Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Should we visit Dad this weekend, do you think?” Ingo mused, easily able to be heard over the water pouring into the sink and the clink of dishes. He scrubbed harder at the pokemon dish he was washing, trying to detach a bit of meat from the metal. Archeops was a messy eater.

“I think we will have the time,” replied Emmet, who was holding a dishrag and drying everything Ingo handed him. Reaching up to put a drinking glass back in the cabinet, he glanced at the calendar on their wall. “Yup yup, this weekend is free. Doctor’s appointment is next weekend.”

“Perfect, we can take the train to Opelucid City on Saturday morning, then.”

“One day until then.”

“Yes, busy schedule at the subway tomorrow. It’s Doubles Line day, if I’m correct?”

Emmet looked excited as he worked on sorting the silverware being passed his way. “It is Doubles Line day. Finally! I am Emmet. I have felt full of energy all week. I need some good double battles to get it out of my system!”

“What, sitting through Singles Line day was too boring for you?” Ingo teased. 

“This week, yes,” replied Emmet emphatically. “Some days at work having aligned tracks is verrry hard.”

“Some days, I agree with you.”

They finished their chore for the night, making small talk the whole time. Flicking the light off in the kitchen, they navigated the living room full of sleepy pokemon using the light of the distant bathroom to not trip over Haxorus’s tail or Archeops’s neck. But the twins made it to said bathroom with no issues, having done the same thing countless nights before, doubtless to do it for countless nights to come.

After a moment spent brushing teeth, they headed to their bedroom, finding Eelektross curled on the bed around Chandelure. Vanilluxe was sleeping in the corner of the room, providing a nice chill.

“Your turn to wake them up,” mumbled Emmet, already sleepy, head nodding onto Ingo’s shoulder.

“Your cab is drooling on me,” Ingo said, raising an eyebrow when all he got was a groan and reaching out to move the pokemon hogging the entire bed. Even if there was grumbling at first, soon enough the two were cuddled up with their trainers, tucked in and happy.

Emmet was already asleep. “Goodnight, Emmet,” said Ingo into the silent darkness before he closed his eyes, brother’s breathing lulling him to sleep as it had countless times before.

They had an early shift, after all.

▲▽

Ingo and Emmet were the Subway Masters of the Unova Subway System, and, more famously, the Battle Subway.

They were also a set of conjoined twins.

Often they would joke about how it was lucky that they shared interests and goals; in any other situation, deciding what to do would have been complicated. But no, they both loved trains and battling and the combination of the two.

The twins shared one set of legs. Everything from their hips down was singular, but at the bottom of their ribcages, their torso split into two separate chests, pairs of arms, and heads. On the right was Emmet and on the left was Ingo.

As children, their parents had been far too worried about the prospect of losing one or both of them to even consider trying to separate them. Their happy little boys were getting along fine and seemed strong; why put them through a risky surgery? Considering legs and all the necessary things associated with them didn’t grow on trees, the survival of both children hadn’t been probable. The fact that they also shared certain organs complicated matters further.

Even once their parents tragically passed and they were adopted by Drayden, no one even thought of putting them through that. And then as adults, even when they were told there were surgeries that would ensure both their survival with one leg each, they turned them down. 

Ingo and Emmet were perfectly happy to remain Ingo And Emmet.

And so they did. They succeeded in their pokemon training journey and their jobs, made friends, and were beloved by their city. Life was not always easy for them, but despite difficulties that only they faced, they had a good life.

Of course, some mornings that felt debatable when the alarm clock began to blare before the sun had done more than peek above the horizon.

Emmet’s nose wrinkled. “Ingoooooo you can reach better than I can,” he moaned. “Please stop the beeping.”

Finally Ingo’s hand found the switch on the clock, and there was a moment of silence before the muffled noises of their teams waking up began to sound from the living room.

“No rest for weary conductors,” Ingo said, unable to keep his eyes from squinting happily despite the awakening. The two of them moved to sit up in unison, stretching in a practiced way so no one got smacked in the face. Eelektross was carefully nibbling on Emmet’s right shoulder, steadily soaking his pajama top with spit.

“We are moving,” Emmet said and pushed him away gently. “Please stop trying to eat your trainer.”

“Ssssssssss,” was the reply, and the eel, faster at waking up than either of the humans, undulated out the door.

Breakfast always was the longest part of the morning, but, as usual, Emmet and Ingo tag teamed. Emmet portioned out the pokemon food and Ingo held the bowls, and then when that was done they both handed them out to their teams. By that time, their bagels had finished toasting and they were able to eat their own food.

“White pants today, since I will be conducting double battles,” said Emmet triumphantly, striding back into the bedroom while Ingo wiped his hands on a napkin idly. As he began getting dressed, Ingo waited patiently so their arms wouldn’t get tangled as they tried to put on shirts at the same time. “Do you have something to read or listen to?”

“Yes, I have the next episode in the train podcast to listen to, and a mobile game to play,” Ingo replied, picking up his shirt once it was his turn. “I’ll need to find a new podcast soon, I’m almost caught up with this one.”

“If you find anything good, share it.”

“Of course.”

After they finished their routine and grabbed their things, the twins recalled all their pokemon before heading out to walk to Gear Station. Even though it was so early, it was already nearly uncomfortably warm. Such was the Unovan summer.

“Hot,” remarked Emmet, reaching up to steal his brother’s hat and fan himself with it.

“Indeed,” said Ingo, not even fazed a little as he deftly snatched his hat back. Their stride faltered for a single moment as Emmet scowled at him, but the expression turned into a smirk soon enough as they continued to stride down the street.

“Good morning, Bosses!” called Cloud when they first arrived at the station with a quick wave. “Doubles today!”

They shouted a hello in unison, each smiling in their natural ways. “Verrry happy for that!” Emmet tacked onto his greeting.

“I bet! I’ll see you boys later, I’m running the Transit Lines this morning! I think Cameron brought doughnuts in the break room though, if you’re interested.”

Ingo’s eyes lit up more than they usually did. “Thank you, Cloud! We appreciate the PSA!”

As they headed in that direction, Emmet poked Ingo’s cheek from where he had his arm wrapped around his twin’s shoulders. “Of course the idea of a doughnut gets you excited.”

“I do like my sweets,” the man on the left admitted, not even bothering to argue.

“You love them.”

“Perhaps.”

They stopped talking once they opened the door and yes, there indeed was a box of doughnuts from a local bakery on the table.

“Sirs!” That was Cameron, snapping to a salute, accidentally smudging the doughnut still in his hand onto the (luckily plastic) brim of his hat. Emmet snorted, and Ingo could not keep the faint laughter out of his voice as he spoke.

“Cameron, it’s been a couple months. You do not need to do this every time you see us.”

“Yes, please do not. It’s verrry….” Emmet struggled to find the word.

“Stiff?”

“Something like that.”

Cameron flushed, using both hands to tug his hat over his eyes. Reaching over, Emmet tapped the brim. “Do not be embarrassed! It is just all of us here.”

Furze patted the newbie on the back, grinning. “You should have seen me when I first got here, buddy.”

“They could hardly stand still,” Emmet confirmed.

“I will get it, sirs,” Cameron said, coming out of hiding and fixing his hat with an anxious smile.

“Attaboy,” drawled Jackie from where they were balancing effortlessly on the back legs of a chair. “If Furze got it then so will you.”

“Hey, you still scare passengers to this day,” said Furze, though he sounded fond. “I learned how to perform safety checks properly and maintain my energy while not endangering myself or anyone else!”

“Yeah yeah.” Jackie was laughing too.

While Emmet was content to just listen in, smiling fondly, Ingo wanted his doughnut. So he went to fetch it; there was a chocolate one with sprinkles calling his name. 

Now after agreeing on who would do the walking for the day, the two did not tend to swap who was in charge without some verbal affirmation. But sometimes, executive decisions were made, particularly when food was involved.

“Ghk! Ingo!” Their shared body faltered for a moment as Emmet immediately let Ingo pilot them to the table. “Ask! We have had enough time together to agree on this by now! It is a rule. Follow the rules and safe driving.” 

This was obviously a conversation they’d had many a time.

Ever polite, Ingo waited until he’d swallowed his first bite before replying. “We cannot conduct ourselves in a safe manner if our engine is empty either.”

“We had… No. Nope, it is too early to argue.” So Emmet just flapped a hand in his brother’s face and crossed his arms.

“Thank you. Let me eat in peace.”

“So Isadore and I will be taking the Multi Lines today. We’re running low on battle tokens, by the way,” Ramses informed them over his daily cup of coffee.

“Right, we’ll make sure we put in an order for more after lunch,” replied Ingo.

“Do you have enough to get through today?” asked Emmet.

“We should be fine, we only use a few a day. And we got several back yesterday on Multi Line day, but you know how it is. People like to keep them as souvenirs.”

“I am Emmet. We should put chips in them.” Emmet’s already flat tone grew even flatter.

The Battle Subway ran on a bit of an ‘I-owe-you’ system since the Subway Masters could only be in one place at a time. Trainers who beat the required number of subway workers to get to a Subway Master who was absent that day would get a battle token, giving them a chance to cash in and fight against Ingo, Emmet, or both in order to continue their run. The twins fought their token challengers first thing every morning, and the trainers were supposed to return their tokens afterwards.

“That is an idea,” sighed Ingo.

“Everyone finish up your snacks and let’s get going,” said Isadore in his typical clipped speech once he was sure no one else was going to say anything. “Opening time in ten.”

“Alright. We’ll see you all later. Best of luck in your matches today!” said Ingo. And they all headed out, Emmet turning to give a silly two-fingered salute as they headed to their own office.

“Do you feel we need the back brace today?” Ingo mused. “Or are your tracks feeling in good repair today?”

Emmet hummed, tapping his chin, before shaking his head. “I am fine! I do not think we need it today, as long as you’re okay.”

“I feel the same. Between challengers we can always do some stretches.”

“Sounds good, yup yup!”

Unfolding the coats they had brought with them, they held up the garments. Emmet’s coat was white and Ingo’s was black, but beyond that each coat possessed a zipper on the inner edge where the fabric of each would interfere with the other. Instead of unwieldy fabric bunching between their torsos, or wrinkling together where it was unable to flare out in the back, the coats zipped together to form one garment. No extra fabric, no interference, no problem.

And Emmet could wash his white clothes in peace without having to deal with his brother’s dark wardrobe. 

Each of the men threaded their arms through the sleeves, then with a bit of teamwork, pulled the edge of the coat between them and zipped it together. After years of practice, they’d learned it was easiest like that. (Not, unsurprisingly, like how Emmet had wanted them to learn to fluidly swoop the already-connected coat onto their arms. Funny how that worked.)

“Subway Masters Ingo and Emmet, ready for the day,” Emmet crowed, beaming.

“Well. Subway Master Emmet will be doing the battling. Subway Master Ingo will be traveling the tracks of his podcast,” Ingo teased as they pushed open the door and went to catch their train.

“Yes! It is my turn.”

▲▽

The morning passed by in exactly the sort of way Emmet liked best. His token challengers had been skilled, but not strong enough to beat him, not a one. The man had to actively stop himself from puffing out his chest in pride and risking looking like Archeops when the reptilian bird was argumentative.

As he waited for his first non-token fighter of the day, he glanced at Ingo, headphones in, playing some inane game about matching gems. As if his twin felt that eyes were on him, he squinted happily. 

“You are certainly on your game today, from what I saw.”

“I am Emmet. I am feeling verrry good about my battles today.”

“Turning your restless energy from this week into fuel.”

“Yup yup! That is how you have to do it!” Emmet wanted to hop in place, but he also did not want to interrupt his brother’s game, so he channeled the desire into flapping his hands instead. “Turn potential energy into kinetic.”

“If anyone’s good at that, it’s you.”

“Yes,” he said, and he sounded very proud. “... Would you like to take bets on how long it will take before the next challenger shows up? The winner gets to choose dinner.”

“Tempting,” Ingo said, then after thinking for a moment, “so tempting that I accept.”

“Good!”

Ingo bet that it would take an hour for the next challenger to show up while Emmet shook his head and insisted that it would only be thirty-six minutes. 

Which is why when they entered the break room in Gear Station for the second time that day for lunch, Emmet was happily discussing his ideas for dinner. (The challenger had shown up forty-two minutes after the bet was made.)

“But I think I will have to go with spaghetti,” Emmet said with a sense of finality. “It is one of my favorites.”

“Spaghetti works,” Ingo agreed, nodding while he fetched the lunches from the fridge. Passing Emmet his ham and cheese sandwich, he opened his own peanut butter and jelly while his twin steered them to a seat. 

“Verrry glad it's lunch. All the talk of food made me hungry.”

“Likewise.”

Since they were alone in the room at the present moment, Emmet asked Ingo about what he'd learned from the latest episode of his train podcast, and was content to let him discuss at length whatever bits of engineering had been the topics of the day. There was a soft smile on his face even as he ate his sandwich, elbows resting on the table. It took Ingo a solid thirty seconds to notice when Emmet held out the snack size bag of potato chips for him to take some.

“Oh! Thank you,” he said. “I trust I wasn't boring you.”

“Nope! Not at all! I am Emmet, and I enjoy listening to my brother. Verrry interesting specifics too, I'll definitely remember most of it. Actually…”

And now he was off, having finished his food, comparing what Ingo had learned with other information he knew. An extremely technical discussion followed, and was only shelved while the second half of the day running the Doubles Line occurred. Their walk home and shower and subsequent spaghetti making were all done against a background of technical train jargon.

Once the water was boiling, Ingo handed Emmet a wooden spoon and took up the box of spaghetti himself. While they each had two arms, the set in the middle (which were frustratingly their dominant arms) tended to get a little cramped. The limited range of motion led to learning to coordinate; Emmet would do half the task with his right hand, and Ingo could do the other half with his left. 

This was the method they employed when putting the pasta into the pot and stirring it so none draped over the sides.

“No it is not for you,” Emmet said firmly, cutting through the train talk to look down at Archeops, who was peeping softly by his feet in an effort to look cute. “You do not eat noodles.”

“Let him eat noodles, Emmet,” said Ingo, laughing. “He knows what he wants!”

“I refuse to deal with the fallout. Also I want to eat this spaghetti. It is for me. Us.”

“Thank you, for remembering that I, your conjoined twin, exist and would like some dinner as well.”

“Oh fuck off you know what I meant.”

“Language, Emmet.”

Together they strained their pasta, then each fixed it up as they preferred. Heading to the living room, they opted to watch something while they ate. Their teams, having eaten beforehand, crowded in to spend time with their trainers. Galvantula decided that it was their turn on the lap tonight, closing their eyes and chittering happily. Ingo balanced his plate of spaghetti on the spider’s big fuzzy butt.

As their relaxing evening wore on, Ingo began to nod off until he was snoring, ironically like a freight train, head tilted back onto the pillows. Once the video they’d had on the TV finished, Emmet turned off the TV and looked over at his sleeping twin with fondness in his eyes. After shooing away Archeops who was trying to shove his head into Ingo’s mouth, presumably looking for leftover spaghetti, he slipped his arm around Ingo’s shoulders and gathered him close.

Because it was comfortable, and because they both enjoyed the contact, it was common for Ingo and Emmet to work and go about their day with their inner arms draped over each others’ shoulders. It helped with posture as well. Now, with Ingo asleep, it was a one-sided gesture, but Emmet supported his twin and held him close as he carried the plates to the kitchen and left them in the sink. He brushed his teeth like that too, and couldn’t bear to wake Ingo to brush his.

One night will not kill him.

Then it was time to sleep once more. Tomorrow did not contain work, but it was planned to be busy anyways; they had to get up and pack for their weekend trip to their father’s house. Tucked into bed, Emmet lazily comprehended this, but was too tired to make any solid plans. Instead, he knocked his head gently against the sleeping Ingo’s, silently wishing a goodnight, and closed his own eyes.

Chapter Text

The rattle of the train under their feet was comforting as the twins took the dark green line out to Opelucid City. It was quiet, with only a few passengers, which was good considering it was a Transit train and not a Battle one.

It also ran aboveground for part of its route. Ingo and Emmet stood, holding onto the loops dangling from the ceiling with one hand each, watching the world go by. Their other hands they held tucked firmly behind their backs. Today they wore their back brace under their shirts, providing support where their torsos met and extending to their shared lower back. It was better to have it with them if they ended up needing it than to leave it at home.

Each of them also had a small rolling suitcase. Emmet’s was white and Ingo’s was black, predictably. The two men enjoyed their theming and refused to leave it only at work, much to the amusement of their family.

Indeed, Ingo was currently wearing a simple dark gray tee shirt, no flourishes or prints. Emmet sported a white button up covered with a repeating pattern of teeny joltiks. It was his version of an Alolan shirt. Both had been altered to fit them, actually by Elesa’s fashion team. She and her helpers tended to make all the clothes for the twins.

“Elesa is visiting Skyla this weekend, correct?” Ingo said absentmindedly. 

“Yup yup. That is why I did not bother to ask her if she wanted to visit Dad and Iris with us.”

“Ah fair. I hope she has a nice date.”

“I am sure it will be more than that.”

“... I would rather not travel that track of thought.”

“I will be so ready to tease her when she returns. I am Emmet, and I will be a pest.”

“I’ll help. We cannot let our honorary sister miss out on the authenticity of sibling life.”

Both men chuckled to each other. Being little shits to each other was textbook, no matter that all three of them measured in at six foot even. She’d find some way to get them back, they both knew it.

Their laughter drew the attention of several people on the train. Most just smiled when they noticed who it was, amused to see their Subway Masters taking time off. It was always a nice surprise to see them outside their natural habitat. Well, sort of, in this case. They were still on a train.

But, since this was a Transit train and not a Battle train, not everyone knew about Emmet and Ingo aside from some vague knowledge that they were the famous Subway Masters. Those foreigners, just onboard to traverse the region, more often than not tended to stare.

Emmet and Ingo were twenty-eight. And they were celebrities. Almost all of the time, they were wholly unbothered by the looks they got. Yes, they knew they looked extremely different. Yes, they knew their mannerisms were different as well. Some of that was the autism, and some of that was simply from living their connected lives.

Being considered ‘weird’ was never something that affected them in their adult lives. They were proud of it, actually, content to be exactly who they were. And almost everyone loved and respected that about them! It was a good gig.

There had been a few times over the years where a passenger or other stranger’s comments had made one or both of them feel upset or uncomfortable, but they had expected that too. The world was far from perfect. So they had a plan in place for if anything ever got bad enough that they needed to take a moment to decompress.

Random travelers goggling at them as they headed on a vacation was nowhere near enough to warrant that.

Indeed, Emmet bent at his waist to look past his brother’s torso and gave the people a brilliant smile and a wave. One of them, looking more stunned than anything else, waved back.

Eventually they pulled into their station, grabbing their suitcase handles in unison and striding out of the traincar. Not even needing to follow the signs, knowing each station by heart, they wound their way back up above ground, out the doors, and saw the familiar form of–

“Dad!” they shouted together, breaking into a jog and heading towards the imposing figure of Drayden the Dragon Tamer. Behind his beard, the man beamed, opening his arms.

“Boys! It’s wonderful to see you again, get over here.” His arms were long enough to fit around them both in one careful but still crushing hug. Their outer arms did not quite reach all the way around his broad back, but they still squeezed back with all they had. Eventually, Drayden set them back on their feet. “How have you both been? How’s the subway?”

“Where’s my hug?” came an affronted cry from below eye level.

Emmet grinned. “Brother, did you hear something?”

Ingo shook his head. “Must have been the wind.”

“You two are terrible!” The twelve-year-old Unovan champion punched them in the thigh, and though there was more strength in the strike than they expected, the twins made a show of dramatically hopping backwards on one leg. 

“We’re hit, Ingo!” Emmet cried, back of his hand pressed to his forehead. “Call an ambulance!”

“I think it’s too late, brother,” lamented Ingo, hands clasped on his chest.

“You are DORKS,” said Iris firmly as she interrupted their skit to hug their waist, but there was a giggle in her words. They chuckled along, then bent and worked together to scoop her up, Ingo holding her legs and Emmet her torso. The smiling brother bent and blew a raspberry on her cheek.

“How’s the best sister?”

“Embarrassed! You two are embarrassing!!”

“Apologies, Miss Iris,” said Ingo with a falsely grave air. “It is our sworn duty as older siblings.”

They set her down again, Emmet flicking one of her large pigtails once he did. The twins were tragically unable to offer piggyback rides; if one of them carried her the uneven weight could hurt them badly, and she was too small to fit across both of their backs. 

The four of them chattered all the way back to the house, Emmet and Ingo finally answering Drayden’s question that had been left hanging.

“The subway is running verrry smoothly, yup yup! No issues to report!”

“Even if there were, I doubt I’d be able to understand all the specifics,” Drayden said with another smile. “Your knowledge on the topic outpaces my own by a longshot.”

“Like a togekiss outpacing a butterfree!” crowed Iris, obviously proud of her brothers.

“If this is a ploy to keep us from rambling about trains you are too late,” said Emmet.

“Yes, we headed down those rails yesterday and spoke about technical matters until dinner time,” said a very satisfied Ingo. “It was wonderful.”

“Yes, so we should be good for the weekend.”

Drayden looked sheepish. “You know I love hearing about your passions. I just don’t have the mind for engineering.”

“That is alright. Not everyone does!”

“We certainly have things we’re not the best at.”

“Such as dancing. And creative writing.”

“I know that, I raised the both of you,” Drayden replied. They never had gotten the hang of dancing; far too complicated for their situation, unfortunately. 

Opelucid was a smaller city than Nimbasa, but it was still grand. Instead of glittering glass, many of the buildings found there were stone, built in several contrasting styles throughout the ages. Some structures were old, dark weathered lines tracing down the stone, hewn druddigon perched on the corners of the roof. Some were far newer; one research facility even had circuit board tracers carved into the silver rock it was constructed from. The skyscrapers also weren’t quite as tall as those of Nimbasa City (or taller yet, Castelia City).

Still, Opelucid was not a quiet place to live by any means. The streets were loud as the four made their way back to Drayden’s home near the heart of the city. It was imposing, with its carved dragon near the end of the driveway, but to Ingo and Emmet, it had been their home for years.

There were several houses in the area, each with more of a yard than afforded to most in a city. Running a gym led to the man being able to have a house instead of an apartment; the job paid well, especially after all the years he’d done it. 

“I still do not know if this sculpture is closer to Reshiram or Zekrom,” Emmet mused as they passed it.

“It’s the original dragon, you know that,” Iris said, passing it without a glance.

“Yes, but as we grew up we would enjoy debating which it looked like more,” said Ingo. “Until we realized that honestly, it was too difficult to tell.”

“Yup yup,” Emmet confirmed. “To this day we don’t know who was right as kids.”

Iris pushed open the heavy door at her insistence, leading the way inside. “Haxorus, I’m hooooome!” she called, heading into the living room. The TV was on, the twins noticed as they followed her.

“A woman reports that her Lillipup was attacked in her home last night. Unfortunately, it did not survive. The local woman says she lives alone and that she found her pokemon ‘torn to pieces’–”

“Thought I told you to turn the TV off before I left,” said Drayden, raising an eyebrow at his daughter. Iris looked up at him from where she’d flopped on her Haxorus, who had been sleeping on the couch.

“I forgot,” she giggled from atop the sleepy mass of scales.

“Got it,” said Ingo, reaching for the remote and turning the news channel off swiftly. 

“Don’t waste the power,” Emmet added, poking her gently.

“Okay okay! Sheesh. Anyways can we all watch a movie tonight?”

“Do you mean here, or going out to a theater?” Drayden asked calmly. “Either option is alright with me.”

“Hmmm…” Iris wrinkled her nose. “... Here. I don’t know anything that’s playing right now. And here I can wear my pajamas. And make the spicy popcorn I love. And pick from our whole movie collection.” She paused for a moment. “Oh, and the couch is more comfy for Ingo and Emmet than a movie theater seat.”

“Thanks for thinking of us,” said Emmet fondly. “I will steal some of your spicy popcorn for your kindness, yup.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” said Ingo, raising his hands in a placating gesture with a cat smile on his face in response to Iris’s outraged expression.

“You jerk!” she said, tugging at Emmet’s shirt over the back of the couch. “That’s the last time I think about your feelings!” Then she rounded on Ingo. “... Thank you for coming Ingo, you’re a delight.”

“Sadly, we’re a set.”

“Yup yup! Buy one, get one free!”

“Who’d I buy and who was free?”

“I will never understand you kids,” Drayden said with a sigh.

“Not a kid,” said Emmet at the same time Ingo said “we’re no longer children, Dad.”

“You were fifteen what, two years ago, correct?” replied Drayden, beard twitching as he smiled but tried not to show it. 

“Verrrry rude!”

“I believe you might want to see a doctor about your derailed memory,” said Ingo, poker face as good as always.

“OoooOOOOH he gotcha old man!” said Iris, peeking over the back of the couch.

“Alright alright,” Drayden said, crossing his arms. “What do you want to do until family movie night, then?”

“Can we get lunch, perhaps? Emmet and I admittedly forgot to refuel this morning,” Ingo said, looking a bit sheepish.

“Our pokemon unpacked our suitcases in the middle of the night,” Emmet said, annoyance clear on his face.

“They got a bit… Excited at the prospect of a trip, and did not know that their actions would delay our departure.”

“Bastards,” Emmet muttered, and Ingo gave him a stink eye.

“Speaking of, can we let them out?”

“Oh of course,” Drayden said. “The dragons are either asleep or out back, they all know the way.”

The twins then released their veritable menagerie, which all scattered to their favorite areas of the large house. Archeops hopped up to cling to Emmet and give his hair a nibble before flapping off to bug Flygon, and Vanilluxe bonked Ingo’s forehead fondly, leaving a wet spot and floating towards the kitchen.

After agreeing on a new burger place for lunch, they headed out again. This time, however, the family took Drayden’s car. No one verbalized it, but Drayden knew his sons. They’d walked to Gear Station, and then walked from Talon Street Station to Drayden’s place. From there, they hadn’t sat down at the house before heading out again. The man knew they wouldn’t ask for a break unless they were really hurting, so he decided to make things easy for them.

If they asked, he’d play the Old Man Card and say he himself wanted a break. His sons were stubborn and would say they were fine otherwise.

“I hear this place has bouffalant burgers,” Iris said, looking out the window as they passed by all the buildings. “I really want to try one.”

“Bouffalant are banned from the Battle Subway,” said both twins in unison, looking grim.

“Wait what? Really? Why?”

“They are known to charge trains,” Emmet explained.

“We are covering our cabooses, so to speak, even if our subway is not their open-plain home territory,” Ingo added.

“Fair enough. No legendaries or gods of any kind. Oh, and no bouffalant,” said Iris, trying to put on a voice to mimic Ingo but failing just about instantly. “But hey now you can eat one. Get revenge for all those trains.”

“Revenge will be sweet,” Emmet declared.

“Or rather, savory.”

“Oh ha ha,” Emmet gave his twin a withering look.

“Hey you know how they say revenge is sweet and a dish best served cold? Does that mean it’s ice cream?” pondered Iris.

“Oh, someone is out here asking the real questions,” Emmet said, laughing.

“I swear, the longer you all are apart, the more you joke around when you finally see each other,” Drayden insisted, shaking his head as he parallel parked on the street with ease. “You speak a language unknown to me, that’s for sure. I can wrestle a dragon, but for the life of me I cannot wrestle meanings from your fake words.”

“Of course I gotta meme on my brothers,” Iris said, elbowing them in the backseat. “They’re so much older than me I gotta be on the top of my game.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” Ingo assured her as they all exited the car and headed into the restaurant. It didn’t take them long to find a seat; the place wasn’t very full since it was just lunch time. After deliberating for a bit, they all put in their orders.

Watching his three kids debate the merits of each burger, Drayden felt his heart grow soft again. He loved them all like his own, even if none of them were his biological children. Ingo and Emmet were his biological nephews, but ever since their parents had died, they’d become his sons instead.

When Drayden had adopted his nephews, he had had an idea that being their caretaker wouldn’t be easy all the time. It wasn’t their fault; they were actually extremely agreeable kids. They’d gotten into trouble, of course, as any children would, but raising them, Ingo and Emmet, had been surprisingly easy.

They hadn’t been mad at Drayden when he adopted them, hadn’t lashed out like some books had warned him they might after the loss of their parents. No, they’d taken comfort in his presence, the uncle they’d so enjoyed visiting when they were younger.

However, they were still disabled. Drayden wasn’t one hundred percent sure he would describe them as such, but he didn’t exactly have any other descriptors. He also knew it was his own lack of experience that led to his hesitance to refer to them as such. He’d learned, over time, but when they were children he had been very careful with his wording, lest they misunderstand and think Drayden considered one of them to be an issue.

They needed medical monitoring quite often, just in case some part of their unique anatomy began to fail. All of their doctors had been fairly sure they'd be just fine; they were remarkably even, for lack of a better word. Their anatomy was mirrored near perfectly, aside from a few internal structures. There were the possibilities of more surgeries in their future, but up to the time Drayden adopted them, the one operation they’d had at days old to fix their mess of a digestive system had been enough.

As they’d grown, for the most part they’d been as healthy as any other kids their age, and for that Drayden was happy. Aside from one scary instance that had led to the removal of their one-and-a-half appendixes, it had all been simple colds and flus and pokepox. 

If Drayden was honest, the most difficult part about being the father of Ingo and Emmet was the reactions of strangers to the little twins. The Dragon Master was so, so proud of who they had grown up to be, and how they now commanded respect wherever they went, but they hadn’t always. As children they were constantly subject to double-takes, to adults asking Drayden if he planned on separating them even with the boys standing right next to him. It made Drayden angry, honestly angry, that these people, some even older than himself, would ask such demeaning questions about a child where they could hear.

He wanted to take those people, in particular the ones who asked about surgery, and shake them by the shoulders, voice thunderous and menacing. “Can’t you see that might kill one of them?” is what he wanted to shout. “Just look at them! They are fine the way they are!”

But if he did that, he would at the very least get in trouble, if not arrested. And beyond that, it would scare his children.

So he always held his tongue.

Emmet and Ingo’s peers were much better; most other children thought they were extremely cool, much to both little boys’ delight. Drayden didn’t have the heart to tell them at the time that their later schooling would probably be more difficult. He was glad they had it easy for now.

When he’d adopted Iris, it hadn’t been due to anyone he knew passing away. No, she’d been an orphan from another region sent to Unova in hopes of finding a family. The twins had just turned eighteen when the orphanage had set up a visit to the Opelucid City Gym.

Drayden had decided to adopt the three year old Iris that day, finally admitting to himself that he missed having children around the house. She’d been enamored with his hydreigon, and that was enough to melt his heart.

The twins had lamented they weren’t closer to her in age, so they wouldn’t get to see her grow up. Still, their commendable efforts to visit whenever they could led to a strong bond nonetheless. She was absolutely over the moon about having big brothers, and she ended up extremely protective of them.

They found it hilarious; at this point, Ingo and Emmet were young adults, used to the stares and comments and unkind words they sometimes got. Yet the tiny child who still clung to their legs would shout down any adult who asked an invasive question before the twins could say a word. Even if they could handle themselves, the twins appreciated it. Having family, even tiny family, who would look into the eyes of anyone who dared insult them and tell them to get lost was touching.

Looking over the table at everyone enjoying their food, Drayden was so grateful for his little family. He hadn’t expected to take to fatherhood so readily, but he was happy he had. 

“Alright. Movies,” Iris declared as their meal continued. She was grinning, a near-wild look in her eyes. “What are we gonna watch tonight?”

Emmet opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Iris beat him to it.

“And no train documentaries.”

“I was not going to say that,” said an indignant Emmet. “I was going to suggest the last How to Train your Noivern movie. I know you love that series, and it is my favorite of them.”

“I do not believe you,” Iris replied, poking him in the side.

There was then a small debate over the merits not only of various movies, but over the specific movies in the noivern series. Iris staunchly preferred the first one, even if she did like them all. Even after the entire long discussion, the family ended up going with Emmet’s initial suggestion. So what that the rest of the talk had been a waste of time!

That night, blankets were taken from beds and piled onto the couch and in front of the TV. Drayden preferred to lean back on the couch, while Iris convinced her brothers to sit on the ground and climbed into their shared lap with the popcorn bowl balanced on her legs. The twins wrapped their arms around her, occasionally grabbing some of the popcorn.

Some of the pokemon curled up on the blankets as well, like Eelektross and Galvantula and Excadrill. Bathed in the ever-changing lights from the TV, it was Ingo who fell asleep first, leaning on Iris and snoring. The little girl held very still so her older brother could sleep, and Emmet laughed quietly at her determination.

He didn’t laugh for very long, because soon he was passed out on Ingo, drooling onto his hair. They stayed like that until the end of the movie, when Drayden gently shook them awake. 

“Alright boys, wake up. You’re far too big for me to carry you to your room like I used to.”

“Hzzm,” was Emmet’s response, while Ingo yawned.

“Yeah you both squashed my hair,” said Iris, and indeed her pigtails looked a little sad.

“Apologies,” Ingo said, but it was obvious he was trying not to laugh.

“Don’t look so amused by that, Emmet drooled on your head.” Ingo’s hand flew up to feel the mess in his hair before shooting an affronted look at his brother, who shrugged.

“Time for a shower,” he sighed. 

“Goodnight Iris,” said Emmet cheerily. “Goodnight Dad! We will see you in the morning, yup yup.”

“Yes, love you both,” Ingo said, stretching and holding his hand up in a wave as Emmet took them in the direction of the bathroom.

Iris giggled, calling a goodnight and looking over at Drayden. He smiled behind his beard and shook his head.

“What are we going to do with them, hm?”

▲▽

The answer to that, they found out, was to visit the small museum that had just opened in Opelucid City. While the Nacrene Museum was a lot larger, it mainly focused on natural history and the history of Unova.

This new museum, however, focused on the bonds between humans and Unovan pokemon, and some info about battles.

“It has exhibits on domestication and stuff,” said Iris. “It's really cool!”

“If it's popular enough, it's planning on expanding to cover this sort of topic for more than just the Unova region,” said Drayden as they walked. 

“Aaaaand there’s something there I wanna show you,” added Iris, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Can you give us a hint?” 

“You'll love it!”

“... Verrry helpful.”

“Either way museums are wonderful,” Ingo continued. “There's always something interesting to see.”

“Most of the time,” Emmet added, obviously trying to diplomatically disagree with his brother.

“I'm just glad it's not a train museum,” Iris giggled. “You two would just decide to live there. Make a bed in one of the full scale train cars and pop out to scare random museum patrons!”

“Rearrange all the train sets at night. The night guards would think the place was haunted!” Emmet cackled, playing along.

“Our glowing eyes would sell it quite nicely,” Ingo agreed with a laugh. 

“Was that one ghost or two?” said Iris with mock sincerity, tapping her chin. “Ah nope, just one-point-five.”

And they all laughed, even Drayden. What did he do to deserve such ridiculous children?

“Oh you guys are wearing those shirts I bought for you!” noticed Iris suddenly, eyes bright. 

“We are!” Ingo replied.

“We wear them often. Yup, they’re great!”

Since the twins did spend so much time with their arms around each other, and because they tended to like fiddling with things, Iris had bought them a set of matching shirts (white for Emmet and black for Ingo, naturally) with small metal loops on their outer shoulders. She’d added small charms of their partners on each loop; Iris noted that now Emmet had a charm of a doubles line train and Ingo had the Gear Station logo.

“You added to them too.”

“Yes! They’re very fun. Wish we could wear them at work.”

“We would jingle constantly. It would be highly inconvenient, and wouldn’t work under our coats. Alas!” Ingo lamented, flicking the charms on Emmet’s shoulder.

“Too bad,” Iris laughed. “Stim shirts at work would probably help whichever of you is left bored on Singles or Doubles days.”

“It would,” Emmet confessed.

Their younger sister had gotten the idea when they’d shared stories of their childhood with her; Drayden had sewn patches of soft fabric on the shoulders of their shirts after they started classes at their new school and Ingo had gotten so nervous he’d thrown up. It had been a small thing to help soothe each other or ground them when they needed it.

“The fact that we kept accidentally tickling each other’s arms got verrry annoying sometimes,” Emmet had added at the time. So Iris had gone for something hopefully a little less ticklish.

“Additionally, it would look quite cool,” Ingo said. “We could be quite stylish.”

“Elesa also loves these shirts. She wants charms on her shirts too. For her it would be cosmetic, though. Rubbing your own shoulders is not very satisfying.”

“I’m not surprised.” Iris paused, then attempted it, looking more like she’d caught a sudden chill than anything. “Yeah nah. That’s not it.”

“We’re here,” Drayden said, gently cutting into the conversation. “Let’s go grab tickets.”

“Sounds good!”

A bit later, they were headed in the doors. There had been some back-and-forth about whether or not to charge Emmet and Ingo for two tickets or not (“two people” “yeah but only two feet”), with the poor university student behind the counter looking unsure how to proceed. Eventually the twins insisted on paying for two tickets; they wanted to support the museum, and it always felt weird when they were regarded as one person. A one-car train they were, but there was a conductor and an engineer running that car.

“What was it you wanted to show us?” Emmet immediately asked when they were inside.

Iris tapped her chin and looked up at Drayden. “Do you think I should show them now, so they won’t be distracted while we look at all the other stuff? Or wait ‘til the end for a big reveal?”

Drayden snorted. “They’re adults, they can wait.”

“Okay good!” The two of them laughed together while the twins looked affronted. 

“You are right, but rude!” scoffed Emmet, flapping a hand as if to dismiss them.

The museum wasn’t too big just yet, but what was present was extremely well done. There were plenty of plaques to read and images to inspect, both diagrams and photos. There were displays and dioramas and models and it was obvious people had put a lot of care into the entire setup.

Ingo and Emmet were, predictably, extremely excited by the section on battling. And, to top it off, they were also knowledgeable on the topic. So were Drayden and Iris, of course, so the family of four went through the exhibit all chattering excitedly about hidden abilities, combos of moves, and how to train pokemon to not only be champion battlers but extremely good companions.

Finally, after scouring everything else, Iris led her brothers over to the last part of the exhibit. FAMOUS POKEMON BATTLERS OF UNOVA, it said, and there were all the gym leaders including their father, Iris the champion, and…

“Look! It’s you guys!” Iris said, tapping the section on the display that housed their photograph and a blurb. The image was one of the promotional materials from the Battle Subway of the twins doing their signature pose, Emmet beaming and Ingo scowling but each looking extremely happy.

Emmet’s hands began to flap first, then Ingo followed close behind.

“That is us!” Ingo agreed, his catlike smile creeping onto his face, eyes squinting. 

“It says that we might be in the top five strongest trainers in the region,” boasted Emmet. “Since we have beaten everyone else on this list in battle at least once.”

“Well they’re right, boys,” Drayden said, placing a hand on each of their outer shoulders. “My children are some of the top battlers in this region, and I’d bet you all rank highly in the world as well.”

“I want there to be a worldwide tournament soon,” Emmet said, eyes glittering. “Then we can go and show the entire world how our combinations are the best!”

“I’m wondering why no one has tried to get you to adopt them,” Iris said slyly, grabbing her dad by the arm and looking up at him. “Because each one of your kids kicks ass at pokemon battles.”

“Iris!” Ingo scolded, but she pretended not to hear him. Drayden just laughed.

“I know that Hilda and Hilbert have probably thought about it,” she snickered. “Before they got good.”

“They do challenge us quite a bit,” Ingo said with a laugh. “We enjoy seeing them whenever they take the subway.”

“Hilda likes giving me high fives,” said Emmet. “It is verrry satisfying.” Emmet did not tend to appreciate touch unless coming from someone he knew well; Iris wondered if Hilda knew that, by returning her high fives, Emmet had declared her a friend.

The four headed home not long after. Emmet and Ingo decided to stay the night. They had work in the morning, but could simply take the train in in the morning. They had decided this entirely because Iris wanted to play board games with them after dinner, and they couldn’t say no to that.

When everyone finally headed to bed, it didn’t take long for Iris to creep into the twins’ room, door creaking lightly behind her. She crawled into the bed and curled up next to Emmet, a smile on her face. She had to choose who to cuddle with every time they visited, but what Emmet and Ingo didn’t know is that she kept a tally. Since she did this on the last night of their stay every time, she always made sure to alternate between them.

“We have to wake up verrry early,” Emmet whispered sleepily as either he or Ingo always did when she stayed with them, patting her hair. “We will wake you up.”

“I don’t mind,” she whispered back, as she always did. “Goodnight Em. Goodnight Ingo. Love you guys.” And she was already asleep.

It didn’t take long for the twins to follow.

Chapter Text

“Do you think something is up with Jackie?” asked Ingo as the two Subway masters came off their lunch break the week after their vacation, heading to the Super Singles Line. “They seem… Unusually distracted. Lost down tracks only known to them.”

“While you were talking to Isadore earlier, I saw Furze and Jackie talking, yup yup. It looked serious.”

“Should we ask them about it?”

“I am Emmet. I am unsure. It could be anything. Bet gone wrong. Lunch theft. Arguing about which train is the best. … Lover’s quarrel.” Emmet wiggled his eyebrows at the last option, and Ingo huffed and pushed his brother’s face away with a hand.

“I doubt it is that.” 

“You never know,” Emmet replied, voice muffled as his face was slightly squished.

But as the day wore on, every time the twins saw Jackie, they had a look of worry on their normally impassive face.

Jackie was known for being laid back. Sarcastic. Absolutely impossible to bother. They responded to every threat, setback, and minor annoyance with the same blithe indifference, or so it seemed. In this line of work, that sort of attitude was actually invaluable. The Subway Masters could always count on Jackie to keep a level head and respond to unruly passengers in a safe manner.

So to see them glance over their shoulder twice in five minutes was incredibly unnerving. Had they finally had a run-in with someone who had cracked that sardonic demeanor? A stalker, perhaps?

(That seemed unlikely. Jackie was the sort to get down and start biting if someone disrespected them like that.)

“I think we should simply leave them be for now,” Ingo advised. “A conversation like that would only be seen as nosy, despite our good intentions.”

“You are no fun,” teased Emmet. “But you are right. Either way. Keep an eye out.”

The afternoon was a busy one; aside from their shift on the Super Singles train, there was a child who found himself lost in Gear Station. Ingo and Emmet only noticed because the silent little boy of no older than six years of age was tailing them like a ducklett, obviously extremely curious about them.

“Can we help you?” Ingo asked once they bent down, outer pair of arms resting on their knees and inner pair wrapped around each other’s shoulders.

“Are you lost?” Emmet questioned.

Ignoring both lines of questioning, the child shyly tried to duck out of their lines of sight, though he seemed to think if he couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see him. He mumbled something that neither of them caught, but repeated his words once questioned. “Are you one or two people?”

From a child, the question didn’t feel particularly rude. Ingo’s eyes squinted in a smile, but before he could answer, Emmet did.

“What is your best guess?”

“Um…” said the little boy, finally looking into their faces, squinting. “Two. You both talk different. Are you stuck together?”

“You are correct!” Ingo said, while Emmet gave him a thumbs up. “And we are. We were born like this. Set together on the same tracks. Neither of us mind, however. We make a good one-car train.” He looked over at Emmet and gave a small nod that was returned. They stood up again, angled their torsos so that they were closer to back-to-back, and struck their signature mirrored point-and-call pose.

“I am Subway Master Ingo.”

“I am Subway Master Emmet.”

“Follow the rules.”

“Safe driving!”

“Follow the schedule.”

“Everybody smile!”

“Check safety.”

“Everything's ready!”

“Aim for victory!”

“All aboard!” The last call was said in unison, and the child laughed, obviously impressed with the display.

“Now!” said Ingo as they dropped the pose. “How can we help you, young sir?”

It turned out that he was indeed lost, and after radioing a few depot agents, the twins were able to get him reunited with his extremely distraught parents.

“Ethan! Thank the Dragons, we thought that the ghost got you like that little girl in your school.” The father said nothing, obviously too overcome with relief to form words. “We turned and you were gone, and… Please stick close to us. Please. There’s too much uncertainty right now.”

“I was with Mister Emmet and Mister Ingo,” said the boy, Ethan, telling his parents. “They’re funny. I like them.”

“We’re sorry you were so worried, ma’am. I think I recall seeing the disappearance of a child mentioned in the papers; I am glad to report that is not such the case with your Ethan here.”

“Thank you Masters Ingo and Emmet,” said the woman, and the man nodded along. “We’ll leave you both to your jobs.”

“One last thing for Ethan,” said Emmet, digging in his pocket and pulling out a sticker that had the Gear Station logo on it. “For our little friend here. Have a verrry good day! Safe travels!”

The whole family waved at them as the three of them hurried away, presumably to catch a train. After seeing them off, the twins turned and headed back towards their own train, ready for another Super Multis run.

By the time the two men made it home, they were exhausted. Worn out from several high-octane battles, they all but tossed their coats on the rack before flopping on the couch. Emmet leaned his head back into the pillows, and his hat pushed up to cover his eyes.

“I am Emmet. I am so tired.”

“I’ve ended up at the same station as you,” Ingo groaned, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Of course you have. It is impossible to do anything else.”

Ingo didn’t have the energy to reply to that. “Takeout tonight?”

“Yup.”

“Would you like a soda with a touch of caffeine in it for a bit of a pick-me-up?” Ingo was tapping lazily at his xtrans, pulling up one of their favorite restaurants. He felt like curry tonight; he ordered their regulars and waited for Emmet’s answer.

“That sounds verrry good.”

Ingo added the drinks to the order and submitted it before releasing their teams and letting them disperse. Turning his tired eyes to Chandelure, he squinted happily. “Please wake us when my xtrans rings?”

With a delicate noise like breaking glass, she rubbed the side of her warm, solid body against his cheek and floated out of the room.

Now, the twins were not supposed to sleep on couches. There simply was never enough room for them to sleep on their backs. But, on a blue moon… And Emmet had already fallen asleep… And the thought of walking made Ingo even more tired…

Silently, he kicked off their shoes, removed their belt, and, ever so gently, removed the neckties from both the sleeping Emmet and himself. Ingo maneuvered them both, holding his brother steady, so they were laying on their side. Well, Ingo’s side. He leaned back into the cushions, letting them support some of Emmet’s weight, and with a bit of creative pillowing, Ingo ended up very comfortable. The weight of his twin felt more like a weighted blanket than anything, and in no time, the very cozy Ingo was also asleep.

Both were woken a bit abruptly by both the xtrans and Chandelure chiming loudly. Emmet flailed, which caused Ingo to wince as they sat upright.

“That nap was sorely needed, but. I forgot just how displeasing sleeping in our back brace was.”

“Ouch,” Emmet agreed.

Taking the elevator down to fetch their food felt like a monumental task, but once they’d refueled they almost immediately felt better. Neither spoke as they practically inhaled their curry, relaxing as the warm food filled the emptiness in their shared guts. The brief nap had worked wonders, and the food cleared the last vestiges of fuzziness from their minds. Once they’d scraped the leftover curry into sturdier containers to take to work for lunch, they tossed the containers from the meal, each grateful that they didn’t need to do dishes, and set out food for all their pokemon before heading to the bedroom. Quick to strip off their white work shirts, the twins were left in their back brace.

With portions that fit around both their torsos and connections in the middle to keep them from leaning too far apart from one another, it had been custom made to fit them. Once they undid the velcro and draped the brace onto the chair at the desk in the room, then each of them stretched. There were twin popping noises, not quite in unison, and they laughed a bit.

“I am Emmet. My back hurts.”

“Mine too. Probably because of the ill-advised couch nap.” Ingo sounded a bit remorseful, though it had been nice.

“We can take some ibuprofen?”

“Good idea.”

The brothers split a dose between them, then Emmet rubbed his chin.

“What do you want to do now? I am not quite ready to reach the station of sleep.”

“Neither am I, now,” Ingo admitted. “For better or for worse I want to stay up at least a couple more hours. The train will wait for us.”

Emmet’s eyes glittered as he laughed. “That is correct. Because we drive it.”

“That we do. Now…”

“Would you like to play games?” Emmet interrupted. “Elesa was talking about Voidstar Four in our group chat earlier? Remember?”

“Yes, but we don’t have Voidstar Four.”

“We do have Voidstar Three.”

Ingo laughed. “Would you like me to call up Elesa and see if she will play a round with us while you set it up?”

“Yup! Please!”

The twins were not extremely prolific gamers, but they did enjoy playing together and with Elesa sometimes. At her urging, they’d put a few funny videos up on the Gear Station channel. Seeing the Subway Masters gaming amidst the safety PSAs and recordings of special Battle Subway matches was honestly hilarious, professionalism be damned.

They’d originally tried video games because train simulators piqued their interest as teens, but very quickly Elesa had introduced them to all manner of other games, from dungeon crawlers to puzzle games to games involving fighting strange alien pokemon. Which brought them to the Voidstar series.

“Elesa says of course she’d love to play for an hour or so,” Ingo answered, looking up to see Emmet clicking through menus.

“Good!” Emmet clicked a button to invite their friend to play, then passed Ingo his set of headphones. While they only needed one microphone, set up between them, they each had their own noise canceling headphones. This way, they could avoid the half second delay between hearing their voices in real life and over the chat. If they muted each other, then they’d only hear each other’s voices muffled while they wore headsets to hear Elesa, and if they chose no headsets, there was often an echo back from Elesa’s side of things. So it was much easier to simply tune out real life and stick to headsets, because none of them wanted to try and figure out how to fix any of that nonsense when there was an easier solution to be had.

“Hi Elesa!” said Ingo, once it was all set up. 

“Hey Ingo!”

“Hello Elesa!”

“Hey Emmet!”

“I am Emmet.”

She laughed, the little image on the screen showing her in cyan pajamas leaning on a couch with zebstrika-patterned pillows.

They laughed too, their own little video showing them together. “We are ridiculous,” Emmet continued.

“You sure are.”

“You are included in that number, Elesa.”

“We gonna play or what?” she shot back, ignoring him.

With that, Emmet entered in the sequence to get the game rolling. They chose a multiplayer mode that would lead into a boss battle they all knew was hard but fun and got started.

The first part of the level was a race, of sorts. While the three were on the same team, fighting a common enemy, the game would award better weapons to the player who got through the obstacles first. The game’s main focus was fighting off alien invaders from beyond the edges of the galaxy, defending the planet with people and pokemon both on the ground and in the skies. Legendaries could be summoned, starships could be flown, and overall it was an epic sort of game series.

This was one of the levels that involved flying. Players would navigate space debris, minor enemies, spatial rifts, and meteors as they aimed to make it to the boss breaching a portal, picking up summons and weapons and all manner of powerups on the way.

And the player who got there first would get to equip their ship with the Daybreak Laser.

The twins both desired the Daybreak Laser.

“Stop looking at my screen!” Ingo barked, tearing his eyes away from the game to eye his twin. “You keep blocking me!”

“I am Emmet! You are delusional!” cackled Emmet, focused on the task at hand.

“You both are ridiculous!” interjected Elesa, focusing on a build that did not involve the laser. She’d leave that one to the two of them.

“Emmet!” warned Ingo as his brother sacrificed an explosive to bump a meteor in his direction.

“I was over the weight limit, yup yup,” said Emmet innocently. “Had to jettison cargo.”

“These are spaceships, Emmet.”

Emmet said nothing, simply snickering quietly to himself, speakers only picking up some of the sound.

Through the minefield the three of them flew, the twins consistently causing problems for one another. Ingo stared at Emmet’s screen for a moment, before blocking him at a crucial moment. 

“You are cheating! Stop LOOKING!” cried Emmet, bumping Ingo’s shoulder with his own.

“What do you want me to do? Go play from the other room?” Ingo replied, his silly little sort-of-smile on his face.

“Yes,” said the deadpan Emmet as his brother crossed the end of the level first and was awarded the Daybreak Laser, triggering another cutscene.

“Alright then,” said Ingo, and made it halfway across the room before Emmet hollered at him to sit down. Elesa was losing it on the other side of their voice chat, just about peaking her microphone.

“Well now we have to work together,” Emmet grumped as Ingo sat them back down. “If we want any chance of beating the boss.”

“You boys ready?” asked Elesa, mirth still audible in her voice. 

“Yes, Elesa,” Ingo said, nodding.

“Yup yup!” added Emmet as the cutscene crawled to a close.

“Well then go get it!” Elesa cried, determination in her eyes and a smile on her face. “I’ll hold off the others!”

Emmet and Ingo together piloted their ships towards the large, spiky abomination reaching through the wormhole to claw at them. Though with the headphones they couldn’t hear it, the twins’ controllers clicked as they furiously mashed the buttons in sequences that would help them take down the alien overlord. A roar that was obviously many pokemon cries overlaid together came from its sharp maw, and Emmet fired off some shots into its mouth to do extra damage.

“Bravo!” Ingo called, having moved in a moment too late, shots from the Daybreak Laser ricocheting off the boss’s closed mouth.

“Thank you!” Emmet called happily, eyes flicking up to see the health bar sitting at about two-thirds full still. “But we have a verrry long way to go!”

They continued for a little bit, Elesa doing a stellar job at playing support and keeping all of the alien grunt ships away from those piloted by Ingo and Emmet, but of course this fight was hard for a reason and something was bound to go wrong eventually.

“Look out!” Emmet called in alarm as Ingo tried to dodge shots from the grunts and one of the boss’s special attacks and became ensnared in one of the flailing limbs that the space dragon would try to catch them with. Immediately an animation played, showing the enemy crushing Ingo’s ship with a screech and biting off the front of it.

“Take this!” Emmet snarled, intent on avenging his brother, but it managed to grab his ship too, claws puncturing the metal as it hurled the destroyed machine offscreen.

“Boo, we both died!” exclaimed Emmet, crossing his arms in mock frustration.

“Nooooooo!” cried Elesa as she was also picked off easily, all enemy attention now on her. “Ah well! It was still a great run.”

“Certainly. I just got boxed in, unluckily,” said Ingo while shaking his head. He still had a cat smile on his face.

“Unfortunately, I think that’s all for me tonight guys.” Elesa stretched, yawning, and they could even hear her back pop through their headsets.

“I agree,” said Emmet, nodding. “But that was verrry fun.”

“See you tomorrow night for dinner,” Ingo added.

“Night Ingo, night Em,” she said, nodding. “Love you two.”

“Love you!” they chorused before ending the call and putting their headsets and everything aside. Archeops chewed cords sometimes, and Crustle was known for pinching things he shouldn’t. When their gear was stored safely, the twins both headed to their room to get a real rest. The morning shift waited for no man, or men, no matter how connected they were.

▲▽

The next morning, both twins were glad they’d decided not to ask Jackie about why they were acting so… strange. They arrived at their office and found Furze and Jackie already waiting there, looking uncomfortable.

“Hello you two,” asked Ingo, voice questioning. “How can we help you?”

“Hi sirs,” said Furze before pausing. “I’m kinda unsure how to go about this, honestly.”

“You’re telling me,” tossed out Jackie, voice sounding a little strained.

“Is there an issue with a passenger? A fellow agent? … Did we misstep, somehow?” Ingo’s brows creased and his frown seemed more genuine.

“No, bosses! Nothing like that,” Jackie answered immediately. “Everyone here is fine, it’s just…” When they trailed off and couldn’t continue, Furze took over, an uncharacteristically grim look in his eyes.

“There’s just a bad feeling around here sometimes, only recently, when no one else is around to feel it. Jackie’s always here earliest, so they always seem to catch it first.” Jackie threw a thankful look in Furze’s direction, grateful for them taking over when their own words failed. 

“Oh?” Emmet too looked concerned, and it was uncanny how well his face mimicked Ingo’s sometimes.

“We know ghost pokemon,” Furze continued, nodding at Chandelure, who was playing with Eelektross in the still-empty station. “Jackie has their own litwick, even. And human ghosts…” They trailed off, suddenly looking uncomfortable for a heartbeat before looking up again. “It’s nothing like that.”

Jackie finally found their voice again. “I know this sounds absolutely crazy, bosses, but you know me. I take pride in being unflappable.”

“They’re currently very flapped,” Furze added in helpfully, earning a glare from Jackie, though it held no real venom.

“Of course we will take this seriously.”

“Safety of staff and passengers is our utmost priority.” Ingo’s voice was grave and Emmet’s gaze was intense. “There are a great deal of oddities in this world we call home. Something could certainly be causing disturbances here in Unova.”

“Even the news has been reporting strange things,” Emmet said, tapping his chin. “They do not seem connected, but it is always smart to keep a lookout.”

“And we will keep a lookout indeed,” tacked on Ingo with a nod. “Please report any further peculiarities to us so we can keep track of it all. If any disappearances or incidents occur here at the Battle Subway, we want to be prepared.”

“Thanks,” said Jackie with a great deal of relief. “I hate being creeped out by anything. There shouldn’t be anything scary around here, we all know the pokemon. The people. People aren’t really scary anyways. This is just… I don’t know.”

“The unknown is always the most unnerving,” Ingo agreed.

“Thanks for hearing us out,” Furze said with a smile. “I know I sure feel better now.”

“Me too,” Jackie admitted. “Even if it was hard to talk about.”

Why that was, the twins were a tad mystified by. Surely their pride wasn’t so strong that merely speaking of discomfort caused them such mental anguish? It had to be something else.

“There are now four pairs of eyes on the case,” Emmet assured them. “Let’s all go have a productive day, yup yup, and keep a close eye on the subway system just in case!”

The edge of Jackie’s mouth twitched. “You got it, bosses.”

Furze saluted with a smile to rival Emmet’s. It was obvious they both felt much better. “You got it!”

“And have fun,” Ingo called as they left the office. “That’s important too!”

The door closed behind them, and there was silence for a moment. It was Emmet who broke it.

“I can’t say I’m not nervous,” he admitted, tapping his hands on the desk. They both had paperwork to do that morning, but neither wanted to begin it right away. The tension that had drained from the room during the discussion earlier had returned, heavy and oppressive.

“I am too,” Ingo agreed. “We would do best not to dwell on this, but like you said, keeping our eyes out would be prudent.”

“I cannot help but think Jackie is on to something. I remember hearing about people who have better senses. Something about how they can tell something is wrong without ever actively recognizing the thing that is ‘off.’ I wonder if Jackie is like that, yup yup.”

“... Perhaps they saw or heard or even smelled something unusual and did not realize it, but the part of their mind that processes everything did, and they got spooked.”

“We should patrol the tunnels tomorrow. Just in case.”

“Tomorrow morning,” Ingo agreed. “See if we can pick up on the missing detail that they did not parse. But for today, don’t worry. Our tracks will remain steady and true, I am sure of it.”

“For tonight though we have dinner with Elesa! We can make good on our promise to be annoying!”

Ingo chuckled. “That does sound fun.”

▲▽

“Well you can put your ass back on your seat,” Elesa grumped at the two men leaning onto the table, innocent looks on their twin faces. “It wasn’t THAT sort of date.”

“You sure~?” Emmet asked, batting his eyelashes and grinning in feral delight.

“Yes I am SURE I think I would have NOTICED,” said Elesa, shoving her hand in Emmet’s face.

“I don’t think she’s sure, Emmet,” Ingo said, and also received a hand to the face.

“Brothers are fucking annoying!” grumbled Elesa, and the twins couldn’t help but laugh. Ingo was too busy cracking up to even call her out on her language, for once.

“Alright, we will lay off,” conceded Emmet. “If only because our dinners will be here soon.”

“I think you can tell the future, because there it is,” said Elesa as the waiter set the meals in front of them. Emmet had gone with spaghetti and meatballs, Ingo had gotten combusken parmesan, and Elesa had opted for alfredo. The table lapsed into silence as they ate, the only noises the clink of utensils and slurp of noodles.

Once they struck up conversation again, Elesa smiled softly. “So how was the fam? Iris still growing like a weed?”

“She is set on the tracks to become as tall as us, it seems,” Ingo chuckled. “Her spirit is already far bigger than the rest of her.”

“She is verrry funny,” Emmet added. “And sweet as always.”

“Indeed, she told us to tell you that she hoped your date was fun.” Ingo wagged a finger as he tried to keep the ‘she told, we told’s straight. 

“Awwww she is a sweetie. Can’t wait to see her again soon,” Elesa said.

“Dad is a huge sap,” Emmet continued with a nod before taking another bite. “We love him a lot. He continues to give great hugs.”

“I’ve seen it, he’s big enough to hug you both at the same time!”

“Our dad’s hugs are the best, yup yup!” Emmet said with a nod.

“One of the only people who could hold us as kids.”

“I remember, he could hold you two in one arm and me in the other!” said Elesa with a laugh.

The twins had met Elesa not long after they’d moved in with their uncle. She had lived on the same street, and her grandparents had told her about some new children moving in at the house of the Dragon Master. She’d grabbed her binoculars and gone to hide in a bush across the street to spy as the potential new friends’ stuff was moved into the house.

As soon as she laid eyes on Ingo and Emmet, she’d rushed home to tell her grandparents and ask about a hundred questions.

They had told her not to be rude to them under any circumstances; the boys had just lost their parents and had to know just how different they were. Talk to them, and maybe they’d become friends.

That is just about exactly what had gone down. Elesa, ever the social butterfly, had strode right up to them on their first day at school, introduced herself, and asked their names.

Through the years, they were inseparable, as if Elesa was their conjoined triplet. She stuck up for them when the other children’s fascination turned to cruelty, and taught the duo how to develop some confidence of their own. They visited each other’s houses often too, playing with cardboard boxes fashioned into trains and putting on silly fashion shows of ill-fitting clothes that Elesa handpicked for the three of them.

Eventually, they went on their separate pokemon journeys, but after those concluded, Ingo and Emmet and Elesa came right back together as if they’d never been apart. They shared stories and introduced their pokemon to each other. The boys showed off their vanilluxe, that had evolved from their vanillishes rather on accident and Elesa thought it was so funny that it looked like them now.

They’d had pokemon battles all day long and had fallen asleep camped out on Drayden’s living room floor.

Elesa was their sister in every way aside from blood. And that did not matter to them, seeing as they were adopted and so was their little sister. (It was funny, Ingo had once said. All of their relatives were either not related in conventional ways, not related at all, or literally shared the same blood.)

Their conversation came to a halt as all of their xtranceivers buzzed at the same time, and the three looked down in unison.

“... Another child is missing, this time from Castelia City,” Elesa stated, mood far more subdued.

“We helped a lost child yesterday,” Emmet said. 

“Yes, he’d headed down the wrong tracks and his parents were worried he disappeared…”

“It’s so freaky…”

“I hope they are all found safely.” Emmet’s monotone voice made it seem like he was being sarcastic or insensitive, but they both knew he was not.

“May their tracks lead home.”

“Of course,” Elesa said. The trio went back to eating, unwilling to joke with the mood suddenly somber. It was a full several minutes before someone spoke, Elesa piping up again. “So how’s work been?”

“Everything’s on track,” Ingo said, then his lips curled into a cat smile as Emmet made a strangled noise around a mouthful of spaghetti. Dropping his fork onto his plate with a clatter, Emmet whacked his brother’s shoulder.

“Ouch. I am Emmet. Your jokes suck. I cannot believe we share genetic material.”

“We share more than that, dear brother,” said Ingo, closing his eyes and raising a finger as if about to start a lecture.

“Yeah that’s right. Good brothers share everything, including multiple organs.” It was Elesa’s turn to look cheeky.

“I cannot believe you two. There is no escape. None! Never! Woe is me!”

“No, no escape,” Elesa said with a feral cackle. “Organs, remember?”

“I am inches away from faceplanting in my noodles,” Emmet threatened. 

“Do it, you wouldn’t.”

“It would be quite funny.”

“You’d only ruin your shirt too, Ingo’s is black.”

“I refuse to speak to you further.” And with that, Emmet shoved a too-large forkful of spaghetti into his mouth, choked on it, and had to be thumped on the back by Ingo.

“I cannot win,” he wheezed.

“No you can’t, buddy,” Elesa sympathized. “Do you guys wanna play some games at my house for a bit, or would you prefer an early night?”

“We can visit for a few hours,” Ingo decided, after meeting Emmet’s eyes.

“It is still early!”

This wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence, even on particularly early days for all of them. They simply loved hanging out. And while, after shifts on the Battle Subway and Elesa’s gym their pokemon teams were not up to battling, the humans sure made up for it with sheer ruthlessness in their own games.

Sleepy pokemon laid and draped themselves over available surfaces, only the bravest daring to hang out with their animated trainers. Chandelure was happily plopped in the twins’ lap, eyes shut contently even as they shouted and waved cards around.

Who knew Uno could get so heated?

(Everyone in that damn room, pokemon and human alike, knew. The Subway Masters and Nimbasa City Gym Leader were exceedingly competitive people.)

“Alright, Elesa, we really should be heading home,” Ingo said, sounding mournful. “As fun as this was.”

“He’s right,” Emmet said, unclipping pokeballs from their belt and returning the sleepy passengers. He fetched his hat from the top of Chandelure’s globe before he returned her, the ghost’s sleepy chiming fading as red light engulfed her.

“Let me drive you two home,” Elesa said. “You wanna get back at a reasonable hour, and you shouldn’t have to drive another train just to get back.”

“It is our job and we love it,” Emmet said with a yawn.

“You goobers are off the clock,” Elesa insisted, ushering them out of her home and out to her car once they’d gathered all their belongings. The twins decided to just go with it, and they buckled into the backseat as Elesa began the drive to their apartment.

They could not comfortably fit into a non-modified front seat, nor could they drive, but neither of them minded. They could drive something infinitely cooler, in their opinion.

“Now get some sleep, boys,” Elesa said once she’d parallel parked in front of their building.

“We will,” mumbled Ingo sleepily. “Sleep is… pulling into the station more swiftly than I’d realized.”

