Why would this man be welcoming Quinn to his own gym? He wore a blue sports coat over a plain white t-shirt and stood taller than six feet. The gray in his hair was betrayed by his light brown skin which was devoid of wrinkles. Under a pronounced mustache, the man wore a big smile that commanded the room's attention.
“Buffering, I see. Should we let your mouth catch up to your brain?” The man asked but didn’t wait for a response. “Oh I know, let's play 20 questions. Who doesn’t love a game to break the ice?”
Quinn didn’t miss another chance to speak up. “Who are you?”
The man’s face went flat. “Well, that’s not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. What, you never play 20 questions with Lucy growing up?”
Quinn clenched his hands at the mention of his mom but still waited for an answer to his question.
The man’s big smile returned at the subtle reaction he got out of Quinn. “Fine, you definitely wouldn’t be able to figure out what was going on if we stuck to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions. My name is Aito and my friend here is Raze.”
Quinn analyzed the other man, Raze, and the two men couldn’t look more different. He had on a black sleeveless shirt that showed off his muscular arms. His white skin was blanketed in tattoos that covered his entire body except for his bald head and scar-riddled face. He was shorter than Aito, but not by much, and he had a slight twitch in his neck. Raze didn’t talk and didn’t break eye contact with Quinn.
“How do you know who I am?” Quinn’s question trailed off.
“...and who your mum is?” Aito continued Quinn’s question. “Come on, you got to get the most out of these questions. I gave you 20 but don’t waste two questions when one will do. Paul and I were great pals. I don’t think he ever talked about you and your mum when he was sober, but he was more drunk than sober. He never gave me your name. I had to get my guys to find that out. Sorry about your mum, the last time I saw her was at her parents’ funeral. Can’t blame her for leaving Havenwood.” Aito’s smile left his face when he spoke of Lucy.
“You knew my mom?”
“Not the best use of a question,” Aito’s early persona was back. “You will learn that even with all the people in this city, everyone knows everyone here in West Havenwood. I didn’t get invites to the famous Gray Cookouts, but I knew them well enough.”
“Do you know what happened to Paul?”
“Well done, not asking if I killed Paul. You wouldn’t want to imply I am that kind of guy.” Aito tapped his pointer finger on the side of his forehead. “It's not like I would tell you if I did, but no. Not sure what went on there.”
Quinn doubted that was the full story, but didn’t want to try and push Aito for more after seeing how quickly Tony and Nick ran away. “So why should you be welcoming me to the Royal Gym?”
“Well, that’s because I own it,” Aito said matter-of-factly while stretching out his arms with his palms up.
“No, Paul owned… I mean, I own it.”
“Oooh, not a question. Looks like it’s my turn to ask.” Aito grinned and started walking forward with Raze in lockstep. “Answer me this, why are the lights on?”
Quinn looked toward the electrical box by the bleachers.
“Silly me, poor wording. Why do the lights work?”
“Um,” Quinn debated telling Aito about how Amanda asked the same question, but couldn’t put together a sentence before Aito continued.
“Why is there running water? Why are the locks intact? Why isn’t this whole place looted? I know Ashford is a little bumpkin town, but even you should know that abandoning a building for half a year doesn’t lead to a move-in ready residence.”
Quinn connected the dots. “It’s been you. You kept the lights on.”
“Ding, ding, ding. I kept the lights on because I own the gym just like I own the rest of Havenwood. There isn’t a building in this entire city that opens or closes its doors without me saying so. My name might not be on the deeds, but Havenwood is my kingdom.” Aito’s pleasant tone didn’t match the gravity of his claim.
Quinn involuntarily gulped at the implications and guessed. “So you keep the lights on to come work out.”
Aito rolled his eyes and scoffed. “You’re lucky I don’t have thinner skin, son. My gym has three saunas and a much more alluring staff,” Aito looked Quinn up and down. “No, I don’t keep this gym open for health benefits. I keep it open for financial benefits. Paul and I had a long and profitable relationship. It started with me having him throw badge matches for some friends who had more money than skill.”
By this point, Aito and Raze were only a couple of feet away from Quinn and Phanpy.
“Until Paul got greedy and started taking bribes behind our backs and cutting us out. Raze here should have caught it sooner, but we found out with the rest of the world when the reporter got Paul to take her bribe.” At this, Raze had an especially large twitch that made him finally break his stare.
Aito held his hand with his thumb and pointer finger one inch apart. “I was this close to having Raze do what he does best and burn the gym to the ground with Paul inside, but while begging for his life Paul came up with a decent profitable alternative. He had the bright idea to run pit fights at night out of the gym. Paul still had to pay up big time for the side hustle he was running, but the fights were so popular that I let him keep running the gym.”
