18.
Wire Cutters
Storm's a'comin, I can feel it in my bones
But I ain't runnin, I been runnin way too long
It wasn't fair, Buck said, that two men could straddle the back of a giant flying bug and give themselves whiplash zipping through a major city, but he couldn't hang a hammock from the nubs of a floating doll and cruise out over the open ocean.
Aaron wasn't listening. Aaron couldn't listen. The wind was roaring in his ears as he gripped the short reins clipped with a bit and bridle between Yanmega's great green mandibles. Every fiber of his body was tensed in focus. Thin arms coiled like springs beneath the black sleeves of a muscle shirt. Toned calves in pumpkin orange skinny jeans twisted back and gripped around where Buck's legs perilously dangled on either side of the thorax. Quick, even breaths pulsed under the bulletproof vest patterned with neon green hexagons. The same green glittered in his eyes, obscured slightly by the fog sublimating in the tinted glass of his goggles.
"Quit wiggling!" Aaron barked back at his passenger. To no effect, of course. His woodwind tenor was just as lost in the noise.
Buck barked something back. Something irrelevant, probably, because then he took his hands off the spike in front of him and tore his long red hair out of the elastic band, letting it fly back behind. He wore three extra bands as bracelets — a trick he'd learned from Candice — and Aaron was too focused to let his eyes linger on whether that new obsidian septum ring was dribbling blood down the front of Buck's tank top.
"Bus!" Buck shouted.
"Bus!" Aaron shouted back.
Yanmega tore over the bus at ludicrous speed, buzzing on toward downtown Sunyshore with bits of pedestrian hair clinging to its many claws. Aaron gave a tug at the reins, and it jolted upward, then tilted left, then reoriented itself right again, and then spun upside-down for a moment, Buck nearly coming unbolted from his seat and tumbling fifty feet into the cobblestone below. Then it zoomed back toward the beach and just narrowly avoided clipping the solar panel boardwalk. The chopping of all four wings loudened to a thunderous whirr that stirred up tidal waves of sand back into the surf.
"Hey, dillweed! This thing have brakes!?"
Aaron buzzed a soft "woah" in the back of his throat and loosened his legs, and Yanmega went from top speed to zero in half a second. Buck barely saved his crotch from getting crushed against the shaft of the spike before him, but was unable to keep his nose from knocking into the back of Aaron's neck. And then he exploded, of course.
"Dillweed sugar-free Elite freak! I asked for a joyride, not a suicide ride!"
"Well, I warned you Yanmega's not built for pleasure cruises! Buck! Buck! Buck! Stop screaming!"
"How else are you gonna hear me over your bug, you chia-chewing nerd! Honey-sucking hippie!"
"You sound hungry! When was the last time you ate!?"
"'M not eatin' your turd bars again! I wanna find Fireball so he can make me a grilled cheese! Or I'd ask him to make me one, and he'd say 'poof, you're a grilled cheese,' 'cause that makes our little siblings laugh, but it doesn't fill my stomach—!"
All of Sunyshore Beach then watched as Aaron stuffed a homemade honey granola bar in Buck's mouth while both straddled the back of a giant bug hovering above the solar boardwalk. It was a much larger crowd than usual casting their sorrows onto the sand. The espresso machine was down at the coffee shop. So was the fridge with the shake mix. And all the moving walkways, which were now just flat unmoving escalators eating people's change. Power was dubious. Wifi was spotty. In some places, the routers had simply exploded from overload. Apparently some high-tech streetlights had exploded, too, though that was news to everyone at the beach or sucking up guaranteed AC in the PokéCenter. All the patchy parks were baking into crinkled yellow turf thanks to the confused sprinkler system. A herd of electricians moved in steadily to graze, uniformed to the nines with their helmets and tool bags and cups of tepid cold press vibrating in their hands. They worked to shepherd whatever maintenance bots still puttered along in the heat.
