Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Sin City-complete

I answer my phone amongst the janitorial products.
“This is Giovanni. I want to know about your progress.”
I tried to stall to avoid revealing the recent complication.
“What would you like to know about my progress?”
He laughed.
“Telling me what you’ve achieved thus far will be adequate.”
“I have succeeded in one way. I made contact with someone who knows where Adam might be in an indeterminate amount of time.”
“Surely you have a vague determination as to how long we’re talking about.”
“Sir, did anyone ever tell you you sound more intimidating on the phone?”
“I need to sound tough in front of the junior personnel. I apologise for doing it to you. You don’t need that type of motivation. So, progress?”
“Adam will be at a certain gym anytime between the next few days and the next couple of years.”
“I see. So when you said you had succeeded in one way, you meant you managed to pin point the length of your assignment to the nearest decade? Somehow I expected more.”
“I think he can be summoned to the right place quickly.”
“That’s more encouraging.”
“Yes sir but there’s a small complication.”
“I wonder, with a due sense of dread, what that can be.”
“The person I’m in contact with wants her own gym, so I have to argue on her behalf in front of the elite four. They’re the ones who decide these things right?”
“Yes. Now sometimes I admit I can be too harsh. Of course some eventualities are out of your hands. I trusted you with a complicated assignment when you consider all the possibilities for human error.”
“Thank you for being so understanding.”
“Fine. Take all the time you need. This isn’t a sinecure though, so if it takes forever I certainly can’t continue paying you forever. Understand?”
“Yes. You’ve made it abundantly clear.”
“Just to keep you on track I’ve decided to come and personally help out.”
“That’s very kind of you sir but perhaps you’d be more helpful once I’ve actually located Meowth.”
“I’m sure I could assist with the research.”
“I’m not sure that I can work well when…”
“…I’m breathing down your neck?”
“Of course not sir. I…”
“Good. I’ll meet you in the Pikachu café, Pallet Town, tomorrow at 10 am. I turn up punctually. I admire others you do that also. Please let me admire you. You already work for me so it will be most convenient that way.”
“I’ll be looking forward too it.”
“Oh, and drop the penitent act. I’m not that blinded by egotism.”
“Yes sir.”

One more update to go...
 
“How did your little phone call go?” Philippa asks as I emerge.
“Like the British BSE epidemic.”
“Did you enjoy the closet though? The decorator spent hours…”
“Do you want me to start planning the strategy for getting you a position as a gym leader or not?”
“No but since there’s no one else…”
“I could go and get one of the winos who called me a “****” while I was waiting for you. I’m sure his persuasive powers are beyond reproach.”
“Fine. Let’s just get on with it.”
“I assume I need to get the elite four to back you. Is that enough?”
“Yes but you don’t have to reach all of them. Just Lance. He’s their spokesman.”
“Fine. Well, first I need to know his weaknesses.”
 
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?”
 
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.”
 
“About that girl called Misty…” I begin as Meowth, Vulcan and I leave the shop.
“Vul Vul Pix Pix Vulpix.”
“He’s right. Sometimes it’s better ta wait. We’ll get to her once we’re done wid Brock. Trust me, the more ya want it, the better it’ll be. It‘s like dat wid Pokemon. The longer it takes ta make champion, da sweeter dat word sounds.”
“Ok.”
“So who where ya talk’en to in dare?”
“A very interesting person. He made me think about my ambitions in a new way. I disagree with some of his notions but he gave me some things to consider.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe I always needed something to latch on to, without my parents to act as the natural obsession of my youth. Maybe the habit and Team Rocket and Pokemon is my way of having a group to belong to instead of belonging to a family. Perhaps I should treat my journey as a goal in life not the only life worth living. Maybe I should stop treating of drugs that way too.”
I spot a trash can near by on the border of a city park.
“Wait a second” I tell my two Pokemon friends. They watch me in slight puzzlement as I rummage in the bag containing the stuff from my old room in TR HQ. Then Meowth and Vulcan’s faces clear when they see what I do next. I take out the needle and the little vials, the Heroine, from their box and throw them into the garbage can. The center of my former life gone with the flick of a wrist, and, replacing it just as simply, with my freedom. I feel much lighter somehow as I walk back.
“Ok guys. I think I’m ready now. Ready for a new life.”
And I smile. And I keep on smiling.
 
Could this be true?/Could this be me?/The one who kept himself so high and free/caught up in the highest game of all/and all my defences tumble and fall/and only the ace of hearts can save me now.

