Sergeant Volt

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James Barrol Volt III, Sergeant First Class, or, more simply, Sergeant Volt (and just Volt to friends), is an ancient Emperor penguin with a lifetime of public service in both civilian and military fields, since the earliest days of Olde Antarctica. He is known primarily as a civil engineer, but his background as a soldier makes for great storytelling for his chicks, especially Hat Pop.

When the Fire Kingdom made a short-lived attempt to conquer the continent, he played a key role in holding them back, especially at a large-scale battle in an Northern Air (rubberstamp) Parliamentary Building. He resurfaced as a commander in the late 1990s, betraying his king to fight for the Revolutionaries, not because he supported them, but because he saw a good opportunity to snatch power and/or money in the transitional government that would administer the chaotic change of power.

In his civilian life, he worked for most every nation, laying roads and critical infrastructure (such as dams, railroads, and airports) for over seventy years.

Now over a century in age, he still retains some warrior heritage, assisting the Mecha Goons by providing them with sophisticated weaponry and strategic military advice (it's amazing how useful the barrel roll maneuver really is). Despite being loud and rather obnoxious, his advice has assisted the Goons enough to outweigh his senile, random outbursts.

Early years
Volt hatched in 1910, at the very end of the High Penguin Confederacy. Like his father and his father before him, he, for some reason, always donned a pair of rabbit ears regardless of what sort of clothes he had on.

Radical specism amongst the Lesser penguins had begun to sweep the nation, but it culminated in 1913 with the sudden military coup of the last HPC emperor by Whoot Smackler Whoot. Suddenly, society reversed itself as High Penguins became oppressed and Lessers became the masters, although the oppression on the High Penguins was ten times worse than anything that they had dealt to their counterparts.

Volt's father was a conscientious objector to the Khanzanian Wars, and was accepted as such, so he did not participate directly in the war effort. Volt spent his chickhood living in the fascist society that was this Reich, too little to really remember its rise, and far too young to really care when it fell, thankfully.

The Snowman Empire sucked up the power vacuum that was left open after Triskelle had Whoot and his allies surrender, and then came the Scissors.

Inspiration
Teenage Volt greatly admired the Snowmans- especially Julius Scissor and Scissor Augustus -and it was there speedy conquests of much of Antarctica that inspired him, eventually, to become a soldier. Sadly, he never got to join the Snowman Guard, because Mero took out the government in 1932, leading to a brutal three-year every-bird-for-themselves anarchy. The age for a non-citizen Snowman to become a soldier was twenty two. He was too late. However, this did end up benefiting the young Volt, who saw a need in his local area for him.

The roads of the area were terrible. Created in Khanzem and unkempt when they re-directed every single Shoopdawhoot to the war effort, they fell into disrepair. Considering that these weren't even paved, the roads didn't exist by the time the Snowman Empire was an anarchy. Volt really wanted to be a soldier, but he considered the pressing need of his community to establish trade paths for prosperity over his own ambitions. This act of selflessness ended up helping his town thrive. It was one of the first communities with less than ten thousand creatures to have a paved road connecting it to the main highways, and it had electricity years before its neighbors.

However, this wasn't really Volt's doing, it was his idea. The constant turmoil of the governments that rose and fell as he grew provided him with only minimal education. Khanzem's war effort meant less money for new schools, and being a rural penguin, a would-be school that was going to be given to them was cancelled to fund the losing battle. This was similar to the Snowman Empire. Julius Scissor was more interested in conquering land than improving the quality of life of his people, and Scissor Augustus was very busy managing all that land.

A school was eventually built in 1930. Urged on by his father, Volt attended. When the anarchy hit, the school was defunded, but a diligent teacher refused to leave. The school was a good size- thirty classrooms and a lunchroom -but after the anarchy, only one room was used.

The volunteer teacher became a pillar of Volt's community and one of his heroes. Being in his twenties and in a one-room schoolhouse covering all grades was rather embarrassing, considering he was in the eighth grade yet beginning to sprout facial hair. Still, he was determined to get an education so that he could do more than just advise infrastructure projects: he wanted to make them.

