Rebecca jogged to keep up with Roy. Her legs were long, even disproportionately so, but Roy walked with a purpose she hadn't seen in anybody else.
"Are you sure you're up for this? We can take another week…"
"No, today is the day," he said. "We can always take another week. But that's the problem, isn't it? You take a week here, you take another week there, and then all of a sudden a year goes by and your moment came and went."
Saffron City was dirty. Heat shimmered off of the pavement wherever the asphalt and concrete weren't covered by garbage and grime. And Saffron City stank, not like garbage, but like disease. The whole sick city was rotten to the core, from the crumbling infrastructure to the hazy yellow polluted sky to the dozens of streets Rebecca had slept on herself.
And yet… it was home. She had already put so much of her time and energy into the place. Rebecca couldn't imagine giving up on it, and she knew Roy felt the same way.
No, she and Roy would save Saffron City. And maybe the whole Kanto region, while they were at it.
"You're in too much of a hurry," she said.
Roy glanced over his shoulder.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you are," she said.
"I can't help it. We've wasted enough of our lives with these scumbags, Becca."
"I agree with you. But you can at least slow down enough so I can walk beside you."
Roy stopped short, and he let her catch up.
"You're right," he said. "Sorry."
She smiled and squeezed his hand, and they walked on together.
Club Stardust was tucked away in an alley off of 9th Ave, an unremarkable building sandwiched in between a real estate office and an antique store. Rebecca was skeptical that those two neighboring businesses were any more legitimate than the Club, but wasn't like it mattered; the Saffron City police department ran through Club Stardust anyway. The police chief had bet on Rebecca's last three fights, and one of them had been against one of his own officers.
Rebecca and Roy stopped walking in front of the Club's entrance. As usual, a bouncer stood outside. He raised his eyebrow at Roy, but he didn't give the two Trainers a hard time as they passed; Roy was still an employee, albeit an employee with severely docked pay for the next six months, and Rebecca was a VIP. As far as Team Rocket was concerned, the two could come and go as they pleased.
And that would be their fatal mistake, Rebecca thought.
The Club was crowded in the afternoon, although certainly not as raucous as it had been on Friday night. A dozen men sat at tables scattered around the place, some of them smoking and some of them playing cards, and a dozen more sat at the bar. The concrete arena gaped in the center of the dim, dirty room, a cavernous and ominous void while no fights were happening.
And two dozen pairs of eyes snapped up as Rebecca and Roy as they entered, and the hairs on her neck stood on end.
"Roy, there are a lot more people here than I expected," she said, quietly.
"I know. The two of us against all of them? That's almost a fair fight." He grinned.
And Roy took a step forward, and he turned his back on the crowd. Some of them were clearly Team Rocket members, and some of them were probably only business partners. Perhaps some of them were only there for an afternoon drink. It didn't seem so important, all of a sudden. Roy looked into Rebecca's eyes, as if she was a higher priority.
"Becca… what is it that you want? If you could have anything," said Roy.
"A house," she said. She didn't even have to think about it. "A house, with a backyard."
And an amazing person next to me, she thought.
"Let's make that happen," said Roy. "Here, and now."
Rebecca swallowed, and she nodded, and Roy stepped out of the way.
Snakebite emerged from his Ball with a wicked hiss. The Arbok bared his fangs in grim, gleeful anticipation…
"Everybody put your Poké Balls on the ground, and put your hands up!" Rebecca yelled. "You're looking at your new management!"
And in unison, two dozen Poké Balls hit the ground and opened, and a menagerie of Pokémon were released into the barroom. Half a dozen Rattata, a pair of Raticate, a Scyther, a swarm of Zubat and a Pidgeotto, all taking positions near their Trainers on the cold floor or circling in the air.
"That's not exactly what I meant," she muttered.
"Can you take them all?" said Roy, beside her.
Rebecca scanned the room. Snakebite flared his hood, and the horrible pattern on his belly seemed to laugh. Tellingly, the not a single Pokémon assembled against the lone Arbok had moved an inch forward. Indeed, most of them were scared stiff.
As they should be, she thought.
"Yeah," she said. "Snakebite can handle this."
"Good. I'll sneak around back and see if the Boss Man is in," said Roy. "Oh, and I'll take care of the bouncer."
She watched Roy turn and leave, climbing the stairs as if a hostile takeover of a gang-affiliated speakeasy was the most run-of-the-mill thing in the world.
"Alright, Partner," she said, turning to her Arbok. "Let 'em have it."
And Snakebite let out another rasping hiss and launched itself at the closest target, a Rattata. The Mouse Pokémon was powerless against the four-meter-long serpent. Snakebite grabbed the Rattata in his jaws and shook it around, and his helpless foe let out a squeal as it went flying.
