#lightningenergy

What better way to ring in the new year than by posting a fic that’s been done for two years?

Over on the Pokeshipping Discord, we had a sentence fanfic game going for quite a while. The rules were simple: everyone takes turns writing the story a tiny bit at a time. I’ve had quite a bit of fun with the continuity we built up (as you might have noticed over the years), and there have been requests every now and again to see it.

There’s a new sentence fic going on the Discord now, but working in the old one’s continuity for Pokeshipping Week made @lightningenergy and I think it might be fun to make the old one public. Besides ourselves, @astralconflagration777, @ultimatebman, @zedpercyfan, and @fairrytype all made contributions. Below, you will find:

A handy arc guide!

Part I!

Part II!

And, naturally, Part III!

A few things to keep in mind: first, that this was a group effort done a bit at a time. It was more like an improv game than a carefully structured plot, though we did some preplanning here and there. So if there are certain inconsistencies or redundancies, or if you read any of our work individually and find this at odds with what we write - bear that in mind :)

Also, this is just our archive of the entries; this hasn’t been formatted into standard prose. The sentence fic also went inactive for various reasons before one of our biggest plot threads was resolved. LE and I wrote out a finale privately, which has been included here, but you can tell when the group fic ended by a bridging paragraph.

Lastly, if you’re a member of the Pokeshipping Discord, or feel like joining, you’re more than welcome to participate in the new sentence fic we have going on! It’s set in a different continuity, so there’s no need to be up to date on everything here.

We had a lot of fun writing this over two years, so I hope you all enjoy it!

Disclaimer: over on the Pokeshipping Discord, a flashback in the group fic covered this exact subject, and my own ideas on how to handle this prompt all ended up pretty close to that scene. So this is, in part, adapted from that flashback, where @lightningenergy was the other writer.

Beautiful spring days could turn sour from rain, from late snows, from Weedles or Pidgeys infesting the garden.

And sometimes, the peace of spring could be broken by one’s son turning up at the door with a kicking and raging girlfriend slung over his shoulder.

“THAT’S IT!” Misty cried, so fiercely that Delia took a step back. She had seen Misty and Ash argue over the years, of course, but the girl usually kept her temper in check around her. “Those sisters of mine are - are the absolute worst!”

Ah…that would explain things. Delia very rarely saw anything of the elder Waterflower sisters, but she’d heard plenty over the years about what living with them was like.

“Hey Mom,” Ash said, as if it were still a beautiful spring day and he wasn’t carrying a furious Misty. “You got any cookies?”

“YOU PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW, ASH KETCHUM!” Misty roared. Ash obliged by roughly shrugging her off his shoulder and onto the couch.

“Ash!” Delia scolded.

“She was kicking all the way from Daisy’s!” Ash protested. He collected Pikachu from his bed by the window and headed for the kitchen; apparently, his nose had answered his question about cookies for him. Delia sighed and sat down next to Misty, who was pouting at the end of the couch with her arms and legs tightly crossed.

“Now what’s this all about, dear?” Delia asked.

“What’s this all about!?” Misty repeated. “WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT!? First, the three of them decide, without asking me, that they’re going to drain the pool and have some stupid roller disco night this weekend. Then, when I put Lily in charge so I can go grocery shopping - to replace all the food that they ate - she gives away three badges! And then I find out they haven’t done any of their own laundry in a week and expect me to do it! AND THEN, when Daisy insists I come visit her new house here in Pallet, she tells me to be more considerate of them! AND THEN -”

Ash reappeared behind them, and stuffed a cookie in his girlfriend’s open mouth. Misty glared at him as she grudgingly chewed, and he came around to sit between her and his mom. “Tracey called me over about twenty minutes ago,“ he whispered. "And we only just got out of there. She was that mad.”

“Oh, dear,” Delia sighed. “Well - Misty, you know I’m always willing to help you talk things out with your sisters -”

“Hmmph!”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work, Mom,” said Ash. “Mist, this is the tenth time you’ve blown your stack over what it’s like living with Lily and Violet at the Gym. It sounds like you all need some space. Why don’t you just move?”

