Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Draconic artifice of steel, endless fire and storm, this immense power confined to a set path. In this virtue they are comparable 

to the Twins themselves.

Mechanism, 

roaring, 

through the arteries of the earth- 

Empty vessel of engineered Truth and given breath of life through humanity's delusional Ideal. Thanklessly it feeds, thanklessly it ferries our human existence. Our souls placed in its care, a hoard of jewels beyond our imagination.

Are we not indebted to these Dragons of our own creation? 

Are we not obliged to turn our hands into their beating hearts, and become Dragons ourselves?

-The Tama Densha, or Tao of Trains, written approx. 1872 (author unknown)

Chapter Text

"Nii-san, can you pass me one of the Cutiefly Joltiks?"

Ingo plucks a black eyed Joltik shed out of a box and deposits it into Emmet's hand.

"I asked for a Snom one, but this works too! Pass me one of the hats."

Ingo picks up a tiny bowler hat with a pair of tweezers.

"Nii-san, you know we have to do the cuff sleeves first! We can't let the hat fall off, can we?"

"I'm just doing what you tell me to!" Ingo confusedly says.

A worried frown colors Emmet's smile in a way that's uncomfortable to look at. "You've been acting verrrrry confused today. Daijo ka?"

"I- I don't- I can't-"

They aren't in the attic anymore. Ingo is standing in the living room, watching Emmet put on a coat. He doesn't remember how he got here. He's still holding a Joltik in his hands. He doesn't remember how he got here.

"I'm going to the thrift store!" Emmet calls from the hallway. "They always have wedding things this time of year. It will be a good time to restock on props before Elesa renews our spider vows."

"Elesa," Ingo hesitantly echoes.

Emmet's hand pauses on the door handle. "Don't tell me you don't know who that is." He watches Ingo's eyes dart over the faceless magazine clippings on the wall, and his smile suddenly turns strained. "Don't tell me you don't even remember what she looks like."

"Yes, I do!" Ingo desperately insists. "I do know, I swear it, I just need more time-"

"You had twelve years, how much more time do you need?" E---- sadly asks.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't KNOW-"

A man in white clamps his hands down on Ingo's shoulders, moving forward as Ingo reflexively steps back. The man's sad smile pitches with grief.

"You don't even remember who I am, do you?" he resignedly says. "You haven't remembered me for a long, long time."

"Of course I remember you!" Ingo desperately answers. "You're my brother!"

"What's my name?" the man pleads.

"I know it," Ingo whispers to himself. "I promise I did. I knew it just a few minutes ago, I could have sworn I did. I-"

The line of Ingo's mouth wobbles with uncertainty, and he watches the man's expression dim, bit by bit. Gaze sliding downward until his smile is a technicality more than anything else, an upturned mouth signifying nothing.

"Gomen nasai," Ingo chokes out. "Gomen nasai."

"It's okay," the man softly says. "It's not your fault. It was always out of our control."

There's a little boy crying into Ingo's clothes.

"Nii-san went away on a train," he sobs. "Can you help me find him?"

"I'm right here," Ingo sadly answers.

The boy digs his face into Ingo's coat, shaking his head. "He didn't follow the rules. He didn't say goodbye. Just like mama. Just like kaa-san. He went away on a train and he never came back."

"But I did," Ingo says in a small voice.

"Give him back." The boy slams his tiny hands against the closing train doors. "Give him back! GIVE HIM BACK! GIVE HIM BACK!" The gloved fist of a desperate man in white cracks against the glass, rocking the car with his insistent motion as lichtenberg scars crawl up his screaming face. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM? WHERE'S MY BROTHER? WHERE'S MY BROTHER, YOU DRAGONS' DISCARDED BASTARD-"

Ingo curls in on himself, clamping his hands over his ears as that voice continues to wail and plead and beg.

"Why won't anyone stay?" the voice weeps. "I don't understand, is it- is it me? Am I… really not worth remembering?"

"I'm sorry," Ingo hears himself say. "I'm so, so sorry. I'm trying."

"I know," the voice resignedly whispers. "And I shouldn't have expected more. Goodbye, nii-san."

The train car shakes violently as it moves onward, and Ingo can't manage anything but sit there whispering meaningless apologies over and over like a broken record.

Ingo?

"Gome… gome n'sai , gome nasai-i-i…"

Ingo, it's okay, you're okay.

"Please, I'm tryin', don't- don't- d… don't…"

You're safe right now. No one's going to hurt you.

"Emmet- E-e-e- stop, don't, Emmet, please, I can't- help me, plea… se, don't go, I- I- I-"

…Oh, Ingo. I'm so sorry. A hand shaped exactly the same as his own might have intertwined with his fingers as a dull weight leans against his face. We'll be alright, I promise. Laventon promised.

"Emm't… ei…"

Shh, shh.

This voice is kind and its hands are gentle, the cadence of its touch moving back and forth over his arm. It's strange. No one's done that for him since-

-a loud noise explodes between his ears and his eyes open with a blinding, violent snap. 

"Oh, honestly! Isn't Construction supposed to be on break right now? Very, verrrrry rude of them!"

"What's-" The words in his mouth feel heavy and slow. "What's going on? Why is everything so bright?"

"Ah! Gome, nii-san! I'll get the curtains!" 

There is a sliding, metallic noise followed by a few rhythmic clicks as someone's shoes pace around the room, and the light finally dims. Ingo sits up slowly from the couch, blearily blinking the last dregs of glare out of his eyes when familiar gloved hands find his face.

He knows these hands. He knows these eyes, this face- like a long awaited flood, the entirety of the man in front of him returns in an instant.

"Emmet?" Ingo gently calls out.

His brother stiffens, eyes darting around the room and the couch and the hands he hasn't moved away from Ingo's face. 

"Nii-san," Emmet hesitantly whispers. His eyes widen, his smile softens. "Nii-san. Hi."

His hands fall away as Ingo stands and pulls him into a hug. Emmet laughs awkwardly, hands patting Ingo's back.

"This is fine. Yup!" Ingo just holds him tighter in response, and Emmet's smile becomes lovingly resigned as he returns the gesture. "This is my life now. I'm okay with this."

They see each other every day. They must have hugged each other a thousand times. (Why does Ingo feel like he wants to cry?) He can't even think about it for a second before a bone-deep weariness suddenly settles in the back of his mind, staggering his footsteps as he leans into Emmet's body.

"Oi, oi, oi -" Emmet's voice tilts with a slight panic as he struggles to adjust their balance. "Nii-san? What's wrong? Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry, I- I feel so tired for some reason," Ingo manages. "Why was I sleeping on the couch?"

"You don't remember?" Emmet delicately asks.

"I'm sorry." I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm trying, don't leave me-

"It's fine!" Emmet simply says. "You had some verrrrry strong medicine earlier. And I think you probably weren't supposed to have it all at once, but-" A sigh. "They did have to do something to counteract your Poison Heal."

"When did I ever have Poison Heal?" Ingo confusedly asks. "My Ability's always been Soundproof since-" His eyes flutter shut, head dipping alarmingly for a second before he snaps upright again. "Right. Poison Heal. That… sounds right."

“Laventon told me the medicine had Shellder venom in it, so we knew you were going to be tired, but I didn’t expect you to crash on the couch like that. You were asleep for so long we started to get worried! I came in to check on you to make sure you-” Emmet laughs nervously. “Yeah.”

Oh, that’s why everything tastes like grepa for some reason. And persim. Why is it always grepa flavored medicine? Horrible.

“But you’re awake now! This is good. You are doing verrrry well,” Emmet earnestly praises. “I need you to answer some questions for me. Is that alright?”

Ingo’s body wants nothing more than to fall back asleep, and yet somehow the prospect of closing his eyes again fills him with dread. So he nods. His brother asked him a question. He can answer a question.

“Do you know where we are right now?” Emmet starts. “It’s okay if you don’t. I just want my brother to be honest with me.”

“111 at Sigilyph & Castle Row,” Ingo recites. “Old Raimon district of Nimbasa City in Unova. Nimbasa City is the most populous city in the Unova region and the third-most populous in the world, behind-”

“Alright, alright, you don’t need to recite the Bulbapedia page!” Emmet uneasily laughs. “What year is it right now?”

“2014-” Ingo blinks. “2015,” he haltingly corrects. “Because today is April 5, and I would- I would be 31 years old today.”

Emmet lets out a surprised noise. “Huh. Okay. Who am I? Who are we?”

“I am Ingo… Arnon Tamadensha. You’re my twin brother, Emmet Anata Tamadensha. Tomorrow’s your birthday. We’ve lived in this house since we were 19 years old, because-” Ingo’s voice catches on his words. “-because we never told anyone, but this was Mama’s house before she got married. We found it as soon as we could. When anyone asked, we said it was for the better commute.”

“I am Emmet. Thank you for answering my questions.” Emmet pulls himself away from Ingo’s arms, and Ingo catches him by the hand. “I need to go get something from the other room.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ingo quickly says.

“You need to rest-”

“Don’t leave me,” Ingo quietly pleads. “Please, I’m sorry, I’m trying, don’t leave.”

A long pause.

“Do you want me to stay?” Emmet asks, uncertainty in his eyes.

“I want my brother,” Ingo simply says.

“Okay. Okay.” Emmet squeezes Ingo’s hand before he lets go and walks towards the door. “I will be back very soon. I promise. Lady An’ will wait with you.”

=#[o]#=

Akari slams the door behind her, human hands clawing at her body as she desperately peels a stranger’s face off of her skin.

“Nii-san is not well,” Emmet’s voice says to a horrified Laventon, crawling out of Akari’s mouth like a stubborn Joltik. “Very, verrrry unwell. His memories gave me this body before he even opened his eyes. He has never done that before.”

“I knew his psychic damage was old, but I’ve never heard of this kind of reaction before,” Laventon worriedly mutters. “Let me go inside and talk to him-”

“NO! No, no, no, those tracks will not lead us to a safe destination.” The foreign, reflexive smile on Akari’s face twitches. “His mind is a mess right now, Professor. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t even know when he is. If he sees you without an explanation, I don’t think he will take it well.”

“You’re not taking it well either.” Doctor Yukino rakes a critical eye over Akari’s unwillingly blended features. “Is this your first time sight-reading off a human like this before?”

“I made Akari myself,” she explains. “I’ve- I’ve never had to be someone else before, not pulling it out of someone’s head like this! Ingo doesn’t like when we wear his face. He won’t even let Sen’s troop do it properly. I don’t understand why he just threw all of that at me! He even showed me what his old house looked like!”

Laventon hums with thought. “Perhaps it is a combination of your inexperience and his high command level. His mind is searching for something coherent and you were a suitable actor to provide it.”

Akari shoves a white Subway Boss hat over her face and whines. “What did you put in that thing? Why did he even agree to take it if this is what would happen?”

“40% Shellder toxin, 25% Stantler powder, 15% Lilligant flower oils, 10% grepa, and 10% persim,” Laventon recites.

“You said it wasn’t that much poison!”

“And we also said that we needed to up the dosage so it would get past his Poison Heal ability,” Laventon points out.

“Bones and grepa! Everything about human medicine sounds fake!” Akari shudders. “I can’t believe he drank that stuff.”

“The Medical Corps approached him about a psychic damage medicine,” Laventon explains. “There are certain formulas in Hisui already, but we were able to cooperate with the healers to make a more efficient dose. These things were made for immediate treatment, of course, and the Pearl Clan had already done their best, but we had- we had hoped we might bring him some improvement. And he had hoped so as well. I called you over because he was unconscious for longer than he should have been and… you know better about what’s normal for him than I do.”

“And now his brain is stuck in the wrong century,” Akari bites out. “Great. Does this wear off, or are we going to war with the Pearl Clan for breaking one of their Wardens?”

“Ah- well, you see- it does wear off on its own, but-” Laventon laughs nervously. “It may take several hours?”

A white coat forces itself over Akari’s body as her body lengthens. “I am Emmet. You poisoned my brother. I am going to strangle you.” A pause. “In a pokemon battle.”

“What did you intend to do if the medicine worked properly?” Yukino asks.

“We already knew any initial changes would be temporary, so Ingo asked me to conduct an interview with him when he woke. Compile any information that came to his mind before it left.” Laventon drags a hand over his face. “Though I suppose those plans will have to take a rain check.”

“He consented to be interviewed,” Yukino summarizes.

“Yes?”

“He consented to interview by whatever means necessary?” Yukino presses.

“I suppose?” Laventon hesitantly agrees. “Not in so many words, but there was a palpable desperation to this agreement. He did tell me beforehand that we were allowed to experiment with anything that jogged his memory.”

Yukino tilts his head, stares at Akari, and puts on the body of Emmet Tamadensha. “If this is what our patient desires, I am willing to do whatever it takes to follow his wishes. Do you accept?”

“I can do it,” Akari insists.

“You do not have to,” Yukino reminds her. “This is a matter of your consent as well. The patient is clearly not in a state to show any of his usual regard for you."

"You've done this before," Akari realizes.

"Your patient is the most severe case I have seen," Yukino admits, "but he is not the first. I have taken many trusted faces to lead fevered soldiers to safety when they strand themselves."

Laventon puts a hand on Akari's shoulder. He doesn't look into the glass eyes of the face she's wearing.

"I know I could never stop you," he gently says, "and I won't. But I want you to know it doesn't have to be you."

Akari stays silent for a long while.

"He asked me to stay. I want to stay. Let's conduct our dear passenger's wishes, shall we, Professor?" Akari knocks Emmet's hand on the door. "Lady An'? A moment, please."

If she had just been Akari Shou, she wouldn't have been able to parse the expression on Lady An's immovable face, but the eyes of Emmet Tamadensha, as seen through Ingo's memory, can see that this Chandelure is fucking pissed.

"Nii-san isn't well," Emmet's body says, “and you know what that means. I need your help."

Lady An’ bristles with disdain- whether at the sight of Emmet’s stolen face, or the level of deception Ingo’s been placed under, either one would be justified. Emmet is a subject Ingo has never let anything in Hisui touch, not even himself, and it feels strange to partake in this. This barely-intended secret that Akari has always known, the open question neither of them have ever asked. It would be strange no matter what, even if Ingo would have allowed it.

(Perhaps especially if he allowed it.)

Akari is half-tempted to tell Doctor Yukino that no one should be doing this. Lady An’ could put Ingo to sleep easily enough, and they could all wait out the effects of this botched experiment until it runs its course. And yet, and yet, and yet.

I am Emmet. I am a Subway Boss. I like Double Battles. I like combinations of two Pokémon. And I like winning more than anything else.

She is not Emmet, but this body is. Emmet as Ingo remembers him, a script more expansive than anything she’s ever seen before. If he were here now, he would do whatever it takes to bring Ingo’s terrible hopes to reality. Because having to tell Ingo that the opportunity to comb his memory was right there, and no one let him take it, would be a heartbreak Emmet couldn’t stand.

…And so, he will not.

“I am not Emmet,” Akari soberly says to Lady An’, “but Emmet is the only person who can help him right now. If we’re going to do this right, I need someone who knows both of them better than I do. This might be his only chance to have a record of things he might otherwise never remember alone. Help me help him.”

Lady An’s flames flicker with agreement, and Akari knows it isn’t made out of trust. It will still have to be enough.

(This face, this name, this sacrilegious phantom made of a past the immortal Fox cannot recall, it remembered him human first. As long as Akari lets it live within her, it will do whatever it can. For him.)

Read the lines, lift from the script. Let the fox and the girl both be buried under this clay, and sculpt its life with as much love as can be spared. The body that is not Emmet, the body that cannot be Emmet, the body that must be Emmet for this first and final time. Even still, the Zorua must not forget Akari Shou. There are people in this world who are fond of her face, and she cannot be lost in favor of Emmet.

What was it that ATO 001 had called the body of Akari Shou? Subway Boss A. Kari. How improvised. Perhaps a tad too improvised, but if it takes a maintenance car to restore this two-car train, then so be it.

Follow the rules. Safe driving!

“Follow the schedule. Everybody smile!” Subway Boss Kari Tamadensha claps his hands together, a thin and pointed grin pushing into his glass-tinted eyes. “Check safety. Is everything ready?”

“The typewriter is already in the room,” Laventon confirms. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Then we must aim for victory! All aboard!” Kari opens the door, smiles for his brother, and lets the memory of Emmet Tamadensha flood his ears. “Nii-san, we have a visitor on our schedule. Is it alright if he asks us a few questions?”

Chapter Text

“So, would you two young men mind introducing yourselves?”

“Fire-roar vesselgendered,” Ingo simply says. “You may address me as a conductor.”

“Storm-song vesselgendered,” Kari echoes in Emmet’s place. “You may address me as conductor as well.”

“Does that pronoun differently than non-Draconian binaries?” Laventon asks. “I can’t recall.”

“Masculine pronouns are… sufficient,” Ingo vaguely answers. “It’s not as if we need to elaborate on the state of our cars, regardless. Draconians consider biological details to be intimate information.”

“Oji-san showed us a list, but that was too confusing,” Kari elaborates. “So we just picked the fastest pronouns to say and write.”

“Fascinating!” Laventon’s typewriter click-click-clicks away with the telltale momentum of a rapidly approaching conversational tangent. “I understand the trianary labels reflect particular roles in the community. What does it mean for you to be a vessel?”

“To render service,” Ingo explains. “To void ourselves of ambition so that we may carry the ambition of others.”

Kari nods. “And this is verrrrry important as a Subway Boss. Yup! We are responsible for the safety and swift travel of everyone who rides our trains.”

“Train work sounds rather eccentric for a Draconian,” Laventon lightly comments.

“Draconians pursue any necessary line of work, but our uncle was a Dragon Master. He was saddened to hear we surrendered our careers as battlers.” Ingo tilts his head coyly. “And he was utterly baffled when we explained the trains would be our dragons from now on.”

“That man is a priest,” Kari snickers. “He badge proctored at a temple. I can’t believe he forgot trains were a perfectly valid Tao.”

“How embarrassing for him!”

Emmet would start talking about their draconic hoard of electric trains right now. Emmet would start listing every single serviceable train in the Unovan national railway system in numerical order by complexity. Emmet would talk about trains for six hours until someone made him stop, and it certainly wouldn’t be Ingo. Unfortunately, nothing about this interview is real, so Kari will have to settle for vibrating in place and keeping his fucking mouth shut about trains. Why does he have to comprehend trains? Akari never had to comprehend trains. He feels like a Durant staring at a circuit board. He knows what both of those things are, and he hates it.

But there are worse things in the world than letting Ingo do the talking. More terrible fates than to watch Ingo speak with complete and utter certainty about himself for the first and only time since a Zorua knew him.

"There's not much else in the way of introduction past that," Ingo finally continues. "We're albino Shinies, but you could guess that well enough. Beyond appearances, it affects some of the structure in our skin and bones, and our autism creates some anomalies in our muscle tone-"

"-though we can't be sure how much of that was from our mother Cassandra," Kari continues at Lady An's silent prompting. "She was born frail."

"Was," Laventon softly repeats.

Ingo doesn't say anything else, and Kari realizes the Tamadensha twins have been asked this many, many times before. How strange. How strange, suddenly, to know that Emmet Tamadensha, the stranger Kari has never met, feels so much open guilt over this particular thing that Ingo has always been the one to explain their mothers' absence.

It is the first time in over a decade that Ingo is remembering his mothers have died, and he is saying nothing. A lifelong bearer of bad news, silenced by the one thing that Emmet could never say to someone other than themselves.

(Then again, Emmet doesn't have to. Kari can figure out the rest.)

"Thundurus-Tornadus," Kari elaborates. "Castelia City, 1993. We were nine years old. Our uncle raised us alone after that."

"Yes. In Opelucid City, up north. I believe it was almost three years before we set foot in Nimbasa City again."

"Nimbasa's your hometown proper, then?" Laventon asks. "I'm not familiar with the place. Tell me more about it."

"The entire underground rail system runs through the city," Ingo starts. "All rails lead to Nimbasa, and as such the area gradually turned into a place of leisure and entertainment for travelers. Though I admit, with our conditions, we do not see much of it during the day."

"It would hurt verrrrry much, after all." 

"There is the Rondez-view park, though," Ingo allows. "Lovely place to get toys for our pokemon when we're on break."

"And the train bentos!" Kari butts in. "They have signature dishes for every station! We always grab one for dinner-"

"-if we don't have other plans," Ingo amends. "Elesa is so fond of derailing us."

"She is a model. And a Gym Leader. She also does design, but only unique pieces. I've made costumes with her before. And she bullies me so much. I am Emmet, and she bullies me, specifically."

"I miss her," Ingo suddenly says. "I love her. I- I miss her."

He pauses.

"I don't know why I said that," he mutters. "I only just saw her yesterday. I'm sorry." He digs his fingers over the bridge of his nose. "I am sorry, I don't know why I feel exhausted."

"We could stop if you need to rest," Kari offers. "Our guest would not mind if we had to reroute our schedules."

"No, no, I'm fine," Ingo frantically assures. "There is nothing to report. I wish to continue. There is so much more to say, after all!"

Kari hears the desperation buried in his platitudes. Ingo knows, deep down, this will be the only opportunity he gets.

"I want to hear you talk about Nimbasa City again," Kari offers.

Ingo takes Kari's hand, presses into his side, and contentedly obliges.

The Warden has told Akari many things, but he speaks differently to Kari. He welcomed Akari's space by his right side and happily accepted the physical push and pull of her affections like a beloved child- and it does heal some motherless thing in her when he speaks to her softly, when he sets aside a sliver of his heart for her.

He speaks to Kari like a man deeply, truly known. The intent of his words barges between Kari's ears like a battering ram eagerly anticipating the castle gates, and Kari knows, to some extent, this is only because he believes Kari is his mirror, and his mind has been cracked so wide open he can be nothing but sincere. And yet, and yet, and yet, he speaks of Nimbasa City, of the unique face behind every corner store, of Castelia's ice cream vendors crawling in like an invasive species every summer, of Pidoves roosting in townhouse roofs, of glass buildings reaching for the sky, of street lights that illuminate the night but not enough to drown out the stars. It is not love- no love that Kari can understand- but there is longing, ache, crawling out of Ingo's words like a parasite and making itself at home in Kari's beating heart. Suddenly, he misses a place he has never been. He wishes he had lived a century past his time, where pokemon are loved so deeply that ghosts and foxes are nothing more than just another citizen of the electric city.

Emmet Tamadensha would not feel this ache, because the electric city is all he's ever known. For a moment, Kari hates him, hates even the idea of him, for being so full of love. To be so full of love, to be so loved. Who could stand to love another thing so badly? Who could stand to love and be loved by this- this- this terrible man with a too loud voice and a face that never smiles for anything?

(Akari knows what Ingo's smiles look like. Emmet knows what Ingo's smiles look like.)

"You certainly have a lot to say about your Depot Agents and other friends," Laventon offers, "but what about each other?"

Kari points at Ingo. "Bastard man," he reflexively spits the way Emmet has a thousand times. "Bastard who wants to put Wishiwashi on our pizza."

"I would never!" Ingo oh-so-innocently denies. "I have never done such a thing!"

"You will," Kari gravely prophesies. "You're waiting for me to drop my guard and stop reminding you not to, I know it."

"You're as paranoid as a blind Hydregion sometimes, you know that?"

"Takes one to know one, you little shit-"

Ingo punches into Kari's shoulder and Kari reflexively grabs at his hand, pushing forward trying to reach for Ingo's hat. Their feet beat into the floor under the couch until Kari shoves Ingo into a headlock, forcing the man's hat down over his face. Ingo slumps bonelessly against Kari's chest as his exhaustion rears its head again, and he doesn't bother leaving his new position.

“Ingo and I are twins,” Kari says. “He's verrrry strong. He hardly ever loses in Pokémon battles. We're both Subway Bosses, and we're each other's closest rival! It's always a lot of fun when we're together! We always challenge each other to get better. That's the kind of relationship we have! Our combination is the best.” His voice quiets. “It's perfect.”

“We're a well-oiled machine, brother,” Ingo simply says. “It is a constant and welcome battle to keep up with you. I would be loathe to uncouple this two car train by falling behind on our shared progress.”

I like winning more than anything else. But it's only really winning when I get to share it with you.

Perhaps there is an unspoken, unconscious realization between Ingo and Kari both, that the tears so badly trying and failing to well in Kari’s eyes are not his own.

Kari wonders how long six hours is. He wonders how much time they have left. He wonders if they ever had time at all.

“You two must’ve been very close,” Laventon notes.

“All of our lives!” Ingo easily answers. “I don’t think we’ve ever been apart for longer than-”

The memory of Ingo and Emmet’s Nimbasa home cracks and spasms into a sea of endless stars and skittering eyes for a brief moment.

“Apart for longer than- apart for longer than- apart for- for- for- for-”

Kari pulls away, hesitantly resting a hand on Ingo’s arm. “Where are you stuck, nii-san?”

“It can’t- it can’t be 2015,” Ingo stammers. “It was 2014 when I was with you yesterday- but I know it’s my birthday today, but- but we already- we already celebrated our birthday in April earlier, yesterday was June and- and then I-”

Kari almost tells him to stop pushing himself, but Lady An’ quietly stoppers his mouth. She wants him to let this happen. She wants Ingo to keep going.

“-I told you… to go home without me. I had to accompany a child passenger on…” Ingo’s voice trails off. “...Single Train 001.” His eyes flick to Kari. Suddenly, he looks terrified. “Emmet. Emmet, how did I-”

An involuntary, shuddering breath with far too much liquid for his lungs. A liquid that skitters, wriggles, spills out of his mouth like the muddy contents of an inkstone, coagulating in the air as it writes itself into being, a singular hieroglyph opening a flat, gaping eye. He stares at the thing, frozen in place. The hieroglyph tilts its body with a friendly chirp, and leans towards his face as if it wants to perch on him.

Ingo violently lurches back. He crawls out of the couch like a panicked, frenzied animal, an incoherent stream of frightened protests babbling out of him like a flooding stream.

“No, no, no, no no no no NO NO NO-”

It’s this tiny, tiny thing, barely larger than a written letter. It looks like a pokemon of some sort, and Ingo’s… never been afraid of any pokemon, big or small, no matter how strange the introduction. Not in Emmet’s memory. Not in Ingo’s.

Not before Single Train 001.

“I GOT OUT, I KNOW I GOT OUT, YOU CAN’T TAKE ME BACK THERE, YOU C-C-C-C-C-” The creature sputters forward and Ingo’s piercing shout devolves into a shaking whimper. “You can’t, you can’t, it’s not real, you can’t…”

Laventon, armed with a book, mug, and years of living with someone scared of bugs, quickly traps the hieroglyph out of sight, and Ingo flinches. Lady An’s tendrils steady his fall as he backs into the wall. A Zorua and its stolen face watches the stupidest, strongest, scariest person they’ve ever met in their short existence curl up into a ball and beg for his life. 

“Hey, hey.” Something of the fox and the girl unburies itself from the clay, a piece of Akari’s softer voice emerging from Kari’s words. “It’s okay, nii-san. You’re okay.”

“Don’t be real. Please, gods, don’t be real.” Even as he begs, Ingo moves to put himself between Kari and the trapped hieroglyph. “You can’t let them, you can’t- don’t let them take you too, don’t let them put me back, don’t be real, please- ”

“It’s alright, nii-san,” Kari grimly decides. “I’m not real.”

Ingo’s frantic face collapses with relief. “Oh, thank the Dragons. Not my Emmet, not my Emmet.”

“I’m not real,” Kari softly says again. “But I’m still here, nii-san. And I won’t leave you until you let me go.”

Ingo’s hands dig into Kari’s arms. If Kari's clay had been flesh, it would have hurt. But Kari is only clay. 

"You remember, don't you?" Kari gently asks. "You remember what happened to you on Single Train 001."

Ingo shakes his head in a stilted, jerking manner. The natural sharpness of Kari's smile softens, just a bit, as he takes off their hats and runs a hand over Ingo's hair.

"I am not Emmet," Kari finally admits. "But I am your brother, and I love you still. What happened to you, Ingo?"

There is something buried in that broken train car. Something so important that Ingo was not willing to leave its memory to chance. For the victory of a man that Kari has never met, he must do everything he can to find it.

"It was June," Ingo starts. "It was nearly midnight. I was waiting for you to come back from running the Double Battles when Lady An' told me there was a passenger still inside the station, so I went with her to investigate. We found a boy- a very young and lost Sinoan boy named Rei."

Kari and Laventon freeze in place.

"He told me he needed to meet someone at Dragonspiral Tower. I summoned Single Train 001 after hours and I went with him. I told you to go home without me because I suspected I would need to bring him to the authorities later."

"Why would you do such a thing?" Laventon asks.

"There was a fairgrounds nearby Gear Station," Ingo bluntly reveals. "Sometimes, humans are cruel, and leave their children somewhere nice before never coming back."

Kari sucks in a breath.

"We were in between Icirrus and Opelucid when the ATO lost contact with Gear Station. There was- there were- I thought we had derailed. I tried to move the passenger to the center car to decrease risk of collision injury, but-" Ingo's hands start to shake. "Something was trying to force itself inside the train. And it succeeded."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. I don't care. It took Rei and then those things, they-"

Ingo's mouth clicks shut, hand clamping around his throat.

"We're not there anymore," Kari reminds him. "You won't go back. I promise."

"Nothing is real in there," Ingo fearfully whispers. "You can't move, you can't speak, you can't breathe, you can't even think. Not without those eyes watching you everywhere and touching you constantly, crawling inside your- they wouldn't stop. Every day I wake up, and they still won't stop, I can still feel them under my-"

Ingo hugs his chest, hands digging like claws into his black undershirt as he finally runs out of anything to say. Kari realizes, distantly, how much of Ingo's skin that undershirt covers. The very edge of his wrist, as high up his neck as he could get away with. Akari's seen footwraps on his legs, too, under the pants and shoes. Akari thought it was weird. Like he was secretly afraid of something crawling under his skin.

Now, Ingo rocks in place, burrowing into Kari's coat as his body wracks with heaving sobs.

"I just want it to stop. It hurts. Please, I just want it to stop."

"It'll be over soon," Kari promises.

"No it won't," Ingo chokes out. "Every time I remember, it happens all over again. Every time. It grows and grows until it has nowhere else to go, and I- it goes away. Like this claw sitting in my skull, shoveling out inkstones and all my memories with it."

"Amnesia," Laventon says. He blinks. "No, no, wait, Amnesia. The Psychic-type move Amnesia! That's your fourth move, the one we couldn't diagnose! You're reflexively using Amnesia!"

Ingo laughs sadly. "Am I meant to simply stop forgetting, Professor? I would have done that years ago!"

"Your Amnesia is not a flaw, do you understand? It has been protecting your mind all this time from this- this cognitohazard that's been implanted inside you. You are functioning as best as you can, exactly as intended. You are not flawed." The intensity of Laventon's expression softens with compassion. "But we can do better for you than function, I believe."

"He's never had control over it before," Kari points out.

"Before, yes," Laventon concedes. "But while he is under the effects of a medicine that is currently granting him total access of his memories, perhaps we can move forward with a bit of intent."

"It can't be that simple," Ingo dismisses.

"It's not. Your memory recall is extremely damaged, and your move set has little to do with that. Amnesia is affecting how much you lose and how quickly you have to lose it. If you can consciously prune the-" Laventon shakes the trapped creature in his mug. "-this whole situation, before your mind decides to, it may improve some things overall."

Ingo stares down at the floor. "I'm still going to forget. I'm still- I'm still going to be like this."

"Yes," Laventon confirms. "And I am so, so sorry. But I am so glad you asked me to help you uncover this, because now we can work to leave you better than where we started."

Laventon's hands fidget.

"I used to teleport clear across Galar," he admits. And I still can't control where I go these days, but… I can choose when to go. It's as easy as that, when it's done. When you learn how to do it once, it never leaves you again."

"Alright." Ingo takes a breath. "Alright."

=#[o]#=

Ingo's never died before, but for the first and final time, he knows what forgetting will feel like.

The lights are low. Birds are flitting just behind the curtains, chirping to themselves, slivers of their shadow playing on the floor beneath the windows.

Emmet Anata Tamadensha's body is holding Ingo in his arms. He is not Emmet. He was never Emmet. He is somehow, still, Ingo's brother, and Ingo knows he will not have enough time to think about what that means for either of them.

His brother is afraid. His brother does not know what will happen. He does not know what will happen, either. He's going to live with it anyway.

Forgetting feels like being buried alive.

Professor Petal Laventon, Professor Laventon, Professor, a man. A friend on talkative nights, a reliable conversationalist, a well-meaning foreigner, a stranger in a lab coat.

The Survey Corps lab room, a room in the Galaxy Hall, a room full of books, the ground floor of a building.

Emmet Anata Tamadensha, younger twin, housemate, Subway Boss. Emmet Tamadensha, younger brother, Subway Boss. Emmet, Subway Boss. Man in white. Uncanny smile, signifying nothing.

Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. He was a Subway Boss. He was thirty years old. He was thirty years old. He was a Warden. He was a vessel. He had a brother who liked winning more than anything more than anything more than anything-

Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. He was a Subway Boss. He was a Warden. He couldn't stand the sun. He loved watching the stars. He loved the weight of his coat on his back, and even though it would never show on his face, he loved to laugh. 

Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. He was a friend. He was family. He was a brother. He was a Subway Boss. 

When he was 30 years old, he thinks there might have been a train accident.

Ingo Arnon Tamadensha.

Ingo Ar--n Tamadensha.

Ingo A---- T-made-s--a.

Ingo T--a-----a.

Ingo.

I-

(ei?)

Hello, ei.

(Hello, ei.)

Your name is Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. You are a Subway Boss. You are a Pearl Clan's Fox. You are the Warden of the Cliffs to Lady Sneasler.

(Who are you?)

Ei.

(Okay.)

You are Ingo.

(I am Ingo.)

When you were thirty years old, there was an accident, and… your car never quite repaired itself.

(I'm sorry.)

It wasn't your fault. It's been twelve years. Everyone tried their best.

(Tried… again.)

Yes. There was a medical procedure. We learned what you needed to know. When you feel like you can stand, Lady An' will take you home and we'll send some papers with you. The Pearl Clan will take care of the rest.

"Lady An'..."

You've started talking again. That's verrrrry good. I'm glad you'll be alright.

"Ei…"

Yes. I have to go.

"No, wait, don'..."

Doctor's orders, Ingo. I promise you'll be alright. You won't be alone this time.

(When Warden Ingo the immortal Fox wakes up, the man in white is gone.)

Chapter Text

“Good afternoon, Warden,” A (Pearl Clan uniform) greets, familiarity and warmth in their voice.

(Warden) blinks.

“Yes,” (Warden) answers. “It is afternoon.”

(Pearl Clan uniform) (young man) frowns. “Are you alright, Fox? You don’t look well.”

(Warden) (Fox) looks down at (his) body. There is no apparent damage to (his) car. “There is no damage report, Lian.”

Pearl Clan uniform- Lian, Lian, Lian- tenses his hand on the brim of his hat. 

“I’m forty-two years old,” (Fox) hears (himself) relay. “Today was my birthday.”

Lian’s eyes widen. “You’ve never had a birthday before. Did- did you remember something new, Fox? That’s wonderful, we should-”

“The Super Single Train has reached the end of its service hours today,” (Warden) (Fox) (Subway Boss) says. “All trains must recall to Anville Town. All aboard.”

“Hold on- hold on, Ingo, tell Irida at least before-”

“This train making no stops ever again.” Ingo grabs onto (Lady An’) and lets his body be dragged away further into the (Pearl Clan Obsidian Fieldlands Settlement). “All a- boaaaaard.”

He wonders where Lady An' is taking him. He knows it doesn't really matter. She always takes him where he needs to go. He just wonders. (Doctor Y----- said it was good to question a little bit, even if he couldn't remember the answer, because thinking about it will help him remember it later.)

Is he going to work? Surely not in this state of disrepair. His body is unharmed, but he feels like he's about to pass out on the nearest acceptable surface, and that alone fails safety checks. The hand that isn't holding onto his partner is holding a tied leather folder full of papers he was asked to read… later. Fascinating. No one's ever given him papers in Hisui.

Happened every day in Nimbasa. Best not to think about it. Nimbasa is not here now. The Pearl Clan is here now.

The Pearl Clan is familiar. Appearing in the settlement is not. Appearing in the settlement is recent. Enforced. Nakkara- Nakkara- Nakkara- Irida had ordered him to appear in the settlement more often. His working hours had been overbooked previously and this has been recently corrected. He must allow others to perform safety checks.

Why was Lian around? Obsidian Fieldlands. Right. He works there. It would be easy for him to visit. Right.

Dragons, he's so tired.

"Ah! Hello, Ingo." A young woman with very pearlescent hair turns towards him, equal parts stern and fond. "The Galaxy Hall just radioed us from the Heights Camp that you would be returning to us."

"Good heavens, we have radio now? We're really moving up in the world, aren't we, Lady Irida?"

"The new joint outposts have been going well," Irida confirms. "Even if some among our number must cohabitate with the Diamond Clan. We'll have to construct more facilities to make those places more self-sufficient. I'll be wanting your input later for the Highlands outposts."

Ingo uncouples his hand from Lady An', adjusting the (Galaxy Hall papers) into the crook of his arm while taking his notebook out to write a short reminder.

"How was your procedure?" Irida asks. "I assume nothing went wrong, at least."

"There was a lot of…"

Ingo says nothing for a good twenty seconds.

"...talking." 

Lady An’ takes a single paper out of the folder and nudges it into Ingo’s hands. 

“Ah. Thank you. I’m meant to give this to my… next… of… kin.” With every word, Ingo’s voice becomes smaller, muted. “Lady Irida, do I- do I have a next of kin?”

“Nakkara- my mother, the previous Clan leader- held you in her house when you first came to us,” Irida explains. “But Itachi was the one who claimed responsibility for you, if I remember correctly. I don’t think he would mind if you visited him again. Does Lady An’ know how to take you to him?”

Lady An’ rocks side to side, then hums in confirmation, and Ingo lets her lure him away once again.

There’s a lanky man with short choppy hair and scraggly sideburns. His hair might have been powder blue once, but age has withered his colors with sweeping grays and whites. Old claw scratches and bite marks crawl up his arms, and his face is sanded rough by years of mountain air and frost-laden winds. The Chatot at his shoulder whispers in his ear to signal Ingo’s approach, and his unfriendly face suddenly melts away with a weary, knowing smile.

“Hello, Warden,” Itachi says.

Hello, Warden, Ingo signs back.

“I don’t need help hearing the likes of you, son,” Itachi snarks. “Been half deaf for seven years now and your voice still bangs loud and clear on my eardrums. If you start signing on top of that I won’t catch a thing.” His eyes flick to the paper in Ingo’s hands. “Is that yours or mine?”

“It’s about me. I was told to give it to you. Or anyone willing to accept it.”

“I’ll have a look then. At least the damn thing’s in proper Hisuian.” Itachi hums as he mulls over the written words. “You know what this says?”

“If I did, I don’t remember it,” Ingo admits.

“Wants someone to make sure you wake up tomorrow,” Itachi relays. “We gotta watch your head for a bit, see if you start forgetting more than your day-to-day. Says you’ve picked up a new trick to scrape the ghosts in your brain.”

“Yes- yes, that does sound right,” Ingo confirms. 

“Mm. Anything you want me to know?”

“I’m forty-two years old.”

Itachi’s eyebrows raise. He starts chuckling to himself, a shaking hand covering the laugh lines of his smile. “Sinnoh’s fucking mercy. You really are old enough to be my son. Calaba will never let me hear the end of it now.” He stands up and lightly claps a hand on Ingo’s cheek. “You stay with me tonight. I don’t mind. It’ll be like old times.”

Itachi. Warden of the Lord Sneasler, who was father to the Lady Sneasler. Wardens select their successor candidates. Itachi chose Ingo.

Itachi dug a broken delirious man out of the snow who no one even believed was human, and chose him.

The least Ingo can do for him is wake up tomorrow, and despite it all, he does. He wakes up to an extinguished fireplace and a pair of small hands patting at his chest.

“See? I told you his heart is too fast! He’s just built wrong.”

“Lian’s heart does that too, though.”

“Yeah, but he’s little. Fox ain’t little!”

Ghostfire sparks around Ingo’s body as he lets out an incoherent grunt, and the young voices let out a delighted scream as they roll back from the display.

Two young boys in Pearl Clan uniforms- the oldest can't be more than ten. They both have long pale hair, stony eyes, and identical innocent smiles.

Little liars, Lady An' teasingly whispers in his mind.

"This isn't your house," Ingo hazily recalls. "What are you two doing here?"

"I'm delegating," Itachi says as he brushes down a napping Sneasel. "I don't do shit these days. Staying with me the whole time won't tell us anything about what's missing in your head."

"Fair enough." Ingo turns his head back to the boys. "What are your names? I can almost remember, but it still escapes me."

"I'm Edric," the younger one says. "This one's Alric."

"We are…" Alric pauses dramatically. "Your sons."

"Really, now?" Ingo tonelessly asks.

"You made us! Honest!"

Ingo stares at the two boys. They do look something like him. There's something familiar in the sternness of Alric's brows, and neither of them feel like strangers.

He could believe they're his biological children for all of the two minutes it takes for him to become very physically aware why that wouldn't be possible.

Ingo's mouth quirks as he reaches out his hand. He tugs their long hair and pinches their noses and pats their faces, then stands, grabbing for his hat… and little Alric as well, scooping the boy off the ground and into the crook of his arm.

“Hey!” Edric shouts. “You can’t do that!”

“Ah, but this is my dear son Alric!” Ingo innocently parrots back. “I must bring him back to my Highlands home to do all the chores he’s missed!”

“Kaa-san!” Alric complains as Ingo walks them out of Itachi’s yurt. “Fox is kidnapping me!”

“My beautiful son, he has finally become a man,” Ingo dutifully continues. “I must secret him away to learn the ways of the holy order.”

Their mother, Mita, laughs rakishly, slapping a wooden spoon against the skirt of her tunic. “I knew this day would come, dear husband. Make sure to bring him back with most of his fingers!”

“Most of them?” Edric cries.

“The fearsome Hisuian drop Sneasels have voracious appetites,” Ingo ominously says. “Anything could happen.”

Alric screams dramatically, slapping his hands on Ingo’s back as they walk off into camp. “I don’t wanna be eaten by drop Sneasels. Okaa-saaaaaaaan!”

Mita quietly waves her sons goodbye, wiping a faux tear from her face with the hood of her tunic. Her actual husband, a strong shouldered man with blue, slick-backed hair, sticks his head out the curtain of their yurt to squint tiredly at the display.

Edric tugs on Ingo’s tunic, heels dragging into the ground. “Tou-san! Help! Fox is gonna feed Alric to the drop Sneasels!”

The man blinks blearily. “You went and tried to tell the poor man you’re his kids again, didn’t you?”

“He wasn’t supposed to believe us!” Edric insists. “He never does that!”

“It’s your own damn fault if you can’t commit to the bit, you little fucking demons!” the man shouts back. “I’ve half a mind to let him chuck you off Mount Coronet while he’s at it! Maybe you’ll learn some sense!”

Ingo holds up Alric to Lady An’. “He still has a soul, Lady An’! You know what that means!”

Lady An’ vibrates menacingly, tendrils waggling comically at the child. A Froslass bats her aside and dramatically scoops Alric away in her arms.

“Alas. My son has vanished before my tender eyes. His memory fades into the ether.” Ingo turns to the blue haired man. “Hello, Gaeric-” A violently intrusive memory flashes before Ingo’s eyes, and his gaze flits down to Gaeric’s covered chest with resignation and mild disgust. “Warden.”

"Love, I know you're an honest man,” Mita says, “but why does Ingo always remember to look at you with the hatred of imprisoned gods?"

"He looks at everyone like that!” Gaeric defends. “That's just his face!"

"I'd believe you, but the fact you felt like you had to defend yourself is more damning than anything else."

“You of all people would know the atrocities this man has committed against his own body,” Ingo says.

Mita’s eyes flick up and down over Gaeric’s chest. “Oh, that? I like my men chiseled, that’s all.”

“Why do you like men?” Edric loudly asks. “Do they taste good when you grill them over rice?”

“You can’t grill men over rice!” Alric dismisses. “That’s how you turn into a vampire! Bellamis from the Survey Corps said so!”

Gaeric stares down at his son with such a baffled, mildly disappointed expression that Ingo has to actively suppress the urge to laugh in his face. Ingo instead settles for letting his fists vibrate stiffly at his sides as he makes unflinching eye contact with the other man.

“Well now I know you’re having a great day, Fox,” Mita snarks. “You’ve always looked like you wanted to bury Gaeric in a shallow grave whenever you’re utterly delighted to see him.”

"I would never bury someone in a shallow grave," Ingo insists. "A hoard of Goodras would dispose of a human corpse with far greater efficiency."

"At least have the decency to feed me to Lord Avalugg," Gaeric despairs. "Then my soul would rest with Sinnoh, as the gods intended."

"Bold of you to assume I would leave you with a soul."

Mita snorts and pushes Gaeric past the threshold of the yurt with a hearty slap across the back. “If the two of you are lively enough to discuss your funeral rites, you can do my chores while you’re at it. I need pickles, Snover berries, Tangela sprigs, and Stantler knuckles before lunch.” A pause. “And watmel. I know one of those stalls is hiding the good watmel from me. Go get it.”

“You’re the boss, boss.” Gaeric slings an arm across Ingo’s shoulders and walks them towards the center of the settlement. “Come on, let’s go. If you can’t tell a good watmel when you see one, then we’ll really know the Galaxy Team cracked you in the head, eh?”

The settlement itself has no buildings to speak of- rather, it is a series of yurts, rickshaws, and wagons, converging on each other in concentric circles around a large standing stone. Lady An’s dutiful whisper reminds him what is buried under the glyph covered earth that surrounds it- centuries upon centuries of human bodies, clan leaders and their families who have surrendered their souls in death to fuel the psychic shield that keeps all these settlements free from attack.

Menhir, Ingo recalls. Menhir, standing stone, orthostat, or lith. The Menhir Trail is an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites, consisting of stone alignments (rows), dolmens (stone tombs), tumuli (burial mounds) and single menhirs (standing stones). More than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local granite and erected by the people of Kalos and form the largest such collection in the world. Most of the stones are within the municipality of Geosenge Town, but some to the east are within neighboring Cyllage City. This exodus of stones forms the trajectory of Kalos Route 10-

“Hey, you’re the one with the Tangela, Fox. Do these sprigs look alright to you?”

Ingo snaps one in half with his hands, listening closely as it crackles. “It depends. Does she want to grind them down or create an oil?”

“She’ll want to dust the Snover berries,” Gaeric relays. “She likes having them with Stantler knuckles on the side.”

“Ah. That sounds like a… choice.”

Gaeric chuckles. “A craving’s a craving, isn’t it? She’s been the same for Edric and Alric’s pregnancies, too, if you remember.”

“Was I there for those?” Ingo wonders.

“Sure!” Gaeric easily says. “You used to live with me.”

That sounds right, but Ingo doesn’t remember enough about those early years to corroborate the claim. Gaeric sees the lack of recognition in his face and huffs good-naturedly.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to remember even if you hadn’t had your memories snapped to shreds. You were halfway homeless back in those days. If someone didn’t snatch you for work, you fucked off into the wilderness for hours before crashing into whatever family would take you at night.” Gaeric crosses his arms, an uncomfortable look on his face. “Before you started recognizing Pearl Clan clothes and things, it was hard to keep you in one place for more than a week. You'd see new faces, or get stuck on something you remembered different, and you'd wipe. We were right back to strangers who'd forced you into our clothes, and you'd bolt all the way back to Itachi and Lord Sneasler. I-”

Gaeric sucks in a breath, as if unsure whether or not to say his next words.

“Diamond Clan clothes make you nervous, Ingo. Do you notice that? You get tense when there’s more of them than us. Sometimes I wonder if there was one time they found you before we did.”

Sinnoh give me patience- you senile foxface, how many times have I told you to go back to your own damn Clan?

(I don’t- why are you shouting, I don’t understand what I-)

Get out of here before the Mamoswine hunting parties find you! Do you want to get shot to death?

“None that can be recalled,” Ingo says, hand clasping over the wooden bracelet bearing Lady Sneasler’s image. “Angry young men can’t be bothered to raise their hands at Wardens.”

It had taken a long, long while to realize that those angry young men were far more terrified of him than he ever was of them. Far more terrified of the drums of war than the sharpness of their own words. He is a vessel, not a soldier. He did not fashion himself to understand such things. He hopes he will never be afraid enough to understand.

Gaeric hums. “The Diamond Wardens are good people, at least. Seems like you get along with Iscan and Melli well enough.” He scoffs. “As much as anyone can get along with Melli.”

“There are times that Melli’s forceful personality is… welcome,” Ingo decides to say.

He decides not to say that there are days his mind loses its volition, where kind words and offered space only make him sink further into his haze. Days where he would, in fact, benefit greatly from an unsympathetic voice ordering him around and giving him something to do, if only so he could have the option to refuse it. He decides not to say these things because Gaeric would not take Melli’s actions for the kindness it is, and the Warden of the Hollow does not need another person to overestimate his selfishness.

The yurts around the settlement’s standing stone have turned themselves into improvised storefronts, trading off the bounties of herders and fishermen, or simply offloading an excess of wares. There, he does see a few Diamond Clan tunics mixed between those of the visiting Ginkgo Guild, and now he can pinpoint the nervousness that Gaeric had described. It settles with familiarity, but no sense of comfort- he has ferried many members of the Diamond Clan over the normal course of his duty, and felt no wariness then. He has never had a reason to fear his passengers.

But this is not the Coronet Highlands, where its landscapes are predictable and he is the conductor of its beaten paths. Here, Ingo is no conductor at all. In a settlement that always changes location, always changes its arrangements, he is the sole and perpetually lost passenger who must trust the ones around him to mean well, and the Pearl Clan does mean well.

The Diamond Clan does not. Not all of them. Not always. Not for him. However, that Diamond Clan trio of young women are the ones selling Snover berries right now, so Ingo will have to just cope while Gaeric haggles with someone else over a freshly caught Barboach.

A girl with round eyes and long braided pigtails moves a foot away from her table to kick at the person working next to her. “Oi, Oume, oji-san is here! Say hi!”

“Don’t call me that around here!” A stern voice scolds. “There’s still people who-” A sharp faced young girl stills as her blue eyes flit across Ingo’s face. “Hello, Fox.”

She’s wearing Diamond Clan clothes right now. He’s seen these girls before at the Diamond Clan settlement, wearing Pearl Clan clothes.

(Once upon a time, Oume was a little girl in a Pearl Clan tunic, sick in bed from too much saltwater in her lungs after a tsunami that struck too soon, and Ingo felted dolls with her using Sneasel claws.)

“Oume.” Ingo hears his voice soften. “Hello, Oume. Is your partner doing well?”

“My Toxicroak is healthy and strong.” Oume tilts her head. “Are you well? I wasn’t here when they brought you back down from the mountain.”

“I was stitched back together, it seems. What are you and Otake doing back in the settlement?”

“Oume thought you died and wanted to come back for your funeral rites,” the other girl bluntly says.

“ You were the one who started crying, Otake,” Oume mercilessly reveals. “You cried and cried until Omatsu let us sneak back here.”

A tired, slightly older voice calls out from further in the wagon, counting supplies with a Gengar. “Yes, and now it turns out he’s alive, so I’ve brought you all the way here for nothing. The things I do for you lot.”

“Did you miss your old getaway driver so badly?” Ingo wearily jokes.

“You're nice to us," Otake says. "Even when we're Charm, Coin, and Clover, you're nice. You shouldn't have bad things happening to you."

"It can't be helped, my old passengers. But I hope you're open to trade."

The details of what he’s parted with slip away from him before the transaction is even complete, but the three have never cheated him before. Otake presses a bundle of Snover berries into his hand with a mischievous smile, and then another free of charge. One for the errand and one for him. He puts one in his coat pocket and wanders back to Gaeric, who has a clay jar of pickled vegetables and noticeably no Barboach in sight. 

“Still sour over the time I cracked their ship in half,” Gaeric grumbles. “It wasn’t my fault they sailed into me at low tide!” He takes the Snover berries from Ingo’s hand and puts them with the pickles and Tangela sprigs in Ingo’s pack. “Now you hold onto those, and I’ll be hauling the watmels.”

“I can carry a few watmels,” Ingo insists.

“I’m not falling for that twice, friend. Last time we let that happen you fell flat trying to balance the weight.” To prove his point, Gaeric pushes an arm into Ingo’s shoulder until he nearly tips to the side, only stopped from falling by Lady An’s power. “You’re as ungaily as an Alakazam! I don’t know how you ever walked without pokemon, honestly.”

