~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. Pokémon is the property of Game Freak and Nintendo and all of those awesome people who invented it.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Say something, damn you!" the black-clad man shouted, shoving the young boy and knocking him to the ground, the wooden slats that made up the Nugget Bridge. He felt a splinter bury itself in his palm and grimaced, pushing himself back up. One of the fibers on his black bracelet had broken, and he looked at it as if it had been one of the most offensive things he had ever seen. It was a bracelet made from a Pokémon's hair, though he wasn't sure of the species. He opened his brown eyes widely and stood up, the dimness of the night around him starting to bug him. It made the attacker hard to see, everything but the bright red R on his chest.
A girl wearing a sun hat came up from behind him and helped him to his feet, glaring at the man who had pushed the fifteen-year-old.
"Leave him alone!" she shouted, her voice high but the command behind it dignified, assertive. The man smiled evilly and backhanded her across the face. She stumbled and fell into the arms of her companion, who set her back on her feet and stepped forward, his emotionless eyes locked with the enemy's. He stretched his hand out, opening his fingers and revealing a small Poké Ball. He tapped the button on the front with his index finger and the ball grew.
"Cute," the man smirked, his hand finding his own Poké Ball. His thoughts turned to his immediate future, the chain of events that was about to occur. They would back away from each other slowly, setting the distance of their battlefield. The boy would throw his Pokémon out, where he would bark commands futilely – or would he, he wasn't a talkative boy – until the Rocket had him begging for mercy. Maybe the girl would cry a little, and the Rocket would laugh. He would take the boy's hat and throw it to the ground, and he'd stomp it into the dirt. He would take their money; he would take their Pokémon. If they resisted, he would take their lives. He would take it all back to headquarters, and he would get paid. He'd spend the money on cheap booze and hookers in Celadon City, and he'd come right back to the Nugget Bridge to do it all over again.
"Oh, boy, you don't know what you're messing with. Do you honestly think you can beat a Rocket?" the shady man asked. The girl in the hat rubbed her cheek, looking almost angry.
"He destroyed your group at Mt. Moon, he won't have any problem with you!" she remembered. The man in black cocked his head slightly. He had heard about that. A fifteen-year-old had driven the Rockets from their fossil operations at Moon. They didn't know his name, but they knew that he had a brownish-blond hair color, and wore red and black. This boy fit the description perfectly.
"That group was incompetent, made of our amateur recruits. What use does the Rocket Organization have for fossils, honestly? Do you really believe that we'd send our good officers to a mountain to dig for fossils? What kind of group do you think we are? No, no, you haven't seen our wrath yet, haven't tasted the poison. It looks as though you're about to face the serpent, though. Have at you!"
The boy stepped back and tossed his Poké Ball, as did the Rocket. Lights shot forth from the small devices and quickly assumed the forms of their inhabitants, toughened creatures hungry for a fight.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Joanna stepped into the main chamber of the guardhouse shortly after eight o'clock, with a towel wrapped around her wet hair and a pile of dirty clothes in his arms. Danny, Eric, and the third boy were sitting around one of the circular dining tables, each with four cards in their hands. Two spoons sat in the center of the table. Danny had the deck of cards sitting to his right, and he picked one up, glanced at it. Joanna caught a glimpse of the card – the eight of hearts – as he lowered it and passed it on to his left, to Eric. Eric kept the eight and sent something else to the third boy, who took that card and placed it in the messy pile to his left.
"What are you guys playing?" she asked, and the three all gave hasty, frantic responses.
"Spoons," they said.
"Can I play?" she asked, and Eric switched out another card that he received from Danny. He swiftly dove for a spoon in the middle of the table and grabbed one. The two remaining boys launched from their chairs and grabbed for the other spoon, with the older coming out as the victor.
"Joanna's here, new game," Danny said, his defeat showing in his voice. Had they continued playing, he would be omitted from the next round, but the presence of a new player made necessary a restart in Danny's eyes. She pulled up a chair from another table and positioned herself between Danny and Eric.
"Do you know how to play?" the boy across the table asked, and she shook her head. He stacked the card pile next to him and passed it over to Eric, who would be dealing this round. Joanna only knew Go Fish and some archaic form of Poker that her dad taught her when she was six. This one looked fun, though, and she had nothing better to do. She was wearing only a long shirt and a short pair of shorts, and she could tell that the oldest boy at the table had taken notice.
"I'm Jo," she said, reaching across the table to shake his hand. He did the same. Big hands, a powerful grip, she noted mentally. His hair was messy but cute, light brown in color and a little greasy from the day's travels. He had a charming smile and deep hazel eyes, and a bit of stubble forming the beginnings of a full beard.
