Hoshi’s life settled into a state of normalcy. Monday through Friday, he was a construction worker for Machamp & Sons LLC. Saturday, he was a Rocket Grunt. Sunday, he had to himself.
…Well, the lines weren’t quite crystal clear; some days he would train with his fellow Rockets after work, and sometimes the company would offer overtime pay on the weekends – the city was legitimately falling to pieces, and the demand for skilled hands vastly outstripped supply. With the effects of the typhoon approaching a solid month, even the sturdy, normally-weatherproof buildings were starting to come apart.
And even ignoring the perfectly sound reasoning that Vermilion was his home, and he didn’t want nine-tenths of it turned into a husk while the rest dropped into the ocean, Hoshi also wasn’t in a place where he could refuse overtime. For the moment, his morals and wallet were in agreement.
Something that couldn’t be said about him and the rest of the team, sometimes.
“Man, ya said we was gonna train today!”
Over the past couple weeks, Hoshi’s opinions on Kenny had been refined, if not necessarily altered. He was definitely a dumbass, but what Hoshi had taken for a mean streak was mostly just a volatile disposition in general; the man’s mood turned on a dime.
“I know I said that, but a big section of the pier is starting to collapse. If nothing’s done, a chunk of the city might just slide right on into the ocean.”
The man’s face was sour, not helped at all by a fresh batch of acne gradually appearing like craters across its wide expanse. Might be the humidity… or probably he’s just juicing extra hard. “Okay, but yesterday it was somethin’, and the day before it was somethin’, and now today it’s the weekend, and it’s still somethin’ else! If you don’t wanna train, just fuckin’ say it!”
Hoshi didn’t imagine his own face was any more pleasant; trekking through the rain – which was actually starting to thin out a little, thank Arcus – on a Friday morning to get chewed out wasn’t exactly a cup of fucking tea. “What, you think I’m making shit up? I’m not afraid to voice my opinions, Kenny. My weekend is spoken for – deal with it.”
He turned, ignoring the man’s low growling voice as he vented his spleen. Arc, I feel worn out – and I haven’t even started work.
Thankfully for the illicit side of his career, the instructors were more accommodating than Kenny. Though I get the feeling that it’s only because I’m putting so many hours into the job on my ‘off’ days. If they were to order him to come in, he didn’t know what he would do.
His eyes swept over the familiar city streets, finding solace in the few people out and about. His heart lightened at the thought of his coming paycheck, then darkened again as the timetable for the Gym job crowded it out.
Don’t know what I’m gonna do about Surge… Unlike some asshat off the street, a Gym Leader is going to know I shouldn’t have a licence. And postponing things ‘till next spring when the real things were issued – the only halfway-sensible thing he had come up with – wasn’t even close to being an option; even if the other grunts agreed – and they wouldn’t – the instructors would definitely want results before mid-autumn. Maybe I just don’t participate? No, I want to climb the ranks; I need to be there in person, inarguably part of the team’s success. But…
With a sigh, he tossed all his thoughts into the back of his head. He could brood later; for now, there was a gigantic chunk of wood and artificial stone that needed to be repaired or, Arcus forbid, replaced.
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“Our hearts of course go out to the victims of the attack, but at the same time I can’t help but sympathise – just a touch, mind – with the perpetrator.”
Hoshi stared at the television, placing his entire focus onto the pair of green-suited anchors. The sound of muttering from the kitchen threatened to break through, but his will was adamant.
Casca hated being interrupted while she cooked; despite being mediocre as best, she was an absolute diva in the kitchen. The moment she decided it was her turn to prepare dinner, he knew it was best to just keep himself occupied with something else.
The second anchor frowned. “Flam, we usually agree on these things, but I’m not following. I can’t see today’s actions as anything other than the work of a rotten mind – an old, hateful man dragging innocents into his deluded crusade.”
The first gestured angrily, loose papers shifting on the desk. “Come on, Abalone! We’re seeing the exact same phenomena as when that Johtonian attacked the Moltres back in the eighties! You can’t dispute that something is happening, and the government is covering it up!”
Hoshi didn’t know exactly how scripted this section of the news was, but if it had been cooked up by a backroom writer, both they and the anchors were really earning their paychecks. Abalone, the second anchor, was the perfect calm mirror for his partner’s reactionary energy. “I’ll grant you that things haven’t been handled well, but assaulting the City Hall with a firearm? That’s two steps too far.”
They continued arguing, and Hoshi tuned out the voices in favour of his own thoughts. You’re damn right it’s the Moltres. What else could it be? It was one thing for a typhoon to be unusually large, and an entirely different thing for it to hover, solid and immobile, off the coast of Fuchsia for a damn month.
