That's funny, the Pouch thought, flying through the air after taking a haymaker to the face from Hydrake the Hydrated Man. It was only that morning that the Pouch suggested to the superintendent of his shitty apartment building that they should look into getting a water softener. "Aint' water soft enough?" the superintendent had asked. One thing that Hydrake's aqueous fist wasn't was soft.
His rapid, sudden acceleration across the intersection finally stopped with his hitting the Second First Bank's solidly brick wall. The Pouch was, on some level, happy to end his brief journey on Hydrake Airlines, even though the landing was, at best, a 4. For a guy seemingly made out of water, Hydrake the Hydrated man could really punch. Then again, weren't most people mainly water? The Pouch seemed to recall some sort of stat he'd overheard, that people were something like 90% water. Of course, as a post-human, the Pouch primarily consisted of animated leather and less feeling snaps, but water was still involved. When his leather got too dry, it would crack painfully.
From his new position, laying face down near the Second First Bank's westmost wall, the Pouch looked up to see that the ATM actually was fee free, though his own bank might charge. The Pouch knew that specifically his account, and more generally all of Third Second First Bank, didn't charge such fees and so this ATM would be a convenient stop for him, it was pretty much on the way to most of the stores he frequented, Discount Second Hand Foods, Bob's Leather Enthusiast Emporium, and Snaps R Us. He hoped that the next uppercut dealt by Hydrake wouldn't knock this potentially helpful bit of knowledge out of his mind. On that topic, the Pouch heard the squishy steps of the Hydrated Man slopping towards him.
As this was one of the few physical encounters for which the Pouch had planned in advance, making a sizeable purchase on his way to the encounter, which was at least in part responsible for his mind being on his money, what little of it there was. It seemed very unlikely that he'd be able to return his purchase once he was done with it, especially since he was not particularly sure when he would be done with it.
Hydrake stopped to stand over the fallen Pouch, seizing upon the opportunity to launch into a classic super villain style monologe, saying, "The Future is Fluid! See how easily I have smashed your pitifully solid form into the even more solid form of this bank! My liquid form allows me to simply flow around impediments! And yet, the constant action of erosion can bring down any solid form!" He kept going on for a while, but the Pouch stopped listening. Instead, he slowly moved his arm over into the outer puddle that always surrounded Hydrake. The puddle shrank back, begining to disappear into the Pouch's arm. He kept moving the arm forward along the puddle's retreat. At the same time, the Pouch imperceptably also shuffled his chest over to likewise begin soaking up the puddle. Hydrake's voice became more high pitched as his stature began shrinking, but he was too caught up in his pro-water harangue to notice.
Finally, the Pouch scrambled to his feet. Now towering over Hydrake, the Pouch grabbed him in a sort of bear hug. Hydrake struggled and yelled in an increasingly high pitched voice until he was silent. The Pouch, feeling very heavey, staggered over to a nearby bench. Sure, it was covered in pigeon shit and spilled coffee from the pretentious esspresso place next door, Bean and Nothingness, but the crushing weight he had just taken on was too much for him to support any longer. He'd have to clean himself up later, but he was due for a shower even without the pigeon shit, and he'd surely need a deep soak to clean out all ofhis pouches after this maneuver. One point that Hydrake had glossed over in his harangue, water was heavy as hell.
The police finally arrived, guns drawn. At first they didn't recognize the Pouch, so swollen was each pouch that took on an entirely different appearance, some sort of big chungus version of himself. In some ways, he didn't even look like a fatter version of himself, but instead some type of creature consisting only of overripened fruit, each snap looked like the cut stem of some swollen fruit that glistened with the bit of moisure that leaked out of each pouch. Finally, they cops put away their guns and asked the Pouch where Hydrake had gone.
"You're probably going to want to get a bucket or something, he's right here," the Pouch said, holding out a dripping yellow square sponge he'd just fished out from one of his chest pouches. "I got him soaked up into about 100 of these. They were on deep discount so don't worry about getting them back to me after you get him out of them. Maybe consider just putting the individual sponges in jail. I'm not sure if that is humane or not. Watch out, they're all moving a little bit and if you listen close, there's a little voice coming out of each of them."
"We're gonna have to call this one in. Can you hold onto him for a little bit?" the commanding officer on the scene asked.
The Pouch said, "Sure, but if Mary Sew shows up, keep her away. I don't want her to see me like this, all bulbous."
"I understand," the commanding officer said, "you do look pretty bad. We didn't even know it was you at first. Looked more like some new individual that was made up of balls. Sorta like you but made out of a whole bunch of old footballs or something. Yeah, it's pretty awful. Also, whew, the smell coming off you right now..."
The Pouch groaned before replying, "Yeah, Hydrate seems to be about 20% male cologne, and not the good stuff, if there even is good stuff. Then, I think there's another 20% or so that's bourbon. This guy is probably going to need some level of counseling about the drinking once you guys take him into custody."
"I'm also getting a huge waft of piss smell. He didn't emerge out of the municipal pool by any chance, did he?" the officer asked.
The Pouch thought for a second, then said, "I think the bourbon is actively transmuting directly into pee. I'm guessing the overall percentage of bourbon was even higher before. I think we could safely classify this guy as an evil spirit..." after which the Pouch paused, waiting on the laugh that never came.
"Yeah... " said the officer. The two stood there in a long and awkward silence after that, though most of the other officers left the scene, returning to their normal duties.
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