Unbidden, he imagines holding hands with another person while running across a street, pressing shoulders against someone at his right while standing on a moving train, two bodies facing each other and calling out hazards while carrying a file box, a white haired lady prying apart two pairs of identical hands and laughing regretfully as her children fall over in a heap against the rug.

“You make a two-car train,” Ingo responds, only half-remembering the meaning himself.

Gaeric blinks and offers his arm. Not in an obvious way, only bending out enough that they could link arms if Ingo allowed it. Ingo’s second thought is that Gaeric knows him well enough to understand what he meant. (His first, achingly, is that they aren’t quite the same height or build.) He takes the offered arm anyways, slowing the stride of his legs to match Gaeric’s bulkier pace.

It’s not the same. Ingo keeps accidentally bumping into Gaeric’s shoulder, and he’s not familiar enough with the other man’s body to gauge the space it takes next to him. It’s not the same, and Ingo decides that’s probably a good thing. If it had been the same, Ingo probably would have broken down in tears.

And it’s nice, at least, to think a little less about where he’s going, knowing that he can’t get lost trying to keep track of where Gaeric’s next task is.

It’s nice to have the luxury to forget why they’re shopping for watmels.

=#[o]#=

"Hello there, little brothers!" A bare-chested man leans over an outcrop of rock, blue eyes open with wide interest as he stares them down. "Do you need help down there?"

"I am Emmet. I will-" Emmet braces his hands on the edge of the ledge as his arms tremble attempting to lift himself up. "I will… not be able to get out of this hole on my own."

The man looks between the twins, a scrutinizing look on his lined face. "How'd the other one get out? He can't be any stronger than you."

"Ame got me out!" Ingo explains. "But Triks isn't strong enough to carry Emmet yet!"

"That's alright, then." The man jumps down the rock face and offers his arm. "Let's couple our cars, little brother. We'll climb back up together!"

Emmet hesitantly links arms with the stranger, bracing his free hand in sync with his new climbing partner. The man hefts both of their bodies upward until they clear the ledge, and Emmet's arm shakes with strain as he knocks into Ingo's side.

"How did you know that would work?" Ingo asks.

The man lets out a boisterous laugh. "I knew a man like you two once. Didn't have much strength in him, but he could go a long way with a two-car train. But enough about me. Where are you two headed? On one of those pokemon journeys the children are into these days?"

"We're camping with our uncle Drayden," Emmet says. "We wandered off to see the pokemon in the area-"

"-but as you can see, we encountered an unexpected detour," Ingo finishes. "We should really head back-"

"-before Drayden starts to worry. He worries verrrrrrrry easily, yup!"

"I'll go with you, then!" the man offers. "I don't mind the walk."

Ingo and Emmet's eyes flick towards each other, then back to the stranger. He doesn't seem threatening, despite his powerful build. Long, combed back hair flows down his back, a thick red sash tying a frost-bitten white haori in place over his exposed chest, revealing a round, pearl-like sigil shaved into his skin.

Ame knowingly rocks side to side, and Ingo catches the hidden meaning in his Lampent's movements. "Kyara," he whispers under his breath.

The stranger is masking something from them. Going off the ice clinging to his clothes, and Ame's sudden jealous proximity to Ingo, he's a ghost. It's uncommon for Froslasses to present as men, but it's not unheard of.

Emmet and Ingo are long since used to ghosts. They've had stranger traveling companions.

The man tugs on his very large backpack as he herds the two boys back towards the trail. "If you caught me a few decades earlier, I'd be telling you all my titles, but most folks call me Gaeric these days. What do they call you two back home?"

"I am an Ace Trainer, Ingo," the elder brother starts. "The young man to my right is also an Ace Trainer, Emmet. Having a meeting in a place like this is a little irregular, but this must've happened for a reason. Being in a different place will let me see different scenery, and I might learn something, too." He inclines his head. "Now, Emmet, if you have something to add, please!"

"I am Emmet," the younger brother tersely says. "Emmet Anata Tamadensha. I am an Ace Trainer. I like Double Battles. I like combinations of two Pokémon. And I like winning more than anything else."

"I suppose we must get used to our new names," Ingo concedes. "In which case, I am Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. I apologize if we seem overly formal. Our trianary names are newly chosen, after all."

"Don't tell Drayden!" Emmet orders Gaeric. "We have to tell him first!"

"Arnon?" Gaeric echoes, an odd expression crossing his face.

"That is my trianary name, yes," Ingo confirms. "It's customary for our people to choose middle names when we confirm or transition our placement in the trianary."

"That's my daughter's name, little brother," Gaeric simply says. "Came from my friend."

"He must have verrrrry good taste," Emmet politely decides. "What's he like?"

"It's been so long, I barely remember a thing." Gaeric taps his head, and a smile breaks across his face. "But you know what, neither did he! We'll match now! And I know when I see him again, he'll remember me. And I'll remember him. That's all I need to know."

Ingo and Emmet wonder if there's another, even more shirtless ghost wandering around the mountains somewhere.

"He's a Shiny too, you know!" Gaeric continues. "I think you're the only ones I've seen other than him. That sort of thing is pretty rare."

"Did you throw him around, too?" Emmet questions. "You supported my car with great ease, sir."

"He used his pokemon to help him get around, but I could always carry him around like a sack of sootfoots."

Ingo squints. "Prove it."

And that's how Drayden found his teenage nephews coming back to the campsite hanging off the arms of a strange, hardy-limbed hiker he'd never seen before.

"Hello, young man!" the stranger calls out with a Sinoan accent older than Drayden's grandfather. "Your nephews told me good things about you, Tamadensha-san. Is it true that you like to wrestle dragons?"

"On occasion," Drayden gruffly concedes.

That's a ghost. That's definitely a ghost. The Blackthorn mountain trail did not have any human passing hauntings the last time Drayden checked, and he checked right before planning this trip. And now there's a random ghost following his boys around. Cool. Cool. Drayden is never going to leave Unova again. Going back to Johto to see the old Blackthorn temple was a mistake. At least in Unova he knows where all the ghosts are going to be beforehand- somewhere that doesn’t entail non-maliciously stalking his children in the woods.

And sure, Gaeric seems very polite and all too willing to share the supplies he doesn’t need to eat, but strange men waiting in hiking trails distributing mushrooms is no basis for a system of trust. But it’s fine. It’s fine. Ingo and Emmet can fend for themselves. No one needs to know Drayden’s personal opinions about shirtless ghost men who want to wrestle dragons. That’s between him and his yearly League mandated psych evaluation.

He’s doing fine. He’s being incredibly normal. He’s going to be just as normal as he was when he found Ingo imprinting on a death candle, and when he found a wall panel full of Joltiks under Emmet’s bed. Nothing has changed about him at all. Except the internet exists now, so he can upload a photo of the ghost hiker to the hiking forum on Knickit and ask if this is at least one of the normal Johtonian mountain ghosts.

The collective expert answer was yes, but actually no.

Gaeric, last Warden of the Tundra, was a Hisui-era Sinoan who died in the mid-1950s. His pokemon partner was a Froslass, and when Gaeric finally passed away, he followed in her footsteps. He was a skilled hiker and rock climber in life, and that was how he appeared in death. People would see a friendly man with supplies to spare and no equipment in sight, often scaring his traveling companions by leaping off of sheer cliffs or jumping out of the vehicles that mistook him for a normal hitchhiker- and this hitchhiking had carried him through Sinnoh, Johto, Kanto, and even Kalos. Multiple people were quick to assure Drayden that “Ghost Hiker Gaeric” had even saved many people’s lives over the decades. 

Drayden found one picture with him and the rest of his Warden brethren. Sitting at his right side was a bedraggled man, the only person staring directly at the camera instead of gazing artistically to the side. A giant pokemon claw strewn across his lap like a sword, glaring out of the frame with a thin face and haunted eyes. This was the man Gaeric had seen in Ingo and Emmet, the Shiny human with an unstable body. 

He doesn’t look like the twins at all.

He looks like Drayden.  

Drayden before his beard grew out, before his body turned bulky from too many years of throwing his own Haxorus across the yard.

He saves the picture on his computer and forgets about it.

"Oi, oji-san!" A seventeen year old Emmet waves on the other side of a screen, moving boxes still half unpacked behind him. "Do you think we could grow a beard like yours?"

"Absolutely not," Drayden immediately dismisses. "If I see a mini-me out of the corner of my eyes next New Year's, it's on sight."

He forgets about the picture, but his body remembers. The years go on, and he feels uneasy seeing the twins' unshaved faces after a long day, badges shining brightly on their Depot Agent hats. He runs into Ingo in Subway Boss uniform for the first time and nearly jumps in his train seat.

He forgets about the picture and doesn't remember why until Ingo's been missing for 30 days and Emmet shows him Akari and Fox, 1870.

The Fox's grave had no body. Drayden wishes that he could believe that's a good thing.

Emmet doesn't go out much any more. He stays in his house and just has things delivered. He rides his and Ingo's Haxorus whenever he has to go outside. He tells Iris that because he works from home now, there's not a lot of reasons to go outside.

He tells Drayden, quietly, that he can't walk the way he used to now that half his limbs are a century away. These days, Ross is the only thing keeping Emmet from knocking into tables and walls trying to make way for someone that isn't here anymore.

To Elesa, he just says,

"I can't run down the stairs anymore."

"I've seen you do it before," she notes.

"Have you noticed that I've never done it alone?"

She hadn’t. She wonders what that says about her, that she never noticed.

“We were slow to walk,” Emmet starts. “So we learned to walk by holding each other’s hands. We were slow to talk, so we talked to each other instead of people. We were slow to bond with pokemon, so we had each other. The doctors said we might not finish school, and they were right. We wouldn’t have survived college. The doctors said we might not ever be able to live on our own. The doctors said a lot of things.”

He looks down at the Eelektross nuzzling into his hand.

“I wonder if it’s possible to partner with humans the way we do pokemon, because sometimes I think that’s what happened to us. We became each other’s legs, each other’s steadier hands, each other’s voices, each other’s heads. You don’t have to remember how to take care of yourself when you already have to take care of someone else. You pass your safety checks so your two-car train always runs on time. You can’t lift your own weight for anything, but you can keep someone else from falling down the stairs.” Emmet smiles. “I can’t run down the stairs anymore, Elesa. My brother can’t even run.”

He scoffs.

“The doctors said a lot of things. They also said we would grow out of it. But he’s had twelve years without me, and Ingo still can’t run. He needs a full team of pokemon to live on his own. I don’t think it was ever about growing up.”

“Is it stupid that I’m still jealous you two got to have each other?” Elesa wonders.

“Living on your own has its benefits, I’m sure,” Emmet insists. “You don’t have to explain a co-conductor to any of your girlfriends. Admitting your need for living assistance is all well and good until it turns out that assistance has the same face as you. Then all of the sudden it’s creepy and gross.”

Elesa frowns. “Is that why you two never really dated?”

“Among other things,” Emmet admits, “but it was certainly among the most damning. Nii-san and I are happy with each other, but sometimes it’s lonely to know that verrrry few people would attempt linking with either part of such an unorthodox car.” He looks up at her heartbroken face and laughs. “It's alright, love. I am Emmet. I don't feel the lack."

"I do," Elesa reminds him. "You always tell me I'm lucky I don't need help, but I do." Her voice starts to crack. "And I know I'm not him, and I know it's not the same, but I need you, too."

Emmet's smile stutters with shock.

"I mean, shit, dude!" Tears start welling in Elesa's eyes. "I know we like- we joke and flirt and I kiss you for shits and giggles, but it's not a joke, Emmet! I love you. You're one of my best friends in the world and I love you so much! You don't get to tell me to live with this shit, because you sure as hell aren't."

"I thought it… was a joke," Emmet fearfully admits. "To you."

Elesa's hands stiffen.

"Because you like to tease," Emmet continues. "Because I know we will not see each other differently, no matter how many spider weddings we do. So whatever you did to me, it was fine, because my good friend Elesa has a beautiful smile, and I love to see her laugh. I did not wish to worry you further, I did not believe you wished to be worried further, I did not-"

This mortified, almost humiliated patch of red floods over Emmet's pale face as his hand covers his trembling mouth.

"Dragons, I can't think straight." There's a high and tremulous note in his voice. "I can't think about this while he's gone, I just can't. I'll say some sort of utterly unwarranted thing with this hanging over my head and you deserve better than that." 

Emmet's head sinks into his hand, eyes shyly peering past his fingers.

"My Elesa," he decides to say. "My beloved friend Elesa. I can't even begin to apologize for the last few weeks. I think I might never stop. Want to get drunk in my house tonight and cry over Ingo's Pokevision compilations?"

"I could do that sober, sweetie. Let's go get some box wine anyway."

And it will be nice, for a night, for both of them to forget why the house is so quiet.

Chapter Text

Akari Shou tries to go back to work, and she almost does. The Zorua that made her shrugs her Survey Corps body over itself like a familiar set of clothes and collects the day’s assignments. She’s meant to go to the Coastlands and put some tags on baby Spheals so the Professor can check how they grow later.

She makes her way to the beach, turns into a baby Spheal, and rolls into the sand with all the other pups, getting close enough that her Zorua body can take the tags out of her satchel to snag on fins and flippers. It’s easy enough work. It’s so easy she could practically do it in her sleep. It’s so easy that she starts thinking about what she had to do to Ingo yesterday. The interview, the botched medicine, the lie- the lanky, coat-wearing, Emmet-shaped lie she burrowed herself into so things wouldn’t fall apart.

Ingo cracked his own brain open and showed it to her- and Akari looked. They can’t undo that no matter how many times Ingo forgets.

(And he did. She remembers holding him in her arms, watching Ingo Tamadensha turn back into nothing but smoke in his eyes.)

He barely knew enough to protest when Doctor Yukino started ushering Akari out of the room, and she almost refused to leave. But Yukino had explained well enough that even if they both wanted to keep this up, maintaining the charade was putting a strain on Ingo's mind enough as is. He was the one providing the script. Best to leave it alone for now.

There's nothing left for Akari to do but think about the person Ingo was when he was finally provided a mirror. His unabashed sincerity magnified tenfold, building off the words of his twin brother like an endless, interlocking tower with an undercurrent of long-suffering playfulness he had never displayed in Hisui. A man whose mouth curls like a Sneasel's grin and smiles in 2014.

The Zorua who built Akari Shou had never known what a true nestmate felt like before it sculpted Emmet's likeness into unpermitted life, and now the absence of him burns. Akari bites it down like a parasite and buries it inside her like an unmarked grave. Down, down, down. That body has fulfilled its purpose. Let it die.

Unfortunately for the fox and the girl, those stolen six hours of Emmet won't stay buried. He interrupts Akari's survey work to catch bugs in his hands, to prepare Akari's food as he likes it, to lend out his longer legs running from an alpha Luxray. He stares at Akari's pokemon, using the faded leftovers of someone else's hyperfixations trying to cobble together battle strategies.

Kari Tamadensha has developed a fondness for crawling out of his own grave, and it's starting to become a problem.

He wants to see his brother. (Akari does not allow it.) But he wants to see his brother. (Akari has work to do with Professor Laventon.) He is Kari. He is a Subway Boss. He has nothing to do with Professor Laventon. He wants to see his brother. He knows where his brother is because Akari knows too. Why is he not allowed to see his brother?

Akari slams open the door to her house, Kari's pale sidelocks and stubborn grin framing her face as a white coat forms over her Survey Corps uniform. "Doctor Yukino. I want Kari to pass away."

Doctor Yukino smiles with a smugness that doesn't belong on Doctor Alec's face. "How's the existential crisis coming along, pup?"

"I want him to pass away."

"Why?" Yukino asks. "Does he want to kill Ingo?"

"He-" Akari does a double takes. "What? No! Why would I want to kill Ingo? Is Kari supposed to want to kill Ingo?"

"Nestmate rivalry," Yukino explains. "You can get the urge to usurp whoever you've turned into in order to preserve your cover. Had to fight the urge to kick Alec off his bed when I first started using his face."

"I mean- sometimes I want to flip Ingo's hat over or shove him off things. But for some reason those are all things Emmet would do. I don't think that's the same."

Yukino hums. "Let me talk to Kari."

"No!" Akari insists. "Kari's the whole problem! I need to stop being him!"

"But you haven't stopped," Yukino points out. "That face is coming out because you want it to. So let's hear it from the man himself, shall we?"

Kari Tamadensha lurches out of Akari Shou like a burst bubble of clay.

"I am not a problem," he tersely says. "I am Kari. I want to see Ingo."

"Has Akari been avoiding him?" Yukino asks.

"Professor Laventon keeps her verrrrry busy. All the time, all the time." Kari sharply tilts his head to the side, fingers drumming anxiously into his coat sleeves. "That's what she tells herself. Liar."

"Why do you want to see Ingo?"

"He is my brother," Kari simply says.

"Let me try that again. Why does it have to be you when Akari could do just fine?"

Kari's animated smile freezes.

"I liked that he trusted me to use this body," Kari slowly says, "even though he did not know who I was. And I liked the person Ingo was when he was with me! I want him to be that person again. I want him to be able to be that person again."

His nervous hand stops.

"She is afraid that he will hate me for having his brother's face. And I am afraid that he will need me and not-" Kari glances off to the side. "This is Emmet's face, but I knew Ingo first. Why should I have a reason for anything? Isn't it the most natural thing in the world, to turn into someone you love?" 

"It is to us," Yukino says.

"Akari is afraid that he only loved me because he didn't know better." Kari's words become faster and faster, smile turning strained. "I want him to know better. He already knows what Akari is, why shouldn't he know me? If he loves her, than surely at least he'd-"

Kari stops. He stares at Yukino for a long moment.

"Suppose he really did hate me," he says in a small voice. "I think I would die."

=#[o]#=

Rei wants to go to the beach. For science, he says. So Ingo sets an evening time to join him and Akari. For science.

"I finally got my glasses!" Rei shouts, pointing at his face. "They're strapped all the way around so I can't lose them on the field."

"Oh! Bravo! What did you do with the contact lenses?" Ingo innocently asks.

"Artax ate them while I wasn't looking." Rei pats his Sliggoo on the head. "You're so gross, Artax."

"Lian's Goomy has done worse, I suppose," Ingo concedes. "Now, what was this research you-"

Rei rolls up his sleeves, throws his shirt to the dunes, and grabs onto David's tendrils as he leaps towards the ocean.

"Ah. I see. This is also fine."

Akari tilts her head as she watches Rei chase the waves. "This seems verrrrrry unscientific."

"Our youngest passenger wants to play, I think." Ingo tilts his head as his eyes follow Ronin, Rei's Decidueye partner, pecking at buried objects in the sand. "They've all been working very hard. I don't see the harm."

"Oh, okay-" Akari squints when she looks back at Ingo. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" Ingo shrugs his tunic over his head. "We're at the beach, so we're supposed to-" His body stiffens. He looks down at his exposed undershirt, and the tunic that's almost been moved off of his arms. "Hm."

He sits down in the sand, expression carefully blank, arms still half caught in his tunic.

"I am not a brave man today. My apologies."

Akari becomes horrifically aware of the reason Ingo never takes that undershirt off, and one particular pressing reason he might not be fond of the ocean. "Are you okay?"

"I will find some other way to amuse myself, dear. Please throw Rei into the sea on my behalf."

"On it, Boss!" Akari turns into a Growlithe and bounds towards the water, nipping at Rei's airborne heels until he kicks up a current, drenching her fur. "Bad news, Boss!"

Ingo laughs from the shoreline and wiggles himself back into his tunic, eventually walking along the sands and staring curiously at a piece of driftwood.

Akari turns into a Mantyke and makes threatening leaps towards Rei, snapping at him with comically sharp teeth.

"What are you, a Sharpedo?" Rei taunts. "Mantykes don't have teeth!"

"What are you, Captain Zisu? It's my Mantyke and I'll have as many teeth as I want!" The Mantyke's devious grin puckers with exaggerated lips as Akari turns into an Octillery. "Unless you wanna come over here and gimme a kiss!"

"EWW! NOOO!"

"HYEHEHEHEH!"

"Ronin! Tackle her!"

Ronin takes a flying leap and playfully grips at Akari's illusory tentacles, and she screeches like a deflating balloon.

A flash of light explodes from the dunes. Rei and Akari turn around to see Ingo lying on the sand, making direct eye contact, and holding a pie tin behind Lady An's lantern to magnify her humble flame into a miniature lighthouse.

"Stop staring at the old man, Cyan!" Akari scolds, spotting a very awed Cyndaquil at Ingo's side. "He's a horrible role model!"

"Hold on, hold on." Rei squints. "Did you just fucking DEATH DROP?"

Ingo winks from his spot on the ground.

"DENSHA-SAN, NO!"

Akari, sensing a moment of weakness, becomes a Sealeo and slaps her tail against the water, sending a spray of salt directly into Rei's nose.

Ingo's laugh roars in the distance, and Kari burns.

=#[o]#=

"You like her!" Akari teases.

"Captain Zisu is an impressive battler and an admirable woman," Ingo deflects.

"And she likes you," Akari insists. "Yup! I can see the headlines now!"

"Dear, you can't even read them."

"The shock! The scandal! The Captain of the Security Corps is fraternizing with a Hisuian priest!"

Ingo sputters with shock. "Must you word it in such a way?"

"I can tell by the look on your face! You see her and you want nothing more than to-"

"MS. SHOU, YOU WILL NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE-"

"-be defeated in a pokemon battle," Akari brightly concludes.

"Oh, I see," Ingo quietly says, "you took that in a very different direction than I thought you would."

"What else would you be doing?" Akari bluntly asks. "Courting? Only the Professor and Captain Cyllene are boring enough to do that."

"Hm." Ingo's fingers start to fidget along his rusted coat buttons. "I hope that her association with me does not cause… problems for her."

"If anyone wants to say anything bad, they'd have to say it to her face," Akari points out. "No one's brave enough to bully the Captains, even if they wanted to."

Ingo hums, face betraying nothing. "And what would you say to the Captain?"

"I would say it's nice that she has someone to talk to," Akari decides, "and it's nice to see you happy. I can't remember how long it's been since you tried being with someone."

Ingo's mouth quirks oddly. "I can't recall any attempts I've made in Hisui, dear passenger. None that I would have told you of, at least."

Huh. He's right, actually. The only relationships of any kind Akari can remember Ingo in were… back in their- his- Depot Agent days.

…

…God damn it, Kari.

=#[o]#=

"You be good at school, alright boys?" Willow Tamadensha softly requests. "Ono will pick you up later."

Emmet is six years old and he loves his family more than anything. He nods and waves his arms. "Okay, buh-bye! I love you!"

Where has he heard that before? It must have been when-

Elesa is ten years old and she's forgotten her food at home. "Dang it! I'll catch you later, guys, I don't wanna get caught in the lunch line!"

"Okay, buh-bye!" Ingo enthusiastically waves as she leaves.

I love you! Emmet signs.

Where has he heard that before? It must have been when-

"I HATE YOU!" A young Iris shouts from the top of the fridge she's climbed up. "You never let me win! I'll run away and you'll never see me again!"

"Okay, buh-bye!" Ingo serenely says anyway. "I love you!"

Where has he heard that before? It must have been when-

"Busy week so far," a thirty year old Subway Boss lightly comments in an empty office room. "There's a lot of challengers signing up for the Double Train today."

"It is nearly the ten year anniversary since we took our posts," Ingo lightly points out. "People are eager to see what we'll change, both in and out of battle."

"It is verrrrry exciting!" Emmet admits. "But it does leave us with a lot of work. I have meetings with Driftveil Station today and I just know Clay's going to try slipping an underground construction permit between the regular maintenance I have to sign off."

"Nacrene City also wants to add a connecting tram line for the natural history museum, so I'll have to look at the necessary modifications to their central station." Ingo sighs as he gathers his coat and hat by the doorway. "It pains me to say it, but we can't be in two places at once. This is where we part ways."

Emmet waves stiffly at him as he leaves. "Okay, buh-bye!" he says in a jaunty tone. "I love you!"

Where has he heard that before? It must have been when-

"I'll need to return to the Highlands," Ingo softly murmurs. "But I expect between my new work hours and Rei's training, I will return to your station in a timely manner."

Akari waves stiffly. "Okay, buh-bye! I love you!"

Ingo hears Lady An' trill with concern as his hands spasm around Akari's shoulders.

"Yes, of- of- of- of course," he stammers out, voice suddenly foreign inside his ears. "I hold you in very high regard as well."

=#[o]#=

"Hello again, young passenger!" Ingo tilts his head. "You don't usually go out of your way to find me like this. Is something wrong?"

"I took an assignment in the Highlands." Akari's paws audibly scuff the ground around her human illusion. "Can I come inside?"

Ingo opens up the entrance of his yurt. "Always. Have you eaten yet?"

"I'm not hungry." 

Akari looks around the small dwelling. Everything's been aggressively reorganized since the last time she saw it, mold presses and pots put into stark geometric order. The tapestry that she can now recognize as having Gear Station's emblem has been repainted, and there are even more triangles scrawled over it the second time around. Even the furs on the bed have been neatly put into place, turning into a gradient of textures. It's almost like Ingo had gone so insane over human math one night that he looped back around to being sane. Very sane, very organized, and very invested in making sure his storage ran a tighter ship than the Royal Unova.

There's labels on everything now. Absolutely disgusting.

"How have you… been since the procedure?" Akari hesitantly asks. "I'm seeing some changes around here."

"Admittedly, with the state of my mind, I cannot tell much a difference, but I've been told that memories are starting to come more freely to me, and at less… cost. I feel much less exhausted than I used to!" Ingo lets out a small laugh. "Though some memories are proving to be more disruptive than others. Between that and the conscious use of psychic Amnesia, I've become more distractable in some respects." His voice softens. "But I can accept a few easily recovered trains of thought over the total derailments I have been prone to in the past. The choice is suddenly all my own, and I know- I know very deeply there was a time it was not." 

"Do remember what actually happened?" Akari presses.

"Laventon's report says I had an adverse reaction to the medication," Ingo relays. "I was mostly delirious for some hours, and the Professor and Doctor Yukino assisted me as I came back to myself."

A long pause.

"You weren't there," Ingo quietly says, a lost and unspoken question in his voice.

"I was, but not as Akari. You were- you were so confused when you were waking up, you thought you were back home in Nimbasa and… you gave me the only face you trusted. You gave me Emmet's."

"Emmet?" Ingo's frown tilts with horror, but not towards her. "Oh, gods. Akari, are you alright?"

"It's fine now," Akari quickly says. "We learned a lot from you, but it was- it was like you weren't really there. I didn't know what else to do."

"I'm sorry." Ingo covers his mouth. "Akari, I'm so, so sorry. You shouldn't ever have had to do that. Is that why you wouldn't see me afterwards?"

"Kind of?" Akari uneasily concedes. "But there's another reason. Another, uh- very complicated reason that- it wasn't your fault, and I didn't mean anything weird by it, honestly, and I just-" She takes a shaking breath. "Promise you won't hate me for this. You can be mad, you can tell me to stop, that's fine, just don't get rid of me, please."

"I won't," Ingo promises. "I swear on my life."

Akari's smile is full of despair as a pale coat covers her uniform. "Nii-san, you need to be more careful about your promises."

=#[o]#=

It's strange to remember his twin brother through everything the person in front of him is not.

Emmet's coat was white, not grey. His smile was thin and pointed, it didn't curl like this. His hair doesn't gloss like that. His pupils were so glassy that they were nearly white in any sort of light, they didn't slit.

This body is not Emmet Tamadensha. This body is not trying to be Emmet Tamadensha.

This body is not Emmet Tamadensha.

This body is not Emmet Tamadensha.

This body is not Emmet Tamadensha.

This body is not- this body is not- this body is not-

Breathe. Breathe, my soul.

I don't know what to do I don't know what to do WHAT IS THIS WHAT IS THIS-

Stop thinking. 

Ingo stops thinking.

Pick up the firewood and stack all the logs by size.

There's… he needs to talk to someone…

I will speak for both of us. Gather yourself.

Ingo walks away from the person in front of him and starts picking up the firewood by the ground. He feels the empty lantern of another body direct the air inside his lungs, tendrils snaking gently around his arms, familiar ghostfire glazing over his eyes.

Little Kari, Lady An's voice breathes through his mouth. Dearest little Kari. You promised me you would die.

"I did intend to," Kari weakly insists.

Yet here you stand.

"Yet here I stand."

Oh, Lady An' knows him. That's definitely one of the signs of all time. Ingo should unpack that when he thinks about things again. He's not thinking about things right now. He's sorting firewood.

"It's, uh- it's a little weird seeing you move him around like that," Kari admits. "Aza never made him talk."

He is aware of us, Lady An' assures, but words have failed him. If it were my choice, I would remove you from his presence entirely, but he is more confused than frightened. 

Kari's smile warps with concern. "Have you been the one making him sort everything in here?"

Ingo rocks his head and jerkily shakes the fingers of his raised hand, letting out a vague noise.

He sorts because he wants to, little Kari. Don't dodge the question. We're here to talk about you right now.

"This body hasn't been around for long. There's not a lot to say."

I hardly trust what you do have to say. It's not appropriate for you to wear that face like a toy.

"I am not a toy!" Kari snaps. "I am not a toy! I am Kari!"

"K-k-k-" A memory of panicked shouting and staring eyes and a man in white who doesn't exist rises stubbornly in Ingo's mind, crackling with dust and ink, and he burns it down until it's nothing but smoke in his eyes. Take your time. Sort the firewood.

"I am the Zorua that wanted to be known. I am the girl who takes his right side. I am both of these things that he loves so dearly." Kari's smile falters. "Because of this love, I have spent six hours as a man I have never met. And now I am also Kari. It cannot be changed."

You know what that face means to him.

"And I know that at his worst, he gave it to me," Kari points out. "It carries a ghost of Emmet, but this is Ingo's face, too, and so I love it for that alone."

Ingo remembers a troop of Zoroarks who don his black coat, and the one and only time he asked why.

Because you are strong. Because you are loved. Isn't it natural, to turn into someone you love?

"Nii-san," Kari softly says. "You've been quiet for a verrrrry long time. Are you sure you're alright?"

Ingo's hands stop.

"You don't have to answer that. And we don't have to talk. But I only want good things for you. If Kari is not a good thing for you, I will leave. Just- please, say something."

That guilt-stricken adoration. How hauntingly like Emmet Tamadensha. How nothing like him at all. Perhaps for that last fact alone, Ingo has already loved him.

And these hands don't need to busy themselves with firewood anymore.

=#[o]#=

Ingo braces himself against Lady An' as he stands, face betraying nothing as he turns towards Kari, utterly silent.

"Who is this body?" Ingo half-whispers. "What is its name?"

"I am Kari. I am a Subway Boss. I am 30 years old." His voice turns gentle, hesitant. "Twelve years ago, there was a train accident, and nii-san was never the same after that." His hand reaches out, and Ingo softly takes it. "My brother is the best conductor I know. The accident was not his fault. But he was hurt verrrrry badly, and he was taken away from his two-car train. That is why I am here. Because I want the trains to keep running on time."

Ingo stares at him for a long moment. The silence returns. Screaming, shouting, Kari would take anything but this uncertain silence.

"You cannot take this back," Ingo finally says. "If we say Kari is my brother, then he was always my brother. Always. I won't be able to remember him any other way. Do you understand?"

Kari nods.

Ingo's hand tightens around Kari's. "Do you?"

"I want to," Kari answers. "Will you let me try?"

"It is strange to see this face at my side again," Ingo slowly decides. "I cannot entirely understand what it evokes in me, and I cannot say whether or not this suggested track is even entirely appropriate." Despite his words, his unrelenting eyes start to soften. "Even still. I have already loved every face you ever showed me, and when I needed my brother, you were there. You helped me recover memories I may have never seen again. If love is all you ask, how could I give anything less?"

He brings his hand up to Kari's face and knocks their heads together. He wraps his arms around Kari, the tightest and only embrace this young body has ever known.

"My lost little brother. My dearest passenger. However long you stay, I love you still."

Kari's arms shake as he wraps himself around Ingo in turn. 

"I am so verrry glad to hear you say it," he chokes out. "I think I might die."

He buries his head into Ingo's shoulder and laughs until Akari Shou is all that remains. He could never stay for long. She still has work to do, after all.

Besides, Ingo asked her if she had anything to eat. She's finally hungry again.

Chapter Text

"Rei tells me the creature is a pokemon-like organism called an Unown," Laventon says. "Apparently, they frequent abandoned temples and archeological sites. But going by your memory of those encounters, those places are less habitats and more… common points of intrusion. We've encountered a few specimens before, but this is the first live one we've been able to capture."

"Live," Ingo echoes.

"Plenty of dead ones have been found over the years in almost every human populated region," Laventon explains. "They were thought to be human-made impressions in the rock, but the wear they leave behind isn't consistent to any tools or pigment made. On top of that, once they've died, they collapse into char and organic fats. Nothing can be observed about them as living things but the shape they've left on various rock faces." His face turns grim. "Though considering how this particular specimen was found, I'll have to put a word out to the colleges to examine skeletal remains in hieroglyph infested sites. That behavior may explain irregularities in recovered skulls and other extremities."

That last sentence raises a lot more questions than it answers, but even Ingo can tell right away that's one train of thought his mind cannot safely encounter.

"May I see it?" Ingo asks.

Laventon sharply raises his brows. "I'm surprised you're willing to step in the same building as this creature at all, much less look at it! Are you sure? I can't guarantee that's safe for you."

"It can't break me any more than it already has," Ingo bluntly says. "I want to see it."

Laventon stares at Ingo for a moment, and then his eyes drift to Lady An'. He hums nervously, his Polteageist rotating in the air behind him as he gathers his thoughts.

"If you start convulsing on the ground, I can't help you," Laventon finally says.

"Thank you for telling me in advance, Professor, I will not."

(They both considered this a friendly and entirely sincere exchange.)

"I've kept it in a glass container in the lab with all the other specimens." Laventon sighs. "Honestly, I would love to store it elsewhere, but I didn't want to push our luck on its survivability outside where it spawned. Raj has been keeping an eye out." He opens the door a crack and immediately frowns. "Raj, you daft whale, get out of the way."

A blubbery Samurott, with dark armored skin plating its sleek fur, snorts imperiously, wave-like horn low against the ground as it sniffs the floorboards. (The Samurotts in Ingo's memory had much lighter colored armor, and straighter blades. Strange.) The well padded muscles in its bladed forearms ripple as it stalks away from the door, allowing Laventon to access the lab.

Past the sizable vivariums of aquatic, terrestrial, and arboreal habitats, there's a small and flat-sided glass container, no larger than a fish bowl, nestled between the books on Laventon's shelves. Inside, a hieroglyph rests on a moss-laden stone with a stick and some cubed fruit slices.

"A fish bowl." Oh, Ingo's suddenly a lot less eloquent than he would like. That might be a problem. "In. The. Book… shelf."

"It seemed happier there," Laventon says, as if the concept of an Unown being happy isn't the most alien fucking thing Ingo's heard in his entire life. "It prefers flat, geometric surfaces as far as I can tell."

The Unown stirs to life. Its singular eye opens, pupil gaining dimension as its gaze flits around the room, finally widening as it takes in Ingo's presence. It peels itself off of the rock, lurching forward…

…and promptly trips on the branch in front of it because it was too busy staring at Ingo.

So that brief heart attack he felt just now was for nothing. Ingo almost feels embarrassed.

"It's not very bright," Laventon says. "It lacks almost any fear or startle responses, has no prey drive, and I'd go so far as to say any intelligence it has exists entirely in a eusocial context at most. Your account also raises the alternate possibility of it being the modular component of a colonial superorganism. We would need to analyze a larger pool of specimens to be sure."

Modular organism. There's a Kalosian dragon like that, Ingo vaguely recalls. Modular run-on sentence, babbling forever, signifying nothing. It just goes on and on and on and on and on-and-on-and-on. He presses a single finger against the glass, and the Unown starts ineffectually bonking itself against the barrier, chirping with excitement. He drags his finger around and watches the creature follow it. Neat.

He snaps his hand upwards, and the Unown harmlessly crashes against the lid of the bowl.

Oh. 

Dear.

Oh, no.

Goodness.

He doesn't know why he did that. Why did he do that? Did he do that? (Modular run-on sentence, babbling forever, signifying nothing.) It darts forward again and-

"Stop," Ingo hears himself whisper.

The Unown stops before it can hit the glass. He points to the right. It follows. There's a hand curling into his coat like a set of dull talons. That can't be good for the fabric. Laventon is saying something and Lady An' is humming back. 

Up. (Up.) Down. (Down.) Black. (Black.) White. (White.) Stop. (Stop.)

It stopped. Fascinating. He didn't know it knew how to do that. They've certainly never done it before. But that was when they were many. Now there is only one.

(Modular run-on sentence, babbling forever, signifying nothing.)

Ingo stands up straight and holds out his hand. "Board."

It slips through the cracks of the lid and eagerly swims towards his open palm, crooning as it nudges his glove.

It's weak and small. A bare minimum slip of life that does not know enough to fear him, isn't able to think of him as anything other than a larger piece of its colony.

For a single moment, Ingo Arnon Tamadensha hates. He hates with all the force of a delicate instrument shattered against an uncaring universe, a decade of desperation condensed into a single micro-instant. Hate, hate, hate.

He could crush it right now. Close his hand and start burning. It's so helplessly reliant on collective command that it can't resist his will. He could kill this thing right now and it would never even understand why. The same way it did when it destroyed his mind. 

Torn apart piece by piece, never knowing what it did to deserve it. A feeble bundle of nerve endings and senseless babble ground into paste by a hand so careless it may as well have been a god, cast into the snow to die.

Just like him.

Just like him.

Just like him.

(And that is precisely why he never could.)

"Hello, little passenger," Ingo says, voice far softer than anything he thought he could muster for such a thing. "Did you really- did you really- did you really miss me all this time?"

He cups his hands, shading the Unown's eye against the light. His wrists are shaking so badly that Lady An' has to hook onto one of his shoulders and stabilize him.

Modular cosmic piece. Unfathomable divinity. And still, in the end, nothing more than the cut off letter of a run-on sentence, signifying nothing. He could scream and shout and demand all the rightful apologies in the world, and this poor thing would never understand enough to give it.

He can't cry. Not now. Water does such terrible things to ink stains, after all.

"Would it inconvenience you terribly," Ingo finally asks of Laventon, "if I took it with me? I will write down as much as I can."

The Unown chirps with delight at the prospect, thin body weaving between his fingers like a snake. Somehow its closeness doesn't fill him with the same revulsion it had before. Maybe watching it trip over sticks and play with fruit cubes has dissolved most of his fear. Maybe realizing the total power he has over it now has changed his perspective.

Maybe, after twelve years of forgotten nightmares, being faced with something that can never apologize for what it's done, he realizes he can forgive it anyway.

(Just this once.)

"I've learned as much as I can on my end," Laventon allows. "If it wants to be with you, I won't put up a fight. Take care of yourself, friend."

The Unown wriggles towards his hat, and Ingo stops it with his hand. "Not quite yet, little passenger. Not quite yet." He opens his notebook to its first page, a blank slate. "Will this suffice?"

The Unown slaps itself onto the paper, a flat impression of ink, and Ingo closes the book.

Today that will be enough.

Chapter Text

"I thought they only drank blood," Rei says as he watches Ingo's Gliscor curl protectively over a broken watmel.

"When they can, yes," Ingo concedes. "But they eat fruit as Gligar, and the capacity for frugivory remains after evolution. Hemophagy is troublesome for larger animals as a sole source of food." He gently pries open his Gliscor's mouth. "See the wide curl in the front teeth? These are only cutting scissors to clear fur and other obstacles to the skin. Its bite strength is quite weak and it cannot kill its own prey without extreme effort. It prefers to follow dedicated predators and drains the blood from their kills instead."

Rei tilts his head. "Isn't that stealing?"

"Draining the blood from an animal inhibits the growth of bacteria on the meat, which keeps it fresh longer and thus safer to eat. Additionally, its skin scraping behavior makes it easier for the predators themselves to tear the skin off the neck and other soft parts." Ingo nods to himself. "Still, scouting for fresh carcasses is a resource intensive task. That's why you often find Gliscor resting in fruit trees. They prefer a secure food source while they recover between hunts."

Rei hums. "So you could use a Gliscor to tell what fruit trees are riper, right? Its teeth won't like fruit that's still hard. And it scares off smaller pokemon that want to eat from your trees if you're a farmer."

"Bravo!" Ingo praises. "Absolutely correct! A Gliscor paired with a Glameow or Sneasel is a formidable opponent against common farm pests and keeps trees from being too heavy with fruit."

"But they still like blood more, right?" Rei shudders. "When I get one for the Path of Solitude am I gonna have to give it my blood so it, like, trusts me more? I know hand-feeding is better for bonding."

"For smaller pokemon like Tynamo or Joltiks, you can use yourself as a brief food source, but Gliscor feed on the dead. You'd be better off accompanying a Security Corps' hunting party or one from the Diamond Clan while fostering. However, I must note that-" Ingo's expression empties as his Gliscor suddenly grips his shoulders. "Yes, Li, I can see you've finished bravely draining your meal. Very beautiful. Very powerful."

Li starts looming over Ingo, pressing its face into Ingo's mouth as Ingo leans back.

"You will have to keep in mind that-" Ingo lightly pushes away Li's insistent mouth. "-that Gliscors do food-sharing as a social behavior. It will not drink your blood, but it will try to feed you blood." He quickly ducks his head, grabs a watmel slice, and puts it in his mouth until Li backs away. "Make sure you have your own food when a Gliscor is feeding."

"Does the food have to look the same?" Rei asks.

"No, it just needs to see you eating at the same time."

Rei hums. "I'll probably go for the Diamond Clan hunting parties. I don't want to freak the Security Corps out when people are still getting used to pokemon."

"Adaman should be in the Galaxy Hall today," Ingo offers. He jostles his arm, prompting Li to glide into Rei's shoulders. "Talk to him while you have a timely chance, passenger. Move with speed, but not haste!"

As Rei leaves with Li in tow, Ingo doesn't notice or acknowledge Zisu's presence at his side until she moves to help him clean up the watmel rinds, his eyes blinking sharply as her hand comes into view.

"Captain. How have things been with your unexpected guest?"

"Lisa's strong," Zisu starts. "She's good at whipping the soldiers into shape and simulating larger pokemon for combat drills." A pause. "I wish she wouldn't stare at me with her creepy little eyeballs when I wake up in the middle of the night. Hello? Do you want something?"

Ingo chuckles. "Lady An' is much the same. Ghosts have a habit of wondering if you're still breathing. I suppose I've gotten used to it over the years." He tilts his head up at her. "How long have you been waiting for me?"

"Just long enough to hear your little vampire talk," Zisu admits. "I wasn't gonna pull you out of your lesson."

"Still," Ingo shyly insists, "I do apologize for not noticing you earlier. I know I can become too fixated on what's in front of me."

"I actually wanted to ask about that. Are your eyes okay?"

Ingo frowns. "I don't follow."

"I mean, you're obviously not blind," Zisu elaborates, "but you always bring your notebook really close to your face and you never really look at anything that's not straight ahead of you? The Medical Corps could get you some glasses if you want."

"Glasses reflect even more light into my eyes," Ingo points out. "They aren't much help to me." 

"Still," Zisu presses. "You have to admit it's a little strange."

Ingo's mouth flattens. "As long as I adjust my light exposure and where I am compared to other objects, everything passes safety checks. Aside from my patent distaste for the sun, I wouldn't be able to tell you how it differs from other humans. You may as well ask a colorblind man if he feels sorrow over a lack of red."

Zisu raises her hands in surrender. "Yeah, I know. It's kind of a stupid question when you think about it. It only really came to me because someone wanted me to train a Shiny Eevee the other day. It was having trouble aiming things correctly. I looked into its head to check if it was a coordination problem and everything was just-" She gestures around her eyes. "Sharp."

Ingo runs a contemplative hand over his chin, scratching through his scraggly goatee.

"I'll let you see through my eyes if you show me what a sunset looks like," he finally says. "I've always wondered why people like them. They hurt too much to watch."

Zisu blinks with surprise. "Wait, really?"

"Well, people talk about sunsets all the time, I think it's fair to wonder-"

"No, no, I'm not talking about that," Zisu quickly corrects. "You're okay with me going inside your head?"

"I've let myself live inside your home with no idea who you were," Ingo bluntly points out. "That requires a far greater deal of trust than lending you my eyes, Captain."

He's actually got a point there. Absolutely horrid.

"We can do this inside the dojo," Zisu decides to say. "It's got sunlight, lots of different objects."

Suddenly Ingo looks hesitant. "The soldiers, Captain."

"It's my dojo, I'll do what I want. Besides, training's done for the day."

"Ah. Where should I…"

Zisu slides open the door and slams one of the piled up mats by the wall with her foot. Ingo huffs and takes the offered spot, back leaning against the wall.

"You're nervous," Ingo notes.

"You aren't nervous enough," Zisu challenges. "It's kind of weirding me out. Pokemon already take a good bit of bribery to let me in their heads, and I can't exactly rush human trust with candied nuts."

"I've seen you do this to your soldiers before," Ingo recalls. It is a half-question, like all his other recollections, an offer for her to elaborate. "Correcting their stances and their moves."

"Sure, but they aren't-" She gestures vaguely at him. "You."

Ingo's frown lightens as he silently points to his Chandelure. He's used to whispers inside his head, as anyone who buries a ghost in their heart is. That should be reassuring, coming from him. The fact that he can still ride out the whispers after a shattered skull and a decade of disuse should be reassuring. Instead, the stubborn perfectionist within Zisu rears with challenge and tramples on her tender anxieties. If she fumbles such a minor psychic touch in the face of that, she might just die of embarrassment on the spot.

Fuck it. Fuck it, she built this bridge, she needs to die on it. She stiffly sits down next to him and slowly, deliberately sinks her head onto his shoulder.

"This is going to dislocate your arm if I do this too long, isn't it?" Zisu loudly wonders.

"I hope not, but I'm sure my arm would find a way," Ingo bluntly answers.

Zisu hums and moves down to Ingo's lap. "I'm gonna close my eyes so we're not seeing two different things at once. Neither of our brains are buff enough for that."

She takes a breath and closes her eyes.

The first thing Zisu sees is herself. Ingo's looking down at her, the focus in his eyes trailing along one of her stray locks of hair.

"Apologies, Captain. This must be odd, let me-"

His head moves and the room swims with a nonsensical tsunami of colors. Lights pop and scatter between dust motes like snowflakes. His vision catches a broom on the other wall and snaps into terrifying focus. He sees every dry brush and grain of wood with so much detail he may as well have been standing right next to it. Around this narrow epicenter of clarity and perfect shapes is a rapidly degrading halo of colors and depthless objects, woven together by moving beads of light. The sunlight through the window is such a stark, blinding white that he cannot see the door directly beside it.

Zisu feels herself squint against the scattered light, her nose scrunching and brows furrowing, and yet it does nothing to unfocus the sudden clarity she sees. The ever-present magnifying glass embedded in Ingo's eyes is inescapable.

Noticing her discomfort, Ingo adjusts his hat more firmly over his face. The halo of clarity around the broom expands, just a bit. His gaze wanders, and the window of focus moves around the room like the spotlight of a stage, searching for sporadic points of interest. He catches a stray leaf on the floor, and the depth of the walls disappears. He lingers over a written bulletin for so long his vision swims by the time he pulls away.

Zisu is suddenly understanding at least half of why Ingo needs the help of pokemon to walk without tripping over everything around him. And why he always had to stop to read signs, instead of walking by as intended.

"Your eyes dance," Zisu decides to say. "Did you know your eyes dance? They don't stay on any one thing."

"Albinism tends to do that," Ingo explains.

His gaze drifts to Lady An'. Her glass body shifts with powder blues and faded purples, the steel of her tendrils a perfect black shadow against the ephemeral aura of ghostfire Zisu has never seen her have before. The flames dance lethargically through the air like drowning ribbons, like flowing water, a living thing swimming inside bodiless smoke. He looks down at Zisu again, the focused set of her brows melting into the rest of the room as he loses himself in the exaggerated sheen of her wooly coat collar and meanders around the curls of her hair, catching repeatedly on the dull twine that ties it in place.

"Should I try to read something?" Ingo offers. "You mentioned I looked odd when I write things."

"I'm astounded you read anything like this, but go ahead."

His hand disappears into the inner pocket of his coat and produces a small journal. The text is in a language she doesn't recognize- it might be the Galarica the Professor writes in, but she can't quite tell. The sentences slope along the page, careening on subtle arcs and uneven sizes that Ingo's altered eyesight can't quite excuse. He'd mentioned, once, that his writing lost some of its steadiness after his accident. As his eyes pour over the sentences all over again, the field of focus shrinks at an alarming rate, and even the detail of his own hand disappears.

Zisu laughs to herself. "Tunnel vision. Literal tunnel vision."

"I've been told I actually have very acute vision," Ingo admits. "I always assumed my level of clarity was more precise than other humans. We've always been good at detecting minute changes in color and light, or the texture of objects. Troublesome in daylight conditions, or reading small text, but that was easily solved by avoiding sunlight and modifying the text on control panels. Combined with our comfort in low light conditions it made us suited for underground…"

His voice fades.

"...I can't recall." His words lose strength, trailing off like a voice in the fog. "It was in the tunnels. Our dragons are inside the tunnels."

His body jerks as Lady An' brings him back to attention.

"My apologies, Captain. Some memories are more disruptive than others." An embarrassed pause. "We were talking about something else."

"We were talking about your weird eyeballs," Zisu provides.

"Is it really that different?" Ingo wonders.

"You have this halo of superhuman vision and then everything outside it is trash. I'm pretty sure you're considered some kind of blind by most doctors," Zisu harshly concludes.

"But that's how depth of field works," Ingo protests. "Your eye doesn't focus on everything equally."

"That doesn't mean everything you aren't looking at is supposed to turn to soup," Zisu tells him.

"It can't possibly be like some kind of photograph," Ingo dismisses.

A silence.

"Oh, I see. Oh, that's awful! Captain, that's absolutely torturous, how can you stand it? How do you gauge depth? How can your eyes focus on anything if it strains to see everything equally? That hardly seems efficient!"

"You may as well ask a colorblind man if he feels sorrow over a lack of red," Zisu reminds him.

Ingo barks out a dry laugh.

"I can't believe you've been running around this whole time thinking photos aren't realistic," Zisu snickers.

"I can't believe all you people run around worse than blind," Ingo retorts. "I'm getting a migraine just trying to imagine it."

Zisu pushes up at Ingo's face. "You're a migraine, you walking kaleidoscope! You're worse than that time I tried to stare out of a Combee!"

"I think I knew someone who was only Shiny," Ingo vaguely recalls. "He had to wear reading glasses, but I never did."

"Maybe the Shiny structural changes are compensating for the lack of pigment in your eyes?" Zisu offers. "It's kind of crystalline, isn't it? It looks like your light sensitive eyes from albinism combined with the tissue alterations of the Shiny gene to turn your eyes into some kind of exaggerated convex lens. That's probably what's making your light sensitivity so bad in the first place, you're getting scattered light constantly. I've seen regular albino vision in pokemon, it's nothing like yours. Man, what's winter like for you? Any daylight must be hell when there's all that snow, no wonder you're always up late at night!" Zisu drags her hand over her face. "Oh, now I feel terrible for those times I tried to wake you up earlier! I thought you just had insomnia!"

Ingo chuckles into her hair, a kiss lightly ghosting her forehead.

"Don't do that when I have to see out of you!" Zisu giggles. "It looks so weird!"

Ingo hums dangerously. "Oh, does it now?"

Zisu snorts and leans away from him until her own vision snaps back into place.

"You're absolutely gonna regret that when it's your turn," she threatens.

"I'm counting on it."

=#[o]#=

Ingo isn't sure what he expected at all, but he didn't expect everything to be so wide through Zisu's eyes.

That's the only way he can describe it. The world around him is put into shape by a frustratingly blind painter who's never heard of conservation of detail, and it's maddeningly panoramic. Every leaf and branch and blade of grass takes equal precedence in the corner of his eyes to the point of being ostentatious. 

Zisu looks back at him and he can see the perturbed frown on his own face as she laughs. "Oh no, is it too much?"

"It's very… textures. Hmm." Zisu's gaze turns to the ground and Ingo shudders with distaste. "The ground looks round. Don't like that."

