5.

Cardiac Arrest

Slash all those who do oppose —
Pull down the lightning

One of the most interesting people Volkner had ever met was Bob Surge, the Vermilion Gym Leader, who first greeted him by asking if he'd ever gone into cardiac arrest.

Volkner replied that he hadn't, and the Lieutenant explained with gusto that Electric-Type specialists were supposed to feel their hearts stop at least once in their lifetimes. If not more than once, with tougher training. And it had to be alongside any comorbidities — chronic arrhythmia, scarring, organ failure and the like. When Volkner heard Surge was taking a break from gym battles, he briefly pondered whether that was a good thing. Perhaps he was finally looking after his health and considering his life choices. But then jolly old Wattson from Hoenn was boasting about a new kidney transplant, and Clemont from Kalos was posing in photos with a heart monitor taped to his chest for the third consecutive week, and Elesa from Unova was opening up in an interview about some embarrassing scar on her back, and Surge himself let the world know he was off on a journey to find Zapdos, and then Volkner from Sinnoh was briefly pondering his life choices.

But only briefly. He supposed the pressure in his chest now meant he'd left something important back in Sinnoh. Some deep part of himself that left a hollowness in his core. The quirk that made him crazy like the others, and the symbol of his endeavor toward electric perfection.

"I feel naked without my jacket," he told James as the ship rumbled to a halt along the Vermilion Pier.

James, who was used to disguises, just grinned and adjusted his shades. He'd dressed preppy for the day, with a navy blue polo tucked in snug under his belt and his lavender hair pulled back into a ponytail. Even his shins were shaved beneath the board shorts, and a flashy watch glinted on his wrist.

"Being flexible with your character is the first thing you'll have to learn when you're with us. You wouldn't expect me to commit any antics dressed like this, would you?"

"Actually I would. You're dressed like the Feds at the rally the other night. Get an undercut and it'd be perfect."

Now Volkner was grinning and James was going lavender in the face. "I'll keep my hair the way it is," the latter muttered darkly.

Vermilion City was built on the sea like Sunyshore, but it was much wider, spreading out into a great sliver of skyline on the gulf hugged close by the foothills of eastern Kanto. Dense blocks of skyscrapers dominated the view, all old-fashioned brick, mortar, and steel rising up to meet the demands of an active society. Unlike Sunyshore's patchy parks and meandering paths, the old business district seemed to melt where it stood — streets flattening out into congested roads that drove a hard split through the mangle of invisible zoning codes. After leaving the ship, the two had to wait for a bus, and then ride for another good thirty minutes through the mess of morning rush hour.

Volkner imitated James' "low-profile" posture. Shoulders slouching and one hand dangling in the loop. Or, he tried to imitate, before the bus lurched and he rubbed a sore spot. His arms were still wrapped up in salve and bandages, and he'd thrown on a baggy gray hoodie to hide them. His hair was concealed beneath a cabled teal pom-pom beanie — he'd found it among Candice's things, and though he knew it would rouse her suspicion, he also knew she had several dozen of them, and it was the only quick way to dampen his identity.

Of course, no suspicion could be properly dampened when they exited the bus and James shoved both of them snugly into a phonebooth idling in the middle of the sidewalk. The door shut with a resounding click, and Vermilion City slid up and away as the floor dropped out and the two climbed down into a shadowy maze of brick foundation.

When their eyes had adjusted to the dim yellow buzz of occasional lighting, James led the way to what seemed to be a wooden apartment door, complete with room number and chipped wooden edges. It was all by itself — no row of similar doors or any dwellings that Volkner could see. He clenched his jaw and decided not to question absurdity until it was absolutely warranted.

Like, for instance, when James opened the door to reveal a half-naked woman squatting over the area rug and shaving her legs, a plastic bowl of pink stubble and potato chip crumbs collecting whatever didn't get sprinkled onto the floor. The apartment itself wasn't too strange. A frayed and shaggy couch for two. Neon signs casting a rainbow glow upon the dank browns and greens of ancient hardwood. The faint thunk-thunk of loose water pipes in the walls. A sleeping Meowth curled up on top of the television. And the woman in the peach bikini peacefully humming as she began to clip her toenails into the same bowl of crumbs and stubble.

"AHA! So that's why my potato chips tasted all sweaty last time! Jessie, that's my one snack bowl! You're trying to poison me!" James wailed, racing over and snatching away the clipper.

