6

A Meeting In the Sky... Lt. Surge's Fate Decided... Peckerham Plots Revenge

Akala Island was a far more modern place than Melemele. The residents of Akala believed in the scientific method, broadband connections, instant noodles, and Ambien, and they had mostly forgotten about their guardian deity. Tapu Lele went about her duty of protecting the island's sanity in the background, keeping things quietly propped up like an effective congressional representative that nobody can remember electing. The backwater hicks of Melemele blamed everything on Tapu Koko, good and bad; when rampaging hoards of Yungooses swarmed the crops and reduced the island's annual yield to nothing, that was Tapu Koko's fault, and he received no shortage of angry letters and prayers on the topic. When the sun shined and the waves were high and Professor Kukui's nipples could stiffen in anticipation of catching a few on his surf board, that was also the work of Tapu Koko. But Akala assigned no such responsibilities to Tapu Lele. She was like the island's distributor cap: no one cared about her or what things she was doing until she stopped doing them and caused Lt. Surge to steal a golf cart and a box of nine-volts and go for a ride.

Moon Child never even found out that she had been the catalyst that put Lt. Surge in that golf cart. As soon as Tapu Lele was captured and jammed into the PC with Tapu Koko, she got back on Charizard (a different one—the one she'd jumped off of and caused to crash would no longer do business with her) and flew away. She and Mina actually crossed paths in the sky, making brief but intense eye contact as Mina sped toward Heahea City, hoping to intercept Lt. Surge before it was too late.

"You idiot!" Mina screamed as they zoomed past one another.

"What the heck?" Moon Child wondered, gazing over her shoulder at the back of the other Charizard as the distance between the two riders grew. "Hey Rotom, did you hear that?"

"Kind of, friend! Captain Mina called you a Pigeot, I think."

"I thought she said 'video.'"

"Maybe she said 'indigo.'"

"Or maybe it was 'internet.'"

"no UR the internet," Moon Child texted to Mina. Mina read the text. She thought for a little while about its possible meanings as she and her Charizard circled Heahea, looking for golf carts. She decided not to respond.

It was already too late, of course. Tapu Lele was removed from the Ruins of Life and sanity had been removed from Lt. Surge. He sprung awake in his hotel room feeling strongly that the people of Heahea needed to be taught a lesson: a lesson about electricity.

"Dese numbskulls are gunna loin one way or da other," he informed Raichu, who had also gone crazy without Tapu Lele's influence.

"Rai-CHUUU!" it said.

"Yuh're right!" Lt. Surge cried. He hopped out of bed, completely naked, and put on one sock. "We should throw batteries at da people!" Surge took his crazy Raichu into his crazy arms, still dressed in only one sock, and left the hotel.

"Mommy, I can see his snake!" a little girl proclaimed as Lt. Surge walked past her family's picnic with the huge electric type Pokémon squirming in his arms.

"Don't look, Kelsey!" the mother screamed, shielding her daughter's eyes with the sandwich she had been holding.

"Rai-chuuu?"

"A golf cart?" Surge said. "Great idear, Raichu!" He stopped and turned his eyes to the fleet of golf carts parked in front of the hotel. One in particular called out to him. Lt. Surge went over to it, his naked buttocks grinding against one another like large white stones.

While all this was going on, General H. G. Peckerham was briefing his men on the situation.

"It's lightly scalded," he told them in a voice heavy with regret as he marched back and forth across the front of the room with his hands clasped smartly behind his back. "No serious damage, but quite painful. I've applied Vaseline."

"Sir?" asked a new recruit. "What does this have to do with us?"

"Sit down, private!" Peckerham bellowed. His neck wattles and jowls fluttered angrily. "You're the best of the best, and that means you have a need to know. The balls were fortunately unharmed."

"Sir, I really don't think we—"

"Shut your mouth, private, and listen! I am suffering topical reddening of the skin that Nurse Joy thinks should clear up in a day or two. Thankfully, I was wearing two pairs of underwear for good luck when the incident occurred, or we might be in even direr straights right now. One of my thighs also sustained a non-life-threatening burn, but it's really the penis I'm most concerned with."

The enlisted men scribbled down notes as Peckerham talked.

"We will retaliate immediately, from every direction, and without mercy or remorse," he said. "Bandages will be applied if necessary. I will be taking photographs of the affected skin on an hourly basis and distributing them to each and every one of you for transparency's sake."

"I'm sorry sir, did you say 'retaliate'? Retaliate how, and against whom?"

"We must bomb Melemele into the sea," he replied proudly. "Nothing will remain of that insufferable rock when I'm through with it. It will be a black ruin, completely uninhabitable for thousands of years. I've also banned emails, and coffee. An incident like my penis scalding must never be allowed to happen again. Is that clear, men?"

"Yes, sir!"

"As you were, then." H. G. Peckerham strode from the room and slammed the door behind him.