#VolknerMadeSunyshoreShitty was the newest trend. Just below #WhereIsFlint, because no one believed the Zoroark story and assumed he was searching for Volkner. Or covering Volkner's tracks. Or hiding Volkner's body. According to a blue check in a burgundy suit on Lily-of-the-Valley Island, Volkner was hiding Flint's body. And now every podcast host in Sinnoh and beyond was butting in on whether it was fair to leave that kind of post public. Especially in the wake of Vermilion, they all said. Then Roark said Vermilion wasn't causing the least bit of trauma to anyone still functional enough to stare at a screen. Then thousands heard Roark say it again in an audio clip on the more conservative podcasts and wanted to know how they could donate directly to the coal industry. Which made others question whether Roark had any right to speak about Vermilion at all if he was going to be so belligerent. "Are you finished, Roark the Rocket?" typed the same blue check in the burgundy suit. The message was memed immediately, and he gained back a decent chunk of his following just as predicted.
Thirty minutes later, it was #RoarkTheRocket at the very top of the trending list, above #WhereIsFlint but not managing to surpass the midmorning hype of RAIHAN MADE A SMOOTHIE.
Anyway, just as Buck had finished chewing, the whole sky darkened for a moment as the indoor observation deck ringing the top of Sunyshore Tower suddenly shuddered and burst into a raging inferno. Scarlet and yellow flames poured from the tip of the structure like a real ignited rocket. A cloud of smoke billowed into the air, swallowing up the hot summer blue in a snaky stain of darkness. The crackling and blaring of fire alarms cut across the city's languor like an electric drill.
"Aaron, was that… real!?"
Aaron's whole torso snapped so he could spy the fire in the distance. "Buck, I'm gonna need you to jump down onto the boardwalk so I can go see what that is!"
"Why!? You fly in there n' you'll crisp your carapace!"
"Someone might be in trouble! I can't put you in danger, so hop off! Right now!"
"What, you think you're gonna parkour into a burning building? Why don't you swallow some pride with those seeds!?"
Said seed swallower enlarged a Poké Ball from an inner pocket of his vest and summoned Vespiquen. Without flourish, her two clawed arms lifted Buck off Yanmega's back like a squirming grub and deposited him on the boardwalk below. Then Aaron tightened his grip on the reins and squeezed his thighs as tightly as possible around Yanmega's thorax. Four wings roared. Wind ripped over his skin, and the world blurred beyond his goggles.
"Toward the smoke, buddy," he buzzed in his throat. "I know it's scary, but I've got a bad feeling about this."
Yanmega's tail bent down in scaly trepidation. But it carried on, zipping in the opposite direction of the screaming pedestrians, up to where the glass and shrapnel still rained down to splinter the small, scattered trees. A half-second's jerk brought bug and man out of the path of the massive satellite dish that came crashing into the concrete. An avalanche of siliconic shards burst off the sides as one heavy solar panel sank down into another.
Aaron held his breath as his mount plunged into the thickest part of the smoke cloud, still belching out from the gaping hole in one side of the observation deck. He loosened his legs and let Yanmega feel along the heated glass for an edge. One crumbling precipice. A stable place to stand.
There. The clawed leg felt solid ground, and the mandibles buzzed in approval. Wasting no time, Aaron stood up on Yanmega's back, then steeled his legs and leapt through utter darkness into a glittering wall of light. He pitched himself forward and rolled over a massive hunk of metal jutting up diagonally from a shaft in the floor. An emergency bulkhead. Jammed, like so many other mechanisms throughout the city.
The sprinklers still worked, however. The floor was slick. Aaron coughed out liquid smoke as he peered through goggled eyes at the scene before him.
"Yanmega, U-Turn! Drag out Dustox!" he called. When the poisonous moth appeared, he slapped both shoulders and buzzed. "Light Screen on both of us! Try to fend off the heat!"
A bright flash brought up a force field, but Aaron was already sweating bullets. Ribbons of flame tore along the edge of a desk pressed up against the central wall containing the stairwell. Rumblings of electrical mayhem tingled on the soles of his running shoes and zinged up his nerves. With a quick breath, he vaulted and threw himself into a front flip across the room before the acrylic panels on the floor began collapsing beneath him.
"Is anyone in here!? Do you need help!?"
He saw no one. The sooty sparks floated swiftly through a room of dark metal and… the putrid-smelling skeleton of an ottoman? Laden with singed and shredded cotton the same ribbed pattern as the tank top Buck had worn? Layered over charred cords of what looked like a length of braided fishing rope?
