Disclaimer: Pokemon Fanfic. Pokemon does not belong to me, yadda yadda yadda. Traik, Brent, Vincent, Sol, and Red are origonal characters, Mine as I have written them.
Notation: This is, technically, chapter two. Chapter one is Bloodbath, and should be read to better understand driving forces behind this. I didn't know about the chapters possibility until I had already uploaded Bloodbath, so pardon the disjointedness. I also altered the name of the origonal stoy slightly. Blood Sport is the real title, Blood Bath was just the name fo the first chapter. Sorry for the confusion. And yes, I'm planning on writing more to this story, though I dont know how soon any of it will be done.
----
Daybreak found Traik sitting in a small cafe, at a small table with a few others, eating early breakfasts. Like the others, he wore an orange hard hat, and an orange vest with reflective yellow strips on the back and front, over his normal clothes. Like the others, there was a toolbelt around his waist with all the nessicary items, in addition to his belt of pokeballs.
To anyone looking them over, or listening to their language as they spoke to eachother, it was just a bunch of road workers having a bite to eat before shipping off to work. Five men with calloused fingers, and a few haphazard scars on arms or faces from accidents, tanned from working under the sun for a living.
To themselves, they saw time toughend warriors, their eyes knowing well where eachother's scars came from, which battles, which pokemon were used, who broke the rules and why. Their speech may have been concentrated on their work and the local news of the town they were sitting in, but their eyes spoke of something more. Their fingers, picking unwanted things from sandwiches from time to time, would drop the onion or sliver of pepper into the middle of the table, giving it a little nudge closer in, before taking another bite.
All these bits managed to be carefully contructed, shaping something all of them understood.
"Eugh, how the heck did a lima bean get in my sandwich?" Traik said as he drew it out from the bread and crushed it into two peices with his fingers. Reaching over, he tropped the two peices into the center of the pile, muttering about never eating at this particular deli/cafe again.
The others grunted, one laughing quietly, before all taking the last bites of their selected sandwiches, and looking at the middle of the table.
At the prospect of a new arena. The onions posing up as walls, and other things as obsticles and hazards. Traik was preposing a much more dangerous game than they had, to the older, wizened fighters.
A fist came down, and swept it all away in a napkin. The preposal had been approved.
The eldest gout op slowly and stretched. "Time fer work, boys. Lets go earn a good paycheck, eh?"
Trash was deposited as final quips and the beginning of workday's jokes were tossed back and forth between the workers. The staff of the deli smiling at their hard working customers, clueless to anything deeper than surface apperance.
---
Out on the job, working on repaving the main road leading into Celedon City, Traik proceeded to give the older warriors more detail. Here they could talk freely, or as freely as they could anywhere in daylight. They only thing they had to look out for here were pokemon trainers.
"I've been with the league for, what, four years now? And since then I've been as much of a spectator as the rest of you. I've won most my fights, as you have yours. And for what? The crowds are starting to shrink. I watched ticket sales yesterday, and we only just barely filled the house. I've heard the mob scream louder at my first fight, than they did overall of last night. They're getting accustomned to it."
Once Traik had fallen silent and shovled out another poile of tar, he was nudged out of the way by a bulky elder, one he hadn't yet learned the name of. The man started flattening the tar out in the area as he spoke. More to the others than Traik himself.
"He's right you know. Oly the other fighters can really appreciate what goes on down on the floor, but the mob itself... They grow listless with repitition. They don't seem to acknowledge the skill and effort anymore. I've had to drive my pokemon harder than ever to get even so much as a scream, and the training is probably killing them faster than the battles themselves now."
Traik continued shovling tar out of the truck, when movement further down the road caught his eye. "Trainer!"
Their talk of the matters ceased instantly. The man who had just spoken began to sing something that was new to Traik's ears, and they began to shovel, flatten, and pound to the sway of the song. Also hiding all but one of their pokeballs, incase they were challenged.
A red-headed girl of about twelve, dressed in white shorts, blue t-shirt and black tennis shoes trotted along the road, twords the city. She barely even gave them a glance, but in the second she looked at them, she had stopped whistling, and her hand was going twords the three pokeballs on her belt.
"Hey, excuse me!" She called to them as she approached. They looked voer at her, smiling and nodding in greeting, before turning back to their work. They were getting paid for an actual job after all, not fighting with trainers.
"Can I get one of you guys to battle me, please? I'd like to try out my new pokemon." She asked, fairly politely. Which was better than most trainers in fat too many occassions.
