43.

Thunderstruck, Pt. I

Three sharp claws pinch Volkner's perfectly pointed nose closed until he wakes up gasping and thrashing in the blue cotton sheets.

"Accursed!" he cries, his chest lurching when he sees Abra hovering above him. The creature teleported just in time to avoid getting kicked in the face. Now it perches on the pillow next to Volkner's head and judges him without making a sound.

Volkner sits up dazed. Twin blond tassels tickle his jaw. The weight of his own breath within his body is intense. The hands that clutch his knees are broad and strong, kissed by the trails of thin silver feathers. He lifts his shirt to check for stab wounds, but a light touch proves the skin is young and smooth there, too.

His stomach is sore, however. It's a radiant aching. He supposes, with a smirk, that the faint layer of softness he's getting from all those delicious vanilla éclairs is what's concealing the imprint of scarlet knuckle hair in the center of his abs. He lets the shirt fall again and slumps forward, blood rushing into his brain as his fingertips meet carpet.

Then there's a sickening feeling running down his leg, and Volkner falters.

His left hand trails cautiously back up his shin, then his thigh, until it's almost at the hip. There the fingers find warmth. Wetness.

Pain.

He rips up the leg of his fire hydrant-patterned boxer shorts. There, gone untreated and uncovered, is a twisted, weeping, charred line of flesh that ripples and snakes around to his lower back in the manner of a metal chain. It's too fresh to be a nightmare. Too detailed. Too real. It's hot, and it hurts, and the sheets, when he tears them away, are marked with dried brown blotches.

"Accursed," he breathes, and the word feels silly in his mouth, but it's polite and versatile and he's come to appreciate it. His jaw is clenched as he limps into his bathroom to assess the wound better. Water rushes out of the tub faucet clear and washes down the drain bright red. There's blood on his shirt. Now there's blood on the sink counter, around where he left his toothbrush and mouthwash and electric razor and shaving gel only a couple of hours ago.

Did he shave? He shaved. He shaved completely. His narrow, naked, blue-eyed face, when he sees it in the mirror, is one he swears he hasn't seen in fifty years, and yet it blinks when he blinks and breathes when he breathes and that woman…

That blue-haired woman is alive and in Sunyshore with him, because Luxray saw her too, and so did Buck, and he's half-sure he heard her dry alto turn down Flint's charisma. Now her partner Pokémon is offering him a towel to wipe his leg because he really did fall through a portal to the past and his wallet chain is somehow an instrument of pure cosmic horror.

"That aloe plant on the counter," he mutters, pointing. "Break off a piece and slice it open for me."

Flint keeps dozens of aloe vera plants fresh around the penthouse. The master of Fire-types is used to getting burned, and the moist, cooling effect of aloe gel is a gentler remedy, he says, than the cold, astringent juice of a rawst berry, commonly used to treat burns in Pokémon. In this day and age, people know the difference between medicine and poison, both for humans and their magical companions.

Matron Pesselle, on the other hand, wanted Ginter to drink raw leek juice. A seventy-seven-year-old man with a cough and arrhythmia versus the deadliest natural "painkiller" ever discovered in the world. What, did she want him to pass away peacefully in his sleep!?

Actually, that makes sense.

"Rei had to have died young," Volkner tells himself, pulling his swim trunks back on and wincing when the bandages chafe. "Poor kid. He and Raichu had potential. If he'd been born around here just fifteen years ago I might be bullying him about earning his Beacon Badge. It can be fun to kick kids down the stairs until they come up with something that really shocks you…"

More words he feels strange saying, even though yesterday he'd say them in a heartbeat. He was Volkner yesterday. Yesterday he was Volkner. Now he's… Volkner, and yesterday he was…

His foot catches on something grayish that's fallen on the floor at the foot of the bed. Volkner stoops and picks it up in both broad, strong, twenty-seven-year-old hands.

His favorite jacket. His trademark. His insulated one-of-a-kind wonder. He found himself wrapped in it this morning the moment he felt the life crackling back into his ribcage and he phased into being on the beach next to that woman. It's unwearable now. The material is cracking apart at the shoulders. The brown blotches match the ones on his sheets and the shower curtain.