Dustox buzzed close by. Aaron puffed out his chest, lungs screaming for fresh oxygen. Then his eyes focused in on his partner's observation. Something, no, several small, dark, jagged somethings, glinting in the deep red light and flowing with the dirty cataract of sprinkler water toward the edge of the floor, where the bulkhead only closed the hole in the wall halfway. A speedy leap brought the Elite to a seat on top of the hunk of metal, fishing down in the freezing pool for the strange objects. His fists closed, and he yelped in pain.
Glass.
Black glass.
Obsidian.
"Hey, my mom made that."
Aaron didn't need to look up. He felt the vibration of Vespiquen's wingbeats and sensed the blood-and-honey scent just hovering above him. In his reddening palm was a collection of obsidian shards, some held loosely together by a thin hinge and the smallest of screws.
"It's a bangle," Aaron said.
"I know. I watched my mom make it. Flint wanted 'em 'cause… he said—"
"That Lucian was being a royal jerk, and obsidian wards off psychic energy.
Black smoke swelled, then began to dissipate. Buck seemed to put the pieces together before Aaron could finish wiping the mist from his goggles.
"So… did you… you didn't… see a body in there… did you? Did you!?"
"No. I didn't."
Aaron didn't mention the burned clothing.
"I saw his burned clothing, though, and rope."
He couldn't help himself. Insect instincts.
Buck shrieked. "Flint! Flint! FLINT! FLINT!"
"He must've finally blazed up," Aaron whispered in wonder.
Buck's eyes burned with the beginnings of tears. He leapt from Vespiquen's back toward the bulkhead, and the clawed arms had to catch him midair before he plummeted toward the same fate as the satellite dish. "IT'S NOT A JOKE, YOU LENTIL-EATING MEGAJERK! MY BROTHER DIDN'T 'BLAZE UP!' SOMEBODY BLEW HIM UP! SOMEBODY JUST BLEW UP FLINT PERILLA!"
Later, when everyone was safely on the ground, (and staying there,) Aaron petted the gem on Vespiquen's forehead and shuddered realizing he'd never heard Buck call his brother anything but Fireball.
"Flint… Flint."
It took a playful punch to the shoulder before Flint snapped back to reality. God, it was hot today. He'd taken off his tank top and he was still sweating like a Snorlax in a hot spring! The sun was so cruel to kids with curly hair! And also kids who liked Fire-Type Pokémon! There was enough heat in a single gym battle for ten hot summer days on a dusty road in the middle of nowhere!
Speaking of…
"Where am I?" Flint asked the middle of nowhere.
"I just told you. About a day out from Hearthome City. Half a day if you'd quit being such a baby and let me build us those flight packs. I puzzled over the blueprints a little more last night. The propellers shouldn't pop off now!"
"You…"
The bone-dry road and fields surrounding came completely into focus, as well as the young boy now twenty feet ahead of him who was grinning like the glare off a steaming kettle. If it was strung up with live wires and twisted up with fresh fried mini donuts. Flint could only think of hot things today. Which he supposed was a good thing! A budding pyro couldn't afford to waste his mental energy on frozen fudge bars or cinnamon lemonade or a swim in the Sunyshore surf and all the saltwater he could accidentally swallow!
"What?" Volkner voiced, sticking his hands in his jean pockets. He'd worn the same pair of jeans with tiny burn holes peppering the denim since the day their journey began. Jeans. Not even a pair of swim trunks or gym shorts.
Flint shook his head. "Oh, I was just wondering if you could use your wire cutters and cut my hair. I could wring it into a bucket right now! But then I thought the heat's probably good for me, ya know? Training?"
Volkner snickered. "I don't need you dying of heat stroke in the name of training, dude. Here. I still have some water. And there's a forest up ahead. I'm sure we can pick a campsite with shade."
"You'll get the wire cutters then?"
"I got normal scissors."
Flint nodded, determined, and the two of them continued on up the dusty path, breaking into conversation every once in a while to keep Flint's mind focused. It was odd. Being on the road together, there were only so many things to talk about before the same topics were recycled. "I'm going to become the Champion of the Sinnoh League," Flint said. And then Volkner said, "I'm going to become the Champion." And anything after that was bickering about the how and the why. But that was good, Flint thought in the back of his mind. Glowing dreams and friendly rivalries manifesting right before his eyes.