“Yup yup,” was all Emmet managed.

“Night guys. Love you.”

After a duo of tired replies, they parted ways to indulge in their own nightly rituals. As always, Ingo and Emmet ended up with a pile of pokemon on their king-sized bed, warm and cozy and fast asleep. Ingo was snoring, and Emmet had a sweet smile on his unconscious face. Neither had wanted to bother trying to fight through the sleepiness that made their limbs, both shared and otherwise, feel leaden. 

They had safety checks to conduct in the morning, and for that to go as smoothly and accurately as they would like, they required plenty of rest. Even if they didn’t though, extra rest for tired workaholics was never a bad idea.

Tomorrow would be a busy day, and they wanted to be ready for whatever it threw at them.

Chapter Text

The next morning when the twins arrived early to Gear Station, there was a damp chill in the air down in the subway system. There was going to be a storm later that day, not unusual for the summer, but the fact that the air was not stifling? That was strange.

The subway system had ventilation, but installing an air conditioning system on the platforms would simply be a losing battle, open to the outside as some of them were. So in the summer, the lack of moving air tended to make the subway nigh unbearable.

The dank coolness of the place today was the first sign that something was off.

Neither of the twins wanted to bring it up, but they reckoned Jackie had been entirely right about things seeming strange around the station recently.

“Ready to check safety?” Emmet asked as Ingo flicked on a flashlight. Sure, they could see in the dark, but since they would be searching, possibly, for details, a flashlight couldn’t hurt.

“Everything’s ready.”

They were the only two in the station, eternally early no matter how many people told them that they didn’t need to be.

It was partly because they simply thought being early was a good idea as the bosses, but also because it was nice to be alone in their subway.

The stations and platforms were always bustling with people, full of noise and hubbub as any good transit system should be. But before anyone filtered in through the turnstiles to catch the first trains of the day, there was a heavy, sleepy silence in the stations, as if the trains were living things that breathed so slowly and so deeply that their breaths were lost among the white noise of fans and machinery.

There were little noises of the pokemon that lived, hidden in the station. The famous joltiks, the quiet patrat, the curious pidove. Their unassuming lives were often drowned out by the comings and goings, but in the early morning, it was common to hear the soft calls echoing down the tunnels, and the twins loved it.

The tunnels were silent today.

That should have been a clue that not only was something wrong, but a predator was in the area.

Emmet paused, then spoke. “Let’s depart.”

It took but a single heartbeat for the pressure to drop around them near instantly. Their ears popped in unison and then Ingo’s nose started to bleed, but that was not at the forefront of their minds.

No, they were preoccupied by the darkly crystalline shattering of the very air in front of them. It split open in a swirl like a maw of teeth, like some nightmarish parody of Eelektross, and then the jagged edges flashed and the lights went out. Sparks arced, bouncing off the bricks, as the glittering expanse of… space? became visible through the portal. Wind tugged at the hem of their shared coat, and the men found themselves unable to breathe.

All of that happened in mere seconds. Then tendrils of shadow made substantial crept through the rift, wavering like searching tentacles. They were tipped with far more corporeal red talons, as long as a man’s forearm and wickedly hooked.

Piercing red eyes like floodlights opened from the other side of the sky.

Ingo and Emmet were known for their disaster management in times of crisis. They were exactly the sort of people you’d want around directing things and giving instructions. They did not freeze.

Not even when faced with a monster from beyond the stars. Turning on their heels, they took off down the platform as fast as they could. Or, they would have if a tendril had not wrapped around Ingo’s torso and stopped them dead.

“STOP!” cried Ingo, for all the good it would do, as they were hoisted into the air and regarded with sickly red eyes that seemed almost darkly curious. All Emmet could do was whine, trying to grip his brother to lessen the strain on the joint between their bodies.

The appendage tightened, claw biting into Ingo’s shoulder enough to make him cry out wordlessly. Emmet felt the pain, distant and muted, but whatever words he possessed had been knocked right out of him and all he could do was pant.

There was a growl, low, throaty, and thrumming, and another tendril wound around Emmet, pinning his arms to his side. Both of them tried to kick out at the thing, synchronicity in their minds controlling their legs together, but it was easily able to hold them in a way that left them flailing harmlessly.

One of the red claws, the one still damp with blood from Ingo’s shoulder, shifted, prodding at the junction between their torsos. Both men tensed at the exact same time, then redoubled their efforts to escape.

There was nothing that could have been done when that claw bit down on the sensitive skin and began to tear. Emmet and Ingo screamed, the kind of scream that leaves one’s throat bloody, as they were split open effortlessly. The screams took on a new pitch when the appendages wrapped around them also began to pull in opposite directions. Something fell out of the widening hole in their midsection, but neither of them noticed. There was a heavy, wet splattering noise as blood poured out of them, but neither noticed that either.

Emmet convulsed briefly and his scream cut out when there was a snap and he largely came apart from Ingo, connected only by tubes and organs that refused to sever, and the still-joined backs of their once pristine Subway Master coats.

Ingo, still attached to their once-shared lower half, was no longer capable of making any sound aside from wet breathing. Neither could really react when another sharp talon severed their last points of connection, and for the first time in their lives, they became entirely separate.

There was a glimmer of golden armor plating as the monster nosed at the semi-conscious Ingo, still pouring blood and trailing gore. Tossing the other half to the bricks below, it took its prey into its jaws, not intending to pierce but carry back to its home for further inspection, and slipped back into its portal.

And then they were gone.

▲▽

Arceus did not wish to be in the Distortion World. The paradoxical space only served as a grim reminder of its destructive child; it knew that chaos was in Giratina’s nature, as was entropy, sowing disorder, scrambling matter and gravity itself.

But when had it become so bold, peeking into the world of order that Arceus had created and reaching out to rearrange creatures at will?

It was hunting, but it did not need to. It was bored, like a purrloin let outside to wreak havoc on local bird pokemon populations, and for what? Entertainment?

Arceus needed to put a stop to it, and hopefully offer up something in return that was just as entertaining to the wyrm.

But as it moved effortlessly through the patches and pools of sourceless gravity, it saw something out of place. Not Giratina, not a fresh portal, but something left behind, obviously very recently.

Dipping its head, the alpha pokemon caught the human floating in the abyss on its face, staring at the small, still form on its nose.

The human did not move aside from leaking a copious amount of blood down the god’s visage. Arceus saw its skin was starkly pale, eyes tightly closed. It also saw that there was a gaping hole in its side and its back was terribly crooked.

Another one of Giratina’s playthings. Another life lost…

But Arceus, for all it could know, was startled to feel a faint fluttering against its skin. This little soul was still alive, at least in this moment. Its heart still beat.

It could not fix everything. But it could save the life of one tiny spark as an apology for the actions of its child. Closing two-part eyes, a golden glow lit up the broken body. The mangled insides knit into a working network of organs, the wound in its side scarred over, and the twisted spine and off-center hips straightened out as much as they could. The tension in the human eased, the god could tell, as the glow faded.

But what to do with a little human in a world like this?

…

Arceus thought of its plan to send a champion to a space that would sorely need it. Perhaps this human would do well there also. It would at least be safer there than in the Distortion World. And it was the best the god could offer at the moment.

With a flash that was brighter and harsher than the healing light it had conjured earlier, Arceus sent the stranger to what would hopefully be a good life, eventually to share with Arceus’ chosen. It would remember very little, Arceus could tell, due to the extreme nature of its trauma, but Arceus could do nothing about that without risking sending it into madness.

And so the highest god sent out a prayer of its own to send the human on its way, then turned to go deal with its wayward child.

Chapter Text

There was a black shape crumpled in the snow. The Pearl Clan fisherman shaded his eyes, squinting against the landscape’s harsh glare. That hadn’t been there earlier in the morning, he was sure of it. As his eyes adjusted to the harsh white, another color came into view; red, smudged across the snow in a trail behind the shape.

It was likely just a pokemon that had been wounded by a predator and gotten away only to fall to the snow, the man thought as he tucked his tunic more securely around himself, but it was always wise to check. Just in case.

The fisherman was glad he checked, because the shape was a man.

A man in a strange, lopsided black coat and a torn shirt stained with frozen blood. Where his skin was exposed to the snow, flakes had fallen on it and not melted. He looked dead, frozen, but then he shuddered and the fisherman reeled backwards, taking off towards the nearest place he could get help.

Not long later, some of the guards of the Pearl Clan came back to where the man lay and picked the stranger up. He was, somehow, still alive, and cried out when they carried him back to the main Pearl Clan settlement.

He was brought straight to the tent of Calaba the healer, who immediately set to work warming the man up while trying to find the source of the blood. She stripped him down to his underclothes in the warmth of the healer’s tent, finding no wounds but fresh scars.

The most probable source of all the blood was the gnarled scar on his right side. It started midway down his side and trailed down to his hip, reddish and angry, like his entire side had been ripped out and grown back poorly.

“Was it someone else’s blood, maybe?” asked one young healer’s assistant.

“I doubt it, son,” stated Calaba, spreading ointment over the reddened skin to soothe it. “With how his shirt was torn, I am convinced it was from this terrible wound. My guess is that the old blood on his clothes froze instead of drying, and dripped in the snow as bits of it thawed from body heat. And perhaps this man was one of the rare sorts to befriend a pokemon. Perhaps it knew a healing move.”

“Or maybe he came from beyond the rift,” said Irida grimly, lifting the flap to walk into the tent. “Pokemon and objects have come through distortions and that rift. It is only a matter of time before a person did as well. Perhaps healing occurred faster where he was from, or they have ways of treating injuries that we do not.”

“... He does look to be of another world,” Calaba said, stilling in her ministrations to really take in the form of the man before her. “His clothes as well, and the strange device that was found on his arm… I think you may be correct.”

“Will he live?”

“Since his injuries are healed? I predict so. He’s simply too cold, and I think he knocked his head rather hard at one point. I can’t find any currently fatal wounds, just those scars.”

“Good. I want to ask where he’s from.”

Calaba looked rather guarded. “You will send him on his way once he wakes, correct? Once he can stand and move on? He’s a stranger; we have no way to know of dangers he could bring.”

“I don’t think letting a person who may be displaced from his own Space in the world wander about, adrift, would keep us in good standing with the Almighty,” Irida said, dead serious. “And… I cannot help but feel terribly bad for him. He is more lost than he probably realizes.”

It took another couple days for the stranger to wake, which he did with a scream, sitting bolt upright and scaring even Calaba, who had truly seen it all.

“Son, calm down,” she said, trying to sound soothing. Her normally gruff nature would do a man in the grips of a nightmare no favors.

Silver eyes that glowed in the dark met hers for a moment, then slid away as the man caught his breath, clutching at his scarred side.

“Yes, good, just keep breathing. You’re safe with the Pearl Clan.”

“... Pearl Clan?” he asked, then froze. “How can… How can I understand you? Who are you?” And then his eyes widened slightly, pupils slightly mismatched from the probable concussion. “Who am I?” 

“Slow down.” And there was the typical Calaba again. “... Do you mean to tell me you’ve forgotten who you are?”

The man clutched at the blanket like a lifeline, rubbing methodical circles into it with his shaky thumbs. He tried to meet her eyes again and failed. “That… Th-that is correct, ma’am.”

“Almighty,” she mumbled, before speaking up and clearing her throat. “You are in the medical tent of the Pearl Clan. I am Warden Calaba. As for how you can understand me, son, I don’t know what you mean.”

“I normally speak–” And he finished the sentence in fluid Galarian, rolling off his tongue in an instinctual fashion, before swapping back to Celestica. “The fluidity in this language feels strange. Like my body is traveling tracks perfectly that it is yet unfamiliar with.”

“Tracks? What do you mean?”

“... I am unsure, ma’am.”

Calaba felt a chill run down her spine as she moved about the tent, gathering herbs and berries to mix. “No matter. I have the clothing you showed up in; perhaps it will help unstick some memories.” In between grabbing aspear berries and mint, she passed the stranger a bundle. As she mixed, she watched him unfurl the fabric with infinite care.

The strange torn white shirt and loop of fabric that had been found around his neck were set aside almost immediately along with the pants. The coat, however, was shaken out reverently, held up with lightly shaking hands. It was long, flared, and flowing, and after taking in the sight of it, the stranger hugged it to his chest.

“Strange coat,” Calaba offered up. “It’s asymmetrical.”

“Yes,” said the man, not letting go of it even a little.

“There is a scrap of white fabric attached to it.”

He shifted the coat so he could inspect it. The torn segment was attached to the black by metal teeth and was stained a faint brownish color, but it was easy to tell it must have been brilliant white at some point.

“We scrubbed your clothes in the icy river to remove all the bloodstains,” Calaba informed him. Aside from the white bit, the coat seemed to look relatively unscathed. For this, the man was grateful.

“Thank you,” he said simply, and she could tell his mind was far away but vacant.

The last item, a black hat with a strange badge on the front, seemed to finally shake something loose in the man.

“Ingo.”

“Hm?”

“My name. I am Ingo. I am…” He trailed off, but shook himself and continued. “It says that name inside the brim of this hat, and it feels correct. That is my name.”

“Ingo… Alright.” She watched Ingo settle the hat onto his scruffy hair, unbrushed and crumpled, and he visibly relaxed with it in place. “I’m making you a mixture to help with the lingering effects of freezing sickness. It’s actually rather good, I must say. One of the better tasting concoctions.”

She continued stirring, looking down at her work and pretending like she couldn’t tell Ingo was looking at her now that she wasn’t looking at him. “I’ll also give you some ointment for your scar. You can administer it yourself, if you’d like, or I can do it for you.”

“I can do it,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly, moving his hand to the spot and flinching when he touched it.

“Does it hurt? I can fetch you something for that.”

Ingo’s so-far-nonexpressive mouth crumpled a bit and he stared hard at the ground, saying nothing.

Calaba watched the display for a moment, then sighed. “Son, I’m a healer. If there’s anyone to be honest to, it would be me.”

“It’s wrong,” Ingo finally said, sounding like the words were dragged from him. “I don’t even like my clothing touching the spot.” There was a beat before he continued. “Ma’am, you’ll think I am off the rails, but I don’t think that spot on my body has ever been touched.”

A chill ran through Calaba at the strange, foreboding words the man said so plainly. “That’s just the result of such thick scarring,” is what she verbalized. But is it, though? “It’s new skin, it’s bound to feel rather strange.”

“I have a feeling that is not it,” said Ingo, but he left it at that. “Can you please explain to me where I am and what the Pearl Clan is?”

Somewhat guarded, Calaba gave him the frostbite concoction along with simple answers that did not give too much away. He was still an outsider, even injured and without a memory. It would not do to hand over all the customs and beliefs of the Pearl Clan right off the bat.

(Even if she could tell Irida was probably going to adopt this stranger, or at least try.)

“Now son, you put this ointment on your scar like we discussed while I go find our Clan leader, Irida. She’s probably going to want to speak to you, now that you’re awake.”

Ingo nodded, looking lost, and took the bowl offered to him. Lifting the thin black shirt, Calaba saw him shudder before she left the tent. Trying to walk quickly, Calaba shuffled towards the wooden building where Irida could be found. As soon as she got to the doors, she paused, hearing all sorts of angry voices inside.

Ah. So the elders were protesting something. How original.

She pushed open the door, hearing Irida protest. “He may be a stranger, possibly from the rift, but he was very recently hurt. He nearly died in the snow. Why would you deny a very human person care and food because he ended up in the wrong place?”

“It is what we did in the past,” said one man, voice quiet but holding a powerful intent. “It is how we stayed safe from spies and baneful zoroark looking to tear us apart from the inside out.”

“But he ISN’T a zoroark!” 

“And how do we know he is not from the Galaxy Team looking to scout for our weaknesses? We know as well as you do that our peace with them is as thin as a wyrdeer hair.”

Irida fixed him with a powerful stare of her own. “I am the leader now, Auric. And I will not continue this tradition of leaving anyone in the snow to die and then be picked over by staraptor. Do I make myself clear?”

The man turned with no reply and murmured to a woman who looked as old as he did.

Irida crossed her arms and looked away, accidentally meeting Calaba’s eyes. The anger drained from her expression as she turned her back on the elders, walking over to the warden.

“They won’t see reason. Or compassion, or humanity,” she said, sounding almost defeated but not quite. “You’re older than the lot of them and you get it. Why don’t they?”

“I am also a healer,” said Calaba, raising a single eyebrow at Irida calling her old, but letting it slide. “I am in the business of being human.”

“How is the man?”

“He is awake. I came to find you so you can meet him.” Calaba continued before Irida could speak. “But he remembers nothing. Amnesia. What he went through must have been… Traumatic, to say the least.”

“Oh,” Irida said, the wind freed from her sails. “What are we calling him, then?”

“His name is Ingo. He found it inside his hat; he must have written it so if lost it could be returned to him.”

“At least he has his own name. I cannot imagine being lost in the vastness of Space without my very identity.”

“Then simply don’t imagine it, dear.”

Irida gave Calaba a withering look, but the old lady pretended that she didn’t see it. She’d earned the right to be cheeky, after all.

“Is he… Alright, other than that?”

“His scar is bothering him, but he will be fine.”

“The poor man…” Irida knew what it was like to feel totally alone. While she had never ended up in a location so unbelievably unfamiliar to her as Ingo had, when her father had died and she’d had to ascend to the role of clan leader, she had felt utterly unmoored. Surrounded by people she’d known her whole life who had then begun treating her differently, she had been at a loss.

In an instant, a wall had been put up between her and the rest of her clan. The alienation had nearly caused her a mental breakdown.

If this Ingo was truly unable to remember anyone he had known, and was only surrounded by strangers…

It made Irida’s heart hurt.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she lifted the flap of the tent to see the stranger sitting up with a small bowl of ointment and a hand cloth laying on the ground near his cot. He was holding his black coat close, trembling hands almost stroking the strange material. His silver eyes looked… Not quite haunted, but far away and empty at the same time.

“Ingo?” she called gently, and with a snappy movement he looked up, gaze focusing and sharpening. As his hat shaded his eyes, in the dim tent Irida realized with a jolt that his eyes were glowing a bit.

“Mm… Yes ma’am?” he said, taking a moment to find his voice, carefully setting aside his coat and gripping one hand with the other to steady them.

“I’m Irida, the leader of the Pearl Clan.”

And she couldn’t continue before Ingo’s eyes darted around wildly, and he tried to bend at the waist into a bow before groaning in pain, straightening up, and saluting with that same quick, almost instant sort of movement he’d displayed before.

“You’re hurt, please don’t do all of that just because you feel you have to,” Irida said quickly. “I’m not offended by the lack of a customary greeting.”

“Oh,” was all Ingo said, looking very small even for a rather tall man. “Alright.”

“I do hope you’re feeling well enough. As okay as you can be, as least. We here at the Pearl Clan…” Her voice dropped the formal air and she sighed. “We’re not known for hospitality. Frankly, some of the oldest members are against talking to strangers at all, but I promise you will not be abandoned.”

She swore she could see a bit of spark reenter the man’s eyes. Was… it because he had been worried they’d abandon him?

“I promise I will not use up too much of that hospitality,” he said gravely. “I will move along in the next few days, if you can point me towards a town or city where I may find a station for a longer term stay.”

“It’s pretty cold out there,” Irida said, knowing she must sound crazy to this foreigner in her clothes with exposed skin. “Please stay until it is safe for you to traverse the expansive Icelands. We will come up with a solution with which everyone is comfortable.”

The elders will have to share our Space, she thought to herself.

“... Whatever you think is best,” said Ingo quietly, holding the blanket tightly. Irida was starting to think maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned that people didn’t want him in the camp; while Ingo’s face wasn’t very expressive, the rest of his body language was that of a man who felt out of place. “I do not wish to become a burden or cause discomfort.”

“You won’t be,” she said quickly, immediately picking up from his tone of voice that he was extremely self conscious. “Look… Just rest for now, okay? It’ll all be worked out. You’re doing no harm at all by existing, alright? You’re just as worthy of Almighty Sinnoh’s Space as the rest of us.”

And maybe Irida had overdone it because then he simply looked confused. She decided she’d said enough, nodding to him and heading out of the tent. Well. She hadn’t botched it entirely. She’d just have to keep the peace.

Luckily, Ingo looked utterly harmless.

Indeed, he was left blinking, puzzled, huddling deeper into the blankets at the chill once the tent flap was opened.

“Be easy on her, she’s never had this sort of thing happen since she’s been the leader,” Calaba said, going back to her sorting and mixing.

“I didn’t say anything,” Ingo said, his bewilderment now focused on the healer. “I wasn’t even thinking anything…”

“Head empty?” she said, deadpan, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I wasn’t judging!” Ingo insisted. “I was thinking about what she was saying! What is ‘Almighty Sinnoh’?”

Calaba stopped. “You haven’t heard of the great deity of Space itself?”

Ingo shook his head. “I have not. I don’t even feel a glint of recognition at those words.” He sounded mystified.

“... Perhaps you called it something else in your homeland. But a word to the wise; if you want to be returned to your proper Space, I would consider praying rather hard.”

As Ingo decided to lay back down in his cot, head beginning to ache with all of the new info flowing through it, he replied quietly. “Alright. I do need all the assistance I can get.”

Chapter Text

Calaba sighed for the umpteenth time that day as Lord Ursaluna ambled onwards beneath her. The bear pokemon chuffed a questioning noise, tilting his head towards her but not pausing in his lumbering quest.

“I know my head is in the clouds today,” the warden said. “I can’t stop thinking about our guest.”

Lord Ursaluna sneezed.

“Well, he’s as strange as they come. Beyond his foreign mannerisms, he wakes from his sleep screaming often. Says he feels like he is missing something, something that is invisible but aches and burns.” Calaba wound her fingers into her noble’s coarse fur, scritching his skin just how he liked. “It reminds me of the woes of those who have lost limbs, but Ingo is not missing anything. He is scarred but whole. In all my years as a healer, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Having reached their destination, Calaba climbed from the back of her noble and went to gather food and herbs while Lord Ursaluna began to dig for sootfoot roots. She continued to talk aloud, the great bear as good a listener as he always was.

“I know I have a reputation for being distrustful of outsiders. But that is when they are healthy and doing things that could be considered dangerous. This… Boy is just sad. Even if he had ill intent, what would he do, you know?”

Lord Ursaluna grunted in agreement. 

“The elders are cautious and wise in the traditions of the clan. But I’m an elder too. I daresay I’m the eldest, and I do get a say in all this nonsense. He’s going to stay.”

She then discussed, in a one-sided way, possible treatments for Ingo’s phantom pains and amnesia, though she wasn’t too hopeful that medicine would help there. Time was bound to be the best medicine for such ailments.

“Either way, I will be cooking sootfoot and swinub stew tonight. That will put some meat back on his scrawny bones, hm?”

Barking in agreement, Lord Ursaluna bent to allow his warden to climb aboard, and then set out for the Pearl Clan settlement.

▲▽

It took a few more days for Ingo to feel well enough to venture out of the healer’s tent. Though the man was loath to even admit it to himself, the final day spent inside was not really necessary. He was simply reluctant and not at all ready to meet the people who, he’d heard, were convinced he should have died in that storm.

Ingo may not have had his memories, may have become decoupled from his home station, but he knew that being looked on with such suspicion, being unwanted, was never something he’d experienced.

The feeling of all those eyes on him was familiar. The naked hostility was not.

He hunched his back a bit more to try and disguise his height, tried not to walk with a limp due to the apparent unevenness of his spine. His hands he bunched into the front of his coat, the feeling of the familiar fabric running over his fingers soothing in a way that nothing else in this unfamiliar world was.

His hat he pulled low, discouraging people from trying to make eye contact with him.

It helped, a little, when he made it to one of the communal cooking fires and Calaba was already there. He liked her, he’d decided rather quickly. She was brusque and somewhat grumpy, yes, but in her actions was kindness, and she didn’t even look at him with a hint of suspicion.

Pity, yes, but he didn’t mind that nearly as much. And he supposed he was a rather pitiful sight, at the moment.

“We’ll have to get you a good walking stick,” said the healer without preamble, poking at the fire with a metal rod. “To help you get around with that bad back of yours.”

“That would be agreeable,” said Ingo, voice a bit hoarse from all the whispering he’d been doing.

“How’s the tunic? Are you warm enough?”

Ingo ran a hand over the thick fabric emblazoned with the Pearl Clan crest that he’d put on over the thin black shirt he’d been wearing since he woke up. “Yes, it’s nice. It feels… Good. It’s sturdy, well made, and doesn’t cause me discomfort.”

“How is your scar with all the layers?”

“... It’s not terribly pleasant, but I suppose I will have to adjust.”

Calaba looked over at her former patient. It was curious, wasn’t it, that the unevenness of his coat seemed to line up with his scar. If she thought too hard about it, it would cause her to shudder and recoil. 

Something terrible had happened to Ingo, something even a healer of over eighty years didn’t want to think about. There were horrors beyond that rift in the sky.

“I will see if I can think up a solution to that for you, alright? You shouldn’t have to live in discomfort.”

“Much appreciated.”

Calaba began cooking some strips of swinub now that the fire was ready, the fat crackling on the hot stone that she’d pushed onto the coals. She didn’t speak for a while, listening to the sizzling of the meat. When it was nearing cooked through, she looked over at Ingo.

The man’s eyes were fixed on the food, and she couldn’t be surprised by that. He’d been relegated to a diet of broth and eggs and a small amount of actual soup as he recovered from his ordeal, and the larger portion of meat must look very good.

“I’ll split this with you if you’d like.”

“I cannot take your meal!”

Ah, so this is how Ingo was when he wasn’t scared and bedridden. A people-pleaser.

“Perhaps I brought extra.”

Ingo didn’t have much to say to that, only pulling down the brim of his hat to shade his face. “You are kind, Warden Calaba.”

“I know I am, thank you very much.” But she chuckled and divided up the meat, passing Ingo a portion that he was very polite in not scarfing down. Once finished, he acknowledged how good it was, and, though his mouth was still frowning, his squinted eyes held a soft happiness that she hadn’t seen in him yet.

It made her feel better too, if she was honest.

▲▽

Ingo learned swiftly; it was hard to tell if it was because he had a natural propensity for learning, or if the emptiness of his mind made a good clean slate.

He still couldn’t travel very far for very long due to his back, but he was doing better. A good walking stick was really helping his posture, though he did not want to stand at his full height. It must’ve been painful.

Sewing a layer of silcoon silk inside his first layer of clothes over his scar took care of that problem as well, much to Ingo’s utter relief. He was glad to be almost entirely free of that roiling feeling of wrongness.

Irida had been visiting with the man as well; she’d been the one doing most of the teaching. At first, before he was feeling bold enough to go far, it had simply been clan customs, traditions, and beliefs.

The way Ingo seemed to hang off her every word like they all mattered was… New, to say the least. Irida always seemed to deal with the paradoxical issue that people did respect her, but would ‘yes but’ any decision she made that was anything but unanimously accepted. Her age was against her, and she was tired of commanding respect, but only when those older than her agreed with her.

Something told her Ingo had always been a good listener. He obviously had listened to someone ramble a lot in the past.

And then, when he had been around for a little over a month and everyone was used to his presence, Ingo was told two very surprising things at the same time.

“This tent is for you, Ingo.”

“For me?” Ingo pushed a flap aside, peering in with disbelief. “I can… Live here? In the Pearl Clan?”

Irida nodded, smiling. “Yes, at least until you find out where you came from, if you didn’t fall from the rift, that is.”

Ingo sounded choked up when he spoke again. “Thank you, Miss Irida.”

The second surprising thing was that Irida wanted to take him on a trip around Hisui to familiarize him with the landscape. “The winter season has just ended, and it would be wise to show you around your new Space.”

“I appreciate this a great deal,” Ingo had said. “But… you are the clan leader. I don’t know yet the full gravity of what that means, but… Going on a journey with a stranger seems…” He trailed off, unable to find polite words to describe what he meant.

“I’ll be taking a clan guard with me, for both of our benefits,” Irida reassured him. “And I am confident I haven’t misplaced my trust in you as a trustworthy person to be around.”

“You haven’t,” Ingo said in response. “I will not let you down, I am sure of it. However… I will be able to do very little to protect anyone, I confess. I have no pokemon of my own.”

Irida looked at him quizzically. “Very few people here are pokemon wielders. We fend for ourselves, mostly. Though, as the clan leader, I probably should eventually take on a pokemon of my own.”

This all felt strange to Ingo, much like the language had. The information seemed so wrong to him, but there was nothing else in his head to counter it aside from intuition. So he simply nodded along.

“I think… Where I am from things are different. But I will certainly learn the customs here.” He nodded, deferring to Irida, before she told him more information about when they planned to leave and the sort of supplies he would need.

He had a day to sort things out and get packed, though his possessions were meager. In the time he had, Ingo was given some soft stantler leather to wrap around the spots on his walking stick where he held them.

“Prevents splinters and is easier on the hand,” Calaba had said, helping him get it situated.

When they set out, the weather was still cold, at least by Ingo’s standards. Irida seemed positively refreshed, despite wearing clothes that exposed her skin to the chill. The guard leading the way also seemed supremely unbothered. Privately thinking both of them crazy, and then feeling bad about thinking it, Ingo pulled his high, stiff collar closer to his neck and curled his fingers inside his stained and regrettably thin gloves.

But one thing had been correct. It was definitely not as bitterly frigid as it had been when Ingo first woke up. That cold had seeped into his bones and stayed there, though the man supposed some of that had probably been the frostbite he’d been recovering from. Still, it had been hard to shake.

“The weather will warm up once we’re out of the Icelands,” Irida promised, seeing him rubbing his hands together, before he could shove them behind his back and pretend not to be bothered. “I know you’re unused to this climate, but you’ll adjust!”

Ingo could not say he was looking forward to that, so he did not say anything. He just nodded.

Before they had left the settlement, Ingo had struck a pose, one that had come to him unbidden. He’d pointed with his right hand down the path they were to take, and held his other arm straight out from his side, finger pointing down. “ALL ABOARD!” he had cried before cringing away from the many pairs of eyes that had snapped to him. He pulled the brim of his hat down, practically covering his eyes, so he didn’t have to see Irida gaping at him with her hands over her ears.

“I am… I am so sorry,” he’d stammered out, face reddening. “I do not know where that came from. I think… Maybe it was something I used to do…” He trailed off, picking up his walking stick again, rubbing his fingers over the leather.

“Some lung capacity you have,” mumbled the guard.

“Sorry,” he said again. “I promise I will be quieter to the best of my abilities. Let us make haste for the tracks ahead. I’d prefer if… Well, if we didn’t linger on this.” The phrase had felt so incredibly right on his tongue, but the eyes on him and lack of an echo had felt wrong.

Ingo was still dwelling on it as they trekked through the Icelands. The three of them were wearing strange goggles with horizontal slits; Ingo was lent a pair before they headed out. Irida explained they were for snowy expanses, to keep the light bouncing from the snow from damaging their eyes.

Ingo tried looking out over the wastes without the goggles, and found they weren’t joking. So he slipped them over his gently glowing eyes and trekked on.

The few pokemon he could see in the white wasteland were far off; buneary, they looked like, and plenty of snorunt. None strayed close to them.

“Pokemon are dangerous,” Irida said, cutting into Ingo’s thoughts. “I can see you watching them.”

“Are… You sure?” is all Ingo could manage.

“I am intimately certain.” The look on Irida’s face said it all. “Those pokemon out there are skittish. The odd buneary will try to kick you, but they are keeping their distance because they know we are here. Other species won’t be so kind.”

Ingo learned, rather quickly, when they began to travel along a just-thawing frozen river and Ingo turned a corner and startled a riolu that had been plucking berries from a bush sheltered beneath an icy rock. It snarled, jumping backwards and baring its teeth, and a worried barking came from further away.

The guard pushed in front of Ingo, leveling his spear at the blue pokemon. It seemed to think better of attacking them, running back to the lucario standing on a boulder a ways off. Once it was hiding behind its parents legs, the lucario’s aura sensors on the back of its head flared out, and a small ball of blue energy appeared over one of its paws.

“Leave,” came a distinctly growling, rusty-sounding voice that echoed in each of their minds.

The group made haste to head towards the edge of the falls that were gushing at half power. There were precarious stairs carved into the rock face where the falls dropped a good twenty feet into the river below, and the guard had to keep a hand on Ingo to prevent him from slipping. He was wheezing and winded by the time they reached the bottom.

“We can stop here for a short rest,” Irida said, pitying the man. “We do, unfortunately, have a lot of ground to cover.”

True to her word, the stop didn’t last for long. Especially when, as they were leaving, a small group of machop decided to try and chase them. The humans were much faster, but Ingo was left gasping and needed another short break.

“It’s no wonder, with your stick legs,” grouched their guard.

“Zinta, be polite,” said Irida, exasperated. “He’s still suited to whatever environment he came from.”

“I am sorry for delaying this train,” coughed Ingo, still bent over. “I do not think I was a runner, before.”

The group got underway again, and throughout the day there were more pokemon attacks and threats, as well as species darting into the undergrowth with alarm calls as soon as they laid eyes on the humans. It was a wonder that humans were able to traverse the terrain at all, with how aggressive some creatures were.

It made him anxious, to be honest. Irida was right. He had to be careful out here.

Later in the day a depressing drizzle picked up, sticking with them and melting the snow until a little after sunset, when the clouds gave way to a darkening sky. The traveling party pitched their small temporary tents right near the path next to a grove of trees. The snow was already largely gone, only existing in sad slushy piles here and there.

The guard, Zinta, began to start a fire while Irida showed Ingo how to set up his tent. Luckily, he learned quickly and was able to set his belongings inside and change into warm, dry clothes before grabbing some meat rations to reheat.

“We’re making some soup with our meat, sootfoot roots, and some medicinal leeks. Just enough for the three of us.” Irida smiled at him, taking the meat he offered her.

“Soup is good for chilled bones,” added Zinta, stirring the broth as Irida added the meat.

“That sounds good to me,” replied Ingo, waiting patiently. It only took about a half an hour for the food to be ready, and wooden bowls full of hot dinner were passed out among them, which they sipped at in silence. The food was enough to satiate Ingo, which was a relief. After a day of walking, he’d gotten hungry.

“I’d advise sleeping,” said Irida once she’d taken the bowls back. “Zinta and I are going to go find some water and wash these bowls. We won’t be too long, and we will be quiet when we return.”

And they left the man alone.

He didn’t feel much like sleeping. Yes, it was cold outside, but Ingo didn’t much feel like being inside his temporary tent. It was chillier than he’d expected inside, even with the fur blankets, and he wanted to be closer to the fire.

Scooping up his bundle of clothes he’d changed out of, damp from the earlier rain shower, Ingo went to the log that served as a bench. After draping his clothes next to him, the man laced his long, long fingers together and looked up. The stars were like nothing he had ever seen before, he knew that for a fact. The whorls and wisps of a distant pale smudge of something out there among the stars was new. Well, new to him at least.

Ingo felt like he could faintly remember someone discussing the stars and what lay behind them. There must’ve been a person he knew who had loved them, and maybe that’s why staring at the heavens hurt his heart, a bit.

With a sigh, the man looked at the fire. He reached up, removing his still slightly soggy hat, holding it so he could inspect the object. The fabric was worn; he must have had the hat for some time, but taken good care of it. The metal badge on the front was a pin, he found, and there were still small water droplets on the enamel surface.

“That won’t do,” he mumbled to himself, unclipping it and setting the hat aside. “You will arrive at your next destination rather rusty in this state.”

Immediately he was hit by a rush of embarrassment for speaking to an inanimate object, but something about talking even without a companion sitting across the fire from him didn’t feel out of place at all.

Still, he quieted, taking the badge and polishing it gently against the Pearl Clan tunic he was wearing. The warm, thick fabric absorbed all the water and wiped away the fingerprints he’d left on it. When Ingo was sure it was clean, he held it up, and the metal caught the firelight.

He stared at the emblem, leaning forwards to rest his elbows on his knees. “What are you?” he asked quietly. The blue and white pin did not answer, giving no hints as to what it was supposed to depict. But looking at it gave him a sense of peace and comfort, and he turned it over in his hand a few times.

The metal was warm, both from the contact and the fire, and it felt like a talisman, like a key to his past that he simply needed to find the matching keyhole to. Either way, it was important. There would be nothing like it in this land, of that he was certain.

Suddenly, he became acutely aware of the sensation of being watched. The hairs on his neck prickled, and he knew that it was not Irida and Zinta returning from their trek to find water for them all. There was silence around him, then, and his heart dropped to the soles of his shoes and the blood rushed in his ears. The way everything had fallen silent, all the bug types and the birds…

There was something large in the area, and something that was most likely a predator. And if it was looking at him… Ingo surged to his feet, taking his walking stick and brandishing it like a staff. He was careful not to speak, not to make a sound, because what if it actually was hunting something else?

Then he caught a glimpse of green in the trees, much taller than his own height, and his blood ran cold. 

A pair of glowing pinpricks the color of poison transfixed him like headlights (what was a headlight?). Ingo felt small. Exposed. Vulnerable.

Every pokemon he had seen up to this point had seemed wrong. They’d been outright hostile or had run away. Every last one. Irida claimed there were a few species indifferent to humans, but still. He was not sure he believed her.

This one was not running away. (Why was it not running away, what was Ingo supposed to do with a measly stick against something that towered over his own six foot frame?)

“Snawwr?” came a call from the darkness, and Ingo leveled his stick at it.

“Move along. I do not want any trouble. I know how to deal with unruly passengers.” A lie, in this case. A lie and he knew it. He wondered if the pokemon did too.

A deep rumbling clicking noise was his only response, and then the green lights came closer. Something cracked when stepped on, but that didn’t deter whatever it was. Ingo moved, putting the fire in between himself and the treeline, unblinking.

The first glimpse the man caught of the creature aside from the eyes were its claws, glinting wickedly in the firelight, coated in an almost oily sheen. They were as long as his forearm, he guessed, maybe longer. Shaggy, pale fur followed, along with a catlike face and two wickedly long, sharp canine teeth. Some long, thin appendage grew from its head, twitching as the ear it was attached to swiveled.

It dropped to all fours, tucking the claws under its paws, and extended its neck to sniff at Ingo. Then… Much to his surprise it sat, tilting its head and examining him. “Snnnnnnr?” it called, sounding far more curious than hungry.

Ingo wasn’t swayed. It could simply be another trick.

He’d heard about the dangerous pokemon that roamed the… The Icelands, it had been? Everyone refused to talk about them, and that had meant refusing to explain to Ingo what they were and how to avoid them. The only thing the man knew is that if you fell for their trickery, you died.

Could this be what they were referring to? An easily seven or eight foot terror that acted like a tame cat pokemon?

“Move along,” Ingo said, hating how his voice wavered at the tail end of the statement. “You will find no easy meal here, I can assure you. I have no intention of reaching the end of my line as prey.”

And then, the audacity, this creature lifted a clawed paw to its mouth and laughed at him, an inhuman cackle that sounded like some pokemon he’d heard once but could no longer picture or name.

“Rude!” he couldn’t help but state. He clapped a hand over his mouth when the interloper paused, standing again to its towering height, and walked closer. It never tried to walk around the fire, but stopped right on the other side of the flames, close enough that Ingo could see the lithe muscles under the fur, spots on its shoulders where the hair had almost been worn down, and the iridescence on what he now knew to be a feather trailing from its head.

He shrunk back when it reached to him, arm arcing easily over the fire. A few drops from its claws landed in the flames and sparked a bright purple where they were burned up. The creature stopped before it made contact, eyes boring into him, standing there frozen.

Then the pokemon chuffed and withdrew, standing in the little camp a few more moments before loping off into the woods with a shambling, bipedal gait. He saw the green lights look back at him once before they retreated further, and the normal sounds of the night gradually returned.

Chapter Text

Ingo did not tell either of his traveling companions about his encounter with the strange pokemon. He didn’t want Irida or Zinta to think he was overreacting, telling tall tales, or worse, hallucinating.

Ingo also didn’t want them to know he’d attracted the attention of a potentially dangerous pokemon lest they leave him behind as a liability. Especially when it kept showing up.

Never in his life had Ingo been a selfish man. He couldn’t remember much but he did have a grasp on his own personality, and he knew he’d always been rather giving. Self-sacrificial, even. But now… By Sinnoh, Ingo did not want to be abandoned to be hunted down in a strange world.

Besides, the creature had absolutely no interest in his Pearl Clan companions, it seemed.

It was never quite as brazen as it had been that first night. Sticking to the underbrush and darkness, those acid green pinpricks had showed up again and again as the little party ventured through the vast land of Hisui. This didn’t occur every night, but it did enough for it to become a pattern Ingo simply did his best to ignore.

During the daylight hours this was surprisingly easy for the man to do. Hisui was an expanse, full of lakes and cliffs and ruins from civilizations that came before. Of course, it was also full of pokemon.

The lower, warmer areas of the region were largely slushy by the time the adventuring party came upon them. Luckily, the ground itself hadn’t warmed up enough to become a muddy mess. The puddles didn’t seep into Ingo’s mysteriously resistant shoes.

“Hey Ingo, this way,” said Irida, breaking the man out of his thoughts. She waved him over, towards a ridge, and he tightened his grip on his walking stick before stepping onto the stone.

“Where does this lead?” he questioned in between breaths as they climbed, Zinta leading the way.

“This is a small detour.”

“Ah. An unexpected stop with a return to a normal schedule shortly.”

“... I wish you remembered why you say the words you say.”

“As do I, Miss Irida.”

Coming to the top of the ridge, the small group looked out over a section of lowlands near what Irida had called the Obsidian Fieldlands. There was a settlement there, small but sturdy looking, with buildings that vaguely registered as more familiar to Ingo. The largest of them even appeared to have pokemon carvings adorning it.

“We’re not going to visit, but that is Jubilife Village. They’re… People from elsewhere on the continent. Refugees, they’ve said.” Irida paused, sighing. “Relations are… Tense, as they are with the Diamond Clan.”

Ingo had heard some fleeting chatter about the relative newcomers in the region, but nothing concrete. He was curious, but perhaps it was for the best that he wasn’t going to meet those people at this current moment. Perhaps they would dislike outsiders as much as some of the Pearl Clan did.

He was, apparently, going to be introduced to the Diamond Clan though. Irida needed to speak with their leader about something anyway, and it was on their way back.

The ground grew softer and less cold as they journeyed onwards, and soon the group was in a sort of just-thawing swamp. They had to choose their routes carefully, both due to the unstable ground and the hippowdon that were all too eager to defend their territory, but it still didn’t take long for them to come upon a camp not dissimilar to that of the Pearl Clan.

Ingo did his best to ignore the curious eyes on him as he followed Irida and Zinta into the Diamond Clan camp. There was no overt hostility directed his way, though there was a healthy amount of suspicion. No, the worst of the looks were directed at Irida.

She must have been deadly serious when she had said inter-clan tensions were high.

Stomach roiling in sympathy, Ingo looked down to focus on not getting the end of his walking stick or his shoes caught in the cold mud.

“Looks like you’ve picked up an outsider,” came a new voice, and Ingo had to look up again. There was a young man in a large blue coat walking over, arms crossed. He looked only a little older than Irida, and his hair was streaked blue and green. Ingo immediately got the feeling that this was someone who was doing his best to look serious, but would naturally be a relaxed sort if it wasn’t for the weighty responsibility on his shoulders.

“Adaman,” Irida said with a sigh. “Yes, we have. This is Ingo; he means no harm and is staying with the Pearl Clan, seeing as he has lost his way in the vastness of our Space.”

It was not lost on Ingo that the comments were pointed, barbed in a way that emphasized the values of the Pearl Clan.

“Surely your Time could be better spent as a leader than showing some stranger around Hisui,” Adaman snorted. Ingo reached down with a free hand to clutch at his coat, touch of the fabric grounding him a little more and giving him the courage to speak up.

“Greetings, Sir Adaman! It is an honor to be in your camp; I promise not to impose.” After a moment, Ingo looked up from where he’d inclined his head, determined not to make the same mistake twice. Adaman was blinking at him with wide eyes, as were most of the people in the camp.

“Sinnoh above, you are loud. ”

Ingo wanted nothing more than to sink into the mud currently tugging at his shoes, but he didn’t allow his posture to crumble. He simply put on a more practiced voice even though doing so felt wrong. “Ah. I am sorry, sir, I meant no offense. I do not remember my life before being found by the Pearl Clan, but I can tell this place is much different from my home. I am still learning how to fit in.”

“Where did you FIND this guy?” Adaman gaped at Irida before snapping his mouth shut. “Also, I’m sorry, Ingo, was it? I’ve been rude. You simply surprised me.” He smiled, and Ingo shot what he hoped was a relieved expression back. He knew, though, that he probably failed in that, so he spoke as well.

“No offense taken, sir. My unexpected track shift has left me quite derailed.”

“That is his way of saying he feels like a beached magikarp,” explained Irida shrewdly.

“We have come for another reason, sir,” Zinta said, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the camp. “Lady Irida has something she wishes to discuss with you.”

“Ah. Thank you. Ingo, you’re welcome to rest by one of the cooking fires.” Adaman turned, leading Irida away, and Zinta followed to take up a post near the largest tent. He was obviously loath to leave his leader entirely in the hands of the rival clan.

Turning to where Adaman had gestured, Ingo saw a setup extremely similar to that of the Pearl Clan, and made his way over to sit and have something to eat. Some dried berries and a strip of jerky were what he fished out of his pack, sitting on the flat topped rock that served as a bench, and he ate hungrily.

All of the walking made him ravenous and his back sore, though he would never outwardly say so. He had a feeling that, in order to fit in in this harsh land, he’d need to do his best to help out or at least not be a burden. Perhaps it was his newness, but he couldn’t imagine being looked at kindly if he simply did nothing.

So focused on his own thoughts was Ingo that he lost himself to staring at the fire, chewing slowly. It was because of this that a few small children were able to sneak up on the man and poke him in the back, causing him to yelp. 

“Please stay behind the yellow line!” It took him a moment to look down, but when he did, he saw the wide eyed kids who had jumped backwards when he shouted. “Oh… My apologies, you simply startled me…”

“Who are you?” asked the boldest of the crew, a small boy with red hair and a blue tunic not unlike his own pink one.

“I am… Ingo.” It was his name, but the words that felt right on his tongue felt wrong to his ears. He wondered fleetingly if he’d ever get over that. “I am new to this region.”

“You look so weird,” one of the other children piped up. “Your hair… Why does it do that?”

From any one of the adults, these comments would have stung. But when faced with the curious and slightly concerned eyes of a child, Ingo chuckled, setting his food aside.

“If I am honest, I am not sure. It just grows that way.”

“You don’t cut it special like Warden Gaeric?”

“Now, I have no idea who that is, but no. I do not.”

“You must be really new then. Have any cool stories?”

“I am afraid I do not. You see, I happen to have amnesia.”

“Oh my mom has that!” piped up the little girl who hadn’t spoken yet. “She has trouble sleeping.”

“You dummy, that’s insomnia!” said the first kid. “Amnesia means he’s got bad knees.”

At that, Ingo let out a real laugh, and all the children fell silent. “I am sorry to report your thoughts are traveling the wrong rails entirely. Amnesia means I cannot remember my past. Hence not having any interesting tales from my time before Hisui.”

All three children’s eyes proverbially widened. “You talk weird but what?” said the boldest boy. “That’s something that can happen?”

“Indeed. It’s not a fate I would wish on anyone.”

“You forgot all your cool stories. That stinks. We can tell you some instead, then.”

“Yeah!” chorused the other children, and before Ingo could reply, he spent the next span of time listening to the kids stumble through a winding story of an adventure that they almost certainly weren’t supposed to have gone on. They mixed up some details and argued over specifics, but Ingo was thoroughly entertained anyway.

After some time, Irida returned with Zinta on her tail, and the kids quickly bade Ingo farewell. Luckily they’d finished their story. The thought of talking to the Pearl Clan leader, however, was too much for them.

Ingo did not ask about the topic of Irida and Adaman’s discussion. He knew it was none of his business and the efforts would be fruitless and perhaps even damaging to his fragile reputation. So he simply greeted the two and made space by the fire.

The trio was allowed to remain in the Diamond Clan camp long enough for Irida and Zinta to also have a midday snack before they had to carry on. When they began their trek out of the camp, the wind had already begun to pick up. What few clouds there were scudded across the sky speedily; if they had had rain to drop, it would have passed quickly.

As the afternoon wore down into night, the wind only picked up, gusts hindering their process significantly.

“We just need to go a bit further to get to an area that’s safe to camp at,” Irida had said, so Ingo fought onwards without complaint. His grip on his walking stick was white-knuckled.

The one benefit of the wind was that it had driven all of the wild pokemon into their dens and nests early. None of them wanted to fight through all of that and attempt to hunt or find berries.

Well. Ingo soon learned that all but one pokemon were gone.

From his position in the back of the group, Ingo suddenly heard a faint chattering and straightened up as much as he was able, on high alert. 

Safety checks, he thought, but the unknown factor sent his heart beating faster. That could have been any pokemon. Keep your tracks steady. 

There was no sound layered beneath the heavy gale for a while. When the traveling party came across some boulders and ridges jutting from the ground, Zinta said he’d climb up and look for the landmarks. It was harder to find things in the dark.

As the two left over passed through the shadow of a tall, rocky outcropping, Ingo heard the small clatter of pebbles falling down the rock face. His gaze snapped upwards, scanning the top of the ledge.

Ingo’s eyes latched onto a patch of slightly darker darkness against the night sky at a range even his keen night vision couldn’t fully capture; his suspicions were confirmed when a cloud sailed by behind the silhouette and the pinpricks of its eyes were not extinguished like the stars.

They blinked.

Ingo rushed forwards, reaching out to Irida but drawing up short. “Lady Irida!” he cried out, glancing upwards again. The shape was gone.

“Ingo? What is it?” The Pearl Clan leader turned to the frantic sounding man and met his glowing eyes unflinchingly.

“There is something following our tracks. A creature, a pokemon. It is stalking me.”

To Irida, it now seemed like Ingo was on the verge of tears, almost, despite his almost entirely static facial expressions.

“It’s been following me for the whole journey,” he choked out, hand actually going to his throat as if saying the words hurt. “I… Did not say anything because I thought… Well I thought…” Ingo looked too ashamed to continue.

“Ingo… I know you’re new to this world.” Irida, unlike the man before her, had to raise her voice to be heard above the wind. “But these are the sort of things you must bring up, for the safety of the group.”

“I know,” he answered shamefully. “... I simply expected to be left to fend for myself once it became apparent I’d attracted the attention of a predator.”

It hit Irida how much differently Ingo’s homeland must work than Hisui, even if he could not remember.

“We are wary, but we are not monsters. I know some of your impressions haven’t been the best but we’re not going to leave you to die. I refuse to allow anyone to do that.”

“Even if that… Thing has gotten to Zinta?”

“What… Oh I really did set the bait before the trap. The pokemon you’ve been seeing. She’s not dangerous. She’s honestly one of the few that aren’t. That is certainly Noble Lady Sneasler.”

And she could just see the confusing building in Ingo’s gaze as they fought onwards through the gale. It hit Irida, then just how ludicrous this must sound, two people shouting over the wind, one absolutely devastated and the other simply conversational. What a pair they were.

“I’ll explain at a better time about Nobles, but she is probably fetching Zinta for us.”

All of the tension and fight had drained from the man before her, leaving him weak kneed and shaking from the loss of adrenaline. “O-oh,” he said weakly, and she shrewdly guessed that had he been any other person the response would have been lost to the storm.

They were both quiet when they spied Zinta moving quickly towards them, conducting them towards a shelter made from large rocks leaning on each other. There was a hollow inside that opened up into a cave further on; it was the perfect place to spend the night. Zinta even had a freshly-started fire going.

And that tall, wickedly-clawed pokemon was already there.

“Lady Sneasler,” Irida said, then sighed. “You have given this man a terrible fright, I hope you know.”

“Snee?” came the response, along with a tilt of her head and twitch of her feather. 

“Yes! He is new here. He knows nothing of the Nobles, or of you.”

“Wawrghhhhh…”

“Yes, I know you are sorry, but go apologize to him. That is Ingo.”

Irida gestured at the man, who was wringing the hat he normally had on his head in his hands, walking stick leaning against the cave wall. Sneasler sniffed, cautiously making her way over to the stiff man.

“Lrrrrrrr,” she purred, looking into his anxious eyes, squinting hers up at the edges to show her happiness. Stretching her neck, next she bumped his sweaty forehead with her nose.

“She likes you,” Irida translated, taking a seat. “I’ve never seen her warm up to someone so quickly.”

Sneasler laughed her cackling, inhuman laugh, then full on licked Ingo’s face.

“Augh!” he cried, eyes going wide in surprise before he used the front of his tunic to wipe the spit off. “My Lady, your tongue is like sandpaper!” But now there was a laugh to his voice, and he tentatively reached out to bury his fingers in the ruff around Lady Sneasler’s neck. She leaned into it, cooing happily, saber fanged mouth seeming to smile.

“Glad that that’s been sorted,” Zinta said, getting out the cooking supplies again and what turned out to be a carefully wrapped packet of udon noodles. “I’ll prepare dinner.”

Ingo and Irida set up their sleeping mats while he did so, and then Ingo also unrolled Zinta’s mat for him. It was the least he could do to repay the guard for dinner. Of course, when he turned around again, Lady Sneasler was sprawled on his own mat, head propped up on a paw. She laughed when he caught her eye, then moved.

As Ingo sat, she stood, then gestured at the cave entrance, making a few sharp barking sounds before ambling out the entrance.

After seeing Ingo’s questioning look, Irida spoke. “She’s going to get her own dinner. I’m guessing she’ll be back as soon as she finds something to satisfy her.”

Dinner that night was a more comfortable affair. With the camaraderie the team had built over the last several days and the weight of the mysterious interloper gone from his chest, Ingo began to speak more, to ask more questions and offer up his meager knowledge in return. By the end of the meal, Zinta had offered to teach Ingo how to cook when they returned to the camp.

With the fire mere embers to keep them warm, the three settled in to sleep. The windstorm was still howling outside, but somehow, muffled through thick stone, the sound felt comforting to Ingo, and he began to drift off.

Before he fully fell asleep, soft, padding footsteps announced the return of Lady Sneasler, as did a soft, furry weight on his midsection. As she began to purr, Ingo found familiarity in this, in the way she tucked her teeth out of the way so they didn’t poke him, in the way she sighed gently before closing her glinting eyes.

The warm feeling in his chest lulled him to sleep before he even knew it.

Chapter Text

“What line are you on today?” Cloud asked, looking down at Cameron kindly. The younger man was hurriedly eating a bagel with cream cheese; his uniform was impeccably ironed and he’d obviously spent a lot of time getting ready for the day. Hence the rushed breakfast, Cloud suspected.

“Doubles,” he said once he’d swallowed a bite. “I hope it’s a quiet day, my double battles aren’t really as good as I want them to be.”

“Only way to get better is to practice, son,” countered Ramses, smiling. “And that means lots of challengers.”

Cameron gulped. “You’re r-right. But I wish I got more practice in private first.”

“If anyone judges you, just tell the bosses. They’ll set them straight!” Cloud laughed, winking at him. “Or I will, if they’re not around.”

“They’re doing multis today,” Ramses noted. “So Cloud can go to bat for you if needed. But I think you’ll find you’ve got more skill than you realize.”

“Thanks,” said Cameron quietly, cheeks red.

Gear Station was visible in the distance as they rounded a corner, glass roof glittering in the hint of a sunrise. The city hadn’t woken yet, which was for the best since the public transit system hadn’t opened for the day. That crew would arrive not long after the Battle Subway agents for the day, Cloud knew.

But then, as the trio got closer to the station, they all heard a sound that raised the hairs on the backs of their necks.

Screaming.

Not screaming like that of an argument, nor like screaming in fear in response to a jumpscare. It was a raw, primal, animalistic scream coming from an undeniably human throat. A sound of pure, all-encompassing pain.

… Multiple people were screaming.

“Dragons,” choked out Ramses from where they all had frozen by the front door. It was Cloud who wrenched open the door after fumbling with her keycard, releasing her audino.

They were greeted with… A completely empty lobby and silence. The station was empty, deserted and waiting for its agents and passengers to return. The master switch powering the lights had already been flipped by someone, and Cloud’s hands shook.

There were only two people who would arrive so early.

Where were Ingo and Emmet?

“We have to check the platforms!” Ramses’ voice echoed in the cavernous space, frantic, and Cameron just followed him, face drained of all color.

“Come on boys, please make another sound,” Cloud begged under her breath as she strode by the entrances to several platforms, straining to listen for something, anything.

She got her wish.

It was weak; a call for help that sounded more like a feeble, dying creature than anything, wet and bloody. It must have taken every ounce of strength with the way it tapered off. But it was enough.

“Over here!” And she did not wait for an answer, or even for her own pokemon. She knew Audino would catch up.

In the moment, she would parse only in the back of her head the dimming of the lights on the stairs leading to the bowels of the station. When she stepped foot onto the bricks the lights above her flickered, causing her to squint. The far end of the platform was shrouded in darkness, the lights fully out.

Then an arc of sparks scattered from the ruined electricals, bouncing on the floor and fading, illuminating a shape on the ground.

Dread wound its way through Cloud’s guts as she forced herself to hurry forwards, and when she finally reached her destination, her fears were proven to be founded.

It was Emmet.

Just Emmet.

When Cloud had first met the twins, back when they were depot agents, for a moment she had been confused. Didn’t all conjoined twins get separated these days, rare as they were? But then she’d thought for a moment, seeing their singular hips and legs, and came to the conclusion that it was probably due to the low probability of survival of both of them. 

After all, you cannot survive as just a torso.

(Immediately after, she’d felt ashamed for thinking such rude thoughts about her brand new coworkers. And those boys were truly sweethearts; she was glad to work with both of them.)

Blood pooled against her shoe, and she could hear the footsteps of Ramses and Cameron catching up behind her.

“What–” called out the older man before skidding to a halt behind her. “Fucking KYUREM.” He staggered backwards, and beside him Cameron scrambled to the edge of the platform and vomited onto the tracks below.

Laying on his stomach on the worn bricks was Emmet. The man looked like he had been viscerally torn in two, but Ingo was nowhere to be seen. From his last ribs down his body simply Was Not, and the wobbling flashlight beams purposefully did not illuminate the wet ropes of innards exposed to the stagnant air. 

Seeing Emmet’s face was not much better. His eyes were wide, staring at nothing, and there were tears streaming from them still.

Cloud did not know dead men could cry.

Because he had died, right? He’d passed while she was racing down the stairs? The fact that he hadn’t died instantly was whatever the opposite of a miracle could be called. But he was–

Emmet took a gasping, pained breath that wracked his whole body.

It was Cloud, predictably, who picked him up. Her brain turned off as she bent to grab him under the arms, kneeling on the sticky ground. The shattered man made a gurgling noise in the back of his throat as she attempted to prop him up on his back across her knees.

“Heal pulse,” she instructed her audino in the same steely voice she only used when in the most serious pokemon battles. With a soft magenta glow, Audino’s hand patted the fallen Subway Master on his wet cheek. The most immediately fatal of the bleeding slowed to a possibly manageable flow and Emmet’s breathing eased, but the massive damage could not be repaired with a simple pokemon move.

He needed a human hospital.

(What, realistically, could they do though? Almost half a torso could not be freely regrown.)

Ramses was furiously dialing on his xtrans, practically screaming into the device for a medical team, that Subway Master Emmet was dying and that someone needed to be at Gear Station immediately.

Cloud’s gaze snapped to Cameron’s trembling hands, holding out his pristine depot agent jacket. “For the bleeding,” he said, sounding like he was about to faint.

With a nod, Cloud accepted it. She didn’t think, because if she thought, she would stop and she could not stop. Without looking, she gathered up the… mess dangling from Emmet’s severed midsection and bundled it into the hollow left behind with the jacket, covering it all. The man made a sort of whimper at that, the sensations probably horribly painful and strange, but then he quieted.

“Please keep pressure on this, I need to make sure he stays awake,” Cloud instructed, and somehow Cameron was able to comply.

“Emmet,” she said, now focusing on his face once more. “You have to stay awake. Do you hear me?” Shit, he was so pale and his gaze was unfocused, looking far beyond her face. Cloud did not know much about these things, but the dimness of the silver glow normally present in his eyes could not be good. That’s what they said, right? That the light goes out of your eyes when you die?

But does he even want to live? said a small voice in her ear. Can he even live like this? A literal half of a whole?

… Where is Ingo?

The senior depot agent could no longer ignore her thoughts as they crowded her brain and the EMTs finally arrived with their pokemon that could help transport and stabilize passengers, and they lifted Emmet out of her lap.

What happened? Was I wrong to try and save him? Should I have…

All of this occurred as she kneeled, blood and bits of gore staining her green uniform to an awful brown, unable to move, tuning out the medical jargon about transfusions and stitches and the fancy-sounding hospital machines that could save him. And above ALL other thoughts, superimposed in a way that would almost seem comical was a neverending stream of what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

“Ma’am,” said a person in scrubs, crouching in front of her. “Let’s get you somewhere where you can relax.” Right, right. Shock. Cloud could see Ramses talking to another member of the medical team, probably trying to explain what had happened. Yet another person was wrapping a blanket around the shoulders of a violently shuddering Cameron. It took Cloud a moment to process that the younger man was sobbing.

Slowly she stood, hyper-aware of the feelings of the muscles working in her legs, and allowed herself to be led into the nearest office space. Her mind could not decide now if it was best to think a lot or not at all, leading to this sort of stop-start-stuttering that was making her feel almost faint. Audino, her own audino, not one belonging to an EMT, leaned against her legs despite the congealing blood there.

Over everything was a blanketing feeling of loss, the world growing fuzzy as the edges with the heaviness of it. Maybe it was the shock, but Cloud genuinely did not know what to do in that moment. All she could do was stare in a dead-eyed way at the floor in front of her, every fiber of her being chugging to try and catch up to the world beyond what she had just seen.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that until a thought finally struck her, piercing through the haze. She had thought it multiple times but had been so focused on saving Emmet that she had pushed it aside.

Where was Ingo? 

▲▽

Emmet Kudari Grey arrived at Nimbasa General Hospital in critical condition.

They’d almost lost him several times on the trip there, and everyone on board the ambulance was unsure if they’d get him back, or if trying was even wise. It wasn’t borne of any reason except that due to the massive damage the man had sustained, it wasn’t sure he’d pull through anyways.

It seemed cruel, one of the EMTs thought as they shocked Emmet’s fibrillating heart again after another round of CPR, to put him through all this if it was simply going to be determined at the hospital that there was nothing they could do. His condition seemed incompatible with life.

Never had they been confronted with a still-living, bisected person, never mind one with nothing left to reattach.

It was horrifying.

The situation hit even harder because this was Subway Master Emmet. Everyone in the ambulance had met him and his brother before, even if they’d never challenged the Battle Subway. Anyone who took public transit in Unova would simply find them There, always willing to lend a couple of hands or detailed directions.

And now one of them was dying.

The other was still nowhere to be found.

Though… As the doctors and surgeons and even some pokemon worked, Emmet refused to die. The teams of medical professionals also refused to let him. Somehow, through some miracle of the Dragons… They were able to stabilize him.

He was dependent on so many machines to live, replacing what he had lost, and he was hooked up to a near double-digit amount of fluid bags, all running to various IVs, but he was alive.

The surgeries took nearly sixteen hours. 

To Drayden Grey, it felt so much longer.

The hospital waiting room was not the place for multiple dragons nor their master. A Nurse Joy had politely asked Drayden to keep his overlarge pokemon in their balls, and he’d complied. But even Dragon Masters desire comfort sometimes, and he dearly wished that at least his haxorus could remain outside his ball.

However, being allowed to remain in the hospital was the most important thing. So he followed instructions and waited alone. 

The mountain of a man sat in a small chair, trembling every so often, hands laced together, beard practically dripping wet from the rivulets that escaped from his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

He was unsure if he’d done the correct thing in having Iris stay at home. If Emmet took a turn for the worse (what could be worse he is already–) she would want to say goodbye, but… Waiting for hours in a too-bright hospital waiting room on an uncomfortable chair with no way to release the horrible terrified energy that had to be building inside her as well seemed like torture.

She was twelve. She didn’t need to be forced to deal with this. She deserved to shout and cry and cope in whatever way she wanted in the privacy of a home. So Iris was staying with Elesa while Drayden bore this terrible, terrible burden alone.

The hours themselves seemed to press down on his shoulders, bending him double in that rickety little chair. He would have to plan a funeral, or would he plan two funerals? Two holes in the ground, two headstones, or would they have wanted one together?

Drayden had never spoken with his sons about their wishes should they pass. He should have, with the possibility of a shortened lifespan buried deep in the back of their minds, but to speak of it was like daring it to come to pass.

(Drayden could not pretend like he hadn’t had nightmares. From their childhood up to as recently as a month ago, the Dragon Master had sometimes dreamed of their slow decline, of their eyes becoming sunken in, only seeing them in the hospital. Of Ingo’s voice quieted and Emmet’s wan smile as he said “I had hoped our tickets would not get punched so soon.” After such dreams, he always called them as soon as he could.)

No one involved wanted to acknowledge that possibility. And now it was most likely too late.

Drayden’s heart felt too shattered to hold any hope; whatever tried to fill his chest with warmth simply dripped over the sharp-edged pieces and drained to his feet, where it cooled and caused him to shiver. He did not know the specifics of Emmet’s condition, but it had to be bad. How could it not be, when he had intimate knowledge of the way his sons worked? When he had seen every x-ray and scan they had had ever since they were little?