She looks out from the hill, down at the village. She can see every shingle on every roof on every house on the street that catches her eye, and Ingo stamps down the urge to try and keep track of it all. Maddening, maddening, absolutely maddening. He can barely understand how anyone sees anything at all through this endless ocean of visual noise and he feels this pang of guilt for it, that he only musters discontent for Zisu's eyes where she met him with such wonder.

…He can still make out the shapes of the lanterns in the village as the sun goes down. Their glass is still visible despite the piercing light that moves so differently from the ghostfire he's made his constant companion. He can make out yellows and oranges where there was once only a grating white.

The sky has turned into a rich deep blue- this, he is familiar with, the signs of encroaching night- but he didn't expect the clouds. The setting sun casts them all into pinks, oranges, purples, smoldering like flames licking at the precious threads of an irreplaceable tapestry. The sun itself is less a fire of any sort and more a bright splotch of ink on the horizon, bleeding out its last drops of color, vivid and floating, clouds rolling over spilled dye in drowning curtains.

It looks like a painting. It looks like the end of the world.

Zisu turns back to him and his body is a photograph again. The ever-changing silvers of his hair swirl around the pearlescence catching on his face, the growing lines beneath his eyes. A ragged coat collar competes with the stark black of his undershirt as it crawls up his neck, and the nervous tremor of his hand is just as eye-catching as the mild sway spreading through the rest of his arm.

Has he always been so chaotic to look at? Has his presence always demanded such attention, even when utterly silent?

"Take off your hat for a second," Zisu gently orders. 

He does. Reds and gold light bounces around his hair as he turns his head and scatters back into the particles of air around him. For a strange and blasphemous moment, he himself was fire.

And Zisu looks at him like a painting. She looks at him like the end of the world.

(The growing red on his face isn't just the light of the sun anymore.)

"Now you know how I feel when you just turn around and look at me like that," Zisu jokes. 

A living sky of fire. The eyes of a man in love with death were never meant to withstand so much life.

He clamps a hand over his face until the world stops burning in the back of his eyes.

"My apologies, Captain," he manages to choke out. "It was all too much to hold on to."

Zisu might have nodded out of the corner of his eyes. Might. How terrible to be so aware of this conjecture, however small. "You know what? That's fair. Your eyes were kind of too much for me too. Everything was so intense. "

"It's too much." Ingo ducks further into his coat with every word. "I don't know how you even look at me. It's too much."

He takes a sudden and tremulous breath.

"Isn't it odd, Zisu? To live in a world where you can choose the things you look at. To choose the things that are too much to hold on to. Isn't it odd? I think it is."

"Not as odd as you and your kaleidoscope eyes," Zisu decides. "To me, at least."

Ingo lightly chuckles. "I don't ever want to see as you do. I'm glad I was given these eyes." His voice softens. "I am glad that out of everything I must be forced to see, I can choose to see you."

Chapter Text

Things have been a little spicy for Volo ever since he figured out Sinnoh's trying to kill him. At the very least, it's added whole new flavors to his ongoing existential crisis. Time traveling to a future where one's entire culture has been functionally extinct for over a thousand years can do that to a person.

Probably.

It's not like he has any points of reference other than himself, after all. He's not going to open a door one day to a conveniently pre-traumatized group of other time travelers all sobbing over drinks together like those little huddles he sees old Celestica soldiers do sometimes. That's not how it works. For all intents and purposes, he's utterly alone in the world. There's always Ingo, of course, but Volo knows better now. The last time either of them saw each other, Ingo was lying broken and feverish in a hospital bed because Sinnoh saw fit to drive his Lady mad. Volo had the option to be there while Ingo cobbled himself back together, or make sure something like that never happens again.

The Original One lost a piece of its omniscience when it created Space and Time. The Sinnoh of now is not the Sinnoh of Volo's time. So ultimately, Volo's goal has not changed- he's still going home, after all. It's just that there's a very big tactical reason to do it now. It won't matter how many times Sinnoh tries to kill him if he goes back to a time before it ever knew to strike him down.

So anyways! He's been a little more proactive with his and Giratina's inspection of space-time distortions. He's started trying to follow the holes back to where they came from.

Easier said than done. His time with Ginter, and Akari's frequent encounters with the phenomena, are proof enough of that. A soap bubble of divine energy will slap itself against the dirt, vomit out whatever pokemon or strange items its stolen from its point of origin, and vanish without a trace. Anything that hasn't been extracted out of the bubble by the time it disappears comes back with it. Volo's tried holding onto the artifacts they drop while not leaving the boundary, but that hasn't worked either.

It's frustrating, but failure is mostly harmless and Volo can afford to keep trying. He's noticed, over the years, that pokemon who fall out of the distortions and survive being Hisuian- typically Eevees, the adaptable little shits- have a sense for where other distortions will form. Like being able to taste a certain herb in any food after eating the plant for yourself.

Ingo has that same sense, and Volo wouldn't be surprised to find out Rei does too. Volo didn't have any talent to start with, but after his excursions with Ginter, he's dragged his own awareness into life, kicking and screaming. Much like how he'll be dragging this odd little Grass-type monkey kicking and screaming to wherever it's actually from. Ingo had mentioned this kind of pokemon in one of his more lucid recollections. It's a Pansage, or something from that line, native to places like Unova and Kalos. It's not going to carve out a niche in Hisui for long with all the other primates native here. Honestly, Volo's doing it a favor trying to send it back. The fact that he might go back with it is just a bonus.

And listen. He's not stupid. It's a foolproof plan. He'll either hop along for the ride and successfully travel through space-time, or he'll have a free pokemon to send over to Laventon. The Professor has a bounty out for distortion pokemon so they can get sent back to their native regions- or in the case of extinct pokemon, sent away for research and dedicated care. Instant fucking profit.

…Potential maiming aside. There's a reason every distortion pokemon is dragged kicking and screaming to safety. The impromptu travel makes them panic at best. At worst, the distortion warps their size and turns them into alphas. But if there's anything Ingo's taught him, it's how to survive grappling wild pokemon, so! He's going to outlast this Pansage until the distortion closes back up and nothing bad will happen. Definitely.

Wait, did he make sure he had his pokemon on him-

=#[o]#=

In Volo's defense, it hadn't previously occurred to him that the world could end multiple times.

There's a sea of bodies- barely even bodies, husks, husks of human and pokemon so hollowed of life and color they look like their own trampled gravestones. Dislocated claws, fangs bared in ugly snarls, stiff hands still curled around broken spears, armor caved against broken bones. Their blood floats as it spills out of them, sluggishly intruding upon the air like oil in water, uneven ribbons of ghostfire crawling out of collapsed mouths. As Volo hesitantly walks through this mass grave, he sees heavier and heavier objects caught on the air- a burnt saddle, a bent sword, a person's arm threatening to take the rest of their body with them. It's getting harder and harder to keep his feet on the ground as he approaches the distant epicenter.

That giant distant flower, that living tower of crystal, reminds Volo of a Shiny's bones, and it takes far too long for him to identify the noise reverberating around it as human screaming.

There's a human person attached to that thing. Practically glued to it. A human person screaming, but for what, if anything, Volo cannot say. Rage, mercy, despair- or perhaps nothing at all. A wordless sound, signifying nothing. The body convulses with energy, the light around them so piercing that Volo can make out the crystals forcibly stretching out their bones, and still they will not yield. They will not let go. They just scream.

Who would ever want to win so badly?

A hand catches on Volo's leg. A body gurgles out a plea before it rattles and dies. (He hates to remember why he knows it's a rattle.)

The ground starts to shake and the bodies rise into the sky. Volo sees a flood of pokemon fleeing an incoming eruption from the crystal and he helplessly follows, the memory of ashfall clinging to his lungs like an old friend. Suddenly he is a nameless acolyte all over again, fearfully chasing a Ninetales' foxfire into the Icelands fog as the sky burns around them and-

YOU BETTER GET BACK HERE BEFORE YOU FORGET HOW TO, a distorted voice rumbles.

Bleeding claws wrap around Volo's body like a cage and he wakes up holding a golden, wide eared fox pokemon in his arms, face unceremoniously shoved into the loose soil of Cogita's garden.

The old woman drinks tea from her dainty porcelain cup, sitting utterly unbothered at her fancy table. "Do try to land on the porch next time, young man."

"That would hurt me more, I think," Volo weakly protests.

"It's only the part of the dirt that doesn't have my garden on it. A much bigger target than my unfortunate vegetables." A long, pointed sip. "You've been considered missing for nearly a week now. Ginter's nearly ready to call a search party. I expect this is news to you."

Well, fuck. It is news to him.

"Deny it as you may, you are tied to this world just as I am," Cogita reminds him. "Your absence, physical or otherwise, has consequences." 

"Ginter's not going to get me in trouble," Volo grumbles.

"Who said anything about trouble? I only say consequences." Cogita taps on a second cup at the table. "Would you like some tea before you leave? I could use the company, and you need time to figure out how to explain yourself."

Volo sullenly sips at his tea (imported, he recalls, a Sawsbuck leaf blend of some sort) and thinks about some things.

He'll probably keep the little fox with him for a bit while he figures things out. He doesn't really feel like dealing with Jubilife Village at the moment, not with his last visit being so fresh. He'll bother facing the Professor when the Galaxy Hall stops making him think of half dead Wardens and frantic nurses.

Would Ginter accept the honest explanation that Volo fell into a time hole? He'd be thrilled, knowing the man. But then he'd start asking for details, and then he'd probably call Volo a dumbass for doing something so unsafe and then Ginter would ask how Volo got back and- well. That's between him and God. Ginter doesn't need to know which one.

Ginter doesn't need to know where he's been. No one does. But he should still know Volo's alright. He deserves that much, at least. Of course, Volo got a slap on his face for scaring the Guild a little too much this time, but they both knew there were unshed tears in Ginter's eyes as he told Volo to go back to work.

"Unless you want to start taking all that time off you've been hoarding," Ginter adds. "I wouldn't blame you after all the shit that's happened."

"I'm not sure what you mean." 

"For fuck's sake, boy, you nearly watched a man die! You don't get to tell me the Warden's a friendly stranger to you, not after that stunt you pulled with the Commander." There's an unidentifiable expression on Ginter's face as he grips Volo's shoulder. "You're the laziest overachiever I have and you haven't taken a break since the day you dropped here. I'm telling you you're allowed to take a second for your family. "

"I don't have any father of any sort," Volo lowly says. "Not you or him or anyone."

"You and everyone else in this damn Guild," Ginter resignedly responds. "That's why you need to keep what you've got. There's no point having business if you've got nothing and nobody to keep it good for."

His hand relaxes.

"I fucked you up, telling you to be afraid of being an outside thing. Doesn't matter if I was right. You don't do that to a kid." Ginter's lined face weighs heavy with worry. "So I can't go around telling you shit anymore, but I'm telling you there's someone who can't give a damn about outside things and won't fucking shut up about you the second he sees a Guild uniform on anything! Don't you dare throw that away next to all the other secrets you keep inside your head."

"But-"

He's a Warden, Ginter. He was never mine. He was never meant to love anything less than gods.

"-I wouldn't want to intrude," Volo says instead. "The Pearl Clan's been a bit protective over him as of late."

"And what if I sent you on a supply run to the Highlands for Warden Melli?" Ginter challenges. "What then, you stubborn fuck?"

Volo flattens his mouth and gets ready to pack his bags.

Chapter Text

Rei goes to the new Highlands Camp and spots Ingo having a stiff conversation with one of the Diamond Clan guards. Of course, as far as Rei can really tell, Ingo's always a little stiff looking, but Rei has the feeling that this is the actual kind of stiff instead of just Ingo's face being a bit flat. He likes to think he's been getting better at reading his new mentor's moods over the past few weeks.

Rei's really good at reading all sorts of pokemon. He doesn't need an expressive human face to tell what someone's thinking. The problem is mostly that Ingo's so professional all the time. Like some kind of bank teller. (Or, you know. A conductor about to make a PA announcement. Ask a dumb question, and all that.) Off the clock, his voice carries all sorts of moods, but when he decides he's the conductor in a situation, he puts everything he has into sounding very very nice and very very polite no matter what he's actually saying or thinking, and it makes it hard to tell if he's ever anything other than entertainingly confused with his lot in life.

Ingo's told Rei not to worry about him being upset, because he has decided to not get upset at anything his apprentice does, and even if he did, he would just say it instead of expecting Rei to figure out what's wrong. If he doesn't tell Rei anything is wrong, then nothing's wrong and it's not his responsibility.

Rei finds that very strange. Ingo's shaping up to be a very strange man and Rei's still figuring out whether he likes that or not. He's not used to people paying attention to him like this.

Maybe Ingo's just nice. Or maybe Rei just needs to get better at people, because Akari brings out a slightly different conductor than he does.

"MY GOOD FRIEND MR. WARDEN INGO SIR!" Akari dramatically screams.

"MY GOOD FRIEND MS. SURVEYOR AKARI SHOU!" Ingo immediately shouts back, opening his arms just in time for Akari to barrel directly into him. "A direct collision! I'll be suing you for irrecoverable organ damage post-haste!" Still half holding Akari in his arms, he turns to Rei, and while the smile in his eyes doesn't disappear, it tempers its enthusiasm a bit. "Good morning, young passenger. What brings the Survey Corps to my wayward station today?"

"Boss man Kamado wants us to make sure the other kami aren't getting frenzied already," Akari says.

"Ah, I was warned about this. Weren't there supposed to be more of you?"

"Rye, Bellamis, Alec, Yukino, and the photographer," Rei reminds him. "They're splitting off to check on the other areas. We're not supposed to bring everyone at once unless we see something wrong. Kamado-san doesn't want us intruding too much on clan things unless we're allowed."

Ingo hums pensively. "Warden Melli will not like this. He does not want his Lord disturbed and he's wary enough about this level of secular involvement as it is. Both of which he's been quite vocal about as of late."

"He means Melli's kind of a cagey bitch," Akari translates.

"My respect for Warden Melli is nearly second to none," Ingo insists. "His devotion to the Lord Electrode is of the same breed as mine to my dear Lady. His selective nature is not without reason."

"You said if he tried to talk to you about Diamond Clan supremacy again, you would throw him off a cliff," Rei recalls.

"I would just as soon throw Gaeric off a cliff for his own jingoism. My distaste for such utterly asinine posturing claims no allegiance."

"Asinine," Rei repeats.

"Arbitrary. Foolish." A steely hardness enters Ingo's impassive frown. "Pointless, all of it. To claim heresy of each other's rituals is an insult to Truth and a waste of Ideals."

Akari reaches up and lightly slaps Ingo's face. "You're doing the omen thing again. It scares people."

"What omen thing?" Rei asks. "I didn't see any omen thing!"

"You know, the omen thing. Where Ingo goes all-" Akari glares intensely, face warping with a sharp and stony frown.

"Oh, that omen thing. Like when Ingo told me he's going to kill god with the train."

Akari's head snaps towards Rei. "He what?"

Ingo pats Akari's fluffy red hair, swaying slightly in place. "It's just a metaphor, dear." A long pause. "As far as anyone can prove."

Lady An' twirls in place.

"No, I would not become a god just to make infinite trains," Ingo dismisses. "Imagine the paperwork, Lady An'. I wouldn't survive it. Besides, there's work to be done. Would you two passengers mind a slight change of plans? There's a gift I want to give Rei before you begin your investigation, but it's not quite in the way of your current route."

"Field trip?" Rei whispers, a slight awe entering his voice. 

Ingo lets out a confused noise, stalling in place, before his eyes suddenly brighten. "Field trip!"

Rei waves his survey journal around. “Field trips and permission slips!”

"Miltank spotting on roadsides-"

"-finding special snacks at rest stops-"

"-throwing pizza into cave mouths when your chaperones aren't looking-"

"-wait, what? Densha-san, what kind of field trips are you thinking about?"

"I haven't the slightest idea!" Ingo cheerfully admits. "I'd be delighted to find out, though!"

“Do I get a gift?” Akari loudly asks. 

“Do you want a Sneasler?” Ingo offers.

“I can’t raise an adult woman, Ingo. Think about what it would do to my reputation.”

“Then there’s no gift for you, dear. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

Rei tilts his head. “Who said anything about an adult woman?”

“Y’know, Lady Sneasler,” Akari reminds him. “Doesn’t she look like one?”

Rei squints. The last time he saw Lady Sneasler was when she was frenzied, and he doesn’t remember a lot of that. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

They trek along the left side of a steep, craggy gorge, and Rei watches Lady An’ keeping an eye on him and Rei as Ingo’s eyes examine the river below. Unlike the stagnant water of the Mirelands, this place rumbles and roars with its own thunderous movement, and Rei can spot the glistening red scales of Magikarps breaking through the surface, whiskers dragging through the foam as their bodies stubbornly swim against the current.

"The melting snow and ice from the Icelands passes through here and makes these huge rivers down below," Akari explains when she catches Rei's curious glance. "It's moving so fast around here because of how steep everything is. This is all going to go down to the sea or slow down in the Fieldlands-”

“-and then turn back into swamp at the Mirelands,” Rei finishes. “It’s weird seeing water be loud when it’s small like this. I’m used to the ocean being the only thing that gets this loud. I wasn’t really into mountain hiking stuff before-” His voice trails off. “-well. Before, I guess.”

“We both know you’re a time traveler, Rei,” Akari bluntly says. “You don’t need to dance around it.”

Rei stiffens. “How?”

Akari shrugs. “Adaman had some kind of vision before the Wyrdeer mission and told everyone in the Diamond Clan that you’re a gift from the Sinnoh of Time. The people back at Jubilife don’t know enough about the religion to know what that means, but word gets around and I do a lot of favors. Plus, if that wasn’t enough, Ingo already told me.”

Going by the way Ingo’s eyebrows are raising, this is news to him too. Akari stares at him for a moment, and his expression clears with understanding.

“Ah. Yes, I suppose I would tell him anything.” There’s an apologetic tilt to Ingo’s voice as he addresses Rei again. “It is difficult to be honest about the accident without revealing your presence when it happened.”

The accident. What a little word for something so big. (What a big word for something so small.)

Ingo's line of sight catches on an outcrop of rock bisecting a waterfall. "There's our bridge, passengers. Rei, do you need-"

Rei trips over a piece of rock and Ingo's hand darts out of his coat, grabbing Rei's collar before he falls.

"Do you need any assistance exiting the vehicle?" Ingo continues as if he's not partially dangling Rei over a cliff. "The path to the bridge has eroded too steeply in this part to comfortably pass safety checks."

"I'm doing great, why do you ask?" Rei snarks.

Ingo frowns.

"Please help me," Rei finally relents, "I will die."

Ingo pulls Rei back up, hooks their arms together, and wraps his free hand around Lady An' to slide them safely down the incline. Akari, for her part, gracefully vaults over the terrain herself, neatly landing onto the stone brick of the bridge.

"Cheater!" Rei shouts.

"Mjeh mjeh mjeh mjeh mjeh," Akari gracefully retorts. 

"You two stop that nonsense right now or I'm turning this car around," Ingo mutters under his breath.

"What's a car?" Akari asks.

Ingo holds a declarative finger in the air, and then stops. He stands perfectly still, staring off into space until Lady An' shocks him back to life again, a sudden spark of ghostfire passing through his breath.

"Hello, young man, are you passing through Wayward Cave? I must advise doing so without one of the Wardens to accompany you." Ingo tugs down his hat as he squints at Rei. "You could wait for the Warden of the Hollow, but does not often leave his Lord's seat. If you don't mind, I might- I might-" His eyes flash with the same golden color as Lady An's and he blinks sharply. "Please remain seated. The conductor is now boarding."

Rei stands awkwardly, eyes flicking to Akari, who barely even reacts. She's acting like this is fine, and Ingo doesn't seem freaked out. He just lightly mutters to himself while thumbing over his book, then closes it with a snap.

"Rei! Hello! You got your glasses! Hello!" Ingo points towards the cave. "We are heading towards Clamberclaw Cliffs. In order to do so in a timely manner, we must cut through the footpath created in the Wayward Cave. There are some pokemon who live inside, but they will not attack when properly avoided. Is this route acceptable?"

If something was wrong, Ingo would tell him. He's been blunt enough about everything else so far that Rei can at least believe that. 

"I trust you, Warden. If something's wrong with the caves, we can always do something else, right?" At Ingo's curt nod, Rei taps his foot into the ground. "How do we know where to go when we're inside? Is there a light?"

"There's a-" Ingo snaps his head to the side, ear cocked towards the cave entrance as he stalks forward. "One moment, passenger."

He opens one of his pokeballs, and Li crawls up his shoulder, head leaning into Ingo's steady hand. Ingo whistles sharply and the Gliscor's body coils with tension.

"DEPART!" Ingo throws his arm forward, and Li launches off of it, flying into the darkness. "CHECK!" He silently counts down to himself with his fingers until a distant, echoing click answers him, then holds his arm out in front of himself. "BOARD!"

Li returns to land on his arm like an airplane on a runway, and Ingo murmurs softly as he feeds the pokemon a snack.

"Akari," Ingo says, voice turning very polite, "could you do me a quick favor?" 

Rei can practically see Akari's invisible ears perking up. "Oho?"

"If you have one of your flying friends with you, could you cut ahead and find Warden Melli? Meet us on the other side of the cave and tell me where he was."

Akari starts laughing darkly as she brings Nevermore out of her pokeball and flies away on the alpha Honchkrow.

Rei squints. "What was that about?"

"The torches in the cave have been removed, something only Warden Melli is allowed to do." Ingo's slow pats on his Gliscor's back become firm and deliberate. "I hope that the Warden is very close by, only midway through replacing the torches. I surely hope I have not spotted him forsaking his duties to the point of endangering passengers."

"Is that a no on going through the cave, then?" Rei wonders.

"Hm? No, not at all!" Ingo immediately assures. "We have Lady An' lighting the way for us, luring us forward. I will be able to guide us from there." He leans dramatically towards Rei. "I have memorized the entire cave system because I am an incredibly sane human being," he stage whispers.

Rei's nervousness breaks with a small giggle.

"However, pressing forward is only one of the many tracks available to us," Ingo reminds him. "Going into the darkness may be possible, but it is not ideal for you. If you would like, we could wait for Akari or Melli's return."

"I'd like to wait a little bit," Rei admits.

Ingo nods serenely and moves to stand inside the cave entrance, just enough that his body is moved out of the daylight.

"What's Lord Electrode like?" Rei asks. "Do Electrodes still have bright colors like they did back home?"

"The Electrode known as the Lord of the Hollow is somewhat different than the Electrode I recall. But its electrical discharges, at least, are familiar. One false step around it could put you in danger."

"You locked up when Akari asked what a car was," Rei notes. "Does remembering things before the accident mess with your head?"

"Having a lack of reminders in Hisuian places imbues concepts or things with a sense of… unreality, if I had to name it," Ingo admits. "Many modern things are functionally delusions to me. Their memory is disruptive to my daily life and impedes my ability to react appropriately to things around me now." He taps his finger against the badge of his hat. "Aza tells me I sometimes refer to my team using human names they don't recognize. I've sometimes struggled to identify tools and machinery because my mind only provides their modern equivalents. This sort of insistent delirium can fade with quick reminders, but left unattended it leaves me… vulnerable. I dislike it."

Something in his expression changes.

"I am not- it is not that- I am-" He muffles his mouth with his hands for a moment. "I am not asking you to censor yourself. If you wish to speak of other times with me, you are reality enough. Do not let my eccentricities persuade you otherwise."

"We're the only living proof we've got, aren't we?" Rei sadly surmises.

Ingo raises a fond hand over his Chandelure's glass face. "Lady An' is with me, but her reality is part of me. The true artifacts of our past are so few and far between. I've collected what I can, but it doesn't quite tell us the life we lived."

"Tell me more about Hisuian Electrodes," Rei decides to say. "Why are they different?"

"They have Grass typing. They look… wooden. Ours didn't look wooden."

"Ours were bred to look like pokeballs, weren't they?" Rei tries to recall. "Like how Alcremie can come in all those different colors by feeding them candy. It's man-made. But I heard the Hisuian ones already kind of look like that. How does that work?"

"Samurai Krabby," Ingo simply says.

"The what?"

"There's a wild breed of Johtonian Krabby with bodies that look like a samurai's face," Ingo explains. "Fishermen would throw them back into the water out of respect, meaning they were the ones left alive to pass on their features. Over time, they became a distinct variant of the species." His hands twirl in idle circles. "Pokeballs used to be ancient tools reserved for particularly monstrous or religiously significant pokemon. An exploding electric creature eager to take up entire fields would be a pest, but one that looked like a holy vessel would be revered, would it not?"

"That makes a lot of sense."

"If you're going to face it, you might consider catching pokemon that can withstand electricity." Ingo inclines his head. "Or, if you have the constitution for it, using your Ability to prime yourself against an Electric-type move beforehand."

"Go cuddle a Luxray," Rei summarizes. "On it, boss."

Ingo's face softens into a more somber expression, eyes closed as he clasps his wooden bracelet. "All those pressures constantly fighting against your body and mind. It must be difficult being a pokemon, don't you think? Especially one as irritable as Electrode. Then becoming frenzied, to boot…"

“So true!” An unfamiliar voice calls out. “It’s a tough old life for pokemon and humans alike!”

Ingo and Rei both startle as a very tall (and very pretty) man in lovingly embroidered Diamond Clan clothes walks out of the cave.

“Well, well. Warden Ingo of the Pearl Clan, and-” the man’s lip curls with distaste. “Oh my. Adaman’s favorite Galaxy Team grunt. Oh, I know you. ”

“Warden,” Ingo warningly mutters.

“You’re punching well above your weight to seek out the great Electrode, Lord of the Hollow!” the man (Melli?) continues, hands held primly at his sides as he looks down at Rei. “But! By the sheer tenderness of my heart, I’ll grant you a trial to see if you’re worthy.”

“ Warden- ”

Melli splays a hand across his chest. “The greatest obstacle you’ll ever face awaits you right here! Battle me- if you dare!”

He can see it in Melli’s eyes. The Warden’s definitely willing to battle. But this isn’t like the battles with Volo or Akari or Rei’s friends in the Security Corps at all. Melli’s challenge has a poisonous edge to it. Like he’s not going to be very nice if he wins- and even worse if he loses.

Rei quietly grips the sleeve of Ingo’s coat, stares at the ground, and shakes his head.

“Not much of a fighter,” Melli notes to himself. “Fair enough. Well then, let me tell you the great Melli’s take on this whole situation. The frenzy of our nobles is nothing more than a mark of almighty Sinnoh’s favor and protection! Why? Because it makes them stronger! Do I really need to spell out why that’s a good thing?”

Out of the corner of Rei’s eyes, Ingo’s expression freezes in place.

“A good thing,” Ingo hollowly parrots, frown sharpening with every word. “A good thing? Melli, what madness of vast Hisui have you lost your head to? A GOOD THING?”

Melli’s posture stiffens with a nervous laugh. “We must let my Lord frenzy as it may, to demonstrate to almighty Sinnoh that the Diamond Clan lives as is right and good!” His hands shake as they curl into fists. “This may even be- dare I say it- the very reason I am here on this earth!” 

“The Warden of the Hollow would not say such a thing! What happened to you while I was gone?”

“Clarity of purpose.” Melli scoffs and rakes his eyes over Rei’s form. “If you desperately need to know, my Lord has yet to show any signs of frenzy at all. But when he does, what business is it of the Galaxy Team’s if Electrode lets loose a few sparks out here in the mountains?”

“WHAT A SELFISH OUTLOOK!” Ingo suddenly shouts. “THESE FRENZIES CAUSE THE POKEMON THEMSELVES SUCH SUFFERING! WHO SPEAKS TO ME IN SUCH A WAY?”

“Must I remind you after all these years still?” Melli caustically drawls. “I am the Warden Melli to the Lord of the Hollow.”

“TRULY?” Ingo growls, ash and embers crackling in his throat. “Am I speaking to a Warden? Am I speaking even to a man? Or am I speaking to a piece of Clan clothes, fit to show me a border and nothing more? Right and good, right and good- AM I SPEAKING TO A WARDEN OR NOT?”

“Go home, child,” Melli stiltedly orders, eyes avoiding Ingo’s furious gaze. “Do us all a favor and slink back home to that village of yours, rather than persist in this folly. If you’ll excuse me, I have duties to attend to.”

He runs back into the cave. Ingo watches him leave, fiery breath echoing inside his chest as he takes a step forward, and Rei flinches. Not much. Just enough for his hands to tense on the man’s fraying coat sleeve.

“Oh, no. Oh, Rei. ” All of Ingo’s anger shatters into regret in front of Rei’s eyes. “Rei, I would never, I swear I would never.”

“I didn’t mean to touch you,” Rei stammers out, “I got in the way, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Warden, I won’t do it again-”

“My young passenger,” Ingo softly interrupts. “It wasn’t your fault. I was never upset at you. I told you, didn’t I? What did I tell you?”

“If- if you don’t say anything’s wrong, then nothing’s wrong,” Rei recites.

Ingo slowly nods. “Did I say you did anything wrong?”

Rei shakes his head.

“So why would I ever take my anger out on you?” Ingo gently asks. 

“He was getting in your way because I was there,” Rei quietly says.

“I was angry because he’s clearly been convinced to neglect his duties,” Ingo corrects. “And in the process, seen fit to antagonize my child. Whenever you are with me, you are in my care, and I will not allow anyone to treat you in such a way.”

“I’m just your apprentice,” Rei mumbles. “You don’t have to be my dad.”

“To teach under the blood of dragons is to accept a duty of care. I am not the one who houses you, and you are not my son, but you are my student and thus my child. That is reason enough.”

"If we were the only two guys in Wayward Cave and one of us killed the other with a rock, would that be fucked up or what?" Rei blurts out.

Ingo just blinks at the non sequitur and stiffly pats Rei on the shoulder. "I'm sure Lady An' would ensure our deaths will be equally swift and terrible."

Why the fuck did Rei just say that? He's the lamest person alive.

"Can we pretend I had a normal, emotionally heartfelt reaction to the things you just said to me and go meet back up with Akari?" Rei half-begs.

"Very well! The tracks ahead will be perilous, but I pride myself on safe driving!" Ingo's hand stays on Rei's shoulder as he walks them inside the cave. "Here you'll find pokemon like Golbat and their ilk, which are quite at home navigating in the dark."

"Like you," Rei recalls.

"Yes, I am!" Ingo easily confirms. "Even with Melli's interference, I know my route, and I shall conduct us safely." He points sharply ahead. "No darkness or foul weather will obstruct us! Onward we roll!"

His hand moves away from Rei as he moves to take the lead, right arm bracing against Lady An' as he walks onward. Rei lurches forward at an unsteady pace, unwilling to let the perilously small field of ghostfire leave his sight. Soon enough, what little sunlight remains from the entrance stops reaching them, and the only thing Rei can see is Lady An' and the pearlescence her flame scatters on Ingo's thin face. Rei stumbles over a loose rock in the ground and crashes into Ingo's arm. Pale eyes flit down to him and the glow illuminates the faded armband at Ingo's left shoulder. Rei can't remember what it used to look like. He wonders if Ingo can't either.

The Warden of the Cliffs doesn't voice such things to his young passenger. He only offers his left arm and whispers, "Take care not to come uncoupled from me."

The silence that follows is heavy, but not… bad. It's a good kind of heavy, a blanket of serenity letting the concerns of the world be reduced to nothing but Zubat squeaks and the ever present thunder of the waterfall above them.

"Do you like coming down here?" Rei quietly asks. "Down in the caves?"

"Very much so. Why?"

"It sounds like a train tunnel."

Something in Ingo's eyes clears. "Yes. Yes, it does. I'm glad to hear it."

"Do you remember what trains were like?" Rei dares to ask.

“Not like here,” Ingo tersely says. “Electric. Computerized. The programs were alive. The line between a trainer and an engineer was so very thin. I would leave… little songs inside the Porygons. Or joke announcements. To show they were recently inspected. And sometimes they would play when the train was running.”

“I’ve been inside Single Train 001,” Rei confesses. “The one that’s here. It was when we were looking for you.”

“That sounds like something Akari told me happened.” A pause. “You may visit it at any time. The memories are yours as much as mine. And I’ve collected a number of Rotom appliances over the years, if you want to use them.”

“Do you have a fridge?” Rei immediately asks. “Or a toaster, at least?”

“I understood some of those words individually, so I believe that’s a yes.”

“Oh, thank Dialga.”

Lady An’ rotates sharply to the right and Ingo freezes in place, head swiveling this way and that like a Rowlet as he searches for a sound that Rei hasn’t picked up. Then he wraps his arm across Rei’s back, pulling them close enough together that Rei can almost hide in his coat, and forces them to the left of a fork in the tunnel. He snaps his fingers above Rei’s head, points at his hand, and slowly signs in the shadow of Lady An’s dim ghostfire.

Alpha Crobat, right.

Rei stiffens, eyes darting back from where they came. Somewhere in the darkness, there’s a pair of glowing red eyes that hasn’t quite seen them yet. Rei's hand curls around the pokeball tied to his satchel.

Ingo shakes his head and ferries them deeper into the silent darkness. Rei nearly pulls away trying to look back, only for Ingo's arm to stop him. Careful, a pale glove flashes.

"But-"

CAREFUL.

Silence reigns once again. Ingo's hand lifts up to the light.

Sometimes I recall a man who looked… like me. We'd battle and discuss pokemon, I think… 

The hand becomes stilted, deliberate, forceful. For a moment, there's a thin, wide, pointed smile flashing on Ingo's face that doesn't belong to him. Just like those hands, a memory of someone Rei doesn't recognize.

I Like. Winning. More. Than. Anything. Else.

Their pace slows by an underwater lake, and Ingo lets out a loud sigh. 

"This is fine progress," he finally says. "We're nearly home free."

His content expression flattens with weariness as he spots a pile of torches haphazardly bundled against the wall. 

"Excuse me a moment, passenger. Let me put those torches back where they belong. This darkness could be perilous for the next person to pass through here." Ingo brings his Alakazam out of its pokeball and motions Lady An' towards Rei. "She will keep the lights on for you. I will return to our rightful tracks soon enough."

Aza waves a hand and Ingo- along with all his torches- disappear.

For the second time in his life, Rei sits in a dark tunnel and waits for a conductor to find him.

"He'll have to come back, won't he?" Rei asks Lady An'. "He left you here."

Several minutes pass. Beneath the roar of the waterfall and the idle cave noises of various pokemon, Rei hears crackles of air, over and over, flitting about in the hollow spaces of the tunnels, slowly getting closer and closer, until Ingo finally appears in the light again.

"I beg your pardon for the delay. I have lit and returned the torches. My safety concerns have been addressed." Ingo claps his hands together. "Ready for departure! If you follow the path marked by the torches, you'll reach the-"

Ingo's words audibly collapse on themselves as Rei's arms sneak past his coat, wrapping around his stomach.

"I- I- I- oh, dear-" Ingo's stance sways alarmingly with the sudden shift of weight, a hand bracing itself on Rei's back. "Hello! Hello, are you alright?"

"Mm."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have left after all," Ingo quietly wonders. "My absence seems to have caused more trouble than it's worth."

"I don't want to get in the way," Rei mutters into Ingo's tunic.

"You are not in the way. You are Rei!"

Akari's voice starts to shout from the exit of the cave. "Ingo? Rei? Are you dead yet?"

Rei turns around in Ingo's hold just enough to shout back. "You don't get my stuff if I die!"

"DANG IT!"

"If I die," Ingo adds, "there would be far too many burial steps involved to preserve the space-time continuum, dear!"

“Disgusting!” Akari loudly stomps towards them as they cross the threshold of the exit, loudly gasping and pointing at the way they’re holding on to each other. “FRATERNIZATION! He has been spotted fraternizing on duty with the Warden of the Cliffs! Oh, jail for Rei! Jail for Rei for a thousand years!”

Rei squints suspiciously. Why does Akari know that meme? How does Akari know that meme? Ingo can’t possibly have been teaching her memes. In fact, Rei’s pretty sure Ingo doesn’t consciously remember memes at all. Either Ingo’s forgotten teaching Akari memes, or she has a mysterious outside source.

…He should probably be thinking of things that are more relevant than Akari’s meme lore. Like the Lord Electrode inspection he’s supposed to be doing later.

“But Akari,” Ingo says, eyes wide and innocent, “what were you doing with the Warden of the Cliffs?”

“Animal sacrifice and devil worship!” Akari insists.

“Oh, bravo! I expect all our heads on a pike in front of the Temple of Sinnoh by morning!”

“Gross.” Rei pulls away from Ingo and makes an exaggerated face of horror. “You guys are gross.”

“Ah, in that case, you wouldn’t possibly accept the food I brought for us now that I’ve remembered sandwiches exist,” Ingo flatly threatens.

“I take it back, I love you so much for real.”

Chapter Text

Perhaps if Sabi had only been a little older, and Melli’s predecessor a little more careful, Lord Electrode could have been blessed with a seer for a Warden instead of a spinner. There was a certain gravitas to the Wardens of the Coronet Highlands, after all. It would have been fitting to place Sabi as directly under Sinnoh’s eyes as possible, to let her be all the more perfect a vessel for Time’s cryptic whispers.

Maybe that’s why the Pearl Clan chose Ingo of all people, a man whose incomprehensible journey into Hisui had made him an empty vessel for whatever god’s gone and buried its claws in his brain. As murky as his origins had been, there was no doubt that his particular affliction was something tragically divine in nature. The Diamond Clan was wary of him for all the same reasons the Pearl Clan nearly revered him- a Warden with a perfect sense of Space and total blindness to Time. 

Blessed by Space, the Pearl Clan whispers. Banished by Time, the Diamond Clan hisses.

Melli might be the only one who knows for sure that Ingo’s patron is nothing so Hisuian at all. Beneath his devotion to the Lady of the Cliffs, there is a higher power that steals the fevered dreams of the immortal Fox. A nebulous draconic force of Truth and Ideals, an ancient body of blood and stars that claims far greater mastery over his vows than any vaulted prayer to almighty Sinnoh. When he loves his Lady, he loves her in the way of dragons. Through his scripted words, he makes himself a mirror to better serve her, and he welcomes her children into his hoard with a grey dragon’s face swallowing his humanity like a perfect mask.

An apostate sits on the Pearl Clan’s holiest seat of power and baptizes their kami line of succession with dragon’s blood.

Melli allows it for the same reason the Diamond Clan allows the Pearl Clan’s false Sinnoh. False god or not, the false Sinnoh is still real. It still welcomes worship. So let them worship, the elders had decided. May the evil shadow of Sinnoh grow so fat with offerings it never raises a hand against us again. And the Pearl Clan asserted the same in turn. No matter who is right in the end, the true Sinnoh will be honored, the false Sinnoh will stay dormant, and the world will continue to spin. A dragon god spun from the vows of the Fox is only further insurance. Herd immunity is a powerful thing.

Herd immunity, like all other defenses, will not last forever. It stops working when too many things become ill at once, and the clans, it seems, have become very ill indeed. Ill enough for their own kami to cry out in pain from the infection.

Adaman claims a child has been sent by almighty Sinnoh, a Diamond of the far future put in the guise of a Galaxy Team foreigner to remove the madness from the Hisuian pantheon. Melli sees Adaman first and foremost as a Warden brother, so he does not meet his clan lord's claims with skepticism. However, this child's blessed hands are a bandaid at best. A treatment, but not a cure.

The elders of the Diamond Clan want to cauterize the infection at the source, and when Melli asks them to point towards the wound, they point at the Pearl Clan itself.

This does not make sense, Melli tries to argue. The Celestica have maintained their way of life for uncounted centuries. The Pearl Clan and their false worship have been allowed at the true Sinnoh's holy seat all this time, and they were not stricken down then. The Diamond Clan cannot prove anything has changed.

…And the Diamond elders point to the immortal Fox, the poor, poor immortal Fox. His short eternity spent in a life of service only to be mauled by his own Lady, driven to such wrathful insanity she would wound the human soul she loved most of all. 

See how the false Sinnoh rewards devotion. For what other reason would the gods strike down such a thing, if not mortal sin? Do you propose almighty Sinnoh to be cruel? Warden, you speak of heresy.

The Diamond Clan lives as is right and good, and no madness will befall their kami in the holy seat of almighty Sinnoh. To protest otherwise is heresy, and the elders need not remind him that heretics have no business being Wardens at all. Going to Adaman won’t be an option either. He’s been so overworked between all the other demands of the elders that he doesn’t have time to think about the distant inevitability of the frenzies, much less one Warden’s complaints about them. It’s abundantly clear that any control Melli might have had over this situation has, as Ingo might put it, long since left the station.

“This section of the Wayward Wood is quite safe for our purposes,” Ingo murmurs to Rei, as if in reassurance. “There can be quite a lot of Paras, but they stick to the dense brush and tree cover. They won’t bother us as long as we-”

Akari lets out a piercing, animalistic scream, leaping out of the brush with several Paras clinging to her shins.

“As long as we don’t-” Ingo pinches his brows and sighs. “As long as we don’t disturb the natural order- Akari, dear, what have you done?”

Akari growls and flops to the ground, rolling wildly in the dirt to shake the creatures off of her clothes. She is- she is still screeching.

Ingo’s voice turns resigned as his Chandelure floats forward to assist the girl. “Akari- Akari, if you keep thrashing around like that, the Paras will not be able to depart from your person at all. Stop struggling.”

Rei innocently taps Ingo’s shoulder. “Hey, what does an alpha Parasect look like?”

“Aside from the size difference,” Ingo starts, slowly turning around to face the alpha Parasect looming beside Rei, “there’s not much of a- HOLY RAILROAD IN HEAVEN, THE HEFT TO THIS MAN!”

The alpha Parasect screeches with challenge until Ingo clamps his hands over the edges of its claws. 

“You stop that,” Ingo whispers, a far cry from the booming shout he let out just a moment before. “You are on a public road. Conduct yourself with decency.”

The alpha Parasect immediately quiets down and skitters away in shame. Ingo walks over to Akari, scoops her up off the ground by the collar of her jacket, and starts gently beating her down with the blunt side of his Sneasler climbing claw until the last of the bugs fall off of her body. 

Honestly, when Melli thought to challenge Rei to a pokemon battle afterwards, it was mostly out of shock, because what the fuck is the proper response to any of that?

“What’s the big idea, putting back all the torches I spent ages tidying away?” Melli loudly says as Ingo stalks back into view behind the Survey Corps. “Do you get some sort of amusement stomping around and ruining people’s noble deeds?”

The only way Melli would believe the torches are replaced would be if he went back and checked himself, and Melli hopes that the other Warden still has a sliver of respect left for him to believe he even would. The Warden of the Cliffs, many years ago, told a wool spinner turned Warden you may yet be the best of all of us. Being immature and careless enough to blot out the lights of Wayward Cave is far from best. It’s off-script. And Ingo is nothing if not a pattern seeking man.

“Oh?” Ingo’s hand barely touches the rim of his hat, not quite pulling it down. “Rendering a cave impassable to people who venture inside hardly seems noble to me.”

“Hmph. Well, this just goes to show that even we Wardens don’t always see eye to eye. I extinguished those lights for the sake of the pokemon in that cave who prefer the dark. Imagine their poor, shining eyes being subjected to our mortal flames.” Melli scoffs. “But now you louts have put my efforts to waste! If you think I’ll just let you saunter ahead to meet Lord Electrode, you’re sorely mistaken! The only way you’re getting past me is if you defeat my partner pokemon!”

And now Ingo’s eyes start to sharpen with awareness of the situation. Because Ingo of all people would know, would be the only one to know, that Melli never uses his Skuntank for battle. Poor Camelia loves his human partner more than anything, but Melli would never allow him to sully his beauty.

You may yet be the best of all of us. Melli hopes, in the name of a Truth that was never his, that Ingo still believes it.

Ingo’s eyes flick down to the boy at his side. “How will you proceed, Rei?”

“I don’t want to fight,” Rei half-whispers.

“Are you certain?” Ingo softly presses. “It’s very understandable, but alas, I doubt flouting your commander’s orders will end well.”

The flat line of Rei’s discontent mouth wobbles. How strange, that the boy who was so willing to throw himself at mad gods can’t seem to stand the idea of doing the same to another person. If Melli recalls correctly, he looked almost terrified at the prospect of doing a short bout with Adaman the last time they met until the man clarified his sporting intent.

“It seems this is our only track forward.” Ingo takes a breath, claps his hands together, and steps forward like he’s about to roll back the sleeves of his coat and fight Melli himself. “Akari, if you would-”

Akari immediately takes out several pokeballs from her satchel with an utterly insane smile on her face. “Oh, please let me.”

“...I was going to ask you to stand aside,” Ingo slowly says, “but this may as well happen, if Melli is intent on obstructing us.”

Ingo’s picked up on Melli’s intent, that much is clear. Melli can’t let the Galaxy Team through without a visible protest, without insisting that even his partner was bested in the effort, and even then Ingo will still have to make a claim that he allowed it in turn, that he overrode Melli’s Diamond Clan allegiance by his authority as an elder Warden. It would be so much easier for Melli to swallow his pride and ask for help, like he was always meant to as a fellow Warden, but so much more disastrous. The problem is that Sabi, little seer that she is, makes things so much more complicated. She would never knowingly betray another Warden, but she’s still a little girl. If someone asks her what Warden Melli of the Highlands is doing right now, she’ll have no reason to lie.

And now Akari's the one to battle him. Melli won't force Rei into any sort of fight, but Melli had been hoping the child’s tenacity and obvious divine patronage would make a sufficient excuse when Melli lost the fight by design. The little Laventon, for her part, is many things, but a battler she is infamously not. She’s a tamer and a translator, not a trainer- for Sinnoh’s sake, she just got chewed out by a cluster of Paras a few minutes ago! Even if she chooses one of those alphas she’s so fond of bribing with berries, Melli will have to put in work to make this look convincing-

“BURN IT ALL DOWN, CYAN!”

Oh dear.

Before Melli can even process the command, Ingo’s tired body snaps straight, arm straightening towards Akari’s pokemon like a divining rod beyond his control. “CYAN USES EMBER! 40 POINTS!”

Camelia, a beast more accustomed to a graceful waddle, is forced to leap out of the way of a flurry of will-o-wisps with surprising speed. The flame catches, and Melli himself has to move as well as the drier patch of grass outside the quarry entrance burns up with ease.

“What are you doing!? I agreed to a battle, not a murder attempt!” The rest of the grass was blessedly damp and thus safe from becoming kindling, and Melli had been given plenty of time to get out of the way- but really! This was just uncouth!

Akari just laughs, and Melli shakes his head, trying to think. “Strike down that pest with darkness!” he commands, focusing on the melody in the back of his head.

Everyone had one, after all- tunes of varying complexity following them and their actions. Even places had them, when Melli strained to hear it, though Melli was uncertain whether or not he was the only one even aware of them. It would be easy to ask, but… well, some things are better unquestioned. Sabi was the clan’s psychic prodigy, after all. There’s no use training Melli’s cryptic poetry and musical hallucinations. But Akari has no melody at all! Whatever battle music she could have had is drowned out by the song of the open world, the song of feral pokemon willing to test their mettle against human opponents. Is her sense of command so feeble that her pokemon are still wild?

“CAMELIA USES NIGHT SLASH!” Ingo calls out again. “CYAN AVOIDS THE ATTACK! ZERO POINTS!”

Akari’s… rodent? Mole… shrew? Whatever it was, it scampers away from Camelia’s wide paws as they bear down on it. Cloaked in mist and power, each paw was easily a third of the size of the entire creature, and might even knock it down in a single hit.

If Camelia could manage a single hit.

“CYAN DODGES NIGHT SLASH AGAIN! ZERO POINTS!”

Melli growls under his breath. “Put some speed into it, darling, you only need to nick it.”

Ingo’s hand stutters mechanically as it swivels back to Melli. “CAMELIA USES NIGHT SLASH- AGILE STYLE! 55 POINTS!”

The fire shrew yelps as the attack finally connects, stunning it long enough for Camelia to hit it properly.

“STRONG STYLE! BRAVO! 85 POINTS!”

Cyan stumbles, but it’s still moving, and now Camelia is at the disadvantage. The poor baby, he wasn’t built for fighting like this, he was built for hours of grooming, for frightening things off with his side, for herding Voltorbs… and that Galaxy grunt’s rat is already up and running circles around him.

“Keep moving, Cyan,” Akari encourages, “don’t let that big bully catch you again!”

B- Bully!? How dare she say that about his precious Skuntank! The nerve -!

“Keep your eyes sharp, Camelia!” Melli warns.

“CYAN USES QUICK ATTACK! 40 POINTS!”

The rat- Cyan - darts back and forth past Camelia, dizzying him as he tries to keep up, scorching the Skuntank’s thick, luscious fur with the flames that burst up from its back as it runs… oh, he could barely stand to watch, but he didn’t have a choice, not now. 

What was that saying? Fight fire with fire? He could manage that.

“Don’t try to hit it, just burn it!” Melli orders.

Camelia chuffs, then begins clicking his teeth together, sparks flying within his mouth. Borne of toxic gasses now ignited, a fountain of flame bursts forth, dousing Cyan in fire. 

Ingo’s hand points down. “FLAMETHROWER IS INEFFECTIVE! CYAN WILL CONTINUE TO BATTLE!”

“This- this isn’t FAIR!” Melli sputters, more to Ingo than Akari.

“You cannot run away from a trainer battle!” Ingo responds like that explains anything.

“You’re the one who challenged me!” Akari reminds Melli. 

“I didn’t even challenge you-”

“Cyan, Rollout!”

( Wait, what- )

Cyan rolls up into a ball, coating itself in stones as it cartwheeled across the ground, veering to the side and then back again just to hit Camelia directly in the side.

“CYAN USES- Cyan uses- Cyan uses-s-s-s-” Ingo’s mouth twitches, eyes jerking erratically as he follows Cyan’s movement. “But that can’t be right, a wild- a wild pedigree Cyndaquil isn’t able to naturally learn Rollout until level 49, how did-d-d-”

Ingo’s ghostly pokemon partner braces against his arm as he rocks on his feet, and while he puzzles the conundrum to himself, Akari clicks open a second pokeball. A Luxio pounces at Melli, harmlessly running between his legs and butting its head into his hand.

“Hey, no, no-” Melli pushes the Luxio’s face away from his body. “Don’t you dare-” The Luxio lets out a needy chirp and Melli sighs. “Honestly, of all the petty tricks…”

“30 points,” Ingo finally calls out. “CYAN USES ROLLOUT! 40 POINTS!”

Now Melli doesn’t know much about this whole point system that Ingo’s latest madness has decided to manifest into reality, but that doesn’t sound quite accurate. That little bump in Camelia’s side certainly bowled him over, but it didn’t hit nearly as hard as the Quick Attack from earlier.

…Or at least, it wouldn’t, if only it would ever stop hitting. Because what Cyan lacks in brute strength, it’s more than making up for in sheer persistence, attacking Camelia’s shins again and again and again like the favorite tatami ball of a cruel toddler. As much as Camelia is suited to herding round pokemon, he was never made to fight a constant direct onslaught like this one. Melli’s going to have to forfeit before one of them gets hurt, but if he surrenders, the Diamond Clan will never let him hear the end of it, and- oh, damn it all, it’s not worth his partner-

“CAMELIA IS UNABLE TO BATTLE! AKARI BEATS MELLI!” Ingo claps his hands together and turns back to Rei, the strange spell in his voice finally vanishing as the battle grinds to a baffled halt. “How do you suppose the Warden lost, passenger?”

“He couldn’t have known what a Cyndaquil was,” Rei quietly surmises. “If he hadn’t spent a turn trying a Fire-type move, he could have kept setting up an Agile-Strong loop and worn down Cyan’s weaker defenses.”

“Oh my- don’t turn my humiliation into a teaching moment, old man!” Melli shouts, scandalized.

“Considering Cyan’s superior speed, it would have been better for him to forgo Strong style entirely,” Ingo amends, completely ignoring Melli’s protests. “Without super-effective moves in his roster, his greatest defense lies in giving Cyan as few opportunities to attack as possible.”

“Listen here! Neither I nor Camelia admit defeat just yet- our challenge to you still stands!” Ingo raises his eyebrows and brandishes one of his pokeballs, and Melli’s words start to speed up. “However! I will withdraw to afford Camelia time to recover.”

“And of course,” Ingo continues after him, “while you are indisposed of, your duty as Warden of the Hollow temporarily falls to myself, allowing me total jurisdiction over what passes through your station, up to and including a survey from the Galaxy Team.”

Melli nods. “I understand. There's no shame in a tactical retreat. It's more of an advance, if you think about it!” He places his hand on Ingo’s shoulder and leans close. “Keep your guard up,” he tersely whispers. “We'll be back.”

