Chapter 6: The Sun of Sunyshore by Banix (Pokémon)
Volkner(OC)xJasmine
Summary: A man is reincarnated as Volkner. All Volkner wants to do is retire and laze around a lighthouse all day with Jasmine. However, since he is a gym leader and the equal of one of the elite 4. The league wont leave him alone. *This story is a part of a larger Pokémon Universe. Banix has 6 other FanFiction's that take place in this universe. All these stories will meet up and have a bigger story through each of the protagonists POV's*
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13306841/1/
Word count:179k
Chapter:33
Chapter 1- Volkner of Sunyshore
"VOLKNER! WAKE UP!"
I groaned and tossed about in my covers, pulling the blanket over my head to block out the noise.
"I SWEAR TO THE LEGENDARIES ABOVE, IF YOU DON'T WAKE UP I WILL-"
Set the fire alarm in my house ringing and the water sprinklers showering over my head.
"SET THE FIRE ALARM IN YOUR HOUSE RINGING AND THE WATER SPRINKLERS SHOWERING OVER YOUR HEAD!"
Called it. That little squirt is too predictable.
"THREE!"
I took a peek at the clock hanging on the wall of my bedroom. It is 11am, maybe I should be up by now.
"TWO!"
Should I just tell Jarvis to ensure that my fire alarm and water sprinklers don't get themselves hacked today? Jarvis listen to my every command anyway.
"ONE!"
I groaned and trudged to the door before swinging it open. The little squirt Kayla already has her hand hovering over the button that will mess up the electrical wiring of my house.
Annoying little squirt.
"Finally!" Kayla threw her hands up in exasperation. "Volkner! You are late! You should be at the gym at least an hour ago!"
"It's not like there will be any challengers worthy of my time." I grumbled as I went to the toilet to wash my sleepy face and did my morning routine, or maybe I should call it the afternoon routine with how late I tend to wake up.
"You are the GYM LEADER of Sunyshore! Have some sense of responsibility!"
"Speaking of that, did you send in my letter of resignation to the League yesterday?" I turned around and asked the small little girl while brushing my teeth.
"No. If you want to do it, do it yourself." Kayla said with her arms crossed and an annoyed look on her face. "You know for a fact that they won't let you resign anyway."
"Damn it." I muttered as I gargled my mouth and washed it clean with water.
Fifteen minutes later, the little squirt is pulling me by my hand towards the Sunyshore Gym.
My gym.
God damn it Flint! Who told you to submit my name to the League when they were looking for applicants to be the next Sunyshore Gym Leader?! Now I can't even quit no matter how much I try to slack off!
I will give him the beatdown of the lifetime when he comes to visit the next time. Franky will love to have a rematch with his magmortar.
Nah, who am I kidding? We will just end up in a draw as per usual.
Oh, sorry. I didn't see you. You were talking to me? Oh, you are asking who I am?
My name is Volkner, the 42nd Gym Leader of Sunyshore. I would like to emphasise that I didn't become Sunyshore's Gym Leader by my own will, the jerk Flint somehow got the League to appoint me as one. No matter what I did, I just can't get myself sacked. The Sinnoh League just love me too damn much and I can't seem to get them to hate me no matter what I do.
Why am I so different from the Volkner you knew from the games/anime/whatever pokemon series that you are familiar with?
Believe it or not, this is the second life I am living. I wasn't expecting to be reincarnated as Volkner either, but I am not complaining. Despite the flaws and how dangerous this world can be, I enjoy my second life here thus far.
So now you are asking about my life story of this second life of mine? Ok, let's see, maybe we should start from the top?
.
.
.
Nah. It's way too long and I don't feel like telling a story. You will definitely find bits and pieces of it along the way if you continue to watch me from where you are.
I am afraid that I will have to cut our conversation short, the little squirt had managed to drag me to the gym and now there is actually a queue of challengers for me to send packing home. Wait a sec, all of them had actually managed to get through all of my gym trainers?
Interesting.
Let's hope that they can actually put up some semblance of a fight.
"I can't believe you did that!"
"I am the Gym Leader, of course I can do whatever I want in this gym." Volkner retorted as Kayla resisted the urge to pull at her hair. "What are you complaining about anyway? I sent them packing in less than ten minutes. We saved a lot of time."
