17.
Circuit Broken
A sweet romance is not for me!
I nee-nee-need electricity!
The particularly powerful Pikachu was perilously perched between two equal evil ploys.
So James proclaimed, and he was quite proud of it.
Marcell was not too amused. Probably because he assumed his Luxrobots were the only ones penciled in to cause chaos that afternoon. Entertaining the main directive on top of leveling the rest of the traffic lights? Simple enough, if a nearby Ash and Goh were willing to butt in on his work.
And they were, it turned out. Just as the final pylon hit the blacktop and exploded in a plume of white-hot sparks, Ash commanded Pikachu to leap off his shoulder right into the fray. The Electric mouse was agile enough to fly right where a pellet burst, trapping it in a net slicked and solid with black rubber sealant. The momentum carried it further, right into the jaws of the biggest jumping Luxrobot. The metal beast clamped down and landed, gripping the corroded stroad and then skulking behind its master. Marcell petted its mane. A smug look nestled on his face amid the fresh destruction.
Except he hadn't shot the net. He'd only ordered his cat to catch the net.
James had shot the net from where he stood disguised on the sidewalk, Jessie and Meowth in their sunglasses right beside him. Marcell caught their gaze just as they ripped off their uniforms, choreography perfectly overdramatic for the daily game of posturing.
"Prepare for trouble and a dimming spark!"
"And make it double, for this is our arc!"
"To protect the world from electricians!"
"To unite all people at our discretion!"
"To denounce the evils of scheming Leaders!"
"To take back the city that is our theater!"
"Jessie!"
"And James!"
"Meowth's my real name!"
"Putting the show-offs in their place!"
"We're Team Rocket, in your face!"
"Wobbuffet!"
They ended the motto with Jessie and James facing back-to-back, their hands linked so they could each lean forward and form the shape of a V. Meowth crouched between them, doing the best V Sign he could with his stubby fingers. Wobbuffet tried, but its flippers could only cross in a crude X.
Ash looked about ready to claw his own eyes out. "Team Rocket!"
"Two Team Rockets!?" gasped Goh. "So you three and Marcell are rivals now!?"
Marcell's shoulders hunched. "Rivals? More like reluctant roommates."
Meowth snarled at that. "Can it, Plasmadonna! Our motto declared what we t'ink of your fancy-free freeloadin' butt! Now step away from Pikachu and we won't let Mecha-Machoke pummel your precious Luxrobots!"
With a fanged sneer, Meowth withdrew a remote from nowhere and pressed the biggest button. Another ten-foot tall robot shaped like Machoke lumbered up the sidewalk, rumbling and roaring and flexing its huge hydraulic muscles.
"We'd be doing the city a service in that case. Why won't we do it anyway?" Jessie giggled.
"Oh what, so you can fail to capture Pikachu again?" scoffed Marcell. "Just like you three. Content to settle. You can't handle the brilliance of your own futures, and so you run after that rat day after day. How about you let me finish the job, and we'll all get promoted?"
"You'll get promoted on hot air, ya big lyin' yellow fuzzball. You're no villain, and we're da ones usin' you, see? We got your brains, we got your engineerin' skills, and you get nuttin' but your floatin' ball o' plasma."
"I have Pikachu."
"Pikachu is perilously perched between two equal evils," James proclaimed. "And the only difference is, only one of them is actually evil."
"Yeah? I won't disagree with that. You guys haven't done anything evil since I started living with you. And I'm getting rid of the grid in this hideous city. You wanna say you're more evil than the Master of Blackouts himself?"
"Way more evil," Jessie said. "Team Rocket's evil will always outshine the Brain Behind the Blackouts."
Marcell caught her wayward glance at the two boys as she said it. So they were playing that game. The electrical allusions, the lick of their old Sinnoh motto thrown in, the mention of a real name… and declaring that none of his evil was even organic.
Oh, could they be any more obviously jealous?
Marcell summoned Raichu and backed off to the sidewalk on the other side of the stroad.
"Go ahead and question the brightness of my spark," he told his reluctant roommates. "If I don't have the right to talk big, then try defeating me and Raichu in a battle. Whoever prevails takes the privilege of presenting Pikachu to Headquarters."