Ingo stiffly nods as he turns away, stern face pulling with weariness like Melli had left him with some appropriately patriotic insult. "Of course. Our work remains unchanged." A pause. "Be safe, Warden," he softly says. "You may yet be the best of all of us."

He understands. Someone understands. Until everything falls apart, until the Diamond Clan finally unstitches Melli's mouth, that will have to be enough.

Chapter Text

Melli looks up from his careful preening of his Skuntank and sighs wearily. “Oh, gods, not another one of his strays. You do know Akari’s already nearly literally tanned my poor hide today, don’t you?”

Volo stops on the road and frowns. “Why would Akari be here? Unless the Survey Corps decided to dabble in archeology, there’s hardly anything for her to study in the Ancient Quarry.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Melli dismissively says. “Warden Ingo was taking that Survey Corps boy to the cliffs for something or other, and little Laventon follows that man everywhere she can get away with-”

“WHAT?” Volo shouts. He stammers loudly, trying and failing to compose himself with a customer-friendly smile. “Ingo’s here right now? In the Highlands?”

Melli raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that why you’re here? You hardly come up to this part of the mountains for my sake, even when you do deliver.”

“Ginter sent me up here to check on your orders, I didn’t-” Volo nervously pulls down his hat. “I thought Ingo would be at the outpost at most if he was even released from the village at all! You mean he’s working again already?”

Melli shrugs. “You should know the man about as well as I do, Guild boy. He can’t stand vacation days.” His gaze rakes over Volo’s heavy backpack and he lightly waves away from himself. “He’ll be heading towards Moonview Arena anyways, and I’m in no state to receive my packages like this. Everything I asked for can survive being unattended for a day or so. You may as well try and follow him. If you’re quick, you can catch him inside the Quarry-”

Volo runs.

He leaps into the stone entrance of the Ancient Quarry, body tilting to the side as he skitters down the wide stairs and tries to convince himself of all the reasons that stupid old man is fine. The psychic pokemon here have had long enough to resist the temptation of Ingo’s gaping mind, and Aza has been shielding him for years. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to walk in here unprotected ever again, not after what Volo had to see as a boy, but escorting children comes with its own set of risks- and if either of them were to do anything stupid, Volo’s fully resigned to the idea that Ingo would let himself be hurt to cover for their safety.

He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine. Everything is fine. 

Volo watches Ingo circling back to Rei and Akari after finishing a perimeter check, the soft glow of a lantern bodied ghost trailing behind his shoulder. Volo can barely call out a warning before the ghost spots him, a crackling hiss trailing out of its chimney as its tendrils pull Ingo back.

“Cool your engines, Lady An’.” Ingo runs a soothing hand along the ghost’s glass body, even as its glass golden eyes seethe with distrust. “We know this uniform.”

Akari’s grin widens as she bounds towards the two of them. “Talk about timing. What brings you all the way out here?”

“Oh, you know-”

“It’s you!” Rei brightens at their approach, Ronin’s feathers ruffling to mirror his trainer’s eager fondness. “Do you want to battle again? I’ve got more pokemon this time!”

Volo holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m just passing through, I promise! Melli asked me to drop something off at Moonview Arena and he told me I might catch you along the way.”

Ingo’s hand is stiff as he drops it on Rei’s cap. “Do you know this man, passengers?”

“It’s Volo!” Rei brightly answers. “Our favorite Ginkgo Volo!”

Akari gasps, scandalized. “Rei, you can’t just call someone your favorite ginkgo!”

“If it’s some kind of bad word, why would they put it in the name?” Rei defensively asks.

“Have you paid attention to anything the clans say? There’s a difference between Ginkgo Guild and ginkgo-”

Volo laughs resignedly as the two start arguing. “Coronet Highlands,” he cracks, “what a town.”

Ingo’s head tilts sharply at the turn of phrase. He stares at Volo, saying nothing for a while.

“Lady An’,” he quietly asks, “have I forgotten something?” 

Lady An' twirls in place as it hums a reply. 

"Fascinating." Ingo's eyes turn back towards Volo's general direction. "Volo, was it? What is the matter, sir?"

Nothing, now that you’re here. (Weird and creepy.)

Everything, now that you’re not. (That’s even creepier!)

I’ve just seen the most horrible possible human atrocity in my life, but my temple being destroyed takes a close second, why do you ask? (Stop oversharing!)

Hiiiiiii, Mr. Warden Ingo Valued Customer Sir, it’s your best friend, Time Travel George! Haha, that’s not my name. My name is Volo. (You sound like Akari. Stop that.)

PLEASE TELL ME YOUR BRAIN DIDN’T GET RID OF ME I KNOW IT’S BEEN OVER A MONTH AND I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE ARE YOU STILL IN PAIN ARE YOU HURT ARE YOU SURE YOU SHOULD BE WORKING RIGHT NOW- (Sinnoh’s fucking skies, how needy can you GET?)

I think I accidentally fell through time for a week and I'm sure there won't be any physical repercussions to this in the next twenty-four hours! (CAN YOU BE NORMAL FOR FIVE SECONDS-)

“I… wanted to ask about that memory loss of yours,” Volo decides to say. “Have you considered it could have somehow been caused by the space-time rift?”

“I have no cause to think the rift is to blame.” The politeness in Ingo’s voice turns stiff, stilted, painfully recited. “But then again… I hardly remember a thing, so it’s difficult to say with… say with… say with c-certainty.” A gloved hand tugs on a rusted coat button as his eyes drift to the floor. “I can’t remember my own home, or my family, if I had any… so you might do better to pose your questions to Rei, if it’s to do with that rift…”

Huh. Ingo’s never sounded like that before when talking about his memories. Something’s changed and Volo can’t tell if it’s good or not. But he feels like this was the wrong thing to start talking about. Unfortunately, switching topics to something more tasteful is just going to beg the question of why he opened with that in the first place, so it looks like Volo’s talking to Rei, now!

“Well,” Volo awkwardly responds, “I do hope your memories return, Warden Ingo. How about you then, Rei? Do you remember what you saw before you fell out of that rift? Was there anything inside?”

Rei’s eyes flick nervously to Ingo. “Maybe… something. Yeah. Why?”

“Well you see,” Volo tentatively starts, “I personally suspect whatever is on the other side of that rift is causing the strange lightning that plagues us.”

“That makes sense,” Akari concedes.

“Indeed! I found some records indicating that this same space-time rift also appeared in Hisui in the distant past.” Because I was the one preserving them. “That’s why we already had a name for it as it appeared, in fact.” 

Volo brings a hand to his chin with a contemplative hum. 

“Now, what kind of world do you suppose stretches out on the other side of the rift? My guess is that it’s almighty Sinnoh’s realm.” His words pick up speed as he leans towards Rei, enthusiastic curiosity leaking into his voice despite it all. “But then that begs the question- why has the space-time rift re-opened, when it closed once so long ago? And why would Rei have fallen through to us? There’s just so much we don’t know.”

The odd look in Ingo’s eyes shifts with vague interest. “I fervently hope you unravel this mystery then, Volo. I’m sure it would ease people’s fears over the frenzies of our nobles. And while you investigate, sir, I’ll continue to prioritize the safety of the people living in this world.”

“Oh, I am a mere admirer of ruins and nothing more!” Volo nervously laughs. “If something needs investigating, I would entrust that task to the Survey Corps!”

“No, you wouldn’t!” Akari immediately says. “You’d hover worse than the Professor while you both say, stop that, don’t touch the walls, don’t touch the animal pictures, don’t touch the ancient dick graffiti, stop trying to eat dead people bones that’s illegal-”

Ingo lets out a reflexive wheeze of laughter.

“Akari, have you actually eaten dead people bones before?” Rei fearfully asks.

“If I have, you’ll never know!”

“She doesn’t eat dry bones,” Ingo immediately says. “She can’t stand the texture when they break.”

"Yeah, it tastes bad!"

Volo squints suspiciously. "Why are you eating dry bones?"

"Why would I eat dry bones?" Akari defensively retorts. "I just said I don't like the taste!"

"If we're quite finished debating the culinary merits of human remains," Ingo drily interjects, "I'd like us to make it to the Mountain Camp before nightfall. We shouldn't push for Clamberclaw at this hour." He points sharply forward. "Let us move with speed- but not haste!"

It is a winding, meandering path through the Ancient Quarry, if only because Ingo makes it so. The original path made by its builders is far more open, but the Warden chooses to guide the three of them through the more subtle mazes of rock the native Bronzong choose to avoid. Volo lingers at the back of the group, slotting at Ingo's left side so he can get a better look with his good eye.

If Volo hadn't seen it happen, he would never know Ingo had his head cracked against the ground by a kami.

"You look like you've been sleeping better," Volo awkwardly says.

"Lady An' helps," Ingo vaguely concedes. "I apologize if she seems hostile to you. She adores children, but she's wary of older strangers approaching the conductor's car."

"I suppose that's understandable, with your recent injuries," Volo allows.

"Yes, it seems everyone is eager to remind me of it." Is Volo imagining it, or is there a bitterness in Ingo's voice now? "Do you wish to file an incident report, passenger?"

"No, no! I'm just-" A little shell shocked you're still standing. "I'm glad you're alright."

Ingo hums flatly.

Volo's hand reaches up, almost grazing Ingo's back. "I- are you alright-"

"Unauthorized personnel may not approach the conductor's car," Ingo whispers, leaning away from the touch before it lands. "Please rejoin the other passengers."

When Volo goes ahead to join the others, Rei asks why Ingo is mad at him.

"He's not upset at me," Volo immediately denies. "He just doesn't remember me right now."

"He's forgotten me loads of times and he's never acted like that," Rei points out. "Did you do something bad?"

Volo stills.

"Nothing that can be recalled," he finally says.

=#[o]#=

Volo keeps his distance. It’s easier than admitting Ingo is the one who set it in the first place, at least. Because Rei’s right, Ingo’s not really treating Volo like a stranger- he’s treating Volo like a stranger he doesn’t like and only isn’t running away from out of sheer professionalism.

It’s always taken minutes at best and hours at worst for Ingo to recognize Volo as more than a stranger, but not this time. The aura of unspoken discomfort at Volo’s continued presence is radiating so strongly off the man that Akari’s started loudly regaling their many past shenanigans, the verbal proof that Volo isn’t just some random person who’s a little too interested in the Warden of the Cliffs. Unfortunately, every shared joke and obvious familiarity seems to make Ingo even more disturbed. By the time they make it to the Mountain Camp, he’s stopped talking entirely. He looks borderline livid when he makes dinner and puts an extra helping of leeks in Volo’s bowl, taking that extra step to remedy a bone pain he does not remember exists. He lingers by the fire outside long after the sun goes down, foot tapping nervously as Akari and Rei retreat to one of the outpost’s tents for the night, eyes repeatedly snapping to where Volo is pretending to check the communal chest before jerking back to an unsettled middle distance.

Maybe Volo really did do something wrong.

“I don’t know you,” Ingo finally says.

“You’ve known me for years.”

“I know your name,” Ingo concedes. “I know your hair was white as a child, and what food you like to eat. I’m familiar with your pokemon, though I can’t have seen them in a long while.” A long pause. “I also know you find it very easy to lie to me. You have been lying to me for years.”

“...What?”

“I really did believe you were a stranger back in the Quarry,” Ingo elaborates. “But as of late, I am remembering things no one has told me to, and I’ve begun to realize you’re not a very honest young man. There was a point where you decided I should not know why you were going to certain places, or doing certain things, or even whether I had caught you doing something you shouldn’t. At first you would just be vague, but then you started being dishonest. And then you started telling me I never saw anything at all.” 

His face betrays nothing. His voice betrays nothing. His eyes betray nothing.

“You were very young when you did this, or at least most of it. You had less things to lie about, as you got older. But you were not so young when I took you to Single Train 001. Did you know that Rei told me his things were still on that train car when it fell? It’s very unprofessional of me to have never found them in the two years it took for Rei to join us. I must be a very senile sort of man, don’t you think, to lose something so easily? I find that very odd, sir. Isn’t that odd?”

Volo’s face pales. Ingo’s eyes harden with grim satisfaction.

“That’s the first genuine expression you’ve worn since you joined us. I do appreciate your honesty.”

“I never meant it like that,” Volo immediately says, “I wasn’t trying to trick you, I didn’t think less of you, I swear it-”

“I know,” Ingo serenely agrees. “I know you didn’t. I know you mean well, sir, and it really has been a while since you lied so badly. And yet I still can’t stop thinking about what you stole. You couldn’t have known who Rei was, and neither did I. He could have been a relative, or the child of a friend, or no one at all. But when I took you to that place for the first time, you decided I should never get to find out.”

“It was a mistake. I panicked. I wasn’t thinking straight back then.”

“In the time it takes me to remember the Truth of anything, I have no choice but to trust the reality of others,” Ingo reminds him, the line of his mouth suddenly weary and resigned. “You never meant it, yes, but you never would have done it if you thought I would remember it. Because you find me very easy to lie to.”

The immortal Fox stands up and sighs.

“I’m going to bury almost all of this in my sleep tonight. Do with this information what you will, sir. Goodnight.”

=#[o]#=

In a tent, alone, Ingo turns to Lady An’, voice suddenly filled with uncertainty.

“I think I was too cruel.”

Your fondness for broken children will be the death of you.

“Doesn’t someone have to care?” Ingo quietly begs. “Knowing that I can hold nothing with permanence, shouldn’t I care every moment I possibly can?”

I could never stop you, flame, but I do wish they’d stop burning your gentle hands. It wears my patience thin.

Ingo laughs sadly. “You miss the days when the only thing that could burn my hands was you.”

Lady An’ whistles coyly from her lofty perch.

“I wish I could simply know he was in pain and be done with it,” Ingo admits. “I know, in the end, he only lies to me because he lies to everyone else. But I cannot continue to protect his secrets by sacrificing my own reality. These tracks are not sustainable.”

His hand starts to drift in the air, inkstones coating the melancholy fondness of words.

“He used to be so small I could hold his face in my hands. I think I was the first person who ever did.” His hand drops. “For someone who loves so many secrets, I must be the most horrible thing in the world to be around. I wonder if I can even bring myself to blame him.” He sighs and drags a hand down his face. “I’m already coming up with excuses. Grace of the Twins, I know I shouldn’t. I’m not good at this, I told Emmet we can’t-t-t-t-t-” 

He lets out a frustrated growl, shoving his hat down as he rocks on his heels. 

“It’s fiiiiiiiiine,” his voice crackles past the rising flame in his throat. “Everything will be… o-okay. Lady An’, was my engine always so prone to combusting on itself? I feel so shamefully irritable some days.”

You’re angrier than you used to be, just a little. But then again, you have so many more things to be angry about in this life than you ever did before.

“I hate to be angry. It’s unkind.”

You deserve a little unkindness, I think.

By the time Ingo composes himself enough to step outside, try to restart things better than he left them, Volo is gone, leaving nothing but a Togetic to keep watch over his wares. The last thoughts of the Warden of the Cliffs as he falls asleep are selfish disappointment, wondering if Akari ever felt something like this went he left, wishing he wouldn’t be lied to, wishing he couldn’t be lied to at all and

    and,

and,

and- and- and- and-

-a man with a Warden bracelet wakes up in a Galaxy Team tent he doesn’t recognize.

Mountain Camp. Southeast Coronet Highlands, near the Lonely Spring. Nearby to the north lies the Clamberclaw Cliffs, traditional seat of power to Lady Sneasler, kami of the Pearl Clan who is tended to by Ingo- Ingo Ar- Arnon Tamadensha- Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. Yes, that sounds about right. This body is named Ingo Arnon Tamadensha, Warden of Lady Sneasler. The Mountain Camp is a neutral outpost staffed by the Pearl Clan, Diamond Clan, and Galaxy Team. This is… the first time he has slept here. Fascinating. If he’d been traveling alone, he would have braved the night to return to his own dwelling, closer to his Lady’s den. He must have been escorting someone.

He shoves his hat over his head as he opens the flap of the tent a bit. Ouch. Oof. Sunlight. Bad to look at. A discontent draconic hiss rolls out of his throat, sparks of ghostfire crackling inside his mouth.

“Do you reckon if someone replaced Ingo with a Garchomp in our sleep, we wouldn’t even notice?” a young girl’s voice jokes.

“We’d never know,” a boy responds. “We’d open the tent and still see glowing eyes and grandpa dragon noises. That’s just normal Ingo!”

Ingo, a totally neurotypical man who responds to things in a normal and sane way, immediately starts doubling down and making angry dragon noises while Lady An' casts suitably ambiguous lighting behind him in the tent.

The girl shrieks like a dying fox. "EGADS! THE PREDATOR REVEALS ITSELF IN OUR MIDST! REI, TELL MY STORY! I MUST AVENGE HIM!"

"Why do I have to tell your story? I suck at stories!"

"VOLO WOULDN'T MAKE ME SOUND COOL ENOUGH!"

"Akari, can't I at least go down with you-"

The screaming gets further and further away before circling back at alarming speed. Ingo has just enough time to consider the consequences of his actions before a blurry red haired shape tears through the tent entrance and collides directly into his diaphragm, forcing a loud smoking wheeze as he crumples into the ground.

"Ingo, you utter rapscallion!" Akari lightly slaps his face with her small hands. "How could you do this? How could you do this, to me specifically?"

"Do you ever-" Ingo giggles on the floor, trying to steady his vision. "Iris, did you ever wonder what the- the- wonder what the strike animations on the bowling alley tel-tel-televisions feel like? Give me a minute to return to our station and I'll find out very soon-"

Akari turns her face back to the tent entrance, pointedly staring past her team of pokemon and their disapproving gazes. "Rei, are bowl alleys real or is Mr. Warden over here having a stroke?"

"Bowling alleys? I think it's some kind of Unovan game."

"Akari, please, I have brain damage, not a brain aneurysm," Ingo wearily says.

"I understand some of those words individually." Akari tugs on his sidelocks. "Did you die?"

"Debatable." Ingo pushes Akari off of his chest as he rolls onto his side. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I'm making eggy bread because the outpost bread went stale and it's the only meat thing Rei can eat that I know how to make." Akari continues to gently slap Ingo's head as he laboriously rises from the ground. "I will also use them to feed you and Volo because all of the bread is stale."

"Hm. There's honey in my tumblestone satchel if you want it." His hands run over the fraying threads of his coat sleeves as he shrugs it back on. "How long has Volo been traveling with you two?"

"He caught up with us yesterday when we were in the Ancient Quarry, since we'll be stopping by Moonview after Clamberclaw, but- uh-" Akari's easy smile trails off with a slight cringe. "I don't wanna read into it, but you were… weird at him yesterday? You didn't seem to realize who he was matter what we said, and it was making you kind of mean."

Ingo's eyes flick to Lady An', who bobs with confirmation- but not disapproval. He thumbs through the notebook in his coat, searching for anything on their mysterious traveling companion.

Volo no kama. Volo no kyara-esa. Kama esa nai.

Volo is a friend, but he has a stranger's mask. And a stranger cannot be given trust so freely.

…Ah.

Ingo snaps the notebook shut and follows Akari outside.

"Densha-san!" Rei waves him over from a seat by a growing fire. "Look what Volo got me!"

A large object is shoved towards Ingo's face as he draws near, and his eyes come into sharp focus on a lovingly preserved Quagsire backpack, dopey smile just as bright as they say it fell with Single Train 001.

"It's my old backpack, remember? And it still has my photos and things, too! I mean, my trainer card was busted for some reason, but I guess Volo wouldn't have known how to keep it from scratching up-"

"It was already like that when I found it," a grey-eyed young man softly interrupts. "But it's been a few years. Time probably didn't do it any favors."

Rei tilts his head. "Where did you even find it? Ingo said he looked and it wasn't there."

"I stole it from him," Volo blithely says. "I was having a panic attack being forced to comprehend trains and I didn't really think about it. Kind of forgot it even happened until Ingo reminded me yesterday." Volo's eyes flick towards Ingo for a moment, then look away. "I decided I- I've held onto it long enough. It wasn't mine to keep. I didn't know it was important, but I'm the one who took it. I'm sorry for causing you trouble."

A tenseness Ingo didn't even realize he had suddenly unlatches itself from his back. This is important somehow. He watches Rei run off to dazzle some Diamond Clan men with his new prize- the thought fills Ingo with less panic than he remembers, this too is important- and there's not much left for Ingo to do except take a seat by the fire. Volo's Gabite growls possessively at his approach until its eye catches the fading luster of his coat buttons, yellow eyes turning innocently round as its thumb claw bats at the metal. Volo himself is holding a twig in his hand, scratching calligraphic shapes in the soil.

"When was the last time we talked?" Ingo asks.

"Really talked?" Volo lets out a sigh, lifting the twig to rest between his palms, grazing against his forehead as it tilts upward. "Last year, I think. Probably just after Snowcrown. We saw each other a few times after that, but not for long. The last time I saw you was… a little less than two months ago now. I visited you when you were in the medical wing, but you were pretty out of it when that happened." He laughs uneasily. "I met your brother, sort of! His name was Emmet. I think he might have stolen a year or two off my life to hold your hand, but it's not like I'll be running out of years any time soon. I really should have stuck around longer, but-"

"-you didn't," Ingo gently finishes. "By the time I was lucid again, you were gone."

"Yeah. I had a lot of reasons to be gone. But that doesn't really change what happened, does it? I was gone." A pause. "I was trying to get one of the distortions to take me back with it. It worked, by the way. I traveled through time again! I-" Volo hides his face in his hand and takes a heaving breath. "Gods, I was so fucking stupid. I dropped in the middle of a war. Or some kind of apocalypse. Maybe both? There were so many bodies everywhere, holy shit."

A breath, a shake, a sigh. He lifts his head, and the twig that caught in his hair rips away from him as he asserts his control over it again. He shakes the twig across his fingers, back and forth, back and forth.

"Something pulled me out of that place. I don't know. It's hard to think about it. I came back in Cogita's garden. She told me I'd been missing for over a week. And somehow- somehow this isn't the worst thing that's happened to me! I haven't lost a wink of sleep over it! The only thing-" Another laugh bubbles in Volo's voice, high and desperate. "The only thing I can't stop thinking about is the way I had to help peel your body out of the snow that day." His words start to spill out of him, faster and faster, the twig in his grasp creaking with protest as it bends in place. "I know what your skull looks like now. I know the sound of your ribs crackling around your lungs. How am I ever supposed to take that back? I'm not even the one who was hurt and I still can't convince myself you haven't just-"

The twig snaps. Volo stares at it, mouth limp and open like a gutted fish.

"Doesn't it feel like everything I touch wants to die?" his quavering voice shakes out. "It's like all I have to do is ask questions and things just…"

He drops the wooden shards like the touch of them burns.

"You realize what I'm saying, don't you? Sinnoh's time flows ever forward. We're walking blasphemy as is. If I die fucking around and finding out, that's my own fault, but if I fuck around and you die… that's my fault, too. I think… I think it's already my fault. I think a lot of things are already my fault."

"Like what?" Ingo asks.

Volo points up at the summit of Mount Coronet, at the ever widening crack in the sky. "That was me! That thing never existed before I came here, and it's only gotten worse!"

"I've known you to have many talents, but divine lightning is not among them," Ingo points out. "You haven't done anything other than potentially add to what's already existed."

"I know you think I'm a liar, but can't you trust me on this one thing?" Volo begs.

Ingo tilts his head. "Why do you want me to blame you so badly?"

"Because at least if we let it be my fault, then I could have done something about it!" Volo snaps. "Maybe I could have been smarter about it, or never done it at all, no one would have ever had to-" His voice starts to break. "You wouldn't have…"

And Ingo stares at him, eyes full of a sadness that probably makes Volo want to lurch forward and strangle him until the appropriate amount of betrayal enters his expression. But that isn't the sort of thing Ingo knows or cares about. He cares about the fact that this grief-stricken guilt, however deserved or not, is an achingly familiar thing he's seen before, painted on a smile that was never his and yet lived for him nonetheless.

"You're afraid," Ingo finally says. "You're afraid that if you tell me what's happening in your life, I'll either die knowing it or live hating you for it."

And there it is. The angry set of Volo's mouth snaps shut with shame.

"I will not berate this fear," Ingo decides, "because you are young and scared, and there are far better things in this world to be angry for. But I will not allow you this indulgence any longer. Shouldn't I choose what I live to hate? What I die to know?"

"I don't want you to ever die at all," Volo pleads.

"I have far too many things to live for than I hope you will ever understand, my passenger. I will not die so easily, I believe." 

"And for what?" Volo wonders.

Ingo's eyes soften. "To live." He gently grabs Volo's wrist. "To live." He leans down, pressing his head against Volo's knuckles, and rises to bring the young man's trembling hand to his heart. "To live."

"I have done far too many sins to your world to deserve to live in it," Volo sadly says.

"I do not believe in a world of sins," Ingo softly corrects. "Only Truth and the Ideals to see them through. So long as you stay true, I will remember all that you are, and forgive it anyway."

Ingo wonders if he's smiling right now. He hopes he is. Dragons, he hopes he is.

=#[o]#=

And Volo held that beating heart in his imperfect grasp, felt the weight of those ageless hands on his face, and he wordlessly promised a world of secrets, but not another lie to you. Never again.

(And he never did. Not for a hundred and forty years.)

Chapter Text

“So,” Volo casually starts as he settles by Akari’s side, “I assume it's your turn now.”

“My what?”

“Oh, please don't make me spell it out for you.” Volo briefly inclines his head to Ingo. “He's gone and said his piece already. Out with it.”

Akari tilts her head. “Out with what?”

“You know!” Volo insists. “Any last barbs? Criticisms? Parting grievances about how I've been recently? Like- like about the Giratina worshipping?”

“I don't know what the problem is here,” Akari simply says. “You know you don't have to be a Zoroark to worship the Bound God, right?”

“That wasn't the part I was-” Volo pinches his brow. “The time travel! The time traveling and the part where other gods want me dead!”

“Everyone wants someone dead,” Akari asserts. “So they can eat you and steal your fur. That's how being an animal works.”

“There’s also the… literal years of lying,” Volo continues. “Lying by omission, technically, but still-”

“I lie all the time!” Akari points out. Her human hand waves over her face. “I'm lying right now. I'm really good at it.”

“Those are two very different kinds of lying and you know it.” (Volo hopes. Akari doesn't know a lot of things, to be fair.) “I may or may not have also disappeared for a month.”

Akari frowns. “Really?”

Volo lets out an exasperated sigh. “Did you not notice the whole time? I was gone so long Ingo forgot who I was!”

Akari waves his words away. “He does that all the time. He did that to me this morning! That's how I found out what bowling pins are!”

“You can't have missed our little falling out entirely,” Volo accuses. “You spent our whole trip through the quarry trying to remind him who I was!”

“That's what I do, Volo,” Akari bluntly says. “What I do, what I say, always the same. You're not special.” 

Volo’s mouth flattens, and he lets out an awkward laugh. “Akari, you can't just say that to people. Someone your age needs to be more sensitive to someone's feelings, you know.”

“I am nine years old!” Akari brightly says.

“You can't just decide how old you are every time it comes up,” Volo chides.

“Nine years old.”

“This is about my accountability, not how old you are or aren't.”

Akari squints suspiciously. “Is this a human thing? Am I supposed to get mad? Do I yell at you until you feel better so you can reintegrate with your troop? I don't think I'm ranked high enough to do that.” She makes a considering sound. “What if I tell Ingo you didn't do safety checks while trying to catch up to us? Then he can shout at you until you feel better.”

Volo makes a series of dissenting, uncertain noises. “That's- no, that's not-”

“Ingo!” Akari loudly waves the Warden over. “Mr. Conductor Warden Ingo, sir! Volo was-”

“Akari, I'm begging you, I’ll cook you an entire battered Basculin steak if you shut the fuck up right now-”

“-wondering about what you're doing with Rei right now!” Akari quickly finishes.

This spurs Ingo to turn away from his deeply serious unblinking stare into Lady An’s lantern ghostfire, eyes burning with an utterly unbothered intensity of thought that Volo’s not used to seeing on his face. 

Honestly, it's a little terrifying, but Volo suspects that just like everything else that's happened while he wasn't looking, he'll just have to get used to it.

“I have little to do with doing anything to our premiere passenger of the day,” Ingo clarifies, head cocked coyly as he crosses his arms behind his back. “That is entirely up to Lady An' and our Pearl Clan friends.”

Volo finds himself smiling as he glances at the fiery, child-scream filled chaos unfolding behind the Warden. “Don't be pedantic, Ingo, what have you done?”

Ingo readjusts his cap. “You see, it comes to my attention that our young Rei is in need of a cliff-scaling mount, but I cannot simply hand him an unattended Sneasler.” 

There is a pause. Akari and Volo follow Ingo’s wandering gaze, watching as Rei’s Decidueye hurls him through a ring of fire, quickly pursued by several Pearl Clan children wielding Sneasels.

“Well- I can, but I don't want to,” Ingo continues.

“I suppose you would be more discerning after what happened to the Lady of the Cliffs,” Volo easily concedes. “It’s only natural.”

“Not at all. Her kits and mates have passed any recent safety checks. Removing the obstruction from their tracks has eliminated any abnormal dangers.” A Sneasel kit starts climbing up Ingo’s pant leg. “No, this particular challenge is entirely for his benefit.”

Akari tilts her head, then her eyes clear with understanding. “Oh! A Gym challenge! You told me about those!”

“Gym.. what-” Ingo’s brows furrow, eyes hazy with confusion for a brief moment before a spark from Lady An’ snaps him back into focus, a sudden enthusiasm entering his voice. “POKEMON GYMS! Pokemon Gyms are places where Trainers can go to sharpen their battling skills and where their pokemon can go to gain experience!”

“Oh, like the temples,” Volo guesses. “I suppose they were open to everyone, then?”

Ingo nods, picking a wayward Sneasel off of his belt and carrying it in his arms. “Yes, they were public facilities. Of course, anyone could battle anywhere, and it isn’t difficult to establish a nuzlocke or some specialized battling club, but official Gyms are certified by a Pokémon League, and at least eight official Gym Badges are requested before taking the Pokémon League challenge.”

“That’s the thing with the region Champion, right?” Akari recalls.

“The League demands a high level of skill, yes,” Ingo confirms. “It is necessary to prove your qualifications in order to enter the tournament circuit. Not everyone has such an ambition, of course, but traveling to the Gyms of your region are considered normal in anyone’s pokemon journey. It’s a good way to learn, and a childhood rite of passage. Rarely alone, of course- pokemon centers always provided places to stay, and you were expected to take and make friends along your way. I had Lady An’ with me when we were young, as well as-” His hand stiffens as his mouth flattens. “As- as- there was a- two of them, no- me and my- ah-”

“Your brother,” Akari finishes for him.

“No… no, there was someone else,” Ingo insists, even as his voice grows more uncertain by the second. “I knew her, didn’t I? She-” His expression smooths over. “Re-railing. What were you asking, passenger?”

“Pokemon gyms, I believe,” Volo provides.

Ingo snaps his fingers. “Yes! Often specializing in a particular type, Gyms create an environment which allows Trainers to test both their skills and Pokémon against those of others. The most powerful Trainer in a given Gym is called the Gym Leader, who is revered by both the lower-ranking members of the Gym and local fans. What was her name again, it was important-” His mouth twitches as he mutes the question in his throat. “Usually, Gyms are designed to follow and suit the type that the Gym specializes in, however, there are also Gyms that do not practice this, such as the Striaton Gym, which during its time of operation specialized in the three primary standard starter types.” He frowns. “That’s a very strange thing for me to know, actually. Did I meet one of its leaders before? Of course I did, there were three of him. His name was Cilan, we met at a train convention- you know, sometimes I wish I could have battled him during his time. He was already retired at that point, but we still considered him a good friend-” The Sneasel in his arm barely reacts as he stomps the ground, voice rising to a jarring shout. “HER NAME WAS ELESA, THAT’S WHAT IT WAS!”

He pauses, staring up at the sky.

“Oh, poor Cilan,” he quietly says. “What a terrible age to retire. Burnout is a horrible thing for someone so young.”

He blinks, then turns back to Volo and Akari.

“I MADE A GYM CHALLENGE FOR REI!” he starts again. “His journey was cut short in our time before it had a chance to begin. There are many things he will not grow up with as he continues on these tracks, and I wished to restore some small thing to him. I thought it might bring him some comfort.”

“The comfort of being chased by Sneasel-wielding children through rings of fire,” Volo flatly recaps.

“I can’t recall if cannons have been invented yet,” Ingo excuses, “and I am unable to build one that passes safety checks, so I needed to make some necessary substitutions.”

“Cannons,” Akari repeats.

“Yes, for firing people out of,” Ingo helpfully clarifies. “Cannonballs are incredibly unsafe projectiles, you know.”

“Do all humans raise their children so brutally or are Unovans just insane?” Akari asks Volo.

“I used to think Ingo was insane, but I don’t think having your skull rattled by a mountain god makes you think human cannons are a feasible idea,” Volo points out. “He doesn’t do anything he knows isn’t safe, and that scares me.”

Akari’s head whips back around towards him. “Wait, what mountain god? He had a train accident.”

VOLO, I THINK WE FORGOT TO TELL ANYONE ABOUT THE UXIE THING, Giratina finally pipes up.

Shit.

“How about we stop talking?” Volo quickly turns to Ingo with a raised, appeasing hand. “Until later. Perhaps when we next stop for camp. I don't want to… derail you from your work with Rei.”

“Of course,” Ingo simply says. “Do you have any further questions for your conductor?”

“I'll let you know.”

Lady An's eyes linger on Volo as Ingo turns away to check Rei’s progress. Not trusting, rightfully not trusting, but… accepting, perhaps. Still, it's jarring in its own way, watching Ingo have someone else to turn away to. Volo remembers all too keenly when it seemed like it was just the two of them and their horrible secret against the world. But his growing absence over the years was never going to stay a waiting vacancy forever. Ingo is far too invested in this world to stay lonely for long. He can’t help but care- and people can’t help but notice.

And Volo can’t help but notice the beginnings of a common thread in the kinds of people Ingo’s memory can’t quite bury. People who once were- or still are- sad, lonely, frightened children, aching for someone to treat them kindly. 

It says something about Volo. He doesn't know what, but he doesn't like it.

“So… what do you think about Rei?” Volo decides to press instead.

“He doesn't know how to be a child,” Akari starts. “Which feels really weird, since he's supposed to be one.”

“To be fair, I didn't know how, either,” Volo defends.

Akari scoffs. “Couldn't be me. I'm great at being a child!”

“You're certainly a child,” Volo mutters under his breath.

Akari leans towards Volo, a hiss under her breath. “My child is better than your child.”

Volo gasps. “You take that back about my Gabite right now!”

“I am the superior orphan and single mother! I will supplant you all!” Akari cackles.

“I’m far more orphaned and motherly than you!” Volo insists. “My entire people are extinct and I have ten pokemon to feed!”

“I take my children on Starly dinner picnics! Starly that I hunt with my bare-” Akari stares at her hands. “Teeth! My teeth that are mine!”

“I work customer service!”

“I get mauled by wild pokemon!”

“Your human costume getting crunched by wild Paras doesn’t count-”

They both jump back as a pokeball gets thrown between them. They turn their heads to Ingo's improvised Gym puzzle, seeing Rei freshly finished having tackled the Pearl Clan boy whose errant throwing arm is still held spastically in the air.

Rei lets out a whoop as he victoriously lofts a Sneasels pokeshi doll over his head. “I WIN! HAHA HA-” He briefly notices Volo and Akari's startled faces and pauses. “Oh, gome- BUT I WON!”

A loud clap brings everyone’s attention back to the Warden who quietly observed it all. “BRAVO! Your talent has brought you to the destination called victory! I am glad to see our clan fight so hard against a wonderful trainer like you.” Ingo’s head inclines to the other boy’s downcast face, voice turning gentle. “Rei may have won this time,” he concedes. “But your talent is very strong! Your tactics... reading... you have great skills.”

The boy brightens. “You mean it?”

Ingo emphatically nods. “That's right! I would like to see you battle again and again! Please ride with us again soon!”

The boy nods, brushing himself off as he returns to Ingo’s side alongside the other Pearl Clan children. He stands as tall as his swaying thin stature allows- back straight, eyes determined.

“Once again,” Ingo starts, hands behind his back, “bravo! What you showed us is the spark of trainers. Having a battle in a place like this is a little irregular, but this happened for a reason. Battling in a different place will let us see different scenery, and we might learn something, too. However, there was another goal in this endeavor.”

He grips his cap as he lifts his head, free hand grabbing a pokeball as he points up the mountain range.

“You would never expect to be able to climb such sheer cliffs as these, yes?” His enraptured students nod, and he echoes the motion. “So too our many growing friends among the Galaxy Team-” The eyes of his stern gaze warm as he regards Rei and Akari. “-and most especially the Survey Corps, who work to brave the wilds so their fellow villagers can remain safe at home.” He snaps his finger in a smooth, sharp movement across his chest. “But with Sneasler as an ally, it becomes the work of a moment. She is so at home on a cliff face, one might think she knew some secret- some hidden… move..."

His eyes unfocus, clouding as his gaze trails slowly toward the ground.

"What am I saying?” he mutters to himself. “Hidden moves? There are no such things in Hisui, surely…” The frown stays fixed on his face, even as the clarity of Lady An’s golden-eyed vigil works its way across his expression. “...yet I feel as though I was on the cusp of remembering something just now…” His expression hardens briefly as he straightens his coat. “But I musn’t decouple from you all. Let me say just one thing.”

“You want an apprentice!”

  “You remembered what burgers are!”

     “We’re going Snover berry picking again!”

“If we all run at Lord Electrode, he can’t stop all of us-”

Ingo sheepishly raises an appeasing hand. “Nothing so capturing, my passengers. Only to say that I recalled some things after Rei did the honor of traveling with me.” His voice becomes quiet. “Things to do with a world where I believe I lived before my memories were lost.”

The childrens’ eyes widen.

“Most people there caught pokemon, lived with them, formed supportive partnerships with them.” The light of Ingo’s eyes turn proud, secretive. “And then there were the pokemon trainers.”

Volo rarely lets himself wonder where Ingo came from- he learned long ago that trying to pry for answers left the poor man more confused than he already was. But sometimes, buried under the perpetual fog and snow of the other man’s muddled mind… there is a sudden steel in his voice, an unshakable magnetism. Something that adds a grace to his movement, a fire in his step, drawing people and pokemon alike in with an unexpected charisma. 

Maybe he wasn’t always a Warden, but the way everyone leans in makes Volo think a part of Ingo always considered himself a teacher.

“The ones we called pokemon trainers were truly devoted to their craft,” Ingo continues, pacing back and forth. “They always looked toward the next challenge and had pokemon battles every chance they got, all to help themselves and their Pokémon grow.” He holds his pokeball aloft towards them. “Through battle, trainers forged bonds of understanding with their pokemon, and with their opponents and their pokemon, too. With everything, I suppose. If pokemon and people work together, we can forge new paths forward.” His gaze never lingers on any one child, but he passes over them all. “We'll be lost to history if we go on believing only pokemon can be strong— or if we go on fearing them instead of understanding them.”

Ingo gestures sharply to Rei and his Decidueye.

They, Rei and Ronin, are a two-car train,” Ingo praises. “This time, they were able to work toward a victory- however, your abilities are all very impressive.” He huffs. “Well, will you stop here? Or will you challenge them again? It's up to you. But let me say one thing-”

“THERE IS NO TERMINAL CALLED END IN YOUR LIFE!” the children finish in unison.

The edge of Ingo’s downturned mouth curls with fondness. “Bravo! Excellent! Please, all of you, do your best and run toward the destination- an even higher state!” Then he turns to Rei, pokeball wielding hand curled coyly behind his back as he grips his cap. “Of course, your higher state is clear, Rei.”

Rei points confusedly at himself. “Me?”

“Young man, it’s embarrassing for you to remember less than I do! No Gym challenge is complete until you battle its leader.” Ingo clicks the pokeball as he raises it into view. “Perhaps a pokemon battle with you would jog this memory loose. Would you honor me?”

The Pearl clan children cackle as Rei lets out a delighted scream.

Chapter Text

You.

“Me, uh-” Volo visibly stops and stutters as he takes in the golden eyes and ghostfire creeping in the Warden’s bones. “Oh, that's… new, is that- allowed?”

Lady An's voice is a breath, a sigh, a last gasp of air perpetually escaping all too trusting lungs. Ghostfire echoes its luminous shadow along Ingo’s rattling wrists, the knobbled line of his larynx.

I am his and he is mine. Everything is permitted.

“Is that normal in your time?” Volo dares to ask.

For partners, it has always been normal.

“I'm not sure I'm comfortable having this conversation with his possessed corpse,” Volo points out.

He is with us. Lady An's whispering tone has none of the bright, expressive warmth that always colors Ingo’s stony face. You warned us this would involve Single Train 001. I am ensuring his continuity while we discuss it.

“He’s always gotten strange when he talks about his time before Hisui,” Volo recalls. “I thought it was because he had nothing here to connect those memories to. Wouldn't you help with that?”

Almost, little acolyte. But further study reveals it is the accident itself. It-

Her expression stills as she tents Ingo’s fingers in front of his face, brows twitching as his closed eyes flit back and forth.

Yes, she says with barely perceptible surprise, we will tell you. It was the act of falling through time that stole his mind from him. Or rather, what fell with him. Voices from the realm of- Her voice stutters as she smooths Ingo’s composure back into place. -something you would call a god.

Her face turns up and up and up, gaze finding the tattered, gold-crowned wyrm billowing invisibly behind Volo.

But not that one, she immediately refutes. Is this what you wanted to talk about?

“Could you see that the whole time?” Volo squeaks out.

Lady An'- or maybe Ingo himself- decides to take a long, long sip of tea from the berry and herb filled pot resting on top of the fire.

“You- you can't have seen that the whole time!” Volo insists. “If you did, you would have said something!”

It wasn't out of you this whole time, Lady An' points out. Besides, I fail to see how fraying ribbons flying about in the wind is any of my business.

“Those fraying ribbons were personally imprisoned by the creator of the universe,” Volo awkwardly reveals.

Is it going to hurt him?

“Well, no, but-”

Then it is irrelevant, Lady An' dismisses. I've seen Patrats pose far greater threats over pinap pizzas.

“Did you just-” Volo turns to Giratina. “She just called a rat more threatening than you.”

It's a ghost, Lady An' insists. It poses far less physical threat to our person than every crack-infested creature willing to bite his head off for daring to eat food around them.

HOLD ON, I NEED TO LOOK SOMETHING UP. Giratina sticks its head into a disembodied mirror, then pops back out. YEAH, THAT'S FUNNY.

“I found Giratina by accident,” Volo admits. “Although I did free it on purpose. It's been following me around as a host ever since, I suppose.”

EXCEPT WHEN THE FOXES GIVE ME THINGS, Giratina interjects. LIKE SNACKS. I LIKE THEIR SNACKS.

“I actually wash my offerings, you know,” Volo beleagueredly reveals.

THEY GIVE ME TOPO AND SOOTFOOT MOCHI. YOU DON'T GIVE ME MOCHI.

“ONE day I’ll get that old man’s recipe!” Volo swears. “One day!”

IF YOU REALLY WORSHIPPED ME, YOU WOULD DO CRIME LIKE THEY DO.

“You're crime,” Volo mutters under his breath.

IT'S TRUE. MY EXISTENCE IS A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND NATURE.

My time and his lucidity is valuable, Lady An' reminds the two. Do not uncouple from us.

“Yes, right.” Volo retucks his bangs where they fall over his left eye. “Giratina existed out of time for a long while. It doesn't understand what normal people do and don't know, and it doesn't have a reason to keep secrets. When it saw Ingo through my eyes for the first time, it said his- what was it?”

HIPPOCAMPUS, Giratina finishes.

“Some part of his brain that was nearly completely shattered,” Volo continues. “And it said only one thing could have done that. The god that lives inside Lake Acuity. The god of knowledge… and memories.”

Lady An' blinks slowly. This is not correct. It is the memory of the voices from the fall that stole him.

“What if we're both right?” Volo offers instead. “As disabling as his forgetfulness is, it's always the act of remembering, even attempting to remember, that breaks him. The fall put a curse in him, and Acuity…” His last words turn into a hateful hiss. “ ...fixed him. Buried the curse by destroying his mind.”

Volo's hand tightens on his sleeve.

“I know freeing Giratina was beyond reckless. I won't apologize for it. No one deserves to suffer like that. And I know Ingo told me it wasn't my fault, that I couldn't have known what would happen, that I can't know if I am why this has happened, but I really am worried these frenzies might be… punishments. Not just for freeing Giratina, but-” He hesitates. “Warden, what if I'm why you fell? Either through these rifts, or Sinnoh having-”

“It was always out of our control,” Ingo quietly says.

“You can't know that!”

“I know,” Ingo sadly concedes.

“Then why do you keep saying it?” Volo begs. “How can you, of all people, say something you don't know is true?”

Ingo’s hand slams down on his knee. “Because it must be!” he suddenly shouts. “Because the fate of the world is not the sole design of gods and great men! Gods did not design you to defy them at every turn! Gods did not take me in as I lay dying in the snow, stubbornly imposing worth in my life long after the last of my brain bled out of my skull- gods did not tell me to love you, here and now, as I would a-”

He pounds his hand against his head.

"My choice! My ideal that it is the truth because I have no other choice! I must believe that it was an accident at worst and a kindness at best, because if it was a cruelty, I-” Ingo’s voice starts to shake. “There is a kinder world than this. I must believe in a kinder world than this, because if I can no longer believe in it, how can I ever ask for one?”

(It was never an ignorance at all. Never a failure to remember how horrible things truly were. It was always a radical, helpless act of defiance.)

“I never knew you felt this way,” Volo honestly says. “All this time, I never knew.”

Ingo blinks. “Knew what, sir?”

“Nothing,” Volo dismisses. “You just said something you never told me before.”

“Oh. I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Don't be. Don't ever be sorry.”

=#[o]#=

The rest of the Survey Corps team arrived to meet their merry little band in the afternoon, so they were no longer spoiled for choice in their sleeping arrangements. Rei takes up as little space as possible, even in his sleep, and Akari is bundled under her blanket so no one can see her illusion waver with her dreams.

Volo sleeps perfectly straight, as if waiting to be punished.

He’s going to hurt you again.

Ingo’s hand stills over the needle and thread restitching his tunic. You are not speaking hypothetically, he wordlessly ferries back.

Lady An’ floats closer. I am saying what he will say a century in the future. A warning he will make something terrible come to pass between you. That by the time you return, you may want nothing to do with him.

His thought softens to the barest whisper. But he told you, yes? He told you honestly?

Yes.

Ingo takes a deep breath. His hand passes somberly over the top of Volo's head, the only parts of the young man's hair still hidden from the sun. Still as stark pale as the day they met, when a Gingko Guild boy’s reputation didn't know it could be bent by being mistaken for the son of a Fox.

Okay, he sighs into nothing. I'm okay with this.

=#[o]#=

“There is… one last thing I haven't told you,” Volo Sinjoh says in 2014 before he leaves Emmet's house for the last time. “The only thing left I can tell you before Ingo should really be telling you himself.”

“What is it?” Elesa asks.

“The day he comes back. August 11. You should call an ambulance.” Volo looks away as he opens the door. “And a trauma surgeon. They didn't know how to get the knife out without killing him.”

Chapter Text

It's the silliest thing, but Palina used to be afraid of Ingo all those years ago.

Not for anything he'd ever done, and certainly not for lack of familiarity. She saw more of him than most, those days. Her patrols with the late Lord Arcanine often ran into him during those tenuous first months he failed to hold the Pearl Clan in his memory, going as far as his feet would carry him in a vain search for familiarity. Yet even as he feared her, he always trusted the kami. His harried words and frantic expressions would soften, sunlight shattering against his hair and skin as he ran his hand back and forth across fiery fur, tracing the thin char-black stripes between.

Even as he started to settle into his new life, Palina thinks something of that early fragile trust remained. He kept running into her during his wanderings, giving her gifts, doting on all the kami and their children long before it was ever his duty. He had always been such a sweet man.

He was old enough to be her uncle, and the longer he stayed, he almost became like a grandfather to the generation that came after her. It has never been a question of him being a danger to her or anyone. No, she'd been afraid that old Warden Fox would spill her Iscan-shaped secrets if anyone ever reminded him of them. In retrospect, it was such a silly thing. She's long since learned that Ingo would never betray someone else's truth, least of all one that would put them in danger. And following that, whatever he does and doesn't remember, he never remembers wrong.

Basculin season has come a few months earlier than it usually does. The Diamond Clan has left the Pearl Clan's summer foothold over the Obsidian Fieldlands, returning to the Crimson Mirelands to deal with their delayed farmland. The plentiful fish has been a boon for them- more food to offset the harvest, more fertilizer for the fields. They're in a good enough mood to forget the eternal debate behind the recent frenzies and enlist the Pearl Clan’s divers to deal with the Shellder population surge snagging on their nets. The estuary of the Mirelands is not the old terror of the open sea, and Palina hopes the difference might be enough to let her join the divers again. After the last gathering of the Wardens, she lingers with her Lord Growlithe in the Highlands to lure Ingo away from his post. The Lady Sneasler’s newest litter is old enough now that they're beginning to hunt on their own, and Palina could use the Highland Warden’s freshly idled hands.

He'll be leaving his yurt in the Highlands as a rest stop for the Survey Corps and his patrolling pokemon comrades. It's not the first time he's stayed with her- many times over the years, he's served as an alibi for sightings of a certain Iscan seen leaving her post. In more recent memory, however, he maintains a respectability that Palina has since lost. Whatever the elders' opinions and Irida's misgivings, no one will start a fight in front of the Fox. Few people can stand up to the frozen, disappointed silence that crosses his face when people refuse to get along.

Isn't that ironic? That the formerly presumed Zoroark has a better reputation than someone who would have been the leader of their clan in another life? Palina thinks it is. Ingo, for his part, is simply content to be her co-conspirator. He looks at her living space with new eyes every time, loudly fascinated by her Shellder scrimshaws and pearl bead crafts and jars of ground nacre. Sparks of recognition at Iscan’s fish prints- then jarring sobriety as his hand passes over the late Lord Arcanine's pelt as it had in life a thousand times before. Not as if finding out for the first time he has died, but as if that death was still only yesterday. In this way, Ingo is one of the few people to ever understand her grief.

(Sometimes Ingo still hands her the late Lord’s favorite foods, even though his surviving children are too small for them.)

It's a shame to say that she's no different than everyone else when it comes to understanding him in return. His opportunities to explain himself are so fleeting, and he knows it. They all know it. The same way he must trust everyone around him to mean well, they must trust him to never remember wrong.  

Trust that no matter how far his mind may unstitch itself from time, his devotion never dies. It arrives exactly where it needs to.

Palina's second morning home with the Pearl Clan settlement sees Ingo startle awake, his body uncoiling like a Wormadam’s wire spring and forcibly ejecting a baffled Lord Growlithe off of his person. His gaze stays fixed above him before his unsteady legs carry him outside, widening at a barely perceptible flicker in the twilight sky overhead. 

Staring into the rift above Mount Coronet had turned him strange at times, but this feels different somehow. Whatever he finds now, too far away for anything but his crystal eyes to see, tenses his jaw and steels his resolve. He bolts towards the settlement’s standing stone and lets out a repeating, warbling shriek from his Celestica flute. The Alakazam and Magnezone he makes his constant Warden companions snap into existence at his ghostly Chandelure’s side.

“ALL PASSENGERS DUE FOR OBSIDIAN FIELDLANDS, PLEASE STAND BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE!” The Magnezone builds up an electric charge in its rotating appendages, a golden pulse forcibly ferrying confused onlookers towards the standing stone. “ALL PASSENGERS, AN UNEXPECTED OBSTRUCTION IS INBOUND. MAKE YOUR WAY BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE!”

People, pokemon, resident Pearl Clan, visiting Diamond Clan, it doesn't matter. The magnetic pull of the Magnezone’s power and his command herds them all out of their homes, away from their tools and carts and cooking fires. As everyone is bundled closer and closer together, Ingo climbs to the top of the standing stone, heedless of the shocked protests of those around him.

“STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS, PLEASE,” he shouts as a rising energy builds around the crowd. “STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “Fifteen seconds, fourteen, thirteen-”

“Fox, what's going on?” Lian shouts over the crowd.

“Ten, nine-” Ingo points a hand upward before dragging it into a sharp arc towards the ground. “AZA! LADY AN’! PROTECT THEM ALL!”