"So that you can go back to sleep?"
"No. It's so that I can go grab my lunch and then go back to sleep."
Kayla wanted to just scream at her Gym Leader right now, but she was interrupted before she can do so.
"Come on, let's go grab a bite. It's lunch time and I am hungry, my treat."
Volkner simply stood up and walked out of the arena. Tec, Volkner's rhyperior, repaired the destroyed arena within seconds with his expertise in rock and ground type techniques before he lumbered after his trainer.
Kayla's gaping mouth hang at the sight. That's it? Volkner destroyed all the challengers with his main team so that he can eat his lunch as soon as possible? He rarely used members from his main team against challengers unless they are Elite trainers. She could count the number of times that happened with the fingers from a single hand.
The gym challenge that just occurred was a bizarre sight. Volkner had challenged the entire group of trainers all at once. He and his team faced at least sixty advanced level pokemon from the group of challengers versus Volkner's seven.
Volkner had defeated them in less ten minutes. None of his pokemon had gotten even a single scratch.
Jo, Volkner's jolteon, nuzzled herself against Kayla's leg before running after Volkner, yipping happily along the way like what she usually do. Franky, Volkner's electivire and starter, just walked towards the door like his trainer did as he gave Kayla a wave. ISpy, Volkner's magnezone, pushed Franky from the back to get him to move faster.
Simba, Volkner's luxray, walked to stand beside Kayla and lowered himself down, offering Kayla a ride.
"Thanks, Simba."
Kayla muttered her thanks as she climbed onto the huge luxray. North, Volkner's probopass, floated beside Simba as Myst, Volkner's gallade, teleported himself to only-he-knows-where.
This is Volkner's main team. These are the strongest eight pokemon that he possesses out of the seventeen that he currently has. Well, seven out of eight, since there is a missing member that goes by the name of Puddle, who is too big to fit into the gym most of the time unless Volkner uses the gym's special feature to make it temporarily more spacious. Volkner usually let Puddle out into the sea surrounding Sunyshore for a swim. Puddle's presence had made it a lot safer for ships to sail into Sunyshore without the fear of being attacked by feral wild pokemon, pirates, or random criminal organisations.
Even after being his head gym trainer for two years, Kayla still cannot understand Volkner at times. To put it simply, Volkner is weird. He doesn't do things the way normal people do.
First of all, he is lazy. Very lazy. The only time he is motivated to do anything would be engaging in pokemon battles or training. At the same time, Volkner is too strong. Most people cannot give him a challenging enough fight and those who could are usually too busy to come down to Sunyshore to challenge him on a regular basis.
Hence, Volkner just laze around most of the time. He is so powerful that he is bored.
The extent of his laziness extended to how he named some of his pokemon. His jolteon was named Jo because Volkner was too lazy to think of a name for her and simply plucked out the first two alphabets out of her species's name. The same goes for his vikavolt, Vik. His probopass, North, got named as such because according to Volkner, 'she was always pointing to the north as a nosepass'. His gyarados, the menacing, scary, fierce, sea serpent that so many people are afraid of, is named Puddle. Why?
Because Volkner found him as a magikarp in a puddle.
It is a miracle his pokemon didn't eat him up for his bad naming sense.
Volkner's motto in life is to do things at his own pace. He couldn't care less what others think about him or how urgent others wants it to be done. If Volkner decides that this is the pace he wants to go, he will go at that pace regardless of what you feel. Despite that, he had never messed up any important matters before. He still gets things done in a manner that can satisfy all parties involved. The only drawback that it is done at his own pace, which can be infuriating at times when you urgently need the matter to be done.
The other glaring weirdness of Volkner, especially so when you just met him at first glance, is that Volkner actually has pokemon of other typings other than electric types. It is a weird sight considering that he is the strongest Electric Specialist that Sinnoh boasts.
Heck, out of the strongest eight pokemon he has, four of them aren't even electric types. That is half of his main team. She hasn't seen a Specialist like him in her short career as a trainer thus far. Most Specialists' main teams are made up of at least 95% of pokemon that matches their type specialty. The remaining 5% are usually there because Specialists keep these pokemon on their team for transportation purposes like teleportation, flying, or surfing.
