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A few Author's-Notes-type words here: what follows is a revision of a one-shot I wrote last year for a PokeCommunity contest, and it also happened to be Jen and Hanna's first appearance. Just as a road-marker, counting this chapter there are 3 standalone chapters and 6 numbered chapters left in the story. (Letting you know because when you read a book you can see how many pages are left.) Enjoy!]
Dad’s Old Gym
August, 2014
It was early one summer afternoon when Jen Brooks was sitting in the forest next to her old friend, Hanna Maris. Jen had her back to a tree while Hanna was lying on her stomach and staring intently through the underbrush. The woods were perfectly quiet until Jen whispered, “Has he done anything yet?”
“I think he’s a she, and no,” whispered back Hanna. She was referring to a wild Stantler in the clearing a few dozen yards away from them.
Jen looked over her shoulder to see that Hanna was carefully tapping some notes into her Pokédex as she spied on the deer-Pokémon. So far the two of them were doing a good job of going unnoticed. It would be a shame for Hanna to miss something because the Stantler got startled and ran off, or worse yet hypnotized them. Being stealthy didn’t make for the most exciting vacation, but in a way that was part of the point. Their Pokémon journey back when they were kids hadn’t always been riveting either, and at age twenty-five Jen appreciated how much nicer it was to sit in the fresh air than at a desk in a cube.
For one thing, you weren’t allowed to drink at work. Jen reflected on this as she closed her eyes, took a sip from her hip flask, and let some of the tension from the past year ease out through her skin.
Still, she was getting tired of doing nearly nothing. She leaned over again and tried to read Hanna’s notes. “You said this is in beta now?” Immediately, Jen wondered if she should have opened the floodgates.
“Alpha, actually. We’ll put our revision in full beta when the natural language processing cluster works, probably Q4 2016. Then we’ll be able to automatically identify duplicates in the user submissions, and once we weight the duplicate-count with the individual users’ trust-scores…”
Hanna rambled on, at a whisper of course, for somewhere north of ten minutes.
‘Oh god, she’s trying to explain the math now.’ Between all the numbers and the liquor, Jen was in serious danger of falling asleep.
“…sub-scores based on subject matter expertise. Bill’s working on a machine-learning model to calculate those values holistically…”
It just
kept going.
“…real game changer for accuracy and the time it takes to verify and publish corrections…”
(Yawn.)
“…and now kid trainers can really feel like they’re contributing to science. Oh, and the interoperability we’re getting with the PC Storage System now is fantastic. It can identify new forms and variations on individual species as trainers catch them and push out the new data to every Pokédex as soon as they connect to Wi-Fi.”
Hanna finally slowed down enough for Jen to get another word in. “You, Bill, and Oak can do whatever you want to Dexter as long as he still talks. You get rid of that and I’ll riot.”
“I told you, it’s going to be same Pokédex, just less dumb.”
After listening to that mountain of technical gibberish, Jen wasn’t in the mood to hear Hanna talk for hours about literally every tiny factual mistake in the Pokédex. She had to steer the conversation in a more tolerable direction, so she went to one of her old standbys. “Hey, so this is a little out of nowhere, but did they have any independent gyms around Olivine when you were growing up? You know, not with the Pokémon League?”
“Yeah. Two, I think.”
Before Jen could follow up, Hanna continued. “Is this going to be your patented spiel about old, crappy gyms? I remember a lot of it from the last time I heard it. Was that two years ago?”
Jen was at peace with her own transparency. “Hey, you just had—”
“Shhh.”
Jen had started to rise above a whisper. She corrected herself and tried again. “You just had your turn, so now I get to bore you.”
Hanna nodded. “That’s fair. Go for it.”
That was all Jen needed to hear, so now she opened her own conversational floodgate. “Have you noticed how Leader-centric all the League gyms are? There’s really nothing there for folks our age. Like, who has time to raise as many strong Pokémon as kids do? Back when there were more than just the eight gyms you could always find someone at your skill level at a gym, even in Blackthorn. Try going to a gym there today with only one or two Pokémon.”
Hanna scratched her back, which was the most pronounced movement she had made in over forty minutes. “You don’t need to go to a gym to find someone to fight. There are trainers all over the place.”
“It’s not the same, though!” (Whoops, too loud.) “…It’s not the same, though. What about tournaments? If we tried the Indigo Plateau today we’d get laughed out of the qualifiers, but the minor-league gyms had tournaments for basically every skill level. Pro, semi-pro, amateur, under-tens… and they always drew at least an okay crowd. My dad was one of the top trainers in the Forest League before it folded.”