"I'll battle you myself to take Pikachu back!" Ash roared.
But Marcell only laughed. "Fine by me, Ash. Just let the adults handle their grudges first. I'd like the privilege of shutting those dinguses up. They think it's safe to tamper with a live wire."
"Can't be dangerous when a certain someone does it all the time," James rejoined. Then with Jessie, he reached one arm to the sky and called out, "COME ON DOWN!"
"Pelipper! Pelipper! Pelllliperrrr! Pelipper!"
Out of nowhere flew Team Rocket's Pelipper, dropping a rocket-shaped gacha machine full of purple Poké Balls from its leathery sack of a bill. It landed right in the middle of the debris, prompting a silent minute of tidying from both Rocket parties before the battlefield was clear.
"Our Secret Rocket Prize Master!" The trio sang. They turned Meowth upside down and shoved his charm into the coin slot, twisting the crank until a single Poké Ball was dispensed. Jessie scooped it up and tossed it in the air, quickly snatching the info leaflet that popped free along with the Pokémon inside. The bluish glow condensed into a humanoid creature — four limbs, opposable thumbs, long flexible tail, swirling yellow patterns on its chest and shoulders, fangs that could easily bite through bone…
A fountain of flame pouring from the top of its head…
Eyes slitted and ready for a fight…
Buzznuts, Marcell thought, seeing the Fire-and-Fighting-Type before him.
"It's Infernape! The Flame Pokémon!" James called out. "How fun is that, Marcell?"
Pale green eyes and a truly evil grin on his handsome face.
"Yeah, dig! Dis Infernape knows an Electric-Type move! Thunder Punch!" Meowth added.
Whiskers twitching in delicious anticipation.
"Might as well use it," Jessie finished. "Infernape, Thunder Punch like you've never Thunder Punched before!"
One arm cast too carelessly.
Infernape leapt high, right fist sparking to life. It screeched with the fury of a wildfire and swung hard, muscles shooting at full-power.
"Intercept and absorb," Marcell sighed. He swung his left arm high and directed Raichu to where the attack was aimed. Then he clenched the hand into a fist. Raichu puffed out its chest, absorbing the blow head-on. It squeaked as it tumbled backwards through the air, landing squarely in its trainer's arms. Marcell then tossed it back out onto the stroad. Yellow cheeks flashed dangerously. A thread of static wound its way around the black cord of a tail, flickering off the thunderbolt-shaped tip.
Now Marcell yawned, the purple eyeliner straining under the power of his sleepy eyes. "Is that your big idea? Using flashy moves?"
Infernape groaned as the same glittery threads crawled over its fur, locking its muscles in place.
"You've watched us training for days now. I'm honestly offended you forgot about our Static ability."
His teammates stiffened. Three pairs of eyes scanned Infernape's leaflet for answers.
"Try a special attack! Flamethrower!" James called.
Infernape reeled back its head, but unable to swivel its body into an attacking position, the flames just caught in its throat. It choked out a thick cloud of smoke that sent it teetering on its toes and falling backwards into Meowth's open paws. Its eyes were spirals. Knocked out by its own paralyzed explosion.
"Don't test me again," Marcell muttered darkly. Then he pointed two V Signs at the others and cocked his head in a stately command. "Raichu… Thunderbolt."
"Volkner," James mouthed.
The supposed one addressed jerked his head back and almost banged it into the traffic pylon — except it wasn't there anymore. Instead Marcell corrected course, tugging at his gloves and then sending James one long, emotionless look. There was a glimmer between the muted blue and evil green — a brief moment of understanding, perhaps, or at least a pardoning thought. But the command had been given, and then Marcell watched calmly as the electric blast sent the others flying, flailing and screeching and vanishing in the distance at last with an almost audible ping!
"Gee, I guess Team Rocket bit off more than they could chew bringing you onboard," Goh said. "Why can't you guys work better together? You're all striving toward the same evil goal, right?"