Misty scowled at him. “And where am I supposed to move to, Mr. Pokemon Master!?" 

"Well…you know. Here.”

“…What?” Misty and Delia said together.

“Yeah, Mist. Let’s move in together!” Ash said it so casually, as if it were the simplest and most obvious thing in the world. It was just like him to treat such a life-changer like that. And it was just like Misty, Delia thought as she looked around her son to the stunned redhead, to be completely thrown by his suggestion.

“…Do you - mean that, Ash?” she asked softly.

“Sure!” Ash smiled. “I mean, you visit here every weekend and half your evenings anyway, so…” He shrugged. Misty stared at him for another moment, then threw herself at him. Delia stood up just in time to avoid the two of them falling back across the couch, a tangled mess of giggles and kisses.

“That’s - that’s very generous of you to offer, Ash,” she said. “But this is a rather…big step. Are you two sure you’re ready?” Delia didn’t like to be the wet blanket, but it was a mother’s place to raise concerns. Ash and Misty had only been together for two months, after all - at least in that way.

Ash pulled away from Misty’s kisses long enough to grin up at Delia. "Aww, Mom,” he said. “We spent every day together for three years when we were kids!”

Misty looked up too; the shine in her eyes was enough to show she’d been fully won over. “And - like Ash said, Mrs. Ketchum - I’m here all the time anyway…”

That’s true, Delia thought. Misty had been a more common presence in her house than Ash had been for the past seven years, at least until Ash had moved back permanently after Alola. And they did finally find their way to romance, after all that time. It would be nice, seeing my boy settling down… “You’re right,” she finally said, and wasn’t at all surprised to find her voice breaking slightly. “Of course Misty can move in here.”

“Oh…” Ash’s grin became rather fixed. “Sorry, Mom…when I said ‘here,’ I meant ‘Pallet Town…’ I kinda thought Misty ‘n me would find an apartment or something…”

First drawing down in the Writer’s Request list!

Lightning Energy

🃏 Nuova Carta Pokémon: Lightning Energy! 📦 Set: Expedition Base Set

Lightning Energy

🃏 Nuova Carta Pokémon: Lightning Energy! 📦 Set: Holon Phantoms

Lightning Energy

🃏 Nuova Carta Pokémon: Lightning Energy! 📦 Set: Gym Challenge

I was sitting by my window the other night watching an insane thunderstorm, and honestly, it drove me crazy. Every time the sky lit up, all I could think was: Why am I watching tens of thousands of gigawatts of free energy just vanish into thin air?

I started digging into this for my Spartans, and I was completely mind-blown by the sheer physics of it. We are landing rockets backwards on boats and building AI that can generate movies, yet we are completely helpless when it comes to catching a spark from the sky.

Here is what makes this the ultimate boss fight for human engineering:

Insane Heat: A single bolt heats the air to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That is literally five times hotter than the surface of our Sun!

The Battery Bottleneck: This is the part that frustrated me the most. Let’s say I build a machine that perfectly predicts where a strike will hit. There is literally no battery on Earth that can absorb 1 billion volts in 30 milliseconds. Standard batteries would instantly vaporize, and a capacitor big enough to hold it would need to be the size of a skyscraper.

It feels like Mother Nature is just teasing us. Imagine if we could harvest even 1% of the 44 lightning strikes that happen globally every single second. We’d have an endless, atmospheric power grid.

I actually put together a massive deep dive on the insane tech being tested right now to solve this—including Swiss scientists shooting terawatt lasers into the sky to guide lightning.

You can read my full breakdown and the science behind it here: 👉 https://metaverseplanet.net/blog/the-unsolved-mystery-of-lightning-energy/

Lightning Energy

🃏 Nuova Carta Pokémon: Lightning Energy! 📦 Set: Generations