The Life Of Normal-Taro

"Well, that seems to be the case, if you consider him to be a normal alien. However, that's not the case now, is it? He's a Wadorian for crying out loud. He might go missing, but he won't die easily." The plankton's words came in as a small ray of hope to Thankappan.

Although, it didn't last for long. "Well, that would mean he could still go missing, huh?"

Kunjan couldn't stand the depressed atmosphere that Thankappan created and was fairly quick in changing the subject. "Speaking of Wados, did any of you lot ask him about his superpower?" He asked.

"Superpowers—wait, what!?" Thankappan was surprised at this revelation. He knew Taro was strong, but he didn't know about him having a superpower.

"Wadorians have superpowers. Why else do you think they were literally everywhere during the war?" Kunjan asked.

"If we're talking about superpowers, I guess it'll be purely super strength. I saw the dude cracking walls as if it's a biscuit and bending steel plates as if it's nothing." Lonappan chimed in, reminiscing about all the stuff that happened the last day, as if it's from eons ago.

After carefully considering the possibility, Kunjan gave out the reply. "Nah, super strength is exclusive for the bastards from the Martial Planet."

"Wait, Wados is a planet of superheroes, right? Isn't super strength one?" Lonappan asked.

However, Thankappan was focused on something else entirely. "Hey, you're missing the point here. There's a fucking Martial Planet with super strong people? Oh, there's some people around here who'd pay good money to get to that place."

"Well, how can I say this—the superpowers Wadorians have is something like, what you guys call as magic. Super strength is a superpower, but it's not magic. However, there still are some people in Wados who has the power to utilize their magic to buff up their strength." Kunjan explained.

"Could it be that Normal-taro is one such person?" Lonappan asked

"He could be. But if you ask me, it might just be that the gravity of this planet changed his power level a bit; it auto-adjusted and now he's supposedly a monster in your eyes." He replied.

"But…" Thankappan was about to say something, when he was cut short by Lonappan.

"Ok, then. I sure hope that the people from the Martial Planet do not invade this planet." Lonappan gave out a sly chuckle.

"True, because the planet that you're living in will disintegrate within mere seconds if they were to step a foot into this planet." The plankton looked serious for a moment before turning back to normal. "Well, whatever his ability is, let's just ask him when he gets here, shall we?"

"Speak of the devil!" Thankappan spoke as Taro joined in on the fray.

"Hey guys. What are you talking about?" Taro asked even though he clearly heard his name uttered multiple times.

Lonappan quickly wrapped the topic. "It's nothing. We were just talking about you. What happened back at the mall?" He asked.

Taro stood still for a few minutes before unraveling his side of the story. "Well…"

#

Earlier that morning. Thankappan had just left the premises and now he was completely alone in the mall even though many people passed by. He took a deep breath in and slapped his cheeks. "Okay, I'm ready." His nostrils flared with excitement. Of course, no one batted an eye towards his antics because no one cared. "I'm here to buy the basic necessities and nothing else." He talked out loud before realizing a fatal flaw in his plan.

"Wait, what are the basic necessities in this planet? Why the fuck did my dumb brain not think of asking that shit to someone?" He regretted his decision on letting Thankappan leave. But he had no time fretting over it, since Thankappan had already placed his complete trust to him.

"Well, I got them cards that Thankappan gave me! Let me get into a store then." He looked around and found an aesthetically pleasing store. "Now, that looks fine." He stepped inside the store, brimming with confidence.

"Hello, sir. What can I do for you?" The store employee asked. Taro fumbled with the cards for a good few seconds before taking out the right one and gave it to the employee.

[Hello. I am a foreigner and would like to buy some basic necessities.]

The employee glanced at it and thought for a moment. "Basic necessities, huh. I'll show you the way to that store, sir." He grabbed Taro's hand and led him towards the store that sold the so-called basic necessities.

However, Taro panicked. "Is he seriously about to throw me out? Shoot, I'll show him this!" After resisting the employee for quite a while, which was quite simple—rather, he had to be careful on controlling his power while resisting, so that the employee doesn't get injured—he finally took out the card that Thankappan asked of him to use in this particular situation it was as if Thankappan's a psychic.

[I got money with me.]

"I see." Suddenly, a creepy smile formed in the employee's face. Taro flinched; he had never witnessed such a sinister smile on someone's face before. It was the smile that showcased his inner motive—greed. "How about I show you our latest model of smartphones, Banana X-phone pro?" The employee asked as he desperately pulled Taro back into the store.

