Vermilion was the second largest Gym in Kanto.
First place was taken by either Viridian or Celadon, depending how you measured; Viridian had been expanded over and over during the early nineties, turning the once-humble haven of bug catchers into the largest indoor Pokémon Stadium on the continent, surpassing even Hoenn’s vaunted Battle Dome. Celadon Pokémon Gym, in contrast, had the largest total size, containing the massive Celadon Gardens within its borders.
But again, Vermilion was second, measured by both indoor and total space. The massive, red-roofed structure was preceded by the equally large Battlegrounds, four roughly-equal training fields, themselves broken into sub-fields of differing terrain, set up both to host local trainer tournaments, and to act as a buffer zone during Gym Season.
Hoshi could not see a single trainer from where he stood, just inside the entrance pavilion.
Actually, isn’t it still Gym Season right now? I know Vermilion sees most of its trainer rush happen in spring, but things can’t be this dead normally, right?
There should have been at least a few trainers taking advantage of the facilities; a Pokémon Gym wasn’t just a place for a Gym leader to lord over, it was a dedicated space for its city’s local trainers and Pokémon Rangers to keep themselves sharp. Hoshi stepped through the large open spaces, feeling perplexed. Did I forget a holiday, or something?
Sure, the amount of new trainers had slowed when the prerequisites increased, but for the Gym to be empty? In July? Actually, it might be this freak heat wave that’s left it so empty. Everyone’s decided to stay home.
That was the only explanation Hoshi could think of. He followed the winding brick path all the way to the entrance, unwilling to cut across the variously wet, overgrown, pit-filled, or straight-up electrified terrain. The double-doors slid open automatically as he came near, and he felt a small jolt of relief; the place was, at least, open.
Vermilion Gym’s reception area was actually not that far off from the reception area of the nearby Vermilion Military Museum; thin wood panels covered walls of sturdy white washed concrete, bright pictures in dark frames taking up every available space. But where the museum had pictures of soldiers, factories, and war machines, the Gym’s walls were dedicated to Pokémon trainers who had challenged the Leader and obtained Veridian’s Thunder Badge.
The centre of the room was taken up by a bronze statue of one such battle, and as Hoshi stepped past his eyes were drawn upwards.
Rendered in just slightly larger-than-life stature were a pikachu and a raichu, menacing each other with bared teeth as they circled, metal sparks jumping from the rodents’ cheeks, frozen mid-attack.
“Can I help you, sir?” came a feminine voice from behind his back, and Hoshi realised he had stopped to stare at the statue.
He cleared his throat, stepping up to the reception desk. “Yes, thank you. Is the Gym Leader available?”
“Are you here to make your challenge, sir?” the receptionist asked, hands hovering over her keyboard. Man, she’s young. Sixteen at most, he would guess. Her dark brunette hair was streaked with lighter bleached lines, while her nails were painted bright pink. Looks kind of punk; doesn’t match her voice as all. She must be a new hire – I’ve never seen her here before.
“No, I'm not a trainer. Citizen’s Request, please.”
The teenager frowned, entering a few keystrokes. “Name?” Hoshi answered, and she tapped away for a few seconds more, probably checking to see if he was actually a registered citizen. “In that case, he’s actually free right this moment. Shall I schedule you now?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Another few keystrokes, followed by a nod. “Please wait for a moment, sir. Lieutenant Surge should be ready for you within a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Hoshi repeated himself, and moved to sit in one of the plastic chairs set along the wall. Sorry, no exciting Pokémon battle for you today. Though actually… “Pardon, miss.”
The young woman’s head rose, and he continued. “Is there a reason I haven’t seen any trainers around? I know it isn’t exactly high tide, but…”
She put a pink-painted nail to her lips. “I think it might be the heat? We’ve seen a few trainers coming in, but it’s definitely not the number I’d have expected.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure, sir.”
Hoshi grunted out another thanks, and settled down to wait. There were magazines set out for visitors to read, but he ignored them in favour of getting his thoughts in order.
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To his mild surprise, the receptionist directed Hoshi not to his uncle’s office, but rather the battle arena that occupied the Gym’s heart.
Maybe she mentioned my name. Heck, maybe he told her to mention my name if I came in; he’s probably pissed that I haven’t been keeping contact.
Maybe I'm in for an ass-kicking. Ha.
