They say time changes everyone. Flint thinks that this saying is a very apt description of what happened to Volkner.

He is still the same jovial man with a big heart. He is still the same lazy man who loathes to do anything that is not related to pokemon. He is still his brother in all but blood who will readily face down Arceus itself in a heartbeat if it means saving his life.

But he changed.

It has been close to two years since Team Galactic first announced their presence in Sinnoh by staging a siege on their hometown. Volkner was pissed because that incident nearly ruined his vacation plans with Jasmine and also because Kayla had nearly died. He still went on his vacation after that incident, but something had happened in that period of time. After he came back from his vacation, Volkner was tasked to take down Team Galactic in the shortest time possible. He is the best suited candidate for the job and for once, he didn't immediately decline the order given to him by the League.

And he hunted Team Galactic down with extreme prejudice.

Volkner is ruthless with his foes. His patience is obviously much thinner. He now has a much shorter temper and sometimes easily annoyed or frustrated by the most mundane of things. His relationship with the rest of the Thirteen Pillars is cordial at best and strained at the worst, depending on which other members you are talking about. You could have mistaken Volkner and Cynthia as mortal enemies with the way they talk to each other. Only a few people he knows can get along with him without trouble, like Jasmine, himself, Kayla, and Riley, just to name a few.

In Volkner's defence, he is definitely overtaxed. Even without the usual duties of being a Gym Leader weighing on him, Volkner is also facing constant self-imposed pressure in eradicating Team Galactic as fast as possible and also suffering from a severe constant lack of sleep. He barely slept more than six hours a day, and that is if he is lucky. The amount of sleep he usually gets is somewhere between four to five hours on average. Suffering from a lack of sleep for close to two years will make even the most patient of saints grow a nasty temper.

Riley takes care of the Sunyshore gym in Volkner's absence if he is out hunting for Team Galactic. Riley had made special arrangements with the SPF to be transferred to Sunyshore so that it would be easier for the both of them. It is an open secret by now that Volkner is grooming Riley to be his successor. Nobody had any objections. Riley is definitely skilled enough to be considered as a candidate of Sinnoh's Thirteen Pillars and he had also expressed an interest in being one.

With Volkner around, Sinnoh's efforts in crushing the largest terrorist organisation in their lands became a lot easier. In pokemon battles, Flint and Volkner are equals. However, when it comes to taking out huge criminal organisations, Volkner is definitely the expert among the two. The recently destroyed Team Galactic HQ at Veilstone is proof of that. No one had suspected that high-tech looking warehouse to be the headquarters of the most notorious villain group in Sinnoh. They had been literally hiding under their noses all this time without anyone the wiser. Only Volkner had managed to uncover this secret and eventually found out what the building was really being used for. He subsequently led the charge to apprehend and destroy that building with support from Sinnoh's own special forces and other members from the Sinnoh Thirteen Pillars, including Veilstone's Gym Leader Maylene.

From there, they found out several main bases of operations that Team Galactic had. There was even a big one at Eterna, much to Gardenia's horror.

The destruction of several of their main bases of operations was a heavy blow to Team Galactic. With nowhere else to go, Team Galactic turned to the most dangerous place in all of Sinnoh to hide themselves.

Mt Coronet.

The special magnetic field around Mt Coronet made it hard for anyone to track down the remnants of Team Galactic. The unstable terrain within the impassable mountain range means that rockslides are a common occurrence. It is too hard to conduct any form of operations within Mt Coronet, much less trying to search and apprehend Team Galactic. The only thing they can safely do is to increase the surveillance on the tunnels used by the Sinnoh populace in travelling between east and west Sinnoh to ensure that Team Galactic will not endanger the safety of Sinnoh's citizens. The League is monitoring the countless tunnels within Mt Coronet as best as they can, but there are simply too many of those for them to keep an effective watch. Team Galactic still manages to create trouble for the region every now and then. Whenever the League forces were sent to stop them, Team Galactic simply hid themselves within Mt Coronet once more and all traces of them would be gone. Everyone is frustrated at this, especially Volkner.

"Another day wasted." Volkner grumbled as he kicked a pebble within the tunnel that they were at. They were chasing for clues as to the exact location Team Galactic was hiding themselves within Mt Coronet, only to find themselves at a dead end again.

"At least we got them cornered." Flint said as he tried to lift the mood. Volkner is especially grumpy today since he didn't manage to have his daily unhealthy dose of coffee before he was dragged out on this mission.

"Cornered? You really think that is the case?" Volkner questioned as they both made it out to the west side of Sinnoh and Volkner released Myst. A blink of an eye later, they found themselves at the HQ of the Sinnoh League.

"Where are you going?" Flint called after his best friend when Volkner walked off in another direction and waved a lazy goodbye at him without turning back.

