a scruffy-looking no good photographer cringing away from your loud voice.]}

Um. You're in a video game. Or something.

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001 | New Bark Town | Video;

[audio] the tealest of deers

[audio] gdi coop i don't care how teal it is i'm not catching that either

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