44.

Thunderstruck, Pt. II

He shows her his personal locker room, whose concrete walls and floor are painted glow-in-the-dark neon blue and yellow — not a speck of gray remaining. The light bulbs are purple. The benches are smooth, shiny, and green. He takes a long swig of orange pop from a plastic bottle and wonders how long it's been since he's held something disposable, or at least recyclable. In the shadows of the rafters above is the glint of some exposed wiring.

Cyllene is amazed that before he went gray, he was blond.

Volkner has never felt more aware of his blondness.

"Put this on," Volkner says, opening a locker and tossing Cyllene a black fitted jacket similar to his signature. "You have to protect your heart when battling strong Electric-types like mine. I'll get you safety glasses for the glare, too. Do you want gloves?"

"Where's your jacket?" she asks.

The question comes like another painful punch. He can feel his heartbeat quicken, and he quiets the ring in his ears with a cough into his wrist.

"My jacket is… still in my future," he tells her. "Also, it has my blood all over it."

Cyllene cocks her head at him. She pitches the black jacket back, straightening her back and sending him a side-eyed glare. "So we won't battle, then. Not unless both of us are wearing proper protection."

"Well, we really don't need to… I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

It's hard to answer. Volkner presses a fingertip against a scanner built into the wall. A secret compartment slides open, and he pulls out a drawer of twenty miniaturized modern Poké Balls, labeled with masking tape. They're Quick Balls — both hemispheres sky blue and patterned with yellow lightning bolts. He picks one up, weighing it in his palm, then puts it back and eyes the whole selection.

"I'm sorry you're at my mercy," he offers. Suddenly a wince twists his lips, and he shifts all his weight to the right.

Cyllene picks the jacket up off the floor. She looks to the locker where he found it, then grabs another off the hook, crossing the room to shove it into his chest.

"What the hell is wrong with your leg? Did that burn open again? You aren't aging down into a child, are you? You know I don't have patience for children, and you would be horrid to try and control."

Volkner shakes his head. "I don't feel like I'm transforming."

"I can… I could…"

She rolls up the sleeve of the hoodie she's wearing, grits her teeth, and curls all the fingers of her left hand like claws, hissing in the back of her throat.

"Please don't do that in public, Cyllene."

"If I could use the Red Chain, I could manipulate time and heal you! What happened to my powers!? Why isn't it doing anything!? Usually I can feel the heat of the universe in my fingertips! They're not tingling anymore! That giant snake took my magic away!"

She drops both jackets at her feet. The fingers of her right hand tug at the bracelet until the bent links clink and snag against one another. Gently, Volkner twists the chain until it comes away from her skin. One glance, and the defect is obvious.

"It's broken," he says evenly. "Looks like the clasp you gave it is missing, so it can't close. Let's not worry about it right now—"

"You're in pain," Cyllene insists. "You're limping! That SNAKE! That DRAGON OF DEATH!"

He tries putting a hand on her shoulder, but she shies away, instead focused on pulling off the hoodie and pulling on the black jacket.

"Even if you could heal me instantly, this injury could be the key to my missing memories. It's the one clue I have, besides nobody knowing where I went last night. I deserve to know how I ended up in old Hisui and turned into a Ginkgo Man, don't you think?"

"You became a Ginkgo Man when you robbed a corpse."

"I… I did rob a corpse. God, what did I do last night?"

Cyllene offers nothing further. Volkner tries the other jacket on, finding it thin but fitting and comfortable over his stronger, younger body. Then, with his own huff, he turns his attention back to the Poké Balls in the drawer.

"Uh… So Gym Leaders… We only have four or five Pokémon on our main lineup, but we can train up dozens of them to use in official matches. Usually this means I hire gym trainers who take care of all the Pokémon outside my main lineup. You just met Kezzie, she has the privilege of training my powerhouse Electivire down at her gym. Some fun trivia for you, I also work with Water-type Pokémon, and a couple of Flying-types, both of which Sunyshore has plenty…"

"For Ground-type coverage," Cyllene infers. "That's your weakness. Of course challengers would approach you with it."

