21.
Gingty Amogus
It's landslide, rocks below
Ready to rise, ready to roll
"So you're firing Colin tomorrow."
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Why not? The guy doesn't do his fair share. He oversleeps, gets to work late without a functioning car, fucks around on the job… I mean, he's the one who started the whole 'Ginty' thing. I saw the Poké Chic in the backseat of his car when he did have it, on top of pure garbage."
"You let that happen."
"Yeah, well, that's what the monthly meetings are s'posed to fix, but we're just screamin' into the void when The Ginty's got the culture. Lookin' like rednecks."
"If it makes ye feel better…"
The foreman gave a long, heavy sigh, then a rattly cough.
"We'll get by without Colin. Only a matter of time 'til you're licensed on the big rigs, and we're not expanding into the highlands yet. That environmental stuff is set in stone. Alamos is gonna pick up a good chunk of my men anyway if West Central pulls out here."
"They can't do that. This coal can't just all sit here."
"Oh, it won't just sit here. Coal is coal. That's an unsinkable market. But the company's gonna get hit pretty hard with this bullshit goin' around. I wonder why we all point and laugh at Sunyshore when Jubilife's right up my ass with cameras."
"I s'pose we're distanced enough that we can point and laugh. Trouble comes when they point back and say laughin's not so kind."
"They can call me uneducated all they want. They don't know the mullet is what keeps the sun off my neck."
"Pff. Makin' fun o' yer hair? Is that what it's come to? I say ye take that crack and ye blow it wide open with a defamation suit."
"And who would I be suing?"
"The media. Pick a network. We do it all the time in Galar. Jist say they made it impossible to live a normal life."
"No… no. I'm not gonna do that. I can't make 'em think I actually care."
"It's unlosable! Ye got big shiny eyes and crazy collateral, with… I'm sorry. Like… me an' me mam, when that whole thing happened… God, but that was petty. I didn't know 'til I came here, met you. Met… civilization."
"What'll be left of it, anyway."
"Don't give up yet. Yer so strong."
"Yeah, I'm strong… and then some days I wish I could disappear like Volkner did. Just say fuck it. Don't get mad. Maybe shake my fist, but dead of night, just…"
"Ye wonder why ye even exist in the first place."
"You'd think that's it, but… I know why I exist. I know why I battle, who I'm battling, how each attack goes, where it goes right or wrong… Nobody's talking about Volkner right now the way they're talking about me. Guy's fuckin' invincible, and he knows it."
"Then why's he gone?"
The foreman snorted.
"Volkner is a very privileged man."
"I wonder where he's at now."
"I know where he is. Out ruining himself."
It was called the City of Energy, and it smelled like cigarettes. Almost magically. One step into city limits and it was like he'd tugged open the door of a rusted-out bicolor beater sat out in the sun and sunk his nose long and deep into the shredded and smoke-soaked foam of a seat flattened to the metal under fourteen years of sweaty miner ass.
Volkner once told Flint this. They'd been kids at the time, and in the presence of Oreburgh's prior Gym Leader, a miner and the owner of such a beater. After giving them badges he'd threatened to beat the boys into carbon and coal if they didn't learn some respect. "Like my son," he'd said, pointing to the long-haired, near-sighted ragamuffin playing with dinosaurs in the dirt behind him.
That ragamuffin's name was Roark. He was so respectful he wouldn't swear until he was eighteen years old and the foreman of the coal mine. He wouldn't drink because he drove a dragline. He wouldn't stay out late because he spent sixteen hours a day providing for Sinnoh. Hard work. Real work. A man's work. Building a legacy, just as his father instructed.
Volkner, with all his brilliance, would grow into the man who installed bidets so development companies could save on their green certification. The hero who turned a gang-ridden asbestos-coated shantytown into a plastic paradise where the EV stations were always available and unwanted jobs were done by robots. He'd pass away at twenty-six from cardiac arrest after failing to fix a malfunctioning microwave for some hooligans. Flint, with all his success on the battlefield, would buy the best bidet in the Ginterson Building. He'd spend his own short adult life sipping margaritas until he was tied up at the top of Volkner's big bike rack battery and blown to bits.