Air Kingdom Corps of Engineers
Graduating four years later, the government once again switched on him, and he found himself in the Air Kingdom of Olde Antarctica. Finally seeing the opportunity, Volt joined their military but was put on reserve, so he didn't actually do much fighting, just training. As a reservist, he could also do civilian work until he was called, so he continued his studies on infrastructure.

Finally in 1946, the army called him to an active position. He couldn't be more pleased when he was ordered to serve in the Air Kingdom's "Hydrobender" team: a corp of engineers (contrast with water-manipulators, elites who actually bent water) tasked with building and maintaining dams, canals, rivers, and reservoirs both in war and peace. The Air Kingdom was very pacifist in nature; their army was pretty much a branch of infrastructure building, only with guns.

Thirteen years as a Hydrobender eventually allowed him to rise to the rank of Sergeant First Class. In the waning years of his first tour as an engineer, he was given exclusive jurisdiction over a small stretch of canal in a place that no one really cared about. (He was proud of it, anyway, and did very well in its maintenance.)

Air Kingdom Air Force
He was eventually plucked from this job he so enjoyed in 1959, because the Fire Kingdom was beginning to get a little too imperialistic under its new King, King Ohzie Ablaze, who was coronated in 1955 at the age of twenty six. Ohzie militarized and mobilized most of the Fire Kingdom with a goal to take out the other kingdoms, showing them once and for all whose kingdom reigned over "the superior element". Arming his people with tons of Elemental Amulets, they began their attack and ambushed the northern Air Kingdom, barreling through the fringes of the Ice Kingdom. (They seemed to have had a score to settle with their bald enemies. Fire Kingdom nobles seemed to have hair as a general rule, and to excuse their own subjects that didn't, "baldness looks good when you control a superior element".) They attacked in 1957.

The Air Kingdom declared war in response to the brutal destruction, sacking and burning of several cities, towns, villages, and homes. The Fire Kingdom took many, many prisoners of war before the Air Kingdom began it's counter-strike. The Air Kingdom was the most pacifist kingdom (another reason the Fires hated them), so they couldn't build a real army until 1959. By then, the other two Kingdoms had joined in the war, on the side of the Airians.

The Airians, though, had suffered many casualties, with thousands of air manipulators kidnapped, killed, or otherwise incapacitated, and their army was forced to dip into its largest branches. Being a peaceful realm, most of its warriors were actually just military counterparts to useful public civilian jobs. The Air Kingdom had long run out of the actual fighters, so they began reassigning the engineers and such to fight.

Sergeant Volt was one of the first to be snatched up, in 1959. He was reassigned to the Air Kingdom's Air Force, and, after being given a crash course on how to fly, he was sent off to fight the Fire Kingdom. The Fire Kingdom's specialty was cavalry and infantry, and less on the air force, but they possessed a lot of anti-aircraft weaponry to make up for this. Volt never actually participated in any dog fights, but he did dodge a lot of missiles.

Sergeant Volt became a revered pilot when he and his squad invented a new method of dodging the Fire Kingdom's missiles. This was the barrel roll. Using this technique, he caused Fire Kingdom Missiles to miss him by becoming harder to hit and less predictable. (He later received many decorations for this.)

Volt ended up loving his job as a pilot, and remained in the Air Air Force even after the war ended, in 1963, when the next Fire King, King Scarface Ablaze, demanded immediate ceasefire and a truce.

Volt continued as a pilot until 1970, when he returned back to the Corps of Engineers for the next five years, until he finally retired from the military, hopefully for good. He was considered a war hero.

Under Colonial Antarctica
His military knowledge, both in the Corps and in the Air Force, helped him finish his halted studies on engineering. Bored with water and air, he turned back to what he enjoyed as an adolescent: paving roads and wiring cities. He rose quickly in the ranks of transport engineers, and usually turned down extreme projects (like building bridges) in favor of simply keeping the roads working. This humility (a family trait later to be seen in Hat Pop) got him constantly promoted.

Twenty years passed and the government changed again, in 1990. Liberal ideologies, which deemed kings and law based in the king's interpretation, etc., "obsolete", began to take hold. Volt was strongly against this, though, favoring the kings, kingdoms, and old ways of life. After all, it was all he knew. They demanded change as the penguins cast off their old robes and amulets in exchange for greater technology. (In retrospect, they should have kept the elemental bending abilities, but that's liberals for you: always thinking short-term!)