And then the horde of Pokémon fell on Snakebite. Rebecca watched warily; she wasn't so nervous about her Arbok's chances, but she was acutely aware that she had no backup as long as Roy was on the move. If one of those Trainers, Team Rocket or otherwise, decided that Rebecca would be a softer target than her Pokémon, she wouldn't be able to do much but turn tail and run.
However, her worries were mostly in vain, as Snakebite quickly proved himself to be too dangerous to ignore. One Raticate did try and circle around a high table and make a move towards Rebecca, but she didn't even have to get Snakebite's attention. The Arbok lashed out with his tail, lance-like. He made solid contact, and the Raticate skidded across the floor until it came to a hard stop against an unforgiving iron table leg bolted to the floor.
It almost didn't seem fair. Snakebite quivered in glee as the Scyther's hard carapace cracked in his jaws, his opponent's bladed arms glancing harmlessly off of his scales. Another glare and another flash of the pattern on his belly and most of the Rattata were too terrified to move, and the other Trainers in the room began to break and run.
"Snakebite, the Pidgeotto!" Rebecca called, but she hardly needed to.
The Pidgeotto dived at the Arbok from on high, but Snakebite was ready for the attack. He slid out of the way to the side and the Pidgeotto's claws raked at empty air, and the Bird Pokémon flapped its wings and tried to escape back into the sky and try again.
Snakebite did not give his opponent that chance; the Arbok coiled its body and leaped into the air just as he had in the last prize fight, gaining a shocking amount of altitude. Even as the Pidgeotto flapped its powerful wings, Snakebite caught it in his jaws. The Pidgeotto squawked in panic as it was dragged back down to the ground, and then it stopped squawking all of a sudden as the Arbok's poison took hold.
In some ways it must have been a terrifying scene, Rebecca reflected. For months, this Arbok had proven itself to be the strongest Pokémon fighting in Club Stardust. And now, that very same champion battler slithered around tables and barstools faster than the opposing Trainers could hope to run, corralling Team Rocket members back into the center of the room.
At last, Trainer after Trainer saw the writing on the wall and threw up their hands in surrender.
Rebecca ordered the bar patrons and Team Rocket grunts alike to step into the arena as Snakebite continued circling the room, heading off any fleeing stragglers.
The whole fight had lasted mere minutes, and Rebecca was about to go check into the Club's back office when a crash echoed across the barroom.
A fat man came flying out of the very same back office amid a shower of wooden splinters; Roy must have thrown him through the door!
And the Boss, a big fat man named Derek Merribit, landed flat on his back. Roy Rhodes walked out of the office to stand over him. Roy put one boot on the fat man's chest, and he looked across the room at Rebecca…
Rebecca shot Roy a thumbs-up, and Roy turned his attention down at the collapsed Rocket Executive.
"Ahem. We won," said Roy.
And so they did.
An hour later, Roy sat in the Boss Man's red velvet chair, his boots kicked up on the mahogany desk. Rebecca sat on the desk, feeding Snakebite a fistful of Oran berries she had pilfered from the refrigerator behind the bar.
All the injured Pokémon had been taken care of, and the fighting had ceased; after Merribit, the fat Rocket Exec and formerly the Boss of Club Stardust, had been shown the door, half of the assembled men followed him. The other half decided to stay; Roy opened up the bar and promised they'd all get pay raises.
Club Stardust was under new management; Team Rocket's former staff accountant was already hard at work in the other room, finishing off a bottle of top shelf whiskey and finalizing the deed transfer.
"Do you think they'll retaliate?" said Rebecca.
"Who, the Boss Man and his loyalists? Or Team Rocket at large?" said Roy.
"Team Rocket. I mean, we pretty much declared war."
Roy ran a hand through his hair.
"From what you know about Team Rocket, do you think that's likely?"
Rebecca frowned.
"Well, no," she said. "They're usually pretty opportunistic."
"They're usually pretty cowardly, you mean," said Roy. "When's the last time they had a real threat to their power base? No, they'll crumble like a house of cards."
"So… what do we do next?" said Rebecca.
Roy blinked at her.
"What do you mean? It's Saturday night. We open for business."
"Are you serious?" said Rebecca.
"Dead serious. We have about an hour until the usual crowd rolls in. I need you ready in case any of them get any funny ideas… but Club Arbok is about to turn its first profit."
"Club Arbok… it has a ring to it," said Rebecca.
"Yeah. You did a great job. You both did."
Roy smiled, and Snakebite twisted its maw into a grin.
Club Arbok… Was it the start of something great? The way Roy reclined in that big red chair, it looked like greatness would come so naturally.
Rebecca stood up and walked back out into the barroom. Roy was right. They still had plenty of work to do.