Author's Note:
Disclair: So depiction of gore ahead. It shouldn't be anything too eggregious I think, but I understand that so people are really sensitive towards stuff like this. So please be warned.
***
The place that Johnny directed Nina to was an illegal fight club. Located on the north-eastern side of the city, It was only a few blocks away from the nightclub that Charlie used to work at.
“I wonder why the city doesn’t just clean this place up already?” Nina mused.
“A few reasons; naly stubborn residents and a complete lack of priority,” said the voice in her head.
“This part of the city used to be an industrial area, but since Vermilion City has largely moved away from that sector, many businesses have shuddered accordingly. The lack of contribution towards the logistics sector ant developnt was slow. And thanks to how entrenched the local gangs are, any independent entrepreneurs who try to take root here are t with harassnt and constant threats of violence.” Alfred explained.
Nina shook her head in exasperation, especially towards the second half. Gentrification was a nuanced topic, poorly done and it would lead to displacent of residents, but an irrational fear of it only resulted in stagnation. One couldn’t hope for economic revival without an outside source of money. And no amount of subsidies and donations would help if most of it was going towards fuelling local criminals.
The two girls continued walking, Nina wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with this area since she road through it while searching for her friend last ti, but she mostly stuck to the main street. This ti, she had to delve deeper into the bowels of this unsavory neighborhood, and that ant going through dingy alleyways slling of sewage, chemicals, and strangely, oil and spices from nearby kitchens.
The occasional drunkards, druggos and back alley Pokemon could be seen along the way. The forr two mostly passed out in a heap most of the ti, thankfully. Dealing with a persistent beggar this early on would force them to show their hand and wouldn’t be ideal.
As the duo continued walking on, they found their previously dim and gloomy path lit by a feverish neon glow. The eerily derelict alleyways gave way to a cacophony of muffled music and indistinct chatter.
The place that Nina and Lilian were looking for was a gastructure that looked to be a strange fusion of five to six different buildings. There was an uncanny organic feel to it, the way that the haphazard patchwork of constructions conjoined each of the main buildings, to the point where it was no longer possible to tell which was the original structure and which were bits that were just tacked on.
It reminded Nina of a diagram of a leaf's internal structure that she saw long ago. It was a wonder how such a place hadn’t completely toppled over yet with how rickety and precarious the whole thing looked.
“This place used to be a hotbed for illegal migrants to the region and any asylum seekers displaced by the war. Years of unregulated construction work has led to its current state. Quite a marvelous piece of architecture, don’t you think?”
Nina nodded her head in agreent with Alfred, not that the man could see her. Though he could probably tell through the bobbing of Nina’s visual feed.
Lilian on the other hand, tensed up at the sight of the various scantily clad n and won propositioning sleazy looking passerbys, and a number of shops containing unhealthy looking Pokemon in cages, as well as what appeared to be body parts and internal organs preserved in jars, or dried and hung up on display, most likely being sold for ‘dicinal’ purposes. Even Nina struggled to hold back her bile at the macabre sight.
Nina looped her arm around Lilian’s to keep both of them steady and reminded her of their purpose. The sheltered girl hissed angrily. “What are the police doing?! How could they allow such heinous atrocities to exist?”
However, Nina simply rubbed Lilian’s arm in assurance, trying her best to direct their path and keep the girl moving to avoid suspicion. She had a good idea as to the answer to Lilian’s question, if this was anything like her old world. An answer that Alfred soon provided.
“Because the City is well aware that for a tropolis as prosperous as theirs, such unsavory activities are unavoidable, milady. Cracking down on them will simply result in these dark deeds going further underground or scattering throughout the whole city, making it all the more harder to manage. Therefore, the most efficient solution was containnt — to contain everything in one centralized location and use their inherently poor reputation to ward off any visitors.”
This was the reason that slums and red light districts existed. Disparities in inco was an inevitability in human society, and desperate people were prone to desperate ans of survival. So rather than allow these people to disrupt the peace, better to just corral them into one big pen and monitor them from a distance.
Not to ntion that people of influence and power were always in need of fodder to handle whatever dark dealings they may have. The fact that such a place existed at all in this fantastical world of Pokemon was sowhat of a disappointnt, but Nina had already been disillusioned since Team Rocket first attacked her.
Back when Miles was first transmigrated, Nina held such an innocent view of this Pokemon world, believing that everything was all rainbows and flowers — a utopia where suffering and poverty did not exist. But she had since taken on a more nuanced view. After all, if the world was perfect, how could an organisation like Team Rocket exist? There had to be more than just malice and ambition that drove a person to cri. Most criminals were equally victims of their own circumstances.