Marcell didn't know about any of that. Well, he knew about Volkner. Should probably pop over to Sunyshore and bury Volkner under the gym, he thought. He'd rendered the hologram from old magazine pictures. Only problem was holograms were cheap. Volkner Jay Ginterson deserved a cadaver of active plasma, yet his beneficiary had yet to rig coils for a facsimile of cold human flesh.
Anyway, put that project aside for now. Focus on the task at hand: trying not to choke on Oreburgh City's stench. It hadn't changed since those days. In fact, it was worse now with the old dirt roads pressed flat under class five and blacktop cracked from last spring's frost. Marcell kicked a chunk that had ruptured. He watched it skitter off into the ditch and land with a clang on the nearest metal culvert. Already before dawn the smokestacks were groaning and mosquitos were spawning in the mud. He passed by a fire hydrant grown thick with weeds across from the thin metal limbs of a swingset leaning precariously to one side. A ruffled Starly flew down to perch there. Poysh-poysh. His boots pressed soft divots in the gravel.
The playgrounds in Sunyshore had switched to rubber mulch, and when that proved too much maintenance, a textured turf pad stapled over a tarp. Robots watered the lawn and mowed and swept. All wonderfully silent, as if the city kept itself. No one had to go outside to complain about noise. No one had to run into those annoying neighbors!
Something glinted, and blue eyes snapped to the blurry but brightening east. Near the fire hydrant was a streetlight, flickering on and off with the fading darkness. Up near the bulb an exposed wire was sparking, the copper strands frayed and snarled like they'd been handled too forcefully.
A wire… why would it be all the way up there… unless…
"There was a solar panel there," he realized. "There's supposed to be, anyway. Damn, if I had that photovoltaic film on me I could fix it up good as new. Wonder what happened to it."
In Sunyshore, the panels covered every available surface. Sparkling silicon, shimmery microfilm, dust and sand painted in the shapes of shoe soles stomping across the waxed acrylic boardwalk. Every cell lovingly twisted and fixed into place by a pale, broad, lightning-licked hand.
Taken out by a microwave.
His ears pricked then, at a noise that would rattle Sunyshore to its core at just after five in the morning. Racing down the blacktop toward him was a beater with a dented bumper and more than one chink in the windshield. Country metal blasted out the windows, along with the voices of two grown men shouting the lyrics to some renegade anthem. A pudgy arm dangled out the passenger's side, whipping up to slap the mirror in time with the bass. As the car approached it braked hard and skidded to a halt, idling loudly.
"Ya savin' some money today, Colin?"
The air conditioner was cranked up to the max. He felt a cold wave hit as he stooped down to see the hairy face of the driver leaning over to take him in. Hairy, but still young, with a pair of gold-framed aviator glasses making his muddy-red eyes all big and shiny. Strapped on his head was a polished red mining helmet. He gave a teasing grin and gestured to the back seat.
"Climb in, freeloader," said Roark, the twenty-four-year-old foreman of the Oreburgh Mine and the Oreburgh Gym Leader.
"Have some compassion," said his Galarian step-brother Gordie in the passenger's seat. "Ye know gas is fuckin' us over. Not his fault he can't afford it. Besides, carpoolin's good for the environment."
"Gaaah, fuckin' Ginty myth. Sh'just pump the whole sky full o' smoke. Breathe it in. Puts hair on your chest."
"Noo, noo, ye jist did the thing ye can't do, Roark. Ye can't say everything ye don't like is The Ginty. Tha's cringe."
"I didn't say everything I don't like is The Ginty. I was makin' a quaint observation," Roark said. He smirked up at Marcell. "I'll take you to work, Colin, but don't think you're gettin' paid for clocking in two minutes early. Geez, have some compassion."
The two brothers laughed, and Marcell slipped into the backseat. That morning, according to his mission, he was "Colin" — age 34, divorced, partnered with a Machop to move ore for a living. The real one had yet to even get up for work, and would not get to work that day on account of a toppled cell tower, a few sliced power lines and all the doors in his house wired shut. Now disguised, the Rocket agent had a too-perfect way into the heart of the Oreburgh Mine, and a good look at the man who ran it.
"Didn't uh… didn't see you at the BPOU the other night, Colin." Roark said as he started driving again.
