The night may well have been underway, but the inhabitants of Ayers Island seemed not to care; if anything, the streets were jammed full of even more people than they had during the daytime. For tonight, it seemed that sleep was impossible; the entire western coast was lit up like the constellations that mirrored them in the starry sky above. Neon signs and flashing strobes bombarded the eyes from every angle, and the steady, relentless rhythm of the bass beat coursed through the bodies of every person it touched, sending inhibitions packing as crowd upon crowd of people fell victim to its infectiousness and began to dance.
In the midst of the parties upon parties upon parties, Gin carved a path out between the bystanders, the drinkers and the dancers, slipping smoothly between them and stopping occasionally, with a turn of the head, to make sure his young companions were still keeping up. Leoric was the closer of the two, maintaining a steady distance a few paces back, and he, too, spun around to check where Ash was.
For a few seconds, he was invisible to them, nowhere to be found amongst the bright lights and bouncing moshes. The pair exchanged an anxious glance; from what Ash had told them before leaving, he'd gotten quite lost during the day, and trying to find your way during a time like this would be exponentially harder.
Mercifully, though, a hat with a Poké Ball design came gently bobbing into view, followed moments later by a slightly red-faced Ash, as he managed to extricate himself from the middle of a small dancing circle. Almost tripping over some feet that were carelessly in the way, he caught up to Leoric, poking his tongue out as the latter shook his head.
"If you two are done resting…!" said Gin, raising his voice in order to be heard above the din around them. "It's just up ahead."
"What?" yelled Ash, but Gin ignored him and continued on his way. "Hey—wait up!" he implored, stumbling after him as he tried to stay hot on the man's heels.
"That Ash sure is eager to get his party face on," remarked Leoric, before realising he was about to be the one left lagging behind. "Oi!"
After another few minutes of ducking and weaving in and around strangers and seemingly randomly-placed tables and benches, the group came to a stop in front of a decrepit-looking stretch of wall. Years ago, perhaps, it had been painted a pristine shade of white, but the passage of time and a large amount of graffiti had left it looking as though it had seen much better days. Leoric pulled a cell phone out from his jacket's front pocket and flipped it open, excusing himself with a gesture as he held it up to his ear, to which Gin nodded and folded his arms, tapping his foot impatiently against the ground.
Ash, on the other hand, was thoroughly confused. "Hey, Gin…" he said slowly, looking up at his roommate, "what are we stopping here for? There's—there's nothing here! Where's this party you… were talking about earlier, huh?"
"Hey, calm down," Gin barked, and Ash took a half-step backwards, a little frightened by the sharpness of his voice. "The party's actually right—here," he said cryptically, thumping a hand against the wall. When Ash gave him a look often given to the mentally insecure, he elaborated, "What, you think all the best parties are put in plain sight? If they were, anybody could try and trick their way inside."
"I… I suppose not," Ash admitted, stroking his chin with a thumb. "But how do we get inside? Some kind of magic password?" he ventured.
Gin's mouth split open into a wide grin. "Exactly," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, and he drifted over to stand in front of a stylised number nine that had been spray-painted onto the wall, perfectly camouflaged amongst a backdrop of countless other graffiti marks. As Leoric hung up his phone and sauntered hands-in-pockets towards them, Gin stamped his foot against the solid ground six times in some sort of rhythm, leaving his friends to stare at the ground blankly, wondering what he had tried to accomplish.
A moment later, however, their jaws fell open in plain shock as a large slab of concrete next to Gin's feet slid away, disappearing under the graffiti wall to reveal a staircase leading underground. The passage itself was short; it was barely twenty steps down, and finished at a steel door illuminated by a lone light bulb which faultily flickered on and off as it hung from an overhead cable. Ash and Leoric stared down into the narrow path with unease, but a hand clapped each of them across the shoulders, Gin suddenly behind them and still smiling broadly.
"Open sesame," he murmured, laughing heartily.