A high-pitched squeak from behind broke his concentration, and against his better judgment Hoshi opened his mouth. “Need a hand in there, honey?”
“Nope, I’m good!” came Casca’s reply. “How do you feel about tacos?”
“Tacos sound great.”
A moment where the sizzle of oil and the blare of the TV’s ancient speakers fought for his attention, before his girlfriend threw in an aside. “And honey gets an eh. I’ll keep saying it, you aren’t gonna beat babe, babe.”
He’d been trying to figure out a good pet name over the past week, but it wasn’t going great – not that he was going to give up; babe was just so… pedestrian. Hoshi exhaled a quarter-laugh, and wrestled his attention back from the sounds of what were probably going to be some stunningly average tacos being built.
He hadn’t missed much; the anchors were still debating the shooting. It was a total non-story, in his opinion; some grey-haired veteran had grabbed his old equipment and fired on Cinnabar's tiny excuse for a government building, ranting about conspiracies. He hadn’t even killed anyone before the police arcanine tackled him to the ground.
Obviously there’s a conspiracy, but shooting up the Mayor’s office isn’t going to do anything. Sympathetic or not, the guy was a dumbass. You’ve gotta go for the top – cut off the snake’s head.
The news rolled into a depressing weather report – rain as far as the eye could see – before something that really caught his attention came on.
“And now let’s hand it over to Chantelle with some news from the League,” the off-screen anchor announced. “Chantelle?”
The weatherman’s inoffensive grey suit was replaced by a more lively brown, worn by a large-boned Pewter woman. “Exciting things are happening – not to slight Tenki's weather forecast, that sure as heck isn't dry." Quit with the fucking jokes and tell me the fucking news, in Arcus's name. "According to an announcement passed down from the office of the Prime Minister himself, the Kanto branch of Ministration will be taking drastic action to aid in the ongoing crisis. It seems the League will be issuing Trainer Licences a second time this year, to select individuals who show exceptional help to their community – and without the usual academic test, or hard cutoff as far as numbers go.”
Back to Flam and Abalone. “I’m sure that’s a balm to a lot of people. With the recent unrest-”
Hoshi didn’t bother listening any further; he was already halfway across the room, fumbling with his boots.
“Hoshi?” came his girlfriend’s puzzled voice. “What’s up?”
“Didn’t you hear?!” he exclaimed.
Casca glanced at the television. “Huh? No, I’m in the middle of- where are you going?”
“I’ll be back in a sec!” He was too excited to bother with the full outfit; the boots and an umbrella would have to do. “I need to talk to the others. It’s like fate – the perfect excuse for having a licence!”
His girlfriend stepped forward. “Wait! Hoshi, it’s the middle of-”
The door slammed behind him. He felt energized, the biggest problem in his life suddenly dissolving into smoke. I’ll be able to use my Pokémon in public- fuck, I’ll be able to battle whenever I want! It doesn’t even matter if I qualify; as long as it looks like I did, I’m home free!
You better watch out Surge, that badge is mine!
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Sometimes, lately, in the early hours of the morning, Dedwin thought the whine of his air conditioning would actually drill right through his skull and into his brain.
Today was one of those times. It’s always a bad sign when I start getting used to this glorified cupboard.
A Jobsite Supervisor’s office wasn’t a place they were meant to be; it was a check-box on a form, a place the company could point to and say ‘this is the space we provide for paperwork to get done.’ People in his position were meant to be out of doors – on the jobsite, as the name implied. He usually only came in to write his name on the payroll at the end of the week.
But the damages from the damn storm were so extensive, everything was starting to trickle down. Junior Managers were filling in for Senior Managers, interns were being tapped to do finances, and it was getting to the point where they didn’t even have enough machop to move material; they were needing to hire people, with salaries, just to get bricks from A to B.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Madness. The city’s turned into a damn sauna. He almost wished that Indigo named their storms, the way Unovan’s did, just so he’d have a simple way to cuss the thing out. Wonder if you can curse a storm – probably not, or those kooks over in Lavender would’ve solved this weeks ago.
A bead of sweat steadily journeyed down from his forehead to chin as time passed, and as it soaked into his collar he was just about ready to do anything other than sign requisition forms, payment forms, emergency ordinance forms, building permission-
Wait. He backtracked, pawing through the too-tall out stack until he found the crisp stapled sheets bearing the equally crisp red logo of the Vermillion City Hall. Emergency ordinance? Oh, he thought as he re-read the legalese, paying attention this time. Fuck me. This is going to double everything.