Nina agreed with Alfred, but opted to remain silent and casually glanced around to find the place that they were looking for. Johnny wasn’t too specific in his directions, only gave her a general description and told her to look for a particular mark that led into an alleyway, where there would be a non discrete tal door marked with the sa graffiti.
After a few more minutes of walking while ignoring all the touts that approached them to promote various shady services and wares, Nina found the mark and dragged her companion into the designated alleyway. Eventually coming across the tal door they were looking for.
Nina rapped on the door in a rhythmic pattern, and a slot slid open with a loud clunk, revealing a set of angry looking eyes looking down on the two children.
“Password?” said a masculine sounding voice lurking behind the door.
“Professor Oak’s fucking your mom and he even got Mr Mi to join in this ti.”
The tal slot slid closed and there was a bit of noise before the door opened to reveal the hulking figure of a man. “Beat it, kid. This ain’t no playground,” said the gruff bouncer. But Nina was undeterred.
“Aww~ Co on, my babe and I heard there’s so fun stuff to see down there. We have money to spend. Pleaseeee~” Nina waved a 50 Pokedollar bill in front of the bouncer, which he just grabbed from the girl unceremoniously before slamming the door in her face.
“Motherfu—” Nina was fuming. She had half a mind to release Nairy and break the door down right this instant. “Calm down, Nina… Calm down… It’s not worth it.”
“So what now? l…issa?” ‘Luther’ asked.
‘lissa’ sighed and dragged her ‘boyfriend’ with her to a secluded nook in the alleyway. “Mr Alfred, is there another way in?” She whispered. “A backdoor maybe?”
“There are no schematics for the building, given its nature,” responded the voice in her head. “Otherwise, I can have my Gallade teleport you and milady in.”
Nina humd in consideration and released Espy, who did not look pleased at all to be summoned in such a foul environnt. The girl knelt down to give her Pokemon an apologetic nuzzle. “Sorry, Espy. Do you think if you can maybe use your mind’s eye and see into this building behind us? We need a way into the basent.”
Espy huffed indignantly but still closed her eyes for an attempt, gradually furrowing her brows in exertion as she did. A series of noisy images invaded Nina’s mind as Espy linked her in. Most of it was too muddled and dark to see anything, but there was one particular image, supposedly in a far corner of the club, of a crummy, nauseating looking bathroom stall that looked like soone just had so very explosive diarrhea, from the front and the back by the looks of it.
Both Nina and Espy gagged at the sa ti, but it seed like they found themselves an in, albeit a less than ideal one. A series of stringent ideas and admonishnts washed over Nina, eliciting chuckles from the girl. “I know, Espy, I’ll make sure to clean up before I go ho tonight.” Matter of fact, she vowed to burn the clothes she was wearing for this particular endeavour.
Espy nodded in approval before begging to be returned to her Pokeball.
“The whole building is shielded,” said Nina “Espy could barely see inside, but she did find a small corner that was relatively unprotected. Do you think your Gallade can thread the needle?” The girl asked their overseer, before relaying in detail the image that she saw.
“Hmm… It is hard to say,” responded Alfred. “I shall send Gallade over with his Pokeball for a closer look. Given the nature of the place, I would feel more assured if you were in possession of him. Please leave the vicinity of the building and try to get as close to this blindspot as you can.”
Nina replied in affirmation and left the alleyway hand in hand with Lilian. The unshielded bathroom stall was sowhere near the front, which made things a little complicated given how visible they were. But fortunately, there was a rundown looking love motel in the vicinity where they were able to rent a room in, the listless looking receptionist barely batting an eye at the two minors before him.
The first thing that Nina did when she entered the room was to have Espy check for hidden caras, a move that confused the sheltered Lilian until they produced several spy cams hidden in various nooks and crannies. The ones in the wall, Espy crushed with her Psychic ability.
“Alright, Mr Alfred, we’re ready for you.” And with a dull flash, a noble looking Gallade erged in the room, eliciting a subdued squeal from Nina as she approached and caressed the Pokemon’s sharp blades, until a cough from Lilian brought her back to her senses.
“Sorry,” Nina murmured, before allowing Gallade into her mind. “Do you think you can make that jump?” She asked, eliciting a cautious reply in her mind. Nina nodded and relayed Gallade’s intentions to Lilian. “He says he’s gonna attempt a solo teleport before coming back to get us.” And with another dull flash, Gallade disappeared from the room.