“Yeah, I remember you telling me that. That was just Mahogany Town and Ecruteak, right?”
“Violet City, too. But man, North Ecruteak Gym was the
best. It was all outdoors, and they held their big matches at night and sold popcorn—it was something.”
Hanna motioned for the binoculars that were lying next to her bag, and Jen handed them over as slowly and delicately as she could. “Just spotted a Forretress in a tree over there,” whispered Hanna. “Anyway, you’re the only one I know who actually misses those gyms. My parents wouldn’t even let me step foot in one—said they had more drug dealers than trainers. And I think one of my friends got tetanus from the bleachers at Olivine Beach Gym. That showed her to sit on a bench that’s fifty percent splinters and rusty nails in short shorts.”
“Lies. I wore short shorts in the bleachers at ours all the time and didn’t get tetanus once. And there were hardly any drug dealers at all.”
Jen didn’t add ‘I think’ to the bit about the drug dealers, and for the next ten minutes she proceeded to bury Hanna’s skepticism with details about the wonders of North Ecruteak Gym. She covered such topics as ‘…most beautiful part of the forest…,’ ‘…groundskeeper had a Ponyta and let you ride her…,’ and ‘…I had my first battle there, it was so cool…’
Jen still had a lot of things to say when Hanna got up and crept back over to her bag. Apparently they were almost done here, so Jen decided to cut to the chase. “You know, if our plan’s to reach Ecruteak tonight and spend most of the day around there tomorrow—”
Hanna interrupted as she rummaged through her bag. “Do you want to go check out an abandoned gym and see a bunch of nothing?”
It was always a good sign when Hanna didn’t explicitly shoot down an idea right away. “Yes. Super yes.”
“I’m fine with that. We’ve got ten whole days on the trail, after all.”
Jen silently pumped her fist as Hanna pulled out an empty Great Ball and unclipped the lone Pokéball on her belt. “First let me see if I can catch one of those two and get some more data…”
*********
A few hours later Jen was staring at the stars as she tried to fall asleep. She and Hanna never stayed in a Pokécenter overnight if it wasn’t raining or freezing. This was mostly because it was always too bright in the Pokécenters to sleep well, but also because their free lodging policy was obviously written with children in mind. Better to leave more room for the exhausted preteens who found all the hiking to be a challenge.
Jen on the other hand was anything but exhausted, and that could turn into a problem if she didn’t drift off before Hanna started snoring. She knew thinking about getting to see the old gym again would only keep her awake, but she couldn’t help it. It had been just about this time of year when her dad fought in his last and best tournament. Every last detail of it was still in her head.
She remembered walking up to the stands and finding the best seat in the middle section: just high enough, but also just close enough to have the perfect view. She stood the whole time so no one’s head would be in her way. It was a warm night, but not muggy, and the crowd was the biggest and noisiest she’d ever imagined. When her dad and his opponent came out onto the dirt field and everyone started clapping and cheering, she realized that she wasn’t just remembering anymore. Half of her knew it was a dream, and the other half of her was six again. She jumped and shouted, “Let’s go Daddy!”
Her daddy was standing in the bright lights. There must have been thousands of people there to see him, and just as many Pokémon must have been hidden in the dark trees and watching from the edge of the forest. Her daddy took out a single green Friend Ball and brought Jen’s favorite Pokémon into the battle: Vesuvius, the Typhlosion. Both of the trainers were down to their last Pokémon, and the victor would go on to the final round. He was so close to winning the Forest Cup.
But there was a problem, and it was a huge one: Steelix. Vesuvius was panting from how beat up he was, while Steelix didn’t have a scratch on him. The giant snake flashed its iron fangs. It was scary, but Jen knew Vesuvius could handle it. Steelix tried an Earthquake attack and Vesuvius bounded away from the worst of it with all of his strength. Then he jumped onto Steelix’s back and extended the fire-quills in his shoulders to their full length. Steelix writhed around, but somehow Vesuvius held on and completely torched one of his opponent’s body-segments with a Fire Blast.
“Holy sh*t,” said someone sitting near her, “He might actually do it.” Jen couldn’t wait to see the look on this stranger’s face when it was over.
Someone else in their section shouted, “Last call for bets! Last call!”
