#EMMET THE DOUBLES LINE AND INGO THE SINGLES

[acatpiestuff]

THAT MOMENT WHEN YOU AND YOUR TWIN A R E THE SUBWAY

ft. teeny tiny smol akari

[hehe-hoho-ohno]

This is a silly thing to be annoyed by, but I see people mix up double battles and multi battles all the time.

A multi-battle is when you team up with another person to fight two other people. (Two trainers vs another two trainers. Everyone has one pokemon on the field. Four pokemon and trainers total)

A double battle is when you send out two pokemon at a time. (One trainers vs one trainer. Each trainer has two pokemon on the field. In total: two trainers, four pokemon.)

[sturmhunde]

Idk if anyone else has said this yet but in my eyes Ingo and Emmet’s red and green coats in Masters is a reference to the Singles (green) and Doubles (red) lines of Gear Station.

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Do you think Digimon is better as a show while Pokemon is better as a game?

That seems to be the general consensus, right? I’ve never engaged much with Digimon! It just wasn’t really around at the time when I was a kid, and doesn’t seem to be around much nowadays either. Though from the few scenes I saw, the show absolutely goes harder than pokemon (even if Pokemon *does* have Team Rocket going for them).

Can’t say anything about the games though, never played or saw them. Pokémon was a pretty good game series tho (…when the employees didn’t have to crunch so ridiculously hard as they have to do nowadays. Seriously, Legends Arceus and Gen 9 came out in the same year. That’s insane. And it shows- what with broken graphics and glitches everywhere. If a new digimon game came it’d probably be better than Pokémon tbh, at least on a technical level.)

Idk but that one Digimon remaster? On the switch seems pretty cool tho…Although having every digimon‘s name end on…well, -mon, seems like it could make for quite the tonguetwisters ^^

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

i do think that togekiss and krookodile are surprisingly cute fits for them honestly. they could make it work

idk still what exactly that bug did, who got who, if it only happened on multi or if it was singles/doubles as well? a bug where they each got both pokemon resulting in a 4v8 on the multi lines would be insaaannne. but togekiss generally works better on singles for paraflinch and then i think krookodile fits with emmet's team better (over haxorus, sorry bud. even no longer being as good against the fire/water/grass core i feel like chandelure and eelektross mitigate that, otherwise i could imagine it over excadrill as well).

if i were to swap em i'd probably give togekiss on emmet's team a razor claw and then wish light screen nasty plot and air slash instead since it can't really rely on paraflinch in a 2v2 and eelektross can supplement the paralysis either way. if krookodile were on ingo's team I'd keep it the same but give it life orb (assuming it'd replace excadrill) or choice band if it was replacing haxorus

[bitebitesnap]

Take a Moment, Lead My Hand (Ingo/Reader)

A moment of reprieve gives you second thoughts.

(Notes: Fem Reader, Emmet/Reader/Ingo suggested)

(A/N, I sat on this long enough. This was supposed to be short but here we are.)

word count: 4900

“Ingo?”

He hums, pen scratching across a document. His eyes are on the page, reading each line carefully, yet his head tilts away from the page just so, towards you.

You fiddle with the strap of your bag sitting between your legs. The dim glow of Chandelure reflects in the black plastic buckles as a faint purple glow while she hangs above your head. A soft aura of whispers mutters sweet nothings into the air as she sleeps. She'd hung herself in the dip where an old chandelier used to be, removed a long time ago before the twins arrived. It was a favored sleeping spot of hers whenever she waited for Emmet to take his shift.

Your own Ghastly had made himself comfortable, resting behind your head in the shade of your hair. The cool lick of phantom flames rolls through your skin, flickering dim shades of violet through thin slits in your hair. Used to it, instead you focus on your hands as they twiddle nervously.

The silence seemed to finally catch his attention. The scratch of ink slowed to a stop as you roll and unroll the woven piece in your fingers, twirling it around a digit and pulling it loose. The question of your name lifts your eyes.

For a moment the two of you lock eyes. He stares at you, frown pulled down further and brow furrowed-a deep shadow coats under the brim of his cap, his silver eyes stark against the near black strip. Your face is no better, pensive, strap curled around your fingers as a bracelet of nerves.

Finally you sigh, dropping your gaze to your hands, “So..” You start with a hard swallow, “You know that I'm going into the champions road tomorrow, right?” You glance away to sit up straighter, rubbing the unwrapped hand under your nose before going back to fiddling.

Ghastly stirs as he rolls around your neck. A lick of cool violet haze grazes up the side of your neck as the pokemon rolls itself upright. He's still not quite awake yet and instead chooses to prop his face up against the back of your head.

Ingo's eyes narrow in thought as he hums, “Yes. If I recall correctly you'll be off to your destination in the morning. Is there something wrong?“

Your eyes flick to him for a moment before dropping back to your hands, ”It;s…well.“ The strap tangles up in your fingers, wrapping too tightly before you sigh sharply and tug it loose, ”I've gone through the single and double lines a lot. Don't think I'll be needing to do it again.”