The tepid joke made the corners of his mouth twitch, and a portion of his tension bled away. The rest went as he came out the end of the challenger’s tunnel, to see his uncle’s broad back – the man was turned towards the centre of the arena, where an electabuzz guarded itself against a circling round blur that was almost certainly Surge’s prized electrode.
“Sorry to interrupt your training, Bob,” Hoshi cried out, his voice raised to carry over the distance. Surge turned, his arms crossed.
Hoshi’s father had been a large man, so muscular that his peers had nicknamed him the Champ. Surge had about the same amount of muscle, though it was spread thinner across his body – because Bob Surge, his father’s best friend and Hoshi’s uncle in all but blood, was fucking tall as fuck.
Veridian’s Gym Leader of eighteen years towered well over seven feet; Hoshi had never asked after the exact number, but if it edged into the low eights he wouldn’t be surprised. The man was dressed in his ‘show uniform,’ the camo-patterned faux-fatigues he wore while he was on the clock, but not actually battling.
He always said that he’d have preferred to wear his actual air force uniform, but that the strict division between the municipal and federal militaries made it a bundle of red tape he wasn’t willing to cut through.
His blond hair was spiked up, valiantly fighting a slow, grinding battle against baldness, while the rest of his face was clean-shaven. His sharp eyes and sharper smile both lit up as he saw Hoshi approach.
“Kid!” he spoke back, his voice loud enough that raising it was unnecessary. He half-turned back to the fighting Pokémon, put two fingers to his lips, and whistled.
Immediately the blur halted, resolving into, as Hoshi had assumed, a large electrode. The spherical electric Pokémon rolled back-and-forth in place, communicating eagerness with every movement. In contrast the electabuzz dropped its arms wearily, seeming relieved for the fight to be over.
“You’re late!” Surge continued. “The party was Sunday!” He stepped forward, and Hoshi could swear the ground was quaking as his thoughts turned frantic.
Party? Sunday? What the fuck is he- His face fell. Shit, Bob’s birthday is in July, isn’t it? I totally missed-
His guilty thought was cut off as he was enveloped in a massive hug. “Thought you wouldn’t show up! How’ve you been, kid?”
“Sorry,” came Hoshi's muffled voice. “I’ve been… busy. It slipped my mind.”
“Ha!” Surge exclaimed, releasing his nephew. “Busy, is it? Little birdy told me what you’re ‘busy’ with!” The man had the sort of smile that always seemed sinister no matter his actual intent, but Hoshi felt he was pretty good at reading it. But this time, it sent a chill down his spine. “So, when am I gonna be a grand-uncle?”
Hoshi grimaced. Damnit. I was hoping to keep Casca under wraps… Not for any sinister reasons, but just because his uncle could be brutal with his teasing. “We’re not nearly that far along, Bob. Ask again when I’ve got a house and car.”
“Ha!” he laughed again, bombastic as an exploding firework. “Not so easy, these days! Used to be you could grab a house in the outskirts for basically nothing, now…” He paused, his smile dimming before redoubling in ferocity. “That’s why I keep saying, you should stay with me! Why pay for an apartment when the Surge Mansion is open seven days a week, huh?”
Another grimace, this one tinged with annoyance. Damnit Bob, don’t try and guilt-trip me now, I’m still feeling it from the birthday thing. “C’mon, Bob.” Well, since he apparently knows already… “I can’t bring a girl around your place. She’d dump me the instant she caught sight of your ratty-ass furniture.”
Bob sniffed, crossing his arms once again. Behind him the electabuzz started to trot towards them. “Hey, those are antiques! But I get your meaning, ha! Don’t want your girl getting an eyeful of a real man!”
Hoshi snorted. “Sure, Bob, that’s exactly what I meant. Who told you about Casca, anyhow?”
The tired Pokémon came to rest behind Surge’s heel, seeming even shorter than its three-foot height next to the giant. “Hey, don’t ask a ninja his tricks! Your old man made me swear on my mother to take his secret techniques to the grave!” He bellowed out a laugh, and Hoshi struggled to keep his smile contained.
“Don’t disrespect my heritage, ass.” Dad was barely a ninja; if you count, then I’m the right hand of Arcus Himself.
