12.
He Says He's An Engineer
Plasma! Electrons are free!
Plasma! A fourth state of matter!
It was the lanky man who screamed. He was only in a pair of clunky headphones and plaid pajama pants, and he'd shot up from the computer monitor so fast he spilled his bottle of neon blue sports drink all over the concrete.
"Team Rocket!"
"Don't be shocked. It's just Marcell," said the intruder, puffing out his chest and slipping the glasses and gloves back on. "Do you know how to open that canister? I want what's inside."
He pointed to the great glass cylinder bolted to the middle of the floor. It was the source of the blue-white glow. Just within were a half dozen tiny orange orbs zinging through empty air and going plink every time they hit the glass. Each had a fizzly blue face and a point on its head. Auras of sparkling plasma trailed after them wherever they flew.
Marcell pressed a hand up against the glass and grinned when the Rotom swarmed it, sending little strings of static out to sense where the heat of his skin met their boundary.
"Dr. Sakuragi!? Yeah, it's Ren. Um, there's a bad guy here at the lab, and you should probably come back to deal with him. Yes, I'm at the lab too… The wifi at my place is crap! Uh… yeah, I'm doing work!"
"Drop that phone," Marcell snapped. He patted his toolbelt under the vest for a weapon, but the only things he could find to brandish were the severed lamp plug and the screwdriver. With the latter, he pointed at Raichu, which arced its tail toward Ren and began to glow yellow against the ghostly white of the Rotom energy.
Ren clenched his jaw. He snatched up a Poké Ball from the edge of the counter and released a Magnemite, its one giant eye narrowing and its two magnet limbs twisting at the sight of the decimated doorway.
"François, use Supersonic!" he cried with a wild swing of his right arm.
"Raichu! Iron Tail!"
Raichu raised its tail higher and flinched, looking blankly back at its trainer.
"You don't know Iron Tail!?"
François the Magnemite spun around and around. It lit up with a piercing squeak and an energy that distorted the air in waves. Marcell leapt forward, scooping up Raichu and rolling out of the way before the attack could hit. The chunky Pokémon shivered in his arms, and he could feel the static in its body recharging.
"Careful. We're not in a gym," he hissed in one of its curly ears.
"Rai…"
"Don't think about it."
"Rai-chuuu!"
François launched another Supersonic attack, and Marcell scooted with Raichu to the other side of the glass canister. Grunting, he tugged at the left sleeve of his turtleneck until it had rolled up to the elbow. The long bolt of twisted flesh glowed magenta in the Rotom's light.
"You can't hurt me, got it? I'm an Electric-Type master. This shock would've killed any normal trainer, and I've got one on each arm. So you're gonna listen, okay? I need you to learn Iron Tail, right now."
He jumped up again, the pesky Magnemite having floated around to center its eye on Raichu. In between giving commands, Ren was frantically talking on his Rotom Phone.
"Yeah, he's a Team Rocket agent. Spiky hair. Gray vest and glasses like he's some kind of construction guy. Uh, he's got a Raichu! Said his name was… Marcell? François, keep using Supersonic!"
"I am an engineer!"
"He says he's an engineer!"
In less than a minute, the tiny room was a mess. All the papers on the desk were knocked to the floor, (they were gaming strategies, Marcell noted.) The blue sports drink was splattered on the walls and the canister and stained across Marcell's breeches and soaking Ren's frayed pants. Raichu let off bursts of static that short-circuited the computer, and Ren let out another awful scream when his game data was all lost.
François kept squeaking and emitting until Marcell tried punching it, earning him a pained set of knuckles and a slip on the sticky drink. He knocked his jaw into the desk and took Ren down with him. They tussled for a few seconds before one clearly had the advantage and stood up, kicking the other in the stomach until he groaned.
"You're good at dodging at least. I bet that was from training with Electrode," Marcell told Raichu. Again, he and his new partner escaped the Supersonic attack, but François was only growing angrier.
"Raichu, use Iron Tail."