“Yes you have. In fact you've also gone through the multiples line quite a few times too. A disturbing amount when I think about it.“ One of his hands raises to press his fist against his chin as he glances towards the file cabinets behind his desk, ”Last I checked, you've gone down the Singles 23 times, Doubles 19, and Multi line at 15 times. The only reason you stopped the multiple was due to conflicting schedules.“ He looks at the clock on the wall, ”Because of tomorrow, even.“

You nod, ”Yeah. Yeah sounds right.“ You swallow, palms slick on the belt. It starts to twist more around your fingers as your attention drifts more inward. You aren't looking at the straps of the bag, you're not feeling the slow cold chill rising up your neck. You're not noticing anything beyond the curdling in your stomach slowly rising up into your chest and turning into a bad case of heartburn.

The champions road. The final stretch of your journey as a pokemon trainer. It's been a long time coming, over a year counting today. By this time last year you started as a rookie, collecting your starter from the professor to head out into the world. It was odd how a young woman like you hadn't at least tried to be a trainer in your youth, but you simply couldn't find the time. School, moving and the struggles of adult life filled the days and any free time you had was spent trying to calm down before going back in to start all over again. Becoming a pokemon trainer had just slipped right by.

And then-

Your name rumbling in his low voice snaps you out of your thoughts again. Startled you look up with a sharp, “Huh-?”

Ingo had left his desk. Instead, he now kneels just before you, hand over a thigh as he sits on one knee. The persistent frown is tilted down further into a concerned scowl as he looks you over, “You seem to be unable to remain on your tracks. I have been trying to speak to you for the past few minutes but you haven't answered. Is there a complication on your rails?“ His head tilts, silver eyes flickering over your face carefully.

It takes you a moment to decipher exactly what he meant but once you do your eyes immediately flit away, ”Um, yeah uh, just distracted.“

Those deep, intense eyes narrow, ”Are you sure? That seems to be an understatement, given you have been tangling your hand into your bag strap for the past half hour now.“

You look down at your hands. He's right-your hand is firmly entangled in the strap to the point the pressure is cutting circulation to your fingers. The numbness makes you cringe as you tug at the knots that somehow formed despite you having been wrapping it around your palm in circles, ”Oh I did not want to do that-shit it's on there, isn't it? Crap-shit-ack! How does it knot up like this when I wasn't trying to make it do that!?“ You angrily mutter to yourself while trying-and failing-to unknot the betraying piece of woven polyester and plastic now knit right into your flesh like a tumor.

While you flailed about in attempt to finagle the thing off Ingo sighs. A larger, warmer hand takes the one trying to dig into the knots and pulls it away, ”Stop your gears, you're making it worse. Pulling on it haphazardly isn;t going to unravel a tangle this bad.“ He takes your wrapped up hand in his free one, the other rubbing his thumb into your palm before letting go to pull on a particular loop in the knot, ”You must start where the loose string leads into the knot. There you can find where it pulls out, then repeat until the tangle unravels itself.“

He spends some time tugging you loose from the tangle you'd placed yourself in. You couldn't look him in the eye-he'd only been watching from the side recently, you were the one who got yourself into this mess. It was your inattention, your lack of control that forced him to intervene. He could be doing his work but you had dragged him into your mess instead.

Was this how your battles went? Is your control that bad? Were you so lacking in such a basic skill that your own team had to step in to fill in the blanks? So many times had your Ghastly acted without your command, your Hypnos firing moves before you could speak. Was it because they knew how useless your skills were and they were acting in your stead-?

The sharp bark of your name rips you out of your thoughts and you look up directly into silver eyes. Ingo had leaned in closer, the brim of his cap brushing over your forehead at his proximity. A rush of his scent hits your lungs-something warm, refreshing as a summer's day, sparking with a heat like a spiced dish that could only be whatever soap he used to shave that morning. Yet it retained a soothing undertone, calm as rain, something you could only describe as Ingo.

Once he was sure he had your attention he sighed, looking back to the knot on your hand, ”It has been quite some time since you started this track, hasn't it?“

You blink, ”Huh?“ Is all you can say-the sudden tone shift had you reeling again, already off kilter from your own mental spiral, “W-What do you mean?” You try to collect yourself, focused on how his fingers worked the strap around your palm.

“The Championship. You've been building steam to this destination for a long time, correct?” At your dumbfounded nod he continued, “Your efforts resulted in you completing the other gyms within a year, building your team, all during your routine career at the post office. Am I correct?“

”Um.“ Your eyes flit around, trying to figure out why he was bringing this up, ”Yeah. I-uh-had a lot of trouble since the post office always had other trainers around sending letters out, so I had to-um-do my training late at night-“

“After hours. Usually in the dark, with only Ghastly as your lantern, yes?” He interrupts you as he unravels your wrist, “I may not have trained one myself, but I know their light isn't as strong as a Chandelure's or Lampent's. It must have been a struggle to see what your pokemon were doing with such poor lighting conditions.“

Your face scrunches in confusion, “No it wasn;t, but Match did his best to keep the light going. It took a lot out of him to make sure that I could see out there so late.” Matchstick must have finally been awake, as a cool lick of flame rolled up your scalp in the way he used to pseudo-pat your head. You glanced over while he rolled over a shoulder with a yawning wail.

