Chapter 3: A Material Life

With seven bestselling books detailing every aspect of my rise to fame, it's surprising how little information there is out there of my life after leaving Celadon. Accurate information, at least. Most people know about Bernie, of course, and how we first met down in the cells of East Celadon. Yet our lives would not truly intertwine for many months after that initial exchange.

The truth is much simpler than most people imagine. I had nothing left for me in Celadon, other than a trial date set for months ahead. While my crime was violent, I was not considered a danger to public safety. So the day that I was kicked out of the dorms, I took my few meagre possessions and stumbled my way onto the next train to Saffron City.

Saffron City, known as home of the dreamers and the degenerates. As a man with a record under his name, it was both the best place and the worst place to try and seek my fortune. A hail mareep throw, if any.

I showed my ticket stub to the pokémon in charge of checking them, who barely glanced at it before waving me through. It was a freakish looking thing, almost human-like except for its gigantic hands and bright pink clown face. Mr. Mr. Mime, his nametag said. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, evidence of the city's insistence on slowly replacing human jobs with those of psychic pokémon.

My arrival in West Saffron Station was only a few months after Sabrina Miercole took up the mantle of the city's sole gym leader. Its former bearer, a fighting-type fanatic, was thoroughly trounced in their widely-publicised duel of honour. Honour was a very generous way to describe it. There likely wasn't a single person in the entire Indigo continent that hadn't at least heard of the infamous Alakazam sweep.

As I was leaving the station, it dawned on me that Master Koichi, the "disgraced" former gym leader, was well-known for his pro-Kantonian if rather radical beliefs. If there was anyone that could offer me a leg up after the whole fiasco with Rowan, I knew it would be him. With that in mind, I started making my way towards the northwestern part of the city.

Lady Sabrina's rise to infamy as the all-seeing mistress of the mystic arts had catapulted the city's security and the standards for crime-fighting. League-issued arcanines were replaced by hypnos and medichams for use by the Saffron Police Department. What couldn't be detected by cameras was observed with the kinetic powers of psychic pokémon. Even though it had only been months since Koichi was ousted, most of the corruption within the boundaries of Saffron had been effectively purged.

For me, it was simply a matter of greeting the occasional psychic with as much respect as I could muster. They were unnerving, the whole lot of them. Who really understands what goes on behind their dubious facades?

My luggage was down to just a single backpack after selling off what I could. Textbooks were pawned off for a fraction of their value, netting me barely enough to afford the ticket from Celadon to Saffron. This sinking feeling of poverty was not unfamiliar to me, yet I had still enjoyed a more privileged life than this in the halls of Celadon University. Since I didn't own any pokémon myself, I stuck to the main streets on my way to the Fighting Dojo.

Filth of all sorts was stashed away on each corner and crevice. En route to the Fighting Dojo, I received many wary looks from local Saffronians. Any new face, unrecognisable as mine, was marked as either that of prey or predator. It was up to me not to show any weakness to be labelled as the former. The first rule of returning to the streets, I figured, was getting rid of my Celadon attachments.

With a free hand, I removed my Celadon University jacket, noting that the mascot Vileplume looked worse for wear than when I'd bought it. It looked sad, almost wilted, from never being quite washed and taken care of properly. Had I remained a student, I would have felt obligated to at least give it a soak.

Instead, I folded it neatly and tucked it inside of my backpack. The rational choice of just discarding it proved too much of a strain on my sentiments.

"Spare some change, young master?" a man called out, shaking a small tin can. He had long, shaggy and dishevelled white hair, streaked with what appeared to be berry juices from rummaging through the flower shop garbage. His eyes were glossy from years of silver powder abuse, even less life in them than Bernie's. I could even see faint traces of the sparkly substance above his upper lip.

"Get lost," I said. Even as the words were coming out, they sounded soft and squeaky. Academia had softened me, taking the edge out of my voice. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I said get lost." I shoved him backwards, not enough to knock him over but enough to send him stumbling. This was my second mistake.

The man's eyes narrowed, the drug-induced haze retreating ever so slightly at my slight. I could see his hands itching towards something on his belt, perhaps a knife? No matter what it was, this had the potential to escalate into something very bad for me. He was in a crazed state, and I was stupid enough to aggravate him.

