#ihaveatheoryonthat pkmn
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Code of Conductors
Like many, I've found myself enthralled with @critterbitter's recent comics. While this is 100% based on trends I noticed in the story, I'll admit that the tone is something of a departure, so if you're looking for comedy, this might not be the fic for you.
(As a disclaimer, I wrote the bulk of this before the most recent arc began, so it might stray a bit into that territory, as well.)
If you'd prefer AO3 over tumblr's formatting, it's also up over there.
---
Having a starter Pokemon… wasn’t going the way Ingo might have hoped, so far.
He’d tried to temper his expectations-- not everyone could have the storybook encounter that Emmet and Tynamo found-- but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed by the reality that met him. He’d wished to Zekrom for a partner whose ideals would align with his own, and while he understood that it didn’t mean he and this hypothetical Pokemon would see eye to eye on everything, his thoughts had been that they could at least find an accord.
He’d longed to meet someone who might accept him for his imperfections-- for his inability to emote the way other humans expected, for the peaks of volume he couldn’t always control, for the creeping doubt that he was too much and not enough, all at the once. He wanted so badly to work with Litwick, but even though her telepathy made it possible for them to communicate more clearly, his misgivings only grew stronger with every passing day.
Ingo thought he understood. He wasn’t her first pick by any stretch of the imagination; if she’d had her way, she’d have left Emmet as a disoriented heap on the floor and faded into the background, never to be noticed. Instead, he’d caught onto her game, and then caught her. He knew it wasn’t a terribly uncommon phenomenon, and that good trainers could work with even the most reluctant Pokemon, but nothing he’d attempted was working. He’d tried letting her feed from his soul, and while it eliminated the language barrier between them, functionally speaking, it only meant that he could understand her malcontent in her own words. He’d tried compromise, to meet her on her level, but hearing how bland he was-- how utterly lacking-- became difficult to take day after day. He’d even overheard Emmet trying to bribe her into cooperating with him, and it was humiliating. He knew his brother wasn’t blind to how he was struggling, but to have her ambivalence spelled out so plainly made his doubts resurface, tenfold.
He’d waited this long for a Pokemon to show interest in being his partner, so he could wait a little longer. If Litwick truly wasn’t happy-- if he really was dragging her down, as she seemed to imply-- it was only right to let go. The situation in the Celestial Tower had meant that he couldn’t give her a choice back then, but he could now.
It might delay their outset, but maybe a minor miracle would happen, and he’d find a Pokemon that wanted to be his friend-- or was at least open to the possibility-- within the span of two weeks. They hadn’t tried the Desert Resort, yet. Even if he was incompatible with ghosts, maybe a Sandile or Dwebble would suit him.
...and if he couldn’t make the turnaround, he could try to ensure that he’d be the only one inconvenienced; he didn’t have any earthly idea how he’d convince Emmet to go ahead with their plans on his own, but surely being left behind by choice would feel better than holding his loved ones back.
In a roundabout way, that included Litwick.
Ingo had already talked himself out of and back into this course of action multiple times, so he knew how difficult it would be to stick to his convictions-- the last thing he wanted was an audience to convince, too. That was why he waited until it was time for Tynamo’s daily charging session, took Litwick’s pokeball, and sneaked out to the shallow portion of the greenbelt nearby. It wasn’t where Litwick had come from, but everyone had heard stories about forests infested with will-o-wisps ready to lead an unsuspecting hiker off the beaten path, so he could do worse. He walked far enough that the waning daylight dimmed even further, but not so far that he was left without any trace of natural light to lead him home.
He turned the pokeball over in his hands, practicing the words in his head one more time, then drew a bracing breath and released its occupant.
“Alright, sock Grookey, what’s going through that fluff-filled head this time?”
He looked away, keeping Litwick in his periphery, but unable to look her in the face. “You can go, if you would prefer.”
“...what?”
“You can leave. I don’t want to keep you confined if I’m only making you miserable; it’s not fair to you.” The pokeball had automatically clicked shut again, but he toyed with the latch, popping it open for when he’d need it.
He heard Litwick scoff, “Oh great, you’ve hit your emo phase, huh? Nothing like a soggy cracker to snack on.”
“Then you can find someone else.” He said, keeping his eyes trained on the lowest limb of a nearby tree, imagining how its rough bark would feel if he were to reach out and touch it. Cold. Hard. A far cry from malleable wax. “No one’s stopping you any longer.”
He could only imagine that she was rolling her eyes-- maybe her flame flickered in irritation. They may not have spent long enough together to become friends, but he’d learned to read her, and he wasn’t sure he’d lose that knowledge once it became irrelevant.
“Yeah, yeah, read it a hundred times.” She drawled, rolling her eyes. Her nubby little arms raised into the air, waving in an exaggerated shooing motion, “’Get out of here, I don’t want you anymore!’ Have anything more original?”
Of course. Of course Emmet got the fairy tale meeting, and now he was living out some novel fishing for a Clawitzer Prize. He swallowed hard, trying to banish the thought; it wasn’t about him-- none of it was. He could be jealous of his brother and Tynamo, and he could be upset about how badly his short-lived partnership with Litwick had gone, but for their sake, he should keep it to himself. His feelings weren't their responsibility, only his own.
Any and all of the words he’d practiced failed, and all he could do was wave a hand, certain that if he spoke up now, his voice would betray him.
“Are you serious?” Litwick asked, surprise quickly morphing into anger, “Well screw you, too, muppet boy! Do you really think you can do any better? Good luck!”
“I know! How can I possibly miss it when every Pokemon whose path I cross turns up its nose?” On some level, Ingo was mortified that his restraint had failed him, but he was too distraught to let higher thought dictate his feelings. What was it they could all sense that chased them away? What was the deficiency in the core of his being? What was so terrible that no one could look past it? He was so afraid that he was going to be left alone someday, unwanted by anyone new and cast aside by those who had no choice but to tolerate him. In spite of his brother’s reassurances, he felt certain there would come a day where he’d reach out to find that no one was there.
He couldn’t think of anything else to follow that, and Litwick was still simmering in outrage. Dashing a hand across his eyes, Ingo returned his attention to the pokeball and inverted it, holding it by either side to bend its hinge backwards, past the point of repair.
“Wait.” Litwick said, and he felt his own frustration bubble up.
“Why can’t you make one thing easy?” He demanded, a sob working its way into being. He was trying to live up to his own ideals with all of his might-- to ensure that Litwick was able to find her highest state of self, even if this was the only way he could help-- but it was so much harder than everyone made it out to be. Was that the problem? His ideals were so flimsy, so hard for the person who held them to maintain, that no one could align with them?
Ingo didn’t know what he expected anymore. He’d thought Emmet would tell him he was being ridiculous when they'd had their heart to heart, but he hadn’t-- in this situation, though, he couldn’t imagine that Litwick would turn around with an apology, and he wasn’t even sure that he’d be able to believe it was genuine, that she wasn’t saying it to shut him up.
“I don’t get you.” She said, and he could have tossed his hands up in dismay. If nothing else, he supposed they’d come to the understanding that they didn’t understand one another-- and just in time.
As she continued on, however, he went very still, listening carefully.
“It feels like you should be something else, but I can’t tell what. Why are you only half baked?” She asked. It was weaker than it would normally be-- a light fizzling instead of a pointed burn.
That felt like it should have hurt more; it was practically confirmation that he was lacking something intrinsic to the human condition, but Litwick’s bafflement made it fumble the landing. Maybe… maybe it was normal? He’d watched Emmet mature a great deal in the time since partnering up with Tynamo, so there could still be hope for him-- though it did seem like something of a Pokemon-or-the-egg situation. He needed a partner to help him grow, but he needed to grow if he was going to find a partner.
Ingo didn’t realize it in the moment, but his hands relaxed a bit, and one fell to his side, abandoning the pokeball all together; some of Litwick’s tension eased, unnoticed, and she molded back into her preferred shape.
“Maybe... we can make a deal, eh? Mutual aid or whatever you want to call it; we, uh-- we try to train each other.”
For the first time since they’d started this conversation, he looked at her in full. Her flames were low, but still spitting, and he’d never seen that combination before; the dim fire meant that she was upset, and the sputtering was indicative of agitation. Something in the recesses of his mind-- the part that wrung its hands, so utterly convinced that he was a terrible brother and friend-- whispered ‘guilt’, but he wasn’t about to go making any decisive statements. That seemed presumptuous at best.
He took a moment to think her words over, and realized that he couldn’t argue with that. Wasn’t it precisely what he’d wanted, all along? To help Litwick evolve into the best version of herself, and to grow as a person?
Was this what it meant to find someone whose ideals matched his own?
Slowly, he inclined his head, and used both hands to fold the pokeball back together.
---
Litwick never could have imagined that she’d find herself in this situation.
She didn’t see herself as a Pokemon who would ever take a trainer. Something deep inside of her rankled at the indignity of being captured, and so she’d taken it… poorly when she wound up stuck inside a pokeball. She was a literal free spirit, unable to be contained, and not some everyday Pokemon who would allow themselves to be domesticated.
And-- and if she had deigned to attach herself to a human, it would be someone she’d deemed worthy: a savant, someone who understood their partners and knew exactly the footing they stood on together. She wouldn’t tolerate any incompetence, any disrespect; she knew her worth and she wouldn’t compromise.
Muppet kid was… a kid. He’d slapped her in the face with the realization that she wasn’t the heavyweight she’d believed herself to be, and so he’d needed to be taken down several pegs, too. She saw how he looked at his brother and the flying fish that chased after his heels like a needy Lillipup, and being turned into that was an insult she wouldn’t suffer. She hated that he tried to humor her-- that he thought her so far beneath him that she could be humored-- and so she’d lashed out.
She’d never thought she’d be someone’s partner.
She definitely hadn’t thought she’d be someone’s failed partner.
Before she’d migrated to the Celestial Tower, Litwick had spent some time in a nice library; there had been a woman who’d frequented it, reading aloud for the empty archive, and it had sparked a curiosity in her. She’d mostly read cheesy romances because they were hilarious, but there had been a few instances where she’d branched out-- and one of those times, it had been to browse through a book on literary criticism. At the time, she’d thought it encompassed her own snarky commentary, and finding that it was something else entirely had turned her off of it, but it came to mind now.
The exact words escaped her, but it had stated that if criticism caused a writer to give up their craft, then it had failed at its job; the worst thing a critic could do was snuff the desire to create.
Litwick was beginning to realize that she’d done just that, metaphorically speaking, at least.
Even if she didn’t like how he went about it, the ki... Ingo had been trying, and in recent weeks, she’d taken that for granted. She hadn’t given it a second thought when he stopped refuting her mild insults or answering her sass with a subtle sarcasm of his own.
He thought she truly didn’t like him-- and she’d thought she didn’t like him, but now, faced with the prospect of being released into the wild, she had to reevaluate her feelings.
She guessed he was… sweet, but dull, in the way of someone who hadn’t figured out who they were, yet. Somehow, she just expected more from him, and she wasn’t sure why-- there was a smokiness he lacked, the steel of willpower honed to a razor’s edge, and of burning want, the drive to reach an undefined goal. It was frustrating to know it should have been there, but just wasn’t for some reason.
His soul was flatter than ever, now, albeit with a melancholic tinge that felt more like what she’d expected. Litwick realized she didn’t like it any better and-- worse-- that there was no one but herself to blame for its current state.
As things stood, she had been a bad partner. In those daydreams where she allowed herself to have a trainer, they were a master of their craft, someone whose orders in battle were confident and without flaw, who saw her worth and respected her for her power and wit-- but Litwick… had to be able to prove herself worth that ideal, in turn. That was why she’d been so mad at Ingo at first; he’d unwittingly shown that she wasn’t that noble and mighty Pokemon who wouldn’t settle. She’d been captured by a shocked 12 year old whose first instinct had been to catch the ghost snacking on his brother.
If trainers shared their ideals with the Pokemon they trained, using those ambitions to help them grow bigger and better, then couldn’t it go both ways? She already knew what she thought her kid was capable of-- all she had to do was train him back, help in grow into it.
“Maybe... we can make a deal, eh? Mutual aid or whatever you want to call it; we, uh-- we try to train each other.”
Finally, Ingo looked at her, and she hadn’t realized until that moment just how much his refusal to do so had grated on her-- not in the sense that it was disrespectful, which she might have guessed even five minutes ago, but because he couldn’t look her in the eye. For the first time since her spike of white-hot realization, Litwick considered what he’d been trying to do here. He was offering to let her go, yes, but only ever on her terms: ‘you can go if you would prefer,’ ‘it’s not fair to you,’ ‘no one’s stopping you.’ Not once had he implied that this was something he’d wanted and, in fact, the miserable allegation that she was only making things harder on him suggested the opposite
The internal tension holding her wax firm ebbed as he lowered his head into a tiny nod, sealing the deal by tucking her pokeball back into its intended shape. More than anything that came before it, that was the moment Litwick realized that she was at peace with this decision; if she so chose, she could move in another direction with her life, but she would always wonder what might have been.
“That’s an acceptable course of action.” Ingo said, voice hushed in a way she vaguely remembered hadn’t heard before.
“Deal’s a deal, then.” She said, and inched forward, waiting to see if he was about to recall her. He didn’t, and she moved closer, until she was standing just a foot away.
As she moved nearer, he knelt down onto her level, and considered her as she came to a complete stop. After a moment’s deliberation, he held a hand out so she could use it to get up. “You’re welcome to board as our conductor.”
Her first instinct was to brush his comment off with a snide remark, but after the conversation they’d just had, deliberately softened it. Now that they’d reached a new understanding, she thought they could go back to roasting one another within the week, but it would be kind to give it a grace period for the evening.
She took the offer. His hands were gentle as he lifted her, putting her in the mind of rough but discerning fingers running across a chin she didn’t have, and pleasant though it was, she cut it short by climbing onto his shoulder.
“Sounds good. Where’s this train headed, anyway?”
“Tonight, we’re returning to home station.” He said, and then gave her a subtle look, inclining his head, “But tomorrow… we’ll start to run toward our next highest state, together.”
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No Mer is An Island
I didn't go out intending to revisit @monsoon-of-art's Mer AU this month, but seeing this piece in full really hit on something, and I had to get the words down. Happy MerMay, guys!
---
When they’d first met, the girl had stopped him to say that he looked kind of like someone she knew.
Given that Emmet had come all this way trying to find his brother, it sounded promising on its face, but looking past the initial wording, revealed itself to be a shallow hope. If she’d been talking about Ingo, she would have been more decisive. He wouldn’t look kind of like this person, but exactly. He’d been through the cycle of leads surfacing and then sinking often enough to know that the odds weren’t good, but it was the best he’d heard since arriving in Hisui and he couldn’t afford not to give it some cursory exploration.
As they moved away from the shaky hope of a rebuilding village, her story became more and more outlandish, but… somehow not less believable; unprompted, she’d mentioned the torn remnants of a subway car, and in a land that lacked rail transport, it lent her version of events a great deal of credence. Something much more worrisome was the claim that his twin had been found pinned beneath the wreck, trapped and slowly wasting away, before being discovered.
It was strange. When, inevitably, Emmet’s questions about a missing person failed, his next strategy was always the train car. People could move on and be forgotten, but an effigy of twisted metal should have been noteworthy.
The matter of physical resemblances had been both explained and complicated as Dawn led them to a rocky outcropping by the sea.
“Well, that’s… why I wasn’t totally sure at first.” She said, scouring the horizon. Eventually, her attention settled in one specific direction, and Emmet idly followed it to a dark little island in the distance. “The thing is, the parts of you that look the same totally look the same. It’s just that Ingo’s… not really human?”
...what.
She held her hands up in placation, grimacing at her own words. “I know, I know. Just hear me out. So the Pearl Clan found him under that big wreck and took him home to heal, only he… kind of sucks at being a merperson? The same ways I suck at it. We both keep getting hung up when we swim, and neither of us distrusted humans the way the other mers did, and you couldn’t pay us to eat raw fish or seagulls or anything like that. I've been wondering about it for a long time, but maybe Ingo was human, too?”
There was a ringing in Emmet’s ears. It took him a moment to realize that it was an actual sound coming from somewhere over the water. Something in the back of his head told him he should recognize it, but it seemed unimportant compared to the information Dawn had just dumped over his head.
“That is my brother’s name.” He eventually choked out, to the exclusion of the rest of it.
Dawn’s expression cracked into a smile. “Worth a shot! I’ll go grab him and come back-- just don’t worry, okay? Most people think he’s kind of scary.”
Despite the amount of time it had been since he’d had to field that particular criticism, Emmet felt himself bristle. “He cannot help it. His face is just like that.”
The girl paused in the middle of digging through her bag and tilted her head, “I thought it was just because he always seems kind of down, but that makes sense, too.”
Unsure what to say to that, Emmet remained silent as she took something out, unlashed the satchel from around her waist, and then brought a vibrant shell to her lips.
The notes resonated, briefly, with whatever it was coming from across the waves.
“What is that?”
“It’s a special flute,” Dawn said, adjusting her grip on it now that she was no longer playing, “I’ve had it since I got here, but I can’t remember why.”
“Not the instrument. The sound. What is causing it?”
“The… flute?” She asked, baffled, and slapped her tail against the rocks.
It took a second for Emmet to rewind and process that fact.
She had implied that before, hadn’t she? Back when she’d confirmed Ingo’s name. Strange how one piece of information could be so much more pertinent than the rest and simultaneously so much less important.
Emmet consciously had to rein himself in. If humans could turn into merpeople, this could be it. He might be about to see his twin for the first time in years.
Dawn departed shortly thereafter, handing him the flute as a gesture of goodwill, and took off in the direction she’d originally scouted. Emmet pocketed the strange shell for safekeeping and then moved her satchel to somewhere the waves couldn’t sweep it away.
The sound continued that entire time, carried from somewhere far away. When several minutes passed without interruption, he finally figured out what it was: whale song. He didn’t profess to be an expert in the matter, but now that he was listening properly, he was relatively certain of that.
After some time, it stopped, and he immediately found that he missed it.
In its absence, he returned to the water’s edge, wondering if the dark island in the distance wasn’t where Dawn was headed, where his brother lingered. It seemed too much to think that he might catch a glimpse of either when it was so far away, but the reassurance would be welcome. He had little doubt that Dawn would return, particularly given that he held the key to her humanity, but the low crooning over the water proved that there were predators about, and he wouldn’t want haste to lead her into danger.
When he scanned the ocean, however, he found that the island, too, had vanished.
---
Ingo spent a great deal of his time alone.
It was by choice, but at times, it also felt involuntary.
The Pearl clan was more gracious than he could have asked for, worried that his continued stints on his own might reignite the loneliness that had left him so fragile upon their first meeting; while he was happy for their company, it wasn’t what he was missing. That was the problem, though: he didn’t know what would fill the void in his heart. Their camaraderie was close-- had been rejuvenating when he’d first been ushered into the fold-- but only to a point. He felt that it was the right track, just veering ever so slightly off course; if he could figure out where his destination lay, he could course correct to reach it.
It had been years, though, and while he was no longer soul-sick, the ache of it refused to leave him.
When it became too much to bear, he would leave for the surface, to float on his back and close his eyes. The ocean air had become familiar, but it went deeper than that, the churning sea so close to making a connection somewhere in the recesses of his being. He was put in the mind of the artificial reef he’d awoken in-- pinned, scared and without a trace of memory-- but had no idea how they could be related. More than anyone, he knew how heavy the construct was; it seemed wholly antithetical to the gentle rocking that only occurred above the waterline.
Frustrated with his lack of progress, but not surprised, he let out a heavy sigh and pitched it halfway through, low in his throat. He didn’t know what purpose this ability served, as none of the other merfolk could hear when he dipped into this range, but it was cathartic; he could cry for the fact that the clan had been so kind, so welcoming, and he still didn’t belong. He could lament that there was something wrong with him, that he still felt sickness in between the beating of his heart, and he feared he would never escape it.
He could admit, in tones no one would ever hear, that he didn’t know how much longer he could bear the solitude before it consumed him whole.
Though he knew perfectly well that she was unable to parse his voice like this, it died in his throat as Dawn poked her head up from the waves. Unwilling to have a conversation with her in such an undignified position, he turned over and dipped back below the water so they could speak properly.
“Is rebuilding going well?” He asked, following up from the last topic they’d touched upon, “Has there been any recovering from the salt water?”
The humans weren’t bad, he knew-- and had known for as long as he could recall-- they were just scared. For as disastrous as the region’s flooding had been, the one silver lining was that it had given the clans cause to cooperate with the villagers and, slowly, the merfolk were beginning to make progress. He couldn’t be certain how the humans looked upon the situation, but they accepted aid, at least, and that was something.
“It’s...” There was a conspicuous pause. “Going. That’s not why I came to talk, actually.”
“No?” He asked, unable to find it in himself to be surprised. Dawn was like the sea itself at times, ever shifting, just shy of capricious.
“No. I don’t want to jump the gun or anything, but I think I met someone who knew you before! He’s waiting for us at the bluff.”
He blinked at her, the words sitting at the surface of his thoughts for several seconds before sinking in, “What makes you believe that this individual and I share any sort of connection? I don’t mean to cast doubt, but if even I’m unable to say with any certainty...”
“He was looking for someone called Ingo.” She said, and while there was a twitch of her tail that suggested it wasn’t the whole truth, Ingo was too caught up in that declaration to catch it. “He looks like you, too. A scary amount.”
“He’s also an orca?” It might be nice, he thought, to physically be on the same level as someone for a change-- unmarked as the odd man out in this regard, on top of everything else that made him feel so detached from the clan.