The Alakazam raises its spoon-wielding fists up to the sky. Lady An's tendrils crack like a whip and a shimmering screen slams shut on the clan- just in time for fist sized holes to start tearing themselves through everything in sight. Yurt walls, cart roofs, cast iron pots left where they were standing over fires. Every impact crater left singed and smoldering, the fall only barely slowed down by the Aza’s interference and still doing nothing to stop the bullet quick rat-tat-tat-tat hammering down on Lady An's protection like springtime hail.

Ten minutes pass. Ten minutes of yet another hole being punched perfectly into the ground, heedless of whatever might lie between. Twelve more minutes, and the punches have finally started to trail off. Ingo frowns into the distance and blows a rapid, echoing melody on his flute. Palina follows with her own, and then Lian.

Slowly, surely, the other Wardens play their answers back. Only then does Ingo's frown lighten, and Lady An’s barrier open once more.

“We're alright!” Lian relays. “The other Wardens are checking if the Ginkgo Guild caravans are safe, then they'll circle back around here!”

“We need to assess the situation!” Irida immediately commands. “Take stock of our supplies! Start working on repairs as soon as you can! Diamond Clan, we will ensure you have supplies to travel back to the Mirelands with our divers.” Her shoes click loudly as she strides forward through the rattled crowd. “Who has a Rapidash fit to ride? We need to send a radio warning through the Heights camp to all outposts and an aid delegation to Jubilife, they have farmers on the field and there could be damage to important buildings-”

Palina looks down at her young charge. “Are you alright, my lord?”

Lord Growlithe lets out an unbothered yip.

Palina sighs. “Of course.” She notices Ingo's tense hands shaking as he comes down from the standing stone. “Are you alright, Ingo?”

He just keeps staring at the ground, eyes dancing with exhaustion.

“We're safe now, Warden,” Palina assures him. “You kept us safe. You can let go.”

Ingo keeps searching the ground, and then his posture snaps straight, a foreign barking noise ripping out of his throat as he surveys the scene around him with paradoxical, blatantly obvious delight.

“ZEKROM’S CLAW, I’VE NEVER SEEN SO MANY!” He crouches down, stiffly picking up a glowing, stone-like… thing that starts wriggling like a Starmie in his grasp, tiny mouth gaped like a fish as its wide white eyes whirl dizzily with confusion. “Ah, Landorus alive, look at the SIZE OF THEM ALL!”

Ah, he's forgotten about it all already. Or not. It's hard to tell with him sometimes.

Ingo goes back into Palina's yurt and re-emerges hefting his own wok against the ground in one hand, and his captive living rock in the other. “It's like a little Onix burrowed clean through it! Which one of you wayward fare dodgers did that?” His gaze turns intense as he makes eye contact with the creature. “So you did. Egads.”

“Hey, look!” One of Gaeric's children lightly kicks one of the fallen creatures, and it bounces a few times in the air like a skipping stone across the river. “Flying rocks!”

“Don't play with them like that!” Palina warns. “They're alive!”

“But it likes it!” The younger brother stops, and the creature immediately starts rolling against his leg expectantly. “See?”

The other brother bounces a bundle of them in the air like toys. “They're so weird!”

=#[o]#=

The lights of Elesa’s room flicker deliberately. Once, then twice. 

She turns around in her seat to find Emmet's hand on the light switch, head tilted in invitation as he stands in the doorway. Her hands move to the headset hanging loosely around her neck, and he shakes his head, wordlessly but urgently gesturing for her and her Zebstrika to follow him out into the twins' backyard.

Ingo points at Emmet and holds up a suitcase in his other hand as he stands next to the shelter. Emmet points back and brandishes the house radio before ushering Elesa inside. Their usual constant chatter is little more than garbage noise to her as they check their watches and fiddle with the shelter generator under their partners’ watchful eyes.

She watches Zeb suddenly press into her side with warning. Her friends excitedly crowd by the ground level viewing windows of the shelter at the unidentified noise, even as their hands are over their ears. She squints past them, making out… nothing in particular. Just the same backyard as always.

She slowly puts on her headphones. She barely fiddles with the volume sensitivity for a second before a loud hollow thunk echoes forcefully through her eardrums.

“Five ling it rolled down the roof,” Emmet deadpans.

“Fifteen it took one of the shingles with it,” Ingo challenges.

“Do I get to know what's happening?” Elesa finally says.

“I am Emmet. I was listening to the radio in the kitchen when an emergency Minior shower warning was broadcasted.” Emmet blinks. “And now we are in the backyard bunker. Now our skulls are not concussed if living rocks crash through our roof.”

“They fall from the upper atmosphere at terminal velocity!” Ingo helpfully clarifies.

Elesa fails to keep the slight shriek out of her voice. “WHAT?”

“It's fine, esa. Look, it's already going down. They're usually short events anyways.” Emmet opens the door and cranes his head out. “Yep! All done! We have to check outside now to see if any fell down around us.”

“If their shells are broken, we have to catch them,” Ingo explains. “Otherwise they might die.”

“Is that… safe?” Elesa bites out. “For either parties involved?”

Emmet waves a hand in dismissal. “They don't understand anything on the ground, so they're verrrrrry friendly. Besides, they fell from space. We can't hurt them in any way that matters.”

Ingo barks out a laugh.

Elesa steps outside the shelter with Ingo, walking towards the backyard gate as the brothers immediately start haggling over their roof tile bet. She's never seen the aftermath of a Minior shower herself before, except pictures on the news sometimes. This one doesn't look like it was very exciting- just a few new knobbly potholes cracking open the old brick road. She kneels down to inspect the cracked open shells of a few of them. Glittering falling stars of red, green, yellow, every color of the rainbow. One even has an obsidian shimmer covered in bowling alley bright freckles. Who knew there could be shinies even that high up in the sky?

…You know, if she took off her coat, she could probably carry ten of these things-

“Elesa, did you find-” Emmet freezes in place at the backyard gate. “Oh no.”

Ingo appears behind him. “What is it, brother?” He takes stock of Elesa’s new hoard and flinches back. “ESA, NO!”

“No, no, where are you going with those-”

Elesa cackles as she charges an Ion Deluge in her palms. “They crave terminal velocity, boys!”

“DON’T BE MEAN TO THEM!”

“SO MEAN TO THEM! CRUEL AND UNYIELDING!”

=#[o]#=

Palina nervously turns to the other Warden. “Ingo, should we stop them from-”

She pauses. He has this odd expression on his face as he watches the two young brothers, shoulders shaking as he cover his mouth.

He’s laughing. It’s this tiny, worn-down, barely perceptible chuckle, but he’s laughing. 

It’s fine then, she supposes. He never remembers wrong.

Chapter Text

In Rei’s defense, it all made way more sense to anyone who was there to watch it all go down step by step.

Because first what happened is that there was a Minior shower. A really big one! There were groups landing all over the whole island everywhere. The Diamond Clan was lucky because they had the Wyrdeer, and the Pearl Clan was lucky because they had Ingo, and Jubilife was really lucky they had Ress and his Mr. Mime.

Their luck wasn't perfect. Some crops got damaged, and some buildings need to be re-roofed. It'll take at least a few weeks of work for everything to be fixed properly again. But Rei knows it's not going to get any luckier than it already is. He's already tried, what- five, six times now? He can make people take shelter faster but he still can't control the sky.

The second thing that happened is that Professor Laventon put out a bounty to collect all of those Minior. Except all the village adults are busy fixing the damage the Miniors did, and all the Clan adults who aren't have something else going on. They're all super busy having some kind of massive fishing trip in the Mirelands. So Laventon twisted Bonn’s arm a little to help with a candy bounty for any kid that hands a Minior over to the Survey Corps office in a pokeball. And it does have to be in a pokeball, because Minior shells break a lot of the time when they hit the ground, and if they don't have something in between them and the air around them, the air pressure and oxygen density of the ground level atmosphere corrodes their bodies until they die.

And that's terrible.

The third thing that happened is that there were actually a lot more Minior than initially estimated. So many, in fact, that the Supply Corps stock mostly only kept on hand for Survey Corps use was single handedly being eaten up by them. Boxes upon boxes, shelves upon shelves, stairways upon stairways of wriggling little pokeballs became the landscape of the Galaxy Hall. No one knows what to do with them until Laventon gets word back from a few second opinions, and Dragonite mail can only cross entire continents so fast, telegram assisted or not.

Which leads to the fourth thing- the production line for those pokeballs. The Supply Corps is usually the one taking care of crafting supplies and equipment, but they've found out a way to save the Lilligant-poisoned harvest recently, so they're still up to their ears taking care of that, and even if they weren't, they've got their hands busy right alongside the Construction Corps running the logistics needed to turn the various field camps out there into permanent outposts. The Survey Corps know how to make pokeballs on their own, of course, but they're also needed to help Laventon deal with the actual Miniors, so they're out of the question, too.

Hence the current production line. Which currently consist of Gaeric's two children, Edric and Alric, his wife Mita, the boys’ friend Akoya from the pearl diver families, Warden Lian, and Chou, one of Zisu’s move tutoring students.

Ingo is also there. With several Sneasels. The Sneasels are, unfortunately, also part of the production line. Edric and Alric bring in the good apricorns, the Sneasels lovingly drain the apricorns of flesh, Ingo cleans the shells and shapes them down, Chou paints the shells so that Lian knows what tumblestones to use for them, Akoya polishes and varnishes them, and Mita adds the hinges and clasps to complete the assembly. It's all very hypnotic to watch.

“What am I… looking at?” Volo slowly asks.

“The pokeball factory,” Rei helpfully explains. “How long have you guys been at it, anyways?”

Lian shrugs. “I don't really care. It's honest work.” He looks up past his hat to the other Warden. “What do you think, Fox?”

Ingo blinks blearily from under the shade of his cap, as if emerging from a long and tumultuous sleep. He stares at Lian, then down at his continuously productive hands, then at Rei.

“I think I'm escaping samsara,” he mutters.

“Can I come with?” Akoya complains. “We've been doing this forever.”

“None of you will escape samsara,” Ingo ominously asserts.

Edric holds up one of the Sneasels. “Not even him?”

“Not even my son Sningo and his brother Snemmet.” Ingo stares down at the third, suspiciously Johtonian colored Sneasel. “Or their brother Snari.”

Laventon, who was staring dejectedly at his mail, suddenly brightens. “Oh, like Snorri Sturluson!”

“What does this have to do with escaping samsara?”

“Well, I don't know anything about samsara, but I do know a fair bit about the Heimskringla-”

As Laventon starts excitedly expositing about north Erobean literature, Volo turns back to Rei. “As fascinating as this all isn't, I wasn't asking about the pokeball factory.”  He points directly behind Rei. “I mean that.”

Right.

The fifth thing that happened.

“Oh, you mean the Minior space program?”

Volo’s expression crinkles with non-comprehension. “The what?”

“I mean, we have to hold on to all of them for a bit cus Laventon's still asking other professors why it happened, but they don't belong down here,” Rei explains. “But, um- I dunno how to explain it, actually. Densha-san, do people know what gravity is yet?”

Ingo doesn't look up from his attempts to push Akari- sorry, very real Hisuian Sneasel Snari- from hogging the apricorn pile away from the gathering crowd of village pokemon being attracted by the prospect of free food. “Gravity is a non-damaging Psychic-type move that increases the accuracy of all non-OHKO moves-”

“Densha-san, not the move! Gravity the thing!”

“-and forcibly grounds flying or levitating pokemon for five turns. In doing so, it removes any Ground-type move immunities from Flying typing, abilities such as Levitate-”

“The thing the move is named after! Gravity the- the, uh- the science force!”

“-the effects of Magnet Rise or Telekinesis, or a held Air Balloon. Grounded pokemon also become directly vulnerable to the ability Arena trap, terrain moves, and entry hazards placed on the field.”

“The science force about how big things suck in littler things!”

“The affer-effects of the move also prevent pokemon from using moves like Bounce, Fly, Flying Press, High Jump Kick, Jump Kick, Magnet Rise, Sky Drop, Splash, or Telekinesis- it can also interrupt these moves if they began before the effects of Gravity took place. If a pokemon has no other moves besides the ones blocked by Gravity, it will use Struggle-”

“No! About how the planet is so big it makes everything on it stick to it, so anything too close can't fly away without falling back down!”

“Well, you explained it perfectly fine yourself," Ingo finally acknowledges, expression betraying nothing. "I don't see why I have anything to add to it.” 

Rei blinks, then pauses. He points an angry finger at Ingo. “You fucker!”

“Language,” Ingo reflexively chides.

“You did that on purpose!” Rei accuses.

Ingo looks Rei dead in the eyes. “I am a middle aged senile cat man and no one will believe you.”

“You know,” Laventon slowly says, “you can't just keep calling yourself senile in front of witnesses. People are going to catch onto the joke if you keep saying it like that.”

Ingo stares up at him with his wide, glass-white, earnest eyes. “What joke, sir?”

“You-” Laventon's face twists into a resigned frown before he gives up to take an offered sip from his Polteageist’s cup. “Bravo, sir. Well played.”

Ingo's mouth visibly twitches upward for a moment. Not a smile, never a smile. The most he manages on a good day is this cat-like curl creeping in on his impassive face. Any other time, he's always got this intense, downward expression or an utter nothingness, no matter what mood floods his voice. Rei's been getting better at coloring inside the lines, as it were- making increasingly educated guesses as to what emotion Ingo's face is meant to convey- but nothing about that face has changed.

…There was that moment, though.

When Ingo had challenged Rei to win Lady Sneasler's mate from him as a riding partner. Rei had finally gotten a lucky shot after nearly twenty minutes of frantic dodging and using up his entire Max Revive stock. He watched the Warden of the Cliffs recoil with the aftershocks of a phantom turbulence, hunched over for the briefest, angriest looking moment. But before Rei could remember to be afraid, Ingo had taken this deep, smoke-tinged sigh before his back had straightened with an ease Rei had never seen before, eyes closed with satisfaction as he congratulated Rei’s victory. The expression on his face wasn't that downturned catty frown, not then. Brows relaxed, eyes fond, mouth flattened with contentment as if it were…

…had that been a smile, then? The moment passed so quickly Rei couldn't see it. Did Ingo deeply, truly smile for a single half second because of losing?

“Don't bother stopping him, Laventon-hakase,” Volo wearily says. “He's been calling himself senile for his entire Warden tenure.” 

The ‘senile’ Warden in question, sensing weakness in Snari’s juvenile defenses, scruffs it by the neck from deep within the apricorn hoard and tosses it far out of sight before it can let out more than a squeak of protest.

Volo looks to Rei again. “So, gravity?”

Rei points to the open field full of catapults, balloons, trebuchets, and miniature cannons. “Yeah. The Minior can't leave by themselves. We need to make something that throws them high enough so they can fly again, so we're having people test them out.”

Volo squints at the gathered contraptions. “Some of them seem a bit… large for what they're meant to be launching.”

Akari emerges from a nearby bush, hair lightly seasoned with dirt and gravel, mouth stained with apricorn juice. “Laventon fucked up.”

“KANJO KATAKANA IS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE!” Laventon defensively cries.

“Turns out the way he wrote Minior was really similar to a word for children and way too many people were happy to submit baby launcher concepts,” Akari explains.

“Is this my reputation now?” Laventon weeps. “A man who endeavors to launch minors?”

Lian, finishing his latest round of rock processing, turns away from his workspace to grab an apricorn for himself. “My money's on the shotgun.”

“I think the water platform could win if we threw a heavy enough pokemon on the other side,” Akoya proposes. “It's too bad we can't test it out here, though.”

“Just drop tou-san on it from the top of Lord Braviary,” Edric insists. “He's the densest thing in the whole island.”

“You want in on this?” Alric offers Volo. “We got a bunch of the other kids to make a betting pool with our Minior candy on which one wins.”

“Respectfully, no,” Volo says. “The Diamond Clan's been stuffing the Ginkgo Guild’s inventory full of Basculin for pennies. They can't smoke and dry everything fast enough before they have to turn whole catches into fertilizer in the fields. Ginter’s having me guard a caravan to Lucario to try and spread it out, that's how bad it's gotten.”

“Why would you be feeding fish to Lucarios?” Rei wonders.

“Lucario is a place,” Akari clarifies. “You know, the kingdom of Lucario? They're way down the southern tail of Hisui.”

“There's Lucarios down there?”

Volo rolls his eyes. “It's not a kingdom of Lucarios, they're just… a group of people who really like Lucarios, I don't know. No one knows much about them. They’ve lived here just as long as we have, but they use their pokemons’ psychic powers to hide themselves most of the time. Half of the clans probably don't realize they exist. Before you people, they left most of the interaction and trade with any outsiders to us.”

“I still wonder why they would hide in the first place,” Laventon muses.

“The clans are practically at war once a generation,” Mita snidely points out. “I wouldn't want to introduce myself to the neighbors, either.”

Zisu, who was walking by to check on the village guards, suddenly freezes in place.

“Ceci," she says with all the carefulness of someone trying to defuse a bomb, "what are you doing?”

Everyone follows the captain's concerned gaze to see the the little girl sitting politely in one of the large catapults. “I wanna reach my friend!”

Bellamis Kamado cackles as his hand clamps down on the release lever. “I hope your friend is Sinnoh!”

“CECI, NO-”

=#[o]#=

Iris Laventon Tamadensha was a pretty stupid kid.

All kids are, really. 

But Iris just wants it on record that she was a notable kind of stupid.

She was always climbing everything her hands could find purchase on. Trees, cliffs, the sides of people's houses. She wanted to be fearless and sky-reaching like the dragons she lived side by side with. She wanted to try. And if she failed, it didn't matter. Her dad would always catch her when she fell.

She kept climbing things even when he couldn't catch her anymore. The other kids in her new life couldn't reach her if she just kept climbing. There were new things to climb now. School campus buildings, libraries, water towers, bigger and bolder than the things she left behind. And maybe, deep down, she thought that if she fell, her dad would come back from the dead just to catch her again. She hated it whenever Drayden caught her because… it meant that her dad was really gone.

The way she'd seen it back then, her uncles could never understand that. They caught her no matter what, because it was their job to make sure everyone around them could get home safe, even a bratty little kid who bit and scratched and hissed at them all the way back to her school dorm every time she ran away for lunch. It was like- they were like robots to her. Nice robots, but robots. Whoever she used to be, whatever she'd been through, was nothing to them. She was a lost passenger, end of story.

But she was wrong. Because she was a stupid kid back then. Because maybe, just maybe, they had always understood.

And now here she is. The Unovan champion, the legendary girl who hears the hearts of dragons, sitting on the roof of her childhood home while her grandfather’s increasingly worried voice calls her down for lunch.

Staring down at the ground like if she falls, Ingo will come back just to catch her one last time.

Chapter Text

“Boy.”

Volo cringes down at Akari. “Don’t call me that.”

“Boy, you’ve known Ingo for way longer than me, right?” Akari continues, because she’s a cruel and capricious beast who doesn’t care about Volo’s feelings.

“An… amount, yes,” Volo uneasily concedes. “Where is this going?”

“Well, we both know that we both get paranoid about Ingo-”

“No, I don’t,” Volo immediately denies.

“-but your paranoia is, like- less paranoia and more your weird complex about priestly older men-”

Volo steps back. “What are you even talking about?”

Akari stares flatly at him. “You know I can hear the don’t send me to hell in your voice whenever he stands up straight or calls you sir, right?”

“That’s not a thing,” Volo insists. “That’s not a thing, I’ve never done that.”

Akari rocks back and forth on her feet. “You’ve got your weird old men complex, and I’ve got real paranoia, so I just wanna check in on something and know if I should actually be scared about it.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like it when you make him sad,” Volo surmises.

“Yep!” Akari shamelessly confirms. “Now tell me if he’s been acting weird lately.”

Yeah. Okay. Guess they’re doing this, now. Volo drags a hand over his face and wishes, not for the first or last time, that his Lucario would act as an actual deterrent instead of leaving a tiny Zorua-shaped hole in his defenses. “He’s a weird person, Akari. Acting weird lately doesn’t narrow anything about him down in the slightest.”

He gestures to the man in question. Ingo’s sitting down with Rei and Lian to teach them about Dragon-type training. Technically, Volo’s also supposed to be part of this, but Ingo taught him half of all this Draconian lore years ago anyway, so he can’t be bothered to pay attention to the beginner stuff- and besides, Rei has managed to derail whatever the current lesson is into some heated 21st century debate about which ‘iteration’ of the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja… Squirtles(?)’ is better, which has further devolved into them shouting the years 2003 and 2012 at each other while Lian keeps asking clarifying questions.

“I mean, look at this,” Volo pleads. “How can a Squirtle be teenaged, mutant, or ninja? What even is a ninja? Every time he says something we don’t understand, we keep having to wonder if he said it because he’s amnesiac, insane, time traveled, or-” He shudders. “Unovan.”

“And I mean to say, don’t you think he’s been well lately?” Akari haltingly clarifies. “It’s the fifth time in a row that he’s remembered who we are without having to think about it. And now he’s starting to hold whole conversations about stuff from before he got here.” A nervousness enters her voice. “Volo, he talks about tomorrows now. What he’s going to do, what other people are going to do. He’s never done that before.”

“Shouldn’t that be a good thing?” Volo wonders.

Akari’s mouth turns into a thin, deliberate line. “You know how he gets when he starts remembering why he’s here.”

My name is- my name is Ingo Tamadensha, I have a family, I have an office, I am- I am real. Please, I’m real, I must be real, I must be, I- somebody just TALK TO ME FOR ONCE LIKE A REAL PERSON! I’M HUMAN! I’M REAL! I PROMISE, PLEASE! SOMEBODY, PLEASE! WHO AM I? WHO AM I-

“He doesn’t do that anymore,” Volo asserts. “He hasn’t done that for years.”

Akari sucks in a breath. “You, uh- you missed a lot while you were gone, guild boy. How do you think we found out he could forget things on purpose?”

Volo's going to decide he isn't going to panic about that. Right now. In front of Akari. “Well, I'll admit, that is concerning. But let's not do anything… brash… until someone's brought it up with him first. It's insulting to try and decide things for him like that.”

“He had to tell you to say that!” Akari brightly points out.

“That he did.” Volo pushes Akari's head into her Survey Corps scarf. “And as a result, I'm not the one who made him literally burst into tears.”

“I'm still more Sneasler favorite than you!” Akari barks.

“I think Rei’s more Sneasler favorite than all of us,” Volo counters. He stares at the golden fur and dark muzzle of the Shiny Sneasler lazily watching Rei and Ingo’s debate. “Has he named that one yet, by the way?”

“His name is Mustard and he is Lady Sneasler's favorite husband,” Akari relays.

Volo sighs. “Of course Ingo let Rei name a kami mate Mustard.”

“Hey!” Rei turns back to point at Volo. “His paws looked mustard-dipped when he was a baby! It's a good name!”

“No, it's not!” Volo yells back.

Ingo, following Rei’s line of sight, zeroes in on Volo with his own pointed hand. “SIR!”

Some part of Volo's back twinges with phantom lashes as he straightens. “Hai!”

The neutral observation in Ingo’s tone doesn't temper the intensity of his stare. “If you can argue with the other students, you can rejoin the lesson!” 

“I've already had all their lessons!” Volo petulantly reminds him. “I'll join you when you get to something I don't know!”

“I didn't remember the trianary the first time!” Ingo reveals.

“You've told me about the Tao before, Ingo!” Volo reminds him again.

“No, not that one!” Ingo gestures forcefully with his hands. “The gender one!”

Volo freezes.

“THE WHAT-”

=#[o]#=

Protesting as Elesa coyly drops a pair of ice-skates in front of their feet. Avoiding being in near tears any time they almost slip and fall, turning it into dramatic screams and hyperbolic pleas for Kyurem to have mercy on their souls. Kyurem, the secret of the dragon masters, until-

Elesa is laughing, laughing, laughing. She’s the only girl at school who isn’t scared to laugh at them. It’s the ugliest laugh in the world. The sound turns Ingo’s mouth into a smile every time he remembers it. Remembers being twenty-five and being told most people think he never smiles.

Wearing sunglasses in winter so the sun doesn’t burn their eyes. “Attention all passengers, all stops to Opelucid City have been shut down. At- attention, all passengers, there are no more evacuating stops to- to- to Opelucid City-”

Elesa telling them not to look down into the ice. “We don’t know how many bodies are in there, don’t look down-”

Snow falling sideways from a pillar in the sky. Falling, falling, falling-

=#[o]#=

“Iris? Iris, where have you gone off to?” Ingo zeroes in on the young Braviary Warden and his eyes widen with worry. “Iris, you mustn't depart from your station so recklessly all the time, you know Drayden worries sick about you!”

“Who's Drayden?” Sabi innocently asks.

Ingo's voice pitches with sudden frustration. “What do you mean, he's-” Lady An's warning flashes through his eyes, and his voice warps with embarrassment. “I'm sorry.”

“I wanna know who Drayden is!”

Ingo hunches in on himself. “I don't know.”

“Who's Iris?”

His voice turns small. “I don't know.”

=#[o]#=

Elesa growing up thinking her best friends are a pair of twin girls, because their uniforms have skirts and she never asked. They had longer hair back then. Elesa coming back from a semester break taller and prettier, getting called a tomboy because her friends’ voices are dropping and cute quirky girls start looking like creepy offputting boys. "Yeah, but what are you?”

(Girls who only have crushes on you when their friends say it to make fun of them. Boys who pretend you can trust them until they find out whether you look like them in every way that matters. Young league rivals who want to discover themselves on the ‘bravery’ of a public Draconian. You are sixteen years old and ten confused heartbreaks later when your uncle tells you to never trust anyone who tells you how pretty Shinies are to your face.)

(You’re handsome at thirty. You don’t really remember when you weren’t. Elesa does.)

=#[o]#=

“So… Draconians don't have boys and girls?” Rei questions. “What about intersex?”

“What's intersex?” Lian asks.

“Oh, that’s like- um-” Rei squints. “There's instructions in your bloodline that tell your body if it's a boy or a girl? And sometimes you end up with the instructions for both, or you have bits from both parts, or they're mixed in one way. If that's how you are, you can still choose to be called a boy or girl or whatever, but no one's allowed to make you if you don't want. I learned about it in trainer school cus it happens to pokemon too, but most people born that way don't know they are unless it makes them sick.”

Lian blinks. “Oh! Neat! I think one of Lord Basculegion’s favorite children is like that! It's got male markings on one half and female ones on the other.”

“Yeah, that is one kind.”

Ingo raises an interrupting hand. “That is true, but not what I said.”

“They're like nonbinary people?” Rei guesses.

“Labels like men and women, or nonbinary, or cisgender and transgender, describe relationships that a person's identity has to their bodies and assumes a conversation with a specific binary,” Ingo explains. “Draconians never had a binary in the first place!”

“So… it's not people deciding they're not men or women,” Volo tentatively puts together. “No one is men or women.”

Ingo nods.

“But… aren't you a man?” Volo presses.

Ingo blinks slowly. “No.”

“You've got hair on your face and everything, though,” Lian points out.

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Ingo blankly says. “Anyone can do that.”

“People call you a man, too,” Akari adds. “You never corrected them.”

A long pause.

“I forgot,” Ingo finally says.

“About correcting them, or about your gender?”

“Yes.”

=#[o]#=

Twenty-three years old. Elesa’s crying in her room again. Neither of them need her to say it’s another breakup. She says it doesn’t have anything to do with them. (It feels like it does.)

Twenty-four years old. Elesa is moving out. She’s been eyeing that penthouse for two years, but she’s only moving out now. She says it doesn’t have anything to do with them. (It feels like it does.)

=#[o]#=

“Densha-san!” Rei calls out. “I found a rift thing! Can I put it in the Single Train?”

“Of course, Rei,” Ingo easily permits. “As long as it can fit inside the door.”

Rei hefts the tied together tarp off of his Sligoo’s back. “Good boy, Artax. Look at what Artax found in a rift!” He unveils a large orange plastic box. “It's a Rotom fridge! If we get some Chansey eggs and Stantler milk, we could make Snover berry ice creams!” He pauses. “I mean, there's one guy who can make ice cream back at Jubilife, but we can't take it home.”

Ingo's body leans oddly towards the tilt of his head as he regards the fridge. “Do you know how to make it?”

“We did it in winter all the time! Before, y’know?” Rei packs an invisible ball with his hands. “You mix everything up in a tin or ball or barrel, then you toss it at one of the herds as a toy to play with. They churn it for you!”

“It's going to be quite a few months until winter unless we go to the higher altitudes,” Ingo mutters under his breath. “Maybe when spring comes again, we could use the Lady’s kits for churning?”

“Ice cream is really cold for winter, though,” Rei realizes. “Maybe we could make some kind of pudding instead? I know Professor knows how to make puddings-”

“Galarian pudding is a kind of bread,” Ingo corrects.

“Dang it. Maybe a jello instead? Do you remember those? They had those fruit and juice flavors-” Rei lets out an alarmed noise as Ingo suddenly falls to the side like a felled log. “DENSHA-SAN!”

“I'm alright,” Ingo chokes out from the ground. “I just remembered how bad savory jello tastes and disconnected from my own car for a moment.”

“There's savory jello?” Rei sticks his tongue out. “Like… meat jello?”

“It tastes so bad, Rei.”

=#[o]#=

Can't remember his face. “Don't you know what a reflection is, Fox?”

Can't remember his name. “I am Emmet. I am a Subway Boss. My brother is-”

Can't remember her face. “Drayden, who's that person next to you in all those pictures? Oji-san, are you alright? Did- I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?”

Can't remember her name. She had a name. What was her name? Didn't he know it? It was hers. Who was she, who was she, MAMA, MAMA, I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY WHERE ARE YOU-

=#[o]#=

“You can't- you can't just be nothing, though!” Volo argues. “You can't just decide you identify as some- some abstraction that has nothing to do with your bodies! If everyone could do that, why would anyone be men or women or anything?”

Rei, Akari, and Ingo stare at Volo with identical furrowed, squinting expressions.

“Can I be a rock?” Lian asks.

“Yes, stone is one of the base trianary options,” Ingo offers. “It is the calling of craft, skill, and hardwork. Common to tradesmen and laborers.”

Lian goes silent, a thoughtful expression crossing over his face. 

“I have decided to stop being a boy and become a rock,” he solemnly says.

=#[o]#=

“This isn't going on my performance evaluation later, is it, boss?” Depot Agent Isadore shakily snarks.

Ingo and Emmet stare past him. The haggard-eyed Zoroark wearing Ingo's face, digging bruises on his neck, stares back.

Zinzolin, Ice Sage of Team Plasma, tilts his head and smiles. “How old is your youngest agent? Eighteen? Nineteen? This fragile little fool might be willing to die for you, but if you let it come to that I can always start again from the bottom of the station ladder.”

Emmet's smile frozen, fist vibrating with rage. His eyes flick to Ingo, begging for his brother to take the lead. Ingo cannot tear his eyes away from the person who froze an entire city just to bury his uncle alive.

Isadore’s hand spasms harshly against his own pant leg. One, two, three, four, five. Five minutes until reinforcements arrive. Make them count.

Every word is like pulling teeth. “Why don't. You come. Inside. SIR.”

=#[o]#=

Ingo watches Edric and Alric’s pale-haired heads peeking out amongst the Pearl Clan crowd. His hand shoots out to steady thin air, body pitching sharply to the right until Lady An’ wraps around him.

“I thought he would be there,” he whispers. “Why- why did I think he would be there?”

=#[o]#=

Punching a black-masked lurker into the concrete, a bracelet of Acheops teeth wrapped around his fist as it connects to their fragile human flesh.

A hiss vibrating painfully against his teeth.

“You think I would direct my pokemon against your poached, shackled CAPTIVES?” He shouts. “As if the likes of you deserve BATTLE?”

He watches their pokemon flee in fear from the command in his voice, as if it would give him some form of satisfaction. It does not.

“You tear people's partners from them. You endanger MY passengers.” His voice turns so very, very still. “You tried to kill my family. You will pray that you have not succeeded.”

A breath, but it does not steady him. Not anymore. It tears like an ominous wind in his lungs, rising, rising-

“You.” Andel’s fire wrapping around his body as a ghostly wail builds in his throat. “You deserve THIS. ALL OF YOU DESERVE THIS, I WILL TEAR THE HEART OUT OF YOU-”

=#[o]#=

“Hey there, little Laventon,” a Diamond Clan fisherman calls out. “Is your Survey Corps looking at the latest catch?” 

“We’re taking dirt samples again!” Akari reveals. “Apparently a lot of Ursaluna have been digging up the dirt in the Mirelands, so we gotta check there’s not something in there.”

“At least someone cares about their job,” the fisherman grumbles. “Those Pearl divers have barely been doing that lately.”

Akari tilts her head.

“They’ve been getting all distracted out of nowhere. You know, I tracked one down! I thought she got lost down in the water and I was gettin’ real concerned- you know what she told me?” The fisherman scoffs sharply. “She forgot! She forgot she was with us and just went off to do something else!” He raises his oar and raps it sharply against the boat, dislodging a thin line of clay-red sludge. “Can you believe the nerve of some people?”

Akari frowns.

=#[o]#=

Memory like ink stones, like senseless babble, like Single Train 001, like a useless piece of metal signifying nothing, like white hands and gold-capped nails that CLATTER CLATTER CLATTERCLATTERCLATTER-

=#[o]#=

Lady An’ will never know what really happened on Single Train 001. 

She will hear of it, in pieces, through his shattered recollections, through the innocuous things that erase him, but she will never understand. Only the ATO will ever understand. She doesn’t know if it’s better or worse this way- better that she doesn’t share the twisted, mindless fear that’s burrowed into him like a parasite, worse that she wasn’t there for him when it did. 

There is a new fear. One that wasn't there before, that scrapes directly against the deepest recesses his sanity and leaves it scrabbling for panic.

One that makes him flinch when Lady Sneasler clatters her beautiful claws against wood and stone, ghostfire burrowing under his coat ready to burn anything that touches him, arms shaking until he forgets why he's carving triangles into her den walls again.

It's been taking too long for him to forget.

Something's wrong.

Chapter Text

Ingo can tell this isn't the first time his ghostfire has had a mind of its own. It remembers so many things that he doesn't, after all. Lady An' most of all, but that has been lost to a decade he no longer knows- she has not told him of seeing her double since her arrival.

The spiteful, heart aching flame holds onto what he does not. Forgotten friends, familiar pokemon, the faded nighttime lights of the electric city. Dragons at his side and trains passing in the night. Even those inkstone tinged letters that float in his vision at the edge of sleep, as if the sight of them burning for daring to touch him might bring some comfort.

Sometimes, when he is alone- really, truly alone, no people or pokemon in sight- it… pretends.

It pretends to be the man who looks like him.

Sometimes he knows who it is. Sometimes he doesn't. It's no more startling or upsetting than catching his own reflection. Even less than that. It is not a moving, living image, but a faded wisping shadow. He'd rationalized it long ago as his mind’s token effort to cope with the loneliness that no one in Hisui could ever stave. But the sight of it, now of all times, seems to frustrate him- yes, it does frustrate him, doesn't it? This is- he didn't feel like this before. The other times it happened. He just accepted it like it was supposed to be there, as if everything around him were the constantly shifting reality of a dream…

…and now he is very, very awake and very, verrrrrrrrry frustrated. 

Because he did these things when he was- was- was galavanting about the entire island day in and out like a brainless headless beast, fearing every hint of human contact while desperately searching for something that wasn't there. How many times has he chased that wisp wearing his face like a Glameow kit after its own tail? He should be better than this now. He's been doing so much better these days, hasn't he? Or is this another sign that he's at the cliff face of another tidal low, that this is as good as he'll ever get while he loses his mind again and again and again and again-

Wow, look at that. He's spiraling over literally nothing changing in the medical condition he's lived with on his own for twelve years. 

Like a child.

…Hm. That was… harsh. Harsher than he would be to himself. Harsher than anyone has ever said to him. He usually forgets why he's angry before it gets that bad. The fact that he can remember he should forget that by now is really, really bad.

Something's wrong. PARANOID SENILE FUCK-

There it is again! He really wishes people actually believed him when he said he feels angrier than he did before the accident. Although it's probably a good thing people didn't have another thing to learn not to fear him about.

IF ANYONE FINDS OUT HOW FUCKED IN THE HEAD HE IS THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE HIM OUT BACK AND SCRAMBLE HIS BRAIN JUST LIKE THE BIIIIIIIG GIANT HAND DID-

And again! What hand? What is it with him and hands lately? 

Lady An' looks at him and his violent thoughts with growing concern.

“I did tell you,” Ingo recalls with too much certainty, “I've found my car prone to such unwarranted anger as of late.”

The ghostfire doesn't even look like the man this time. Smaller, younger, a pointed face yet to achieve all its angles, a monochromatic varsity jacket, eyes playful and stubborn past a Tynamo baseball cap. (A face that wasn't his but smiled for him, always.) Why does he feel so angry?

THE STUPID FUCKING KID IS BACK AND IT'S NOT EVEN REAL AND HE'S GONNA BURST INTO TEARS OVER IT CUS HE'S THE SAME AS A STUPID FUCKING KID-

Ingo hurls a rock at the boy before Lady An' can stop him and the wavering of the flames makes it look like it laughs in response.

He takes a heaving breath. It doesn't stop the tears from welling in his eyes anyway, for his grimace to grind his teeth against each other like gnashing fangs. The pounding, pounding rage.

Ingo, Lady An' whispers. It will pass. Let it pass.

“WHY?” he snaps.

=#[o]#=

“What?” a fifteen year old Emmet confusedly sounds out.

His twin brother sits at the left end of his bed in the pokemon center. Eyes hard. Face away from the bed. (Away from him.) “Why?”

“I am Emmet. We haven't been disqualified. The other team isn't pressing charges and the League is ruling they started it anyway, so it's-”

“WHY?” Ingo barks towards the wall. “Why did you do such a thing? I told you, take care not to uncouple from me!”

Emmet rolls his eyes harshly. “Oh, so when you run off to see that boy from the trainspotting club who's just like everybody else who thinks we're-”

“Don’t talk about Isadore-senpai like that,” Ingo tersely reprimands. “You like him, too. Don't say words you do not mean.”

Emmet stares out the bedroom window. “Whatever. Can we not do this right now? Elesa's shoot is wrapping up soon. I do not want her to worry if we get held up.”

“She has a date at the Rondez-View,” Ingo reveals. “Orus and I just dropped her off before the League told me about your uncharacteristic derailment. You will not depart from this conversation, brother.”

“I was turning in my fieldwork for the Nacrene City Museum,” Emmet stiffly recites. “I encountered our next Multi Battle tournament opponents. Did you know they are twins?”

“I did not,” Ingo concedes.

“We’ve never met identical twins before. Did you ever realize that?”

“...I did not.” Ingo's resting frown tightens. “Emmet, what did you do?”

“What did I do?” Emmet incredulously echoes. “What did they do! I thought they would be like us. I thought we would be friends. But instead, they-” His split, bandaged knuckles shake. “They…”

“They do not know the truth of us,” Ingo dismisses. “They are not like us. Why should their words matter to you and I?”

“No one is like us!” Emmet shouts. “Not even people we're supposed to be like! Do you never listen to how people talk about us?”

Ingo's brow twitches slightly at the sharp rise in volume, the only hint of his surprise- Emmet rarely has so much emotion in his voice, much less this level of vitriol. “People have always talked about us, Emmet! Why is now any different?”

“Because EVERYONE knows how much better off you'd be without me!” Emmet snaps.

Ingo springs off the bed, standing up straight. “DON'T SAY THINGS YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN!”

Emmet punches his bruised hand into the bedframe. “I DON'T!”

And now Ingo finally looks at him- head snapping to meet his eyes like Emmet's words have reached around and slapped him in the face.

“Everyone knows, ei,” Emmet stiltedly growls out. “Everyone knows how much better you'd be doing in the Singles bracket, or switching over to Hex Maniac, or doing anything else other than stay in the Multi Battle bracket with me-”

Ingo's voice starts to pitch oddly. “THAT’S NOT TRUE!”

“-and the only reason you haven't gone off and done something better is because my car is too weak to conduct itself on its own!”

And this ugly, ugly color distorts over Ingo’s face. A bared-fangs growl warps his mouth, brows furrowed sharp with anger, a rising wordless noise clawing its way up his throat- and Emmet almost flinches in preparation for the roar that's about to tear out of his brother.

And it never comes.

The snarl crumples, the eyes widen with hurt, the roar peters off into a wounded sound.

=#[o]#=

“How could you say that to me?” Warden Ingo heaves out. “Why would you ever, ever say that to me?”

This burning, burning memory. As if it could say anything at all.

“As if you were able to make me do anything,” Ingo growls. “As if you were weak enough to force me to pity you! AS IF IT WAS EVER YOUR CHOICE AT ALL- WHY?”

A shuddering sigh.

“As if it were my burden to wait for you to deserve me. To wait for you to let me go.”

WAITING, WAITING, WAITING FOR ONE HUNDRED YEARS, WAITING TO BE SAVED, TO BE WHOLE, TO EVER BE MYSELF AGAIN, WAITING WAITING WAITING-

=#[o]#=

“I DID NOT HOBBLE MYSELF FROM AN IMAGINED GREATNESS BY STAYING AT THE SIDE OF SOMEONE NO DIFFERENT TO ME FROM MY OWN RIGHT ARM AND LEG!” Ingo roars out. “THAT NEED WAS MINE! MINE AND NO ONE ELSE'S! I DID NOT WAIT FOR A PARASITE BORN HOLDING HIS HAND IN MINE, I WAITED FOR YOU!”

A fifteen year old Ingo Tamadensha quiets.

“For you,” he whispers. “You. Only you. No one else! Not for me, or whoever you were supposed to be, or whoever we were supposed to be- I waited for you.” His eyes soften. “My brave, strong, brilliant brother who likes winning more than anything else.”

And then his voice breaks, crumbles, struggles for life.

“So how can you say that to me? How can anything they say be truer than the ideal that I have chosen to be here now? To know that my own actions and words cannot mean more than what your sorrow decides for me- can't you possibly understand how that would make me feel?” His mouth starts to wobble. “Can't it ever occur to you, just this once, that I ever stayed because I need you?”

=#[o]#=

“So why?” the Warden crumples to his knees as the ghostfire dissolves into ember and ash. “Why did I have to remember I need you when I don’t even know who you are? Why do I have to need you so badly when you’re not even here?”

WHY DO YOU GET TO HAVE THIS POWER OVER ME? HOW CAN YOU STAND THERE AND SMILE WHILE I BEND AND BREAK AND BUCKLE TO THE ILLUSION OF YOU, WHY, WHY, WHY-

“Why won’t you just LEAVE ME ALONE?” he wails. “I wish I had never remembered you! I wish you had just let go of my hand during that storm and-”

His eyes fill with a sudden fear. He presses his face into Lady An’s lantern, rocking back and forth as her tendrils wrap across his back.

“This is wrong. Everything is wrong, I- I need help.” His breath hitches. “I need help. Somebody help.”

Chapter Text

“I'm not worried about him,” Palina stresses. “He's safer than almost all of us combined when left to his own devices. But he hasn't come back from his last outing. He might have forgotten he was staying with me and returned to the Highlands. He used to spend so long up there by himself, after all. I'm not sure he's kicked the habit.”

“Lady An' should have reminded him by now, shouldn't she?” Volo questions.

“She hasn't been around long enough to know about the- well-” Palina averts her eyes from behind her diving goggles. “-arrangement I have with him, I suppose.” 

She sighs, pushing her goggles up out of her face and rubbing a salve into her legs. There's these irregular, watery lashes (or are they burns?) climbing up her thigh, all the way up to the skirt of her white isogi. Her rosy hair is still frazzled with estuary salt, even from what little water managed to permeate the bandana she took with her to the depths.

“I’d remind him myself, but the other divers and I keep coming back up with rashes. There’s too many Qwilfish in the water lately. They’re poisoning everything that gets too close and the net fishermen can’t cull them fast enough. It’s a mess. When I’m done checking myself I’ll need to help the other girls afterwards.”

Akari hums uneasily. “I'm supposed to help Professor with the hot air balloons soon. But this shouldn't take long. Ingo never just holes up somewhere, not forever.”

“He makes a pretty consistent loop around the island for different forage and passenger routes throughout the year,” Volo recalls. “If the divers are dealing with an early Basculin run, he's probably looking for something to trade with them. He likes to stock up to make his weird little cubes and…” He trails off. “...well…”

“Stay out of the way while Lady Sneasler decides who to fuck?” Akari bluntly finishes.

“I wasn't going to just say it!” Volo sputters.

“And that's why I did!”

Volo pushes Akari's head down. “You stop that.”

“You guys are weird,” Akari teases. “Why are humans so weird about sex? You've got a million words and rituals just to even talk about sex.”

“How about we stop talking?” Volo grits out.

He turns over the options in his mind before speaking up again. If Ingo's forgotten he has any pre-existing schedule…

Well. Ingo can seem random at times, but he's horrifyingly meticulous even at his worst. He only looks random because he has different priorities than everyone else- and Volo's known him for long enough to narrow down where those priorities would take him. 

What would Ingo see if he were to come to sudden awareness in the Fieldlands? He's always been more nervous in the clan settlements, where there are eyes everywhere and his field knowledge doesn't help him. Already unsettled, he would notice the sudden Diamond Clan influx and get even more nervous, seeking to avoid it. A simple line of questioning about their presence would have him avoid the Mirelands entirely. He would notice the time of year and the lack of his usual pokemon with him, so he knows not to return to the Highlands. He might go to the Icelands, but Gaeric wouldn't be available to visit. The man has been circling back to the Pearl Clan more often as his wife's pregnancy has advanced. Ingo might check in on Sabi if she's there, but the girl stresses him out too much for him to stay for long. He's been gone too long for him to have gone somewhere he won't linger.

The Cobalt Coastlands, then. It will have the least amount of human presence at the moment, and he's always been strangely blasé about the ghost activity there.

“Slowpoke tail hunting?” Volo posits.

Akari nods. “Slowpoke tail hunting.”

Volo thumbs the pokeball containing his Togekiss. She's big enough to ride, but her evolution was rather recent and he doesn't want his pokemon to be seen by other people any more than they have to. Akari will have to respect that. “You don't suppose Rei could teleport us to one of the Coastlands camps, could he?”

“He could,” Akari concedes as she takes out her alpha Honchkrow, “but I think we shouldn't bring him in on this. We don't know what we're going to walk into and he's still a kid.”

Volo takes Akari's offered hand and mounts the Honchkrow with her. “You've been leaving him out of a lot of things where Ingo is concerned, haven't you? Does Ingo know you've been doing this?”

Akari shrugs. “Rei feels really bad about him and he doesn't want to make it worse.”

This is something Rei and Volo share in common, but Akari maturely decides not to point this out. Volo, as Ingo had explained to her, is an adult who can make his own decisions about how he feels. If he feels sorry for Ingo, that's on him. Not good, not bad, just his own choice.

But if Ingo lets a scared child under his watch see enough of his personal problems to feel responsible for his well-being, that's on him.

(Sometimes, Akari suspects that Ingo remembers teenage Volo’s overprotective ‘son’ era a lot less fondly than Volo does.)

Akari pats the Honchkrow’s crest. “Come on, Nevermore, let's go.”

She can't help but feel proud when Nevermore’s wings spread wide and strong, propelling them to the sky. Cyllene used to sigh when Akari brought in hopeless cases. The Professor's wife had seen many pokemon-shaped heartbreaks in her life, thanks to her husband's field of work. She told Akari not to get too attached to every wounded, ailing thing on the roadside. 

Some things just die. That's just the course of nature. But Akari Shou, as she was intended by the will of a Zorua, is supposed to be a human. Wouldn't the most human thing she could do be to care about things she doesn't have to?

Shimmer, a Shinx abandoned by his mother for having his Purugly sire’s pointed ears, utterly incompatible with the body language of his own litter, is growing into a handsome young Luxio. Blaidd, melanistic Ralts who stood out like a burning coal in a snowfield, has become a lovely Kirlia uncaring of his sooty coat of feathers. Miriel has stayed the same tiny Turtwig he was when Akari found him, but months of careful pruning have made way for his healthy leaves to start growing- and Cyan, a Cyndaquil that used to be too scared of humans to leave the Professor's enclosure, has since gained the courage to steamroll anything that could stand in the way of its new friends.

It's hard to believe that Nevermore had once been too sick to carry her own weight, much less the added load of a single runty Zorua. And now here she is, carrying two people on her back and ready to carry a potential third. It's safe to say she's another success.

Ingo… isn't just another pokemon. He isn't something that can be measured in success. Ingo Arnon Tamadensha is a tidal, labyrinthine continuum. One that can't be measured with words like fit and unfit, success and failure. There is no such thing for him. For him, every day he lives and breathes is a wonder unto itself, worth every effort spent. There is no wasted time. Only good days, and bad.

It looks like today's going to be another bad day.

The wicker basket he must have been using to collect his forage has been dropped carelessly on the edge of the dunes. He's curled up on the sand, drawing something into the ground with a stick. Over and over and over. Volo has the height advantage to see it before she does, and freezes. Akari has to crane her neck far too much to make out the mindless motion of those familiar, alternating triangles again. She strangles the urge to slap the stick out of Ingo's hand and shout at him to stop before someone sees him doing it. It won't help him. It never helped him. But she can't stamp down the fear of what other people could decide it says about him, what it does say about him.

She used to think it meant he was failing to keep up his humanity. Now she knows it for what it is- a warning sign that some part of him has been flung back to a memory of the sunken dark place that stole his mind away. The sand around him is scattered with charred glass, his disturbingly impassive eyes are filled with tears, and he is so, so scared.

And Akari doesn't know what to do. She never did. But the sight of him there, huddled and scared and alone, tugs at something in her heart that does not belong to Akari Shou, begs to curl up at his right side in a way he has never had to ask of anyone his entire life, because there is someone out there in the world who should have been there all along.

Akari doesn't know what to do, but she knows- can be- someone who does.  

Volo doesn't know about him, though. (Doesn't need to.) That's going to be a problem. (Don't care.) She'll have to explain what's going on before Volo keeps him away from Ingo.

(He can explain himself.)

Kari Tamadensha does not assert himself with tact or grace, not this time. He doesn’t have Akari’s care for keeping up appearances when his brother is on the line. But maybe there is deliberateness in how forcefully he sculpts himself in front of Volo’s eyes. Let the man’s jaw tense with shock as a grey answer to Ingo’s tattered black coat wraps itself around a thin form, as glass eyes stubbornly slit, as paper pale skin retains a too-healthy rosiness in the cheeks and silver hair merely stays that way, never gaining the shine of its template. This form strays just a touch too far from fantasy, and Volo will know it. He will know what it means, that Kari displays Ingo’s tatters and Pearl Clan clothes rather than what his ideal memory would be wearing. It is equal parts testing the waters of how Ingo’s prospective troopmates accept him, and bluntly displaying that they do not have Ingo’s choice in the matter. 

The young man- for though he is older than Akari, he is not as old as Kari- looks unsettled. And in response, Kari’s smile rests as Emmet’s never would, eyes squinted with warmth and mouth curled in confidence. He still carries the Zorua’s wounded pride, after all. Wants the world to know his place next to his brother, and be able to do nothing about it.

“Sierpiński triangles,” Kari starts. He frowns. “No, that isn’t right. Medial triangles. Nesting medial triangles. I remember this form of meditation. Black in grey in white, white in grey in black. He remembers the alternation, but not the nesting.” His head tilts towards Volo, and he frees one hand from his coat pocket to extend in greeting. “Greetings. I am Kari. I am a Subway Boss. The Professor’s assistant has gone away on a train until she is needed again. Do you comply?”

Volo squints. “You’re not trying to be Emmet.”

The smile stays fixed. “I am not Emmet. I am Kari. Do you comply? I would much prefer you did. Nii-san is so very fond of you.”

“I-” Volo’s eyes dart as they come to some unreadable conclusion. “-will ask Ingo about it later. Why are you Galarian?”

“Because I am not Emmet,” Kari simply says. “That is the arrangement.” He leans into Volo’s field of view, tone growing in insistence. “I am allowing you to see what will happen because you say you are going to be better. You will help. You will not keep me from him. Do you comply?”

Volo’s mouth squirms uncomfortably as he finally shakes the offered hand. Kari’s smile widens.

“Thank you for riding with us.” Kari remembers he should try to soften his words. “Please, try to gather up his things. And the glass, if you can pass safety checks. He is going to be very ashamed of himself if we are strangers pointing out his disrepair rather than people already aiding him.”

“How long have you been doing this, again?” Volo unsubtly questions.

“My entire life.”

