Heart of a Champion: 1
Vermillion thought John would have stopped by now. The match was over. He had won. Rest was well warranted and deserved. Yet, here they were, in the men's black and white tiled locker room. Not the medical bay or training room, but an empty bleached pit of nervous anticipation and washed out testosterone. And it wasn't even for the B.A. himself. John sat on the floor of the shower, bathing, washing, treating, and tending to each and every single one of his pokemon, whether they had fought that night or not. He released them one by one, starting with the easiest, which just so happened to be the newest addition to the party.
Saul took one look at the shower and veered off in the opposite direction, more interested in scoping out this new place than listening to a word of instruction. John didn't seem to mind. In fact, he anticipated the reaction, setting up two warm freshly dried towels next to the lockers in line with the snake's interested route. Eventually, he'd nose through them to clean and dry himself without even realizing it.
Marco and Athena took care of themselves. With a turn of the faucet, the shower turned into a bird bath. Athena stuck close to Marco despite both of them having mostly recovered from their own match the other night. They pruned one another's feathers, splashing and hopping in and out of the spray. Marco favored one wing but refused to let Athena baby him. Once the pair was finished, John left the water running. Saul curiously flicked a tongue at it when the trainer's back was turned but quickly sneered away when Vermillion caught him investigating the dewy remains.
Charles came next. John painstakingly untwisted every single linoone hair wrapped around the quills in his fur. He massaged out each and every barbed point. One by one they piled up to the side. A single snap between the trainer's fingers ensured that they never caught flesh again. John then removed the dried matts of blood. Several needed to be cut in order not to disturb the healing clots. Snip by snip, the shearing scissors literally passed a hair's breath from the rushing pokemon's skin and they never caught a cell of fresh blood. John scoured every inch of the linoone for wounds without causing a wince of discomfort. Those healing hands even went so far as to top the pokemon's head in a tower of suds. One strong short breath blew them off in a frothy burst. Charles closed his eyes with a relaxing flex of his paw.
Vermillion had yet to see a healing machine work any better.
John was soaked more than his party pokemon by the time he towel dried the rushing pokemon to a cotton ball. At that point, Saul had witnessed both the results and comforts offered by such dedicated care. He forced himself upon the trainer by thrashing in the shower, breaking tile and the quiet drum of water until John came over to tend to him. It wasn't until the soap was lathered between the trainer's hands and massaged into the purple coated muscles that the ekans stopped and laid there as if dead, flicking his tongue to lap up the warm water. The only way to remove him was to entice him with something just as relaxing. Luckily, John had already set up the cotton temple along the lockers. Saul slid into it with only a set of nostrils sticking out between the folds.
Without bothering to wring out his tunic, John finally moved on to Lopo. They stood in the shower together. Neither spoke nor shared more physical contact than what was necessary. Blackish brown water ran down the drain underneath them as John ran his fingers over the houndoom's body. The canine remained still, even as the precise and gentle fingers cleaned the bloody holes in his muzzle. Not a twitch of pain or pleasure disturbed that smooth black coat. John walked out when he was finished and sat on the bench, leading the canine by an invisible rein. Towel drying a dark pokemon wasn't exactly easy with all of their boney armor, but John took to it as if he had done it all his life. He even went so far as to lightly buffer and polish the chipped ends.
Lopo didn't look at him. His nearly solid black eyes gave nothing away to the workings of the mind underneath. The only time he made an effort to move outside of his grooming was when Charles started twitching in a dream on the towel nearby. A few licks on the top of the head quickly stilled the linoone again. Lopo added a few more for good measure. It was the least he could do.
After all, without that weak little pokemon acting as a living shield, he might not have made it out of the Cage alive. Onyx liked skeletons as much as she did live specimens.
Vermillion sat on the opposing bench, watching the scene. She couldn't exactly leave John unattended after his little act of defiance, and in this world, that meant keeping both eyes and a pokebelt on high alert. But the more she watched, the more confused she became. John worked with the routine precision of an Ace and yet he himself had admitted his failures as a trainer. He had won his battle but hung his head as if he were utterly crushed in defeat. Worst of all, he had yet to address the reason behind it all. Vermillion looked at Lopo. She then looked at the red welt on John's hand. He had bandaged it, although rather poorly compared to the treatment of his party pokemon, addressing it as much as the houndoom's treachery. Everyone in the House saw it, how his own pokemon had burned him in a feral spout of self-preservation.