“Well… no, it’s mostly in the face. But your coats are basically the same!”
Interesting. That, more than anything else, lent credence to her theory. As strongly as he felt about his name, his complete lack of any other personal details meant that he couldn’t be entirely sure it was what he’d used prior to waking up beneath the ruins. The fact that this person was seeking someone of the same name was noteworthy, but not conclusive. The resemblance was also compelling, but could be explained by a mimic octopus or the like.
His clothes, however, had been a subject of bewilderment among the clan for some time. Drag caused his coat to hinder his movement and speed, and it was constantly becoming caught on bits of rock or other hazards. His hat was somewhat more practical, helping him see above the water on bright days, but beneath the waves, all it did was threaten to fly away if caught in the mildest of currents. Even if this was a misunderstanding and Dawn’s contact didn’t know of him, perhaps he could ask what the utility was.
“I see.” He narrowly refrained from breathing it out as a sigh; there was little use in speculating if confirmation or denial really was so near, “If he’s waiting, we ought not to leave him at the station. Are you ready to depart for the Clamberclaw Bluffs?”
Dawn took him by the forefinger and smiled at him-- and where he occasionally saw a flash of pity in it, there was nothing but anticipation.
“Let’s go!” She said, tugging him forward, a current all her own.
Ingo allowed it to happen, allowed her to be the force driving his tired cab onward. Maybe, when they reached their destination, there would be someone there to meet it.
---
The first indication that Emmet was no longer alone on the rocky outcropping was Dawn hefting herself up onto the edge with the grace of someone still adjusting to that specific workout. He refrained from commenting on that fact both because he liked to think himself polite and because something else stole his attention away shortly thereafter.
Offset from where she’d appeared, the water warped unnaturally, and it took a second for him to realize that it was because it was something else was surfacing, something massive enough to distort the water as it rose.
“Oh,” Said his brother’s voice, loud as one of his directing calls whilst somehow maintaining a sort of gentle surprise, “You’re human.”
Even though he’d been warned as much, as he blinked upwards, trying to process the reality he’d found himself living, he said, “You’re… not.”
“Was… was I supposed to be?” Ingo turned his head as he said it, a hand curling to rest against his lips-- and it was so achingly familiar that, for just a second, it was possible to overlook the fact that his forearm had to be longer than Emmet’s full height.
“Yes?” He half-asked, trying to keep his expression from dipping into anything too ridiculous in his incredulity, “To my knowledge, identical siblings are usually the same species.”
The animate half of Ingo’s face scrunched, puzzled, and he leaned over on his arms to put them on the same level. He spent several seconds silently assessing Emmet, before returning with, “We do look quite similar, don’t we?”
“Identical.” Emmet repeated, insistent, and he couldn’t keep his voice from crackling on it, “We are-- we’re supposed to be identical twins.”
“And I take it from your response that you were never an orca?” His brother said, a little helplessly.
“No.” At that, however, he stepped forward, emboldened both by the certainty that this was somehow his missing twin-- all but confirming that he had never been in any danger-- and a suddenly-consuming curiosity.
Ingo watched his approach, but did nothing to stop him. The only movement was that of one enormous, clawed hand tucking itself into the tattered remains of the opposite sleeve and, abruptly, Emmet realized he was still wearing his uniform’s hat and coat. The hat and coat that had been commissioned in tandem with the ones Emmet wore right now. Emmet, who was notably human-sized.
How?
The nearer he drew, the more clearly he could make out the black mass in the water beyond, a shadow that stretched and curved into an undeniably fish-shaped tail, floating just high enough for a dorsal fin to cut through the surface.
With a new clarity, he looked up, taking in the black patches that both camouflaged the actual lines under his brother’s eyes and made his weariness look orders worse, and asked, “Was the whale song your doing?”
The too-pale skin of Ingo’s face went faintly pink. “You were able to hear that?”
Emmet felt his face crack into a grin, “You are not quiet.”
“No, no, you misunderstand,” He tried, though the flush only intensified at the comment, “The frequency is inaudible to the other merfolk. I didn’t think anyone else was physically able to hear it.”
“Wait,” Said a mildly-familiar voice and, with a start, Emmet remembered they weren’t alone, “Is that what you’re doing when you float on the surface like a dead fish? You’re just screaming into the sky?”
“That is-- no. Not in the slightest!”
“If he yelled, you would know. Even as a human.” The commentary earned him a downward glance through narrowed eyes.
“Regardless,” Ingo said, transparently trying to get them back on a track that didn’t lead to further teasing, “I’m surprised that you were able to discern it without being a mer yourself.”
Emmet hummed, considering that, and then turned his head. “I’m not. Other people cannot read your face, but I can. It makes sense that I can understand you now, too.”
“Because you’re… my twin brother.” Ingo said haltingly, testing the words for himself as if to see if they were any more convincing in his own voice.
Emmet smiled, though not without an edge of melancholy, letting him reach a conclusion in his own time. That wasn’t disbelief, he knew, but it was plain to see how lost his brother was, and hurrying him wouldn’t help.
He wouldn’t push, but… but maybe it would be okay to make sure this was real, that he hadn’t hit his head upon arriving in Hisui and managed to fool himself into thinking this might finally be it.
Holding one hand up to indicate a lack of aggression-- as if something so small could do anything to hurt someone with the proportions of a killer whale-- he took a tentative, questioning step forward and asked, “Can I touch?”
Ingo blinked at him, focused momentarily on his palm, and then back on his face. In lieu of an answer, he rested his head on his arms in full, putting himself in range to reach more comfortably. His bright, bright eyes tracked the motion until he couldn’t any longer, and he breathed out, slow and impossibly long.
The skin beneath Emmet’s hand was dark, the stripe of it trailing up to a floppy ear and down below the line of a collar, but still warm and still undeniably human. He’d half expected it to feel rubbery under his touch, but the biggest difference was the subtle grit of drying salt. He was reminded intensely of the summer their family visited the Decolore Islands and specifically of when, as a joke, he’d tried to push his brother into the water, only for Ingo to clutch his hand that much more tightly and send the both of them tumbling in. Having to go on in wet clothes had been bad enough until they began to dry, contrasting outfits stiff with the residual salt on their persons. As children, it had been unbearable. He could only hope it didn’t itch the same way, now.
He only realized he’d spaced out at the renewed rumble as his twin began to speak again, “--not sure. Are you still with us, Emmet?”
For a second, he froze in place, and then drew his hand back, breaking out into an unburdened smile. Beaming up at his brother, he said, “Ingoooooo, I never told you my name.”
Ingo’s brow furrowed as he mentally played the conversation back, and then he glanced to Dawn, who held her hands up and shook her head. When that failed to yield any plausible explanation, his gaze flitted back over to Emmet, uncertain, as if he’d done something wrong.
“It’s good!” Emmet said before his twin could start to reverse down the tracks, “I do not know what happened, but you’re still you. That is all that matters to me.”
As quietly as he was physically capable of with such robust lungs, Ingo repeated “My brother,” to himself, already coming to terms with the idea, and Emmet stepped forward again.
He leaned into his twin’s shoulder, heedless of the water that immediately soaked through his coat, and, as best he could, pressed the side of his face to Ingo’s. Against his own side, he felt a pulse speed up, powered by a heart that was finally large enough to match the outpouring of love its owner had always put into the world.
A hand moved to cradle his back, painstaking in the care behind it, and within two beats of that massive heart, the whale song began anew.
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This is a scrapped piece from a story I'm still trying to make work, which means the full context is a little lacking. That said, I liked it too much to ditch entirely, so onto the writing blog it goes. Again, there are placeholders all over-- even more than usual. Please don't go into this expecting anything polished. xD
---
“Hello, this is [name] calling on behalf of the Goldenrod City General Hospital.”
Immediate alarm bells, though Emmet couldn’t quite articulate why; trepidation blocked his throat, and he remained silent, letting [them] continue.
“I’ve been asked to act as a translator, as no one on staff is fully fluent in Unovan. You see, for the past four days, the facility has been attempting to identify a [John Doe], and we believe we’ve found a match with Mr. Ingo Bewaker, but due to… circumstances, have been unable to confirm. As his emergency contact, we were hoping you might be able to help us with visual confirmation.” […]
Mind going a mile a minute, it took a bit for Emmet to respond. His brother had no business being in Johto, but at this point, anything was possible. What truly disturbed him was the implication that the hospital had taken this long to find an [identity], meaning that… this person was unable to [identify] themselves.
It sounded like they wanted him to [identify] a body.
[he’d been fighting against that for some time/whatever else]
The last thing he wanted to do was agree, but how could he refuse? Either he could be sure that this was some other unfortunate individual, and that he shouldn’t give up yet, or he’d finally find an answer. He bit down on his tongue and forced himself to respond.
“Yes. Of course. Would email be preferable?” For a moment, it was just business-- the rote exchange of information-- but as the call seemed like it was winding down, he couldn’t help but ask, “...was it bad?”
Because, as much as he wanted to know what had happened, he wouldn’t be able to handle it if this was his twin and he’d died in pain. Knowing ahead of time would make it that much harder, but at least he would have something to prepare himself against. He would do it-- if it meant finally bringing his brother home, he would do it-- but [???].
[name] went on, oblivious to his internal conflict. “As I mentioned before, I’m only acting as a translator, and so I’m uninvolved in the patient’s care. From speaking to him, though, I think it’s fair to say the language barrier has been the biggest problem.”
The racing thoughts came to a screeching halt.
“You spoke to him?” He echoed [hoarsely]. Ironically, that in and of itself had an alternate translation: he’s alive?
“Yes, though I’m not sure how much got through. Between the medication and his limitations, he’s not the easiest to communicate with.” […]
That was… rude.
Even without having seen the physical proof, Emmet found himself inching closer to believing this might be it-- because of course someone would look at his brother’s face and call him hard to understand. If he was too out of it to respond coherently, that would even explain why they hadn’t been able to ask I-- this person directly, thus necessitating outside assistance.
The [deep] low suddenly swung upright, into a hopeful peak. It left Emmet a little dizzy.
“I see. Thank you for the clarification. I will refer to the email and respond as soon as possible.” He said, and the call ended shortly thereafter. Trying not to fidget, he waited for his Xtransceiver to ping, and struggled to keep his hand steady when the message came through. Hovering over the link to the attached photo, he took a deep breath and pressed down.
That was Ingo.
He had a splinted leg, there was a bandage stretching along one side of his face, and it kind of looked like he’d suffered his own personal Earthquake, but there was no doubt in Emmet’s mind. That was his brother, and while the photo could only capture so much, it was plain to see that he was alive, if not entirely well.
Using a nail to trace the edge of the facial cut, he let himself wonder how. There was nothing in the picture that suggested anything specific, or shed any more light on where he’d been all this time… beyond the Johto region, apparently…? No, that didn’t make sense. If he’d spent the past year in Johto, he would have picked something of the language up-- enough to make it by-- but he’d needed a Unovan translator.
...which was completely ignoring the question of why he wouldn’t just try to contact home, but it was obvious that Emmet was missing a great deal of context, so he would reserve judgment for the time being.
Lost in his reverie, he accidentally let the screen go dark, and then immediately tapped it to bring the picture back. He gave it another once-over before reluctantly closing it to formulate a reply-- that yes, that was his brother, and he would be departing for Goldenrod as soon as he was able.
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This one never got to the point; it was inspired by Everything Goes On, and was meant to lead up to something bittersweet, but ultimately positive. The general idea was that, in being sent home, Rei and Ingo would lose their memories a second time-- so, in preparation, they were writing down everything they didn't want to lose, and the Hisuians they were closest with wrote them letters, too. Of course, once they were able to read those letters, the people in question would be long dead.
It never got that far, but I liked the concept.
---
While it was a normal battle format in Hisui, and one Ingo had made a point to become proficient in, he didn’t particularly relish three on one challenge matches-- not as the person commanding three Pokemon at once, that was.
He could do it, and was quite skilled in it, but it felt… wrong. Before he’d agreed to run Galaxy Team’s Path of Solitude, he’d thought it was simply because it stripped the battle of any challenge, but as Rei [challenged] him with the very pillars of existence, he began to narrow it down. While he could split his focus effectively, he didn’t like the distance from his Pokemon that it fostered; he preferred to dedicate his [focus] to a singular combatant, to hone in on the minutiae that effected a battle. Other people may have preferred more participants and a broader scope, and that was perfectly fine for them, but it wasn’t what he favored.
The spontaneity was engaging, though, and he couldn’t deny that. He’d had no prior experience battling titans, which meant that he had to rely on that information he could glean in the moment. It was a thrilling [challenge], and Rei loudly bemoaned the fact that, even with such an edge, he hadn’t been able to eke out a victory on the first try; he’d known that it would only get harder from there on out, once Ingo had a better idea what he was working against.
Even so, there had been some semblance of [familiarity] when Rei had called out the names of the Pokemon he’d intended to battle with. When he decided to pit “Arceus” against the Path of Solitude, Ingo hadn’t had a scrap of information to fall back upon-- with Palkia and Dialga, he’d at least recognized them from his work in the Celestica Ruins, and word of the shadow cast by Giratina had reached him.
When the hooved creature took form, he could do little more than stare.
He didn’t know anything about Arceus, but he knew it. He had no idea how he knew it, but it was terribly familiar to him.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he failed to send his trio of Pokemon out onto the field, and without anything to battle, the Pokemon’s attention caught upon him. A voice hummed, and it wasn’t something that could be heard on a physical level, but neither was it the telepathic speech that psychic types relied on-- it was as though it pierced directly into the core of his being.
“One had wondered what became of thou, when thine summons went unanswered.”
All he could do was stare at it numbly, scarcely processing that the words were directed at him. Somewhere in the background, he heard Rei ask a question, but in comparison, the words were fuzzy and indecipherable. It was covered up the rest of the way by a [?] sigh.
“It is within Dialga’s domain, now: the past. One must [concoct] a new mission to relieve thee of thine [outdated] duty, mustn’t one?” Its face didn’t move at all, and on one level, Ingo could sympathize with it, but his conscious thoughts were too consumed with the ambiguous memory attached to the being, followed by the words it wasn’t-quite-speaking.
Fortunately, he was the only one so [consumed] with such introspection.
“What… what are you talking about?” Rei asked, stepping forward to stand boldly at Arceus’s shoulder.
Finally, it looked away from Ingo-- allowing a desperate rush of air to fill his lungs, as he began to breathe again-- to favor the young man with its attention.
“Before thou were appointed one’s champion, one had selected another. He stands across from thou.”
“Oh,” / “Then we’re the same? You brought us both here?”
It inclined its head, and the dam of incredulity burst, allowing the flood of [thoughts] to rush forth.[elaborate] Among them all, one emerged above the deluge:
His voice was shockingly rough to begin with, made coarse by the tide of emotions lapping at the edges of his being. “If you were the one to chart our courses… you must know where our home stations lie.”
Rei stopped in the middle of mumbling something, and, belatedly, Ingo realized he might have interrupted. In the midst of [idk], he’d lost track of the conversation’s progress, and it had taken more effort to speak up than he might have expected, so his social awareness was somewhat lacking at the moment. It didn’t seem to bother Rei, who immediately turned his head to Arceus, so sharply it might have given him whiplash.
“Yes.”
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The Vocabulary of Loss
This is actually the main piece that this was scrapped from. I wasn't going to put it here initially, but decided it was hanging over my head and I wanted to get out from under it. While it's definitely more coherent than some of the others I've posted lately, it's not finished by any means, so expect the usual placeholders and such.
-
Nobori’s first memories were marked by hurt, panic and confusion. He vaguely remembered a chill so bone-deep he feared it would snuff the flame at his heart, but even that [memory] was woefully incomplete. Between one blink and the next, the expanse of white was gone and there was a person talking to him with words he didn’t recognize.
Nobori’s present was also marked with hurt, panic and confusion. He wasn’t sure where this was or how he’d gotten here, just as with the Pearl Clan, but the sense of danger lingered in the back of his mind.
Yet again, he… didn’t recognize the words being directed at him.
He bit back a frustrated whine-- loathe to muddy the waters any further when this person hadn’t done anything to warrant his [ire]-- and shook his head, willing them to realize that he couldn’t understand them. They started again and, resigned, he repeated the gesture. When they motioned to him instead, urging him to speak, he sighed and raised a hand to his throat; again, he shook his head.
Mercifully, their eyes lit up in comprehension, and the person with them disappeared for a moment, returning with a sheet of paper and a strange writing implement. Nobori took neither, but awkwardly mimed holding a charcoal and, regretfully, shook his head once more.
The second person moved their hands in a [specific] way, and Nobori watched, trying figure out what they were motioning for, but even when he followed their arcs and where they pointed, it didn’t make any more sense. When he didn’t respond-- busy working out what that was about-- the two people exchanged worried looks.
One by one, other people shuffled in, tried to speak with him, and then left again; the words were different every time, enunciation variable and accents shifting. Nobori could do nothing but wrap his arms around himself and shake his head, over and over and over.
It was reminiscent of his first waking moments in the Pearl Settlement, staring helplessly at anyone and everyone who tried to make him understand. At least this time he was saved the frustration of trying to respond; where, before, he’d been so thoroughly blanked out that he’d forgotten his inability to speak, he stayed purposefully quiet today. There was no sense trying to force words that wouldn’t come-- words he’d only ever been taught to hear, and never to use.
With little else to remember about those who filed in and then out, he found that he recognized their faces well-- and the expressions of pity and horror that played out over each in turn-- so he knew that the person offering him a tentative smile had been in here before.
And, to his bewilderment, he found that her words clicked in a way he’d never known prior.
“You… understand Unova?”
They were hesitant and didn’t flow together very well, but he knew each of the words individually, and recognized that she was asking him a question. He could piece things together from there.
Haltingly-- confused, himself-- he inclined his head, and the woman clapped her hands, lighting up. She chattered excitedly to the other person present, the one who’d been here the entire time, and then turned back to him.
“Write?” She asked, and any tentative hope was dashed when he was forced to shake his head again. Nobori wished he could say yes, but reading and writing hadn’t been essential to his duties on Mount Coronet, and so the consensus had been that it wasn’t worth it.
“Sign Unova?” The woman tried, sounding worried, and Nobori could only stare blankly. He thought that, perhaps, that word meant something else, but if it did, he’d forgotten.
He wanted to draw his legs up, protecting himself from the rush of shame that followed, but even if nobody could tell him he’d broken a limb, he knew the facts. Nobori had no idea what he’d been doing before he woke up here, but clearly it hadn’t gone well for him.
While dissatisfied, the woman straightened back up and, assertively, repeated, “You understand Unova.”
He nodded, and she smiled at him.
“Yes. We’ll make better.” She said, and reached out to pat the bed reassuringly.
Nobori looked between her and the first man, then [haltingly] gestured to the paper and-- pen! That was it. It was just a strange pen. Both looked confused, but the man held them out to him, and with a little bit of fiddling, he figured out how to make the ink come out. While he couldn’t write words, there was one thing Nobori could do to make himself understood to some small extent, and an urgent question at the forefront of his mind-- he drew two concentric circles, and then two lines to connect them. Without thinking it through, he turned the paper over-- as if orientation would have any bearing on his drawing-- and hummed a question: where were his Pokemon?
To his relief, the question seemed to make it through the language barrier.
“Pokemon here are not allowed. Pokeballs are downstairs.” Said the woman, pointing down as she spoke as if to demonstrate.
That wasn’t quite what he’d been hoping for, but Nobori decided it was acceptable. He wanted to know more-- to make sure they were in a better state than he was-- but he had no earthly idea how he might ask her that, and so he nodded. It might take a day or so, but he’d be able to go down and check for himself.
(This, as it would turn out, was an incredibly optimistic estimate.)
The two stayed for a while longer; the woman gave him both of their names before asking more questions, none of which he had the capacity to address. Nobori was getting sick of shaking his head, but he couldn’t provide her any true answers.
The two left shortly thereafter-- once it became clear he could offer nothing to help them-- and, not for the first time in living memory, Nobori was left alone: hurt, confused, and wholly out of his element.
--------
Nobori knew better than to cause a fuss while under a healer’s care. He hated the hands on him, but he stayed still and pliant every time he was looked over, hoping it would end sooner rather than later. He dutifully took the medicines he was given-- less bitter than what he was used to, having been compressed into small tablets, and far easier to swallow because of it-- and did his best to thank his carers when given meals. The foods were a little strange, but not unrecognizable; their choice of rice instead of barley was a puzzling one, but perhaps he’d found himself somewhere where it was more readily available.
Once a full day had passed, he tested his ability to stand. It hurt-- less than he’d expected, actually-- but Nobori was relatively certain he could walk on it.
Or, at least, he was certain until he took a step and the world lurched around him.
He reached frantically behind himself and managed to get a handful of the bed; while he was unable to keep from tipping over, he at least slowed the fall, and landed on the floor with an undignified thump. Before he could put himself right, one of the people he recognized-- but didn’t have a name for-- poked their head in to look at him, and, upon processing the sight, hurried in to help him up. While he didn’t understand the words, Nobori recognized that her tone was asking if he was okay, and he did his best to reassure her; once he was back in bed, it took a turn as she began to scold him.
He ducked his head apologetically and weathered it, unable to argue his case-- but, before she left, tried to ask outright. He placed a hand on his chest and then pointed downstairs. She looked at him like he was being ridiculous and refused. Again, he pointed down, this time reaching for the piece of paper he’d drawn a pokeball on, and her expression softened, but she still told him no.
