Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Sin City ❯ Chapter 9

The rain won't abate; you can hear it pounding on the roof like a fist. I'm inside anyway. I'm in a Pokemart because I need to buy stuff for my journey. The journey I can finally go on. It's very crowded and it looks like I'm in for a long wait. However it's good to not be soaking and freezing simultaneously. Also chairs have been erected in the store for anyone who has a friend nice enough to keep your place in the line while you sit and wait. So Meowth is taking my stance in the queue. He offered to do it, saying he knows what I need better than me anyway. With nothing else for us to do, a guy sitting near me starts to talk.

“So, are you a new trainer? Most of the people coming here are. It's the usual starting point. Everyone wants to come to the great Professor. Oak to get their Pokemon” the guy says.

“No wonder this place is so busy” I answer.

“Professor. Oak is a normal man, who does the same as any Pokemon expert. People seem to expect that if they meet famous people they'll be famous too. How does that work? It's the good old American dream. Some day we'll all be celebrities. Oh, we can't be daunted by such minor considerations as the fact that it never happened to anyone else.”

“You seem cynical.”

“A cynic is a optimist's word for a realist.”

“Yes but what a realist would call a problem, an optimist would call a challenge.”

“This could go on forever” my new friend says laughing.

“Your right. Let's discuss something else. To answer your earlier question I'm about to start training. I need to gather supplies. My Pokemon is with Meowth. He decided to wait in boredom for me.”

“He sounds like a good friend. I haven't encountered one of those in some time.”

“Are you being pessimistic again or is there a genuine reason you have for thinking that way?”

My companion pauses for a few seconds to think. His head tilts slightly to one side and he seems to be considering something important.

“I don't want to put you off before you've had time to form your own opinion” he answers.

“What happened to you might not happen to me. I've wanted this for years. In fact that hardly covers my sentiments. Now I come to carefully consider it my ambition to be a trainer is all that's kept me going for far too long.”

“Ah. I can remember when I thought like that. I never considered the odds. When your young you never do. Consequences don't mean anything to you. That's what youth's all about. Have you ever really considered the statistics? Everyone else is doing the same thing you do. It's one of the most common professions in this country. Everyone has the dream but hardly anyone has the skill. It's a trap. You can only learn by doing it so if you start off with no natural affinity for it you're a walking failure just waiting for your legs give out so your unsuitability is confirmed. You see people who have succeeded but you never see the masses who have tried and fail. It looks easy but one day you realise your not good at it. Your no trainer. I tried but I couldn't beat anyone. I came here to return my stuff. I won't need it anymore. I started at ten and now I'm thirty six and having to start again with nothing. Not even an education. Hope is hell. It lifts you onto a cloud, gives you a brief glimpse of what it's like to rise through the sky towards heaven, then shacks you off so you plummet to the ground. Thump. Well, that hurt. It's a crime sending children out into the adult world to live on their own means at ten. Ten! You can't even look after a pet at that age let alone your self. If you succeed things are no better. You're a Pokemon master in your teens. Great, the last half decade went pretty fast but never mind. So, what do I do with the next fifty years now my life time's work has been finished before your twenty. You lose even if you don't lose. Pokemon training is a savage thing. Where did this spirit of `Let's make our animals beat each other up so we get bragging rights' culture come from anyway? Why would anyone want it? The best advice I can give you is if you want it so bad don't do it. Desire kills your judgement. I'm not a trainer. I never had the capacity. Are you?”

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So we're nearly at the end of Bradley's part in this story. My time is ending. It's ending in Philippa's kitchen. Outside the dark tint of the rain clouds has turned everything else black. I'm in the kitchen now because Philippa said I should get my self a coffee whilst she tries to get through on her `cell phone to Lance. He's in deep cover, locked up in his lonely tower, on his thrown like a king, with the interior walls gold and ivory and, the exterior ones, that face the world, made of black stone. The guards are on it's turrets, waiting to brutally beat anyone who dares to try and meet the great Lance Rodriguez. I stare at a sharp kitchen knife on a counter top and wonder ideally how it would feel if I slit the veins in my wrists with it. How much blood would there be? That wouldn't please my unfriendly friend. My companion, Philippa. The woman with the bulldog's teeth, the vulture's sense of desire, and the crocodile's false smile. Her constant demanding for the power of a gym leader is like a child's greed for chocolate. She disgusts me already, like Adam's stubborn attempts to kill himself for the sake of a few minutes worth of narcotic induced ecstasy. Or the way Giovanni automatically expects people to obey him just because he has more hubris than anyone else he's ever met. I even dislike my self for going on with his plan instead of helping Meowth and Adam to get away from the company's glutinous hands. I'm too scared to say `No' to anyone. Lady Midnight is in the garden, ignoring the weather so she can torture a Pidgey. Preparing to impale the small bird, ready to eat it's flesh like any other cat. A bloody ceremony that hardly seems worthwhile just to chew uncooked meat. I'm sickeningly tired of living in a world based on the principal of survival of the sneakiest. Philippa holds out the phone now, waiting impatiently for me to take it. Her right foot is tapping on the tiled kitchen floor.

“Thanks. My mission to help Giovanni enjoy scaring Meowth to death is nearly complete” I say to her, taking the phone. Then I say hello to Lance.

“Hi. This is Lance, and Lance is busy. Be quick.”

“Trust me I just want this 24 hour long headache to be over with.”

“What do you want?”

“I expect your sick of asking that. Fine. I won't start begging you. Philippa, the junior trainer at Alex Stauton's Pokemon gym. You know her?”

“I've heard of her. So?”

“So she wants to own a gym. I won't give the arguments she expects. You don't have time for pointless endorsements that you hardly believe anyway. Give it to her or not because she's paid her dues and it should be her turn. Do it or not because you think she'd be good at it. Do it or not because you need the services of another worthy trainer.”

“That was very honest. Fair enough. I'll arrange it and call back later. Tell her she's got what she wants and that it's mostly because she has a good man working for her. Now I have things to do. Excuse me.”

I turn to Philippa.

“You've got what you want. Now can we just get on with what I want? I need this nightmare to be over with.”

“I don't see why not. Never I go back on a deal.”

“No, that doesn't appear to be your main fault. Now I need to meet Giovanni. I'm leaving, at long last.”