Flowerberry Sambus – or rather, Danny Houndoom, because his parents had been hippie assholes who didn’t understand what being named Flowerberry did to a man – had a pretty good rhythm going today.

“Money, money, gonna get me some mon-ey…”

The radio buzzed along, producing a mostly-audible pop song in like Paldean or some shit, he didn’t give a fuck. Maybe it was just Kantonian put through ten kinds of static – what was important was that it was bopping, and he was, like, nine-tenths of the way to his next payday.

“Money, money, spend it on a Sunday bun-ny…”

A swarm of magnemite hovered around him in a loose cloud, the head-sized steel Pokémon happily buzzing as they bathed in the modified radio waves his cracked machine was putting off. He tapped his foot to the rhythm as he worked, hip-deep in a welded-together box of scrap metal.

“Money, money, days are looking sun-ny…”

Everything electronic in the modern age was either shielded, or spewed out particular wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, all specifically to put these beauties off their supper. But if you were to flip a few wires around just so…

He soldered the last bit in place, and as one the swarm of fifteen-plus magnemite stilled. In a moment that would have been eerie if he hadn’t triggered it himself, the cycloptic orbs turned to fix him – or rather the all-you-can-eat electricity buffet he was standing in – in their gaze.

His already-wide grin widened even further. “That’s right boyos, come to daddy. Money, money, guzzle that shit like-”

“Danny! Arcus fuck, stop singing!”

He blinked, then turned towards the entrance to see a beanpole of a man walking in, one hand in his pocket and the other on the strap of a beat-up cooler.

“Hoshi? Damn, I didn’t think it was that late already.” It didn’t even feel like noon, yet. “Whatever, check this out! Lemme just get outta here…”

He shimmied himself over the lip of the box, and the moment the potentially-dangerous human wasn’t in the way, the Pokémon lunged. The first ones hit the bottom of the trap, then the rest piled on top, all of them vibrating and buzzing,

Hoshi stepped back, holding his ears. “Agh- fuck, that’s somehow even worse! Go back to singing, it was shit but at least-!”

Danny hollered over the noise. “No no, see, we haven’t gotten to the fun part!”

He hoisted the hinged lid up and let it slam down, locking the magnemite in – not that they would have willingly left before the batteries ran dry. The cacophony mostly cut off, though the box itself was vibrating like mad.

The kid hesitantly took his hands away from his head. “Okay? Great, you’ve got some magnemite in a box. What’s the point?” He stepped forward, standing beside Danny as he admired his masterpiece. “Trainers won’t pay for magnemite, they’re too common around here.”

“Just wait. Any second now…” Anticipation sparked through his chest, streams of imagined electricity dancing from rib to rib. C’mon, I know you greedy things can suck power like no-one’s business…

On cue, his trap let out a deep, metallic clunk as the first set of batteries died. The lack of current would, if he had wired it right, trip the-

BANG

With a sound like a gunshot, the box exploded. He was blown back two paces by the wave of pressure as beside him, Hoshi fell on his ass. Magnemite went flying, screeching out their displeasure and sending sparks out in random directions.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed, his ears ringing. “Thought I’d fixed that.”

Hoshi lay on the ground for a second, before he bounced up, his big blue-and-white cooler swingling like it weighed nothing, and- oh fuck that’s a fist.

The punch hit him square in the nose and so he went down, clutching his face as his head rang in a completely different tone. A deep, murderous-sounding scream echoed around the junkyard as the kid gave him one good kick to the side, really driving the point home.

“You fuck! You built a grenade, you senile old fuck!” He wound up for another kick, but it never came – Hoshi growled and turned, walking away a few steps before turning back. “What the fuck was that about, Danny?”

The salvager stood, not letting the hits keep him down. Huh. Kid’s really mellowed since he started getting laid – couple weeks back I’d have ate three or four kicks before Grimy tackled him off.

“One sec, lemme get my legs under me.” Fuck me, I wasn’t expecting that. Really thought the third-gen design would be stable…

“Well?”

He sent a gesture the man’s way. “Fuck off, you got your hits in. We’re even.”

“You blew me the fuck up,” Hoshi hissed, with enough venom to fill a beedrill’s stinger twice over. But then he paused, and eventually snorted. “Fine, whatever. But seriously, what was that?”

Danny’s grin returned. “Magnemite fuser.”