The Gym Leader bent down to rub the electabuzz’s furred head. “No disrespect intended, little man! As for this little man…“ He switched to addressing the Pokémon. “Not break time yet, slacker! Cooldown jog, now!”
He patted the thing on the back, ignoring its pleading look like the drill sergeant he was. The Pokémon gave a mournful croak, but obeyed, beginning to jog around the field. Its oversized forearms swung exaggeratedly – its form was terrible.
Hoshi closed the short distance between him and his uncle, the two of them watching the electabuzz run its sloppy circuit. “New ‘mon?”
“Yeah. One of Jackson’s kids.”
“Named it yet?”
His uncle grunted. “Not sure he’s Gym team material. Might send him off to the power plant.”
“Hmm… Yeah, he does look pretty scrawny.” Electabuzz weren’t very large – Hoshi couldn’t think of a shorter bipedal ‘mon that wasn’t a baby form, at least off the top of his head – but this one was notably small.
“I’m more concerned with the attitude. Little man just doesn’t seem up for battling.”
Hoshi made an affirmative noise, and the two humans watched the yellow-and-black-furred monster slow to a trot the moment it thought its master wasn’t looking, its antenna bobbing as it moved. Occasionally a pinkish blur would flash past; the restless electrode doing its own laps without needing to be told.
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As the electabuzz passed them to start its second go-round, Surge broke the silence. “So did you have an actual request, or did you come down to bitch about your fatass boss again? Cause you know I’m always up to hear that, but I’m kinda at work, here.”
Hoshi’s cheeks coloured. Oh, right. “Kind of both? Well, nothing to do with Everheart – I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Shoot.”
Hoshi chewed on his tongue for a moment. “I’ve got this friend, and he thinks this group of people I’ve been hearing about are bad news. But I remember way back when I was a kid, dad used to talk them up… So I thought I’d come around and ask your opinion.”
“...So you just straight-up forgot my birthday, huh?”
His cheeks colouring further, Hoshi stayed silent.
Surge shot him a raised brow. “You gonna give me a name?”
…Well, here it goes. No going back now. “Team Rocket.”
The Gym leader’s expression stayed fixed for a moment, his brow raised interrogatively. Then Hoshi witnessed the strangeness of his Uncle Bob frowning, something he almost never did – even when he was losing to a challenger, the man kept his wild, malicious-looking grin.
“Fuck, Hoshi. That’s a group with some… history.” He drew two Poké Balls from his belt. “Electabuzz, return. Humvee, return.”
Red light shot from the balls, and the Pokémon collapsed into energy, returning to their homes.
“Bob?” Hoshi asked. I’ve never known him to cut his training short, even for me.
Surge turned, motioning for his nephew to follow. “Let’s discuss this in my office. You’ll wanna sit down; this’ll probably be a long one.”
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The office of ‘Lieutenant’ Surge – whose actual military rank was Captain, but who felt the former rolled off the tongue better – wasn’t particularly organised. Hoshi had to step around a stack of papers, the pile left right in the middle of the floor.
“How in Arcus’s name does this place get worse every time I see it?”
Surge rounded his desk, sitting in his oversized, couch-like armchair. “Hey, I know where everything is. It’s important to keep your work space personal.”
With a snort, Hoshi planted himself in the much smaller visitor’s seat. “Sure, Bob.” He paused for a moment, before barreling forward. “I’ll ask again: who are Team Rocket? The real Team Rocket, not whatever the media says.”
His uncle steepled his fingers. “Team Rocket is…” A few seconds passed, Hoshi’s annoyance growing with each tick of the wall-mounted, magnemite-themed clock. Yeah? Yeah?! Talk, damn it! “The Team Rocket that exists today isn’t the same one that existed when me and your old man were pinballing around Johto, pulling stealth ops and dropping voltorb onto factories… Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Hoshi repeated.
“Yeah. Mostly.” The man stood, moving to the left wall of the room to look at a picture hanging from a screw, its details washed out by time. With uncommonly delicate movements he plucked the frame off the wall, returning to the desk.
He slid it across to Hoshi, who looked down. He had seen this picture before, of course, in this very room – but nowhere else; this was one of a few that Surge hadn’t copied for him when it became clear that the then-teenager wouldn’t be staying under the Gym Leader’s roof for more than a few nights a month.
