Club Stardust on a Friday night... as Rebecca scanned the crowd, she was disgusted at what she saw... and she wondered what the choice to associate with such a motley crowd must have said about her?

But then again, she was the one they were coming to see in the first place, wasn't she?

"Last chance... the first drink is on me," she said. "All you have to do is throw in the towel. And then come over here and give my boot a little kiss."

The crowd cheered, and half a dozen grubby hands reached over the steel barrier to pat her on the back and clap her on the shoulders.

Rebecca's opponent, on the other hand, was not amused.

"How about you kiss my ass?"

The man standing on the other hand of the dirty, bloodstained concrete circle pulled a Poké Ball from his belt and lobbed it into the center of the arena. A flash of red light erupted from the Ball, and a Machoke materialized with a howl. It flexed its muscles, strutted around the circle… a true entertainer, Rebecca thought.

"Alright… but don't say I didn't warn you."

She glanced over her shoulder.

"You all heard me warn him, right?"

And the crowd cheered again. Beer splashed out of plastic cups, and bookies scrambled to take fistfuls of cash and mark down last-minute bets.

"Hey, you better not be betting against me," Rebecca yelled. "You might as well just give me the cash, if you're in that much of a hurry to lose it. Cut these fat cats out of it."

And she couldn't help but smile as the crowd laughed along with her.

It was a little uncharacteristic. She still wasn't totally used to being the center of attention like this. The crowd energized her though, and hearing them cheer for her was a good feeling, however unfamiliar.

But then Rebecca looked across the room, over at the bar. Club Stardust was packed, but somehow, she could see right through the sea of people to the man standing behind the bar, the man who stood a head taller than her, the beautiful man with a close-cropped beard and a mane of hair that was a few months overdue for a haircut and a shampoo.

And she saw him looking right back at her, and he gave her a little nod… and the smile dropped from her lips like a Zubat from a Mt. Moon stalactite. She nodded back, and she turned to her opponent. Of course, she had a job to do, after all.

Rebecca unclipped a Poké Ball of her own from the chain at her waist and she loosed her partner into the center of the ring.

The opposing Machoke stopped swaggering as Rebecca's Arbok took shape from the flash of red light, and the whole club grew quiet for a moment as the purple serpentine Pokémon reared up in the ring. Rebecca gritted her teeth as her Arbok expelled a burst of air from its mouth in an awful hiss…

And the crowd went wild.

A bell rang, and Rebecca threw a hand into the air.

"Go, Snakebite!"

And Snakebite, her Arbok, hardly needed instructions. The Cobra Pokémon raced to the center of the ring and launched itself into a tackle at the Machoke. The Machoke leaped backwards and struck out with a kick, and Snakebite deftly slid out of the way…

"Machoke, use Karate Chop!" yelled the greasy Trainer across from Rebecca… she shook her head.

"That's useless," she muttered.

You could always tell a great Trainer from a mediocre Trainer by how loud they were on the sidelines. A mediocre Trainer had no choice but to bark out orders. A proficient Trainer, on the other hand…

"Steady," she said.

The Machoke took a sturdy stance and lashed out with a vicious chop, and then another, neither one hitting their mark.

Snakebite waited for a third strike to come out before taking his moment… and the Arbok launched itself into the air and swung its tail in a wide arc, axe-like in a maneuver he and Rebecca had drilled hundreds, even thousands of times.

The crowd gasped as Snakebite's Iron Tail whistled through the air… and they gasped again when the Machoke stood its ground and caught the Arbok mid-air.

"Go!" she said again, breaking out into a grin.

Even as the Machoke tightened its grip on Snakebite's tail, the Arbok flared its hood, let out another sinister hiss, and it lashed out again, burying its fangs into the Machoke's calf.

The Machoke howled in pain and its leg gave out as poison seeped into the wound from Snakebite's razor-sharp fangs, and the Arbok once again took his moment. As the Machoke fell, Snakebite twisted his body and wrenched himself out of the Machoke's grip.