"That… was awesome!" yelled Ash, thudding his feet against the ground in imitation.
Gin threw his arms around the two boys' shoulders, pointing towards the door at the bottom of the staircase. "That, my boy," he said, "is the site of the best party this island has to offer. Well—" he held back a snicker, "—at least until one of us wins the Championship, am I right?"
"Heck yeah!" roared Leoric, throwing an arm skyward.
"You bet!" chorused Ash.
"Of course!" shouted a voice that belonged to neither Ash nor Leoric, and the trio whirled around to see someone leaning against the faded wall not too far away from them. Ash squinted to see who the new arrival was, the muted lighting not giving him the best assistance; from his position, it was another teenage boy, much like himself and Leoric, although he put this one between the two of them height-wise. His hair was the same shade of brown as Leoric's, but without the hint of blonde towards the front, and he seemed to be wearing formal clothes, much like Gin, although it was clear that he had ditched a suit in favour of a mauve-coloured collared shirt and black jeans.
Ash opened his mouth to ask who the boy was, but he suddenly felt Gin's weight pushing down on him; Leoric had ducked out from the latter's other arm and sprinted over to greet the former first. Trying their best not to fall over, Gin and Ash sprang back up and stood apart, looking on as Leoric and the stranger exchanged what began as a handshake and ended as a hug.
Laughing raucously, the two boys strode over to join them, and the stranger raised a hand in greeting. "Ash, Gin, this is one of my old friends, Ari," Leoric told them, making the introductions. "Ari, this is Ash—" Ash grinned and nodded, "and Gin. They're my roommates for the tournament."
"Awesome," said Ari, also grinning, as he shook Ash's and Gin's hands in turn. "Pleasure to meet you both."
"Yeah, nice to meet you, too, Arty," grunted Gin. Ari made to correct him, but closed his mouth and shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets somewhat awkwardly. "So, now that we're all here, and there aren't any other friends for Leoric to invite—?" he cast his gaze over to Leoric, who gave him an overly enthusiastic double thumbs-up, "then I think we should head inside, don't you agree?"
"Hey, hey, let's give it up for the partyin'est party in all the Orange Archipel-el-el-ago!" cheered the DJ, her hands swiftly sending vinyl discs flying in all directions as she manned the turntables. A gaggle of young women nearby threw their arms up and screamed loudly in joy, and several well-dressed men raised their glasses and sent a chorus of wolf-whistles and catcalls her way. "Thanks, right back at'cha, boys! Don't forget to tip the waitresses!" she added with a giggle. "Okay, comin' up next on our playin'est playlist is a smooth track from—"
"What'd I tell you kids, huh?" chuckled Gin, spreading his arms wide. "I'm betting it's not the worst place you've ever seen."
For the second time in a few minutes, Ash felt his mouth drop wide open. The building he'd just stepped into was a world away from the grimy alleyway from which they'd come; he may as well have just passed through a portal into another dimension.
Large beams of white marble surrounded a kind of open courtyard built around a beautiful fountain, adorned with dozens of statues made in the image of all sorts of Pokémon; just from where he was standing, he could make out a Rhydon, a Manectric, and several other Pokémon he'd never even seen before. At each of the four corners of the fountain as a stone carving of an Exploud, shooting water from the various pipes on its body, their lifeless eyes staring at the fountain's centrepiece.
The centrepiece itself was breathtaking; a flawless statue of the legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh, its wings curving majestically upwards and its beak wide open, talons gripping a huge stone Poké Ball. Its fierce eyes were cast looking straight up, and Ash followed its gaze upwards to find that it was looking at the stars themselves; the centre of the roof was a vast skylight. Gasping at the sight, Ash's attention was quickly brought back down to earth by a bystander accidentally bumping past him, and he focused on his surroundings once more.