Ingo watched the pokemon unfurl himself from your hair with a slow blink. The shadow over his face heightened the depth of his eyes, making them pools of silver in blackness-like stars in the night sky. A fervent lavender glow flickered in his gaze as the pokemon hovered closer, insatiably curious of all manners human.

You too watched your teammate bobble up to the subway boss with interest, ”Is…Why are you asking me about that? Didn;t I tell you about it a while back?“ You ask, nibbling your lip nervously.

”Yes. You did tell me once, a long time ago now. Before we officially linked cars, even.“ If he noticed you blushing he didn't say anything about it as he finally unwinds your hand. With the strap now safely removed he sets it aside and turns his attention to the ghost putting around his shoulder. A glint of lavender bathes his pale features in it's ghostly glow as his hands come up under the ghost as if to hold him, just below his spectral flame, ”You also spoke of Harken, how his psychic abilities keep him the main offensive car on your track. Is he still training with Haxorus? I have yet to see him in combat recently.“ He relays the whole of his thoughts while running gloved hands underneath Match's flames, as if inspecting their intensity.

You glanced at the bag now sitting on the chair beside his desk, “Yeah, well, I don't use him much for the battle lines. I don't want him distracted-not that the battle lines aren't good for training!” He raised a brow at your frantic waving, not pulling his gaze away from the fire for a moment, “I-it's just, well, I can't have him being too worked up for the championship. Because, I mean, you've seen how he gets when facing Haxorus. Sometimes I'm worried he's going to tear the train apart.”

He hums, “Yes I have. But I wouldn't put so little faith in him to lose control like that.” He turns Matchstick over in his hands, the pokemon rolling around like a queuball with little murmurs of enjoyment, “He wouldn't dare destroy your house if he was training in the backyard, would he?”

You blink, pausing the nervous scratch on your neck,“No? He's-He's never done any damage anywhere he wasn't supposed to. Why are you asking-“

”And what of Switchblade? Has he still decided to revolt against you or did he gain control over himself once he understood your intention? I've heard Bisharp are difficult to control once they evolve, and I am sure you aren't a weak trainer and can correct his course from that track, yes?“ Ingo simply ran over you with his words. He wasn't even looking at you, intent to study Matchstick's flames as if he was a crystal ball.

An annoyed puff blows away a strand of hair, "Yes, of course he did. I'm the one who told you he gave up last year and even started training with Havok." Why was he even talking about this? It was old news, half of it he even knew before you did so why was he talking like you were too stupid to figure it out.

"Speaking of, Havok hasn't been giving you trouble anymore has he? Banette are notorious for being troublemakers, no doubt you've struggled to keep her in line during battle before." His voice was insufferably patient. He didn't look at you at all, still inspecting Ghastly like he'd find something wrong, a fracture in his core or flicker in his fire.

Frustration welled in your chest. He was a master of ghost types in his youth, most of those skills he'd passed onto you when you met. It was him who inspired you to grow after a chance encounter during his disembark of the Singles line. The crowds had been especially dense that day, but they parted like an ocean tide as he passed you, grey eyes flicking to the erratic dance of your Ghastly while you stood in the middle of the crowd like an idiot trying to get him to stop circling you. He spoke with you about how Ghost types were an unruly group that needed special care and training, too little would leave them with too much energy.

He did admit later that he was a bit uncouth with how he simply butted into your affairs without warning, but you'd embraced it-though you did get mad at him for calling you out. He was right, you weren't training him because he was your first pokemon, a gift from your grandfather after he passed. You had no idea what you were doing, barley able to keep him in his ball without a fight. It was Ingo who'd taken him aside for one moment, seemingly listening to his rambling whispers before he turned to you again to say that he simply didn't like his pokeball.

The way Ghastly looked at you made you more mad. Of course even a placid grin could look at you like you were the idiot here.

From there he'd introduced you to his twin, then the battle lines. He helped you understand your partner better than anyone else-not through words or guidebooks. but action. While he didn't make you take either battle line, he did give you his number and schedule you to meet up with him later for a mock battle. He didn't have more than one pokemon on him then and he didn't even have to try to knock out your own.

But he didn't just move on. He stayed. He helped you figure out how to use your pokemon in battle, what his moves meant, how to assess the battlefield. Your continued meet ups meant more time together, leading into him helping you catch Havok, a Hypnos that had decided to battle you before he'd gotten there. It was him who told you why Havok attacked you, that pokemon sometimes attacked trainers because they recognize their strength and want to become stronger themselves.

Without him you wouldn't have been convinced to even try to be a pokemon trainer. He'd given you everything to start working on your confidence to even begin wondering how to conquer his line let alone the trails of a pokemon trainer.

Now he was acting as if you knew nothing again. Like all the progress you'd made was gone in the instant you sat down, that if he looked hard enough he'd see the dimness in Ghastly's flames showing a lack in power only a poorly maintained Ghost type would have. He was acting like you were some child he'd just met who didn't even know their own pokemon's abilities outside of strength.