They looked at eachother a moment, then the older four looked at Traik. He nodded un understanding and leaned his shovel against the truck. "I'll fight. One on one?"
The girl nodded and smiled. "Yeah. Lets go up thisway a little, I passed a clearing a few minutes ago."
He nodded in agreement and they walked back down the road, leaving the others to work.
"Pidgey, Go!" The girl cast out her ball, and in a flash of red brilliance, out popped her pidgey.
"Hey, thats a nice pokemon you have there. I've nenver seen a black one before." He said in a slightly amazed fasion, looking over the black feathered bird as he reached for his pokeball.
"It was an accident actually. I was using my Charmander, and he got a little fire happy. When I took him to the pokemon center, he just stayed black." She smiled a little, even though she seemed worried about the bird's health.
He nodded and threw his pokeball, "Sunkern, I choose you!"
The battle began.
Sunkern fought hard, draining life energy from pidgey whenever it could, following orders, trying to grow in size now and then. But the trainer behind pidgey was too smart to fall for the draining attacks too many times.
Sunkern also didnt try as hard as it could have. It knew it was considered something like a decoy pokemon. Despite being pinned with the job of always losing to the passing trainer, before returning to its ball until the process repeated, it knew it was playing an important role in Traik's life.
After losing to the tiny bird, its final thoughts as it fainted were of loyalty, and protecting its fellow friends of the belt.
Once the girl had passed on, Traik got back to the group and got back to work. Just working to the beat of varios roadwork songs, until lunch break, when pails and soft drinks were brought out, and the break time settled in. They sat on the edge of the road under the trees and away from the tar fumes.
"Whats your name again, kid?" The nameless man asked.
"Traik Harlequin. You?"
"Vincent Boro. Nice to meet you. Four years in the Bowl, huh? How old are you now?" He said as he offered a hand to shake, slightly greased by mayonaise that had leaked from his sandwich.
"Well met, Vincent. I'm ninteen. You?" He shook hands, then wiped his hand off on his jeans, taking bits of sandwich between exchanges of words.
"Thirty-two. I've spent the last three and a half years up by Mt. Moon, capturing and training whatever came across my path. Its definatly a good place to get away from things and learn the secrets behind a pokemon."
This made Traik smile and shake his head in slight disbelif. "You're really close to you're pokemon? Isn't that a bit of a mistake when fighting in the Bowl?"
"Maybe, but I find they fight better when they have someone to trust instead of someone to simply take orders from. Not to mention being outside the Bowl, its nice to have someone watching your back. Isn't that right, Grant?" Vincent turned slightly to the eldest of them all.
Grant smiled, popping another sushi roll into his mouth, opting for rolls and rice and things unlike his co-workers. "Aye. That it is. Especially with those bothersome Rockets running around."
Traik snorted at the mention of Team Rocket and just shook his head.
Grant rose a brow slightly. "You're not impressed by them, Traik?"
"Nope. Not a bit. Why should I be? Our entertainment in the bowl is probably more threatening than the pussywillow actions of the Rockets. So they steal a few 'mon now and then. So what? Life in general is harder than the things the claim to have done."
Vincent lay a heavy hand on Traik's shoulder. "Watch your words carefully when you speak of Rockets, boy. We have proof that their corrupted fingers reach further than the police suspect. Stealing pokemon is only a slim fraction of their productiveness."
"So?" He looked up at the elders, who were all watching him very carefully. "Team Rocket is the backing force to both Game Corners, I know that much. I've heard of their actions around the Lake of Rage, and rumors that Viridian City's gym leader is the supposed 'mister big' of the whole Rocket army. There's probably more, though I won't go into all that now..." He paused for a bite of sandwich, and looked at the others as he chewed.
Grant ate, simple and undisturbed. Vincent's eyebrow were crawling up his forehead, either surprised Triak knew so much, or just finding out the information himself. The other two, whom he finally remembered were called Sol and Red, had stopped eating all together and were waiting for him to continue.
"Bare with me here. Every kid grows up the same way once becoming a trainer. Get the bages, fight the big gues, collect them all, and either fear Team Rocket, or beat them down whenever coming across them. And more often than not,every day kids are winning. What's the point? Since when has the world even seen something to quake in their boots about? As far as I see it, theres nothing to be afraid of. The Rockets are about as scary as a pokemon with the flue."
He continued eating his sandwich once he was done. When the silence stretched on for five minutes stright and he realized no one else was eating, he looked up and blinked, finding them still staring at him. Only Brent was smiling slightly.