Ash fumed. "Don't encourage him, Goh! He's… HEY! MARCELL, GET BACK HERE AND BATTLE ME! GEH! PIKACHUUUUU!"
Marcell flashed two fingers over his shoulder as he rode off on the biggest Luxrobot, Pikachu struggling in the net still gripped between its jaws. A new coolness swept down his neck and over his spine beneath the turtleneck. His heart was racing. His chest and armpits felt clammy. Directly above, the sun beat down on ruined infrastructure — the past — doomed to fail under its own lack of sustainable planning. Damned and sparking, just waiting to be swept away, reimagined, rebuilt, renovated, retrofitted, recreated…
Glowing. Different. The future. A future. One constructed when the other one crumbled.
Ride the lightning.
Crash into the beach.
Feel the thrill. The spark. The electric dream pulsing. Perpetual motion. Never stagnant. Catch it while it's still at full power.
Can't go back if I wanted to.
Streetlights grasping and suffocating in the shapes of tentacles. Tesselating herringbone tiles brightening the roads. A whole spectrum of signals with integrated motion sensors. Scintillating. Psychedelic. Solar perfection. Flittering patterns of purple LEDs chasing after themselves. A carnival. A boardwalk. Spraypaint staining his clothes, fumes racing down his throat. An explosion of color, of total disorder… the red sunset smeared on his hands and his face and the joy drained right out of his eyes, but oh, he'd get it back too soon…
"Do you have any idea what's going on in Sinnoh right now."
Don't think I wanna. The sun feels nice right where it is.
"You shouldn't be here."
The sun setting at home. A place that was no longer home — that could barely even function. The stage. Checkered suspenders and a letter jacket with brass knobs hot-glued to the sleeves. He'd only taken tenor lessons for a few months, but the melodies were simple if he stayed on the upbeats. Follow the drum beats. It was stupid, but it sure was fun…
… not as fun as drinking with you, V. We're the scared newbies. We both head to the bar at three in the morning and I keep expecting to hear my right-hand man order a screwdriver, but he doesn't touch alcohol… says he can't afford to miss anything in life, and his senses felt quicker lately anyway… I mean it, we actually saw something in there…
In the tallest tower of the castle lay a cavern deep as Space itself, he said. And Timeless. Or so he thought when his memories were dubious.
"Sounds like a bad trip. I bet they hazed you."
"You think he'd take a chance at hazing me when he's gotta play nice? …You should see that bruise under his ribs. It's like green and purple… We were totally sober. There's a stairway leading down to another dimension in there, and it gave me like… powers or something. I think I might be immortal now…?"
Right, well I'm still Human. Mortal. Just gonna live a little.
Live a little…
No reason to go back. This is living. It's freedom. And I'm gonna… I can… What if I…
Blue eyes went wide at the realization. Absolutely anything was on the table, and with this kid's rat gnawing at the cords of unyielding sealant before him, absolutely anything was right in the palms of his equally-strong hands. He gripped the Luxrobot's ears and hurried it onward. Out of the commercial zone and into a residential area — down the narrow walking path between two nice little rows of gates obscuring private yards. Even those he could paint. After he'd…
"QUICK ATTACK! AND UH… QUICK ATTACK! BOTH OF YOU USE QUICK ATTACK!"
Something yellow shot into his field of vision like a flickering bullet, slamming head first into the chest of his mount. Another, slower red thing caught up shortly after, barreling into the Luxrobot's flank. Sparks sprayed from where the copper claws caught on concrete and Marcell was thrown sideways, twisting helplessly in the air before he landed flat on his back in a set of bushes guarding one of the private gates. The ghosts of his blast-offs flared back to life, tearing through his back in painful waves. Even worse when combined with the odd sore spots from Rotom's puppetry.
Never mind that. He wrenched himself to his feet and assessed the situation. A lone gear rolled aimlessly toward him until it lost momentum and spun into a vibrating dinner plate between his boots.
"Care to explain why you're— HEY!"
His mount and followers were immobilized by a crust of white frost slowly spreading over their metal bodies. The culprit was a Glaceon in the midst of using Blizzard. White mist and snow swelled into a crystal whirlwind up and down the street. Marcell rushed in, wincing a bit at his injuries. Damn, why was the sunburn already beginning to itch?