Normally, the sound of the water crashing down into the fountain would have been akin to the Pokémon's normal cries, but tonight it was well subdued by hundreds of people of all shapes and sizes, dressed with a similar degree of variety, who had milled around the fountain. Despite being the architectural centre of attention, though, not everyone was gathered around the enormous water feature; a small dance floor had been set up across from it, and a large drinks bar to his left was crowded with men and women craving something to quench their thirst.
"Gin, you magnificent bastard!" called out a voice above them, and the foursome craned their necks upwards. Leaning upon a railing on the floor above them was a tall man dressed in a luxurious black suit, a long white overcoat draped around his shoulders, and his face hidden by the shadow cast from a white fedora hat.
"Iato!" cried Gin, waving up to the man. "You're one to talk of magnificent bastardry; look at your outfit!" he added with a cackle.
The man called Iato laughed. "I see you've brought some friends!" he added, and, although they couldn't see, his eyes pored over the youngsters, doing a quick double-take when he spotted Ash. "And the young Ketchum-boy amongst them, no less!"
The phrase trigged a memory in Ash's subconscious, and he clapped his hands together, earning him the confused looks of the other three on the ground floor. "Hey, I know you!" he shouted, pointing up at Iato. "You're that guy from earlier today, aren't you?"
"My, aren't you the fastidious little crumpet?" sighed Iato, resting his head against his hand. "But I guess you and I were bound to cross paths again sooner or later. How fortunate that it's almost immediately—"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down there a moment!" Gin interrupted loudly, looking between the two.
"I think we should go mingle with the other guests," Leoric muttered to Ari, who nodded hastily, and the pair slinked quietly away and disappeared into the crowd. Not that they needed to be stealthy; Gin's attention was focused on Iato, and Ash's was on the former.
"You know this kid?" Gin asked, gesturing towards Ash, who looked the slightest bit offended at being referred to as 'this kid'.
"Of course," replied Iato calmly, clasping his hands together over the railing. "We had a chance encounter this afternoon in a deserted alleyway, you know, just bumping into each other and all. It was really quite amusing."
"Yeah, I… kinda ran into his Gigalith and fell on my butt," Ash said, with a nervously quiet chuckle. "Just… boop—" he limply turned his hand palm-side up, "—fell over."
"I… see," Gin muttered, trying not to raise an eyebrow. "Well, Ash, Iato is the business associate I was telling you and Leoric about back at the hotel. This is his party."
Ash let out a low whistle at the news; he was impressed. Iato waved it off dismissively, retreating from the railing and disappearing from view for a few moments, only to burst through a set of glass double doors on the ground floor to join them in person.
"It's not much," he said humbly, but Gin could tell that he was enjoying Ash's praise.
In the much better lighting, Ash could finally get a good look of the man's face; a pair of narrow, steel-grey eyes, a sharp nose, an equally sharp jaw covered in a thin layer of stubble, and what hair wasn't covered by his hat had been cut similarly shot, a few black waves just poking out from under the brim. To Ash, he didn't look like the average businessman he was used to seeing; instead, he looked much more wealthy and sophisticated, like the globetrotting playboys one might see in soap operas.
"So what sort of business do you do?" he asked loudly, despite the crabby look that Gin threw his way.
Iato seemed just as taken aback by the question as Gin, opening and then closing his mouth before letting out a polite laugh. "It's… well, at the most basic level, I run a series of wholesale merchant operations."
"Wholesale merchant?" mimicked Ash hollowly.
"Consider me the middle-man between the manufacturers and the stores who sell to the public," Iato explained. "I buy goods – Poké Balls, rice, and so on – straight from the people who produce them, and then sell them to other people, like supermarkets, for a profit. I actually provide Ayers Island with most of its liquor and Pokémon medicine," he added, gesturing towards the bar and then to the six Poké Balls attached to the inside of his overcoat.
"Speaking of liquor," Gin piped up, smacking his lips, "I'm in need of a drink myself. To the bar, away!" he boomed, throwing his hands in the air as he strode over to the bar, shouting, "drinks are on me, everybody!" to a chorus of loud cheers from his new barfly friends.