"So," Brent finally spoke, "Do you think you can do better, Young Traik?"
He though about it a minute, then nodded. "Yeah. I could."
Notation: This is, technically, chapter two. Chapter one is Bloodbath, and should be read to better understand driving forces behind this. I didn't know about the chapters possibility until I had already uploaded Bloodbath, so pardon the disjointedness. I also altered the name of the origonal stoy slightly. Blood Sport is the real title, Blood Bath was just the name fo the first chapter. Sorry for the confusion. And yes, I'm planning on writing more to this story, though I dont know how soon any of it will be done.
----
Daybreak found Traik sitting in a small cafe, at a small table with a few others, eating early breakfasts. Like the others, he wore an orange hard hat, and an orange vest with reflective yellow strips on the back and front, over his normal clothes. Like the others, there was a toolbelt around his waist with all the nessicary items, in addition to his belt of pokeballs.
To anyone looking them over, or listening to their language as they spoke to eachother, it was just a bunch of road workers having a bite to eat before shipping off to work. Five men with calloused fingers, and a few haphazard scars on arms or faces from accidents, tanned from working under the sun for a living.
To themselves, they saw time toughend warriors, their eyes knowing well where eachother's scars came from, which battles, which pokemon were used, who broke the rules and why. Their speech may have been concentrated on their work and the local news of the town they were sitting in, but their eyes spoke of something more. Their fingers, picking unwanted things from sandwiches from time to time, would drop the onion or sliver of pepper into the middle of the table, giving it a little nudge closer in, before taking another bite.
All these bits managed to be carefully contructed, shaping something all of them understood.
"Eugh, how the heck did a lima bean get in my sandwich?" Traik said as he drew it out from the bread and crushed it into two peices with his fingers. Reaching over, he tropped the two peices into the center of the pile, muttering about never eating at this particular deli/cafe again.
The others grunted, one laughing quietly, before all taking the last bites of their selected sandwiches, and looking at the middle of the table.
At the prospect of a new arena. The onions posing up as walls, and other things as obsticles and hazards. Traik was preposing a much more dangerous game than they had, to the older, wizened fighters.
A fist came down, and swept it all away in a napkin. The preposal had been approved.
The eldest gout op slowly and stretched. "Time fer work, boys. Lets go earn a good paycheck, eh?"
Trash was deposited as final quips and the beginning of workday's jokes were tossed back and forth between the workers. The staff of the deli smiling at their hard working customers, clueless to anything deeper than surface apperance.
---
Out on the job, working on repaving the main road leading into Celedon City, Traik proceeded to give the older warriors more detail. Here they could talk freely, or as freely as they could anywhere in daylight. They only thing they had to look out for here were pokemon trainers.
"I've been with the league for, what, four years now? And since then I've been as much of a spectator as the rest of you. I've won most my fights, as you have yours. And for what? The crowds are starting to shrink. I watched ticket sales yesterday, and we only just barely filled the house. I've heard the mob scream louder at my first fight, than they did overall of last night. They're getting accustomned to it."
Once Traik had fallen silent and shovled out another poile of tar, he was nudged out of the way by a bulky elder, one he hadn't yet learned the name of. The man started flattening the tar out in the area as he spoke. More to the others than Traik himself.
"He's right you know. Oly the other fighters can really appreciate what goes on down on the floor, but the mob itself... They grow listless with repitition. They don't seem to acknowledge the skill and effort anymore. I've had to drive my pokemon harder than ever to get even so much as a scream, and the training is probably killing them faster than the battles themselves now."
Traik continued shovling tar out of the truck, when movement further down the road caught his eye. "Trainer!"
Their talk of the matters ceased instantly. The man who had just spoken began to sing something that was new to Traik's ears, and they began to shovel, flatten, and pound to the sway of the song. Also hiding all but one of their pokeballs, incase they were challenged.
A red-headed girl of about twelve, dressed in white shorts, blue t-shirt and black tennis shoes trotted along the road, twords the city. She barely even gave them a glance, but in the second she looked at them, she had stopped whistling, and her hand was going twords the three pokeballs on her belt.
"Hey, excuse me!" She called to them as she approached. They looked voer at her, smiling and nodding in greeting, before turning back to their work. They were getting paid for an actual job after all, not fighting with trainers.
"Can I get one of you guys to battle me, please? I'd like to try out my new pokemon." She asked, fairly politely. Which was better than most trainers in fat too many occassions.
They looked at eachother a moment, then the older four looked at Traik. He nodded un understanding and leaned his shovel against the truck. "I'll fight. One on one?"