The kid opened his mouth, thought better of it, and turned to look at Danny’s poor, smoking machine. “Does it work?”

“Let’s find out!”

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Hoshi stayed ten paces back as Danny lifted his deathtrap’s lid, angry black smoke billowing out in a tiny mushroom cloud as whatever was inside was exposed to the open air. He braced himself for some kind of ridiculous bullshit, like lightning jumping up into the sky, or Danny somehow creating a magnezone-evolver out of junkyard scrap…

But the man just turned, shooting his partner in crime a gap-toothed grin. “Yo, it worked. Check it out!”

Intrigued despite the threat of further explosions, Hoshi hurried to look. Waving away a stream of lingering smoke, he peered inside the cavernous box, piercing the murk to see…

“Danny, that isn’t a magneton.”

He just kept smiling. “Nope!”

“Danny, that’s just five magnemite glued together by… magnetic shit, or something.”

He nodded. “Yep! Gonna sell it for big money!”

Hoshi looked back down at the softly vibrating mass of magnetic spheres, bits of metallic scrap dusting their smooth bodies. “...Fucking how? Is this..?” He rounded on the man. “This is like that fake gloom shit, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” Danny snapped, visibly offended. “People ate that shit up. If the fertilizer hadn’t cost so damn much…”

They both went back to watching the ‘magneton’ roll around in its enclosure. It didn’t seem able to fly more than a millimetre off the ground, and tumbled wildly when it tried, screeching in anger – or possibly nausea.

“No, Danny, this isn’t going to work. Those fatass oddish at least looked like gloom; this is obviously not an evolved Pokémon.”

“Ah, kid, that’s where you’re wrong.” Danny tapped the side of his head. “I know what a magneton looks like, and you know what a magneton looks like, but…”

“No, man. I know people are stupid, but this is… I refuse to believe any trainer who managed to survive the trip to the Pokémart to pick up their first ball, would fall for this.” I’m a cynic, but there has to be a bottom line somewhere.

Danny’s reply was swift. “If you walked in right now and I told you this was a weird foreign Pokémon – like, an Alolan magneton or whatever – would you have questioned it?”

Hoshi paused. For a moment he actually entertained the question, and…

…Shit, I might’ve just believed him. Who the fuck knows what’s up with Alola? They’ve got psychic pikachu and shit.

“Okay, you got me. Someone who doesn’t know you’re full of shit might just buy this thing. You happy?”

“Extremely. Respect the hustle, Hoshi.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

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“So, what’d you come down for? It isn’t even noon yet – you get fired or some shit?”

“Got some time off. No business today; I just came to hang out.”

The two of them were laying on a pair of lawnchairs, Hoshi’s battered cooler opened between them to reveal soda and sandwiches.

Danny stuffed his mouth with mayo-infused magikarp, then mumbled something too indistinct for even Hoshi’s well-tuned Danny translator to make out.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, ass. Have some respect for the food.”

The junkyard’s owner swallowed, smacking his lips. “Damn, Hoshi. Couple weeks into a relationship and you’re talking about respect and shit. You getting whipped, kid?”

“Fuck off.” He laid back in the plastic chair, listening to the quiet sounds of the junkyard’s Pokémon going about their business, interspersed with Danny choking down what was probably the only thing he had eaten today – when he started building something, the man was a machine.

…Holy shit, this was a good idea.

Explosion aside, just sitting with the old guy was really helping him settle down from last night’s… stuff. He tossed his empty can, nailing the magnemite’s box and receiving happy buzzing in return.

“Hey, don’t feed the merchandise. Who knows what’s in that soda!”

Hoshi snorted, grabbing another can of Volt Switch from the cooler. A cartoonish rendition of his uncle proudly announced ‘Lt. Surge’s drink of choice!’ from a speech bubble as he popped the top with a sharp snap. “Corn syrup, Dan. Nothing but corn syrup and yellow food colouring.” Despite his words, he drank it down like he had just spent a week straight walking through the desert.

The can emptied in a long unbroken chug, while Danny threw little bits of fish meat to a pile of curious grimer.

This time when Hoshi threw, he overhanded the empty in the direction of the wriggling collection of slimes, and they scrambled after it even harder than they did the fish.

Eventually, they ran out of food. The sun hit the top of the sky, and as the temperature climbed the two men took shelter inside Danny’s ‘office,’ the only halfway-habitable building on the property.