His hands curled into his hair, and it took a lot of self control not to pull out great tufts of it. What would that accomplish, after all? Just more pain, and he’d lived long enough to know that one hurt did not cancel another out.

He hadn’t expected this. He didn’t know what had done this. What could have done this? There were those… Ultra Beasts in Alola. But there had been nothing left in the tunnels, as far as anyone had discovered? There was Kyurem, but it had not been seen in hundreds of years, and there had been no ice on the platform. It couldn’t have gotten into the station without destruction anyways.

There was… That ghost that had been supposedly sighted all over Unova. That had been nothing more than piercing red eyes and the bloodied things left behind (or not left behind at all).

But all its victims had been small. Little pokemon, children. Ingo and Emmet had been full grown men, and it had torn them apart.

Drayden choked back a sob at that. ‘ Had been.’

Had he told them that he loved them enough? Had he been a good enough father? He remembered the scared little boys who had come home with him one day, clutching each other’s shirts like a lifeline, and he’d wondered how on earth to be a father.

Turns out it had been so easy to adore these children as his own.

“Mister Grey?” came a voice, and suddenly everything else vanished from Drayden’s life.

Emmet was stable, the Nurse Joy explained, but not out of the woods yet. The man listened, ears ringing, as he was told about the machines and medications keeping his son alive. As he was told that, until some breakthrough was found, Emmet would never be able to leave the hospital.

But he was alive. 

He was alive, and Drayden could go and see his son. (His son, singular. Dragons, they had never been singular.)

Emmet was asleep, the Nurse Joy also told him, and would be for some time. But he could visit him anyways, could hold his hand and see for himself. The ringing in his ears was so loud that Drayden could not hear the Nurse explaining all of the things keeping his son alive.

He wasn’t exactly prepared when he opened the door with Emmet’s name on a little card attached to it, but nothing was… Gruesome. Just harrowing and wrong. 

Emmet was laying on his back, a pillow under his head and hands at his side. Medications, fluids, and a blood transfusion were hooked up to IV lines, what seemed like so many IV lines. Too many. He’d been intubated, though it seemed he was at least breathing on his own. A heart monitor showed both his pulse and oxygen levels, which had to be normal. Drayden knew little about medicine, but no one looked worried about the machine. That had to be good news…

A blanket had been laid over the man, under his arms, tucked up under his armpits. It covered whatever had become of him, but could not hide the myriad of tubes and wires that presumably were connected to Emmet, which in turn were hooked up at the other end to multiple unknown machines in the room. Some were small and simply attached to the hospital bed, but some were far larger, clicking and whirring as they worked. All of the attachments snaked out from under the blanket, attached to where Emmet, simply put, ended.

There was a chair that had been pulled up next to the bedside, and Drayden lost no time sitting and taking his son’s too-cold, still-too-pale hand. Emmet’s fingers were far more slender than his own, and even though they were both adults, the hand he held felt small in his own.

“Oh, son,” he mumbled, leaning over and kissing his boy’s forehead. “What happened to you? What happened to your brother? Who, what could be so cruel?”

For a moment his world lurched, and he had to sit back down from where he’d leaned over Emmet. Had… Had a human done this? Had someone taken a knife to his sons? A disgruntled passenger, a loser of the Battle Subway, a commonplace ableist piece of shit?

The thought made him both afraid and angry. The comments they had endured their whole life… A random person would not have taken it upon themself to try and perform the surgery that both twins had refused, would they have?

He felt like vomiting, but instead, Drayden simply squeezed his eyes so tightly shut he saw swirling shapes until his stomach settled. He couldn’t help the tears that began to leak from his eyes again.

“Drayden Grey?” came a voice, and the man startled upright again. When had the door opened?

When he turned, he was faced by a person who had to be a doctor of some kind. They had a stethoscope around their neck and they held a manila filing folder, looking exactly like every cartoon doctor Drayden had seen before.

“Are you… Emmet’s doctor?”

“Yes,” they said, voice grave but kind at the same time. It… Reminded him of Ingo, a bit, and his mind reeled for a moment. “Surgeon, specifically. I am Doctor Atlas. Now…” Their eyes flicked back to the file in their hands.

It was then that Drayden noticed something. Normally, he never would have interrupted a doctor, but his brain was shot. “You have a joltik on your shoulder,” the man blurted out, then looked mortified.

“Oh! Yes, this is my work partner,” they responded with a small smile, reaching up to pet the little bug with a finger. Obviously, Drayden did not hide his confused look well enough because they continued. “Their delicate manipulation of electricity helps me monitor patients during surgery. Actually…” And their face fell, just a bit, and they looked at the man in the bed. “Your son gave him to me. A few years ago I was looking for a joltik that wished to remain a joltik. Galvantula are unfortunately too large for an operating room, and their powerful static is too dangerous with the machines. But I knew a joltik could help me a lot, and your son selected the perfect little trainee for me.”

The itty bitty pokemon chirped and hopped in place a little bit for a moment, looking very happy. Drayden could only nod in reply.

“But about Emmet’s status…” They cleared their throat. “Emmet is suffering from… well, what we call a ‘terminal injury.’ Most wounds either are fatal, could lead to fatality, or they heal. That healing can lead to a full recovery or permanent disability, but either way. This case, though is… Unique. Frankly speaking, the fact that Emmet is alive with an active brain is a miracle from Victini itself. But at the same time, this wound… Is fatal.”

They winced, watching for a reaction from Drayden before they continued. “This is beyond Emmet simply living and being disabled. He suffered from a traumatic hemicorporectomy at the last set of thoracic vertebrae; he is missing almost everything from his midsection down. While these machines can sustain him for a while, there… Needs to be some breakthrough in healing moves or technology for him to live outside the hospital or even longer than a couple years. Please do not give up hope, though.”

The last sentence was said in a rush, holding up a hand in a gesture to hopefully stop him from interrupting.

Drayden hadn’t planned on saying a thing.

“We here, and everywhere else, will be working hard to find a way for him, alright? I know it can never hold a candle to how you feel; he’s your child, after all. But you know we all love the Subway Masters. And… He’s going to wake up. It will take several days, and beyond that he will be disoriented from heavy pain medication for a while. But he’s going to be lucid. We can find out what happened. You can talk to him. And he can have visitors.”

They offered a smile again, and Drayden pressed into the chair a bit more. Shock. He had to be in shock.

“Can I run through the list of what Emmet’s treatments consist of?”

Something nodded Drayden’s head for him. Surely those weren’t his muscles doing it. He continued to drift listlessly as Doctor Atlas rattled off the list of things ailing his son. Bits of sentences like ‘trauma from left lower ribs to where the right hip was previously present’ and ‘artificial kidneys’ floated to him from the aether, but he internalized none of it. He’d have to ask for a copy of that report later.

Doctor Atlas seemed to notice this and stopped. “I am sorry,” they said simply. “From the bottom of my heart.”

“You saved him. Don’t be sorry.” His voice was rough, though it hadn’t been long since he’d last spoken.

“I am sorry about all of the bad news,” they clarified, subdued. “Do you need any medical assistance yourself?”

“No, I think…” Drayden cleared his throat but the lump remained. “I think I just need time to myself, if that’s alright.”

“Of course.” And without epilogue they left the room, shutting the door gently behind them.

Drayden immediately gave into his need to tremble, squeezing Emmet’s hand hard enough to ground himself but not enough to injure his son further. Seemingly involuntarily, his back hunched until his forehead was pressed to those too-cold fingers and he finally, finally fully broke down.

Somehow, unbidden, a decades-old interaction swam to the surface of Drayden’s murky mind. When the twins were younger than ten, he couldn’t remember exactly how old, they’d gone to a celebration centered around the dragons that were said to look over the region. Drayden, though he hadn’t said a word, was apprehensive; the legend centered around twins and a dragon that had been one body, once.

The man was worried something there would upset his boys. Or that people would not be able to keep their comments to themselves.

For the most part it had gone alright. There was a moment when Ingo and Emmet had learned about Kyurem and become frightened (“will that happen to us if we ever need to be split up?”) but with reassurances from Drayden, it passed quickly.

Until they passed by a strange woman tailed by an elgyem. “And what an omen you are,” she’d said. “Like our original dragon come back to us once more.”

All it took was Drayden seeing his sons shy away, feet shuffling in an uncoordinated manner that he knew meant they both were trying to work their lower half, for him to fix the woman with a stare.

“Leave us to enjoy the celebration,” he said, cordial but with a layer of ice coating his words.

“Twins are special in this region.” Still, she plowed onwards, ignoring how four small hands were clutching at their father’s pants leg. “You are doubly so, little Reshikrom.”

“Enough!” Drayden actively nudged his sons behind him, towering over the lady. “Leave. Now.”

Amazingly, she had seemed unbothered. “I’m just saying what everyone here is bound to be thinking. Take care of that little one. The appearance of a child like that foretells great things for the region. Good or bad. Perhaps the rejoining of the dragon itself.”

But once she was done speaking, she did move on, Drayden shouting not-so-subtly after her “ they are TWO PEOPLE!”

But as soon as she was far enough away, he looked down into the two frightened faces and wasted no time in scooping the children up, holding them securely in a way that wouldn’t hurt, close to his own body. Twin pairs of arms wrapped around his neck and he could feel two racing heartbeats pressed against his own chest.

Drayden would give anything to have that back. Not the rude comments, but Ingo and Emmet, together, hugging him close, his arms enough to shield them from all harm. As he finally let himself cry, loud and heartbreaking to hear, Drayden pleaded with any gods who could hear him.

Why has life been so cruel to my sons? I tried, I always did, to protect them. But people were not kind to them, especially when they were young. They always had to struggle. And for what? To not even make it to thirty?

… Why can’t loving someone be enough to give them a full, happy life?

In the back of his mind, the Dragon Master knew he was not fully being fair. Ingo and Emmet had had a lot to be grateful for in life, and Drayden knew they hadn’t taken it for granted. Their relative health as conjoined twins, their family including each other, their wonderful job…

Life hadn’t been cruel to them a lot of the time. And somehow that made it hurt worse.

Drayden was struck, then, with a question. What would Emmet think when he woke and regained lucidity? What would he do, knowing his twin was dead? Did… Would Emmet remember what had happened to them both?

The man took another fifteen minutes or so to compose himself, before he steeled his nerves to call Elesa and Iris.

As soon as he’d learned something had happened, Drayden had called Elesa and asked her to stay with Iris. He knew he would be at the hospital for a long, long time, and he did not want his daughter to be alone if he had to deliver bad news. He could not have imagined walking into his house after dark to a home full of sleeping dragons and one very awake little girl and giving her the news that both her brothers had died. Elesa had immediately taken a day off work, citing, truthfully, a family emergency, and gone to wait with the little Champion in her own house, full of things that might distract Iris at least a little. But now Drayden had to update them, and…

Dragons above, this was going to be terrible.

He tapped at his xtrans, sitting back, wiping his face with one large hand and hoping his beard hid at least some of his fragile emotions. Two terrified faces popped into view, eyes puffy and red. Elesa had black smudges on her cheeks where she had tried to clean off runny eyeliner, and Iris’s hair was a mess.

“ARE THEY OKAY,” Elesa all but shrieked. Iris was holding the xtrans, and it shook a little bit as her tears started anew.

“A-are they d-dead?” she gasped out, face crumpled so much that she had to gasp to breathe.

“Oh, sweetie,” was all Drayden could get out at first, voice broken and hoarse. He had to swallow before he continued. “I am so, so sorry.”

Iris wailed, and Elesa pressed both her hands to her face, covering her eyes as she silently sobbed.

“The twins… We don’t know what happened. We just know that… Somehow they were… Separated.” Drayden chose his words carefully. “Against their will. Ingo is… Missing, and Emmet is here, alive in the hospital.”

The two on the other side of the line had been silent, eyes wide in horror as he explained the basics. He was unwilling to go into detail with his daughter around.

She was twelve. She did not need to know how much of her brother had needed to be replaced with machines, not when the tragedy was so fresh.

“Dad? I think I’m gonna be sick,” Iris choked out, and the view shifted to remain fixated on the ceiling while Elesa ushered Iris to the bathroom. There was silence; the man was unable to do anything except sit there and wait for the two of them to return.

Eventually, they did, and Iris had a cup of water. “Can… We see him?” asked Elesa, shaky, obviously trying to keep her voice steady to keep Iris calm.

Shakily, Drayden shifted so his camera captured Emmet’s face, as bad as he looked with his limp hair, pale skin, and tube going into his mouth. “See? Your brother is right here. He’s breathing, he’s alive. He will wake up.”

“Oh Emmie, what happened to you?”

Drayden’s heart twisted at the old nickname. He remembered the slightly older girl bestowing the two boys with silly cutesy nicknames after they’d had a particularly bad day at school, back when he’d just adopted them.

“Someone called them some really mean things,” she’d explained when they’d gotten back to Drayden’s house and neither twin was able to talk. “So I promised them I’d cheer them up.”

Her idea, Drayden had remembered, was silly little names she’d call them, and somehow it had worked. Emmet had been christened Emmie, and Ingo was Go-Go. He’d heard all of the children giggling from the living room, and then heard Elesa speak in a whisper he knew he was not actually meant to hear.

“See? Now no one can call you scary monsters. What kinda monster has names like Emmie and Go-Go?”

And over the years she’d kept the silly names, using them to put a smile on Emmet and Ingo’s faces when they were particularly down. They always appreciated it.

Drayden had been and still was eternally grateful that the boys had such a dear friend in Elesa.

The rest of the conversation was brief. Drayden would be heading home soon, and Elesa would drive Iris back once she got confirmation that the Dragon Master had made it back. The noise of the call being hung up seemed to echo in the room, drowning out the beeps and clicks and whirrs.

“Goodnight, Emmet. I will see you tomorrow.” After a squeeze of his hand and a kiss pressed to his forehead, Drayden slowly left his son for the night, a Nurse heading to the room and passing him on the way.

He managed to keep it together just until he reached his home. Drayden had seen Emmet. Seen the consequences of his mortal injuries, of whatever attack had occurred. He had seen Emmet’s chest rising and falling, and had felt his slow but steady pulse.

He, nor anyone else, had any idea what had happened to Ingo.

Ingo, the always-positive, always-polite, lovely young man whose words said what his face could not. Endlessly kind, and endlessly encouraging… One of his dear sons, with his happy squinted eyes and affinity for the color black and love of teasing his brother. 

The world was missing Ingo, and the entire existence was lesser for it.

(Drayden wished he could have some closure, some knowledge of exactly what had become of his other son. A body to bury.)

The Dragon Master was suddenly bitten viciously by shame; he had hardly spared a fucking thought for his missing son, his probably-dead son. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the shock and the gravity of Emmet’s condition were making it hard to think or focus.

But still, all the same, the guilt was worse than a garchomp latched onto his ribs.

By the time he exited the car, he was shaking. It was all Drayden could do to get in the front door and lock the house behind him. The man found… He could not move any further, then, and his back collided with the door and he slid down it to sit on the floor, head resting in his hands as he gave into sobs again.

“I AM SORRY, INGO.” His voice rang through the silent house, empty of all human voices. “I AM SORRY I CANNOT SAVE YOU!” he wailed, no longer having to care about volume.

There came a reply. Sleepy chirps of alarm, growls, squeaks, and huffs echoed down the halls as the entire draconic menagerie slowly came to Drayden’s aid. When they all saw their trainer crying brokenly, sometimes roaring with the pain he felt in his heart, they crowded around him. Haxorus and Druddigon curled up near him, one on each of his sides, and Flygon buzzed near his head. Altaria did settle on his head, and Salamance nibbled at his shoelaces from his position near the man’s feet. Hydreigon laid across his lap, squawking softly and nudging his chin with her main head. Drayden took her worried face in his hands, carding his fingers through her stiff fringe.

“I’m so sorry,” he said to her, bending a bit to press his forehead to hers. “The boys are gone.”

When Iris and Elesa finally arrived at the house a while later, they found Drayden asleep on one of the living room couches, dragons piled around him as if protecting him from both the dark and the truth.

Chapter Text

When Ingo and Emmet had first come to live with Drayden after the death of their parents, they’d both been rather quiet. Drayden knew that Emmet had only begun to speak in the last year or so, and that Ingo had always been the more chatty of the two, but predictably, neither felt up to it with the experience of being orphaned so fresh in their minds.

Drayden mostly spoke to them in ways that required little more than a yes or no answer, to which the boys could shake their heads or nod. It did not matter to him that they wouldn’t or couldn’t speak right now. All that mattered to him was the safety and comfort of the children in his care. They’d speak when they wanted to, and if that was never, he’d make it work.

In the first few days, the twins had been comforted by Drayden’s dragons, the large pokemon gentle with the little children, puffs of air from flaring nostrils blowing hair back from their foreheads. None of the Dragon Master’s team was upset by having to share their trainer’s attention with the new human children. In fact, they liked their new family members quite a lot.

None moreso than Hydreigon.

In Unova, there was a rapidly fading but still present myth that hydreigon were evil and destructive. In the past, ancient towns and cities in the region had been decimated by the pokemon, which led to it being vilified throughout the centuries.

Drayden knew this to be a load of tauros shit. Hydreigon were ornery and opinionated pokemon, very possessive and defensive, but they were a pokemon like any other. He’d raised his from a little deino, and had never really had an issue with her.

Treating their relationship at a partnership, offering her choices in various scenarios, and being kind had made training her easy.

But there had been more than that.

Historians had discovered that, in times long gone, pokemon-human relationships were not what they were now. Pokemon were feared, they attacked humans, and, sometimes, they were captured and forced to obey. Hydreigon, for its speed and power and persistence, was highly sought after.

But Hydreigon was not exactly a normal pokemon.

Zweilous had two heads. Two fully independent heads with brains and thoughts and desires. Hydreigon had only one head with a true brain. In order to evolve, zweilous naturally had to make the conscious choice to do so and agree on the idea. The two minds would merge, and thus a hydreigon would be born. It took a considerable amount of trust, and some zweilous never evolved due to anxiety surrounding the process.

In times now passed, humans had forced this process on the species in order to make it stronger, to fight better. And the pokemon became understandably bitter, prone to fits of violence and aggression as their terrified mind fractured, unable to achieve the unity of their still-wild counterparts.

The species still bore the scars of its time as a scapegoat to this day.

Even the people with the hardest hearts, though, would have been swayed by the sight of the black furred dragon curling around Ingo and Emmet. She had found them awake in the middle of the night, sniffling on the couch, still getting used to the new space they occupied. 

The dragon had looked them over, seeing their conjoined body, and had immediately set about comforting them like some kind of mother archeops. Her secondary heads had licked their tears while her main head crooned, nibbling at their hair until little giggles broke through their crying.

The pile of pokemon and little boys remained on the couch until morning, when Drayden had raced into the room in a panic, worried he’d already lost the small nephews he’d become the guardian of. 

He had heaved a huge sigh of relief when he found them.

From that time after, every so often, the kids had still ended up in Hydreigon’s nest for the night. Drayden and the boys alike both thought it was cute and funny that she seemed to consider them a particularly funny-shaped zweilous and had adopted them just like her trainer.

Even as adults they still invited Hydreigon to snuggle with them on occasion, and she never turned them down. She’d flop over their body on their bed, nipping at their hair and pajamas and curling around them before they all fell asleep. Sometimes, before sleeping, she’d preen herself, nibbling at the fur on her body and paying close attention to the junctions between her heads where the fluff was more likely to mat. Ingo and Emmet would poke at her, moaning about how they wanted to sleep and she should rest too, and then she’d chew on their clothes where they met between their torsos for good measure. They didn’t seem to be practicing good grooming habits so she’d had to help. They’d complain of the dragon spit on their shirts, but it would all be in jest, and they’d tell her they loved her before dozing off.

She did not take the news of what had happened to Ingo and Emmet well.

The dragon hid herself away in the twins’ room where most of their teams were also huddled. The pokemon were, for once, content to share the bed. Hydreigon, however, was curled underneath said bed, making little noises every so often. It was as if she was calling to them, hoping that Drayden was wrong.

Once things were sorted out, and once his son was awake, Drayden promised himself he’d take her to see Emmet. He prayed the hospital would let her in. He already knew that Emmet’s electric types would be banned, as much as that broke his heart.

The man was simply hooked up to too many delicate machines that were unable to be properly shielded from electricity, and shorting any one of them out could mean death for Emmet.

Why does Emmet’s partner have to be an eelektross? Drayden thought with despair, then felt immensely guilty.

He’d just have to ask the hospital their policy on visiting pokemon when he went back. He couldn’t promise them anything yet.

He dragged a hand down his face, sitting on the couch that only days ago had been occupied by his perfect little family. If he focused, he imagined he could still feel their warmth.

Drayden felt horrible. His physical body ached, probably with tension and weariness, and his mind felt fractured. The man was wrung out. Hollow. Empty. And his eyes hurt.

He’d forgotten to feed his pokemon when he’d finally gotten home that night, but none of them had bothered him until morning. They understood, and one night would not kill them.

There was the sound of heavy footsteps and Drayden looked up into the face of his haxorus. The pokemon, his partner, was old and battle-scarred and understood Drayden like no one else. His eyes were currently boring into Drayden’s, and he carried a dish in his mouth.

“I already fed you,” the man replied, hating how hoarse his voice sounded.

Haxorus grunted, jerking his head and then bumping Drayden’s forehead with his nose. The bowl nearly smacked the man in the face.

“... Oh. You want me to eat, don’t you?”

It had been nearly twenty four hours since Drayden had had any food, but the thought turned his stomach. And then even thinking about the roiling in his guts called to mind a fictionalized image of what his sons had probably looked like right after they were… Injured, and that made him feel even sicker. He verbalized this to his partner pokemon.

“But I will try and drink some water. Alright? It’s all I can manage right now, old friend.”

Haxorus seemed mostly satisfied with that.

“I wish I could take you all to visit Emmet. But the hospital… It has rules. I need to find out exactly what they are, and to tell the truth my head has been far, far too full to manage that. You all forgive me, don’t you?”

A rumble came from the dragon’s chest that might have been mistaken for a growl by a less experienced person. Drayden, however, smiled, and rubbed Haxorus on the nose. “I knew you would. I do not know where I’d be without you all.”

He was leaving shortly to go back to the hospital. Iris was in her room; he’d said good morning and brought her some scrambled eggs just in case she’d wanted to eat. Drayden had explained that he was going to see Emmet again, and that if everything was okay that he’d call her and Elesa and they could come and visit too.

Iris hadn’t argued or asked to go with him. Drayden wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion, shock, or if she simply was scared that she’d arrive and be surprised with something awful. In a strange way it hurt, that she was feeling so unlike herself, that her inner fire had dimmed so much. But even though it made him feel guilty, Drayden was grateful that he did not have to argue.

They needed to be there for each other, now more than ever.

When the man arrived in Emmet’s hospital room some time later, Nurse Joys, audino, and alomomola in mobile tanks were finishing up the morning care for Emmet. Several people were working with the tubes and valves attaching Emmet to the machines, and Drayden staunchly did not look at the space where his son’s blanket had been rolled up. Instead, he focused on the Nurse Joys swapping out IV bags that were running low, and one who was wiping Emmet’s forehead with a damp cloth. There was a recently used toothbrush in a bowl on a small rolling stand nearby.

“Good morning, Mister Drayden.” One of the Nurses broke off to speak to him. “We’ll be leaving shortly. There’s been no change to Master Emmet’s condition. He’s still stable, everything is working how it should be.”

Drayden understood what she meant, but something inside him still snarled nothing is how it should be.

He did not let that show.

It did not take long before it was just him and Emmet in the room. True to his word, he tapped out a message to Elesa and Iris on his xtrans, then moved over and ran his fingers gently through Emmet’s hair.

“Morning, son. I hope you’re… Still resting comfortably, and all.” Wishing he’d thought to bring a brush or comb, the man continued stroking his son’s hair, working out some of the tangles. It was something he could do, even though Emmet would be able to feel nothing.

It did not take very long for a knock at the door to come, far less professional sounding than that of a nurse or a doctor. Taking a deep breath, Drayden opened the door for Elesa and Iris, wincing a little when he saw how tired they looked.

“Hey sweetie,” he said, scooping up Iris in one arm and patting Elesa’s shoulder with his free hand. “And Miss Elesa. Are you both… Okay?”

“No, not really,” said Elesa with a helpless sort of smile and a sniffle. “But we’re doing our best. Right Iris?”

The little girl nodded into Drayden’s neck before peeking over his shoulder at her brother. “Can you take me to Emmet, Dad?”

“Of course.”

The mountain of a man carried Iris over to Emmet’s bedside, tailed by Elesa, and set her down.

“Has he woken up at all, yet?” Elesa asked, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.

“Not yet. I think they want him to sleep for another few days so his healing process can be far enough along if… Something goes wrong.” Drayden looked at the floor. “They said, because of all the medicine he’s on, he’s going to wake up confused.”

“Is there any way for us to help him?” Iris asked, already holding Emmet’s hand tightly with both of her own.

“I don’t think we can prevent that, little Dragonling,” Drayden said with a sigh. “But once he’s awake we can show him all of the love, alright? Make sure he’s not lonely and that he’s comfortable.”

Iris’s lip wobbled. “He’s never, ever been alone before.”

The enormity of those words struck everyone in the room.

Elesa swallowed audibly, then broke the uncomfortable silence. “How long until he’s supposed to wake up.”

“A few days. I think I said that, are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, you’re right, you did.” Elesa really did look exhausted, and for a moment, the pain in Drayden’s chest coalesced into guilt that Elesa had gotten tangled up in his family, nonsensical as the thought was. He’d never share it aloud, because he knew Elesa would instantly and violently say that, despite anything, she was glad to be an honorary part of the Grey family.

(Her position wasn’t really honorary; Drayden might as well have drafted up an adoption certificate the day she strode out of the bushes with confidence and introduced herself to his sons.)

“We’re all scattered right now,” he said gently. “I think… None of us know what to think. And that’s okay.”

Iris didn’t speak. She simply wrapped her arms around her father tightly, and he put a hand on her head tenderly.

“Can we be here when he first wakes up?” Iris whispered, after a little span of being silent.

“I’ll ask the doctors, but I don’t think they will know exactly when he’s going to wake. See this?” Drayden pointed at one of the IV bags. “This is a medication that keeps him asleep. They’re going to stop giving it to him, and then after that? It’s whenever his body lets him wake up.”

“Oh… I don’t know how medical stuff works.”

“You’re only twelve, it’s okay. And besides, even your old man didn’t know until the doctors told him.”

She hugged him again. And then Elesa came over and hugged him too, and suddenly they all were crying, some louder than others. The three clung to each other like survivors in a raft on the ocean, and, in a way, that felt rather like what they were.

There wasn’t much else to the visit. Drayden, Iris, and Elesa simply stayed in the room with Emmet and talked about whatever. The peace was tenuous, liable to dissolve into tears again at a moment’s notice, but it was peaceful.

It was also nice to be there to see that Emmet was alive.

Days passed, and everyone kept making time to visit the unconscious man. No statements had been released to the public yet, despite speculation, and Elesa, Drayden, and Iris had started visiting through back entrances with the blessing of the hospital staff so no one would know.

The thought of dealing with a barrage of questions and attention right now was truly sickening and unbearable. The fact that all three of them had very public positions did not help. At least Iris, as a child who only really had a title and no constant responsibilities, was able to hide from any questions thrown her way.

Maybe the Grey family would tell, and maybe they never would.

Drayden did not care about that on this day. All he cared about was the fact that his son was being taken off sedation today. Emmet would begin to wake up. 

The Dragon Master refused to delude himself right now. Emmet would be delirious, probably high out of his mind on painkillers, shaking off the tail end of the drugs that had kept him under. He’d be confused and ill and probably would remember very little of what had happened. Or he would think he was still under attack.

It would be rough. A rude awakening.

He would be there for him, though. He would explain things fifty times over, would allow his hand to be squeezed so hard that fingernails would leave little half-moon shapes in his skin, would offer whatever grounding presence he could. He would do anything his remaining son needed in that moment, whether Emmet knew what he needed or not.

The doctors had told him that he would be allowed to be there when it happened. No one else could until it was determined that Emmet was calm enough for visitors, but then Iris and Elesa could visit again.

Everyone could live with that arrangement.

There was a radio playing in the room when Drayden arrived. There was no one there yet aside from Emmet, but he could live with that. The radio host was saying something about the Summer Dragon Festival that would be happening in a few day’s time. The same celebration he’d taken his sons to all those years ago. He wondered if it would be safe to take Iris for a few hours this year.

Then Drayden thought back, again, to that woman who had looked at his sons like they were not human. He knew he shouldn’t be dwelling on it in this mental state, but it came back to him, unbidden, and caused a tightening in his chest.

There had been some people who had indeed thought Ingo and Emmet weren't truly people in the same sense everyone else was. It was rumored among the crazier conspiracy nuts that they were actually Reshiram and Zekrom, twin dragons in hiding after Team Plasma’s latest stunt. They must have chosen a conjoined form because they missed being whole and complete like they once had been, and this body was as close as they could get. After all, why had they gone this long without being separated?

Drayden always looked down on those theories with derision. That was his family, his children whom he'd raised, that people were talking about. They were not hollow skins for gods, lifeless and empty on their own. Ingo and Emmet were not personalities used by the region’s dragons to blend into the world of humans and pokemon, an act to be discarded behind closed doors. They were not fake. They were not fabricated. They were not a facade. And they were not and never would be reborn gods given flesh.

They were simply two sweet little boys who grew into wonderful young men. No matter what they shared.

(Drayden almost dared any of those people to behold his mortal, human son, lying just about comatose in a hospital bed, and call him Reshiram.)

… He’d derailed, as his sons would have said. Time for deep breaths, for hands pressed to his knees to steady himself. Focus on the present. It was not better than recalling those words and whispers, but it was where he needed to be.

Drayden was jolted fully back into the moment when the door opened; he must have missed the knock. A team of both Nurse Joys and doctors entered, just as he had expected, and he silently let them work. Someone turned off the radio, and the festival preparations were cut off abruptly.

In a detached way, the Dragon Master watched them work. There was a group near Emmet’s head, doing something to the tube going down his throat, and Drayden found he didn’t want to see that, so instead he focused on the Nurse gently peeling the tape holding the IV catheter in Emmet’s wrist. She deftly slid the little plastic tube out of his skin and pressed a band-aid to the spot. It was blue.

The whole process did not take long at all, and when they were done one IV bag was gone, and the breathing tube had been replaced with a mask covering his mouth and nose, delivering supplemental oxygen. Drayden had been reminded of the call button that would summon Nurses and doctors to the room if needed, and… He’d been left in the room with just one Nurse in charge of Emmet’s awakening process.

“Why does he have the mask?” Drayden’s voice cut through the quietness of the room.

“We find that sometimes giving patients a bit more oxygen after anesthesia or sedation helps them wake faster. It’s moreso the case for patients who were on gas anesthesia, but in general it’s a protocol we follow.”

Drayden nodded. “Ah. Alright.” He wished she’d turn on the radio again.

The silence that stretched onwards from that moment was… Uncomfortable, but in a muted way. Drayden felt rather like he was the only person in the room, even if that line of thinking felt wrong and guilt-inducing. The Nurse was not supposed to be invisible, and Emmet was right there.

Knowing that did not help Drayden feel any less alone.

It took a couple hours before Emmet began to stir. Even then, for another half-hour, the movements were small; Emmet’s brow wrinkled, along with his nose, as he reacted to the oxygen mask on his face and, presumably, the gas being delivered to him. His fingers twitched, curling slightly into the sheets. His heart monitor slowly sped up into a normal waking pace.

And, after all of that, Emmet finally peeled his eyes open. Drayden saw a little bit of a silver glow present there, but beyond that the man saw the unfocused confusion that overtook everything else.

“Hey Emmet,” he said softly, speaking slowly as he would to a dangerous wild pokemon so as not to spook it. Emmet was by no means dangerous, but if he panicked, he’d absolutely be a danger to himself. “It’s nice to see you awake, son.”

Emmet made a weak noise and then squinted, eyes the smallest slivers. He was able to drag one hand trailing wires slowly, slowly up to his chest but no higher, the effort apparently too much.

He wiggled his fingers in a deliberate but spasmodic way, and Drayden realized that he was trying to sign something.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t think you’ll be able to do sign language right now.”

Drayden wanted to take it slow, let Emmet come to his senses a bit more before he gave him any real information, because right now the Dragon Master could see the wheels turning in his son’s head to process that sentence. The lights were on and while someone was indeed home, that person had just woken up.

Emmet’s fingers eventually went still, and he breathed in a deep breath that caused his whole body to shudder when he let it out. He made a sound again and then his eyebrows furrowed as if concentrating very hard. From outside the mask Drayden could see him grit his teeth and try to form words.

“Emmet… Emmet it’s okay if you can’t say anything right now. You’re okay. Just rest.”

Emmet immediately fixed him with a piercing gaze that was more lucid than he had been minutes ago, but that unfocused quickly into the duller look. But either way Drayden got the message. There was something Emmet needed to communicate.

“Ih. Gh.”

Emmet swallowed and tried again. “Innnnghhk.” That time, he broke off coughing and the Nurse got up to wipe his mouth. The gauze came away, stained brown from old blood. Drayden had heard enough, however, to understand.

“Are… Are you trying to say ‘Ingo?’”

“Yeh.” At least that was more a word than a sound. But oh Dragons, this would be tough.

Drayden broke his eye contact. “Well… I don’t know how much or what you remember. But… Emmet. Son… I’m. So sorry. Ingo is…. Well he’s gone.”

The dawning realization was terrible to see as it crossed Emmet’s face and his left hand went wiggling to find his brother and met the edge of the bed instead. Drayden wished there was not a stranger here watching them as he took that hand gently.

Emmet cried out wordlessly, only able to turn his head to look a few inches, tears dripping down his face and collecting in the grooves on his mask, breathing now coming in gasps. He tried to move more, then stiffened, and then let out a horrible sort of whine.

If Drayden had to guess, he suspected that Emmet had just become aware of where his body ended.

“Emmet. Look at me.” Surging to his feet, Drayden put his hands on either side of Emmet’s face, steadying the weak movements, making sure not to knock the mask askew. “Breathe. I know you’re confused. I know everything is foggy and hazy and uncertain and you feel… Uncoupled, is that the word? You feel wrong. But just breathe with me and we’ll make it through.”

Shivering silver eyes met his as the movement stopped; they were bright with tears and… Pain.

“Does anything hurt?”

Emmet could only give the smallest of nods, unable to repeat his earlier verbal affirmation.

“Where?” Drayden asked, as if the painkillers wouldn’t simply dull any hurt present in his entire body.

The hand still on Emmet’s chest made a small sort of patting motion, and Drayden did not have to be a genius to understand. “Your… Your heart.”

“Y-yes.”

It was obvious to both the Nurse and Drayden that Emmet was also hurting elsewhere, so his painkillers were adjusted. They watched his eyes get a bit more blown out and unfocused, an unfortunate side effect but a necessary one.

Once they had him settled again, Drayden swallowed. Now it was time to call Elesa and Iris in. The Nurse finally left, saying that Emmet was doing alright enough to have a moment with his family, and asked that Drayden hit the call button if anything went wrong. He assured her he would, and then he was alone with his boy.

(One of them.)

He stopped fiddling with his xtrans for a moment, getting up again. Emmet’s eyes followed him, blinking slowly as they tried to sharpen and focus on him but failed.

“You’re a miracle, son. You know that?”

For surviving happily for so long conjoined with Ingo. For all of your talents and skills. For surviving this injury that is considered an unequivocal death sentence. For just being you.

Bending over, he kissed Emmet’s forehead before turning to call Elesa and Iris, letting them know that they were free to visit now.

Drayden knew those two very well, and knew the restraint they both must have shown to not barge into the room full force, door banging the wall behind them. To see both the Gym Leader and little Champion creep into the room, both fidgeting with restless energy but quiet as patrat, felt wrong. The Dragon Master was supposed to be surrounded by vivid people who were constantly full of life and movement. Not… The exhausted and traumatized little family he now found himself at the helm of.

Of course, he’d love them all the same, no matter what. But nothing he said, did, or thought could shake the pervasive feeling of something is not right. 

Iris lit up at seeing her brother in any sort of waking state, and moved to stand right next to him, looking tired but oh so relieved.

“Hi, Emmet! Are you happy to see all of us?”

A blink, then the tiniest of nods. His mouth was mostly obscured by the mask, but it seemed like maybe he was smiling a little underneath. His eyes still looked far away, but at least he could hear them.

Elesa offered an exhausted smile of her own and a little wave. “Hey Emmie. How… Well. I was gonna ask how you were feeling but. But that question sucks right now.”

Emmet made a small hum of agreement.

No one wanted to ask what happened. No one wanted to bring up Ingo. But those topics also felt like a copperajah in the room that was impossible to just ignore.

“... We’re sorry, Emmet,” was all Elesa said next. “We’re with you. Every step of the way.”

All the man in the bed could do was blink, eyes welling with tears once more once the words filtered through the drugs clouding his brain.

“We’re not going to let you go through any of this alone.”

Through the haze, Emmet could feel love and gratitude settling into the canyon that had been carved into his heart, a muted drop of water in a sea of heartbreak, but a start nonetheless. He’d have a long way to go, but at least he would never be alone.

After all. He never had been before.

Chapter Text

Gear Station was closed for the first time in a long time.

It was only shut down for about a day and a half, but of course that was enough time to inconvenience almost everyone in the entire Unova region. Trains had to be rerouted, which luckily didn’t take terribly long with the advanced systems that the entire subway system ran on. Someone was obviously still in the Gear Station hub, trying to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

But all the stores and walkways and platforms in the heart of the system were devoid of passengers.

Of course there were many complaints that day. In loud voices or in hissed whispers, people ranted about how put out they were that x, y, or z route took twice as long or was entirely absent. Some even ranted about the Subway Masters and how poorly they must be running the show for this sort of thing to happen.

(Some people who stooped to ableist insults ended up in the center of arguments with random bystanders.)

It was a mess, simply put, but the depot agents were trying. The main core of agents, the ones that the bosses had been closest with, had all been told what had happened (or had seen as much), and the rest just knew an investigation was going on.

Then, as soon as the investigation was started, it was closed. Gear Station reopened, and everything resumed normal tracks.

Except for one thing. The Subway Masters were gone.

Cloud knew. She’d signed paperwork stating she’d tell no one, had been sworn to secrecy. She’d agreed, because it was only for one specific reason: to protect the Subway Master’s privacy and humanity.

The senior depot agent could imagine the crews cleaning the blood and viscera off the platform she’d found Emmet on, and knew what some members of the press would do with this information.

Emmet was still alive. He was in the hospital, fighting for his life. Ingo was still missing and presumed dead. The authorities were blaming the mysterious ghost violently haunting the city for the murder-attempted murder, and when nothing had been found at the site aside from electrical malfunctions and gore, it was decided to continue studying the anomalies from a distance. No one could predict them, and staying at the crime scene was useless, they’d found from experience.

The city was in the dark, but the unanimous agreement that it would have to be Emmet or his family that revealed things held fast.

Cloud was offered a promotion.

Her and Ramses would be the new Subway Masters, for now. Until it was decided what to do. They both turned it down. Well, they did partially.

Both knew that someone needed to lead the battle facility and the vital transit system. Someone needed to do paperwork and battle. As the most senior of the depot agents, they were best equipped for this. But at the same time, they could not take on the title nor the uniforms.

It was silly. It felt silly. Ingo and Emmet could not be the bosses forever. Someone else would have to take over one day. But whereas a happy retirement and passing down the mantle would feel wonderful and joyful and like imparting some great wisdom to a new generation, this horrible fate of being literally torn from the life they loved made it feel sickening. Like wearing her bosses’ skin, almost.

Ramses agreed. Someone needed to take over the job on paper, but they could never wear the title with pride.

So the two of them became the first Battle Subway Managers, wearing similar uniforms to the other depot agents but in that rusty red color that matched the stripes on the Subway Master’s coats. It would do, for now.

Beyond that… What was there to do but carry on as normal? The subway reopened, the Battle Lines reopened with different final challengers, and life carried on.

Of course, the agents who had signed non-disclosure agreements constantly had to turn away questions. It was annoying and distracting, but they’d promised. They could manage.

And they did. The Battle Subway and the Transit Lines ran on, safe in the hands of people who loved them just as much as the Subway Masters had. No one forgot about the twins, far from it, but eventually the new normal became routine and comfortable. Posters that featured them were largely taken down out of respect and replaced with new ones that did not have any people on them at all.

It was more or less quietly thought that the twins had died. Due to some medical complication or injury, they were gone. Some people thought that maybe only one had passed and the other was grieving, but there was no way to know until someone said something.

No one did.

And so life went on.

▲▽

Emmet did not remember the first time he woke up. He did not remember the second or the third times, either.

Of course, somehow, he retained the information he learned in those brief periods of haze-filled wakefulness. He knew that his family had been there. He knew he was in a hospital. And he knew he was no longer a conjoined twin.

Ingo was dead, and he himself had been rent in two.

He was cogent enough to guess that his family was probably extremely grateful that they did not have to repeatedly break the news to him. He could only imagine how Drayden especially was feeling.

But when he woke up for real, the room only contained Elesa, sleeping on a small couch in the room. Did hospitals normally have couches in their rooms? Emmet didn’t think so.

(It had not hit him yet that this was now his room. This was now his home.)

His bed had been inclined, a bit, propping him up so he wasn’t lying flat on his back. He tried speaking, but that still wasn’t working. Damn. Instead, Emmet cleared his throat, hoping the sound would be loud enough to wake up the sleeping Electric Type Gym Leader. That didn’t work, and Emmet whined, unable to form words. He wasn’t exactly sure if it was a consequence of some medication and the mask on his face, or if he was simply in a nonverbal spell. He was lucid, but still confused.

Emmet made another noise, but he abandoned those tracks rather quickly. He hated the sound coming from his throat, and he wasn’t making any progress anyways.

Amazingly, he found his hands belonged to him once more, and they hardly even shook when he lifted them. He could work with that.

That was how it came to be that the room ended up covered in clean, wadded-up tissues that had, frustratingly, not even come close to hitting Elesa. Emmet wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity. He was helpless but there were fucking tissues everywhere, dotting the floor like the remnants of an eternal snowball fight. It was just ridiculous.

Emmet began laughing and was surprised to find that sound still worked despite the bruises encircling his chest. Even though it hurt, he found that he couldn’t stop.

When he was halfway between laughter and sobbing, Elesa woke up. She looked around blearily, confused, brow wrinkling when she saw the tissues before her gaze finally found Emmet.

“... Emmet!” And now she’d come back to herself, scrambling off the couch and over to the man in the hospital bed. “Are you alright? Tell me what’s wrong, are you in pain?” She carefully slipped the mask off his face, setting it on the bedside.

With tears streaming down his face, Emmet was able to wheeze out “tissues” before noisy sobs wracked him once more. Laughing and crying had unstuck something in his chest, he supposed, allowing the words to sneak out. Normally, Emmet didn’t even cry loudly. That was…. Well. It had been Ingo’s territory.

Elesa, ever patient, simply held his hand until he was able to get a grip on his reactions again and the room lapsed into silence for a moment.

“Hi Elesa,” Emmet said, voice small and broken.

“Oh Emmet.” Elesa’s hand was shaking. No, wait, it was Emmet who was shaking. Even though he’d stopped crying, he was trembling. “It’s… Good to see you again. Are you cold? Or is it just… Too much, at the moment?”

“A bit of both,” Emmet admitted right away without having to ponder it, even though he hadn’t considered the chill in the room until Elesa had spoken. He was silent as she produced a blanket from seemingly nowhere, this one fluffy and yellow. Emmet instantly recognized it as one from her bedroom, the one he had once called a ‘joltik mat.’

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Emmie. But. Please tell me what the actual fuck is up with the tissues.” Her smile was crooked and lopsided in the way that only grief could skew, but she still found the humor in the sight.

“I was trying to wake you up. I could not make a sound at first. So I tried to get your attention like that. With tissues. And throwing them.”

“It didn’t work, I can see.”

“No. Tissues are verrry bad projectiles.”

“You did the best you could with what you had.”

Both of them knew that they were staving off much heavier conversations that needed to happen with shallow small talk, but the normalcy was a thin veneer of calm over the horror pooling somewhere in Emmet’s guts, probably located on the bed beneath his blanket. It was going to happen sooner or later but not this exact moment.

“Are you feeling okay physically?” Elesa asked, then. “You know what I mean. Should I get a Nurse Joy to come check on you?”

“Nothing hurts,” Emmet said. “Not in… A way painkillers would help. I do not have the words to describe what I feel. Not right now.”

“I understand.” Emmet knew that Elesa did not know what he was going through, but that she did know and parse what he was saying. They’d known each other long enough to simply get what the other meant without any extra words needed. “Can I call in Drayden? Iris is busy with Champion stuff right now, but I know he will want to know that you’re awake and lucid.”

Emmet nodded, picking at the blanket, burying his fingers in the comforting yellow fluff. “I want to see Dad.” It was just like when he was a child, crying for his father because he was scared or sick and the comfort of Ingo alone wasn’t enough.

(No matter how nonsensical it was, the fleeting feeling of ungratefulness passed through Emmet. He’d taken that bond with his twin for granted, hadn’t he?)

“Of course, I’ll message him for you right now, and I’ll stick around ‘til he gets here. Cool?”

The man in the bed nodded again, and Elesa smiled in a more comfortable way. Unfortunately, the feeling of companionship was quickly overshadowed by awkwardness. Not with each other, but with the lack of appropriate topics of conversation. Emmet could not ask about the state of the Battle Subway, about his own condition, about where his and his brother’s pokemon were, about if they’d found Ingo. Elesa didn’t want to ask what had happened to him, he could just tell.

But then, what else was there to truly discuss? From Emmet’s perspective, he’d had dinner with Elesa only a day or so ago. He knew he’d lost time, but to ask about what had happened in the interim was to acknowledge it, and Emmet did not want to do that. Besides, the answer would not be fun or even the smallest bit good.

So what was left to talk about? Nothing. So the silence stretched, punctuated by the noises of all the medical machines in the room. When he remained in ‘grasping at straws’ mode despite his best mental efforts, Emmet decided to go with a blunt approach.

“I am Emmet. I do not know what to talk about.”

“... Me neither,” Elesa admitted.

Even after admitting it aloud, there was almost a pressure building in Emmet’s chest. It felt like it extended to his guts, but… Most of those had to be gone…

The tension increased tenfold with that thought, and Emmet’s teeth grit together to a degree that was starting to be painful. His breath no longer felt easy, and it confused him. What had changed? Nothing… Nothing had changed, from the last five minutes to the next, and yet the man in the hospital bed began to feel like a shaken can of Joltik Jolt. 

“Hey? Hey Emmet? What’s wrong, buddy, talk to me, or sign, whatever you can manage.”

And… Oh, that was it. Emmet was having a panic attack, wasn’t he? He was breathing too fast, and he hadn’t noticed as time turned liquid around him. He was shaking worse than he had when he’d sobbed uncontrollably not a half hour earlier. And he was making some noise again.

Was he crying? Was he screaming? He didn’t know.

Elesa was speaking, but he couldn’t see or hear her clearly enough to make out words. The world felt plastic and fake and he could feel too much, and by feeling too much he could tell he wasn’t feeling enough, because oh Dragons where was Ingo, where was his BROTHER, his heartbeat, ever-present, was gone.

Dear Ancients above where were his legs? Where… Why… There was more to himself wasn’t there? There had to be, there always had been.

He was calling for Ingo, why wasn’t Ingo answering? Why did nothing make SENSE wouldn’t someone, anyone HELP THEM–

There was a feathery weight on the pillow next to him. Archeops was pressing his scaly little head against Emmet’s wet cheek, not making a sound, and Emmet could hear the fluttery heartbeat as his pokemon pressed his body against Emmet’s neck and shoulder.

That feeling and sound caused an instant calming effect in Emmet, and the man could feel some sense of control drip into his veins; it was as if one of his IVs was providing a sensation of security, even though Emmet did not feel at all sedated.

Once he came back to himself enough for his vision and hearing to clear up, Emmet opened his eyes. (He didn’t remember shutting them.)

… Oh. Drayden was in the room, now, holding an open pokeball.

Emmet tried to open his mouth, but not a sound came out and he shut it again weakly. Archeops peeped, nibbling on one of Emmet’s knife-like sidebangs, mussing the hair there. In response, the man reached up to card his fingers through the feathers; the motions were awkward due to the angle, but it still helped. 

Archeops, like most of the twins’ pokemon, had been taught to provide support from a young age. Due to both their physical disability and their neurodivergence, it had been a good call, and the twins had helped in the training process. They were perfectly able to be independent, but being surrounded by emotional support pokemon could never hurt, even when Emmet and Ingo grew into adulthood.

Everyone had bad days, and even if that bad day was comparatively not all that bad, having a silly little chicken to lick tears off your face could only help.

Archeops was not the brightest pokemon on Emmet’s team, but he was incredibly loving and cuddly. All of the pokemon were, but Archeops was also fluffy. All of Ingo and Emmet’s pokemon were hugged and snuggled on the regular, but floofy feathers were a nice sensory experience.

“Are you okay? Back with us?” Drayden sounded hoarse, almost sick.

“Yes. I am alright,” Emmet signed, happy that he did have to force himself to speak. “I do not know why my reaction was so delayed. It was like a sudden track switch. I do not…” He trailed off, not finishing the sentence, letting his hands fall to his lap. Instead of contacting his own body, he felt only the vague outlines of something Else beneath his blanket and drew away with a wince.

“Does anything hurt?”

Emmet shook his head, accidentally bumping Archeops a little, who bumped his temple back with his snout.

“Okay. That’s… That’s good.” Drayden’s voice shook. Then he looked away, focused on the ceiling. “There’s… A lot we have to catch you up to speed on, son. But I think it should wait for another time, after you’ve rested more and the drugs are out of your system.”

That copperajah in the room had just opened one wary eye and was looking around, it seemed.

“I… Understand this.” He did, he really did, but Emmet did not want to acknowledge his own condition. He resolutely did not want to purposefully think about it. He did not want to hear doctors, or nurses, or even his family try and explain what had happened to him.

And he did not want them to ask if he remembered what happened.

He had, for one brief moment, probed at that thought, at those memories. But they appeared as a towering mass of TV static and holographic noise, all held back behind something that felt like an electroweb. The ominous crackling drone felt like it was drowning him, eating him from the inside out starting where his body ended, and if that electroweb failed the force behind it would crush him under the pressure. There would be no ‘Emmet’ left, only the broken, shattered remnants of whatever state his mind had been in at the moment of the separation.

“I want to wait as long as I can.” And there were a few more final tears dribbling out of Emmet’s eyes onto the blanket below. Drayden moved closer, placing a warm hand on his head, not wanting to hold his hand and cut off his means of communication. Emmet appreciated it and leaned into the touch.

(He felt cold without Ingo there. He kicked the thought to the side with legs he no longer possessed.)

“We’ll get everything straightened out, okay? It’ll all come out in the end.” Drayden’s voice shook, betraying the doubts he had.

Emmet smiled, lopsided, unable to meet Drayden’s eyes. “I know you are lying. But it is okay. You are scared too. We all are scared.”

“Oh, Emmet–”

“Can I eat something? I think… I think I might be hungry.” He didn’t want to continue the conversation, or ask if he even had a stomach to feel hunger with. He just wanted something to distract himself.

“... Of course. I’ll go let the Nurses and doctors know you’re up, and they can bring you some food that’s okay for you to eat.”

“Thank you Dad. I love you.”

“Love you too, Emmet.” Drayden gently ruffled his hair before leaving the room. The click of the door sounded like a gunshot, almost, but then Emmet and Elesa were left in silence.

“... Okay bud, do you wanna watch some PokeTube while we wait for your lunch?”

Emmet nodded, offering a thumbs up. He then patted the side of the bed, offering for Elesa to come sit next to him. Archeops, who had dozed off next to his trainer, woke a little and peeped at her.

“I don’t… Think I should join you there, Emmie. There’s a lot going on with your… With your care that I don’t want to disrupt.” The guilt in her eyes was unbearable. “I want nothing more than to fucking hug the shit out of you though. You know that. Snuggle you ‘til everything no longer hurts, just like parents always tell their kids. Wish it worked that way. I really do.” She let out a shaky breath, then pulled over a chair so she was at his bedside, sitting next to him in another sense. Reaching out, she took his hand, holding it tightly and pressing their forearms together. She knew he was probably dying for contact. “I can do this though.”

He squeezed her hand as if to say thank you.

She then clicked the remote in her other hand, looking at the large television attached to the wall that Emmet hadn’t even noticed before. “Okay, let’s figure out what to watch, hmmm…”

It took a few minutes, but eventually the duo settled on watching some funny streaming VODs. Elesa chose one of her favorite PokeTuber’s channels and picked a series about a racing game. She’d seen it before, but that was good, because she knew nothing in it would hit Emmet too close to home. Archeops could enjoy watching along as well.

The electric Gym Leader wasn’t one hundred percent sure how to act around her brother-slash-best-friend now, but when she heard laughter bubble out of his chest as he watched the video, she figured she must be doing something right.

Emmet appreciated having her there.

He could tell she was struggling; he’d known her for almost twenty-five years. He could read her verrry well by now. It felt a little guilty to consider but Emmet had to internally admit it felt nice that she was doing her best for him. He didn’t exactly feel like he deserved it, but still.

There was a knock at the door, and then Drayden entered. Elesa paused the video, and Emmet looked up expectantly. “Alright, we got you some tamato berry and basculin soup, how does that sound? I know you’ve enjoyed it in the past.”

A Nurse had a bowl on a tray that could attach to either side of Emmet’s hospital bed, and they walked in behind Drayden.

“That sounds good,” Emmet signed, and Drayden relayed his message to the nurse, who set up the tray for him. 

“You need to get back in your pokeball, alright?” Emmet said to Archeops, voice weak and scratchy because his pokemon could not understand sign language, skritching him once more before looking at Drayden. “I need to eat now.”

Archeops nuzzled him again, before being enveloped in red light from his pokeball in Drayden’s hand. Emmet turned his attention to his meal.

“Now take it slow, alright? I won’t go into details yet because you asked me not to, but your systems have to equilibrate to… To the change. Okay?”

Emmet nodded despite the spear of ice that it felt like his throat had become. He desperately wanted to know what the hospital personnel were saying about him, but he also desperately wanted to never know.

So, to avoid any of that, he picked up the spoon and began to eat his soup. It was actually pretty good; he wondered if the hospital usually served it. Tamato and basculin wasn’t exactly the most common soup.

“I made sure this was safe for you to eat, then went out and found it at a little diner nearby.” Oh. Of course Drayden would do that, would go find something that he would enjoy eating so he wouldn’t have to suffer through an awful texture or taste.

“Thank you,” Emmet signed, setting his spoon down specifically to do so. He had to screw up his face for a moment so he wouldn’t start crying again, but when the urge passed, he returned to his meal.

His emotional state, his mental state as a whole, felt like it was going too fast and too slow, oscillating between stable and unstable, okay and not okay. Emmet supposed that that was… At least somewhat normal for a person in his state. Who had been through what he had.

This was just another thing to ignore.

The soup was good, and that was fucking enough at the moment.

He made sure to take it slow, but, in no time, the soup was gone and he actually felt a little better physically. The warmth had been soothing, and the act of eating had felt normal. It had been somewhat irrational, but Emmet had almost expected not to be able to taste it at all. As it was, he could feel it settle in his stomach, and he supposed that answered one question.

The cozy feeling in his chest unstuck whatever it was that had rendered him nonverbal, and he exhaled. “That was verrry good.”

“Glad to hear it, son,” answered Drayden, offering up his own shaky smile hidden behind his beard. “Now. Can I join in what you two were watching?”

Emmet nodded as the nurse took away the tray, and he made sure to thank them as they left.

“I know you’re not much of a gamer,” Elesa said to Drayden, taking up her seat next to Emmet again. “But we can explain it to you.”

“Yup yup. This is a racing game. Verrry easy to understand.”

“Until you factor in the blue squirtles.”

“Fair point.”

“... Kids. Aren’t all squirtles blue?”

For a time, at least, the three adults were able to set their very real omnipresent worries aside. Their family banter came back, even though they were… Permanently down a member. For what else could they do, at what felt like the end of the world? Laugh or cry, they say, and so many tears had already been shed. So many more were on the way. But for now, they could at least exist in a little bubble of laughter and enjoy the small thing that was the antics of the players on the screen.

Of course, though, nothing could last, cursed as the Grey family felt.

“... I feel a little sick,” Emmet announced a half hour after finishing his meal. Elesa and Drayden fixed him with worried looks. They knew his smile had fallen a little, but not that the cause behind it had been nausea.

“The Nurses said that you might get a stomachache at first… They also said it should subside quickly.” Drayden still looked concerned, though. “Would you like me to get someone for you?”

“Yeh–” The answer was cut off by a gagging noise, Emmet’s eyes going wide as that horrible sick feeling rushed up his throat and he vomited his meal up and onto the blankets he was wrapped in. Even Emmet was startled by this, coughing before he gagged again and the rest of the soup made an appearance. He then withdrew into himself, shutting his eyes tightly and taking shallow breaths, refusing to move.

Drayden was up and hitting the call button immediately while Elesa stood and grabbed as many napkins as she could.

“I got your blanket all gross,” was the first thing Emmet said, and there was a sob in his voice as he refused to open his eyes.

“Emmet Kudari Grey, you’re my fucking brother and you’re in the hospital. I don’t give a patrat’s ass about the state of my blanket.” She passed him some napkins so he could wipe up his face and focused on getting first her blanket and then the other off of him.

When she finally did, Emmet heard her inhaled gasp that she must have tried to choke down, and he resolutely did not open his eyes.

“... You managed to keep your shirt clean because of the blankets,” was all she said, not acknowledging how terrible he must look. “There’s another blanket on the couch that I’ll grab for you.”

The man in the bed did not open his eyes until she’d tucked him back in. He saw that there was a Nurse in the room now, a short man in white scrubs with pink trim, who Drayden was speaking to.

“I wish you would have told us about the possibility of him getting sick,” Drayden said, rubbing his eyes. “He doesn’t really do so well with vomit. He was badly phobic of it for a while, even.”

“We’re sorry, Mr. Grey,” replied the Nurse. “There was a chance, but I think someone just forgot to convey the details. That is entirely on us; on behalf of the staff, I apologize.”

There were a few more words shared, and then the Nurse took away the soiled blanket that belonged to the hospital. Elesa inverted hers and set it aside to wash when she went home, but for now it was fine.

Emmet, meanwhile, did his best to look small. He felt awful, both in the roiling of his stomach and in the embarrassment of puking up his food like a baby. He knew, he knew that he was simply injured and in the hospital and, to put it simply, going through it. Emmet was still an adult. Still capable.

Needing help, being sick and hurt and… Shattered did not make him any less of a person.

But it had been one day, one day awake for real, and Emmet was unsure how to navigate any of it.

So, in a weak voice, he spoke, raising his eyes from the blanket to look at Elesa. “I think. I am going to sleep again. It will help with the nausea. And… I am not feeling very good. Emotionally.” That was about all he could manage.

“Okay. Can I do anything to help you at all?” Elesa reached out to him, then paused to wordlessly ask for permission before touching him. When he nodded, she began to run her fingers through his sweaty hair.

Emmet knew he’d just been thinking how he was an adult and didn’t want to need help with basic things, but he couldn’t help but lean into her touch. It just felt so nice. He wished the rest of what he was feeling could be as nice.

“I don’t think so. Thank you.” A pause, then. “I love you. Thank you for visiting me.”

“Of course, Emmet… You know I love you too. And…” She couldn’t say Ingo’s name. Not right now. “I always have and I always will.” Then she ruffled his hair and retracted her hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good rest.”

“Is Emmet going back to sleep?” Drayden finally came over; the Nurse had left the room. “Goodnight, son. Love you. Please get some rest so you feel better okay?”

“I will try.”

Everyone’s encouraging words had run out, leaving them all feeling hollow and like they didn’t know what to do next. After one last round of goodbyes, Elesa and Drayden filed from the room. Leaving the hospital, they privately spoke about how worried they were about Emmet and his fragile mental state. About how to have the impossible talks they needed to have. About how to ask what exactly had happened.

About how to support him without smothering him.

Both went home that night with more questions than answers. But Drayden and Elesa both were intensely grateful that Emmet was awake and his mental state seemed relatively intact. He remembered them, and his life, and who he was; he hadn’t lost so much blood that he was unable to comprehend the world around him.

(Of course, no matter what, they would have loved him all the same. But it was a great comfort that Emmet was still Emmet, no matter how traumatized he was bound to be.)

And Emmet slept. Being awake was rougher on his healing self than he’d expected, and he didn’t spend much time laying in the dark before he’d fallen asleep. Before that point, he’d used the controls on his bed to tilt the top back so he was able to lay down fully.

He wished Eelektross was there to snuggle. Immediately after that, he then fell asleep.

And Emmet dreamed.

There was a sudden… Emmet could only describe it as warmth. He felt like himself again, and when he opened his eyes, it was easy to see why.

He was so stunned that he found he could not speak, simply staring at the brother he had lost, who was reading a book by his side. Emmet could feel Ingo again, they were together and whole again. He could feel their feet, their legs… Distantly he could just barely feel the worn paper of the pages Ingo held.

The question had come up a lot when they were children; no, Ingo and Emmet could not read each other’s minds or feelings. However, their sensory nerves did extend into each other’s torsos, so they could often get a sense of what the other was somatically experiencing. Apparently their nervous setup was fairly unexpected, but that is often how it went with conjoined twins.

Unexpected.

But Emmet cared for none of that. He could feel his twin’s strong heart, he could feel Ingo leaning against him gently, he could feel he could feel HE COULD FEEL!

Emmet could run if he wanted to. He could go see his beloved trains. He could be himself again, by being Ingo And Emmet.

As his pulse began to race in excitement, Ingo finally cottoned onto the fact that he was being stared at. “Emmet? Emmet is something wrong? You look like you have just seen a train overshoot the station.”

“Ingo! You are back!” Emmet signed swiftly, still not trusting his verbal state. 

“Did I go somewhere…? How would I have traveled diverging tracks from you?” Ingo seemed utterly confused, brows furrowing and frown deepening. He reached out and put a hand on Emmet’s forehead, checking for fever. “Are you delirious? Did your nap cause some couplings to become loose?”

“Not dead!” Emmet repeated those signs a few times for emphasis, a warm feeling blooming in his chest that was akin to delirious happiness.

“Of course… Of course I’m not dead.” Ingo drew back, and Emmet could tell he was unnerved. “You’re… Scaring me a little.”

Emmet finally found his voice, speaking slowly and carefully.

“I am sorry. I had a horrible, horrible dream, Ingo.” He felt a little embarrassed that tears began to prick the corners of his eyes, but he just tried to wipe them away hastily. “We… I… Something tore…”

“Hey, hey it’s alright Emmet.” Ingo set his book aside, wrapping his arm closest to his brother around him, drawing him closer so their sides were pressed together. “You do not need to explain if you don’t want to. I know you always listen to me if I have a bad dream and want to talk about it, and you don’t push if I don’t.”

Emmet knew that Ingo didn’t often clam up about nightmares, and he also knew that when he did, they were about Emmet. Ingo didn’t want to verbalize it when bad things happened to his brother, lest they come to pass.

“... We were separated, Ingo. By force.” 

Ingo paled at that, looking sick. “Oh, Emmet… That’s… I’m terribly sorry you had to wander those tracks alone, even if it was only in your sleep. Nothing will ever separate our one-car train. This conductor and engineer will work together until we run out of track.” His eyes squinted, pulling up at the corners as he offered his own unique version of a reassuring smile.

“I know this. It was just a stupid dream.” Emmet sniffed, finally letting the tears spill over as he rested his head on Ingo’s shoulder. “It should not affect me so badly. But it was so real.” 

“I know you usually don’t, but do you want to talk about it this time?”

With Ingo’s cheek resting against his hair, with the feeling of one of their feet kicking slightly and Ingo’s muffled heartbeat, Emmet felt safe to speak about it.

“I do. If that is okay.”

“It’s more than okay, Emmet.”

“Okay. I do not remember exactly what split us but. It happened in Gear Station. We were attacked. You were… You were gone. You vanished. I don’t know where. You screamed. I screamed. Then you were gone and I was lying on the platform. Face down. It hurt. Everything hurt. It was…. It was here.” With his right hand, Emmet gently traced a line across his own torso down to right above their shared hip. It was worryingly high on his body. “I didn’t die. They took me to the hospital. There were a lot of machines. Things were blurry for a while. Then they weren’t. I had…” At that, Emmet gestured down at himself, unable to put it into words.

For once, Ingo was lost for words. Even if he wasn’t, he’d remain silent in order for his brother to feel comfortable explaining.

“Tubes,” Emmet finally settled on, voice no louder than a whisper. “Coming out of me. Of where my body ended. And you were still gone.”

At that, it was clear that the story was over, so Ingo took a moment to compose himself. Once he did, he chose his words with extreme care. “Emmet. I promise you that won’t happen. Ever. If a pokemon attacks us, we have our own strong teams to defend us. If a person does, we can fight them off together. We cover each other’s weaknesses.” Ingo’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “But hear me now. That will never happen. There is no terminal called End in our lives. Not unless we reach it together.”

“Win with Ingo. Or lose with Ingo. It’s the only thing I can do.” Emmet pulled from his Battle Subway script to fill in the words he couldn’t find, similar to how Ingo did the same to inspire him. “Thank you, Ingo.”

“You are welcome. You would do the same for me, and you have many times.”

“I have.”