"Rai?"
"You… you just… gah! Do it like this!" he shouted, leaning his body to the left and swinging a flat right hand up and forward. The motion was automatic, choreographed for the perfect angled smack of a tail-turned wire against the Magnemite and the glass containing the Rotom.
Raichu stood up on tiptoes and swung its tail forward. It just missed François, which shot a Supersonic wave directly downward. Marcell knocked the Magnemite out of the way with his screwdriver. Raichu was swinging again, tail hardly composed of iron and cheeks starting to spark.
"No, not like that! You have to stiffen your tail and jump! Your tail evolved to be like a flexible lightning rod! It can easily change into metal! Watch my hand! Jump!"
He did the gesture again. Raichu followed with its eyes until he cast his hand forward, then completely lost concentration and slipped on the sports drink.
"HOW CAN THE LUXRAY BE ROBOTS!?" Ren screeched into the receiver.
"Uh, how else was I gonna get in here to steal your Rotom?"
"Marcell said he made them so he could get in here and, AH! Ooohh… "
"Don't tell the twerps that, dingus! Raichu! Follow my fingers! This is a flat-handed style! It's probably different than what you're used to, but it's what I use, and this gesture means jump up and stiffen your tail into metal, swinging in the direction I specify! It's not that hard! Just let the currents run and think about heaviness! You can do it! Become the lightning rod and pull down the lightning!"
"Rai."
Raichu leapt up, thrashing about with its tail. It managed to knock François aside, but the Magnemite only floated over it again, fizzling wilder than ever."
"You almost got it. You gotta swing harder. Clench every muscle in your body. In fact… make your tail like this!"
He held up the Breaker Locator V-3000, pointing to the yellow cap on the end. Then he tore it off with his teeth to reveal the corroded twist of wires poking out of the rubber.
"Use Iron Tail."
"Rai? Rai."
Raichu's yellow cheeks flickered. It dodged a huge distortion, then leapt up and bounced off the side of the canister, swinging its tail in a brutal circle. There came the sound of crunching metal. The black cord shined white-hot as it transformed.
CLANG!
SMASH!
François was hit. It spiraled down to smack Ren right in the stomach, magnets spinning madly and single eye twitching. Meanwhile Raichu's tail had sliced right through the glass of the canister. The silvery glow scattered everywhere as the Rotom zinged free. They ricocheted off every surface like tiny stars, almost too fast for Marcell's eyes to follow. His heartbeat surged and fluttered as he reached into his toolbelt.
"Poké Ball, go!"
A wild thrill ripped through his system. The capsule arced up through the air and phased through shimmering plasma trails. They were so fast. A general aim should catch at least one of them superpositioned in the air. He hoped… He'd fallen asleep in the general physics courses at lay school. His previous life had, anyway.
Yet nothing was louder than the little plink of metal on… was Rotom's orange center made of metal? Or was it blown glass? Some theorized it didn't have a physical form and the orange orb was a disfigured lightbulb in its possession. But would that make it just a floating ball of plasma? A floating, conscious ball of plasma?
"Come on, VJ, you got a tan everywhere except under the welding mask. Come to my party tonight. It's not like you can fall in love with a floating ball of plasma."
"What if I can?"
"What, by making out with a lightbulb? Don't be Marcell, dude."
"I am Marcell."
"Will Marcell come to the party? Break out that brass for the ladies and lightbulbs of Sunyshore Beach?"
"Maybe if Mr. Crispy's there too. With the checkered suspenders on his shoulders."
"You're smiling! Ha! You are smiling!"
Marcell was smiling. His hands trembled. His burns itched, and he fidgeted with his sleeves to cover them completely.
The Poké Ball fell to the floor and wobbled. A resounding click caused his heart to lag for a full three seconds before he coughed and clutched his chest.
"I actually caught one."