"Matt," he said, sitting down. Joanna looked over at Charmander and Bulbasaur, both asleep next to Mitchell's bed. Where was Mitchell?
"Is Mitchell still in the bathroom?" she asked, and Matt nodded.
"Yeah, still in there. Maybe we should go check on him or something,"
"I got it. There's no other guys in there, is there?"
"Nope, we're all out here,"
Joanna stood up and walked over to the bathroom door as Eric dealt out the four cards that each person started with. He left some over by Joanna's seat in case she came back in time for the start of the new round, which he got the sense that she wouldn't. Matt eyed her as she walked away.
"Mitch?" she asked from outside the door, opening it up a crack to let her voice in. She didn't hear anything happening inside. She knocked on the door loudly, and gave in to the creeping paranoia that was building in her mind. He was still poisoned. She should've forced the Antidote on him, she knew.
"I'm coming in, Mitch," she said, and pushed the door open. She stepped into the clean, blue room and saw a pair of legs sticking out from under one of the stall doors. The pants were dirty with mud.
"You okay?" she asked, and she received no response. Jo took a second to realize how foreign this room seemed to her. She had never seen what a urinal looked like in her life, and it was entirely unremarkable. Other than that strange piece of men's bathroom architecture, the room looked like a mirror of the women's room, with half as many stalls and benches in the middle of the room. She couldn't think of a reason for the benches, other than the obvious one.
"Mitch?" she said, pulling open the door and finding him passed out with his face resting on a toilet seat. The water in the bowl was still clean, so he hadn't vomited in there. She left the room and crossed to her bed, grabbing her bag and reaching inside for her Antidote.
"Is he alright?" Matt asked, caring even though he had only just met the group. Joanna shrugged and made her way back into the bathroom. Mitch was in the exact same position as he had been. Joanna pulled up his sleeve and stuck the needle in, pressing down on the plunger and shooting the medicine into her companion's bloodstream. He coughed and looked like he was going to wake up, but he did not. Joanna tossed the used syringe into a nearby trashcan and contemplated moving Mitch onto a bed, but decided not to. She returned to the card table and sat down, realizing as the cards passed by her quickly that she had no idea what was going on. Like the others, she frantically grabbed for the stack of cards that was passing by, examining her own four cards, and seeing no pattern, passing them along. When Danny would grab one, she would too.
"Slow down, what the hell are the rules?"
Everyone except for her dove for the spoons in the center of the table, each coming out with one and waving it, vocalizing their victories.
"What the crap!"
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
A strobe light flashed in the corner of the dance floor, at the other end of DragoNights, a 21-and-older establishment on the north side of town, between the treeline of the dense forest and the Pokémon Gym, which had been closed for quite some time for an unknown reason. The townspeople had their theories, of course – a death in the leader's family, a need to travel, a search for oneself – but none had substance. One day, it just closed, and that was that.
Sitting at the bar on a shoddily built redwood stool was a man in his early thirties, dressed in a navy pinstripe suit with the coat unbuttoned and the tie loosened. On his left ring finger was a large gold band that seemed a severely tight fit. He had noticeable irritation around the knuckle. For him, it looked like it had been a long day, and he had an empty glass sitting in front of him. When the bartender returned to ask if he wanted more, he asked for a bottle. It had been a really, really long day. The loud music was muted in his ears, as was most of the world. It was just him and his alcohol, and the temporary happiness he found sitting at the bottom, with the promise of a rude awakening the next morning. He slid a bill across to the bartender, who thanked him for the generous tip and continued to serve. She was a worker, the man had always noticed. And not married. And attractive, damn, was she attractive. She was a dark beauty with blonde highlights streaking through her hair. This wasn't the first time today that she had been the object of his lustful fantasies.
"Hey, Deirdre," he called down to her, and she walked over to him, leaning over the counter to speak, her low-cut shirt giving him more to look at than she realized she was showing.
"This is the third night in four days you've been here, Phillip," Deirdre spoke, "what's the matter?"
"She's doing the kid thing again," the man, Phillip, replied, "She took them to her mom's for the week. Wants me to 'reassess the situation' and get back to her with an answer by the time she gets back,"
"An answer to what?"
"Fuck if I know,"
Deirdre slumped her shoulders, expressing her disapproval with his language before standing back up.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, but she seems like she needs some time off from you. I'm just saying. Let her have her fun with her mom, and don't bother her. And do something really nice for her when she gets back,"
"You don't even know, Deirdre," Phillip said, and she shrugged and walked away. As Phillip took another gulp of his drink, he noticed that the seat next to him was no longer empty. When he looked over, there was a blonde woman drinking from a beer mug. She was looking at him - out of the corner of her eye, yes, but she was still looking.