"Oh, what, you think I wouldn't wash it out when I was finished!?" Jessie snapped back.

"Well, you clearly didn't wash it out last time, and now I've caught you doing it right in the middle of the rug! Why can't you shave in the shower like I do!?"

"Maybe I would if you would unclog the drain every once in a while. A lady shouldn't have to lather up while wondering whether the sludge around her toes is lavender or periwinkle."

"I t'ink it's a lovely shade of amethyst," Meowth quipped from his seat on the television.

James lashed out and swung the Pokémon up in the air by his tail. "Don't think you have an opinion. You don't even have to shower or shave!"

"Nope! But I don't wanna see you creeps start lickin' yourselves, so argue away."

"Wobbuffet!" said Wobbuffet.

Jessie sighed, throwing on the nearest towel around her shoulders and pulling her deep magenta hair into a braid. "So James, about the business at hand, did you find out why everyone is suddenly making peace signs and joking about Sunyshore City?"

"Da hashtags were blowin' up all weekend. Everybody's gossippin' about some chump stealing Sunyshore's electricity" Meowth said, tapping his claws on the screen of a Rotom Phone. "PowerDown, WelcomeToShadowShore, LetsGoV, SolarFailure, and all of 'em got OneWordOneN. Ooh, SurfersWithStupidHair. Dat's a new one!"

James made a show of scooping up the snack bowl and dumping its grossness out into the bin. "I did find out about it. It's called the V Sign, and it's an ironic mockery of the Sunyshore Gym Leader, Volkner. He's a whiz kid in sustainable city planning, if you remember. His innovations brought Sunyshore City out of shadows and transformed it into a carbon-neutral modern marvel. But his penchant for tinkering with the grid has brought on a number of blackouts as of late."

"Huh. Sounds like an ironic guy," Jessie said.

"Well, he's standing right over there," James muttered.

All eyes narrowed in on the visitor, who now found it necessary to pull off the beanie and let his hair spike up into its natural mess.

"Can I sit down?" he asked.

No one responded, so Volkner took a seat on the couch, averting his gaze while Jessie scrambled to pull on more clothes. She somehow fit into the crop top, mini skirt and thigh-high boots of her Team Rocket uniform in mere seconds, finishing up with her jacket and gloves. James, too, shed his Fed costume and just as quickly suited up in boots, baggy pants and the shirt-and-jacket combo before letting his own gloves snap on his forearms.

Meowth's eyes sparkled. "Ya kidnapped a whole Sinnoh Gym Leader? I wouldn't t'ink ya had it in ya, Jimmy! Tell me how I can make it sound like we all helped, and I'll write up da report to get us a promotion!"

"None of that's true," Volkner said. "James didn't kidnap me, and I didn't steal anyone's electricity. I was renovating my gym. The city grid couldn't handle it. Everybody seemed happy back when I made us dependent on solar. Now they get mad and accuse me of corruption when I can't update my systems fast enough. You're not even looking at a real Sinnoh Gym Leader. The League took my title away. My face is blacked-out if you search for active gyms in the region. Only thing keeping the Beacon Badge in my orbit is that Flint argues for me and nobody knows how to tell Flint no."

Jessie held up her hands. "Wait, time out. Exactly why are you here, then? We aren't some shoulder to cry on about Gym Leader angst."

"And we won't be ya delegates," Meowth added.

"I'm here because I can help you," said Volkner. "There's nothing for me in Sunyshore City right now. If I'm banned from playing thunder god and fixing the problems only I can fix, then my talents can go to someone who'll appreciate them. I'm… I wanna join Team Rocket, I guess."

"He's being serious," said James. "I had to smuggle him onto multiple ferries to bypass verifying his identity. He's basically kidnapped himself."

Volkner straightened his back. "I want a Pokémon called Rotom. If you can help me steal one, I'll lend you my smarts in engineering. I can design and build robots, repair mechs, whatever you need. In the League, we call that networking. Does it sound like a deal?"

"No," Jessie replied.

"Why not? I have no reason to be a spy. You saw the PR crisis. If I go to my gym right now, a pair of robotic arms I built will pick me up and whip me into the trees. I'm stranded here until something changes. Plus, I am among the strongest trainers in Sinnoh."