"You," he breathed, seeing Visquez up ahead. She was on her knees, cutting at the net containing Pikachu with a pocket knife. "Get away from that."
The cutting slowed. Teal eyes crept up to meet his, and the woman shivered.
Well, he was shivering too. Mutual shivering, then, as he stomped over and grabbed for her shoulders.
Another pair of arms wrapped around him from the back and jerked him away. He broke the grip with a strong shrug of his shoulders and whipped around to find another woman standing behind him. This one had the Pokémon. Three of them — Glaceon, Jolteon, and Flareon — bared their fangs and skulked around her legs.
"I hear you're Team Rocket's Marcell. I have some questions for you. And don't think I'm above using Blizzard on something a little softer than metal," she said, jabbing a thin white finger into his chest. "I can take the cold. Can you?"
"Can this wait?" he hissed under his breath. "I'm a little busy right now."
"You were," the woman said. "But now you're not. 'Cause your robots are frozen over n' my new best friend Visquez is taking that Pikachu right back to its trainer. I don't wanna see you be rude to her. So let's talk. You and me."
"I don't do interviews."
"Why not? I thought you were a supervillain. Don't you want attention?"
She tried taking his gloved hands in her own. He elbowed her out of his way and kneeled next to the nearest robot. The vinegar lubricant had frozen and gone splat all over the pavement, and now the jaws were twisted beyond functioning. Those freezing hands caressed the back of his neck.
"Hey, at least look a girl in the eyes, would you? Why do you have to be so stormy? I only wanna ask you some things. You shouldn't be scared of me… unless you are… I hope I'm intimidating enough."
"You sure are," Marcell deadpanned, grimacing at the two other busted metal carcasses. He didn't need to see his mount to know it was unsalvageable. That was another night in the warehouse building more and distracting Emitter with enough pictures of trains that it didn't decide to inhabit one and crush the crucial sprockets like pop cans. Or inhabit his own body… though that wouldn't be as bad as the Luxrobots…
"So what is it. Shoot."
"I… was wondering… if you could tell me where you got that Electivire from."
"What Electivire."
"The one Visquez has now."
"Don't tell him that!" Visquez cried from somewhere outside the fog.
"Visquez has my Electivire!?"
"She… Yes she does! But that's really none of your business because Electivire isn't yours in the first place. I know it belongs to my friend. He's a Gym Leader from Sunyshore City and his name is Volkner—"
(Marcell slapped his own thigh at the name.)
"—and you stole it from him like you stole Visquez's Raichu, and I wanna know where you got it from because Volkner is currently missing and I need to know Team Rocket didn't stick a lightning rod in his arm like an IV and dangle him off the tallest spire of the Sinnoh League castle in a thunderstorm, okay, mister!?"
Something warm pressed against Marcell's side. He looked down and saw the silhouette of Jolteon, sniffing and then affectionately biting at the fabric of his vest. Heat swelled up in his stomach, convecting with the same thrilling chill of before.
The woman, the girl, the one he knew had black hair and "brown eyes the color of spring meltwater," as some fiery phantom would proclaim in the back of his brain, leaned down over him. She grabbed at the back of his vest and yanked. When that produced no reaction, she snapped her fingers in front of his face and repeated some version of the question.
He picked at broken gears and tore off the tarp lined with filaments. Cool off those emotions and tuck them nicely away to consider later. Deflect until the intrigue dissipated. Focus on what really mattered.
A break in the circuit has been detected. Switching to auxiliary power…
"Please," she said, finally managing to place a gentle hand on one shoulder. "I'm worried about my friend. I know you interacted with him sometime after I saw him last. I don't mean to get in your way, and I'll let you handle whatever destructing you were working on. Just tell me anything you know. Where was he when you took that Poké Ball? Was he with Flint? Without Volkner, Sunyshore City is going dark. Systems are failing. Everything's starting to malfunction. He's the only one who knows how to fix the things he built."