"What did you say to me BOY?" he barked. His hand came back up, revealing a very rusty and grimy sphere with the iconic red and white halves. Despite being in terrible shape, it was clear that this was no bluff. He was a pokémon trainer in his own right.

Which meant that I was thoroughly fucked.

"Hold on now," I began to say. My own hands were held up in front of me, in somewhat of a reassuring manner. "Elder, I didn't mean any offence. I just meant that-"

Whatever excuse that I was beginning to prepare died in my throat as the man cocked back his arm and launched the sphere onto the street between us. The pokéball made a crack before rebounding upwards and releasing the creature laying dormant inside. A bright flash of red and white lights illuminated the shades of twilight.

"What you can't see can't hurt you. What you can't see can't hurt you. What you can't…" the old man began twisting around in place, violently, both hands over his eyelids with spittle dribbling out the corners of his lips.

Where there had been nothing before, I was met with some creature of the foulest of mysteries. I knew for sure that in this moment, my life was forfeit. Two cat-like ears, eyes closed to the world, brown shoulder pads and sickly yellow fur covering its body. In front of me floated the creature known as Abra, the psychic-type pokémon. And its owner was insane.

"KILL HIM!" the man roared, his nails digging into his own forehead. A few trickles of blood made their way down to his cheeks. "KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" he screamed over and over again. Abra hovered a few inches above the ground, a faint glow warping the air around it. It raised both paws and turned them in my direction.

That first injury from a pokémon, mythical creatures about which we know so very little, is the one that you never truly forget. For most people, it's from a rattata's bite or the poisonous sting from a weedle. For me, it was the blinding, searing pain of Abra's attack. Like burning coals being poured into my very soul, it ravaged my brain for everything it was worth. In a single instant, I felt the cold touch of death looming over me. Every negative emotion, every bit of pain from the past few days, it all bubbled up in a fell swoop of agony. PAIN. IT SEARED INTO MY SCALP AND COURSED THROUGH MY VEINS.

It took anything and everything and kept on taking. All that remained was the abra in front of me. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle another attack. For centuries, since the dawn of human-pokémon relations, we evolved alongside them to be able to survive in a world of apex predators. Through means of subjugation, we carved our way to the top by capturing and taming these animals. Yet without a partner of my own, any sort of counter strike would never amount to much anything.

So the next best thing was to overwhelm the abra with my superior weight and speed. The Roth Tackle.

I rushed forward like the shot of a cannon, slamming into the psychic pokémon with my shoulder knocking firmly into its face. What wasn't pure adrenaline was supplemented with audacity. Where audacity failed me, I leapt forward with desperation. I knew that I only had one shot at any kind of attack. Keeping the bulk of my body on top of the abra, I pummelled it several times across the face with my two fists. Over and over and over again. I used my right hand to grab onto its head, picking it up and slamming down hard onto the pavement. Just not hard enough, it seemed, judging from the fact that it was still conscious.

A pair of hands grabbed me from behind, restraining my arms and holding me in place. It was the old man, who was freakishly strong for a powder puffer. I could smell his foul breath as he pressed his scratchy bearded cheek against mine, pulling me away from his pokémon.

Abra got back up, glaring angrily at me. I don't know how abras are able to glare, but this one was staring daggers in my direction. Without so much as a word from its trainer, it gathered its palms together and began charging up an attack…

…before a solid thwack from behind knocked it out cold. My saviour was a burly-looking pinkish humanoid pokémon with spikes lined on top and down the back of his head, standing above the fainted abra with the remnants of an attack just now dissipating. Tyrogue, I vaguely recognised.

"Ho-ryung, ready stance," a gruff voice commanded. The tyrogue bent its knees slightly, puffing out a quick breath and positioning itself into a neutral form. The owner of the voice, a middle-aged man with a headband and a white uniform, stood next to him.

The old man had released me at this point, preferring not to deal with the newcomer. He turned around and started running off in the direction of an alleyway, disappearing before I could even figure out what was really going on. Whatever, it wasn't like he would be missed.

"Can you stand?" the man asked me. He sounded less hostile, now that the old man had turned tail and ran.

