Saffron City was loud, dirty and smelled like a piss-soaked ashtray. The gleaming glass towers beside rusted, skeletal tenements stretched up from the sprawling, flat central Kanto landscape like broken teeth. It was the largest city in the country by orders of magnitude, and carried with it its own brusque attitude not seen in the more pastoral parts of the region. This volatile energy, both intoxicating and terrifying, was what Looker thrived on.
Walking down 7th Avenue with Bad Cop at his side, Looker was met with a panorama of decay and desperation. From the gleaming neon signs of Sunset Square to the festering crackhouses of the North End, there was no place in the world Looker would rather be.
He and Bad Cop stopped at a crosswalk as the Don't Walk sign flashed, and a hot blast of air blew down 44th. Trash, cigarette butts and road sand kicked up and peppered the outside of Looker's long, brown coat. The Machoke took in a deep breath and muscled his way through the crowd gathered on the corner, with Looker following in his wake.
A few blocks from where they stood, the sea of skyscrapers loomed over and surrounded a much shorter, but much wider building, not unlike a demure woman on a couch surrounded by burly, nude men. From this distance, the detective and his partner could hear the din of celebration within.
The Giacomo D. Maestri Convention Center was a recent construction, having opened its doors only three years prior. The center was the home of Saffron's football club as well as the seat of the city government, after the destruction of City Hall during the Troubles. But nobody ever went to the convention center for soccer and nobody cared who was on the City Council.
The massive digital marquee above the convention center's southeast entrance flashed bright with a woman's face. Her raven black hair fell in strawlike cascades next to her milky white eyes, hidden behind horn-rimmed Black Glasses. Her toned shoulders were tantalizingly exposed between the strap of a red gown and black lace gloves that reached to her thick biceps.
The photo hadn't changed since the building opened.
"You hungry, BC? I'm a bit peckish meself," Looker mused to his Pokémon, who barked tersely in the affirmative. The Walk sign flashed and Looker and Bad Cop stepped into the street, just as a taxi blew through the red light mere inches in front of the two.
Unphased, they continued on. Looker checked his watch. 2:30pm. They had about a half an hour.
The hot sun bearing down from overhead, Looker and Bad Cop approached the ticket counter, and in a deft motion, the Pokémon lifted the ropes dictating where people were to line up for entry. Without missing a beat, Looker dipped his tall, lanky form beneath the rope and walked past a line of people giving him the stink eye.
"Sir! Sir!" a pimple-faced teenager in a hideous striped shirt called after him.
Looker flashed his badge without so much as looking at the teenager, and walked through the revolving door into the convention center. The temperature difference was an easy 30 degrees Fuji - its icy touch rippled across Bad Cop's exposed skin.
It was much louder in the center than outside, which was a feat in itself in a city known commonly as "The City That Won't Shut the Fuck Up."
Stopping to grab a hot dog from concessions, Looker noted how many kids were around.
What kind of fucked up parent do you have to be to let a child see this... Looker thought to himself. Animals. All of 'em.
By the time the two arrived in an empty section of the highest seating balcony, activity began to stir on the clay pitch down below.
3:00pm. The moment the time ticked over, the shrieking report of a hot microphone filled the stadium.
"Saffron City, how are you doing today!" the emcee roared, his booming, made-for-radio voice swiftly drowned by the elated shrieks of 40,000 revelers. "That's what I'm talking about!"
The boiling lights of the stadium dimmed as a dozen spotlights homed in on an antlike figure, positioned in the end zone at one end of the pitch. Like a wave, the hundreds of television screens smattered across the walls changed to show the face of a very young girl, hidden beneath the brim of a white hat. A belt wrapped loosely around her red skirt, with two miniaturized Poké Balls clipped to it.
Fuck's sake, Looker thought as he idly shook his head. She's gonna kill that little girl.