“Yo, bookie, up here! Five thousand on fire!”
“Brooks is fire, right? Ten thousand on Brooks!”
Ten thousand Pokéyen. That was more than enough to buy a ton of Pokéballs. Jen wondered if her daddy would make that much money for beating this guy. And he was almost there. Vesuvius shot more and more flames all over Steelix, and Jen could see the burns setting in. This was it!
But then the fire ran out. It had been so hot and so strong a moment ago, but now it was gone. Jen wrung her shirt in her hands and yelled, “Come on, Vethuvivus!” but to no avail. She begged and pleaded but Vesuvius’s quills retracted again and he closed his eyes. Steelix finally shook him off, and then it rammed him with its skull. He skidded and tumbled almost all the way to the stands.
Jen was actually relieved to see the referee wave his arms. “Down! Match over!” She started to sniffle as her daddy walked over and brought the world’s best Pokémon back into his ball.
There were so many people in the crowd cheering for the wrong person. A lot of them were mad like they were supposed to be, though.
“That’s just so goddamn typical.”
“Last time I make a late bet, I swear. What a gyp.”
Everyone was waiting in their seats for the final round, going to get food, or going to the woods to pee, but not Jen. She made her way under the bleachers and sobbed until it was out of her system. She wouldn’t let her daddy see her crying like this. He was the one who lost, so she had to cheer him up. She couldn’t do that if he knew how sad she was.
When her face didn’t feel quite so red, she decided she was ready. She walked back out under the lights and heard everyone chanting to get on with the next battle. Her daddy wouldn’t be there. By then he’d be hanging around the trainers’ clubhouse with a drink in his hand. She walked over in that direction, and sure enough she found him in the shadows behind the building. He was holding a beer and talking to another man in a suit. He didn’t sound happy.
“…so just hand it over already and let me get the hell outta here.”
The other man held out an envelope, and her daddy swiped it and stuck it in his back pocket.
“For what it’s worth, Sean,” said the man, “you have my condolences that things didn’t work out for you tonight. My colleagues would still be interested in landing you some bigger matches, of course.”
“I’ve met your ‘colleagues,’ Mariano, and they can suck my dick.”
The other man turned to leave. “Duly noted.” He walked into the clubhouse.
Now that he was alone, her daddy chucked the empty can over his shoulder. If he was already done with his drink then Jen had taken too long. But then he spotted her, and he smiled as if nothing was the matter. “Heya, kiddo!” he said as he scooped her up. “Having fun?”
Jen tried to say what she was supposed to. “I’m really… really sorry y… you lost, Daddy.”
“Hey, don’t you worry about that. There’s always next year. Sure was a nail-biter, huh? We gave ’em a real run for their money at the end!”
There was a big roar from the crowd. They were all still cheering for the wrong trainers. It made Jen sick. “I thought you were gonna win…”
“Listen, Jennifer. There ain’t nothing to be ashamed of in losing. Sometimes all you can do is make it close and put on a good show. I want you remember that when you start training, hear?”
‘When I start training,’ she thought. That was such a long way away, and she wanted so badly to start right then and there. “Do you think I can ever get as good as you?”
He laughed. “You betcha. Hell, I’ll bet a million on it, just you wait.”
Then he gave her a big squeeze, and she squeezed him back as hard as she could. His whiskers tickled her cheek, and it was that moment that hung in place and stayed with her when she woke up. All of Jen was an adult again. It was early morning, and soon she’d be going back to her dad’s old gym.
*********
The wide path through the woods to North Ecruteak Gym hadn’t changed since Jen was little. There was practically a skip in her step, she was so excited. “This is the way we’d take every time,” she told Hanna. “You should see the trees here in the fall. Best leaves in Johto, no lie.”
“Must be something,” said Hanna. She didn’t sound completely convinced.
“Haaarrrummm…”
“See, Marie gets it!” All the Pokémon were out of their balls for the walk, and Marie was bringing up the rear. Summer was leading the way, and the third one was in Jen’s arms at the moment. This made for a little difficulty and frustration because—
“Ow! Quit it, Rabies!”
—he was only three weeks old and still rather bitey.
“That’s such a mean name to give a Growlithe.”
Jen shifted the little pup to one arm and showed Hanna the multitude of fading marks on the other. “Believe me, I had some much meaner ones in mind.”
