>>"I think I'm fine as long as I stay in my bubble. Somehow it seems to be keeping me alive."

Perhaps it is keeping you alive now, but… Kai liked this new friend. He didn’t want him to die. So he kept digging in the tiny little box for the right card. It was difficult to balance his desire to find the correct card quickly with actually reading what was on the card. Maybe they should computerize their records? Then he wouldn’t have to deal with Cam’s terrible handwriting. Though Kai’s was probably equally as horrible, at least he could decipher his own…

Finally he found the one he was looking for, and he was in luck! There was a number on it! He dialed, trying to regain his calm. After all, if Juka wasn’t panicking, he didn’t want to make him panic by acting all crazy.

Ring… ring…

Then he heard a faint “hello?” on the other end.

“Hello!” he replied at higher than his normal decibel level. “Lori? I need you to get over here right now!” He hoped she would help. The last time they had met, he had gotten the impression that she… liked him maybe wasn’t quite right, but he’d couldn’t think of the exact word. She had been friendly at least, and tried not to shock him.

“…Who may I say is speaking?” inquired the calm voice on the other end.

So, not Lori. A secretary perhaps? “It’s Kai. I own a plant shop. I need Lori’s help RIGHT NOW.” Why was no one understanding the gravity of this situation?

Feelings of apprehension warred with feelings of feeling bad for the little plant man. Kai really was sweet to be so worried about him, but all that worry and stress might cause something unforeseen to happen. He didn't want Kai to have a stress induced heart attack or something. Now that was a funny thought given present circumstances.

Juka kept moving his fingers from his heart to his neck to the front side of his wrist, both fascinated and horrified by the lack of heart beat. Just when he thought things couldn't get any stranger, this happened. Distantly, distractedly, he heard the mention of the name Lori but the name was unfamiliar to him. Would she be able to help?

Transportation took time for an electromagnetic user, but the urgency was not lost in Lisa's message. Lori got there as soon as she could, but her mind raced ahead of her. What if Kai's store was getting stormed by flamethrowing, narrow minded heathens? She was going in alone so this had better not be a trap. Though Kai was amiable. He never registered as a schemer to her. All these thoughts tumbled around until finally Lori was at the door.

What she saw inside was no mass of mutant haters, no obvious threat... "Kai?" Lori huffed to catch her breath. "Who's your friend?" She smoothed her hair back and continued to regain her composure step by step.

Yeah. She didn't rush out of a meeting or anything. Nope. People in business suits were in a hurry all the time for no good reason at all.

His message had worked. The secretary finally seemed to get the point of what he was saying and properly alerted Lori. He paced while waiting for her, throwing glances at Juka every so often to check and see if he was still alive, still functioning without a heart beat inside his bubble.

Finally she entered and calmly asked about the situation.

Kai was so happy to see her that he almost ran over and hugged her, but of course, that would be silly. Still, his relief was obvious. “Thank you for coming so quickly.” He tried to match her in calm and politeness. “This is Juka. His heart seems to have stopped for no apparent reason and this bubble is keeping him alive.”

He glanced at Juka for confirmation, to make sure that he was getting the details.

“Nothing can get in and he can’t get out. So…” he knew he was making less and less sense. “Can you… you know? Fix him?” He looked at her with what he hoped were sad puppy dog eyes that were impossible to refuse.

A rather attractive blond (not that Juka was thinking about such things given the current minor emergency) arrived in relatively short order and seemed to be the person Kai was expecting. Whether or not she could actually do anything, however, might end up being a different matter entirely. The prospect of living without his heart really didn't' appeal to him much at all.

After Kai's description of the situation, Juka simply nodded his ascent. He had pretty much covered all the bases of his current problem. He knew that he should be freaking out about this; after all, he didn't' have a working heart, but he almost felt like he was in shock. Not that he really knew what it felt like to be in shock, but based on all the descriptions he had heard, this sounded like it. Everything had taken on a sort of distant surreal quality. Maybe later, when everything had been properly processed, maybe then he'd really start to panic.

"Can you help me?" Juka asked hopefully.

A puzzle then! "I can try." It was a little more disconcerting once it was spelled out for her. "I am good at both stopping and starting hearts." Lori winked at the bubble boy, flamboyant as he was it was just like tasting a new flavor of popsicle. It was always worth trying new things.

She walked al the way around the bubble first and then asked the plant kid to stand back just in case.

"And really nothing can go in?" She had to confirm this fact with her hand. Lori pushed on the bubble and it moved. It didn't pop like she had expected. In fact it had incredible elasticity. She pushed more and more... eventually it became quite hard to push the bubble inward.

Then it was less Lori wanting to get in the bubble and more a stubborn threat to her pride. She had to wedge her feet against the sturdy till and push with quite a bit of gusto to get her hand close enough to deliver even the tiniest of sparks.