Naturally, Kayla had asked Volkner the reason for it when she first joined the Sunyshore Gym as a gym trainer and then eventually worked her way up as the head gym trainer. His answer?
"There are only so many different species of electric types in Sinnoh, squirt. Some of them aren't even suited for higher levels of pokemon battling and I need to have a minimum of six pokemon to take part in my conference. And why will I restrict myself to just electric types simply because I am an Electric Specialist? It's stupid to set such restrictions on oneself. Such thinking will only stunt your growth."
Somehow, Kayla couldn't find a way to dispute Volkner's opinion on this issue.
For Kayla's case, the most infuriating aspect of Volkner that she has to face on a near daily basis is Volkner's unwillingness to be a Gym Leader.
Yes, you heard that right. Volkner doesn't want to be a Gym Leader. At all.
Kayla couldn't believe her ears either when she first heard about it from Volkner's mouth. How can anyone not want to be a Gym Leader? It is a prestigious position only granted to the strongest of the strongest! It is a position that many trainers will cut their own limb for! Being a Gym Leader automatically makes you one of the Thirteen Pillars of the region you hail from, the elite group which comprises of the Regional Champion, Elite Four, and the Gym Leaders. It is an honour to be crowned as one of them! It is the dream of thousands, if not millions of trainers worldwide!
And this guy makes a daily attempt to send in his letter of resignation to the League just to try and get himself sacked. It got to the point where the Sinnoh League has a separate mailbox just for Volkner where the staffs there dump his resignation letters and then dispose of them periodically without even opening it.
It still didn't stop Volkner from trying when he learnt about the special arrangement.
The kicker? The one that made Kayla want to strangle him and scream in his face?
Volkner want to resign from his job as Gym Leader so that he can be the lighthouse keeper of the Vista Lighthouse, the lighthouse in the south-eastern corner of Sunyshore city. Why would someone as powerful as him want to be an unimportant lighthouse keeper? He can be so much greater!
Her question was the burning question of the gym trainers in their gym as well. The answer Volkner gave to them when they finally worked the courage out to ask him (she was new at that time, and hence a little scared to ask the Volkner directly) nearly made them faceplant onto the ground.
"Hey, being the lighthouse keeper is the dream job for me. I can sleep in late, which is a plus. The pay is a little on the small side, but it is enough to sustain me and my team and it is a source of steady income. Plus, there will be the occasional trainers who will climb the lighthouse and I can satisfy my need for battles, which also means more prize money for me since I can defeat them all within minutes. It is the perfect job for someone lazy like me."
If only the citizens of Sunyshore knew how much of a lazyass their favourite Gym Leader is.
Volkner's frustrating personality aside, there's no denying his prowess as a trainer and his contributions to Sunyshore. He can be lazy, but never was he irresponsible when it comes to fulfilling the more vital and important responsibilities he has as a Gym Leader.
Volkner is the childhood friend of Flint, the same Flint who is also one of Sinnoh's Elite Four. They are rivals and supposedly equal in strength. Both of them grew up in this city and they both ended up competing in the same conference, the 521st Lily of the Valley Conference. It is an annual event held in Sinnoh where their regional Pokemon League Tournament will be hosted.
They both reached the finals and faced off against each other. They both tied for First Place.
This is an outcome that was never before been seen in Sinnoh's history. After much discussion by the officials of the conference back then, it was decided that the both of them will share the honour of being the Champion of that year's conference.
Flint stayed in Sinnoh and went on to improve himself, eventually making his way into Sinnoh's Elite Four. Volkner had decided to get stronger by touring the other regions to see for himself what other electric types these regions had to offer. According to Volkner, it was on this long trip that he amassed the required number of electric types to be able to truly call himself an Electric Specialist.
When Volkner returned, it was the exact time when the previous Sunyshore Gym Leader, Mark, was forced to step down due to his ailing health. The old man was unwilling to leave Sunyshore behind but upon his family's persuasion, decided to retire for good and then moved to Hoenn, where the tropical climate is more suited for him to live given his body's condition.
That leaves the position of Sunyshore's Gym Leader empty.