“And we will continue to do so for the future. For now, though, please rest. I will read this aloud for you. To remind you that I am here.”

“I’d like that.”

They remained like that, warm and safe and together, until everything grew fuzzy again and Emmet dozed off.

He then woke up alone again in terrible pain, crying out into the darkness for Ingo and the other half of his body until he realized where he was, tears streaming down his face and soaking into his blankets.

Being cogent, Emmet decided upon coming back to his senses, was shitty, actually. Well, the small sliver of his logical brain that was active decided that. The majority of his mind was instead occupied by the horrible, awful, sourceless pain he felt.

Had adjusting his pain meds led to this mess?

No, that wasn’t it, not exactly, because he realized his pain was centered around parts of himself that simply weren’t.

(Focusing on that was so much easier than focusing on how, for one blindingly hopeful bit of time, he’d thought this was the dream. That was a thought to ball up and shove under the rug for later.)

There was fire racing up and down legs that did not exist. There were pins and needles congregating in knees that were… Emmet didn’t know where. He didn’t care, either, all he knew was he was trembling, his muscles taut, no idea how to stop hurting.

… He didn’t want to look, but. Maybe he had to. Maybe contact was the only way. But was it worth finally drawing back his blanket and seeing the Nothing he had partially become? The torn-off remnants of his torso? He had no clue how grisly it would be. Elesa had been surprised earlier. What if…

Hissing out air through clenched teeth as another wave of pain gripped him, Emmet decided he just wanted it to stop. Reaching down, hoping to apply pressure or contact in just the right way to convince his brain what was present and what wasn’t, Emmet’s fingers instead collided with bandages and tubes.

He jerked back a little, but then with almost a sick fascination ran his hands across every conduit keeping himself alive. He couldn’t even feel his own touch through the heavy bandaging on the end of his broken body.

The pain turned into a backbeat as, for the very first time, alone, in the dark, Emmet pulled the blankets off himself, despite how cold he already was. His heart began to pound, then, with himself bared. The horrible, awful hospital shirt rode up on his skin where the bandages began, securing all of the tubes and wires in place while, presumably, his skin healed around them enough to do the job itself.

With his night vision, Emmet could see his blood moving in many of the lines, which twitched in time with his heartbeat. Swallowing hard, Emmet tried not to think about it, but then he saw larger tubes carrying multicolored something and he felt the need to retch. Maybe watching his own blood circulate wasn’t that bad, actually.

Something in his brain, something intrusive, told him to wrap the hand still currently resting on his bandages around one of these life-giving connections and tear it out. See what happens. See how it feels.

He inwardly cringed away from it, the stabbing pain taking up the forefront of his mind once more, fingers tightening, nails scritching on the textured tape holding gauze in place.

He needed to ground himself, and quickly. 

There is nothing bad about this. I am alive. This is keeping me alive. It is… It is… He mentally floundered, halfway to panic, still stricken with hurt, before he found something and latched on. It is like the subway. Like the third rail carrying electricity to the trains. Like the wires running along the ceiling and walls. Everything that powers our stations. It is like that. Conduits that keep our livelihood alive. That…. Keep me alive.

It is okay. A subway cannot run without depending on external forces. That is just engineering. I can… I can do this.

Absurdly, the words ‘blood subway’ came to the surface of his mind and he couldn’t help but let out a helpless little laugh. How ridiculous.

But he supposed it did work in reverse too. Human vessels did in fact transport both cellular passengers and other cargo around the body. Somehow, that thought helped. Again, he had to laugh as he realized he was just like the Unova Subway System, now. Some of his lines were aboveground.

The pain was gradually fading as well, as he very carefully but firmly ran his fingers over the edge of his skin through the bandages, reminding his brain that beyond that there was nothing. With his free hand he finally found the little button that would give him an extra painkiller boost and clicked it. Soon he’d be okay. The urge to tear at the devices within him had passed, and he would be okay.

(Later, he would wonder exactly how he’d been able to calm himself down, alone. He’d struggle with that same issue and have to remind himself that progress and healing were rarely linear, and that a failure would never cancel out an earlier success.)

Soon he leaned back against his pillows, feeling boneless again as the concoction finally hit his brain and turned off his nerves. One hand fished around for the blankets and yanked them back up over himself, covering up all the myriad junctions of his own body and machine. Maybe now he could get more sleep. Maybe it would even be dreamless this time.

(I am sorry Dream-Ingo. You lied.)

Dragons, how he wanted it to be dreamless.

Chapter Text

Ingo was not sure what brought it on this particular night. The rest of the trip through Hisui had been informative but uneventful in terms of danger or anything too particularly exciting. He was now in his tent, his own personal home, for the first time, and… 

It was too quiet. In several ways.

Ingo knew instinctively that he’d come from some place that was far noisier than Hisui. The sounds of the pokemon were present here, but somehow he knew he liked it even louder. The Icelands, remote and cold as they were, did not have the same bugs and birds that the places they had camped in had, and so a desolate chill dulled the sounds to nothing.

That alone would have been tolerable. That was something Ingo could adapt to.

The other thing, however, was not.

After tossing and turning for ages, Ingo had finally fallen asleep, but now he jerked into a sitting position with a choked off call of alarm, hunching forwards even more when the wrongness pervading every synapse did not stop.

Silent, silent, I can hear only one working set of lungs, I can feel only one beating heart, it ends, it ENDS, the feeling ENDS.

Ingo frantically clutched his scar, heel of his hand pressed to the normally too-sensitive skin that was now bared to air. It felt as if his sensation extended a ways away from his body there, the phantom pain of some mystery limb he had never had, but it was WRONG.

Why was everything halved? What did that mean? And why was this revelation making him pant and whine with pain like a sick growlithe?

Holding his blanket to his face, Ingo cried, wishing he could scream instead, as the pervasive wrongness that was his phantom sensations set his mind on fire.

Someone… Someone he’d known would be able to help with this. But who? The touch of memories retreated as soon as he reached out to grasp them, and he was left alone in the too-silent tent.

(When he was sick, Calaba had been nearby, and when they’d been camping he’d been able to hear his nearby companions. Perhaps that was the difference, his subconscious grasped before his present mind could catch up.)

“Snrrrr?” came a concerned purr from outside the tent flaps.

“Lady Sneasler!” he gasped out, more air than words, and the noble took that as an invitation to enter, clicking her claws in worry. Ingo felt relief flood through him, and gratitude that this Sinnoh-blessed, apparently, pokemon had deemed him of interest.

Feeling a bit like a child, Ingo opened his arms in what he supposed was the universal gesture for ‘needing a hug.’ Lady Sneasler obliged, crooning as she wrapped the man into a hug and let him cry himself into exhaustion again into her fur.

When he felt entirely wrung out, Ingo drew back a little. “Thank you,” he said quietly, wiping his face and sniffing softly. “I do not know why I derailed. I cannot remember where I came from, you see, and this causes me great pain sometimes. I am unable to even remember my dream to talk about.”

Careful with her giant scythe-like claws, Sneasler kept him looped in a loose hug, stroking his back with the soft little pads on the underside of her paws. How did she know how best to comfort humans? Ingo didn’t understand, but he wouldn’t complain.

“... I remember always being able to share my nightmares with someone. Maybe I had pokemon I had befriended in my past as well…”

Even as Ingo spoke, that didn’t sound exactly right, and then the scar on his side twinged painfully and he hissed and drew away.

“Excuse me, my lady.” He rubbed at the spot, reaching under his black shirt to do so. Sneasler sat back, head cocked, until she leaned forwards and made a sort of chuffing noise. “Oh. It is just a scar. It pained me in my sleep, and I do not know what this means…”

Ingo lifted his shirt to show off what must have once been a near-fatal wound spanning most of his right side. Bending down, Lady Sneasler sniffed the spot, and Ingo held very still. He was then confused when she screwed up her face, baring her long, long fangs, and Ingo was afraid for a singular moment that she was going to bite him.

What she did instead wasn’t much better as she placed one paw on him to hold him still and licked his scar with her rough tongue. Ingo protested, breath stuttering because it hurt and felt awful but she wouldn’t leave him alone. “Stop it!” he cried out, but she was much stronger than him.

After a few moments he managed to squirm away, staring back at her with a betrayed gaze. She looked sorry, licking her nose once and not meeting his accusatory stare. Looking down at the mark on his side, Ingo found it covered with a veneer of Sneasler spit, but it had a purplish sheen that her grooming licks from a few days ago had not.

The scar was also entirely numb now, the pain subsided into a periodic tingling. Touching the spot and pressing down didn’t elicit any feeling at all, and caused the numbness to spread to Ingo’s fingertips.

“... You were helping me,” Ingo said weakly. “I appreciate it. But next time, my lady, please just lick a cloth for me or something of that sort. Your tongue is not… Entirely pleasant, in this case.”

“Snee,” she said apologetically, and Ingo moved over to lean against her again.

“You are forgiven.”

Lady Sneasler curled up around Ingo’s pillow, then, and the man eased back into his sleeping bag and tucked his face into her fur. “Thank you for… Caring about me,” he mumbled as he dozed off, and Sneasler licked his hair a few times. This time she kept her spit venom-free, and soon Ingo was asleep once more.

It was good that Ingo got some sleep, because he needed his wits about him when it was time to learn some cooking skills from Zinta, just as promised.

“We can start with breakfast foods,” Zinta offered, sitting on a log by the fire next to Ingo. From Ingo’s perspective, the man seemed friendlier, at least a little. Far less suspicious and hostile, at least. Perhaps traveling with Ingo had shown he meant no harm, or maybe Lady Sneasler’s infatuation with the man was her way of vouching for him.

“Those sound like the correct tracks,” Ingo agreed with a nod. “What are some common breakfast foods, anyways?”

“Berry breads, rice porridge, and sometimes eggs, if we can get our hands on them. They’re understandably dangerous to get and hard to find, especially edible ones. Fresh berries are also common.” Zinta had gone into lecture mode, poking at the coals of the fire as he waited for it to reach a level that would be useful for cooking. That made sense to Ingo; after all, scorched food would be disgusting.

(In the back of his mind, there was a whisper of some nonsense about some foods tasting good burnt, something that someone had told him once. He’d argued back, or something, because it made them feel sick. … Who was them?)

“We can start with some berry flatcakes,” the guard continued. “They’re simple and delicious. We’ll use razz berries; they’re a natural source of energy for the day ahead.”

Ingo watched intently as Zinta explained how to make the cake, demonstrating as he did so. The man was actually a superb teacher, and Ingo did not feel patronized. Really, he was lucky that several Pearl Clan members seemed to genuinely enjoy his company, especially since so many people were suspicious of him still.

“Alright, that about covers it,” Zinta said at last, offering Ingo the spoon. “You can make one, and as long as it’s edible we can have breakfast.”

“This sounds like a good track to take,” Ingo agreed, setting to work.

And indeed the process started out fine. Ingo used his left hand to adjust the metal pan in the fire, reaching for the rice flour batter after he did so and carefully pouring it. Tilting the pan to coat the bottom evenly, he set it back on the flames and sprinkled the pre-chopped razz berries on top. So far, so good.

Then it came time for the cake to be flipped. Ingo picked up the spoon, eyes fixed on the little bubbles in the batter cooking in front of him, and passed the utensil to his right. “Your turn,” he muttered. And he let it go.

His right hand had no reaction as the spoon swiftly fell, but he jumped when it clacked loudly against one of the stones surrounding the cooking fire.

“Ingo?” asked Zinta, confused, taking the pan from the man and simply jostling it in a way so the cake flipped over into a little half-moon shape. “Are you alright?”

After retrieving the spoon, Ingo found his face reddening, and he covered his eyes with his hat. Why had he done such a thing? Why was dropping a spoon instinct? “I am sorry for my sudden derailment,” he settled on after a moment, voice dropping to a harsh, forced whisper. “I genuinely am unsure what came over me… I will do my best to perform safety checks and make sure it does not happen again.”

“It’s alright,” Zinta replied, but he still looked confused and a little pitying. “Perhaps it’s a holdover from your head injury.” He thought for a moment. “Or you were an important cook where you came from and you had assistants.”

“I do not think that is the case.” Ingo heaved a sigh. “Or else I have forgotten truly everything I know.”

“Hm, I agree. The strange words you say don’t really pertain to cooking.” He plated the flatcake Ingo had made as he spoke, then handed the clay dish over. “Alright, taste test time.”

At least the food he’d made was edible, if a tad blackened on the underside. Still, he ate it all so as not to be rude and waste food. Ingo had learned that the Pearl Clan was big on using as much as possible; it made sense, with how he imagined the Icelands could get. And really, it wasn’t that overdone.

Spoon incident aside, he chalked the experience up to a win.

The two ran through a few more basic dishes before Zinta had to go perform some duties, and Ingo was left alone, promising to take the utensils to wash in a nearby stream. It was just him and the spoons and his thoughts, neither of which were good company. He carried the cooking implements in one hand and gripped his walking stick in the other, turning the incident over in his mind.

Why did doing things with his left hand sometimes feel more natural than doing them with his right? He was right handed, was he not?

Ingo knelt, beginning to run the pan under the shockingly cold water. Maybe he was making a bigger deal out of this than he needed to. Perhaps he was simply ambidextrous. Even so, that didn’t feel quite… Right. To Ingo, it felt more like his muscle memory simply did not exist for certain tasks that required two hands. Like he only had half of the knowledge.

As if to dislodge thoughts, Ingo shook his head as he moved on to clean the spoons. It was truly stupid how amnesia could take even some of his body’s instincts but not others. That had to be what it was, after all. His head injury, his amnesia, like Zinta had posed.

“... Why am I like this,” Ingo allowed himself one small thought out loud. It felt like he was expecting an answer that never came, no sound to be heard over the happy babble of the stream.

▲▽

One thing Ingo rapidly noticed during the next month or so in the Pearl Clan was that they were very particular about touch. Physical contact tended to be reserved just for families. Partners, parents, children, those sorts of relations. Close friends, sometimes. Everyone else was, quite literally, held at arm’s length.

Ingo had quite a good deal of free time, even when he did his best to always be useful, so he tended to just observe quietly. Try and learn the mannerisms of those who took him in so he could better become a valued member of the clan.

This custom, however, was proving difficult for the man. No, he would never touch anyone without consent or knowing them well enough to have knowledge of what was okay for them. It was more an issue of himself.

Every clan member had someone. Every person had a partner to embrace at the end of the day, a sibling to drag to the cooking fire by the hand, parents to hug and kiss them.

Ingo had no one. Not even a memory of a someone.

But, while his mind was a vacuous hole in terms of faces of those from his past, his self longed for contact of some kind with another person. A pat on the shoulder, a handshake, anything. Some days, Ingo thought he’d even take a slap in the face.

It was…. Well, it felt rather embarrassing to Ingo. If he said anything, he’d stand out instantly, even more so than he already did. But, while it wasn’t a memory, instinct told him he’d never been touch-starved before. It had only been a mere handful of months, not even that, and he was already brought to near tears thinking about a hug.

Ingo felt pitiful.

Perhaps that was why, when Zinta offered to teach him basic hand-to-hand combat, Ingo accepted immediately.

First I mope around like a wet glameow, and now I accept an invitation due to ulterior motives. What tracks am I traveling down? 

But Zinta was right; being able to fight would be the only way Ingo could be safe if he was going to help the clan by gathering berries. It was an important job; the large basket Ingo would wear on his back was light, and so were berries, luckily. Ingo suspected Irida had offered that position to him on purpose. He couldn’t carry heavier supplies or plant crops due to his bad back.

Zinta was shaping up to be a true friend, if he wasn’t just teaching Ingo skills because he had to. The prospect of a friend made Ingo’s chest fill with a fragile something he couldn’t name. Irida was friendly enough with him, and he’d enjoyed Calaba’s company quite a bit. But one was the clan leader, and the other was a warden who mostly lived in her territory.

Neither exactly had time to sit down with Ingo every day, not now that he wasn’t a patient in the medical tent.

“Are you ready, Ingo?” called out Zinta once Ingo ambled his way over to a clear patch of grass on the outskirts of the camp. He’d already taken his shirt off, showing a toned body. Made sense, Ingo thought, seeing as training and upkeep of guarding skills must be rather physical.

“Yes, I believe I am,” he replied as he arrived at the spot.

“... You’re going to want to take off the coat and hat, at the very least.”

“Oh… Yes, how silly of me.” Ingo did so, pausing to bunch the fabric in his fists briefly, thumbs ghosting over the material in a way that brought him instant comfort. “I simply am too attached to these garments to go without them, normally.” 

He folded his coat nicely, setting it on a rockier area. Then he shucked off his Pearl Clan tunic, folded that too, and set his hat on top of the whole bundle.

“I keep forgetting you aren’t bald under there.”

“What?”

“The silver hair, and all. It makes me think you’re older than you probably are.”

Ingo looked up, eyes roving across Zinta’s face, but there was only good natured joking to be found there. So he laughed, face still frowning but eyes crinkling up at the edges.

“I cannot remember, but I daresay I must have gotten that reaction a lot.”

“I’d ask if you always had that hair color or not, but…”

“Amnesia.”

Ingo pointedly did not look at the rift above the distant mountain. He never did.

With no more small talk, Zinta dove right into showing Ingo the first thing he’d need to know to begin combat training, his stance. Even without much knowledge of how to train a person with a back injury, Zinta did his best to accommodate the bend in Ingo’s spine. They took frequent breaks, both for rest and stretching.

They moved on to basic ways to block blows and strike back, orchestrating a fight in slow motion. Ingo couldn’t deny that even such fleeting contact helped lessen the lonely buzzing in his mind, though he swatted the thoughts away. It was utterly ridiculous. He was a grown man and he refused to become so pathetic over sparring.

Some of his annoyance at himself must’ve spilled over, because his next mock blow pushed Zinta back a few steps. After overcoming his initial surprise, Zinta, instead of looking angry, broke into a smile.

“See! You’re getting it!”

“... I am!” Internalized shame forgotten, Ingo’s eyes widened and, despite his frown, he looked happy. The edges of his mouth got a small curl to them, then he fell into one of his stances, brows furrowing in a determined way that somehow didn’t make him seem angry, only eager.

Competitiveness was bubbling up in his chest, in a strange way Ingo did not understand. He couldn’t challenge Zinta to an actual match. He would not win. But somehow this felt… More natural than other activities he’d done in Hisui. Something about it was off, still, but a friendly competition in which there were no real stakes or dangers was… Right. 

Had he been a fighter, somehow, where he came from? That couldn’t be right. He was disabled… Unless it was fighting that had caused his disability and scarring? No, no that wasn’t right.

Thinking too hard would just bring an uncomfortable pressure behind his eyes, anyhow. So instead of thinking, he focused on just acting. As predicted, even holding back, Zinta did kick his ass, but Ingo was able to hold his own and learn from the experience as he did so. It… Was actually a lot of fun.

Until things derailed, just a little bit.

“Is this the newcomer I’ve heard about all the way up in Avalugg’s Legacy?”

Ingo and Zinta both turned to look at the newcomer, and Ingo was surprised to find a very buff, very shirtless blue-haired man grinning at both of them, hands on his hips. The Pearl Clan emblem was emblazoned across his chest. Ingo didn’t know they had tattoos here, but before he could even try and puzzle out what a tattoo was, the man came closer and Ingo realized that no, that was hair.

The man truly had shaved his chest hair into a design.

Ingo could say nothing, scratching at one of his knife shaped sidebangs and wondering if that’s the sort of mental reaction everyone had to his hair.

“Warden Gaeric,” said Zinta, raising a hand and waving. “Yes, this is Ingo. I’m teaching him some basic fighting techniques.”

“Someone who sees the benefit in training the muscles.” Gaeric nodded, approval written across his face. “I think we’ll get along just fine, Ingo!”

“Hello, sir,” said Ingo, trying to keep his voice to an acceptable volume.

“Do you want to try a matchup against a different partner? Everyone has different fighting styles. Compared to Zinta’s swiftness, my bulky muscles make me an immovable opponent! Even Lord Avalugg has a hard time getting me to budge, ha!”

Ingo blinked at the man who could crack him like a twig. While his words were undoubtedly boastful, he actually came across with genuine enthusiasm. It was familiar to Ingo, somehow. This Warden Gaeric was more interested in sharing his passion than making himself look good.

How Ingo picked up on that, he had no idea, but he nodded. “As long as you are careful. Unfortunately I have some issues with my back, and I would hate to become injured while on the tracks of learning how to survive on my own.”

Gaeric paused, rubbing his chin. “Maybe I have some tips for you.”

“He uses a walking stick,” Zinta offered. “Perhaps we could teach him some moves with that.”

“Oh bravo!” Ingo said, surprising even himself. “I mean. That sounds like a good idea. I would not have thought of that myself.”

The two trainers spent the rest of the afternoon showing Ingo exactly how to use his mobility aide to brace himself, and how to use it as a combat staff when paired with the right stance to keep him steady. It was all very trial-and-error, and Zinta and Gaeric asked him a lot of questions to make sure he wasnt over-exerting or hurting himself.

Ingo was extremely grateful, both for the care they were showing him and for the fact that they’d devote so much time to teaching the outsider how to fight.

Though, Ingo supposed he was less of an outsider now. Certain clan members certainly thought so, at least. Or, at least, both Zinta and Gaeric didn’t consider him a threat because they could knock him flat out easily.

Ingo found he didn’t care about the reasoning. He was just desperately happy that people were being nice to him, that they were talking to him and engaging with him and treating him like he was a part of something.

Despite his frequent nightmares and how hard sleeping was on the nights when Lady Sneasler did not stop to visit, Ingo felt something inside him healing. Or at least, it was starting to. The lack of physical contact, casual touches and loving embraces in his life, was still grating on his very soul, but interaction and companionship were valued.

At the end of that exhausting first day of training, Ingo felt so fulfilled that that night, despite being totally alone, he slept without incident. Wether it was the exhaustion or something else, Ingo found himself very grateful.

He had friends. And that was more than he’d had when he’d been found in the snow months ago.

▲▽

After Ingo’s first long day gathering berries for the Pearl Clan, he found himself arriving back to the camp later than usual. It was just when the darkness had overtaken the sunset when he dropped off the day’s spoils in the storehouse and went to cook himself dinner. Almost everyone was already inside for the night. A shame, because he’d been out and about all day. He at least wished he could’ve told Zinta it all went well. 

After the combat lessons a week prior, Zinta had told Ingo that he hoped his new job wasn’t too difficult and had wished him luck. Ingo supposed he would tell him whenever he saw him next.

It had been a long day.

A lonely one.

Ingo… Didn’t really want to be alone. But the day was over and who did he have to return to? Again, he was overtaken by the desire to avoid being a burden, to avoid coming across as more alien than he already did.

He did not need to cling to his friends, his still extremely new friends, every minute of the day. He would adjust. He had to adjust.

Poking at the coals of his cooking fire, Ingo ate the last of his bowl of noodles. The warmth eased the knot of uncomfortable feelings in his chest, and he sighed before he set the small bowl aside.

All of a sudden, something soft and flumphy smacked Ingo right in the face, knocking his hat right off. He was too surprised to even shout, downy fuzz obscuring his vision and a chittering noise filling his ears. Before anything else could happen, Ingo scrabbled at the pokemon that had latched onto him and yanked it off, taking some of his hairs with it.

When he saw what it was, he was glad he had. A scowling mouth with large fangs looked up at him sourly, and the tail his fingers were wrapped firmly around had a large stinger on the end.

Somehow Ingo felt no real fear, even when encounters with other pokemon had led to his heart racing. He raised a single eyebrow at the small purple gligar, frowning at it.

“Were you trying to attack me and eat me for dinner, or did you simply fall on me?”

The pokemon wriggled, suddenly not wanting to make eye contact. It made a little noise, clicking its pincers, all of its fight gone. It looked almost embarrassed, scolded out of its hunger by the surprising reaction of the human.

“Go on and find a new meal, little passenger,” Ingo said, getting into a crouch before releasing it by tossing it gently. Watching it glide to the grass, Ingo kept his footing light, on the balls of his feet, just in case it tried to attack again. When all it did was sit there and look at him with its head cocked, Ingo relaxed a little.

“What are you looking at me for? I am not your mother, I cannot provide food for you. And you are not eating me,” Ingo specified when the gligar opened its mouth. It closed it, then. Ingo couldn’t help but laugh despite the hollow feeling in his chest. “You are a ridiculous little creature.”

It smiled at him, then crawled closer. It was awkward on the ground, but it made do. After a moment, Ingo cautiously held out a hand, holding very still and hoping he wasn’t about to be bitten for his troubles. But no, the little creature simply bonked his hand with its forehead, and he pet it in return.

Even though it was decidedly not a human, the touch, along with its little smiling face, helped soothe something inside Ingo. When it half crawled and half flapped up to perch on his head, nestling into his hat hair, he did not protest.

“Would you like to continue traveling with me, little one?” Though he couldn’t see its face, the bug scorpion cheeped, its dangerous tail dangling off the back of his head like a strange ponytail. “Alright then. Welcome aboard!”

Ingo hoped that Irida and the rest of the Pearl Clan would not object to him having a pokemon.

He also hoped Gligar wasn’t just trying to trick him, but when he felt it clamber down his body to cling to his chest, he realized that, foolish as it sounded, he didn’t care. The feeling of the little creature hugging him caused his breath to stick in his chest as he suddenly felt emotional.

Wrapping his arms around it in return, Ingo felt tears begin to run down his cheeks again as he began to cry.

Chapter Text

The next few days for Emmet were… Unpleasant, if he had to choose a single word in the Galarian language.

Now that he was more awake, it was finally hitting Emmet how much physical discomfort he was in. The hospital sheets and shirt and bandages and everything were not specifically chosen for him like everything in his house had been. That made him feel a little overdramatic, but long, long ago, both his parents and Drayden had told the twins in no uncertain terms that their needs were important. No matter how small.

Some people could tolerate certain discomforts better than others. Being autistic made the two boys more susceptible to noticing when the smallest things were uncomfortable. That was what Drayden had told them. Later on, they weren’t sure if that was exactly how it worked, but it had been a simple enough description of their sensory issues when they were five.

Beyond that, there were the tests and treatments and bandage changes. Nurses had to take his blood pressure and check his pulse and do all sorts of annoying things. He was sick of them having to touch him, and he especially hated when they needed to do anything involving the tubes in his body. Emmet resolutely allowed none of his family in the room when they had to unwind the gauze and tape in between and replace it. The man refused to even look himself, though he could feel the itchy stitches bared to air.

But of course, Emmet was always doing his best to be a good person. He voiced none of this to the hospital staff. Why be rude to people just doing their jobs to keep him alive? They had to touch him, and he had to suck it up and deal with that.

Three days after he woke up, there was even a few hours where a team of Nurses helped him to carefully lay on his front side. Something about not getting sores from laying on his back for too long. Once they’d removed their hands from his body, Emmet had made himself comfortable and fallen asleep. Being able to move at all had been such a relief, being able to change positions even if he needed help.

Through almost everything, though, Drayden and Iris and Elesa were by his bedside. They visited him with news of the outside world he was no longer a part of. (No one had, explicitly, told him he was never going home, but Emmet pieced as much together on his own.)

They said that other people wanted to visit, if they could, like Drayden’s old friend Clay, Skyla, and some of the depot agents like Cloud and Ramses. 

Emmet said they could, eventually, once he had come to terms with everything a bit more. Because he was still prone to panic, to melting down and forgetting, almost, where he was, like he had on that first day. He had no idea if that was something he could ‘get over’, but he wanted to wait and see.

He already had enough to be ashamed of, enough reasons to not want people to see him. But also he desperately wanted the company, and that want overrode the need to hide from the world more than he was already doing.

Elesa, ever the observant older sister, noticed his discomfort, though. She knew how lost in the entire situation Emmet felt, between the physical sensations and the fear and embarrassment.

So she decided to try and do something to help, no matter how small.

Staring down at the completely normal plain white shirt in front of him, Emmet felt lost. Elesa had laid it on the lap he no longer had, the normally-proportioned garment sitting on top of the blanket from beneath which the tubes and wires of various thicknesses protruded.

He appreciated the gesture, he really did, but…

Interrupting Elesa, who was promising him that she'd gone to the store and had chosen something as close to his custom tailored clothes as he could get, and that he'd finally get out of the hospital shirt with the horrible texture, he spoke.

“I do not feel like a human.”

Elesa stopped dead, mouth still half open. “Em. Emmie. Don't. Please don't think like that, NONE of us think that, okay? I know this is… Your whole life has changed overnight, and…”

Emmet’s voice turned angry, and his eyes squeezed tightly closed so he wouldn't have to see the shirt, or the tubes in his wrists and broken body. But he was not angry at his best friend, at his adopted sister. 

He just…. Was angry.

It was like choking black tar was crawling up his throat, sludge that he couldn’t fully swallow down no matter how hard he tried. In the back of his mind, he knew that this would only be the first of many such instances.

“I have been dehumanized my ENTIRE life!” And the words broke into a sob in the middle, fists clenched in the shirt. “Strangers would stare and ask when my brother and I would be split apart.” His voice held hurt and venom and a deep, deep sadness.

Elesa remained silent, but she knew. She had been there for scenes like that many, many times. 

“Well it has happened!” Emmet shouted, a parody of a smile finding itself on his face. “And still, they would find me lesser. For being stuck in this hospital. For not knowing how to live without my twin. For having half a body. For being a remnant.”

Elesa’s heart broke as she watched her brother in all but blood break down again, silently sobbing, and all she could do was Be There in the moment and wait for it to pass, which it slowly did.

She wanted to talk to him, but she would have to wait until he was ready. He’d been pushed to his limit by the rest of everything else that was going on. To talk or not was one thing she would give him the choice of.

But before that, above all, Elesa wanted to alleviate some of his physical discomfort. 

“... Do you want help putting this on?” She touched the shirt, speaking softly.

A shaky reply was what she was met with. “Yes, please.”

As Emmet bunched his hands in the blankets, Elesa moved behind the bed to mess with the little clamps and connections in his IVs. The Nurses had shown Elesa and Drayden how to turn off and disconnect the lines carrying the medications and hydration that Emmet needed in order to help him with clothes. It was much appreciated; now Emmet would not have to deal with strangers helping him change.

“Alright, those are all good,” she said, moving to stand next to him. “Let me know when you’re ready to get this shitty shirt off.”

Emmet cracked the hint of a smile, then began to shimmy the shirt off, raising his arms for the last part so Elesa could get it off and feed the portions of the IV tubing still attached to his arms through the sleeves.

Shivering in the dry, chilly hospital air, it hit Emmet that, technically, he was naked. It didn’t matter at all, since there was no more to see than the times their little family had gone to the beach or the pool. If he was really technical and bitter, there was even less to see than there had been.

It was still weird to think about. So he did not think about it.

After threading his arms and IVs into the new shirt, Elesa helped prop him up a bit while he tugged it on the rest of the way. It was still upsetting, being able to wear a normal shirt at all, but Emmet was grateful for the softness and the fact that Elesa had chosen one long enough to hide the end of his torso.

“Thank you, Elesa,” Emmet said once he was settled again, voice still too small.

“You’re welcome, Em.” She sat back down next to him, quiet as she waited for him to speak next if he wanted to.

He did.

“I am Emmet. I am also sorry. I did not mean to… Verbalize what I said. Earlier.”

Elesa’s face crumpled a bit as her heart broke. “Emmet I’m glad you said something. I know… Well, I know that obviously this is really, really hard on you. I don’t think anyone, ever, will have the words to express the horror you’re going through and what you must be feeling. But… You said you no longer feel human. I think we gotta talk about that, Emmie.”

The man in the bed avoided her gaze even more than usual.

“I remember that, no matter how terrible people were to you… Before, that you never truly believed you were inhuman. You and… Ingo… You loved each other. You loved being together. It’s all you ever knew, and none of the cruelty in the world could make you regret having a brother.”

And now Emmet looked like he wanted to cry. He flinched at Ingo’s name.

“You never insulted yourself, at least where I could hear…” Elesa took his hand, squeezing it. She knew what she’d promised herself a mere few minutes ago, that she’d let Emmet open the conversation, but that was before a sudden fear chilled her.

“Can I ask a really, really hard question?”

“... Do I have to answer if it’s too hard?”

“No. You never are obligated to answer. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I am Emmet. You can ask, then.”

Elesa paused, free hand wringing the edge of the blankets before she found her voice. “Do you regret being saved?”

Emmet was fully stunned into near perfect stillness, eyes wide, face surprised, blinking a few times. It took him a moment to slip into thought, and Elesa could tell he was looking at the question from all angles to discover the answer.

It upset her that he didn’t answer right away.

“... I think… I don’t always know,” Emmet finally replied in a mere whisper. “On good days. I am glad I am here. I love you. I love Dad. I love the world, even if I cannot see it right now. I love my pokemon, even though I am apart from them. But I also love Ingo, and on the bad days… On the bad days I would rather be wherever my brother is. Maybe there is less pain there.”

That makes sense, was the sentiment Elesa wanted to express, but she could not say a word before tears began streaming down her face and she hid it in the blankets at the edge of the bed.

“I am sorry Elsa… I know how hard this must be on you too.” There was a sob in Emmet’s flat voice, and she could tell he was crying without looking at him. “You lost a brother too.”

“Don’t,” she choked out from beyond the blankets. “Don’t you fucking dare apologize. You are the one in the hospital. You’re the one missing your brother and most of your body. You’re the one who was literally torn apart. Don’t apologize to me. You don’t deserve this, or anything that happened. Life’s not–” She coughed on the word before forcing out the rest, sharp as knives. “Fucking fair. Nothing has been fair to you.”

And there was that wide-eyed surprise again, directed at her as she finally looked up. And she wondered if she’d gone too far.

Dragons, how she wished she could hug him.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by a flicker of movement in her periphery. Looking up again, she realized Emmet was signing, and her heart broke even more. She’d knocked him right into a nonverbal state.

Some sister she was.

"I don’t… Know how to answer or respond to that,"  Emmet confessed, eyes fixated on a corner of the room.

“Just… I don’t know. You can ignore it. I’m sorry.” Elesa voice sounded choked, and she wiped at her cheeks angrily. “I didn’t mean… Fuck. Fine, maybe this is harder on me than I really thought. I’ve been thinking about you most of the time.”

“Please think of yourself too. Safety checks.”

“You sure you’re okay with talking…?”

“Yes. I just… Needed a moment.”

“Okay.” Elesa smiled a wobbly smile at him, but then it fell. “... Emmet I… I really miss Ingo. I understand, I really do, that you probably… Don’t wanna think about him at the moment, but… Can I talk to your dad about him, if he’s okay with that?”

Emmet fussed with his blankets again, but he didn’t stare at her in that hollow way, so it was probably okay. “Elesa, I cannot stop thinking about Ingo… He is always there. In the back of my mind. From when I wake until I sleep. No matter what else I think about. He is always there.”

“... Of course, Emmet, that was… So insensitive of me.” Elesa stumbled over her words much like Emmet sometimes did, squeezing her hands into fists and letting her fingernails dig into her palms. Privately, she mentally berated herself for repeatedly sticking her foot in her mouth.

Hard conversations, it turned out, were hard.

Emmet’s mouth slanted into what couldn’t really be called a smile. “We shared a body. Of course he is forever on my mind.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that somehow it hurt Elesa even more. But when he continued speaking, she could feel the sorrow underneath his flat tone.

“I am… Starting to forget what… What it felt like. I… Why can I not remember?” Emmet sounded so desperately sad that Elesa’s heart seized. It hadn’t even been that many days, and yet… She knew how slippery memories could be, both good and bad.

It had taken her no time at all to forget what living before her transition had been like. Objectively, that made sense. She’d lived as a boy for a comparatively short amount of time. But at the time, even a mere week after finally presenting as she’d wanted to for ages, she’d balled up the feelings from before and tossed them as far as she could.

Forgetting was easy.

But to forget when you didn’t want to, to feel the better times dripping through your fingers with no way to stop them, leaving behind only residue and shades of the original memory… Elesa shuddered and squeezed Emmet’s hand.

“Do you want to tell me what it felt like, then? To help you remember?”

Emmet was surprised out of his spiral, then. He blinked, looking at Elesa’s soft smile that was far less wibbly than her last one had been.

She’d asked the question once before, a long, long time ago.

“I can’t believe I’ve never asked this,” she’d said when she was thirteen and they were eleven. “But what does being you guys feel like? If you can explain it at all?”

Ingo and Emmet looked at each other.

“I will let Ingo try and explain,” Emmet said after a pause. “I don’t think… I don’t think I have the words.”

And explain Ingo did, with long descriptions and as many words as a kid could manage, trying to capture their life in a little snapshot. Emmet was nodding along, stimming with his hands happily every so often, listening to his brother talk.

Elesa had felt so happy listening to and watching them. If she could have summed up everything Ingo had said into a single word, it would be warm. She couldn’t say she was envious of them, because that would be weird, but as Ingo talked about sleeping cuddled up together when it was cold, she did think that sounds really nice. 

(And then she’d ruined the soft, gentle feeling by being a teen. “Okay,” she’d said. “Now which one of you does the peeing?”

“ELESA!” they’d shrieked in unison, looking equally scandalized until Emmet’s shocked face vanished first and was replaced by a shit-eating grin.

“Whoever is walking that day.” And, as usual, their talk had devolved into silly banter and teasing as was typical with young children.)

“I don’t think I have the words,” Emmet whispered, an echo, a mere ghost of his younger self.

“Can you try? For me?” For you?

“I…. Am Emmet,” the man in the bed began after a moment of hesitation. “I can try.”

“Okay.” Elesa made herself comfortable in preparation for her best friend to speak.

“I could… You knew. That I could feel some of what Ingo felt. Physically, not mentally. We told you this a long time ago. There was always an echo. Of what we felt, from each other. So we always made sure that our clothes were comfortable for the other. Well, after we got past being annoying kids to each other.” The ghost of a smile quirked Emmet’s lips.

Many people would say that Ingo was the talkative twin and Emmet was not. Their family knew that wasn’t true; Emmet was indeed talkative too. He was just quieter, used simpler words, and did not go into detail as much as his extremely eloquent brother did. And that was fine.

Everyone made sure he knew that they loved hearing him speak.

“I do not fully know… How to encompass what it was. I could feel a second heartbeat, all the time. I only controlled my legs half the time. I don’t… From what I have seen of the world. People would find that scary. In movies and stories and games, being possessed is scary. Not being in control of your own body is scary. The presence of another person where there shouldn’t be is scary. But to me… It was home. It was me. My body. Our body.” Emmet fumbled with his words for a moment more before continuing.

“Trying to describe it is like trying to describe a color to someone who can’t see. I can only… Explain things in what I lack now. It’s half. My world is half.” He winced. “... Less than half. I don’t think people can feel what their insides are doing. But. I can feel that they’re gone. I still can feel hungry. My stomach still growls. But I do not feel full in the same way any more. I am missing many digestive impulses. I have a verrry different blood pressure now. I don’t… I don’t know what exactly this felt like before.”

The man immediately switched tracks, knowing he’d run out of thoughts on that topic. “But having a sibling, one who was always there? That was great. It was… What words would Ingo have used? ‘Amazing.’ ‘Marvelous.’ Something like that. And then he would’ve said ‘bravo!’” Emmet brushed at his eyes before he continued. “I have never been lonely until now. I have never been alone. Iris told me she said that. She is right. He was always there.”

Emmet went on to talk about random facts of their life, many of which Elesa already knew but wanted to hear him say anyways. Like how the shared closeness had been hell in the summer in terms of body heat. How learning to use their non-dominant arms had been a struggle, but one they eventually overcame. Working on schoolwork together. Adapting to more and more as they grew.

When Emmet eventually ran out of things to say, he and Elesa sat in a comfortable silence for a moment; Emmet was surprised at himself. “Oh… I guess I remembered more than I thought I did.” With a soft smile on his face, he seemed relieved.

“Of course you do,” Elesa reassured him. “We all forget certain, like… Somatic experiences. But we remember the important parts, right?”

“Yes,” Emmet conceded, nodding. “Thank you. You have… Always used your free pass to ask questions to be kind.” He thought for a moment, remembering a few times. “Well. Almost always.”

Elesa couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s because I always loved you bidoofuses. From the moment I got to know you, I knew you’d be my friends forever.” Dragons, Elesa was so glad she’d stopped Emmet’s spiraling, at least for the moment.

The Gym Leader could remember what had kickstarted her question-asking. For all her boldness and confidence, Elesa did not ask Ingo and Emmet any questions about their conjoined-ness until they had been friends for several months.

“Ingo? Emmet? Can I ask you guys a question?” She had sounded uncharacteristically serious. The trio had been out at the beach out by Undelia Town, building a sandcastle while Elesa’s grandparents relaxed. Elesa had a neon yellow swimsuit with watmel berry slices on it. She had declared the sweet summery treat to be her favorite type of berry. Ingo and Emmet were wearing trunks patterned after eelektross; it had been Emmet’s turn to choose, and those were some of his favorites.

They had looked at her, heads tilted opposite directions in curiosity. “Of course!” Ingo said, speaking first.

“... Even if it’s about you two being connected?”

“Conjoined,” Emmet said, giggling a bit.

“Yeah. That.”

“We don’t mind!” Ingo smiled at her with his eyes. “No one has ever asked us if we minded before.”

“They just ask, yup yup.”

“That’s rude. I know what some other kids have said to you. It’s not very nice.”

“We’re okay,” Ingo assured her, although he couldn’t deny that some of the comments made him feel sick inside.

“But yes! Question!” Emmet reminded her. The girl sat back on the sand, brushing the grains from her hands and looking away before turning her eyes back to her best friends.

“Does it hurt?”

“Does what hurt?” asked Ingo reflexively. Emmet looked mystified as to what Elesa could possibly mean.

“Being connected…” She glanced at the spot where their torsos met, the deep v-shape of the gap between their upper bodies that she had never seen uncovered before and was a little surprised to see was just normal skin. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised; they’d been born like that after all, not stitched together like that one creepy guy that was always everywhere around Halloween. They did have a scar on their shared tummy, but she didn’t want to ask about that yet.

Emmet giggled again. “Nope! I bet we feel just as normal as you!”

“Yeah, it definitely doesn’t hurt,” confirmed Ingo

“Even if you both try to walk at the same time? Even if you try and pull in two different directions at once?”

“It’s just skin, Elesa,” said Ingo kindly “It’s not like we can pull hard enough to come apart. Sometimes if we lean too far apart it’s kind of uncomfortable but we just don’t do that.”

“Yeah try ‘n spread your fingers too far apart and it feels weird!” Emmet declared. “But it doesn’t hurt the skin in between your fingers unless you REALLY mess up. Yup!”

She laughed a little. “I guess you two are right. You’d know the best, after all!” She tried to imagine sharing any body parts with another person and simply could not. The closest she could think of was the three-legged race that her class had done on field day.

That had been hard. She’d fallen over.

From then on, every so often, when a question about their shared anatomy popped into her brain, Elesa would make sure it was okay, then ask her questions. Ingo and Emmet never seemed to mind, and Elesa always made sure to not ask anything humiliating or private.

It was… Nice, the boys found, to get to explain things about themselves with a sense of pride, to talk to someone who wanted to know out of curiosity and care for them. Whose first question had been asking if they were okay, because she cared about them and not just their ‘freakish’ anatomy.

Curious classmates were not bad. But on some level, even as children, the twins knew that sort of attention was the sort that people gave to exotic pokemon at the zoo, not peers they wanted to befriend. The older they got, the more uncomfortable that felt. As preschoolers, they found it amazing that they were cool, but then again preschoolers did not have the language or experiences to really hurt one another like middle and high schoolers did.

So Emmet and Ingo never minded Elesa’s questions.

As they all got older, the nature of the questions changed as they did. When they were around fourteen or fifteen or so, and she was sixteen, Elesa asked them if they liked anyone; kids around their collective ages were becoming interested in one another, and Elesa was not immune to this.

“How would that work?” she asked, still a little hesitant even though they’d been friends for years. “Would… You date the same person? I don’t think so, I bet you have different tastes!”

“Actually,” Ingo had started before Emmet butted in.

“We do not really feel that stuff.”

“Yes. Neither Emmet nor me really… Feels like that about people. For a little bit we both thought you were joking when you brought it up!”

“Then we used Goomgle and found that you were not joking, yup yup.”

“So I guess you could say we do have the same taste.”

“In that we have no taste!”

Elesa giggled at that. “Oh, I’d say. Why do you think that is…?”

“Some people like girls. Some people like boys. Some people like both! And some people like neither,” Emmet explained helpfully. “I think it is just the way we are. There is no reason for it!”

“And I’m glad,” Ingo said emphatically. “That feels like a big old can of wigletts that I don’t want to think about.”

“What he means is he thinks no one would date either of us. They would find it too difficult.” Emmet’s toneless voice made it difficult for Elesa to pick up on if, despite their orientations, the boy was sad about it or not. Even if he was unbothered, though, Elesa felt sad for him.

“Well that’s dumb. You two are great. And if you wanted to date people then they’d be silly to turn you down!”

“Do you like us?” Ingo teased, poking her while Emmet laughed.

“As friends, yes! As a date or two, no way!” Elesa said, pretending to sound shocked. “But not because you’re conjoined; because I like girls!”

They had all cracked up then, rolling on the ground, whatever they’d been doing before long forgotten.

Elesa had, on occasion, checked in to see if the boys had ever begun to mind her questions, but they always reassured her that they didn’t. It was, at this point, an intrinsic part of their relationship. Sometimes their answers made her sad, and sometimes her questions made them shout or smack her with one or both hats, but such was the nature of siblings.

“How does eating stuff work,” she’d asked once. “Do you each eat a full meal? Wouldn’t that make you sick?” On another occasion, she’d commented “you’re lucky. If one of you gets an itchy back the other can scratch it for you! Is that how that works?”

It was sweet. They always found it sweet, even the questions with the tough answers. She was always looking out for them.

(Once, though, she had asked them what would happen if one of them died. It was the only question they said they didn’t want to answer, and she had apologized. Elesa had been grieving her grandparents and her emotions were everywhere. The twins instantly forgave her.)

They asked her questions too, especially once she got her modeling gig. She could speak about that for hours, and the twins could listen for hours. It was just like when they talked about trains, and it was fun to hear another person get as excited as they did.

“It’s about time for lunch, do you want me to get you something?”

“I am Emmet. I would like that.” Though he hadn’t actually been sick since that first day, Emmet still sometimes felt a little nauseous when he ate. But he knew that turning down a meal would just make Elesa worry, and he didn’t want that. 

The man was no biologist, but he knew that his human body probably was at least a little unhappy with the technological replacement parts. That was most likely why his stomach, some days, decided to just give up.

“What do you want?”

“A sandwich?”

“Can do. Peanut butter and jelly sound good? I think we have everything for that right here in the room.”

“Yes, that sounds good.”

Elesa rummaged in the cabinet and mini-fridge that had been put in the room near the couch and indeed found the supplies and ingredients for sandwich making ready to go. It took her no time at all to whip up the couple of sandwiches, bringing one plate and a cup of water over to Emmet, who took it with a smile and thanks.

They ate their meal in a companionable silence, and after that, Elesa had to go to her modeling job. Something about a dress that had been delivered in the wrong size, she’d said. It would need alterations, and they needed to measure her to do that.

“Wish I could stick around,” she’d said as she kissed his cheek goodbye. “But duty calls. Or should I say budew-ty calls?”

Emmet groaned and made a shooing motion with his hands. “Get out!”

“Love you, Emmie!” Elesa called, laughing as she waved goodbye.

“Love you too!” replied the man in the bed before she was gone.

He entertained himself for the next few hours with movies on the TV, wishing any one of his team members was present. Eelektross would wrap around him like a big rubbery boa, knowing exactly where he liked pressure on his body. The eel was better than a weighted blanket. Archeops would drape himself around Emmet’s neck and groom his hair. Durant would sleep at his side, body pressed right up against him. Klingklang would provide a comforting set of clicking noises, and its presence alone would be nice; it always liked listening to him. Galvantula would have laid where his lap would have been, right over the wires and tubes, and pretended like nothing was wrong as Emmet carded his hands through their fur. Gigalith was quiet, but she would let Emmet run his hands over her gemstones as he’d always liked to do, reveling in the texture of the surface that had faint geometric facets on it. Vanilluxe would have cooled the room perhaps a little too much, but he would have hugged it anyways, he and Ingo’s oldest pokemon. It never really did any battling, but it was a companion they both loved dearly, and it adored hugs (which was perhaps a bit funny for a pokemon shaped like a popular dessert).

He missed Ingo’s team just as much. They were family too, and since he and Ingo had always been together, they’d always been with Emmet too.

Were they grieving, he wondered? They were at Drayden’s house, certainly not alone, but they would be missing both twins, Emmet was certain.

Chandelure, who loved to sit in their shared lap and warm them up. Excadrill, who loved when they skritched his head and stroked his velvety fur. Garbodor, who was always just happy to be so loved and to have a place in the family that she smiled all the time. Ingo’s klingklang, who spun in the opposite direction that Emmet’s did, and who was more outgoing and keen to interact with new pokemon. Crustle, who was calm and sleepy and never minded being used as an armrest. They found the presence of their trainers comforting. Haxorus, who, minding her tusks, would rest her large head next to her trainer while he lovingly pet and polished her scales. Conkledurr, who would help with lifting and moving heavy things, including assisting with maintenance in the subway.

Emmet did not want to feel sad again after his morning with Elesa, but he supposed he didn’t get a choice in that.

He’d spoken about Ingo, mentioned him without breaking down. It was still something he could hardly believe, that his twin was dead. It felt like the loss of his lower body and the loss of Ingo were separate, almost, even if he knew better.

Was he in the denial phase of grieving? Was he at step one, or had he skipped all the way to the acceptance at the end?

Emmet didn’t want to think about it, but that apparently was just another thing he didn’t have a choice about. Alone in his bed, in the dark at this point, Emmet began to tremble. This time, he was not able to grab a hold of his warring emotions as he had that first night after his dream, and he broke down into near-silent sobs. Instead of his knuckles, he crammed his blankets between his teeth to muffle any noises he did make, not wanting to take chances.

Slowly, slowly, that electroweb holding back the wall of static was fraying, and it had finally hit a point where he could ignore it no longer.

Still in the dark, still alone, Emmet could not do a thing as the facade cracked and the walls shattered and the moments he had done so much to suppress crashed down on top of him.

▲▽

The next morning, when Drayden and Iris showed up to visit Emmet, they could immediately tell something was wrong. Emmet had not pressed the button to tilt his bed to prop him up. He was still laying flat on his back, almost pressing himself into his blankets, and his eyes looked haunted.

When he heard them arrive, though they’d said nothing, he turned his head to face them. “Hi Dad. Hi Iris. I remembered.”

Drayden’s brow wrinkled, and Iris’s grip tightened on his hand. “Emmet? What do you mean, you remembered?”

Emmet blinked, breath hitching before he continued.

“I remembered… I remembered what happened to us.”

Chapter Text

Looker was in Unova when he received the call, luckily. While the ‘Unovan Ghost’ was no longer being investigated in situ, it did not mean it was not being investigated at all. The locations of the murders and disappearances simply held no clues to what was happening aside from the obvious.

Electronics were affected, and there was, more often than not, at least part of the victim in question present.

There was never anything left of the ghost itself.

But now there was a survivor. There was a person who remembered what had happened and what they had seen, and had agreed to recount it to an Interpol detective. That was, of course, where Looker came in.

He was glad it was him who had taken the call by the time he hung up.

The survivor in question was Subway Master Emmet, and he was still in the hospital, terribly injured. And on top of that, he had lost his brother, his conjoined twin. A lot of kindness would be needed for this case, and Looker was, luckily, one of the nicest detectives they had. Folks had told him themselves.

He was needed urgently at the hospital, so he quickly downloaded the case files onto his tablet to review in the taxi ride over. They were confidential, but it was his work tablet. It would be fine.

The details of the case turned his stomach. There was a photo of the conjoined men in the file; he’d seen the twins around though never interacted with them himself. He preferred taxis to trains; more private. Apparently the two had been adopted by their uncle at a young age due to the loss of their parents, and that uncle was Dragon Master Drayden of Opelucid City.

Looker could only think of Emma, safe running the agency and away from his own knack for attracting trouble, and his heart squeezed. Drayden was a single father too.

The twins had been… Separated, to put it kindly. Looker’s mind began racing, conjuring up extremely unfortunate visuals that he had to wave away. Normally, the detective would be content to let his brain run wild. It was how he worked best, after all! But… Not this time.

Scrolling through more of the minutiae such as the exact platform where the incident had occurred, the time, and exactly what had been left behind (Looker scrolled through that very quickly), the man found himself at the hospital in no time.

This was not going to be easy, was it? Cases like this never were. Ones involving children were usually worse, but even then, the surviving victims didn’t tend to be quite as brutalized physically. It didn’t feel fair, Looker mentally sighed, but he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d react to seeing the state of the Subway Master.

Looker had a fantastic half a poker face. His mouth and eyes were able to remain impassive when he needed them to, but his eyebrows always gave him away. It was easy to tell how startled or disbelieving he was, as well as how wild the story he was listening to was getting. They’d creep up towards his hairline like “wurmples that had fallen into hair dye,” Emma had called them once.

Pushing through the revolving door, Looker swore at his brows to keep their reactions to themselves. After a brief talk with the receptionist, the detective had his room number and headed up in the elevator to where he needed to go.

Showtime.

Taking a deep breath, Looker knocked on the door. When a muffled ‘come in’ was heard, he gripped the doorknob and opened it.

In the room, there were four people. One was Iris, the young Champion. Yes, that made sense, since she was the younger sister of Master Emmet. The second person was Drayden. Of course, Emmet’s father/uncle. The next was a Nurse, of course. And the last was Emmet himself.

He was lying in a bed that propped him up in a sitting position, the remote in the Nurse’s hand. He had several blankets tucked around him, hiding the extent of his injuries. Even so, Looker could see the lines running to all the machines in the room and mentally winced.

The look on Emmet’s face held nothing but fear and a lost sort of expression, like he didn’t know what to do. He was clutching his father’s hand in a death grip. Looker had seen something similar in parents who had lost their children. This situation had many differences, but also many similarities.

It all boiled down to the fact that Emmet had lost someone that he should not have had to.

Rubbing his forehead under the guise of sweat in order to remind his eyebrows to remain in place, Looker offered a smile. “I have arrived, do not fear! I am the Interpol Detective known as Looker.” He still introduced himself as if Looker wasn’t his name, even after all this time… Even after forgetting whatever his actual name was supposed to be.

He’d toned down his usually energetic personality in order to make Emmet, hopefully, more comfortable with sharing his story. Looker hoped he wasn’t still overdoing it, but he couldn’t really help himself. There were simply phrases he always included in his greetings no matter what.

Obviously Emmet felt some sort of connection there, because he relaxed at least a fraction. “I am Emmet,” he said after a moment in a curiously flat voice. “I am a Subway Master. I…” He trailed off, then shut his mouth with a click of his teeth. Looker figured he’d slipped into a script, and cut himself off when he’d realized.

Before Looker could continue, Drayden turned to Iris. “I would like you to go to the waiting area with the Nurse, okay sweetie? I would… Rather you not hear this right now.”

“Dad!” Iris protested, eyes flashing. “After ALL that’s gone on, you don’t think I can handle this?”

“Please. Not now. We can discuss this later.” Drayden, though Looker did not know him personally, did not look strong enough to handle an argument. Perhaps Iris recognized that in her father as well, because she seemed to visibly deflate.

“I don’t agree,” she started off, as if she needed to contextualize her next words with that point. “But I’ll do it for you, Dad.”

She hugged him, as did he in response, before leaving quietly with the Nurse. Only three people remained in the room. As the tension tightened, Looker wished he wasn’t one of them.

“Alright, son,” Drayden started, the first to break the silence. “Are you feeling up to sharing now?”

Emmet opened and closed his mouth a few times, a bit like a basculin, before he weakly spoke. “I… Have to.” After another moment, he continued. “If it is alright. Looker. Can you wait to ask questions until the end? If I stop talking… I may struggle to start again.”

“Of course. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I am not. But I am trying. Because I have to right now.”

“Sometimes Emmet speaks in sign language,” Drayden added in, squeezing the man’s hand. “Which I can translate for you.”

“All of that works for me.” Looker drew up a chair next to the one Drayden was taking a seat in, started his recording device, and they both fell silent to hear Emmet’s tale.

“I-Ingo and I were going to Gear Station early,” began Emmet, fingers fiddling with one of the IV lines that led to his arm. “One of our employees had come to us about a weird feeling. They came to us the day before to let us know.”

After double checking with Drayden, Emmet gave the dates. He’d been unconscious for a period, Looker knew. He couldn’t help but think that he himself already knew the date of the incident, as did most of Unova as a whole, even if they had no idea what occurred. Looker kept that thought firmly to himself.

“So we wanted to double check the tunnel safety. We wondered if our employee had caught something that they didn’t fully understand. Or consciously notice. So we were on the platform for the Green Line. It was around 5 AM. I think.

“Everything was normal. It was so normal. Until it wasn’t. There was…” Emmet swallowed before continuing. “Sparks. Electricity. The air… Shattered. Something… Opened. It was like a hole. In the air. A portal.”

Now that sounded at least passably familiar to Looker. Ultra Wormholes didn’t occur in the same way, and they certainly didn’t involve reality fracturing like frozen glass, but they were portals all the same.

“The first things that came through were… Shadows.” Emmet shuddered, hands curling up near his chest. “They had talons. Red. Sharp. Half as long as my forearm. Then… It had eyes, red eyes. Bright as the lights on one of our subway trains. I couldn’t see much else of it beyond the light and shadows. Because Ingo and I… We tried to run.”

It was Looker’s turn to shudder, then. Indeed, no Ultra Beast he knew fit those descriptions, meager as they were. It had to be one of the god pokemon. Had to be. He’d have to do some research.

“It grabbed us with one of the shadow things. Well. It grabbed Ingo. I held onto him, but it still hurt. Then it grabbed me too, and… You… You know.” Emmet’s hands crept under the blankets to his injuries unseen.

“Please don’t make me describe it.”

“We won’t, son,” Drayden said when Looker didn’t reply. Normally, for a case report, he’d ask for all the minutiae. If it was a human crime, it helped with figuring out what to do about the culprit, and in the case of Ultra Wormholes and the Beasts that came from them, it furthered research on what they were capable of.

But Looker did not want to make this man recount in detail what this unknown monster had done to him and his twin.

“You know Ingo and I had two legs. Ingo. Kept the legs.” The euphemization was borderline absurd, but Looker could not blame Emmet. “I was left… With a lot less.” Now poor Emmet looked like he wanted to cry. “It gets blurry after that. I don’t… Remember much. It threw me. It took Ingo with it. I remember it had gold around its face. Then. It was gone. Its portal was gone. I was… I tried to scream, but. I couldn’t. And then Cloud found me. She looked scared. That’s… All I have. Everything after that I was not awake for.”

Looker had to be glad for that.

From where he was sitting, the detective could see the green line that denoted Emmet’s heartbeat on the monitor near his bed peak more frequently than it had when he first walked in. It did not beep; why would it, when there would normally be no one there to hear it but Emmet? The man’s heart seemed to be racing, and Looker couldn’t blame him.

“Are there any other details you can share about the portal or the creature? No need to expand on what happened to you. That was an excellent description. I do appreciate you working with me.” Looker was a little at a loss for what to say.

Emmet was silent, then he added “beyond the portal. It was dark, but multicolored. Looked like space.”

“That is very helpful, yes. Thank you.” Looker ended his recording, then jotted down a few things into his notebook, stomach squirming. It was hard to look past how awful everything about this case was.

“Iris has the list of your pokemon who can visit,” said Drayden to fill the silence, and Looker noted how that perked Emmet up a little.

“Oh, good. I miss them all verrry much. Verrry much.”

“Are there hospital rules against certain pokemon?” Looker asked, curious. “Yours surely are well trained, are they not?”

“Pokemon that are too large, sharp, or dangerous are not allowed,” said Emmet ruefully. “And in my case. No strong electric types. Because of the machines. My partner is an eelektross.”

“You must miss them a lot,” Looker sympathized.

“I do. He is a comforting friend. I wish he was here every day.”

“I know the feeling well,” Looker couldn’t help but interject. “I lost my own dear partner, and nothing is harder than wanting to hold your beloved pokemon when you know it is impossible to do so.”

Emmet’s expression morphed to one of sympathy. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. It was a while ago, so old Looker here is alright.” He smiled at Emmet again. “My adopted daughter’s pokemon liven up my life now. Ha, actually her name is Emma.”

“You know I am adopted too. That is a funny coincidence.”

It was simultaneously easy and awkward, having this conversation with a man who had lost almost everything. But even from their brief interaction, Looker liked Emmet. He seemed genuine and willing to be friendly. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind if Looker visited again in the future, but not on business? Emmet probably would need as many friends as he could get, going through what he was going through.

“I have to go back to work,” he said outwardly. “But I hope our paths cross again. Under better circumstances though, right? Thank you again for your report on these incidents.”

“Thank you for being kind to me,” Emmet returned bluntly, and something about that made Looker’s chest ache. Detectives and their sorts perhaps didn’t get the best reputation, but it saddened Looker that Emmet had expected to be drilled with questions or something similar. Either that, or he had had to field a lot of disrespectful questions his whole life.

Perhaps it was both.

As Looker got up, shaking Drayden’s hand and closing the door behind him, he privately hoped that Emmet’s words would apply to every facet of his life, not just one hard-boiled yet soft detective who was simply doing his job.

▲▽

The first thing Emmet asked when Looker left was “do I still have a job…?”

Talking to someone who gave a little glimpse into the fact that life continued on outside the hospital had jolted the thought into Emmet’s brain. Was he still Subway Master Emmet? Had they replaced him and his brother? Logically, Emmet knew someone would have to keep up with his duties, but surely he could do paperwork from here at least?

He felt a little desperate and a little selfish, but he’d already lost so much. His job was important to him. Could he at least keep that part of himself?

“Technically, yes,” Drayden said softly, sitting down again. “Cloud and Ramses are apparently dealing with the higher-up things in your subway, but they’re not calling themselves Subway Masters. Or wearing your uniforms. I think… They all want you to come back, no matter when that is.”

Emmet could just about cry, hearing that. He could keep his title, some little scrap of his past that he was fully allowed to cling to, and those who knew him at work supported that.

“And I know some of the agents want to visit you, if you’ll allow it.”

Emmet nodded, too choked up to use words.

“Alright. I’ll let them know when I get home. For now, though, I’m going to go get Iris. She was so excited to see you this morning and bring the news of which pokemon can visit you.” He patted Emmet’s hand before leaving the room, allowing Emmet to collect himself for a moment.

The day was certainly full of whiplash. He had to confront the specifics of what had happened to him, but he was still a Subway Master. He had to allow a stranger into his room, but he was going to be reunited with some of his pokemon. It left Emmet confused, moreso than anything, but that was far better than a panic attack or anything like that.

So he’d take it.

Iris’s energy, upon entering the room, was slightly less than it had been that morning, but she was beaming softly nonetheless.

“Hi Emmet!”

He dragged up a smile onto his face just for her. “I am Emmet. Hello, Iris.”

“Are you feeling better after talking, or worse?”

“I feel a little confused,” he admitted as his little sister and father sat down. “Having to relive that was. Hard. But he was nice. And now I will get to see some of my pokemon again.”

“You will! Drayden spoiled the surprise, I bet, I wanted to tell you I had the list.”

“He was looking pretty upset, sweetie,” Drayden insisted, a little mock exasperation bleeding into his voice as he tried to lighten the mood. “I wanted to help him out a little.”

“ Okaaaay you get a pass,” she responded, patting Drayden’s arm and unfolding a sheet of paper with doodles in the margins. She must’ve carried it through her classes that day, and perhaps a Champion battle or two judging by the ash smudged on one corner. “Want me to read it out loud, or would you rather read yourself?”

“I can read it, thank you.” Emmet accepted the paper when it was offered, and swallowed as he looked at the words printed there.

Vanilluxe, Durant, Archeops, Crustle, both Klingklangs, Conkledurr, Excadrill, and low-level joltiks were permitted. Chandelure had been given special permission, even though ghost types were normally not allowed in hospitals. Eelektross, Galvantula, Haxorus, Garbodor, and Gigalith all were not allowed in, citing either shock hazards, size, or other dangers. Emmet’s heart seized dully as the slip confirmed what he’d known regarding his partner pokemon.

But still, the fact that nine of he and his brother’s pokemon could visit was no small thing.

Written in at the bottom, in pencil, obviously added there by Iris, was a note. We also got permission for Hydreigon! There was a smiley face next to the writing.

“Normally, the hydreigon line is also banned from hospitals due to them scaring a lot of people, but Dad’s specific hydreigon is allowed now as long as she stays in her ball outside your room. Same rules for Chandelure. Also you can only have one out at a time when someone else is in the room. I think the doctors and Nurses are worried some machine or doohickey will be messed up when no one is looking if we let everyone in at once!” She laughed a little, then sobered up again. “I am sorry about Eelektross though. I know he’s your partner and means a lot to you, and is the best at comforting you out of everyone.”

“Don’t be sorry, Iris. The fact that any pokemon can visit is great, yup! I miss the ones who cannot verrry much. But they will understand.”

“Do you wanna see them right now?”

“Can we start with one today? I am Emmet, and I still feel. Very mixed up inside. Yup. I do not know if I can handle all of that emotion today. Maybe just Chandelure? She is calm. She will be able to read my emotions.”

“Of course, son. That makes plenty of sense. You and Ingo taught me that even good things can be overstimulating, and like you said, your teams will understand.”