Frustration boiled into anger. You spent so long getting to this point. All the hours, the days spent in the rain out on trails looking for pokemon to spar with, the nights where you'd let them pummel each other under cover of darkness to vent out their frustrations. Years battling your own self worth until it somewhat looked presentable enough to be blown into a facsimile of confidence-now here he was trying to pull it down from the bottom like a house of cards. You'd heard of the subway bosses being cruel, and Emmet you could see, but never would you imagine that Ingo would stoop to this level of meanness.

Rage boils and boils until it has nowhere to go. In your anger you knocked your pokemon right out of his hands to make him look at you, ”What are you even talking about!? I'm not stupid, I know how my pokemon work! Why would you even say that!?" Worked up as you were a flush of heat rolled up your neck, straining over your eyes like a migraine ready to pop as you jabbed a finger into his chest while he just stared at you blankly, "Do you think I can't control them?! Do you think I'm still some wannabe trainer who's barely got her feet wet?! Is that it-!?”

He snatched your hands in one of his own before you could continue, “Then why do you have such little faith in your team? You trained them, as you said, what makes you think they're incapable?” He holds your wrists together with a forefinger and thumb like a shackle to him, brow raised as he sharply leans into your space.

You startle at his gall. Deep, intense silver eyes glare from beneath the brim of his cap, cutting you to the bone and robbing you of your anger, “Um. I-I'm not-”

“You believe they aren't able to accomplish the goal you set. To ignore the efforts they take to complete their training to give you the best they have to offer, working in the dark with dim light, fighting against stronger opponents-is an insult to everything they do for you." His voice is like a sharp cold wind, shoving you towards the drop off the cliff you'd made from false bravado. With each word he tugs you closer to the edge. A sea of doubts and fears laps at your feet, coalesced from years of bottling and tossing them to the deepest reaches of your soul until this moment.

“But-I-” You floundered, struggling to hold onto the precipice he now dangled you off of, “I-I'm not doing that! I just don't think we're ready! If we don't make it this year then next year I'll-”

“And have all that you worked for mean nothing?” Again he shakes you by the wrists, gently but firmly enough to return you to the present, to his biting words that shove you closer into that deep abyss, “You drive them to train in strenuous conditions and retake our battle lines. What is the effort for if not to take them to the destination you've shown them? If it's not in their reach, why have them chase it? I will tell you, it is not from lack of training.“

And he leans in further, face stern, eyes narrowing as his voice drops to a mutter, “The very station you set to reach is out of your grasp, not because your pokemon are not ready, but because you simply are too afraid to leave the one you've come to.”

You balk. A cold flush dropped into the pit of your stomach as he pushed you off the cliff you'd failed to grasp. He was right-how long had you been at this? How many days had you driven them to train until none of them could stand anymore-how many of those days were you worn out yourself? The amount of times you'd taken the battle lines would make even the most seasoned trainer blush in embarrassment by now. How would anyone think they weren't ready for the challenge?

You could. Years of bottling up insecurities, ignoring the painful sting of defeat with the lie of maybe getting better-the consequence of paranoia it caused. Sure, you could grow as a trainer, strengthen your bonds to your pokemon-but it couldn't wash away the growing panic inside as the possibility of Champion drew closer and closer.

And now it was almost reality. All the fears, little paranoid dreams of failure and mockery were at the surface. You covered the water's mirror face with as much bravado and excuses as you could find. It would be easy, just a few more rounds to be sure. The training was almost done, but one more train ride would be just enough to finish it. Just one more day, one more training session, one more battle line win.

Everything-anything to avoid the reality that you might fail. And everything you worked for would be for nothing. Years of training, wasted on the truth that you were and always had been a failure.

It was too much. His intense eyes, his frown deepened. You couldn't look at him any longer, bowing your head while biting your lip. And you stayed like that, him staring at you while you simply sat there like a scolded child from overthinking yourself into a stupor.

Matchstick warbled in the air beside your ear. Wherever you'd smacked him to he must have just now got back, being a slow flier and all. Your gaze shifted to him while his black eyes seemed to study you silently. He wasn't even phased from your smack-he'd always been real sturdy. Whatever conclusion he reached his cold flame crackled into your hair as he tilted his face into your cheek with a soft murmur.

Tears threatened to fall. The tight ball in your chest unraveled just a bit. Ingo lets your wrists go as you reach up to hold the ghost closer to you, ”It seems Match has heard what you were worried about. Not a subtle thing, is he?“ The light amusement in his voice slowly pulls you out of your self contained misery.

It was really stupid when you thought about it. He was right-you had worked with them for years now. Maybe you hadn't meant to get into the championship initially, but hard work had gotten you this far. They gave you everything they had, breaking themselves to pieces to become what you needed.

He was cruel about how he worded it, perhaps, but he wasn't incorrect. It was just his way of reminding you of what really mattered-making the attempt with everything you had. Even if you didn't win, would it really matter if your team had given you their all? Would it matter if you'd spent so much time fighting, training, growing together just to make it here?