Iato giggled and shook his head at the display, but Ash got momentarily distracted by a pair of scantily-clad women who walked past and winked at him. Grinning stupidly and feeling his face grow red as a tomato, Ash waved back, but suddenly felt an unpleasant ache in his gut, clutching it and doubling over a little. "Ooh… I think I might need a drink too," he groaned, rubbing his stomach.
Just as he raised a hand to excuse himself, a burly black-skinned man in a dark suit appeared out of nowhere, sidling up to Iato and whispering into his ear, covering his mouth with a wide hand. Iato nodded through the words, his eyes suddenly widening as he turned to mutter something in return, and the man nodded as well. "I'm sorry, Ketchum-boy," said Iato solemnly, as the black man marched away and vanished, "but it seems I have a phone call waiting. I do hope you enjoy the rest of your time here; hopefully we can catch up for another chat later in time."
"Oh… yeah, definitely," stammered Ash. "Nice meeting you—properly," he added with a laugh, which Iato returned half-heartedly before swiftly departing.
With nothing else to do, Ash gingerly made his way across the courtyard, feeling more hot flashes of discomfort in his stomach. Giving his midsection a soft thump with his fist, he looked around to try and locate Leoric and his friend Ari. He spotted Leoric first, waving jovially at him from the dance floor on the other side of the building, before resuming his dance with the slender, purple-haired girl who was twirling in front of him. Ari was nowhere to be found, but he put that down to barely meeting him earlier on, and probably seeing him but not recognising him.
Returning the wave to Leoric in kind, albeit too late for the latter to notice, Ash stumbled over to the bar and slumped over it, his head bowed and eyes screwed shut as another wave of pain blew through his stomach, this time rising up to his chest. "Excuse me!" he shouted, waving an arm to get the bartender's attention.
Eventually, one of the three staff on duty came over, a sullen-looking man with a fluorescent green fauxhawk. "What can I do you for, stranger?" he asked in a melancholy tone, already pulling a crystal glass from underneath the counter.
"Yeah, uh…" he said, feeling his head prickle. "You got anything for a stomach-ache… or a headache, while I'm thinking about it?" he asked, rubbing his temple.
The bartender snorted. "Yeah, sure, I got just what you need, buddy," he said dryly, turning his back and snatching at several bottles stacked on wooden shelves. Tossing a sip of each into the glass, he handed it to Ash, telling him, "you're not gonna like it, but it's gonna wipe out those aches and pains."
"Thanks!" shouted Ash, scooping up the glass and taking a whiff. A powerful smell shot up his nostrils, and he felt them burn before turning his head away and coughing sickly; whatever was in the glass, it was bound to do something.
"Oh, and a little advice," the bartender added, tapping a fingernail against the side of his glass. "You're gonna wanna down that in one go."
"Well, here goes," Ash sighed, tipping his head back and draining the glass in a single gulp. Almost at once, his throat felt like it had been set ablaze, and his eyes shot wide open as the vapour from the drink flew both ways, blasting into his stomach and shooting out his nose. He spluttered and gagged on the drink for so long that he thought he might cough up a lung, but after thumping his chest and receiving a few smacks across the back from the bartender, he eventually managed to calm down and, teary-eyed, turned back to the bar to set his glass down.
"Imagine doing that for five or six bites of the cherry, huh?" said the bartender snidely, scratching behind his ear with his middle finger.
"Ugh!" grunted Ash, blowing a raspberry to try and dispel some of the horrible taste; it was like he'd just taken a swig out of a can of paint thinner. "That's the most disgusting drink I've ever had!" he snarled, violently standing up from his chair. "What the heck was in that?"
"Sunshine and rainbows," the bartender replied mockingly. "What do you think was in it? This is a bar, we serve people alcohol, and you wanted something to drink." His tone may as well have suggested that Ash was a particularly slow learner.