Where was the ravenous hatred, disgust, and wounded pride that came with an intimate betrayal?
The self-preserving instinct implanted in the houndoom's DNA had finally come to light but John still cared as tenderly for the canine's wounds as the others. In fact, aside from a few light requests, of which Vermillion obliged immediately, John said nothing. That alone was cause for concern. Vermillion didn't understand. Not a single reprimand was given. Not one chastising look of fear, hatred, or even pity. This time, it was the Polisher who couldn't remain quiet.
"Why aren't you mad at him?" she asked.
John took Lopo's back foot in his hand. The paw bent without resistance. Not even the fine hairs surrounding the pad twitched in uncertainty as John dried them and checked for battle born burrs.
"Why should I be mad?" he replied without breaking concentration.
Was that even a real question?
Vermillion nearly scoffed when she remembered who it was she was dealing with. Holding a grudge was in John's nature as much as using a whip. Personally, she preferred the leather but she'd take the first too, anything except this passive blindness. If one of her pokemon had branded her from wrist to palm like that, they never would have made it out of the Cage door. John was also the biggest idiot when it came to dealing out blame.
"Because," Vermillion answered, "you look like I do when I clean my guns after they've been sitting in the safe for too long." Then again, prodding into a matter of ethics might just lead to another friendship rant. Vermillion was still trying to clean out her ears from the last one. "Then again, you always look like shit," she diverted.
It was too late.
"It's not his fault," John explained. He took Lopo's head in his hand. It was by far the most seductive show of dominance she had ever seen from the B.A. and yet there was only compassion in his eyes. They looked straight through the darkness and into the stars glowing behind the canine's glistening black soul. "Unlike your guns, pokemon are living beings," he continued.
John carefully removed his hand from underneath Lopo's jaw, but without its support, Lopo lowered his head into the trainer's lap. His white lined eyes glanced up at the trainer and John gently stroked a finger along his head crest. Not to be outdone, Marco fluttered down from the top of the lockers. He landed on John's shoulder, grabbing a bicep with one foot and a shoulder with the other. His tail feathers draped over John's arm and back like a regal half cape. The pidgeotto made sure to position himself on a more intimate level than the houndoom, standing so close that his breast feathers rubbed against John's face. John closed his eyes and turned a cheek into them, lightly rubbing his cheekbone in a movement mimicking a beak to beak nuzzle. He smiled, opened his eyes, and looked at Vermillion.
"There's more to them than gunpowder and bullets," he said.
And for some reason, Vermillion believed him. She shouldn't have. He was a weak, bruised, and battered piece of trainer trash discarded into the shit hole that was humanity's darker half. And yet, in the seat of his lap, John cradled one of the finest murdering machines known in the world of pokemon. One whistle and he could have opened the skies and torn through heaven, ripped apart the earth and burned through hell. But he didn't. Because he didn't want to. That much power in one place was terrifying.
And intoxicating.
Marco narrowed a keen eye at the Polisher, squalled, and spread out his wings. He pounded out a gust strong enough to blow back Vermillion's hair and force her to break her gaze. Jealously, it seemed, didn't stop at the line between people and pokemon. She snarled slightly in a clench of her teeth but it quickly disintegrated into little more than a pout as John winked a smile through the rustled feathers. Vermillion quickly turned away as if that's what she always intended to do.
"If you're finished playing around, I suggest you take a shower. You smell like wet dog," she mumbled.
Lopo lifted his head and cocked it ever so slightly. John obliged her with that annoying chuckle of his, but even though a pressure seemed to have fallen from his shoulders, the locker room remained quiet. The drum of water filled the silence. John streaked his disheveled locks into sleek shards down his head in the spray. Water ran down his skin, rushing over faded brown bruises, healing punctures, old burns, and fresh cuts. Vermillion turned away, embarrassed to trace them any further down his back without permission. She stood at the edge of the curtain with her back against the wall and her arms behind her back. She didn't sneak a peek and he didn't shy away. John stood there, holding himself up with one hand and his head down with the other, letting the warmth of the water soak into his scars.