Emmet’s heart felt full, then. Though the feeling almost immediately soured. What did I do to deserve such an understanding family? … I don’t deserve them, do I?

Something creeping and insidious had begun to grow into Emmet’s chest. He had, as he recounted the worst day of his life, realized something.

Only a god amongst pokemon could have torn through the fabric of reality like that, like it was nothing more than one of the papers people sometimes taped up on the walls of the subway, turned soggy by the moisture in the air on a rainy day. Only one of the god pokemon could manipulate the world in such extreme ways, could wield powers of dimensions and gravity and space itself.

A god would only do things for a reason, right? It had to have had a reason . (Otherwise their suffering would be for nothing. Emmet did not fully grasp that thought, and it slithered by without notice.)

Which meant that maybe, somewhere out there, Ingo was alive. Whole. Something that powerful was probably able to heal, Emmet reasoned, if these tracks were even correct at all.

However…

Normally, hope would manifest as a glow, a soft light and a warm feeling.

This hope was more like a glint in Emmet's chest, cold white light bouncing off the surface of broken shards of glass or ice. Yes, if his twin had been chosen by a god, Ingo was alive, somewhere in the aether, far-fetched as the idea might be. But that was indeed a double edged sword because that meant Emmet had been cast aside like he was nothing.

If Ingo was being mentored by a god, one that did not deem Emmet worthy of life, then what was that god telling Ingo about his brother? What was it saying about Ingo’s twin that it had left to die on that platform? Did Ingo even know he existed any more? Was Ingo still ‘Ingo’ at all?

Emmet needed to stop catastrophizing, but…

It was hard, being the one that a god left behind.

Emmet had struggled with self esteem for a long, long time. This was not a new development.

In a story he honestly hated to tell, Emmet had said his first words in response to the rudeness of a stranger. "I am Emmet," he had told the person who, upon making small talk with the family in a restaurant while noticing Emmet did not speak, had asked out loud if he was truly sentient at all or just a parasitic twin that everyone's hearts had been too soft to get rid of. Emmet’s voice had been so, so quiet, and he barely got the words out, but he had spoken.

Later on, Ingo had been so excited, and that had made Emmet excited as well.

Emmet wondered, all these years later, how an entire full-grown adult had asked such a cruel question. He himself was blunt and often lacked tact but he also was kind, and would not insult someone's humanity like that.

It had not been the first or last time he and Ingo had been subject to questions such as that, and, over time, in the back of his mind, Emmet had begun to wonder, for a while, if Ingo regretted being born with Emmet. If he would rather be normal with no brother at all. The thoughts were baseless; Ingo had never said anything of the sort.

But they persisted.

By the time the twins became adults, Emmet had learned to talk about those feelings with Ingo, letting his brother soothe his doubts and fears. In return, he himself gave Ingo as many confidence boosts as he could; it was never a one-way track.

However, such a mindset was hard to truly leave behind. The focus had swapped from the fears that Ingo resented having a conjoined twin to the fear that Ingo resented having him, specifically, as a conjoined twin.

It wasn’t just in regards to Ingo; Emmet was self conscious of how he came across, of his blunt tone and simple sentences. He found himself struggling to speak at all far more often than Ingo did; Ingo would ramble with no real connecting threads when he got overwhelmed. And people took that better.

Still, Emmet was able to force himself to discuss it with Ingo eventually. After overhearing some teenage passengers making ‘good and evil twin’ jokes, he’d found it unwise to ignore any longer, and had fessed up to the self-loathing later that night.

Yes, Ingo had assured Emmet at every turn that Emmet was a good person, and that he did not and would not ever regret having him as a brother. Emmet always appreciated it, and by the time they were the Subway Masters, Emmet had a great grip on his self esteem issues.

Ingo was no longer there.

But someone else was.

There was a soft chiming as Chandelure settled herself against Emmet’s chest, pulling him out of the dissociative episode he hadn’t realized he’d slipped into.

“Hi, Chandelure,” he said, unable to perform the correct track change to get his brain to say anything else. He wrapped his arms around her, relishing her comforting warmth. Her little metal arms wound around him in return, and she shuddered. Emmet realized she was crying, and pressed his cheek to her globe.

“I am so sorry for what happened,” he whispered. “I am sorry about Ingo. I wish he could be here for you.” Instead of me, he left unsaid, but Chandelure, ever perceptive, protested. Ah. She must’ve felt that pang in his soul, then. “I am trying. But I am glad you can be here. With me. Thank you.”

Chandelure looked up, unhiding her face that was shining with ghostly yellow tears that did not stain or wet anything, but felt hot to Emmet’s hands. Gently, she moved closer to his face and settled on his shoulder, pressing her own face to his cheek.

Now Emmet could see Iris and Drayden, and the sad yet happy expressions on their faces.

“Son,” Drayden began gently. “I also have the names of a few therapists I think you should try talking to. I know that will be difficult for you, but… With what you went through, it would be wise to just try, I think. Give your old man some peace of mind?”

“I will try,” said Emmet, reaching up to rub Chandelure’s glass in the way she loved so much. “You do not have to convince me.”

Drayden was left blinking, immensely surprised. “Oh. Alright. I will help get in contact with them for you, okay? Get the ball rolling.”

“I’d appreciate that. Yup.”

Normally, it would’ve taken a fair amount of pestering to get Emmet to do anything of the sort, but he knew, at this point, how unbelievably fucked up he was. There was nothing to argue. Emmet knew he was traumatized, and without Ingo present to help work through everything, he was left floundering. His family was wonderful, but they were hurting and just as lost as he himself was. Okay, maybe not just as lost as he was, but it was a close thing.

Like he’d been told. It took mental fortitude to persist in a state such as his. And Emmet did not want to give up or succumb. So speaking to someone who would help with coping, both short and long term, was an indignity he accepted.

(Though Emmet did wonder at what point in his life he would stop suffering new indignities every day. He was quickly tiring of being made to feel completely incapable, no matter what his state.)

Instead of continuing to think about that, Emmet allowed his mind to depart the train at the next station and focus on something else.

“Did you explain everything to Chandelure?” Emmet asked. She chimed into his ear at the same moment Iris nodded.

“Yup. We’ve kept all the pokemon up to date on you, we promise!”

“I am glad. I do not want to scare them.”

“You wouldn’t, Em,” Iris replied quickly. “But we wanted to make sure they knew everything so even the permitted ones wouldn’t hurt you on accident.”

“Appreciated,” said Emmet, and Chandelure nuzzled closer. “But okay. I am not feeling like talking much any more. Do you two want to share how your days have been?”

Iris and Drayden, both grateful for the distraction, enjoyed sharing all about how life had been, details from Gym and Champion battles, and news from Unova at large.

Chapter Text

“I think I want to tell the bosses that I’m a ghost,” said Jackie after a moment of what would have normally been comfortable silence between them and Furze.

The two depot agents were sitting on the edge of a platform, feet dangling off the edge. Furze’s legs kicked slightly, causing a muffled thumping against the worn concrete. Normally, this activity would be very unsafe, but, since it was one o’clock in the morning, no trains were running.

“Is this because we’re gonna go visit Emmet tomorrow?” asked Furze, taking their cold hand and squeezing it in his own warm one. “And you need an explanation as to why you won’t be there?”

“... Yeah.” They looked a little sick, drawing their hand back from their significant other’s once their grip lessened, wrapping their arms around their chest. “I already feel like utter shit for not being able to get enough intel to stop this from happening. I can’t let Emmet think I just. Don’t care about him. I do. And I know he can probably tell I’ve always liked him and Ingo, but I can’t be sure. I’ve been so fuckin’. Emotionally constipated my whole afterlife that I can never be sure.”

Jackie sounded so frustrated, scowling deeply at the shadowed tracks below them. Furze’s chest felt tight, their empathy towards the ghost making it hard to speak for a moment. When he found his voice, it had none of its usual pep.

“I know they knew. They knew you care, and they cared about you in return.” Lightly, they leaned against their shoulder, and when Jackie didn’t move away, they stayed there. “No, they didn’t know you’re a ghost, but I think… They knew, or thought, at least, that you were down on your luck. They knew you stayed in the station after hours.”

“Did they tell you that…?”

“Nah. They just always left a door unlocked. How do you think I always got in here in the dead of night with no trouble? I think they must’ve thought you were… Homeless, I guess.”

“In the sense that most people mean it, I guess they’re right. But Gear Station is a fine home. I don’t mind.”

“I know. I’m a little jealous, you get to live with a bunch of trains.” They laughed at the look Jackie shot them, knowing it held no actual venom.

“Even if that’s true… Well. I still feel like stoutland shit over knowing something was wrong and letting them try and sort it out anyways. I’m the one who can’t fucking die, why did I ask my disabled bosses to handle it for me?!”

“Jackie,” Furze said firmly, looking them in the eyes, brows furrowed in a way that showed how focused he was on the topic at hand. “Listen to me. You didn’t know what that ‘off’ feeling was. You STILL don’t fully know, just that it was probably ghostly in nature. Okay? Don’t go blaming yourself. We still don’t have answers.”

In the back of their mind, Jackie would store away the fact that it was strange to see their normally exuberant partner so serious and… Sad. But that didn’t matter at the moment. What DID matter was the fact that it was on a tip from them that Ingo and Emmet had been in Gear Station when they were attacked, and that truth haunted them.

A ghost haunted by their own choices. What a laughable concept.

Would they ever learn if the attack had been targeted and would have happened to the twins no matter what, or if it had been random chance due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

If it was the latter, Jackie was unsure if they would be able to take that blow. They’d persist, yes, but they would… Probably revert a significant amount. Certainly they’d be unable to do their job, unable to interact with the world… That was a very real fear, yes, though it paled in comparison to the stark guilt itself. Consequences were natural, after all. What had happened to Ingo and Emmet wasn’t. Jackie couldn’t think of people who deserved a fate like that less.

Sarcastic, cynical, and introverted as Jackie was, they were the opposite, for the most part, of their bosses. The Subway Masters were each personable in their own ways, and seemed to actually enjoy interacting with passengers. They were sweet, also in their own ways. And Jackie couldn’t lie. It was a little inspiring seeing people who had been dealt a more difficult hand succeed to the degree that the twins did.

They’d never been able to say so, but as a ghost, an echo of someone who once lived but not, to most who asked, the ‘real thing’... Jackie looked up to them. Sure, their conjoined life seemed far preferable to being dead like they themself were, but they felt a one-sided kinship with the twins.

In secret, they too were making it work and succeeding. (For the longest time, though they were loath to admit it, they’d hoped someone would be proud of them. Now they had Furze, and they knew that he was, indeed, so proud of them.)

Frustrating, how the universe seemed to strike down people just doing their best. Jackie themself had been a victim of that, killed in a tunnel cave-in when the rail system had first begun being built almost two hundred years previously. The owners at the time had tried to expand on a shoestring budget, cutting corners to line their own pockets, and it had cost them several lives of their employees.

Ingo and Emmet had been excelling at their jobs in all senses, keeping the subway running smoothly and safely, and fighting on the Battle Lines, winning far more fights than they lost. They’d been so loved. Didn’t matter to fate, if it existed, or to the random universe, if it did not.

Jackie hated feeling like a vehicle that an unkind world worked through.

They hoped telling Emmet the truth would absolve them of some of the feeling, or that he’d have some advice for getting over such an emotion. He had to have some wisdom on such a topic, right?

“You feeling any better?” Furze’s words broke through their thoughts, and they nodded just a little.

“Yeah. Thanks dude. This is… New territory for me, you know that.”

“Yeah. The formidable Jackie, actually talking about their feelings? Unheard of! But… I’m really glad you did. That you have someone you feel comfortable doing that with now.”

“Well, ‘comfortable’ is a strong word. I’m not sure I’ll ever actually feel comfortable with talking like this. But I know, now that I’m around other people, I gotta do it, you know? Just like you have to go to the dentist.”

Furze shuddered. “Yeah. I got it. But still. Glad we can talk, okay?”

“Yeah.” Jackie offered him a small grin, leaning over to peck his cheek. They got to see them blink, then flush red, something they were incapable of, and it made them laugh. “Will you ever not get flustered when I initiate anything?”

“Nope.”

It felt good to laugh.

“Okay though,” Furze finally said. “I’ll bring the tablet with me tomorrow, and I’ll message you the time. You can call and talk to Emmet then. Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds like a plan. I think I also have an idea for something to do for Emmet.”

“I can’t wait to see what it is.”

The two said their goodbyes, then parted ways, the human to go get some sleep and the ghost to do what they usually did at night. Jackie vanished first into nothingness, and Furze strode down the platform, hand held up as he waved goodbye to the empty air, a smile on his face.

▲▽

Emmet and Ingo hadn’t always been the Subway Masters, naturally. They’d had to start somewhere, so at age eighteen, after their journey, they took on a part time position while attending university. Starting as depot agents, their transition into the working world was not quite the smoothest, but luckily they’d had a couple people who decided to help them.

“Alright,” said Tom, clapping his hands together and startling the depot agents of Gear Station. It was, frankly, too early for meetings; everyone in the room was in silent agreement of that. Except, of course the stationmaster Tom with his bristly mustache and small glasses. He was perpetually just on the cusp of a bad mood, and tended to like to attempt to cut corners, even if the Nimbasa City Transit Authority did not let him. “I found some new agents. Part timers. They’ll be starting today about an hour after we open.”

And why did he not think to mention that like… At least a week ago? Who will be training them? How many are there? Will there be more than one trainee assigned to a trainer?

Ramses was annoyed, though his face would never show it. He’d been at the job long enough to know exactly how to let issues like this roll off his back like water off ducklett feathers. Nothing ruffled him any more.

At least, not outwardly.

He shared a knowing look with his best friend Cloud before turning back to Tom.

“I thought we were hiring only one new depot agent?” called one of the others.

Probably to save on money, though we need more, sighed Ramses mentally.

“We were, but. Well, these two were a special case, and agreed to work for wages for a person and a half instead of two people.”

“Tom, why are you admitting to being outwardly predatory in your hiring practices?” Cloud spoke loudly, looking annoyed. She, Ramses, and Tom were about the same age, but she was the only one who dared call him out and get away with it.

(Ramses tried, but for some reason the words always got stuck. He felt bad.)

“Well like I said. Special case. They’re conjoined twins.”

“... You see how that makes this worse, right? That makes this whole scenario so much worse?”

“They can’t split up to do two jobs that need doing! But they’ll be able to work faster than one person. And they love trains and stuff so they were happy to just get the job. You’ll see. It’s fine.” 

Cloud gave him a steely stare that screamed I will not drop this but it’s just about opening time so I’ll table this conversation for now. 

“I’ll take it upon myself to show them the standard operating procedures,” Cloud said, instead. “So they don’t get the wrong idea about their positions here.” She then stood, jerking her head at the door and looking at Ramses. “C’mon, let’s get the day started. I want to give our new coworkers a proper welcome when they get here.”

Ramses stood, following her, and as soon as the door closed, she began ranting.

“I can’t believe that slimy asshat! He’s like a barrel of tynamo mucus, I swear to Kyurem.”

“Yeah, what he’s doing is just… Not right,” Ramses agreed somewhat lamely, unable to conjure up as vivid a scene as Cloud described. “I don’t know what we can do about it right now, though, except do what you said. Take them under our wing and make sure at least all of us treat them fairly.”

“I’ll see if there’s anything in particular I can do to make sure they’re compensated properly. This situation sounds awful for them, no matter if they like the job or not.”

Ramses nodded, turning towards the set of stairs leading to one of the platforms. “... I can’t help but wonder what they’re going to look like. I know that’s rude. But since it’s just you listening to me, I think I can say I’m curious.”

“I wasn’t gonna say it out loud,” Cloud sighed. “But me too. I hope this job won’t be too difficult for them.”

As the subway opened for the day, commuters began arriving, and Gear Station slowly bustled to life. It was lucky that both Cloud and Ramses had been assigned to remain in the station that day instead of driving trains, because they were there when their new coworkers arrived.

Ramses found them first, walking through the doors to the station amidst everyone else who needed to take the trains that day, each clutching a paper in their hands. His earlier question was obviously immediately answered; they had shared legs and split upper bodies, and didn’t seem to need help getting around.

Making sure he had on a far more genuine smile than his ‘customer service’ look, Ramses approached them. “Hey! You two must be the new depot agents, right?”

Twin pairs of eyes looked his way, one of the young men smiling brilliantly, and the other frowning, though somehow he didn’t seem unhappy. It was the frowning twin that spoke first. “Yes, that is us! I’m Ingo, and this is my brother Emmet. Pleased to make your acquaintance!”

Ramses had been correct; Ingo’s voice was brimming with excitement.

“It’s verrry nice to meet you, yup yup!” echoed Emmet. Ingo then offered a hand to him, which Ramses shook.

“I’m Ramses; I, and another agent named Cloud, will be showing you the ropes today.”

“Trains don’t have ropes,” Emmet replied cheekily, only to be lightly elbowed by his brother.

“Don’t worry, a sense of humor goes a long way in a job like this,” said Ramses with a wink.

He noticed that their depot agent coats, the ones that Tom had presumably given them, had been altered by someone to accommodate their anatomy. That person, from what he could tell, had done a great job. Somehow, seeing that at least brought him some peace of mind. The two must have people who cared about them a great deal.

“So I read in your files you’re currently in school. What are you studying?” Ramses made small talk as he led them to the break room where he could more easily be heard in explaining what their day would entail.

“I’m studying mechanical engineering,” started Ingo.

“And I am studying electrical engineering!” finished Emmet. “It is easier if we share some classes, yup! And we know those choices will be good for working with trains.” Both their eyes glittered as Emmet spoke. Tom had been correct about their enthusiasm, at least.

“Sounds like you’re working very hard.”

“We’re committed to doing our best both in our studies and this job, sir,” Ingo said politely. “We strive to uphold safety and make sure everyone gets where they need to be.”

“Well with attitudes like that you’ll be a breath of fresh air around this station.” Ramses felt bad immediately after that bit of bitterness bled into his voice. He saw the two of them glance at the floor.

“You mean… Mr. Tom?” Ingo offered up hesitantly, voice purposefully polite.

“No need to call him mister, but. Yeah.” Ramses could see that Emmet looked a little frustrated but didn’t speak. “Anyways though, just follow me and our fellow depot agent Cloud will help me talk through our day, okay?”

He led them into the room, then called Cloud on his radio. When she arrived only a few minutes later, she opened the door, looked at the twins for only a moment or two, then burst into a large smile.

“Nice to meet you boys! Hope you’re ready for your first day.”

The morning was spent going over the basics, some of which Ingo and Emmet already seemed pretty familiar with. When they confessed they’d read the employee handbook cover to cover, both older depot agents had been somewhat stunned. When Ingo had hesitantly said that trains were their shared special interest, and working with them was a dream, it made more sense.

When asked if they had any pokemon, the twins proudly showed off their freshly evolved partners Eelektross and Chandelure. They talked about their teams back at home, and how they figured it would be best to only take one pokemon each to a job that did not, technically, require the help of a pokemon at all.

“Your partners may be more help than you realize,” Ramses offered sagely. “Chandelure can see souls, right?”

The ghost chimed happily from where she hovered near Ingo’s shoulder.

“With abilities like that, she can help lost passengers or pokemon find their families and friends,” continued Cloud.

Ramses nodded. “Yes, and Eelektross will be very helpful in the event of any power problems.”

Emmet hugged his slimy partner close, who wriggled happily in his hold. “He is verrry strong. I can see him being a huge help, yup!”

“We never really thought of pokemon helping people with a job such as this,” Ingo confessed, looking somewhat mystified. “I suppose it makes sense. Though there is nothing in the handbook about it.”

“That’s because it’s a case-by-case basis,” Cloud said. “Somewhat dependent on how well behaved your pokemon are.”

“We can tell these two are incredibly loyal just by looking at them.” Ramses chuckled when Chandelure alighted on Ingo’s head like the world’s strangest bird, squashing his hat slightly.

Next up was a tour of the station. The twins seemed to know almost everything already, aside from employee-only locations. The hub, from which all the trains were tracked and any problems were discovered, dazzled the young adults, and Cloud swore she could see their eyes glowing.

Eventually, their first day came to a close. The two hardly even seemed tired at all, still hopped up on adrenaline. The two older depot agents had seen them shaking their hands in pure joy several times, and they could only hope the excitement wouldn’t wear off any time soon. It was nice having two someones around who actually loved the work. Helped cut through Tom’s bullshit, at least.

“... Before you go,” Cloud said as they headed to the employee lockers. “We’re… Sorry about Tom. I’m planning on fighting him to raise your pay.”

It was like a switch flipped, each twin closing themself off. Ingo grew quiet, and Emmet’s smile flattened. They looked ashamed.

“We know that we shouldn’t have let him take advantage of us like that,” Ingo said, voice strained in its softness. “That it makes us seem childish or stupid for taking such a deal. But we really wanted this job, more than other ones where we would be stationed at a desk all day.” Emmet nodded, letting Ingo do the talking. “I cannot deny that it makes us feel bad, though. We’re paying for school with that money.”

“Forget just being mean, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal,” said Cloud with a wince. “You were hired under different names?”

Emmet made a face, and Ingo sighed. “I don’t think so. You can probably imagine job applications are a bit complicated. We usually just put both of our names on one, so nowhere assumes we can travel separate tracks. It would be impossible if we had gotten hired in two places, and hurtful if only one of us was hired at all.”

“The way those things work isn’t optimized for people like you, huh?” Cloud didn’t say it like a judgement; she stated it more like a shameful fact. “I’m really sorry for that. But rest assured I’ll travel the tracks to get you boys your fair due.”

Ingo’s mouth didn’t move, but his eyes wrinkled at the corners and Cloud and Ramses realized he was smiling. “You use train terminology too?”

Surprised, the two older adults burst out laughing. “You boys will fit right in. Welcome to the crew, we’ll look out for you. And,” Cloud added on, leaning in with a grin, feeling guilty that she nearly ended the twins’ first day on a foul note. “Tomorrow we’ll teach you how to drive the trains.”

The happy whooping could be heard all throughout Gear Station.

Swiftly the two proved themselves to be workers of the highest caliber, their synchronicity both astounding and not surprising. While Tom had obviously expected their doubleness would just even out their disability, that had not really been the case. Ingo and Emmet excelled at just about every aspect of their job, from the customer service to the train driving. They had an excellent grasp of the things they had trouble with mentally and physically, and came up with solutions that worked for them.

Cloud found it absolutely amazing, as did Ramses.

It did not take long at all for them to become attached to their younger coworkers. They were simply extremely likable. A little hard to read sometimes, but the two older agents learned quickly. Even better, Cloud was able to convince Tom to pay them the wages they were due.

Ingo and Emmet were a staple of life working on the subway system of Unova. When they were promoted to stationmasters, it was unsurprising. What WAS a shock was how swiftly their idea for a battle facility was approved, and the caliber to which their dream was realized. Soon the Battle Subway was world renowned, and it had not even taken half a decade.

Through it all, from their time under their wings to when they became the bosses, the twins remained friends with Cloud and Ramses and the other agents they met soon after that first day. Well, they were rivals with Isadore, who was their own age. (In actuality, it was Isadore who found them to be rivals. They themselves did not really see it that way. Isadore was not as good a battler as them, so he didn’t really register.)

Furze had been hired by them when the Battle Subway had opened, young like they’d been when they got their start, along with a bunch of other depot agents who could tag team fighting on the trains and running the stations.

While Ingo and Emmet obviously cared about every agent working under them, not all they would consider genuinely close friends. But there was a small amount that they did, and that was why the small squad was at Nimbasa General Hospital. (One of them was admittedly there because he had seen the incident, and, as new as he was, everyone had thought it wise to bring him to show him that Emmet was alive.)

The crowd of five depot agents exited the elevator on the correct floor, all of the bustle of the hospital now lost down below. It was quiet here, in the ICU ward where patients were permanently housed. Several of them figured the doors must be mostly soundproof.

“It’s room 4Y,” Isadore said quietly from his position at the back of the group, pointing crisply to a sign on the wall. “That means we go straight.”

Cloud and Ramses led the way, the subdued shuffling behind them letting both know that the other agents were following along. It wasn’t hard to find Emmet’s room, all the way down at the end; Drayden was sitting outside the door in a hard-looking chair, staring aimlessly out the window ahead of him. The late afternoon sun was just starting to tinge orange, and the light made his silver hair shine.

All of them knew the Dragon Master, though not personally. He’d been Mayor of Opelucid for a while, and had challenged several of them in his dragon gym. He was a force of nature, practically, in Unova.

But he was here now as Emmet’s father. Nothing more.

When Drayden saw them, he stood up, offering his hand to shake. “It’s nice to formally meet all of you. I’ve definitely seen you around the subway, and Emmet and Ingo always said the nicest things. Despite the circumstances, I’m glad we’ve properly met.”

He took a deep breath, then, and his gaze dropped. “But I just want to say that, while I know a few of you… Understand Emmet’s condition…”

(Cloud firmly kept the lid on the container she’d put those memories into.)

“First of all, he sometimes has flashbacks. If that happens, please get me.” Drayden paused, then sighed. “Also, he’s. Dragons forgive me for sharing his feelings like this, but. He’s ashamed, simply put. Please try not to stare.”

“We won’t,” said Ramses in a gentle sort of voice. “We just want to see our friend.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? Emmet may have been their boss, but he was also their friend, all of theirs. The difference in positions didn’t matter. Friendship was simply the end result when people worked together and were kind.

Drayden smiled; they could all tell even with the beard in the way, reaching out to scan a small card against a reader near the doorframe. “Alright. You can all go in now, just mind the machines.”

The agents trailed inside once the door opened, Cloud leading the way and Isadore still bringing up the rear. The scene that greeted them wasn’t as bad as some of them had expected (or as some of them remembered.)

Emmet was laying in a bed, the back propped up so he could sit up. He had multiple blankets draped over him, hiding whatever had become of him from view. They could see all the machines attached to tubes that led to the bed, and the IVs in his arms, but there was nothing worse than that. Durant was curled in a chair pushed up against the side of Emmet’s bed, sleeping. Emmet’s face seemed tired, dark circles and small wrinkles present underneath his pale eyes, but he looked happy to see them. He also looked slightly apprehensive, just like Drayden had hinted at.

Cloud’s heart sped up. She knew Ramses and Cameron were probably having similar reactions. Last she’d seen, Emmet had been bleeding out and trailing dying organs that were gritty from the brick subway floors. It was almost difficult to reconcile that mental picture of Emmet with the man raising a hand to wave awkwardly before them. But it was also nice to have a new mental picture to try and overlay what had happened that day.

She was snapped out of her stupor by Cameron’s shaking voice. “It’s… So good to see you again, sir.”

“I am Emmet. It is good to see you too.”

It hit Cloud, then, that Emmet possibly didn’t know that Ramses and Cameron had been there when he’d been found that day. Dragons, Cloud didn’t even know if Emmet had remembered she had been there. He hadn’t been lucid, had he?

“It is good to see all of you. Even though I wish I was seeing you back at work and not… Here.” He waved a hand limply at the room.

“We understand,” Furze said fervently. “You get it. Places with trains are better than places without them.”

“Furze!” hissed Isadore, swatting their hat brim over their eyes, mortified, but Emmet was laughing, a real, genuine Emmet cackle.

“He is correct!” Emmet settled back down, smiling for real now. “So Cloud and Ramses. You are the Subway Managers?”

“You heard about that?” Ramses asked.

“Of course! I am the boss, after all.” Emmet’s smile grew a little wibbly again. “... I am touched. Verrry touched. That you did not want to replace my brother and I. No matter the circumstances.”

“Of course, Master Emmet,” Cloud said, smiling at him in a caring way. “You’re still here. You still hold your title. We wouldn’t just take that from you.” We couldn’t steal the last shred of your normal life, even if said scrap is nothing but words now.

“That means a lot to me,” said Emmet, voice as flat as ever even as he obviously blinked back tears. “And Cloud. Thank you for saving my life.”

Something inside Cloud’s chest unknotted, something she’d been carrying since that day. Emmet was grateful to be alive. She had made the correct choice. Her next breath was more comfortable than any she’d taken in the last two months.

“You’re welcome, Emmet,” she said. “Ramses and Cameron helped as well.”

Next to her, Cameron gulped, then nodded. “Yes sir. We did our best.”

“Make no mistake,” said Ramses, clapping a hand on Cloud’s shoulder. “She did the pyroar’s share in terms of saving you.”

“I remember…” Emmet turned his piercing gaze onto Cloud, settling somewhere near her nose. “You picked me up.”

“I… I did.”

“... Let us perform a track change,” said Emmet suddenly, swiping tears from his cheeks. “Isadore. I am surprised you came to visit too.”

Isadore’s brows wrinkled into an outrage expression, mouth open for a full few seconds before he could formulate words. “I… Ugh! Fine! Despite our… Differences, in the past, I care. Jot that down because you won’t hear it again.”

“I will not write it down, but I will remember that you said this.” Emmet laughed again, quieter this time, then sniffed. It hit him, then, that someone was missing. “Where is Jackie…?”

“Well, boss, they couldn’t make it in person, but…” Furze tapped at the screen of a tablet he’d pulled from his bag. “They still wanna see you.”

Emmet tilted his head, reaching out to pet Durant, fingers tracing the grooves in their armor plating. Patiently, he watched as Furze connected the tablet to a video feed, and soon after audio floated through the small speakers.

“Can everyone hear me?”

“Yeah dude we can!” said Furze excitedly. “It’s working!”

“Awesome,” came Jackie’s voice, sounding relieved. And then their face was in view as Furze held up the tablet like a TV screen for Emmet to see. “Hey, boss. Long time no see.”

Emmet’s smile was huge as he gave a small wave. “I am Emmet. Hello, Jackie.”

They smiled back, a far more genuine smile than their normal shit-eating grin. “It’s good to hear your voice too. It’s been lonely here without you.”

“Here–” Emmet squinted at the tablet. “Jackie. Are you still at Gear Station?”

And then they began to look nervous. “You know me. I never leave, heh.”

Emmet’s eyes fell, and he heard rather than saw them sigh. “Okay boss, this was one of the things I wanted to talk to you guys about. It’s… Just you and the usual suspects in the room, right?”

Emmet glanced at the faces of the five agents in the room. Each looked just as confused as he felt… Aside from Furze. Furze knew something. “Yup yup,” Emmet said cautiously, one eyebrow raised.

“Okay. Okay then. Well… You guys see… I really can’t leave the station. I’m not joking when I say that.”

“Why not?” Emmet asked, pressing. “I am confused.”

“Hi confused, I’m dead. Wait whoops.”

Jackie’s characteristic snark had taken the controls again for a moment, and then they looked very sheepish. “Fuck. Dammit that’s not how I wanted to say it. Furze. Status on everyone’s faces?”

Looking around at the unblinking group, Furze chuckled nervously. “I… Think they’re still processing it.”

“Jackie.” Isadore was the first to find his voice. “What do you mean you’re dead? You’re right there!”

“If ghost pokemon can exist, so can ghost people. You of all people should know, with how creepy you find me even if you refuse to say so.”

Isadore flushed red, mumbling something that might not even have been words under his breath. Embarrassment overrode fear in him, it seemed.

Not so Cameron, who gulped. “S-so all those tricks you played on me were more than just… Human things?”

“‘Fraid so, buddy,” said Jackie. “Sorry about that, by the way. Furze had me promise to back off a bit ago.” They sounded genuinely rueful.

“I-It’s okay! You’re less scary now that I’ve gotten to know you a bit.” Cameron smiled, moving so he could lean into view of the tablet camera.

“What happened to you, Jackie?” asked Cloud softly, who had been silent up to this point. “If you’re trapped in the subway system, you must’ve been involved in an accident there…”

“The subway was built a couple hundred years ago,” Jackie said noncommittally. “Safety was a lot less of a priority back then. I am beyond over all that.”

“Jackie…” Emmet’s voice was quieter than any of them had heard in a long time, and his tone was as inscrutable as ever.

“Yeah?” They looked… Scared. It made sense. They had bared their literal soul, and had had no idea how the news would be received. Of course, though, Emmet was kind. They all knew that, every last person standing in that room.

“Can I speak to you alone?”

“Uhhhh sure boss.” And now their fear was evident in their voice, which wavered uncharacteristically. Emmet couldn’t help but feel bad about making them so afraid, but it couldn’t much be helped.

“It’ll be okay,” Furze murmured to Jackie as they passed the tablet over to Emmet, who held it out in front of him, making sure his face was still visible.

“Yes. I promise you are not in trouble.”

As the rest of the agents crowded back through the door to give the two space, Jackie picked at their fingernails. “I’m sorry for lying to you for so long, boss. I just admittedly didn’t want to lose my job. I’m bound to the station, so it’s not like I have options… And furthermore I am… So fucking sorry I couldn’t give you more to go on about the threat in the station. I just… I didn’t know anything more. I should have waited until I did know more so you both wouldn’t have been there…” Their voice got more frantic as they continued.

“Jackie.”

They closed their mouth, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“I’m sorry, Jackie, for everything that has happened. For scaring you with this conversation. As well.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because their eyes pinched at the corners, not in a smile like Ingo’s eyes had, but in a way that squeezed out tears. It was surprising, somewhat, that a ghost could cry. And Emmet never, ever would have expected it to be Jackie.

“ You’re sorry? I can’t… I can’t believe you. I… You’re… You’re lying in a bed, half the man you used to be– FUCK!” They cut themself off, hiding their face in their hands. “Kyurem damn it, I cope with humor and that was a TERRIBLE thing to say and just, fucking…”

“Jackie. It is okay. I promise you. It is okay.” And he was smiling at them when they looked up next, reassurance etched onto his features despide the lined, dark bags under his eyes. “I am Emmet. I am not able to laugh yet. But I cannot deny. That was a good one.”

“... We don’t deserve you, Emmet. We never did.” He flinched, almost, just a little, before speaking.

“Yes. Yes you do. You can continue working as normal. You can live in the station. Well. You can stay in the station. We can give you your own space. If you do not have one. You are a part of our depot agent family. We care about you. Even Isadore. And Cameron. And I know Furze does. We can all see it.”

Jackie was left blinking, silent, with yet another expression Emmet had never seen on them. Pure surprise. Their grayish-brown hair was messy where they had dug their fingers into it.

But then they seemed to pull themself together and take a deep breath. That action surprised Emmet, a little, but he figured it was an imprint from being alive. “Thanks, boss. I promise you you won’t regret it. While… I started out stuck here, I’ve come to actually really enjoy working on the trains. I’m no Furze, but I do genuinely love it. And.” They finally grinned again, though it was more strained than normal. “The company is great.”

“It verrry much is.”

“Thanks again. Really and truly.” Finally, their normal expression settles back onto their face, not as a mask, but comfortably. “Now can you call everyone else back in? I know Furze has a gift he’s forgotten to give you.”

Emmet smiled as well, then laughed. “Alright.”

With his xtrans, he dialed Furze. He didn’t want to have to shout through the soundproof door. He was not the brother for that. When they answered, he passed along the message and everyone filed back inside, looking nervous until they saw no tears or stress.

“Hello, everyone. I am Emmet. Jackie said you have a gift for me.” The man in the bed pointed at Furze, getting right to the point and startling them.

“OH! Oh yeah I do, one sec…” They began patting around in their pockets, and Emmet flipped the tablet around so their partner could laugh at them.

“How could you forget where you put it!”

“I could forget anything, don’t underestimate my skills.”

“Except train facts.”

“Except train facts,” echoed Furze with a nod as he pulled the item from his pocket with a flourish. “Behold! A Red Line car model from like twenty years before you took over the system!”

Everyone could see Emmet’s eyes basically grow a couple sizes as he took the small model. “I have never seen this one before!”

“It was a special release when Null Station over in Aspercia opened. I had this one in my collection, but I figured, since you’re the Red Line guy, you ought to have it.”

Emmet was looking at the tiny train with an absolutely thrilled look, holding it like it was infinitely precious. “Thank you so much,” he said. “I am Emmet. This is a wonderful gift.”

“That’s not all,” said Jackie from the tablet that was lying face up in front of him from when he’d set it down to hold the model.

“Were we all supposed to get gifts?” Isadore mumbled, and Cameron gulped.

“Nah,” came Jackie’s voice. “Furze came up with the idea on his own, independent from my idea. I was figuring that I could use my ghostliness to our advantage.” They winked, and Cameron tugged at his collar that now felt scarily, uncomfortably tight. “Since I can’t leave the station and you can’t leave the hospital, how about I bring the station to you?”

Emmet looked at the tablet screen, watching Jackie walk down a platform where a train was already pulled up. “No, I didn’t change any train schedules for this. The Orange Line is running half time for some minor repairs, so I snuck an extra train in the schedule. Won’t be taking any passengers on.”

“Verrry good,” Emmet said quietly, seeing as they made their way into the cab, holding the camera so he could see them manipulating the buttons and controls. The train started up with a jolt, and the headlights beamed into the tunnel. Emmet was able to see the tracks and the stonework of the walls and the wires and cables running along until he couldn’t see them any more.

For the next half an hour, Emmet watched Jackie traverse the Orange Line, catching glimpses of platforms and people standing on them, seeing joltiks that appeared as mere yellow smudges sticking to walls as the train went by.

He saw his home. One of his homes. He had been a lucky, lucky man, to have so many places he belonged.

“Durrrrr?” came a sleepy noise, eventually, as Durant woke up and blinked at Emmet, squinting their red eyes.

“You are awake!” Emmet patted the bed next to him, and immediately the bug pokemon crawled out of the chair to lay themself next to him in a spot just their size and receive more scratches. “Look. We are watching Jackie drive the trains!”

Durant made a buzzing sort of noise as they also watched the screen, obviously missing battling even though they did not emote like a human.

At some point, Emmet realized that, once again, tears were dripping down his face. As he reached up to wipe them away, Cloud offered a hand, and he took it. She squeezed, gently, and Emmet was grateful for the grounding.

Obviously the twins did not tend to have a lot of physical contact with their employees, but a handshake or shoulder pat were not uncommon. It was still nice to have a hand to hold.

Eventually, Jackie’s route was finished, and Emmet smiled brightly, looking from the tablet to everyone in the room. “Thank you,” he said, putting emphasis behind his monotone words. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course, boss,” Jackie said with a cocky sort of salute. “Any time.”

“You all are doing verrry good. Verrry good,” Emmet said with a laugh. “I will see you again soon.”

“I’ll make sure things remain in order for when you return,” said Isadore in a stubborn, clipped voice. When, not if.

“And I’ll work on my battling and confidence,” insisted Cameron, standing up a little straighter. “I’ve been working on a few new moves I’d love to show you.”

“I’d love to see, when I can. Yup.”

“Get well soon, boss,” said Furze gently, then blinked. “The trains are waiting for you! I’ll tell them you miss them.”

“We hope your recovery goes well,” said Ramses, waving to him.

Cloud nodded, finally releasing his hand so she too could salute him. “We’ll keep the lights on for you.”

Chapter Text

Emmet’s day was not exactly off to a great start.

It started with a Nurse letting him know that his room was going to be cleaned in fifteen minutes. Emmet’s chest had seized up; something about strangers that were not doctors or Nurses seeing him in the state he was in stressed him out almost instantly. It was just… Too much. No matter that anyone cleaning in an ICU ward had probably seen a lot. 

The last few times it had been cleaning day, Emmet had fully hidden under his blankets, despite how childish such an action was. It at least made him feel better in the moment, though guilt came surging through his veins as soon as the cleaner had left. They were simply doing their job and keeping his room nice, and he had to treat them like they didn’t exist.

Emmet felt like a terrible person.

But he hid again all the same. He’d need his strength, because it was another morning of tests and treatments and things that Emmet truly hated. He could not use all of his energy on sitting still while a person he did not know gave him sidelong glances and maneuvered around the machines that were, technically, a part of him now.

This way, he could block it all out aside from the sound of the quietest vacuum he had ever heard and the shuffling of feet on linoleum, and he could use the blanket fluff to silently wipe away the tears that had started dripping from his eyes.

It wasn’t long after the cleaner left that the medical team came in and let Emmet know what was in the plan for that morning. He couldn’t exactly refuse, but he supposed it was nice of them to let him know anyways. They led several audino and an alomomola tank into the room as well, and Emmet couldn’t help but wonder how they’d help today.

First, they removed the IVs from his arms, finally, opting instead to run lines into his blood where it was outside his body. The sheer amount of little tubes in his veins had caused the crook of his elbows and his wrists to bruise, the deep purple-black color stark against his now too-pale skin.

It wasn’t so bad though. The tape that had held the IVs in place had pinched when he bent his arms, and had been altogether a horrible sensation. He even had been given little alcohol swabs to wipe the sticky residue away now that they were gone.

Now, though, the team was unwinding the bandages between his tubes. Emmet resolutely focused on the chilling sensation of the alcohol pad on his skin; at least that was a safe grounding technique. He wondered if, in the future, they’d give him an ice cube to squeeze or put in his mouth if he requested it.

Some other startling sensation to concentrate on that was not pain.

“I think we can remove the stitches and leave these bandages off,” said a Nurse, and Emmet found the irritation of the stitches tugging through his skin much, much harder to ignore. He squeezed the barriers on each side of his bed so hard his knuckles felt about ready to split, but he did not make a sound.

People got stitches removed all the time. He could not be weak. (He could not prove that terrible, cruel god right.)

He was able to keep far less composed when the doctors began to clean out the main tube that carried food he ate to the machines replacing his digestive system. To prevent buildup, they said, clearing the contents that Emmet still refused to focus on from the line and inserting some kind of cleaning implement into a port near the end that was not attached to him.

Emmet couldn’t feel it, of course he couldn’t, the tube had no feeling, but the slight jostling was still uncomfortable. It pulled on his remaining insides in a way he did not want to describe. And, the man realized startlingly, it felt invasive. He’d… Begun to truly think of those plastic lines and clicking machines as extensions of himself.

It scared him, a little.

Seemingly to add insult to injury, a doctor then stuck a camera into that port to apparently inspect the place where the tubes and his flesh met. Words that he was unfamiliar with, either in that context or at all, such as ‘scope’ and ‘anastomosis,’ floated to his ears seemingly through a haze.

He did not look at the screen showing the moment the camera passed from the section of tubing that was external to the section that was internal. He had seen enough of his own guts, even if everything had been blurry, then.

Of course, he somewhat felt it when the camera finally bridged the gap between what was plastic and what was actually him, and he jolted. Emmet had felt so many terrible things lately, so it did not even rank in the top ten. However if someone had asked him to rank the sensation on a scale set before he’d been torn from Ingo, this would have taken the cake.

Really, was it so hard for people to stop touching what wasn’t meant to be touched?

Emmet could see a pinkish light shining through the skin of his torso from the brightness of the camera inside him. At that moment he decided to keep his eyes closed for the rest of everything and dissociate as much as he could.

Eventually, Emmet felt the camera withdrawn and could’ve cried from relief. He still didn’t open his eyes, but he heard the splashing and bubbling voice of the alomomola as it shed its healing membrane so the Nurses could turn it into a paste to apply to the angry red lines where his sutures had been. Emmet couldn’t say he enjoyed that, but since it had been included in his treatment regimen since his first bandage change, at least he was used to it.

An audino used its fluffy tendril to take his pulse, the downy fur soft against his blue-black wrist. He opened his eyes to look down at the sweet pokemon, finding the sight vastly preferable to the application of jelly-like ointment to the end of his body. When it smiled at him after it was done listening to his heart, he couldn’t help but smile back.

Audino could hear heartbeats and sense emotions. Emmet wondered if it knew how tired his heart was. How broken. It could probably hear it, couldn’t it?

Did the pokemon look at him with such kindness because it knew Emmet needed it, or was that simply its nature? He didn’t know. But when it cheeped and patted his hand, Emmet was genuinely sad to see it go.

Finished in their ministrations, the team packed up and left, leaving Emmet with the instructions to not touch the spots with the paste lest he rub it off. It would dry eventually. Emmet wasn’t sure he’d want to touch his scars even then.

Instead, he cocooned himself in the blankets like a sewaddle might, arms no longer bound by IVs, wrapping the warmth around his shoulders and head until only his mouth and nose were visible for breathing purposes. He needed a nap after all of that, and he prayed to the dragons as hard as he could that it would not lead to nightmares.

He couldn’t help but think of Ingo. With every heartbeat, the wrongness of his body thrashed in his chest. His brother should be there. His brother should be there. 

Despite that, eventually, the man fell into a light doze, too emotionally worn out to remain awake.

Emmet’s nap didn’t last long at all, but when he saw who had ever so gently poked him awake, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.

“Hey Emmet!” said Iris brightly, beaming at him and waving. “Did you forget I was gonna visit today, or were you just worn out by this morning? Dad said that I couldn’t show up til ten o’clock because you needed some stuff taken care of.”

Briefly, Emmet took mental stock of his capacity to be verbal. Before his nap, he would’ve only been able to communicate in sign, but now… He felt grounded enough to speak. “Second option. Was tiring.”

He emerged from his blanket nest and stretched, settling everything around him in a less protective arrangement.

“I appreciate your visit to this station. Yup.”

“I’m glad, you dork,” Iris said, then held up a duffle bag. It was the one she lugged clothes around in when they took trips, and what she packed up when she was sleeping over at a friend's house. “I brought you some stuff and things!”

“Oh, stuff and things. My favorite!” Emmet was glad he felt up to joking around with Iris. Sure, he always was waiting for a third voice to chime in, but missing Ingo while laughing was better than missing Ingo while sobbing.

“You’ll love these, I promise.” She set the bag down again, then began to rummage inside. “Dad let me know what you could and couldn’t eat. Nothing too sugary or too salty, or spicy. And no caffeine.”

“Do not remind me of that last one,” Emmet groaned pathetically. “I may not be working right now. But. I miss coffee.”

“You like how black coffee tastes, you monster.”

“I am Emmet. And yes I do.”

Iris laughed as she handed out a small parcel of paper towels. “Well. One cookie has been confirmed to be safe. I baked it myself!”

While sweets were… Had been more of Ingo’s thing, Emmet certainly enjoyed them too. Just less often. His eyes glittered when he unwrapped the slightly misshapen chocolate chunk cookie. “This looks delicious Iris! Verrry good!”

As Emmet bit into it, Iris fetched a thermos from her bag, shaking it a little. “And hot cocoa to go with it. I brought your favorite Battle Subway promotional mug, the version you keep at our house.”

As he slowly consumed the cookie, he watched her pour him a mug full of still-hot cocoa and the warmth in his chest was almost painful with how much he loved his little sister. She had done all this for him.

Her voice lowered. “I know… You don’t seem to like eating much, any more. I can see it on your face. So I figured bringing you something really tasty might help, even if it’s just one cookie.”

Now the warmth in his chest was definitely painful. He’d have to be better about hiding his aversion to eating in the future. He was still doing it, the eating thing, even if he hated it and it felt weird. No one needed to ask why. He did not want to describe it.

But still. Iris had wanted to help, and she had not asked why.

“Thank you verrry much,” Emmet said after swallowing once he’d accepted the mug. “You are right. It does help.” Warm liquids were one of the only things it still felt good to consume. “Cocoa especially. Verrry good.”

“That’s not all,” continued Iris, bouncing back to her earlier flair. “Next up is…. Tada!!!” She’d bent to reach into the bag, but she soon stood and whipped out a little navy blue and yellow cloth thing, and Emmet quickly realized it was a tiny eelektross plushie. Obviously handmade, the main body fit mostly in her palm, with the limbs, tail, and head flopping over the sides of her hands.

“It is Eelektross!”

“I made him myself!”

“I can tell.” Emmet didn’t mean it as an insult, and Iris had been his family long enough to know that.

“I was pretty limited on the patterns I could understand,” Iris said sheepishly, moving the little plushie from one hand to the other nervously. “I had to go with Eelektross because he’s just. A fucking tube. Oops.” The young girl covered her mouth. “Do not tell Dad I said that.”

“I am Emmet. What I say. What I do. Always the same. I did not hear shit.”

She giggled, handing him the plushie. It fit nicely into his palm; the big clawed hands and the tail were weighted with little plastic pellets. Some of the markings were uneven, and one eye sat lower than the other but the man did not care. Iris had made it for him.

Emmet flopped the little plush eel onto his chest and smiled over at Iris. “I love him.”

“Yay!” Iris looked genuinely relieved, beaming at him, before pulling a bigger plush of Archeops out. “Also got you this big guy in case the eelektross didn’t turn out.” Laughing, she set it on the empty chair closest to Emmet. “Here, he can keep you company too.”

“I love him too,” Emmet assured her, stretching out a hand to pat the derpy pokemon plush on its head. It was soft, and Emmet thought that next time he slept he’d like to hug it. Plushies were good for all ages, and frankly everyone stuck in a hospital deserved many of them. “What else could you possibly have in that bag? This is already a lot, yup yup.” He sipped his cocoa again.

“Oh, plenty.” The next thing Iris brought out was sealed in a baggie and hidden from view. “I know this trend died out a while ago, but I remembered how much fun it was. And I also… Remember how you sometimes used to feel bad about yourself. I don’t think I was ever supposed to know, but Ingo isn’t exactly quiet.”

(Neither of them noticed the use of present tense. Or, if they did, they did not acknowledge it.)

“I know you, Emmet, and I know that you’re probably feeling bad about yourself all over again. I know that there’s… Sooooo much to feel bad about right now. So don’t worry about how you look now, or anything like that, okay?”

Emmet was mystified by what she could possibly have in that baggie, obscured by paper towels, but the squeeze in his chest was back as he looked at her and smiled in a sort of vulnerable way. “I am Emmet. You got me. You were so little. We never wanted to upset you. You are still young, but verrry perceptive. Yup. Now show what’s in the bag before I go crazy with curiosity.”

“I’d call you nosy if it wasn’t a gift for you,” said Iris with a soft laugh, then walked closer so she was right next to the head of his bed. She then pulled out a ring of woven vines that sported oval-shaped green leaves and white and pale gold flowers. They were shaped like little tubes, or maybe trumpets, and had a soft, sweet aroma.

Emmet only had to wonder what he was looking at for a moment before Iris reached out and gently settled it on his head. Startled, he blinked at her, confusion on his face asking the question he did not verbalize.

“You deserve to feel cute too,” she said simply, smiling. “And a flower crown made by yours truly can’t hurt!”

“Thank you, Iris,” he said, voice so quiet it was barely heard. “This is verrry sweet of you.”

Not able to do much but gently pat his shoulder, she smiled. “I’m really glad.” She looked down at the bag, then up again. “These last few things… I kinda debated on getting them for you, honestly.”

Emmet tilted his head and immediately remembered the flower crown. Luckily, it did not fall off.

“I’m worried they’re gonna make you sad but also… I don’t know, I think maybe they’ll help.” She drew from the bag a small picture frame, one that could hold two photos side by side. In one side, there was an image of all of the twins’ pokemon on the couch of their apartment, the room in chaos as the rowdy group was clearly making a lot of noise. And next to that was an image of Ingo and Emmet, taken during some promotional event at the Battle Subway. Their uniforms were spotless, and they were waving to a crowd. Each smiled in their own ways, and their arms were around each other’s shoulders.

They looked happy. 

He cradled the frame in his hands like it was infinitely precious. Like if it broke so too would his memories of these exact moments.

“And I have one of these little guys too.” Emmet peered over the top of the frame and saw Iris was holding one of the silly little Subway Master plushies they sold in the Gear Station gift shop. 

(Those had been a bit of a controversial addition. “Isn’t a plushie of conjoined twins a little weird?” someone had said.

“Many famous trainers have merchandise such as this,” Ingo had replied, Emmet remembered. “I think they’re quite silly myself. Just look at them!”

“But–”

“And it would be much weirder if they were not conjoined,” Emmet had added in. “That is how we are. It is just us.”

And so the plushies had indeed been unleashed upon Unova, and had proven to be fairly popular.)

“I don’t… Wanna be a downer. This day is SUPPOSED to be about making you feel happy and loved and all that. But I know I have one of these on my bed and I hug it when I’m feeling the worst, right now, so I figured… Maybe you’d want one to be able to hug your brother again.”

This is the best you’re going to get hung in the air but was not said.

She set the plushie on the bed near the eelektross, which was close to life-size compared to the little likeness of the twins.

Emmet set the photo down on the lap he did not have and picked up the plushie under its set of stubby outer arms. He looked into the little machine-embroidered faces, blinking every so often.

Proof. These pictures and this silly little toy were all proof that Ingo existed. Emmet of course knew he had, he didn’t doubt that or anything, but… It was genuinely moving and painful and beautiful to see something of Ingo that was not just the void he left behind.

Ingo was not ‘the absence of,’ no matter what the loss of him had done to Emmet’s body. Ingo had been more than just part of Emmet’s body, just as Emmet had proved he was more than just part of Ingo’s when he’d first spoken all those years ago.

They both were. They fit together perfectly, opposites perhaps, but the world was filled with those and they all made their places in various ways. Black may have been the absence of light, but in terms of ink and paint and pigment, it was the result of the presence of them all. In a similar way, white was the absence of all physical colored media, but in terms of light, it was the blended output of all colors.

Different, yet not solely defined by what wasn’t.

Ingo had been a person. These were proof of his personhood.

Emmet hugged the plush close, and felt tears slide down his face. “Thank you… I am Emmet. I am so sorry I am crying. I just love Ingo so much. And this gift, both of these, allow me to see his face again. No matter if it’s just a picture. Or he looks silly. I can see him. Thank you.”

Grabbing the box of tissues, Iris held them out to Emmet, who accepted gratefully. “I’m really happy it helped… I was worried it would all just upset you more.”

Sniffling a little, Emmet took another sip of his cocoa to steady himself. “Yes. It will help verrry much. Verrry much.”

“Sorry I didn’t ask this before you started crying, but. Can I get a picture with you, Emmet? Especially since you’re wearing the flower crown?”

The sniffs turned into laughter as Emmet smiled once more. “Of course! How could I begrudge my best little sister anything?”

“I’m your ONLY little sister! I’m your only little sibling period!”

Still, she leaned in next to the hospital bed, holding up her wrist and xtrans to take a selfie. Emmet smiled widely, and the next moment she was showing him a picture. His hair was unbrushed, his face looked weathered, and there were deep, dark circles under his eyes, but… Despite all that, Emmet did look happy, the crown of flowers wreathing his brow.

“I’m gonna print it out and keep it in my bag,” Iris said with a laugh. Emmet could not help but wonder if she wanted to keep an image of him close because she’d come close to losing her remaining brother, or if she wanted some memento to remember him by. Just in case. “But for now I wanna watch some TV with you.”

Gently, Iris passed the plush archeops over to Emmet and sat in the chair closer to him, snatching the remote from the small table near the head of Emmet’s bed and clicking it to turn the TV on.

Flipping through channels, Iris cheerily said “the playoffs are on, I wanna watch ‘em.”

“... You don’t mean football do you.”

“I do!”

Emmet groaned. “Just unplug my life support already.”

“Nope, you’re gonna watch football with me as payback for the train documentaries. Now that you’re stuck here with me, I can have my revenge.”

Flopping the archeops over his face, Emmet clicked his own remote and reclined his bed until it was flat again.

“Booooo don’t be dramatic you baby!”

“I will be as dramatic as I want! I am Emmet!”

“Don’t make me poke you until you sit up again.”

“Physically incapable of sitting up.”

“Sitting your bed up then, whatever! I’ll use Baby Doll Eyes ‘til you can’t resist or else you’ll make me cry.”

“Humans cannot use pokemon moves.”

“One game. Just the one?”

“...” Emmet couldn’t deny that his little sister was very good at persuasion, though he refused to admit it WAS because she could make herself look like a lost lillipup. “Fine. Just one! And if I fall asleep, then that is because you bored me to death.”

That earned him a poke to the shoulder. “Fair enough. I did wake you up when I got here.”

“After my morning. I just wanted to rest for a little bit.”

“Yeah I can imagine it was pretty rough.”

The two lapsed into silence, the only noise the sports commentators’ play-by-plays and the crowd, muted through the speakers of the TV. Iris learned comfortably onto the barrier at the edge of the hospital bed, arm resting on Emmet’s gently. Emmet couldn’t help but smile when the cameras zoomed in on an ecstatic child in the audience who had a joltik on his head, which jumped for joy when it saw itself on the arena’s screen. He wondered if the little bug was related in any way to his horde in the subway.

“What happened this morning?”

Emmet’s gaze snapped to Iris, who was picking at the front of her shirt with her free hand. 

“What do you mean?”

“Why was it so bad?”

Sometimes, it was so easy to forget that Iris was only twelve. She was so accomplished for her age, but she still had that curiosity to her, poking at things that were perhaps best left alone. Emmet couldn’t blame her; he was nearly thirty and sometimes his nosiness got the best of him too. They were siblings, after all.

Someone with a bit more emotional maturity or tact wouldn’t have asked. But the question was out there now.

“Well…” Emmet began, nearly stumbling over the word. “The doctors needed to… Clean some things. Check on other things. They removed my bandages. And my stitches where they sewed me up.”

“Like…” Iris traced her finger across her ribs as a question, mirroring where Emmet’s body ended. Emmet nodded. A beat, then “can I see?”

Emmet couldn’t help but draw back, startled, and shake his head. “I-I do not think… No. Dad would not like you to see these things. There are… Tubes there.”

“If there are no stitches, it can’t look too bad, right? It isn’t too gruesome, not any more, right?”

“I’m hideous, ” Emmet snapped sharply, then immediately felt guilty when Iris moved away, folding herself into her chair and withdrawing the contact she’d been sharing with him.

He had meant to say that the healed wound where his body had been torn off was hideous. Not that he himself was. But his too-quick mind had given it all away in that moment.

“That’s why I wanted to see,” came Iris’s quiet voice, after a period of silence. “Not just because I was curious. But because I knew you’d say something like that.”

“What?”

“Something about how you hate yourself.” Iris wrung her hands nervously. “I don’t want you to hate yourself.”

And Emmet’s heart felt like it was breaking all over again. He felt bad for speaking so unkindly, even if he hadn’t meant to do so. Swallowing, he found his voice again after a moment.

“I am sorry I worried you, Iris. I am okay.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Emmet fiddled with the edge of his blanket for a moment before swallowing hard and moving it aside. While the end of his body was still covered by his shirt that was too long for his truncated form, the myriad tubes and lines still ran out from inside the end of the fabric. The man wasn’t sure if this was exactly the right course of action given the circumstances, but if he misjudged and Iris did freak out, he could hardly be blamed. It wasn’t like these tracks had been tread before, after all.

Iris indeed looked over, staring in a way that made Emmet uncomfortable but that he did not comment on. He had to get used to this, after all. It was what he was now, like it or not. He could at least get used to what his own body looked like and how others saw him, starting with a family member.

“I have a lot of scarring,” Emmet said somewhat lamely, as if that covered it.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re still you.” Another quality of children that, in this context, made Emmet feel better. They were stubborn.

“I just wanted to say. So you are prepared.” After another brief hesitation, he shifted the shirt and all the reddish scars and suture marks came into view, new skin having grown around the tubes leading deeper into his body like a tree absorbing a fence it was leaning against. There was heavy scarring as well from the claws that had so cruelly torn him apart, and the site looked like the combination of a mauling and an amputation.

“... See? Not that bad.” Iris’s voice shook, and Emmet could not help but hope it was from sadness and not disgust. Either way, he did not meet her eyes. “One second.”

The man in the bed did look up when Iris began rifling through her small purse until she drew out a little bandaid. It was pink and there was a red heart in the center. It was the sort of bandage that one would stick on a paper cut, not anything that Emmet was dealing with, but he still smiled.

“I’d stick it on you myself, just like you’ve done for me before, but I think you would NOT like me touching you, so I’ll give it to you instead. That way you can apply it yourself.”

Accepting the little bandaid, Emmet looked down. There was one particular rip in his skin that reached upwards towards his chest. It had been sewed up; he could still see the little red dots on either side where the sutures had knit his skin together. After pulling the backings off the bandaid, he stuck it across that particular scar, happy that the alomomola ointment had dried enough for it to actually adhere to his skin.

“Thank you, Iris,” he said. “I am sorry I spoke harshly. Earlier. I did not mean to. But I should not have done it.” He tucked his shirt back over the end of his torso and settled his blankets back over himself.

“It’s okay. I get it. It’s… Really hard.”

He nodded. “But you did not run screaming. So that is good.”

“Even IF I was grossed out, which I WASN’T, I would never have done that to you. I’m twelve, not five.”

Emmet supposed she was right. Apparently, she knew how poor his self esteem could be, and he knew how set in her ways she was. Came with the territory of training dragons. Even if she’d felt like being sick, she would’ve crossed her arms and stuck it out, all for him.

A blessing and a curse, to be loved that much.

The silence stretched, and Iris settled back in next to the bed once more to watch the game, which had been utterly forgotten for a bit. It took a while for Iris to get invested in it once more, clinging to Emmet’s hand like a lifeline. As if he would dissolve into a mist if she wasn’t there to tether him.

Technically, that wasn’t even incorrect. Emmet did need his family to persevere.

It was then that Iris said something that surprised him entirely.

“Wanna have a pokemon battle?” Iris offered suddenly, once the TV flipped to commercials and the lack of conversation became an annoyance.

“I am Emmet. I cannot conduct battles right now.” He felt lucky that the flatness of his voice masked the bitterness he could feel in the back of his throat. “Many of my team members are not even allowed into this room. You know this, Iris. You know this.”

(Why would you even bring it up? came a hurt little voice at the back of his mind.)

“I think I might’ve just thought of a way for you to.” Iris’s grin wasn’t quite smug, but she did look like a satisfied purrloin that had succeeded in catching a plump pidove. That looked softened a little when she saw her older brother’s eyes glint, a little life coming back into his worn face.

“How?”

“A video call!”

There was a scramble, then, while Iris tracked down an x-pad for Emmet, along with a nurse to help set things up for him. He’d been given a lap desk, the sort with supports that were supposed to go on either side of your legs. The gap was at least good for allowing all of the tubes and machines to do their jobs, unaffected.

And that was how Emmet came to be shouting at an x-pad, alone in his hospital room.

Before it had gotten to that point, Iris had shown him what to do, then left. There was a small pang in his chest as he’d been left alone again, but she had promised to call him on the x-pad once she was home so they could have their battle.

She’d keep her promise.

And she did! After a little while, the device had chimed and Emmet opened the prompt to see his little sister and… That was his team. The team that included key members that he wasn’t allowed to see. It was all he and Ingo’s pokemon, crowded as close as they could around the camera.

“It is so good to see you all,” the man all but whispered at the varied faces squeezed into the frame. Then there came a gurgling, triumphant sort of hiss and the view pitched.

“No! Eelektross, give it back, please!”

Obviously, Iris’s pleas fell flat because Emmet saw the face of his beloved partner pokemon, the one he wanted to hug and snuggle SO badly, swim into view. The eel’s eyes were upturned as he gazed at his trainer happily.

“Oh I miss you too, old friend,” Emmet said, so quiet only they both could hear. “More than you know.”

Eelektross trilled gently, rubbing his face against the screen. It took another short while for Iris to go around and let each of the pokemon say hello to their trainer again. Even those he’d seen just days before reacted with great joy at seeing his face.

“I didn’t even consider that Eelektross and company would have that sort of reaction,” said Iris sheepishly as she giggled at everyone’s reactions. “It’s been… Months, for them. Even though we all tell them about you every single day.”

It was then that Iris started setting up her own x-pad and Emmet saw where they were as the view rattled and jiggled while Iris attached it to a tripod. She and the pokemon (and Emmet, in spirit) were in the space allotted in Drayden’s backyard for battles, which suited Emmet just fine. No prying eyes to see what was going on.

“Okay, so what sort of battle do you want to have!” Iris phrased it more like a statement than a question.

“I am Emmet. Can we have a double battle?”

“Of course! I thought you’d never ask!” 

“Four pokemon each,” Emmet continued, setting out the basic rules. “Our normal teams. No items during the battle.”

“Oooh so just a straight up power display. I’m down.”

Emmet chose to fight with Eelektross, Galvantula, Archeops, and Durant. Iris smugly chose second, selecting her pokemon that would give him the biggest run for his money: Haxorus, Druddigon, Aggron, and Lapras.

Sending out Eelektross and Archeops first, the trusty duo who always served him well, Emmet felt a thrill in his veins that he’d feared he never would again. Calling for a Gastro Acid first, Emmet shrewdly took care of the Mold Breaker that Iris’s Haxorus possessed. Better safe than sorry.

(He’d never wanted to waste a move on the person he thought was his ally in multi battles, but against an opponent the move was invaluable.)

“Boo,” Iris shouted playfully from the far end of the field. “Lapras, Hydro Pump on Archeops!”

The flying bird was able to avoid a good portion of the jet shot at him, but he still took damage when it hit one wing, knocking him to the ground with a squawk. 

“Retaliate with a Rock Slide!”

Lapras was able to tank it, not having the speed to dodge, but Haxorus avoided the attack while executing a perfect Dragon Dance. Archeops, not wanting to let that slide now that he had recovered from using the previous move, went after the dragon with an Aerial Ace as if showing off his own moves.

Eelektross meanwhile fired a Thunderbolt at Lapras, but a straight bolt of lightning was sadly easier to dodge, and the Blizzard Iris called for did not help with visibility.

“I am glad I am not there to freeze!” Emmet had to work to not use his hand signals for his team. They wouldn’t be able to see him, and the likelihood he’d send the tablet flying in his enthusiasm was too high for his liking. “Eelektross, Discharge!”

The blizzard didn’t matter with a move like that. Archeops, still flying loops around Haxorus, avoided all but the barest damage from the attack, but Haxorus roared as the flare of electricity hit it, and Lapras fainted.