Volo sighs at the obvious non-answer and moves to grab Ingo’s discarded basket, looking for anything that might have fallen into the sand. That is enough for Kari to discard his own attention to Volo and tend to his brother.

Long lines of tesselating, alternating triangles, as if it were writing. Ingo used to have such neat, disconcertingly straight handwriting. The notes he left for Emmet looked like they came off a typewriter sometimes. But that had been Before. Now, writing falls from him in trailing persistent spirals, spilling out like blood from a wound and just as troublesome to clot. And like blood, it does not care where it spills. Wood, stone, paper. Walls, floors, furniture. It cares not how it spills. Ink, chalk, pencil, knives. The pressure of that sunken place builds and builds against Ingo’s mind until it must bleed, no matter where it lies. Aside from forgetting himself entirely, this is the only way to bloodlet it. Kari cannot staunch it. Cannot stop it. Cannot fix it.

But he is made from a conductor’s clay, is he not? The paths that cannot be stopped can be changed into something better.

Kari places his hand over Ingo's and guides the stick past the next triangle it was making. Down in a straight line, longer and longer until they both have to stand. He walks them both down the line, then sharply to the left, then to the left again. Another triangle, larger than any of the ones Ingo has already made. But when Ingo tries to repeat it, Kari has them retrace the line- then split off towards its middle, creating another triangle inside, corners pressing along the flat edges of the larger one. Then another. Three nested triangles.

There's a spark of recognition in Ingo's eyes now. He doesn't need Kari to make the next set. The lines which had once been frantic and endless become less so, contained in a more complex construct. And while it doesn't take any less time than it ever did for his hands to belong to him again, the aftermath takes up much less of the beach than it ever has before.

Ingo comes back to Kari's left side as the tide comes over the sand to wash it all away. His hands are tense with exhaustion, but the fear in his eyes is gone, and that will have to be enough.

“...Where's my-” Ingo’s line of sight catches Volo holding his basket. “Ah. Thank you, young passenger.” He does not look at Kari as he rifles through its contents. “Hello, brother.”

“Hello. I am Kari.” A pause. “You were crying.”

“Oh. Was I?” Ingo hesitantly inspects his face and grimaces as his hands find old tear tracks. “I'm sorry.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Kari gently presses.

“I-” Ingo's eyes dart nervously to Volo. “I am not- I do not-” His words trail off and his mouth clamps shut.

“I'm not a child anymore, Ingo,” Volo reminds him. When the obvious nervousness in Ingo's expression doesn't subside, he huffs sadly. “But I never did a good job acting like it, did I? I acted like every bad thing that happened to you was my responsibility. I closed myself off every time you showed me you were hurt and vulnerable.”

“You were a child,” Ingo reminds him. “That was not your fault.”

“But it still happened. And it still wasn't fair. It wasn't fair when it started, and it isn't fair now.” Volo's hand digs slightly into the basket as he passes it into Ingo's hands. “I said I would never lie to you again, and I know I never asked you to do the same to me, but… I want you to know you can talk about it. If you- if you want to.”

“I am- I am the conductor and you are the passenger. It is not your job to… to…” Ingo’s face falls with a sudden open sadness. “Oh. But I haven't conducted much of anything lately, have I? I've been no use to anyone.”

“You can be forgiven, I think, for knowing when not to conduct through suboptimal tracks,” Kari assures. “You know it will pass as it always has before.”

“But I had forgotten how badly it aches,” Ingo chokes out, “knowing I am unable to be what I am.”

“How can you not be what you are?” Volo asks.

“I was made to be a life of service. I lost my mind and still I found a way to be a life of service.” Ingo's shaking hands rack with tremors. “Twelve years a life of service, only to be wrested from my own controls again! Knowing things that destroy me to know, saying things I do not wish to say, fearing the people I must serve and love and shelter!” His voice begins to shake. “This is not as it should be. I am not as I should be and I do not know why. I know my car cannot be repaired on its own, but- but what if this is beyond repair, what if the people who have placed their trust in me say that I am beyond repair, unfit for service, UNFIT FOR-”

His sudden shout catches on a heaving, gasping, wide-eyed breath that never finishes, snagged against his lungs. The Zorua within Kari hears his heart pound fearfully against his ribs as a rising high noise tries and fails to escape him in an increasingly frantic tempo. Just as Kari’s heart tries and fails not to break, the tiniest bit, at the startled flinch that rewards him when his hands close around his brother’s face.

Emmet is not here. Kari can never really know what he would say. But Kari can remember a time when Ingo held Emmet through the worst of them both. If that is what a brother is, can Kari not do the same?

“You are not unfit for me,” Kari softly points out. “You know I could not exist otherwise. And I am here now, yes?”

Volo tentatively places his hand on Ingo's shoulder. There's no small surprise on his face when he realizes Ingo is letting it happen. “You don't have to be useful for someone to help you,” Volo asserts. “You never had to.” 

“And Palina's been asking for you, nii-san,” Kari reminds. “She would feel better if she wasn't at camp alone. Even if you haven't been able to get back on track just yet, you can still do that. Will you let us take you home?”

Ingo closes his eyes, takes a breath, and nods.

Chapter Text

Petal Laventon has no respect for the mercenary scientist, and it is with no small measure of self-admitted hypocrisy he admits to it.

Selfish, prideful, far too old men running their Rattata race from their lofty ivory towers, stealing the work of those they send to claim their academic glory, leaving everyone else to spend entire careers doing nothing but prove them right. Or just as terrible, people so desperate for their own supremacy they will cut down anyone who comes close to proving them wrong.

He knows, deep down, he is lucky to have the luxury of believing what they’re doing is distasteful. Lucky to have been raised by a family who truly loved him, lucky to have made another such family for himself, lucky to have picked up his Hisuian research now, of all times, when he was on the cusp of another spurned project gathering dust on an office shelf.

He is lucky to be the professor that everyone back in Hammerlocke never got to be.

Although he can understand the comfort of resting on the laurels of past progress. He doesn't feel particularly relaxed about heading up into the sky with nothing but a repurposed diving suit, a hot air balloon, and a dream. But unless everyone suddenly becomes completely fine with letting a scattered island’s worth of exotic rocks poison the Hisuian soil in new exciting ways, they need some method to put them all back.

Of course, convincing the best aim in Hisui to even get in a hot air balloon, much less for possible hours, much less wearing gizmos all over their bodies, is another. Which isn’t to say the Diamond Clan riders who bravely faced down a frenzied Wyrdeer are backwards in any sort of way! Most of the technology involved is barely decades old, after all. Really, it would be better to try and get an airship for this operation, but that would take time and specialized labor they don’t have. Besides, in the long run, setting up the infrastructure for hot air balloon travel in these parts will have practicalities far beyond scientific curiosity. Cyllene is already hard at work convincing Kamado of the future benefits to Security Corps deployment and setting up supply lines to the different camps as they continue work to become proper outposts. When trying to justify more abstract endeavors like this, it’s best to have profitable counterarguments.

Some people, however, need no convincing at all. Bellamis is all-too eager to have his Talonflame fuel a hot air balloon no matter the altitude- though Kamado staunchly refused his enthusiasm- and Dagero wants to take the opportunity for sky photography. Others still will not be joining them at all. Rei and Rye are scouting the Mirelands about suspicious Ursaring behavior, and Akari had a sudden investigation about a possible Poison-type outbreak to deal with at the last minute. Strangely, he realizes, he is relieved to not have anyone he particularly cares for on this mission. He can’t tell if it’s relief that there are people he trusts down here on the ground following through with the things he cares about, or relief that this moment will, in a way, belong to him and him alone.

The initial ascent, launched up into the sky by Drifloon updrafts, is lightning quick. What follows, less so. They cannot dare to rise faster than the pokemon around them would, lest the air they breathe grow too thin too quickly. Thankfully, the higher they go, the greater abundance of flying pokemon they find to guide their way. Migratory birds and dragons, insects catching the breeze, ghosts following the flow of life, Grass-types sailing like seeds to far off regions. He can spot a Wailmer in the distance, swelling gracefully from the water to take flight, straining clouds through its teeth in anticipation. Some of them will even spend most of their life never touching the ground- this is the sky layer, the alien, sparsely inhabited peak of the worldly biosphere that humans never get to see. 

He and Dagero nod at each other under their helmets, three balloons apart. Dagero kneels down to poke his device out of the flap in his basket, intermittent flashes bearing down against the distant ground while an assistant swiftly tucks the film away in a dark box. 

Petal turns his hands skyward.

The sun peeking through towering clouds. A Staraptor’s talons piercing through fog to snatch a Murkrow mid flight. Pelliper mouths, wide and gaping as they let out bellowing cries to their Wingull followers. Vivillon wings in a parade of a thousand colors, scattering blinding light. Oh, sword and shield, he can’t capture it all, he will never be able to capture it all. His hands are shaking with cold. He isn’t capable of encapsulating the majesty of everything before his eyes, not with the technology that exists now. But a new truth settles, giddy and wild in his aging bones- he has a balloon and the rest of his life to try.

And slowly,

   surprisingly,

       suspiciously- 

as if he had the right to bear suspicion at all, when could fall to his death any moment-

the world stops getting colder.

And heat no longer rises, but 

       sinks.

Down, down, down, paradoxically distant and invisible as dust motes over lamplight. Visible in their movement and nothing more. Whistling like flutes flung at terminal velocity, hand-sized alien life promising death for daring to stop where they do not.

A hysterical snicker builds in his throat as the Diamond Clan marksmen load Minior in their miniature launchers and take aim for the stars.

There’s an Alolan researcher who’s about to lose so many bets right now.

=#[o]#=

For someone who doesn't belong in this office in the slightest, Ingo has always looked a little too at home in the Professor's chairs. What Akari once thought was a senior Zoroark’s adaptability belied a far stranger and sadder truth. In the life he chose a century from now, he was once someone like Kamado- and on a much larger scale. An honored, respected leader with hundreds under his sprawling spiderweb of command. The city of his headquarters alone contained no less than sixty subway stations. In an area less than a hundredth the size of Hisui, he helmed the safety of nearly a million souls every day.

It almost ceases to be impressive he mapped this entire landmass so perfectly that he can find his way through Wayward Cave easier than he can remember he has a name. The scope of his duty here is so laughably simple in comparison he may as well be pacing madly to himself in a jail cell. Perhaps, when he becomes too aware of it, he is.

He crosses his leg in an armchair, hands held together primly against his knee, eyes blindly darting through unseen data, his cocked head cataloguing every footstep in the Galaxy Hall. As if contemplating his authority to commandeer the building at his whim and coming concerningly close to the conclusion he has it.

“Is it okay for you to have… that thing out?” Akari hesitantly asks.

The Subway Boss with a voice that sunders bones turns to her. The thought that passes over him is thunder loud, lightning quick- his eyes have dissected the difference of strength between them in a single moment and found her wanting by a cavernous margin. He could break her will into mindless panic or terror-stricken obedience in a single shout. (He will not. Because he is a conductor and she is his dearest, most beloved passenger.)

He blinks, registering the question, and then the singular stumpy Unown swimming in the air around his head with less intelligence than a bullet perforated brain cell.

“Oh, you mean the letter L?" He chuckles, and the terror of him is gone. "I do not respect it, so it is incapable of derailing me.” His head tilts accommodatingly as he contemplates Akari's perturbed expression. He produces a plastic grabber toy from the depths of his coat and clacks its crude pokeball shaped mouth at her. “I can remove it from our station if you wish.”

Akari gently moves the grabber away from her face. “If you're fine, it's fine. What rift did you even find the, uh, toy in?”

Ingo starts noncommittally snapping at the Unown with the grabber toy anyway. “Your fellow passenger uses me as an excuse to have personal effects by pretending to offload ‘nostalgic’ items in Single Train 001 for my sake. I'm sure he'll realize the consequences of this action eventually.”

Akari sucks in a breath. “Will he?”

There's a devious spark in his eyes now. “Well, the bento box project he doesn't know about is taking off soon, and you know what that means!”

The mirth in his voice is such a far cry from the despair Kari found him in earlier, that he had been carrying quietly for Bound God knows how long. He sounds so much like himself again- disturbingly chipper to be alive and confusing everyone around him. So no, while she has no idea what she's talking about, she will let a smile grow on her face anyway.

The pokeball grabber toy clamps shut around the little Unown, who seems to be completely fine with Ingo promptly jostling it back and forth like a freshly pounded dough. 

“But back to the matter at hand, dear passenger. I can say with certainty that the-” Ingo's eyes flick to Lady An' briefly, fishing for confirmation. “-prior procedure is not the cause of my catastrophic lucidity. I was just finishing adjusting my car to those tracks when the disruption began more recently.”

“How recent are we talking?” Akari questions.

“It is difficult for me to say on the best of days,” Ingo admits. He covers his mouth with his hand as he thinks it over. “No, there was- I remember a Diamond Clan fisherman from the run. He was very disquieted that I knew his name.” A pause. “He is one of those that rely on the fact I do not remember how they treat me-”

Akari's voice turns flat. “What?”

“-but now that Lady An' is here, it cannot happen again.” Ingo snaps his fingers. “AH! I DO REMEMBER! I started feeling strange after the shipment to my post right before Warden Palina took me to stay with her.”

After. Before. He was the one who told her when they first met that he usually isn't capable of that distinction anymore without intense context clues and severe detective work on his end. Things are either true, or not. He needs it explained to him more often than not that Lady An' doesn't know everything he does, because Lady An' being there doesn't mean she was always there. But now here he is, directly recalling someone acting differently when she wasn't around, starting to think in linear time unprompted, albeit in a rudimentary way. It should be a good thing, but after so long of not knowing how to think that way, this forced exercise in memory is starting to take its toll. The exhaustion that's been seeping into his eyes lately hasn't left even as his mood has improved, the memories are becoming more vivid and disruptive. And... the difference between his high and low tides of lucidity is starting to grow vast. In ways that it shouldn't. He should be in a stable middle ground, free to remember when he is safe to do so, not veering uncontrollably between a fully realized Subway Boss and a frantic, terrified hermit within mere hours of each other.

And speaking of being safe, Akari's gonna make Volo talk to her about 'relying on not remembering how they treat me' some time soon, because that sounds a lot more specific and alarming and possibly actively dangerous to Ingo's well-being than Volo's previous vague statements of defending him from verbal harassment. And maybe get Volo to tell Zisu about it. Zisu could probably actually do something about it. Or at least she should be warned not to leave Ingo alone with Diamond Clan members when they loiter around the dojo. Ingo would never let someone beat him up, but Akari's become far too recently aware there are much better ways to hurt him when he refuses to hurt back, or worse, accepts it-

Stop that. They can just ask Ingo to elaborate for himself when this is all over and done with. Focus on the now. Focus on what he actually wants and is asking for help with. Don't look for something to protect him from.

“Before Palina,” Akari reiterates. “That's the regular supply shipments to the noble seats, right?”

“Yes, for non-foragable supplies and offloading surplus,” Ingo confirms. “It's useful to keep stock when travelers need a place to stay for the night.”

Akari frowns with thought. “Ingo, don't you share the food supplies with the Lady's brood?”

“At this time of year? Only to train them, or reward her mates when they help with a hard day's work, but they haven't been showing any-” 

Ingo suddenly stops.

“The Pearl Clan has been having brain fog and memory problems,” he starts again. “Palina said something to that effect. And only certain members most of all, yes?”

Akari raises her brows. “You’re going somewhere with this.”

“Akari,” Ingo slowly, worriedly says, “I have been very, very sane as of late, and I have Poison Heal.”

=#[o]#=

Rei’s been a good student lately, or at least that’s what he’s been told. And he’s been learning a lot of things from a lot of people. The first lesson that applies here, he learned from Ingo. 

If you know what’s going on, no you don’t.  

It doesn’t matter who thinks they’re the smartest person in the room, it doesn’t matter who is the smartest person in the room. The last person on the scene knows the least, and that last person is you. Assume everyone who got here first knows something you don’t, and make sure you learn it. Understand that other people have lived and learned and generally kept running into information, even though you don’t remember it or weren’t around to see it. Notice what they chose to notice. Take what they say seriously, even if they don’t. Everything comes from something true, even a lie. Knowing everything you can before making a decision or any conclusion can mean the difference of life and death for far, far more people than you alone, because no decision you make can ever be made in a vacuum.

Lord Ursaluna hasn’t hurt anyone, not yet, but this isn’t the first frenzy they’ve faced before, and Calaba is an all-too observant woman when she wants to be. Warden Calaba, closest friend and caretaker of her lord, says he shows signs of frenzy the same way that the others did before they became a much greater danger to others. Even if she’s ultimately wrong about the frenzy, she isn’t wrong about something being wrong. As a critical terraformer, farmland tiller, forager, and metal finder for both clans, his odd behavior needs to be addressed.

The second lesson that applies here, Rei learned from Laventon.

Everyone is reasonable to themselves.

Every action makes sense to the person or pokemon doing it- that’s why they’re doing it. Never approach someone’s behavior asking why they don’t make sense. Ask why they do.

So why has Lord Ursaluna been digging up dirt so badly it’s collapsing the ground? Why is he getting thinner and thinner while his band of Ursaring attendants has been growing fat?

Which leads to the third and fourth lessons. The former, Rei learned from Akari, the latter from Volo.

Pokemon are inherently lazy, and everything costs something.

Pokemon live far simpler, harsher lives than humans do. Every action they take to extend that life costs time and energy and fat reserves they can’t afford to spare on trivial things unless they’re doing well. Lord Ursaluna isn’t doing well. And not once has he eaten the countless amounts of fish that have been clogging the Mirelands waterways.

Rei hands off his glasses to Rye, asks Bellamis to keep watch, and joins the Basculin run. He’s never been a great swimmer, but he’s never had to be- his body always adapts to the water before he can try holding his breath. What would ever be the point?

He’d been warned beforehand, with far too much enthusiasm on the Professor’s part, everything that happens during a Basculin run. Their bodies pour everything they have into reaching their mating grounds. The sheer physical exertion of their journey and the transformation required to complete it destroys them, reducing the feeble remainder of their lifespan into husks. Rei wasn’t too freaked out by the concept. It’s nature. This sort of thing happens. He’s prepared for things to get a little weird. 

He wasn’t prepared to see a Basculin’s eyeless face staring back at him, divine light and nerve endings trailing out of an exposed, peeling skull. 

He takes a reflexive gasp of surprise underwater, and for the first time in his life, he cannot breathe it. 

Panic sinks him to the estuary riverbed, then kicks him haphazardly to the surface, his wretched coughs spurring his pokemon out of their balls in a frantic race to drag him back to the shoreline. Underneath the fading vision and stinging throat, he’s surprised that Goliath, the rowdy alpha Heracross that was his Drifloon’s crowning victory, reaches him first, horn snagging on his body and roughly flipping him out of the water. Mustard, trained by Ingo alongside all the mountain scaling Sneaslers to have a conductor’s care, turns Rei on his side with careful claws, tongue roughly scraping at the back of his neck until it prompts him to hack the water out of his lungs.

His hands are claws. His teeth are fangs. Poison fangs.

Rye pushes Rei up to a sitting position, handing him back his glasses, while the man’s Lucario sniffs cautiously, paws patting encouragingly at Rei’s back, barbels raised with wariness.

“Both of them,” Rei gasps out, “it’s both- both of the- HHHH-”

“There’s still water in your lungs, don’t talk so much-”

Rei’s weak voice turns frantic. “It’s the water,” he realizes. “They’re frenzied because of the water, we need to get everyone away from the water, the water’s TURNED INTO NEUROTOXIN!”

Chapter Text

“What, are you saying it’s-” Kamado squints skeptically at the photographs and telegrams flung onto his desk. “-like a mold or something?”

“Not quite.” Laventon draws a quick illustration of a crumbling Minior on the diagram-ridden board he wheeled in with him. “You see, I sent samples of all the fallen Hokuholuana elima- er, the Minior- shells to the research institutions I’ve been in contact with. I was only hoping to get a glimpse of their diet, or at least the composition of the atmospheric layer they inhabit. We’ve never been able to find live or intact specimens in such a large number, as they usually fall to their deaths. I suspect the rifts may have upset the-”

Kamado’s tone isn’t unkind, but it is losing patience. “Get to the point, Professor.”

“There was a particular organic toxin on the outside of their shells,” Laventon reveals. “It coated them as they fell into Hisuian airspace. I suspect it is the very same toxin that is poisoning the Mirelands estuary.”

“The clans are saying this is a Qwilfish outbreak,” Kamado informs him.

“I disagree,” Laventon bluntly asserts.

“Laventon,” Kamado warns. “They’re already assembling a hunting party for it. We cannot trample over the sovereignty of the native population-”

“BUT WHAT IF THEY’RE WRONG?” Laventon snaps. “Poison-type pokemon are a keystone element to all ecosystems in preventing this level of pollution! We need to think about why they’re here in the first place!” He starts harshly digging his pointer finger into his open palm. “Yes, Qwilfish can emit poison, from their quills, but they cannot generate poison smog! Their neurotoxin accumulates only in specific organs of their bodies! If we start culling one of the few poison filtering species in the native water and we are wrong, we will open a gateway to an irreparable ecological disaster for the next five generations!”

Kamado raises an arm in dismissal. “This situation is too time sensitive to waste proving you right-”

Laventon slams his hands down on Kamado’s desk. “YOU BROUGHT ME HERE TO WASTE TIME PROVING ME RIGHT! AND I AM TELLING YOU WE NEED TO BE! WE HAVE TO-” He takes in Kamado’s unmoving expression and flinches back. “I- I- I- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t- I’m not supposed to yell, it’s not my place to- I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

He clutches his head with a weak, haggard wheezing sound, curling up on the floor. Kamado quickly stands up from his seat, face open with concern. “Professor?”

Laventon jerkily shakes his head. His Indeedee toddles towards him, cat-like face clucking in a matronly fashion as it crowds his line of sight, paws pressing primly into his thick bed of curls. His breathing slows, steadies. His eyes clear, but stay fixed on the floor, brows tense.

“Professor,” Kamado slowly says. “You know what my people have survived. You are not the first person I have met bearing mental scars. Perhaps there are those who came before me who shamed you for it, but I refuse to be counted among them. You will compose yourself and continue to present your case when you are ready.”

Laventon’s eyes are wide with distrust. Kamado expects this. He distrusts everyone sometimes, too.

“That ghost pokemon you keep with you,” Kamado decides to note. “The one in the teapot. I saw something like it when my people traveled through Kitakami. Are they the same species?”

“...No,” Laventon finally, haltingly says. “They are unrelated Ghost-types. They are morphologically similar, but those similarities are used for fundamentally different lifestyle strategies.” He chuckles. “And my Polteageist cannae go schemin’ tae take your heart and soul through a cuppa.”

Kamado huffs out a laugh of his own. “I’m glad.”

“The- uh- the vampiric qualities of the Sinistcha line are due to their secondary Grass-typing, not their Ghost one,” Laventon reveals. “Humans are actually largely immune to Ghost-type moves. Its their secondary skills that pose the greatest danger. You’d be more unsafe around a Bug-type in terms of.. ah… purely physical, er, hazard.”

Laventon sighs, stands up straight, and readjusts his lab coat. 

“This… this is what I mean,” he continues. “There is so much about the world that isn’t what it appears to be. We don’t know everything we think we know. So we need to be sure before we make a decision this… consequential.”

Kamado leans back, posture open and attentive. “What do you propose, then?”

“Do you remember the centrifuge machines?” Laventon prompts. “Those churners I refitted with a Rotom engine when we were experimenting with the clans’ weaving machines. We donated one alongside a microscope to the Medical Corps in order to check for diseases and blood quality. I had based it on a recent publication.”

Kamado raises a brow. “Ah. So like many of your foreign ideas, this one has a use you have not yet disclosed to me.”

“It’s a related use!” Laventon defends. “We could use them to examine the poison for ourselves, determine if it belongs to the Qwilfish or not. We could even test Qwilfish poison against the structure of what was found on the Minior, to see if it was one and the same. If we compare these things to a water sample, we should have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“Simple enough, then.” Kamado leans forward. “So what part of this needs my permission?”

“I…” Laventon hums nervously, mouth twisting with anxiety before his posture deflates. “...will be fetching my wife for this. You’ll be wanting the Security and Construction Corps for this one, I’m afraid.”

=#[o]#=

“The source of the poison is only one part of the problem,” Cyllene starts, hands behind her back. “The other will be discovering its nature and the cause of its symptoms, in order to enact proper safety measures.”

Sanqua, Construction Corps Captain, peruses Dagero’s sky observations and recent Survey Corps field photos. The rims of boats and oars coming up red where they hit the water. A brackish, silty film saturating the rivers, encroaching further and further upstream. “What safety measures can we implement for this other than stopping it altogether? We’ve already sent out the warning to keep away from the water and stop eating the fish.”

“We’ll need to take the already laid eggs in order to treat them for poison, as well as harvest the corpses for processing, but that will have to wait for when we clear the waters. For now, the Construction Corps can lay out nets along the waterways to quarantine the contaminated wildlife, and the Pearl Clan can assist the Survey Corps in corralling pokemon that can treat the pollution.” Cyllene’s eyes harden. “But that is the aftermath, when we have all the information we need to proceed safely. Gathering the information itself will be the hardest part. Not only are we working around frenzies that cannot be resolved until this is dealt with, the Survey Corps are not game hunters, a limitation that is problematic in this instance. We need to dissect some of the contaminated wildlife.”

“You can’t use the bodies,” Zisu immediately guesses.

Cyllene nods gravely. “The Basculin suffering the brunt of the damage are too decayed to give us reliable information, and most everything else surviving in the infected water is Poison-type itself, meaning that they won’t be showing damage at all. We need to kill a severely poisoned pokemon that hasn’t already succumbed to the symptoms, without damaging its brain or vital organs. Preferably one as high as possible on the food web. Captain, is there anything spotted in recent patrols, land or sea, that meets these requirements?” 

“The higher up the web it is, the more poisoned it is, right?” Zisu covers her hand with her mouth as her brows furrow with thought. “We’ve got one big target and you’re not gonna like it. There’s a nasty alpha Gyrados that’s started showing signs of seizures on the coastline lately. We’re already going to have to put it down before it causes a tropical storm. Why not use it for something good?”

Cyllene pales and immediately shakes her head. “We can’t risk it. Even if we threw the entire Security Corps at it, they’d either tear the poor thing to shreds or die trying.”

“The mid-sized predators are all waiting out their sickness or dead,” Zisu points out. “Our livestock have been doing too well for it to be anything else. If we don’t want to waste time, we need to go big or go home.”

“Still, even the most experienced hunters of Hisui won’t touch any Gyrados, much less an alpha,” Kamado refutes. “And as useful as the target is, any method we have to kill it would contaminate the corpse. How can we cleanly slay a dragon?”

“You use a dragon.”

The others turn to Sanqua in confusion. The captain stares down at her hands in her lap. Her voice is small and hushed, every syllable forced out as if a terrible secret was being tortured out of her.

“The dragon masters, who love and cherish their living gods more fiercely than anything, know better than anyone where their weakness lies. Those who become dragons can kill dragons.”

Kamado hums tensely. “The nearest Draconian settlement is back in the Kanjo landmass. If there are any nearer to here, they haven’t revealed themselves to anyone.”

“There is one,” Sanqua whispers. “One master within our reach. The Fox may love Lady Sneasler now, but he still knows the heart of dragons. What do you think it was he wanted to give Rei that no one else in Hisui could possibly teach?”

=#[o]#=

Zisu’s elders would tell her things about the land she was too young to remember. One of them was this- dragonfolk once walked among them. People who discarded the binary of humans and pokemon, of men and women, who lived alongside dragons as both beloved brothers and cherished gods, keeping the starry secrets between them safe forever. It was honor, terror, and mystery to know them. Like so many parts of the Ecruteak from long ago, she had filed those stories away into the mist of fading nostalgia and longing myth for a place that no longer existed and perhaps never did. 

Ingo was the only Warden she knew personally. She had never questioned why the inside of his tent did not have the shrine of Sinnoh. Why his prayers sounded so different from anything the Pearl Clan ever lifted to the sky. Why he cherished his Lady Sneasler as a daughter more than a god. Why Lian, a child he helped raise, was the only Hisuian she had ever seen with a dragon. Why his mouth would crowd with fangs when he sunk his hands against the earth, fingers curled around a rosary of Sneasel claws and the teeth of the only pokemon in his team who knew Dragon-type moves, eyes searching blindly for blood and stars that only he could see. 

When he spoke, his voice was like thunder, only ever peppered and distant or looming and sonorous. She had always thought it was odd, but his words were so articulated. The lilt of his Sinoan reaching everyone who heard it but signifying nothing. An accent that did not come from anywhere. But now, his disbelieving tone carries something she has only heard in aged childhood voices and a distant, burning memory.

Kanjo. Johtonian. Blackthorn, hidden temple of dragons.

“Cho matte- matte, matte, matte-” His eyes frozen with horror, his voiced pitched to laugh as if expecting a cruel joke he hasn’t caught onto yet. “Nande yanen? Chau-”

“I know what we are asking of you, dragon master,” Kamado sadly says. “Please, please understand I would not ask you if there was any other way.”

Ingo squints strangely back at the commander, as if through a fog. “Dragon… master… nani yu... te... man'no-” His eyes find Sanqua, gaze darting along her face. “You, you- I know you, I know you, you told them-”

Sanqua’s words spill out like an anxious river. “I had no choice, Arnon, erai sunmahen-”

His mouth curls into a grimace, fangs clicking harshly shut as a low, guttural hiss hurls itself in her direction. “AKAN NEN! I don’t want to hear it, Qianyu! I don’t want to hear what you have to say!”

Sanqua’s mouth clamps shut.

“Commander,” Ingo slowly sounds out. “Do you realize what you have ASKED me? To kill a dragon would be no different than to raise my own hand against my lady! It is heresy alone that I even let you say it!”

“Erai kotcha,” Kamado somberly concedes. “Souya. Souya. That is why I am taking the burden of that heresy. Though I do not know you well enough to ask it of you, I know your devotion never dies. The dragon must die. Both for its own mercy, and to save the lives of others. Would you allow this sin to stain any other hand but your own?”

A thick, grating gust of air presses against Ingo’s teeth. His hands, talon-curled, shake with rage.

“You will bring me a bow larger than I am tall,” he laboriously orders, “a harpoon fletched to be fired from it, and you will not insult me by thanking me for this.”

He does not allow a place for honor in anything that follows. His face betrays nothing as he watches a Pearl Clan archer teach his Machamp to string a bow. Betrays nothing as he notches a harpoon like an arrow in its grasp. Betrays nothing as he spurns away the boatmen offering to ferry him, simply standing along the shore. Betrays nothing as he raises the corner between his left finger and thumb in front of his eyes, crystal iris blown tunnel-wide, right arm lifting like the rising sword of an executioner until nothing remains in his sight but the bright clear line between him and the scale-gap of a jugular vein.

“From the blood you were forged and to the blood you shall return. May this final station I deliver you return you to the fullness of the dao.” His voice drops to a low, hoarse sound as ghostfire strikes the metal of the harpoon. “Forgive me.”

The final roar of the Gyrados is a high, shrill whistle of air escaping from its perforated hide, and the crash of the waves made as it slumps to the ground. The wood of its murder weapon greedily drinks up its blood, smoldering like burning incense and cauterizing its entry point to prevent any further loss. Rope and anchors reverently encircle its body as it is dragged to shore. An improvised coffin is being built on the sand to preserve its flesh in ice as quickly as possible. Lady An' Delure will eat well on the rich fat of an old, strong soul.

His face betrays nothing. Zisu turns to him, just slightly, arms open at her side. His head ducks down as he walks into her, shoulders shaking, grief-sticken litany of rusted Johtonian flooding out of him the moment it is muffled into the fabric of her clothes.

“Kan'nin e… kan’nin e… kan’nin e KAN’NIN E KAN’NIN E-”

The body and its quickly forming dissection theater is photographed for research purposes. In the background will be one of the only known images of the Warden called Fox ever identified, a belated side note never intended, sitting in an obscure journal about Hisuian natural sciences.

His hat pulled down, hand covering his eyes in shame in the seconds before his words turn into a formless wail of sorrow.

Chapter Text

It has seen, in someone else’s dream, the memory of what is called wailmerfall.

A titanic creature meeting its beautiful, inevitable death. Over the course of a long and industrious life, it will lose more and more weight, take more and more air, until it rises out of the sea one last time. Where it falls, the world can never be certain- and while what was born of the ocean so often returns to it, feeding the abyssal darkness below for centuries to come, it is not always so. And so , when the crabs and worms and unknown things do not receive the rich bounty of Mother Wailmer’s funeral wake, the humans take part instead. 

An efficient process. Or so It has heard. Swiftly separating bone from flesh, flesh from fat, fat from oil, before decay spoils and broils the corpse into a ticking time bomb where it lies.

It has never seen such a race against the clock for itself.

But It imagines the spectacle looks something like this.

Hooked swords, reserved for flaying the hides of Mamoswine, prying open Gyrados scales. Toxin-rich myomere cut layer by layer, reverently deveined and drawn of its blood. Bones sawed open for caustic marrow. Each part of no-longer-life taken out from its coffin and laid in wooden boxes of ice, while others are secreted away into glass bottles and beakers, pressed between glass film. They are paying special attention to the skull, It notices. Carving open a doorway to the wrinkled matter within. The scent of spinal fluid, reeking of saltwater and wretched life-rot, contaminated with white fat as the knife carves through.

The foreigner man leading this carrion-dance sees what he has been searching for. There is a bruised and crinkled mass, coagulating unnaturally in a twist of flesh that curls like a bean in the depths of the brain-cage. A sickened pallor colors his cheeks. His eyes dart to the empty space the slayer of the beast once occupied, mind whirling with grim implication. He does not allow himself to linger on it long.

It does not allow Itself to linger, either. The slayer is of far more pressing interest. It knows that one. His shattered mindscape frightened away all the others- even the fullmoon ones- but not It. His was a rich safety blanket of fog, snow, and sorrow. Any torment it could have incurred by passing through him is lost in the cavernous labyrinth of his mind.

He is sleeping beneath a tree within the dojo’s walls, ragged coat slipped over his body as if it is still capable of blanketing him. The promised predator of his death sways lantern light soft overhead, quiet pulses of lullaby thought emanating from her smokestack, tenderly drowning his eyes shut. There is no ignorance or naivety in his allowance, somehow. The choice to let her do so is completely and utterly informed. 

It cannot imagine the sheer emotional trust, the body trust, the everything trust, to have hand-raised the ghost that followed him home to eat him. To give her the blank check of permission to force his sleep, infest his mind, make her home inside his ribs. To trust her not only with his life, but the lives of those he loves. His mind has been bled out a century away from her and still he knows her touch. It cannot imagine the calculated, radical gamble that he must take every waking moment in order to do that.

He is a strange one, to so fiercely spurn the fear made to keep him alive. He forces himself to believe that he has no enemies, and the act of doing so makes it true. He is sleeping in broad daylight, in the soldier's quarter of someone else's village, and he has no enemies. Although there are not many here who know more than his name, they know he is a constant. They know his voice is kind, that his path brings safety to anyone that joins him, that he carves dolls and harvests Slowpoke tails and is dearly loved by children.

He has spent the previous night grieving victory from a surly cocktail of mead, umeshu, sake, and everything else he could get his hands on before he got too drunk to stand. The others do not understand the sorrow that drove him to it, but… they do see it. Just as she, his final predator, sees It. And It sees her. She knows It is there. She knows It cannot hurt him in any way that matters. So she lets It pass- for now.

It crosses the threshold of his mind with the prophecy of a knife to the stomach.

Would… you… rather, It rattles as he struggles to stay standing. Would you rather this happen in front of everyone you love, easing your pain with their grief in your final moments? It tilts Its head down at him as he sinks to the ground. Or would you rather die, alone, where no one can see you suffer?

“I-” A startled, blood-soaked gasp. “I could never ask to- to-”

Do not speak your virtuous answer, Conductor. Your true one is all that matters here. Take as long as you wish.

A long, arduous silence. It considers the possibility that he would truly rather die than let anyone know his most selfish answer, even himself. But then,

“Will they be alright?”

Who, dear one?

“The person who just made me dynamite the train,” he nonsensically says.

You allege this would only happen if you let it?

“I would- hh- I would not pull my own pin to let a private car run a red signal down the tracks,” he laboriously asserts. “Not if there were other passengers on the line. The only… exempt… would be… if they were the very person I was meant to save from derailing.” He raises his head. “Will they be alright?”

It slowly blinks Its only visible eye in contemplation. Yes, It decides. Your actions will save them.

“I would have done my best to continue running my car, I think. For their sake if nothing else.” He wheezes out a painful laugh, contemplating the growing pool of blood on his hands. “Though I fear this car has been a hay burner for a long time coming. Hisui has made quite a rusted dinger of me.”

Don't act like your own car knocker. You're passing through dark territory now. You know you cannot afford to declare yourself a bad order, not yet.

He squints confusedly. “You asked me a question. You did, didn't you?”

Yes. Do you have your answer?

“...If I were to die… alone… they would not know I was gone. They would rely on me when I am no longer there. That would not pass safety checks at all.” A shuddering cough. “If they found me having hit the ground, then… they would know the situation is dire. They would finish what I cannot. It would be safer for everyone.”

What do you think they would do with you?

“Emmet would call me a Casey Jones,” he bluntly predicts.

And that's all you have to say on the matter?

“If I have reached my final terminal, it is not my job to know anything else. Now my job is to be dead.”

So close to the truth, but not quite. If your only job is to be dead, you have no duty to anyone. What would you desire in those final moments?

Perhaps it is the pain that ultimately prompts his honesty. Perhaps it is the fear that all of this is more real than he first assumed.

“My brother,” he finally, shamefully admits. “I would want my brother.” A bewildered, wounded note enters his voice. “Why are you doing this to me?”

I have never been able to before, It simply says. Every time we have met, you have never been able to understand me. I only wanted to take the opportunity while it lasted. Its gangling legs fold to kneel beside his crumpled body, smoky wisps of hair flowing like water around Its shadowy head, tilted from the jagged edge of Its red maw-like ruff. Please understand. I am not being cruel. I am speaking to you the only way I know how.

“Why?” he wonders.

The only mortal soul that I cannot hurt, whether I wish it or not. From the moment you took the duty of the Highlands, your broken mind has been my shelter. For this, I will give you a gift.

His voice is getting weaker. They are running out of time. “A… gift.”

You are well-suited to receive a nightmare, It explains. I will grant you any one of your choosing, to haunt you for the rest of your days. It leans forward with emphasis. Any one TRUE nightmare.

His eyes sharpen with understanding. “You are offering me a truth to burn into my mind.”

Until it no longer needs repeating, It clarifies.

His brow furrow with thought, bloody hand forgetting itself in order to rest at his chin. “I want train nightmares.”

…Train nightmares.

“If I start forgetting my train expertise, that would be a far greater nightmare,” he asserts. “Give me train nightmares.”

Are you sure you want nightmares about something you enjoy?

“It's fine. I'll win.”

It doesn't know what It expected. Very well. You should wake up before you forget how to, by the way.

“What-”

=#[o]#=

“Fox?” Hands roughly shaking his shoulders. “Oi. Are you there, Fox?” Worry increasing in a man’s voice. “Oi, oi, okiro-”

(Fox) blearily opens his eyes, squinting into the afternoon sun. “Whosthere?” he slurs out.

Shoulders and sleeves crusted with sea salt. Calluses on his hands from cast nets and the wood grain of oars. Face backed by the sun, too bright to see. Diamond Clan uniform, wait no no not safe DON'T GO PAST THE YELLOW LINE NO NO-

Grip on his shoulders pushing him back down, voice softening. “It's alright, Fox! It's alright. Nothing's wrong. I mean, nothing's wrong now, just- saw something creeping up on you, is all. Thought one of those dream eaters followed you back down the mountain. Had to make sure you'd wake up.”

I know you I know you I know you- “C-Captain-”

Rapid, panicked shushing noises. “No one's noticed I'm here yet, please don't make them notice faster.” Shuffling. “Oh, you can't see a thing, no wonder you're freaking out- where's that raggedy hat of yours gone to?” Hand on his face. His mouth tightens as he grabs someone else's wrist. “Sorry, sorry-”

“You have thirty seconds to exit the conductor's car,” the Warden called Fox bluntly says. “Further resistance will be met with extreme prejudice.”

“I never hurt you, Fox. Just giving you a warning. Clan’s getting angrier at Palina lately. Acts like she's got something to do with the bad water, being punished for negligence and the like. Be careful getting seen around her, alright?” The shadow of a face furrowed with worry. “The snows are coming, Fox. You know how you get. I don't want stupid kids spotting you near the settlement when they're looking for friends of the Firespit Warden.” His hand lets go, the presence retreats. “Be safe.”

“Wait… is that you, Ai-” Ai- Ai- Ai- Ai- Ai- Ai-

A man opens his eyes as red hair blocks out the sun. 

“Oh,” he sighs out. “Captain. Did I fall asleep?”

“We left you to it,” Captain Zisu says. “You looked dead on your feet yesterday. Isn't a bunch of the Pearl Clan sick right now, anyways?”

He waves a dismissive hand. “Lady Sneasler's blessing has protected me from the worst of it. The others need far more assistance than I in rerailing to their proper tracks.”

Her mouth twists with the resignation of a well-worn argument. “It wouldn't kill you to ask for help sometimes, Ingo.”

Ingo's eyes soften with concession. “I'll be alright, really. But I am thankful you asked.”

“Good!” Zisu holds out her hand for him to take. “I want to throw someone at my soldiers again. You game for it?”

His voice quakes with far too much anticipation. “Oh, please let me.”

Chapter Text

Gear Station, Nimbasa City. 

August 4, 2014.

Seven days until the Warden called the immortal Fox returns to his rightful station. Seven more days, and Emmet Anata Tamadensha will never let his brother out of his sight again for as long as they live.

He’ll find out how hyperbolic that thought really is when they're face to face again, but he doubts it is. Hyperbole, that is. If an accident of space-time hadn't rendered them both nearly immortal in every way that matters, Emmet would still have bruises from how deep his brother's hands had gouged into his skin, scrabbling for purchase to keep them together just a second longer. How comforting that they were equally desperate to return to each other, all this time. How terrible that all this time, Ingo had done all in his power to remain Emmet's brother, to the point that people who never met Emmet at all could still see the resemblance in every way that mattered.

Ingo's return is set in stone. It is a simple truth. Beautiful to know. All Emmet really has to do is wait. Hasn't he been waiting, all this time? Waiting WAITING WAITING-

No, he forcefully decides. It is a nice thought, but no. Although it is an unusual change in tracks, Emmet remains a Subway Boss. He will not stand idly by, and Ingo won't either. Ingo hasn't.  

That unmarked grave carried far more in its coffin than sentimentality.

There has been too much inside just to empty it on the spot and be done with it. Even if there hadn't been, leaving Ingo's grave (real or otherwise) in a foreign land, so far from home, felt a thousand thousand kinds of wrong. Naturally, Emmet and Volo had no choice but to take it back home with them. Much to the protest of Elesa's poor pilot girlfriend. Much to the protest of Elesa.

Oh, Elesa. He had expected his own derailment in the wake of Ingo's disappearance, but he had not expected hers. She had been their third conductor since the day they met all those years ago, and yet- the way she always yearned for the closeness Emmet shared with his brother. The way she could never find it no matter how many girls she brought home. How she had chosen them over everyone else, every time. Even now, when Emmet wants nothing more than to keep this unwarranted pre-emptive grief to himself, her heart aches to share it so badly. Things are not as he thought they would be. Perhaps they were not ever how he thought they would be.

He was only a spider wedding every year. He was only a trusted face to scare off other men. He was only ten years old, ruining a class field trip on a whim, tenderly pressing a Tynamo in her hand that she would keep for the rest of her life because she dared to say in his earshot it was one of her favorites. 

Had he underestimated Elesa Strika, of all people, in how much she had-

Isadore snaps a finger in front of his face. “Boss Emmet?”

His voice wavers more than it should. “I am Emmet. Did you have any questions?”

“Just the one,” Isadore levelly insists as he looks over the papers in his hand again. “Ingo can't possibly be serious about this, can he?”

Ingo's coffin had many things. Among those many things was a formally typed apology for things like taking unpaid leave without proper notice, an action he describes as an utterly unprofessional workplace error on his part, followed by an assurance that workplace insurance will now cover acts of god, and that workers comp will account for falling through wormholes or experiencing divine rapture when he returns to office.

“Don't insult either of us, Isadore,” Emmet lightly admonishes. “This is the railway we're talking about. He's nothing but serious. Why would he be anything else?”

Isadore sighs. “I know. I just needed to get that one out of the way.”

“Besides,” Emmet immediately continues, “he's right. This is an act of negligence on both our parts. We did not have the foresight to label kidnapping as a form of workplace accident.” He pinches his brow. “His paid time off is in shambles, Agent. As is my in-person attendance. Do forgive us for our leadership failures.”

“No one can expect you to account for this particular set of circumstances,” Isadore reasonably points out.

“Honestly, after your Team Plasma situation two years ago, we should have added kidnapping alongside hostage situations anyway,” Emmet dismisses. “And regardless, I cannot say I disagree with his proposals. Who's to say a situation like this one cannot happen again? Hopefully not within our tenure, but it may happen in someone else's. Better to have preventative measures in place. Or damage control, at least.” He hums. “You have read the other papers, yes? With the schematics?”

There were a surprising amount of blueprints in the coffin, underneath the two decades of home-grown Hisuian tchotchkes. A strange peak into the things Ingo still remembered, was still thinking about, past the fog of the ages. Modifications to the uniforms of the staff branches, insistent they should be both more uniform and recognizable with the least amount of context. Retouchings of their uniforms, left for Emmet to finalize. Musings for figuring out some optimal distance of an insertion in the rail lines, strangely labeled REUNICLUS IN THE WALLS. An overhaul of the brothers’ personal wardrobe, only half finished but strangely insistent on repeated medial triangles in the hems. 

A design for the railroad car formerly known as Single Train 001, full of esoteric parts Emmet can't interpret off the top of his head and a psychic railroad laying movepool for the ATO that survived falling with it.

A book, bound tightly shut, and a note fastened to it in sloping, struggling writing, telling Emmet not to open it until his brother returns and isn’t there to speak for himself.

“The uniforms should be easy enough to put to a vote,” Isadore confirms. “We were already expecting a dress code overhaul with the ten-year anniversary coming up, and the staff will like the extra readability, I think. Freight and parcel are going to complain about change no matter what we do, but that's nothing new.”

Emmet clucks and shakes his head. “Ground level does hate being reminded they answer to the tyranny of subway regulations. As for the railway insertions… Ingo-niisan is referring to a structure we had seen in Eindoak castle, I think. Reuniclus cloistered in the walls as a psychic security system and first line of intervention.” 

He takes the papers back from Isadore's offered hand and harshly straightens them against the table. 

“We’ll need him to elaborate when he returns, but Clay Yakon- ah, Mr. Yakuno to you - he is a family friend. An initial consultation for the construction work can be arranged. It won't be complex, or shut down prior security systems when worked on after hours, so-” Emmet tilts his head sharply as he catches Isadore's expression, mouth twinging upwards. “Agent. Is everything alright?”

Isadore is wearing this strange, sad smile. So very unlike him. “It’s nothing, Boss. It's- it's good to see you behind the table again.”

“And it will be verrrrrry good when Ingo is behind the table with his favorite Depot Agent, yes?” Emmet teases.

Isadore rolls his eyes, perpetually tired expression twisting with coyness. “You say that like I haven't been running your racket with you and for you for longer than all of us have been in charge of the place.”

Emmet clicks to himself. “So you have.” (They should promote him when all this is over with.)

“You've got an evil look on your face, boss,” Isadore muses. “Remember you can't fire me and it's entirely your own fault.”

“Donmai! Don't worry about it! Onto our next order of business!” Emmet tents his hands in front of his face. “Ingo will be deadheading in Single Train 001 on August 11th.”

Isadore's smile drops. “You're joking.”

“I am not joking,” Emmet assures him. “I am Emmet.”

“How?” Isadore chokes out. “How can you know that? How do you know that?”

“Isadore-”

“No!” Isadore snaps, a far cry from his easy mood mere moments before. “I have been scrambling for weeks to keep everything running on time for you! I watched you nearly- you can't suddenly turn around and say everything’s going to be fine, that he's just going to come back like-” He digs his hands against his head. “How did you get these messages from Ingo without being able to bring him back yourself? Why did you go to Sinnoh with someone we've never met? Who have you been working for?”

Emmet's eyes dart towards the closed door, and Ross slowly slithering over the frame to make sure it stays that way. “Isadore, be careful what you say where other people could hear it.”

“Why can’t you be careful about what you haven’t said?” Isadore fires back. “I stood by while you walked off an electrified rail. I stood by while Interpol swarmed our subway and you said nothing. I stood by when you were pulled out of work with no explanation, when you nearly died in the hospital, when Ingo’s partner disappeared off the face of the earth, when you ran away to another continent and came back with a coffin!” He tears off his hat and slams it against the table between them, wide pink waves falling haphazardly around his head, over his haggard freckles, over the sleepless lines that bruise his eyes. “I AM RESPECTFULLY AT MY FUCKING LIMIT, SIR!”

Emmet doesn't flinch, not quite, but he startles back. He feels as if he should apologize. For the silence, for Ingo's absence, for him. But that's not what Isadore wants to hear, is it? The one person who has been there for their entire careers, who would have been another Subway Boss or simply his boss in another life if the brothers hadn't taken the loud and lonesome fall for the Battle Subway all those years ago. Someone they trust with their subway, with the trains they devote themselves to like dragons. Isadore, Asriel Isadore, deserves better.

And Emmet realizes, slowly and surely, the same thing he realized eight years ago, when they were standing backs to the wall, long dick of the law snarling at them across a courtroom for putting their money where public transportation’s mouth is. All the scurrying little Durants who tell him what he can and can't do need him far more than he needs them. Their higher authority is only real for as long as it stays useful to him and not a second longer. 

The Unovan Department of Transportation couldn't shut him up back then. Neither can Interpol now. Because if Ingo is coming home whether they like it or not, what exactly does he need them for?

“There are no words, Asriel,” Emmet finally says, “for the disrespect I have done to your devotion.” He takes a breath. “A time traveler is going to be returning to us in a week, Agent. Would you do me the honor of breaking international law for old times sake?”

It's impossible to accept the light returning to Isadore's eyes, but Emmet knows he must. “Always, boss. Always.”

(Things are not as he thought they would be. Perhaps they were not ever how he thought they would be.)

Interpol made a mistake when they realized they could appeal to Emmet's honesty, buying his silence with their transparency. They told him the ways they monitor and rehabilitate fallers, even absorbing them into their employment to chase further anomalies. The implication was clear, they would make a token attempt to make both brothers an Interpol mole at minimum, and Emmet would have to be nothing but grateful they saved his brother's life. They would, in all their good intentions for the world, tear one Tamadensha from the subway, if not both. 

Emmet cannot let this happen. He will fight by his brother's side from a century away, the way he always has- creating opportunity so that Ingo can seize it. Divining the ideal buried for him alone in the never ending plans of the most brilliant mind he has ever known, meeting it with the full force of his ambition until he makes its truth reality.

And Isadore is Ingo's favorite for a reason. Each Depot Agent is taken in under the discretion of the Subway Bosses to outsource larger scale duties and unique situations that don't fall under the immediately apparent rigors of running a railway system. Over the years, they've added and covered each other's shifts enough that most of them could do a little bit of anything, but they all had their specialties. Isadore's most frequent haunts are admin and dispatch. This particular detail is about to be very, verrrrrry important- because Emmet never told Interpol the little return date he found on Ingo’s gravestone, and Emmet's going to keep it that way until it's too late for them to take his brother away from him.

(If they fight it, they’ll quickly realize the consequences of letting Drayden Lys Tamadensha know Colress is still alive. Opelucid City and the whole Draconian Tribunal will bring hell to pay.)

Admin and dispatch. The records required to run the subway's operations, and monitoring the subway itself to deploy personnel to their necessary stations. Isadore can hide anything and find everything that calls the railway’s labyrinthine arteries home. A Galarian former feral child seeking refuge from the wild court of Ballonlea in the only region of the world with no native Fairy-types and the most easily enterable line of work constantly surrounded by steel. A boy who would be champion who needed to disappear for two years, needed to stay on the run without anyone else seeing, after the friendship of Reshiram painted a too large target on his back and before he became too public for his enemies to make him disappear. A favor for Drayden, a Paldean Draconian hiding in Tamadensha family holiday dinners and the employee only offices when his family comes knocking for their heir apparent. A ‘talking Lycanroc’ who didn’t know to stay away from Alolan Ninetales because they fell from the sky. 