Vermillion kept her eyes busy by watching John's party pokemon. Athena hopped closer to Marco and the two rubbed their beaks together. Even she could see that a new connection had formed between them. It seemed an impossible feat, to find love in such gloom and shadow of the underground. To dream like the linoone breathing slowly on his towel or find silence, not loneliness, like the houndoom sitting nearby. All of them were capable of finding a moment's peace because of a trainer hardly capable of caring for himself. It was beyond reason. It didn't make sense. But then again, that seemed to be the way it was regarding everything about John.
"Who taught you to raise pokemon?" Vermillion asked.
"The same person since the first time you asked me," John replied.
He sharply pushed aside the curtain. Vermillion jumped lightly in surprise. Dripping wet and wearing only a towel, she was tempted to polish her fingers right over those flexors but the curious upward tilt of John's eyes as he looked at the ceiling diverted her attention. Vermillion followed his gaze to the ceiling.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing," he answered. "I was just wondering what time it was."
Vermillion furrowed her brow. Her lip pulled up in an irritated show of confusion until she realized John wasn't wearing a watch. He didn't have a phone, there were no clocks on any of the walls, and he was never in the company of anyone that cared to give him the time of day. If he wasn't in the heat of the Cage spotlight, it was the humming glow of the fluorescents. When the lights went off, it was night. When they came back on, it was day. No matter the hour or the occasion, when his sponsor called, he answered. The city's underground corridors guided him from one kennel to another and it was only recently that John even had himself something resembling a room. Central heating and cooling were his seasons. And even when she shuttled him to the club, the only outside exposer the trainer experienced was the two steps between the valet and the door. Eight days he lived like this. For eight days he managed to survive Onyx's terror. The lucky only made it past eight minutes.
So what did that make him?
Vermillion suddenly realized John wasn't looking at the ceiling at all. He never was.
The Polisher briskly moved for the door. "Put some clothes on, tuck away your toys, and come with me," she said.
"Do I have a choice?" John asked.
Vermillion felt the pressure of his words against her back. She stopped in the frame, gently touched the wall, and caught her breath. It took only a moment. "Only on that first part," Vermillion winked back at him. Without a shirt, or much of anything really, John couldn't hide the sudden tension in his muscles. It felt good to know that she could still make him blush with the smallest of teases. It didn't last long however, when the cool night breeze washed over him.
Vermillion and John stood on the rooftop of the high rise built above this part of the Underground. The City of Breakbrick always looked better at night. With its multitude of barbed wire fences, back alleys, and loading docks, daylight only made it shine like a prison. But at night, when the shadows smoothed out the rough concrete and brick edges, the city came alive. With a few high rises, several warehouses, and even more garages, a puzzled network of lights mapped out a highway to hell.
Better known as Treasure Cove by its inhabitants, the City of Breakbrick was a safe haven for anything and everything immoral, illegal, or just plain insensitive. There were no rules, only martial law enforced by lowlifes and criminal masterminds of every sort. With the law in their pocket, the Royal Jewels had created a place undisturbed by justice and morality. Casinos peppered every territory. Bars lined every block, and storefronts weren't afraid to keep a backdoor for special and more private transactions. Drifters, down on their luck nobodies, and every curious eye had a chance to find happiness in Treasure Cove, or at least, that's what the billboard outside the Pleasure District said.
They were lucky. The City was quiet tonight.
Neon and chrome didn't reach this side of the rooftop. Low traffic kept road rage to a minimum. Machinery had long since cooled and quieted without a regular stream of customers to keep them hot and bothered. Night owls prowled around below, but without a full moon to guide them, they kept to the street corners with glowing cigarette butts to warm them. Even the sky seemed to appreciate a moments rest from the usual stormy turmoil fueled by the heat rising from the city walk. Clouds drifted above but they were thin. One could catch a star in between since the breeze had already pushed out the day's allowance of smog.
Vermillion wasn't sure what kind of life John was used to, but he took the view like a cliffside getaway. He stood at the edge of the roof and inhaled as deeply as his worn aching ribs would allow, going so far as to close his eyes and envision whatever it was that made him smile so smugly. Vermillion sat on the brick edge and looked out beyond the lights. Their sparkle had long since lost their luster in her eyes. It was the bleak and black darkness expanding beyond the City that intrigued her. It was the same darkness John seemed to be able to pierce in a single glance.
What was it that he saw on the other side?