Ren crept forward, reaching, but Marcell snatched up his catch, a strange squeak building in his throat. The hot tightness flared in his chest. The cold tingle coursed through his limbs like lightning. The tiny capsule full of blue-white plasma perched perfectly between his fingers.
"I just caught a Rotom!"
"All you wanted was to catch a Rotom?"
Marcell bent down and patted Ren nicely on the head. "Shut up," he said. Then he gestured to Raichu, and the two of them scampered back out into the hallway, an angry François floating after and zapping at their heels.
"Jessie!? James!? Meowth!? I caught a Rotom! I caught a Rotom!"
He burst through the doors to the observation deck of Sakuragi Park with enough momentum to send him flying over the guardrail and tumbling down the rocky ledges to where his teammates were in the middle of reciting their motto to two very disgruntled twerps. The nets of captured Pokémon, including Pikachu, were all loaded up in a box beneath the Meowth balloon, currently parked above a hole punched in the glass dome serving as a ceiling. The rope ladder hung and fluttered, ready for their graceful departure. A few Luxrobots lazed around the grass, all plasma-spitting grandeur reduced to rolling around and staring with blank, painted screws for eyes.
"To protect the world from devastation!" Jessie sang out.
"To unite all people within our nation!" James echoed.
"Guys! I caught a Rotom!"
"To denounce the evils of interrupting engineers!"
"To extend our reach back to what we've mentioned here!"
"Kicking it in high gear… with Rotom!"
"With sparkle, it's Jessie!"
"With style, it's James!"
"The spunky mechanical junkie, Marcell is my name! I can't believe I just caught Rotom! This is incredible! And infuriating! I am so… My spark, it's… "
"Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of Marcell shutting his mechanical mouth!"
"Surrender now, and you won't have to watch him getting all clawed up by Meowth!"
"Meowth is ready to do dat at any time… dat's right."
"Wobbuffet!"
Both twerps sank into embarrassed grins at the group of them, all staring at each other with either exasperation or contempt… except for Marcell, who was absolutely beaming.
"No offense, Team Rocket, but I think your fourth member is throwing off the dynamic," Goh said.
"Oh, you think!?" Jessie shouted, hands on her hips and red lips furrowed into a furious frown. She stabbed a finger into Marcell's chest. "If you can't even show up on time to begin the motto, don't try to butt in in the middle! Our choreography was all wrong! James stepped on my foot!"
"Well excuse me, Jessie, but I've just caught Rotom."
"You caught Rotom? We caught all those Pokémon up there, and those two twerps told us somebody inside this building ratted while we were in the middle of it. Does your Rotom have something to do with that!?"
"That scientist nerd had a Magnemite, and Raichu didn't know any close-range moves. I was in a pinch."
"You was goin' against the directive," Meowth growled, brandishing his claws. "First you're intimidatin' and now you're instigatin' twerp vexation."
"And our squad's humiliation. The motto works because we're perfect every time. Just now we looked silly," James added.
Marcell glowered. He shoved Jessie away and watched her stumble back into James.
"I told you the motto's a waste of time. Then I went ahead and learned to speak in rhyme. You say I'm a part of your villainous family. And you're not recognizing that I'm finally happy."
"We're on duty. No time to be sappy," said James.
"We've got the goods, so let's make it snappy," said Meowth, already on the rope ladder and scrambling up into the balloon.
Ash dashed forward, calling out for his Pikachu, which squeaked and sparked silently against the walls of its glass prison. Goh rushed as well, having no new Luxray to call upon.
With a strong swing of the arm, Marcell blocked them. That spark lit his eyes, and beneath the glasses they almost glowed.
"Don't worry, twerps, I got it this time."
He looked to Raichu and gestured toward the glass box containing all the stolen Pokémon.
"Iron Tail!"
"Rai-rai!"
With one incredible leap, Raichu flew to where it could meet Pikachu's eyes. Its tail shone and swung, and the glass exploded everywhere – shards and Pokémon falling far, far down to where their trainers waited. Ash fell flat on his face in a mad dash to catch Pikachu in his arms. Goh found himself clutching a wiggling Magikarp and tipping over onto his back.