But even though she complained, Jen was thrilled to have more than one Pokémon again. Like most trainers did when they grew up, she and Hanna had long since given away or set free almost all the members of their old teams. It had looked like Marie and Summer would be both their starters and their finishers, but then a few months ago Summer surprised them. Jen wasn’t about to give little Rabies away for anything, and she happened to think it was a great name.
As for Rabies himself, he didn’t seem to care much about names yet and proceeded to whine and nip at Jen’s shoulder. It took a curt bark from his mother to calm him down for a few precious minutes. Jen tousled the cream-colored tuft of fur on his head and smiled.
“Anyway,” said Jen, “We’re almost there. Ready to see what you were missing growing up?”
“Hmm.”
Hanna would come around, Jen knew it. There just wasn’t anything like a real outdoor gym. When she saw a familiar turn in the trail, she knew they had less than a minute of walking left. The first thing that came into view past the last trees was the flat, familiar stretch of dirt that was the old arena. Then they reached the end of the path and entered the wide clearing that was once North Ecruteak Gym.
At first glance, it seemed to Jen that the place hadn’t changed much at all. It was just as wide open as ever, although the grass had started to creep in on the edges of the arena. Also, the chalk had long since vanished so it didn’t look particularly like a place for Pokémon battles anymore. And naturally the bleachers were worse for wear and most of them were missing.
“Wait…” She was right and wrong, and both in bad ways. The bleachers had indeed fallen into disrepair since last she saw them, as there was now rot in the benches and rust in the supports, but when she thought about it she realized that none of the sections were missing. They had just always been that small. The difference was that now she knew how puny twelve rows was for a stadium, and that in the official gyms the stands surrounded the entire field while these only covered most of one sideline.
She had to chuckle at that. Everything looked bigger and more impressive when you were little, after all. The lights at least still seemed tall to her, even though one of the poles had fallen over. “Heh. Yup, this is it.”
“It’s nice and open, just like you said.”
“Speaking of which,” said Jen as she tried to balance the increasingly eager Rabies, “I think it’s time to let someone get his exercise.”
Jen gave up on letting the Growlithe down gently and instead dumped him onto the grass, at which point he darted off to the middle of the field as fast as his tiny legs could carry him. Summer jogged after him, passed him, and then blocked him from running straight into the woods on the other side and out of Jen’s sight. “Summer’s a good mom,” she said, and Hanna nodded.
Rabies continued to run around, and by chance he led Jen’s gaze to one of the single ugliest structures she had ever seen.
“Wuh…”
“What is it?”
It was the clubhouse. The hole in the roof and the rusted-shut dumpsters next to it were one thing, but the building itself was squat, drab, and hideous down to the last cinder block.
“Nothing…” said Jen, “Just the clubhouse looks a bit different than I remember.
Hanna looked over at it and appeared to bite her tongue for a moment. “Did the paint wash off or something?”
Jen wanted to say yes. Surely that must have been the case, but if she checked her memories honestly it had always looked like this. Maybe it fit in better when it was dark out. “No. Now that you mention it, I don’t think anything was ever painted here.”
Jen shook off this little surprise as well. Nobody ever came to this place for the clubhouse. It was all about the fresh air, the big arena, and the lights, so she walked over to where the center dot used to be. Hanna and Marie followed her, and she smiled. “This is where it all happened.” All of her dad’s big wins, magnificent comebacks, and close losses to better trainers came back to her. She would have watched them from this close if they had let her.
And because she was focusing so hard on all the great nighttime moments, she almost forgot the coolest thing to see in the daytime. “Hey, look behind you real quick.”
To the southeast you could just see the top four stories of the Bell Tower. The gold spire on the top caught the sun perfectly.
“Okay,” said Hanna, “That’s pretty cool.”
“Dad always said that Ho-Oh was a season ticket holder. Never missed a battle.”
“I thought the legend was that Ho-Oh was going to return to the tower, not that he’s always there.”
Jen shrugged and laughed. “I never said he wasn’t full of crap sometimes.”
Hanna laughed with her, but then she straightened up. Jen knew that look: it meant Marie was ‘talking’ to her. Marie’s fox-like face remained as still as ever, but the two spoons she held in her hands bent just a little bit. “What’s up?”
Hanna was staring a thousand miles away, but all of a sudden she turned to the clubhouse. “She says Rabies found something behind the clubhouse… and it’s… I can’t make out the rest of it. We should go check it out.”