Aito’s story answered Quinn’s question from earlier in the day. “All the trash… are pit fights still going on?”
“Oh yes, the last one had a beast of a Trevenant squash an Orbeetle in the headliner fight. It ended too soon for my taste, but the crowd went crazy for the Trevenant’s brutality. Raze, was that on Friday?” Aito asked like he was inquiring about the last time it rained.
“That's right,” Raze opened his mouth for the first time.
Aito turned to look at the bleachers. “Paul would clean up everything when he was around. We’ve had to bring in a Muk from North Havenwood to take care of the blood, but it’ll be nice to not have to wade through the trash from now on.”
Quinn’s own blood boiled at the thought of bloody battlefields and bloody Pokemon. “I am not going to be a part of any of that. The pit fights stop!” With Aito looking at the bleachers, Quinn took a step forward for emphasis.
As soon as Quinn’s front foot touched the ground, Raze sprung forward with a fist aimed right at his face. He barely had enough time to turn his head before the haymaker connected squarely on his right ear. He fell to the ground with blacked-out vision and a piercing ringing coming from his ear.
Quinn didn’t see what happened next, but Phanpy matched Raze’s speed and used a [Take Down] on his left shin. Raze, already off balance from the punch, fell to the ground with his left leg taken out from under him. Phanpy quickly moved in between them and let out an ear-splitting trumpet, warning Raze to back off.
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“You little—” Raze didn’t finish his sentence as he pulled out an eight-inch curved blade and slashed Phanpy’s trunk. The blade caught the top of the trunk and blood immediately flowed out of the wound. Phanpy cried out in pain and stumbled back into a still-disoriented Quinn.
Quinn used Phanpy’s cry to locate him and wrap his arms around his friend. Because his vision was still blurred, the blood on Phanpy was the first clue Quinn had as to how bad the situation actually was. Quinn ripped off his shirt and used it to put pressure on where he guessed the wound was.
“Raze, would you settle down! Why did you have to go and get blood on my shoes? Was he supposed to be a threat to me?” Aito stuck out his foot so it was two inches in front of Raze’s face.
Quinn’s shirt steadily became more soaked with blood while Raze stood up and avoided Aito’s gaze. Quinn started to panic at the amount of blood as he looked around the room for anything that might help stop the bleeding.
“Chill out, just put him in his Pokeball and let us finish up here,” Aito said.
“There is no Pokeball! I have to get to a Pokemon center!” Quinn struggled to get up while keeping pressure on the wound.
Aito looked at his belt and then looked at Raze’s belt. “Give the boy your belt. Quinn, just wrap the belt near the wound and strap it tight. Phanpy will still be able to breathe out of his mouth.” Quinn did just that after Raze handed him his belt.
The triage worked and the blood coming from the trunk turned into a trickle. With the tourniquet in place, Quinn grabbed Phanpy and started running toward the front door, but Raze stepped in his path.
“Get out of the way! Do you see the blood?!” Quinn yelled, with blood now staining his pants and chest.
Aito answered, “Settle down. This gym has seen way more blood, and the center is only a couple blocks away. Just listen up, and we will be on our way. We’ll even lock up for you.”
Quinn doubted that everything was going to be fine, but didn’t think he had any chance at getting past Raze. “Fine. Hurry.”
“Good. Before Raze freaked out, I was going to say that it’s fine if you won’t host pit fights. There are plenty of empty warehouses in Havenwood, even if they don’t have the same amenities. However, that’s how Paul paid for his Saber protection. If the fights stop, then you are going to need to pay up like everyone else. This month’s protection costs plus the last six months of premium stewardship puts you at 12,000 dollars owed.”
Quinn’s massive headache didn’t allow him to process what Saber was, or what protection entailed, but he was able to process the number. “Twelve thousand dollars? I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Sure, you don’t have it now, but that's the point of running a business, isn’t it?” Aito answered with his earlier grin.
Quinn was about to agree to pay just to get out, but he paused at the thought of what Aito and Raze would do if he couldn’t pay.
“I understand your hesitancy. Raze certainly soured your first impression of Saber. Let me take off two thousand for the pain and suffering. We can also agree that if you don’t have the money by the end of the month, then you move along and we find someone a little more comfortable with blood to run this place. Deal?” Aito’s face turned serious at the word “deal.”
Quinn still sweated at the thought of coming up with that much money but was satisfied with a worst-case scenario that didn’t end up with him and Phanpy dead. “Deal. Please, let me get Phanpy some help.”
“Fantastic. Of course, Raze, move out of the way.” Raze did so and Quinn sprinted to the door with a bleeding elephant in his arms.