…A man in a power chair named Rusui Inaza, a fox-faced man with greying golden sideburns and a thin mustache, speaking to Emmet through text-to-speech and a bowed, sleepy-eyed smile. 

He’d greet Emmet normally, he apologizes, but the brains of Alakazams only become heavier as they age, and he has made this subway his home for longer than Emmet has been alive. In truth, calling him one of the working pokemon here is almost a stretch. He gratefully takes the food and board, but he regretfully relays that he hasn’t had the energy to be as useful as he used to be for a long, long time. However, he remembers everything he’s ever told, and when he closes his eyes, his psychic senses stretch for miles and miles. Just enough to keep watch for something he’s been told to. Just enough to recognize something he remembers.

For Emmet, he says, he can be patient enough to find Single Train 001, because the man who named him taught him to always do proper safety checks, and even though that man was long gone, he gave meaning to a life of service. 

And the Alakazam who was Aza first has been waiting for his Warden to come home for one hundred and thirty years.

=#[o]#=

My name is, the Warden called the immortal Fox laboriously writes, left hand clamped down on his right wrist to keep it straighter, Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. When I was thirty years old, I think there might have been a train crash-

-on the peak of the winter storm a mountain, the top of the mountain a lake, the corner of his eyes a movement, ice and snow and bright blinding eyes, he thinks there might have been a train crash, even though that doesn’t make any sense, even though the Nimbasa trains are completely automated, realizing he’ll probably die before he remembers why he can’t part with his coat, his name is Ingo Tamadensha and he is thirty years old, he thinks there might have been a train crash, forgetting something forgetting something my name is Ingo Tamadensha Ingo Tamade sha Ingotamadesha Ingotamade Ingotama    a Ingo ta m a d I ng o tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt-

Someone startles awake from his slumped position just in time for the grip of his pencil hand spasming across the page. He stares down at what he has written and knows whatever happened here has failed. He picks up the pencil again.

My name is Ingo Arnon Tamadensha. When I was thirty years old, I think there was a train accident.

He’s thirty- no he’s not, he’s forty-one- no he’s not, he’s thirty one- no he’s not, he’s forty- two, he was forty-two years old and he’s been a Warden for longer than he’s been a Subway Boss, longer than his vow to the dao of his trains, since he first felt the dragon’s blood beneath the earth, oh, Zekrom forgive him, he killed a dragon, he killed a dragon- I had no choice, Arnon, sunmahen -

Someone startles awake from his slumped position just in time for the grip of his pencil hand spasming across the page. He stares down at what he has written and knows whatever happened here has failed. He picks up the pencil again.

My name is Ingo. When I was thirty years old, I think there was a train accident. On June 25, 2014, I-

-love you. I hope that life is kind to you. I hope your track is long and dark and full of promise, and I hope it was loved. I hope your coffee doesn’t get cold on the way-

Someone startles awake from his slumped position just in time for the grip of his pencil hand spasming across the page. He stares down at what he has written and knows whatever happened here has failed. He picks up the pencil again.

He stops. Why is he doing this?

I am the Subway Boss, Ingo. The gentleman to my right is my brother, Emmet- 

Someone startles awake from his slumped position just in time for the grip of his pencil hand spasming across the page. He stares down at what he has written and knows whatever happened here has failed. He picks up the pencil again. 

He picks it up because he has to. He picks it up because every time he does, he might never be able to again. Because he must leave this final truth for the one person who needs it most of all and he might never be able to speak for himself again. I, Subway Boss Ingo Arnon Tamadensha, for however long I am of sound mind and body, beyond repair, unfit for service, UNFIT FOR-

Someone startles awake from his slumped position just in time for the grip of his pencil hand spasming across the page. He stares down at what he has written and knows whatever happened here has failed. He picks up the pencil again. 

I am Emmet Anata Tamadensha, he strains across the page. When my twin brother was 30 years old, I went home from work without him and I think he had a train accident. I-

-hope I will be waiting for you when you reach the terminal called End in your life. I hope we’ll stand there, ei, and watch trains pass by forever forever forever-

Someone startles awake from his slumped position just in time for the grip of his pencil hand spasming across the page. He stares down at what he has written and knows whatever happened here… is a start. It is a start, and he will see it to its end no matter how long it takes.

Even if it takes him a week. Even if it takes him a year. Even if it takes him ten more. Even if it takes him one hundred years. Even if it already has.

Ingo straightens the path of his right hand with his left. 

He picks up the pencil again.

Chapter Text

As it had been in previous frenzies, the fervor of Lords Ursaluna and Basculegion does not exist in isolation.

Everything had happened in a clear chain of causality. Lord Kleavor, anxious from a new spring, pushed over the edge to purge his own forest for the slightest hint of disease. Lady Lilligant overgrowing to replace what was lost. Lady Sneasler turned rabid to feed her kits when her prey flees en masse to seek the unnatural bounty of the Mirelands, Wyrdeer mad with sickness when that bounty becomes a poisonous paradise. 

Now that forgotten excess of pollen-laden crops and everything it starved has soaked into the soil- and as Lord Ursaluna’s keen nose fears, what has soaked into the soil has soaked into the streams. Overflowing life and desperate predators have driven the Lord Basculegion to secure the future of his scattered kin. But they are not the only things in the water. Their rot stagnates the estuary and feeds the one other thing that could be bolstered by Lady Lilligant’s waning curse.

The largest algal bloom to touch Hisui in two hundred years.

A hundred years from now, when children are expected to be set out into the wilds of the world with nothing but their partner pokemon and whatever they can carry on their backs, they'll be taught about these kinds of things. That if they ever smell rot in clear water, to run far away before it eats their minds and tell someone right away. That was what made Rei narrow it down to neurotoxin so succinctly, even if he wasn't enough of a scientist to know why, to know what dinoflagellates do when they are given too many nutrients to thrive.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done about all that. Lots of water filtration and culling and the giant growing question of where all these poisonous corpses can actually go. But before they can do any of that, they do need to deal with the very large, very beefy, very Lord Basculegion shaped problem currently infesting the Mirelands.

“Uh… Warden?” Iscan slowly, nervously starts as his Buizel snuffles at his wicker basket.

“Yes?”

Ingo hasn't turned away from his ghostly partner. They're- they're very close. Very literally close. Their eyes would be touching if they could. But Ingo isn't the type to tolerate conversations if he doesn't want them, and he isn't making eye contact, so Iscan is going to count that as permission.

“You once told me that if you died, you died as you lived,” Iscan continues. “Petting the fish. And then you stared into my Lord's eyes for half an hour until I had to go home.”

“That does sound like a story I've heard about myself!” Ingo cheerfully concedes.

Iscan taps at his face. “And, well, uh- I was wondering how… much that still holds?”

“You want my assistance with the frenzy,” Ingo guesses.

“Other g-ghosts are my Lord's only weakness, at- at least in the water, but- well-” Iscan's face wavers with a nervous smile, wrapped hand clamping around his tense wrist. “I haven't done well with the- the- um- those kinds of- since-”

His words trail off.

“They still haven't healed,” he meekly reveals. “They don't bleed. I'm not sure they ever did.” He unwraps the bandage layer around one of his palms. Thin slivers of starry misty nothing carve against his skin in jagged, horizontal tiers, disappearing into his tightly bound forearms. “They just don't… close.”

“They won't,” Ingo reminds Iscan, as if he could possibly know either way. 

Then again, he was more familiar with ghosts than most. The existence of Lady An' all but states that familiarity is far more than being their favorite prey. And even though he’ll never remember it, he lost a glove, half the hem of his sleeve, and one of his beloved Sneasler claw knives cutting Iscan out of that Dusclops’ gaping belly of a maw. It was Ingo who had brought Iscan's seizing body to Gaeric's tent that terrible autumn midnight, shoving a Tangela branch in Iscan’s mouth so he couldn't bite off his tongue while Gaeric's Froslass staunched his bleeding soul like a wound.

“I know it won't,” is all Iscan says. “Gaeric told me the same thing.”

“I would be remiss not to say-” 

Ingo's sentence suddenly drops into nothing, and he stares straight ahead for a too-long moment, expression politely blank- not the forgetting this conversation kind of blank, just the quietly re-sorting something blank. Palina always worried about the similarities between the two faces, but somehow Iscan was better at telling the difference, although he spent much less time with the Highlands Warden than her overall. The forgetfulness isn't quite natural, is the difference. It's like a curse, almost, and after being stationed in the ghost-infested Coastlands for so long, Iscan's gotten a very sharp eye for curses. The difference between thoughtfulness and forgetfulness is this strange trick of the light- the glass in Ingo's eyes suddenly shattering, then clouding over with smoke.

There is no smoke in his eyes, not yet, and no urgency in his face. He just takes longer than other people to pull the words out of his head, sometimes. Iscan doesn't mind. It's hard for him to string words together these days, too.

“-that my pokemon are not suitable station porters for the task at hand,” Ingo abruptly continues, hand gently pushing his Chandelure to the side while soothing back and forth across her face. “They are traveling escorts over land and not well versed in maritime tracks, and Lady An' would not end well for him.”

“She's a- she's a- a… fire type,” Iscan notes. “That wouldn't end well… for her.”

“She has far more battle experience than him, to be frank,” Ingo bluntly promises. “Their encounter would prove very problematic. And most likely end with her trying to grill him alive from the inside after he attempts to eat her.”

Iscan sighs. “He loves eating ghosts. They're his favorite food.”

“Gaeric would be more useful to you. He has two ghosts of his own, and he himself is very physically-” At the same time, Ingo and Iscan pull identical perturbed faces. “Capable.”

Iscan fidgets with the strap of his pack, jostling the fishing pole inside. “I know, I know. But you live closer t-to him, couldn't you talk to him in… stead?”

Ingo turns his gaze to the coastline. “Absolutely not, Warden. He bares his nipples to the Hisuian snow and it frightens me.”

“It frightens me!” Iscan insists.

Ingo pulls down his hat, voice growing weary. “Well, if I must, but I don't have to look at him.”

=#[o]#=

“Brother!” Gaeric barks from the top of a small cliff. “You finicky lanking fox! You haven't eaten a single crumb since the food recall came in, I just know it! We have new food, you know!”

Ingo's mouth pulls into a flat, nervous grimace. “I have… adequately refueled-”

Gaeric nods sarcastically. “Right, right, the immortal Fox wrestles Garchomps and feeds off fucking Slowpoke tails and mystic mountain energy, that's why I can practically watch you gain weight before my eyes every time you stay with me and the wife, is that right?”

“It is the height of summer and there are no more kits to feed. Our passengers need unpoisoned supplies far more urgently than I, and I can forage well enough for myself.” Ingo firmly grabs the hood of Iscan’s tunic, bringing the wider man in front of himself. “And please refrain from invasive personal conversations with your co-workers while you remain on shift. You are needed elsewhere.”

Gaeric is a smart man, and unlike Ingo, is able to keep up with recent news, so Ingo knows he doesn’t need to elaborate any further on why Iscan is here. Still- unsurprisingly, disappointingly nonetheless- at the sight of Iscan, Gaeric’s brows furrow with uncertainty. “The old folks aren’t gonna like this, Fox.”

“Do we have a duty or not, Warden?” Ingo’s eyes lighten with conspiracy. “Besides, we’ve all been betting on whether you could wrestle Lord Basculegion into submission for years.”

Gaeric stares back down at him in disbelief, before nodding and sitting roughly against the cliff edge, legs dangling as he slaps his knee. “That we have! That we have.”

Ingo can’t actually remember which way he bet on that front. His thoughts briefly prod Lady An’. She doesn’t know, either. He’s sure he’ll find out when Gaeric actually confronts the fish. He’s wagering, silently, in his own head, that whatever outcome he bet on, it was the right one. And if it’s wrong- no, it isn’t. Ingo will just fistfight Gaeric until the money falls out of his pockets.

This is the part where he specifies he would do this in a pokemon battle.

But he won’t.

=#[o]#=

Laventon checks his camera lens. “Righto. Akari and Warden Sabi will be joining me in the balloon for aerial reconnaissance.” He pats Cyan on the head. “And our little Cyndaquil friend will be fueling our ascent.”

Sabi’s downy red Magby turns up its runny beak and scoffs with insult. Sabi playfully mimics the motion.

“Now, now.” Laventon raises his hands in an appeasing motion. “You're a fine Fire-type, I'm sure, but for today's mission, Cyan is just a little smaller and lighter.”

Blaidd stares up past his delicate Kirlia bangs and punches the air, embers coming out from the ends of his limbs.

“Stop saying put me in the game, coach,” Akari admonishes. “Just because Rei says that doesn't mean it means anything!”

“We would have put Rye on the boating team, but he's been recruited for tracking down missing scouts from Lucario,” Laventon continues, cruelly uncaring of Akari's unprecedented struggles as a single mother. “They suspect the poisoned water might be the cause. Bellamis’ partner is at a disadvantage in an aquatic mission like this one, but it should stay safe as an aerial scout.” Laventon's expression twists, the rare wrinkles on his soft face suddenly growing heavy. “And then there's Rei. I don't like that he's a necessary element to this. He's a child.”

“I'm a child!” Sabi pipes up.

“And you're a child safely in a hot air balloon, with the protection of a kami noble at beck and call,” Laventon points out. “Whereas Rei must venture into dangerous waters and come into direct contact with that danger.”

Sabi tilts her head innocently, her Magby mimicking the motion. “But he's not unprotected! That’s what the sky let us borrow Fox for, isn't it?”

Zisu's bright red ponytail flies about as her head whips away from her soldiers. “Borrow?”

“If the sky gave him to us, we have to give him back some day, don't we?” Sabi loudly wonders in response. “What do you think?”

“I think the lore you people make up about Ingo is really confusing,” Zisu bluntly responds.

“No, that one actually happened,” Ingo says from behind Akari.

Akari startles forward. Gods, she didn't hear him approach, she didn't even smell him! Usually the Sneasel-scent sticks out in a human crowd, and the underlying cling of inkstones combines conspicuously with the familiar ozone of Aza’s teleportation. But this time there was nothing but smoke on the wind. Even standing right next to her, that smoke still obfuscates everything else. Akari’s eyes flick to Lady An'. Is she hiding him?

Zisu raises her eyebrows at Ingo's statement. “No kidding. Just right out of the sky?”

“Sure,” Ingo confirms. He then fails to elaborate, staring past them all to watch Iscan and Gaeric trot onto the scene from an opposite direction.

“Oh, fuck off,” Gaeric wheezes, hands on his knees. “Of course he's here anyway - I told you, Iscan, I told you he was fine-”

“He fell through the- the earth in front of m-my tender eyes!” Iscan sputters. “I- I- I- I panicked!”

“It's Fox, Iscan!” Gaeric whines. “He teleports! It's what he does!”

“He… doesn't p-ph-phase through the floor!” Iscan squeaks.

“It's FOX, Iscan! He doesn't remember how space works, much less follow its rules!” Gaeric rears up, hands on his back, and groans. “Heatran’s hells, Ingo, one of these days you really will get lost in one of your favorite caves and no one is going to look for you!”

Ingo blinks slowly. “I fail to see the concern, Warden. I would simply not get lost.”

Gaeric swipes a hand in mock disdain. “You are impossible, brother!”

Laventon starts to look nervous. This is two more Wardens and one more clan than he thought he had to deal with, after all. “Are Lord Avalugg and Lady Sneasler intervening?”

“Iscan has deemed us co-conductors for these perilous tracks!” Ingo cheerfully informs him. “The ghostly nature of Gaeric's partnered Froslass will protect him from earthly harm while Iscan uses his Gastrodon to steer us in pursuit of the frenzied lord! And I will-” He trails off. “How did Gaeric put it?”

“Handing off a fishing pole to the strongest throwing arm in Hisui,” Gaeric reminds him.

Ingo nods. “Yes, I will be baiting the unfortunate lord until Gaeric is in position to initiate melee combat.” His deliberate stride carries him past Akari and by the Professor's side. “Palina would have still been near the village while you made necessary preparations. She will have provided Lord Basculegion’s bait. Do you verify?”

“Why the hell is the Pearl Clan talking at us for the affairs of a Diamond Clan kami?” a blue tunic calls out from the observing crowd. “You blasphemous lot have done enough already. Go back to the Fieldlands!”

Iscan's fidgeting hands still, perpetually wavering mouth steadying into an uncharacteristic, disdainfully flat line as his eyes harden. “Say that again.”

Akari doesn't know much about Iscan, other than what kami he wardens for. His work kept him from touching land much, and he stations in a stretch of the Cobalt Coastlands that both clans have unanimously refused to let the Galaxy Team travel through. She could probably count the amount of conversations she ever had with him on one hand. 

He'd never been much for conversations, at least not with her. He had the same transient impersonal professionalism Ingo does, commanding the same cross-clan respect among the fishermen and divers that Ingo does for traders and travelers. His quiet voice and powerful, blubbery body radiated sheer disinterest in human interaction. After whatever happened to him last autumn, that disinterest had turned into transparent, stuttering anxiety, wrapping around what is left of his words like the bandages that haven't left his hands ever since.

He is not anxious now.

“Say that again,” Warden Iscan forcefully commands. “My hearing isn't what it used to be… if you can say that… to me.”

“It is no insult to you, Warden-”

“You are insulting my brothers. You are insulting my station. You are insulting my choice to aid my lord as I see fit.” Iscan steps forward, and the Diamond Clan member steps back. “You… are free… to quell him yourself if you see fit.”

“No, Warden. Sorry, Warden.”

The anger bleeds from Iscan's body, and the tremor of his voice returns. “Th-that’s good, um, as… as long as you d-d-d- do better… I… need to c-coordinate the other ships to corral the- the, uh-”

Akari watches Ingo’s attention retreat from the new conversation. His expression relaxes for the briefest moment before sparking back to life, eyes darting wildly before finding her for the first time all over again in the meager crowd. The sharp, calculating gaze, ravenous for information a moment before, turns into familiarity and fondness.

“Ah!” It is a high, almost chirping sound. “Hello, my dear! It appears our tracks have crossed once again.” Lady An' hums, and Ingo tilts his head sharply. “Yes, the recall. How has the recall been coming along?”

“There’s a lot of fieldwork involved,” Akari starts. “We’re gonna burn through our medicine supply fast if we don't find more healing pokemon, and we have to catch and release as many sick specimens as we can. I'm pretty sure entire sections of the Diamond and Pearl Clans are gonna have to stay in the summer settlement off-season to keep helping with this, too. There's so much work we need to do in order to repair the water quality, and we've been relying on Pearl Clan's labor a lot these past few frenzies. It's a good thing Sanqua's already been working on expanding the outposts or we would be verrrrrry hard pressed for infrastructure by winter.”

“I suppose this has been very advantageous for your village in its own way,” Ingo notes. “The recent events have forced the hand of the clans to rely on you quite a lot! And the Galaxy Team has had to pay special attention to your Survey Corps in order to continue on such tracks, I'm certain.”

“Yeah, but Kamado doesn't like it,” Akari points out. “It's making him jumpy to do all this stuff while the clan elders are getting angrier and angrier at each other.” She sighs. “I hope these frenzies don't continue through winter, or everyone's gonna have to start tightening their belts.”

Ingo's line of sight drifts past her shoulder. “I may expect to be recruited into the hunting parties again. I see.”

“Ingo, do you… dislike hunting?” Akari finally wonders. “I've seen you fish and forage before, but never hunt.”

“I do not have the strength to kill a pokemon as cleanly as it deserves. I was taught long ago, I think, to hunt with pokemon, at least as a precaution, but…” Ingo pulls his hat down. “The Pearl Clan knows my strengths. They would be asking very dangerous game of me, and the friends I keep for my duties as a Warden did not agree to such a thing.”

Akari frowns. “What kinds of game?”

“Mamoswine,” Ingo predicts. “Its furs and bones and fat make it the most lucrative possible goal during lean times, but also the most dangerous. Deploying someone like myself would appear to be the safest option, from their perspective. No doubt I have been convinced of the same, at least once or twice before.”

“Mamoswine,” Akari skeptically parrots. “You could hunt a Mamoswine.”

“Gaeric could tell you better than I, but I feel nothing suggesting it is outside my capabilities. I've been told that my… relative boldness… around dangerous pokemon makes me a desirable recruit, even if I cannot partake in most possible catches.” Ingo’s hand covers his mouth as his brows furrow. “I would need to assemble a different team entirely for that particular endeavor-”

Lady An' looms over him, lamp surface brushing against his cheek.

“I know you would win, Lady An’,” he sighs. “Your beauty and power is unmatched. I have other reasons for concern.”

Akari shakes her head. “It's too bad there isn't a way to recycle all the fish we're pulling out of the water. We're up to our ears in Basculin, and whenever we're not, our nets are getting choked with Magikarps and Feebas because they're too resilient for their own good! I hope all the Gastlys we've had to catch to filter out the poison is going to be enough, because hauling all the way to Firespit for Grimers during summer is going to suck.”

“Let us both hope it doesn't come to that, dear passenger.” 

“Akari! Densha-san!” Rei smells tense as he breaks away from his prior place with Bellamis, but his face shines with tentative excitement. “What's going on? Are we getting ready to go already?”

“Your co-worker was simply informing me of recent developments, brave passenger!” The corner of Ingo’s mouth crinkles with amusement. “And fearing the state of her well-kept fur if it runs afoul of volcanic humidity, it would seem.”

“There’s a super easy fix for that, Akari!” Rei reassures.

Akari clasps her hands together, dramatically raising them in front of her face. “Please, Rei, I'll do anything to save my beautiful fur!”

Rei holds up a pair of scissors and clacks them threateningly.

“I will do almost anything to save my beautiful fur,” Akari quickly amends.

Rei keeps mutely clacking the scissors together, an innocently small smile growing on his face.

Akari hisses and backs away. “You'll never take me alive!” She dives into Ingo's tattered coat. “Mr. Warden Ingo sir, defend my honor!”

Ingo lets out a loud grunt as Akari impacts his body, but automatically places a bracing arm around her anyway. Rei, undeterred, starts clacking in his direction.

“Shirohoshi Rei, stop running around with my scissors!” Laventon scolds. “We're getting ready to depart!”

Rei sticks his tongue out, but puts the scissors back in his pack before trotting obediently to the Professor.

“It would be our time to depart as well, then,” Ingo notes, making no move to open his arms.

Akari makes no move to leave. “Maybe so.” She leans back into him, craning her neck to look up at his face. “Hey. If we fix all this stuff, you won't be getting healed anymore. You'll run out of neurotoxin.”

“Yes,” Ingo confirms. “I suppose I will.”

“Does that mean you're gonna go back to how you were before?” Akari wonders.

Akari feels Ingo still around her. She can't quite make out the note in his voice- if it's resignation, sadness, or fear. “Will it make a difference if I don't?”

“Not to me,” Akari decides. “You're still you. You're always you. Does it make a difference to you?”

A long, slow breath. His frantic heart never slows, and she doesn't know if it ever can, but as he runs his hand through her wild red hair- it steadies. 

Just a bit. 

Just enough.

“We will find out together,” Ingo finally decides, “whether it makes a difference or not.”

Chapter Text

Gaeric confidently places his hands on his hips. “Alright, boys! We're heading into the belly of the beast.” He rests his foot on the bow of the boat. “Tangling with a god, armed with nothing but our wits, our fists, and the simplest human tools at our disposal. Today, we face the ultimate challenge, and should we all live to see tomorrow- we shall have become men.”

“I respectfully decline becoming a man!” Ingo informs him.

“Today, most of us will become men!” Gaeric amends.

Rei raises his hand. “I'm not old enough to be a man. For a few more years, at least. I think?”

“I am!” Bellamis assures.

Gaeric's enthusiasm remains unchanged. “Today! Most of us! Will have the option! To voluntarily become men!”

“Can I- can I j-just drive already?” Iscan wearily asks.

“One moment!” 

With that, Gaeric promptly rips off his tunic, prompting a shoreline full of confused shouting, shocked gasps, and general scandalized noises from everyone who was previously unaware of his shamelessly patriotic chest hair. Which is to say, everyone in Hisui other than his fellow Wardens and incredibly smug wife, who he immediately throws his tunic at.

“Mita, my love!” Gaeric slaps his hand on his knee. “If I die, I'm an idiot and you're not allowed to name our unborn child after me! Also, I volunteer Ingo as your second husband!”

Ingo loudly sputters. “I- um- well, Mita, you're a wonderful woman, I'm sure-”

Mita barks out a laugh. “My sons already pretend you're their father already, we may as well!”

“I DO NOT VOLUNTEER TO BE YOUR POSTHUMOUS HUSBAND, WARDEN!” Ingo shouts.

“Alright, Mita’s wife, then!” Gaeric smoothly offers. “You're too pretty to be a husband anyways, brother. You'd make a wonderful lesbian.”

Ingo's roar of protest dies with a whimper as his face goes red down to his neck. “Oh, Zekrom preserve me,” he warbles out.

“Can I drive?” Iscan despairs a second time.

“No one's stopping you, good man!” Bellamis bursts out. “If you want to drive, drive-” He catches Rei’s continuously raised hand and groans. “Putain de merde, what?”

“This is gonna be really dangerous, isn’t it?” Rei hesitantly asks. “I mean, they were all really dangerous, but I mean- I mean the way Wyrdeer was dangerous. The way Sneasler was dangerous.”

Bellamis’ frustration deflates. “Oh, I see. I guess it could be? There are a lot of fish in the water right now.” His expression lightens. “But it’ll be alright, Rei! We’ve got you with us! We just have to get you to Lord Basculegion fast enough, and it’ll all sort out.”

Rei stares down at the floor of the boat. “I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to do it on my own. People got so hurt so bad all the other times, and I still can’t do it on my own!”

“Hey,” Bellamis sternly interjects. “Everyone who got hurt doing their jobs chose to do that job. They chose to do something that might get them hurt so that people like you and me and everyone back in Jubilife can do our jobs. Okay?”

“But I’m not doing my job like this!” Rei insists, distress rising in his voice. “All this is- is- it’s just waiting around for people who matter more than me to kill themselves carrying me to everything I should have been good enough to deal with by myself from the start!”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that, little one!” Gaeric admonishes. “And don’t speak to the Wardens that way, either. We aren’t grandstanding sages in need of protection from our kami’s lofty seat of power, you know. The reason you stand here to agonize over this at all is because we aid and allow it.”

“And- and- and we are glad t-to allow it,” Iscan stresses. “Y-you… standing here, I mean. It is- it is our duty… and our- our honor. Even, um… even if you weren’t, ah… b-blessed by almighty Sinnoh… we’d still help. We help everyone who l-lives here.”

Rei tugs fitfully on his scarf. “I wouldn’t need help if I wasn’t so useless on my own!”

“EVERYONE IS USELESS ON THEIR OWN!” Ingo shouts. He grabs Rei forcefully by the shoulders and it almost hurts. (Only almost, because he said he would never ever hurt Rei, he never has, and he never will.) “Of course you are useless on your own! Do you spin the thread of your own clothes? Do you build your own house? Do you mint the coins you are paid with, do you harvest your own food and make your own tools, do you want for nothing? OF COURSE YOU DON’T! NO ONE DOES! NO ONE EVER WILL!” 

And even though his touch never hurt in the first place, his hands still try to loosen, become more gentle as his voice quiets. 

“Yes, you are useless on your own, everyone is useless on their own.” His hands grow slack, moving gently down Rei’s arms. “And it is such a good thing, my brave passenger, that we are not on our own.”

“I just… I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” Rei mutters.

“That is their choice to make,” Ingo harshly asserts. “Not yours.”

Gaeric places his hand on Rei’s head. “Hey. Boy. Tell me, why do you want to do what you do? Where do your convictions lie?”

“It’s not about what I want,” Rei softly says. “I have to. I can do something, so I have to.”

“It's just the same for all of us.” Gaeric's smile turns determined. “We can, so we have to. And that's why we should do everything we can to do it, even if that means asking for help. Especially if that means asking for help! Otherwise, it'd just be Iscan on his own, and the poor man's been through enough already!”

Iscan sighs and wearily nods his head.

Bellamis leans over. “You said you don't want anyone to get hurt on your watch, is that right, friend?” At Rei’s nod, the eyes of the commander’s son twist with pity. “Rei, can't that be true for everyone else, too? No one wants to see you get hurt either.”

Rei sniffles into his scarf. “Okay.”

Iscan lets out a frustrated noise and heartily slaps his Gastrodon across the back. “A-a-a- alright, that's- that's enough! I'm driving and I d- don't care if you're ready or not!”

“Give it a moment, brother-”

It was at this moment that Iscan’s Gastrodon let out a mighty jet of water, swiftly propelling the boat forward. Everyone falls forcefully to their seats except for Ingo, who only sways slightly but otherwise remains upright despite the growing speed.

Ingo frowns at everyone's baffled expressions. “Yes, I know how public transport works. Don't look at me.”

Sabi calls down from the hot air balloon on her flute, and Gaeric sharply whistles back. Iscan and Ingo’s following unified sound prompts the boats on the shoreline to push into the water.

And the water is choked. It bleeds ruddy, rotting, red with every oar and bow that cuts through its surface, estuary salt spray stinging on Rei’s cheeks. The miniature fleet of boats chasing their wake carves great gaps through the unnatural colors, revealing the cramped and crowded world writhing just beneath the surface. The fraying flesh of god-sick Basculin set upon by rabid Magikarp, sundered from their uncaring bones by Feebas. A parade of toothless, gaping mouths, gasping for air like open wounds of the water line, gorging upon the swollen kypes of what should have been their predators.

Great. Add fish to the exhaustive list of things Rei’s stomach is going to be viscerally rejecting until further notice. And he was just starting to trick his brain into pretending it wasn't meat, too.

Ingo casts a line from the fishing pole, letting its bait drag against the water while the boat continues its uncaring path through the aquatic bloodbath. Rei's wondered about it for a while now- fishing, that is, and Ingo knowing anything about it. Most trainers on journeys learn about it at some point, don't they? Maybe when the water isn't wrong anymore, they can all go fishing for real. Maybe that would be nice.

Not that it matters what Rei wants, anyways. 

Red smoke starts to pool in the water, drooling from the gums of Lord Basculegion's bleeding kype. He is not dead. To die would require him to be alive, and he very much is not. A Basculegion is not a dead thing, but a death - the echoing death throes of hundreds of Basculin before it, frozen at the greatest and most lethal peak of their strength, coalesced into a conglomerate and preserved in perpetuity.

Bellamis launches his Talonflame away from his glove to scout a route to the open sea, while Iscan keeps close watch over its flight, nudging at the rudder to change the boat’s trajectory. Sabi overhead calls out new directions as the swarm changes around them, both to Iscan and the fleet of boats behind them, and Rei can make out Warden Palina among those numbers, unnamed and unsung but answering back on her flute nonetheless. They cannot afford to be swift just yet. Any sudden movement before the right time could turn the frenzied kami’s languid stalking into a ravenous chase. For twenty minutes, they carefully guide Lord Basculegion through the maze of the Mirelands, slowly separating him from his kin bit by bit. Twenty minutes, they cross the hazy boundary between estuary and ocean, call out to Sabi, and wait.

One minute. Two minutes.

A sharp, piercing sound of confirmation breaks the tense silence.

The Hisuian shore roars to life. Wyrdeer riders gallop on either sides of waterways holding massive, river spanning nets between them, blocking off the entrance to the Mirelands, cutting off any escape as the boats close in with their spears on the sickened swarm. Iscan’s Buizel, with no more poison to fear, leaps into the sea, its flying tail strikes whipping at the water to force the Lord Basculegion forward. Gastrodon spurs their boat into a sudden burst of speed, goading the kami to give chase before he realizes the deception. Bellamis grabs the side of the boat to steady himself, and Rei grabs Ingo, though it’s more for Rei’s balance than the Warden’s. The postural sway that always affects Ingo’s off-balance body disappears into the movement of the boat as he locks his elbow around Lady An’, and while fighting to keep the pole in his hands, he seems steadier than them all. In a way, it makes sense. He was made to withstand high speed rails and exposed maintenance cars alike- a rickety boat is practically nothing. 

Gaeric continues to stand unflinched, eyes hungry with challenge as he scans the water for Lord Basculegion’s increasingly close presence. His tense hands crackle with ice as he grips the bow.

“Steady now,” Bellamis warns as they close in, eyes nervously fixed on his Talonflame’s every movement. “Steady… steady-” Lord Basculegion swerves towards them, and Bellamis ducks to the side. “HEAD ON!”

Iscan rams the rudder’s steering against the boat, sharply turning them- towards the kami, not away from it. As they pass directly over the massive fish’s head, Gaeric takes his Froslass’ hand, one deep frost-tinged breath, and falls through the deck like a ghost.

“How’s Warden Gaeric supposed to fight ghost fish anyways?” Rei suddenly wonders. “Humans don’t tend to have damaging Psychic moves, and Normal moves don’t work on Ghosts, right?”

“It’s quite simple, brave passenger!” Ingo helpfully informs him. “Gaeric has the Scrappy ability. It allows him to bypass Ghost immunity to Normal-type moves!”

Rei tilts his head. “He’s just built different?”

“Every day he fills me with horror!” Ingo cheerily chirps. “That, and he has one other crucial tool at his disposal that suits him quite well to being pitted against foes that appear stronger than himself.”

“Um-” Rei stares at the water. Gaeric has yet to re-emerge. “What’s that?”

Ingo blinks lethargically as the sea water starts to churn angrily with sleet. “Avalanche is an Ice-type move that inflicts double the damage if the user has been hurt by the target in the same turn.”

It is at this moment that Gaeric chooses to burst out of the water with a stormy, roaring cackle, long blue hair failing to cover the mad joy in his glacial eyes as he hangs bloodily from Lord Basculegion’s mouth. His legs hook around the kami’s massive, jade-scaled neck, painful looking icicles jutting out of his hands as he pries himself free from its hook-like jaws. His wounds freeze shut against his body as he clasps his hands together and bears his fists down on Lord Basculegion’s nose.

“IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?” Gaeric taunts. “LORD AVALUGG WOULD HAVE SPLIT ME IN TWAIN FOR LESS THAN THIS! YOU’RE A SHAME ON YOUR ANCESTORS!”

Lord Basculegion spits and hisses, angry smoke coming out of its mouth as it writhes against its unwanted rider.

“He’ll- he- he’s g-going to try- going to drive them into shore t-to throw Gaeric off!” Iscan relays. “That’s our only chance! C-close him in!”

Ingo’s pole is tossed aside as Lady An’ joins the Buizel and Talonflame in firing warning shots into Lord Basculegion’s scaly hide. Gaeric’s Froslass intermittently freezes the ocean water, churning the current further in order to push everyone along. Eventually, he crashes against the shore just outside the estuary’s mouth, gills gaping in the open air, long powerful body still half-phased in the water.

Bellamis doesn’t give Rei time to pause, forcefully taking his hand and pushing him to stand. “Come on, let’s go!”

Rei uncertainly presses his palms against Lord Basculegion’s cheeks. “Come on, come on, come on-” Frustrated tears well in his eyes as light sparks unevenly against his fingertips. “Please! Everyone is working so hard to help you! Just come back!”

The golden glow of a wild thing spears its light into Rei’s eyes. He sees a wall of skittering scales, black like inkstones, crashing like waves against a pearlescent body, bleeding through every joint and scute and polished stone, crawling past steely tusks and a howling mouth.

BODY OF MY BODY! BLOOD OF MY BLOOD! ENTRAIL OF MY ENTRAILS! SOUL OF MY SOUL, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

 A bright silver sail cutting through the blackness, a glowing blue crest emitting a mournful, pleading trumpet-cry.

RETURN WHAT YOU STOLE FROM ME, MINDLESS RABBLE. I DID NOT WAIT FOR A PARASITE TO STAND BY MY SIDE! I WAITED FOR YOU! YOU, YOU, ONLY YOU. THE ONE WHO WAS BORN TUSK TO TAIL AS MINE, MY MIRROR UNTIL THE SUN DROWNS AND THE STARS FALL FROM THE SKY! I CARE NOT WHAT THE MADNESS MAKES YOU SPEAK, WHAT YOU WISH IN YOUR SICKNESS! I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU! I WILL NOT ABANDON YOU-

“Rei, that’s enough!”

His eyes snap open as Bellamis rips his hands away.

“Almighty Sinnoh’s blessing or not, you need to breathe, mon ami!” Bellamis sets him down against the sand. “We can’t have you manhandling fish until you start growing gills, can we?”

“Is it- did the- we have to-”

“You’re done, Rei.” Bellamis’ gaze turns back to Lord Basculegion, whose scaly chest heaves laboriously from shallower waters as his Warden treats his injuries. “You’ve done well, but you’re done.”

Rei curls in on himself and breathes. Breathe, rest, roost the way his Decidueye taught him to.

“Hey,” he eventually gasps out, “why do you always speak Kalosian when you have something to say? Aren’t you all from Johto?”

“Ma mère is not,” Bellamis vaguely answers.

“Your father is, though,” Rei points out. “But you never speak Johtonian. Just Sinoan.”

Bellamis sits down next to Rei. “Johtonian is for Johtonians. I’ve lived in Jubilife Village longer than I’ve ever set foot in the region he was born in. We all had to pick up new languages and new people on the way, so the only people here who really still speak it are the ones too old to learn anything new. And… to be honest… tou-san never taught me. And he really doesn’t like it when I try.”

A silence. “Why do you try, then?” Rei dares.

“Aren’t we all allowed to be a little homesick about where we come from? Even if we don’t remember it anymore.” Bellamis busies himself with his landing Talonflame, refusing to meet Rei’s eyes. “Even because we don’t remember it anymore.”

Gaeric lets out a long, tortured sigh. “Gods, I’ll be feeling all that in the morning. Honestly, I’m surprised I got anything close to winning that fight!” He startles as Ingo suddenly punches him in the shoulder. “Oi, oi, what the hell, Fox?”

Ingo punches Gaeric in the chest. “I told myself if I ever lost the bet, I’d beat the money out of your pockets.”

“I won, Fox!” Gaeric points out. “Are you saying you didn’t bet on my hard-earned victory?”

“I can’t recall for the life of me,” Ingo darkly reveals, “so I’m going to start robbing you anyway!”

“Ingo. Ingo, think of my poor wife-” Gaeric yelps as Ingo yanks his arm, throwing him against the sand. “Ingo, I have a family!”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU MADE ME YOUR WIFE’S SECOND HUSBAND! NOW I AM YOUR FAMILY!”

“Technically, it’s actually my wife’s first wife-” Gaeric’s words degrade into baffled, increasingly fearful noises as Ingo tackles him into the ground again. “Almighty Sinnoh have mercy! How could my actions have consequences? For me? In my lifetime?”

“Warden Ingo- he’s from somewhere else too, right?” Bellamis asks. “Do you think wherever Warden Ingo’s homesick for, they’re all as weird as he is?”

“Probably,” Rei decides. “I think if there wasn’t anybody out there like him, it would be too sad.” 

Rei rests his head on his knees, the burning memory of hands that could never hurt him still heavy on his shoulders. 

Everyone is useless on their own. And it is such a good thing, my brave passenger, that we are not on our own.

“It would be too sad if he was the only one, because he’s good. He’s good.”

Chapter Text

Beautiful. That was what Arezu thought about the empty-minded Warden called the immortal Fox, when they first met over five years ago. It's such a shame that he's beautiful.

It wasn't her first thought, of course. Her first thought was that he looked so sickly he might die any second. So pale in his pallor he must have been either a ghost or a painting that stepped out of a page. Her next thought was how odd he looked- thin face, long hawkish nose, high cheekbones, dourly set mouth, unfocused eyes forever wide open with attentiveness. What little skin escaped his dusty coat shined like diamond dust, bright and blinding. His hair curled into pearly colors as it caught light, and it so rarely did. He sequestered himself to tunnels and twilight, content to let torchfire show the barest hint of his true color and nothing more.

And that was when she realized. Wardens and herders alike, who carefully watch the pedigrees of their charges, know how fleeting the beauty of a Shiny is. What it costs for something to be born with diamond skin. Because that beautiful shine reflects everything, even the sun.

(There are so few things that can live without the sun.)

No wonder he ate so strangely, no wonder he shook, no wonder he was so thin. It was so at odds with his voice, too. He looked like his every word should have been graveling like the cries of the Zoroarks he came from, but no. He was strident and nasal. It almost should have been discordant, but his tone was always so inescapably open, friendly, trusting.

It's a shame that such a kind man was cursed to be so beautiful. 

Humans are not always kind to beautiful, fleeting things.

Ingo is a well-loved Warden now, but it was not always so. Whispers of the Zoroark man had first reached the Diamond Clan through Ginkgo Guild traders long before the man himself found them, perpetually lost, confused, and unable to understand that the clothes on his back were the leftovers of an enemy clan’s war uniforms. His strange, trusting voice disquieted them. His inability to remember why he should not be in their settlement irritated them. The prospect that the Pearl Clan's fox might hide among them and take their faces concerned them. But most of all, his refusal to mirror their thoughts of him, both as a Pearl Clan member and a Zoroark, enraged them.  

So they did what is done to any dangerous wild things that feel too safe around humans to be safe for anyone else. They did to him what his mind would not.

They gave him fear.

Arezu knows nothing beyond that, other than that Ingo becomes very, very small when he remembers the meaning of her clan symbol before remembering she is a Warden.

Twelve years have passed since he came from the Hisuian snow. There is not a single child among both clans that did not grow up with him as their devoted, steadfast Warden. The Zoroark man is nothing more or less than a man, and he has a rapidly disappearing stitch in his skull to prove it. What once was, will not always be so.

...This is the shame that Arezu’s Diamond Clan inherits. She's spent the past five years failing to undo what people of her generation have the luxury of being unaware was done to him. And why should they ever notice? It's a good thing the Zoroark man stays away, no matter how trustworthy he may be when he guides others to their destinations. But he's not a Zoroark man anymore, is he? Now he is human. Now he is something to be asked after. Now he is beautiful, and humans want beautiful things to linger when they pass through Diamond Clan settlements.

When Ingo offers to bring Arezu home from her probation in Jubilife Village, he remembers her as a Warden first, and member of the Diamond Clan second. He does not remember what he fears he must protect her from, and she isn’t sure she should ask. 

(But what once was will not always be so.)

“Arezu!” Vesper waves them over, a bright smile growing on her face as the Rapidash caravan stops by her. “We saved you a spot!”

“Oh, thank Sinnoh.” Arezu steps off the caravan and into her neighbor's waiting embrace. “I thought I was gonna have to set up all the way on the edge of camp!” She takes stock of her surroundings. “Well, I still kind of am, but at least I won't have to fight the Mareep herd to leave my yurt, so thanks.”

“I've got Martia, Minut, Prima, and the twins coming by to get you set up,” Vesper reveals.

“I'd rather not have Martia-” Arezu turns back to Ingo. “-in priestly company.” She leans towards Vesper, voice dropping to a whisper. “You know she's gonna try and fuck that old man!”

Vesper briefly looks Ingo up and down. “Eh, he’s what, forty-something? Honestly, that's pushing young for her tastes.”

“The haunted eyes and priestly demeanor age him by a decade! She's gonna go for it!”

Ingo's Machamp, Tangela, and Alakazam have started hauling Arezu's things out of the caravan, while his Chandelure stays determinedly at his side, keeping careful watch as his arm-swinging stride carries him towards Arezu herself. “Station porters will finish retrieving your luggage shortly, passenger! Do you require any further assistance restoring your home station?”

“You're doing more than enough, Ingo,” Arezu assures. “Thanks for taking me home.”

He presses the wood burned Lilligant handle of a new knife into her hands. “If there is nothing else you desire of me, then our tracks split apart once more. I will be departing shortly. Please, get home safe.”

“Prima will be setting up a pot for everyone to have afterwards,” Vesper offers. “You could stay for the stew. We've got Stantler tail.”

Arezu lets out an anticipatory noise. “Ooh, Stantler tail stew over rice sounds amazing! With kingsleaf- y'know, I brought some sootfoot mochi, we could grill that and add it in-”

“-with leppas,” Ingo interjects. “Sauteing diced leppa and ginema bulbs adds a good sweetness to stews, and spices like Tangela sprigs and pep-up add heat to them.” He starts clicking the pokeball in his hands. “If you're already grilling mochi, it would be sensible to grill some pechas or oran on the side. The juice coming out of them will caramelize the mochi.”

Arezu snaps her fingers. “That’s what I'm always tasting when you cook! It's leppa!”

“I've never heard of grilling fruits to add a crust to something else,” Vesper muses. “Where would you learn something like that?”

“Oh, we used to do it all the time when we were journeying,” Ingo vaguely answers. “It made our foraging a little more substantial.” He lets out a short laugh. “When we could, of course! There were times he was too efficient for his own good and practically roasted things off the trees with his Tynamo! Not that I was any better, back then.”

“Journeying with who?” Vesper asks. “The Pearl Clan?”

The clicking of the pokeball stops as Ingo stares through her.

“No!” he happily denies. He resumes clicking his pokeball and fails to elaborate. “Goodbye, Warden.”

“No, you're staying for stew.”

“Hello, Warden!”

Arezu was hoping the prospect of a new, stew-shaped task to take up Ingo’s attention would override his fear, but the nervousness enters his posture again as the others arrive. He watches them set up Arezu's yurt from a safe, Lady An' enforced distance. The sun’s gotten low enough that he dares to take off the hat he uses to shield his eyes, holding it in his hands while he stares contemplatively at the fading emblem pinned on its face.

“Cute hair you've got, Warden,” Martia says. “Really matches your eyes.”

Ingo doesn't look up at her. “That’s not very nice.”

“I mean it, though!” Martia insists. “It's different.” She twirls a hand through her own hair. “I thought you were just grey, but that's not it at all, you're catching all sorts of colors. I've never gotten a good look at it before. It's too bad you don't stop by more often!”

Arezu turns away from her partially-reassembled yurt and raises a wooden stake threateningly. “Martia, if you don't knock it off, I'm killing you with hammers.”

“Oh, I didn't know talking to other Wardens was heresy.”

“You're heresy!”

“Hey, is that Fox?” A young boy in a Pearl Clan uniform trots over, closely followed by a gaggle of younger Diamond Clan children. “It is you! Look, it's Fox!”

Ingo's face brightens at the boy’s approach. “Humi! What brings you to this wayward station?”

“Hectar and Leuca had to help with all the traps they're putting in the Mirelands, and I came with,” Humi explains. “I'm getting really good at it, too. Maybe they'll put me in the hunting parties soon!” 

“What's Fox doing down from the mountain?” Cember pipes up from behind Humi. “Doesn't he live there?”

Humi shakes his head. “He only used to. Now he comes down and lives with us sometimes because Lady Irida said so. And before that he used to come down anyways just because we asked. He's real nice like that.” 

“But I ain't seen him down the mountain!” Calens complains.

“That's cus you're Diamond Clan! He doesn't live with you!” Humi smiles eagerly. “If I make the hunting party, we'll see each other lots and lots, yeah, Fox? You gotta come down the mountain and help hunt the big ones!”

“Nuh-uh!” Lux asserts. “It's gonna be the ghost time soon, Prima said so. That's when the Zoroark man runs off with Lady Cliffs to go be the fox-lord.”

“But he's not a Zoroark man any more!” Humi whines.

Ingo blinks, eyes sharpening with understanding. “You are referring to when the barrier grows thin! I see.” His voice turns solemn. “No, I am afraid I have passenger unfriendly duties to attend to in such times. So it has always been. You may yet see me in your hunting parties, but it would not pass safety checks for my duties to follow me into your camps.”

“Kitsune!” A little pair of Pearl Clan twins cuts to the front of the child crowd. “Kitsune-ojisan!”

Ingo's eyes pass over the two, and Arezu hears the lingering frost in his voice melt as he easily kneels in the ground to fall in reach of their eager hands. “Hello, little passengers. It seems you've grown since I saw you last.”

Humi’s voice turns scandalized as he realizes the pair that's cut in front of him. “Nimio! Asty! No!”

Ides turns away from setting the door of the yurt, a half-laugh forming in his mouth. “Didn't know you Pearl Clan had twins of your own. We were the last ones in the Diamond Clan, weren't we, Nones?”

“Well, if there's no luck this fall, we'll have all winter to reroll the knucklebones anyways,” Nones jokes.

“You always do this, you two!” Humi scolds. “You won't get away with your strange fairy mind tricks forever!”

Prima looks up from the boiling pot of stew to look at the unfolding scene for himself. “It's not mind tricks for someone to be soft for the little ones, Humi.”

“Yes, it is!” Humi insists. “The twins have had him under some- some kind of spell since the moment he laid eyes on them!” 

Humi points accusingly at how Ingo softly rocks back and forth, eyes full of rapt attention as Nimio and Asty murmur to themselves and run their tiny hands through his shimmering curls.

“Look at him! He's all tame and strange now! He's never like this for the other little ones, just them!”

Nones tilts his head. “Remember when we used to help our mother with mushroom foraging in the Highlands, Ides? The Warden was quite sweet to us back then, too.”

“Evil twin magics,” Humi darkly surmises. “It’s worse than I thought. How can we ever free him from their wicked grasp?”

“If we all work together and curse him even harder, they can't stop all of us,” Lux gravely proposes.

“My gods, you Diamond Clan people do have good ideas sometimes!” Humi gasps. “Right, then. Cember, Calens, Solis, you're with me. Nomo-”

“I’m not part of this,” the Pearl Clan girl next to him bluntly stays. “This is a bad idea and you should feel bad.” 

“It's okay, Nomo, we'll save you while we're on the way!”

Arezu stifles a snicker. A gaggle of assorted children no older than twelve would be hard pressed to ‘save’ Ingo from anything he doesn't let them save him from, but she supposes that's what happens when only one of them comes close to being twelve.

“-and sometimes when Ny-chan drops her feathers I put them in Fons’ coat because Fons looks cold,” Asty solemnly reports, hugging her Sneasel close to her chest. “And sometimes when she doesn't look cold because I don't like her.”

“Is that so, little passenger?” Ingo emphatically says. “Why is that?”

Nimio raises her arms in upset, and her own Sneasel mimics the motion from the ground. “One time we were sleeping in the snow with Ny-chan and Ula-chan and she dug us out like a jerk!”

“It sounds as if she was worried for your safety,” Ingo reasonably offers.

“Nuh-uh!” Nimio denies.

“We are immortal and can never die!” Asty brightly asserts.

“It's probably your fault Fons digs us out, because you also do that,” Nimio bluntly says. “But you do that whether there's people in the snow or not, so I forgive you!”

Asty nods. “Don't worry, kitsune-oji! You'll find the body one day!”

Ingo looks at them both with utterly baffled eyes, a comical grimace of non-comprehension breaking across his face. “The b- the what?” Then he frowns. “Oh, the- ah. I understand now. Please don't say something like that to me again. You'll drive me to do something strange.”

“Okay!” Asty’s gaze wanders towards the pockets of Ingo's tattered coat. “Do you have any ame-chan?”

Humi suddenly stops his fellow child rallying. “Wait, nevermind, we need to let this happen.”

Solis sputters at the hand in her face. “Who’s Ame-chan-”

“We need to let this happen.”

“But what does-”

“Ame-chan, of course!” Ingo rifles through his pack and pockets, producing a frankly ludicrous amount of berries, nuts, wrapped honeycomb pieces, jerkies, and little carved trinkets. “You need only ask, little passengers! As long as you share, take whatever you like! There's-” It's only then he seems to gain a larger awareness of the other children gathered in his vicinity, suddenly uncaring of the Diamond Clan sigils outnumbering him as his eyes squint with warmth. “Yes, there's quite enough for all of you! As I said, take whatever you like!”

The conspiracy is swiftly forgotten. The clever schemes of the collective are replaced with clamoring, eager voices as the group swarms around the Warden. His legs splay oddly as his knees lock together awkwardly against the ground, an eccentric sitting position Arezu has seen him take many times to keep his balance against overfriendly pokemon and squirming kits.

There he is. The Ingo that the Diamond Clan never gets to see, the one that Wardens barely glimpse in the briefest wrinkles of time. Rambling enthusiastically about his carvings of pokemon Hisui has never seen. Memorizing schedules people didn't know they had, just so he could give a passing gift he remembered to give someone he doesn't recognize, eager to be reintroduced until he did. Sneasels hanging off his tattered coattails, Zoruas poking out of his tunic hood, Eevees tucked in his pack, baby Heracrosses crawling out of his pockets. A man who laughs easily and loves to laugh. Who doesn't know how loving his eyes become when children pull him down from his fog-stricken world, unseating his hat to run their hands through his hair like winter snow, who hides sweets and toys in wait for anyone to ask because the brief second of delight, fleeting and beautiful, is nothing to them and everything to him.