The Four Kingdoms' response to the collapse of their own realms was to merge their countries into a new continental order, stronger and less free than their own. Volt's connections and his extreme age was well-known in King Greg's court. His engineering projects had come a long way, and he pretty much had jurisdiction over the Air Kingdom's roads by the time it was all said and done.

Who better to lead Colonial Antarctica into the future than a die-hard monarchist with over seventy years of experience? King Greg could think of no other outside of Volt. He was appointed as Advisor for the Royal Department of Transportation.

His job was uneventful until the mid-1990s. a puffle came before the King one day, claiming to be a mayor of a city many thousands strong. Backed by his city, the puffle was sent to the king for royal assent for a new highway project to further connect his city to the rest of the rapidly modernizing Colonial Antarctica. The king was not impressed because this was a puffle talking to him. However, he did win over Volt with his elegance and charisma.

Volt managed to convince the specist king to let a highway be run through his village. Since he had already been granted funds for a large highway, it didn't take anything more than consent of the king to direct it towards the village and then to its original path. That is why Highway One has an odd C-shape in an otherwise abandoned meaningless part of his route.

Betrayal and Mecha Baron
As 1998 began to draw to a close, unrest began growing amongst the Colonials, demanding, again, change in the government. A monarchy wasn't the idea they had in mind last time, and they wanted vengeance.

War broke out as the nation split itself into two factions. There were the Loyalists, who supported the King, and the Revolutionaries, who wanted a complete change in government, again.

Ideologically, Volt was in every way a Loyalist. He supported the king from day one, but began to realize who was going to win. He abandoned King Greg (mainly to save his own rear from the King's fate) and joined the Revolutionaries, not because he supported them, but because he knew they would win. To make a long story short, they did. He didn't do much of anything for them, because he hated them.

Refusing to fire on people he agreed with, he suggested that he be assigned to create weapons. Renowned as the inventor of the barrel roll, the Revolutionaries were delighted to have his brilliant mind making things for them.

The new government came to pass, and Volt was correct in predicting that he'd have huge opportunities. However, he wasn't given these, because he was always passed up for younger, less stubborn hopefuls. Now a centenarian and still wanting work, the ancient Volt travelled to Dorkugal, whose economy focused less on age and more on who could make the most money in its cut-throat world.

In Dorkugal, he founded his own business, Volt Public Works- a road and electrification service -which wasn't too successful in the covered skyscrapers of Dorkugal, but he still made a minimal profit. He happened to come across an ambitious puffle named Harold Mayor, who he was astonished to recognize as the puffle he aided in the days of the King. Volt had not seen Harold since his days as mayor.

Thinking he was still technically "owned" by Sattur8 (he really just rubberstamped everything as power of attorney), Volt contacted Sattur8 to forward a message to him. Sattur8 replied and said that Harold was his own legal person, and that he should take it up with him. Still a bit old-fashioned, Volt insisted that Sattur8 deliver the message.

In July of 2002, Sattur8, Harold Mayor, and James Volt agreed to merge their companies, "Mayor Mayor and Fans" and "Volt Public Works", into one company: "Mayor Operations and Road Oversight Network". In hindsight, that was a dumb name.

When Harold decided to stop the Black Market, old Volt was immediately in on it.

He now assists, mainly by advice and weaponry, in the Mecha Goons.

Involvement
Volt isn't as young as he used to be, to say the least, but he still gets around, thanks to a souped-up power chair (top speed: 60 mph) and a "Swiss Army cane" (contains over 100 extensions and counting). He doesn't want to stop working, but all that age has taken a toll on him. As the years of administration in the Mecha Goons wore on, Volt began to become more senile, passing 100 in 2010.

Weakening in body quite fast, old Volt nonetheless perseveres, always following Harold around and doing his best to aid the puffle. Being a war hero, genius, and public servant for most of his life, Volt always has something to say or help.

His age has caused a few loose screws, though, and Volt, in his nineties, began screaming and repeating himself as his age finally caught up to him. He also struggles with anger issues and is a rather irritable penguin, though less so when around friends. Nowadays, he's limited only to four activities: working in the Mecha Goons, working on an engineering project, being with his descendants (including his great-granddaughter, Hat Pop), or napping (give him a break, he's old!).