“Alright Druddigon, it’s your turn!”

A Focus Blast followed up by a Thunder Punch made quick work of the already damaged Archeops, hitting him while he was focused on Haxorus. For such a bulky dragon, she was quite fast, but Druddigon was not fast enough to avoid a Thunder Wave to the face from Elektross.

Emmet held his breath, but when Druddigon remained paralyzed in place, he sent out Durant.

“Shadow Claw, full speed ahead!”

The bug type executed the move perfectly, landing a critical hit right away. That caused Emmet to whoop in excitement, arms thrown into the air in elation. “Get her with Iron Head!”

In his haste and with his narrowed field of vision, he failed to note that Haxorus had gotten away from Eelektross, who was looking a little worse for wear, and charged over to intercept Durant. The dragon took a reduced amount of damage due to not taking the attack head-on, but she was able to repel Durant effectively.

“Thunderbolt again!” Emmet shouted, unable to resist pointing this time, and his partner lined up his shot so that the bolt pierced both dragons. It wasn’t the most effective type match, but what it lacked in effectiveness it made up for in sheer power.

Both dragons stumbled, and then Haxorus keeled over, fainted.

“Chip damage adds up,” chirped Emmet as Iris released Aggron.

“Oh be quiet you,” she cried back. “Now Aggron, Head Smash! Let’s switch it up!”

The behemoth ran at Durant, but then, to Emmet’s horror, last-minute turned to Eelektross and slammed him right out of the air. The eel was fainted before he even landed on the ground.

“What was that?!” Emmet cried as he released Galvantula, pretending to be outraged.

“Oh just some cryptic commands, you know how it is.” Now Iris looked REALLY smug. “Little something I’ve been teaching everyone.”

“Verrry clever,” he said with a feral grin. Things were not looking good for Emmet, with his two bugs against two dragons. But he’d fought his way out of similar predicaments before, even against these two particular dragons. “Galvantula, Cross Poison!”

They leapt into action, easily dodging Aggron’s Double-Edge to hit Druddigon, who had finally shaken her paralysis. It did not leave her poisoned, but the hit was critical, and Emmet couldn’t help but feel grateful for his streak of crit luck this battle.

“Autotomize!” called Iris, then, and Aggron shook off some of its armor plating to charge after both Galvantula and Durant, speed greatly increased.

The two bugs fought valiantly; Galvantula succeeded in poisoning Aggron, even, but between the two dragons and their rock and fire moves, Emmet did not win the battle.

“Durant is unable to battle!” shouted Iris, hands cupped around her mouth to distort her voice into something more announcer-like. “The battle goes to Champion Iris!” She then whooped and danced in a little circle, throwing her arms around the still-standing Druddigon.

“I am Emmet! I lost against you. But I feel good. Because it was very fun!” Emmet couldn’t help but call out some of his losing script from the Battle Subway as Iris healed everyone up.

“Because if a battle is not serious, it is not fun.” Iris made her voice flat, trying to sound like him. 

“Wrong script,” he called in response, diplomatically ignoring her imitation attempt.

That was not the only battle fought. The two trainers continued into the evening, pokemon more than happy to oblige them. The fact that this matchup was possible at all was fuelling them, causing the flame of battle to burn brightly.

Emmet too felt more alive than he had in all his time in the hospital, actually crying when he won for the first time that day. Iris teased him gently, but he was too exuberant to care at all in the moment.

Finally, when it was dark and the charge on the x-pad was running low, they called the session to an end. Their teams looked a little disappointed, but with promises from both trainers of more battles to come, they were pacified.

Iris moved back over to the x-pad, face taking up most of the view as she beheld her brother.

“Well? How was that?”

 Emmet swiped a few stray tears from his face, beaming at Iris even as he did so.

“Thank you,” he said with as much earnestness as he could put into his voice.

“Any time. It was no trouble.”

“I am Emmet. I cannot say how much this means to me.” He paused before continuing. “Thank you for helping me feel like myself again.”

Chapter Text

Time passed.

There was no funeral for Ingo, not yet. Everyone in the Grey family and those adjacent to it agreed that, as long as Emmet was stuck in the hospital with no way to attend in person, it was not fair to hold a funeral. Drayden, Iris, Elesa, and the others had all adored Ingo, had loved him desperately in their own ways, as a son, a sibling, a best friend.

But, naturally, none had been closer to him than Emmet, literally and figuratively.

No one could bear the thought of Emmet, the singular most important person in Emmet’s life, the man who had lost his best friend and much of himself, confined to a tiny screen as he attended via video call.

Yes, the family wanted closure, but it was not like there was a body waiting in a morgue somewhere. (Drayden, who had been forced to confront the mortality of his sons, could not decide if that made the situation better or worse. He was not forced into having a funeral that he considered premature, but at the same time he was unable to hold his precious son for one final time.)

It was never said aloud, but there was another component to it.

If no breakthrough for Emmet came, there would have to be two funerals instead of just one.

It was coming up on a year since Ingo had died and Emmet had been injured. The time had worn on Emmet, and those fears that had been temporarily chased away when the man had first been saved in the hospital began to creep back.

Terminal injury. That’s what it had been called. Emmet couldn’t survive like this forever, which… Had somewhat been forgotten in the flow of time. As the new normal had set in.

Emmet had begun feeling sick, blood pressure fluctuating from too high to too low in ways that caused his life support machinery to beep in ways that grated on his ears. The sounds always brought Nurses rushing to his room and taking measurements and doing tests. He’d learned to endure better over the course of that year, but it was still terrible.

Realistically, Emmet wasn’t actually sure if he’d learned to tolerate the medical care better or if he was just masking his reactions from himself.

He’d needed some of his non-organic parts replaced, eventually, as well. Sometimes the new grafts weren’t as well-received by his body as the first ones luckily had been, causing bouts of pain and nausea and other symptoms.

Today, though he felt a bit woozy, Emmet was excited that Elesa and Skyla were going to visit him. It was the day before his and Ingo’s birthday, and, while he’d specifically requested alone time on the actual day, Elesa had loudly insisted that the day before his birthday was not, in fact, his birthday, and Emmet had been unable to argue with that. Elesa was strong willed and stubborn, and while it was occasionally annoying, Emmet could not deny that he felt touched that she was so insistent on visiting.

In the times before, Emmet and Ingo’s birthday parties had been huge affairs, even moreso as adults than children simply because it was fun. Elesa never turned down texting them HAPPY REMOVAL DAY every year after she’d learned they’d been born via c-section. She thought it was hilarious, and Ingo did too. Emmet would roll his eyes and complain but everyone knew he laughed too.

To be alone on his birthday for the first time… It was no wonder Emmet wanted to be allowed to mourn his lost brother on that day.

But today was not that day. Emmet was laying in his bed, not having bothered to prop himself up. It was easier to wrap up his cold body in blankets when he was horizontal, anyways. When the knock on the door came, Emmet was in a doze. He blinked awake when the door opened, revealing his adopted sister and her girlfriend.

“Hey Emmet,” said Skyla with a wave as Elesa set down lunch on the table near the couch, popping some drinks into the mini fridge.

“I am Emmet. Hello, Skyla. How are you? And your planes?” Despite his exhaustion, Emmet was able to smile at her. This was not the first time Skyla had visited with Elesa, and Emmet was always happy to see her, despite their healthy rivalry in the past. That had dwindled to nothing ever since the separation of the twins.

“Speedy as ever,” she said, flopping onto the couch. “You know how it is. The gym has been busy lately, too, now that it’s pretty much summer and tourists are really ramping up.”

“I am not surprised. We get more challengers on the Battle Subway in the summer as well. They are always surprised there is air conditioning on the trains.”

“Can you imagine if there wasn’t?” Elesa said, walking over to Emmet and kissing his head. “Nice to see you again, sweetie.”

“Hi Elesa,” he said, smiling up at her. “I do not want to imagine. Ingo and I would have fainted. Several times. At least.”

“Right, right, body heat issues,” she replied, ruffling his hair before taking a seat.

Some of the humor in the situation faded from Emmet’s mind as he realized that he was now dealing with the opposite issues. Between the amount of time his blood spent outside his body, the medications being put into it, and his own fluctuating homeostasis, he often felt cold, blankets or no. No matter what devices the hospital used to warm his chilled blood before sending it back to his heart, there was some cold that ran deeper than that.

(Somewhere, out there, there was a freezing, incomplete husk that had also been the result of a forceful split. Emmet did not continue that line of thought.)

“At least it’s not boiling in here,” said Skyla, and Emmet finally tilted his bed up so he could see them. Both wore fun summer clothes, Skyla in a red tank top, shorts, and aviator sunglasses that she was removing and tucking into her bag, and Elesa in a sundress with a big straw hat. She also had glasses, but she put hers onto the brim of her hat for safekeeping.

“There we go, now we get to see your cute face,” Elesa teased, beginning to unpack the legitimate picnic basket she’d brought with her.

Emmet, with his eye bags as dark as bruises, lines on his face, and sunken appearance that he was anything but, but he didn’t say it out loud.

“Wish the window opened,” said Skyla, shading her eyes and looking out at the blue sky and city sprawl. “Pretty nice view.”

“I have asked before,” Emmet said, sighing. “Hospital rooms need specific temperatures. Humidity. It is not safe otherwise. I wish it was warmer, though.”

Elesa caught the double meaning of that, he could tell by her eyes, but she said nothing. “Alright, you up for any food? I brought something I know you’ll love…”

Emmet did not feel hungry, but he also did not feel sick, so he nodded, unable to help being curious despite his ambivalence towards food. These days, he rarely felt hunger at all.

“We found the best restaurant we could,” Skyla said when Elesa pulled out a white foam takeout container. “Real fancy ass place, but one that still did takeout so we could bring it to you.”

“The tastiest spaghetti and meatballs money can buy,” Elesa stated as she opened the container with a flourish. “Or at least we hope it is, we didn’t taste it. That would’ve been rude.”

“Not for lack of trying,” said Skyla with a shit-eating grin and a giggle as Elesa fetched Emmet’s tray and set it up on his bed so she could pass him his meal. “Maybe there used to be four meatballs. You’d never know.”

Elesa ignored her gremlin girlfriend as she handed Emmet utensils. The spaghetti did look extremely good, with just the right amount of cheese.

“And for dessert, decaf tiramisu. Coffee taste, but without most of the caffeine. Certified safe by your doctors.”

“Thank you both,” Emmet said with a huge, genuine smile, tired as he looked. “You went out and got my favorites. I am Emmet. I am verrry grateful. For you both thinking of me so kindly.”

“Of course, Emmie,” said Elesa. “You’re family. You think we’d just forget about you?”

“How could we forget our favorite train nerd?” Skyla said, passing Elesa half of a big sandwich and taking a bite of what remained.

“With your head in the clouds. I would not be surprised.” Emmet’s eyes narrowed playfully, grasping for a little bit of normalcy in his rivalry with Skyla. She blinked, obviously not expecting him to respond in such a way, but that only lasted for a split second before a smirk crossed her face.

“Better than in the dirt like you.”

“The subway tunnels are not made of dirt.”

“Yeah, but they’re under it!”

Elesa laughed loudly, surprised but joyful, and Emmet felt warm inside. He knew that his gentle decline was causing a lot of sleepless nights, but he was helpless to stop it. So Emmet did what he could: be present for those he loved.

“Laugh it up, Babe!” Skyla said, sounding comically scandalized. “You choose! What’s better, planes or trains!”

It was not like this hadn’t come up before. They all knew what Elesa would say, and Emmet’s mouth curled at the edges in anticipation.

“Mmmmm,” she said, tapping the corner of her mouth as she pretended to think. “Gotta go trains, because they’re more practical for everyday travel. You know I am all about doing things in style, but style doesn’t get you home with an armload of groceries.”

“Ha!” Emmet boasted.

“She doesn’t think you’re stylish, was all I heard!”

“Well. I am Emmet. And I am not right now. But in my Subway Master uniform. I am fucking handsome. So jot that down!”

Skyla cackled, Elesa snorted, and neither could refute that as Emmet puffed out his chest.

Talking about his life, his job, and his brother had gotten easier as time wore on. Thinking about them did not feel like a shadow tendril was digging into his ribcage. He could recall moments with Ingo with something approaching fondness, though there was always grief there. And of course he had his bad days, especially when he was in pain, either physical or phantom.

The therapist was helpful. Honestly, she was instrumental in all of everything, despite Emmet’s unique situation. He could honestly say that he would be far worse off without his weekly sessions with her.

Emmet knew, tucked away in the corners of his mind and in between the frantic beats of his heart that wanted so desperately to live, that his birthday would not be one of his good days. He knew that it would bring phantom pains and memories and everything he worked so hard to suppress every day.

That was not fair to him, he thought, but when was life ever? If life was fair, he’d be able to press his cheek to his partner pokemon’s smooth skin and feel the thrumming of electricity in the powerful muscles just underneath. He’d be able to drive trains and conduct battles and smell the wonderful scent of the new summer. He’d be able to walk. And above all, he’d still have Ingo on his hip and in his life.

… That was not what Emmet wanted to focus on, not with Elesa and Skyla in his room. He could wallow tomorrow.

“... Elesa.”

“Yeah?” She’d regained her composure sometime when he was lost in thought.

“Do you remember Ingo and I’s twenty-first birthday?”

“Emmet. Emmie. How could I forget?”

“They passed out didn’t they?”

“Ohhhhh yeah they did.”

Emmet laughed lightly, a far away look on his face. “I am Emmet. We did… Verrry badly.”

“Okay so. The two of them were so excited to be able to drink, finally. Drayden said they could go to a bar with me to celebrate instead of doing a family get together. Something about how twenty-first birthdays are more fun as a friend thing.”

Elesa moved to cross her legs, getting comfy in the chair, raising a hand to gesture as she spoke. “When the twins were younger, they very proudly showed me some scans and diagrams of their body because they thought they were cool. They were right, but that also gave me a critical bit of knowledge.” She leaned, elbowing Skyla gently. “They only had the one liver. Sure, it was pretty big from what I could tell but still! Only one!”

“You are verrry happy to tell this story.”

“Oh Emmet I am delighted to tell this story.” After another cheeky grin, she continued. “So I told them to take it slow. So did Drayden. But you wanna know what these two guys said when I was like ‘hey you’re drinking kinda a lot’?”

“What did the wobbuffoons say?”

Emmet’s ‘hey!’ was largely ignored.

Now Elesa was laughing. “‘But we have two mouths!’ they said. They BOTH wanted the experience, y’know. Never mind they’d both get buzzed from one of them having a drink. Which I told them.”

“You said ‘yeah but one liver’ in response to what we said. Yup,” Emmet chuckled, having done a terrible Elesa impression.

“They got sick and passed out so hard I had to drag them to a taxi. You know how heavy one and a half twenty one year old guys are?”

“She was too drunk to use Zebstrika,” Emmet quipped, and she shot him a dirty look.

“Either way, seeing Ingo and Emmet drunk sure was hilarious. Like, the more drunk they got, the less they remembered that they couldn’t walk in separate directions and stuff. Eventually they gave up on leg control entirely and just sat on the fuckin’ floor. I had to get them into a booth.”

“You said you shoved us in there. I do not remember.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you were wasted!”

“Dragons, I would’ve loved to be a cutiefly on the wall for that,” Skyla said, laughing.

“But if you were a cutiefly. Planes would be redundant, I think. Yup.”

Emmet’s smug look was unbelievable as the women took a moment to process his statement. Then–

“Emmet.”

“I am Emmet.”

“I hate you.”

“Wow. You telling a man stuck in the hospital you hate him. Verrry low blow.”

Skyla opened her mouth, making an aborted sound before she snapped it shut again. “... Not everything you think should be said aloud,” she muttered. “Not even to get back at you.” She pointed a finger at Emmet, cracking a smile again.

“I admire your restraint,” Elesa said, kissing her cheek while Emmet stuck out his tongue, chalking it up as a victory for himself.

There came a bit of a rattle from Elesa’s purse, then, and she jerked a little.

“Shit I forgot someone is here to see you,” she said, reaching inside. “Hydreigon. Drayden let me have her for the day so I could take her to see you.”

“I thought she was not allowed back after she panicked last time?” Emme’s voice was full of wonder.

The first and last time Hydreigon had visited Emmet, she had been so badly upset at seeing only one of her little hatchlings that she had gone into a panicked, mourning state, doing her best to protect the remaining twin but causing damage to some of the tubes keeping him alive in the process.

Her injuries had caused days of nausea for the poor man, and horrible bruising from the spots where some of his IVs had been torn out. Drayden had nearly gotten bitten trying to get her to calm down and uncurl from Emmet’s prone form before she had realized what she was doing and allowed herself to be returned to her pokeball.

It had not been a good day.

So, while he had seen Hydreigon on video call a few times on the x-pad, she had not returned to his hospital room.

Truth be told, he was a little apprehensive to see her again, but he was also Emmet. Fear was not an emotion he wore well, and this time would be different. He wanted to see her.

“Elesa is good at talking,” Skyla answered.

“That’s not all,” Elesa quickly amended, looking guilty. “We released Hydreigon in the waiting room to show them she was sorry and able to remain calm this time.”

“I bet that they enjoyed having a dragon in the waiting room. Especially a hydreigon.” Emmet couldn’t help but snort as he tried to imagine it. It was hard, though. He’d never seen the waiting room.

“They were surprisingly chill,” Skyla noted, tapping her chin. “But yeah. You want us to let her out?”

Emmet nodded, blinking at the bright flash even though he’d anticipated it, and then there were talons clicking gently on the linoleum as the dark furred wyvern shuffled. If a pokemon could look guilty, she did. Emmet could’ve sworn that even her secondary heads looked remorseful, even if their expressions were largely static.

(Just like Ingo, he couldn’t help but think. He always had been good at understanding even the most subtle of expressions.)

“Hello, Hydreigon,” he said gently, holding out a hand to her. She made a mournful little noise and pressed her nose to his hand, closing her eyes when his fingers found the edge of her fringe and scratched it gently. “I see you are calmer this time. Yup yup. I am sorry I scared you last time.”

“Emmet…” said Elesa, looking at him in concern. “I don’t think–”

She was interrupted by a sad warble from Hydreigon as she backed up to look him over. Last time she hadn’t really taken a moment; she’d just seen Emmet without Ingo and lost it. Her void maroon eyes squinted, and she stepped towards him again, nosing at his chest with great care.

“See, I am okay,” Emmet said, wrapping his arms around her head, pressing his forehead to hers. His words were somewhat undermined by the weakness that had started to bleed into the edges of his speech whenever he talked these days, but he was not lying.

With a gentle chirp, the dragon pulled back to look at him again. Without hesitation, she took the edges of the blankets he had covered himself with and drew them back.

“Hey!” Emmet yelped, understandably. He felt the same way as he figured getting pansed in gym class as a child would. Shame, fear, surprise. But he did not think kids would have the same sense of ‘I do not want to scare you.’ 

Once again, Skyla made a tiny cut off sound as she took in what she was seeing, and Hydreigon sniffed the space where Ingo used to be. Emmet glared at her accusingly, opening his mouth to ask why she’d do that to him, when Elesa spoke up.

“I think… She’s trying to process what happened, Emmet. In the only way she really can, by looking at you.”

“Please stay behind the yellow line,” he murmured to Hydreigon quietly as her nose came too close to the edge of his body for his liking. Luckily she drew back immediately and fixed him with a sad, tired look before nibbling his hair with one of her secondary heads. The other tugged gently on the shoulder of his shirt, a little echo of her old grooming behavior.

Emmet couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “I promise they are keeping me clean.” Grumbling, Hydreigon nuzzled into his neck, closing her eyes again and remaining there until she felt the human’s hot tears splash onto her scaly cheek. “Sorry,” Emmet said hoarsely, drawing the blankets up again so he could use them to wipe his face. “I did not mean to do that.”

At this distance, he could see the pupils in her eyes, only slightly darker than the surrounding iris. Then he couldn’t see much of anything as a big forked dragon tongue ran across his face, effectively cleaning up the tears but leaving slobber behind.

Emmet shrieked in surprise, and Elesa and Skyla couldn’t help but giggle a little as most of the sadness evaporated instantly for the moment.

“Rude!” Emmet gasped as he tried to fend off more of Hydreigon’s lick attacks. “Verrry rude!”

He could feel the churring noise in Hydreigon’s throat where his hands held her neck as well as hear it, and the traitorous dragon was easily able to lean forward and lick the other side of his face. Emmet’s mouth crumpled in displeasure, both eyes tightly shut as the dragon spit dripped off his chin and spiked up his bangs.

“Here’s a napkin, dude,” said Skyla, amusement in her voice, as she took one of Emmet’s hands and pressed a napkin into it. The man in the bed immediately scrubbed at his face and hair, then glared at Hydreigon once his eyes were clear. She just laughed a draconian laugh, deep and rumbling somewhere in her chest.

It took Emmet only a moment for his expression to soften, and he reached out to scratch Hydreigon under the chin. “Thank you,” he said after a moment. “I know how much you love and care about me.”

The dragon nuzzled his chest, pressing her nose there for a few moments, feeling his heart beat. Hydreigon in general were possessive and protective, and she was no different. But that emotion, that instinct did not come from nowhere. Whether it was fear or love that drove them, the end result was the same. Some would say that it did not matter, then. Some, like that man who had headed Team Plasma, breaking the will of a tortured dragon in order to make it stronger.

Emmet knew that was a lie. So did anyone who cared about pokemon, truly, at all. It made all the difference, actually.

Strength through love was always better than strength through fear.

(Emmet would know.)

▲▽

For most of his birthday, aside from the odd medical check-in, Emmet was alone as requested. Not even his pokemon were visiting that day.

He had been right. While the day before had been one of his better days, this day was not. Woken early by phantom pains, Emmet could not help but dwell in sadness on all of his past birthdays with Ingo. How they had always come to a strategic agreement on cake. How they had been so insistent as children that they each deserved their own birthday presents, thank you very much. How even into adulthood, who was the older twin was constantly swapping.

“Whichever answer is funnier,” Ingo answered honestly when asked about it one time, and Emmet had laughed in agreement.

“Yup yup. We each get a turn. Depends on the day. And how much paperwork or responsibility is required.”

“Then we simply play a round or three of rock paper scissors to see who must be the older sibling and take on those duties.” Ingo’s eyes narrowed in what could be considered a smirk of sorts.

The depot agents had taken advantage of such jokes when planning parties for the Subway Masters before, Emmet remembered. He also remembered that it was Ingo who had come up with that hilarious idea as children. Typical, Ingo was usually the one to come up with jokes more easily than Emmet most of the time.

Just another thing he’d loved about Ingo.

Emmet was the innovator in other respects, though, and he always appreciated how willing Ingo was to go along with his plans. (For the most part, at least.) For instance, Emmet had been the twin to come up with the idea to have a pose for their subway job, designed after the pointing they did at their job already.

“If we are going to work with trains, we need a signature pose,” was what Emmet had said, tapping his chin one day in their early adulthood. “Something snappy! And dramatic!”

“Emmet,” Ingo said with an air of despair. “We can’t even wake up and stretch some days without smacking each other!”

“We will get it,” the other said reassuringly, snapping to a salute with the wrong hand and taking his twin’s hat out. They both tracked it as it tumbled to the floor, then looked at each other. “... Eventually.”

The next try left Ingo wheezing from a gangly elbow he’d taken to the side and Emmet wincing, able to feel the pain vaguely. “I am sorry,” he said, trying to sound sincere. “I am not doing this on purpose!”

“It’s alright, Emmet,” Ingo replied once he caught his breath. “We lack elbow room.”

Emmet considered, briefly, whacking him again.

It took them longer than either would admit to figure out how to transition into a mirrored point-and-call pose without any injuries, and longer still to fluidly snap to position at the same time. Before they got to that point, they ended up more bruised than they’d cared to, but. They did get it eventually.

“Dad! Look!” they’d called one day when visiting him, showing off their newfound skill, Emmet grinning widely and Ingo sporting his signature frown.

“We learned this for the subway!” Emmet called. “We wanted to have a signature pose! Because it is cool!”

“It was Emmet’s idea, but he’s right!”

It was Emmet’s idea, Emmet repeated mentally in the present as the memory faded back into the recesses of his mind. How he longed to hear those words said with such pride again. He’d never say it aloud out of fear of sounding selfish, but one of the many, many, many reasons he wanted Ingo back was just to have that support. That love. It was a special kind.

… He just wanted Ingo back. Every facet of him, in every facet of his own life.

There were some aches and pains that never fully healed, he supposed. And this was one of them. The feeling of being lost would never disappear entirely, would it?

Emmet supposed he’d either find out, or he wouldn’t. He was aware of his worsening condition. It was of no matter. Not at this exact moment, at least.

Eventually, Drayden did visit. Yes, perhaps that was breaking Emmet’s request, but once the man was in the room, Emmet did not care very much. That was his father; if anyone on earth was close to understanding what Emmet was feeling, he was.

Very few words were spoken the entirety of Drayden’s visit. Not much happened at all, aside from missing Ingo. It was just Too Much, at the end of the day, and Emmet had to admit he was glad his father was there for at least some of it. He’d done a bit of celebrating the fact he was alive the day before. Now was time for mourning what was lost. (Again.)

Yesterday, they’d ended the day with a little movie marathon; Iris had shown up eventually. Hydreigon had fallen asleep with her primary head resting next to Emmet. Drayden had even come by with some cookies for everyone.

It had been nice. Easy enough to divorce mentally from his birthday.

Today was quiet. And that was good.

Eventually Drayden did get up to go, saying his I-love-yous with a voice gruff from the silence. Emmet responded in kind with a flash of fingers and a world weary smile, but he meant it.

A few hours after Drayden left, Emmet was hit with a thought. One that left him trembling and his emotions rising again from the earlier calm.

The depot agents had visited Emmet several times throughout his hospitalization, and Emmet did not know how, in his multiple video calls with Jackie, the topic hadn’t come up. As he stabbed at his xtrans screen in the dark with his finger, missing multiple times not due to the darkness but because of shaking hands, Emmet figured it was simply because of the fact that human ghosts were still new to him. Either that, or because the others had been in the room.

His breath stuck in his chest like humid summer air despite the fact that the hospital was quite dry. As the xtrans buzzed, the man felt his desperation rising inside. It reminded him, absurdly, of certain levels of video games that Elesa had shown him where you needed to keep climbing out of reach of lava or poison or water.

Why that comparison came to Emmet now he did not know, nor did he care. All he knew is that it felt like bile rising in his throat but worse.

“Boss?” came Jackie’s voice through the small speakers as they squinted at him. “Why are you calling at eleven at night? Are you… You don’t look so good.”

Yes, he must look a mess, mustn’t he? Emmet could feel the tears sliding down his cheeks as his chest heaved, but he forced out words anyways.

“Jackie,” he pleaded, unable to keep the whine out of his voice. “Is there… Any chance that Ingo could be a ghost? Please.”

Jackie’s posture went stiff, visible even through the tiny xtrans screen, and it took them a moment to answer.

“Boss… I can’t… I can’t know that… I don’t…” They turned away. “I have no clue, Emmet. He… He’s not here now. I wouldn’t lie to you. I don’t know the variations in how long it takes ghosts to form, either. I just… He’s not here. I would tell you if he was.”

(How tragic, they thought, if Ingo had become a ghost. Bound to the station while Emmet was bound to machines far away.)

“How long did it take you to form?”

They could tell that Emmet was not in a good state, and thus excused the question. “A few months, I think…”

Soon they were just looking at a blurred image of silver hair and pale skin as Emmet rested his forehead against his wrist and gave in to sobs.

“I just…. I just want. Want him back. I do not c-care about my own state. I would… Would give anything to have him back.” Emmet sounded like he was choking on the words as he cried, and Jackie could not help the tears that escaped their own eyes. The gut region of their soul felt like a maelstrom, twisting in a very human way at the display of raw emotion.

I miss him too, they wanted to say, but how those words and that sentiment would pale in comparison to what Emmet must be feeling.

“I do not even know if he is dead. A god stole him away. A god stole him. And I do not know if he is suffering. Or at peace. Or alive and changed. I know which is worse. But they are all bad.” There was a pause and the intake of a deep, shuddering breath. “Why? Why?”

Jackie felt unmoored. They knew that this was irregular, that Emmet in a sound mind would never ask these unanswerable questions to his employee normally. The whole situation was fucked and they could not blame their boss.

It was his birthday, after all. The first one alone he had ever had.

“I don’t know, Emmet,” was all they could say. “No one does.” Their guilt crept back, just a little.

That was how Jackie helped their boss – no, their friend – through a panic attack on the last hour of his birthday. A dead person and a half dead man.

What a fitting pair they made, at the end of the day.

Chapter Text

The world was getting cold again, Ingo noticed as he continued his job as a berry harvester. Soon, within the next month, the snow would start up again and blanket the world in white. Somewhere, amidst those months that mushed together like shapes in a snowstorm, was the date that Ingo had arrived in Hisui.

How far he’d come.

(He wished he had come further.)

Over time, the loneliness had dulled into something more bearable, an exhaustion and lack of energy knotted in the back of his skull that Ingo locked away. Deep down, he knew this was bad, that if he was back where he had come from that would somehow change things, but what could he do but ignore that train of thought?

There was nowhere to go. So compartmentalization it was.

As the region grew colder, the berry harvest yielded less and less. Certain species still grew during this time of the year, but they were not as numerous as the summer crop. Still, Ingo persisted, wondering what they’d do with him when the ice set in.

“Perhaps they’ll have you help with the cooking,” Calaba suggested as she sipped tea out of a clay cup. Ingo tried to visit her when he could, when she wasn’t busy. “That is a skill you now possess, yes?”

“I do, yes,” said Ingo, drinking from his own cup. “However, I still have trouble with my right hand, see. I drop things. This is of course avoidable when my tracks are set towards collecting berries, as I can simply choose to only use my left, but skills that require you to use both hands in different ways at the same time? I am afraid they may be beyond my current skill set. And I would be mortified if the state of my cab caused disrepair to someone else’s meal.”

“Hmm,” Calaba said, leaning back where she sat. “I suspect you might have nerve damage, son. Or something of the sort, at least. You came to us with a wounded head, perhaps that, or something about your scar, caused a weakness in your right arm.”

“Either that, or this was a trait I possessed before I came to this station.”

“That is also plausible.”

There was a bit of silence that stretched on before Calaba continued. “I’m not entirely sure what you’ll do in the winter, son. We shall see, or you can request a meeting with Irida to discuss it if you’d prefer.”

“Is she busy?”

“She’s a clan leader, of course she’s busy,” said Calaba with a raised eyebrow. “Unfortunately, you’re not a Warden so you can’t just walk up to her and ask. Even if she looks to be doing nothing, she is still pondering what she must do next. Truly, she is bad at taking breaks.”

“... I cannot recall why, but that sounds familiar.”

Calaba raised her cup to him with a grizzled smile. “Perhaps, within the Space that you fit before, you were like that too.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny this.”

The little old lady laughed, wrinkles around her eyes crinkling up at the edges. “That’s all the answer I need.”

(Internally, Calaba felt bad for someone who had seemingly been so driven and was now unmoored. How awful must that feel, and to not even remember your true Space in the world!)

As she was thinking, Ingo had finished his tea, pouring more from the teapot before she got up and did so for him.

“How is the interloper in the Highlands?” Calaba asked, then, deciding to change topics.

“You mean the aggressive male sneasler that showed up last month?”

“Yes, that one.”

Ingo sighed. “I don’t know the whole story. Zinta has been keeping me up to date during our training, and Lady Sneasler has been agitated when she watches us or decides to visit my station. She watches my progress with training, but her focus seems to be elsewhere, far down tracks I cannot understand.”

The Noble pokemon was still tailing Ingo seemingly as often as she could, but from what Calaba had seen, Ingo was right. She was always on high alert, constantly vigilant despite the fact that not even a large alpha would attack the Pearl Clan settlement itself.

“But she hasn’t been here much in the last five days,” Ingo continued to muse. “I wonder if this is due to the unruly passenger…”

“It is because she is raising kits, I reckon,” Calaba said then. “As if our climbing Noble wasn’t enough trouble already, what with refusing to take a Warden, she also hatches her children in the autumn every year, right as food and warmth grow scarce.” She huffed, cradling her cup in both hands to draw on its warmth. “If you ask me she likes to cause trouble on purpose.”

Ingo blinked, then looked happy, or so Calaba thought. “Oh. What do sneasels look like? I can’t say I have seen one around.”

“They are sneaky little buggers,” Calaba said with a nod. “Pale purple, just like their evolved forms, with hooked claws and little fangs that can either swipe your food or poison you when you aren’t looking. Their feathers are much shorter, they only grow out when they evolve.”

“I would love to meet Lady Sneasler’s children when they are old enough,” Ingo said, warmth in his voice contrasting with the frown still on his face.

“Maybe only one at a time. They sound cute, yes, but poison kits are understandably a handful. Or better yet, keep them away from your hands entirely.”

“If Lady Sneasler is run off her territory, then we may have no choice,” Ingo said gravely.

“Son, Lady Sneasler is a Sinnoh-blessed Noble. She will not be run off by some common alpha, powerful as they may be.”

“If it’s so powerful, it should find its own territory,” Ingo couldn’t help but grumble, scowling into his tea. “... Apologies, Miss Calaba, that was rude.”

“Rude to who, the cantankerous pokemon stirring up trouble?” Calaba snorted. “Be rude about it, by all means, because maybe then it will get so offended it leaves.”

Ingo chuckled at that, taking another sip. “One can only hope.”

“Alphas are crazed with wild might and the frenzy of battle,” Calaba continued. “But that is not a gift from the Almighty. That is commonplace bloodlust. Sinnoh itself will never allow its beloved to be displaced.”

With a pang, Ingo could not help but think that Sinnoh must not have loved him very much at all, then.

“I am glad that Lady Sneasler will prevail,” Ingo said. “You have great faith in her.”

“Everyone does.”

Silence fell, for a while, only the blowing of wind through the tents of the Pearl Clan settlement to be heard. The weather looked like it was making a turn for the worst, or would be somewhat soon. The whole clan was staying inside today, not wanting to get caught in a storm.

“I should finish the last of my berry gathering before I retreat to my own home,” Ingo said ruefully once he’d finished his now-lukewarm tea. “I do not wish to become soaked, not in this cold.”

“Yes,” Calaba mused, standing to accept his offered cup. “Awfully late in the year for a storm like this, and this one is promising to be bad. You can feel the heaviness in the air as soon as you go outside.”

“I do not know much about this region, this is true, but even I can guess that a thunderstorm of this nature after the frosts have begun is a rare occurrence indeed.”

Ingo then stood too, stretching, back popping in equal parts pain and relief as he fetched his walking stick. “Thank you for the tea, Miss Calaba. It was a peaceful afternoon and a wonderful way to rest my cab.”

“You’re welcome, son. Now be careful out there, and be quick. No one wants to have to fetch you during a monsoon.”

“With luck and a blessing I won’t have to be.”

Bidding his friend farewell, Ingo left from the tent, picking up his berry basket by the door. Gligar immediately alighted on his shoulder, squeaking happily and nuzzling his neck.

“Yes yes, it’s wonderful to see you too, my small friend.” Taking a razz berry from the basket before he put it on, he passed it to his pokemon, who snapped it up hastily. “Will you spend the storm riding out wind currents, or stationed with me?”

His pokemon paused for a moment as if thinking, then flapped his wings, looking at the sky.

“That answers that question.”

Gligar was becoming bolder again, at least. That was one positive in Ingo’s life; the little scorpion bat had gone through a few phases already with his new trainer.

At first, he had been sort of an on-and-off type. Some moments, he’d be enamored with some aspect of Ingo. His ripped coat, his shimmering hair, or his large shoes. Oftentimes it was how Ingo knew how to skritch under his chin just right. But he, just as often, needed space, used to being wild for all of his short life up to this point.

Ingo was perfectly content to let him wander as he pleased. But then, after a period the pokemon got clingy. He had no way of asking, but Gligar had had some experience that left him hesitant to venture out on his own. At least, that was what Ingo suspected. Perhaps he just had realized that there was nothing worth wandering for and that his trainer could provide for all his wants.

(Ingo strongly believed his former theory to be true, though what Gligar had seen was a mystery and always would be.)

But now Gilgar was wandering again, bit by bit, especially when the winds were high and he could zip through the sky, chittering into the gale as he went on adrenaline fueled adventures.

“You are a little daredevil,” Ingo had said affectionately one night after Gligar had been gone all day due to a strong storm. The purple pokemon hadn’t disagreed, opting to focus on the berry in his pinchers.

Truly, it delighted Ingo to have a partner pokemon once more.

As he headed to his last berry-gathering stop of the day, Gligar floated on the wind near him, twirling and crying happily even as dark clouds gathered on the horizon. Eventually, after a while, his calls faded away and he flapped off to go ride the storm.

Ingo wished he would have stayed, but he would never verbalize this. He’d only been at Calaba’s an hour ago, but the loneliness was already back. Time to push that away; it would serve him no good.

The man set to work, gathering what he could from the remoteness of the Icelands and Highlands. The yield was meager, but it was better than nothing. As he picked a somewhat shriveled oran berry, damaged by the cold, he wished Lady Sneasler was there to keep him company.

He then felt rather selfish. Gligar had not been born to be a companion, he was of a solitary species, and Lady Sneasler had kits to attend to. He could not make demands of them; it would not be fair.

Ingo was brought back to himself when he felt a certain wetness drip off his wrist. As he looked down he realized he’d squeezed the oran berry too hard, skin splitting under his fingernails, spilling the pale blue juice and bits of pulp down the back of his hand. Trying to ignore the fact that he’d just cost the Pearl Clan a bit of food, he scraped the remaining flesh of the fruit out of the rind and put it into his own mouth. It didn’t matter that oran berries were not something he liked much at all, simply throwing it out wasn’t an option.

Shaking his damp, sticky hands in displeasure, Ingo wished that his afternoon was going better. There had to be a stream around, didn’t there? Luckily, it did not take him long to hear the trickling of running water and beeline towards it.

But, as Ingo bent to scrub his hands vigorously in the cold mountain runoff, he also heard something else. It was sad, pitiful and tiny, and Ingo did not realize it wasn’t in his own head at first. When he stood up and stilled, straining to listen over the sound of the stream, it did not repeat right away. After a minute, though, it finally did and Ingo cautiously made his way over to the noise.

It was a mewling of sorts, a squeaking that sounded like a baby pokemon. And that’s exactly what Ingo found, a little lavender kit all curled up in a patch of reeds near the river. Its paws had hooked claws, the short feather on its left ear was bedraggled, and it had a gash above one of its hind legs. When Ingo parted the reeds, it hissed at him, baring tiny fangs, though it could not have been more than a few days old.

“Oh, little one,” Ingo said, making his loud voice as gentle as he could, no matter that it made his speech rasp like an old man. “What happened to you?”

Of course this was a sneasel, probably one of Lady Sneasler’s if he had to guess. Holding out a hand for the baby to sniff, he just had to hope it wouldn’t poison him. Luckily it chose to freeze in fear instead, until it did stick its head out to sniff at his hand. Somehow that was enough to endear him to it, and he was able to pick it up. Dimly, in the back of his mind, Ingo realized that a wild pokemon in this hostile environment acting so willing to be touched was probably not a good thing in terms of its health.

It needed its mother, who could keep it properly warm and feed it just the right foods. Ingo had no idea what to do about the second issue, but he could certainly help with the first. Before he did that, however, he needed to clean the wound out so it didn’t get infected.

If it was a poison type, maybe it would be alright in that respect? Ingo wasn’t sure they could get infections like other pokemon could, but it was not the time to test that theory.

Petting the sneasel’s head, Ingo spoke. “Alright, little passenger. Please allow me to take care of your injury lest your cab fall into disrepair.”

He knelt at the edge of the stream, holding the sneasel in one hand. With the other, he stroked the matted fur around the injury gently in order to let the little pokemon know what he was doing. It tensed, curling its lip, before relaxing again, although it kept an eye on Ingo’s hand. Slowly, he scooped up water and washed the wound clean of dirt and rubbed away the blood clumped into the lavender fur. The sneasel did not like it, obviously, but it tolerated the washing well enough.

“Bravo,” Ingo said as softly as he could (which is to say, a typical speaking volume). “You have performed admirably. I will just get you a bandage, and we can be on our way to see your mother.”

The sneasel was set down in a patch of dry grass while Ingo turned his attention to his coat. It had begun to grow tattered, seeing as he wore it every day and hated to take it off for really any reason. One striped cuff had been torn off entirely, leaving a jagged rip behind, after it had caught on a branch when Ingo was running from an angry piloswine. The collar was growing thin at the edges, and soon it would start to fray. The bottom of the coat too was ragged, tears creeping higher and higher along the coat like the fingers of some god that was trying to erase him.

Originally, that tiny, mysterious strip of near-white fabric had remained attached to Ingo’s coat by the interlocking metal teeth it had come with. The man wanted to keep it close, for whatever reason. He felt that it was important, though he genuinely had no idea why or how. But then his coat had begun to rip, and Ingo, terrified, removed the bit of white and hid it away safely in a wooden box in his tent. The stained shirt he had arrived in Hisui in was also there, along with anything he’d had from his life before.

He had to keep it safe. Though he desperately wanted it near, ‘safe’ meant preventing it from tearing off when the next wayward pokemon gave him trouble.

But all of this heartache meant he had some strips of fabric dangling from his sleeve and hem, and he was able to take his pocketknife and slice off a small bit. He ignored the pain this caused him.

“Alright, one bandage. Are you ready, small passenger?”

When it did not bite him, he carefully tied the fabric around its leg over the gash, and that was that. Taking somewhat of a risk, Ingo tucked the sneaslet against his neck where it would be able to see, but where it was also protected from the wind by his collar and could steal his body heat. It didn’t seem to mind, and certainly didn’t immediately try and attack his jugular, so he’d probably made the right choice.

Before setting out, he unbuckled his basket from his back and stashed it under a nearby bush with the lid tightly sealed. He had a good sense of direction, he’d be able to find it again, and with the storm no pokemon would be out to steal his catch.

Standing, Ingo brushed off his knees. As he glanced at the reed bed where he’d found the sneasel, he noticed that the tops of some of the plants had been hacked off, leaving a glistening purple residue behind.

So the male sneasler had been behind this.

Ingo suspected that it had stolen a kit to distract Lady Sneasler so it could take her unaware, or shove her out of her territory while she was out searching for her missing child. It had injured the baby to keep it afraid and unable to fight back.

“I wonder if the other Noble pokemon ever have to deal with similar drama,” Ingo said, speaking to the little sneaslet bundled up against his neck under his coat collar, half inside the hood of his clan tunic and half clinging to his shoulder. It shivered, and he tucked his collar closer. The weather wasn’t exactly cold yet but it wasn’t particularly warm either, and it was just a little baby. A wounded baby. “The Highlands are your home, they should not be unsafe for you.”

“Snee,” came the tired squeak in reply.

“I’ll get you to your mother, little passenger, don’t worry.” In return, it sneezed into his ear.

As the man trekked towards the mountain, walking stick biting into the ground, there was a sort of heaviness to the air that Ingo did not like, just as Calaba had said. He also did not like the blue-black clouds bruising the sky on the horizon, promising a wicked storm as they creeped ever closer.

Ingo had found out the hard way that he did not care for thunderstorms. The crash and boom that rattled the ribs inside his chest were all well and good, but the claws of lightning that raked the sky caused those ribs to feel constricted. It was as if the hand of Almighty Sinnoh itself was squeezing his chest, iron bands of panic preventing him from drawing breath.

Why was he scared of lightning? Ingo did not know, especially when electric-type pokemon moves did not cause such fear. He got the same feeling of compression when he looked at the rift over Mount Coronet for too long, so he tried not to think about it.

But ‘not thinking about it’ did not stop the storm from arriving. Hope couldn’t influence the weather. Soon the wind was rattling the browned leaves of the trees that Ingo passed, and there were rumbles coming from the clouds that were now overhead.

Ingo swore under his breath at his crooked spine that prevented him from getting very far very fast, picking up his pace as much as he was able. Something in the air before the storm, all charged with electric potential, was unnerving. There was a tightness to Ingo’s body that he hated, and did his best to fight through. The hissing of the leaves sounded like a warning, and the ripples in the long, long grass made the ground seem alive with some alien threat display. Or was that perhaps a warning too, like the flashes of colors that tentacruel would send rippling down their tentacles?

It was a nonsense thought and Ingo didn’t know how to finish it. All he knew was the mounting dread that he was going to be trapped in this storm in the dwindling daylight, and he wasn’t sure what to do about that.

It was sunset when the man found himself even near the foothills of Mount Coronet, rocky outcroppings beginning to jut up out of the landscape. It would take a long time, too long, to navigate the canyons and rifts and then climb the mountain, even for someone without a bad back, and the wind and storm was rapidly approaching.

“I do not know what to do,” Ingo murmured to no one, staring up at the cliffs as wind buffeted his sidebangs and the tufts of hair sticking out from under his hat. He was startled from his thoughts when a little paw patted at the moving hair, and he looked down at the sneasel, who seemed to be feeling a little better. “But I must get you home. You are of a sacred lineage, and even besides that point, your life is important.”

It blinked, obviously not understanding the words.

Ingo had no choice but to forge on, the scattered boulders giving way to a ravine winding close to the mountain, just like the one he had seen Lady Sneasler in all that time ago when he’d been new to Hisui. Right as he began his trek down the stone hallway, a chill rain began to fall, slowly at first, almost hesitantly, and Ingo pulled his coat tighter. The sneaslet covered itself in his Pearl Clan hood entirely. The man who was slowly getting more and more wet wished he could join it. He could hear the grumbling of thunder in the clouds above them, though the lightning was still hidden deep within the gray. The feeling of ozone and charged air was coating everything now, and it was as if the world was holding its breath.

He’d made a mistake. He could feel the wind blowing down this tunnel, not yet howling but close to it, and knew he’d made a mistake. He should have taken the baby to the Pearl Clan; they were suspicious of pokemon, yes, but this was a child of one of their blessed Nobles. They would not have let it die.

(But would they have known how to care for it? Calaba knew medicine, yes, but human medicine and pokemon medicine was vastly different. Only a few clan members had pokemon at all, and the skills needed to take care of one species rarely translated to an entirely different one. Ingo felt he had been right to be concerned.)

Still. He had taken up a mission, and he would complete it. Turning back now would have the worst outcome. He and the kit would have braved the storm just to turn around and risk the fact that no one at the Pearl Clan camp may know how to help. At least keeping to his current tracks promised the best care for the sneaslet.

Unfortunately, as the rain and wind picked up and blasted through all the jagged rocky outcroppings and mud clogged his shoes and walking stick, it was miserable going for Ingo. His lower back already ached; the sucking of the soggy ground at his feet only made matters worse, and he gritted his teeth and prayed for more solid ground soon.

The lightning was coming in bolts now, prompting Ingo to duck his head into his collar like a turtwig, shivering not only because of the cold. The world was starting to groan with the fury of the storm that was only building, rain lancing through trees and shrubs and pelting into ponds. The wind screamed where it was forced through crevasses and gaps in stone and across the openings of the caves of Mount Coronet.

The air itself was heavy, now, solid in a way it hadn’t been earlier. Before it had sagged with the cool humidity and the knowledge that the weather was turning, but now it felt like an object, striking whatever body parts it could reach. The walls of cold air felt like slaps to Ingo; it was not the sharp sting of winter air, but it hurt all the same, and he tried to protect his face with his collar to the best of his abilities.

Every wild pokemon had long since taken cover; no cries and calls echoed through the land now, just the dull sound of rain on stone and the ever present wind and the deep anger of the thunder. It was just the two of them in the world, it seemed, the only living things foolish enough to brave nature’s fury.

But…. No, that wasn’t quite right. Somewhere, beyond the sounds of the storm and the blood rushing in Ingo’s ears and his breaths wheezing through his clenched teeth, there was something out there. It was not moving with any great stealth. Not announcing its presence, but not hiding it either.

Ingo was lucky that his sight was so keen, because he saw the glint of claws on stone and saw a flash of blood red eyes before the creature moved and disappeared behind a curtain of rain. Lady Sneasler was not that big. Lady Sneasler’s gaze was not that murderous.

It was the alpha, and it was hunting them.

Utterly helpless, Ingo picked up his pace, nails pressing into the wood of his walking stick. When one scratched raggedly against the wood, he dimly wished he still had his gloves. A foolish thought in such a situation, but the subconscious was rarely rational.

In any case, what was Ingo supposed to do? He had no way to recall Gligar, not from this distance, and no one would hear him over the storm.

To make matters worse, the sneaslet began crying out periodically. It was cold and miserable and Ingo could feel its tremors against his neck.

“Please, little passenger,” Ingo pleaded, feeling near tears himself as he kept his head on a swivel, desperate to make sure he’d see an attack before it made contact. “Please be quiet. I am doing my best.”

Jogging as best he was able, holding the walking stick in both hands, Ingo headed down the ravine. When it opened into a wider area, he felt some small amount of relief, and when he saw there was a raised ledge there, that relief strengthened. If he could get up there, he would be in a more exposed area with a sheer cliff on one side. No other opportunities for a surprise attack. Of course, he’d be exposed to the full brunt of the wind on the side of a mountain, but that was preferable to a large predator.

Ingo arrived at the stone platform and reached his hands up onto it. He ignored the screaming of his back as he dragged himself up the chest-high slab of stone onto the flat surface. The entire time, the man was certain he’d feel two foot long claws digging into his back and legs, but he made it onto the outcropping without any incident.

Scrambling to his feet, Ingo looked around. Aside from the rain-lashed rocks and water dripping down off Mount Coronet in rivulets, there was nothing. Ingo’s coat flapped behind him like the dual wings of a crobat, and it felt like the wind was finding every microscopic hole in his worn outfit.

He worked on ignoring that, and instead looked at the small rocks littering the ledge he was on. They weren’t quite boulders but weren’t just rocks either, and Ingo did not know if an alpha sneasler would be able to hide behind one. He looked up the cliff as well; it was clear as far up as he could see. Rain ran into his eyes then, and he had to avert his gaze.

It was then that he heard a noise. It was different than the clicking of claws he’d heard earlier. He’d at least recognized that noise. This was somehow more eerie; it was like a periodic slithering against the wet stone, and Ingo had no idea where it was coming from. He could see down into the ravine, and he was now level with the top of the canyon walls, and there was nothing there. He couldn’t see anything on the cliffs. The plateau was barren, and yet, every few moments, there was the drag of something over rock.

If Ingo had to compare the noise to something, he would’ve said it sounded like someone dragging a dead body over the wet ground.

The sound felt like it was clinging to Ingo’s brain, and his breath came faster the closer he came to panic. It was alien, out of place in a setting like this, and yet he still could not see where it was coming from.

It was getting louder.

After a few more repetitions of the slimy sound, Ingo finally, finally saw what it was, even as a bubble of air and fear stuck in his throat and he held his breath.

It was, in fact, the alpha sneasler, but it was moving in a way Ingo never would have thought it capable of, in a way that was wrong and borderline unnatural. The tall pokemon was on its belly, pale fur able to blend into the stone, dragging itself along at a sliggoo’s pace. Its eyes, the red pinpricks that were what Ingo had first picked up on, were boring into his own, and contained nothing but hate and contempt for the lives of others.

Ingo could see that even at this distance.

With a motion that Ingo would have chalked up to a seizure more than anything else, the alpha reared up and jerked forwards, throwing itself into attacking the human. Its movements gained fluidity once it stood upright, and Ingo did not stand a chance.

He had nowhere to go, after all.

Still, the man tried to dodge, tried to fight with his walking stick like he’d been taught, but the pokemon was way faster than he was. The claws scored over his ribs on his left side and Ingo screamed as fire erupted in his skin.

There was a hole in his coat and in his tunic and blood was pouring out and the sneasler was raising blood soaked claws to bring them down on him again and the sneasel was shrieking in his ear and it was getting hard to breathe but Ingo pushed from where he had fallen against the rocks and shoved himself into staggering away. The claws came down on stone and the alpha screamed its fury, whipping to face the man gasping and standing with legs far apart to support himself against the world that seemed to bob and weave in a way it shouldn’t.

He needed to do something, he knew, as the sneasler stalked closer again, baring its long, long fangs. How could he hope to land a hard enough hit to get away? The poison roiling through his veins would not let him be lucid forever, and it was already sapping the strength from his body along with his blood.

The sneasler raised its claws again. Ingo had an idea.

He held out his walking stick like an offering, palms up, gripping it tight. When the claws came down on the center, it snapped, and when it did Ingo jerked his hands up. Like a trap, each side of the sturdy stick came up to snap the sneasler’s face in between, right on the muzzle. The alpha screamed as soon as they made contact, and while Ingo dropped the sticks immediately to move away as fast as he could, he saw that one of the sneasler’s canine teeth was gone and it was spitting out blood.

Ingo did not stick around to find out how much this slowed it down.

The man dashed into another ravine, this one narrower with sharper cliffs on either side, hopefully giving the alpha less space to maneuver. He could reach out and touch both walls, which was a good thing with how much he was stumbling. He had one hand clamped over the vertical slash on his side, but the wound felt hot and sludgy in a way human flesh should not. It was too dark to look at it, and Ingo had to hope the rain was helping wash the oily poison away.

From behind him, Ingo could hear screeching and heavy, crashing footsteps above the thunder. Of course the alpha would not give up. Of course. It was not an alpha because it turned tail and ran. That pokemon would pursue its prey until either the prey died or it did.

Ingo was the prey, and he was in significantly worse shape than the alpha.

He tripped, catching himself on the ravine wall, and because it was the hand he’d had over his wound, he left bloody fingerprints on the stone that were washed away. There was an oily iridescence to the blood still coating his hand.

His breathing had graduated to gasping, at this point. Ingo could not tell if there was a hazy mist in this ravine or if his vision was going. But he had to keep moving. It was no longer just about the little heartbeat he could feel against his neck, but about his own survival.

With a roar, claws swiped at him from the top of the ravine, narrowly missing his face, and he cried out from fear and exhaustion as his back hit the opposite wall. The now one-fanged alpha was glaring at him from above, blood steadily dripping down to where he was, and Ingo drew in as deep a breath as the poison would let him before forcing his body into a run again.

There was pounding and snorting behind him; he could see the end of the ravine and the sneasler was faster than him and it would cut him off because the top edges were sloping down and would deposit it right in front of him. But then Ingo found an offshoot and took it, shoulder slamming into the wall with the force of his turn and jostling his wound.

His head was spinning from the effort, and Ingo could tell now that he was crying. The way all of his senses blurred caused him to not see that there was another descent, and he went over the edge, rolling and scraping against the rocks until he reached the bottom. He screamed all the way down, and screamed even more when the tiny sneasel dug its claws into his shoulder to hang on.

At the bottom, world nothing but haze and pain, Ingo knew this was how he’d die. He tried pushing himself upright, but there was something wrong with his arm, and his legs would only spasm weakly. Right. The poison was doing its job.

Beyond everything, Ingo heard a heavy breathing, and then the darkness got darker and blood dripped onto his forehead from the stinking maw that had opened above his face. When lightning flashed, he saw the silhouette of the sneasler before he was plunged back into shades of darkness. Everything dark except for that terrible, terrible burning red.

Death had come for him, cloaked in fur and fury.

The alpha raised a paw, claws held high, and the motion splattered poison onto Ingo’s forehead. There was a pause, just a split second, but in that moment Ingo heard a scream, desperate, inhuman, and absolutely furious. And then, just as the claws began their descent towards his head, the weight was lifted from his chest as Lady Sneasler tackled the alpha. The two pokemon rolled to the side, a snarling, screeching ball of animal fury.

Ingo’s sight was too dim to make out details, but he coughed, restarting his lungs as he flipped onto his stomach, crawling a few feet before standing on all fours and scrambling away. He eventually pushed himself to stand, staggering and tripping until he could not any more.

The man collapsed in a shallow puddle at the end of the ravine near a cliffside, the force of his impact sending rivulets splashing over the edge. It hurt his shoulder and already injured arm when he landed, but he could do nothing but stare out over the rain-cloaked vastness of Hisui before flipping himself onto his back so he could breathe easier. He could still, somehow, feel the shivering sneasel in his hood.

No one would find him out here. This was to be his terminal. He could feel the poison, now that he had a moment not devoted to running, slowing everything down. And he could hear the two sneaslers trying to tear each other apart, roars and screams and howls fading in and out like a bad signal as their battle ranged across the mountainside.

She’d tried to save him, he thought as he began to drift. Lady Sneasler had. She must have really cared about him. Even as rain began to collect in the hollows of his body and he had to blink it out of his eyes, he felt touched that she loved him. It didn’t matter, at this point. He was freezing, hurting, and tired. But at least someone had loved him.

When consciousness finally failed him and the sounds of animalistic warring began to fade, right before the end, Ingo thought he heard, with startling clarity in his right ear, his name being called.

Chapter Text

Almost two years. It had been almost two years.

Just shy of two years, really, the summer hadn’t reached its zenith quite yet. Somehow, Emmet was still hanging on, even an entire year after his health had begun to slip, sliding off him like an ill-fitting outfit.

The hollows beneath his eyes and at his collarbones and between his ribs were deeper than they had been, his good days fewer and fewer. Stubbornly, Emmet still managed to keep up to date with the workings of the subway and battle Iris and Elesa and his father periodically. Despite his more frequent bouts of illness, everyone who loved him wanted to see those eyes sparkle with life again like they did when he was commanding his pokemon in a tough fight or discussing train facts with one of his depot agents.

The doctors in charge of Emmet’s case, including the surgeon Doctor Atlas, were at a loss for how to help him. Emmet’s family knew this, and Emmet himself also knew this. While he seemed resigned enough when faced with everyone else, at the times when it was no one but Drayden and Emmet himself in the room, a switch was flipped.

Drayden had, several times, held both the hands of his son while the man broke down. Sometimes he just cried due to pain and discomfort. Sometimes he voiced that, despite everything that had happened and the thoughts he’d had during this entire ordeal, he was afraid of dying. Of what would happen.

If Ingo would be there.

Drayden’s heart broke every single time, especially afterwards when he saw Emmet trying to be his normal self in front of Elesa and Iris. He wanted to tell the man that he did not need to keep struggling through all this without dropping his famous smile, but he also knew it would do no good. That was just… Who Emmet was, really. Despite the therapy that he was still participating in, Emmet would always do his best to ensure the wellbeing of everyone around him before he stopped to think of himself.

That, apparently, included talking about and reacting to his own steadily approaching death.

The team at the hospital, however, was still trying to stave off the ‘terminal’ part of his terminal injury as best they could. Even though their solutions were fairly terrifying and all the tests and scans they were performing were wearing on Emmet.

The man felt somewhat foolish for forgetting, for almost more than a year, that he was fated to die in his hospital bed unless scientific discovery sped up a little. How could he have forgotten that? It sounded ridiculous, but he supposed that, wrapped in the paradoxical feeling of the deepest grief over Ingo and the triumph of surviving at all, it had gotten lost.

But there was hope. Bleak, glinting, broken-glass hope, but it was still something.

It came after Emmet had dealt with a terrifying bout of infection; one of the larger tubes carrying blood had needed replacing, and while the surgery had gone fine, the resulting sutures had, somehow, gotten infected. Because it was right there , a literal part of his bloodstream, in no time the sickness was raging all through his body.

Contrasting with his usual state, Emmet found himself perpetually too hot as he did his best to fight off the infection, aided by powerful antibiotics. After one of his nurses had found him with his shirt dangerously tangled in his IV lines after he’d tried to remove it in a feverish haze, they just decided to let him keep it off.

That was one way Drayden and Elesa and even Iris knew it was grim. Emmet, without any hesitation, now actively chose to lay there with both his healed scars and fresh sutures exposed, only covered by a thin blanket when he started to shiver. He was too out of it to remember any of his shame.

No one thought of that as a blessing, just a curse.

Everyone wished that they could have let Emmet know, ‘see? None of us are bothered by your scars.’ But the man was not lucid enough to have responded to words like that anyways, so instead whenever his family was present, they took turns making sure Emmet had cool washcloths on his forehead and torso at all times, along with one over the sutures where the infection had originated, the source of the heat making him so miserable. The pokemon, those whose body temperatures would not make his fever worse, took turns keeping vigil alongside Emmet’s human family, either curled on chairs or next to him on the bed.

It took Emmet weeks to fully beat the sepsis. Luckily, he wasn’t out of it that entire time; his fever broke long before the last of the infection cleared.

But of course, surviving such an illness took a lot out of the already-sick man. He was left even more weak and tired and prone to nausea and headaches and body chills than he had been before.

It was on one of his bad days that the doctors let him know that they had a plan to try and stretch his lifespan out just a bit more.

In order to slow down his metabolism, trying to keep his body functions to a base minimum to fight the breakdown of everything keeping him alive, Emmet would be put into a medically induced coma. No one actually knew how much it would help, but it was the last resort.

It was a method typically reserved for patients with brain damage or diseases that could cause such issues, but there was a hope that the effects would be beneficial to the man who was half machine as well. When it was time, he’d be put deeply under anesthesia with a cocktail of medications and kept asleep for… Well, until the situation changed. If it ever did.

The thought was scary, for multiple reasons.

Chief among them was the knowledge that Emmet would be asleep and unable to change, stop, or even perceive a single thing being done to him. Of course, when he’d first arrived at the hospital it had been a similar situation, but in that case, Emmet had not had any time to think about what was happening. He’d been too unconscious to think at all.

But now that he had to anticipate it, Emmet felt like it would be a violation, even though it was to save his life. Even though he was already going through so many procedures that blew right past his comfort zone. But he’d be asleep, alive but asleep, as other people moved him and touched him and did who knows what.

When he woke up, he could have an entirely new lower body that he would not have felt being attached.

It was… Horrifying to him, but what else could he do? He was at the end of the line, approaching the terminal station of his life, and this was one last hope to keep him on the train and not dumped unceremoniously on the platform that would be his death.

As he laid in his bed that night, alone with his thoughts, Emmet turned the idea over and over in his mind. He felt his heart speed up until it was hammering in his chest, exactly what this coma would be trying to avoid. He was scared. It was scary. He was not well versed in medicine enough, even after all this time, to fully understand what the repercussions would actually be for him.

He just wanted to make sure he stayed himself. His memories, his knowledge, his personality… Were those at a risk of changing or being lost? He’d have to ask the doctors in the morning. What would he experience while he was out? If he died, would he even notice?

How was he to sleep, after all that? Emmet grit his teeth, fists scrunching in the blankets. He wished, again, that one of his pokemon were here. Chandelure had been, when the doctors had explained their idea to him and Drayden, nestled against his chest with a persistent warmth. She’d countered the chattering of his teeth as he listened to the people in scrubs and lab coats tell him that he and his family would have several days to come to a decision.

Emmet appreciated the time to think.

But then, all of a sudden, a development threw a wrench into his thoughts. The day after the doctors proposed a coma, Drayden did not visit. It took a day and a half for him to return, and he seemed almost dizzy when he did.

“Dad?” Emmet choked out, then coughed. The fear and anxiety caught in his throat, nearly suffocating him. “What has happened?”

“They identified it,” was all Drayden could breathe out at that moment, eyes fixed on the middle distance. His voice shook with barely suppressed… Something. Emmet was too tired to figure it out.

“What?”

“The Unovan Ghost.”

Emmet felt like all the contents of his body were spilling out all over again. A coldness settled in the lower abdomen he no longer had but that he somehow could still feel. He could only stare as his father collapsed heavily into a chair as if he’d been tossed there.

“It’s a god pokemon called Giratina. It’s the god of entropy. Universal chaos.”

The words felt rehearsed, scripted almost like Emmet’s Battle Subway speech. He recognized the subtle changes in tone and speech that belied when something was memorized. He’d listened to Ingo enough to know that anywhere.

“The investigation that was in charge of… All this contacted me yesterday. Apparently a very brave team of people even went to its realm to look for… Ingo,” Drayden finished, half choking on the name.

There was a falling feeling, vertigo almost, when Emmet heard that. Living people had tried to find his brother’s body in a hellscape. He did not know if it was for evidence or out of love, but it still twisted a knife that seemed to be lodged in his diaphragm. He did not exactly know how to feel.

“They didn’t find him,” was the next whispered followup. Emmet let out a shaky breath that he had not recognized he’d been holding. “But…”

“But?”

“They did find something.”

Emmet felt, in that moment, that he would pass away if his father said they found a piece of Ingo, or his torn clothes, or signs of his struggle.

“Your spine.” Drayden had obviously not thought of a way to sugarcoat that, and that was probably a good thing, actually, since it snapped Emmet out of his mental spiral.

“My…”

“I’m sorry for putting it like that.” Immediately looking regretful, Drayden’s gaze dropped to his hands, and he took a deep breath before starting again. “Judging by the… I guess the. Orientation? Of the bones? The recon team and doctors determined… It was from you, Emmet.”

Okay. Emmet could deal with that. His own body was broken, that he already knew. Just another ruined piece. Its discovery did not tarnish the image of Ingo in his head. His own self-image was so far gone that it no longer mattered.

“Since it’s… Far too late to be of any use to you, they wanted me to ask what exactly… You wanted to do with it.”

It had been happening too often lately that Drayden would have to stumble his way through conversations. Emmet was tired of having to hear it happen, both because the topics were always hard, and because it hurt, hearing his father sound so unsure and small. Drayden, who had always seemed so huge and immovable in the safest way in the world, even to the twins as adults. They had not been short at six foot even, but Drayden eclipsed them.