He enlarged his one Poké Ball and released a huge puff of blue sparkles which condensed into the shape of Electivire behind the couch. The apelike yellow behemoth looked around, confused, before setting its hands on its master's shoulders and glaring daggers at the Rockets.

"I always have Electivire at my side for protection. It's the only one of my partners that'll follow my every order exactly, no matter how crazy. An electrifying Pokémon that could really pull down the lightning when your squad needs it most."

Jessie glared at Meowth, who glared at James, who, while standing stupefied, finally caught on to the secret message and held a hand to his face in shame.

"I get it," he mumbled. "It wouldn't work."

"Dang right it wouldn't," said Meowth.

"What wouldn't work?" asked Volkner. "I'm not shocked that you don't trust me, but—"

"THAT! THAT IS WHY IT WOULDN'T WORK!" Jessie screeched. "You're not shocked. Well, you're either shocked, or you're not shocked, but you'll use the word 'shocked' anyway. I don't know if James told you before you bullied him into bringing you here, but Team Rocket has an extensive handbook on how we speak."

She put her hands on her hips. "We rhyme all the time."

"We assonate and alliterate," said James.

"We contour context to suit our mood," said Meowth.

"Wobbuffet," said Wobbuffet.

"Gym Leaders can't join Team Rocket because all Gym Leaders know how to do is make puns about specialization. You're fashionably literate but poetically bankrupt."

"Wow, can't say I'm—"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY 'SHOCKED' AGAIN!"

"Shocked, truly shocked," muttered Volkner. "Are puns really a deal-breaker, though? "

"Well, we've discussed our disgust with those puns in the past, but Volkner's valuable," James said. "Surely a verbal tic like his could be overlooked in favor of training."

"He'd ruin da motto, Jim. We could be encounterin' twerps in a desert and dat dude would start spoutin' off about cumulonimbus."

"Not to mention we're in sync. He wouldn't catch any of our subtle cues, and I doubt we'd have time to fuss with a fourth member's choreography. We've been doing that R pose, remember? What's he supposed to do, prostrate and pretend no one notices?"

"We could just throw him in at the end, like Wobbuffet!"

"Wobbuffet!"

"Wobbuffet says he don't want his snappy one-liners to be t'rown off by an amateur."

"Hey, I'm an engineer. I'm perfectly fine with staying out of the motto and the baggy pants, okay?"

"Everybody wears da pants, and everybody learns da motto," Meowth sneered with a claw pointed right at Volkner's throat. "You especially, thinkin' you can collaborate with a cast o' kooky criminals. What are your villainous qualifications!?"

"I'm guilty of blackouts and gentrification."

There was a vast silence. All eyes went wide, including Volkner's, after realizing what had just come out of his own mouth. The words had floated around his mind the past couple of days, poking at his conscience in the early hours and howling when he saw the red R so close in real life. But only now had they actually spilled out, strongly, given an odd twinge of meaning by the meter and rhyme. The perfect words for the perfect context. It felt stupid, childish — he could feel the pink coming into his cheeks and the hair rising up further on the back of his neck — and yet… it felt right.

Was it time to question absurdity yet?

"That wasn't on purpose," he said.

Jessie clenched a fist, eyeing him with further suspicion. "So he's capable of more."

"What? More real estate?"

"Ya got more than just da 'lectric lingo between your ears, and dat shows promise," said Meowth. "But if ya wanna be a Rocket engineer, you're gonna hafta fix da microwave."

"Your microwave is broken? I can take a look."

James cringed. "Yes, but… Meowth, let's maybe not ask him to fix the microwave."

"He built Sunyshore Tower. You t'ink he can't fix da microwave?"

"It's not that. It's that—"

"If he wants to join Team Rocket and make fights over da beds more complicated, den he's gotta prove his worth. Come on, Volky. Bring dat toolbelt o' yours."

Apart from the main living area, the apartment also featured a bathroom, a storage closet, a door to a stairwell, two tiny bedrooms with a twin bed each, (Volkner wondered just how wild the fights got,) and a cramped kitchenette, housing the laundry machines and a range… and a very large black microwave.

So large in fact, that Volkner mistook it for the range at first. The two sat side-by-side, with the microwave differentiated by its more rectangular shape and the vertical handle on its door. The door was currently open. Its hinges were loose, and it hung slack-jawed to reveal an interior crusted over with soot and spaghetti sauce.