The composition was lop-sided; whoever had been behind the camera had zoomed in a bit too far, meaning that Shenja Mutsu was only shown from the chin up, while his taller best friend had the top of his head cut off. Between them was a third man, taller than Hoshi’s father but thin as a pole, a man with purple-pink hair cut short at the sides but left long along the top of his head – Hoshi wasn’t sure what to call the strange haircut. Mohawk? No, it isn’t as extreme as that… Whatever, that’s the least important detail, anyway.
“Who’s this?” Though Hoshi had seen this picture before, he had never questioned it; Surge had three or four dozen different pictures of him and his father posing with some third person, and every time Hoshi asked after the stranger the answer was similar. ‘That was Corporal So-And-So, who served with me and your dad,’ or ‘That’s an old friend who worked under the Champ building factories,’ or any number of basically-identical answers. I feel like this one’s going to be a little different, though.
Surge drew in a breath – then raised his shoulders in a shrug. “No idea.”
Hoshi shot the Gym Leader a disgusted look, to which the man only huffed out a small laugh. “No, really! He never told us his name; he was a black operator, a saboteur. Might even have been a relative of yours! Ha!”
Looking back down at the picture of the stranger, Hoshi’s lips pursed. I don’t see it. His hair is purple, yeah, but it’s way too straight. Plenty of people have purple hair – heck, the other ninja clan in Fuchsia has purple hair, too. “But he was Rocket?”
“Yeah. I don’t remember the exact mission we took that picture after, but we worked with Rocket more than a few times. Only the one picture though – the other black ops were smart enough not to leave evidence! Ha!”
“...So they were good guys?”
Rather than answer, his uncle leaned back in his giant plush chair. He clasped his hands up over his head, stretching as he blew out a breath. “That’s complicated, kid. It was a war – if there were any good guys, I never met ‘em.”
Hoshi’s nostrils flared. “Don’t say that. You were fighting for Kanto, for your mother’s homeland.”
Surge’s posture remained somehow both tense and languid, leaning back with his head pointed at the ceiling. “...Yeah. We were doing that.” A long moment of silence passed before he continued. “Look, Rocket did a lot of things to help Kanto during the war. Some of it was pretty fucking ugly, but what I did was pretty fucking ugly, too, and I’d do it again in a flash.”
Finally he returned to looking Hoshi in the eye. “I knew Giovanni Capo. Knew that man better than most of my blood relatives – we were Gym Leaders together for years. He was a cold bastard, but he knew how to make shit happen, and he wasn’t cruel for its own sake. But Giovanni ain’t around anymore – I don’t know who's in charge of Rocket these days, if it's his kid or one of his lackeys or some random asshole, but it ain’t the man I knew.”
Hoshi sat for a moment, absorbing his uncle’s words. After thinking it over, he decided – might as well go all-in. I trust Bob a heck of a lot more than anyone else in my life. He breathed in, then out, white-hot anxiety rushing through his veins. “Casca’s a Rocket.”
The Gym Leader – and in that moment he was the Vermilion City Gym Leader, not Uncle Bob – just looked at Hoshi, his face hard.
Please. He didn’t even know what he was asking for. Please.
“...Hoshi, I love you. You’re my best friend’s kid, my nephew, and as much as you piss me off sometimes, I love you. So I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“But Bob-”
“Hoshi.” The tone stopped him cold. “I am a public servant. If I know about a criminal, I have to go after them. No matter who they are, no matter if I think they deserve it. That’s the job.” Surge’s eyes could have cut glass. “We can talk about hypotheticals, we can talk about the past, but unless you want to put somebody behind bars, we can’t talk about individuals in a known criminal organisation, or about joining one. That ain’t on the table, kid.”
Hoshi sat, looking at his uncle’s sharp, vividly blue eyes. There wasn’t a hint of give. “...I understand. Pretend I didn't say anything.”
A small nod. “You’re damn right you didn’t say anything. Seriously kid, I’m the damn Gym Leader, what did you think I’d say?”
“...Sorry. I guess I… kind of forgot.”
Surge huffed, but his eyes had lost a hint of that cold sharpness. “Well don’t go forgetting shit when you talk to anyone else. Seriously, don’t let that get out. People talk, Hoshi.” Even more of the harshness drained away as the giant in camo pattern clothes relaxed. “Anything else?”
Fuck. Fuck, that was stupid.