His lips press into a thin white line while Abra inspects a bit of torn-up tissue paper on the floor.

"Hey, Abra?"

The Pokémon pops in front of his face, startling him. He drops the ruined jacket. Then, at its pathetic crumpling, he fights the urge to melt back into bed and hibernate until the ache is gone and the nightmares no longer make sense. A female Flint — who had Flint's memories…

Flint. Flint would be the perfect person to confide in right about now. Flint takes all of Volkner's bullshit seriously. Except yesterday Volkner found Flint expertly on top of that two-faced ice princess in this exact bed, and when he naturally freaked, Flint socked him right in the stomach and told him to get lost.

So that's out of the question.

He jolts out of the bed, reeling in the five decades between today and yesterday, and a whimper escapes his throat when his knees aren't brittle as hell hitting the floor.

"Abra, can you help me run some errands discreetly? I have to get my pills refilled, and I should go to the gym and get back to my special training for Saturday. I need a shock to my system. But… not too strong a shock. Or…"

That blue-haired woman's partner floats toward his closed bedroom door, gesturing with its muzzle, and he understands.

"Right, I get that I'm supposed to be responsible for her, but I think I need a bigger reality check before I get to know her better in this… form. It's weird between us already. It'll get even weirder when people start looking at her and thinking she's…"

He doesn't finish the sentence. He can't, when there's nothing he can do, and nothing he wants to do, for her sake at least, and for his sanity at best. Flint probably already met her. Flint probably made her breakfast and invited her to the wedding. Flint's probably planning to roast Volkner's corpse on a spit the moment they encounter each other in private.

"Oh my god," Volkner says, for the fourth time, even quieter. "Oh my god, how does this even happen?"

The crinkling of paper draws him slowly away from a total power outage. Abra's brow is furrowed as it concentrates. A faint pink aura envelops each piece, and the claws curl inward as they're shifted and shaped into something more meaningful. Volkner tilts his head, and there on the floor are the Pokémon's thoughts spelled out:

HELP HER, HANDSOME.

Prepare to be Thunderstruck!

"The Sunyshore Gym is a premier Pokémon battling facility, consistently rated the Number One experience for badge-hunting trainers in the Sinnoh region. Tucked away in a sunny park above a shimmering blue lagoon, Pokémon trainers who seek battles here are at the peak of their strength, and will meet with the high-voltage temperament of Gym Leader Volkner J. Carrington — a master of the Electric type, as well as the Sunyshore Gym's chief engineer. Locals call Volkner the Shining, Shocking Star. Those who can defeat him are awarded the coveted Beacon Badge."

An even younger Volkner startles Cyllene from the pages of the guidebook. His face is supremely serious as he glances back over his right shoulder and clenches his left hand into a fist over his head. The real one skulks beside her with his posture dipping, notably missing the signature jacket.

Flint's "air-fried" potato mochi rests uncomfortably in Cyllene's stomach. She's agreed to the Elite's scheme, because there's no other choice, and tomorrow morning she's going to meet this "Candice" to go shopping for a "bikini," which all the bridesmaids will wear during the ceremony. The groomsmen, Flint explained, are to wear "tropical shirts and ties," as that's the "final decision" after months of the bride's caprice.

"We were totally in sync with the 'Fire & Ice' theme. We even had a chocolate lava cake picked out. And then all my guys bought hot orange suits, and Candice was like, 'Volkner can dye that blond shag carpet or die before he shows up to my wedding in that.' So we negotiated, and now it's a beach party theme. At the rehearsal tomorrow you can meet Aaron and Steven, and the other girls, and you'll have a blast!"

"Who are the other bridesmaids?" she asks Volkner as they walk together on a paved pathway that snakes into the forest behind the neighborhood. Here it's misty and cool and smelling of seaspray and moist, bare earth. An emerald glow flickers between fluttering aspen leaves and the oran berry bushes low to the ground that bloom with turquoise flowers.