Anxious, he scratched lightly at his first knuckle, and while he didn’t notice it in the moment, the nurse’s eyes dropped to the motion. He did notice when she crossed the room to write something down on the papers that stayed at his bedside, but was disinclined to afford it any further attention; even if it was meant for his eyes, he wouldn’t have any way to interpret it, so there was no point.
Before she left, she approached the black tablet against the far wall and pressed something on its side, then escaped while Nobori was distracted by the shapes that played across it.
They were humans, real humans and not drawings-- like the photographs in the village, but more realistic. More than that, though, they moved. Nobori… Nobori hadn’t known that was possible, but now that he was seeing it, it seemed completely normal. It should have been shocking, but he barely even wondered how it worked. He knew that the people on the screen wouldn’t respond to him-- that he was watching something that had already happened-- and, instead, focused on what they were doing and the sounds they made. It wasn’t as good as being sat down to reach an understanding with a native speaker, but by the time someone came to see him again, he had picked up a few repeating words and phrases. He didn’t know what they meant yet, but he knew they were common parts of speech. With more time and context, he could figure it out, and once he’d gotten those basics down, he might be able to understand a little bit of what was going on around him.
The next time he was given medicine, though, it made him incredibly tired. He could do little more than watch the increasingly-blurry people move about in real life and on the screen before, inevitably, he fell asleep.
---
In retrospect, Nobori would realize that his mind stayed fuzzy after that, until such a time that he would finally be released from the hospital. In the moment, however, he was frustrated with himself. What had been a good start coasted to a halt as he found himself both unable to focus on individual words and struggling to remember what he’d already figured out.
In a bout of [frustration] he tuned the screen out entirely and tried to keep himself engaged in drawing out a map of the Coronet Highlands. He’d long since gathered that, wherever he was, it wasn’t Hisui. The language didn’t resemble Hisuian in the slightest, the foods were not the norm, the expectations on him as a patient were different, and what little he’d been able to make out from the window didn’t resemble the village at all.
If he could barely understand them, and they couldn’t understand him, the best he could do was try to use visual cues to get a response. Nobori’s first thought had been for Mount Coronet, Hisui’s central feature, but groggily dismissed it. Short of the temple on top, there weren’t any distinguishing features for non-residents to recognize; it would just look like any other mountain. He didn’t use maps in his daily life-- couldn’t read what they said, anyway-- but Nobori knew the terrain he patrolled and could lay the broad strokes out well enough.
He felt pain begin to creep in again, but he did his best to ignore it; if anything, it was a jolt of lucidity that helped him to focus on his work. His progress only halted when the daylight nurse came in to see him-- along with the woman who knew Unovan words.
Reluctantly, he set his pen and paper to the side, mirroring the tray that was set on the stand to his right, and then afforded them his full-- faltering-- attention. The first part of the afternoon routine was his pills, and he obediently downed them, then rolled the water cup between his hands as he waited for someone to speak.
“Your name!” The woman said, excited, and Nobori bit back the urge to sigh. This had happened before, too. They had to call him something, and he had no way to communicate what he’d already been given-- he would just have to remember what they decided on and try to respond to it for the time being. He suspected it would be more difficult now, since he’d already learned to answer to “Nobori”, but he could adjust. With any luck, he would only need it while he was in this facility.
To his surprise, however, he wasn’t given a foreign set of syllables. The woman called him by the single word his snow-blank mind had managed to hold onto-- the name he knew was originally his, before he’d been Nobori.
How… how could she know that?
Numbly, he nodded-- lowering his head just once-- and watched how she’d respond.
Her eyes lit up and she tapped her fingertips together in a muted clapping. It was followed by “Good!” and a number of words that… that Nobori recognized, but was having a difficult time parsing. There was something about blood-- he knew that much-- but it was nuanced, and he wasn’t sure how, exactly. He took another drink of water to give himself a small break from it.
When he looked back up, the woman’s expression was sympathetic.
“Will be alright, now.” She promised, “Call your brother.”
…huh?
Nobori blinked at her. She wanted him to call with his Celestica flute? Call who? He only knew a handful of viable songs…
Without meaning to, he felt his head list to the side, confused, but all she did was repeat, “Be alright, now.”
Physically, he couldn’t press for more information, and mentally, he was beginning to go foggy again, so he did nothing to stop her from departing. Left with an evening meal and the people on the screen, he devoted all of his attention to the former, applying a disproportionate focus to plucking every single mushroom out of his miso soup before making any move to drink it. By the time he’d forced himself to finish the waterlogged mushrooms, his head was too heavy to keep upright, and with a rueful thought for his incomplete map, he dropped into unconsciousness.
-------
Nobori was so tired. It clung to him throughout the day, and by the time he slowly realized its grasp was lessening, it was too late, because a new fatigue was digging its claws into him.
There was another person today. He’d said his name, but for the life of him, Nobori couldn’t remember it. It felt terrible; even if he couldn’t share the information with anyone, he’d always had the solace of knowing that he knew, and now it was as if his mind couldn’t hold onto anything at all. How much longer before he forgot that there had been a place before this? Before he lost his friends waiting for him downstairs? The only thing he was good for was working with Pokemon, and it had been days since he’d been able to do his job. How long would the staff here tolerate him?
Their patience stretched further than he expected, if what the newcomer said was any metric. Nobori didn’t know where the man had come from, but the man spoke fluently in the language he’d forgotten, explaining that they’d found him, hurt, beneath a shrine in the deep woods and brought him here to heal. Even in his [diminished] state, Nobori already thought it must have been something to that effect, but he nodded along, not about to take this for granted.
Eventually, the man asked for his input. Was there anything else they should know, that he could communicate? Did anywhere else hurt?
Tentatively, unsure why he was bothering, Nobori reached up and lightly knocked against his head.
The man’s eyes widened for a moment, and then narrowed as he leaned in. “You hit your head?”
On an instinct he’d never been fully able to beat back-- especially not now, when his mind was swimming just trying to sit up straight-- Nobori opened his mouth, as if to respond. He snapped it shut as soon as he realized what he’d done, and turned a palm upward, gradually bobbing his head back and forth in something inconclusive.
He knew he’d been injured, but no one could say for sure what had happened. It was just as likely that he’d hit his head as it was something had attacked him-- he’d been incredibly naive in his earliest days, seemingly unaware of just how dangerous Pokemon could be. No one would have been surprised if he’d gotten hurt because he’d been neglecting his safety checks.
“You don’t know, but your head hurts?” The man asked, and this time Nobori had a solid response.
Very slowly, so he didn’t make himself any dizzier, he shook his head, then moved to push his hair back. It had been cropped short-- down to the skin-- while the Pearl Clan’s healers looked after the wound beneath, but since started growing out again. He hoped they wouldn’t have to cut it this time; it had been unbearably prickly for weeks after the fact.
For several long minutes, the man and the doctor spoke to one another using words Nobori couldn’t comprehend.
“Can Dr. [?] take a look?” He eventually asked, gesturing to the spot Nobori had indicated.
Knowing better than to refuse, he bowed his head for easier access, and tried not to let his muscles tense up at the gloved fingers that investigated the scar. While the doctor investigated, the translator probed for more information.
“Do you know when you got this? Months ago? Years?”
An unhelpful part of Nobori wanted to point out that both of those could be measured in months, but he had no idea how he’d say that, even if he’d intended to do so. What he actually did was hold up two fingers and hope the point got across.
“Years ago?” The man asked, and he nodded. “How many?”
...how long had it been? He knew he’d seen a full turn of the seasons in the Coronet Highlands, but he’d spent a substantial amount of time under the Pearl Clan’s collective eye, too; he just didn’t know what season he’d started in, because the differences were so subtle in the Icelands, and he’d been horribly unaccustomed to the unrelenting cold.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent staring at his hands, lost to this train of thought, before the translator said, “That’s alright, we’ll say at least a year. If you allow the staff here to run some more tests, they might be able to tell you. Can they do that for you?”
Only halfway there, Nobori nodded. For several minutes, he drifted again, until the man called his other name. It took another few seconds to remember that that was him, and that he was supposed to respond.
“Did you come here from Unova? Could you point to home on a map?” The man asked, taking a completely different track. His eyes raked over Nobori with an uncomfortably familiar sort of pity.
Nobori gently shook his head to the first, and then cast a look about the room, searching for the map he’d left unfinished. He didn’t think he could find it on anyone else’s chart-- he didn’t know the other territories that well, and hadn’t visited them frequently enough to put them into a larger perspective-- but if they were referring to maps, his work had to be some small help, didn’t it?
Unseen in the midst of his bleary search, the other man blinked, taken aback.
“You didn’t come from Unova?” He asked, a note of urgency drawing Nobori’s attention.
Another [gentle] shake of the head. Part of Nobori wondered what that was about, but the rest was too upset about his missing map to afford it much more thought.
Again, the translator called his original name, and only continued when he had the scraps that passed for Nobori’s undivided attention. “Is there any way you can tell us where you were before you woke up here?”
Frustrated, Nobori nodded this time, and went back to looking for his map-- but, before he could get far at all, the other man cut back in.
“It’s okay! It’s okay. Why don’t we try this another time, when you’re feeling a little better? We’ll let the doctors see how they can help, and maybe it’ll be easier with a clear head, how about that?”
That wouldn’t help at all, but it seemed the question hadn’t actually been a question; the people around him moved on [swiftly], regardless of what his actual answer would have been. Nobori felt the dismissal for what it was, familiar with the way people turned their backs in favor of someone who could answer in kind. It wasn’t personal, he’d always tried to remind himself; it was just practical.
Without anything to hold his focus, Nobori found himself lapsing back into a mental fog.
---
As much as Nobori hated the film over his thoughts, it was somewhat useful for a while. He was distantly aware that he would have hated being handled as doctors and nurses conducted their tests, and that the scans would have been unbearable with [a clear head]-- but that knowledge floated an arm’s length away, just like everything else.
The translator kept stopping by to ask him questions, and though he was only semi-conscious at any given time, Nobori was horribly aware of the fact that he could barely offer any information. Oftentimes, the answer was too complicated to act out, and if that wasn’t the case, then he couldn’t condense his drifting thoughts down far enough, or simply didn’t know to begin with.
At some point, the people around him started using new words with his other name, and to his surprise, he knew all of them. Most were upended directly onto it: the first a title he dimly recognized-- the domain he was responsible for, though he couldn’t quite articulate what a subway was-- and another a secondary name that hadn’t survived the Icelands. He thought that was strange. Barring honorifics, the only people he’d met who had more than one name were from the village.
...was that strange, actually? He knew he wasn’t from the village, but even though the Pearl Clan had given him his name, he wasn’t theirs, either. Nobori thought that might make sense, now that he’d reflected on it; the villagers came from somewhere else, just like him.
The last was also a name, but he knew this one wasn’t his. In spite of the care he’d been taking to avoid sudden moves, his head snapped up the first time he’d heard it, and he’d begun to frantically search the room, as if its owner might have been lurking in the corners of his vision.
He hadn’t been there, of course. The room was small and sparse with nowhere to hide, unless one was a wayward map; it was obvious at a glance that there was no one else with him, but Nobori still felt his heart pang at the realization that he was alone, save for the nurse’s company.
For a few minutes, the sudden panic cut through everything else. Where was he, where was his--
--and then there was a Pokemon in his space. It was a Poliwhirl, he noted with a distant sort of detachment, as its markings began to turn.
The world went still and silent.
Nobori woke back up in stages. His hearing returned first-- a survival instinct he hadn’t managed to forget yet-- and then the hospital’s sharp antiseptic filtered in.
There was something else, he realized, that he couldn’t remember feeling ever before; it kept him calm and his heart steady, even when the rest of his senses proved reluctant to find him. He didn’t know how, but he did know that he was safe, even if he had no basis to think that.
Weak from fear and sedation, Nobori’s instincts trusted it. They welcomed it, even. Though he hadn’t even woken up yet, Nobori found himself exhausted-- so if someone was offering the kindness to watch out for him, to let him rest…
It wasn’t just his [weary] senses, he realized. That was the difference. Someone was there.
He forced an eye open and tried [desperately] to focus-- and when he did, something deep in his heart lurched to the surface.
With a sudden urgency-- on a wellspring of energy he hadn’t possessed seconds prior-- Nobori pushed himself upright using numb, shaking hands. That was him. That was the name’s owner, the person whose absence he’d become so acutely aware of, the person who--
“Ingo.” Whispered the man who shared his face.
That was Emmet. That was his brother.
The hands that reached out to meet him trembled too, like both of them were suffering the same debilitating [numbness], and even though his brain couldn’t make the connection to sensation when they touched, it still resonated.
With the rest of his senses suspended, Ingo found that finally, for the first time in years, he felt whole.
-------
Short of medical treatments, no one in the Pearl Clan had touched him as long as he’d stayed with them. Space and physical contact were concepts held in such high regard that they were only to be shared by one’s direct family, and even then, it was a privilege that could be revoked. As the foreign man whose origins were unknown, nobody had felt comfortable [sharing] their [space] with him. It was one of many, many things he’d been able to comprehend, but hadn’t understood.
Now, with a familiar, warm weight in his arms, Nobo—Ingo realized why physical touch was considered just shy of sacred. If it had been up to him, they would have stayed wrapped around each other indefinitely, and he felt the air flee his lungs in a [disappointed] wheeze when Emmet pulled back. His brother hadn’t let go-- had a hand clutching either one of Ingo’s arms, as if to keep him right where he had him-- but it wasn’t the closeness he’d only just realized he craved so desperately. He leaned back in, insistent, and Emmet temporarily abandoned whatever he’d been about to say in favor of a breathy laugh as he resumed his hold.
Ingo set his head down on his twin’s shoulder and felt himself relax-- wholly and voluntarily-- for the first time since he could remember.
A hand released him long enough to raise up and pet blindly through his hair.
“It’s been explained to me that you cannot speak.” Emmet said over his shoulder. It was completely level, betraying none of his deeper feelings, but, somehow, Ingo found that he could read the distress in it. “I’m sorry. That must be verrrry difficult on you.”
Unable to communicate by any other means-- not without letting go, a thought he refused to humor-- he lifted the opposite shoulder. It was inconvenient, but it was his life, and he did his best to work with what little he had.
“We will see what treatments might help. I will be your voice until then.” Emmet said, and then buried his face into his brother’s shoulder.
A single, breathy laugh escaped in response to the declaration. It was a nice idea, but Ingo wasn’t sure how viable that would be;
-----
[These are misc snippets without context]
[…] That was around the point Emmet noticed something of unprecedented importance. Ingo caught onto the interruption right away, head tilted minutely and hands already lifting, no doubt to ask after him, but Emmet was already in motion.
He caught his twin by either side of the face. “You’re smiling!”
It was a tiny, shallow thing, barely more than a twitch of the lips, but it couldn’t be called anything less than a smile. [more about how that’s been a struggle/insecurity]
“You were never able to do that, before.” He explained, for Ingo’s benefit. When the grace period was winding down, he let go, “We thought it was muscular. Maybe neurological instead? Can head trauma fix facial paralysis?”
He was still watching as the faint smile dimmed into confusion, and then a true frown. Sensing he’d said something wrong, he cocked his head, trying to elicit a response, but Ingo just looked away. When it became clear that his brother had no intention of pursuing the matter, Emmet took it up instead; he reached over and took a hand, leading it to signing height, and asked, “Was it the information itself, or that you just learned about it again?”
Ingo looked at him for several seconds and shook his head. He didn’t make any move to say what he was thinking and, in fact, dropped his hand back to his side. His line of sight wandered slightly thereafter, unable to maintain the eye contact out of… what? Disappointment? Awkwardness?
This time, Emmet didn’t physically move his twin’s hand; he reached out and brushed his fingertips down the back of it. “Please [talk to] me. I want to understand.”
It was abundantly clear that the only reason Ingo looked up was to sign properly as he said, “You’re saying I’ve always had brain damage?”
For moment, Emmet regretted asking-- not because he didn’t want to hear, but because he didn’t know how to answer. To give a definitive yes would only make his brother feel like he’d deserved the mistreatment brought on by his disability, but to say no would imply that he was different now and wrong for it-- never mind the fact that there wasn’t a foolproof answer, just the hypothesis Emmet had carelessly thrown out there.
[...]
“’Nobori’,” He echoed, and there was a twitch of the cheek that suggested he’d pronounced it incorrectly, but he had nothing for that. “Why? Does it mean something?”
Ingo hesitated for a fraction of a second, eyes flicking to the side in a way that suggested Emmet wouldn’t like the answer, and that he was very well aware of that fact. He had the [gall/nerve] to shake his head, a blatant lie that earned him a look of flat disbelief.
His twin sighed and relented, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to see a reaction as he signed, “Upside-down, for my [counterintuitive] instincts.”
Of course. Of course even the name he’d been saddled with was a reminder that he was wrong. A complete inability to communicate, an incompatible worldview and insufficient [instincts]. Dragons above, how had he survived it all? Not only the inhospitable landscape that he’d had no [reference] to [survive], but being reminded at every turn that he didn’t belong.
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I don't know if I'm winding down my time in this fandom, or if I just need a blank slate to work from, but I'm going to get a few partials out of the way, just in case that helps get me going again. As per usual, it's completely unfinished and doesn't have an ending. I called this one Folie a Deux.
---
Ingo was [at wit’s end/whatever]
They saw odd happenings at the station on a daily basis-- got a glimpse of hundreds of peculiar interactions and thousands of unique faces. No one would bat an eye if he reported watching [w/e], but apparently this was simply too much to believe.
For the past several days, Ingo had seen a man wandering the station, or on a rotating [?] of platforms. He recognized a substantial number of patrons, but this man was not one of them; his eye had been drawn by the [unique] garb, and after he’d noticed it, he’d been unable to not notice it the next day, or the one after that.
That wasn’t the strange part; people boarded trains dressed in far, far weirder, to the point that they saw Hatenna Miku cosplayers on a weekly basis. The part that Ingo simply couldn’t look past was that it just wasn’t a matter of the man’s chosen wardrobe.
He looked like him.
Now, that wasn’t a concept entirely divorced from reality, as Ingo saw his own face turned back at him on an hourly basis, but that wasn’t his brother. It wasn’t… exactly him, either, but all of the major strokes were there; the creases below the eyes and mild hunch weren’t enough to throw the uncanny resemblance off.
The first time he’d noticed, he’d passed it off as a trick of the imagination-- poor lighting that made him fill in the blanks with the features he was most familiar with-- but the second instance had disproven his theory. He’d been able to see the stranger’s face with perfect clarity, well enough to read the emotion in the tilt of his eyes and angle of his downturned lips: anxiety, anticipation-- the wanting for something, but the inability to reach out and take it. Ingo had seen much the same in the days he’d bothered to practice in a mirror, trying to force his face into anything that the layperson wouldn’t see as stern disapproval.
When he’d seen the man next, it had been on departure from a shift on the Multi Line, and he’d been startled to face that [wanting] stare head-on-- fixed not on him, but his twin standing beside him. It was followed by a flickering of attention, the realization that he was being watched in return, and they’d spent an [odd/uncanny] few seconds trapped in a mutual [stare]. Ingo hadn’t realized his gait had faltered until Emmet looped back to take him by the arm, asking what was wrong. He’d torn his gaze away to nod in the man’s direction, but all his brother had done was look, raise a brow, and said, “Huh. Verrrrry weird cosplay.”
Ingo hadn’t pressed; when he’d followed up, the man was poised to leave, shoulders raised uncomfortably with his hands clutching at his arms as he turned away. He was embarrassed, and it was kinder to let the matter drop. When they’d finished their shift for the day, Emmet had wondered, aloud, what the cosplay was supposed to be-- last week there had been a [theme] Miku, so what was the idea behind that version of Ingo’s uniform?
There was a key point of miscommunication in that [?] which+ Ingo didn’t notice until well after the fact.
The next time he saw the man, it was without the ragged hat and coat; he wasn’t focused on anyone or anything in particular, just staring blankly out over the crowds. Under different circumstances, Ingo might have passed it off as waiting on an arrival or biding time until his train arrived, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the world around him. No repeated looks at clock or scanning of the [crowd], just the [dull] [stare] of a man lost deep within his thoughts.
He wondered if he should let this [chance] pass without comment, but he felt he had to say something.
Ingo approached from an angle, so as not to march in with reckless abandon the way his twin might. He stopped a respectful distance away: close enough to be heard over the din of the station, but not so close that he was invading the man’s personal space.
He cleared his throat politely to wake him from his [trance] and said, “I’m terribly sorry if we made you self conscious the last time we met. It wasn’t [appropriate] of me to stare, and I promise you Emmet’s commentary was born of curiosity, not criticism.”
The man seemed tense as he listened, and while he nodded, accepting the apology, none of that [tension] bled out of his posture. He seemed like he was about to say something, then turned his head to cough into his far shoulder.
“It’s no matter, I wasn’t offended.” He said. His voice was rough, and… strange, like he was speaking in a lower register than came naturally to him. Ingo made a note of it for later, but not an urgent one; if he was a cosplayer, he could be practicing his vocal range.
Even if it was true that he hadn’t been offended, he’d clearly been ashamed of his previous ensemble. Ingo hadn’t been paying a great amount of attention, but broad strokes were the same as what he’d worn before-- a thick pink tunic and dark, unremarkable pants and shoes-- with the only changes being the absence of his coat and hat. It was the first time he’d seen him without them, and it couldn’t have been coincidence that the [change] had come directly after their last interaction.
“While I admit that I only saw your work in passing, the attention to detail was quite impressive.” Ingo knew it wasn’t just cosplay-- short of visual effects make up, no amount of contouring or [?] could recreate someone else’s face so precisely-- but he didn’t know what it was. Maybe, if he got to know the man, he could solve this minor mystery. Their conversation had been a short one thus far, but already, he could strike a curious Zorua or Zoroark from the list of possibilities.