You think I stole it from Volkner… Do you honestly think he'd help you now? Don't you see he's changed his mind about that place? Can't you see he's changed?
No, he didn't change… he just got left behind. No more settling. No more being treated like he was gonna burst into sparks at any moment… Yes, of course the city goes dark without him. Because the city goes dark no matter what.
"Marcell. Do you know where Volkner is? Because the more you don't answer, the more I think something bad happened to him and you don't wanna tell me because you know more than I think you do… "
The fog was beginning to lift. He could hear more voices trickling into the icy fold. Those twerps. Visquez had called them over and now Pikachu was back where it started. The girl above him. Worry in her voice about a man who may or may not even exist anymore. Police presence. Jenny was rolling up on her motorcycle. Deputies and investigators were raiding the other robots.
Marcell calmly wriggled the fingers of his right hand up under his vest and into the rightmost pocket of his toolbelt. Within was a mini jam jar containing a cloud of blue-white plasma. He unscrewed the cap and let the contents fall into the palm of his left hand. Then he replaced the jar and tugged off the glove of his right hand, letting the plasma ball tumble into that one. And then into the skin.
"Feels… so good," he breathed, before his jaw locked up and his breathing was jerky at best and his heartbeat was a tangible electric pulse turning his vision a further neon purple with each successive jolt to the brain.
With one set of phantom claws, he shoved the black-haired girl aside. Then he jumped up high in the air, defying gravity entirely for one moment as he flew down to swipe at Visquez. The woman dodged, then threw a roundhouse kick right into his chest, knocking him back to earth.
But he was heavier than she thought. And wreathed in plasma. Blazing energy that turned his veins a vivid visible violet under glowing blue skin. Spiked hair had changed into a mane of white filaments, illuminated at the tips and wavering in the air like ghostly flames. The eyes were without pupils. A sea of deep, deep blue.
Of storms over oceans.
Of something far more than human.
Or at least something trying to be.
He felt her heartbeat as the plasma connected their bodies. Felt it spike when he clenched his claws into fists and puffed out his chest. An arc of lightning flashed between them, and he laughed at her paralysis. It was a buzzing, metallic peal of thunder from deep in his stomach, made higher-pitched by the wayward spirit taking pleasure in symbiotic mischief.
Then Jenny and the twerps came rushing up at him. He pointed two fingers in their direction. The current traveled from his chest down his arm, and his claws became long glowing sabers of wriggling static. He splayed out both hands, stretching the twitching palms wide. Circles of light broke from the skin, expanding into glittering rings that blew back his foes upon contact. They faltered and lay on the pavement, groaning and paralyzed.
[Thunder Wave… like the air crackles and pops and splits down the middle and what lingers is a charged vibration, surging down to strike the earth in even measured pulses.]
Just relax. Feel the thunder. Direct it. Become it.
[Could we…]
Can I…
Sparks skittered before his eyes in slow motion, startled by the sudden tug on the back of his vest. He whipped around, boots leaving the pavement and suddenly hovering in the air. The pain had lessened now — numbed by the overwhelming stimulus and warmed by a shadow of a dream of reality. Floating. Yes. That was much more natural. And far more practical. And so much more thrilling.
The girl's lips parted. She said something. Relevant, irrelevant, it didn't matter. He couldn't hear her. His whole mind was clanging and humming and rushing and whirring and it deemed her irrelevant to this whole situation. His body was no longer of any significant substance, but light as the supercooled atmosphere. He willed it lighter. He rose further. He watched both hands crackle and splutter as he raked them through tattered remnants of the frozen fog. An ion trail melted from his limbs and flowed outward in the sunlight like a terrifying, glistening veil.
[I'm not gonna tell you what happened to Volkner,] said the thunder god in a voice like solar wind. Then he gave Candice a brilliant megawatt smirk and bolted up into the gathering clouds.
~N~
When you want to be cheesy and use Cascada's "Dangerous" for the epigraph but it doesn't have good rhyming couplets...
Lol last part of this was written 8 hours before the reveal of Miraidon and Professor Ryan Reynolds.
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net June 1st, 2022. Reposters cursed~~~ Reviewers ride the lightning!