Jen and Hanna got a move on, and Jen hoped that Rabies wasn’t trying to eat anything gross. The dumpsters meant it was possible that Marie was trying to say ‘it’s trash.’ They turned the corner, and it immediately became clear that the phrase was probably closer to ‘it’s trash, and it’s on fire.’ There were two old and nasty-looking garbage bags on the ground, and Rabies had torn one open and set a few Embers on it to boot.
“Oh, shoot,” said Jen as she rushed over to stamp out the flames that had spread to the grass. At the same time Hanna pulled out her water bottle and dumped the whole thing on the biggest part of the fire. Jen looked closer and was relieved to see that the only contents of the bag were piles of paper rather than something that might smell.
One sheet of the old papers was presently in Rabies’s mouth as he sat upright, wagged, and showed it off. “Oh, aren’t you pleased with yourself?” Jen reached down to grab the paper, making sure to give the impression that she was taking it away because he was being bad, rather than that she was graciously accepting the spoils of the hunt. “Let go, Rabies. Drop it. Drop.”
It seemed Rabies had no interest in relinquishing his prey to someone who wasn’t going to appreciate it. To compensate, Jen opted for trickery. She waved her other hand near Rabies’s head, knowing it would be too much to resist. Sure enough the Growlithe tried to chomp down on the new moving object, and in the process he let go of and perhaps completely forgot about the paper. The page was both wet and singed, but somehow mostly intact. As Jen straightened it out, she spotted Summer lying nearby. “Don’t let him do this anymore, okay, girl?”
Summer growled in apparent disinterest, as if such small fires were beneath her attention. Or perhaps she was just pleased to see Rabies’s progress in learning how to ignite his targets. Regardless, and now that there was no more danger of a wildfire, Jen was interested to see what these papers were.
She began to read, and her interest was immediately piqued further when she saw some familiar names. They were two of her dad’s old rivals, and listed underneath were Pokémon rosters she also recognized.
‘I saw this battle,’ she realized as she read the match outcomes. Steelix over Persian, Steelix over Nidorino, Hitmontop over Steelix… it was just as she remembered. It had been a sort of grudge match following a tournament that ended with these two trainers. All the bets from the crowd were even written down, and she saw the payouts the battlers took as their cuts. She felt a smile coming over her face. Were all of the gym’s records here?
But something was wrong. She didn’t notice at first, but they shouldn’t have written everything in this order. The trainers, the rosters, the early bets, and the final results were all written in ink. But the mid-fight bets were in pencil. They were also in someone else’s handwriting, and they were spaced around the outcomes as if—
Her heart sank into her stomach. The way this was written, you would think the later bets had been placed after the fight was already over.
“Jen?”
Jen dropped the paper and immediately dug into the bag that Rabies had taken it from. All the sheets on top were ruined, but underneath they were mostly fine. She knew what she was looking for and scanned the dates. These were all too old, and they got older further down in the bag. This meant that what she was looking for might be in the other bag. She moved over on her knees and tried to undo its knot. It was tight, and that made her mad. She grabbed underneath the knot and tore the whole thing open, spilling its contents.
“Jen? Jen! What’s the deal?”
Jen didn’t answer. She was reading dates and getting close to the one she had in mind. She rummaged and rummaged until she finally found it:
July 15, 1995, followed by
Sean Brooks.
Her hands shook. Someone had written on this sheet of paper all the matchups and outcomes of her dad’s last fight, including a big note,
‘Typhlosion gets on Steelix’s back—ASK NOW,’ surrounded by larger bets than any that were placed before the match started. Then she saw the payouts. Her father got three times as much as the winner.
“He took a dive.”
“What?”
Jen’s eyes were watering. “This was the farthest he ever got. W…Why would he take a dive?”
Jen’s fingers trembled beyond her control, and the paper fell to the ground. Hanna knelt down and picked it up. “…Oh. Oh, Jen, I’m so sorry.”
If Hanna said anything after that, Jen didn’t hear it. She thought she heard someone else loud and clear, though.
‘Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of in losing.’
‘Put on a good show.’
‘Gave ’em a real run for their money.’
Someone she didn’t recognize was in her head. He was trying to rationalize what had been written and done. Maybe he thought he was trying to cheer up a sad girl, but he couldn’t fool Jen. The words were obviously aimed at himself and his own dirty conscience. Whoever he was, she didn’t know him at all.
