Once more, David was left alone with one of the most powerful people in Kanto.

It felt like there should be more gravitas to the situation. He was reeling - both from being face to face with the two gym leaders, and from what Sabrina had revealed before disappearing. The two of them had a presence. It wasn't subtle. A power beyond the physical, and that wasn’t even mentioning the otherworldly abilities that Sabrina wielded. Three one-on-one conversations, short though they’d been, with no break was too much for him. He needed time to process.

Time he wasn’t going to receive.

Koga reached into the sleeve of his gym outfit and pulled out an ornate rod a hand span across. Flicking his wrist the rod chimed, a bell ringing like a tuning fork.

A shiver passed through David’s hair, and he shook his head to clear the sensation. Koga showed no sign of noticing the noise, returning the bell to his sleeve. It didn’t ring again as he moved. The bell hadn’t rung as Koga entered and exited the room. In fact, Koga had made no noise beyond the shifting of the screen door.

“You wish to go to the Pokecenter, yet I must ask for more patience. We too must speak, and your time is as falling grains of sand. It is something we share.”

With a dry scrawl the screen door behind David opened. He turned, expecting Taketa or another gym trainer. Instead, he did a double take at the figure that glided in. The figure wore layered robes with a cowl that were heavy enough to disguise their form. They hunched over, whether from the weight of all the fabric or age, he couldn’t tell. Their robes hid all. The outermost layer was a dull gray that brightened with each fold to the brilliant purple core.

As they turned away from the screen he gave up all attempts to identify any features. Under the hood of the robe was a smooth white mask. It was ovular, curving back towards the face but lacking any features beyond two dark cloth eyes and two purple lines dripping down from where a mouth should be. Fangs, blood or a mix of the two.

Each step they took towards the table made a small clicking noise as wood met wood softly but burdened. The tray they carried never wavered.

It was bizarre, even for this world. A costume, a show, or a villain from a children's TV show.

David looked back at Koga half skeptic, half resigned. ‘What now? What ridiculous thing was this world going to throw at him today?’

Koga gave him a sliver of a smile. It lasted only a second, barely long enough for David to wonder if it was in sympathy or amusement.

David’s shoulders slumped. The released pressure brought more relief than he’d expected. He was tired, far beyond what he should be for this time of day. Sure. He could talk to someone in that weird ass costume. ‘What’s one more minute of madness after everything that's happened already?’

The costumed server knelt at the table - not one the cushion where Sabrina had sat, but the opposite side on the wooden floor. The robed figure had brought them a tea set. It was plain, made from unpolished light gray stone. Item by item the server emptied the tray at a painful speed. David hoped the robe gave enough padding that it wasn’t literal pain.

Once the tray was empty they stood from the kneeling position in a smooth motion that made their strength clear. Not once did they speak.

David opened his mouth to ask one of many questions about the display as the costumed server left, but Koga held up a hand. He dropped it when the screen door opened and scuffed close behind David. Waving at David to forestall any speech, Koga picked up the teapot and poured a green tea into both cups. They were simple bowls without handles in keeping with the rest of the set.

A heady, spring smell filled the air.

“You will come here each day until your deadline. You will be trained.” Koga picked up his cup.

“I-” David began, picking up his own only to pause as he registered what Koga was saying.

‘Wait, what?’ He was being recruited? What?

Why? For what?

His immediate reaction was to refuse. He may have had only a week left - a week to earn a badge from this very gym, but his instincts told him to get out of here. There was too much he didn’t know, and after... everything here, he didn’t trust a free lunch, even if it came with tea.

“Thank you, but-”

“I’m afraid it is an offer you cannot refuse,” Koga said, speaking over David and placing down his cup. “Leave us.”

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David looked at him strangely. Did he want David to go? What did he mean by us?

David jumped as the door slid open behind him, whirling around. The door slid shut again, a pale hand and a dark outfit the only sign that anyone had been there. David spun in place on the cushion, almost mimicking Pidgey’s routine as he furiously scanned the room again.

Where had they been hiding?

The room was partially lit, the shadows obscuring possible hideyholes, but David hadn’t heard any trap doors lifting. There were no alcoves in the room. It was bare aside from the furniture and the walls were pale screens, a shade light enough to make any darkness or shadow stand out.

“You have spilled your tea,” Koga intoned. His voice was bland, a contrast to before.