Snakebite coiled and twisted his body as both Pokémon dropped; the Machoke never had a chance. The Arbok weighed almost one hundred and fifty pounds, but had the Fighting-type constricted before they even hit the ground.

The crowd, louder now, looked on in grim fascination. Snakebite had a reputation at Club Stardust as a physical, bruising, brutal battler. Every inch of the Arbok's body was lethal, and there it was, curled around the Machoke and squeezing it with enough force to crush stone. There was nothing Snakebite's foe could do; its arms and legs were pinned, and the Arbok was in perfect position to deliver as much venom as it took to end the fight for good.

Rebecca took a step forward… but Snakebite was already hesitating. The Arbok looked back at his Trainer as if to ask for permission to keep going, and Rebecca shook her head. Snakebite remained motionless for another instant, even as the Machoke struggled in vain against the Arbok's superior strength…

Rebecca turned to the crowd, raised her hand… and the crowd went wild.

She turned back to her Pokémon and shook her head again, and Snakebite reluctantly let go of his opponent.

The Machoke leaped back to its feet and took an unsteady stance, heavily favoring the leg into which Snakebite had sank his fangs. It was pale, its eyes wide in fear, all of its entertainer's swagger gone… and it sagged in visible relief as the Arbok slithered back to Rebecca's side.

"Hey, what the hell is this?" yelled the Trainer at the other end of the ring. "That wasn't a knockout! This fight is still on!"

And the crowd erupted into boos and jeers. Rebecca laughed as the same grubby hands reached over the barrier and grabbed at her in congratulations, and plastic cups half-full with beer flew into the ring. Somebody threw a glass bottle and the belligerent Trainer had to duck out of the way…

"It looks like they made their decision," said Rebecca, even though she knew her voice wouldn't carry over the din.

She couldn't be totally happy about it; Snakebite would have killed that Machoke if she hadn't ended the fight. And yet that Trainer didn't care about his Pokémon, he only cared about victory, and the money that came with it.

But then the DJ turned the music back on, and an artificial trap beat pounded through the giant speakers mounted on the concrete wall, and the fight was officially over.

"Nice job, Partner," said Rebecca, and she buried her face in the Arbok's scales.

Snakebite wrapped his tail around her, gently, affectionately, and she scratched under his chin and above the pattern on his belly, and then she pulled her Poké Ball back off of her belt and withdrew the Arbok with another flash of red light.

"Hey! Nice job, Lambeth," said one bookie as she pushed her way by. "That's eight wins in a row, easiest money I ever made!"

Had it really been eight? Two months straight of uninterrupted victories?

If you were to ask anybody "in the know" who the most promising Trainer in Saffron City was that year, they would have answered without hesitation. Rebecca Lambeth truly was the reason that Club Stardust packed in so many people every Friday night. There were even rumors that a couple of Team Rocket bigwigs had been asking the bookies about her…

She didn't have time to worry about it. The prize fights were a no-brainer – Snakebite loved the competition, and their winnings paid the bills. She pushed her way to the bar.

"Roy!"

The bartender flipped a bottle in the air and topped off a whiskey drink; he looked around, scanned the room, and he didn't open the cash register. The cash for the drink went right in the drawer below, and he winked at Rebecca when he saw her looking.

Rebecca made sure he saw her roll her eyes, but she giggled at the antics anyway. Roy had been stealing from the Club (and, by extension, from Team Rocket) for as long as she had known him.

Roy Rhodes.

There was something about him. Rebecca couldn't put her finger on it. He came over and mixed her favorite drink for her, one part cider and one part stout… "On the house," he assured her, with another wink.

And even as half a dozen people came up to her to congratulate her for her performance, and to buy her drinks, and to pick her brain for battling tips, she couldn't take her eyes off of Roy.