"Somewhere where I can sleep undisturbed cos I'm about to drop dead. Call me if you need me."

Volkner has been visiting Flower Paradise a lot more frequently nowadays.

Shaymin isn't complaining since Volkner is a nice human and his visit means that Flower Paradise will be a lot livelier. Volkner's pokemon are also fun to talk to and play with.

But why does Volkner always seem so tired?

Volkner always comes here to take a nap whenever he visits, saying that this is the one place in Sinnoh where he can sleep undisturbed. He does talk to Shaymin whenever he is awake, even if he cannot understand what it is trying to say to him.

At least he is a lot friendlier than Mark, the previous Gym Leader of Sunyshore. Mark only visits out of a sense of duty.

Shaymin knows that it is constantly guarded by the person who holds the current title of Gym Leader of Sunyshore. It has been that way for many moons. Its power is too great, and the good humans are afraid that any bad humans that got wind of its location will come and capture it for their own nefarious plans. They made a nice home for it in the secluded area known as the Flower Paradise at the north of the Sinnoh Pokemon League in order to protect it. From what it knows, a group of people known as the Elite Four were supposed to be its guards, but they are often wandering across Sinnoh to protect and uphold the peace across the land. So, the task of guarding it falls upon the Gym Leader whose city is the closest to the Flower Paradise. It was how this task was entrusted to generations of Sunyshore's Gym Leaders.

That was how Shaymin met Volkner, its current guardian.

Volkner treated it as his friend, often confiding with it what is currently going on in his life. Shaymin knows that Volkner loves his mate very much and wants to be with her one day. Shaymin knows that the land is currently in turmoil, even if it isn't as bad as it imagined it to be yet. However, Volkner is feeling very vexed about the current situation. It is one reason why Volkner constantly visits Flower Paradise among many others. Flower Paradise is the equivalent of his sanctuary, a place where he can rest undisturbed.

Volkner is now snoozing under the shade of a large tree. Flower Paradise is a large meadow covered with flowers of various colours, blooming under Shaymin's own powers. Shaymin often gave Volkner some of the Gracidea flowers that it personally grew as thanks for being its guardian. Volkner loved the gift and shared it with his mate by sending her the Gracidea flowers across the ocean to Johto where she lived. He had said that she had loved the flowers. It only encouraged Shaymin to share more of its Gracidea flowers with Volkner, especially if doing so can make him happy.

Shaymin doesn't like to see a good human like Volkner sad.

Despite Shaymin's fondness for Volkner, what puzzled Shaymin is Volkner's unexplainable affinity with electric types.

When Volkner first met Shaymin, he realised immediately that it feels lonely being the only pokemon in Flower Paradise. He was the only Sunyshore Gym Leader that noticed its loneliness. It took a while, but he managed to transport a few groups of wild electric types over to keep it company. With that, Shaymin now has friends to play with. The wild electric types had all said that they came here willingly after Volkner had sought them out. There are groups of electabuzzs, packs of luxrays, and nests of pachirisus and pikachus. A few of Volkner's pokemon had also found their mates here and have their own offspring. Upon Volkner's request, these electric types are also here to protect Shaymin if need be. In return for their services, Volkner will come here regularly to train them and help them get stronger, something which these wild electric types had eagerly accepted.

Somehow, Volkner has the unnatural ability to converse with electric types even without the help of psychic pokemon. Of course, he doesn't understand a single word that they are talking about, but he can still understand on an instinctual level what they are trying to tell him. When Shaymin asked Volkner's pokemon, they had said that it had always been this way ever since they met him. According to Franky, Volkner had also realised early on in his training career that his affinity with electric types is unusually strong. It was a big reason why he decided to specialise in training electric types halfway into his training career. Volkner had initially wanted to become a Generalist when he was still a young boy, whatever a Generalist is.

Shaymin had never seen someone as special as Volkner in its admittedly long life. It is like Volkner is a child favoured by the lightning itself. Maybe Arceus would know a thing or two, but Shaymin hasn't seen Arceus for a very long time. Arceus had gone into a long slumber countless moons back.

Volkner twitched a little before giving a loud yawn. He stretched his arms to its full length before sitting upright, rubbing his bleary eyes. He looked down and saw the blanket of Gracidea flowers that Shaymin had covered him with while he was asleep and gave Shaymin an amused look.

"Jas would be happy if I sent her all of these Gracidea flowers. She keeps telling me that I am spoiling her."

Shaymin did a happy run around Volkner. Smiles on Volkner's face are getting rarer nowadays. He is smiling today! Mission accomplished!

A group of young pichus immediately swarmed and jumped onto Volkner the moment they saw that he's now awake. Volkner waved his arms in a flustered manner as he was swiftly brought down by the group of mischievous baby pokemon that were running up and down his entire body and piling on top of him with their little bodies.