"Y- yes, sir," I said. Doing as told, I shakily tried to get up from the ground, knees on the verge of giving out. He stepped forward to hoist me up by the armpit, stabilising my footing. "Thank you, uh…"

"Koichi," he said. "I am Koichi, the Indomitable." He straightened his outfit, brushing off some of the grime that had stuck to him from my shabby clothes.

Through sheer luck, I had found the very man I was looking for. Instantly, I felt the weight of my most recent ordeal melt away in place of a different kind of desperation: salvation was in front of me, if I could play my cards right. I bowed my head down in front of him. "Master Koichi! It is an honour!"

Koichi just raised an eyebrow, prompting me to give some kind of explanation. I tried my best to explain my predicament, everything from my time studying under Professor Rowan to the night I spent in Celadon's holding cells. He was an active listener, asking the occasional question to clarify things. In the end, I found myself nearing shambles as I told him about my last ditch effort to find his dojo.

"-any kind of mercy, master. I would be so grateful!" I cleaved my head downwards in an awkward kowtow. The strain of moving was slowly building up, and I could feel the faint trickle of blood running down my nostrils. "Mercy, master."

"Stop." Koichi raised his hand. "You will not lower yourself to begging. No son of Kanto should conduct themself in such a way. Raise your head, child," he said.

"Does that mean…!"

"No. The Fighting Dojo will not accept you," Koichi said, crumbling down any fragile sense of hope that I'd mustered. His broad shoulders seemed cooler, pointed chin sharper than a scyther's blade.

"Master…"

Once more, he raised his hand to silence me. I could see the callouses along his palm, the fruit of many thousand hours of training. This was not a man who enjoyed repeating himself. Well, not that many people enjoyed repeating themselves…

"I understand your predicament. Truly, I sympathise with you. However, you will understand that I'm in no place to be taking on more students," he frowned. Underneath the layers of muscle and toughened skin, I could see the shape of just another tired old man. "Saffron is not mine to protect. It has passed onto the next generation," he gestured towards a building off in the distance.

It was a sleek, striking shade of violet. Silver scaffolding made up most of the framework, while purple metal plates were set into place with meticulous precision. It was hard to believe that any one person could have designed such a building, beautiful chaos embodied within a sea of concrete and steel. On the front, the words Saffron Gym were engraved without a single flaw to be found in the craftwork.

"Ms. Sabrina Miercole has stripped me of most of my influence within this city. I am allowed four students at a time, with their pensions being closely monitored," he continued to explain. "Every day, I must turn away dozens of prospective students, those who have travelled far and wide to learn the way of the Saffron Fist."

"... I see."

"You realise that saffron is a shade of orange, yes?" Koichi asked me. "Orange as is the fiery spirit of the morning sun. My father and his father, each guarded this city with the zealous pride of a fighting master. Our Way of the Fist is as old as Kanto itself, it's how we were able to conquer the region many centuries ago."

"What gives Sabrina any right to take it away from you?" I blurted out. I immediately regretted it, of course, seeing the master's withering gaze in my direction.

"She has every right to challenge me for the role as protector of this city. It is in our tradition to let each generation mark their own way in this world. I fought with all the strength I could muster, yet I lost all the same. Her psychics," he spat, "proved too much for my martial capabilities."

"I refuse to believe that. You've gone toe to toe with the Great Agatha herself!" I cried out.

Koichi grinned at this, recalling a memory from a lifetime ago.

"I did do that, didn't I? Those were the days…"

"You could defeat Sabrina and take back your rightful place master! I know that her alakazam is a devastating opponent, but surely we can devise a way for you to take it down. Master Bruno has managed it before…"

"There will be none of that," the voice was back, unwavering and all-encompassing. He was not to be challenged, nor his authority questioned in any way. "Sabrina has rightfully taken her place as the guardian of Saffron. I am not a craven, to begrudge her for her claim."

"It has been in your family…"

"And so it remains. She may not have taken my name, but my daughter is every bit a Koichi as I am."

Perhaps it would be a cliché to admit this, but the silence that followed the martial man's statement was deafening. Neither a pin drop nor the riptide of an exploud's rampage could have torn my eyes away from his. The Fighting Dojo's Indomitable Master Koichi was Sabrina Miercole's father. The very same Sabrina that had taken everything from him.