You can feel his stare on your face before he softly sighs, ”(Y/N),“ He mutters, voice gentle, ”I know you are afraid. This is quite the large step in your tracks and many have fallen before they reach it, but you have. You spent so much time training, learning and befriending your pokemon until they oiled their gears as a team. Their cars are linked to yours as you lead them into a bright future, one where they can stand at the highest peak and be the best of Unova-if only for a while.“ The edges of his hard frown lighten, turning upwards just a bit, ”Without you, they'd still be wild. Fighting on their own with less of a chance to evolve. Yet here they are, at the top of their game and able to break Emmet's record of losses-something I still hear about.“

You stifle a snort as he laughs under his breath. The image of Emmet grousing to his twin about losing is always a spectacle-last time he complained for an hour straight. Mostly because you'd won more than three times in a row and he was still sour, which he told you to your very smug face.

His smile softens as he sets a hand on your knee, ”(Y/N), as subway bosses we are aware of one singular truth, we cannot be the best in every battle. To win every time is to lose everything-one cannot learn to grow stronger by accomplishment alone. Avoiding loss is to avoid crucial knowledge that could send you to your next destination on the track of your life.“ He reaches back to your bag as he takes your hand, setting it at your feet ”So please, don't be afraid to fail. This is an important accomplishment to gain, but, it isn't a crime to lose either.”

You look down to the strap he sets in your hand. You rub your thumb into it in thought-maybe you had been overthinking it for too long. Was it the championship? Sure, but who else besides you had tried it, who else had been in the same place as you? Probably plenty of other people had won or lost, but in the end it didn;t matter, did it?

Emmet said it once. It's just a title on a piece of paper.

You snort a bit, “I guess you're right. It's just-well,” A bit of redness warms your cheeks as you fiddle with the strap again, not wrapping it around your hand this time, “I'm just stupid for worrying so much about it.”

“It's not stupid to be concerned of a challenge ahead. You're not stupid for worrying about it either, so don't let your tracks take your thoughts there again.” He gets to his feet, heading back to his desk before pausing, “Erm, and I…well.” Now it was his turn to be bashful as his eyes flicked to you for a moment before darting to the side, “I do apologize if I came across as too much, then. You just worry me when you go down these destructive tracks.”

You try not to snicker as you watch him study his twins desk with forced interest-clearly trying to take notes on organization from Emmet and not to avoid your gaze, “I know. Thank you for worrying. And I'm sorry for losing it on you, I know I've got anger issues.” He hums in acknowledgement as you let Matchstick squirm out of your hand before you stand up, hoisting your bag over your shoulder, “In that case I should probably start stocking up on potions and sprays before it gets dark. The pokecenter closes in a few hours and I'd like to have everyone ready for tomorrow.”

“Ah, yes. That's likely your best option for today.” Ingo adjusts his cap while sitting down, then looks up just as you pass, “But before you go tomorrow, please make a stop at our apartment. I will have something ready for you to take to the championship.”

You turn to him just as you reach the door, “Is it cookies? Did you bake again?”

A small twitch threatens to break his very serious scowl he aims at you, “Very funny. I'll be sure to include your astute review of Emmet's cooking skills in the morning-after he stops complaining about another loss.”

Your grin is smug as a Purrloin, “Can you give him a kiss for me~?”

“You can give it to him yourself when you get there in the morning. Now shoo, I have paperwork to finish and you're distracting.” He waves a gloved hand in your vague direction as he turns his attention back to the papers he'd left behind, clearly a little irked again by what he was reading.

A wheezing laugh whistles through your smile, Match hissing with you just over your shoulder. But before you open the door you make a quick jaunt back to his desk, grabbing his cheek to peck him on the temple, “Later, Ingo. Enjoy all of that.” You wiggle your fingers in the direction of the paper reading 'Time Schedule' while he grumbles under his breath, but you catch the start of a beautiful pink flush over his ears as he tugs his cap down over his face just before you depart with a bounce in your step.

In the morning when you knock on their door you're accosted by a frustrated younger twin who bullies you into the kitchen while the elder hands you a bag of revives and poison cures. His cap aside, button up shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he convinces you to stay just long enough for breakfast. Meanwhile his twin argues that no, a Mold Breaker trait isn't a fair way to battle and is verry much cheating-a leering smile directed at his not at all ashamed brother who just shrugs and tells him to do better.

When Emmet finally is shut up by you pulling him into a kiss, his twin standing silently by your side until you give him the same you set out on the final leg of your journey. Come Hell or high water, you were at least going to try.

~~affiliated with @pixelcafe-network ~~divider from @k1ssyoursister

[iam-emmet]

//unpopular opinion: if they do make B/W remakes (which *sigh* they probably are) everything should be the same except Ingo isn't in Gear Station. No new dialogue, just Multi lines don't exist and Emmet runs Singles and Doubles. Also Emmet's model has prominent eye bags. No explanation, nothing even brings it up, just more confusion and the ability for more fanfics

let's discuss

[theangrycomet]

black and white 3: gear station

If Gamefreak makes the inevitable Black and White remake another sequel (like honestly all the others should have been) than I think the best way to address the Ingo situation would be for the Player to have almost no involvement at all.

Have it be a background thing when the Player first makes it to Nimbasa City the Battle Subway is temporarily closed due to… circumstances with the Bosses’ pokemon.