“Turn left and you can’t miss the center!” Aito called out behind Quinn before he turned to Raze. “Why does everything turn so barbaric with you? This is why…” Quinn didn’t hear the rest of the conversation as he pushed open the doors and ran down the street.
The dark night was only broken up by the lights coming from the infrequent non-abandoned buildings on Azalea Lane. Although they weren’t much help to Quinn in his state. He stumbled on the uneven sidewalks as his earlier sprint turned into a clumsy jog with a whimpering Phanpy in his arms.
He came up to an intersection and scanned both streets for the Pokemon center logo or any poster with the mascot, Nurse Joy. Not finding anything, he remembered Aito’s instruction to turn left. Quinn did just that and turned left off of Azalea Lane. With each passing block, he slowed and became less sure that he heard Aito correctly. Quinn pulled out his phone to only to be greeted by the black screen he had seen before Nick and Tony’s battle.
At the realization of how lost he was, Quinn’s anxiety grew exponentially until a wave of nausea hit him. He avoided contaminating Phanpy’s open wound, but it came on so suddenly that his shirtless chest was now covered in both blood and vomit.
Panicking, he saw a man walking on the other side of the street and started yelling for help. When the man didn’t react, he ran to him.
This got a reaction out of the man, but not the one he had hoped for. The man turned around and darted away. Not giving chase, Quinn looked for another person that might be more willing to help him. Down the street, he saw a woman exit an apartment complex and he beelined it to her. As he got closer, the woman noticed him and let out a piercing scream.
“Wait, no. I just need to know where the…” Quinn couldn’t finish his sentence before she stepped back inside and slammed the door shut.
This cat-and-mouse game continued with every person Quinn could see, ending in the same result every time. The sight of a towering shirtless man covered in blood and vomit at night was enough to send everyone away.
Becoming truly desperate, he saw an oncoming car and stepped out into the street to try and get it to stop. The car only swerved out of the way and picked up speed down the street. Instead of watching the car drive away, Quinn looked down to see Phanpy had at some time fainted from the blood loss. The thought of Phanpy dying brought Quinn to his knees in the middle of the road with his unconscious best friend still in his arms.
“The center is this way,” a voice came from his right.
Quinn looked to see two blond girls standing 20 feet away on the sidewalk. The girls must have been twins as they mirrored each other exactly. Wearing the same jacket and jeans with one hand pointing to their left and an expanded Pokeball in the other.
Quinn’s legs almost gave out as he stood to plead, “Please show me, I’m so lost.”
The twins spoke in perfect unison, “Follow me,” and they took off the way they had been pointing.
Adrenaline spiked Quinn’s energy as he tried to catch up to the twins. Through the multiple turns and blocks, he didn’t gain any ground. Quinn didn’t dare slow down for fear of losing his lifeline.
The longer Quinn ran after the twins, the more he noticed that something was wrong. Quinn focused his eyes as much as he could and finally realized that there were not two identical twins, but just one girl. The blow to his head was now making him see double.
After a couple of more turns, Quinn saw the beacon he had been searching for. The center was lit up brighter than any other building he had seen all night and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t found it earlier.
“There it is. Yell for Tyler when you get in.” The girl ran near enough to the front doors that they automatically slid open and then doubled her speed as she ran past the center.
Quinn didn’t take time to thank her as he dashed into the Pokemon center’s lobby and yelled out, “Tyler! Phanpy needs your help!”
----------------------------------------
“Boss, why are we messing around with this bug? Let me squish him and I will run the gym as one of your shells.” Raze said while locking the Royal Gym’s security gate.
“Stop thinking like a grunt. I’m doubting my decision to give you West Havenwood.” Aito’s sharp words provoked another overt twitch from the bald man, but no response followed. “Do you know what all three other lieutenants have in their territories? Vorunda League gyms.” Aito walked to the back right door of a luxury sedan which hadn’t been there when Quinn left.
“League gyms bring trainers and trainers bring opportunities. The pit fights have always been a stopgap for the Royal Gym. Paul’s death just sped up the timeline. What this ‘bug’ offers us is a way to avoid starting over from scratch.” The chauffeur got out of the car and opened and closed the door for Aito. The window rolled down while the chauffeur got back to the driver’s seat. “The most difficult hurdle for getting a gym accredited isn’t the building, equipment, or even the strength of the gym leader. The most difficult hurdle is becoming a brand that the League craves. Paul destroyed the jewel of Havenwood, but his abandoned bastard son restoring it will have the League salivating.
“The kid has one month to prove himself. If he doesn’t, then you can figure out how to build a brand that the League wants. But I will tell you now that the League will never want the Raze brand,” Aito used his hand to gesture up and down at Raze.
“West Havenwood used to be something special and it died with this gym. Learn to revive it or I am going to raze you.”