Though refusing my admittance to his dojo, Koichi allowed me to stay the night at his apartment as his guest. We travelled a few blocks, noticeably further from the Psychic Gym and more towards the traditional downtown neighbourhood of Saffron. The buildings were newer, less refined by modern technology, instead opting for classical Kantonian structures made of wood.

"We have great pride in our roots, Mr. Roth. As a son of Kanto, you would be wise not to abandon tradition in favour of trends and other tripe. We are built upon the foundations of our ancestors, and we shall join them once we pass the mortal plane."

His apartment, though small, was well-furnished. I was shown to a room by one of the junior students at the dojo, a younger man my age named Seto. He had dark brown curly hair and the wisps of a beard, glasses, and a light grey uniform that he called a gi. According to him, all of the students took rotations attending to their master, preparing his meals and managing his household. This was a great honour back in the heyday of the Saffron Gym, when there were dozens of pupils eager to take up the mantle of steward.

Instead, it was just the four of them barely scraping by with the scraps thrown to them by the city. When they weren't actively working for Koichi, the students would pull odd jobs in order to sustain the dojo.

"Would I be able to find some work?" I asked Seto, while the two of us did the dishes. Dinner was a simple affair of rice balls and fried magikarp, which I offered to help clean up. "I'm Celadon-educated, even if I don't have a diploma."

Seto paused for a second, pondering an answer before shaking his head. "I don't really know, Rothu-san. Years ago, perhaps, you would find work with a tradesmaster. This was before Mistress Sabrina staged her coup and betrayed her father. Now…" His face darkened. "Everything is done by psychic pokémon or machines. Mistress Sabrina lends out her own rentals for the city to hire by the month. As for machines…"

He pointed a soap-covered finger in the direction of a construction site in the distance. It was just a heap of steel beams and tarp, barely a foundation at that point.

"That is Silph. Silph owns half the factories from Celadon to Lavender. They have machines, ones that I've never seen the likes of before. They're creating everything from medicine to fishing rods, buying up whatever they can and shutting down the family businesses."

"I'm guessing that's tough for you. Still, isn't it better to have all this stuff now?" I asked.

Seto shook his head. "Master Koichi always told me: we come into this world with nothing. We must want for nothing, for we shall leave with nothing. This is the Way of the Warrior. This is the path to true enlightenment, Rothu-san."

I'm sorry, but that's the stupidest thing I've heard all day, I thought to myself. It was noble, poetic even. I admired the master and his teachings. However, they did not know what it was like to scrounge for a living like I had. They had little, but I had grown up with even less. They sought to live a life without the material, yet their own material had been given to them. I knew in my heart that the life of a martialist was not one I would enjoy. Perhaps this was the reason that Koichi had rejected me, truly.

Still, the beginnings of what would become Silph Tower loomed grandly in the distance. It had a glint about it, almost beckoning towards me. I knew that I had no chance in hell to be accepted as part of this prestigious organisation. Even if I had actually graduated from Celadon, not expelled, I would've been hard-pressed to find an opening. Everyone knew that Silph only hired from Goldenrod or Saffron, those schools that formed the Ivysaur League.

Yet in that moment, scrubbing porcelain plates in the shabby home of Master Koichi, the makings of a plan began to dawn on me. In this city of hundreds of thousands of souls, one more could not possibly hurt. If I were able to somehow enter Silph, I would walk away with a treasure trove of experiences and connections that only a conglomerate of that size could provide.

Me, Roth, a dropout with a criminal record, just needed to find a way to fool Silph's extensive background check. As I fumbled with an object in my pocket, I thought hard about what I needed to do to reach my most immediate goals.

After all, what mischief could I possibly get into with just a headful of ambitions and a stolen abra?

A/N: Thanks for reading another chapter of Mergers & Acquisitions. We get to see a little more of the Kanto of my creation. Sabrina Miercole is Master Koichi's only daughter, who defeated her dad in a title match for gym leader of Saffron. Roth is devising his plan. Stay tuned for next time, as we discover what lies ahead for our dear protagonist.