Jessie was too shocked to speak, and James snapped for her.
"What the actual hell, Marcell!?"
"If I messed up your motto, then you can do it again another day, okay!? Jerks!?"
"Are… you okay, Marcell?" Ash muttered.
"Pika…"
But Marcell was smiling up at the balloon and its exasperated patrons. "Thunderbolt," he told Raichu, pointing two flat hands at the center of his chest.
Raichu charged up to its full strength, cheeks flickering and lightning rod tail whipping about as it surged with electric power. It squealed as it sent a bolt of white lightning arcing up to outline its trainer in a great flash of black and white.
Marcell's body burned, and he felt the earth leave him once again. He soared up through the hole in the glass dome — no, he missed that by a margin and smashed right through the glass, only protected by the aura of sparks spitting out all around him. He could only see the faint red trail of Raichu returning to its Poké Ball before he was blinded by sunlight. Somewhere down below was Vermilion City, with its wide, congested roads slowly sinking into the sea. The streetlights stood stiffly with heavy wires anchoring them to the earth. The crosswalks lagged. The noise was terrible. Solar radiation soaked into boiling blacktop, unnoticed except for the tar-stained heels and peeling skin.
This time, he didn't notice the difference between flying and falling. He expected to hit something hard, but it was the bouncy blue form of Wobbuffet again, sending him back up and grappling at the air for a few seconds, then down to where his rear crushed the spines of both Jessie and James. Somehow they'd all flown out of the city entirely and landed in the same forested clearing.
"Does that happen every time?" Marcell asked.
"When the twerp has Pikachu, absolutely we blast off every time," Jessie hissed. "And you just let him have it."
"Why are you mad right now? You never expected to succeed."
"We would like you to help us succeed," groaned James.
"I don't think you even want to succeed. Not when my 'commitment is intimidating.' I'm starting to think you're the ones calling this whole thing a joke."
Jessie sneered. Her lipstick was smudged from the dirt. "Go ahead and be a jerk about it, then."
"I'm not a jerk! You're being the Bidoof here, Jessie! My life is electric! I'm tasting freedom! Do you think I could ever have caught a Rotom before!? With people on my back constantly about how much of a menace I was to the electrical grid!?"
James stood and dusted himself off. His face was grave. "So you don't truly want to separate your past from your present just yet. It is your past that drives you now. The powerlessness you felt, suddenly replaced with too much power for your brain to comprehend."
"Don't get all woo-woo with me."
James punched him in the stomach. Hard. And fast enough to force a whine from his throat and the image of a man with puffy hair and checkered suspenders into his mind.
"You will not speak to her like that."
Marcell nodded, wiping spit from his lips with the back of a glove. When he found the strength to stand, the others were all treading over the grass and through the undergrowth away from him. James had one arm around Jessie's shoulders while she leaned her head into the crook of his neck. Meowth hopped over brambles, humming to himself to distract from the tension stretched tightly enough to fray and start sparking in the wind.
"Wobbuffet," said Wobbuffet.
"Wobbuffet," echoed the engineer.
He picked up a smooth rock crusted over with sediment and chucked it at the nearest tree as hard as he could, wishing it could carry his emotions away with it.
~N~
One cool little world-building quirk the anime slips in — battle command styles! Volkner seems to use a combination of flat-handed and closed-fisted gestures, throwing his arms out wide to emphasize when necessary. Flint is all fists, encouraging both power and defense. There's probably a whole literature about gestures, and "catchphrasing" — the appropriate comments trainers can make during a battle. It's important for Gym Leaders to give constructive feedback and also indulge in their own specialties.
My newest favorite Poké author WolfStarmie on AO3 posts super cute illustrations with her chapters, so plug in dots before discordapp, com and jpeg and have my disgruntled Marcell and some doodle pages :D
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Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . net April 13th, 2022. Reposters cursed. Reviews shining and shocking!