The man didn’t say anything for a moment, and, eventually, his eyes [?] down to the ground. “I… don’t know what to say.”
On its face, it made perfect sense-- the words and the gesture together should have indicated bashfulness, and while that was a [subsect/subset?] of [being uncomfortable] he was simply uncomfortable. His pale skin was unmarred by any blush, and he wasn’t peeking up to gauge Ingo’s response. He was staring at the floor, avoiding eye contact. No denial in regards to being a cosplayer, but no attempt to lean into the cover story he’d just been handed, either. Interesting.
“I don’t mean to keep you from your work.” He said, risking a single glance in Ingo’s direction. His brows twitched inward, [?], and then flattened. “Please continue with your business, I’ll vacate the premises shortly.”
“There’s no need to--” Ingo began, only to be cut off when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“I’m interrupting.” Emmet announced-- not a question, no hint of apology, just boldly asserting his presence. In the moment’s distraction, the man turned and briskly walked away, leaving Ingo with no [?] but to see what his brother needed from him. “[idk why Emmet’s interrupting]”
[Response to the problem/whatever]
He nodded, and then glanced in the direction the stranger had vanished into the crowd. “Your conversation seems to be over. We can [?] immediately.”
“Thank you, I’ve noticed.” Ingo said, pinching the bridge of his nose. As he turned to accompany him, though, something clicked, “You didn’t recognize him?”
Emmet shrugged shallowly. “No. You did?”
“Of course I-- did you not look at his face?” He asked, promptly switching from one unhelpful thought to a more productive one. While Ingo’s initial statement began with disbelief, the question he rerouted to was genuinely [?]; there was every possibility that Emmet simply hadn’t noticed, too focused on the man’s clothes or [interruption].
“Vaguely.” His brother said, dashing that theory. “I saw no reason to investigate further.”
“How?” The disbelief was back, more potent than before. Ingo himself had passed it off as a quirk of the human mind at first, so he was reluctant to judge, but seeing the man head-on had dispelled his uncertainty. He simply couldn’t believe that Emmet had looked into this particular mirror and not seen his reflection [shining?] back at him.
Emmet’s face twitched in irritation and he waved a hand out over the crowd, demonstrating that he found this particular individual indistinguishable from the masses.
“He looked precisely like us, Emmet; it was uncanny.” […]
At that, his twin’s eyes lit up with comprehension, lips twitching at what he took to be a joke. “Oh. It was the cosplayer. Did you ask what the premise was?”
It was tempting to ask if Emmet was yanking his chain, but the subtleties of his expression made it clear: he hadn’t noticed a thing. He truly didn’t recognize the man-- either as the person he’d seen in passing, or on the basis of their own resemblance.
Was Ingo’s perception flawed, then? While he’d never been diagnosed with prosopagnosia, he occasionally failed to recognize commuters or coworkers in different environments. He’d thought it was just a natural function of the human mind, filtering out information when it wasn’t immediately relevant, but perhaps they were indicative of a greater problem? He was tempted to look back, as though the empty spot could answer any of his questions, but he refrained. Instead, he turned, bumping Emmet with his shoulder to get them moving, and [went to address the interruption].
He might have convinced himself that it was a [flaw] in his [?] after all, had pure coincidence not run them straight into one another once again.
The man’s cap and coat were still absent, leaving his face as the most identifiable part of him, but his clothes seemed to be the same as well. There were odd creases in the shirt, as though it had shifted while hanging out to dry, and odd creases below his eyes, as well.
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I’ve been enchanted by a worm, and no one is surprised. (Read: This is based on the the Ghost Worm AU by @blaiddsumu )
There have been a number of updates lately, so idk if this’ll still work with their ‘canon’ by the time it’s posted, but still good fun, right?
---
From a classic standpoint, there were two categories of special Pokemon: legendary and mythical. The categorization could be argued between them, but rule of thumb was that a legendary Pokemon was defined by recorded history, literally the stuff of legends, while mythical Pokemon were rare enough that their very existence was in dispute.
Modern vernacular had given way to a subset of myths: cryptic Pokemon-- Pokemon that likely didn’t exist, and were simply human minds trying to make sense of what they couldn’t otherwise explain. Creatures like Lockirie in Galar’s Wild Area or the Lentimas Nighthoppers.
By far the most interesting-- though, admittedly, Emmet was somewhat biased-- was the rail rider, a theoretical Pokemon called Frightrail. Alternately called the Ghost Train Pokemon, it was said to haunt stations and empty lines-- and, conveniently, provide an excuse for data that less competent stations couldn’t explain.
So it was… frustrating to hear whispers that the Ghost of Nonexistent Inbound Trains had supposedly been lurking in the system Emmet oversaw. The job was too much for one man alone-- he could admit that, now-- but everything was back in perfect working order. It had been the best tribute he could imagine, to ensure that the station they’d put so much time and effort into ran without issue; Ingo would have hated it if his loss was what caused the entire operation to collapse. In a sense, Gear Station itself had become a shrine.
Gods, two years now that he’d been gone. In some ways it felt like it couldn’t have reached the benchmark already-- that it was far too soon to give up-- but, at the same time, Emmet knew better. The missing persons case had quietly been shut, lacking physical evidence, hard information and any real hope.
Because, while part of him felt two years couldn’t have passed so soon, the second year had overstayed its welcome. At the midway point between now and Ingo’s disappearance, Emmet had gotten his answers, had found his twin in the dusty corner of Sinnoan history. A handful of allusions to Warden from a distant land, a small photograph with far, far too many people crammed in its borders, and a translated epitaph were all the closure he got.
On the way to his home station, it had said, and Emmet was impressed that something so well meaning could simultaneously be so cruel.
He’d spent the anniversary, this time, trying not to dwell on the fact that in four more years, he’d be older than his big brother.
That was something he was still coming to terms with. It was fine; he had entirely too much time to get there. For now, he had a memorial to attend to-- the station couldn’t function properly if there were Pokemon lurking, unchecked, in the tunnels. His working theory was that it was a Liepard that had managed to slink by unnoticed-- that the reports of glowing eyes were simply its tapetum lucidum throwing people off-- and so he kept Galvantula’s pokeball close at hand.
Emmet was incredibly mistaken.
Wrapped up in his surveillance of the tunnels, he didn’t notice that the object of his attention was trailing languidly behind him, riding the air like the rail mere feet away. He’d gone home that night with nothing to show for the attempt, and only been alerted to the intrusion the next morning, when Cameron frantically waved him down to watch Platform 3’s security footage.
Sure enough, as the image of Emmet emerged from the tunnel and into the bay proper, the blunt end of a snout poked out from the darkness and two glowing spots tracking his movement up the stairs. It didn’t linger. As soon as he’d left the observable area, the shape twisted in the air and turned back around.
It was horrifying.
The entire patrol, he’d never heard a sound-- no other footfalls, no slithering or muted, panting breaths. Had it been following him the entire time? For what reason? It couldn’t have felt its territory was being encroached upon or been looking to hunt-- it would have lashed out instead of letting him leave unobstructed. Was it just curious? But what about a human-- in the heart of Nimbasa city-- could be so interesting to an urban Pokemon? He hadn’t even had any treats on him, wary of luring out the Joltik that nested in the tunnels.
And the Pokemon itself… there were plenty of twisting, writhing Pokemon in Unova, but none of them matched the facts. It certainly hadn’t been an Onix or Steelix. A Seviper could move silently, but would have attacked, and no self respecting Serperior would hide itself away from the sun. The best match he could come up with was an Eelektross-- serpentine enough to move the way the shape on camera had, and able to move silently by hovering-- but the head shape was all wrong, and Emmet liked to believe he had enough experience with his own Eelektross to be able to recognize when one was stalking him.
Just to be safe, he kept Eelektross out when he delved back into the subway system that night.
The first time it grumbled into the darkness, Emmet whirled around, flashlight frantically covering every inch of the area, but it had been alone as it trailed behind, and gurgled at him, confused. The second noise was one of interest-- Eelektross’s attention fixed on a tunnel branching off from the one Emmet had traversed the previous night-- and while it added an extra variable into the mix, if Eelektross wanted to go that way, there had to be a reason. He curled around Emmet’s shoulder appreciatively, took up his position as caboose, and warbled to himself.
The third instance was several in rapid succession: wet snuffling, an absolutely gleeful burble, and then a somewhat more alarming sucking sound as it attached itself to something.
Well, Emmet thought to himself, in the split second before turning to pull Eelektross off of its would-be-prey, That’s certainly one track to take.
There was a trill of a Pokemon’s call-- not unlike a higher-pitched train whistle-- and then the beam of Emmet’s flashlight found its target. He… wasn’t entirely sure what Eelektross had caught. Or that Eelektross had even caught it. It was coiled around the other Pokemon in mid-air, and yes, it had its arms wrapped around it, but it hadn’t actually attached itself in a way it would be able to stun and kill its target.
It was far closer to the clumsy suckerfish-kisses Eelektross would subject him to when it was feeling affectionate.
The Pokemon in its grip flinched away behind Eelektross’s fin as the beam hit it head-on, peering out only when Emmet angled it to the ground. The indirect lighting wasn’t nearly as helpful, but was still enough to confirm that, yes, this seemed to be the Pokemon from the footage. Its eyes glowed silver beneath Eelektross’s maw and, oddly, it looped lazily around Eelektross’s body in turn.
For a fleeting moment, Emmet wondered if this was somehow a nestmate of his Pokemon’s, but dismissed the thought wholesale. All that hovered was not Tynamo, and beyond vague body shape, similarities were few and far between. Friends from Chargestone Cave, then? Tynamo were already so rarely seen, it wasn’t hard to imagine there were hiding places a yet-undiscovered species might lurk; that would even explain how it had gained access to the subway tunnels…
The Pokemon chuffed at Eelektross and tried to back out of his grip, only to be seized more tightly and offered to Emmet in two clawed flippers, like a child presenting their parent with a Lillipup they hoped to keep.
He favored Eelektross with a smile and pet down its crest fin, “Verrrry good job! You’ve found our trespasser.”
Attention straying to the other Pokemon, he raised his flashlight a hair, looking it over more thoroughly. The bulk of its body hung limp and unresisting in Eelektross’s grip, a dark top and underbelly studded with pale markings and a pair of stripes. There seemed to be steam coming from the vicinity of its cheeks, suggesting some manner of functionality like a Pikachu’s electric sacs.
Odd. A fire type would wreak havoc on Chargestone’s ecosystem, devastating the populations of Joltik, Ferroseed and Klink. It was possible that this was a unique specimen, unable to affect the numbers in any substantial way, but even then, the cave seemed like a poor choice of habitat.
“We’ll have to figure out what to do with you.” He told it. A full type analysis would help determine where best to rehome it-- offhand, the Desert Resort seemed promising. A Pokemon like this would appreciate a good basking spot, wouldn’t it?
But that was for tomorrow.
He narrowed his eyes at it, pointing in mild accusation, “And don’t think I’ve forgotten your behavior last night. That was unacceptable.”
It shrunk back against Eelektross as he scolded it and-- when the eel moved to follow Emmet’s lead, escorting it to the station-- just shrunk, no modifiers involved. Before Emmet could call out any orders or Eelektross could find a better grip, it slipped away into the darkness.
Trainer and Pokemon looked to one another. Eelektross whined. Emmet groaned.
This was far from over.
---
Part two of that evening’s survey was, unsurprisingly, a bust. The Pokemon had Furreted itself out of the way and refused to be found a second time.
The next night, he’d thought to keep Chandelure at his side, but she’d completely blindsided him and torn off through the subway system as soon as she was released, at which point the task turned from ‘find the weird intruder’ to ‘find your late brother’s partner Pokemon’. To her credit, she returned before he’d really started to worry, but it was an experience he wasn’t eager to repeat, so Galvantula took her spot the evening after that.
After the fifth evening-- part of which was spent keeping an eye on Durant as it marched along the tunnels’ ceiling-- Emmet was forced to admit two things. One, this wasn’t going anywhere, and two, the Pokemon seemed to have decided they were playing a game. Every night, no matter which platform he returned to, the cameras caught it lingering until he was forced to turn in. In one instance, it seemed to have acquired arms from Reshiram-knew-where to wave a taunting goodbye to his back.
And then it upped the ante.
Emmet had thought to switch things up, to arrive at work early and survey the stretch he knew the Pokemon favored. It hadn’t yielded any results-- which was strange, considering it made a point to hiss a laugh at him whenever his latest ploy imploded in on itself-- but he quickly realized why it seemed so completely absent.
Because it was.
He’d found it in his office, coiled up on his chair with its head laying on the armrest.
It was the first time he’d seen it in proper lighting, but that only lasted so long. Surprised, himself, he’d squawked and pointed at it in his astonishment, startling it into awareness and, subsequently, into motion. Its exit had been a far cry from the usual self-satisfied ksh-sh-sh and tail flip, as it scrambled past him, half-tangling itself around his legs in its haste. It seemed to remember that it could shrink down only once Emmet had seized it by the middle, and though he’d known the trick was coming, he’d been unable to adjust in time.
That was the day he decided this was personal. The worm had made it personal.
It went on for several weeks-- and though the later-than-usual nights were a little grating, it was nothing compared to the early days of Ingo’s disappearance, when sleeplessness was the norm. Nights of cycling through their Pokemon, just in case one of them could see something he couldn’t, of recruiting the handful of Depot Agents who’d become invested in the hunt, of trying to lure it out five ways to Sunday.
When it came down to it, though, the only change that made a difference was a single yawn.
Something changed in its demeanor. Its path became less erratic, and when Emmet realized it had led them back to Platform 3, it nudged him toward the stairs with its blunt snout. He could have spun on his heel and grabbed the thing-- or even thrown a pokeball at it-- but, instead, he looked between it and the path it was indicating. It nudged him again, hissing its encouragement with a heavy plume of purple steam, and narrowed its eyes at him.
The Pokemon’s face was borderline impossible to read, but it almost seemed fond.
Without knowing why, exactly, he chose to do so, Emmet followed its suggestion and went home. It was only as he collapsed into bed that he figured it out. He’d been going off of a vague, sleepy instinct-- the same one that trusted in Ingo’s instructions as he steered them through late nights during those first grueling months as co-Facility Heads.
Now that he thought about it, his Pokemon had acted similarly, hadn’t they? In the excitement of Worm Hunting, he’d nearly forgotten about Eelektross’s overly-affectionate greeting and Chandelure’s refusal to stay put-- and they hadn’t been the only ones. Each of the Pokemon he’d brought along had alerted him, first and foremost, with distinctly happy cries.
Maybe he’d been going about this all wrong.
---
The next time he was able, Emmet made a path toward Platform 3 and lingered at the tunnel’s threshold. Nothing happened for a minute, and so he called, “Hello? Are you there?” into it.
There was a brief delay but, eventually, he caught a glimpse of eyes drawing nearer, glowing like miniature headlights.
Oh.
Hah. That was actually kind of funny.
The entity hesitated before leaving the tunnel’s refuge, still cloaked in shadow. That was okay. Emmet had seen him plenty of times now; he knew what to expect. Just the slitted silver eyes looking him over were enough to confirm it, really. He felt a little silly for not noticing earlier-- for getting so caught up in their game that he failed to see the obvious. To be fair, he always had needed his brother to pull him back when he got overexcited.
It was hardly unprecedented for a human to become a Pokemon. There were dozens of stories of it, of species whose origin was thought to be closely tied to the end of a human life.
And Emmet was well aware of the fact that, centuries prior, his twin’s life had come to a close.
As a human, at least.
“Are you done playing your game?” He asked, and the entity turned his head-- not curious, per se, but waiting to see exactly where Emmet was going with this.
Not one to disappoint, Emmet uncrossed his arms and raised them in invitation.
Ingo moved too fast for him to calculate the speed involved, but, on the bright side, now he had a solid metric for what being hit by a train entailed. Why did anyone complain about this? It was the best thing to happen to him in two straight years.
A surprisingly solid head found its home along the crook of his neck, and this time, when he reached to support the body winding around him, it stayed steady beneath his hands. There was a hydraulic hissing sound, and suddenly he was being grabbed in return, dozens of metallic claws digging into his coat, mindful enough not to damage the fabric.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, content to breathe along to Ingo’s gentle rumbling-- a constant, soothing sound, like he had a petite engine hidden away in there-- but, eventually, his thoughts caught up to him again.
“You really did die there.” He said, more to himself than his brother. Ingo leaned back, far enough to search his expression for further clues-- so, to save him some trouble, Emmet added, “In Hisui.”
This face was even more difficult to interpret than the human one had been, but it was still Ingo, so Emmet knew exactly where to look. A minute shift back and slight widening of the eyes suggested he was legitimately surprised to hear the name invoked.
“Was I not supposed to know about that?” Emmet really didn’t care what the answer was. He knew now, and had been bound and determined to find out back then. There had been records good and bad-- far too little of both, for six years-- and he’d all but memorized them.
Ingo swayed back, noncommittal, and with another hiss, the plating down his body slid back together, banishing the extra arms from existence. He used the opportunity to take to the air again and loosely coiled around his brother, his two remaining arms hovering uselessly, unsure where-- of if-- to touch.
He was worried-- that much was obvious-- and not without reason. The bits of information Emmet had managed to scrape together had been ancient, so far removed that it wasn’t so hard to believe the dead Warden was someone else. This… all but confirmed it.
Emmet thought back to the worst of his findings: the epitaph that had felt like salt in a wound.
On the way to his home station, it had said, and now he was just impressed at how literally it had been taken.
This was fine. This was good! Life wouldn’t ever be quite the same as it was, but so long as they were together again, it would certainly be worth living.
Before Ingo could decide what he was doing with his arms, Emmet seized him beneath them and hoisted him back up to eye-level. For a moment, they just regarded one another, but then he broke it by asking, “Can I rehome you, yet? I have something in mind. Better than the tunnels. And it contains roughly the same number of trains.”
There was a chuffing sound-- happy, the tilt of the eyes said-- and, for a startling moment, Ingo slipped from his hands again; any panic was laid to rest as a weight arranged itself, looping once around his neck.
He laughed a little, to himself, “One more train, now.”
The response was a delicate rumble-- so small it was almost a purr.
Emmet exited the platform with the quiet confidence that there was nothing watching his back as he went-- nothing left behind.
(It took two more days before he finally considered the mass of loops sprawled over himself and realized that he was, in fact, looking at the cryptic Ghost Train Pokemon. Frightrail was real. Had been haunting Gear Station. And was also his brother. Despite Ingo’s best attempts, it was hours before he could deal with that on top of everything else.)
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Whumptober Day 17: Breaking Point
This is based on @electric-blue24 Distorted Shadow AU, which I would definitely recommend you check out if you haven’t already!
---
Emmet was relatively certain he was losing his mind.
He would be the first to admit that Ingo’s disappearance had gutted him, that his brother’s absence haunted his every waking moment; given the circumstances, he thought he was handling it… well enough, but, from an outsider perspective, that seemed to translate to ‘terribly’.
Maybe it was all in his head, the feeling that from the day his twin vanished, something changed in Gear Station-- the echoes louder, more distinct, and the darkness swelling with a previously unseen depth. There was every likelihood that it was some maladjusted coping mechanism, seeing dangers that didn’t exist in a misguided attempt to find closure. If the shadows were suddenly alive, then maybe they were to blame, maybe they had spirited Ingo away.
He hated to think that, though, and not because it meant he was fighting a losing battle for his sanity. It hurt to know that they could destroy one another like this-- that, if Ingo was still out there, Emmet could unknowingly be causing him the very same anguish.
Sometimes, Emmet subtly tried to gauge how real reality was, asking, for example, if Cloud had heard anything when he knew there was a voice echoing down the tunnels, or whether it seemed darker than usual when the shadows were so established that they formed a low-lying fog. If anyone else was experiencing what he did, they were keeping remarkably silent about it.
As time passed, the phenomena became more extreme. The occasional shout from faraway or burst of words through radio static became constant whispering, the words still indistinct, but different from what he’d been growing accustomed to; where it started melancholy and pleading, it eased into something angry, then sharp and hissing. Already alarmingly animate, the shadows felt like they were watching him now, judging, waiting for… something. He didn’t want to know what.
It was the worst he’d felt at the station since his solo return. Until now, the building air had been unnerving, but not unsafe; he’d never feared for anything but his soundness of mind when the darkness shifted or the tunnels hummed. Now, though, Emmet was concerned-- not only for himself, but for the staff and patrons. The atmosphere was outright hostile and he didn’t know how to ensure safety without coming across as a lunatic. There were days he’d considered not coming in because it was becoming such a burden, but the thought of what might happen in his absence kept him dutifully on schedule. If he was the only one who could see it, he had a duty to be there, to contribute whatever he could.
In short, he was frazzled and exhausted, nearing wit’s end with no respite in sight.
So really, he was due for a mental breakdown.
---
Ingo was pissed off.
That happened a lot more than it used to, he realized as the gaps in his being slowly filled, and a part of him understood why Giratina might have lashed out the way it did. It was maddening to exist without really existing, to watch the world turn and remain separate from it.
He didn’t get it. He’d endured the centuries separating Hisui from the modern day and remained tied the distortion world-- he’d witnessed his own fall through existence and nothing had changed, save for the new, firsthand recollection of reality collapsing in on itself.
Emmet was suffering, and nothing he tried did anything. Why was he still stuck here? He’d waited, he’d done exactly as Arceus had instructed-- how long was he supposed to stand by and allow this to go on?