"Just the door, or other issues?" Volkner asked, approaching the appliance. The others stayed back, refusing to even enter the kitchenette. James shielded his face with his arm. Meowth jumped up onto Jessie's back and clung to her shoulders.

"Oh," he said then, noticing the faint bluish stream of plasma floating up from the side of the appliance. Volkner threw off his hoodie and clamped both hands around each side, throwing all his weight into pulling it away from the wall. It only came forward a few feet before Volkner was backed up against the opposite wall, panting and noticing strings of static shooting up his fingers. The plasma stream was thicker now, erupting from the crack between the chamber and the control panel block. He swiped his hand over it. Cold, just a bit tingly… not too bad.

With a quick pry of the screwdriver, he popped off the cover of the control panel to reveal the wiring within. Therein lay the problem. The transformer, housed in its metal box on the floor, was glowing, and surrounding it was a mess of shredded wires that sparked when he nudged them with his fingers. He pinched one tangled copper bundle, letting the prickling feeling pulse beneath his skin as he traced the wire. One bundle led to the next, and then connected at the nexus of evil — a hairball of sorts, buzzing as it crackled with fresh static shooting out from the transformer's ghostly malfunction.

"You said you used to be a thunder god," Meowth said. "Dat stuff's not hurtin' you at all, is it. I used Fury Swipes on that box by mistake when it wouldn't heat up my soup, and now it zaps me straight to heck if I even get close."

Volkner shrugged. "When an Electric-Type specialist can touch livewires without flinching, they say he's got Pikachu Fingers. I don't usually get burned anymore, unless it's one of my experiments gone wrong." He patted the bandages and winced. "Anyway, that transformer needs replacing. And you said you had a problem with your soup not heating up, right? I have an idea for that. You know what, do you guys have any plotter paper? I'm actually getting a ton of ideas right now. I don't know how you got a microwave this size, but it's wasting its potential just heating up soup and spaghetti sauce. Hm… thinking I could expand it that way… put a few gears on this side for that mechanism… and you wanna be able to put your socks in it and warm 'em up for the cold. For that, I need to program and install self-cleaning protocols. Keep Jessie's sweaty toenail smell out of Meowth's soup. Seriously, James. Go get plotter paper. And… "

In the midst of his gesticulations, the knuckles of Volkner's left hand brushed up against the transformer. There was a great POP as a bolt of white lightning skittered up his arm. Blue eyes rolled back. Pale skin quit twitching. Blond bangs spiked, then went all singy as smoke began to swirl and twist around Volkner's sparking form.

"He's… dead…" Jessie whispered. "Meowth, you killed him. Now we're never getting a promotion."

Her words weren't heeded. The Rockets were shoved clear out of the way as Electivire entered the kitchenette, barely squeezing between the range and washer before it stood before its smoking master. Its two wire-like tails wrapped around from behind it and tapped along Volkner's body. Sensing no pulse within, the bright red tips trailed up over his torso until they rested upon his chest.

Electivire grunted. The two tails fizzled to life with a shocking yellow jolt, and Volkner flew backwards, head nearly slamming into a third wall before he caught himself on his arms, heaving and coughing out further puffs of black smoke.

"Volkner, are you all right?" James cried. "You… you were definitely dead for a minute!"

"I was? Oh man, don't tell me that was my heart stopping I just felt."

"Whatever that felt like," said Meowth.

Volkner, trembling, took one look at his sparking hands, then brought them up to cover his face and burst into crazy laughter.

"Damn you, Surge! My first time was a microwave!"

Needless to say, after that, Team Rocket had no choice but to let him stay a while.

~N~

I went back and watched the old DP episodes set in Sunyshore City. 1, the animation is sloppy as heck and the (English) voice direction is all over the place. 2, After Team Rocket finishes their motto and spouts off a bunch of extra poetic nonsense, all Volkner can respond with is "What was that?" XD 3, Volkner has to meet a quota on how many times he mentions out loud that he built Sunyshore Tower. It's his responsibility to drill that into everyone's heads. 4, Volkner invented those wacky robotic Aipom arms. All the lemon boy did was make them portable.

#OneWordOneN sounds like an inspirational motto but it's just everyone in Sunyshore constantly reminding people from other regions to stop misspelling their name. XD

Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net January 16th, 2022. Yay for a new year! Reposters cursed.