He’d been able to give them both bear hugs at the same time. Now, Emmet suspected that if Drayden were to hug him, his father could envelop just about all of him in his arms. Several times every day Emmet wished Drayden was allowed to do just that. Maybe then, just for a singular moment, he’d feel safe and that perhaps his physical existence wasn’t entirely bad.

But back to the issue at hand.

“... Do they think I want it back?” He tried passing it off as a joke, but some of his distress must’ve shown on his face because Drayden took his hand.

“Frankly… Well, I think you’re allowed to do whatever you want. It’s part of your body, and… You’ve… Been through enough. No one would begrudge you anything at this point.”

“I am Emmet. I do not want to keep it. I would… Rather just get it cremated, I think.”

“Of course, son. We can do that for you.” There was an air of relief, as if Drayden had half-expected Emmet to want to make a necklace from it. There had been one moment where Emmet had debated keeping it, wondering if taking back some part of himself would bring him any closure or catharsis, but had quickly realized that it would only symbolize his trauma.

It would haunt him. Which was honestly funny, considering that the previous owner was still alive. (Or half alive? While language regarding the parts of them that were entirely separate or entirely shared was easy, some things were a bit murkier. After all, where exactly did their shared body truly end and their separate sections begin?)

“Thank you, Dad,” said Emmet quietly, head on the pillow falling to the side to gently rest against the barrier on the side of his bed. Drayden ruffled his hair gently, trying to infuse some normalcy back into the room.

“Anything for you.” There was a pause. “I am… Assuming you don’t want to read the report on Giratina.”

“I do not want to see it again.”

“That is understandable.”

That had been the end of the discussions that day. The next day, Emmet had, with both Drayden and Elesa present, told the doctors that he would try their coma solution. He’d need several days to get his affairs in order and say goodbyes, but he wanted to try and live.

Both Drayden and Elesa said that it was not goodbye, just goodbye for now, but Emmet did not respond.

The next day, he’d had a very frank discussion with his father about permanent arrangements for his pokemon, for his apartment, and for his will. Emmet had told Drayden what he’d like in terms of a funeral and for a gravestone. He had had his father ring up Cloud and Isadore, explain the situation, and had then had a brief talk with them about the future of the Battle Subway and their roles.

When he finally finished that, when he’d finally reached the end of his list of things to discuss, Emmet had found breathing to be difficult.

“Are you… Do you need a moment, son?”

Emmet’s eyes blinked as he tried to contain the tears pooling there, clinging to the last shreds of his composure in a desperate but ultimately doomed effort. “I… I just…”

“You can be honest with me. You’re my son, no matter how old you are. I will never think any less of you.” Drayden’s hand cupped Emmet’s cheek, offering all the support he could in that moment.

Emmet’s face crumpled, and he leaned into the touch. “I do not want to die,” he said in a strangled sob. “I want my brother.” Unfortunately, those two things were mutually exclusive.

“I know you’re scared.” Drayden’s voice was quiet and he did not move or withdraw contact. “I wish, more than anything, that I could take on some of this pain myself.” He thought, not for the first time, about how much he wished that humans could learn pokemon moves. Pain Split would have come in handy.

“Having people here makes it less scary,” Emmet whispered. “But… I do not think I will make it. Not any more. And going into a coma… Will feel a lot like dying. I think. I will not know or feel the difference. I will not know or feel anything. So people will touch me, and I will not know. I will be helpless. More than I am now.” His voice grew more and more frustrated, somehow still audible even with how monotone Emmet’s voice was, tears still streaming down his face. He was also trembling, and his hands were cold despite layers of blankets piled on him to prevent that. “Dad, I am tired of hurting.” 

Because his body was always sore, always cold, always uncomfortable, no matter how much he had ignored it over the past two years. And today, he just couldn’t bear it. There was the knowledge that his last moments would not be pleasant or peaceful at all, really, weighing on his chest like a stone. Even with painkillers and his family present and all the medical intervention in the world, Emmet’s heart would not stop hurting. The end of his body would not stop aching. There was a dullness that had settled into his lungs, into his very marrow, long ago.

He’d accepted it as part of himself, but he wished that he had not had to.

His breathing became more erratic as he sobbed like a baby, face red and wet and crumpled, but there was no one there who cared that he was a mess. It was just his father, who had seen him the day he and Ingo were born. He’d visited them, back when he was still their uncle, as babies, after their first surgery, when they finally learned to crawl, whenever he could. After he adopted them, he’d been by their side for it all. For the time their appendixes nearly burst; recovery from such an illness and from surgery were a messy affair, especially for children.

After all this time, there was only one person left who was willingly allowed to see Emmet have a breakdown of this degree. There had been two, but one was gone now.

Drayden merely held his hand through it all, unable to do more. When Emmet’s crying began to subside, he spoke in that same soft voice he’d used earlier. “You can rest, Emmet. While all this is going on. We will take care of you, and I’ll personally make sure there will be no situations that would be uncomfortable for you, aside from medical necessities. We all need to endure those.”

While no one else in history had gone through what Emmet was going through, Drayden was doing his best to make his son feel less alone. Less like he was overreacting.

“And when you wake up again, we’ll all be here waiting for you.”

“If.”

“If?”

“I am Emmet.” He held Drayden’s gaze, and his shining eyes were infinitely sad. “I do not like untruths, even if they are not intentional lies. It is ‘if.’ If I wake up again.”

Drayden did not have it in him to argue.

▲▽

I wish I did not have to wear this outfit was all Emmet could focus on the morning of the day before his coma was to begin. He missed his uniform with its dress shirt and slacks and big coat. He liked feeling put together, and that was impossible at this point. He’d long accepted that.

Maybe they’d at least give him a tie? It would look ridiculous with his t-shirt, which was white again today, but if Emmet was only going to be awake for one more day of his life, he wanted to go out on his own terms.

Even if that was, mostly, impossible.

Dully, as if far, far apart from him, Emmet remembered how, every morning, he and Ingo tied each other’s ties. In a practical sense, it had been to prevent them from elbowing each other, but the twins also simply liked helping one another. There was a limited number of ways they could do that, so every gesture counted to them.

He wondered if Drayden would tie it for him, if he asked.

Over the last few days, with all the time in the world to think, Emmet had come to a sort of tenuous peace with the fact that he was likely to die, a peace that was slowly solidifying. The moment he found himself slipping, the man in the bed desperately clung to the fact that Ingo was there, Ingo was waiting for him. Emmet had no idea what the afterlife would be like, but the fact that Ingo would be there was enough.

It had to be enough.

It was all he had.

Everyone would be coming to say goodbye today, and Emmet desperately hoped he’d be strong enough to get through it all. That was the hardest part about everything, or one of the hardest at least. Seeing how his decline affected everyone in his life. It made him feel small but also too much. Emmet was a firework that everyone thought was done exploding, except instead of light and beauty he had burst into shrapnel and viscera, and when people thought it was safe and walked over to him, spent on the ground, he provided one last injurious explosion.

It threw him into continuous turmoil, because his inner voice told him it was proof that he did not deserve his family and friends. He had hurt them so, without ever meaning to.

But he was also selfish. He’d hurt them consciously one last time, drag out the pain of saying goodbye so he could get his closure and tell them he loved them. He’d allow himself that. He was dying, after all.

The first to visit were the depot agents, entering his room as a group just like they’d done during their first visitation. This time, they were used to his appearance; each of them had visited more than once, regaling him with Battle Subway stories that made his heart warm and ache at the same time. Jackie took him on more virtual train rides. Even the ever-proud Isadore visited Emmet a few times on his own. The first few times had been awkwards, but then Isadore had begun sharing the dumbest safety violations he’d seen in the subway system, and since they did not end in tragedy, they made Emmet laugh as they found common ground.

Emmet was less conventional than Isadore, but they both cared deeply about safety and regulations.

Now, though, there was no laughter in the room. No one had brought gifts this time; an unconscious man had no use for much, and a card or flowers seemed so… Final. So the agents just brought themselves and the sadness that they could not shake. Cloud and Ramses had already spoken to Emmet about his wishes regarding the Battle Subway, but this hurt more.

Emmet wished the depot agents good luck with running the trains and conducting battles, and they wished him luck with his medical procedures. Each of them offered some contact, the squeeze of a hand or a pat on the shoulder. Isadore shook his hand like they’d just met, and under any other circumstance it would’ve been funny. But Emmet caught Isadore swiping tears from his eyes under his glasses, and said nothing on the topic.

“We’ll see you again, Emmet,” said Cloud, finally, after their time was up. She held both his hands, his fingers thinner than she remembered. “I know it.”

Emmet did not confirm nor deny that. “Take care of yourselves and the Battle Subway for me. I am Emmet. You know what it means to me. And what you all mean to me.”

Next up was Skyla. She’d come to see Emmet without Elesa. When prompted, she said it was due to a scheduling conflict, but somehow Emmet knew it was because she wanted to give him and Elesa time in private. She knew that Elesa was a sister to him, that she was family, and would want to have a moment alone with Emmet.

He appreciated it. Talking to Elesa was going to be hard.

Before she came in, however, his therapist called, and he was able to thank her for all of her help over the last two years. He did not say he loved her, but he did tell her that he appreciated her. She sounded sad, as she wished him good luck.

Emmet wondered if she would remember him, out of her countless patients.

And then Elesa was entering the room, hesitant, unsure, everything Elesa was normally not. He waved, trying to muster up his usual smile despite the hollowness in his eyes.

“Hello Elesa.”

“Hey Emmie.” She sat in her usual chair with none of the exaggerated motions that she typically did. “How… How are you feeling today?”

“It is not the best day. But not the worst,” he replied, focusing on the bedsheets. Even now, he still wished he had the sheets from his bed at home. Home… What a far-off idea that was. He knew that he was now the sole owner of the apartment, and that it was still his after speaking to Drayden about a will, but it must be horribly dusty and terrible. For the literal first time in two years, it occurred to him that he hoped someone cleared out the fridge.

“That’s… Not too bad then.”

“Yup.”

“... Are you scared?”

Emmet ceased his picking at the blankets and looked at Elesa. It took him a moment before he sighed and said one word. “Yes.”

“I don’t know how to help,” Elesa said next, looking up at the ceiling and blinking, trying to not cry and cause her mascara to run. 

“It is okay. No one does.” Emmet reached out to her, and she took the hint and held his hand. After another silence, he spoke up. “I know you are busy. But you always made time for Ingo and I. Since you will have a little more free time, can you make sure Iris is okay? She will have lost both her brothers. And I know she loves you too. Please make sure she is not too alone.”

Ah, that did it. Black-tinted tears began to drip down Elesa’s face. “Of course I will, Emmet. But you’re not gonna die. I believe you’ll be okay.”

Emmet’s expression tightened a little. “Elesa. Please do not delude yourself. It will only harm you. In the long run.”

“Emmet I know you prefer truth above all, but since Ingo isn’t here I gotta be idealistic in his stead.” Her voice was steely and determined as she furrowed her brow and fixed him with a look. “ You will be okay. I’ll will it into being if I have to.” Then her gaze softened again and she squeezed his hand. “You are Emmet. This is not the end. I’m sure you’ll show up here again. I will wait for it.”

When Emmet heard his own words, parroted back to him with new meaning, lovingly memorized by someone in his family by choice, he did break down and begin to cry. Most of the rest of the words he shared with Elesa were mumbled around sobs or the phrases choked him on their way out of his mouth. But he was glad he had one more moment to spend with Elesa. He loved her dearly, after all. 

Even if he did not believe her.

Next up was Iris. This was going to be even more difficult.

She’d brought along all the pokemon that were allowed to visit Emmet and a tablet to video chat with the ones who weren’t. Emmet was stroking Durant’s shiny carapace when he saw Iris’s smile fade a little. “I’m gonna miss you while you’re asleep, you know? Even if I know you gotta do this to heal. Even though I’d much rather see you at home. I’ll still miss bringing you snacks and getting to tell your pokemon when we’re visiting and video-chat battles.”

“I am going to miss you too, Iris. So verrry, verrry much.” 

“If you don’t tell anyone, I’ll let your allowed pokemon out all at once.”

“... Deal.”

There were several flashes of light, and the room was suddenly a lot more crowded. Chandelure wasted no time pressing her face to his chest, her voice melodic and concerned.

“You must be able to tell my heart is tired,” Emmet said, stroking her glass. “That my soul is nearly spent.”

“Don’t say that, Emmet,” Iris said. “You’re gonna be okay. Your soul is fine.”

Chandelure chimed worriedly again, and Emmet looked at his little sister. “Iris,” he began, and once she heard the tone of his voice, she wouldn’t even look at him, preferring to snuggle Archeops close instead. “Iris. I need you to understand. That even though this induced coma is not meant to be permanent. I am dying. I am probably going to die. I cannot hide that truth from you.”

Her face crumpled and she hid in Archeops’s feathers, crying quietly. Excadrill climbed into the chair next to her and patted at her carefully with his claws. The twin klingklangs clicked, one hovering near each of her shoulders. Chandelure called to her from where she remained pressed up against Emmet, offering blessed warmth.

“I am sorry. I am so sorry.” Emmet couldn’t keep the sob out of his voice. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I miss the way things used to be,” Iris said, voice a thin, painful whine.

“I do too. You know I do.”

Crustle chittered, and Conkledurr patted Emmet on the head. His hand was big enough to fit over the top of Emmet’s head like a hat. Vanilluxe, though its expression could not change, looked sad as Emmet looked up at it. Its frozen smile reminded him of both Ingo and himself, their very first pokemon.

It hurt too much, he realized in the next moment. It would have been better for everyone if he had simply died like he was supposed to on that platform all that time ago. He would never have had to experience life without Ingo or being stuck in the hospital with half a body. No one else would have had to mourn him so slowly. Their last thoughts of him would have been Emmet as he should’ve been: side by side with Ingo in his spotless white coat, directing Gear Station with authority and a smile on his face.

He not only had had to live through two years of hell for nothing, but he’d been denied the same legacy that his brother had. He was the one who had languished and withered away in a hospital for two years (making him now the older twin, and he did not want to think about that for more than two seconds) and was a medical marvel and that was all people would remember.

Emmet, a Subway Master yes, but more recently the half a man who lived two years on borrowed time. He knew which the general public would be more interested in.

Archeops left Iris and crawled into the bed to flank Durant, pressing to Emmet’s other side. Excadrill took his place with the young girl, and she gratefully dug her fingers into the velvety mole fur.

“I don’t know what to say,” Iris said eventually, finally looking up at Emmet again. “It’s… I want to believe I’m gonna see you again. But now I’m scared I won’t. I’m really, really scared, and I didn’t prepare anything special to say.”

“Iris… I know how much you care. I promise. There is no need for special words. I am Emmet. I am not good with words anyways.”

“But you deserve words. You deserve to hear it. And you deserve more than this.” Even faced with the news her brother was probably dying, Iris remained stubborn. Honestly, Emmet loved to see it; she would recover from this in time. She’d be okay.

A gurgling cry from the tablet caught both their attention. Emmet felt a little guilty; he’d forgotten about the teammates back at Drayden’s, and he scooped the tablet up guiltily. There was Eelektross, obviously cradling the matching tablet in his big clawed forelimbs, along with Haxorus, Garbodor, Gigalith, and Galvantula. Behind them was Drayden’s dragon team, including Hydreigon, who was peering closer than the others. He could see some of Iris’s pokemon there too, and Elesa’s.

Absurdly, Emmet was reminded of a meme he’d seen about some of the eeveelutions surrounding a camera and had to giggle a bit at the way their faces almost elongated.

“Hello, everyone,” Emmet said, actually able to give a genuine smile. He could sense all their concern; each emoted in their own ways, and they were making quiet little noises. They sounded sad.

When he had spent enough time (never enough time, he could live forever and it would never be enough time) with Iris and his pokemon, thanking them all for the battles they’d had both during and before Emmet’s hospital stay, the young Champion recalled them all and headed out. Before she did, she stepped onto her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek just as Elesa had, and he made one last little comment that he hadn’t gotten this many kisses since he was just a little kid.

“It’s because we love you, you dummy,” Iris had said through her tears. “Bye Emmet. Catch ya on the flip side, okay?”

A fitting goodbye. He waved as Iris left, but his hand stalled in midair as the door was caught before it could close behind her and Drayden entered.

Emmet swallowed. “Hello, Dad.”

Drayden sat heavily in one of the chairs before he returned the greeting. “Hello Emmet. Are you… holding up okay?”

“I am. This is hard. But I need to do it. Not many people are offered closure like this before they die.”

“Emmet…” Drayden inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. “You are not dying. Not right now. I know the outlook is bleak.” He fixed Emmet with a look like he was expecting an interruption. “But there is still a chance. No, I am not hanging all my hopes on it; you know me. I have been around the block a few times. I know my way around grief and loss. It’s not a stranger to me.”

Emmet remembered, then, a fact he hadn’t thought about in a while. Drayden had lost a brother young too.

“But I want to believe that you will be okay. There’s power in belief. And you’re my son.” Drayden’s voice cracked. “If I have to bear a little extra pain because I dared to hope, so be it. You are worth it.”

The lump in Emmet’s throat was so large that he feared he’d choke on it, rendering Drayden’s hopeful words comically useless. “... Thank you, Dad.” For all he hated himself, Emmet did not have it in him to throw his father’s words back in his face. Drayden was the strongest person he had ever met; in his eyes, Drayden could make any choices he wanted.

If he wanted to take the brunt of the pain when Emmet detonated for the last time, that was his choice.

(It was a bit funny, in all honesty. If asked, Drayden would call Emmet the strongest person he knew with no hesitation. No gym challenger or political opponent or dragon master that Drayden had ever met could compare to his son and what he was living through. They seemed to pale in comparison. He considered Emmet a hero for his perseverance alone.)

His goodbye to Drayden wasn’t much of a goodbye, in all honesty. Emmet’s father was going to be there when he was put into the coma; one family member was allowed, just as he had been when Emmet had first woken up two years ago.

“I’m glad you’re going to be allowed to stay in the room.”

“I am too, Emmet. I am too.”

“I have had to deal with enough things by myself. I am tired of being by myself. How do people stand it.” It was not phrased as a question, but as a fact. Drayden recalled talking to his sons when they were younger; it was a conversation they’d had multiple times at multiple ages.

For Ingo and Emmet, being alone was nothing more than a vague fear, like death or the end of the world. It was not something that they could feasibly be. Drayden had explained, in different ways over the years, depending on how old the twins were, that other people often feared the lack of the ability to feel alone, though they did not always know it.

That was one of the reasons people were sometimes unkind, he’d gone on to explain. Sometimes fear makes people mean, even if it shouldn’t. Ingo had then insisted, once, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, that he and Emmet weren’t scary at all. He’d been correct of course.

Emmet was glad he and Ingo had gone on to prove this. They’d been loved, really, by the city and the region as a whole. The man in the bed let his mind wander, reminiscing about the times before. The rose-tinted glasses made everything seem purely good, but Emmet was not naive. He remembered how bad some times and things had been before the hospital.

Even so, though. All of that was preferable to what he was now going through.

Dimly, he wondered how much Unova and Nimbasa knew about what had happened. Had the Subway Masters vanished, or were they a tragedy, told to be dead and gone? Emmet supposed no one knew the truth or else he’d have seen it on the news or gotten cards and flowers. Something more than this silence.

Good. After he was dead, his family could tell everything, but he no longer cared to be in the spotlight. Not in this state. Not alone. Before, he’d been able to stomach most questions just fine, but that was when he had Ingo. When he was a capable human. When he had an escape.

Vividly, Emmet recalled the last interview he and Ingo had ever given, about a year before everything had changed. The most disastrous they’d ever given by far, and the reason they’d stopped letting people question them entirely.

It wasn’t clear exactly how such an interview slipped through the cracks of the Battle Subway PR team. It was from some channel that was all about drama and prying into the lives of the famous, with programming that ended up on the cover of tabloids. Someone on their team missed that fact, perhaps mistaking the channel name for something reputable, and the twins had to face the world on live TV and answer questions that quickly veered from the Battle Subway to their personal life.

Talking about their childhood hadn’t been bad. Of course the questions started out normal and ramped up over time. The twins’ unease was staunchly ignored; the host asked some questions about eating and walking and when Ingo found it difficult to explain, the people behind the microphones and cameras had tittered with laughter. Emmet had said nothing at all.

Then, of course, the bomb dropped. “What about your love life, hm?” the host had asked, leaning close. “How does that work?”

“Ma’am, I… I hardly think that is a good question to ask. It’s not… Polite.” Emmet nodded as Ingo stammered his way through his response.

“Surely we’ve gotten to know each other well enough during this interview?” replied the host, waving off Ingo’s concerns. “Everyone wants to know how the famous Subway Masters date people! Some are interested if you’re available, I’m sure.” She winked, and the twins gulped simultaneously. “And some of our more curious fans out there definitely want to know how you two…” And she made a vulgar hand gesture.

“Inappropriate!” Emmet choked out, face turning red. Ingo blushed to match, and he had to take a moment to process before he spoke.

“That is highly unprofessional and we will not be answering.”

“Oh boo, you two are no fun.” She waited a moment, steepling her fingers before raising an eyebrow in a way that made the twins’ skin crawl. “So if neither of you have anyone else special in your lives, what do you think of the online rumors that you’re… ‘Together’?” She hooked her fingers in the air to designate quotes around the last word. “Any merit in that assumption?”

It was phrased as a joke but it did not feel like one. In fact, Emmet pushed out with their legs abruptly, causing the chair they were sitting in to scrape backwards with a painful shriek. When Ingo spoke, it was with a barely repressed fury.

“We are not seeing anyone, either of us, because of our sexual orientation. How dare you, on live television, accuse us of…!” Ingo couldn’t even finish the thought without feeling just as sick as Emmet did. They stood, and Ingo leveled a glare at the host. “There is no way for us to exist that is acceptable to you. You will always see our life as scandalous or perverse, no matter what our answers are. We’re done here.”

And they’d simply walked off the set.

Elesa had been watching the livestream on her xtrans at a nearby cafe, hoping to celebrate once the twins were done with a nice coffee and lunch. She’d had a bad feeling when she heard who was conducting the interview, but she trusted her friends when they said they’d be fine. They could handle themselves; she had actually helped give them PR advice, as she’d risen to fame before they had.

Each of them was a grown adult. They could make their own choices.

However, Elesa had kicked herself for not asking if they actually knew the reputation of the network interviewing them. As she slapped down what was, in retrospect, far too much money on the table, and took off running, she realized how huge that fuckup had been. She’d just assumed they knew how awful that channel was but felt up to going head to head with them. With Emmet in particular’s competitive edge, it wouldn’t have been out of the question.

Of course, all of this was relayed to them once Elesa found them in the staff room of the nearest subway station, clinging to each other as they worked through a meltdown. She knew that the best thing to do was avoid touching them and just talk, talk about whatever popped into her head. Distractions were key, not invitations to join in conversations but long rambles that they could just listen to. She’d learned how to help when she’d been young.

“... I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything beforehand,” she’d finally confessed when they had calmed enough to converse with her again. “I thought… I thought you knew…” She couldn’t finish.

Emmet had been fiddling with Ingo’s fingers, both their hands still shaking. “I am Emmet. It is okay. You did not know.”

“I didn’t want to coddle you guys… I figured you were aware how shitty that channel was.”

“We do not blame you at all, Elesa,” Ingo reiterated kindly. “The fault lies with the interviewer and her crew alone. Not you.”

They’d both been so grateful for Elesa’s expertise, then. Instead of a lunch out, they went to her place and got takeout and she’d shown them some fun new nail polish colors. It had been a fun, low energy evening to round off a shitty day and soften its edges a bit. Everyone knew there would be fallout, but in that moment they hadn’t cared.

Emmet wondered if that interview still existed online anywhere. Probably, knowing how the internet worked. Even though he and Ingo had taken a few days off after that disaster due to embarrassment and discomfort, they’d heard later about the public outrage surrounding the incident. Most people, turns out, did not like seeing beloved public figures harassed live on TV.

The twins had been grateful, and no one spoke of it. When they did not do any further interviews, people understood why.

“I will be back tomorrow, son. Get some sleep.”

“Soon I will be doing nothing but sleeping.” Emmet tried to keep the words light, but between the flatness of his voice and the pain there, it did not really come through. Drayden must’ve agreed because he winced.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. I love you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Emmet.”

And then it was the day.

Emmet woke up, and for a peaceful moment, he was fear-free. Then it all crashed back in, settling into his form and fitting the shape of him exactly. It wasn’t enough to make him panic, because he’d had to get used to it over time.

When something like that got to ‘same old shit’ status, that’s how Emmet knew it was getting dire. Maybe being unconscious would be preferable. Of course, the doctors had told him he’d have dreams, so maybe not.

He had a few hours to himself, and, instead of doing anything worthwhile, Emmet watched old, famous battles on PokeTube to pass the time. What else could he really do, honestly? The only words he had left were for Drayden, who’d arrive when the doctors did. He had one last thing to bring up, but he had to wait. So if he couldn’t go out battling, at least he could watch battles.

Of course, eventually, a Battle Subway video turned up in the auto-generated playlist PokeTube had given him. He wasn’t paying attention to titles, but when he recognized the setting he slammed the pause button, heart speeding up a little.

It took a surprisingly short amount of deliberation to come to the conclusion that yes, Emmet wanted to watch the video. So he hit play, and wondered if the person recording would be challenging the Subway Masters.

The answer was yes, it was a Super Multis run, and Emmet’s breath ceased when he saw the camera land on himself and his brother, standing ramrod straight, not wavering when the train rattled and drowned out a little of their battle scripts.

It was only then that Emmet realized he should have listened to recordings of his brother’s voice before now. He knew why he hadn’t, but now that his twin’s speech was echoing out through the television speakers Emmet felt both immediately comforted and like he wanted to weep from the tragedy of it all.

That was Ingo. That was them. Emmet hardly focused on the actual battle aspect of the video, instead staring at himself and Ingo working in unison as they always did. His gaze fixated on their breathing for some reason. He knew the reason. Watching how their chests expanded right before they called out commands to their pokemon. Knowing that, though he couldn’t see it, their hearts were racing with the thrill of the fight.

He saw the little glances they shared over their shoulders when one of them landed a particularly strong hit, how he smiled at his twin and how Ingo’s eyes crinkled at the corners as if congratulating each other silently.

Too quick, the video ended and Emmet scrambled to find another. He did not realize how much time had passed until there was a knock on his door and the doctors entered.

Doctor Atlas was among them, their little joltik on their shoulder as always, and they talked to Emmet as a few more machines were wheeled into the room and, presumably, booted up. Audino, several of them, filed into the room as well, ears twitched expectantly.

“Your father is on his way,” they told him after letting him know that Joltik was doing well. They also allowed him to pet the little bug. “... Thank you for being such a tolerant patient, Emmet. I’m sorry for… Well. How unpleasant everything has been, I suppose. Including this. Surgery and medicine as a whole can be terribly invasive. I know that all of this was. So I humbly apologize for your discomfort.”

“You saved my life. It is alright,” Emmet said as the door clicked open. “But I understand. Just because it was for an important, good reason did not make it easier to bear when it was happening. I am Emmet. And I appreciate your understanding.”

They smiled, still looking sad. “Dragonspeed then, Emmet. Our medical team will make sure to take care of you.” And they went to speak to technicians and help with the setup.

Once they moved aside, Emmet was left with an unobstructed view of Drayden in the chair at his bedside, a welcome and familiar sight. “Hello again, Dad.”

“Hello, Emmet.” Drayden’s voice was shaky again, and he didn’t really offer up more than that. He just moved closer and took Emmet’s hands, causing a lump to grow in Emmet’s throat.

The two were silent for a few moments as the nurses and doctors set everything up. Emmet’s gaze tracked their movements, before he looked at Drayden again. His father looked more haggard than he’d seen him since the start to this ordeal, and Emmet could not blame him.

Meanwhile, Drayden’s heart was pounding as he held both of Emmet’s hands, running his thumbs over the back of them. His son’s face was so tired, dark circles stark under his eyes. Emmet looked sick, blinking slowly up at his dad, but when didn’t he these days.

There was fear in his eyes.

“We all love you, Emmet,” he said, voice soft and choked up and still shaking.

“I love you too, Dad. And tell Elesa and Iris I love them too again. And even the depot agents. Though you do not have to tell them. If you do not want to.” Emmet’s voice was weak and scratchy, but despite that, and despite his fear, his smile was still bright.

“Have a good rest.” Drayden’s tears spilled over, and he had to press a hand to his mouth, even covered with a beard as it was, to ground himself. “We’ll all be here when you wake up.”

Emmet looked like he was going to speak, but he closed his mouth and thought for a moment. Then…

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“... If… If things get really bad. If I will not… Be alright. If time runs out for me. Please…” He drew in a shuddering breath, hands fisting in his blankets. His resolve was breaking. “Unless they come up with a way to help me. Or Ingo comes back. Do not wake me up first. Before I… Go. Okay?”

“... Oh, Emmet.” Drayden leaned forwards, pressing his forehead to Emmet’s, one hand behind his son’s neck to gently support him. “I won’t do that to you.” After a moment, he drew back, looking into Emmet’s eyes. His son could break eye contact at any time, but Drayden wanted him to know he was sincere. “You have my word. If… If the doctors determine there’s nothing more they can do, that there’s no breakthroughs that can be made in time… I won’t have them wake you first.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

Drayden didn’t remember the exact feeling he’d had one year and eight months ago when he’d first had to deal with the separation of his sons, so he couldn’t determine what was worse, but at the moment this felt like the hardest thing Drayden had ever done.

Before he sat down again, he kissed the top of Emmet’s head.

When the doctors gave the okay that everything was ready, someone stepped forward to insert a new IV into the crook of Emmet’s elbow where there were still small, wrinkled, barely-there-but-still-present scars from all the IV catheters he’d had before. It had been explained days prior that the new drugs could not be introduced to his system via his external blood tubes. Putting medications into arteries was bad, apparently, and the team did not want it to be filtered out by the dialysis machines. They’d be setting up a link later on, and Emmet would not be awake to care.

Once that was done and everything was connected, Drayden took Emmet’s hand again, just the one this time. He echoed Doctor Atlas’s words as he reached out and set Emmet’s hat onto his head, offering him that small, small bit of himself back.

“Dragonspeed, son. We’ll be here for you, even if you won’t know it. Everything will work out; I will see you again.”

“All aboard?”

“All aboard.”

With an indication that it was starting, Doctor Atlas opened the IV line that administered the sedatives and Emmet fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Nothing happened for a few moments, but then Emmet’s eyelids began to slowly close over eyes just starting to go hazy.

In the last moment, the very last moment of consciousness that Emmet had, his gaze dropped to Drayden, seeking out comfort as the last thing he did before he fell asleep and his hand fell from his father’s.

Drayden’s heart beat in his ears as the nurses and doctors continued to adjust and monitor, but above even that great roar was layered a memory of his son’s voice.

This is not the end.

Chapter Text

It took a monumental effort to peel his eyes open. There was some external force, it seemed, holding his lids closed tightly, but after a few tries, the world was revealed to him. Or, the sky was, at least. It was clear and blue with not a single cloud in his field of vision. That certainly gave him no indication of the time of day or anything else.

The second thing he noticed was how unbearably cold he was, how his skin felt solid and restrictive. His scar in particular ached with a bone-deep, inescapable chill.

“Ingo,” said a voice, ringing clearly in the frosted air. “You are being verrry lazy, just lying around. Yup yup. You have to get up!”

Hearing that voice caused Ingo to jerk upright, startled at how he dislodged bits of ice and frost from his coat that had frozen into position from the rainfall. A few of the weaker fabric scraps remained stuck to the rock, left behind as they tore off his coat.

“There you go! You will feel better when you get up, yup.”

Ingo could not see where the voice was coming from; it had no source, nothing that grew clearer as he blinked the film from his eyes and the world sharpened. 

“Hello?” he said, voice a mere whisper, a volume he could not achieve if he tried normally.

His head pounded, now that he was sitting up, and the rest of his body hurt just as much. The center of the painful supernova was his ribs, the left side of his chest, where… What had happened again?

Looking around, he saw that he was still on the little cliff on Mount Coronet, stone spotted with frost and puddles and blood. The frozen air seemed to be settling solidly into his lungs and the hollow in his gut.

How had… The sneasler. It had attacked him. Poisoned him. That was why his ribs hurt so badly. Ingo raised a hand to his wound, feeling his cold flesh, but that numbed the area somewhat at least, and he couldn’t really feel his fingers. Dimly, Ingo wondered if the fever from the poison helped him survive the freezing night. Of course, it was still causing twitches in his muscles, little spasms that he could not control.

Why had he been out here anyways? “Pecha berries are good for poison, Ingo.” Berries. He’d been gathering berries when he’d found…

Ingo’s stomach dropped. The sneasel. 

It wasn’t difficult to locate the small purple shape a few feet away from him on the rock, and Ingo forced his screaming joints to move so he could crawl over to it. There was nothing he could do, though, because it was obvious it was dead. Of course it was, it was freezing, Ingo himself was a grown man and he didn’t know how he’d survived.

Still, he picked up the little shape with shaking hands and found that his eyes burned with hot tears, clearing tracks on his face. “Oh little one,” he said, voice still barely working. “I am so, so sorry.”

He was still numb, numb from the cold and poison and amnesia and disbelief, but he knew that the gut punch would come soon. Soon, when life returned to his limbs and breath and soul.

“Ingo. You have to get up. It is time to go! Yup!” chirped the disembodied voice, sounding cheerful despite the curious monotone. Ingo whipped his head to his right, but caught nothing more than a shadow at the edge of his vision. The world was silent. He was the only one in it.

But the voice had been correct; still cradling the little sneasel to his chest, Ingo wobbled to his feet. He had to take a knee when the poison pulsed through his wound again, but after a moment he steadied himself.

He had to get somewhere warm, and fast. He was shivering, which was probably a good sign, but his fingers felt nothing, and the frost hadn’t melted there until he’d tucked his hands closer to himself. The sneasel he tucked into his coat; he could not just leave it.

As he began to walk back the only way he could, luckily away from the cliff, the voice spoke up again. “Good job, –” said the voice, the last word lost on the wind or maybe in some weird mental static haze that the poison was causing.

“Wh-who are you?” Ingo coughed out as he reached out to the rocky rim of the gorge to steady himself, trying not to slip on the ice.

“Oh, you know me,” said the voice. “Verrry silly. Now is not the time for games. You need to get going!”

“I am going,” mumbled Ingo, falling silent. The hurt in his body pulsed in time with his heart, and he tried to remember the direction he’d come from. The Pearl Clan. They would help him, of course. But Calaba would be so disappointed in him. Irida too. They would look at him and call him a failure, would call him foolish for risking his own life for a pokemon.

It would not matter that the sneaslet was of noble birth. It did not matter that he had seen Irida being tailed by an eevee around the settlement. They would see that Ingo was wasting resources again and it would not matter what he had been trying to do.

“Keep your layers on,” said the voice, cutting through his fears. “Even though they are wet. They will provide more warmth than no clothes.”

Ingo had not planned on taking his clothes off, but he appreciated the tip anyway. It helped him to not feel so alone, to take his mind off the pain in his head and his chest and his scar and his back and his arm.

Ah yes. Now that Ingo’s body temperature was warmer than ‘freezing to death on the ground,’ pain began to radiate out from his left arm again. Was there any part of him that didn’t ache at least a bit? No, the man did not think so. 

“You are going to have to climb up the incline you fell down earlier. Lead with your non-injured arm. Yup! It will be easier! I believe in you.”

Now Ingo was staring back up at the place he’d tripped and fallen from, hurting his arm in the process. There was some blood smeared along the rocks that hadn’t been washed away, and Ingo winced.

The journey to the top nearly caused him to black out, and he had to lay there at the top, blinking spots and tears from his vision, before he continued.

“Do not go back to sleep,” instructed the voice, almost teasing. “You must stay awake, or we will be late! I cannot carry you the whole way!”

“The whole way where?” Ingo’s voice was a pained whine as he forced himself up once more. “I am going. I promise I’m still moving.” It was never a question of how this person could carry him without a body. To Ingo’s delirious brain, it made perfect sense.

At least this segment of the journey was easy. There was only one path to take, a rocky sort of road leading Ingo back the way he’d come. He passed the flat area where the male sneasler had snuck up on him and continued on down the ravine. The voice chimed in every so often, telling him that retracing his steps was the safest bet and that he had to keep moving.

Ingo knew the situation was dire. He was so far from the Pearl Clan camp and already the shivers in his body were starting to subside.

“If you stop shivering, that means you are closer to hypothermia,” said the voice somewhat unhelpfully. Ingo didn’t even know how it knew what it did, but he didn’t much care.

“I cannot force myself to shiver,” he wheezed out, more words than he’d said yet.

“I know. It would be verrry silly to ask you. But still. Full speed ahead.”

Something in Ingo’s mind was compartmentalizing, shutting away any questions about this voice and the shadow on his shoulder until he was safe. Then he could question, then he could wonder why he didn’t feel lonely for the first time in living memory, despite the fact that he was bitterly, frigidly alone.

Ahead was the end of the ravine, Ingo could see. He could also see something there, crumpled on the ground. The smell hit him before he realized what it was; fresh blood and meat that was just beginning to sour. Clapping a hand over his nose, he drew closer, because he had to move past it to get out. Ingo’s heart was pounding, and it took a moment to understand why.

Would that be Lady Sneasler, laid there on the ground in the rain and dirt? Would he have to bring the news to the clan of two blessed pokemon who had died?

But as Ingo looked down at what had undeniably been a sneasler, he saw the missing canine tooth and relief flooded through him, though it brought with it a rush of dizziness. Ingo had to steady himself against the wall, looking at the torn-out throat of the alpha. Its eyes were still open, frost glazing them into little frigid fractal patterns. Its face was etched in one final snarl. It had tufts of fur under its claws, but there was no second body so Ingo clung to the belief that Lady Sneasler had survived.

“You will have to cling to the belief that you survive if you do not keep moving,” said the voice, suddenly, prompting Ingo onwards. “You have been out in the cold too long, yup. It is dangerous.”

“I lost my walking aide,” said Ingo as he took one last look at the alpha’s remains and began to stumble down the mountain. He immediately wished that he still had the walking stick as his back screamed out in pain when he tripped on the uneven ground. It hurt far more than usual due to Ingo’s running and how he had fallen several times. His back, coupled with the hot pain in his arm and the liquid fire of his wound, all of which only worsened the more he moved, squeezed desperate tears from Ingo’s eyes.

“I know it hurts,” said the voice, obviously trying to be gentle. There was a sort of softness to it, even though the tone still did not change. “Keep going, Ingo. This is not your stop. Not yet. You have jobs to do, yup!”

Descending Mount Coronet continued to be agonizing. In rough places, Ingo found he had to crawl haltingly backwards, his injured arm carried close to his chest, hopping like a three-legged growlithe. That still send jolts through his battered body that made him cry out, but it was better than tripping over the rough stone and rolling down a hill or off a cliff or breaking his legs or–

“Stop catastrophizing.” Now the voice had a little bite to it, and Ingo had to stop from checking the white flash that he saw in his field of view for half a second. People saw things when they were dying, did they not?

“I am trying,” cried Ingo as he pushed himself past a rock, wincing when it brushed his poisoned wound, leaving oily blood behind on the stone. “But I do… I am not sure I can make it.”

“You will make it. You are Ingo. You can do anything.”

Ingo was glad the voice had faith in him, because he certainly had no faith in himself. It was getting harder to breathe, and Ingo wasn’t sure if that was because of the poison, his exhaustion, or the fact that he was trying not to cry. He had to focus on something else, ANYTHING else, to keep himself from panicking.

… He felt less alone than he had thus far, ever since he’d woken up in Calaba’s tent. Somehow, the voice filled a void that even his Pearl Clan friends did not, and something about that hurt, almost. An imagined companion was more real to him than the people who took him in? Ingo really must have been a bad person before he lost his memory, with thoughts like those.

“You are anything but a bad person,” the voice said with attempted gentleness again. Somehow, Ingo believed it, just a little. It was easier to give into despair and thoughts of divine punishment when one was bleeding and poisoned and dying.

Ingo slipped, one shaking leg flying out from under him on the icy ground, and he landed hard on his rear with a cry. He slid, the friction wearing another hole in his coat, before he ended up in a bush that clung to his sleeves and collar, and he had to rip himself from its grasp.

“You are almost down the mountain,” said the voice, thankfully not commenting on Ingo’s mishap with the foliage. “When you are at the bottom, find a stream, yup. Wash the poison from your cut.”

There had been a stream at one point the previous day, if Ingo remembered correctly. But he couldn’t remember how close it had been to the mountain. Maybe his berry basket was still there…

“You are not focusing on the berries,” scolded the voice. “You need to get back home safe, yup. The station depends on it.”

That was some peculiar wording on the part of the voice. Perhaps Ingo had heard it wrong and it had said ‘your station.’ That would make more sense.

As soon as the thought entered Ingo’s head, it left, and he focused on the fact that there was more grass here than stone. That meant he was almost down the mountain, even if the footing was now slippery in a whole new way. There was frost on the blades, though that was melting a little in the light of day. It wasn’t sunny, not anymore, (when had the clouds rolled in?), but it was less frigid than it had been the night before, and the delicate ice crystals could not withstand the difference.

Ingo wished it was still sunny. He was so cold. He’d had that thought every five minutes since he’d woken up, but he really was terribly, terribly cold.

“That is why you need to get home,” the voice said, and Ingo wished he could decode the minute inflections in the man’s speech that were just barely there. Something in the back of his mind told him that, had… Some other person, a face to place the voice to, been present, he could have used other clues to tell how he was feeling.

But it was only a voice, and it wasn’t even real.

“You need to get home to us.”

Who is ‘us’? Who are you?

… I miss you.

“I miss you,” echoed the voice.

Was it possible to miss something that didn’t exist? Ingo thought so, even though his own experiences had to be taken with a grain of sand. He couldn’t remember what experiences he’d had; was any feeling of longing caused by a somatic memory, or by a need for something he’d truly never had?

… This was not the time for philosophy.

Ingo needed to find the stream and clean his wound. The man could feel the strength ebbing from his limbs, and, despite flatter terrain, walking was even harder now. His knees shook and his back ached in a way that his bones would not soon forget.

And, curiously, the colder he got, the more his scar hurt.

With all the injuries Ingo had sustained, from the clawmarks to the back pain to the probably broken arm, he’d forgotten about the old injury not long after waking, despite the fact that it had hurt from the moment he woke. It seemed now dead set on reminding him with a vengeance of its existence.

Ingo couldn’t help the few tears that began to drip down his face and off the end of his nose. “Why?” he asked no one, voice hoarse.

“Because the world is not fair,” said the voice, and again Ingo wished he knew how to tell what the owner of said voice was thinking. There was no hint of bitterness, nor matter-of-factness, just the monotone syllables.

That didn’t matter, though. “The kit died; my struggles were for nothing,” wept Ingo as he forced himself onwards.

“Not nothing. You showed you are selfless. Even though you should take better care of yourself.”

“And what does that matter? The people of the Pearl Clan either like me, or see me as an outsider. I am only there because key members of the Clan want me to stay. After this trouble, I doubt very much I will be allowed to remain at their station!”

Ingo’s voice was rising, and that caused the pain of the poison to bloom more strongly in his chest. Stopping for a moment, he hunched over, wanting to put pressure on the wound but fearing how much that would hurt. It was no longer bleeding; further contact would only aggravate it.

“You are helpful. You are kind. And you care, Ingo. They are lucky to have you.”

“And what does that matter, out here?” Ingo all but screamed, finally falling to his knees no matter that that motion jarred his legs in a painful way. “What does that matter when I will die out here all the same?!”

There was silence after he spoke. In that quiet, Ingo heard the telltale babbling of a swollen stream. Turning, he staggered towards it, finding an icy brook that trailed down from the mountain above. He kneeled beside it, a weight in his chest.

How could he trust a disembodied voice’s opinion of him? It was probably a figment of his dying imagination, and thus he was complimenting himself. That was absolutely pathetic; he did not deserve even the words of his subconscious.

The body of the sneaslet felt heavy and cold in his coat pocket, and he took it out to look at it again. It was on its side, curled up and frozen into the position by cold and rigor mortis alike. At least it didn’t look like it had been in any pain.

Perhaps it was the poison, but the need to bury it suddenly came upon Ingo, and he carefully tucked it back into his pocket before scrabbling at the ground with his fingernails alone. Over the ringing in his ears, Ingo thought he heard a wordless cry from the mystery voice, but he didn’t bother replying. He didn’t even stop to wonder about any possible customs the Pearl Clan might’ve had regarding the dead. He just dug into the muddy bank until, a few inches down, he was rebuffed by the myriad roots of grasses and reeds and little plants that grew along the stream, a mat of clotted soil tied together with plant matter. Ingo could dig no further, no matter how hard he tried, and when he gave up, the man just collapsed. 

When he landed on his scar, it pulsed angrily and he immediately turned to lie on his back, eyes closed and hands muddied.

“Ingo. Ingo you must get up.” The voice had finally taken on a slight tone, a hint of urgency bleeding into it. “The poison. It is making you behave irrationally. Ingo. Get up. You must. Get up!”

Ingo peeled his eyes open again to see the stark gray sky.

“You need to wash your wound,” continued the voice. Ingo complied, running his dirty hands under the freezing water until they were clean, then splashing his wound until the oily sheen on the surface was spattered on the grass instead. The pain of the cold water burned, then lessened with each moment as the poison was washed away. It was still in his blood, but no longer was more just sitting on the surface of his flesh.

“Good. Now. Stand up and keep going. I know you can.”

At this point, Ingo’s mind had largely shut off. His body ran on autopilot, following what the voice said to do. He avoided sticking his foot into some pokemon’s burrow that way, because despite staring at the ground, he still managed to miss seeing it.

He was so cold. Breathing hurt so much. Walking hurt even more. Even with the clouds, the sky was too bright. The feeling of fabric against his skin was too much.

That was it. It was all way too much.

Could someone from the Pearl Clan please find him already? Was no one around? Could he draw out one more miracle, like when he had first been found in the snow?

“Keep going,” said the voice, over and over and even that was starting to get grating, even though Ingo loved that voice, strange as that sounded even to him. He wanted to tell the imaginary person that, but he could not imagine focusing on speech when every cell in his body was being put towards moving forward.

(He realized, then, that he had no recollection of anyone ever telling him they loved him, if they ever had. The thought made him deeply sad.)

Occasionally as he drew closer to the Pearl Clan settlement, he saw little pokemon like eevee and buneary peer at him from the foliage. Ingo must’ve proved such a pathetic sight that they lost all fear of him.

It was a monumental, impossible task, but everything about Ingo was impossible. He finally came to the Pearl Clan settlement, legs shaking more than the rest of him due to exhaustion, injuries throbbing, unable to make a single sound. No one was out; every human was either in their tent or away, it seemed, and Ingo could move no further.

First he fell to his knees, then onto his front side as he tried not to black out.

“You made it,” whispered the voice. “I am verrry proud of you. You will be okay. You are safe now.”

The speaker was wrong on one point, Ingo thought. He wasn’t going to be okay. But that was no longer up to him. He couldn’t do anything more to save himself.

“It is okay Ingo. I–”

The voice cut off as Ingo blacked out for a moment, and he only became conscious enough to feel a stabbing pain in his heart when it did not speak again. Then the world got fuzzy and things existed as the barest twilight for Ingo for some time.

But then, after a while, there were voices again. None rang with the same clarity as the one that Ingo had been so comforted by, but people were suddenly touching him and picking him up and their hands were warm so he didn’t care.

He caught his name a few times, and someone saying that he had been found. His vision was still hazy but he saw reddish pink and the sky became what he imagined was the roof of a tent. The cold was less prevalent here, but he still wiggled a bit when his clothes were removed. He wasn’t worried about his coat and hat, everyone knew what those meant to him, but he was colder once more, and some part of his poison-addled brain was embarrassed.

He was in the healer’s tent, he had to be. He could smell the sharpness of herbs, even if he couldn’t bring himself to crack open his tired eyes. While he wasn’t out of the woods yet, at least Ingo was safe.

After a moment, a bowl was brought to his lips, and a wrinkled hand supported the back of his neck as he drank broth laced with bitter herbs. It would help, he figured, and the warmth in his core allowed him to slip into a deeper rest.

He woke up halfway twice. Once, when Calaba was treating the wound on his side. When he jolted, she applied some cold, jelly-like substance to the area and the hurt immediately gave way to numbness and he slipped into sleep again. The next time was when he felt a weight next to him in the bed and then heard the mournful chitterings of Gligar. Ingo could do nothing to reassure him, but the little bat was more focused on curling up with his trainer for a nap, so Ingo let himself rest more.

He wondered exactly what awaited him when he woke up.

Chapter Text

After a few false starts, Ingo did, eventually, wake up. Gligar was still nestled next to him, in a different position than Ingo last remembered. Or, thought he remembered. The end of his harrowing journey down from Mount Coronet was extremely fuzzy in his mind.

It took him more than a few moments to realize that he was, once again, in Warden Calaba’s tent. She wasn’t present, though, and Ingo was alone with his sleeping pokemon. At least he was warm; that was something he would never take for granted again, not that he ever really had in living memory.

He didn’t have to lose himself in thoughts for long; eventually he heard the shuffling footsteps of Calaba before she entered the tent, a woven bowl full of berries in her hands.

“I see you’re awake,” was the first thing she said once she saw Ingo’s eyes glowing in the dark.

“Y-yes, ma’am, I am.” His voice still sounded weak and hoarse and talking hurt, but he had no other way to communicate.

“What did I say about getting caught in the storm? Back when we had tea together? Hm?”

“Miss Calaba, there was–”

“And then you go and get yourself stranded in the mountains on the coldest night of the season! Chaos below, it snowed in some places!”

Ingo found he couldn’t reply. The lump in his throat was too great, and his cab felt too awful to formulate words at all. Embarrassingly, he could even feel tears prick in his eyes.

Some of that must’ve shown on his face, because Calaba’s look softened. “You worried us all, Ingo. Did you know? People had just gone out to look for you when you showed up at camp.”

“They… Did?”

“Yes, son, they did.” Calaba was mashing up some of the berries, sprinkling herbs into the resulting goop.

“... I did not plan on going so far. But… I found a baby sneasel…” And then Ingo had a moment of panic. What had they done with the baby?

“We saw, when we got your coat off.” Calaba gestured at a small bundle, set on the ground near Ingo’s cot. It was wrapped in a white cloth with aromatic plants and herbs stuck into the folds. “It was one of Lady Sneasler’s, wasn’t it?”

Ingo nodded. “Y-yes… It was injured. I think… The alpha had stolen it away to distract Lady Sneasler or lure her out, but I cannot be sure. I just tried to travel the safest tracks to save it. But I failed.”

“You did not fail.”

Ingo looked up so fast that his neck cracked and he had to rub it, hissing in pain. Irida had just entered the tent, tailed by a proud looking eevee. “You tried to do something very brave for one of our sacred pokemon.”

“But if I’d just brought it back here instead–”

“No buts,” Calaba cut him off, pushing a bowl into his hands. It contained the berry mixture she had been making a few minutes ago. “Eat that.”

“I thought I was going to get in trouble,” Ingo murmured as he spooned the mush into his mouth. It sounded childish, like he had forgotten to do classwork or something similar.

“No,” Irida insisted. “I don’t think you did anything wrong. But can you fill in what happened to you out there?”

Haltingly, in between finishing the medicine and a cup of water Calaba fetched for him, Ingo told the whole story. He spoke of finding the kit while doing his job, of wondering what was best for it and then trying to hurry up the mountain to find Sneasler’s den. How he overestimated his own walking pace and got caught in the storm, and how the alpha male had found him. How he’d tried his best. How Lady Sneasler had saved him, in the end, even though at the time Ingo himself had not known he’d live to see the morning. How he’d woken up and dragged himself back to his Clan. 

Ingo left out the voice at first, but after a moment, he decided to tell them. Maybe one of them would be able to tell Ingo he was not crazy.

Irida was silent, but Calaba spoke after a moment. “That sounds like one of your ancestors. A spirit, guiding you back to safety. It is not unheard of; those experiencing near-death situations can speak to the dead sometimes. You were already halfway there, and a benevolent ghost nudged you back to the side of existence where you belonged.”

“He used the same strange words that I use,” Ingo said, petting Gliscor and looking down at his lap. “I couldn’t always figure out what he was trying to say.”

“You mean to tell me that you don’t even know what you’re saying half the time? That is ridiculous.” Calaba was smiling, though, and she offered a bowl of soup to Ingo. This time, it wasn’t just broth and herbs but some bits of meat too. He took it gratefully.

“I do it on instinct. I can guess at their meanings via context clues but…” Ingo shrugged, and that somehow reminded his wound that it existed, and he grit his teeth. “Oh that was not wise, was it.”

“Please just eat and recover,” Irida said kindly. “The entire Clan is glad you’re alright.”

Not the entire Clan, Ingo guessed rather bitterly as he ate. Many of them had not wanted him there. He knew he hadn’t yet proved himself in their eyes, if he ever could.

“Yes, we thought the zoroark had gotten to you.”

“The what?”

Calaba’s mouth gaped open. “Son, you don’t know?”

“No, no I do not.” All the talking was making Ingo’s throat hurt worse. “... Is that the unspeakable pokemon that tricks you and kills you, out in the Icelands?” He took a gulp of soup, hoping to soothe his throat.

“Yes,” Irida said.

“Well, no one would tell me what to look out for when I first became stationed here. No one would speak of it, and thus I never learned.” He broke off into a cough, somewhat grateful for the sore throat for a moment. Ingo was unsure if he could’ve kept the momentary flash of annoyance from showing in his voice otherwise.

“Unacceptable,” Calaba muttered. “It is true, we do not like to speak of the beasts, but that is no excuse for not teaching the dangers to those who are vulnerable. You are not a child,” she continued when Ingo opened his mouth to protest. “But you are friendly with wild pokemon who do not immediately become hostile. That little creature at your side is proof of that.” Gligar was too deeply asleep to comment. “But like you heard, zoroark are tricky. They will not attack right away, and that might lead certain people to trust them. But they are not normal pokemon.”

“Why not? What sets them apart?”

“They are dead.”

“... Pardon?”

“They’re ghost pokemon, Ingo,” said Calaba. “Long ago, humans killed them. Slaughtered all their kind. Now they roam the Icelands as vengeful, savage spirits.”

“This all happened long before the Pearl and Diamond Clans settled here,” Irida added, as if worried Ingo would come to the conclusion that she herself had hunted a species to extinction. “It is from the time of the Celestica people, those who came before us, but even then the story goes it was roving bands of hunters that actually did the deed. We all pay the price for it, though, because now they stalk humans, killing when they can.”

Ingo mused about that for a moment, turning the information over and over in his head like a worn stone in the palm of a hand. “I think… The name ‘zoroark’ strikes some recognition into me,” he began, speaking slowly as he continued to think. Something, some glimmer of a memory of his life before… “Maybe… Where I came from has zoroark too. Although I do not think they are dead there. That feels… Strictly like new knowledge, if that makes any sense.”

“I hope there’s a land out there where they are alive and hold no malice,” Irida said, and Ingo was struck by the sincerity in her voice.

Calaba nodded. “We did not commit that atrocity, but we have to bear the responsibility of staying away from the revenants. They do not care that the humans who wronged them are gone.”

Ingo shuddered, which turned into a wince when it twinged his back and the stitched-up scratches. “Would that have been worse than the alpha sneasler? Meeting a zoroark?”

“That is hard to say. They do not have poison, per se, but they have other weapons and abilities we scarcely understand. They can shapeshift, creating illusions to strike fear or longing into your heart, and then they attack while you are off guard.”

“Enough about that,” Calaba then declared, offering Ingo one last thing: mashed up herbs on a spoon. “These will dull the pain of your wound and your back. Later on today I am taking you to the hot springs for a bath and a soak, that will also help your aches.”

Despite the bitter taste, Ingo ate all of the offered mixture. “Thank you. I would like that.” He could only imagine how good the heat would feel with how cold he always seemed to be. So engrossed was he, and also tired, hungry, and still slightly woozy, that he passed the spoon to his right and dropped it.

The utensil clattered to the floor, and Ingo froze. But Calaba just picked it up, and Irida did not mention it. For that, Ingo was grateful.

True to her word, in the afternoon Calaba brought Ingo a new walking stick and ushered him out of the tent, a blanket still draped around his shoulders.

“We are only going to the spring near the camp,” she assured him. “Snowfall Hot Spring is too far to travel to right now, for you, but these smaller springs are right this way.”

Ingo sincerely hoped so, because between his back and his wound and the cold he wasn’t happy to be standing upright outside. He focused on other things, like how nice it was that the new walking stick had already had new leather wrapped around it, and the feeling of his footsteps on the ground.

Gligar was hanging off his shoulders, around which Ingo had draped his coat with the blanket over top. He nibbled at the back of Ingo’s hair every so often, perhaps in a poor attempt at grooming. Why he had that behavior, Ingo did not know; the little bat was mainly covered in a shiny carapace, and the fuzzy down on his wing membranes hardly counted as groomable hair.

As Calaba promised, it did not take long to arrive at the hot springs. There were multiple pools; a few had privacy tents around them, but most were out in the open. The Warden and her patient weren’t the only ones present, either. Several other Clan members, both with and without their families, were bathing in the warm water.

Calaba led Ingo to a smaller, uninhabited pool, away from a mother and her two small children. She had rightly guessed that Ingo would like some privacy. He was not keen on being gawked at, especially not without clothes, both due to being self conscious and also because of his scar. The family in the nearby pool reminded him of the Diamond Clan children he’d met, and he could only imagine what they would have said if they’d seen the old injury.

He kept his underwear on for this exact reason as he hastily undressed and got into the water as fast as he could, both due to the cold and also wanting not to be seen. The steam also helped obscure his form from any curious eyes. Gligar, who had flapped to the safety of a spar of dead wood jutting out of the ground nearby, hung upside down and peered at his trainer curiously. Once Ingo was in the water, though, none of that mattered because all he could think of was the relief.

Calaba chuckled, sitting next to the pool.

“Are you not coming in?” Ingo asked, only his head above the water line.

“No, not right now. I’m going to make sure you don’t drown.”

“I’m not going to drown!”

“You’re recovering and tired, I wouldn’t put it past you to fall asleep in there.” Calaba was laughing as she spoke, seated on a nearby rock, simply enjoying the warm steam.

Ingo sank in the water until only above his nose was visible. That caused the older Warden to laugh even harder; several other sets of Pearl Clan eyes were drawn to the duo, including one of the children Ingo had seen earlier.

The little boy was obviously the older of the two, considering the first was still being held by their mother. Her eyes were watching her son closely, but luckily she had not deemed the sad man with Warden Calaba to pose any danger.

“Whatcha doin’?” asked the boy once he got close enough to be heard, hands clasped behind his back as he rocked on his heels.

“Erm… Taking a bath. Same as you, I suppose.”

“Nope,” said the kid, popping the ‘p.’ “If I was taking a bath, I wouldn’t still be dressed! Mama’s teaching us to swim.”

“That is an important skill. Safety first.”

“My name’s Nomo, what’s yours?”

“I am Ingo.”

Calaba watched the exchange in silence, curious to see how Ingo was with the younger Clan members. She was impressed, honestly, for how easily he carried on a conversation with a child even after being sort of ambushed while he was recovering. It was endearing, honestly.

Irida had said he’d bumped into some Diamond Clan children who were too curious for their own good, even if she hadn’t heard the whole interaction. Apparently it had been, more or less, relayed to her by Zinta.

Well, Calaba supposed, hopefully more accounts of Ingo’s kind nature would make Irida’s final decision concerning what was to become of Ingo easier.

“Oh, so you’re the one who fell from the sky!” the child said in response to something Ingo had said.

“Erm… I am not sure about that, Nomo,” Ingo said, scratching the back of his neck with a hand. “I was discovered in the snow; I do not think I fell from the sky.”

“Maybe you did and you forgot.”

“I have forgotten a lot, haven’t I?”

“I guess so.” Nomo sat down cross-legged by the pool Ingo was in, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. “So what do you do now? I wish you could tell me where you came from, falling from the sky sounds cool and scary and I wanna know what’s up in the sky. But if you forgot you can’t tell me. SO what have you been doing since you got here?”

“Well, once I recovered, my job became picking berries,” Ingo said. Calaba could tell he did not feel like recounting his experience in the storm; it was probably too fresh in his mind to cheerfully tell to a small child.

“That sounds kinda boring.”

“It has its moments,” Ingo replied diplomatically. “And I get to see the region, which is nice. Gligar certainly appreciates it.”

The pokemon, who had been dozing until he heard his name, chirped. Nomo seemed to have not noticed him earlier, and gasped.

“You have a pokemon!”

“Yes. I promise he won’t hurt you. I think you should remain at your current station and let him go back to sleep, but if you don’t bother him, he won’t bother you.” If Ingo had more energy, he would’ve loved to introduce Gligar to children but between his exhaustion in general, lack of permission from the child’s mother, and the fact that Gligar seemed sleepy, he deemed it a bad idea for the moment.

Calaba agreed.

“Okay. I can do that. Goodnight sleepy bat.” Nomo waved at Gligar instead, and the pokemon smiled at him.

After another moment, Nomo’s mother called to him, and he hopped up. “Oops. Gotta go! I hope to see you around, Ingo! Bye Warden Calaba!” And before either of the adults could actually say goodbye in return, he was off.

Ingo remained at the hot springs with Calaba for a while longer, not wanting to return to the cold air, where his healing scratches stung and his back ached. But he was indeed getting sleepy, and needed to return to his warm bed in the healer’s tent.

The cold air lit a fire on his heels as he walked back with Calaba, and despite his tiredness and the return of some pain, his long legs carried him back quite quickly. The healer gave him a moment to change into warmer clothes fit to be slept in, and then entered the tent as well.

After changing Ingo’s bandages and giving him his nightly dose of medicine, she began to get ready to sleep herself. After wishing him a good night, Calaba retired to her own bed where her bibarel was already fast asleep. Ingo had scarcely seen the lazy pokemon do anything but keep her bed warm for her.

It was cute, but Ingo was glad that his partner pokemon was a bit more lively.

Just as he was beginning to drift off, blankets pulled high over his form, Gligar clutched to his chest, and the scent of herbs heavy in his nose, Ingo heard a voice.

“Ingo… I’m sorry that I was only able to get here right as you were going to sleep.”

The man lifted his head, just a little, and saw Irida standing in the healer’s tent. Her arms were tucked behind her back, and her face was set in a serious frown that was also a little nervous. She actually looked quite a bit like him when he was standing around, just without the crooked spine.

“Mmm it’s okay Lady Irida,” he said after a moment. “Did you need my assistance with something?”

“No, I just wanted to ask… Well, before anyone else tried to talk me out of it.” And now her frown was stubborn, but it softened after a moment. “Ingo… Because of the bravery you showed on Mount Coronet, I would like to appoint you the Warden of Lady Sneasler.”

Ingo’s head grew fuzzy for a moment, then snapped sharply back into focus. “M-me? A Warden? Lady Irida I can’t possibly… I was not born to this Clan! I am… You can’t be serious!”

Patiently waiting for his stammering to be finished, Irida continued. “I am serious, Ingo. Aside from what you did to try and help Lady Sneasler, she adores you. She hasn’t been that way around a human since her old Warden died years ago. She would agree with my choice.”

“And you’re sure, even with my disability, I can perform the duties I need to do?”

“Yes. And if some days you find you can’t, we will help you. We look out for each other, Ingo.”

There was a part of him, the part that was most painful when he thought about his missing past, that said but I am not quite one of you, am I? I remain an outsider, despite what you say. No one will touch me. But that felt more than a little silly, so he tried to crush the thought. Instead, it centered around where his scar was with a dull ache.

He’d take that over the unkind thoughts in his head, though.

After a moment, he nodded. “It would be my utmost honor to serve the Pearl Clan as the Warden of Lady Sneasler.”

“Thank you, Ingo. I will begin preparations for the ceremony, and, when you are well again, a Warden you will become.”

Something about the sincerity in her voice and the smile that was now on her face did help the knot of loneliness inside him ease. After all, if the Clan leader and a blessed pokemon considered him worthy, that must mean he was.

So, as he held his sleeping bat-scorpion right over his heart, a glow seemed to light in his chest. A feeling of duty and purpose that was both achingly familiar and completely unfamiliar. It was as if something in the world had slotted into place again, and one of the fractures running through his life had been repaired.

Ingo slept well that night.

▲▽

After a week of rest and recovery, it was finally time for Ingo to become a Warden officially. He knew some of the more traditional members of the Clan were against him becoming a Warden, even though he’d been kept away from it to the best of Irida and Calaba’s abilities. Ingo did his best not to let it dampen his spirit; Irida helped a lot. Even though Ingo had not heard the comments from the naysayers directly, Irida had told him to his face that while tradition was important and one of the backbones of culture, flexibility was just as necessary.

“Traditions must change and adapt as the people who create them do,” she’d said wisely. “As what we learn and the way we interact with the world changes, as we grow as a people, we gain new traditions and alter what we have. Space is not static, after all! Where there are plains now, forests once grew. Our Space is altered by the changing world, and who are we to defy how things work?”

“I couldn’t have said it any better,” Calaba said, sounding proud as she prepared remedies nearby.

“I appreciate your kind words, Irida,” Ingo had said, and had genuinely meant it.

On the morning of the Warden ceremony, Ingo was given a set of robes to wear in the Pearl Clan colors. There was a stylized sneasler on the back, and despite the length, the garment was light and not particularly stifling. It was open in the front, intended to be worn over top of the tunic he normally wore under his coat.