*********
It was sundown. Heavy clouds were rolling in, and Jen’s flask felt like it was half-full. She was sitting with her back to the clubhouse’s front door. Several hours ago she had said something to the effect of,
‘I want to be alone for a bit. You can go do whatever. I’ll meet you back in town.’ She stared at the ground and found herself unsure of when she would leave and find Hanna again. If she did that, then Hanna would probably want to talk. And they would probably talk about her dad. She took another drink.
It was too dark to see. Jen’s flask felt empty. She held it upside-down over her mouth to confirm. “F*ck.” Then she either tossed it aside or dropped it; it was hard to tell. She felt a buzz in her pocket, which was probably just Hanna texting her again. Jen thought she ought to mind her own damn business. How was she supposed to get her mind off of this sh*t with someone badgering her every ten minutes? She felt around for a rock and threw it at nothing. The motion made her brain swish around in her head a little, and she ground her teeth.
Minutes or hours later, a bright light hit her face. It didn’t make her head feel any better and when she tried to cover her eyes she missed. When the light left on its own, everything outside of it looked even blacker than before. She had some strong words for whoever that light belonged to.
“…Jen?”
Of course. She probably should have guessed who it was.
“…Jen, c’mon. Let’s go.”
Who did she think she was, trying to boss her around like that? If Hanna was going to be her usual intrusive b*tch self anyway, why couldn’t they talk right here? Before she realized that she didn’t actually want to say anything, words came out of Jen’s mouth. “He never told me.”
Hanna didn’t say anything. Whatever. “…That bastard died before he told me anything.”
There was a longer pause, and then some predictably know-it-all words came from somewhere in front of her. “Would that have been better? If he’d told you everything when you were little?”
What a stupid f*cking question. “Are you kidding?” Jen pushed herself off the ground, and her brain pressed against her skull again. She fought down the nausea and came to her feet. “Would it have been better if he hadn’t lied about it every goddamn time? If he’d been even a little sorry? Yeah. That’d have been better.”
More silence. It was hazy, but she could see Hanna’s outline where she held the flashlight. Things were more clear at Jen’s feet, and something compelled her to bend over and pick up a rock. “You know half the men in this town had a gambling problem? He probably kicked off two divorces that night alone.”
He and all the other trainers who’d ever battled here. It made her want to put this rock right through one of their eyes, but she’d have to settle for the next best thing. She turned around to face where the clubhouse was. It was all one blur of black and gray, but she hoped to hit a window. She wound up. “F*ckin’ crooks and liars… him and the rest of them!” She let it go and then she heard glass shattering. Jen staggered in place, but not enough to lose balance completely.
“Jen… We don’t have to stay here.”
Why couldn’t she take a hint? Couldn’t she tell she wasn’t done here yet? Jen looked up and saw the shadow of those miserable wooden bleachers. She felt for one of the two Pokéballs on her belt.
“Seriously, we can go right n—” Hanna stopped for some reason when Jen had the ball in her hand. “…What are you doing?”
Jen hated having to spell everything out for her. She wound up again and aimed for the stands. “Gonna give Rabies some practice.”
There was a noise, the light went astray, and before Jen knew it Hanna was trying to tackle her. She couldn’t move her hand.
“Let go!” Jen tried to shove her off, but she found herself turned around.
“
Shut up!” The words hit her like a slap to the face. “Don’t you
dare teach a Growlithe to burn stuff down like that! You’re a fire trainer! You know better!”
The ball fell out of Jen’s hand. The image of a grown-up Rabies—one who was always as mad as she was now—came into her head.
Hanna kept yelling. “It hasn’t rained for weeks! You could’ve torched the whole forest! You think that’d help? You really think those guys were any worse than some shitfaced arsonist?”
No. Not even close. Her dad never made Vesuvius use fire outside of battle; not even for a campfire. He always said it was better to teach a Pokémon safer habits than you needed to. He never would have done something like she was about to do, not even when drunk. He’d smashed a glass or two, but he’d always sent her and Derek out of the room first, and he’d always cleaned the pieces up himself.
And he never, ever used fire because he was angry. Any one of his fire Pokémon knew how to use exactly enough fire to win. Or to lose, but what else did that say? Jen knew she couldn’t get Summer to hold back that well if she tried. And her dad couldn’t teach her how anymore.
She tried to hold back the sob, but couldn’t. She fell forward, landed on a shoulder, and then everything started pouring out.