"Oi, oi, watch the hair! Watch the hair!"

'Hey, let's make a nest out of it!'

'No! Let's plant some flowers on it!'

'Let's chew on it! I never tried chewing human hair before!'

"OI! I know what you are thinking! You are trying to eat my hair, aren't you?!"

'Hey, he understands us!'

'Didn't mama say that this human is special?'

'Really?'

'Really?'

'Really?'

A chorus of 'Really?' sounded out in the meadow as the baby pichus all start to parrot one another, although all Volkner can hear are squeaks.

"What are you guys squeaking about?" He asked as he finally got one particular persistent pichu off his messy hair and placed it on the ground. The pichu sniffed his arm curiously. Volkner is the only human that it had ever met.

'What are you guys squeaking about?'

'What are you guys squeaking about?'

'What are you guys squeaking about?'

'What are you guys squeaking about?'

'What are you guys squeaking about?'

Volkner squinted his eyes as he looked at the large group of baby pichus.

"You guys are just messing with me, aren't you?"

'You guys are just messing with me, aren't you?'

'You guys are just messing with me, aren't you?'

'You guys are just messing with me, aren't you?'

'You guys are just messing with me, aren't you?'

'You guys are just messing with me, aren't you?'

Volkner gave up trying to understand the babbles of the baby pichus when he saw Franky laughing uncontrollably at his plight. A few shinx cubs ran up to him eagerly as Volkner patted them with a hand. A few wild luxrays walked up to him and willingly nuzzled themselves against Volkner, a sign of their trust in him.

"Where's the little water baby?"

As if on cue, a splash of water squirted onto Volkner's face. Volkner clicked his tongue and sent an annoyed look at Manaphy, who is now hooting with laughter. Manaphy had decided to make its home in Flower Paradise as well shortly after Volkner became the Gym Leader of Sunyshore because of the friendly atmosphere here. The group of wild electric types also laughed when they witnessed the prank Manaphy just pulled.

"Yeah yeah, laugh all you want."

Despite the fun times they shared, Volkner has to leave because the people out there need him. It is with great reluctance that Shaymin watched him leave. It knows that its feelings are also shared with Manaphy and the other electric types that made their home in the Flower Paradise.

'I sneaked out to check on the lands today. Things are changing.'

'I know.' Shaymin replied to Manaphy as they watched Volkner fly out of the Flower Paradise as he rode on Simba's back, bringing with him the large bag of Gracidea flowers that Shaymin had given him.

'Something big is about to happen. I can feel it when I tapped into the power of nature. Even nature itself is restless. I think it is why Volkner is so stressed out. He did tell me that even darkrai nearly got itself captured by some of these bad humans a number of moons back.'

'Darkrai? Even him?'

Shaymin nodded. If these bad humans have a way to give even the disagreeable darkrai trouble, then it is overall bad news for them.

'I wonder if Volkner needs our help. He is one of the nicer humans. At least he found friends for us.'

'If he ever got himself into trouble, then all we need to do is to give him our help.' Shaymin answered readily. Battling is not its favourite pastime, but that doesn't mean that it is a slouch in this department. If these bad humans are giving good humans and pokemon troubles, then Shaymin wouldn't hesitate to lend Volkner its aid in ending them. It knows that Manaphy thinks the same way too.

'Let's just hope that things will never get to that extent. If even we have to step in, then dark times are sure to be ahead. We hide ourselves from humans because our powers can be easily misused. It is also why even Arceus himself entered into a long slumber. Any intervention by pokemon like us can easily destroy the delicate balance of the world. We can only interfere with the world's affairs if there is no other choice.'

Manaphy's right. The only thing they can do now is to hope that things will never get to that extent.

Pokemon and trainer list:

Volkner Tide: Gym Leader of Sunyshore, Electric Specialist

Titles, Accolades and Achievements: Tie for First Place with Flint in the 521st Lily of the Valley Conference, Sinnoh's strongest Electric Specialist, Thirteen Pillar of Sinnoh, The Sun of Sunyshore, The Yellow Flash

Main team:

1. Electivire (Franky), male

2. Luxray (Simba), male

3. Jolteon (Jo), female

4. Magnezone (ISpy), genderless

5. Gallade (Myst), male

6. Rhyperior (Tec), male

7. Probopass (North), female

8. Gyarados (Puddle), male

Pokemon used for Gym challenges

9. Raichu (Squeaky), female

10. Pachirisu (Scrat), male

11. Heliolisk (Bask), male

12. Ampharos (Fluffy), female

13. Vikavolt (Vik), female

14. Eelektross (Whirr), male

15. Lanturn (Glowy), female

Pokemon used for Sunyshore's security

16. Rotom (Prime), genderless

17. Porygon-Z (Jarvis), genderless