The breeze picked up again. It lightly tossed Vermillion's hair, showing her neck and smooth collar bone. There was no sableye hiding behind her ear this time. Cutter was carefully tucked into place on her belt next to the others. John's belt was there to keep them company. She wasn't foolish enough to let him carry this close to the outside world, despite whatever Onyx allowed. There was no retrieving two pidgeotto when they hit the air, especially a mating pair. And yet, Vermillion still couldn't figure out why John let her wield them so freely. His decision to hand them over during his match with Mammoth bugged the Polisher even more than Onyx's ariados when she caught it snooping on her after a job.
Out of all the places to be thrown into and out of all the people to watch his pokemon, John had given his party to the Royal Jewel's best and most reliable Polisher. It was the worst decision he could have ever made. But then again, why did she give him a choice in the first place? Maybe it was out of boredom, curiosity, or even self-interest, knowing that his expiration date was coming due. Yet here they were, sitting on the rooftop, not because John asked but because she allowed him to. Vermillion wanted this pesky riddle out of her head, and the best way to do that, was too get a solid answer. The Polisher narrowed her eyes at the darkness. It didn't help her see any better.
"Why did you trust me with your pokemon?" she asked.
John turned away from the city and looked at her in surprise, but quickly turned his eyes up at the stars. "I'm not sure," he answered. "I just know that when I was in a pinch, your voice sounded familiar. It gave me a direction to go in."
Vermillion whipped over a scowl. What was she, a fucking compass? But John had his back to her. He never saw the insult or had the chance to recognize it from behind those broad, heavy, sloping shoulders, but Vermillion wasn't sure she cared that he did. He said that she sounded familiar. Did that mean he remembered their first meeting in Boulder? No. He couldn't have. Because if he did, he would have realized that she would have scraped him off of the bottom of her steel tipped heel before she helped him. Her decision to intervene in the Cage was out of curiosity, not concern. Then again, now that Vermillion thought about it, she hadn't looked for another contract in over a week. . .
The Polisher looked back into the darkness. "Trusting people like me isn't smart," she said.
"I don't trust people," John easily retorted. "I trust you."
Vermillion refused to look at him or that smile that was no doubt tickling a part of her that had drowned in blood long ago. Some of it given willingly from her own veins.
"This is a cruel world," she continued. "Your nightmare has barely begun."
"I guess it's a good thing I have a friend like you to watch over me."
Vermillion hardened a scowl and looked back at John, but once again, he had his eyes turned up at the sky. She couldn't bear to call them down again. After all, this may very well be the last time John ever gazed at them. Vermillion looked up, trying to catch that same celestial twinkle. There was none. Not even a plane screaming through the sky. There was no light in the darkness. There never was. Vermillion slowly turned her eyes back down to the ground, to reality, and to John. He stood there, silently gazing at the sky as if reading constellations. Oblivious. Fool hardy and hopeful in a world brimming with despair. Vermillion's emerald green eyes glowed in a light she wished had sputtered out eight days ago.
"Well," John suddenly said as he turned around to face the Polisher once more. "We should probably head back. It's late. Plus, we're not supposed to be up here anyway. If Onyx finds out, she'll have both of our heads."
Vermillion lifted her gaze, looked into those carnival cotton candy eyes, and nodded. She couldn't find it in herself to speak. There was no witty comeback or snarky remark strong enough to part her glossy rose colored lips. She was still lost in that darkness despite John having found a place within it. Why couldn't he have been like the others? Thrash in fear at the hands of the grunts, cry himself into a corner of the Cage, and give in to the cataclysmic turn of his fate.
Had fear forgotten him like the rest of humanity or was he just too ignorant to see what was inevitably waiting beyond the darkness? If he would just break down, give in, and turn into a feral monster clawing at survival, it would be easier for all of them. If he committed to the contract signed for him and let loose like all of the other Blood Aces, maybe then she wouldn't such a thorn in her side. Vermillion had braced herself for every kind of pain imaginable. As a Polisher, she had calloused her skin with two decades of violence, atrocity, and villainy.
And yet, John smiled at her and it pierced, drawing blood.
Together, they left the rooftop in silence. It wasn't until they walked back down the corridor into Onyx's underground that Vermillion finally recovered and spoke.
"Don't think that this next match will be like the others," the Polisher warned. She struggled to keep up with John's casual leading gait. "They'll be out for blood. YOUR blood. This tournament means just as much as any League match to them."