His obsession with barrel rolls never ended, though. It being his first invention, he sees barrel rolls as the answer to all things in aviation. Therefore, he's never hesitant to refer Harold (or any other pilot) to his greatest achievement: "DO A BARREL ROLL!" .

Mecha Goons
In the Mecha Goons, Volt is a master craftsman, producing handy gadgets that the organization uses in their never-ending fight against organized crime. Since Volt can't always work on transport engineering projects (his favorite), he builds machinery in his spare time. Indeed, Volt's cane contains an arc welder, a blowtorch, and a nail gun, amongst other instruments. One of the rooms in Phi Manor has been refitted to serve as a workshop of sorts, with all sorts of extra tools for building being stored on racks, shelves, and drawers.

Volt is passionate about his work, and often spends several hours a day working on a project, screaming in Unicode at anyone who dares disturb him (unless it's Harold). Some of the prototype weapons he builds are eventually redesigned as military weapons and sold to various militias around the continent. Others are reserved for Mecha Goon use only.

Transport Engineering
Volt Public Works, now a subsidiary of Baron-Volt Industries, remains to this day a road pavement and electrification service, though it now also maintains utilities such as gas and water, and is also involved in bigger projects, such as building bridges, tunnels, and dams. Instead of overseeing operations from a remote area, Volt prefers integrating himself into the project. He usually can be found at the construction site himself (that way he can get instant progress reports), and often works alongside his employees. Volt also designs many of the projects his company works on.

As a Mecha Goon

 * DO A BARREL ROLL!
 * DO ANOTHER BARREL ROLL!
 * BARREL ROLLS ARE THE KEY.
 * DID I MENTION THE BARREL ROLL? NO? DO IT!
 * TRY A BARREL ROLL!
 * KNOCK IT OFF, GIL!
 * WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA, GIL?!
 * YES, MY CRAWLY ROBOTIC WAFFLE MINION! DISTRACT GIL!
 * Volt is in his workshop with an arc welder. Harold scoots in.
 * Harold: What'cha doin'?
 * Volt: Working on my cane. By the way, isn't that a little girly for you?
 * Harold: What do you mean, working on your cane?
 * Volt: Like it? (brandishes cane at Harold) It's like a Swiss Army Knife! I put in over 100 extensions. (begins to open up the various extensions) There's a flamethrower, a blowtorch, an electrolaser, an arc welder, a rivet gun, a nail gun....
 * Harold: O__O
 * Volt: ...a bleach sprayer - for my suit - a tennis ball cannon, a trout for slapping idiots, a mullet for slapping really big idiots, and an orca just in case. I hope I never have to use it. (smiles innocently)
 * Harold: How did you stuff an orca in a cane?
 * Volt: I dunno, it just works.

In transport engineering

 * USE ASPHALT WISELY!
 * (to worker oblivious to his surroundings) INCOMING STEAMROLLER FROM THE REAR!
 * (in regards to a road) IT'S BUMPY... TOO BUMPY...
 * (seeing an unkept road full of potholes) THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!
 * GO FOR THE BULLDOZER!
 * GO FOR THE PAVER!
 * TRY GRAVEL!
 * TRY SALT!
 * USE THE SNOWPLOUGH!
 * Volt is examining a newly-paved road. He frowns.
 * Volt: You call this smooth? (begins screaming at the nearest worker) UNACCEPTABLE!! USE! MORE! SNOWPLOUGH!
 * Construction Worker: Y-yes sir! (runs off)


 * Volt is shooting rivets from his cane. Another worker passes by and notices how old Volt is.
 * Worker: Hey, aren't you a little old to be building a suspension bridge?
 * Volt: (turns around) Why yes, yes I am.
 * Worker: ...well, it's good to see senior citizens taking an interest in living an active life!
 * Volt (indignantly): I'm the CEO, noob. Now walk off before I fire you.

Trivia

 * Volt is a double parody of Peppy Hare, from Star Fox, and Captain Vul of Kirby.
 * Volt has an incessant habit of tinkering with things (which is why he took up engineering in the first place). Many of his personal devices have been altered in some way. For example, his player card has been modified to become an extension inside his Swiss Army cane.
 * Volt REALLY hates Gil.