Volkner shrugs. "Candice's friends. I only know one of them personally."

A trail of Shellos slime gleams in a stray patch of sunlight upon a tree trunk leaning sideways just above them. The culprit, blue and slick, sends a gentle smile downwards. Cyllene ducks, then marches forth, Abra floating along beside her, while Volkner and Luxray take things slow and careful.

"You know, you could've told that frickin' normie you had other plans."

"That 'frickin' normie' was threatening to 'roast your ass,'" she argues. "He said if I agreed to be in the wedding, he'd leave you alone."

Volkner looks only slightly amused at her verbiage. The rest is all positive annoyance. "He's not going to leave me alone, Cyllene. Flint knows I don't want this wedding to happen, and if I make any attempts to sabotage it, he'll destroy me with his Pokémon and his fists. Now that you're here, it just makes everything more frustrating and dangerous."

"Maybe you shouldn't have fallen through that space-time portal in the first place, old man. You could've saved yourself a lot of trouble."

"I don't want Flint trying to pick a fight with you, is all. Was he nice to you, at least?"

She shakes her head. "He's amiable enough, but I can tell he doesn't trust me. He kept staring at me. I don't like when people stare at me. I don't have any of the secrets they keep looking for. I'm just… trying to be myself."

"I know," says Volkner, trying to return her eye contact at least once. "And I'm sorry you're confused. If I could remember how I came to fall through that portal, I'd tell you in a heartbeat."

Above her head, Abra crosses its arms, and Volkner adds, "Please tell me how I can help."

Cyllene doesn't know what to say. Too quickly she's lost in her own dark galaxy as the trees begin to thin and a wide, green park spreads out before them.

Beautifly attend to the wild grasses and flowers springing up between the bright white sidewalks. Far off to the right is a bit of fencing, before, against a retaining wall, the earth drops suddenly down to the sea. It's a secret promontory, and at its center rests an enormous cylindrical building, silvery just like the rest of the city, and with wide windows and a roof made of glittering black glass panels spreading out like petals.

They aren't the only ones enjoying the summer sunshine. Around the yard are several rectangular patches of a rubbery blue-gray material, and some made of sand. In the occupied rectangles, Pokémon shriek and jump around while their trainers at each end command them. It's like the practice battles between Rei and Ginter, though these trainers seem much more capable, throwing hand signals and move names out at appropriately lightning speeds.

"Is this the gym?" Cyllene asks. "It looks different from the picture."

Now Volkner lifts his head a bit higher. "That's because it's undergone quite a few renovations over the years. The most recent project wrapped up a few months ago, in fact. Last summer I got it into my head to invent a machine that simulates the move Electric Terrain on the battlefield. It was a hulking mess of gears and wires that took up the entire ceiling of the arena, and when I was giving it a test run, it caused a citywide blackout. Nobody had electricity for almost two days."

He puts his hands on his hips like he's proud of this, and Cyllene's eyes widen.

"So I had to disassemble months of work. Only after the city made me, of course. Sunyshore and I have… kind of a weird symbiosis going on. I keep things exciting, and it draws in the tourists. Doesn't make living here less expensive, though."

She remembers the blurb, then looks up at the glistening building in greater shock.

"You're an engineer."

"Try to keep up," Volkner insists. "I already told you the solar boardwalk is my creation. Do you want to see inside the gym?"

Cyllene still stares. The black glass shimmers in the heat, while Pokémon trainers — casual Pokémon trainers! — are sparring not for survival, but for sport! Practicing for some collectible badge!

Volkner's celebrity is starting to make more sense, even when he's all too human standing next to her with calm blue eyes and messy hair that spikes up in the ambient static.

Then, in a flash, the unrealness of it ends.

"ACCURSED!"

Volkner's muscles all jerk at once. He lunges toward Cyllene and shoves her to the ground, stumbling in the process, as a stray yellow Thunderbolt whizzes with a crackling hiss right where she was just standing. The attack dissipates in a puff of black smoke. Cyllene's palms smart on the pavement just in time for Volkner's weight to all come crashing down into her ribs.