"You want a Champion haircut?" Volkner asked once they'd pitched a tent and Monferno used Ember on a whole pack of hotdogs. The heat advisory didn't allow campfires. Neither boy wanted one anyway. Volkner peeled off his shirt like a soaked shed skin, and they both dove into dinner promptly prepared by the power of Pokémon.
"Just make it look even," Flint said.
"I can use wire cutters if that's the look you want."
"Nah, use scissors."
"Okay. Scissors… scissors… Pikachu, did you take my scissors?"
There wasn't a chance Volkner actually had scissors, Flint thought. He sat on a rock and scarfed his half of the hotdog packet while the other boy pretended to look for them anyway. It was cooler now. The sunset glittered gold back toward Eterna, where they'd won two shiny silver medallions from an excitable green-haired kid. Flint felt a bit bad for him. Bugs crisped first by fire, then by lightning, with no mercy from either. Now Volkner had four medallions in his case, and Flint had five. Hearthome was next, for all the antics it could give…
"I only got wire cutters."
"That's all right."
"They'll still work. I might just have to yank a bit. Wow, your hair is long! It's like noodles and sauce! Was your dad's like this too?"
"My dad's was a whole lot longer," Flint replied, trying to sit still.
"Aw, buzznuts. I think I left my toothbrush at the last PokéCenter. Can I use yours?"
"Sure. Just don't attach weird parts to it."
"But it looks way cooler!"
"Volk, are you sure you wanna be the Champion? 'Cause I could easily see all your inventions in a museum someday."
"Like the science museum in Jubilife City?"
"No. Like an art museum. With glass around 'em and professors with huge mustaches making kids write essays about how 'provocative' they all are."
"Frick you, Flint. I'm gonna make you bald."
He tried. Chipped blunt blades sawed voraciously at fistfuls of red curls until they came loose and fell loosely down to rest in the dust. Flint inspected his hands. His fingers were mottled with the ghosts of old burns, mostly faded into silvery scars that shone in the dying sunlight. A few were fresh and purple, but he'd become much more careful over the past few months. Monferno, Magby, and Ponyta each had different ways of expressing affection, none of which were without a fiery sting. Even Buneary was dangerous. One punch from those ears and Flint was spilling his dinner.
"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Volkner asked. "You're quiet today."
"I'm wondering what I'm gonna do when I grow up."
"Be Champion, duh. Unless it's me."
"What if it's you? Then what do I do?"
Volkner stopped sawing for a moment. "You could go to Lay School. Figure it out there. Oh, you could be a Gym Leader when Darius retires! But that old fart's never gonna retire, is he. Hmm… well, you're really good at helping people! Maybe you could become a psychologist!"
"I don't wanna go to Lay School."
The other boy shrugged. "Then I dunno. Why's it even matter? You're eleven. You can do whatever you want. Right now I think Monferno wants to help you become Champion… unless Pikachu helps me do it."
The fiery smile started sparking once more. "I will be Champion!" Flint proclaimed.
"Did you know that your average natural thunderbolt is five times hotter than the surface of the sun?"
"You already told me that."
"Did I tell you that already? I forgor."
"You forgor a lot of things."
"That's why I got you by my side to remind me."
Soon enough, Flint was reminding Volkner to get enough sleep for the next day's trek. He'd developed the nasty habit of poring over his designs after stressful days. Despite his warnings, Flint could still see the mini flashlight through his eyelids illuminating what Volkner would inform him were propellers. "Made out of what?" he'd ask. "That's what I'm figuring out," Volkner would say, and then they'd have an all-out wrestling match in the tent over control of the flashlight.
It wasn't plans tonight, though. Tonight when Flint opened his eyes and squinted at the bright LED shining right in his face, he didn't see propellers on paper, but a simple worried-looking cyborg sitting cross-legged on the other sleeping bag.
"What's up," Flint asked the cyborg.
"Um… I kinna shocked myself trying to cuddle Pikachu."
"Of course you did."
"Can I cuddle with Buneary?"
Flint screwed up his nose. The fluffy rabbit Pokémon was already fast asleep in the crook of his left arm, a loving paw squeezing at his chest.
"You have to catch your own soft, non-shocky Pokémon. Buneary's mine."
"Yeah, well you don't got janky teeth and a bar strapped to your mouth."
"Can't you just take off the headgear if you wanna cuddle Pikachu?"