Many Sinnoh trainers sent in their applications to be considered as a candidate for the position of Gym Leader. The trainer community of the Sinnoh region went crazy. It is not everyday such a position is available, so it was understandable that everyone wants to try their hand in becoming one of Sinnoh's Thirteen Pillars, a prestigious position that only trainers who stand at the pinnacle of the trainer community can hope to even touch.
Volkner didn't send in his application, he didn't care about being a Gym Leader.
However, Flint did.
Flint had always thought that it is a waste that Volkner's dream is to be just an unassuming lighthouse keeper. Volkner was about to apply for that position too, until Flint disrupted Volkner's plan by sending in an application on Volkner's behalf to the Sinnoh League, begging the League to not let someone as talented as Volkner go to waste.
The Sinnoh League agreed with Flint's opinion after looking through Volkner's track record. Two days later, a very perplexed Volkner was called to the League HQ located at Lily of the Valley Island with him none the wiser. He walked out of the HQ as a Gym Leader, much to his chagrin.
He never let Flint hear the end of it.
In terms of the hierarchy of power between the Thirteen Pillars, the Champion is the strongest, followed by the Elite Four and then the Gym Leaders. However, Volkner had always tied with Flint in every single battle they had with each other. The same outcome persisted even when Flint is already a member of the Elite Four. From this, it does not take a genius to know that Volkner has what it takes to be considered as a member of Sinnoh's Elite Four with his strength alone. There are talks that the League is considering Volkner to replace Bertha as a member of the Elite Four the moment she retires.
Obviously, Volkner wants to avoid that outcome at all costs. He still wants to be a lighthouse keeper, and even drew up a retirement plan on how to successfully resign as a Gym Leader in five years time and get his dream job at the same time.
In Kayla's opinion, that would not be happening in a few decades.
The League simply blocked Volkner's every attempt to get out of the League's services; Volkner's strength is just that valuable to them. Until they can find people who is as capable as Volkner to replace him, there's no way they are letting him go. Volkner knows this as well but he still tries anyway, much to the exasperation of the people around him.
At this point, Kayla feels that Volkner is doing this just to annoy the League. It is his way of getting back at them for shoving the position of Gym Leader onto him.
The two of them travelled to the bustling Sunyshore Market. Kayla is hitching a ride from Simba while Volkner has his hands in his pocket and strolled at a leisurely pace, his pokemon beside him. The citizens of Sunyshore exchanged enthusiastic greetings with Volkner the moment they spotted their beloved Gym Leader.
Kayla still couldn't believe her eyes sometimes since she knows how laidback Volkner usually is. Volkner is actually loved by the people of Sunyshore.
Even with the long list of flaws that Volkner has, there is no denying that Volkner was vital in helping Sunyshore develop into what it is today. For generations, Sunyshore has been a major port town and the gateway to the Sinnoh's Pokemon League. It is situated on a narrow spit of land that is surrounded by the sea and mountains. If it wasn't for the fact that Sunyshore's geographical location is so suitable to build a port, no one would have wanted to build a city here. The terrain of Sunyshore is not exactly suited to build a city as large as it evolved to be.
Even though Sunyshore is referred to as a city, it is in actuality a congregation of many small pieces of land jutting out of the ocean surface. However, being so close to the sea has its problems. Wild pokemon from the sea tend to wreck havoc on the city, be it accidentally or on purpose, and it caused Sunyshore to suffer damages for as long as it has been founded. There wasn't much of a point building bridges to connect the land masses since they would be destroyed within the next few months no matter how hard the city tried to guard it. It was for this reason that Sunyshore's citizens rarely explored anywhere outside the land that they lived on since it is so hard to go from one place to another even within the city. Many citizens of Sunyshore had lived their lives not knowing full well on who lives on the other side of Sunyshore opposite them. The only way to visit the different parts of Sunyshore back then was to either surf there by boat or with their pokemon's help.
The inconvenience in travelling from one point of Sunyshore to another brought about a whole slew of problems. The city is divided in both the literal and figurative sense. Citizens of Sunyshore have no real connection to the other locals living on the other land masses that is separated from theirs. There wasn't any true sense of kinship among the city populace. The divide also brings about a huge security issue. The local police force always have troubles trying to maintain peace and order due to how problematic and difficult it is to travel from one part of Sunyshore to another, allowing mobs of gangsters to thrive.