If there was anybody who should have been in Team Rocket, it was Roy. He could have been an executive if he wanted to. He had all the connections; they would be crazy not to bring him on board. Honestly, Rebecca thought she and Roy would have made a better team than those two "special operators" who ran around with the Meowth.

But Roy wouldn't join up with Team Rocket, not formally. He would work at their bar, but he wouldn't join up. She wasn't sure why, but he had his reasons. So, she would follow his lead.

"Hey, Rhodes."

The bar was emptying out. It was well past three, and even the seedy crowd that filled Club Stardust had to either sleep or sober up at some point.

"What is it?" said Roy.

Two men in black-and-white uniforms emblazoned with the signature red "R" swaggered up to the bar, and they didn't look like they wanted drinks.

Rebecca looked around. She was the only one on a bar stool, and the other bartender retreated, leaving Roy alone behind the wooden counter.

"Our accountant wants to talk to you."

Roy frowned at the two Rocket grunts.

"Tell him I'm busy. I'm trying to do my own job; I can't do his too."

"Uh huh. It'll just take a second. Stay there, I want to take a look at the register," said one of the grunts. The bigger of the two.

Rebecca moved a hand to the Ball at her waist, but Roy shot her a glance as if to say "be cool."

So she watched as the first Rocket grunt rounded the bar and wrenched open the drawer underneath the register… and she bit her lip as Roy smashed a liquor bottle over the grunt's head. The burly man crumpled in a heap, and Roy vaulted over the bar and socked the second grunt in the jaw, and then he laid the thug low with a torqued elbow strike, and then three more men were on top of him, and then four, and then five members of Team Rocket dragged Roy out of the bar by his clothes.

Rebecca followed them outside – if Roy wasn't using his Pokémon, then she wouldn't use hers. Instead, she stood helplessly as the five men beat her best friend to more and more of a pulp.

Roy Rhodes gave as good as he got; his fists flew, and two of the Rocket grunts staggered away with black eyes and two more with broken noses, but by the end of the beatdown she had to help Roy to his feet out of a pile of garbage.

He was in a bad mood the rest of the night. She didn't blame him.

Rebecca drank a beer at the kitchen table and balanced her checkbook as Roy dressed his wounds in their bathroom – her account would be as good as empty by the end of the month, and he would be lucky if the swelling in his face went down by then.

After an hour, she went into the bathroom to check on him.

"Roy?"

Roy Rhodes sat on the tile floor against the bathtub, smoking a cigarette. He had tissue paper shoved up both nostrils, and bandages covered dozens of cuts and scrapes on his face and his upper body. A fat lip, a black eye, bloody teeth… he'd just barely cleaned himself up. He was mad; she could feel the tension in the air as he sat there and ruminated.

Rebecca stepped over Roy and walked over to the mirrored medicine cabinet, and she rummaged around inside. Half a bottle of peroxide, a relic of her half-assed bleach job that was still growing out. Half a tube of antifungal ointment, a consequence of the abhorrent working conditions at Club Stardust. And half a bottle of painkillers, the subscription label suspiciously missing.

Rebecca tossed Roy the bottle and slid down the wall to sit across from him on the cold tile floor, her legs between his but not touching. He passed her his cigarette and she took a drag.

"Fuck Team Rocket," said Roy, suddenly.

"…Come again?"

"Fuck. Team. Rocket. You heard me."

Rebecca took another drag of the cigarette and passed it back to Roy.

"They have the right idea," he said. "But they're goons. Thugs. Incompetent. If it weren't for that one guy's resources propping them up…"

"You mean Giovanni?"

"Yeah, him. Fuck him too."

Roy passed the cigarette back to Rebecca.

"He's propping up that whole organization with duct tape, paper clips, and his own cash. All it's gonna take to send it all tumbling down for good is a dream, and a little bit of legwork…"

Rebecca's breath caught in her throat. She swallowed.

"And… and two good Trainers, right?"

Roy held out his hand, and Rebecca clasped it. Tight.

"Rebecca… let's get out of this place," he said.