"Metal in my mouth too, dingus."
"Well that's your problem, Mr. Thunderbolt. You should've caught that Aipom outside Sunyshore when you had the chance."
"It's not an Electric-Type. People'll make fun of me."
"Who's gonna make fun of you when you're Champion?"
"The other Champions."
"Volk, quit being dramatic and go to sleep. Tomorrow people are gonna make fun of me 'cause I look like a wet dandelion."
He heard the little cyborg flop over onto his pillow, the most dramatic of sighs escaping his lips. And then the sound of him rolling over onto his stomach to moan about how cold it was.
"It's not cold."
"Yeah, you're damn right it isn't. You siNged hALf my fuR oFF."
"...Volkner?"
Not Volkner. Definitely not Volkner. The boy next to him pressed himself up onto his knees, then growled and crackled as his whole form warped. Limbs lengthened. Torso expanded. Jaw grew long and defined. A sunburnt face turned tired and pale, marred by dark, tender blotches weighing heavy on electric blue.
"No…"
"Yes," Volkner roared with fangs jutting past his lips.
And then Flint's body grew too. A sharp tingling pooled beneath his skin that he couldn't scrape off, and he watched with hurried breath as his hands began to swell. No more silvery scars and fresh purple burns. Now only the worst ghosts wrapped around his broadening palms and stretching fingers. He whimpered at the tingling overtaking his neck and face. The choppy hair grew out again, longer and greasier than before. He hugged himself, feeling his shoulders quickly widen and his chest grow firm with muscle. His legs extended and bulged. His feet puffed up to match.
Buneary puffed into shadows and dust, as did the tent, which collapsed around them, three dimensions falling together into a single plane, then nothing.
The air grew cold. Freezing. Then blistering hot as a wall of scarlet light penetrated shadows.
"Stop it!" The grown-up Volkner commanded, finishing the task of forming dust and darkness into his usual blue jacket over a t-shirt and jeans.
"Stop what?"
Half a second brought his real-world memories back in one large, head-splitting ache. Flint wore nothing but his remaining bangles and a singed pair of gym shorts, and both hands were enveloped in bright orange balls of fire. He winced, feeling all the searing pressure building up within his stomach, then coughed out a stream of smoke and flame that sent his odd companion cowering.
"I feel sick."
"Heat stroke?"
"No, this is… my body's making its own heat. It's like there's a furnace in my gut, and I… I'm actually on fire."
A stripe of flame crawled curiously from the back of his left wrist up to his elbow toward his shoulder. Flint beat both hands on the ground before him until the burning stopped, leaving behind a muted glow, like the bones within were made of red-hot iron. Then he fell over on his side and trembled as the moist earth hissed and baked around him.
"Can you make it feel like Candice is pelting me with snowballs?"
"Exhausted," snarled Zoroark.
"You're not too exhausted to make yourself look like Volkner."
"This shape has… hands. And it… makes you calm."
"I felt calmer before."
"I know that."
"God, you know that. Why did you stop? I was so happy back then. We both were. All we had to worry about was getting the next medallion, er, gym badge. Whatever they used to be called. Volkner was actually a happy kid. And, my dad was already gone, but I had Darius and Buck and a best friend who I could depend on. We didn't have to work to understand each other. No cold shoulders. A slap-fight could solve anything… Why did you stop!?"
Gray burned gold, and his hands lit up again, changing soil into crackling sand. Zoroark bared its jagged teeth, but the flames only raged hotter, racing over Flint's skin like snakes.
"You're confused."
"I am not confused! Your illusions… they made me feel safe!"
"The point of it. So you… not on fire."
"You read my memories. You made Volkner seem even more genuine than I can remember. I want to go back. Please take me back. I'd kill to go back. Show me a time when teeth were janky and not feelings."
The false Volkner's shoulders slumped. Grimacing, he plopped himself down next to the raging fireball and reached his arms out, pulling him into a quick, reluctant hug. Then he slapped the man on the back and gave a straightened megawatt grin.
"It's not real. You're not him."
"Pretend I am… dingus. You tried to kill us."
"What did I do?"
Not-Volkner pointed. Off in the distance was the black monolith of Sunyshore City, free of light pollution and standing stark and silent in the night. Flint could make out the Ginterson Building on one side, and Sunyshore Tower on the other, though that one was a whole lot shorter than usual, and still breathing smoke into the atmosphere.