"Alcohol?" Ash repeated loudly, attracting the attention of the bar's nearest patrons.
"Relax, dude," said the bartender hurriedly, snapping his fingers. The other bartenders picked up on the signal, quickly pouring new drinks for the people whose Ash's little scene had distracted, and they soon turned back to the bar. "Okay, look—" he gestured with his hands for Ash to calm down, "sure, that drink I gave you probably tasted like crap, but I bet the rest of you feels fine, right?"
Ash looked at the man incredulously, curling his hand into a fist, but his words hit home; to tell the truth, he hadn't given a second thought to his debilitating stomach-ache, and now that he thought about it, he actually couldn't feel any discomfort at all anymore. "Hey, you're right! I feel fine!" he exclaimed. Giving the bartender a thumbs-up, which the latter acknowledged with an upward tilt of the head, Ash trudged away, slowly heading for the dance floor to relocate Leoric.
Before he even made it to the dance floor, though, his headache returned even stronger than before, a deep, jarring pain that felt like a knife was splitting his skull in two. Clasping his head in his hands, Ash stumbled clumsily between bystanders, the ground beneath his feet beginning to blur. Looking wildly around, he saw several people looking at him with disdain, but he couldn't make out their faces because of the overwhelming brightness of the flashing lights.
"Whatthe…?" he gasped, his words slurring together, and he threw out a hand to steady himself against the wall as the world seemed to lurch violently to one side. Tossing up between finding a place to sit down and continuing his search for Leoric, Ash was quickly forced to decide on taking a seat as he felt himself growing light-headed, the unpleasant heat in his stomach also returning and trying to force its way up his oesophagus.
Without a bench or chair nearby, Ash made do by crouching down next to an out-of-the-way stairwell, planting a hand against the ground to keep himself from falling forwards onto his face. 'What… what the heck is wrong with me?' he wondered, waving his free hand in front of his face; his eyes could barely keep up with it. Another wave of light-headedness came, and he screwed his eyes shut until it passed, which felt to him like a very long time.
"Oh, man…" he wheezed, his cheeks swelling up, and he suddenly realised, all at once, that he was drunk.
He could hear several people behind him groaning with displeasure, and several more shouting something indignant, but whatever they were saying was beyond him at that point. Wiping his mouth clean, Ash tried to take a step to the side to avoid landing into the mess, but only succeeded in falling onto his ribs. Before blacking out, the last thing that came into Ash's blurred and fading vision was someone with purple hair walking towards him and folding their arms crossly.
"P… Paul…?" Ash whispered, before his eyes slid shut.
Hooray, WPC Week has gone past the halfway point! Unfortunately, that means we've only got a few more daily deliveries to go... Awww, I has a sad. Do you has a sad? I hope not, because there are still three chapters left in WPC Week, and this one hopefully wasn't bad enough to be has-sad-inducing. (I'm gonna stop saying that now, so.)
A review is your one-stop shop for any decisions, desires, detriments, or delirium you may have encountered when reading the chapter! So, as they say in New York, what's-a matter with you, huh? Send a review or I'll chop-a you! Or you'll have to deal with Billy, who's now head of internet security (a.k.a InSecurity) at [insert your current location here].
Cheers to the people who have avoided Billy thus far by sending in reviews for the previous chapters, and those that will continue to do so in the updates to come! Remember, your review can be anything from a simple comment, to a detailed analysis; just let me know you care, haha.
Chapter 5, "Overhang Zealot Melodies", will feature the official start of the titular - stop laughing, you immature people, you - tournament, in the form of the opening ceremony. Nothing spoilerific about telling you that, which is probably why I'm telling you that... and only that. What could I possibly mean by that, you might wonder? Well, read the chapter when it's released tomorrow, and discover the hideously deformed truth!
So, until next time... Be sure to review and, as always,
Fight for your right to par-tay!