Music in media: Let The Music Do The Talking by Aerosmith

11 January, Tuesday, 12:30 p.m. | Winter

After an early lunch, the quartet made their way to the Virbank Gym. The faster Rae got her badge, the better.

"Yes, please, I don't wanna face Nurse Joy again," said Icosa as they walked down a flight of polished stairs in a glitzy building to the basement. "I don't want her near my Pokémon."

"You badmouthed her first," Rae stated.

"Sorry, then," Icosa quipped. "Hold on, are you allowed to be here? It's a club."

An underground music club, to be exact. No booze, no drugs, nothing of that sort, just pure, feel-good music, a place for various bands to promote themselves or hang out or practise. Unlike the three of them, it was Rae's first time in such a place. It made her feel foreign, from the strobing lights to the glittery dance floor. A hundred shards of herself stood rooted in the mirrorball dangling from the middle of the ceiling, her mouth rounded as she further took in the stage where a woman dressed in a long-sleeved blue-and-purple-striped shirt and studded trousers, whose white hair styled like she had been in a punk explosion, strummed her bass. The instrument reminded Rae of a Venipede.

"That's Roxie," said Lenora. "She's part of Koffing and the Toxics, a punk rock band."

Rae processed this information. It made sense now that Roxie and her members had a toxic spell about them.

"Everything feels too clean," Cheren admitted, piquing Rae's curiosity about the band. "Oh, she's on to another riff!"

Roxie's riff, however, was overshadowed by the other members, mainly the drummer who's known as Roughneck Nicky, whose beats Rae guessed were in sync with the thumping drum beats in Virbank's new music. The guitarist, Billy Jo, like Roxie, didn't stand out; the few moments they did were when he wasn't dropping beats. At the end of the instrumental, she hopped off the stage and greeted the foursome.

"What brings ya here to Virbank, Cheren? And Lenora, you've grown prettier since we last met! But who are those two?"

After introducing themselves, Icosa butted in commenting on how shitty the performance was, even if it was supposed to be practice. Roxie found his honesty amusing. Rae, wishing to be polite, said it was a good attempt.

"Well, we're in a bit of pickle now!" Roxie motioned for Billy Jo and Nicky to join her. "You see, we aren't as popular as we once were. And we've been playing around, creating new sounds the past few months."

"But we had a breakthrough yesterday!" said Nicky as he flexed his biceps. "We know what the people want now, but the weird music out there is affecting us too much!"

"And we have a concert tonight! It ain't helping us at all!" said Billy Jo with a flip of her magenta hair.

Roxie glanced at her friends, then at the quartet. "We have to solve this issue somehow... You." She flicked her gaze at Icosa. "You seem like you know a lot about music. Do you always have your headphones with you?" When Icosa replied that he indeed had them with him all the time, she went on, "What kind of music do you listen to?"

Icosa exhaled and looked away, his eyes trained on the dozen posters slapped onto the four walls of the music club. The bands were all givibg rockstar vibes just like Roxie. Was he supposed to choose one of them? Was he supposed to give her a confidence boost and say "Koffing and the Toxics" even though he hardly listened to their music? Rae squeezed his hand and he managed a small smile.

"Anything, really."

"Then you must come to our concert. It starts in an hour," said Roxie. "We'll give you a toxic shock."

With that, the band returned to practice and Cheren led Icosa, Lenora and Rae out of the building, bound for the dock. It was the only place where the music felt distant enough for the drums to not give them high blood pressure. Besides, the waves crashing against the concrete provided a moment of relief, the white foams hissing as they slipped through the cracks. A lonely ship, white as salt, rocked at the dock, the anchor neatly wound round a rusty mooring pole. For the whole hour they waited for the concert, they were bathed in peace and serenity, yet it was tinged with a coldness from the lack of humans except themselves. The dock never felt so jarring as now.

To connect with each other and pass the hour with minimal awkwardness, Lenora suggested they played a game of "I spy". The first round they had to locate Water-type Pokémon, which wasn't as fruitful as any of them hoped, because the only ones they could see were either Basculin or Skrelp. The second round revolved around anything they found interesting. To Cheren, it was the pair of sunglasses left on the deck of the shop. To Lenora, it was the hazy outline of Castelia City that awaited them on the other side of sea. Icosa thought those were nothing compared to the rust on the mooring pole as he wondered about the age of the dock. Rae couldn't understand why they left out the Skrelp as it wasn't a Pokémon native to Unova.

"Pokémon have come from all over the world since Team Plasma's disbandment," said Icosa. "They may have been preventing all Pokémon from entering or leaving the region while they were on their quest for liberation."

The hour soon came to an end, even if it felt like a day's worth of staring at each other once they couldn't think of anything else to do or say without making icebreakers feel insincere. Thank Arceus they were back in the Virbank Gym, the underground music club now full of exhausted office-goers and grouchy people and Pokémon. It seemed like this was an exceptional day, for concerts were often held at night and people with jobs wouldn't dare procrastinate or skip work unless they were following in the footsteps of their bosses, which they were. Nurse Joy was here, the employees at the Poké Mart were here, the people manning the booths upstairs rattling on and on about some member-only WiFi club were all here.

Roxie and her two band members popped out from backstage and greeted the audience. A mic stand stood in the middle of the stage and Roxie swung it towards the speakers so quickly that the screech made a Murkrow passing by the city squawk before dropping onto the roof.