"It was a real champion time," said Gordie. "It was our first time going. We were the youngest people there. We got to eat brownies n' work out why we feel so terrible all the time n' discussed some ways to turn the tides. Roark n' a few others even wrote a letter to the Sinnoh League askin' fer an investigation into The Ginty's background, n' I brought our The Ginty te illustrate."
"Yeah, our The Ginty stays at work from now on, Gordon."
"Got a diminutive form now. It's called 'gingty.' I think it's an adjective."
"Are you listening?"
"S'like ye say 'me when gingty,' n' then ye put a picture of the solar panel next to the ugly face, so's like the solar panel is cringe, 'cause gingty."
"Are you getting high on the job? Answer me seriously."
"Wha? Noo, Roark, s'the rebirth o' rage humor! Like what's the one they're makin' about ye right now? Yer the ugly face 'cause yer workin' with Team Rocket n' Raihan's the ugly face 'cause he's usin' tha' one pyr's death te sell merch, n' Leon's the handsome face 'cause he shares opinions but doesn't force 'em, ye know? I know ye get radge at any o' that, but look where that got ye. Yer a… spastic scholastic ter'rist 'r whatever the fuck. Yer sus."
Roark sighed. "If I catch you getting high on the job that backhoe's getting a restraining order against you and my boot's going so far up your ass you'll taste dino shit."
"Ye need te learn about yer own generation's comedy!"
"I run a coal mine, Gordon. I keep people's lights on. I give people employment. And food on the table."
The air seemed to stiffen then, wrung out tight. Both men went silent, and the country metal cut out as Gordie's Rotom Phone lost its 5G signal and couldn't find the one from the tower Marcell cut down an hour before.
Marcell shrugged as he watched the brownish world blow past. He noticed a few solar panels affixed to the top of streetlights. So civilization had made an attempt here. They were all a little crooked, but it was progress nonetheless.
"So which one of you is gonna win that battle tonight? I need to know where to place my bets."
"The Ginty," as far as Marcell could tell, was something of a fetish among the workers of the Oreburgh Mine.
Well, it was a fetish — an icon — that he first met when pouring himself a paper cup of coffee in Roark's office. The morning light streaming into the little room was made extra yellow by the flag tacked across the top half of the window, a coiled Onix affirming its turf. Paperwork was stacked haphazardly in piles, some color-coded, some shoved in binders, some smeared with coffee and coal.
There was glass all over the floor.
Not even an attempt to sweep it up. Shards and shards of broken black glass, most of which was piled into a sort of nest up against one wall, where rested the Almighty God of the Mines.
It was a large wooden picture frame with a tiny cutout of Volkner's smiling face taped to the inside of the glass.
"Salute The Ginty," Roark told him.
Awkwardly, he raised his right hand to his forehead in the same manner as the foreman and his brother, spines pulled straight and rear ends clenched. The three of them held the position for almost a minute before bowing briefly. Marcell even saw Roark's lips moving — a nervous prayer playing out between burgundy whiskers. His gloved fingers formed solemnly into the shape of a backhanded V. Then he composed himself and filled his thermos to the top with coffee.
"Black as coal and Volkner's soul," mused Roark.
"Let's not say things like that around 'The Ginty,'" said Marcell.
He expected a rebuttal, or even a rude brush-off. But Roark's shoulders went stiff again. The gray fabric of his hi-vis jacket crinkled around his neck. His fingers shifted around the thermos, and he swallowed slowly, keeping his eyes to the ground as he shuffled back out into the hall.
Soon after, the rest of the workforce arrived. Gordie was allowed to scoop The Ginty out of its hazardous nest and carry it out into the yard. He cradled it against his belly while Roark gave morning announcements.
"Good work last week despite the Steelix evictions, everyone," he began in a loud, strong voice, and then took a sip of coffee. "Keep pulling your weight like this, and my lungs will give out long before my back."
There was a low murmur of laughter all around — local color, and not a joke the spy could take lightly.
"As far as safety issues go, Officer Jenny will be here periodically starting this week. Especially today with the battle going on tonight. You know I don't like talking about it, but apparently it's the most deplorable thing in the world to say you don't have an opinion on certain current events. Now, I know I'm not in any real danger, and I assure you I have never seen myself as a conspirator or a terrorist or God forbid one of those Rocket agents, but we'd all like to see fewer jobless degenerates waving signs around, throwing themselves in front of our backhoes trying to interrupt our work. Last thing we need around here is some pundit telling us to buy fuckin' Ginty panels."