Elesa’s not at her Gym because she’s helping Emmet grab all of Ingo’s pokemon, as they are scattered around the city looking for their Trainer. Have some of the residents trying to guid them back, making comments that this has been the regular occurrence for almost a year now.

Have it where the Player finds a Chandelure approach them, when they enter the city, and end up following them around as they make it to the battle Subway. Then you have to help gather the rest before Elesa can return to her gym and Emmet, Gear Station. This is how you get a Unlimited Subway Pass (as a token of thanks from Emmet) that grants you full access to Gear Station (to the places you already have been like the ride pokemon/flying taxi)

The Battle Subway is then reopened, but you can only do the Singles Monday/Wednesday/Friday and the Doubles Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday or whatever since there is only 1 Subway boss to run the both lines at the moment.

Postgame, the Singles and Doubles lines are available no matter the day of the week, as Ingo has inexplicably returned, with a whole new set of pokemon to boot.

Lady Sneasler can be found as a Challenger on the singles line or meandering Gear Station, depending on the time of day. If you beat her and Ingo X amount of it would trigger a cut scene where she, with some translation on Ingo’s part, gifts the player an Egg, with Ingo making a comment that the Player reminds him of a bit of a trainer he new from where he was before.

[subwaytostardew]

▽ Subway to Stardew - Emmet 8-Heart Event ▽

This plays after getting at least 8 hearts with Emmet and entering the Railroad between 9AM - 4PM on a Thursday after viewing his 7 heart event.

You recieve this letter when you reach 8 hearts with Emmet!

Commentary and progress under the readmore.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

I DID NOT REALIZE THAT THIS EVENT WOULD BE THAT LONG... I could have sworn it was around 14 minutes max! I was worried that the battle stuff went by too quickly! It's almost 30 minutes long! And that's with me clicking away faster! Emmet really meant it when he said he wanted to spend all the livelong day together...

I thought it was going to be roughly 18 minutes. NOPE. WOOPS. This what happens when you write possibly too much.

We are bad at making short events. Vanilla events are around 1-3 minutes long. A day in Stardew lasts 14 minutes and 10 seconds. I would not recommend trying to play this mod spoiler free on multiplayer because time does not freeze and you will die if you don't skip the events. I wouldn't want to shorten the events either... Cutting down their infodumps would just be wrong.

We had a few requests to have a battle event which made me 😅 because I personally couldn't imagine that going well (truth over ideals...). This event was partially made to shut that idea down. The whole tunnel scene is mostly me trying to write an in-story reason as to why there won't be a battle with the farmer against Ingo... Emmet is competitive! This is not just limited to battles but extends to being your best friend! Behind the scenes... I'm just too tired to write out more battles. I actually really dislike single battle format. I'm not making an Ingo battle event. You already have three games to battle him in. I refuse to make more battle events for the time being.

I say that but there's another half-finished double battle event between submas that I switched tracks from to work on Emmet's 8 heart event... I'll finish that eventually.

Anyways... the creation process did not go by quickly at all either. I sure do have a lot to say on that matter. I do all my coding in google docs (terrible, I know) and so far we have had to make 3 seperate documents becuase things start to break at around 40 pages. The document before Emmet's 8 heart event made it to 64 pages before I abandoned it for a new document.

The longest document we have is around 80 pages along. Which usually contain the draft scripts of multiple events. code documents however take up a lot more since it's basically a giant wall of text. So when Emmet's 8 heart event started to slow down the current code document (the third iteration). We had to give the event its own space.

Emmet's 8 heart event ended up being 36 pages long alone! Also if you didn't know, Stardew's event format doesn't allow for line breaks so I have been staring at a 36 page wall of text for weeks. I plan to upload a video compiling all the different options later because I feel like all of the "good" options for battle... don't quite make sense in the context of the rest of the story. The farmer is supposed to not be good at battle and lose because they got overwhelmed with information. As the one writing out all the battle options though, I can't bring myself to act like I'm bad at battling. The winning options are extra silly just to justify a loss and because I couldn't bring myself to lie about Wild Charge not being a guaranteed OHKO on Archeops either. Especially since Emmet brings out damage calculations in a few of the options.

On that topic, all of the battle options play out accurately in a real double battle! I tested. Every. Single. Path. In Pokemon Showdown between the halves of Emmet's team.

I had nightmares of reliving this same battle over and over because that's all I did when I was awake. Make it stopppppp 😭

The lines about them practicing were references to me actually simulating everything in Showdown! Emmet's frustration is also based on how making this event took over my brain so now I struggle to comprehend how someone who doesn't know what to do in this battle would feel... Thank you Kade for helping me with that part ^^;;;

Your welcome =3

I actually enjoyed the Pokémon Showdown part - when it comes to Pokémon Battles, I have dabbled a little bit into the competitive side of things. Or at least the massive game of 4D Chess... trying to predict your opponent etc. Bait them into making a mistake, etc. There was a good time where we did nothing but Pokémon Battles for a night. And it was fun.