David paused his scan to glance down at his hand. It was wet and tingling. Some of the tea had splashed as he turned. As he watched a bead slid down the side of the cup and fell with a splatter that echoed around the room. This was the first time Koga had commented on any of his actions since he entered the room. His posture, lack of kneeling, it had all gone unmentioned, so for Koga to speak on this...

‘Shit. Was it a big blunder to spill a gym leader's tea? Or was it the ceremony itself?’

Koga picked up the teapot and gestured to David’s cup.

Numbly David reached his hand forward. He felt so foreign. So very sick and tired of all this and all that he did not know.

Koga began to speak as he poured. “Fuchsia City and its people are much like the marsh that surrounds it. Very set in our ways. Once we absorb something - water or other, we are reluctant to let it go. A tradition was started a long time ago, in a different time that made this necessary.” Koga finished pouring and set the stone kettle down. He gestured at the tea set. “I do not know who harvests my tea. I do not know who prepares it. I do not know who brings it here. I do not know who pours it. For the leader of Fuchsia, there are only two choices, to lead or to die.”

David’s eyes widened. He jerked his hand back and did a double take at his cup which thankfully did not spill. Had he been drinking poison this whole time?

”My people suffered under tyrants for far too long, and they will never do so again. That is why I must insist you accept my offer.” Koga’s eyes crinkled at David’s expression. As if to reassure him, Koga reached down, picking up his own cup and took a sip.

“My people will follow me in many things, as, like me, they have two choices, to follow or to kill. It is a delicate balance and one I have tested, perhaps to the limit in recent years.” Koga widened his eyes and trapped David’s gaze in his own. "To my people, I have fed you to our enemy, offering you as a tribute, a tribute like those we were once forced to make. You are not one of us, but if I can do this, what else would I be capable of? I must balance the scales if I am to stand before them and my predecessors and ancestors."

David blinked, breaking away from the almost hypnotizing effect of Koga’s black pupils. That was one of the most terrifying history lessons he’d ever been given. Poison for the Poison city. A cup of tea or a cup of death?

He stretched his hands, flexing them. After a second’s hesitation, he picked up the cup again. He eyed it before taking another sip. The rush of adrenaline might have made him foolish, but he couldn’t hold his question back. “Why? Why bring me here? Why work with Sabrina - the Voyants if you know it will upset your people? If you think it could cause your death?”

Koga took another deep sip of his tea. “My people are set in our ways and becoming more so. We are quite secure, out here on our peninsula. We are strong, wealthy in material and flesh. We can defend our home and easily forget about the rest of the world. It worried me. It worried me after the war as we grew stronger still and all the more isolated. It worried me as the Voyant’s influence grew, and a madness took control of Saffron. It worried me as something changed in Kanto. It worried me until I found a young, scared but determined possibility poking around my borders.”

Koga set his tea down and refilled his cup. He was flying through this stuff, by now he must have drunk six cups to David’s one and a half.

“But that is not a conversation for now. I believe in my people. I know we can change for the better, and so I must hope they believe in me in the same way. I hope that answers your question, and you understand why, despite what your wishes are, that I must aid you. You have earned two awards from my city. One large, one small. Training is what I believe to be your greatest gain. You may ask for something else.”

David wasn’t happy with the explanation, the ambush, the questions or the lesson, but now he knew that he was talking to someone who apparently happily drank tea-possibly-poison every day. That was on the borderline of crazy, historical significance or not. Koga was also one of if not the most powerful person in the city, and that was a dangerous, concerning thing.

So instead of attempting to refuse, he asked “Training? Battling training here? Or for Poison types and Venonat?”

Koga smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Training.”

And suddenly all David wanted was to get out, get his Pokemon healed and forget this all. He was done with these games, these questions and these revelations. He wanted out. He would agree to nearly anything to get out.

“Alright. What time tomorrow?”

Koga told him, and David felt all the more tired.

-.-

A woman collected him from the room and led him through the maze that was the Fuchsia gym. He had to stop off at the reception to sign some paperwork to acknowledge the loss by forfeit, but thankfully it was all ready for him.

The air outside the gym was fresh and warm. It was still city air, but there was that hint of damp and the underlying taste of peat.

David started to jog, following signs and choosing larger roads. The larger streets, the visitor streets always led to the Pokecenter in Fuchsia.

His hand tingled where tea had spilled, and David idly wondered if the Pokecenter would treat people in an emergency, and what would happen tomorrow morning to Fuchsia if he with his few sips needed treatment. It worried him, that it was just an idle thought, but he was too tired to really care.