Roxie, unbothered by the screech, bounced on her feet as she took the mic off the stand. "Fight with this Pokémon that way... Use this item that way... Are you letting others decide that for you? Well, whatever, but what's important is figuring out what you want to do! Get ready! 'Cause I'm going to knock the common sense outta you and drag you into a brand new world!"

The audience screamed for joy. Cheren and Lenora were ready to support their friend, though the same couldn't be said for Icosa and Rae who were at the back of the club.

"So you don't like loud noises," Icosa mumbled. "Me too."

"It's my first time at a concert." Rae fixated at the bobbing heads when the first song came up, devoid of drums. In fact, Nicky was hitting the cymbals lightly for a start to accompany the bass drop.

"Hope you have a good first impression then." Icosa heaved her onto his shoulders when he realised the rest of the audience were too tall. "Better?"

Rae squeaked in agreement. From where she was she could spot Cheren and Lenora at the front, at home with the mosh pit. If this was a rock concert, she expected a banger of an opening, though what came out of the cymbals and bass was a slow rock ballad, a genre which, according to Icosa, was never done by the band. It must be a wise decision to hold a concert about midday and the Murkrow were dropping dead while Gastly and Koffing roamed the streets. Choosing the ballad, a new ground for themselves, was a challenge that showed as well Roxie's dedication to helping her citizens tide through the musical crisis. She had always been one for action, and today she was the same, punk and impulsive, as she let the music do the talking.

The lyrics were nothing short of cringe, full of rhymes like "When there's nowhere, nuh-uh, nowhere else to run, / Stay with me, let's face the sun / And the moon, the stars, oh, time / I know, you know, ain't worth no dime" and alliteration like "Wish I was a Whiscash so I / won't get no whiplash / wishy-washy wake up wax wane moon" and the instruments had to resist the drum beats in the background, but her vocals held everything together. It was affecting enough for the citizens of Virbank to bang their heads and snap their necks till they tired themselves out and joined the Murkrow. Like the Honchkrow swooping down to pick up its underlings, Roxie pressed on despite the pain, knowing full well she was their catharsis, that Koffing and The Toxics could still be the GOAT even if their popularity had waned. It was enough to know she still had a presence, that Billy Jo and Nicky still had a presence and they could do a little something still.

It was a miracle that the quartet were still conscious by the time the concert ended at three in the afternoon. How they managed to survive, Icosa speculated, was because the music didn't reach them the same way, because they weren't tired as heck. He was thankful he had his Pokémon healed using his berries so he didn't have to approach Nurse Joy again, save for stepping over her body while piggybacking Rae as they neared the stage.

"Did you like it? Did you like it?" Nicky asked them, his drumsticks slipping out of his hands due to the sweat. Of course they did, so he was happier than ever.

"We were right to go with rock ballads," said Billy Jo. "Good thing we managed to free ourselves from that cursed music. Maybe music-making cancels out the effect?"

"Maybe," said Roxie while looking left and right frantically. "Has anyone seen Pops? He said he was coming."

Cheren admitted that her father never appeared, igniting the spark to search for him. Rae found Roxie to be filial, to stage a performance not just for her citizens but also her lethargic father. They had gone to all parts of the city and could find nothing other than Murkrow feathers. PokéStar Studios was locked at the moment, which meant no one was able to enter, certainly not Roxie's father.

Then it occurred to Lenora the shop from earlier belonged to him, so they made a detour to the dock, and sure enough, he was standing at the dock's edge, his hips squeezed tight as he looked out at the misty horizon.

"Pops!" Roxie called out to him and he turned around, rushed towards them with his arms open.

He hugged Rae, leaving Roxie appalled. "You must be Aomine Rae, from that hit series, Show Me Your Smile!"

"No, Pops-"

"You must star in a movie in PokéStar Studios! I had given up on my dream because of my Roxie, but you! Tell me, don't you want to be somebody?"

Rae blinked at him and looked at Icosa for help, but the latter was at a loss, chewing his scarf.

"Fine. But I want to battle Roxie. I need her badge," said Rae, and the deal was sealed then and there.

PokéStar Studios, contrary to her expectations, didn't produce simple movies. Sure, there were scripts, but there were also real-time battles. Rae didn't know if she was up for it; her scenes in Show Me Your Smile were genuine on account of her mother's stalking and shaping her brother's narrative into a shounen ai harem. With her thoughts on Kyo in her mind, she now wondered if Meta had made it out of the OR. She figured he did.

A man named Brycen, an ex-Gym Leader like Lenora, came up to Rae and reassured her that the other actors here at the studio were well-trained and she didn't have much to worry about as long as she followed the script. The place was sprawling, but the sets were labelled and tailored to each movie. She could sign up for any one she liked and after the filming process was done, she could watch the final product in the theatre.

If only she had that much free will. Pop Roxie thought it was best Rae starred in a movie called Love and Battles. Everyone supported her, including Icosa, though she was half-certain he was laughing at her in his head.

The thought brought her a lease of joy and comfort as she vanished behind thick curtains and entered a green screen room. The professionalism of the set was unlike the constant stalking she experienced back at home.

She hoped Pop Roxie made the right choice. Even if he didn't, she would do whatever it took to see the movie come true.