I am in no way good at competitive side of things - (I lose lot but that's okay.) especially in the double battle format. Single Battles I could do. (Though once again, I'm average at best) However I think the most memorable battle I ever had was back in Pokémon X and Y, where I managed to chip away and stall a Mega Aggron with a Umbreon.. And I think Umbreon was my last Pokémon but I kept using Moonlight to keep my health up. My kid self was super surprised and ecstatic that I beaten the odds... but whenever I do Pokémon Showdown I'm either testing battle stuff or making teams. I'm addicted to team compositions and doing a combination of different Pokémon even if it's not the competitive Meta....

I have the choices sorted into good/bad routes in my mind so in most of the routes, Emmet criticizes the player's decisions based on type advantage, STAB, and target. I was torn between the best and worst options for this recording but thanks to Kade's input, you get to see Durant ramming into Emmet instead of him getting mad at you for conducting Shadow Claw on Galvantula.

Battling Emmet as a first time trainer is not going to go well! Not only is he too competitive and he refuses to let you win (unlike Ingo), he pretty much sets you up for failiure. I'm sorry Emmet but Galvantula's stats are not intended for making her a physical attacker (emphasis on the Egg Move at what cost...).

Not to mention... Emmet is a Battle Facility Head. And you don't get to battle the Subway Bosses in the mainline games unless you have a somewhat decent team halfway through the game. Even still! They can both wipe the floor with you if you're not aware that they are using battle items...

Though I interpret Emmet not going easy on someone as him challenging them to push themselves and exceed expectations. Both Ingo and Emmet as characters encourage others in their own way, Ingo through words and Emmet I believe through his actions. Though he also can say some encouraging things.

Not the most encouraging if you compare their quotes pages... Customer service and communication isn't exactly his forte... But Emmet wants you to do your best and win against him! He likes seeing serious battlers like him! He just won't let you win unless if you push yourself to do your best. You'll have to. He doesn't really have the most beginner-friendly approach...

Considering you the Farmer, have no idea what a Pokémon even is. (You're practically learning everything from Ingo, Emmet, Elesa etc.) The fact you get challenged to a Battle because Emmet wants to share his interests with you - to have you better understand Pokémon.

He just struggles with the fact that, he is essentially challenging someone with no real battle experience and it's a Double Battle at that. Controlling two Pokémon at once?! Think about the effort it takes to command one Pokémon. We all seen the Anime and how trainers struggle to connect with their partners because they're new. They're just starting. They aren't going to be Battle Facility levels of skill.

Not to mention that Emmet is a little deprived in the valley and hasn't really battled any other new passengers in quite some time. At most, he battled Iris once when she came to visit, Ingo (who's Pokemon are optimized for countering/pissing him off), and himself (I had the mental image of him sitting in the field practicing for this event like an old man playing chess against himself in a park). He's a little too far gone to fully understand what a beginner would think in this situation other than mayyyybe it would take a moment to catch them up to speed. (I would know... I swear those option paths rewired my brain...)

After inputting all of their data into Showdown, I had actually forgotten that Galvantula and Durant are Emmet's Doubles Line team while Eelektross and Archeops are the Super Doubles Line team when deciding the matchups. (Been a while since they were in the Battle Subway huh...) Story-wise, I was thinking that Emmet should be with his ace and that he wouldn't really trust anyone else with Archeops since... he has higher support needs (depression bird 💔). Eelektross and Archeops are paired up because of Gastro Acid and Defeatist. I was thinking that Galvantula and Durant are a bit more beginner-friendly; they can take a loss a bit more easilly (a little less so in Galvantula's case... she's a hater). The farmer had already met Durant earlier in the 4-heart event so he'd volunteer to return the favor of fighting for you. Once you win his trust, he's more than happy to help. As for Galvantula... She's testing to see if she can trust her clingy child with you.

I'm excited to dive into the Pokémon NPC stories... Durant and Excadrill especially.

Durant was originally going to have Choice Scarf instead of Quick Claw to help narrow down the options. It was a pain reorganizing my notes and options all over again to lump not only move choices but turn order in mind. My notes were a mess.

Durant and Galvantula are a very luck-based combination so it was ultimately easier to write the different option paths with that in mind since Stardew's event format is verrrrrrrrrrrry linear. All of the options need to merge back into the same event (well... besides the option to refuse his friendship/battle which ends the event in the tunnel). Durant has lowered accuracy while Galvantula has higher critical hit ratios, I could write the battles based on their luck which is great because I wanted to force a loss.

I thought it would be a little too... reductive (it sure would reduce the amount of content >.>) and unrealistic for the player to impress Emmet with a victory on their first battle. Emmet sees this battle as a test on if you can follow his train of thought and be a good match for him because he's a little bit dependent on you for emotional regulation. He kind of expects you as his favorite passenger to have twin telepathy like Ingo since that's his standard operating procedure. You won't. Because you're not Ingo. You're just some weird farmer he got attached to. With the setup of a battle, I wanted this event to develop the farmer and Emmet's relationship to show that they aren't exactly perfect for each other (and Will say things that can be wrongly misinterpreted) but ultimately they will put in the effort to communicate and make things work. They won't have the best communication! But it's there.

While Ingo has a proper library confession, this event doubles as Emmet's "confession" of sorts. Emmet is already pretty openly affectionate by this point and I wanted to make it somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not his attachment to you is romantic or strictly platonic. To him, it doesn't really matter, but he does want you all to himself. He's not fond of sharing!