The League and the previous Sunyshore's Gym Leaders had tried many times to solve this problem but none of them had truly worked. Many had grown to accept this problem as an unsolved fact, deciding to leave it as it is.
Needless to say, this problem was passed down to Volkner when he took over as Gym Leader. Volkner was very annoyed at how inconvenient this whole arrangement is. He was annoyed that no one had solved this issue for 500 years when in his opinion, the solution is so simple.
He came up with a plan within two weeks after he took up the position of Gym Leader. By the time six months had passed, his plan had started to come into fruition. Two years later, the security and safety of Sunyshore had increased tremendously along with other benefits.
Volkner was of the mentality that if humans cannot solve their own problems with their own strength, pokemon might. The origin of Sunyshore's longstanding problem was that the city is prone to harassment from wild pokemon from the sea. This not only threatens the safety of the city, but it also affects the shipping route ships from all over the world uses to travel to Sunyshore, putting Sunyshore's economy at risk as well.
Volkner's solution to Sunyshore's problem started out with a single command to his largest pokemon. It was where Puddle came in.
Volkner may be an Electric Specialist but he is no slouch in training pokemon of other typings. Puddle is a gigantic gyarados that dwarfed even others of its own kind. He is a member of Volkner's main team and is one of his more destructive pokemon. As it turns out, Puddle's presence alone is enough to deter most wild pokemon surrounding Sunyshore from harassing the city.
Volkner had ordered Puddle to be the leader of the local wild pokemon population from the sea. Many people back then thought he was crazy, because how will that help to solve Sunyshore's problems? How can a single gyarados, no matter how large and how strong it is in battle, defeat every single wild pokemon in the sea surrounding Sunyshore?
It took a while for Puddle to complete the mission given to him by Volkner, but he did manage to establish himself as the strongest among them and became their leader. Most wild pokemon have a pack mentality and they will obey their leader's orders most of the time. Through Puddle, Volkner had ordered the wild pokemon to stop harassing the city. Volkner was also worried that these wild pokemon had attacked Sunyshore in the first place due to scarcity of food around the area. Thus, to be doubly sure that the wild pokemon have no incentive to launch another siege on the city, he had also used his power and authority as a Gym Leader to clear out certain spots in Sunyshore for the sole purpose to feed these wild pokemon. The pokemon food needed will be donated by the League for this cause. Volkner's logic was that if the main reason for the pokemon' constant harassments was a need to hunt for food, then there will not be any reason for these pokemon to attack the city if their bellies are full.
Somehow, it worked out.
There are a few feeding spots around the city and they are mainly located at the outskirts of Sunyshore. These places also now serve as a tourist attraction. It is one of the few places in the world where people can actually observe with their own eyes how humans and pokemon are able to coexist in harmony. The local police force guards these feeding spots diligently as well, not allowing criminal activity to take place within these areas. This development had helped boost Sunyshore's tourism and the local wild pokemon population had become more comfortable around humans. There are also trainers who claimed to have found their starters from these feeding spots.
With the problem of wild pokemon constantly harassing the city out of the way, Volkner then concentrated on solving the city's internal security issue.
Permanent bridges can now be built to link the various parts of the city together, something that all Sunyshore citizens look forward to. However, Volkner doesn't want the bridges to be ordinary bridges.
He wants the bridges to be built using solar panels.
It was another crazy idea that everyone had doubted. At that point in time, solar panels are a relatively new technology. Are solar panels even suited to be used as building materials?
In response, Volkner simply called out Jarvis, his porygon-z, cooped themselves up in a room for a week doing who-knows-what, and emerged from the room holding a blueprint detailing the prototype of a solar panel suitable for building purposes.
He and Jarvis had invented an entirely different type of solar panel within a week.
Volkner had given all the credit to Jarvis, saying that he merely gave the idea to Jarvis and the manmade pokemon with artificial intelligence had computed the entire calculation and came up with the blueprint by itself. He said that Jarvis invented that particular brand of solar panels, not him.
In the eyes of the people of Sunyshore, there's no difference. To them, Volkner is the inventor of such solar panels since he is Jarvis's trainer.