"I've been in Sunyshore this whole time. You Rocket effers."
"Easy with my power. You are my prisoner. I await… instructions… Until…"
His nose grew a bit more pointed, and his lips rode back.
"Did I set the tower on fire?"
"You… not human. What are you?"
Flint gulped. "I can't say. Most likely I have my Infernape's Blaze ability." He scratched at his arms, where a well of heat was brewing again. "My body always heats up when I'm tired or scared. I didn't think I'd literally erupt, though."
"How!?"
"Well, humans can bond with Pokémon in strange ways sometimes. Or… maybe it's because I'm in the Four. I don't remember. If everything were normal, and you were actually V, I'd call this awesome, but… "
Flickering tears creased in the edges of golden eyes. Both hands and feet suddenly sputtered and burst into flame, and the almost-Volkner had to scoop up definitely-Flint and dunk him quickly in the surf. He popped back up, all the water evaporating instantly as red curls sparkled like cinders.
"Tell me where you're keeping Volkner."
"Don't know."
"I heard Matori say Team Rocket has him too. What's your plan, huh!? Taking both of us!?"
"Strongest trainers in city. Must be eliminated."
"I get that much. But for what? You wanna take over Sunyshore? You need Volkner's brains for that, and he'd never let the slightest unworthy person have even a sparking nut of his intelligence!"
Flint wound back one arm and chucked a fireball right at not-Volkner's head. Not-Volkner pivoted, catching the attack with both arms raised, then sent a barrage of shadowy rings barreling back at the human. One of them slapped Flint right in the face. He grunted as he fell back into the water, which boiled instantly around his incandescent skeleton.
"I'm roasting alive. All that catchphrasing as the Sinnoh Four's Fire user and I am literally roasting alive."
"Volkner has already fallen," the tricky fox chuckled. "Team Rocket's plans are… foolproof."
"Volkner is a good person," Flint choked out. "Yeah he's scatterbrained and selfish and he can be kind of a jerk if he doesn't get what he wants, but he's not evil. You can't offer him anything that would make him change his mind about who his friends are. My memories prove that!"
He whined in his throat then, the tingly warmth becoming unbearable as the flames began to actually singe and burn his cuticles. Two staticky hands wrenched him up from parched sand. Electric blue eyes locked him in place.
"Flint. Look at me. Snap out of it."
"You're not him!"
"PRETEND I AM AND YOU WON'T COMBUST ALL OVER THE SAND, YOU STUPID HUMAN HOTPOCKET!"
"Quit being dramatic, you airfried dishwasher!"
"That doesn't even make sense."
"I'm hungry!"
"I know, dude. So am I. Just… Relax. Close your eyes. You're sitting in a sauna in Snowpoint, n' it smells like cedarwood. Just warm enough to burn your nostrils, so you gotta be careful. And the snow is falling outside. It's sparkly. There's a winter wind blowing more snow over the crust covering the ground. So you're hot, but the world outside is nice and cold—"
"Don't do that trick. If I fall asleep, you'll screw with my mind again. I won't let you."
"If I 'screw with your mind,' you won't have to worry about any of this. You'll be on the road to Hearthome City with me. Don't you want to forget and remember?"
"I… Yes… I do… More than anything. But I can't be eleven. I'm twenty-seven years old. If I forget that, then I'm a hypocrite and irresponsible."
"But there's nothing you can do, Flint. Like I said, Volkner has already fallen. Indulge a little, while you still have time. We can twist things around and go to Snowpoint next~"
"Get away from me."
Flint's stomach bubbled and twisted. Another load of flames came rushing from his mouth, melting the sand into a shiny divot between where they crouched. He reached up and clutched his throat, knuckles spurting fire at the sudden fear flooding through his system.
"Volkner… do you have enough energy to put me under?"
"I can try."
"Then do it. Put me under."
"You… always relent."
Electric blue flashed turquoise for an instant, and the lightning grin tore itself back into a mangled, metal mess.
~N~
The Warren Zeiders prophecy has been fulfilled. Also I've finished outlining the rest of this fic! (For sure this time.)
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net June 21st, 2022. Reviews are flamin' hot! Reposters are banned to the surface of the sun.