"I understand," John said. "Aces have their pride no matter what title they aim for."
"They'll show no mercy. If you're not just as ruthless, they'll chew you to bits."
"I've never had much of an appetite but I suppose I can fast a little. Speaking of which, did you eat today? You look a little pale."
"That's not the point!" Vermillion quickly regained herself and weighted her walk down to her hips. She carelessly tossed a curl of hair behind her shoulder. "One wrong move and all my efforts will have gone to waste."
"I'd hate to be a waste of your time," John answered.
Vermillion quickly dropped the act and thrust herself at John's side, trying to catch his attention and slow him down from a head on collision with disaster. His smooth pace didn't waver.
"I'm not kidding. One mistake and they'll fucking kill you," she exclaimed.
"I thought you said you were going to be the one to kill me."
"And I will!"
"Then I'll make sure you get that chance."
John smiled and the dark stone hallway remembered its ancient medieval roots in chivalry. He stopped and looked off into the glow of Onyx's gallery beside them. Vermillion didn't bother with the temptation. She had acquired most of the collection anyway. What she wanted was for John to look at her and acknowledge the warnings she was so diligently trying to hammer into his thick skull. But something swirled in John's eyes. It made her feel small and insignificant, like he knew something that she didn't. And that's what infuriated her because it was quite the opposite. John turned away from the gallery. He looked down at Vermillion and offered his hand. She stiffened and looked down at the open palm. It was the same one John's carelessness had forced her to re-bandage in the locker room.
Something brightly colored and sparkly flickered to life in that offer, but this was the Underground, and that hand had been soaked in blood only a few hours earlier.
Vermillion quickly cleared the fantasy and unhooked the pokebelt from her waist. She did so slowly, invitingly, and yet John's eyes never left hers, not even once. She passed off the belt without the arousal of a blush. He took it and lowered his hand. His room wasn't for several feet but this was as far as he was going to let her escort him. The rest, he would go himself.
"Thank you for taking me out tonight," he said. "But this is where I say goodnight."
The Polisher turned her head away as if to look into the gallery and crossed her arms over her chest. She tapped a foot against the stone.
"It's about God damn time," she muttered. "I was starting to worry I'd have to babysit you all night."
There was no retort. No comeback or witty remark. John merely politely nodded his head, turned, and walked down the corridor. Vermillion dropped her arms and silenced her foot. John turned into the shadows. Vermillion looked into them, hardening herself with a deep inhale.
That was it. That's the image she needed to remember. Darkness. Not the rooftop view, or the stars, or John, but that black pit she committed herself to years ago. It would consume John just like all the others. She had seen it a thousand times before: trainers who thought they could make it through the Jeweled bracket only to fail so hard in the Cage that a single body bag wouldn't cut it. The underdog never wins in this circuit.
Never.
Vermillion loosened her grip and looked back into the gallery. The cool nature of her skin iced over in the dampness of the underground. Her lips grew darker, lining themselves in a poisonous black purple along the edges of her frown. She had said it from the very beginning. A fool like John could never survive in a place like this. So what made him think that he could? What made him smile so confidently? What was it that he saw in this showcase that gave him such hope? Vermillion would find out. She walked into the gallery. Her black nails grazed the corners of passing pedestals until she stopped in front of one in particular. The light within cast a nearly invisible line across the edges of the glass case.
Really? Out of all the things that could spark hope in John's eyes, it was this? A dingy tattered silver colored feather? It barely had any shine left in it and the top had bent like a bookmark used too many times. Vermillion scoffed and nearly scratched her nails across the case.
This feather was nothing like the rainbow colored one in the case next to it. Now that was a relic. Not an ugly stupid useless feather or a pathetic weak excuse of a trainer like John. Neither were worth saving.
Vermillion turned away from the pedestals, glaring at the others in the room. Onyx and her fucking obsession with stories of old power. It didn't matter if it was an ugly old feather or the Crown Jewels, if she wanted it, she got it. That ambition fueled the very heart of the Black Market which in turn, fueled this God forsaken city. And what Onyx wanted now, was a pokemon born of fire and darkness capable of scaring death itself. Vermillion stormed out of the gallery. No matter what John did or how hard he tried, he would lose this fight. He would never become Cage Champion. Vermillion cut her lips in a scoff.
Onyx would make sure of it.