"The Ginty!" one worker called out.
"The Ginty will protect us!"
"It's a grand trial from The Ginty!"
"We'll do our best, The Ginty!"
"Great Solar Deity!"
"Have mercy on us!"
"ME WHEN WHEN GINGTY!"
Gordie held up The Ginty as high as he possibly could, drawing cheers and V Signs from a hundred helmeted men.
"If I hear stupid made-up words out of any of you, you're gettin' transferred to the Alamos Mine," Roark declared, pointing a stern gloved finger. "I'm friends with the foreman up there. No 'dank memes.' Just dankness. Of course, I thought I banned all memes here last month, so I don't know who's sneakin' in the contrabands. Is it you, Colin?"
"Great Lord Ginnngkkkty, send us your sunbeams from hell," said "Colin," as dramatically as he could.
"Right," said Roark with a frown.
"On our way here I had te tell Roark what the ugly face was," Gordie crooned.
"The ugly face is gingty!"
"My face when I see a solar panel!"
"When I When I see one singular solar panel!"
"Minus one thousand solar panel social credit!"
"L plus ratio plus solar-powered pickaxe!"
"Roark gets all the solar panels if he's bad in the coal mine!"
"The Ginty is not pleased with your ignorance, Roark!"
"Gingty."
"Roark is gingty!"
"Gingty amogus!"
Roark wasn't pleased with the jeers. He silenced the workforce with a wave of his hand and continued on with the announcements, glancing reproachfully at Gordie and The Ginty with every unrelated comment. Marcell stood smirking among the crowd. Not that he knew how "Colin" was entirely supposed to act, but the Rocket life was full of absurdity. Today's absurdity was the Cult of Volkner Jay "The Ginty" Ginterson, born amidst the pits of Oreburgh City.
So Roark's made-up lore has followers, he thought to himself, watching a man younger than Roark with a thin wispy mustache slap hands with a man old enough to be his grandfather, beard all wiry and gray. His next, most natural thought, by the practiced lie, was that Roark would be sorely disappointed when he learned his fetish was dead. (Taken out by a microwave.)
Taken out by a microwave, Marcell enunciated slowly in his mind. "Taken out by a microwave," he muttered under his breath. And then paused, confused, even at those five outrageous words.
Taken out by a microwave? Was that where it ended? Volkner? The Shining Shocking Star, the tamer of Luxray, the Brain Behind the Blackouts and all that, defeated by an inorganic appliance? Taken out? By a microwave? Not even a microwave possessed by a Rotom, though that was a version of the lie to consider.
It was just… so silly. And sad. And sadly believable — that every few years some kid in Sunyshore was cursed to live a life so eccentric, so maniacally ludicrous, that his own curiosity stopped his heart and that was that. "TAKEN OUT BY A MICROWAVE" would be the new trend for an afternoon. Or maybe just an ominous bolded "MICROWAVE."
And Candice would screenshot that word — not the context — not Volkner — once Volkner was dead they'd have no one to mock and no one to blame, and he'd fall away to anecdotes and metaphors just like Cyrus did. Sunyshore would sink away, inflation or blackouts or otherwise. And they'd find some other young upstart and rebuild it even shinier and emptier than before, and when that failed someone would start to mope about Volkner and the shattered black glass. Wish him back to life. Resurrect him with nostalgia. Or keep Volkner dead. Make his name a taboo.
"I'm not gonna tell you what happened to Volkner," he'd told Candice back in Kanto, the cold static coursing over his tongue.
Not for some cruel withholding, but because Volkner's demise was pathetic. She could've believed Marcell murdered him. Pushed him off the top of the lighthouse. Sank a sparkling claw through his back.
No… Marcell was the result, not the cause…
The evolution. The rightful inheritance.
Or…
So much shattered black glass…
Why was there so much black glass? He upturned his boot and found tiny little bits of it embedded in the rubber. Workers were throwing it at each other. They were throwing it at Roark and at Gordie and The Ginty. A big chunk bounced off his helmet from behind. He picked it up off the ground and dusted it off with his fingers. It wasn't completely opaque. Light still shone through to reveal straight veins criss-crossing at perfect right angles. And not black glass. Black conductors sandwiched in between two layers of clear glass. Like a crystal. Tiny crystals of silicon, flashing in the murky sunlight.