Which probably meant that his workload would triple, because Arcus forbid that his bosses lose a single wink of sleep while the city and ocean gradually conjoined. He growled as one sheet in particular stood out.
The Office of Mayor will offer special monetary dispensation to all construction, demolition, and landscaping companies currently on file, based on the following criteria:
A long, bulletpoint list followed, one that was half requirements, and half payment information – it was sloppy, in a way that made Dedwin think it had been typed up by an overworked secretary in the dead of night. He nearly moaned at the future headaches waiting to happen, his head filling up as the ramifications unfolded like paper cranes.
They’re tripling our profit margins – heck, quadrupling in some places. We’ll have to grab up every Tom-Dick-and-Harry that comes in with a resume, it’d be stupid not to.
Which meant his workers were about to get a lot greener, which meant they were going to fuck up. And he would have to do all the damn paperwork. In his mind’s eye a picture formed, clear as the open blue sky he hadn’t seen in far too long, of some scruffy teenager getting the bright idea to cut his work in half by handing a machop a sledgehammer.
Oh, Arc. He felt the phantom weight settle on his desk, forms and forms and fucking forms. It isn’t too early to retire, is it? I’m in my fucking fifties, I should be able to just stop, shouldn’t I?
The thought came and went. He wallowed for a second more, before pulling himself together and putting the ordinance back in the out stack.
An hour passed before doldrums returned, and he was once again praying, ardently and sincerely, for anything, literally anything to do other than paperwork.
Then, a knock on his door – the sound was very nearly explosive in a world that had consisted only of the quiet machine whine, the scratch of pen on paper, and his own breathing, and he flinched.
He glanced at his clock. Only nine? Arcus, I swear the days are getting longer…
“Enter!” he said with more energy than he felt. The door opened, and it took less than a second for him to recognise the man entering his office – of the fifteen full-timers under him, there was only one purple-haired worker who habitually came in with black eyes. “Hoshi Mutsu. What do you- huh?” He blinked. “Who’s all this?”
Coming in behind his subordinate were a cluster of people – two kids and two bodybuilders, all of them looking like they needed a cup of coffee. “Everheart,” Hoshi started, completely ignoring his question. “You must’ve heard the news, right?”
The supervisor’s pen made hollow sounds where it tapped against his desk. “The pay increase? Yeah, it’s gonna be a shitshow. Now answer me: who told you you could let a gaggle of highschoolers and circus rejects into my office?”
The man’s narrow face tightened. “Pay..? No, I meant the licences, sir.”
“Oh, that.” Figures. “I don’t have anything to say about that. I’m not a manager, Mutsu, as much as my desk looks like I am. Now-”
“Look,” he interrupted, and Dedwin felt his blood pressure rise. “These are a few friends I met through a collage course. We all heard the news, and we figure… why not try to all get in together? There’s more than enough work to go around, right?”
Try to..? For fuck’s sake-! Building annoyance forced him to his feet. “Mutsu, your damn friends can turn in their resumes at the front desk like anybody else. Why the fuck would you come to me, you-” He paused, took a breath, then continued. “Look, for reasons you apparently haven’t heard, we are hiring right now. But I have work to do. Get out and go bother the poor bastard manning the front.” Intern’ll be buried before lunch, I’ll bet. Poor sod. But any sympathy in his heart didn’t stop him from pointing to the open door.
Again, he was ignored. “Sir, I’m not just looking for jobs. I want hours, as many as you can get, on the dirtiest, hardest, most necessary jobs coming in.” Hoshi put his hands on Dedwin’s desk, and the intensity of his words almost overpowered the supervisor’s need to make him fuck off and unload whatever this was on someone else. “Rebuilding the city should count as exceptional help to the community, right?”
“Hey,” said the acne-ridden rando in the back. “I didn’t agree to- ow, hey!”
“Moony shut the fuck up.”
Dedwin met his worker’s eyes with a snarl. It’s too fucking hot for this – I’m gonna have a heart attack at this rate. “Mutsu, you aren’t hearing me. I don’t control who gets hired,” he lied; technically he could offer temporary employment on contracts he was in charge of – which was a lot more than normal – but there was no reason for Hoshi to know that. “So turn around, walk down the stairs, and get out of my fucking ass. I’ve got.” he gestured to his obscenely full in pile, “All this to take care of.”
Hoshi had a bad reputation, but he’d never done anything worse than mouth off where Dedwin could see, so he wasn’t exactly intimidated as the man’s fists curled. “Come on, Everheart, don’t dick me on this,” he spoke through his teeth.