Music is playing in the Pikachu café when I enter. Giovanni sits, unmoving as I walk towards him. He’s waiting for the other man to arrive first as he usually.
“Your very famous but I’m not sure I should be honoured” Philippa says as she sits opposite him.
“Likewise. Can I get you something?” he asks her. Lady Midnight goes up to him and starts rubbing against his legs.
“She didn’t do that to me.”
“Cats seem to have a natural feeling of empathy for me.”
“I think we will have breakfast thanks. We need to wait for Adam to get here anyway. I decided I didn’t really want any information about Lance. I’ve had enough physiology over the last day or two to last me a life time. Philippa’s gym is already waiting for her” I explain.
“So now what?” Giovanni asks.
“Now Philippa call’s Adam. Let’s get this over with.”
As I wait I’m aware that Philippa is using her ‘cell to make the call, but only vaguely aware. Instead I start to think about my position. I’m not doing my standard work but lots of other people are. This is the first time I’ve witnessed this side of the story. Will I ever forget this first look? Will I want to see it again even though it revolts me? I don’t know now if I can keep ignoring the fact that everyone doesn’t live in the same manner I do. I don’t want to work with people who hunt down the Meowth’s of this world and don’t experience my sense of guilt.
“I got some for you too” Giovanni says, nosily stealing my train of thought from me.
“What?”
“Well just because I employ you doesn’t mean I’m testing you every time I offer you some food does it?”
“Ok. So what if I quit? The perfect solution.”
“Why on earth would you?”
“Because I have enemies now. I used to think that word was just an overly melodramatic term for someone you had a fight with last week. I suppose I found out just because I haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“You could always come on the gym trail with us” Adam says, looking down at me as I sit at the table. Like God smiling down at me for attempting a redemption a few seconds ago.
“It seems like a while since I’ve seen you” I tell him.
“Yes. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen the world the way you have for far too long.”
“Maybe I’ve been seeing new things too recently. Perhaps its not a bad thing.”
I notice Vulcan and Lady Midnight conversing in their own language. I wonder what they’re saying. Is it exactly the same things we’re discussing? Are they uttering the same statements as us at this exact minute?
“We presumed you’d know why you’ve been called here. So we decided not to create a pretence involving Philippa” Giovanni tells Adam.
“It’s ok Meowth. I forgive you.”
“Thanks Adam. It wasn’t anything important I took. Dis is what ya wanna know boss so you’d better start listen‘en. I took dem as a souvenir of my time wid ya. I wasn’t even gonna sell ‘em. Its da plans for my machines. Mine, James and Jessie’s. The machines we used ta try ta capture da Pikachu belon‘en at Ash Ketchum. I was on dat assignment for years. None of ‘em worked. If they weren’t useless I would’a succeeded by now. You’ll just be punish’en me outta spite.”
“Fine. I have an alternative suggestion. Give them to me. I’ll punish them, not you.” Meowth hands the technical drawings of his inventions to his former leader, who crumples them up and throws them, basketball style, into the nearest bin.
“Another massive weight gone with a simple hand movement” Adam says.
“What?” I ask.
“Never mind.”
“Good. I believe it’s time to go home. You coming back to the HQ Bradley?” Giovanni asks.
“No. I’m going with Adam for a while. I need some time to find my self.”
“Fine by me. Meowth?”
“Ya know what? Ya already fired me, so I don’t need at worry about insulting da guy in charge anymore. Take ya job offer and shove it.”
“Good luck Meowth. You’re the worst employee I ever had but you know how to insult people. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet” Giovanni says. Then he leaves. So does Philippa. After all, she has a gym to manage.
“Can I go on my journey now?” Adam asks.
“I don’t see why not.”
We pay our bill and leave the café. Leave the last few hours behind.
“Look, it’s stopped raining.”
 
Bradley didn’t stay with us for long. He went into private practice. I read in the ‘papers recently that he’s defending a man who was injured when Team Rocket agents attempted to rob his house. As for Meowth, he eventually persuaded Jessie and James to quit their jobs at Team Rocket too. It feels good not to have to call it the company again. I have no need to hide now. My past has lived up to it’s name. It’s past. Anyway Jessie, James and my former manager set off on their own gym trail a few months ago. I haven’t heard from them since. Philippa got caught cheating in order to win a gym match. She was demoted to junior trainer again till Lance feels he can trust her. Giovanni went on being Giovanni, but I assume there’s nothing to be done about that.
 
As for Adam, he became champion, after trying to live with Misty for a few months. Meowth left him after he reached the elite four, stating that he was no longer needed. So he finally took my advice and went to a drugs rehabilitation center. He’s been out a long time now and hasn’t even touched a needle since. I know because he’s been working with me and a writer friend of mine to tell our tale to the world. Save computer file on my laptop’s word processor programme. It’s

THE END
 
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