He picks three Poké Balls out of the front row, pocketing them, and slides the drawer shut. Volkner relaxes as he reaches forward to help Cyllene with her zipper. (She smacks his hands away, but relents when she can't figure out the mechanism herself.)

"Hey, never battled and you know your stuff."

She shrugs, but doesn't return his smile.

"I helped write a book about it."

Volkner's latest gym renovations included ten thousand seats around a vulcanized rubber battle court, and giant video screens he didn't check the price on because he cheekily handed the bill to the city. He spraypainted everything neon yellow, plastered rotating gear networks all over the hallway ceilings, (What do they do? Ask him if he knows,) then wired up a lighting system so sophisticated the letter V appears in tubes of active purple plasma built beneath the transparent floors whenever he specifically stands on them.

The sensors for that quirk usually identify him by his jacket. Today is just not his day.

Today Volkner retracts the video screens and opens the dome of the ceiling for a battle under natural sunlight. He stands in his preferred command box, (which stays unlit,) and directs Cyllene to stand in the box at the opposite end. His left thigh twinges and his heartbeat flutters again seeing her zipped up in the black jacket, her hair actually clean and fluffy and falling down into her eyes beneath those yellow-tinted safety glasses…

Volkner coughs harder into his wrist, then fiddles with his own blue-tinted pair. "Frick," he mutters, and strains to remember even the basic routine.

"Everything I tried to teach Rei is based on our rules of battle etiquette here in the Sinnoh League! Do you remember what we do first!? You're the one who wants to initiate a battle with me, so you have to make the match call!"

She stands, thinking, for a moment, and the sunlight is just in the perfect angle to make that jacket shine on her shoulders…

"I challenge you to a recreational Pokémon battle!"

"Well, you'd say a gym battle, but since we're practicing I'll allow it. Use my trainer class!"

Another awkward few seconds. He's taught adults before; he knows the official language can feel silly. But he's proud of his position. Too proud, some would say. He pats down the chest of what is not his favorite blue jacket he custom soldered the brass knobs on himself because they made halos of plasma spin around his shoulders in his most heated battles and it looked so frickin' cool—

"Gym Leader Volkner, the Shining, Shocking Star of Sunyshore, I request that you allow me to face you in a gym battle!"

Volkner stops fidgeting. Then starts again. He stares at his hands. The sun beats down hot on the black material stretched around his shoulders. He can't do this. He doesn't know why, but he can't. Maybe it's her. Maybe it's him. It has to be him.

Forget it. Ride the lightning. He's doing this.

"I accept your challenge, Trainer, or should I say, Captain Cyllene!" he cries out. "We're already in the arena, so now we give opening pleasantries! Let our battle shine bright beneath the sun that powers all of Sunyshore!"

He watches her nod, and she reciprocates. "Thank you for this opportunity. We'll learn what we can."

Abra pops into existence in front of her, ready to go. Volkner enlarges one of his Quick Balls by pressing the button, then clicks it again. Blue light lances forth from the capsule, materializing into what he thinks is a good first opponent.

"PIP-POP! SPARK IT UP!"

"Pachaaa!"

Soft fur bristles and forms into spikes. Twin yellow cheeks pulse and buzz. She's a Pachirisu — a small white rodent who can pack a nasty shock, and she launches a bright blue ball of sparks from the tip of her bushy tail right toward Abra.

"Teleport," Cyllene calmly commands.

Abra pops away, reappearing far above the arena. There it floats, swinging its legs with its arms crossed, waiting for the next move.

Volkner looks to Cyllene, then up at Abra. He breathes in, then throws all the power into his body into his left arm, shooting his hand toward the sky.

"Agility, then a triple spark!"

Pip-Pop leaps onto his hip, then his shoulder. From there, she launches herself far up into the seating, then in an invisible flash, scurries up the walls of the arena until she's clinging from the ceiling. Three more tangled balls of sparks fly, homing in on Abra's perilous hovering. The air crackles; two pairs of pointed ears twitch.

Abra teleports back to its original position before Cyllene.

Volkner shouts:

"GROUND IT! THUNDER SHOCK!"