Yes, he pushed the boundaries, and yes, he’d do it over and over again, no matter how many times Giratina rolled its eyes at him or The Alpha Pokemon yanked him into glorified time out. He could tell something was changing with his actions, the prolonged exposure to nonexistence gradually wearing thin the barrier between Arceus’s realm and its counterpart-- he just had to figure out how to make use of it.
Ingo remembered that he’d enjoyed people watching once upon a time-- had been quite good at it, even. He’d had no way of knowing what a ‘cold read’ was in Hisui, but he knew now that it was part of why he excelled as a trainer. The ability to read a Pokemon and its trainer before either made a move or uttered a command was an invaluable skill, giving one a prominent advantage in battle.
He did not need any of that skill to recognize the ill intent in the individuals haunting the station.
They lurked behind any conceivable scrap of cover, always watching his twin, always lurking nearby. It was almost impressive, the way they moved without ever revealing themselves, in spite of their firm ties to the material plane. Unfortunately for them, Ingo had the advantage of a liminal existence, seeing through their camouflage without being able to be perceived in turn.
There were three of them. Brothers of a sort, from what he could gather, though that information was extremely limited. They whispered to each other about Team Plasma’s fall, about regaining their leader’s lost heart with this act of overwhelming victory.
In very short order, Ingo was able to put together that they intended to conquer the rail system, a feat many a Plasma Grunt had tried in the past without success. This time was different, though; the Battle Subway was down one of its heads, and the trio was making a concerted effort to wear Emmet down. If they could just counteract the remaining Subway Boss’s presence, then the coast would be clear.
That wouldn’t stand.
When one of the three made a move, tried to harass Emmet more directly, Ingo decided he didn’t care what the repercussions would be. He was seeing this to its final terminal.
---
Everything stopped.
The bustle of daily operation, the murmur of a genial crowd, even the flow of air through the station ceased. In one fell swoop, the darkness Emmet had grown used to ignoring flooded in from behind him, coalescing into a blanket so thick that it blotted existence itself out.
This time, though, it wasn’t prying eyes and prickling whispers. It was pure fury, thick enough to choke on, like a lungful of acrid black smoke. He instinctively tried to cough, and sputtered when he didn’t meet the expected resistance.
Something shifted in the murk not so far away, subtle at first, and then frantic; he thought he might have heard an intake of breath, but it was quickly drowned out.
Just as suddenly as it had rolled in, the fog bank evaporated and operations resumed around him, but he barely processed any of it. There was only one thing echoing in his ears:
“You’re the ones who have been hurting my brother out there.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
“I’m going to end you.”
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This one's... kind of fun. Honestly, I might come back to it, I just haven't gotten anywhere for some time, now, and it's bugging me. Let me know if this is one you'd be interested in seeing play out in full, because it could be nice to throw a sillier project in there after AGAS wraps up.
(This is another one that deals with trans characters before they've officially come out, though it's not the main focus, just part of the story. The approach is different from other pieces I've shared in the past, and I don't expect that it will be a problem, but please just approach it in good faith. I never mean to offend, I just like to explore things in different ways.)
-
Emmet had fucked up.
He realized it immediately after the fact, already entire seconds too late. For all that he’d done his research, for all that he knew the where and the when, it had done nothing to warn him for how his plan might backfire. Celebi was reclusive, but not an unknown, and its fleeting form hadn’t given him any reason to fear reaching out for its help.
Instead, it was the wind it blew about on-- the breeze that carried it to and fro in time-- that chilled him down to his core. He couldn’t possibly forget the sensation of it, because it had signaled the start to the worst week of his life-- up until the previous year, that was. In a way, that wind was the reason he’d reacted so harshly when Ingo had failed to check in after [whatever], and what had driven him here in the first place. It had set a precedent.
When they had been young children, playing in the wooded outskirts of Anville Town, Emmet had felt that same wind rush past him, and just like that, his brother had vanished.
If he’d known, he wouldn’t have sought Celebi out. He would have explored any and every other option before resorting to this one, but he’d already made his choice. In the immediate aftermath, he was dismayed to realize that their family’s suffering had come at his own unwitting hand as he tried to right an injustice for the second time.
A small, achingly familiar form darted away, taking shelter around the corner of the shrine. From where he knelt, Emmet could plainly see a pair of dark shoes under the elevated base; they were pointed away, the child’s back pressed to the only cover he had as he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened to him. Emmet braced a hand against the shrine’s edge, helping to lever himself up from the ground, and in the process, noticed that his offering was nowhere to be found, accepted as payment for this… favor.
He suspected the historical society wouldn’t appreciate the disrespect it showed, but he knocked lightly against the shrine’s nearest face and took a step to round the corner. There was a sharp intake of breath, then the sound of running on soft grass, and he found that he couldn’t blame the child; to be torn away from home so abruptly had to be terrifying, no matter a person’s age. He’d been trying not to let himself dwell on that exact point for some time now.
“It’s okay.” He said in the gentlest voice he could muster, and [floundered] for how to follow up. He remembered the week of the disappearance with an agonizing clarity, but it was an unrelated detail he found himself grasping for-- had they started using their real names before, or after? If he called out right now, would his twin know who he was talking to?
...it was probably close enough that Ingo had already decided on what he wanted to be called. Even if they hadn’t progressed to the point where they were actively testing it out between them, he would recognize the name as his.
“I’m sorry.” Emmet said, staying put at the shrine’s edge, one hand resting on its corner, “I made a verrrry big mistake. Please forgive me, Ingo.”
The child stayed still for another couple of seconds, and then-- seemingly ignorant of the fact that his every move could be and was being tracked-- began to inch around the shrine in the opposite direction. Emmet was relatively sure he could catch him if he tried to run, but for now, he waited to see how this would pan out. His currently-much-younger brother paused as he reached the edge where the eastern and southern corners met, and from the [edge] of his vision, Emmet caught a hint of movement. He didn’t look right away, making a dedicated effort not to scare him-- any more than he already had-- but, gradually, he turned his head.
There was a single silver eye peering at him from the other side of the [shrine], fingers curled around the wood just below it. He offered a shallow, apologetic smile and half turned, repeating, “I’m verrrry sorry, Ingo. This was never my intention.”
The boy disappeared back around the corner, but didn’t actually go anywhere. He probably needed time to think, to process. After a moment, Emmet heard his old name echo down the old village, warbling and fearful.
He turned in full and lowered himself onto one knee before answering in kind; it felt wrong to call that name again after so long, but it made the building anxiety opposite him pause, at least for a few seconds.
“I’m right here.” He added, listening for any change, “I am Emmet. I look different now, but I’m still your brother. Can you trust that?”
Around the corner, he heard a [steeling] breath and, finally, Ingo emerged. He looked exactly how Emmet remembered from back then, a perfect match to the missing child posters, down to the black jumper and cardigan he’d been reported ‘last seen wearing’. It would have been sweet to see his older twin so much smaller than him, were it not for the look on his face and the stubborn fold of his arms.
“I only have one brother.” He lied, somehow leaning forward in accusation while also keeping one foot poised to dart away if need be. “You’re not Drayden. Who who are you really?”
“I am Emmet,” Emmet said again, patient, “We’ve talked about this. I know we have. I have two brothers, and so do you.”
[…]
“Ingo,” He said flatly, patience waning, but only for the circumstance, and not the child before him, “You have not corrected me on the matter of your own name. Not once. How many people know what you like to be called?”
The boy muttered under his breath, but it was audibly, “Just Emmet…”
Emmet himself hummed in agreement. “And how would you intend to proceed from here? Do you even know where you are?”
It sounded unfairly judgmental-- of course he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. He’d just been ripped through time and space and was helpless to do anything about it. Emmet wasn’t sure what the worst part was: that he’d been the one responsible, or that it wouldn’t be an isolated incident.
If anything, the question seemed to rile his brother up; the shallower pout pulled into a proper frown and, as unhelpful as the observation was at the moment, it was kind of adorable.
“Obviously not! What kind of a question is that?” Ingo demanded, arms folding tighter in a self-soothing gesture that he wouldn’t even process in the moment. He looked off to the side, as if to gauge his surroundings, but at this age, he’d never set foot in eastern Unova-- hadn’t even seen it outside of travel documentaries-- and didn’t stand any chance of figuring it out on his own. It wasn’t meant as any slight to him, he just didn’t have the body of knowledge he needed.
His expression pinched in distress as he looked down the hill-- no doubt processing the fact that he was surrounded on all sides by an unfamiliar evergreen forest-- and he took a couple of steps down the incline. Emmet made no move to stop him; he could tell from the body language that his brother wasn’t about to bolt, he was just overwhelmed and trying to make himself understand.
Emmet sighed and closed the gap between them, recognizing the way Ingo’s breathing started to shudder. He didn’t know what he could do to help, but he had to do something; he almost reached out to touch his shoulder, but belatedly remembered that he fell under the umbrella of ‘stranger’ at the moment, and it wouldn’t be welcomed. He ended up sitting down next to his twin, legs hanging over the small ledge, shoes grazing the slightly-dewy grass. Hopefully it would make him seem more approachable, less of a looming unknown.
What he absolutely didn’t expect was for his brother to grab his face in both petite hands and force them to look one another in the eye. He still felt minor tremors travel through the boy’s arms, but Ingo’s expression was stern and searching.
“If you’re Emmet, why do you look like that?” He asked, after a moment of serious contemplation.
Unable to stop himself, Emmet snorted. “Like what? I look like you. That should prove it by itself.”
Ingo’s nose wrinkled at the comment, but it seemed he had more important matters to focus on. “No, you told me you want to look like Drayden when you grow up.”
“Ah.” Emmet said, [?], “It’s tragic. Drayden has a propensity for facial hair that we lack. Verrrrry disappointing.”
He raised one of his hands to graze the smaller one holding onto his face, and when that didn’t net a negative reaction, he picked his brother’s hand up and held it in both of his. “I understand that it does not make up for what I’ve done, but I want to help you. Would seeing Drayden make you feel better?”
Ingo thought about it for a few seconds-- maintaining intense eye contact all the while-- and then pulled his hand back. At first, it seemed like a no, but then he sat down on the ledge next to Emmet; he still maintained a safe gap between them, but put them back on the same general level. Immediately after, he looked to Emmet’s far hand-- his right-- gaze raking over the Xtransceiver that peeked out from beneath a sleeve. It would have been awkward and uncomfortable letting someone watch him navigate his Xtransceiver, but today he didn’t try to shield his contact list, and he saw Ingo squint at it before navigating to the next screen-- likely noticing his own name at the very top.
The boy leaned away again while the phone rang, abruptly reminded that he was feeling skittish, which left Emmet as the only one in the field of view when their brother answered. Drayden looked him up and down, reading his expression the very same way Emmet had read Ingo’s a minute before, and, in lieu of a formal greeting, asked:
“What did you do?”
“I am Emmet. I have erred.” He said bluntly.
“Elaborate.” Drayden demanded in kind.
He glanced to his left, at where Ingo was scrutinizing the screen and nibbling on his bottom lip; he still looked on-edge, but some of the tension was dissipating as he watched their older brother and heard him speak. As much as he wanted to convince Ingo that he was who he claimed, he understood that it would be orders more difficult when he had to contend with such a large age gap and the matter of a full transition. By comparison, Drayden had changed very little about himself, and was much more recognizable; he looked older and dressed differently, but the basics stayed the same.
Emmet decided to facilitate this track; maybe if they talked in greater depth, Ingo would warm up to the fact that they really were the family he knew.
“My research on Celebi indicated that it has been seen here in Unova. It likes Zorua and hides in forests to play with them. I decided I would try to get its favor.” He admitted, watching Drayden steel himself the longer he spoke.
“You claimed that you would keep me abreast of any developments; why didn’t you follow through?” Drayden asked, but he wasn’t really looking for an answer-- not yet, at least. His eyes moved to the backdrop of trees behind Emmet, and connecting the dots was child’s play.
The only child present seemed to have picked up on that, too, and wasn’t paying attention at the moment; instead, he was half-turned to look at the shrine again, as if he expected to find a Pokemon lingering there. Emmet gave his hand a brief tap, trying to corral him for the moment, and he reluctantly turned back around.
Drayden’s gaze moved back down to his younger brother. “It rejected your appeal, then? It’s clearly not good news.”
Emmet opened his mouth to reply and left it that way for a moment, trying to figure out how to handle this.
“It… accepted my offering.” He said, eventually.
Drayden didn’t [allow] him even that inch of [?]. “But?”
“There was a miscommunication.” Emmet said. He looked back over to Ingo, who had his head tilted to see the screen better, and was only barely out of frame. Instead of talking to the eldest, he directed his next question to the youngest-by-technicality. “Can you say hi? It would help explain.”
Ingo didn’t respond verbally, but he inched closer so the forward-facing camera would be able to capture them at the same time. Emmet murmured a thank you and adjusted his Xtransceiver accordingly. Drayden’s brow furrowed, becoming a ridge worthy of one of his dragons, and, in disbelief, he quietly called an old name.
“Ingo.” Both of them said, simultaneously, correcting him without any heat. Since the boy in question didn’t have anything else to say at the moment, Emmet added, “We were testing our names out a long time before we told you.”
“Emmet.” Drayden [?], his usually [thunderous/?] voice a mere croak, and he didn’t have to say anything else to get his point across. Emmet knew. Emmet had known how royally he’d screwed up only three seconds into this mess. He nodded, eyes turned down, ashamed of his actions and making no effort to defend himself.
“Where are you right now?” Their brother asked, strength seeping back in and demanding an answer.
Clipped, Emmet [?], “Abundant Shrine.”
Drayden echoed it back at him, already moving and deep in thought. Ingo echoed it, too, but he was more focused on putting a name to the place; he turned back around to look at the eponymous shrine once again.
“Stay where you are. I can be there in 30 minutes.” Drayden said. His attention strayed to something in his immediate vicinity, but once he’d dealt with it, his eyes turned to the smaller of the two figures. “Ingo, stay with Emmet. I understand that this has to be frightening, but we’re going to make sure you’re taken care of, alright?”
At the sound of his name, Ingo had turned around. He scanned the image on the Xtransceiver’s screen again and hummed in affirmation, giving his head the tiniest forward tilt.
“Alright,” Drayden breathed out, relieved, “I’ll see you soon; 30 minutes.”
Emmet nodded back, and Ingo held up a half-curled hand to say goodbye; shortly thereafter, the video cut, leaving them staring at their reflections-- and then each other’s. Neither of them said anything, and Emmet dropped his hand into his lap. Ingo drew his legs up onto their level and wrapped his arms around them, still incredibly [scared] and uncomfortable, but he stayed put, right where he was.
If their arms brushed against each other, neither of them mentioned it.
-------
Ingo had always been very active when they were children, so it felt weird that he stayed in place the entire 30 minute wait, only moving enough to straighten his legs out for a few minutes, avoiding a cramp. When he felt a little better, he pulled them back up and tucked them under his dress, scuffed flats poking out from beneath. His fingers worked into his sweater’s cuffs on either side, and he rested his chin on his folded arms, staring down into the [?] that led to Undella.
Decades prior, when he’d finally [resurfaced], he hadn’t had any memory of where he’d been, the entire week of his disappearance rendered blank. Their parents had taken him to doctors and then a therapist, trying to understand what had happened and-- just maybe-- help recover the [memory], but nothing had ever worked. Back then, Emmet had stuck with his brother like they’d been glued together, unwilling to take his eyes off of him for the duration of an appointment. Most of what he could remember was Ingo’s building frustration-- both at the adults’ insistence and his own inability to provide answers.
Now, it seemed self evident that his memory of that week--this week-- had been a casualty of time travel. Emmet tried not to delve too deep into the implications that held and, instead, used it to his advantage: he could show or tell Ingo anything he wanted without fear that it might change something in their distant past. Chandelure would be far too much too soon, but halfway through their wait, he released Galvantula to keep them company and help break the tension. It had looked between them, completely lost, until Emmet gave a very, very brief explanation, consisting entirely of “Ingo is having a verrrry hard time right now. Will you sit with him?”
So, when Drayden arrived from the north-- riding in on his Salamence’s back-- it was to the sight of a child being flanked by his much-older twin and an incredibly confused spider. When they both stood up straight, allowing him to look them over properly, his expression screamed that he was dismayed, but not surprised.
He drew a deep breath, eyes flicking to Emmet like he had some very pointed comments to make, but he held his tongue, ever the composed politician. Instead, he focused on Ingo, who subconsciously inched forward; his hat must have fallen off as he got up, because he held it in both hands, kneading it anxiously.
There was a [recognition/trust] in his expression that Emmet told himself not to be jealous of; the two of them were incredibly close, of course, but they had different relationships with Drayden. Emmet was the youngest, and he’d grown up with an older sibling right there to lean on, so their distant older brother didn’t seem so [significant]; Ingo, meanwhile, only had Drayden to look up to in that regard. By the time they were old enough to understand their family’s dynamic, the eldest had long since moved on to his life in Opelucid, making his presence the exception rather than the rule-- and all the more valuable to Ingo in particular.
No one would deny that the two of them were each other’s comfort people-- typical of twins, and utterly proven by Ingo’s reticent behavior without his same-age sibling-- but Emmet knew that, to his brother, Drayden meant ‘safe’ in a very unique way.
He was glad, actually-- [envious], but glad. It meant there was someone who could help put his twin’s mind at ease. Emmet was still being mindful not to touch too much or too suddenly, but he tapped the backs of his fingers on Ingo’s arm, urging him to go greet their older brother. The child stepped forward, and when that proved safe enough, repeated the process once more, then again and again until he’d crossed the distance.
For a moment, he stared up, taking in the details and then-- undoubtedly much louder than he’d intended-- said, “You changed your hair.”
“I have a new job, now; I’m afraid I had to adopt a new hairstyle to accommodate.” Drayden said. Unlike many, he didn’t alter his tone to talk to children-- he spoke to them on exactly the same level he would talk to teenage challengers and other adults; he moderated his words and made sure he explained things more carefully, but he wouldn’t patronize someone based on their age. This straightforward approach was the correct one, and Ingo finally stopped working wrinkles into his hat from sheer nerves.
Emmet could tell that Drayden hardly even thought about it as he picked it up and settled it on their brother’s head, tugging the edges down and then tucking it so it sat properly. The same could be said for Ingo, who immediately straightened and then went still, allowing him to fix it without a word of complaint. It was actually quite sweet.
Drayden looked at him for a moment longer before cutting to the point. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”
“We were playing by the greenbelt,” Ingo started, watching Drayden’s expression intently, already seeing what he could read into it, “It rained last night, so there were Tympole in the puddles, and we watched them for a long time. After that, we went to find a good branch to hang Emmet’s sweater on, ‘cause someone got wet and we didn’t want mom to find out.”
Drayden snorted, which startled Ingo at first, but quickly proved helpful; his eyes lit up at having made their brother laugh, and he continued on more readily. “We were arguing about which tree was better when the wind started. I don’t know what happened, then.” The admission took a substantial amount of steam out of him. He looked at Emmet, then returned his attention to the eldest, “We talked some after that, and then you told us to wait for you.”
“Alright. Thank you, Ingo.” Drayden rumbled; it was a very deliberate tone-- not a ‘kid voice’ but comforting, the way he would try to help any family member. He looked up and raised a brow, plainly asking for Emmet’s version of events-- as if he was one of their parents, arbitrating a disagreement.
“I sought out Celebi’s help. You already know why.” Emmet said shortly; even if Ingo wouldn’t remember this week, there was no sense in saddling him with the knowledge that would disappear for a second time. “I thought I made my intentions clear, but I guess not. Instead of what I asked, it brought Ingo here. We talked. I apologized. We called you. Now you’re caught up.”
Drayden maintained eye contact the entire time, but after he’d finished speaking, looked away to the shrine. “Is there any way to call Celebi back?”
“Yup. It would need a new offering, though. I only had one.” Acquiring a new one would be a pain, but doable. The offering itself was a glorified dumpling, but the ingredients weren’t the most common, and he’d had to track down the gourmet who frequented Route 5 in order to have it made correctly. Emmet wasn’t looking forward to dealing with her again, but he would do it to put this right.
“Alright, then that’s the end we’re working toward.” He looked back to each of them in turn-- Emmet first, then Ingo. “Would it be presumptuous to assume we’re headed to my house?”
“No.” / “The apartment would be too much right now.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Ingo dragging the heel of his shoe through the grass, insulted. “I’m not a baby, you’re just old.”
Though it didn’t show on his face, Drayden choked back laughter; Emmet slowly looked at his younger-older brother and let out a sharp breath. He knew for a fact that it had been retaliation, but not solely for his comment regarding their apartment; he used to say something very similar to their eldest sibling whenever he put his foot down on their childish plans. Dragons, was this what it felt like from the outside, whenever they’d wound each other up?
“Be that as it may. I think a familiar environment is best.” […]
After a few extra seconds to let him stew in it, Drayden took pity on him; he plucked a pokeball from his belt and held it out to their youngest brother, “Would you like to see Swablu again? I’m sure you could bribe him into taking you to Opelucid; you know how he is.”
The look on Ingo’s face would have been laughable-- trying to work out how a creature the size and density of a wadded-up pillow could take anyone anywhere-- but it was cut short as he accepted the pokeball and released Altaria.
There was a short, excited gasp, followed by a hushed, “You evolved!”
Altaria stared unabashedly for a handful of seconds, then looked to its trainer, as if asking if this was some kind of joke.
-------
[this would be a closer]
“[…] can scarcely express how much I’ve missed you, but right now, I need to tell you something of the utmost importance.” [either state that his tone clearly means he remembers now, or have Emmet realize that this is the child’s voice he’s been hearing for the past week] “You’re living on borrowed time. As soon as I set foot in Unova, you’re a dead man.”