Which… He wouldn’t be able to wear. No one had outright told him to leave it behind, but it would be awkward either over or under the ceremonial robes. At least Ingo would still have his hat; he refused to be parted from that, at the very least. And no one had given him a replacement, so it must be fine.

Before donning the robes, he ran gentle fingers over the design. While the rest of the robe appeared to be made of plant fibers, some of the sneasler pattern had bits of fur and what seemed to be real, iridescent feather strands woven into it. Perhaps either Lady Sneasler or one of her predecessors had allowed the Clan to take a bit of fur and feather for this garment.

Suddenly Ingo felt a bit nervous about wearing it.

What if his back gave out and he tripped, damaging it or getting it dirty? That was a valid concern, even though he did have a new walking stick.

No matter. The man took a deep breath and continued getting dressed. First there was to be a pyre for the baby sneasel, and then he would be made Warden. He could do this. He could.

Gligar flapped up and perched on his shoulder from where the pokemon had just finished his berry and piloswine blood breakfast, luckily after he had licked his fangs and pincers clean. Ingo allowed him to remain there a moment, scratching his chin before gently removing him.

“Sorry, my little passenger, but I am too worried this robe will rip for you to remain boarded today. You are free to follow along if you wish, though.” Gligar stuck his tongue out in reply, but took to the air, lazily floating alongside his trainer.

It was time to go.

The ceremony would take place at Heart’s Crag, a location not far away from the Pearl Clan camp. There were two waterfalls there, the Twin Falls, Calaba had told him once. He still wasn’t sure why that sounded so familiar, and so heart-wrenching. The falls coalesced into one river, the same that flowed past the camp, with a few rounded rocks in the deep pool at the foot of the cliffs the water cascaded over. There were pine trees and shrubs present on the land around the water, and the actual ceremony would take place on a flat-topped hill near the river, where the Clan had already gathered.

“Are you ready, son?” Calaba called from outside his tent.

“Yes!” he replied, picking up his walking stick and heading outside. “I just was derailed by my own thoughts.”

“You have a lot to think about,” said Calaba. “But the clan already has to wait for us slowpokes to arrive, eh? Best not have them wait even longer.”

A smile tugged on the corner of Ingo’s eyes. “Ah yes, whatever shall they do.”

And the duo set off, making their careful way beside the river, maintaining a companionable silence until, at last, they came to Heart’s Crag.

Irida and Calaba had been truthful; the entire Clan was there, from young children who hid behind their parent’s legs when Ingo and Calaba approached to elders who looked like they could give Lord Ursaluna’s Warden a run for her money. No one spoke and the mood was solemn as Ingo approached the crest of the hill, where Irida was stationed. There were a few other people there with her; Gaeric, whom Ingo had already met and befriended, along with a young boy and a woman who did not seem particularly pleased to be there. Each person was wearing a robe much like his own, so Ingo figured the two strangers were the Wardens he had not yet met.

However, there were no introductions as Ingo finally reached the side of the pyre for the baby sneasel who had had its life so cruelly cut short. He noticed that Gligar had landed at the crown of a pine tree at the base of the hill; there were no such perches at the top.

“Ingo,” Irida said, her voice easily able to cut through the silence. “You are here today to become a Warden. But before we do this, we must lay to rest the spirit of this kit from a blessed line. You nearly gave your life to save it, and the Pearl Clan and Sinnoh itself thank you for your selflessness. Though it was not meant to be, you inadvertently passed the test Space itself set for you, traveling a great distance to do the right thing. Almighty Sinnoh saw this, and saw fit to return you to us.”

Ingo noticed Irida had her own robe; Pearl Clan pink with stars and swirls on the back, and the circular golden symbol of the Almighty Sinnoh. He also noticed the tiny shape of the wrapped-up sneaslet on the pyre.

“Now it is time for us to return this little one to Sinnoh, so that it might find a home in the vastness of the Space beyond.”

The Clan leader bent, a few pieces of flint in her hand, and ignited the tinder at the base of the small pyre, and in no time, the whole thing was aflame. No one said anything more; Ingo could not help but wonder what the last rites for a human would be like. He hoped that he would not learn any time soon.

It did not take long for everything to burn, with the size of the little body that had been there. Once the funeral was complete, Irida bent, scooping up a handful of dirt to toss onto the ashes. “May you have a peaceful rest, little one. Your mother and siblings will carry on the Noble lineage in your stead.”

In the silence that followed, Ingo felt a bit strange following up such a sad occasion with a happy one, but he supposed the mood for both would be solemn and serious, even if his appointment to Wardenship was to be a celebration. There would be a celebration for dinner that night, and Ingo wasn’t sure how he’d do with so much attention on him.

But that was getting ahead of things. Ingo needed to remain in the present, at his current station.

“Ingo.” Irida beckoned him forward, and the other Wardens stood beside her. “Even though you were not born into this Clan, you have done nothing but be helpful since we rescued you. Through injury and hardship, you have wanted to know what you can do for the Pearl Clan, and your service has not gone unnoticed. The bravery you showed recently merely highlights what I already know about your character.”

Somewhere along the way of Irida’s speech, a lump had grown in Ingo’s throat.

“From the moment she saw you, Lady Sneasler herself had marked you as special. After refusing a Warden for many years, she chose you, long before any of us realized it. Now I call upon her to come and appoint you Warden.” In a quieter voice, so the rest of the Clan did not hear, she said “I pray that she is still with us in this Space.”

Something in Ingo’s blood ran cold. Had she not been seen since she had saved Ingo? Had no one gone to look for her? But he could not ask and interrupt the ceremony, even if the thought of Lady Sneasler, cold and stiff somewhere, snarling at the sky like the Alpha, turned his stomach and choked him.

Irida brought a flute up to her mouth, made of a pale white stone with delicate black veins webbing through it. She played a quick, simple melody that echoed through the mountains, even over the sound of the Twin Falls.

There was silence.

She played the melody again.

More silence.

Expression growing more desperate, Irida called out on the flute one final time.

There was a pause, and then a yowl sounded over the cliff, and a figure appeared at the top of it. Ingo’s heart, that had been pounding and had nearly seized moments before, relaxed, along with the rest of his tense body.

Lady Sneasler had made it.

But, they noticed, not without damage. She limped closer, and it became evident that the brawl between sneaslers had not involved pokemon moves or pulled punches, just sheer animal rage. Ingo knew this. He’d been there to see it.

When she finally came to a stop In front of Irida and Ingo, they could see that she had deep scratches on her body, healing but still terribly scabbed. One of her legs had a vicious bite mark on it. But her fur was largely clean, all the blood that must’ve been matted into it carefully washed away. Somehow, she managed to look tired, a look Ingo was intimately familiar with, but she was okay. She would survive.

“Hello, my lady,” Ingo said, after a moment, normally booming voice small.

Lady Sneasler stood there for a moment, then dropped the basket she was still carrying on her back and bent to wrap up Ingo in a warm, tight hug. He could feel her heartbeat, her breath, and her shaky purr as she nuzzled next to his cheek. Ingo wrapped his arms around her in turn, clinging to her thick fur and carefully avoiding her wounds.

Eventually, Sneasler stepped back. Irida spoke up when she did, now holding something Ingo did not recognize in her hands.

“Ingo,” she said. “We call on the Almighty Sinnoh to grant you the ability to pass through this Space bearing the title of Warden to Lady Sneasler. By accepting this title, you will pledge to keep the highlands safe to the best of your ability and work with Lady Sneasler to ensure that all those who traverse Mount Coronet reach their destination. The Pearl Clan trusts you with all the duties of Warden, as does the Almighty.”

Irida beckoned him forward, taking his right hand. The touch sent shockwaves up Ingo’s arm, but he did not let it show.

“This is your Warden band. It designates your rank as a Warden.” Now it was clear that what Irida held was a wood and leather wristband, much like the one Calaba wore. It differed in the fact that it had a depiction of Sneasler on it and not Ursaluna, and the wooden base was painted purple on the outside. Irida gently fitted it around his wrist and it hung there from his arm, light in and of itself but heavy with the weight of the responsibilities it came with.

Next, Lady Sneasler stepped up. Some time while Irida was giving Ingo the Warden band, she had reached into the basket and drawn out several items.

The first was a long, beautifully iridescent sneasler feather. Ingo watched in awe as she delicately tucked the end into the leather wrapping of his walking stick.

“A feather, dictating that you are her Warden,” Irida said, seeming to translate for the blessed pokemon.

The next gift Sneasler held out in her paws: six sneasler claws, viciously sharp still, the ends where they would’ve attached to paws still crusted with dried blood.

“Claws with which you can make climbing implements to help you traverse the dangers of Mount Coronet.”

It was only when Lady Sneasler passed him the last gift, tucked into the soft paw on the underside of her massive claws, that Ingo realized where the offerings had come from.

“A f–”

“The unbroken tooth from the alpha,” Ingo breathed, looking at the fang with its purple root sitting in his palm.

“You can use this to craft a poison weapon for self defense, or simply keep it as a memento,” Irida said. “All of these gifts have been harvested from the one that nearly cost you and your Lady your lives, but you prevailed over. May such offerings serve you well.”

There was a pause, and Ingo realized it was his turn to speak. Swallowing, he was extremely grateful that words were his thing, and not… He didn’t remember. But that did not matter right now.

“Thank you, Lady Irida. I will take my responsibilities seriously and conduct the Highlands safely as best I can. I promise I will always try my hardest and make sure my passengers reach their destinations safely! And thank you, Lady Sneasler, both for saving my life and for these gifts. I will take the title of Warden to an even higher state!” Ingo then, on instinct alone, struck his pose, pointing over at the mountain with one hand and the ground with the other. “ALL ABOARD!”

His shout rattled the snow off a few tree branches and was echoed back to him several times in repetitive voices quieter and more distant than his own. Once the phantom replies died down and there was no sound but that of the falls, Sneasler roared, a fearsome sound that Ingo hadn’t yet heard. The only thing that stopped him from covering his ears was the fact that his own voice was so loud.

“Now you are Warden and Noble,” Irida said, raising her voice above the echoes, above the falls. “Go forth and serve the Pearl Clan and Hisui at large with Sinnoh’s Space set before you and its light at your back.”

And then finally, finally the crowd let out a cheer as Sneasler drew in Ingo for another hug, licking the side of his face with a rough tongue. The outside world sounded muted from where he was pressed into her fluffy chest, and he whispered words for only her to hear.

“Thank you for choosing me.”

Later on, Ingo would deem his earlier worries to be silly; he was a natural at the whole party scene. Something about actually being the center of attention came a lot more naturally to him than the mere thought of it. While during the anticipatory stage he could not recall any social skills needed to be in such a situation, when he actually joined in the celebrations, instinct took over.

For the millionth time, Ingo wondered just exactly who he had been before, in terms of a career and in the public eye.

Even so, he found he needed a moment to himself eventually, and found himself seated on a rock overlooking the river near camp. He was farther from the Twin Falls, too far to see them at least, but still he looked upriver in their direction.

Something, some one was missing, but he did not know what or who.

Ingo looked down at the hot sake in his wooden cup, in which the myriad stars overhead reflected. The steam looked like galaxies caught in the aether; when Ingo looked up, he could see the stars and more gleaming in the cold, distant sky.

It was beautiful. For the first time since his arrival in Hisui, Ingo felt like he belonged. Truly, and completely belonged.

But there was still that missing piece. Ingo hoped to uncover his own secrets one day, but for now…

“Whoever you are, I hope to meet you again one day.”

He toasted his glass to the heavens, and then poured his drink into the river.

“Snawr?”

Ingo jumped, then laughed. “My Lady, you startled me. I am fine, I just needed a moment to myself. I do love the festivities and everything, I just… Sometimes feel myself begin to get overwhelmed by things. And I need to remove myself from the situation, whether good or bad, to calm down.”

She nudged him, flicking her ear as she tilted her head questioningly.

“Yes, I think I am alright to rejoin the celebrations!”

His laughter turned into a surprised yelp as he was scooped up unceremoniously and put into Lady Sneasler’s basket, where he was carried back to the party in his honor.

Chapter Text

“Emmet!”

Emmet wasn’t fully awake yet, just barely beginning to stir from his deep sleep. It took two more calls of his name, both from Elesa and Ingo, to peel his eyes open to the dull gray roof of his tent.

“I am UP!” he called at last, a bit of a whine to his voice, and unzipped the tent flaps. Squinting into the bar of morning light that splashed across his face, he swatted the flaps open and stuck his head out.

“Are you ready to go find your partner today?” asked Ingo, already up, though not quite dressed yet.

“You want a tynamo, right?” Elesa questioned. He knew it was more a test to see how awake he was; they’d gotten Ingo’s partner first because Emmet’s pick was dangerous and they needed all the help they could get.

“Yup yup,” Emmet chirped, taking Ingo’s offered hands and letting his twin pull him to his feet.

Then he stopped. This was… Emmet looked down at his toes, bare feet not quite cold on the grassy ground. He then looked at Ingo, down at his feet and back up at his face.

“Are… You okay, Emmet?” asked Elesa hesitantly.

“Something is… Wrong. This is not how this is supposed to be. I don’t…”

“Emmet?” Ingo stood in front of him, linking their hands together again. His normally-smooth brow furrowed, and he looked Emmet straight in the eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“... Should only be two legs. Not four,” he finished somewhat lamely, unable to further verbalize his confusion. Even Emmet himself was confused as to what that meant.

“I think maybe you had a weird dream,” Elesa said, after a moment. The slightly older girl rubbed her chin as she spoke. “Maybe where you or Ingo were a pokemon! One without legs, like basculin or litwick. Or tynamo! Ooooor… You were one person. There wasn’t two of you! Though that would be a really really weird dream.”

“... Probably,” Emmet replied, voice still quieter than usual as he turned back towards his tent, intending to get ready to continue he and Ingo’s pokemon journey. Even though Elesa had already been on hers, she’d chosen to accompany them until they got their partners.

A hand tapped Emmet’s shoulder, then.

“Tag. You’re it.”

Emmet turned slowly, confused. “What?”

Ingo’s eyes were upturned, and he had his silly little cat grin on his face. “I said you’re it!”

“Ingo, it is early!”

“So? We can play tag early! Dad isn’t here to tell us no, and he wouldn’t say that anyways.”

Emmet could tell, then, that Ingo was trying to cheer him up after his confusing dream(?) and he appreciated it quite a bit. So, he decided to bite.

Mouth finally curling up into his signature smile once more, Emmet faked a lunge at Ingo before turning to Elesa and almost tackling her off the log she was sitting on. “Tag!”

“You’re gonna pay you little asshole!” She spoke in a teasing manner, but she was still scary when she took off after the boys.

“Language!” Ingo called back, evading Elesa nimbly. Made sense, since he was the one who’d called the game into being in the first place.

“I thought kids were supposed to like swearing!”

“Not him!” Emmet huffed, dashing around the clearing, away from Elesa. “He is a stick in the mud!”

“Am not!” shouted Ingo, coming closer and closer to getting out of breath, reduced to short phrases like Emmet.

“Are too!”

“You’re also it!’

Elesa thumped Ingo on the back, knocking him into a bush, and darted away while the poor boy was recuperating.

Ingo had been right. This was a good way to cheer up, even if the strangeness of his dream was still curled up in his mind, asleep for now but ready to plague him later. Emmet still wasn’t convinced it had been a dream, but what else would it have been?

Unfortunately for Emmet, the ruminating left him wide open to be immediately tagged by Ingo, who he hadn’t realized was up and running at him. Well, that was just an excuse to burn off more excess nervous energy. Hopping onto the balls of his still-bare feet, Emmet took off like a shot, pelting after Ingo, who shrieked and dashed away as fast as he could.

As he ran, faster and faster, chasing his twin through the woods, feeling his legs pumping and his feet on the ground, Emmet couldn’t shake the last thoughts of wrongness in this sort of running in his head, thinking, for that moment, that this was the easiest it had ever been.

▲▽

Emmet opened his eyes. Something about him felt off, but he couldn’t grasp it.

He was in the subway, on a platform that was empty. The normally dim environment seemed darker than usual, which maybe meant it was after hours. But even so, shouldn’t Emmet looking around have set off the motion sensing lights?

He recognized the platform. It was one of the ones that had recently undergone lighting renovations, including installment of motion sensors. He and Ingo were receiving feedback on the decision so they could determine whether to bring the change to the rest of the subway…

Ingo. Wait. Where was Ingo? How could he possibly be anywhere but next to Emmet?

“Emmet.”

Emmet whirled around, feeling shaky, and moved closer to where he now saw Ingo standing. He felt like he was in a trance, or maybe cursed, but he eventually was at his brother’s side, and he saw that Ingo now held a cane in his left hand.

“Emmet, it’s been a year.”

“A year since what, brother?” Emmet asked, wanting to reach out but scared to do so, wondering why they were separate but not dwelling on it for the moment.

But Ingo ignored him.

“I can’t… You’ve been gone for an entire year.”

Something began to dawn horribly on Emmet.

“A whole year since you died.”

Emmet looked down at himself. There wasn’t much to see, from his translucent flesh to the way his body cut off mid torso. As he watched, horrified, with a ringing in his ears, the edges of his body solidified and began to bleed.

“There was so much today involving celebrating and mourning you, but… No one will ever actually, truly know. They’ll never understand what it’s like to lose a part of yourself that is another person. No one else has had that experience.”

I understand you, Emmet wanted to scream, but he found that he couldn’t make a sound.

“I appreciate their love for us, and for you in particular but… I’m lonely, now, in a way I never could have been before.”

A sad smile, an actual, typical smile hitched onto Ingo’s face. It looked wrong.

“We were one, and we were two. And, not or. Somehow, for us, those two truths weren’t mutually exclusive. Reshiram help us, all of our truths were rather bizarre, but I would’ve traveled down the tracks with you until the end of time, if the universe had let us.

“I have no… Offering, nothing but words, because you are not here, but… I love you, Emmet. I have survived one year, and I will continue to defy my terminal for as long as I can.”

There was a pause. “I… Hope that, one day, far, far down the road, there is a terminal called ‘end’ in my life so I can see you again. But until then, I will live. Goodbye, Emmet.”

Something inside Emmet felt like it was breaking, and while some parts of him still were trapped in the nightmare, other parts understood now that this was a dream. Those parts wanted to weep with the fact that, even though it was just his own imagination, he had heard Ingo say words such as those. The extra affirmations that he was loved, despite it having been so long since he’d heard them, clung close to his heart.

As Ingo’s footsteps retreated and silence fell over the platform, there was no one there to see the ghost that was not actually a ghost begin to sob, if anyone could have even seen him at all.

▲▽

Emmet was in the hospital again, stomach roiling with residual nausea. Drayden was speaking to a nurse, and Elesa was removing blankets from his body.

He was cold again.

The final soiled blanket was drawn back, and Elesa gasped. When she did, Emmet winced; he knew this part. Or, at least, he thought he did.

“That’s horrifying,” Elesa said, pulling back. “What the fuck, Emmet. I can’t deal with this shit. Look at yourself.” There was uncharacteristic disgust on her face as she stared at his wound and didn’t even try to be polite. Then she looked him in the eyes, that expression still painting her features, and Emmet felt smaller than he ever had.

He refused to look down.

“I can see your blood and half-digested food, it’s disgusting. I certainly hope they keep those bandages on you.”

“E-Elesa,” Emmet said, voice weak and pleading as he refused to look at her. “I cannot help it. Please stop.”

“Fine. It’s just freaky.” She tossed the extra blanket from the couch carelessly in his direction, and it hit his chest before flopping in a heap. Since it was just a blanket, it didn’t do any damage; the way it had been thrown hurt his feelings more than his body.

Emmet wasted no time unfurling it and hiding himself beneath it. That, at least, was nothing new.

But why did Elesa have to wound him with words? She never had before, this wasn’t right. His sister-in-all-but-blood would never sit on the couch and pointedly ignore him, shuddering every so often as she remembered what she’d seen.

The Elesa Emmet knew was a woman who would do anything to care for him if he required it, no matter how unpleasant. If he’d been paralyzed or injured enough that he’d been in a coma, Emmet knew Elesa would be right there next to Drayden caring for him through all the unglamorous reality of having a family member injured to that degree.

So who was this, if not Elesa?

A lump formed in Emmet’s throat. His father was still talking to Emmet’s medical team. Elesa had… It wasn’t quite a betrayal, but it felt like one. His short list of people he could freely confide in had instantly been whittled down to just one. His life had been reduced to the goings-on inside one room.

Emmet’s world had gotten so small.

▲▽

There were tears still on Emmet’s face when he woke up, but he was warm. Why was he so warm? Where was he?

The confused whiplash squeezed a few more tears from Emmet’s eyes. Confusion was difficult to bear at the best of times, and this certainly was not one of them.

It took the man a moment to recognize his own living room; when he turned his head to the side, he could see all the pictures on his walls, the train models on shelves, and the various decorations that made the space his and Ingo’s.

A lump grew in his throat, then, because it had been so long since he had been here. He wanted to get up, explore, reverently run his hands over the possessions and items that belonged to him and not the hospital. But he couldn’t; he was bundled tightly into a blanket and pressed against… Something.

Something that was snoring.

Emmet craned his head and would’ve done a double take if he hadn’t frozen in place the moment he lay eyes on his brother. Because it was his brother, laying there on the couch right next to Emmet. His clothes were ragged like he’d fought something with sharp claws, and he looked worn and exhausted despite being asleep, but it was Ingo all the same.

Emmet had to wake him up. Emmet couldn’t wake him up. Ingo was so tired, so fragile looking, and Emmet could not take the rest he so sorely needed from him. Instead, he would also get some sleep, because if he had to guess, Emmet figured he needed it too. He attempted to turn onto his side so he could rest his head against Ingo, but something stopped him.

That’s right… How was he here instead of at the hospital?

There was a lump on his left side, and when he reached down to feel, there was an identical one on the right as well. It took a not-inconsiderable amount of effort to wiggle out of the blankets, (seriously, had he thrashed around so much in his sleep that he’d turned himself into a burrito, or had Ingo tucked him in too tight?) but when he did, he saw that he was still missing over half of his body.

However, now there was slightly more to him; his cut-off torso was a little longer. There were scars where some sort of graft had been added onto him, and if he pressed down on his abdomen, he could feel vague, solid masses inside him that he guessed were his organs. He wondered where they’d come from.

The hard things he’d felt at his sides were two identical capsules made of plastic and metal with a few ports where cables could be inserted. They were attached to his body, and Emmet had to wonder if they were kidneys or something else entirely.

Inspecting more, he also found he had a few ports of his own on the bottom of his body where it cut off. There was one that was larger and more central, and a few smaller ones off to the sides. Maybe that was for a machine to digest food for him. Emmet had tried to think up solutions for himself as he lay in the hospital some nights, even if they’d never work, so he’d had plenty of time to speculate.

But now it was real. The doctors and researchers had done it. They’d found a way for him to live on his own.

As he shifted to press his head to his brother’s side, curling up close to him, tears sprang to his eyes. Happy ones, this time. He was free. Maybe not whole, but who needed to be, to be happy? He could make this work just fine.

Ingo was alive and so was he. There was nothing they couldn’t do now.

Well, he would begin his newfound freedom with a nap. Emmet hadn’t felt this warm in years.

▲▽

The two of them were buying groceries, as they often did on Thursday night. They were in the canned goods aisle, entertaining a friendly debate about the merits of whole canned corn versus canned creamed corn, something ridiculous and entirely useless to argue about. Excadrill was in the seat in the shopping cart, being the perfect size and shape for a ride. He nibbled a poffin that was fresh from the bakery and guarded a bag of goodies for the rest of the team.

“As I was saying, whole corn has a better texture,” Emmet explained, looking at a can of plump bean and tauros soup that he put into the cart. “Creamed corn is verrry unpleasant to have in your mouth, yup.”

“We wouldn’t be eating it plain,” Ingo insisted with a chuckle.

It was then that the twins picked up on whispers coming from a little farther down the aisle; they looked up to see a pair of younger boys staring at them, one whispering into the other’s ear behind his hand. They had a pokeball each on their belts; young trainers, perhaps, though they seemed a little too young.

The twins tensed, pausing in their shopping when the boys walked over, mentally preparing themselves for awkward questions.

“Hi sirs, can we have your autographs?”

Oh… Oh! Their relief was twofold as they each smiled in their own ways.

“Of course, young passengers!” said Ingo, fishing a pen out of their messenger bag. “What’re your names?”

“I’m Oscar, and this is my little cousin, Billy!” Oscar grinned, removing a small drawstring backpack. “We’re not old enough to go on our journeys yet, but we recently got our first pokemon. You guys are like… Legendary battlers.”

Billy waved at Excadrill, who waved a clawed paw back with a squeak.

“I have a ducklett, and Billy has a patrat!”

“You are both verrry excited,” Emmet noted. “Do you want to battle? I mean. In general. Not fight us in the grocery store.” His slip of the tongue earned him a giggle from Billy. “What I meant was. Do you want to work to become verrry strong trainers and battle across the world?”

“Yes!” said Billy with a little hop. “We’re gonna be the best!”

“Work very hard and follow your tracks and they will lead you to victory!” Ingo’s eyes showed that he was extremely happy to be speaking with the youngsters, crouched comfortably with Emmet.

“Now. What was that about autographs?”

Oscar handed over two little notebooks. One had battle tips hastily written in a childlike hand, and the other mainly had doodles. Emmet signed the first, then he and Ingo swapped.

“There you are!” declared Ingo, and they stood once more.

“Which one of you is the older brother?” asked Billy before Emmet could add anything.

Oscar lightly bopped Billy on the head, ruffling his hair more that anything. “You dum-dum they’re stuck together, how can one of them be older than the other?”

Emmet and Ingo laughed, almost in unison. “It depends on the day,” Emmet was able to reply with a wink when he’d collected himself. “And we are a special kind of brothers called conjoined twins.”

“I forgot the word,” Oscar admitted, laughing a little. “But you two are the coolest. Thank you for letting us talk to you!”

“Yeah! Thank you! All aboard!” said Billy, practically shouting as he suddenly dashed down the aisle, laughing the whole way. Oscar took off after him, taking a moment to wave at Emmet and Ingo before the children both disappeared around the corner.

The twins looked at each other and then laughed some more. 

“Kids,” Emmet said, shaking his head but smiling in a fond way.

“Indeed.” Ingo’s cat smile had made an appearance. “Now where were we?”

“Buying whole canned corn.”

“Oh don’t start that again…”

▲▽

Well, this certainly isn’t right, Emmet thought as he squinted four eyes into a bright light that radiated warmth. Why am I a joltik?

Because he was, he was a small joltik lying in a little pen with soft blankets and a heat lamp overhead. He could see many of the small yellow spiders napping or exploring or chewing on batteries that had been left in a dish for them.

There was a twitchy feeling near his side, and he noticed another joltik next to him, yawning and stretching out stubby little feet.

Emmet didn’t even need to ask to know that this was Ingo, curled up next to him. He’d recognize his brother in any world, as he knew Ingo would do for him, despite the fact they were now perfectly identical spiders that could not wear identifying outfits.

Ingo squeaked sleepily at him, and Emmet was startled to realize he understood what was being said. Of course you do, in this dream you’re a joltik, so Pokespeak is just something you can do now. Roll with it.

“I said are you going back to sleep now?”

“No. I do not think so,” Emmet responded, trying to shake his head and failing due to his lack of a neck. “I want to do something else!”

“What do you want to do?” Ingo still sounded sleepy, and Emmet paused. He didn’t exactly know what there was to do, but he couldn’t exactly tell his brother that.

“Food?” Good enough.

“I’m not very hungry,” Ingo said. “But if you bring back a battery we can stick together while you eat it!”

“Okay!”

As he scurried over to the battery pile (which was easier said than done, Emmet honestly couldn’t say he’d ever scurried before in his whole life) he wondered if Elesa was here too. It would be a shame if she wasn’t, considering she was the electric-type specialist. Once he got to the batteries, he quickly chose a blue AA, scooped it into his mandibles, and scampered back to Ingo.

“Good choice!” said Ingo happily, pressing against his side once more.

“I have good taste,” Emmet declared.

“Says who?” A third chirpy voice joined the mix, and this time Emmet recognized Elesa’s voice before he even saw her.

“Hello, Elesa. I say I have good taste, and I am the expert on myself. So I am correct.”

“Hi Elesa, don’t bully Emmet,” said Ingo, causing their friend to squeak out a laugh.

“You both know I’m just joking!” She laid down next to them, tucking her feet under herself. “Mmm I’m sleepy today.”

“Me too,” Ingo agreed. “I wonder what changed.”

“You two are not any fun,” said Emmet absentmindedly as he tried to figure out how to eat the battery. Usually the joltik Emmet raised would nibble a hole in the casing and consume the fluid inside, siphoning off the electricity as they did so. It was more than a little embarrassing that he couldn’t figure out how to do it.

“No, we’re cozy, that’s what we are,” said Elesa, nudging Emmet and giving him a small, harmless shock.

“Yes, Emmet, we’re cozy!” echoed Ingo with a little laugh. “Can you get us some nesting material so we can be even more cozy?”

“I am not a delibird!” Emmet protested, fuzz fluffing up in agitation. But he couldn’t really feel anything even approaching anger towards his brother and best friend, so he did, in fact, go fetch more fluff from the corner. He had no clue what the stuff was made out of, but it was soft and it was warm and that was good enough for him. Grabbing as much as he could carry, Emmet awkwardly made his way back over.

Ingo and Elesa thanked him several times as they built a nest all three of them could fit in. Emmet left them to it; he could just tell that stuff like that wasn’t his strong suit. In no time at all, the nest had been built and all three of them were cuddled inside.

“I hope you two have a nice nap,” said Emmet quietly. All he got in response were wordless noises of thanks, one from each side. Emmet would probably rest eventually, but for the moment, he took the battery between his forelegs and began nibbling on it.

He’d figure it out one way or another.

▲▽

A vague sense of confusion washed over Emmet. It was like the opposite of deja vu, a sense that he wasn’t supposed to be there.

But why would he be anywhere else? He was at work, standing on a platform and waiting for his train. Of course he was supposed to be there. He was a Subway Master, after all.

Something about his shoes against the bricks below also felt off, but once Emmet stood on his tiptoes, stretching, that sensation dissipated. It was a normal day. He was Emmet, Ingo was elsewhere in Gear Station, and it was a normal day.

Like the curling of a mankey’s paw, sound began to echo down the tunnel ahead of Emmet, but it wasn’t a train. It was screams, and then what sounded like small explosions.

“Dammit!” shouted Isadore over the crackle of a radio. Emmet hadn’t even realized he was there. “Not Team Plasma again!”

Now Emmet remembered. Their attacks had been scaling in severity ever since the subway had caught their attention. It was no secret that Ghetsis probably viewed the transit system as necessary to taking over the region.

The screams grew louder, and a new sound layered on top of that: a roar, one that sounded almost like a catastrophically large creaking hinge. A voice that hadn’t been used in a long, long time. Somehow, frosty clouds puffed out of the tunnel, crystalline vapor glittering under the fluorescent lights. There was a crackling noise from the tracks as they began to freeze over.

Though he knew he was flaunting the strict rules that he himself had helped put into place, Emmet immediately hopped off the platform and landed solidly between the rails, staring down into the tunnel as another agonized roar drowned out the screams and sounds of chaos. The freezing air caused small ice crystals to grow on his eyelashes, and he shivered.

It was spring. It was not meant to be this cold.

Two red lights flared to life in the tunnel, too high off the ground to be tailights, flickering and leaving a trail like neon ghostfire. Emmet backed up, nearly slipping on the iced crossties.

What was happening? What was coming for him?

Why was this so confusing?

Time seemed to stop and no one said a word once the first large white paw reached out of the darkness and set itself upon the ground. Thick blue claws dug into the gravel there. A second paw stepped into view before the pokemon’s head did, revealing a giant absol with vivid red flickering in its gaze. Despite walking out of a tunnel with a subzero temperature, its fur was not frosted; in fact, not a hair was out of place and it looked ethereal, perfect.

It opened its maw and words came out, despite the fact that it was clearly not using its mouth to speak, as its jaw remained stationary.

“I am the patron of warnings and the guardian of safety,” it said in a voice that rumbled deep in Emmet’s chest like a purr and like a train at the same time. “Sent by the Almighty itself.”

That was not a phrase Emmet had ever heard before. Did it mean the dragons? Or some god from another region far away from here? One thing Emmet did know, though, or at least speculate, was that this was undoubtedly an alpha pokemon. He’d heard about them while he’d researched breeding, large and powerful individuals of species with searing gazes that defended territories. But they had ceased to exist a long time ago, back when humans and pokemon had begun a more peaceful coexistence.

And they could not talk, at least not species that couldn’t do so normally.

Well if it was a ghostly alpha that was a herald from the gods themselves, Emmet would just roll with it.

“The revenant has been awoken and enslaved.” Another roar from the far end of the tunnel behind it, though the absol seemed strangely unconcerned with whatever was happening there. “You. Protector of this place. You will come with me and, with your brother, preserve this place. It is your sworn duty.”

With those eyes boring down on him, Emmet didn’t feel like he had a choice in the matter. But really, would he ever have refused? Ingo was already there, fighting this ‘revenant’ that Emmet was beginning to suspect may be Kyurem itself. Ghetsis and Plasma would certainly stoop so low and attempt a plan that dangerous.

He nodded swiftly. “I will do this.”

The alpha absol then bowed before him, and it took Emmet a moment to realize it wanted him to climb onto its back. He did so, wincing as he stepped on its pristine fur to climb aboard. It did not react, though, except to stand, pivot, and dash down the tunnel it had come from. All Emmet could do was dig his hands into its thick ruff and hang on tightly.

Due to his glowing eyes, Emmet could see the way ahead. His breath began to come in icy clouds as the temperatures plummeted. Neither he nor the absol spoke, and the only sounds were breathing, the rhythmic noise of paws on wood and gravel, and the distant cries of terrified passengers and pokemon.

Emmet’s brows furrowed and he grit his teeth into a determined grimace. He would help them all. He would! He was a Subway Master, and he would not lose.

After what felt like an eon but was, in reality, probably only a few minutes, the absol guardian skidded into the next station with a growling cry. It was just as Emmet had guessed; Ghetsis himself was there, backed by Kyurem and a legion of grunts. Passengers were still trying to leave the subway, and depot agents were doing their best to help. Some had obviously had their pokemon stolen.

At the forefront, however, was Cloud, Jackie, and Ingo, all looking worse for the wear but still standing. Emmet’s twin had a ripped coat and his hat was missing, but Chandelure was keeping them in a warm circle. No ice touched them.

Everyone looked up when Emmet arrived, vaulting from the back of the absol and landing firmly on the platform.

“Oh excellent, the younger Subway Master twin has decided to show up.” Ghetsis’s voice called easily across the space, and it was little wonder he was able to command so many people. “You’re here just in time to witness Kyurem’s great power. We were unable to control this place before, but make no mistake. We have achieved perfection.”

From behind him came Kyurem’s raw shriek. Emmet said nothing to the leader of Team Plasma and instead strode over to Ingo, who he saw looked near panic.

“Emmet. My team has fainted. Chandelure is doing her all to keep us from freezing to death. Please…”

Emmet could tell Ingo didn’t know what to do. They’d been faced with so many challenges and trainers and situations, but a man playing god by wielding a deity like it was a mere weapon? They were still very mortal men, at the end of the day.

But still. Emmet had to try.

The battle was not very long. None of Emmet’s pokemon had a type advantage on Kyurem except for Archeops, but Kyurem also had a type advantage against him, so it amounted to nothing. And… Kyurem was a god. A one-on-one battle against it was doomed to fail anyways. Emmet did not even have his full team, only Eelektross and Archeops.

Soon it was just him standing there. He knew Ingo and the depot agents were behind him, but still he felt alone.

Ghetsis laughed, and when he did, the grunts joined in, jeering. “The last hope of your precious subway and you fail! All the more reason for us to seize this place.” Ghetsis sneered. “You two were never good enough to run anything. Step aside, and let Perfection take over.”

“No.”

Emmet felt cold. He felt colder than he ever had before.

“No?” Ghetsis barked out a laugh, one syllable that was utterly humorless. “Fine then. Let’s make an example of you. Kyurem, use Slash.”

The world slowed, then, and Emmet saw Kyrem swing its head at him at just the same time he heard the absol’s cry once more. This time, it sounded less like a question and more like an answer.

Then there was a new weight on his belt, and without looking Emmet grabbed the pokeball there. Before he was hit, he managed to throw it in a blur of purple and magenta that spilled into red light.

But he was still a mortal man, and he was not quite fast enough.

The impact to his ribs was colossal, but he barely registered it before he was sent flying. There were indistinct shouts, but they cut out along with the just-blooming pain as his momentum carried him clear over the tracks and onto the far platform, right into one of the rectangular pillars there. Emmet felt and heard a crunch from the middle of his back, and then he dropped to the floor and hit his head and didn’t hear much of anything any more. It was the same with his pain, and even the cold. Half of him couldn’t feel it any more.

Through heavily blurred sight, Emmet could tell Kyurem was no longer there, contained in the master ball on the floor, and people were in chaos. He’d done it.

Darkness claimed him quickly.

There were glimmers in that darkness, though. Snowflakes and an absol’s cry. The same rumbling voice from before spoke to him as he floated in nothingness, weightless.

“At first, your life was wonderful. You had all you ever dreamed. But it will become a nightmare.”

Emmet had the sensation of falling.

“It will be cut short.”

The cold returned, along with the sensation of feeling halved.

“You will suffer. You will sleep.”

A second impact, a second blurring.

“You will die.”

Then nothing once more.

Chapter Text

Wardenship was helping Ingo a lot, right from the get-go. The physical toll was difficult to cope with, that was true, but the sense of purpose helped his mental health a great deal. And, to Ingo, physical burdens were far easier to bear than those of the heart or emotions.

When you hurt your leg, you could see a healer. If you were struggling with grief or sadness, you would go to your family, and Ingo did not really have one of those. So the discovery of something to quiet his too-empty mind was more than welcome.

The surprising amount of companionship, mainly from the other Pearl Clan Wardens, also helped. Ingo had expected the job to be rather lonely, but it wasn’t, really. Gaeric was the first to visit, finding Ingo while he was gathering plants to add to the simple stew he was making for dinner.

“Ingo!”

The call almost made him drop his supplies, but when he caught sight of the larger Warden approaching, he straightened up and waved.

“It has been a few weeks since you’ve started your Warden duties. How is the job treating you?”

“Oh it’s been great,” Ingo said earnestly. “Very fulfilling, these tracks. I appreciate the honor dearly, as at last I feel useful.”

“You showed us all just how strong you really are. You deserve it!” Gaeric sounded as excited as ever, and Ingo appreciated the kindness the other man had repeatedly shown him. Warden Gaeric had been the first to congratulate him at the Warden celebration after his induction, clapping him on the back carefully and recounting to any who’d listen how attentive Ingo had been as a pupil.

“Some of my success was due to the training I’ve been receiving from you and Zinta,” Ingo laughed. “While my original walking stick was lost, I was able to use it to injure the alpha sneasler before it broke. Your teachings, in that moment, were invaluable! Especially your emphasis on focusing on out-thinking my opponents to make up for what I lack in musculature.”

“Excellent! You accomplished quite a feat, and I am proud that I was able to help with that.”

“You are a most excellent teacher, it is true.” Ingo nodded, not exaggerating even a little. While the training sessions had not been the most regular due to Warden duties and Ingo’s old berry-gathering job, whenever they did meet, Gaeric was nothing but supportive, even on days when Ingo didn’t do as well. “Actually, have some of these sootfoot roots, I have more than enough. I’m thinking of growing a few near my tent sometime.”

Gaeric beamed, taking the plants into his arms. “Well! Thank you, Ingo, you saved me the trouble of finding them myself. The Icelands are rather thin on sootfoot, but if you need eternal ice, you’re always welcome to fetch some.”

They’d bid each other goodbye, then, and Ingo had headed back to his tent. He’d set up at the base of a cliff so the back of his tent had a foundation to rest against and the thick canvas would be protected from the worst of the winds.

Soon after, Gliscor flapped down out of the sky, alighting on a scraggly, leafless tree near the tent. He chittered at Ingo, who threw him a berry. The scorpion-bat had recently evolved, having brought home a shed razor fang to do so. He was much bigger now, but he’d still sometimes cling to Ingo’s back all the same, pinchers draped over Ingo’s shoulders, helping the human balance with his bad back.

Ingo soon beckoned his partner pokemon into the tent, getting ready to make his evening meal.

The next day, the last two Pearl Clan Wardens that he had not yet met finally made the pilgrimage to welcome their newest member. Ingo had seen them briefly at the celebration following his Warden ceremony, but hadn’t gotten their names. Or he hadn’t heard or didn’t remember.

“Hey!” A voice startled Ingo during his patrol, and it took him a moment to spot the young boy racing along a mountain path, followed more slowly by a woman. “We found you!”

Ingo hadn’t recognized them, at first. “Er, yes. You did. How may I be of assistance…?”

The boy seemed to realize he’d gotten ahead of himself, because he stopped. “Oh! I’m Warden Lian, of the awesome Lord Kleavor! That’s Warden Palina. She watches over the Cobalt Coastlands and the baby Growlithe there. He hasn’t grown up into a lord yet.”

Ingo blinked, processing the information, before returning the greeting. “It is nice to meet you at last, Wardens Lian and Palina! Welcome to the Coronet Highlands! Though, I suppose because you’ve lived here longer than I, you know the area quite well.”

Palina laughed behind her hand a little, then spoke. “It’s alright, Warden Ingo. We’re glad you’ve reached such status in the Clan.”

“Thank you kindly. I am enjoying the job already.”

“Is it true you fell from the sky?”

“I wonder why everyone keeps saying that,” Ingo pondered. “While I am still rather sure I did not fall from the sky, it is true that I am the stranger who appeared out of nowhere.”

“I commend you for your bravery in trying to carve out a life here,” said Palina. “Hisui can be a very… Unwelcoming place.”

What a strange thing to say about one’s own homeland. She is not wrong, though. Ingo didn’t share those thoughts aloud, however, settling instead for simply saying “thank you.”

“So do you find a lot of cool rocks up here?” Lian asked, poking at a plain brownish rock on the path with the toe of his boot.

“Well,” Ingo responded, confused as to how the topic had arisen. “No, I can’t say I’ve been looking for rocks very much.”

“Aw man, you should,” said Lian. “I have a cool rock collection. Everyone should have a cool rock collection.”

“I don’t really think I could carry many rocks around very easily if they’re larger than palm sized,” Ingo said sheepishly. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Maybe I can show you mine sometime! It’s quite impressive! If you’re ever in the Obsidian Fieldlands.”

“Perhaps…” Ingo leaned on his walking stick for a moment before a thought occurred to him. “What do your Nobles look like? The names ‘arcanine’ and ‘growlithe’ are familiar to me, although I cannot picture the creatures they are attached to, but ‘kleavor’ feels entirely new.”

“Oh! Kleavor looks like a scyther, but more mighty and powerful!” Lian spent a good few minutes describing his Noble, fiddling with the string that dangled from his hat as he did so.

“I will have to go see him sometime, if he accepts visitors,” Ingo replied once the child was finished. “He does sound quite impressive.”

“He is,” Lian emphasized with a grin.

Ingo looked to Palina next, who shrugged a little. “Both arcanine and growlithe are a deep orange with charcoal stripes and cloudlike rocky gray manes. They’re canine pokemon, as you probably guessed from the name.”

“That sounds… Both familiar and foreign, I’m afraid. A confusing crossroads.” Ingo pulled the brim of his hat down, just a little. “But I appreciate the description anyways! It will help me identify your pokemon should I ever cross their path.”

Palina smiled a bit at that. “They tend to be perceptive, kind pokemon. I don’t think you’d have any trouble with them.”

“That is also good to know. Wild canine pokemon tend to either be very eager to make friends, or very eager to end your tracks permanently. I’ve found there is very rarely an in-between.”

Without skipping a beat, Lian looked up at Ingo in confusion. “What tracks? What does that mean? I’ve never heard that saying before.”

Ingo reddened, shielding his eyes from the child’s stare with the brim of his hat again. “Well… My amnesia makes it difficult for me to recall. The use of such words is an instinct to me.”

“Oh.” Lian paused, then shrugged. “Fair enough. Some people say I’m ‘too eloquent’ for such a young child but my mother just taught me this way, I suppose.”

Something about that tickled in the back of Ingo’s brain, a relatable feeling that surfaced from the void that was Ingo’s childhood memory. It was murky and unreadable, but it was still a more solid feeling than the man had had in months. “I think perhaps I relate to that,” he said aloud, speaking slowly as if he wanted to feel out the words in his mouth. “But I cannot say for sure.”

It wasn’t much further along in the conversation that they all seemed to realize they were still just standing on a mountain path. Ingo then invited them back to his tent for tea, apologizing profusely for the mess. Gliscor helped, skittering around the floor and passing things up to Ingo balanced on his tail to save the man from having to bend so far forward.

The visit was pleasant, and, while Ingo understood that the trip was a long one for them both, he hoped that they would return. The part of him that was settling into Clan life also recognized their gesture of crossing a not-inconsiderable amount of Space just to see him.

Next time, Ingo braved the journey to see Lian. He was interested in meeting Palina on her own turf as well, but wasn’t quite up to discovering what Hisui had for short distance boats, since she was on an island.

The young Warden did, indeed, show Ingo his rock collection. Ingo, while not very interested in rocks, was always happy to listen to someone ramble about what they liked. There was something familiar about it, and also Ingo could remember, more as a feeling than an actual memory, that he loved to go on about… Whatever his interests had been.

The chill of despair that came with the realization that he’d lost that aspect of his personality was luckily swept away by the tide of Lian’s chatter.

Lord Kleavor was also there, though he wasn’t exactly displaying the awesome might Lian had promised. He was lying in a nest made of expertly sliced tall grass, bladed arms crossed underneath his spiked chin. He kept an eye on Lian, and grumbled every so often. In Ingo’s opinion, he sounded content.

Ingo’s tea that he was sipping, a jasmine green, was a little too bitter. It had been oversteeped when Lian had gotten distracted by showing off a little crude figure he’d carved from the soft tumblestones scattered around the area.

“I’m just starting out,” Lian had explained. “But if I keep practicing, I’ll get better. Some of the Clan elders make really magnificent pieces!” Then he’d started to explain the different colors of tumblestones found in Hisui.

Sitting there, still listening carefully, Ingo slowly came to realize that Lian was so focused on trying to sound mature and grown up despite the fact that he was probably only nine or ten years old. He chose longer words when he didn’t always need to, and Ingo wondered how he’d even become a Warden.

If he himself had nearly died, and that’s what had given him the position, how had Lian gained the same rank?

The question became somewhat more urgent in his brain when he met Warden Sabi. She happened to be a seven-year-old from the Diamond Clan, and she regularly flew with Lord Braviary, leaping off of the rig he wore to land in the powdery snow.

“Hi, Warden Ingo!” she’d said after literally dropping in on the main, brushing snow from her outfit. Lord Braviary screeched from above, circling before he flew off. “I knew I’d find you here! I’m Warden Sabi.”

Ingo was still recovering from the shock of a child falling from the sky into the snow that had fallen overnight. Winter had well and truly come to Hisui. “Er… Yes, yes, welcome to the Highlands, I suppose?”

“My clairvoyance said I should visit you today, so here I am!”

Another sentence designed to stop Ingo in his tracks. “Your what? … Apologies, that was very rude of me.”

She giggled when he tugged on his hat. “You’re funny. Sad inside, but also funny.”

“I don’t… Know what you mean, I’m sorry.” Ingo’s head was spinning. This human could read minds or see the future? Humans didn’t GET abilities like that; they were for pokemon alone.

“And humans don’t usually have glowing eyes, but here we both are!” She giggled again.

Okay, Ingo supposed that was fair enough.

Sabi climbed up onto a rock, sitting there and kicking her feet. “How… Did you become a Warden?” Ingo asked, trying not to sound too pained.

“Well, Lord Braviary liked me eeeever since I was a baby. My parents think it’s because he’s also a psychic type! So he visited me a lot. One day I had a vision that Lord Braviary was in danger! So I told Irida and she and the Clan were able to rescue him. He’d gotten caught in a poacher’s snare. After all that, they said I could be a Warden, even if I’m young!”

With a Noble to protect them, Ingo supposed Lian and Sabi would be able to do the duties of Warden well enough. Even if they could not fix certain problems they came across, they could get adults who could. With that knowledge, Ingo figured it was why his disability posed no hindrance in his appointment to the position.

The Clan would help if he needed it. Slowly, Ingo was starting to feel secure in his life with the Pearl Clan. There was still so much for him to learn, but he was finally coming to terms with the fact that they would not throw him out if he did not learn quickly enough.

Somehow, this both relieved and scared him. How was he ever to find his way home if he simply accepted his life as a Warden?

But, on the same hand, how could he search? If the suspicions were true that he’d come from the rift, the vortex far overhead that he tried not to look at, what could he do about it?

There was conflict inside Ingo, conflict that was unlikely to ever fully fade, but for now the man was finding purpose and pride in being a Warden, so he would focus on that. Focus on belonging somewhere until maybe one day more clues and pieces to his personal puzzle were revealed. Ingo could live with that for now.

“Well I am happy you were able to save your Noble, young Warden Sabi,” Ingo said with a nod, looking grave. “That is a very commendable thing.”

“Thank you Mister Warden Ingo!” She continued to hum happily, looking at him expectantly.

“... When… You said I was sad inside, what exactly did you mean?”

She had a knowing expression, and it hit Ingo that that was probably what she’d been expecting him to say. “You’re… Lonely. You’re missing so much, and because you don’t know what it is, neither do I.”

Ingo felt chilled, like a mountain breeze had just blown through one of the larger holes in his coat. “Missing… You mean all my memories?”

Sabi hummed again before answering. “Those, yes, but… Also something else. Something I can’t place.” Watching Ingo press a hand over his scar, she nodded. “Yes. Something to do with that.”

Ingo could not know what she meant if she herself didn’t know. Was he missing some of his insides? He’d wondered that before, but if he was, then he should be dead. Who or what had injured him, and who or what had healed him?

As preposterous as it sounded, Ingo sometimes felt like the plaything of some unseen god.

“I think this also is key.” Ingo jumped; as he’d been lost in his own head, Sabi had gotten down from the boulder and walked behind him. She was now gripping the end of his coat in her mittens, looking intently at the white scrap that was still fastened there. Ingo hadn’t been able to bring himself to remove it.

“I will ponder what it could mean,” Ingo said, and luckily Sabi let go before he had to ask her to do so.

Later, once she was gone, Ingo looked at the fabric again, at the metal teeth that held it on and at how worn his coat over all was becoming. He was left unsettled, but with no new memories.

The rest of the Diamond Clan Wardens, save for one, all visited him in a group. Mai, Arezu, and Iscan were their names. The former two were young women; Ingo would’ve guessed Arezu was probably around nineteen and Mai was probably his own age. Iscan was a man older than himself, and he seemed nervous.

It did not take long for Ingo to realize that Arezu was the outgoing, funny sort, and that Mai was more reserved. She pretended not to care, but seemed to view Arezu rather like a younger sister.

“So Ingo, hope this isn’t inappropriate, but how does your hair do that?”

They’d found him while he had been washing berries and pans for dinner in the stream near his tent, Gliscor enjoying some fresh bloody meat nearby. “I am not sure, Miss Arezu,” he’d said, chuckling a little at her question. “It always has, as far as I know.”

“I’m a hairdresser, or I try to be, so I had to ask.”

Mai and Iscan, meanwhile, were too busy with Gliscor, or, in Iscan’s case, trying hard to ignore him.

“My my, that’s a fearsome friend you have there,” said Mai, watching as the pokemon focused on his meal.

“He may look frightening, but I can assure you he’s quite sweet,” replied Ingo, bending to scratch Gliscor behind the ear. The pokemon looked up, closing his eyes as he accepted the affection.

“If… If you say so,” mumbled Iscan, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “It’s nice to, um, finally meet you though, Ingo.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well.” Ingo tried to make himself sound extra reassuring to the obviously timid man.

He’d invited them to stay for dinner, even though they had to return, but they compromised on tea. Tea seemed to be a beloved pastime across all Hisui, Ingo had noticed. Somewhere in his mind, he wondered if a bad enough cup of tea would be enough to kickstart another war with the Diamond Clan, but luckily, he did fine. Even Iscan seemed to relax once they were in Ingo’s tent. Ingo suspected that was only because Gliscor had elected to remain outside.

His suspicions were confirmed when the appearance of Tangela caused Iscan to shriek in surprise, completely startled.

“Oh dear I am very sorry about that.” Ingo shooed the small pokemon out the door to go bug Gliscor. “That little passenger showed up out of the blue a few days ago, and it’s gotten into everything. I apologize for its sneaky behavior.”

In reality, the tangela was not sneaky at all, but Ingo was trying to make Iscan feel better.

In all, after that, the meal was quite pleasant. Iscan was the quiet to Ingo’s loud, and Arezu and Mai did indeed tease each other like siblings. It was nice, Ingo decided, that Wardenship could transcend Clan boundaries like this. It was much more familiar to him than the harsh divides had been. It was nice, feeling like he had even more friends; he wouldn’t ever say it aloud, but he was looking forward to telling Calaba and Zinta about his experiences with the other Wardens next time he stopped back at the Pearl Settlement.

But there was still one person Ingo had not met.

When Ingo finally did meet the other Warden in the Highlands, he’d already talked to all the other Wardens, and Ingo wondered if the man was avoiding him. After all, if Palina could make the journey from an island off the coast before the Diamond Clan Warden would walk over the ridges dividing them, what else was Ingo to believe?

His name was Melli, and when he did show up, Ingo then deduced he’d been coerced into doing so. The genuine scowl on his face as he carried a serving basket of assorted berries told Ingo all he needed to know.

“So you’re the new Pearl Warden,” he sniffed from his not-inconsiderable height. He was even taller than Ingo, which wasn’t exactly common. “From what I’d heard, you’re… What I expected, alright.”

“You must be Melli,” Ingo started before he was cut off.

“The Great Melli, thank you very much.”

Ingo couldn’t figure out a response to that quickly enough, an awkward silence settling over them before Melli thrust the basket in Ingo’s direction.

“Here. I was told to offer up a gesture of goodwill. Wardens are supposed to transcend the bounds of the Clans, or something like that. If that’s what Almighty Sinnoh wants, then even I cannot argue.”

“I… Thank you,” Ingo managed to get out, accepting the basket. Perhaps it was best to just let Melli do the talking.

“My Noble is Lord Electrode, as you must already know.” With his hands free, now Melli could press one to his chest and use the other to gesture, taking a moment to flip his hair over his shoulder. “He’s everything a Noble should be. Patient, intimidating, and regal.”

“He certainly sounds like it,” Ingo agreed, privately wondering how a sphere could be regal at all.

“Much moreso than the wild Lady Sneasler. Did you know she refused a Warden for years? How snooty of her.” Ingo did not think his Noble was the snootiest one on this mountain by a long shot. “And now she’s chosen… You.”

Ingo couldn’t help it. He sighed. “Yes. Yes she has. Which means we are coworkers now, set on similar tracks. Please maintain civility.”

Before Melli could respond any further than hanging his mouth open, there came a squeaking from behind him, and a little stunky appeared, chasing a small, rolling voltorb. Ingo felt the voltorb seemed wrong, in some way, but either way, both the pokemon looked to be having a great time.

“I thought I told you two to wait in Moonview Arena!” Melli said, his glare sliding from Ingo to the two small pokemon, who skidded to a stop. However, they must’ve known something Ingo didn’t about the effectiveness of Melli’s authority, because after a moment, they slunk out of the line of fire and immediately began their game of chase again.

Eventually, they got close enough to Ingo that he became the object of their primary curiosity, and Ingo welcomed the distraction from Melli’s rudeness. Kneeling, he looked at the two, then held out a hand for the stunky to sniff. He would’ve done the same for the voltorb, had it possessed a nose.

After a moment, the stunky nuzzled his hand, and he petted it gently. Seeing its friend’s calmness, the voltorb bumped his arm, and he then reached out to it too. Despite being a ball, it appreciated the wood-like top of its body being rubbed gently, and Ingo’s eyes scrunched happily. It felt familiar, but not quite the same as… Something he’d done before.

He heard a sniff from above him, but didn’t look up. “I need to get these two noodles back home, if you don’t mind.”

Ingo refused to give in to his impulses and ask how a voltorb could POSSIBLY be in any way noodle-like. But he stood, leaning heavily on his walking stick to do so (and oh bending like that had not been a good idea), allowing the two to head off the way they’d come. Ingo looked at Melli, wondering if he should say something, but Melli did finally speak.

“Stay away from Moonview Arena. Lord Electrode, in his mightiness, doesn’t like strangers.”

“I was not planning on bothering him. I appreciate the warning,” replied Ingo with his usual decorum. It had returned to him when he got to pat the two cute pokemon. “Thank you again for the berries.”

He didn’t know what else to say.

Melli took that as the end of the conversation, turning to follow his pokemon back the way he’d come. “Goodbye, Warden Ingo,” he called with a careless wave, not facing him again. “Don’t fall off the mountain, or anything.”

Ingo wasn’t sure if Melli was referring to his disability or simply calling him incompetent but it stung either way. Of COURSE his fellow Highlands Warden would be a pompous pain in the rear. Just his luck. He wondered if he’d see Melli often or not at all. Ingo couldn’t help but hope for the latter; desperate for companionship he might’ve been, but even he did not want to put up with being mocked or looked down on.

Maybe, when Melli saw that Ingo was capable, he would become less unkind? Ingo hoped for that outcome.

As he finished his patrol and slowly made his way down the mountainside, Ingo’s thoughts drifted back to what Sabi had told him, as they’d been doing ever since he’d met her. What she’d said about his missing memories and missing… Something else.

Ingo’s hand went to his scar. It had hurt less and less frequently as time went on, but it definitely still had its moments, and it still woke him up sometimes. Still. It was easier to live with than it had been.

(He still could not sleep on that side and he didn’t know why.)

Once Ingo reached his tent, he sat and examined the back of his coat again, looking at the once-white scrap of fabric and its metal teeth that held it to the rest of the coat. He saw how it was stained, and again noted the fraying of the material. Sitting there, he tried to imagine how he’d feel if the white segment tore off entirely.

Immediately it was as if he’d been struck with an emotional bolt of lightning. He could not lose it, he could not, it was all he had left of…. Of something. He couldn’t remember what, but it felt important. And that little glint of white was all the proof he had of its existence.

Weighing the options for a moment, Ingo made another hard decision in his life that seemed to be a long string of hard decisions. Even though he wanted to keep the fragment close, he tugged on the little metal tab until the teeth released and it unzipped, carefully folding the fabric and tucking it into a wooden box with a few other keepsakes.

He sat, staring at the box for a long time, until eventually his two pokemon returned home. They scurried around the tent, too caught up in play to notice that Ingo was silent.

He looked at the box.

Why had that felt so much like putting someone to rest?

Chapter Text

He didn’t feel like anything. He didn’t feel like a human, a pokemon, an object, or even a god. Nothing with a body, nothing at all. He couldn’t move, but that didn’t really feel like an issue. He also couldn’t see, but––

Oh. Oh now he could and he never wanted to stop seeing, because he was surrounded by a thousand stars, a million, and all that came with them.

Emmet, or whatever his consciousness had become, was suspended in the cosmos, looking at the planets and galaxies and nebulae and solar wind. Nameless celestial bodies sparkled and flickered and erupted, and Emmet wondered what they were called, if they’d ever been referred to at all.

He had read, seemingly eons ago, about the behavior of space and the universe, but to identify all the different types of stars and planets and things in the heavens, one needed special machines, and now Emmet did not have any of those. He could not tell a dwarf star from a pulsar from a quasar, and all that was left to do was observe their beauty.

He could live with that.

A comet zipped by, and he could not feel the chill from its icy tail that hung somewhere between cyan and electric lime green, reflecting and refracting light and glowing like the strongest neon sign. When Emmet did something akin to squinting, he could see a black hole in the distance, dark with its rings of gold like halos and handcuffs.

For the first time in a long, long time, maybe millenia or maybe five minutes, Emmet felt at peace. He was dancing in the dark, alone but cradled in some celestial tangle, some universal net. He was unimportant and perhaps unnoticed, but that was all the more comfort.

He could not break the world in a way that mattered. He simply existed, was a part of it all, no more important than the rest.

Paradoxically, because he existed, the universe was not uncaring at all. It had him in it, and he cared so much that even the fact that he had no heart was not stopping him from loving everything he saw, every moon and gas giant and sun and solar system. 

And wasn’t that fitting, he thought, as he shut his proverbial eyes in bliss. A contradictory world that could care even about the moving parts that were unneeded but beloved, a world of hot and cold, of empty vastness and crowds of millions.

Emmet could love this world, this universe that held him so gently without even knowing he was there.

▲▽

Suddenly, as if a switch was flipped or a channel was changed but even faster than that, Emmet found himself staring at trees and gently waving grass. There was a comforting warmth, both from the sun in the sky and from something scaly and black beneath him.

That scaly thing moved.

“Stop wiggling, brother, I just got comfortable,” Emmet said, yawning and baring sharp white fangs.

The great dragon that he was lying on lifted his head and gave Emmet a Look. “You shouldn’t be sleeping on top of me, then.”

“But you get so warm from the sun!”

“You’re a fire type, brother. You are warmer than me.”

“I am Truth. You know you do not mind.” He smiled a sharp draconic grin. “You enjoy it, actually.”

“I do not.”

“I am Truth. I can tell that is a lie!”

They’d been through this song and dance before, many, many times for many, many millennia. The gods of truth and ideals were a funny pair, siblings that had once been one being. For a long, long time they had existed as one, and then two, until they were forced to take on the likenesses of living stones.

And then they’d woken again.

And things were different.

While they were still gods, and their truest selves were not the fragments that walked among mortals, those fragments had become more in tune with the mortal world over the course of their imprisonment.

Now Reshiram and Zekrom preferred to go by human names. They had human forms, and they had human interests. They even had chosen human genders, taking pride and happiness in something they had chosen for themselves.

But when referring to each other, there was always a feeling of confusion when it came to names. After all, Zekrom and Ingo were one in the same, names synonymous, and Reshiram and Emmet were too. In the end, they simply chose to refer to each other as brother, that being a truth borne of their ideals, and that was enough for them.

Emmet yawned again, then nestled his head back down on his brother’s side. The tip of his tail flicked lazily, and the warm breeze rustled his fur and feathers nicely.

It was a Dragon Day, they’d decided that morning. Sometimes being in a human shape was too constricting, just like sometimes being in dragon form was too large. On days where their bodies felt more like ill-fitting pants than natural forms, they would declare that they wanted a track change and switch.

This usually was reasonably in sync, but it was not uncommon to see a human Ingo riding around on the back of his draconic brother and vice versa. The people of Unova knew who and what they were, and now? The twins were just a fact of life, a staple around the region.

It made for a pretty comfortable life. Not without strife; there was always some poacher or another who thought they could catch the gods unaware, but they were woefully unequipped every time. No Unovan would help them; they all knew that, no matter what amount of money they were offered, the gods who could tell what they believed in and if they were lying were Right There, and those gods were there by choice. That could change at any time.

Most people were happy to have them not because of the danger of trying to hunt gods, but because they were well liked. That suited the brothers perfectly, they didn’t really want to have to punish humans anyways.

Emmet lazily gazed at the landscape, not sure where in Unova they exactly were, but not caring in the moment.

“What would you like to get for lunch later?” Ingo asked, after a moment.

Emmet hummed, a deep growling melodic noise that came from deep in his chest. “Not sure. I do not know if I will be feeling like food later. Perhaps it’s a ‘no food’ day? If you have a good enough idea, however. I could be tempted.”

“Maybe when we change back into our human shapes we will be able to proceed down those tracks,” Ingo mused. “I agree; sometimes it is hard deciding on mortal things while in these forms.”

“Yup yup,” Emmet mumbled, shutting his eyes again. “Maybe Elesa will be free later. We could hang out. Or something.”

“That would be nice.” Because of his electric typing, Ingo’s voice was quite loud, like thunder. Even so, he managed to sound content.

Emmet was feeling cozy as well, but he was no longer ready to sleep. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on the forest, watching pansage swing through the trees and the sewaddle hang from the branches. The cottonee were blown in the breeze, and the pidove flew high overhead. None of the pokemon approached, not bothering the dragons but not fazed by their presence either.

It was nice, Emmet thought, to just be accepted as part of the world. That was another nice thing about their choice to live in the mortal world full-time. They were no longer above everything; they were a part of it.

Emmet felt a smile curl up the ends of his fanged mouth, and with little tendrils of smoke curling from his nostrils, he watched the world go by.

▲▽

Emmet slowly removed his precious Subway Master coat. He was being very careful and taking his time so he didn’t rip it; the first time he’d tried to remove it like he’d used to, it had gotten caught in his joints and torn.

Once he’d taken it off, Emmet passed the coat over to Elesa, who was standing next to him. After that single garment was gone, there was nothing else left to discard, so he carefully sat in the cushioned chair provided. Next, they’d just have to wait for the technicians and doctors to arrive.

Emmet had been functioning as a robot for six months now. He’d been told it was the only way to save his life as more and more time elapsed and things looked more and more grim. When he was still in his coma, they’d somehow removed his brain and put it into a new vessel, a body custom made to look at least somewhat like his human self. Instead of skin he had lightweight plastic panels, and instead of knees and elbows he had exposed metal joints. They’d had the decency to give him synthetic silver hair to match what he’d lost.