It was a shack, if a well-appointed one, too much furniture piled into a too-small space. The place was… mostly clean, with the computer area in particular being completely spotless.

“Ar-kay-us it is boiling out there,” Danny complained. He pulled out a chair from what was obviously a repurposed chemical bath being used as a table, and sat. “You think there’s somethin’ going on with Cinnabar?”

Hoshi grunted, taking his own seat: a wheeled office chair near his friend’s computer. “Nah, there’d be ash if the volcano were acting up. My bet’s on some legendary Pokémon.” He spun around a few times before letting himself coast to a stop. “Like the Moltres or something.”

Danny let out a snort. “That’s such a cop-out answer. ‘Oh, there’s snow a week early this year, I guess a big blue god-bird is pissed, somewhere!’”

Hoshi responded by snagging a knick-knack – a little statue of some brand-name character – off the computer desk and tossing it at the other man, who ducked with a yelp. “Your first thought was that a volcano was erupting. That’s not exactly better.”

“Bah. You’ll think that right up until we’re hip-deep in ash.”

They bantered lazily for a minute more, then swapped seats so Danny could turn on his computer. The massive rig rumbled to life, the startup jingle bleating out from about a dozen speakers strung up in the rafters.

The scrap merchant put on some music – actual music, not whatever he had been listening to outside – and Hoshi took the opportunity to briefly become a vegetable while his friend worked on one of his projects.

But he didn’t get as much rest as he would have liked. A few minutes later Danny spoke up, his tone uncustomarily soft.

“Hey, Hoshi. Did something like… happen?”

Hoshi cracked open an eye. “Like what?”

The clack of keyboard strokes filled the silence for a moment before Danny answered. “Dunno. You’re just giving off a weird vibe, man.”

…Shit, I didn’t think it was noticeable. Hoshi grunted, and let his thoughts put themselves in order before speaking. “Relationship trouble, I guess.”

“Hm? What, you do something to piss this girl of yours off?”

Another grunt. “No. I just… found out what she does for money, and I’m not sure I like it.”

“Ha!” Came a returning exclamation. “I knew she was a hooker! You owe me twenty pokes!”

To Hoshi’s good fortune his friend had bothered to pick up his knick-knack after dodging it, so he didn’t need to bend down to huck the statue of whatever-it-was a second time.

“Ow!” Danny turned the chair, rubbing the back of his head. “In my own home? Rude.”

“She isn’t a damn hooker, Danny.” But as the lightest tinge of red receded from the corners of his vision, Hoshi reconsidered. “...Except, fuck, I guess she kind of is? Arcus damnit, I’m all over the place. Can’t think in a straight line…”

Danny continued to rub his head, eyebrows raising over the top of his dark glasses. “What, really? I was fucking with you! What’s up?”

Internally, Hoshi waffled. Do I tell him?

…Fuck it. Maybe he knows something. A good chunk of his customers are criminals.

“She runs with a gang. She’s a… recruiter, I guess would be the term?”

The man’s eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his rainbow-vomit cap. “No shit?” Then his expression turned more considering. “Weepinbell Riders?”

“No.”

“Geo ‘97?

“No. Danny, I’ll just tell you if-”

“Naw, this is fun. Big Onix Truckers?”

Hoshi prepared to shoot his friend down, but hesitated. “Never heard of those guys. Kind of a juvenile name, isn’t it?”

Danny flashed his gums. “That’s ‘cause it was my gang back when I was, like, ten.”

“Pff. Seriously, I’m having a serious issue here.” He paused in thought. Behind Danny’s head the monitor glowed, framing his head like a halo. “Danny, you deal with that shit, right?”

The man’s tongue swirled from one cheek to the other, as if he had to physically resist the urge to speak. “...Yeah. At a distance, once in a pink moon.”

“Ever done a job for Team Rocket?”

The tiny cabin was nearly silent, only the whirring of the computer’s fans providing ambiance. Danny was usually expressive to the point of parody, but as he took in Hoshi’s question his black sunglasses suddenly seemed to hide his entire mood.

He leaned back in his chair, the old wheels squealing as they moved across the bare concrete floor. “Fuck, man. Rocket?”