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Whumptober* Day 14: “I’ll be right behind you”
*I tried. I really did. I just hit “The Powers That Were Trying His Nerves” and couldn’t take myself seriously anymore.
@blaiddraws, someday I’ll write something for one of your AUs that’s not ridiculous fluff, but alas, today is for Worm Shenanigans.
---
There were certain inevitabilities in life.
The commuter who only just made his train to Humilau every morning, the annual Nimbasa blackout as Elesa’s ambition tripped the power grid, the departure and return of Casteliacones-- all of these events were guaranteed to happen, though the time frames varied between them.
Another constant was this: Ingo picked a direction and Emmet followed him.
It sounded odd, imbalanced even, but it really wasn’t. Ingo was too fair-minded to chart an inequitable path, and Emmet had no compunctions about raising an objection if need be. If anything, it was a game of give and take, of compromises. It was a substantial part of how they had ended up running the Battle Subway.
There was exactly one place Ingo had ventured where Emmet had been unable to join him, but, as always, he’d split the difference. While Emmet still wished he’d been able to accompany his brother on the unplanned commute to Hisui, the fact that it had been a round trip lessened the sting.
It was a strange homecoming, but not a bad one. There was a lot that had to change to accommodate their new lives, and a lot to adjust to or reacquaint oneself with; that was just the nature of things when you or a loved one was reincarnated as a soul-powered train. For every weird or uncomfortable new quirk, there were ways to alleviate that burden or find the fun in it, and there were plenty of perks mixed in. It was life-- just a new spin on it.
From the day he’d figured out who, precisely, was haunting the subway tunnels, Emmet had set his course.
As always, he followed his twin’s lead. It just took a little longer this time.
That was a nice way of saying that, when he passed, he turned right back around and demanded to become a second Frightrail. He knew the drawbacks; he’d been right there to witness them for years on end. While he might not relish the idea of drawing sustenance from others’ life force, he’d come to terms with that reality. Having a completely different body type would be a learning experience, but was it so much worse than moving on without his brother? No.
When it came down to it, that was the answer to every tricky question. He could endure it. They could endure it as a--
...could they be a two car train if they were both trains? Did one’s existence as a literal train preclude their ability to be a metaphorical car?
The Powers That Were Trying His Nerves stared for a long moment, processing, and then decided to wash Its hooves of him. Or at least, he assumed that was what happened. Something had to have occurred, because he blinked and then everything looked wrong.
Well, maybe not wrong, but weird. Even before reaching up to scrub at the rounded snout changing his field of vision, Emmet understood why that was-- again, he’d put years of thought into this, even if he’d made his decision all but immediately-- it was just… a lot at once. At least he had the luxury of knowing what he’d been getting himself into. Having an older sibling was convenient like that.
Speaking of.
He stopped pawing at his steel-smooth nose and looked around. Seemed Arceus had seen fit to plonk him in the park across from the station. Truthfully, Emmet hadn’t expected anything in particular, so this destination made as much sense as anything else. While it would have lived up the classic image of a ghost to rise where he’d died, he really didn’t need that kind of drama in his afterlife; he’d passed at home, and, logically, that space belonged to someone else now.
...he should go haunt the tunnels, just to see how Ingo liked playing worm wrangler.
Emmet made to push himself upright, but only made it so far as the first set of arms, lacking any of the tertiary pairs that studded each segment of plating. Right, they stayed dormant by default, didn’t they? He knew the sections of his body could slide apart to bring them out, but how exactly did one go about doing that…?
Maybe he should have asked some more pointed questions when he’d had the opportunity.
Eventually, he gave up on the ghost limbs, but with some trial and error, managed to wriggle himself into the air, and that would do for now. He stayed lower to the ground than strictly necessary for a host of reasons, ranging from ‘less noticeable’ to ‘not as far to fall’ to ‘feels more train-like’.
He was well aware that there wouldn’t be anyone at Gear Station so early in the morning-- not since Jackie had retired-- but it was home station for a reason, perhaps now more than ever. Even if he couldn’t make the staff understand what he wanted, all he had to do was wait around and he’d get it.
It wound up somewhat easier than he’d expected; even with the late hour, the station master’s office was occupied.
Blatantly ignoring the yellowed sign asking that patrons ‘not tap the glass, because the station master was sleeping’, he nosed it open and barged right in. Then Emmet did something that, were he alive, would have gone against the very fabric of his moral code: he deliberately caused a collision of trains.
With a sleepy hiss, his victim cracked an eye open, then chuffed a yawn.
“How long has it been?” He asked, nudging insistently at his brother’s face, “Do not tell me you were asleep all this time.”
“’All this time’? I can make assumptions, too, you realize. You’ve been here… hm… seven minutes, and you’re already jumping to conclusions.” Ingo rumbled, amused. His voice was raspy with disuse, and he didn’t even bother opening his other eye. Combined, it told Emmet that yes, he’d been asleep for awhile.
Magnanimously, he decided to ignore the comment, “You taunted me for days, before. And this time you decided to take a nap?”
His twin finally resigned himself to consciousness and ducked under Emmet’s head, giving himself room to stretch the first set of arms. “I’ve told you, the circumstances were nerve-wracking; it only turned into a game because that was the track you chose.”
Emmet grumbled his malcontent, and, to his surprise, it echoed in his throat. Before he had the chance to fully process that fact, Ingo raised his head, bumping against his.
“I assisted for a time, but it wasn’t fun in your absence. This seemed the easiest solution.”
Oh, it was a matter of fun was it? He could work with that. Eyes darting this way and that, he picked a quarry and escape route. When Ingo seemed distracted untangling himself, Emmet lunged forward and gave the tip of his tail a yank before scurrying off toward platform 3.
There was a bark of outrage that quickly condensed into:
“Your form is terrible!”
A delighted whistle escaped him and, without turning back, he called:
“Then you had better come correct me!”
The air displaced behind him, a secondary presence emerging from the slipstream he’d carved. There was a tug on his tail just before Ingo pulled up to his side.
“Honestly,” He huffed, nudging at Emmet’s spectral arm, “You studied aerodynamics; you should be aware of how inefficient this is.”
The plating slid shut at the contact and, unbalanced by his arms’ sudden exit, Emmet wobbled in the air. As he sped up, Ingo pressed their sides together, steadying him until he was the one leading, purposefully cutting a path through the air for Emmet to follow.
Well that just proved it: two cars to a train, irregardless of the number of sub-trains within.
Some things simply did not change.
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Guess what? Actual writing!
This is based on @yewsoup Accidental Vampire AU, but focusing less on the ‘vampire’ side of things and more on the ‘bat Pokemon’ aspect, because I am nothing if not predictable.
---
Evolution was a little like hiccuping: a sudden, fluttering jolt that started in the core and echoed outward into the rest of one’s body.
If one knew how, it could be stopped, but Emmet hadn’t known how and, truthfully, wouldn’t have tried if he’d been fully aware of the circumstance; a Zubat’s heightened sense of hearing was helpful and a nuisance in equal measure, and, while nothing was stopping him from utilizing his sense of sight as a human, he was incredibly sick of lacking eyes in his alternate form.
In following with the analogy, Ingo insisted he’d squeaked when it started, and Emmet opted to ignore this blatantly false account. His poor brother had a Gligar’s keenness of sight, but clearly lacked proper sonar. He simply couldn’t be trusted in this regard.
Now that the precedent had been set, though, Emmet was acutely aware that there was nothing stopping him from reaching the final stage in a Zubat’s evolutionary line. He had no trainer, so it was impossible to say with certainty which of his bonds was resonating, but there was no small number to pick from.
And, like hiccuping, he might be able to avoid a second evolution for so long, but, eventually, it would sneak up on him.
He didn’t really see any reason to put it off. That was the trick-- if one didn’t fight the hiccups, and just learned to let it happen when it wasn’t horribly inconvenient, it was far easier to weather.
So, when the evening was winding down and things were calm, he flopped down on the couch next to-- and partially on top of-- his twin, contentedly melted into his alternate form, and let what would happen happen.
To his eternal vindication, he heard Ingo yelp in surprise, and proceeded to cackle his way into life as a Crobat.
“I’m happy that you’re happy,” Ingo said flatly, brushing an errant wing out of his face, “But was that entirely necessary?”
“Entirely.” Emmet agreed, and gave his limbs an experimental little shake, mindful not to whack his brother in the process.
Because, while he had no trainer and no definite answer where the affection needed to evolve originated, he was pretty damn sure. If he’d so chosen, he could have evolved a second time from his first moments as a Golbat, and as much as he loved their Pokemon, there was only one connection in his life quite that prolific. Regular Golbat were able to express the companionship they felt through evolution alone, secure in the knowledge that it was their defining relationship; Emmet had wanted to express that as well, yes, but he’d also seen no reason to deny himself. Why evolve anywhere but where he was most comfortable?
There was a heavy sigh above him, and he felt something brush against one of his upper limbs.
Oh, he’d almost forgotten! While they didn’t have hands per se, Crobat had something to grasp with-- the digits along their foremost set of wings. Eager to test them out, he seized whatever he’d gotten caught on and only just started to move when Ingo put a stop to it.
He grabbed his sibling with both hands and hefted him up to eye level-- where it became clear what Emmet had gotten a not-handful of-- and with weary patience said, “You’re a Crobat now-- far too mature for hair pulling. I would recommend that you stop that at once, and feel it prudent to remind you that I remain unevolved and have no reason not to retaliate.”
“Oh? What’s that?” Emmet asked, reaching forward to anchor himself onto the backrest. With a little doing, he hoisted himself up onto it and leaned into Ingo’s space, cheek to cheek, “Did you just imply that I’m the older brother, now?”
Belatedly, Ingo seemed to realize that he’d done just that.
Emmet turned his head and chuckled into his twin’s hair, “Aw, it’s alright. You are just a little Gligar. It’s not your responsibility to notice these things.” He stopped long enough to nip harmlessly at the hand that flew up to wave him away, at which point he announced, “It’s only fair, Ingo. You are older when we are humans. I am older when we are Pokemon. Equal and opposite.”
Finally, through vibration more than any actual sound, he felt Ingo begin to laugh. “I’m not entirely sure I agree that humans and Pokemon are opposite one another.”
Emmet hummed, and it came out as more of a screech than he’d intended. With an apologetic headbutt, he said, “The subject matter has gotten far too grey for my liking. I do not want to continue this conversation.”
“Ah, but I’m just a little Gligar,” Ingo argued, tone kept carefully even, “Isn’t it my duty to pose uncomfortably existential questions?”
“Nothing has ever stopped you before.” Emmet grumbled and, in a huff, switched back to human form, leaning over the back of the couch. Ingo reached up with a smile in his eyes and gave the hair hanging down two gentle tugs.
Emmet locked his jaw, physically preventing himself from breaking into a grin. “We are human right now, Ingo. Act your age.”
---
Months passed with little change. There wasn’t so much to adjust to, going from Zubat to Golbat to Crobat-- just minor amenities the previous forms had lacked, and one secondary pair of wings. Nailing the timing to keep them all in sync and himself airborne was arguably the steepest learning curve Emmet faced, and once he got it down-- equal and opposite, funny enough-- it was a cinch.
They revisited the topic of evolution order multiple times, either twin trying to bend it to their advantage as circumstance presented, and while Emmet had poked fun, he was… beginning to wonder.
Physically, there had been small changes to accommodate, but internally, he felt sturdier, stronger in ways he couldn’t have anticipated back when he was still a Zubat. Ingo didn’t seem to be in any hurry to pursue evolution, and that was perfectly fine-- unevolved Pokemon could be just as capable as their other forms, given the right training and strategies-- but it wasn’t just that. There was a hesitation whenever the matter came up absent the facetious tones they often fell into, an eagerness to shut the conversation down or change topics.
Emmet had once asked, in jest, if Ingo thought they had enough battle points to acquire a razor fang, and while the response had been perfectly composed, the discomfort that set into his brother’s form was easy to spot.
Having no desire to evolve was one thing. Being afraid of the prospect was something else entirely. In that sense, it was fortunate that Gliscor evolved in such a specific way-- there was no threat of a spontaneous, hiccuping evolution-- but Emmet knew his twin. If Ingo wasn’t forced to confront something, he’d be happy to make an indefinite detour around the affected track.
He didn’t want to force anything on his brother-- neither his opinion nor evolution itself-- but he did want to understand what was going on.
Passing his recent acquisition from palm to palm, Emmet chewed on his lip, deep in thought; had anyone been around to observe, the twins would have been indistinguishable in that moment.
Eventually, he schooled his features-- a futile endeavor in and of itself, but the faint smile was for his sake, not to try to fool Ingo-- and headed over to confront his brother.
“I have a question,” He said before he could think better of it.
It was answered by a hum of acknowledgment as Ingo maneuvered to look at him over the bulk of Eelektross’s body, and a waiting silence.
Emmet hesitated.
“It is not meant to be a leading question. I simply want to understand.”
Ingo’s brow furrowed and, as if in conference, Eelektross turned to blink at him, then to its trainer. Emmet himself jerked his head toward the kitchen, silently asking the eel to give them a moment, and it slipped away with only a quiet groan of complaint.
“You do not want to evolve. Why?”
There was a long break while Ingo processed that. Finally, he said, “I’m content as I am, is that not enough?”
“It’s a perfectly valid reason, yes. But that is not why you shy away from the subject every time it comes up. Again, I just want to understand.”
Ingo took a deep breath and, slowly, let it out. “Evolution is a very prompt, very permanent change, as you’re no doubt aware. I’m glad that your evolved forms have suited you, but am… not so confident that mine is right for me.”
Emmet cocked his head, getting slightly waylaid in spite of himself, “Gliscor are strong and tough. Physical attackers like you favor. Useful typing. Capable of Earthquake. Potential for verrrry strong combinations. I fail to see the problem.”
A hint of a grimace flashed through the crease of his brother’s eyes, but was quickly smoothed over, “While all of that is true, I’m afraid the species is also saddled with a rather… unsavory connotation. No Pokemon can be handled without risk, I understand that of course, but people seem to find Gliscor in particular-- shall we say off putting?”
Scary. The word he was skirting around was ‘scary’, and suddenly it all made a lot of sense. Ingo’s relative inability to shift away from his severe resting expression tended to draw attention, and that was very rarely a good thing. On one hand, maybe a Gliscor’s ever-present smile might help remedy the situation; on the other, it might only make things worse, pinging off of humanity’s underdeveloped sense for danger.
“Ah,” Emmet eventually said, “I see. Thank you for humoring me.”
There was a tense, expectant pause, broken only by, “You’re not going to argue with me?”
He gave his head a shake, shifting uncomfortably under his twin’s attention-- it was an unfamiliar feeling, and he didn’t enjoy the novelty of it one bit. “I knew discussion of it was beginning to wear on you. My intent was to learn why and to avoid the topic in the future.”
Taking mercy on his brother, Ingo’s gaze slid away to an undefined point beyond his shoulder, “Then you’ll find that you’ve reached your destination.”
Emmet stepped closer so he could perch on the arm of the couch, tilting to rest the side of his head against Ingo’s.
“I’m sorry.”
Without looking or making any move that might dislodge him, Ingo reached up to lay a warm hand on his arm.
“As you’ve said, you were only trying to make sense of the situation; there’s no need to apologize for that.”
Humming in something that was neither agreement nor argument, Emmet switched tracks, “You aren’t scary.”
“And I’m sure Gliscor can be perfectly wonderful companions in spite of their own reputation,” Ingo said dryly, “At this junction, however, I would prefer not to press my luck.”
He sighed against his twin’s crown, causing a section of hair to flutter in the artificial breeze, “That is entirely reasonable.”
There was a thin laugh in response, a weak, but legitimate attempt at levity, “I do have my moments.”
Pushing off of Ingo’s shoulder, Emmet pivoted and, finally, offered the item he’d been toying with for the entire conversation. The polished piece of eviolite was warm from the constant handling, this particular specimen erring more toward pink than it did purple-- color hadn’t initially been on his list of criteria, but there was certainly a meaning to be read into it now.
“For you,” He said rather unnecessarily, highlighting the words by physically tipping it into Ingo’s unoccupied hand before his brother had a chance to respond.
Ingo blinked down at it, and then looked back to Emmet, who was struck once again by how sad it was, how few people would recognize the joy that showed in every aspect save for his twin’s lips.
The vulnerable moment was left behind them as Ingo asked, “Do I want to know how you acquired this?”
And, without missing a beat, Emmet said back, “No you do not.”
---
There was a very clear turning point in Ingo’s opinion on evolving, a wonderful example of the impact good publicity could create.
It was a shift on the standard multi lines and their opponents’ combination of Tyranitar and Gliscor had proven a competent match for that day’s team. The usually-wicked chain of Crustle’s Sturdy, rocky helmet and Flail certainly wore the bat down, but despite their bugs’ best efforts, type advantages had simply won out.
At Emmet’s side, Ingo took a breath to congratulate their challengers, and habit carried him through the script as Emmet grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him over, raising a hand to stop the Gliscor’s trainer before they could recall it.
Bemused by the change of pace, the trainer humored him, their Pokemon glancing uncertainly between the parties involved. It had been a short conversation-- lasting only until the challengers were set to depart-- and while he wasn’t usually one to lead, in this instance Emmet had been happy to guide the discussion, asking after the teen’s history with it and how it fared outside of a battle facility.
Taking up the reins left Ingo to focus on the Pokemon itself, which was a nice bonus. Clearly the Gliscor recognized that something was afoot, even if not specifically what-- jaws parted to scent the air and eyes narrowed, perplexed. At one point, Emmet looked over to catch it raising one wing, trying to herd what it must have thought a very strange Gligar beneath it.
It had been a sweet Pokemon, and a very good learning experience.
Coincidences aside, though, Emmet wasn’t in the habit of pushing an evolutionary agenda. While he might try to soothe his brother’s anxieties where the species was concerned, he wholly accepted Ingo’s reasoning, and anything he encouraged was strictly for comfort’s sake.
So it was something of a surprise when, months down the line, Ingo asked if Emmet would mind holding onto something for him for the evening. Because they both knew he couldn’t resist, there had been no protest as he’d unfolded the extra pair of gloves to find a razor fang at its heart. Somewhere between comprehension and ignorance, he looked up.
“It seems prudent to have one on hand, just in case.” Had been Ingo’s only explanation.
And, well… that was progress. There was a certain amount of self-loathing to Ingo’s opinion on evolution that seemed unhealthy, and it was a comfort to see it begin to ease. Whether or not he would ever use the razor fang was a moot point; the only thing that mattered was that he wasn’t so vehemently opposed to the thought.
As before, the specter of evolution drifted quietly into the background.
---
Like any carnivorous bat, the subject swooped back into the fray without warning.
“Would you… mind staying with me, if I were to evolve?” Ingo asked one evening, apropos nothing.
Emmet waited several seconds for the full context, until he realized the delay seemed to be making his twin nervous. “Of course not. What is the rest of this hypothetical?”
“Ah.” Awkwardly, he forced his attention off of the floor and met Emmet’s eyes, “It’s not a hypothetical question. I think I’m ready. To… evolve.”
The train of thought slowly pulled into its charted destination, and as soon as it did, he bristled, “You do not need to do so. We have covered this. Did something happen?”
“Nothing in particular, no; I’ve just been affording it some more thought, lately, and this was the station I arrived at.”
“Because it is what you want?” Emmet demanded.
“Yes. Mostly.” At the look the amendment earned him, Ingo raised his hands in self defense, “I still have my concerns, but at this point in time, not knowing is worse. The longer I humor that anticipation, the greater it becomes.”
“So what you actually want is to get it over with.”
“I… suppose that’s an accurate assessment.”
Asking if he was certain would only make the situation worse. Surely Ingo had already given this plenty of thought-- he’d had years to consider it, after all. That he was only bringing it up now carried a great deal of weight.
So, without any further challenging words, Emmet held up his arms in invitation; Ingo accepted it with a surprising readiness, belying just how nervous he really was.
He needed something else to focus on, to distract him from the unease of deciding upon a drastic change of course after so long. Emmet could do that.
“Do you know where your razor fang is?” He asked, and could feel the indignant shiver running through his brother at the suggestion that he hadn’t thought that far ahead. Personally, Emmet thought it was a valid question; while it was far more likely that Ingo had checked and double-checked before making any declarative statements, there was always a chance the Joltik had spirited it away in the past five minutes.
Mutely, Ingo nodded to where Chandelure was hovering near the ceiling, one iron limb curled around the be-gloved fang.
Fair enough. If there was one way to ward Joltik off, that was probably it. He didn’t actually think she would do anything to the little bugs, but they would have to learn a healthy respect for her someday, and if that was today, then it was their own fault; the last thing he wanted to do right now was pluck one out of her personal space and get zapped for the effort.
Not for the first time, Emmet spared a thought for the indignity of having a type vulnerability to his own Pokemon, only for his twin to be utterly immune. Somewhere out there, Arceus was laughing.
There was nothing for it. He had more important matters to address.
While Ingo stepped away to call Chandelure down, he made no move to relieve her of her cargo, rightfully wary of handling the razor fang so long after sunset. She handed it over to Emmet without any fuss and, having overcome the anti-spider measures, he turned his attention back to the present.
“Where would you like to be for this?”
“The living room, I think,” A hesitation, and then, “Where you evolved.”
Ah. Well, perhaps Emmet should have seen that coming; his brother was a sentimental sap, and he loved him for it.