"Colin, would you please follow me to my office? I need to talk to you."
"Solar panels," Marcell said.
"What? Yeah, those are solar panels," said Roark.
"Where from?"
"From… somewhere. It doesn't matter. Can you just follow me?"
"200-watt monocrystalline silicon. Commercial grade. These were very expensive, Roark. Isn't it kinna weird they're down here broken in the main yard of a coal mine where anyone could step on 'em?"
Roark had already started back toward the main compound. His supposed worker pocketed the shard and followed behind. When they reached Roark's office inside, the foreman gestured to the chair opposite his behind the desk. Gordie was shooed out, having lovingly fixed The Ginty into place among its nest of expensive silicon garbage. Then Roark locked the door and placed himself behind the desk, gloved fingers interlocking and shining eyes growing dark and heavy.
"Colin, I'd send you to HR, but at this point I am HR for these issues, and I just have to say it. I can't have you here at the mine anymore. You're never on time, you're disruptive, and you aren't helping the morale of the force with the constant 'Ginty' jokes. It's been two months of constant messing around, you know not everyone here is playing along, there are actual workers concerned about job security and you go around telling everyone they're gonna lose their jobs to solar panels and Volkner."
Marcell's nose crinkled. He looked over his shoulder toward The Ginty, who smirked back.
"I'm sorry, Roark, I just…"
"I saw what you keep in your car, Colin. I get it. It's just not professional."
"You go along with it. You were praying to that thing this morning. Is this… Do you actually believe Volkner is going to take your job?"
"I'd like to believe he isn't, so I'm giving you two weeks and then you're dismissed."
"Why would Volkner take your job? Why would he care?"
Roark breathed sharply through his nose. "He wouldn't. But… you know the direction things are going in this region. Places like Sunyshore and Jubilife turning from people-first communities into espresso-guzzling fruithouse fancy salons licking their solar panels. It's not good for morale to make people think Oreburgh's gonna get steamrolled by modernity in the next twenty years. It's quiet here. People like it quiet."
"Do you think it's gonna get steamrolled?"
"I don't want to think so."
"Do you right now?"
"Sometimes I do, yes. Part of that is you."
The spy drummed his fingers on the desk, noticing now the hardened purple blotches under the foreman's eyes, and the patches of beard swelling slightly as it grew over nicks in the sunburned skin.
"Why hate Volkner, though?"
"Pff, I don't know. Why do you hate him so much?"
"Do you think he's a… symbol of… God, Roark, you worship the man like he can smite you at any moment. You have an icon in your office. And you also hate him? Which is it?"
"You started this."
"Volkner doesn't give a Raticate's ass about Oreburgh City."
"Which is exactly the point—"
"It smells like an ashtray and it could benefit from a reclamation initiative. Does that end your world, Roark? Do you think that topples you off your little foreman's throne? Volkner's gonna come down here and snap your pickaxe in half? Come on. Why's Volkner your nemesis? You've never even met the guy. You live in the middle o' God's country. Pick a higher hill to die on, you pathetic little prehistoric bonehead."
"Oh," Roark laughed, leaning back in his seat. "You think you're being really funny right now. 'Roark, it's just a solar panel. Roark, why don't you die on a higher hill?' How about you stop assuming I want to die on a hill at all? Maybe you can step down off your own hill and into my mine for a day. Do you want to see the Steelix nest I evicted last month? Do you want to see where I didn't command Rampardos fast enough and the tail spike hit my back?"
"That's not a sound argument."
"Just leave my office. You're done today. I don't know how I let a troll like you in here in the first place. Get back to Sunyshore. I bet you'll leak this conversation like you leaked the last one. Give people more reasons to call me Roark the fucking Rocket."
"Well, not much you can do when there's some pretty damning evidence."
He unstrapped the helmet from his head, setting free a flattened and bedraggled mess of hair the color of bleached-out straw. Then he tore open the front of his jumpsuit, slender chest and arms slithering out of the bulky gray folds. He tugged his gloves up past his elbows and smoothed his vest so the bright red R was straight and square. Then from one pocket of his toolbelt, he produced a small slip of paper, which he unfolded and placed on the desk before him.