And she delivered a little bit more than a tiny spark. Not enough to burn the skin, hopefully, but she did give it a little extra oomph just in case the bubble was resistive.

Hah! There. Now why were they doing this again? Oh. Right. The heart. "Anything?"

Stopping and starting hearts? Ha! A funny joke about her electrifying powers. At least, he assumed it was a joke.

It was satisfying to watch her work on some level because she was doing all the same things he had tried at first. Like poke the bubble. How many people tried to poke the bubble? Kai stepped back, giving her a clear space to work in. Hm… Maybe I should sweep up. He thought, considering the piles of soil on the floor with a disproportionate enthusiasm.

He glanced back up just in time to see a small spark jump between Lori’s hand and the bubble. Then the bubble flew backwards, repelled by the electricity and crashed into the bucket of fresh bouquets that he had been working on earlier.

“Well I guess I should have moved that bucket…” Except that was the least of their problems. The bubble was still intact. “Soo…. Did it work?”

Juka wasn't sure that he liked the idea that the person who was supposed save him was apparently 'good at both stopping and starting hearts'. That sounded more than a little disconcerting. Then again, his heart was all ready stop, now wasn't it? So, what more damage could she really do at this point? It wasn't as if she could stop it twice could she? He hoped the conclusion of 'no' that he came to was the right conclusion.

"Nope, nothing can get in," Juka agreed. He watched with some amusement as Lori tried to force herself into his bubble, exerting more and more pressure as the edge of the bubble was forced closer to his skin. Maybe it would have been more amusing, really, had the circumstances been a little more favourable. Like, for example, he didn't have to worry about the fact that his heart had stopped.

Suddenly a spark came out of his would be savior's hands sending him flying backwards and into a bucket of cut flowers. Great, so now he would have bruises in addition to the whole heart stopping problem. He felt a sort of palpitation in his chest that let him know she had at least done something, but not enough as a moment later his heart was once again quiet. "I think it almost worked," Juka supplied helpfully, floating back over to Lori. He must be crazy to let her try that again, but that's exactly what he planned on doing until the whole heart problem was solved.

"And you can't get out?" That looked like a negative. Maybe not can't but wouldn't since it was, by Kai's announcement, what was keeping him not-dead.

Lori scratched her head and frowned. "Alright. We're going to have to get a little bit creative." She pulled off her business suit jacket and wiggled her hands and loosened her shoulders.

"If you can, why don't you start jogging in place?" She demonstrated by jogging in place for him. Once he was going at an acceptable pace Lori stopped and went for her shirt buttons. Buttons that seemed to take too long. After a moment she just grabbed the material on either side and pulled her shirt open. Buttons popped off and bounced into the bubble. And into a flower pot or two as well.

Yep. She was going to give that heart as many reasons to beat as was possible.

Once her shirt had been discarded and she was down to a simple burgandy bra, she wedged her feet back against the till and pushed back through the bubble. This time she was going to shock him enough that she would need a good recharge afterward. And his skin would likely burn, but a good burn was better than being dead.

Zaaap.

Everything seemed to be going well, or at least… kind of how he expected it to go. Behind the counter, he leaned forward, eager to watch what her next step would be now that the first attempt to shock Juka’s heart had failed.

She took off her jacket in the classic gesture of ‘getting down to business’ and advised Juka to run in place inside the bubble. Kai couldn’t keep himself from asking, “what will that do…?” he trailed off.

Riiiip!

Did she just!? And indeed, she had just ripped her shirt off and now stood in front of the giant bubble in just her under-things. Kai became just slightly distracted, his sixteen year old hormones kicked into overdrive of their own accord, and all control over his power was lost. His vision blurred, then became ultra sharp, then blurred again. He was starting to get dizzy. The plants in the shop nearly jumped out of their pots, trying to reach Lori.

Zaaap!

And as the electric shock met Juka, Kai’s body hit the pavement for the second time that day.

As Juka picked himself off the ground, sure that he was going to have more than a few new bruises, he had no idea what Lori could possibly mean by 'a little bit creative'. When she started unbuttoning buttons on her shirt, he was even more confused than ever and that confusion didn't improve as she completely ripped her top off. He blinked at her. "Now my darling Lori, as gorgeous as you are, I'm not sure that inviting me to sleep with you is going to succeed in fixing my current problem. But if you're so desperate to spend a little personal time with me I'm sure I'd be happy to oblige such a goddess as yourself just as soon as I can get out of my bubble." He winked at her, still feeling confused but feeling it best to just go with it. Besides, could he really blame her for being so desperate to sleep with him?

Still very much unsure what, exactly, the blond bombshell was thinking, Juka began jogging in spot as commanded. Besides, there was no harm in listening to commands from a woman such as she and she was all woman from what he could see and he could see a lot just at the moment.