It took no time at all to get situated, leaving little more than to wait for Ingo’s lead. With a deep, bracing breath, he yielded to the smaller form of a Gligar, but it took a moment more for him to work up the nerve to open his eyes and greet the reality he was headed toward.
Unbothered, hands free of the evolutionary aid, Emmet steadied him, “Are you prepared for departure?”
There was a stiff nod against his chest, the pincers holding onto his arms trembling from the effort of staying somewhat slack. Before moving to take the fang up again, he moved one hand to either side of Ingo’s head and turned his face up.
“I will see you in just a moment.” He promised, and simultaneously pressed a kiss between long ears and the razor fang to a fluttering chest.
---
Evolution wasn’t like a case of the hiccups, it was the deep inhalation one took to choke them out. Doing so wasn’t necessary-- life would go on either way-- but if one so chose, they could take the plunge and hold their breath.
It was a building tension, a burning, overflowing wealth of energy begging to be set free, to show the world what it could do. It was also a sigh of relief as that potential found purchase and settled into what it was meant to be.
Where his head nestled against Emmet’s chest, a shuddering breath escaped Ingo, and he wasn’t entirely sure what emotion he could ascribe it to. For simplicity’s sake he might call it relief, but there were more layers to it than that might imply; not only that nothing had gone wrong, but also that the decision had been made. There was no going back. No matter what happened from here on out, his only recourse would be to make it work.
That was doable.
He stayed there a little while longer, larger arms more easily curving around his brother to maintain their hold; he slowly unfurled his wings, testing how it worked now that they were their own limbs, independent of the others. This quiet introspection was interrupted by laughter stifled against the top of his head.
With a chirp-- meaningless, save for its questioning note-- Ingo looked up at the culprit.
“Oh, you stopped.” Emmet said, complaint evident in his words, as if he hadn’t been the very thing to distract Ingo from… whatever it was he’d apparently been doing. Stretching his wings? He supposed he had drawn them back at the noise.
Puzzled, he spread them out again, to his twin’s further amusement.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not entirely sure. You’re the one who was disappointed that I stopped.”
“Not that. You were chattering verrrry quietly. Low like a rumbling engine. It was cute.”
He was?
Oh. Yes. He’d overlooked the subconscious rolling of his vocal cords. In actuality, calling it ‘chattering’ was wholly inaccurate; it was, without a trace of doubt, a sustained purr. Suddenly very aware of himself, Ingo preemptively went to muffle any other noise he might make.
“Noooo,” Emmet laughed, all delighted dismay as he humored the wide face burrowing into his shirt, “Don’t be embarrassed!”
It was met by an undignified squeak of, “Then stop trying to embarrass me!”
“Oh, Ingo.” He drawled, amusement audible in spite of his ever-consistent tone, “I don’t have to try. You do it to yourself.”
He grumbled into the thin white fabric, distinct from the soft, content purr. Maybe he could try something else, experiment with a screech or non-offensive growl to distract from the incident. While it didn’t bother him, everything he vocalized was lower than it used to be, and it would take some getting used to.
He wondered, vaguely, if his larger stature meant he had access to his full lung capacity.
After a minute, he stopped theorizing and gathered his courage, emerging from his ineffectual hiding spot.
Emmet beamed at him, taking his face in both hands once more.
“There you are.” He said, and proved unable to resist ruffling his twin, fingers working into the coarse fur at his cheeks, “Better?”
One ear twitched and, methodically, Ingo ran through his systems, testing claws and wings and giving his tail an experimental thump; it was two-pronged now, the stinger substantially larger, lacking the dimorphic sizing in this secondary form. Different, yes, but not in a bad way. There was something about it that felt like holding his eviolite for the first time-- a protective layer establishing itself between himself and the world at large.
It made sense from a logical standpoint; a Gliscor’s defensive stats were higher than a Gligar’s, which was precisely what the eviolite was meant to emulate. Feeling it as an intrinsic part of his carapace, though, was bizarre.
“I believe it will be, with time.”
And, since the immediate concern had passed, of course it was open season.
“Now you get to learn how to fly properly. Your ‘membranes’ excuse has run out.”
Without removing himself from the couch, Ingo flapped his wings, just once. While he’d done his research ahead of time, the firsthand sense of it only drove home the fact that they were meant for catching a breeze and riding it; he likely could create an updraft, but it wasn’t an ideal application.
“Where’s Archeops?” Ingo asked instead of any proper reply, “I need to speak with him about forming a coalition. Perhaps then you’ll accept that not everyone with wings travels the way you do.”
“You are correct. Winged creatures generally do not take the subway. All three of us are outliers.”
Emmet managed to keep a mostly-straight face until Ingo craned up to nip at the ends of his hair, unimpressed. “Ah! None of that anymore! You’re a big Gliscor now. You should know better.”
He rolled his eyes-- to a bark of laughter-- and backed off, straightening, finally, to human form.
Everything felt normal. He glanced to Emmet for confirmation, judging via his twin’s expression, and found his attention lingering just a moment longer than expected. Before Ingo could ask, however, he met his eyes once more and broke out into a relaxed smile.
“I am happy that you’re happy.”
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Whumptober* Day 5: Hyperthermia (& bonus Hypothermia)
(*Task failed successfully. This became straight-up fluff.)
Today’s prompt tied in nicely with a point I alluded to, but didn’t really explore in my first stab at @blaiddraws Fulcrum AU-- just, it’s more focused on body heat and less fever. I think narrowing things down to that specific theme helped a lot; it doesn’t cover as much ground as the original did, but it’s finished.
---
Emmet had decided that, when their time finally rolled back around, this was precisely where they could be met: a random hole in the side of Mt. Coronet.
Maybe ‘random’ wasn’t entirely fair-- it had clearly been used as a den for some time, and boasted more furnishing than your standard mountainside hole-- but it didn’t matter. If the Hisuian tales of someone ‘neither man nor Pokemon’ inspired visitors, they would be hard pressed to find the right entryway out of the many tunnels that littered the territory.
That wasn’t the point, anyway. The point was that Emmet intended to stay sprawled here for the next few centuries, and Ingo didn’t seem compelled to alter that course; there was a low, content rumble of thunder beneath him, and Emmet took that as an all clear.
He hadn’t appreciated just how much the world could change, independent of human truths or ideals, until stepping foot into the bitter cold of Hisui. It had been a miserable slog from the Alabaster Icelands, and that was speaking as a fire type; he didn’t want to imagine what the trip might have been like without an internal pilot light to burn away the worst of it.
The less said of traversing it with a proper type vulnerability, the better. If he could pretend he was just huddling near to save his twin the sleepy discomfort of a Nimbasan winter, wonderful-- it meant he didn’t have to dwell on the earnestness of Ingo’s “You’re so warm,” like the concept had never even occurred to him. It meant he didn’t need to consider a reality where his other half had known only the freezing cold, unaware that he was supposed to have a counterbalance to protect him from it.
He let out a disgruntled huff of breath and rested his chin atop his brother’s head, ignoring the minor tilt as Ingo shot him a sideways look; the darker dragon settled back down within the moment, either unwilling or unable to raise a complaint, and, frankly, Emmet didn’t care which one it was. All that mattered right now was getting him warmed up, and there was nobody better suited to the task than Reshiram himself.
---
It wasn’t saying much, but in all his years, Ingo hadn’t realized that it was possible to be so warm.
Hisui ran cold, but that wasn’t to say it was without its more temperate locations. The Coastlands had Firespit Island, and the Mirelands were… bearable; in areas lacking snow’s ambient chill, it was possible to bask in the sun and not feel the cloying grasp of an inescapable winter.
For quite some time, he’d thought it was just him. While humans like Irida and Gaeric had an immunity to the tundra that left their peers in awe, as a whole, they didn’t seem to suffer the perpetual frostbite that Ingo did. Pokemon, too, were able to weather it with little difficulty, their type depending.
The closest he’d ever come to seeing eye to eye in this regard had been with the Garchomp Akari trained-- and even he hadn’t known what Ingo was talking about. Yes, it agreed, the cold was terrible and the fact that its kind nested in such harsh climes was ridiculous-- but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be remedied by nestling into a den or sprawling next to a fire.
There hadn’t been any point in arguing-- never mind that Ingo spent the greater portions of the winter holed up with Sneasler and her clowder. He could concede that it was orders better than being stranded in the snow, but it wasn’t…
He didn’t know what it wasn’t. Enough? It should have been. Sneasler was under no obligation to allow him so close to her young-- not when he was a complete unknown. It wasn’t right? Who was he to make such a bold claim? For the Sneasel and their mother, it was perfect-- if he had a problem with it, that was his burden to bear.
It wasn’t ideal, he supposed-- not his, at least.
Maybe something in him had frozen, back before he’d woken up, and all of Hisui’s scant warmth combined wasn’t enough to thaw him out. He’d all but resigned himself to lifetime of it, and could admit that he was… dumbstruck to find an alternate station.
Firespit Island burned, too intense to stay put and let the outermost edges of his permafrost melt, leaving them to build right back up as soon as he stepped away. For a moment, The Other’s touch had felt just the same, but it wasn’t. Though Ingo had nothing in living memory to compare the sensation to, he knew it was familiar. Right. Ideal.
And, more to the point, it was enough. The frost had spent too long building to thaw with a single touch, but in that moment the glacier inside of him had calved, bringing to light information that had been since buried in ice.
That was his Other! Emmet--? Reshiram? Both? His twin! His other half!
In short order, the intense heat mellowed enough for Ingo to realize that it hadn’t ever been so hot as to burn-- only to warm. It was simply that he, himself, had been too cold to feel even mildly tepid and not flinch away from the perceived threat.
He wasn’t really cognizant of how and when they’d gotten to his den, but when he tuned back into reality, he was at home with his brother draped over his back, radiating more heat than was practical. Something deep in the build up of ice resonated with that observation-- it was normal, he thought. Emmet always ran warm, even when they presented as humans; the real challenge was keeping him from getting excited and subconsciously turning any given room into a sauna.
A moment later, Ingo caught up to himself and the… odd implications of that thought. Humans? He would tuck it away for later, when he had the wherewithal to do more than rumble his contentment while his twin grumbled about keeping him pinned for the next several centuries.
While he couldn’t live up to the threat in full, Emmet certainly did his best to prove the point. Once he deigned to get to his feet, there was a noticeable chill in the air. Ingo had never known this cave to be particularly drafty-- it was why he’d chosen it in the first place-- leaving him to wonder if the breeze had always been there and he just hadn’t noticed.
But his twin didn’t have time for his philosophizing, it seemed, and yanked him upright without a word; as soon as they were eye to eye, he pressed their heads together and hummed. The warmth in the form before Ingo was still there, but muted-- not because he’d grown complacent, but because he could still feel it radiating through his plating, back towards its source.
If he could acclimate-- however poorly-- to the cold, could he then reacclimate to this? He wanted to. Sinnoh above he wanted to.
“Acceptable. For now.” Emmet decided, and pulled away to poke his nose out of the den. Ingo wasn’t entirely sure what he expected to find there, considering they’d spent the daylight hours in a monochrome huddle, but didn’t stop him.
The chill was still present, but his face felt warm and flushed, at complete odds with it-- like the cold air was settling on his scales and evaporating on contact. Good riddance, he couldn’t help but think. All these years of building up snow, and he wouldn’t stand for another moment of it.
Somewhere in him, the glacier still lingered, but its days were numbered. With time, it would slowly melt into nothing.
...maybe Emmet was right.
A few centuries curled into ball of opposites sounded pretty good.
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A small handful of songs I associate with A Glint, a Spark. (Spoilers for both that fic and Memory, Heavy in My Heart.)
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Arms Outstretched - Griffin McElroy
As I alluded to in the MHIMH playlist, Arms Outstretched was the song I had all but set AGAS to, for the animatic in my head. The progression of it from being kind of downtrodden, to this moment of hope, and then a happy epilogue was pretty perfect, both for the idea I actually went with, and the one I may still write.
Chapters 1 & 2
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Place to Start - Mike Shinoda
Do I even have a decision? Feeling like I'm living in a story already written. Am I part of a vision made by somebody else? / Am I out of conviction with no wind in the sail, too focused on the end and simply ready to fail?
Cause I'm tired of feeling like I can't control this; tired of feeling like every next step's hopeless. Tired of feeling like what I build might break apart, I don't want to know the end, all I want is a place to start.
I don't have a ton to elaborate on with the lyrics. The first part just meshes really nicely with the theme of being unable to influence events that have already happened, and having to take them as they come. The second part resonates particularly well with the first chapter, in my opinion.
I also like having a song from the same artist in both halves of the main story, and the contrasting tones.
Chapters 3-9:
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The Heart of a Graveyard - Demon Hunter
Tell me that your final home is not a shot in the dark; tell me that your hopes and dreams don't end in the heart of a graveyard.
Tonally, it doesn't fit perfectly with the rest of this list, but the subject matter is pretty on the mark. There's a sense of preparing for the worst while still hoping for the best that I like, particularly in this context.
Chapter 10:
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Final Battle: Malladus (From "The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks") - The Noble Demon
(The portion up to 0:46 is an intro, and not the most relevant to this list; the actual battle theme starts warming up after that.)
A friend unintentionally reminded me that I love this track, and since that conversation happened smack at the climax of MHIMH, I naturally connected the dots. This would correspond to the recorded battle with Arceus, because the track for it in canon PLA just does not fit this version. I chose this remix in particular because it really emphasized the woodwind notes in parts-- which made sense re: the Azure Flute-- and because it has that underlying, train-chugging percussion. It's always struck me as a very triumphant battle theme, which fit beautifully.
Chapter 11:
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Welcome to the World of Pokemon - Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
It's wondrous and mysterious, but gentle and a bit low-key at the same time, which I think makes it work very well for the build up this chapter, and most of the time spent in the Hall of Origin.
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Mysterious Rainbow Girl - Wandersong
The same goes for this track; I was pretty torn as to which one I liked better, so I ended up keeping both for a little bit of variation.
Chapter 12:
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On the Beach at Dusk - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness & Sky
I had this one set aside specifically for the scene at the top of Dragonspiral Tower, where the reality of the situation is beginning to sink in. If you're familiar with Explorers, there... might be something of a parallel to be read into the situations they 'play' over.
Misc:
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The yet untitled song from The Dreadful Demise of the Dinosaurs - Puppet History
A lonely life among the stars, my destination veiled and far away, but I knew one day we'd find each other. Then in the dark, a glint, a spark, the greens and blues, be still my heart-- and once I hit, that's it, I'm here forever.
While I'm here, I should probably include the fic's namesake. It's really only the one verse (~0:25-0:47), because this song has a very specific subject matter and thesis, but that one passage really stuck with me in this context.
The first half definitely resonates most strongly with chapter 11, but I was also aiming to match the second to 12-- specifically "the greens and blues, be still my heart" to the scene on Dragonspiral, and to end with the promise of "I'm here forever"
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At one point, I mentioned that I was torn as to which silly crossover to let myself write for my birthday. Friends in Low Places ultimately won out, but the second option was a Psychonauts crossover. This isn't the same as Power Trick, even though it draws from what I'd put together for that story-- it's an entirely different take on the concept.
If you're unfamiliar with Psychonauts 2 and don't want it spoiled via an incomplete WIP, you probably shouldn't read this one. It even starts with a spoiler, so the whole thing's going under a cut.
---
It wasn’t that the mission to retrieve Helmut’s body was going badly. It wasn’t.
It was just that his body… didn’t stay as trapped as anyone thought it would, and had been roaming, brainless, throughout the Grulovian countryside. But, hey! They didn’t need to chip through nearly as much ice as they’d expected, and Raz was getting a good clairvoyant workout in trying to track him down! There were more pros than cons, in his opinion.
He had yet to decide what category the giant ice mountain fell into. Raz had been tiny when his parents moved the family out of the country, so he would have assumed it had been there for millennia, but the locals insisted it was a new feature. That seemed relevant, somehow. A giant lake gets frozen solid, and then a couple decades later, a big chunk of ice appears? It couldn’t be coincidence. None of the nearby townspeople seemed to know how it got there, though-- just that a couple of years ago, everyone had gone to bed and found it looming over them the next morning.
Now, Razputin may have been a master of neither geometry nor geology, but he was pretty sure that was abnormal mountain behavior, and definitely worth investigation. As luck would have it, Helmut’s body had already moved on from the town, and the mountain was the next stop on it’s predetermined path, which gave Raz a perfect excuse to poke around without ignoring his mission.
When he went to leave the town, an older woman tucked [?] into his hands and told him to carry it with him as payment for safe passage.
Ominous!
He was still going.
The toughest part of the trip was the distance itself-- outside of more developed areas, the snow piled up and was difficult to traverse, though there were numerous grooves worn into the powder, suggesting he wasn’t the first to travel this direction. Not all of them went the same way, and some were deeper than others, which made Raz wonder why the locals would trek all the way out here-- if it was curiosity, tradition or psychic interference drawing them in.
One of the funny things about distance was that it minimized the destination. Slowly, the mountain grew in scale, the opaque ice glittering in the midday sun from a mile away, until it dwarfed everything else. Even at a distance, the dark tunnels leading inward were an immediate contrast against the shining, pristine surface, and in and of itself, that could so easily lure passerby.
Someone who lacked a brain in a very literal sense would stride right on in.
Fortunately, Raz was no mere passerby. He was a mildly trained psychic with a mission, and he kind of knew what he was getting himself into. He made an effort to remember the turns he was taking and thought he was doing a pretty good job… if one were to ignore the fact that he hadn’t actually found anything. Every offshoot led deeper into the tunnel system, and while it made sense that there wouldn’t be much open space inside the mountain, the halls were unnaturally consistent. There came a point where Raz found he could predict what the next set would look like because they all followed the same pattern-- all of them identical.
He was probably caught in some kind of illusion.
Raz wasn’t one to give up, but he could also recognize a lost cause, and right now, he wasn’t making any progress. He had to figure out where the [illusion] was coming from and neutralize it before continuing down this path, so he turned his back on the next fork and began retracing his steps.
To his surprise, it didn’t lead him directly out of the mountain, like a single loop would have. He had to count each repetition down, inverting the turns he’d taken, which made him realize just how far he’d wandered before the pattern registered. He wasn’t worried yet, because he knew where he was going, but it made him reconsider what was going on; maybe not an illusion or a psychic construct, but something focused on disorientation? It didn’t feel like he’d taken this much time on the way in…
He heard footsteps. He whirled around to face the branch off of the tunnel, one hand raised to his temple just in case, and crept closer, hoping he might get the drop on whatever had caused the sound. The silhouette that turned the corner was strange-- tall and disproportionate, wider as it [got lower down].
It was the tale end of a muttered, “--V?” that clued Raz in on its exact nature. He relaxed and-- since there was no point in calling out to a brainless body-- trotted over to start corralling Helmut. The upper half of the silhouette moved, distinct from the body and, now that Raz was looking, rose well above the horned hat. He would have gone on the defensive again, if not for:
“Ah, are you lost as well? Come with me, please; I’ll see you both to your destination.”
He didn’t move, but Helmut’s body did. The second person gripped its shoulder to still it for the moment and raised their free hand. Gradually, light filtered in through the ice-- crystal clear now, instead of opaque with frost, keeping the tunnels dim-- which allowed them to observe one another.
The first thing Raz noticed was that the person looked like he’d lost a fight with a psychic bear; his clothes were ratty and thin in places, but in spite of the [lacking] winter wear, he seemed largely unbothered by the cold. The second thing was that he was incredibly pale-- pale hair, pallid skin, and eyes light enough to reflect back at whoever was looking. He hesitated on the last point, because something was wrong there; while this person was looking at him straight-on, it seemed like he wasn’t seeing Raz properly. Not in the sense that he had bad eyesight, but that he just… wasn’t seeing the same reality Raz saw.
That probably had something to do with the third point of interest: the impractically thick hunk of psilirium that encircled the person’s wrist. It wasn’t the worst Raz had seen by a long shot, but it was still enough to make his eyes water when he looked directly at it. From the corner of his vision, he watched the light play off of it as the man dropped his arm; he wondered how in the world that could have happened, and how this person was going about their daily life wearing the world’s worst mood bracelet.
“Please,” The man said, his clouded eyes sweeping over Raz, “It’s not safe to travel down these tracks. I know the route well, and can lead you back to safety.”
That final word struck a chord, and Raz inclined his head. Was this who the woman in town was talking about? The [?] was meant for him, in return for guiding people out of the mountain?
The man’s shoulders relaxed and the angle of his eyes shifted. He waved Raz over with his psitanium-cuffed hand and waited for him to fall into step after him, adjusting his grip on Helmut’s shoulder to prompt the brainless body onward with them.
“You don’t dress like the locals. Did you come here to investigate Korona? If so, I would highly advise against such a course of action; the paths here are treacherous, almost like they have a mind of their own.” The person said, voice low, but still bouncing off of the icy walls and echoing into the tunnels.
Raz shook his head, and then tilted it toward Helmut’s body, “Actually, I was looking for him.”
He heard a relieved laugh, “Ah, good! Perhaps you’ll succeed where I’ve failed; no matter how I try to impress the danger upon him, he always returns here. It’s… nice to see a familiar face, but I don’t want him to put himself at risk.”
“Do you know him? Who are you?” […]
There was a long pause. “Warden. I’m the warden of this territory. It’s my duty to ensure that none come to harm under my watch.”
[…] “You’re the warden of the mountain?”
He nodded, and didn’t look back.
“Then do you know how it got here?” […]
Warden’s head turned to fix him with a blank stare. “I’m unsure what you mean by that; Mount Korona has been here as long as I can remember.”