"Roark, this is an invoice for a box of Rocket bombs which you purchased with funds from the Oreburgh Coal Company account back on August 1st of this year. The memo says "guerilla mountaintop removal mining.' I also have the receipt, signed by you and cosigned by Team Rocket Admin Archer under terms which state the transaction is nonrefundable and the sale is final. Shortly after, on August 13th, Team Rocket admins were alerted to what was reported as your attempt to 'give the bombs back.' On August 17th, you sent an email using a private server asking for a refund. September 2nd, another email — this one picked up by grunts and handed off to the Boss, who by then had noticed a social media smear campaign calling you a co-conspirator with our organization. Now, I've been informed the public defamation isn't organic from your actual conspiracy, but it caught our attention nonetheless."
Roark stared slack-jawed, thermos of coffee spilling all over the paperwork and dribbling down the side of the desk to where the black glass idled on the floor.
"You're The Ginty."
"No. I'm not The Ginty. But you could say I'm an agent of the one you call The Ginty, here to reaffirm the contract. You paid for bombs, and you will receive bombs, and use them as was negotiated. I have them right here," Marcell said, pulling what looked like a metal shoebox out of the discarded jumpsuit.
"No."
"No?"
"No, I will not," Roark said, shoving the box into Marcell's lap. He took off his glasses and his face went gray. Aged, like his father's. Like some pathetic little prehistoric relic of a man.
"Well, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Real Rockets don't play nice with Gym Leaders. At least, not if they don't go all the way bad."
"What's damned if I don't?"
The gray gloves trembled as they undid the latch on the box and picked up one of the smooth silvery orbs from the velvet padding inside.
"Then I use the bombs and I blow the Oreburgh Mine inside out with you inside it."
A Poké Ball found its way into Roark's hand. Then Marcell produced his own. Then Roark threw his right hand into the topmost drawer on his side of the desk, whipping out a revolver and aiming at the Rocket agent's chest. Marcell withdrew his plasma pistol, grip shaking, mind erasing. Roark was young again. Too young. Black glass everywhere.
Black glass everywhere…
"You destroyed the solar panels West Central Energy installed around your city. Volkner had nothing to do with those, you know."
"Yes. I know. And I did," Roark bit. His voice was hoarse. Eyes twitching. Coffee-moistened throat going dry as the rusted-out shaft of a shovel.
Marcell lowered his weapon. "That thing's not loaded," he told Roark with a short head gesture.
"You wouldn't know."
"You're a good kid. It's not loaded. And I'm sure that bottle of bourbon in the drawer there with it is apple juice."
"I thought you were done patronizing me."
"I can or I can't. I'd like to get out of here and back to Vermilion. Finish some projects. Build myself a state-of-the-art solar-powered workshop once I'm promoted to Elite Class."
Now it was the dud revolver clanging on the coffee-stained tile.
"Ho… ly… shit," Roark choked out. "You're here."
~N~
Today on "Yes, this is still a Pokémon fanfiction set in a fantasy version of Hokkaido..."
Finally Roark makes his entrance! Did you think the "interlude" was just an interlude and the nods to Roark just jokes? Nope! Just desserts are getting served and the nemeses meet at last! I've already got the first part of the next chapter written. Was going to be the first part of this one but it's better as some comic relief. (The song Roark n Gordie are rocking out to in the car is "Be Legendary" by Pop Evil. It was the epigraph in the last Marcell chapter and the big hint for the location and nature of this one.)
Also WE HAVE COVER ART! :D THANK YOU SO MUCH TO T-M-WOLF ON DEVIANTART FOR THE ADORABLE COVER DESIGN AND SKETCH OF MARCELL I GET TO USE FOR MY PROFILE! (Lol rip Changeling Alfred but I haven't written for my Hetalia AU in almost a year.) Volk looks extra huggable with all his reno bender nonsense! She is having a 20% off sale on commissions until the end of August and would love to draw some more Pokémon characters or OCs or anything cute you can think of, so go fill out her form!
Been writing at the computer lab until late for the past week so Imma relax and go reread all my favorite Roark fics now~ I was told he "looks like a Melvin." I was like "Yep, the canon Roark is. Mine's a... miner."
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net August 26th, 2022. Reposting on third-party sites is not permitted. Reviews are lovely.