"Accursed, Ginter, that was…" she starts, but he doesn't hear her. Volkner struggles on shaking legs to stand again, while Abra grabs Cyllene's arms and pops her ten feet backwards. The Gym Leader makes a sign with his right hand, stretching out the fingers and angling it in an arc toward the building. His left fist clenches into the small of his back.

"You're attacking back!?"

The left hand opens, and the right hand slices the air so fast a whoosh is heard. Luxray leaps up eight feet in the air, spitting a blinding beam of lightning from his own sparking jaws. He lands heavily at his trainer's feet with perfect grace, the claws on all four paws digging into the earth, while a thunderous BOOM rocks the park, and birds scatter into the sky.

Cyllene doesn't move. Abra's tail wiggles nervously. Volkner's unsteady on his feet, but he watches the two figures on the battlefield furthest away, his mouth curving into a frown.

His chest puffs out, and one finger twitches. Again, Luxray breathes a radiant bolt that strikes the distant battlefield dead center.

"What are you doing?"

There's a moment of clarity when Volkner looks over his shoulder and notices her face. He waves his left hand, and Luxray's sparking mane settles around his ears.

"Don't be scared," he tells her. And he must realize how strange that sounds, because now his hands are moving without any trained precision, and it's not until another Thunderbolt arcs right toward his face that he makes another sweep of both arms and his Pokémon partner roars, taking the blow head-on and absorbing it.

The ground shakes. Static prickles all along her arms as Cyllene rises to her knees.

"I'd help you up, but without my jacket my body seems to collect every discharge that comes for me. We don't want a repeat of Lord Electrode… Oww… accursed this hurts. Frickin'... Dammit…"

His left leg seems wobbly, but he forces himself to be still and gestures for her to follow him.

Cyllene matches his pace. "Are you insane? I thought you taught Rei you shouldn't take aim at a person."

"I don't aim at people," Volkner says. "And I know who fired that first shot doesn't try to either, but she's a little too cocky. Should've seen this coming. My brain is really not working today. I think I'm de-aging from the skin inward."

He ignores the other trainers when they wave at him, or clap, or say his name. As they cross closer into the shadow of the Sunyshore Gym, Volkner's determined to reach the athletic young woman sitting ungraciously on the lowest concrete windowsill, her Raichu fizzling and spitting little explosions up into the air. She's baring just enough of her dark skin to be scandalous, Cyllene imagines, with her whole midriff visible — yet Volkner's more concerned with other details, such as the way Raichu bristles for a fight as soon as Luxray's spark disturbs its space.

"Private Visquez," Volkner greets, solemnly.

The woman waves. She can't be older than twenty, despite the natural white mullet she sports. "Hey, rival. Why'd you ignore my texts? I've been waiting here all day. You might as well hand me the gym keys now with this kind of laziness. If reno's the deal here, I'm putting in a weight room and painting the whole place camo."

The blond eyebrows go up. Volkner plugs a fist into his back again, letting Luxray know to contain his awesome charge.

"And should I keep trusting you with Electivire's training if your aim is going to be so ass with your Raichu? Long-range blanks aren't a party trick, Kezzie. If you want to match-call me that way you make sure the area is clear and I'm not talking to someone. It's on the accursed rule sign when you walk in here!"

The stranger laughs, and Raichu twirls its live wire of a tail.

"Your face looks 'accursed.' Were you out partying last night? Flint said you noped off somewhere."

"It's none of your business where I went. Get off my gym."

He gives her a harsh blue glare, and she softens immediately, sliding off the sill so she stands up taller than both of them.

"Volkner, I'm sorry. I just got excited. We were practicing, and I thought we'd gotten better at long-range. Guess I need you to show me the signals again."

"What, is Surge not showing you!?"

Visquez huffs. "He's showing me closed-fist style, which is fine for chucking Electrodes around a room, but your flat-handed style is so much more refined. Surge is reckless, when I think about it. Which is weird, because we're all electroheads, but somehow I think you have more discipline, and it makes you stronger—"

He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she twitches, wincing briefly, as the charge transfers.