“No… Unless you have anything about the modern Team Rocket you want me to know?”
His uncle shrugged. “Nothing you can’t get off the news. They hijacked the big radio tower over in Goldenrod – something about gyarados, too, at the same time. The Jennys catch one every now and then…”
For a moment, Surge’s face screwed up in indecision. When he spoke again, his voice was hesitant. “...Okay, there is one more thing. It’s… probably not something I should be saying with the job I have, but fuck it, you deserve to know.”
Hoshi blinked. What? Worse than the stuff you’ve already said? I’m pretty sure most of what you told me would get you in trouble with the government. He nodded slowly. “I’m listening.”
“Okay, so… This is speculation. I need to say that up front.” Hoshi nodded again.
“So when everything started stalling out, and Kanto went to the negotiating table, both sides brought a lot of their baggage with them. Now I wasn’t there for that high-level shit, but like I said, people talk. So I can say that neither side was very happy about any of the… messier stuff that they’d- that we’d been doing to each other. Would’a been real hard to put things behind us if all the bombings and the poisonings and the assassinations and shit were all government-approved.”
Hoshi’s mouth was dry. “You’re saying it was a work. They sold Rocket out.”
Surge shrugged. “It ain’t as black and white as that. Rocket did all the shit they did, and they never exactly asked permission – they just happened to get supplies handed to them after the fact. Team Rocket wasn’t… official. Accounted for. Not like the ninja clans.” He reached under his desk, and produced a twelve-pack of the stupidly caffeinated energy drinks that Hoshi sometimes found buried in the back of a convenience store. “Times like this, I wish I hadn’t quit drinking,” he muttered, before ripping open the pack and popping a tab.
He took a long gulp of the drink – probably five or six cups of coffee’s worth – as Hoshi silently watched, before continuing. “So that’s that. Team Rocket got branded a dangerous terrorist group, and there’s no going back. Anybody caught in the organisation are war criminals by default. Only the greediest, most desperate, or dumbest of dumb punks join up these days.” He slammed down the rest of his drink. “I’m done talking about Team Rocket.”
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Hoshi walked out of Vermilion Gym with a sour look on his face. Because as much as Uncle Bob had said, there had been a few things the man didn’t say that were bugging him.
He never said not to join. He never said to stay away from Casca. And his exact words when I told him about her, when he said he would have to arrest her if he knew she was a Rocket… he said ‘No matter if I think they deserve it.’
He started walking down the winding path through the empty training grounds. He warned me what would happen if I got caught, but didn’t actually advise me to stay away. Uncle Bob’s a pretty direct guy; if he really, genuinely thought something was for my own good, he’d tell me straight out – Gym Leader or not.
Surge hadn’t actually admonished the group a single time – at least, not without tarring the entire military, himself included, with the same brush.
In the end all he really said about modern Rocket boils down to… ‘I don’t know those guys, don’t get caught.’
He reached the pavilion separating the Gym from the rest of the city, and looked back. Vermilion’s crown jewel stared back at him in white and red, a history of violence proudly displayed within.
Not a single trainer occupied the incredibly varied, incredibly expensive fields. Not a single person had been inside the Gym, waiting to challenge its Leader, striving to become a Pokémon Champion.
Hoshi’s fists clenched and unclenched, his muscles tensing over and over as his mind worked.
‘Would’a been real hard to put things behind us if all the bombings and the poisonings and the assassinations and shit were all government-approved.’
‘We worked with Rocket more than a few times.’
‘It ain’t as black and white as that.’
…I need to talk to Casca.
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Hoshi walked into the reception room just after dawn, less than ten minutes after the doors had been unlocked. His steps were confident, self assured and motivated. The receptionist – it was the same one, by some quirk of fate – looked up as he walked towards her desk. “Can I help you-”
Hoshi slid three hundred pokes worth of small bills across the counter. “Three hours of private lessons with the Gym Leader, please.”
If I’m going to do this, I’m not going in half-assed. Flashes of the previous night’s conversation with his girlfriend flashed through his head – what a Rocket Grunt actually did, how much it paid, what the responsibilities were.
What someone had to do to go up in that world.
He had a month’s worth of paid leave, and then the money he had been saving up on top. I’m gonna be the most overqualified fucking Rocket Grunt they’ve ever seen.