Once again Lori approached Juka and once again pushed his bubble as close to his skin as she could make it and, that close up, he wasn't shy about getting a very very good look at her. Once again he was zapped and for a second time he was sent flying towards the wall.

The first thing Juka realized after regaining his sense of equilibrium, was that his bruises had multiplied tenfold from the first time he had been zapped. The second thing he realized was that his bubble had disappeared and his heart was once again beating as it should be. "My beautiful goddess Lori, you are my savior. What might this grateful servent of yours do for you, dearest of angels?" Juka curtsied deeply in his most respectful and obedient posture, effect only slightly marred by the fact that he looked boldly up into her eyes.

There was a slight problem with physics that she hadn't counted on if her plan succeeded. Lori had quite a bit of her weight and strength pressing against Juka's bubble. When Juka flew back further and his bubble dissipated... well, there was nothing left to hold up an electromagnetic user.

Lori fell straight down onto a tangle of plants and flooring. Talk about bruises.

> "My beautiful goddess Lori, you are my savior. What might this grateful servent of yours do for you, dearest of angels?"

Urge to roll eyes rising. For now Lori settled with getting her bearings back and peeling plants off of where they shouldn't be. "Do you happen to know a big red man by the name of Venus?" Because he had an eerily similar speaking pattern. Either they were long lost twins or they had met and spent more than a couple minutes together.

Elbows and knees, one foot, two feet... eventually Lori made it back to a more traditional standing position. She cleared her throat, brushed the leaves off of her person and then put her coat back on.

"Where's Kai?" She looked around and eventually peeked behind the counter... where he was on the ground.

"Ah man, he has got to have a serious blood flow problem." Any and all assumptions that Lori would sleep with anyone in this store were only that. Poorly founded assumptions. Snuggle? Sure. She'd snuggle just about anyone.

Kai raised his head groggily. His head was still wheeling from the effects of being so dizzy that he’d actually fallen over. Blinking his eyes to clear his vision, he was met with Lori peering over the counter at him.

>>"Ah man, he has got to have a serious blood flow problem."

Placing his hands under his chest, Kai pushed himself into a kneeling position. He didn’t want to appear weak, though the image he was going for had pretty well been demolished by his second collapse in her presence. Time to try to salvage it.

“No, no. My powers… and the electricity, you know.” He stated vaguely. “I just got a little dizzy is all. ‘Cuz the charge was so big, and… well. Did it work?” Feet stable? Check. Need to see if Juka lived. Wobbling a little bit, Kai made it to his feet. “Juka! You’re unbubbled. And alive?!” The moment for a potential hug came, but was defeated by his wounded self-image and the counter in between them. The fact that they’d only known each other for two days was completely irrelevant in making that decision.

“Lori, thank you soooo much! I’m also eternally in your debt. How can I ever thank you?”

The plants agreed. Especially the fern closest to her that was trying to caress her arm- Knock it off! He chastised them, and his own mind. For several other plants were also betraying his thoughts with their movements towards her.

Juka posatively beamed at the mention of Venus. Apparently his on again off again companion was well known, a fact that didn't surprise him in the slightest. "You know my lovely Prince Venus? How wonderful for you. He is so sweet, isn't he?" Now that he was back to being in good working order (minus more than a few bruises of course) the lack of a Lori shirt ceased to phase him. Either she wanted him or she didn't and either way she was sure to make her wishes known.

Juka began inspecing the manny bruises that were starting to pop up all over his battered body. There were several pros and cons to this situation that he could see. Pro: his face remained unblemished. Con: the rest of his body would be aching for days. Pro: There was a beautiful woman standing before him minus a shirt. Con: She wasn't currently all over him nor, and this part was most disappointing, did she appear to have that thought in mind. For a moment he contemplated removing some of his own clothing but realized that Kai probably wouldn't approve. Too bad because if Lori saw his body then surely she would change her mind about her current lack of being all over him.

"Are you ok Kai?" he looked down at his new friend, feeling vageuly guilty about the entire situation. He had come here to apologize for the pokemon tournament and had somehow ended up wrecking his entire shop. How did these things keep happening anyway? "Do you want me to help you clean up?" It was the polite thing to ask, even if he'd much much rather be spending time with Lori. Preferably a lot of it. While they were alone. Or alone with their mutual Prince Venus. Yes, that sounded posatively heavenly. His mind wandered away.

>"...How can I ever thank you?”

There were several advantages to Lori leaning heavily on the counter. First, her jelly legs didn't have to hold all of her. Second, Despite the fact that she was wearing a jacket, the leaning motion positioned it in juuuuust the perfect way. Third? See reason number two. It counts twice. "Oh, I can think of a few ways."

While Juka and Kai were sorting out the store, Lori could lean and swing her arms by her sides to generate a little more power to keep her in the comfort zone.