"Hey. Ground yourself. I can't find my spark today either."

"No, I'm completely serious, Volkner. I'm sorry." She nods at Cyllene. "I'm sorry."

There's an awkward pause as the static settles. Visquez makes a sign, and Raichu's tail stops flickering.

Volkner gestures. "Cyllene, Kezzie. Kezzie, Cyllene. Kezzie's the acting Vermilion Gym Leader down in Kanto. I heard about her strength last year and decided to pay her a visit. Ever since, I've been giving her tips and she's declared herself my rival."

"Nice to meet you," Cyllene says, afraid to shake the large hand for fear of electrocution.

"And this is who now?" Visquez asks. " She has an Abra, and gym challenge season's not 'til next month. VJ, I know you love Ambipom and you got all those Water-types in your arsenal, but don't tell me you're really trying to branch out."

"I'm not a trainer," says Cyllene, a bit indignant. "I've never told Abra to attack anything before. I have to be a bridesmaid in Flint and Candice's wedding. Volkner was just giving me a tour while I'm in town."

The sporty woman looks at her like she's insane, and then looks to Volkner, whose face betrays nothing.

"Candice finally realized Perrin can't walk down the aisle and take pictures at the same time? Good grief. Well, I suppose I'll be spending a lot of time with you this weekend. I have to wear a frickin' bikini too. Though I wish I was up here trying to win myself a Beacon Badge."

"Then go train," Volkner tells her, crossing his arms. "Wasted effort if I can still outspeed you when I'm distracted. However…"

He meets Cyllene's eyes, pauses for a moment , and then walks (limps?) over to the giant steel doors at the front of the building. One press of his hand against a glass panel, and there's a clicking whirr as the doors slide open, strings of blue static glittering in the dark rooms beyond.

"Cyllene, do you and Abra want to try battling?"

She falters. "I… not really. I don't see the point of throwing myself into a fray. I prefer to observe and analyze from a safe distance when I can."

Visquez's jaw drops. "Hey. If a Gym Leader's offering lessons, you take 'em. VJ can play nice with beginners if he tries. He's the best."

Right. She's supposed to know this. Flint is suspicious of her because she doesn't know this. This is the future. Everyone has Pokémon, and people with Pokémon battle for fun, and Gym Leaders are the best at battling, and Volkner is the best Gym Leader in all of Sinnoh.

And Sinnoh is the god of all time.

"Are you really going to sell yourself short, Captain?" Volkner asks, and he's giving her a slightly more familiar smirk. "After the way you handled that… uh…"

He grabs at the leg that's paining him, jerking when his fingers find a tender spot. Cyllene looks up at Abra, who's looking down at her, just as expectant to make a decision.

"To help us fit in here," she reasons, because she agrees with a certain surveyor boy in chronic pain from seven-hundred years ago that "fun" is no reason to pitch Thunderbolts as a greeting.

Even if throwing Thunderbolts and Red Chains is something that, in hindsight, was positively thrilling.

Abra drags a claw through her fluffy blue hair. Pop! Her stomach drops, and she's standing next to Volkner at the door.

"You don't have to," he whispers. "I just think it'll help with my brain fog if I'm thinking like I used to. I need practice."

He doesn't need practice. It's entirely self-doubt, if Luxray's moves aren't up to standard. Cyllene looks fully into the blue, if only because she knows he was Ginter yesterday. Yesterday he was Ginter, and today he's…

He's…

She speaks without thinking.

"I want to try it."

~N~

People who have read my other fic crying right now:

I want to rec another ongoing Hisui fic I really like! It's "Three's a Crowd" by SlimeKnight on AO3! The shy and distractible Reno is offered an otherworldly mission when he wishes to be doing anything but study for his econ final. Now he, (along with Dawn and Cynthia,) must help complete Laventon's Pokédex without collapsing in confusion from what a Pokémon even is. It's super funny! Only 9 chapters up so far.

Published by scrivenernoodz on FFN and AO3 August 17th, 2024. Don't repost. Can we get 100 reviews?