The girl nodded and smiled. "Yeah. Lets go up thisway a little, I passed a clearing a few minutes ago."
He nodded in agreement and they walked back down the road, leaving the others to work.
"Pidgey, Go!" The girl cast out her ball, and in a flash of red brilliance, out popped her pidgey.
"Hey, thats a nice pokemon you have there. I've nenver seen a black one before." He said in a slightly amazed fasion, looking over the black feathered bird as he reached for his pokeball.
"It was an accident actually. I was using my Charmander, and he got a little fire happy. When I took him to the pokemon center, he just stayed black." She smiled a little, even though she seemed worried about the bird's health.
He nodded and threw his pokeball, "Sunkern, I choose you!"
The battle began.
Sunkern fought hard, draining life energy from pidgey whenever it could, following orders, trying to grow in size now and then. But the trainer behind pidgey was too smart to fall for the draining attacks too many times.
Sunkern also didnt try as hard as it could have. It knew it was considered something like a decoy pokemon. Despite being pinned with the job of always losing to the passing trainer, before returning to its ball until the process repeated, it knew it was playing an important role in Traik's life.
After losing to the tiny bird, its final thoughts as it fainted were of loyalty, and protecting its fellow friends of the belt.
Once the girl had passed on, Traik got back to the group and got back to work. Just working to the beat of varios roadwork songs, until lunch break, when pails and soft drinks were brought out, and the break time settled in. They sat on the edge of the road under the trees and away from the tar fumes.
"Whats your name again, kid?" The nameless man asked.
"Traik Harlequin. You?"
"Vincent Boro. Nice to meet you. Four years in the Bowl, huh? How old are you now?" He said as he offered a hand to shake, slightly greased by mayonaise that had leaked from his sandwich.
"Well met, Vincent. I'm ninteen. You?" He shook hands, then wiped his hand off on his jeans, taking bits of sandwich between exchanges of words.
"Thirty-two. I've spent the last three and a half years up by Mt. Moon, capturing and training whatever came across my path. Its definatly a good place to get away from things and learn the secrets behind a pokemon."
This made Traik smile and shake his head in slight disbelif. "You're really close to you're pokemon? Isn't that a bit of a mistake when fighting in the Bowl?"
"Maybe, but I find they fight better when they have someone to trust instead of someone to simply take orders from. Not to mention being outside the Bowl, its nice to have someone watching your back. Isn't that right, Grant?" Vincent turned slightly to the eldest of them all.
Grant smiled, popping another sushi roll into his mouth, opting for rolls and rice and things unlike his co-workers. "Aye. That it is. Especially with those bothersome Rockets running around."
Traik snorted at the mention of Team Rocket and just shook his head.
Grant rose a brow slightly. "You're not impressed by them, Traik?"
"Nope. Not a bit. Why should I be? Our entertainment in the bowl is probably more threatening than the pussywillow actions of the Rockets. So they steal a few 'mon now and then. So what? Life in general is harder than the things the claim to have done."
Vincent lay a heavy hand on Traik's shoulder. "Watch your words carefully when you speak of Rockets, boy. We have proof that their corrupted fingers reach further than the police suspect. Stealing pokemon is only a slim fraction of their productiveness."
"So?" He looked up at the elders, who were all watching him very carefully. "Team Rocket is the backing force to both Game Corners, I know that much. I've heard of their actions around the Lake of Rage, and rumors that Viridian City's gym leader is the supposed 'mister big' of the whole Rocket army. There's probably more, though I won't go into all that now..." He paused for a bite of sandwich, and looked at the others as he chewed.
Grant ate, simple and undisturbed. Vincent's eyebrow were crawling up his forehead, either surprised Triak knew so much, or just finding out the information himself. The other two, whom he finally remembered were called Sol and Red, had stopped eating all together and were waiting for him to continue.
"Bare with me here. Every kid grows up the same way once becoming a trainer. Get the bages, fight the big gues, collect them all, and either fear Team Rocket, or beat them down whenever coming across them. And more often than not,every day kids are winning. What's the point? Since when has the world even seen something to quake in their boots about? As far as I see it, theres nothing to be afraid of. The Rockets are about as scary as a pokemon with the flue."
He continued eating his sandwich once he was done. When the silence stretched on for five minutes stright and he realized no one else was eating, he looked up and blinked, finding them still staring at him. Only Brent was smiling slightly.
"So," Brent finally spoke, "Do you think you can do better, Young Traik?"
He though about it a minute, then nodded. "Yeah. I could."