Both Nina and Lilian waited anxiously for the Fighting Psychic Type’s return. At so point they even began to worry if sothing had happened to him after a whole ten minutes of absence. But just when Nina was about to pester Alfred again for his take on the matter, an exhausted looking Gallade reappeared with another dull flash.
Nina wanted to ask Gallade what happened to him, but just got an unprompted wave of irritation in response. Nina comforted the incensed Pokemon with a gentle pat on the back and so berries as a reward.
Once Gallade had recovered enough to proceed, he gave Lilian a courteous bow and reached his hand out for hers, before grabbing Nina’s and proceeded to do a series of convoluted teleports. Both girls could barely keep track of their surroundings amidst the dizzying array of sights that flashed before them, but Nina could have sworn they were in the middle of the air and in the sewers at so point.
Once things settled, Nina felt like soone had ran her stomach through a blender as she gagged and belched in spite of herself. Lilian on the other hand, actually threw up, not from the teleport, but from the sudden noxious sll of the bathroom stall that assaulted her all in one go. A fact that was made worse after she caught sight of the contents of the toilet bowl she was facing, causing her to throw up even harder.
Credit to Gallade, he took the initiative to shield Lilian’s senses and sooth his mistress with his Psychic ability before hurriedly urging Nina to open the door and exit the space, which the other girl was more than happy to do. Luckily there wasn’t anyone else in the seedy bathroom at the ti.
Nina gently soothed Lilian with gentle backrubs as her friend cleaned herself in the sink. Once the Blackthorn scion recomposed herself, she muttered a quiet apology to her two companions before thanking Gallade and returning him to his Pokeball.
“Forgive my mont of weakness.” Lilian said once more, as she straightened her back and hooked an arm around Nina’s. “Let us venture forth.” She declared, eliciting a genial smile from the other girl.
The mont that the ‘couple’ stepped out of the door and began walking down the narrow hallway, they could hear the muffled sounds of fervent cheers and loud cursing which steadily beca louder and clearer the deeper they went.
The space opened up to a deluge of body odor, stale alcohol and blood. Hundreds of ruffians and lowlives surrounded a cage in the middle of the fight club. In it, was a three ard Machamp currently engaged with a Pinsir.
The Machamp had his fist trapped between Pinsir’s thorny pincers, desperately slamming into the Bug Pokemon with his other two fists in an attempt to free itself. Only for Pinsir to strengthen its hold, causing the Machamp to cry out in pain.
In another desperate attempt, Machamp heaved and shoved his fingers into the Pinsir’s eye, crushing the eyeball hidden within and causing blood and gray matter to burst out.
Pinsir cried out in pain as well, but instead of loosening its grip, it tightened on impulse and crushed the Machamp’s wrist, completely mangling it in a ss of broken bones and loosely hanging tendons.
Nina averted her gaze in disgusts at the barbaric display. She was once more reminded of the difference between official Pokemon battles and the harsh realities of the Pokemon world. If not for a trainer’s handling and all the rules imposed by League sanctioned referees, this was the sort of outco one should expect when two Pokemon went at it with no holds barred.
Surprisingly, Lilian looked unphased, probably because the Blackthorn clan was used to more brutal displays among Dragons.
Nina leaned in to her partner and took a breath to steady herself. “C’mon babe, let’s go check this place out.”
‘Luther’ nodded and the two casually made a round of the jam packed arena. The fact that so many people were here to indulge in such brutality was quite disappointing.
***
Author's Note:
You might be interested in knowing that the depiction of the area that Nina and Lilian went to was based off Kowloon's now torn down Walled City.
I've never been there in person, but as soone who grew up watching old school Hong Kong martial arts films, it's a place that's always piqued my imagination.
On the other hand, the depiction of the Pokemon "chop shop" is based on my first experience walking into an old fashioned traditional dicine shop. And I do an old fashioned. Not like the more modern ones these days where it's just a bunch of dried up herbs slling like earthy dicinal goodness.
For those of you who have never seen that sort of a sight in person before. It is every much as macabre as your imagination makes it out to be. It's a sight that has always haunted my mind, begging to be put onto a page in so capacity. And today, I finally had the chance to do just that.
I pray such places no longer exists, but unfortunately that isn't true. I'm sure there's so rural areas sowhere in the world that still possess such dated practices.
I've always imagined Vermilion City in a sort of urban noir setting. In the original variation of this story where Nina never got a Dratini as a starter, she was supposed to go around the city taking up various jobs and commissions to earn money; maybe search around for a lost Pokemon or tail soone's spouse suspected of having an affair. But that never ca into fruition and this arc took its place.
But the idea still appeals to , so I might explore this from Charlie's perspective instead, in his side story.
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