And his partner falls beautifully. Building momentum, she somersaults down ten, twenty, thirty feet — the friction building up a mighty current in her fur. Volkner waves his right arm. He opens his hand. Pip-Pop lashes out her tail, and a bolt of lightning shoots straight down at Abra.

"LIGHT SCREEN AND TELEPORT!"

The glistening veil erupts around Abra's body. It only winces when the bolt connects, and then both powers burst into showers of light. Volkner inhales, feeling the impact. Across the battle court, Cyllene does her own somersault, rolling cleverly out of the way of any radiant debris. Abra's gone again — vanished within the shine.

"Pachi? Pachi? Pachi?"

The little rodent looks around wildly, trying to find the sneaky creature. Volkner taps his heart with a fist. Rhythmically. Trying to match his frazzled pulse.

"Pachi? Pachi?"

His partner turns toward him, nose twitching.

"Cyllene, Pip-Pop needs an opponent! Where did Abra go!?"

Cyllene smirks as she hauls herself to her feet. "Where it wanted to, I suppose!"

"That's not—"

Static tingles around Volkner's ears, and his reflexes fire.

"SWIFT!" he calls out.

Abra's hovering dead-center above where Pip-Pop stands. She flips around, and a volley of star-shaped particles are ejected from the tip of her tail. It's a blinding quick strike, but Abra pops away before they can connect, and they fly uselessly up toward the sky.

"Okay, you need to tell Abra to use its moves! Just as a formality! You know I don't need words to command my own partners, but I'm announcing to you what I'm doing to keep us both safe!"

Cyllene shrugs at his advice.

"Keep teleporting," she says.

"SPARK, AND SPIN IT!" Volkner cries again, clenching his left hand and sweeping his right in a smooth crescent. This time, the repeated tangled sparks from Pip-Pop's tail arc through the air and curve around to meet their own swift orbits. Rings of blue light swell and spin ever so slowly like coins — hunting for a creature that could appear anywhere at any moment.

Abra's gone from the scene, and Cyllene commands:

"Dodge it, then teleport."

Her partner is there, then gone, then there again. Volkner watches it intently. He taps his chest, aiming his hands as best he can for Pip-Pop to shoot her nasty little sparks.

And then he falters.

"Uh…"

His view of the arena is blocked when a pale yellow muzzle shoves itself into his face. Abra's grabbed both his wrists in its claws and holds them steady. Volkner jerks, but the little creature's stronger than it looks.

"Abra…" he grunts. "Let me go. PIP-POP, HOLD!"

Abra yawns. Meanwhile Pip-Pop puffs her yellow cheeks, and the rings of sparks burst with a blinding yellow flash.

"You have to follow what Cyllene says. She's your trainer."

Abra nods. It grips harder, tail twitching as it looks back over its shoulder toward its idle trainer.

"Fair point. She told you to teleport, but this is just… Cyllene! This would disqualify you from an official gym battle! You can't — ugh! — prevent the Gym Leader from giving commands!"

"You can still tell your Pachirisu what to do!" she calls back.

"Yeah, but… WOAH!"

In one quick jerk, Abra throws Volkner to the ground. His jaw smarts. The wind is knocked right out of him, and he stares up dazed as Pip-Pop starts to scamper toward his prone form.

Abra blocks his vision once again. With both eyes closed, it glares Volkner down, while three claws glow bright pink and a psychic aura envelops the oncoming rodent. Abra merely flicks its fuzzy wrist, and Pip-Pop is flung clear up beyond the open ceiling of the Sunyshore Gym and tumbles off somewhere outside the building.

Proudly, it pretends to dust off its claws, and then pops completely out of existence.

The whole arena is silent, save for the vestiges of static that crackle and crawl among the rafters.

Cyllene rushes to Volkner while he pushes himself up to his knees. His left leg trembles. Pain courses along the winding shape of the burn.

She's trying to argue before he even opens his mouth. "Abra's never had an offensive role before. It helped me dodge attacks during my survey work. In that context, we were both dodging attacks. I don't know what…"

Cyllene is wearing what's pretty much a black moto jacket perfectly contoured to her svelte upper body — chest and toned shoulders bulging — and Volkner coughs hard into his elbow to war with his thundering heart. This is wrong. This is going to get worse. This already feels worse than it ever has, and the reason is obvious.