“Dick you?” Dedwin snorted. Okay, time to play hardball. “Mutsu, I am your supervisor, not a damn nanny. That girl over there couldn’t lift a jackhammer with both hands. The answer’s no. Get out or you can kiss all your overtime – mwah! – goodbye.”
He sat back down, watching the man grit his teeth in silence – until eventually the worker shot back. “We’ll do it for cheap. The normal pay, not whatever new price you mentioned earlier.”
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Hoshi exited the building feeling pretty good. He’d gotten what he had wanted, even if it’d taken a little haggling to get there. I was right to go to Everheart; the man has all the guile of an overcooked roast. Someone else might’ve noticed that the other four suck shit at acting.
But apparently certain members of his team disagreed with his success. “Man, this sucks,” Kenny groused. “Why’d you have to say the shit jobs, be all specific? Don’t even get fuckin’ paid good…”
Oh, bitch some more why don’t you? “You joined Rocket for the money, right? Think of it like getting paid twice.” I’ve been doing it ‘for cheap’ for three fucking years. Suck it up.
But it wasn’t just Kenny. “I still fail to see how this is necessary. You are the only person the Gym Leader would be suspicious of.” Ryan adjusted his hood – made from a much thicker material than when he and Hoshi had fought, the latter noted. “The rest of us are complete unknowns; for all they know, we’d have gotten our licences at the proper time.”
“That’s a shitty plan,” Hoshi replied without hesitating. And not just because it’s bad for me, either. “You might be new in town, but the other three live here; people know them. Neighbours, former coworkers or old friends, whoever the fuck. I want there to be as few threads to pull as possible.”
Nerine was next to voice her opinion. “Seems a bit excessive, y’know?” she said with a shrug. “Who even knows shit like when the League hands out certification?” Hoshi opened his mouth, but she preempted him. “That was rhetorical. Arc, you’re high strung.”
And I’m convinced you’re high nine-tenths of the time we spend together. “But you’re in?”
As if to prove his thoughts right, the teenager drew a hand-wrapped smoke and lighter from her pocket. “I guess? I mean I’ll show up, but don’t expect me to actually lay bricks and shit.” She lit up, and Hoshi did his best to hide his grimace.
Magnificent. ‘I guess,’ what a great fucking endorsement. He felt like he was trying to catch diglett with a net; his subordinates were mostly obedient while they were training their Pokémon, but the moment things moved an inch outside those lines, they dove underground and slipped his leash. It’s not like it’s a bad idea, is it? Having an alibi for our licences?
Thankfully, at least one person seemed to have his back. “I think it’s a good idea!” Puce chirped, and Hoshi was momentarily taken aback by her tone – he almost never heard the woman express herself so boisterously. “We’re helping the city, right? And getting the instructor’s job done at the same time.”
She was almost skipping, and despite the others’ sour moods Hoshi smiled. “Thank you, Puce. It’s good to hear something that isn’t just bitching about having to get your hands a little dirty.”
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It turned out that all of them were terrible; four distinct flavours of shitty to work with.
Puce had the right attitude, but was more clumsy than a tranquilized mankey. Kenny was physically coordinated, but moaned like a baby literally every single day. And Ryan and Nerine were just plain unmotivated – it was obvious the former had never worked a real job in his life, while the latter was the very picture of a lazy teenager.
If Hoshi’s primary goal had actually been to get a licence for helping the city, he would have ditched his fellow grunts day one. Well, maybe not Ryan; he actually seems to be trying, as ineffective as he is.
But four pairs of hands were marginally better than one, and they did manage to get some work done. Moreover, the plan worked; Hoshi got a letter from the League in the first week of September.
It was a rote letter with another, empty envelope. Greeting citizen shit, obviously not hand-written, but he read it with a metaphorical magnifying glass stuck to his eye nonetheless. Yes! Fucking yes! ‘You’ve been noted as an exemplary individual, willing and able to deal with crisis. Should you desire to apply for an Indigo League Pokémon Training Licence, please fill out the attached form and place it in the enclosed envelope…’
He sent it out, then learned that the others had gotten letters of their own. September rolled on, the rain continuing to thin out without disappearing, and on Monday the twentieth he received a second letter.
‘Our condolences,’ it began, and for a moment Hoshi’s heart sank. Son of a bitch…
Then he rallied. Doesn’t matter. Rocket should be able to forge a letter easily. The important part was that people knew he and his ‘academy friends’ had been trying.
“Hey,” his girlfriend spoke over his shoulder. “Is that the thing? Lemme see!”
He passed it over, no longer even slightly upset that his weeks of labour were overlooked by the shitty, Johto-controlled government. “It totally is the thing. And training has been going well, so…”
His smile was wide. “Next weekend, we’re challenging the Gym.”