Raz felt his brow wrinkle as he considered the impossibility of that, and then realized how it could be true. “How long have you been here?”
The look turned vaguely helpless, and the warden repeated, “As long as I can remember.”
...yeah, the psilirium definitely wasn’t doing him any favors. Raz didn’t think he could take his eyes off of Helmut’s body long enough to do anything about that-- not without running the risk of losing it to the countryside yet again-- but maybe he could come back after this mission was over... or, if not, then at least make sure he reported the person wandering around with an active psychohazard on his wrist. As they walked, he prodded gently at the man’s mind, but wasn’t surprised to find himself repelled; while the psilirium was taking a toll, Warden was in direct contact with it and still functional, which meant his psychic defenses wouldn’t be anything to sneeze at.
For just a second, Raz considered lobbing a confusion grenade, just in case that might increase the man’s lucidity, but he was pretty sure he’d get in a load of trouble for it if anyone found out.
They made it to the mouth of the cave without incident, and Warden inclined his head to Raz, gesturing for him to take over in guiding Helmut’s body. He reached over and took him by a sleeve, and then hesitated. The man was outside of the cave system for now; if he could get him to the base camp somehow, that would make removing the psilirium orders easier. Not only would it save everyone the trouble of hunting him back down, but they would have numbers on their side, and maybe even tools that would help.
Before the stranger could bid them goodbye, Raz hastily said, “You think you could help me get him-- ah-- home? He… keeps getting away from me.”
Warden blinked at him, and then shifted to consider Helmut’s body.
“I can.” He decided, tucking the psilirium-laden arm behind his back and moving the opposite hand to rest upon Helmut’s shoulder. “Lead the way; I’ll ensure that he follows the route you set.”
The trip back to the base camp wasn’t going to be an easy one; it was definitely more direct than the path Raz had picked out, hopping from town to town as he tracked Helmut’s meandering body, but even walking in a straight line, it was a substantial distance. One unexpected silver lining was that, instead of behaving as snow usually did, it parted for them as they passed through, the powdery ice freezing into place on their either side.
Raz reached out with one gloved hand and found that there was no give; it was like it had thawed and refrozen, creating a smooth, glassy texture. He didn’t know cryokinesis, and without a brain, Helmut’s body couldn’t have done that, so he looked to the last off the potential culprits; the warden stared dispassionately out at the horizon line, giving no indication that he noticed the scrutiny he’d been put under. He wasn’t actively moving the snow, but the ambient energy around him-- a psychic aura-- absently pushed outward, and was definitely the reason they could travel unhindered.
He didn’t try to make small talk as they went-- though, occasionally, Helmut’s body chimed in with one-word commentary-- and that seemed to suit the warden just as well. Every now and then, the man would glance over at him, as if to gauge where they were headed and ensure that everyone was where he’d last seen them, but he never offered any of his thoughts, either.
[…]
Belatedly, he realized that they were missing one body, and frantically scanned the area. He found who he was looking for in a matter of seconds, back turned and already on his return trip to the mountain.
“Hey! Warden!” He hollered, and didn’t even need to make up any excuses this time, “Wait up! I’m s’posed to give you something for helping us!”
The man hesitated and only half-turned to respond. While his answer was clearly audible, it barely seemed like he was even raising his voice, “That’s unnecessary. I don’t require a reward simply for doing my job.”
Raz was vaguely aware of the startled breath that sounded behind him, but figured it was just because Hollis realized that the psychohazard was all but wandering away; he decided to stall for time and ran to catch up. “That’s how they said it works in town-- it’s not payment, it’s just, you know, gratitude for helping people out.”
Warden watched as he skidded to a halt, and then sighed. “I appreciate their kindness, but they don’t need to do any such thing.”
“Yeah, and they appreciate your kindness. See? It all equals out.” He tried, insistently offering the [?].
Finally, Warden accepted it, extending his psilirium-laden hand in order to move the cloth back look at what lay beneath. As he did so, a pained hiss sounded from behind Raz-- more than one, in fact-- and the man’s head shot up. His eyes were no clearer than ever, but there was an awareness in them-- the recognition of danger. Panic. Rapidly, he raised his cuffed hand to a temple and… vanished.
So it turned out that he knew how to teleport. That made this a lot harder.
“Razputin,” Hollis said, sounding hoarse, though that could have been a byproduct of the psilirium exposure, “Do you know who that was?”
“Yeah, that was the warden; he helps out whenever people get lost inside the mountain.” […]
“Maybe that’s how he was introduced to you,” [Otto], “But before that, he was one of ours-- an agent who went missing years ago.”
Shaking her head to dispel the lingering effects, Hollis looked from Raz to where the warden once stood.
“Agent Aquato, you just found the lost Agent Motif.”
(Pardon me while I perpetuate the joke about Raz being the best at finding missing persons, be they bodies, brains or something in between.)
---
Raz was pretty sure he recognized the name Motif. The most likely explanation was that he’d read it in a comic somewhere, but that didn’t help narrow it down; he’d gone through a lot of comics in his time, and couldn’t exactly go back and revisit all of them, since his mom family had little to no regard for the preservation of literature.
It must have been the name of a supporting agent, he thought-- either that, or maybe it had been in an advertisement for another issue that he hadn’t ever gotten his hands on. The specifics didn’t really matter right now; it was way more important to find Agent Motif again, and for good this time. It seemed like a pretty good bet that he went back to the mountain-- to Korona-- but it wasn’t as simple as going there and wandering through the tunnels until someone ran into him. Even if they went to the trouble of tracking him down, there was nothing stopping him from teleporting away for a second time.
It sounded like everyone had different ideas how to tackle that problem. Hollis had gone to talk to someone back at HQ hours ago, and Otto was tinkering in his field laboratory, trying to set up something that would inhibit Agent Motif’s powers without relying on psilirium to do the job. Lizzie hadn’t been there to meet him, but when brought into the fold, she’d scoffed and muttered something about lectures under her breath. That seemed a little extreme; it had just been a basic rundown of the facts, not [a lecture].
Raz was on his way to check in with Bob and Helmut again when a new voice caught his attention and-- without thinking-- he found himself wandering toward it.
“Hollis.” The speaker said, steely and without emotion, “What is going on here?”
He stopped just shy of getting a visual, and belatedly realized that this was definitely eavesdropping, but stayed put, too curious to walk away yet.
“We’re on a mission to retrieve a lost agent. You already knew that-- you had no interest in participating.” Hollis said back, utterly unmoved.
“Correct. I had no place in the effort to retrieve Helmut’s body.” The other person somehow both agreed and argued, “We both know that is not why I’m here now.”
“Then why don’t you do us both a favor, Emmet? Explain to me why you are here, just so we know we’re on the same page.” […]
There was a dull thud, only resonating for a split second, “My brother, Hollis. You explain to me why I found out about this through office gossip.”
“At a guess, I would say it was because you were listening in on communications channels again.” Hollis [said] dryly. After a second, she sighed, “This is why I didn’t contact you immediately; we have to get a handle on the situation first. I don’t have any doubt that was Ingo, but he’s not acting like himself, and we need to understand why before diving in.”
“You don’t think it’s the giant piece of psilirium on his wrist?” The man asked, flat but disbelieving.
“After your stint at Charlie Psycho Delta? No, there has to be something else.”
“Our defenses are best when we’re together. He won’t withstand it as well by himself.”
[something gives Raz away]
Both of them went silent, and, after a moment, Hollis called out to him. “Would you care to join us, Agent Aquato?”
Guiltily, he slunk around the corner and through the door. He made apologetic eye contact with Hollis, and then looked to the other person. All at once, the pieces fell together: the surname and given names, the long, worn coat he’d seen Agent Motif wearing, now that he could compare it to an undamaged version, the teleportation out of and into the base--
“You’re the Countertype Conductors,” He said, already raking his mind for everything he knew about the pair of sibling Psychonauts. Since their job was to get agents to and from their destinations, they usually only got passing mentions and cameos, but one of his guesses had been right on the money: Issue 57 of True Psychic Tales had teased a story about psitanium smugglers, and the splash page featured two identical men pressed back to back, channeling psychic energy between their own pointing hands and between one another. He hadn’t ever been able to read that [issue], but any mention of them he had seen was as a pair-- as the Agents Motif or, when a book was getting dramatic, the Countertype Conductors.
Agent Motif-- Emmet-- curled his lip into a grimace at the declaration, and then looked back to Hollis. “This does not get you off the hook. I want to be a part of this mission.”
“There is no mission yet.” Hollis told him, nodding briefly to Raz, “It was just today that Agent Aquato brought his findings to us; we’re in the process of gathering intelligence, not acting on it.”
Agent Motif looked at him again, considering. “Then our business has concluded, Agent Forsythe. Agent Aquato. I want to hear what you saw.”
“Emmet,” Hollis said, low and warning, “Is that really how you want to conduct yourself in front of a junior agent?”
He turned to look her dead in the eye and then, bluntly, declared, “I don’t care, Hollis. It’s been two and a half years. I am beyond caring what anyone else thinks of me.”
They stared at one another for a handful of seconds, neither backing down.
Eventually, Hollis narrowed her eyes. “Actually, I do have a mission for you, Motif. I want you to go speak with Agent Zanotto.”
“He has nothing worth saying. Not to me.” Emmet scoffed.
“No?” / “You don’t think the man who lost his partner has any insight into your situation?”
“No. I don’t. He lost another person. I lost part of myself. It is not the same.” He said, expression twisting in offense, “I am done with this conversation. If you have any useful information, tell me. Otherwise, I will handle the matter myself.”
A stony silence settled over them. Agent Motif shrugged and turned his back.
“You’re not leaving this base.” Hollis warned as he crossed the room’s threshold.
“You can’t stop me.” He said simply, which… was true. They were kind of hung up on how to prevent teleportation right now, without any of the tools from HQ.
Hollis grimaced as he walked away, and her eyes fell on Raz.
“I’m sorry about him, Razputin. It’s… too complicated to explain in full right now.” She pursed her lips in thought, and seemed to [give in], “Could I ask you to keep an eye on him for the evening? You don’t have to approach him again-- I’d actually avoid it, if you can. I just need to know that he’s not doing anything stupid while we figure out what to do about Ingo.”
[…]
“Ah.” He said, sounding less than enthusiastic-- and yet, what actually followed was, “Good. Aquato, I still need information from you.”
Yeah… Raz wasn’t exactly inclined to share, between what he’d seen earlier and the instructions to keep an eye on Motif.
“I don’t think I can tell you anything else. Hollis is probably your best bet.” He tried, thinking that might be enough of a deterrent for the time being, but Emmet just rolled his eyes.
“You do not have to tell me anything.” The man said, tilting his head to the side and closing his eyes, brows furrowed in concentration. For a second, it seemed like he would try to read Raz’s mind, but there was no pressure on the edges of his psyche.
“I don’t think that loophole works when everyone involved is psychic.” […]
Emmet snorted, but didn’t open his eyes. “You don’t have to think anything either.”
He was definitely manipulating some sort of psychic energy. Raz… thought he recognized it as Mental Connection, actually, but the application was completely different from the examples Hollis had used while teaching. It was a little closer to the functionality he got out of it, but there were still more differences than there were similarities.
“That works.” Agent Motif declared after a moment, and made an abrupt turn without opening his eyes. When he did tune back in to the real world, it was to shoot a glance Raz’s way, “I am sorry if this gets you in trouble with Hollis. Tell her I could not be reasoned with. It’s true. I will not tolerate any further delays.”
And, with that, he vanished from the premises.
Well, shoot.
---
The technique Agent Motif had used was, in fact, a branch of Mental Connection-- crossed with clairvoyance in this case. Hollis had given a very general explanation when Raz reported to her, but as fascinating as it sounded, there wasn’t time to delve into that right now. The combination of skills could be used to follow a trail, and there was little wondering where Emmet intended to go.
Raz had been the first to note that he must not have known about Mount Korona, otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to do anything but look out the window. With the confirmation that he was working with a dangerously small amount of information, Hollis decided they had to act immediately.
[…]
It was dim, but the light that did filter through suggested that it wasn’t always the case-- the cavern was dark right now because it was night, and during the daytime, visibility would have been much better. Because of the scant lighting, a number of features were visible: a vaguely circular [platform] in the room’s center, extending seamlessly from the floor, shelves of ice that were two inches thick and still crystal clear, putting their contents on full display, a frozen basin that somehow contained water, albeit with a thin sheet of ice forming on its top and, on the far side of the room, an uneven, knee-height platform.
It was the last [feature] that they gravitated toward, largely due to the fact that there was a person resting on it.
Agent Motif knelt down-- biting back a hiss at the cold that immediately seeped through his pants-- rested a hand on their shoulder, and gently shook it. There was a [startled] inhalation as the other man startled awake, and automatically raised a hand to rub at his eyes.
“Lady O--”
He stopped as soon as the sight registered; even though he’d only cracked one eye open, he somehow narrowed it as he tried to understand what he was looking at, and pushed himself into sitting up. The former Agent Motif looked one way, and then the other-- attention only barely flickering to Raz-- and even up before letting himself settle on the man in front of him. Haltingly, he raised an arm, dropped it, and then frowned at the result.
“You’re… not a reflection.” He said numbly.
Emmet visibly stopped himself from saying something, substituting a slow shake of his head.
The warden hesitated, the silence a blanket of snow obscuring his racing thoughts, and eventually added, “I know you.”
“I know you.” / “I missed you.”
His brother almost reached out, and then snatched his hand back, thinking better of it. It would have been confusing, if not for the way he tucked it into the coat he’d been wearing even in sleep, hiding the chunk of psilirium from immediate view.
Emmet let the hand braced on a shoulder drop, trying to coax it back out by tugging at a sleeve, “It’s okay. It won’t hurt me if we’re together. You’re safe with me.”
While its owner wasn’t convinced, he didn’t put up a fight. The arm slowly eased out, mirrored by a hand that reached over to press their palms together. Raz caught a hint of a wince-- the same expression that had crossed Emmet’s face when he’d first realized how cold the floor was-- but it didn’t stop the man from lacing their fingers together and leaning in until their foreheads touched.
Something must have passed between them, unspoken, because the warden flinched and Emmet raised his opposite hand to the back of his brother’s head-- not forcing him to stay, but steadying him and encouraging him to linger.
“It’s okay.” He repeated, forcing his voice into gentle tones, “I will not let anything else happen to you.”
---
Also, misc notes:
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I've actually been holding onto this outline since the beginning of the year, so I figured I'd send 2023 off with it.
This is Scions of Morality, which I'd love to tackle in full someday, but with AGAS wrapping up soon, I don't think I'm in the right headspace to try right away. What's posted here is the original outline/edits. After discussing it some time ago, I think there are definitely some key points I'd add onto or tweak, but they're not reflected in this version.
Extra nonsense below
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But Who's Keeping Score?
For good, and for bad, I don't have nearly as many unfinished pieces this year, but there are still a handful that I'd like to move off the burners, so here's a last-minute WIP before the year ends. As per usual, it's got placeholders all over and isn't in a finished state.
Just in case you're sensitive to the subject matter, it focuses pre-transition characters, who use their birth names up to a point. It's not coming from a place of malice, it's just because they don't identify as men at that point in the story.
(As a side note, I somehow ended up basing this in the same continuity as Keep Making that Face, but you don't need to be familiar with it to read this.)
---
Somebody had submitted Irma’s name to the annual Nimbasa [?] poll. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t upset about it-- it was just a silly popularity contest-- but if they were being realistic, it was all about appearances. Under different circumstances, Irma wasn’t the sort to wring her hands over how attractive others did or didn’t find her, but…
But throughout her entire adult life, over and over, she’d been told how much prettier she’d be if she smiled like Emma.
Irma tried. She really, truly did. If people paid enough attention, they could see the way her eyes narrowed when she was happy, and she did her best to make her voice dynamic and expressive to show others how she felt. It just… wasn’t enough. People always took her at face value, and one thing Irma physically could not do was smile like her sister.
It wasn’t the idea of people finding her unattractive that bothered her; it was the fact that she’d have irrefutable proof that people simply didn’t understand her, and didn’t care to try.
She tried to put it from her mind and focus on work but, inevitably, someone would make a comment about her expression and she’d be forced to confront the problem again. Emma had started taking it personally. It would have been a nice gesture, but it always ended in Irma having to swoop in and intervene before she could say something that would get her fired. She loved her sister, but the extra responsibility of dragging her away by the collar every time she heard the word ‘smile’ was the last thing she needed right now.
It made sense; Emma had felt responsible for the facial paralysis ever since diagnosis, no matter how emphatically Irma told her it wasn’t her fault. The guilt of it had lessened for awhile-- once Irma made enough progress with physical therapy to emote from the nose up, and Emma relearned to read her twin’s face-- but when they’d gone on to find employment with the United Unovan Railway, people started making pointed comments. Ironically, Emma never had possessed much of a poker face, and it was plain to see that it struck her every time she happened to hear.
Some days, Irma wished she could just be a man instead. No one would lament her “resting bitch face” then-- or, if they did, then maybe the “bitch” part wouldn’t sting so much. It was a fleeting-- if frequent-- thought that she passed off without any deeper consideration.
In the end, the voting period wasn’t actually so bad. She’d tried to tell herself that, even if she came in at dead last, it was still a lot to have been nominated at all… regardless of the fact that it did feel like a cruel prank, when she was being honest; she’d never know if it had been a legitimate submission or a mean spirited joke. Surprisingly, she landed just under the median. It was still a good two dozen spots behind her sister and entire light years from someone like Elesa, but she could live with that.
What hurt the most was the discussion in the aftermath. Irma didn’t go out seeking commentary on the poll, but having been an unwilling part of it, it found her-- people lamenting that she’d somehow placed ahead of them or saying that anyone who voted for her over their preference didn’t have any taste. There were some whose talk wasn’t even negative, just incredulous. Somehow, it didn’t feel any better to be told that someone had been surprised to see her rank so highly, but congratulations!
She took to wearing a face mask during work hours, sick to death, but only of the subject matter. If people couldn’t see her lips, they might mistake her for Emma and spare her the unsolicited interjections. Emma hated that she had to resort to such measures, but couldn’t offer any other solution-- save for ripping into anyone she caught making noise.
When Elesa had caught wind of the situation, she’d taken a different track. The reassurances that it was a stupid poll to begin with, and a mid-tier placement wasn’t bad at all weren’t anything Irma hadn’t already told herself, and as much as she’d tried to be grateful for the fact that her friend cared enough to encourage her, Irma only found it exhausting. It was over now, and she just wished they could move past it. She understood that they wanted to make her feel better, but why did they have to keep revisiting the topic?
Irma had forgotten that, while the general public had proven they couldn’t read her, Elesa certainly could, and she recognized that her input was only making things worse. Instead, she took to sending Irma messages throughout the week, showing her those comments that highlighted her enthusiasm and geniality-- and even several that framed her not as distant and aloof due to her frown, but intelligent and alluring.
It was kind of her, and her efforts did actually help. Irma didn’t really know what to make of being called “alluring”, but could… appreciate the compliment? She guessed?
The years after that weren’t so bad-- it was just the first time she’d been on the board that people had seen fit to approach her about it. Frankly, the only time thereafter that it had been of any interest at all was the year a particularly nasty strain of the flu ran rampant through the city; it became commonplace for people to wear face masks in public and, with only the upper half of her face to judge by, commuters were able to recognize when Irma smiled at them in her own way. Strangely, it even reflected in that year’s poll: instead of twenty places apart, Irma found that she landed just under Emma.
It still didn’t mean anything in the long run, but it was… nice to feel like people could begin to see her for what she was, rather than what she wasn’t.
The year after that, he’d come out to his sibling and they’d drawn up rough schematics for a train car that could withstand the wear and tear of battle. Both of them had been somewhat absent from the public eye as they brought the idea to both the head of the UUR and the Pokemon League, then subsequently been made to prove the concept. Surely polling happened that year, but both of the twins were too caught up in their project to pay it even the slightest bit of attention. It meant even less than usual that time, when they’d only be put in the wrong category.
Which brought them to this year.
The battle cars were perfectly functional and the system was promising. They’d debuted the mini-battle facility using different names from what people knew, and hosted only multi battles-- it set the subway apart from the gym challenge, and it also let them focus on their specialty, honing it to perfection. The somewhat dramatic coming out hadn’t had any bearing on that; it had just been convenient timing.
So far, the Battle Subway was a hit. They’d had coworkers express an interest in joining up, and had successfully proven the concept to the League; while it wasn’t guaranteed at this point, there was even talk of broadening the system to include more common battle styles.
With the prospect of expanding the services on the table, Ingo had been focused on how to make it work. There was a fair amount of interest in battling for a living, but so far, no other trainers who could serve as the final milestone for a line dedicated to single or double battles. While he and Emmet were certainly capable of filling those gaps, he needed to figure out how to make the timing work; using a win streak kept them from being swamped so far, so maybe it was just a matter of tweaking the existing system? How many wins could they reasonably expect a trainer to achieve? It was difficult to say. Not everyone was as… enthusiastic as he and his twin were, but if they’d boarded looking for a battle, then it wasn’t unfair to provide a certain amount of challenge…
He heard the lock turn, snapping him back to reality, and belatedly pulled a [blob] of accumulated fur from the comb he’d been moving on autopilot. It was the interruption of the pattern that caused Excadrill to look up, disturbed out of the doze it had fallen into.
On the other side of the front door, two muffled voices chattered back and forth, but went strangely quiet when they finally crossed into the apartment. Ingo sighed internally and braced himself for whatever trick would eventually be leveled at him.
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"A human, a monster, and a prince from the dark"