#

Back at the Holy Land, Lonappan looked pretty irked. "You idiot!" He screamed.

"Yea, what an idiot, am I right?" Upon hearing Lonappan call someone other than himself an idiot, Thankappan decided to join in on the fun.

Lonappan twisted his neck sharply towards Thankappan and spoke. "I'm talking about you."

Thankappan didn't get it. "Why me? Why again?" He got on his knees and wailed.

"What's up with the cards that you gave him?" Lonappan asked.

"I thought it would help him during crisis." Thankappan replied, trying desperately yo show off an innocent pup face.

"Yea, it did more harm than help. You see, your dumb brain made two big mistakes. First of all, why did you make him a foreigner, when you could've just made him a dumb or mute or something like that? Next, who in the right mind would right something like I got money? Did you intentionally do that? Did you wanted him to get swindled?" He asked as Thankappan looked more dejected with each passing second.

Finally, Thankappan got a gist of the cardinal sin that he commited and gave out his expert reply. "I didn't expect this to happen."

Lonappan scratched his head. "Of course, you didn't. You might be an elite rookie, but that's just what you are—a rookie. You still got stuff to learn." He turned his attention back towards Taro. "So, what's the end result?"

"I bought these." He showed the things to Lonappan. Every single one of them were Banana products.

"Hmm, let me see. You really bought the first thing that the dude showed you." Lonappan looked like a disappointed father looking at his son's progress report.

"My goodness! A banana! How much did that cost?" The formerly dejected Thankappan jumped around when he saw the smartphone.

"About sixty nine thousand." Lonappan looked at the bill and answered.

"Nice!" Thankappan liked it.

"What are you talking about?" Lonappan looked confused as he asked.

"You said sixty nine. That's the nice number." Thankappan chuckled.

"Then you would like this too. Taro brought the ten year extra guarantee for four twenty."

"Wow, that's two nice numbers, straight in a row." Thankappan continued chuckling like an adolescent kid who heard his biology teacher talk about sex in the sex-ed class.

"Still, it's nowhere close in beating me. I have all those numbers in my name." Kunjan said with immense pride. The plankton really had a pride so enormous, that it couldn't be confined in his body.

"Yeah, that's really amazing. You gotta tell me how you got that name someday." Thankappan said.

"It's nothing much. I got validated for my services by the army and they gave me a reward to choose the number in my name. And I chose #69420." Kunjan explained his bizarre tale.

"Wait, then are all the people in your planet called plankton before validation?" Gibli stepped in, after he kept his silence during the majority of this debacle.

"Basically." He nodded his head.

While this conversation occurred, Lonappan continued digging deep towards all the things that Taro bought, which weren't many since they were all expensive. "Yup, these are all useless." He concluded after looking around.

"Wait, what happened?" Kunjan asked.

"Somehow, he managed to waste all the money he had on the X-phone store." Lonappan explained.

"What?" Gibli and Kunjan stood where they were, dumbfounded at the revelation.

"He said those are all important." Taro gave out his side of the argument.

"How did you know that?" Kunjan asked, since Taro was not supposed to know the language.

"The demons there has their own way of communicating with wandering souls." Lonappan replied to the question.

"In conclusion, you wasted the entire allowance that the MIB gave to buy a damn expensive phone that's too big for your hand and is the exact copycat of its predecessor." Thankappan wrapped up the entire thing in a nutshell.

"I guess, yeah…" Taro sounded unsure of what happened or how it happened as he gave out his reply.

"There's nothing much to worry about, since we got our monthly allowance. We'll all chip in some money for now and let's get to the next month." Kunjan consolidated and gave out a bright smile, while Gibli gave a thumbs up in the background.

"Unfortunately, that's not how it works for Taro." Thankappan was the one who came forth.

"What do you mean?" The plankton asked.

"You see, I kinda pissed off their head and he cut off my monthly allowance." Taro explained, giving out a little chuckle of his own.

"Ponnappan got pissed at your words? Dude, what did you do?" Kunjan was thoroughly impressed.

"Well…" Taro shrugged his shoulders.

"Let's just leave it at that. But, what are we supposed to do right now?" Thankappan asked, as he tried changing the subject.

Lonappan gave out a stern reply. "What else? We'll work."

#