He needs to talk to Flint. Flint can go to hell. Volkner needs to find wherever the hell Abra just trebucheted his cutest little electric partner and he hopes it wasn't off the damn cliff into the sea.

"Yeah," he manages, letting his manic grin slip free. "One, it knows Psychic, which is an offensive move, and two, you need to be in control of everything Abra does. That's what makes battles fun."

She scoffs. "But how am I supposed to direct where it teleports to? It can't read my mind!"

"Sure about that? Don't touch me."

She retracts her hand before he can shock her. Volkner stands, breathes, and then claps her on the back of the neck anyway, sending a thrilling jolt flying into her fluffy blue hair until it stands stiff.

"OW!"

"Don't get frustrated. You're catching on really quick. You even kept up with me, and that's not something a lot of first-timers can do. Do you want to try again in a little bit? I have another partner you might like. This one floats too."

He opens his other Quick Ball, and out comes a much plumper rodent — one with glistening blue eyes that hovers on its wide, flat wedge of a tail.

"Rai!" the creature squeaks.

"A Raichu that evolved in the Alola region," says Volkner. "He's an Electric- and Psychic-type. See, I know a little bit about how Psychic-types operate."

Cyllene's flustered. He's flustered, but he narrows in on her pinking cheeks and fidgeting fingers and the way she's still clearly turning over Flint's devious weekend wedding agenda in her mind, even when caught in the spectacle of Volkner's thunder.

"Okay, I want to go find Pip-Pop, and then we'll continue this. Or… do you want a snack? A nap? Tell me what you need, Captain. I can't read your mind either."

Her lips purse. He reaches out, as if to take her hand, but again she shies away and refuses to meet his bright blue gaze. Her eyes linger, instead, down near his waist and his pockets…

"So… you built all of this," she whispers. "Those walkways. This building…"

He knows where this is going. "I said let's not think about it."

"You can fix the Red Chain. You can make a new clasp so it can be a bracelet again. Your hands must feel more coordinated now. You can do more delicate crafting. Please, Volkner. I want my powers back."

"It hasn't even been a full day without them. What would you do if you got them back? Turn me back into an ugly old coot and yourself into a Wurmple?"

Volkner means it as a joke. Then he realizes it isn't. Flint…

Flint isn't an option. Flint doesn't have time for this.

Cyllene looks crushed by his words either way.

"Cy, let's… just try to relax. We'll figure out the secret of the portal, get your powers back, but I plan to drive a Thunderbolt into Flint's heart on Saturday first, and I need to train to be able to do that, so…"

She screws up her face.

"I mean in a Pokémon battle."

If she had eyebrows, she'd be raising one.

"My Pokémon, Flint's Pokémon… Everyone has Pokémon in this time period. It's why we went from the Nétarin Era to the Quadrian—"

"I'll help you," she offers. "I'll turn him into a black ashy smudge. Or a brick of coal. And if you'd prefer to be a coot, I'd make that happen in a heartbeat."

Volkner sucks in a long, cold breath through his teeth. His chest starts to ache. "Let's go find my Pachirisu."

But a search isn't needed. Right then, Abra pops onto the scene, carrying the dazed Pip-Pop in its arms and depositing her politely at Volkner's feet. Volkner returns her to the capsule with the click of a button, then stabs a finger into the cheeky creature's chest.

"You are an ass!"

His next breath is cut short. Six claws seize the chest of his jacket, and he forgets to mind his stomach and watch his head before he's torn away.

~N~

And the wait is over! Thank you so much for your patience! Even if I'm not working on this fic, I still have projects going on, like Lather Up, Luxray!, a contest-winning one-shot featuring Volkner that I finally get to share with you here soon, and two flash fics — Buck and the Bucket and Going Incognito — that will be revealed as part of The PokéPod Project over on AO3 October 8th!

I was also just in Croatia for a week, lol. Got to pet some pigeons.

Published by scrivenernoodz (as Syntax-N) on FFN and AO3 September 23rd, 2024. Thanks for reading! Don't repost.