When the Pearl Clan grew up calling him Fox, it had been out of love. Love for the one who saunters, arms swinging, with a too-cheerful shout waiting to fly out of his tongue, hand brazenly extending a friendship so tactless of the reality of the clans and the war and everything that it cannot be refused.

Arezu's elders had tried to smother this. Oh, gods, Ingo did nothing but live and be kind because he could not be anything else, and the frightened old men making everyone wear war uniforms tried to beat it out of him until he stopped. 

And no one in her generation and beyond even knows it happened, because as far as anyone older than them cares, it worked.

The Pearl Clan adults who had brought the children along with them finally disperse from their business, approaching with fondness as they spot their Warden. They offer respect for Arezu both as a Warden and a friend of their Fox. They recognize some of her neighbors from when everyone had to evacuate to the Pearl Clan camp earlier this year. They offer their own rice for the stew without a second thought, then their own hands to finish Arezu's yurt. Her clanmates accept like they weren't all born hiding under beds from each other's arrow-fire.

Arezu had a lot of time to think about things when she was staying in Jubilife Village. She had time to see a lot of things, too, and what she's seen has led her to the increasingly uncomfortable realization. Because as the elders of both clans get angrier and angrier at one another with each passing frenzy, everyone else has been getting friendlier. People for whom war is a distant childhood memory, if even that, are seeing the alleged enemy heretic clan on a daily basis for the first time and finding the old war stories wanting. They trade labor. Their children make friends. They hear out weird rumors about their own clan as told from the other side and get a quick laugh.

And not once has the Pearl Clan asked what happened to Warden Ingo because none of them even know it happened.

It would be all-too tempting for Arezu to assume this is because Ingo was unable to tell them, but that would be an insult to his competence. His memory may be slow to come when called, but it is not lacking. How many times has he, unbidden, loudly and accurately remembered something the people around him did not? How many times has he found a missing person before anyone realizes they were lost in the first place? His skills are not magically granted to him from wherever in the sky he came from, and his actions are not senile whimsy- they are deliberate, continuous, cultivated acts of intent. Even his seemingly blind friendship is not a lack of awareness of reality, but an assertion that a friendless reality is not worth his compliance. If he wanted to cry out for help, he would have found a way to do so long before now.

…If he wanted.

The chilling fact now remains that, for some reason, he doesn't, and Arezu doesn't know why. The warmer, much more bittersweet fact that comes after, is that he makes the decision to let himself trust her. That he refuses to be afraid of her for long. She let him offer to protect her from something he alone fears, and he has offered to stay surrounded by it because she asked. 

He has chosen to believe that he has no enemies in a place his friend has knowingly led him to. The children of everyone who stood by and let him be hurt for the greater good are proving him right.

Arezu's housewarming stew has quite a small crowd now. Ingo's strange suggestions have proven to be quite a hit in improving the meal, and he coyly claims that he's forgotten about the secret to its taste already. (She's starting to suspect that he's been taking advantage of people’s estimation of his memory to make jokes no one realizes he’s making. She's starting to suspect he's been doing this for years.) Ingo, his Machamp, and his Alakazam slowly get trapped by a returning Mareep herd after dinner, much to the children's delight. Less to their delight is that he immediately starts falling asleep in the soft sea of wools right away, but they respect the exhaustion of an inherently sickly looking older man and instead quietly admire the gifts he gave them in the lantern light of his Chandelure. He looks peaceful, at least.

It doesn't last. Someone's sharpening stone stutters too loudly on their sickle, and Ingo bolts awake, eyes full of fear for the briefest second before he and his pokemon melt through the ground in a flash of ghostfire. One of the other neighbors calls Lord Adaman about Pearl Clan intruders taking their food and supplies, and the man is furious- at one of his clan members daring to waste his time.

“I have dams to build, treaties to write, trade routes to plan, and an entire clan I must figure out how to feed when a quarter of our entire fishing season-  and at this rate a half-  has been irreparably compromised!” Adaman roars. “DO I LOOK LIKE NEIGHBORLY COMPLAINTS WOULD BE EVEN THE LEAST OF MY CONCERNS AT THIS VERY MOMENT?” He deflates with a labored, rib-rattling sigh, his bandage compressed arm quaking with rage as he presses painfully down on his brow. “If you're going to bother anyone with this drivel, take it to the damn elders. As if they don't have enough to whisper about behind my back already. Gods, I need a smoke.”

“Why's Lord Adaman mad?” Lux asks as he watches the man storm away.

“Someone didn't like that Ingo and the Pearl Clan were here,” Arezu explains.

“Were?” Lux worriedly repeats. “Why’s he gone now?”

“We scared him,” Arezu decides to say.

Lux pauses for a little while. 

“Warden Arezu,” he slowly asks, “Why would anyone be scared of the Diamond Clan?”

Chapter Text

[GEAR STATION,] a Porygon chirps. [GEAR STATION TO ALL TRAINS ON THE AXEW LINE, PLEASE RESPOND.]

Someone stands up and unhooks the on-board telephone of the control car. “Conductor Tamadensha speaking for Single Train 045, reporting to Gear Station, over.”

“Conductor, this is Gear Station dispatch, please verify your current track warrant, over.”

“Dispatch, the warrant for Single Train 045 is to proceed directly from Black City to Opelucid. We have just passed Undella Town, over.”

“We’re reading Kyuremic storms icing over the tracks to Lacunosa Town. We're gonna need you to wipe the clock while we send the trackmen to lay out a shoofly, over.”

“Understood.” The conductor knocks gently against the Porygon’s panel. “ATO, set to mosey speed and make a complete stop as soon as possible.”

[ROGER.]

“Subway Boss to Gear Station, we are coming to a complete stop,” the conductor relays. “When all trains are accounted for, please dispatch the car knockers for all cars returning to Anville Town from the Axew Line until further notice, over and out.”

“Understood. Over and out.”

He huffs lightly as he hangs up. “Oy vey, this is going to back up the schedules by at least a full hour. I'm sure Asriel's going to love rescheduling all of the connecting commutes for this one.”

[QUERY: CONTACTING DEPOT AGENT ISADORE.]

He raises a hand in dismissal. “No, that won't be needed. I'm only kvetching. The whole ordeal will be dealt with soon enough. Notify me when we've come to a complete stop.”

He sits in silence for a moment.

“Mama was from Lacunosa Town, you know,” he says to no one in particular. “She was always so obsessed with safety checks. They're rather infamous for that over there. Order and safety. I suppose that's where we got it from.” A pause. “And she's gone now. She went on a train and… passed us by. Far, far away. So I suppose we got it from that, too.”

He stares out the window.

“What a strange thing to say,” he realizes. “Passed away. As if we have only just missed them. As if those who reach the terminal called end might ever return. Why call it something so cruel? Although…” His eyes lift to his Chandelure overhead. “It is true sometimes, isn't it?”

[TRAIN HAS MADE COMPLETE STOP.]

He opens the train door and walks alongside the tracks. His shoes crunch on snow- the tail edge of the storm is already visible all the way out here.

He unfolds the shovel in his hand and starts digging.

He shouldn't. Emmet always tells him not to. Finds him out in the road outside the apartment and cries out at him for forgetting his coat before going off into the cold. He says he's sorry every time, but he can't help it. Ever since what happened to Opelucid, he can't stop thinking about snow. Three days and nights they searched for someone, anyone, still alive under there, hoping and dreading that they would find someone they knew. That Iris would be dead. That Drayden would lose someone he loved once again. Oh, Dragons, Drayden. All this just to try and buckle Drayden. The old white dragon of Opelucid City could not be felled even then, but the man's left eye was never the same again.

He remembers finding his uncle. His Haxorus, hacking away at the ice, his Chandelure keeping careful watch over the soul buried underneath. His weak and shaking hands pulling out the man who still dwarfs him after all this time, hearing his own name falling out of haggard, desperate lips.

My boys, my brave strong boys, you would never let them take you, you would never- I couldn't stop them from going down to the subways, I thought I lost you, thank the Dragons, not again- I'm not strong enough, I'm not strong enough-

He remembers the only time he had ever seen his uncle cry.

That was how he had found him. He- he did find him, didn't he? Why can't he remember if he found him? He was looking for his [     ] for days, how could he not remember if he found [  ]? What if they're still out there in the snow, what if he wasn't looking hard enough, what if they're gone, taken, lost, dead dead dead DEAD- FIND THEM FIND THEM DON'T STOP DIGGING FIND THEM,

“Ingo?”

A man in white, feet never quite sinking into the ground. The red on his coattails and the trim of his hat, carving him out of the hazy landscape like a stab wound. A face that snow blinds, a smile like a burning memory.

“You're out in the snow again, aren't you?” Voice like a telephone call, a message missed and never returned. “Ingo, you said you wouldn't.”

“I know.” Ingo's voice feels rough and graveled in his own throat. “Sunmahen.”

Grey gloves, striped cuffs, hands on hips, sharp and subtle frown. “Ingo Arnon, you said you wouldn't and that's the Truth. What are we going to do with you when Snowdenning comes around? You're going to scare the ganze horde like this, you know it.” A sigh. “We already had to skip it last year. They are going to ask questions if we do it again. Is that a conversation we will be having with them?”

“I don't mean to, ei. I'm sorry.”

“What on earth are you sorry for, nii-san? It's not your fault.”

“I’m sorry I'm like this.” Ingo’s hand shakes as his head sinks down to the handle of his shovel. “I’m sorry I'm going to be like this.”

“Stop that. It isn't fair. You never let me say sorry when the floods come around.”

Glassy, shining eyes staring out from under the snow. Albino hair ribboning out of flooded soil. Frozen city ground saturated with pleading grasping hands, clasped with dragon’s teeth. He has to find them. If he finds them, they'll be safe. If they're safe, maybe they'll come back. (Lady An' came back. Why didn't they?)

He raises the shovel again. Something wraps around his shoulders, across his chest. He keeps walking.

“Ingo? Ingo, it's alright. You'll be alright.”

Red stripes like stab wounds, frozen over in the snow. Everywhere, all the time. How will he find the white in the snow if he never digs it out?

“Hush, hush. You're safe. You're safe now.”

Snow and ash, snow and ash, snow and ash and crumbling inkstones. If he doesn't find the white in the snow he'll never find it again, he can't lose it again, not again! Something is missing! Where is it? WHERE IS HE?

He thinks there might have been a train crash- train crash- train crash-

=#[o]#=

A body startles to life in a place he doesn’t recognize, strangled cry trapped in his mouth. “SINGLE TRAIN 001 TO DISPATCH, RAILWAY ANOMALY BETWEEN ICCIRUS AND OPELUCID, EMERGENCY STOP MANDATED FOR ALL TRAINS ON AXEW LINE, REPEAT, SINGLE T-T-T-”

Black tendrils wrapped around his chest, smooth glass chiming sweetly against his throat. 

“-on the tracks,” he stammers, "on the- the- the-”

Wide golden gaze. Ghostfire flitting softly around his dancing eyes, words slowing to a languid slur as his racing heart loses its momentum.

“there was… ttttttttrain crash,” he murmurs as a familiar touch cards through his hair. “I th’nk therewasss a tr’n crash…”

Something brushes against his mind, a dense blanket of someone else's thought and memory weighing down on his own like a second skin, soothing at its charred edges. Breathe, bend, return.

The ceiling of a battered train car greets his wandering eyes. A tattered, fading coat covers his body, separating him from a nest of furs and Sneasler yarns, set in the halved shell of a Goodra. A torn hat is set on an improvised shelf of mismatched tchotchkes. A record player sits idly. One of the windows has been replaced by a pane of stained glass he found in a rift. He started rift chasing again. A nearby desk is littered with diagrams of segmented third rails. There is a pocket watch clutched painfully in one of his hands. The time is 9 o'clock.

He's right on time.

The body gathers the basket of clothes next to his nest, giving a chirp of greeting to the Rotom washing machine before setting a load inside. The person combs out his hair while a kettle boils, tying his hair with a ribbon as long and vibrant as a Sneasler feather. The Warden rocks from side to side as he picks honeyed roseli flowers and haban jam from a jar, shamelessly popping a few blossoms in his mouth while putting others in a cup, pouring the kettle’s contents inside and leaving it to steep. His name is Ingo by the time he plucks a chilled yache fruit out of the fridge, eating its creamy insides with a spoon and snoverberries as he paces incessantly back and forth about the train car, stray and silent commands spurring the Chandelure at his side to tidy everything in his path. Ingo Arnon Tamadensha flattens his mouth at the sight of a carved Magikarp, dries his laundry, changes his clothes, and opens a waiting pot of rice. He puts it in a bowl, cracks an egg over it, stirs it with some mushrooms and bonito, and sets it down with his now finished cup of tea.

The time is 9:30. He turns to his right. “Hello, Lady An'. Am I forgetting something?” 

She promptly chucks a single wisp of ghostfire on his food.

“Ah, of course! Bravo!”

He writes out the day’s track warrant in his journal, working through his meal at a sedated pace. He can reasonably reach Clamberclaw Cliffs by noon, of course- it will take upwards of half an hour to wrangle his Agents together and feed them for the morning, but he's already accounted for that as part of his shift. A quick inspection of the territory and attending to whatever Lady Sneasler desires will take another half hour, leaving the rest of their work to begin around one.

If he starts in the Pearl Clan camp and works his way counterclockwise through all the Galaxy Team base camps, accounting for all passenger stops, he should make a complete circuit stopping in Jubilife Village by four in the afternoon. He could do two or three circuits, but Warden Calaba requires assistance attending to Lord Ursaluna and Warden Palina will need escorting back to the Coastlands. He'll have to negotiate ghost patrolling with her while they're both available-

Lady An' chimes quietly. Yes, that too, the hunting parties will have already started shifting to the Icelands. He'll have to ferry people to Lord Braviary’s seat multiple times over, most likely.

So, four in the afternoon, then. Upon which he retires for the afternoon and plans for his evening track warrant. He'll gain a sense for who needs assistance returning home for the night as he works throughout the day.

It is now ten o'clock. The dishes are clean. He gathers his things for the day and sets them by the door. “Is that all?” he asks.

Lady An' nods. He sits back down in a chair. He takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says for the last time, the barest waver of nervousness in his voice.

Forgetting feels like dust motes dancing in the muted, colored sunlight streaming through stained glass. It feels like music crooning out of a record player. (It feels like closing his eyes, letting the phantom sound of his brother chasing an Archeops a room away fade to nothing as he falls back asleep.)

Someone opens his eyes in a place he doesn't recognize. 

The pocket watch clutched in his hand says it is eleven o'clock. There is a written track warrant waiting for him in the book that's always parked in his coat pocket, when he goes to put it on alongside his hat. There's a small parcel next to his book. He opens it. From Warden and Subway Boss, Ingo Arnon Tamadensha, to...

“ATO!” he calls out. “There's a package for you!”

A screen by the door glitches into stuttering life. [SUBWAY BOSS I. TAMADENSHA IDENTIFIED. ATO DOES NOT RECALL REQUESTING ITEM: PACKAGE.]

“Is that so?” he playfully challenges as he unwraps an empty Poryphone. “Then I must be sorely mistaken, because this appears to have your name written all over it.”

The heavily pixelated Porygon stops rotating in its screen. [QUERY: IT IS A GIFT.]

“So it is!” Ingo cheerily confirms.

[IT IS A GIFT FOR ATO,] the Porygon presses.

“I fail to see any other Porygons in my life at the moment,” Ingo points out. “Process of elimination would dictate you are the intended passenger of this device.”

He holds the phone towards the train’s control panel. The screen fizzles out and goes black. He relaxes his grip on the phone in time for two little pinwheels to come out the side and set it floating in the air.

“Does your new car pass safety checks, ATO?”

The Porygon rotates forward on the screen, then back. It pastes a simple sprite of a party horn over its featureless mouth and lets out a celebratory honk.

“Mazel.” Ingo shoulders his pack, straightens his hat, and moves towards the door. “Departure right on schedule! ALL ABOARD!”

Lady An' falls into step with him as he walks out the door. His eyes track a series of distant stones demarcated with alternating triangles- he follows their path in eager, dance-like steps, finds its end, and falls through the earth in a flash of ghostfire.

=#[o]#=

Lian watches Warden Mai walk up his temporary rock sorting spot by Deertrack Heights. Lord Kleavor is great, but Lord Kleavor keeps trying to eat his rocks, so Warden Mai lets him sit by her station when he’s cataloging his finds. “Hello, Warden Mai. You got here real fast. Did Wyrdeer take you?”

Her face looks haunted. “No, I… rode with Ingo.”

“Oh! Did he find a new shortcut?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers, staring down at her hands. “I saw a span of infinite corridors, a flash of light- and then I was here. He was already gone before I could ask.” She squints suspiciously. “We are sure he’s a human, right? Not some strange omnipresent entity from beyond space?”

Warden Lian has a brief, split second thought, which is that maybe- maybe- he should have put a little more thought into showing Ingo, a pokemon-powered teleporting immortal who just recently relearned how to clip through walls, the region-spanning catacomb system Lian found by accident the other week when he started using dragon’s blood to search for cooler rocks.

Warden Lian, unfortunately, is also an undiagnosed autistic boy just shy of thirteen years old, so it remains a very brief thought quickly overtaken by cooler, more interesting rocks, and how to keep Lord Kleavor from eating them.

So instead of answering her question, he just shrugs. “I dunno. I just think he’s neat. Wanna see all my rocks that kill people?”

Chapter Text

“Ingo!” a young man’s voice calls out. “Where the hell have you been?”

A shushing hiss. “Volo, he’s sleeping.” (Well, he’s certainly not anymore, but that can hardly be helped either way now, can it?)

“Okay, I’ll be quieter this time.” Volo’s voice drops to a whisper. “Ingo, where the hell have you been?”

“He’s sleeping, Volo,” a third voice reiterates. “You can’t just barge in on someone sleeping! That’s against the rules!”

There was someone Ingo used to know a verrrrrry long time ago who he always thought was rather nosy. Always walking right up next to people in the middle of conversations, silently listening- even brazenly announcing doing so. Ingo remembers pulling on the other man’s cheek, dragging him away by the coat collar not to be so rude and obvious. But between Ingo’s dark clothes and… rather statue-like demeanor when not in conversation with anyone, people tended to start conversations without realizing he was there. He can’t recall the amount of times he’s awkwardly sat through private conversations, too nervous to point out his own presence.

(Is it really eavesdropping this time if they’re talking about him, though? Besides, the afternoon sunshine is quite pleasant and he really doesn’t feel like getting up at the moment.)

“Why are you even asking where he’s been? He’s right there. Besides, from what I’ve heard, he’s been everywhere recently.”

“You know what I mean, Akari! Everyone’s seen him everywhere, but no one’s seen him going anywhere! He’s so every that he’s not any where!”

“What does that even mean?”

Ingo can’t say he’s got anything of note towards whatever those people have decided they’re talking about, so he’s probably going to go back to sleep. It will not be hard. For reasons he can’t possibly fathom, he’s incredibly skilled at falling asleep in crowded, loud, and physically cramped spaces, and though it isn’t an applicable skill most of the time in Hisui, it’s a great way to not be part of conversations he doesn’t feel like being in. It does, however, require him to be jostled around a little bit. He has no idea why this is a crucial element, but at this point he’s just accepted it as one of the many items on his checklist of insanity. So when he wants to bravely ignore everything that doesn’t fall under his payroll, he finds the nearest gaggle of pokemon, falls onto their squirming bodies, and lets the darkness take him.

However! Recently, that Galarian man in the Galaxy Hall who keeps trapping him in afternoon teatimes gave him a foldable rocking chair. A rocking chair! That folds! He can now fall asleep anywhere, anytime, and he is more powerful than anyone could possibly imagine. 

A presence sidles towards him, a puff of hesitant breaths all too palpable to his ears, a scarf scuffing against his coat sleeve as a hand haltingly sinks down on his arm. Before he can start getting up to address whoever's trying to get his attention, the person quickly leans harshly against his rocking chair, climbs onto his lap, and ducks into his chest. He feels the hard brim of a newsboy cap and the thin wire of glasses pressing into his tunic.

..Rei never had a problem with being touched, but he also never sought it out, not even from his pokemon. Ingo had been starting to wonder if he lacked the initiative for it, but that's clearly not the case here, is it? Although… factoring his prior behavior, it's entirely likely that he's only being so bold because Ingo isn't ‘awake’ to scold him, or be inconvenienced by it.

Ingo lets out a quiet chuff, letting one hand slide off the arm of his chair and the other rise to rest on Rei’s back. There's a reason he covers himself as completely as possible. Insistent and unexpected touch always risks flinging his mind back to that dark, sunken place. But Lady Sneasler's children love their Warden dearly and so does the Pearl Clan. Kits and children nuzzling at his face, playing under his coat, falling asleep in his arms, he has learned to weather it all. (Because they ask, and he gives it freely. The dark place doesn't ask for anything.) No one ever treated him like something touchable Before, wherever and whenever that was. No one younger or smaller, at least. But there had been some people, hadn't there? A bearded face tickling at his forehead while a large chest shakes his bones with laughter, stormy eyes full of mirth and leaning down to pepper him with burning kisses, someone with a blinding smile who would…

…He feels like he's forgotten something. Something that did not make him so irrationally terrified of the closeness his aching heart decides wound him with such longing for.

(His chin rests comfortably on top of the boy’s head. Alright. Just a little while longer, for both their sakes.)

“Aw, that's adorable!” Akari teasingly croons. “You're like his strange Hisuian boychild.”

“You're wrong,” Rei mutters into Ingo’s clothes. “Lian's his strange Hisuian boychild.”

“No, I'm not,” says the voice belonging to whoever’s fidgeting with Ingo's stray hand. “I'm his strange Hisuian dirt child and I yearn for the mines.”

“You can't just say things like that,” Volo admonishes.

“Yes, I can,” Lian insists. “You could too if you didn't always slack off on your dragon’s blood work.”

“I have a real job, Lian!”

“So do I!”

“Rei,” Akari calls out above the bickering, “you know you don't have to wait for Ingo to be sleeping to do what you’re doing, right?”

“It’s embarrassing,” Rei timidly squeaks.

“It’s cowardice, is what it is!” Akari admonishes. “He is so fluffy and affectionate! Like a velvety, geriatric Boltund! You could be doing so much more!”

Ingo's eyes flutter open slightly, vision drifting noncommittally towards Lian, who sharply meets his gaze. His eye closes in a lazy wink, prompting the young Warden to let out an amused snicker.

“You're not a seasoned Ingo expert like me, so I forgive you,” Akari graciously says. “But you could stand to give him a little hug. A little pat on the head.”

“I don't wanna,” Rei stubbornly insists.

“Come on! It's not hard!” Akari remains oblivious to Lian’s increasingly unmuffled snickers as she boldly approaches. “Just a little pat on the arm or something, like-”

Akari lets out a nonsensical quacking noise as Ingo extracts his arm from Lian and shoots it upwards, shoving his hand into Akari's face. Rei points at Akari and laughs.

Akari lets out a muffled cry of despair. “No! My hubris! My beautiful, innocent hubris!”

“Stop calling me old, dear passenger,” Ingo bluntly says. “I am barely middle aged. You must wait at least another decade.”

“You know most wild pokemon live half your age, if even that?” Akari points out. “Statistically, you're unfathomably long lived and practically at death’s door.”

“If Ingo’s at death's door, Professor Laventon is one foot in his grave,” Volo teases. “He's nearly fifteen years older than our Warden.”

“WHAT?” Akari shouts. “Professor is not old! He's so rotund and curly!”

Rei frowns confusedly at Akari. “Akari, people can be old and round. Do you think old people have to be skinny?”

Akari pauses for slightly too long. “No,” she slowly says. “No, I do…n’t.” she turns to Rei, who hasn't left Ingo's grasp, and Ingo, who hasn't let him go in the slightest. “Are you going to stop doing that while we're talking?”

Ingo looks down at Rei, who makes no motion to move elsewhere. “No,” Ingo decides. “I don't think I will. Was there a reason you so urgently sought out your conductor, or did you simply feel the need to chase after my whereabouts like a headless Unfezant?”

“They don't understand you can't get lost and freaked out because no one's seen you walking anywhere,” Lian immediately says.

Ingo raises his eyebrows, uncaring of Akari and Volo's sputtering attempts at self-defense. “Ah, I see! Many such cases!”

“But I have a good reason to go and find you, Fox!” Lian continues. He takes a deep breath, then holds up his fingers one by one. “Fire, silence, stone!”

Ingo stills. He laboriously stands to his feet, wordlessly nudging Rei off his lap as his frown deepens sharply. His eyes widen as his vision narrows, painfully crystal clear, to nothing but the person he has placed himself in front of. His hands curl into fists. “Fire-silence stone,” he slowly says, voice free of his growing tremors. “Tell me, what is your name?”

“I am Lian Tetsu, Warden of the Woods,” the child tells him.

“Who is your dragon?” Ingo presses.

“Augurite is gonna be big and strong one day, and so will I!” Lian asserts. “That's why I'm Tetsu, cus I'll be an iron dragon too!”

“And who is your horde?” Ingo mechanically continues.

“I've got no horde or den for my own,” Lian softly says. “My teacher came from the sky long ago, and it left him an isum, because there’s no lair or garden or village of dragons in our vast Hisui.”

Ingo's words come out of his mouth, but for some reason he feels very far away. “And who is your teacher?”

“He told me the name he gave himself was old Wyvernslid,” Lian starts. “A roaring stream, cus he said he was a vessel of fire’s roar.” His voice softens. “But once, when he didn't remember that, I asked him again, and he said it could mean a center of cheer.” He smiles. “I think that almost makes a lot more sense, don't you? You're not so loud anymore, Fox, but I don't think you'd be you if you weren't always choosing to be happy.”

“Are you mad, Ingo?” Rei hesitantly asks. “You look like you might be really, really mad right now, but you said to ask.”

“Am I?” Ingo wonders, half to himself. “Would I…?”

Is he mad? He doesn't feel like he is. No, this shake in his fists, lingering as he unclenches them to trace the sharp downward turn of his own face- this isn't anger. This is- it feels confused. Overwhelmed. Baffled that out of everything, Lian introduced the total sum of him as happy. Hadn't he been told how melancholic he seems to everyone other than himself? Hadn't his happiness always been treated like a rare and precious thing? How strange to hear from his own student. How strange, he realizes for the first time, that he has a student at all. All his life he had set the ambitious destination, and his brother chose the tracks to best carry them there- all but in this. The one time Emmet finally wanted something more than the two of them, he had been the one digging his heels into the ground, refusing to leave or change the reality they had now.

I'm not asking because you don't want it, nii-san, I'm asking because you do. 

(He hadn't wanted it then!)

I can see the way you look at the children who pass through Gear Station. The way you act like a teacher to our passengers in and out of the Battle Subway.

(He cannot be an orphan instilling someone else with love and safety just to die and leave more orphans in his wake. He watched it ruin Drayden when kaa-san died. He watched it ruin Emmet. He watched it ruin him. How could he ever do something so cruel?)

Because it wouldn't be cruel to them. Because it might bring you happiness.

Would there be any happiness in such a thing? In a child’s slate-grey eyes staring up at him in wonder past rosy curls, trying so hard to match his steps? In wandering back to the Pearl Clan after a month’s absence, placing a Goomy in a child’s arms before he was sane enough to remember the significance of doing it? He had said long ago his heart couldn't take it, and his mind had taken the choice from him. He had never been Lian's father. Before he could even consider it, Lian had been made someone else's apprentice and someone else's Warden. All Ingo had ever been was there. All Lian had ever been was there. 

Every day. For twelve years. With everything he knew, everything he had, in everything Lian ever asked of him, for as long as Lian can possibly remember. Because Ingo chose to do so.

I don't think you'd be you if you weren't always choosing to be happy.

Had he chosen happiness, then?

Are you mad, Ingo?

“No,” Ingo finally, gently says. “I’m not.” He steps forward, taking Lian’s hand into his own, kneeling down just enough to knock his forehead against Lian’s knuckles. “I am beyond honored to aid in your growth and I am so, so proud of you. Bravo, Lian. Bravo.”

His hands find Lian’s cheeks. A disbelieving laugh bubbles in his throat.

“Bravo,” he says again, “Bravo, bravo-” His arms wrap around Lian, clapping against the young Warden’s back. “SUPER BRAVO!” he happily roars out. “SUPER MECCHA BRAVO- MEYN EYNGL, MEYN MECHAYEH, OH!”

“Sinnoh’s sinful eye,” Volo audibly gasps. “I've never seen him shout so much Wyvernslid at once in my life, I didn't even think he still remembered that much.”

Lian squawks with embarrassment. “Oi, oi, oyaji, yamero!”

“ZUG GORNISHT!” Ingo loudly admonishes, even as he presses their faces together. “I'LL UTZ YOU AS MUCH AS I DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE, YOU'LL LET ME KVELL OVER YOU FOR ONCE!”

“Why couldn't you kvell over Rei or something?” Lian cries as Ingo’s joyful embrace twirls them back and forth.

“I DON'T WANT TO!”

Akari and Rei pump their fists up and down. “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Volo crosses his hands in a discouraging motion, shaking his head. “No, no, don't fight! I need Ingo to be able to help me deliver to the Highlands outposts, he can't do that if you all start-”

=#[o]#=

Ingo starts leaning heavily on Lian until they both fall to the ground. Lian lands on his chest, prompting a concerningly wounded cough that peters off into a wheeze, then quickly devolves into a booming, bone shaking laugh as Rei and Akari prey on his moment of weakness, piling on top of his ribs. The spastic movement of his stilted embrace threatens to punch into their much smaller bodies as his frail and shining frame shakes with the uncontrollable sound. A mirth-filled, cackling roar with a growling undertone that his mild voice always fails to foreshadow.

Volo remembers when he used to be smaller than Ingo. When an ill-timed, stupid joke would pull him all-too close, Ingo’s hand holding his chest in place while another arm held him in a vice grip across his back, a heart hammering into him under a Pearl Clan tunic like a fist rattling the other side of a cage. There was always nowhere for his eyes to turn but upwards. The papery skin and silvery hair of the Warden of the Cliffs would blot out the sun, scattering its rays around his face like a veil of moonlight. Pearly spots of color dancing painfully in Volo's eyes until his ears rang with roaring laughter.

Volo watches Ingo's personal moonlight in miniature spill over everyone else who hasn't outgrown him. It's been many, many years since Volo was small enough for his poor ears to be trapped against Ingo's deafening set of lungs.

He misses it terribly.

Chapter Text

The state of isum is among the worst possible fates for a Draconian. To a Draconian, at least. (If, at such a stage, they are Draconian still.)

Only being made on-a-nomen comes close to it. Only becoming geyagt surpasses it.

Isum. Orphaned. Abandoned by the Draconian people by no will of their horde and no will of their own, separated by distance or or torn away by the deaths of their dens. Sanqua, storm-silence stone, is no isum- not quite, not yet. When she left Blackthorn, it was of her own will, and her will was that it would not be forever. The lost people of Ecruteak needed an architect, and she was capable of providing until such time they no longer had need of her. Although it has been a few years since Jubilife’s founding, it has yet to be content to rest on its laurels. It grows more prosperous, births more children, takes in more workers, demands more and more specialized buildings. Her comfortable not forever was quickly shaping up to be an unexpected but not intolerable possible decade, but she had seen that coming when Commander Kamado realized they were going to survive their first winter. His eyes had filled with ambition and she had adjusted accordingly.

She remained in contact with Blackthorn all this time through the Dragonite couriers, so it had been quick work to convert her Construction Corps barracks into a serviceable den. Nothing luxurious, but enough to last her, and since she now found herself of the age and means, she’d taken one of Jubilife’s unattended children under her roof. Sanqua can’t call Ceci an easy child, but she won’t dare scold such an enthusiastic student.

She came to Hisui as Jubilife’s sole Draconian, but that was her choice to make. A lonely choice, but a choice. Her horde still remains in Blackthorn, alive and well and eager to trade gifts with her, and she has made a serviceably comfortable life for herself. Perhaps, if or when she returns to her homeland, she will even have enough students in her wake that she could leave this den as her parting gift, a central enclave for a new Draconian community.

Sanqua is not isum. She did not know, then, that Ingo was. She had not known he was Draconian at all.

When the Celestica realized these new people were looking to stay, they sent their Wardens, their priestly land stewards, to teach Jubilife what was safe, what was not, how to call upon their aid. The Warden of the Hollow was beautiful, young, ostentatious, prideful. Sanqua suspected that, at least in part, he had been selected ornamentally in order to crown the Diamond Clan’s stake in Hisui’s holy mountains. But the other Highlands Warden, the Warden of the Cliffs, bore no such intent. His clan clothes were pristine, but only under the fading, tattered coat he draped over himself like a second skin. His eyes were glassier than cut jewels, but… wild. Unseeing in their intensity. His Lady’s poisonous claws curled possessively over his frame as if he were a jealously guarded lover, and he did not speak unless spoken to- and even when he did, he would use one of the Lady’s kits as his conversational surrogate more often than not, or whatever creature was in his pockets. Kamado did not dare question a well-respected Warden’s eccentricity, but he had asked an explanation of Lady Irida.

It did not bode well that the first words out of her mouth were that Warden Ingo was not senile.

His mind is sharp, his knowledge is vast, and he is rarely ever wrong. Whatever he remembers, he remembers precisely. But long ago, some injury or attack- the Pearl Clan is not certain- tore apart the portion of his mind that remembers at all. He is perfect in his duties, but in the day to day… at times, he struggles to be anything else. Anyone else. The man in the mountains who came from Hisuian snow and shines like moonlight- ten years they have known him and he cannot answer with certainty where he came from, who he was before he was a Warden, if he is even a human or something else entirely. 

To that end, Sanqua only made a note to herself not to jump to suspicion if he acted odd, but she didn’t expect to see him often. He started making frequent appearances in Jubilife, each time equally baffled to see it there, but then again, it was changing every time he saw it. Sanqua could see him becoming less confused as the buildings began to raise, shops started to open, and a visible pattern was making itself known in the growing sprawl. She only saw him in passing. His growing interest was in the Security Corps, constantly conversing with them over safe paths or the battling exercises their Captain put them through. But then…

“Captain!” One of her Construction Corps fellows runs over to her, eyes weary. “We’ve got new orders from the Commander. The Supply Corps wing needs repairs again.”

“Again?” Sanqua repeats. “Can’t it wait?”

“No can do. Sounds like a Bidoof got in and chewed out a whole wall trying to get itself out.” The worker rolls her eyes. “And of course Tao Hua is taking the opportunity to try and get Kamado to oust the general store shopkeep again, and the Commander wants the old man out as soon as possible before he actually manages to wear him down.”

Great. And Sanqua was thinking of heading to Radisa’s place for a good late lunch, too. She sighs and pinches her brow. “The big macher,” she grumbles under her breath. “Einhoreh, he’s eppes a nundik, ne?”

Further down the street, Warden Ingo flinches so badly that the pokeball in his hands drops with a hollow thunk. He stares down at the object in confusion… and total non-recognition. “Where- what’s- what did-” His eyes start to dart uneasily between the different buildings, the people around him. “What is this, when did I get here, how did I-”

A Ginkgo Guild trader’s grey eyes widen in alarm, hand bearing down on Ingo’s shoulder with urgency. “Ingo, it’s fine. It’s just Jubilife.”

The answer seems to only confuse the Warden more. “Nande yanen? Neyn, ikh- ikh far- ikh farshtey nisht, ikh darf-”

At this, the trader, starts pulling him towards the entrance. “Nope. We’re not letting this happen here, you’re coming with me.”

“I don’t understand,” the Warden dazedly repeats again, “how did I get here, why can’t I remember, what happened to my clothes, how did I get so farblonjet that I-”

His words fall off from their clipped, accentless Sinoan, rapidly devolving into confused melting pot of Johtonian, Wyvernslid, and some other language Sanqua can’t recognize as he disappears with the trader around the corner. The foreign man who fell from the sky. Who fails to fear pokemon, who runs head-first towards wild dragons, who won’t eat Magikarps, who everyone gossips speaks in incomprehensible growling tongues when he forgets he’s supposed to be Hisuian.

…Oh no. Oh, dragons, no.

The next time they pass each other, he makes no note of remembering the incident or that she was there for it, but he greets her- only her- in Wyvernslid. Over time, he extends this to Ceci. To be honest, he seems to hold onto the knowledge of Ceci far more than he does Sanqua, his voice softening as he tells her about the dragons of the world, putting Garchomp’s teeth and Magikarp scales in her eager palms. The one thing he shares with Sanqua is a language only they know in all of Hisui.

The frenzy of the Lady Highlands changes things. It changes a lot of things. He’s moved to Captain Zisu’s quarters when the hospital finally gets too scared of his kami. Zisu is often so busy that her work pulls her away all day, but Sanqua works with papers, and the need to raise Ceci means she often does this work from home, only going to her office to get more supplies or move blueprints around. The absent-minded dragon man who was forever a mountain range away is anchored just down the street from her, if only for a moment.

She brings him tea and Ceci, and tells him of Blackthorn. He lets Ceci rummage his pockets for sweets, and remembers. He tells her the dragons of this region, where to find the fruits and spices that might remind her of home, the names and wiles of his two students and that Survey Corps girl who has become determined to stand at his side. Often, he only remembers what is true in the here and now, but it seems having a Draconian to speak to digs up other things. The things from before Hisui, before the thing that stole his mind. His horde was Tamadensha. He was fire-roar vessel. His dragon was Haxorus. 

“Arnon,” he airily reveals to her one day, as if from a dream. “To you, only you, my name was Arnon.”

“Hello, Arnon,” Sanqua offers. “To you, only you, my name is Qianyu.”

His eyes squint with contentment, and in a single and catastrophic moment, he becomes everything she does not deserve to be homesick for.

(And that is her mistake.)

He's a troubled man to be sure, but a good one. He carries a dragon’s mastery and a dragon’s bearing, even so far from home, and he is so fond of children, fond of all he chooses to carry responsibility for. It is his nature as a vessel. Show me your true form, and I will guide you to it.

She did not know the shape of her true form. Without the temptation to fall back on Ingo, to force his hand where her own could not go, she never would have known. But Kamado was speaking of killing a dragon, and she knew that his best efforts would fail. They might slay it, they might have their reasons, but they would butcher it beyond all reason trying and injure who knows how many people in the process.

She panics. She finds out for the first time in her life how much of a coward she really is.

In the days that follow their shared profanity- for it is shared no matter what her best efforts would intend- she watches him stumble through the aftershocks of her imposition. Drunkenly at first, then sober, then silent. Not even the Captain, whose mutual fondness with him was the Security Corps’ worst kept secret, was safe from his turmoil. She had been the one to suggest the target, after all, even if she hadn't known what it would mean to him.

It is not until after the quelling of Lords Basculegion and Ursaluna that Sanqua dares remind him that she even exists. 

It's beyond foolish at this point to believe he wouldn't be able to put together the exact reason Kamado knows his secret now, even if he's forgotten she was there for it. To hope that he would forget the scope of her betrayal even after the deed has already been done. But Sanqua is a fool nonetheless. In the seconds it takes for Ingo to recognize her, his face fills with grief and anger and it hurts.

“You.” Ghostfire crackles in his lungs, a smoky hiss rolling out of his mouth as his hand pulls against his grimace, baring his fangs to her. “You, you, DAMN YOU-”

His Chandelure’s tendrils trail behind him in threatening display as he strides forward. Sanqua takes a step back but does not retreat.

“A BROCH TZU DIR! A FINSTERE CHOLEM AUF DEIN KOPF UND-D-D-” His hands slam down on her shoulders, fingers digging into her like claws as he roughly shakes her. “YOU AROYSGEVORFEN KEYNTSEYN BLACKTHORN DOPPESS!”

A curse on you! A nightmare upon your head! You wasted fangless Blackthorn bystander!

“Sunmahen-” Sanqua stops herself and takes a breath. “Zayt mir moykhl-”

Ingo snidely rolls his eyes. “Ayn, klaynigkeit- A SOF ALREADY!” His hand finds her face and just as quickly tugs painfully on her cheek, forcing her mouth into a fang-baring grimace. “BEI MIR HUST DU GEPOYLT! SORRY? BE SORRY TO YOUR DAUGHTER THAT SHE HAS SUCH A SHANDA OF A DEN-MOTHER!”

His voice drops to a cold, calm tone.

“Does Ceci know what we are?” he asks. “If I were to tell her what you've done, would she even understand it?” His eyes narrow. “The students under my wing have been my brood for longer than yours, but I am a slow, slow conductor to this old knowledge, passenger. If I am to find out I made a better teacher than you, I would be gravely disappointed.”

“Of course she knows what we are,” Sanqua sadly says. “She goes into my garden to watch my Gyrados every day.”

Ingo's hands still.

“Our den has a garden,” Sanqua continues. “It’s had one since our first winter here. I never told you that, did I? I didn't dare brag about it to someone like you. Such a small thing would have been insulting to shep naches about.”

His arms relax. Something sad and wounded enters his voice. “It would not be a small thing to me.”

“What would you have done,” she halfheartedly challenges, “if you stood where I did, watching them plot to kill a Haxorus instead?”

He doesn't grace her with an answer. Maybe his silence is answer enough. But more than anything there is exhaustion in his sadness, and dismissal in his exhaustion. She returns to Jubilife Village alone.

The words she might have said to him start to slip out of her anyway when she crosses the village gates, or at least the thought of them does.

She designed that gate. She designed all of this. The stores, the houses, all the placements, everything. She even designed the Galaxy Hall, even if they never did let her put a Gyrados up there. Kamado turned it down, saying the potential in a Magikarp was more poignant. Some typical bruderloz nonsense like that.

Look at her. Pathetic. She's rambling to nothing but herself at this point. She was only made for building things. She was supposed to be for building things. How does she rebuild something she's already destroyed?

(Accept that it is gone. Tear down the wreckage, and build again.)

The next time she sees him, she silently holds out her hand. His face bears no trust when he takes it, but take it he does. They cross the village gate she once built, and they do not speak. When they arrive at Sanqua's den, she lets Ceci do the talking.

“The Applin garden is fou- founder- founder-ational-”

“Foundational,” Ingo mutedly corrects.

“Foun-da-tional to Dra-coni-an multicropping,” Ceci finishes. “You put the Applins in the leppa trees, and they live in some of the leppas like little bugs except they're really dragons, but it still looks like bugs and that's kind of icky-gross, but it's good for the fruit because their icky-gross makes everything grow better and the fruit lasts longer.”

“And the… trees are scaffolding for other plants,” Ingo haltingly adds on. “Or grafts.”

“We stabbed cheri and aspear branches in the trees! And littler haban trees under the trees! And yache shrubs and roseli flowers under that! And the Flapples live in the littler trees and the Appletuns live on the ground-” Ceci pulls Ingo down by his coat and leans in for a scandalous whisper. “And when they're not looking you can take the scales off their back and eat it.”

“Is that so?” Ingo indulgently asks.

“Uh-huh!” Ceci pats at the fat belly of the lap-sized Appletun, who barely raises an eyestalk in acknowledgement. “It's not hard, though. All they care about is eating bugs and stuff.” She points at the lounging, coiled heads of the Hydrapple nestled in its sweet, syrupy wax. “You can't eat them, though. You can turn the sticky stuff into juice, but we can't eat all of it cus the smells keep us safe.” She suddenly slaps Ingo's face. “BUT YOU DON'T HAVE SMELLS! YOU'RE GONNA DIE!”

“Oh, no!” He starts leaning over her. “You know, I have been feeling lightheaded as of late! Perhaps I will simply waste away in your arms, little passenger!”

“No! You can't die! I'm not finished!” Ceci slaps the water. “Remember when you got kaa-san those Goomys?”

“That does sound like something I would do,” Ingo concedes.

“We use them to keep the water clean,” Ceci reveals, “since we have all the Magikarps, but kaa-san says we can't get rid of the Magikarps because they feed all the plants we put in the water.”

“And because Magikarp are dragons,” Ingo reminds her.

“And because Magikarp are dragons! And when they do the plants it's called hy- um-”

“Hydroponics,” Ingo fills in.

“Hydra-ponies, yeah! Like how there’s Horseas in the water so we can make drakesalt from the ink with cheris. But if you put it in honeycomb, it tastes like pinaps for some reason.” Ceci rummages through Ingo’s pockets. “We could make some right now. Do you have any honeycomb? You have a lot of honeycomb sometimes.”

Ingo huffs tiredly. “I suppose you'll find out soon enough.”

“Probably!” Ceci concedes. She stares up at him and squints suspiciously. “You're still not allowed to die until I'm done telling you about the garden things.”

Ingo has a half-lidded expression as he nods sedately into the Hydrapple’s inquisitive collective of coils. “Mm.”

“You better not, or I'll-” Ceci’s eyes widen as she finally finds her honeycomb prize in Ingo's coat. “Nevermind, you can die now.”

“Why don't you use the honeycomb to make some drakesalt treats?” Sanqua suggests. “Go use the kitchen.”

“Okay!” Ceci barely acknowledges, already trotting away before she's even given permission.

“Are you alright?” Sanqua asks when the child is gone.

Ingo sleepily waves a hand in dismissal. “I am- I'll be fine. It's… it’s been too long. That's all.”

“Did you have your own den before?” Sanqua wonders. “You seem well-versed in children. It feels like you must have.”

“We had our own house,” Ingo corrects. “But we hadn't made an Applin garden, so it was not a den. We were still part of our uncle’s den… I believe.”

“Hadn't gone around to it yet?”

“That house had one when our mothers lived there.” The information seems like a surprise even to himself. “The neighborhood was not a lair, so the garden had to be rehomed when they died. By the time we were old enough to reclaim it, it was already-” He stares off into the distance. “I cannot say for certain, but perhaps our folly was… that replanting the garden would mean they were really gone.” 

He laughs lightly. 

“Kan’nin e. The memories are always present to me. It's difficult to remember when they happened. I can deduce these people are gone, and yet I feel as if they have only just went away. As if I might walk into the next room and…” He hums. “Ah! Well. You can imagine I’ve become unbearably sentimental!”

For a little while, he doesn't say anything else. He just leans back against a leppa tree with a contented, rib-shaking sigh.

“You're always welcome,” Sanqua hesitantly says. “To this den, this garden, whatever you might need from it. Whether you forgive my actions or not, you have a right to your… anger.” Her voice quiets. “And everything else.”

Ingo stares up at her, face empty of anything in particular. No anger, no sadness, nothing- just an impassive, melancholic curiosity. “I'm terribly sorry,” he measuredly says. “I think I might be the worst possible person to have a dispute with. The moment my anger ceases to be true, I may well forget your offense entirely.” 

“Don't say that like it's a mercy,” Sanqua admonishes, unable to keep a regretful bitterness out of her voice.

“I am not,” Ingo bluntly admits. “I am saying that if you seek some absolution, I cannot give it to you. That burden will be yours alone. For that, at least, I am sorry.”

Sanqua sighs. “I wish you wouldn't. But… I know. And I'm glad that after everything, you still let me show you all of this. You are not my horde, but you are still a dragon, and I will not leave you an isum. You have been isum for long enough.”

Ceci comes back with drakesalted honeycomb, determined to share it with Ingo long enough for Sanqua to bundle up some wyrmwax, Applin butter, leppa flour, and Draconian spices. When he departs, right on schedule, she presses a box into his hands full of everything he could not remember to be homesick for. His mouth twinges painfully, eyes wide as he holds his hat to his chest.

It is not absolution. It will have to be enough.

Chapter Text

“He’s not smoking, is he?” Rei asks. “That’s bad. You guys know that’s bad, right? Did they find that out in the 1800s yet?”

Volo squints at the long Hydrapple syrupent pipe held solidly between Ingo’s draconic fangs. “It certainly doesn’t look like any pipe I’ve seen, that’s for sure.”

Akari crinkles her nose in distaste. “Ew. If he was smoking, you’d know. That stuff sticks to clothes. He only touches the stuff when all the other Wardens meet up on top of the mountain.”

“He doesn’t smell like that at all, though,” Volo notes. “He just smells like leppa and dragons.”

“That is weird,” Akari concedes. “He usually just smells like Sneasels, and that weird thing Rei also smells like. Maybe now that he’s not taking care of kits, whatever he usually smells like is coming through? The leppa doesn’t feel new. The dragon thing totally does, though.” She squints. “I don’t think there’s dragon smoking stuff. Hammerlocke was a pretty big Draconian town and that wasn’t something I heard anything about.”

“I’m gonna ask,” Rei decides.

Akari lets out a scandalous gasp. “Rei! You can’t just ask a man if he smokes!”

“Too late!” Rei threatens, already walking boldly towards Ingo. “The momentum’s got me. I’m already doing it. OI, DENSHA-SAN!”

Ingo turns away from Lian to stare at Rei, eyebrow silently raised.

“SMOKING’S BAD FOR YOU!” Rei shouts.

Lian and Ingo just look at Rei in abject confusion, mouths matchingly quirked and brows identically furrowed.

“You were supposed to ask if he smokes,” Volo reminds him.

“I WAS SUPPOSED TO ASK IF YOU SMOKE AND I FUCKED IT UP!” Rei parrots.

“LANGUAGE!” Ingo and Lian shout at the same time.

Akari blinks slowly. “Anyone want to start a petition to kill Lian?” she offers. “He has the soul of a forty year old man and I think that's probably an affront to gods.”

“It just upsets you that he can mirror Ingo,” Volo accuses.

“I think we should kill him with rocks.”

Ingo, uncaring of Akari's obvious murder plot or at least confident it will never succeed, returns to his murmuring conversation with Lian. The pipe stays firmly lodged in its place. He keeps it in his mouth, occasionally takes it into his hand and gestures with it, but those clicking puffs of air coming out of him are just his own ghostfire, not smoke. The carved maw of the pipe is definitely packed with something, but whatever it is, he’s not smoking it.

The frustrating part is that Volo almost knows what this is. Something about den-trick? It'd be so much more helpful if Volo could remember what den-trick was. Ingo used to talk about all sorts of Draconian minutiae all the time when he was a boy, and he used to be a lot more curious. But… he only used to be. There was a time in those early days he was really good at dredging up memories and just as horrible at letting Ingo keep them. His attempts to grab hold of Ingo’s tidal lucidity, straining it for previous information, often smothered it. Eventually, Volo learned not to ask, and while it did seem like Ingo was better off for it… well, there were many things he would never remember if no one asked. Being the only fully-realized Draconian in Hisui, Draconianism itself was often one of those things. 

(To be honest, it's a strange stroke of luck that Lian can keep triggering these particular memories, and even that doesn't come without cost. Ingo keeps telling Lian not to let him keep misnaming him, but every once in a while they learn more about someone named ‘Clay’ than Ingo would like.)

Satisfied with whatever he sees in Lian, Ingo pats the young man’s cheek in dismissal and moves to inspect Rei and Lian’s pair of Sliggoos. Lian nearly walks over to the rest of them, but apparently thinks better of it, instead waving them to come closer.

“What was that about?” Rei wonders.

“Fox was asking if I started growing any scales and stuff, since I’ve already got fangs,” Lian reveals.

Rei flinches back in surprise. “You’ve got fangs?”

“It’s just what happens when you do dragon things,” Lian explains. “It doesn’t hurt, but if you don’t know how to take care of it- well, don’t you think it’s weird that even though dragons can be so powerful, nobody else tries to train them?”

Akari tilts her head. “Wait. If Ingo’s asking if you’ve started growing scales, does that mean Ingo has scales? Like a fish?”

“Sure!” Lian easily says. He then fails to elaborate. “Wanna see mine? I don’t show them off to the clans because way back when they would’ve thought Ingo did something bad.”

Rei lets out an astounded cooing noise as Lian raises the hair on the side of his head, revealing coppery scales crawling up the edges of his jaw. While Rei pokes and prods his face, he rolls up a sleeve, showing matching scales dotting a line along his arm. He even pries open his own mouth to show off flinty, tusk-like fangs and a steadily blueing tongue.

“Oh! My tongue does that too when I hang out with Artax! I thought it was just my Ability!” Rei sticks out his tongue. “See?”

Akari looks up at Volo while the two children tug each other's mouths open. “Do you have those too?”

Volo takes a step back. “You don't get to know either way, and I'm not showing you even if I do.”

“Aw, but you've seen my fangs!” Akari waggles her hands and takes a threatening step forward. “It's only fair I get to see yours!”