"Hey there," she said, smiling and revealing a bright, beautiful white smile. Phillip looked over at Deirdre, and Deirdre shook her head at him.
"Wanna dance?" she asked.
"No thanks,"
"Oh, come on, you've been sitting here all night. Relieve some tension. We both need a little fun right now anyway," she told him. He briefly thought about it in his head.
"True enough. But no thanks,"
"Ugh, you're no fun. Come on, dude, live a little. I overheard that your wife is out of town?"
"Okay, look, I'm serious. I'm not interested in anything you have to offer, so just leave me alone," Phillip said, standing from the stool and making his way toward the door, leaving the blonde woman at the bar. After the door had shut behind him, Deirdre came closer.
"Leave that one alone, Bailey. He's a good guy," Deirdre told the blonde, who looked up at her and smirked.
"Did you not see how he was looking at you? I give that marriage another three weeks before it comes crashing down. Just wait,"
"Do you have the Mankeys?"
"Do you have the money?"
Deirdre glanced from side to side, to make sure no one was watching, and gestured for Bailey to follow her into a back room. Bailey lifted her bag onto her shoulder and disappeared through the door behind the bar, following the dark woman closely. They stopped at a desk in the corner of the storeroom, with one locked drawer.
"You'd make a terrific asset to the team if you came on full-time, Miss," Deirdre complimented while pulling out a small key ring, with a single tiny key dangling from the gleaming metal. She inserted the key into an equally small lock and it dropped to the floor, to Deirdre's dissatisfaction. As she bent to scoop it up, Bailey pulled open the drawer and saw a small purse sitting in the dusty wooden space, with a plastic label stuck on the outside, and on the label, Bailey's name in red lettering.
"I'm still not sure. For whatever reason, none of you guys will tell me anything about the job, other than the employer. If there's no regular salary, then there's no point in me joining, because I can get by selling my catches to you. If there is one, then I need to know how much. If I can make more by working at the Pokémart, then I could just go do that and not have to worry about any of this illegal shit that you guys pull,"
She reached into the drawer and grabbed the small purse, pulling on the zipper and opening it to reveal a stack of bills. After counting it out to make sure that all of her catches were accounted for, she dumped her Poké Balls into the drawer.
"I can't give you any more information than you already have, Bailey, I'm sorry. I need a yes or a no,"
"Then I'll withhold my decision,"
"That's your choice, then. Whenever you have an answer, contact me or any of my co-workers. You know how to find us,"
"Yeah, I know. Even if I didn't it wouldn't be hard. You guys are everywhere. Just gotta know what kind of places you guys hang out at – and who doesn't – and look for the shady guy in the corner with the bright blue contact lenses,"
"I'll see you soon, then," Deirdre said, and Bailey exited the room, waving a hearty "ta-ta" and she dug her fingers through the soft mound of threaded money inside the silk bag. She stuffed it into her purse and left the building. As her steps plodded against the concrete, she heard the tinkling of a bike bell and she turned, narrowly twisting to dodge two children – at least, they looked like children – speeding toward her. One was swatting at the other's backpack and Bailey glared at them, not that they noticed. A small piece of paper fluttered to the sidewalk as they rounded the corner and a gust of wind lifted it, influencing its drift in her direction. As it breezed past, she caught a glimpse of the heading.
Take the Pokémon League Challenge!
The picture of a red Poké Ball was printed below those words, and surrounding it were the many reasons to take part in the trial. Fame, Fortune, Travel to exotic locales, meet new and exciting people, defeat the Elite Four, become a Pokémon Master! These were among the few Bailey had memorized the few times she had seen posters such as these. Her interest in pursuing the challenge had peaked in her early teens, but waned when she realized that the real money was in the not-entirely-legal underworld, selling the uncommon monsters that inhabited the tall grasses and tree limbs for a hefty fee. She was able to live the way she wanted, free. It was only now that she began to realize how little of her freedom she had used.
She shrugged to herself and walked down the windy road, whistling a catchy bluesy rock song she had heard in the bar.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Author Notes: Can you believe that I've had about 95% of this chapter sitting on my hard drive for a couple of months now? If I had known I was so close to getting this done I would have sat down and finished it! Well, I guess I could say I'm back, but I don't want to get your hopes up. Just keep an eye out, I may be updating this very soon. Or, you know, not. I found the Pewter City bit of the game, up until Cerulean, to be a chore…so we'll see how I handle it.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-