“H…He was m… my hero…”
She cried on, and then she felt Hanna’s hand on her back. It was the same spot parents usually knew where to put it, and she cried harder.
Hanna said, “I know, I know. You always made him sound so great. I still wish I could have met him.”
Jen felt like the worst person on the planet. “…I’m sorry. If you ain’t been there to stop me…” She felt a raindrop. It was starting to drizzle.
“It’s okay. No harm done. Except the window, I guess, but who cares?”
Jen herself thought she might care. It wasn’t the window’s fault. The window was just doing his job, even though he wasn’t getting paid anymore, and then she realized just how plastered she was. Meanwhile, the drizzle picked up into an honest rain.
“See?” said Hanna, “There’s no problem. Lugia was going to stop you anyway.”
Jen pulled away from Hanna’s shoulder, and Hanna helped her get her balance back. She stood in place, watched the shadows spin, and felt the downpour soak her head as Hanna gathered some things from the ground. Soon Jen had her bag and Rabies’s ball again, and Hanna was helping her into a poncho.
“We’ll have to spend the night in the Pokécenter. It’s too dark and wet to get anything set up. Can you walk?”
Jen nodded, took a few steps, and then Hanna caught her before she could plant her face in the mud. Hanna put her shoulders under her arm, and they slowly started follow the flashlight’s beam back to the trail. It felt like Jen was forgetting something. Was it her flask? No, it couldn’t be that because she always kept it with her. She was sure she’d remember at some point, so on they walked.
They were five minutes into the hike when Jen felt the perspective she’d been trying to avoid creep up on her. “All those years,” she mumbled, “…all those years I wanted that shitty gym back. I’m such a moron.”
“No,” said Hanna. “You just saw something that was better than what they had in mind. You don’t have to hate the whole thing because of that. They still had good popcorn, right?”
“It probably sucked.”
She heard Hanna sigh, which didn’t make a ton of sense to her. Hanna hadn’t liked the place from the beginning, so you’d think she’d agree. Jen was about to make some other point, but when the words were supposed to come to her mouth she felt something else there. “Uff—” Without another word, Hanna helped her over to the trees. Jen tried to keep it off of her poncho.
Hanna’s hand was rubbing her back again. “Hey,” she said, “Did I ever tell you about the one time I got really hammered?”
To Jen’s knowledge, such a thing had never happened. But instead of answering she just let the rest of it drip.
“It was last year. I was out with some of my university friends, and I was b*tching about the Pokédex at them. You know, the usual.”
‘B*tching.’ Jen felt bad for calling Hanna one in her head earlier.
“Anyway, I just kept downing shots, and by the end of it I was basically screaming at everyone in the bar about how half the stuff in the Pokédex is plain wrong. Like,
‘The first Kadabra wasn’t a human kid, you morons!’ and how Oak was a huge traitor to science for letting them put a bunch of lies in Dexter’s mouth.”
“…Makes sense. You kept goin’ on about that when we were kids, too…”
The rain was pounding now. “Yeah, so then they kicked us out. And I kid you not, the next morning I saw Bill’s ad in the classifieds for programmers to work on the Pokédex upgrade project, and I got on a bus for Cerulean. Then we made Dexter as smart as I always dreamed he’d be and we lived happily ever after. The end.”
Jen would have rolled her eyes, but it was hard to get them to move the way she wanted them to. “That’s a lame story.”
“Whatever, I’m trying to make a point. Yeah, your favorite gym sucked, but that’s only because no one ever tried to make it suck less. If you’re going to put this much emotional investment into something, you ought to take some agency in it yourself.”
Jen couldn’t follow this. “The hell are you talking about?”
“If you don’t
like it, then you
fix it. You’re the only one who cares, right? So who’s going to stop you?”
Jen tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a cough. “That was all years ago. It’s over.”
She staggered with Hanna back to the middle of the path. As they continued on their way, Hanna asked, “Wanna bet?”
*********
Jen woke up. She was lying on a couch in a Pokémon Center, presumably Ecruteak’s. The ceiling wasn’t moving, and she didn’t feel anything in her head. She took that as a good sign, but when she sat up the small hope that she wouldn’t have much of a hangover was dashed. When she thought about having to put on a decent face for the rest of the day—much less the rest of the vacation—she felt exhausted.