“Yeah,” Hoshi affirmed with a faint nod. Is it that bad? I knew they were wanted, but like – I haven’t heard anything big about them since the nineties. An actual terrorist group would be obvious, right?

“...Okay. Here’s the deal.” Hoshi leaned forward at his friend's serious tone. “I’ve never done anything man-to-man with the new Rocket. You get me? It’s always through a proxy, ninja black ops shit.”

But you have done work for them. Hoshi nodded to show he was listening.

“Every now and then, they ask for something. A bit of tech, old parts that aren’t in circulation anymore. The pay is never great, but it’s prompt and they haven’t fucked me on a deal yet.” Under his breath, he added, “Unlike those bastards in Celadon. But! I’ve also heard some scary shit.”

Hoshi was gripping his knees, fingers tight. “What kind of scary, Danny?”

“Like, people just gone kind of scary. I knew this guy, way back when the internet was a thing, a fucking 'kazam with computers. He’d come to me, and he’d say ‘Rummy,’ – I was going by Rummy back then – ‘you’ve got to get a piece of this. I’m making hand over fist, here,’

“And I considered it, Arceus knows I did. Was almost about to convince myself to break my no joining a gang rule when just like that, pop,” Danny snapped his fingers. “Dude was gone. House was empty, no furniture, neighbours didn’t see him leave or nothing.”

“...And you think Rocket did it.”

The old man put his hands up, palms-out. “Don’t got any proof. But my gut says the new Rocket’s bad news. And I trust this guy with my life.” He patted his belly. “If your girl’s doing gang shit, might be best to just let it go. Once you’re in, that shit doesn’t let you go, man.”

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Hoshi left the cabin with mixed spirits. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his friend; the ancient piece of shit had been doing this since before he was born. But…

But also, he’s a fucking dumbass, sometimes. A mild electrical buzz caught his ear. Like, for example, when he builds explosives in his backyard.

Peering over the rim of the scrap-box, Hoshi watched the collection of magnemite bob around their six-by-six-foot space. They weren’t tumbling; it looked like the things had figured out how to work together. Makes sense. They glom together to evolve, so…

“Hey Danny!” he yelled back towards the shack. “Are these things just, like, going to be like this?”

A second later, the building’s one window jostled, sliding open with a faint squeak. Danny’s voice echoed out. “Naw! Box keeps ‘em together – a few hours outside, they’ll all fall apart!”

Hoshi looked back at the collective. Hm. That’s good, I guess. Bad for you, since your customer’s gonna be pissed, but whatever.

But Danny wasn’t done. “Hey! It’s a metaphor! Drop that shit, Hoshi!”

His piece said, the window slid back into place.

Hoshi snorted. A metaphor, huh? The fake magneton hovered in place for a moment, one of its component magnemite tilting its eye up to look at him. A louder, higher-pitched tone sounded out, one Hoshi couldn't help but read as interrogative.

“No, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He rested his arms on the box, watching as the conjoined Pokémon seemed to lose interest and go back to floating around in circles. “Ha. Look at you go. You’re not worried at all about what’s going on, are you?”

The magnemite just bobbed. “Yeah, I’m just talking to myself. But you are a metaphor, aren’t you?” Hoshi let out a breath. “Isn’t this how you’re meant to be, even if it isn’t perfect? Wouldn’t you rather keep being a shitty, fake magneton as long as you can, rather than go back to being alone?”

The Pokémon didn’t answer, and after a moment Hoshi stepped away. Damnit, I’m talking to wild Pokémon now. I don’t know what to do at all.

He huffed, then squared his shoulders. Whatever, I'll just have to work it through – talk it out with Casca. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? A few steps took him towards the exit, but a patch of yellow caught his eye. Then again…

He walked over to the discarded can. It was mostly bare aluminum now, the grimer having eaten almost all the paint, but patches of faded yellow were still visible, together with the vaguest outline of a man, visible only if you knew to look for it.

Hoshi stared at it for a lingering second before winding up, kicking the can deep into the jungle of scrap. It plinked off something beyond his vision, just another piece of garbage waiting to be either recycled or eaten up by nature.

I could use a little more advice. He looked up; the sun was just starting to descend from its zenith. He’s probably at work… Whatever, I haven’t spoken to him in a couple months. He’ll be more relieved than annoyed, probably.

Hoshi left the junkyard behind, heading south. Next stop, Vermilion Pokémon Gym.