The blueprint was sold to the League, who were impressed with the idea and had heavily sponsored the construction of these solar panel roads and bridges in Sunyshore. Sunyshore is a location that is bathed in harsh sunlight almost all year round. Not only does the solar panel made use of Sunyshore's natural advantage to create energy and meet their energy demands, it helps to connect the entire city.
Sunyshore's economy had nearly tripled in just a short five years after Volkner became its Gym Leader. The locals here love him for what he had contributed to Sunyshore.
There were people who were resistant to the changes as well, although these people were mostly the local mobs and gangsters who were very comfortable with Sunyshore's previous situation until Volkner came into the picture. They tried to destroy any efforts in bettering the city but the local police and Volkner had put an end to them quickly. It was a common sight back then to witness Volkner taking on hordes of gangsters with only his pokemon by his side. The moment someone spotted Volkner moving to wipe out the troublemakers, the kids who got wind of it will hide themselves by the side and watch as Volkner stroll into the mobs of gangsters and obliterate them within minutes. Some of them even brought snacks along, treating the spectacle like some sort of action movie.
Even the adults tagged along. Some of them even openly ran bets on how long Volkner will take to finish his job. Volkner simply pretended that he didn't see or hear anything, although he will send ISpy to guard the growing crowd of spectators in case things went wrong.
Kayla will never admit it to Volkner but she was one of the kids back then. She still remembers how she stared on in awe as Volkner walked into enemy lines as if he was taking a stroll through the park and finished them off in the same amount of time she needs to eat a quick meal.
He was what inspired her to be an Electric Specialist.
Within a year after his appointment as Gym Leader, Volkner had singlehandedly annihilated the underworld of Sunyshore with the help of the police force. No one from the underworld is strong enough to stand against his might. With that, most of Sunyshore's security issues is solved and the city is now one of the safest cities in the region. Ships are now more willing to travel to Sunyshore and dock there, thereby boosting Sunyshore's economy. Everyone is happy at this outcome.
It was around that time that Volkner started to become an inspiration to the younger generations who aspire to be pokemon trainers themselves. Volkner was an orphan with nothing to his name. He had started from zero and had ended up as one of the most powerful gym leaders the region had birthed.
Volkner is not only their leader, he is their idol and inspiration. He is a role model for trainers and he had inspired a fair share of trainers from the younger generation to be an Electric Specialist. Over the past five years as Sunyshore's Gym Leader, the citizens there had given him many titles. The more well-known ones are 'The Sun of Sunyshore' and 'The Yellow Flash'.
Volkner is like the sun, his presence so blindingly bright but it is also warm. Like a benevolent light, he had guided Sunyshore and improved it further. The moniker of 'The Yellow Flash' came about when people witnessed his fights with Sunyshore's underworld. His electric types are so fast that all you can see about them are yellow blurs, hence helping their trainer earn the nickname of 'The Yellow Flash'.
Volkner seemed to like the second moniker better than the first for reasons unknown. Kayla personally thought that the first moniker sounded nicer.
The two of them had a quick meal at a random food stand. The owner of the food stand hadn't wanted to receive their money since he is very grateful for what Volkner had done for Sunyshore, but Volkner just shoved the money into his hands and disappeared into the crowd before the kind man could react, pulling Kayla with him at the same time.
Volkner is just that loved by the people here.
"Hey, squirt. What's the schedule for today?"
"You are supposed to be training us gym trainers right now." Kayla deadpanned. "That was half an hour ago."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Volkner yawned out a reply as he gave a lazy stretch. He had detoured to the Vista Lighthouse and had took a nap beneath the shade of one of the nearby trees, claiming that the food coma is calling for him.
"It's not like you will be on time even if I bugged you." Kayla retorted. "You will just ignore me and be late anyway.
"I take offence to that." Volkner said and he suddenly have a mischievous grin. "For that you will have to walk back to the gym by yourself."
Kayla's eyes widened. The Vista Lighthouse and the gym are at opposite corners of the city. She will take forever to get back there by foot. He wouldn't.
Volkner's grin widened.
He totally would.
Myst appeared in a Teleport and Volkner disappeared with him in the next second, leaving Kayla alone with the cool sea breeze blowing at her back.
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.
.
"VOLKNER!"