She got on her feet and stretched. There were a few young trainers still asleep on the sofa across from her, which made her hope that none of her inexcusable behavior the night before had reached any innocent minds or ears. She couldn’t recall arriving at the Pokécenter, but she was dry and clean enough now that she couldn’t have passed out at the entrance. The only one who would remember all the details was Hanna, whom Jen now noticed was conspicuously absent. This usually meant she was at a computer, so Jen dragged herself over to the row of PCs.
Sure enough, Hanna was hunched over a keyboard and her eyes were so strained that they hurt Jen’s just to look at them. Also to no surprise of Jen’s, Hanna was surrounded by several empty cans of coffee from the vending machine. She was probably down one caffeine pill as well, as if she’d never graduated college. Jen was about to ask what had kept her up all night, but Hanna spoke up first. “Well?”
Jen sighed. “I effed up. I’m sorry.”
Marie had been sleeping in the chair next to Hanna, but she woke up at the sound of talking. Jen wished Hanna would follow her Pokémon’s example and get some rest now and then.
“We’re going to put a stop to this,” said Hanna. “For real this time. You’re not carrying a flask with you anymore.”
Jen nodded and meant it, but she couldn’t resist adding, “Yes, Mom.”
Hanna gave her the finger, and Jen didn’t complain. Then her friend pushed herself away from the keyboard and leaned back into her chair. “Marie, crunch these last numbers, will you?”
There was a spreadsheet on the ancient, boxy monitor’s screen, and it was too early in the morning for Jen to decipher it. It seemed to be a fine time for Marie, though, as she held out one of her spoons and the keys began to press themselves at a rapid pace. In a matter of seconds the psychic-type was done with her calculations, and Hanna closed her eyes as she gave further instructions. “Okay, now print it. The other document, too.”
After a few more psychokinetically-induced keystrokes, the printer at the end of the table came to life. “You go get it,” said Hanna as she pointed at Jen.
Jen obeyed. She was ready to read anything that got her mind off of her dad and his awful gym, even if it was just more of Hanna’s nerd work. But then she looked at the first page and saw the title. “What’s…”
“It’s your business plan, along with rough cost estimates and revenue projections.”
In bold letters at the top it read, ‘Independent, Sustainable, Community Pokémon Gym.’ Jen didn’t know what to think, but she couldn’t take her eyes off it.
“You’ll need some other folks on board, of course,” said Hanna, who out of the blue gave a long pitch while barely pausing for air. “And you’ll probably have to operate at a loss for at least a few years. The good news is that since all the hot development around here’s been to the south and east the land where the original gym is should be cheap. The key thing will be to put in the effort to make everything cleaner and more attractive: No splinters, no rust, more paint, and no ugly buildings.
“For revenue you’ll want to focus on local parents who want cheap, family-friendly entertainment and activities. Getting participants for the tournaments shouldn’t be too hard—there are lots of local adult trainers who are in it for fun, and kid trainers are always passing through and they love finding new ways to test their skills.
“If you find or make some more true-believer weirdos like yourself, you should be able to get enough volunteer work to make it viable. It’ll have to be non-profit for that, and to start out you’ll definitely need to keep a day job, and either find a donor or take out a loan. You have to be extra-clear that there’s going to be no spectator gambling. It
has to be safe for under-tens or it’ll go belly-up like the old ones did.”
Hanna finally stopped, and Jen tried to digest it all. The whole idea occupied the same space in her stomach as all the lying and cheating she’d learned about the day before. Yet despite that it sounded so perfect, even too good to be true.
She contemplated it for a solid minute. She recalled all those battles that had only been disguised as real battles. On top of that the old gym had had drunks puking under the bleachers, fans swearing at the top of their lungs while there were children around, and probably even less savory things she didn’t know about.
But the old gym had also been a place to run around in the open with her friends while her dad trained. It was where she borrowed her dad’s Vulpix on her eighth birthday and entered her first tournament, and the size of the arena had made it seem like such a huge deal. Most of all there were the warm nights, the popcorn, and those bright lights. The gamblers never realized what a great thing they had on their hands, or rather could have had.
“…Do you really think I can do it?”
Hanna said nothing as she was already snoring, but Jen didn’t need to hear her friend’s answer because it was written in ink. And she knew the answer was correct because whenever Hanna and Marie came up with something that involved this many numbers, it was rock solid.
As she felt her mouth break into a smile, she thought about finding a part-time job in Ecruteak while she worked on her new gym.
*
Next time: In Chapter 7, Krissy tries to go it alone.