But... While Emmet's event may be more platonic in intent, you can still reject him. It's a lot harsher than Ingo's because refusing to even let him try to be a better friend for you is pretty harsh in itself. Ingo's is mostly the choice of whether or not you want to send him back to 6 hearts for more dialogue variety (it's really easy to miss dialogue when you try to max out their hearts as soon as possible! We're making lines for every day, season, and heart level.) Rejecting Emmet sends you back to 2 hearts and overrides his daily dialogue for the day with him asking if you're still friends, apologizing, and then getting too upset to say anything more.

Anyways!

From the start, I wanted Emmet to be like Nemona; awkward in their attachment, somewhat intimidating in their obsession/competitiveness, and thinks of the player as their savior from loneliness. He wants to be the best friend you have because you're the best friend he has. It's only fair. Best rival for life, favorite passenger, same thing.

The mountain pass events were actually made because Emmet's original schedule included him waiting around near the bushes there like Nemona stalking the player on their gym journey. NPCs actually can't path there so when he did, he was just deleted from the save!

I also stumbled across a bug back when I made the very first introduction event where a question loops unless if you pick a certain option. I kept that with Emmet forcing you to keep battling with him in mind as a slight reference to how Nemona doesn't let you say no to being her "best rival for life". This question also makes SMAPI hate you!

Gotta love Pokémon's false sense of 'Sure you have a choice. Your choice is always YES.'

There's probably a more fitting flower for Emmet outside of poppies. I just looked up every flower in Stardew (some of them aren't real...) and their meanings in flower language to come to the conclusion of poppies. The meanings in Emmet's event refer to the white poppy in particular. White. Rest. Oblivion. It fits. Good enough. It was a bit difficult to find more on the flower language of poppies in English (particularly the "Oblivion" part) so I resorted to Japanese sites for more information.

In English, the meaning of "Rest" seems to precede every other meaning. Poppies are used in death memorials. Emmet and the farmer did accidentally develop a shared theme of dying (overwork exhaustion, slimes, the mines, etc... Emmet can't get a break. I'm sorry.) but I wasn't sure if Kade was okay with the theme of death being emphasized. With that in mind, I was stunned when I that saw that her first battle map draft included a graveyard. The implication that Emmet picked flowers from a memorial site...

In my mind - the area is an old train stop in between the desert area and the forest/mountains that lead into Pelican Town. Also figured there would be an abandon farm - considering how Pelican Town is struggling it makes sense that potentially other places are not in best of shape either.

The graveyard is possibly dead relatives of whatever family or farmer made their life near the rails. Of course a lot of time has passed... So much so that nature has taken back what was theirs in the first place.

I always make up stories when having a location in mind and this area parallels with the tunnel Ingo takes you through to stargaze around 10 hearts. That area being an abandon coal mining operation.... Coal, Wood, etc. was used to powered steam trains so makes sense for there to be a source for it. I'm not the best when it comes to filling up Tiled Maps with decor - but I at least put down enough for Thylak to come in and make it more fitting for Stardew

The battlefield underwent quite a few revisions, one was having the battle area be more centered, and changing the old warehouse/worker area to be more like a train repair station with a water stop. I wanted it to feel like a place where Emmet goes to keep himself busy when he's told to take a break from working on the station.

Here's the final map! The battle area had to be shrunken down to fit in an event. More grass was added because I kept losing track of Joltik in the dirt. There's more flowers for Emmet to observe the quality of and pick tge best ones as gifts that he's too nervous to give the farmer until they wilt and dry. Poppies by the gravestones, of course!

I also did attempt to make a proper scrapbook sprite for when I eventually have Emmet give you his gift, but I never got around to implementing it properly since... I'm not familliar with adding custom items and its implementation changes in the 1.6 update.

Despite having access to the modding alpha, I've been procrastinating on migrating to 1.6 since HD Portraits isn't supported yet (I know... 1.6 releases in 3 weeks...).

WOO 1.6 WE ARE NO WHERE NEAR READY FOR ALL THE STUFF THAT POSSIBLY GOING TO BREAK. LOL.

Until next time! Thank you for reading!

[boopysnoop]

Submas Pokemon Ramble

I've been thinking about their Pokemon as a reflection of themselves because I think Pokemon add to a trainer's personality. I'm pretty sure they share Pokemon, but who they really belong to has me curious.

Rambling under the cut!

From my understanding, Emmet has a penchant for Electric and Bug Pokemon. Or Pokemon that have yellow in their color schemes or are seen as weak/ glass canons. Electric types fit with his outgoing and bold personality. As for Bug, there's been a trend for trainers that specialize in this type to be creative. (Burgh, Viola, Katy, Guzma since he created a gang from nothing.)This extends to Emmet for his love of double battles and the different combinations in battle. The highest form of creativity in battling IMO. (Don't let this man find out about Tera types lol).

Boldore breaks this idea but shhhh. However! It is found in Chargestone Cave... an electric cave.... Also, I'm 50% sure it glows when it attacks but don't quote me on that. Archeops breaks this idea as well but it fits into the glass canon aspect.

The bottom line is the man likes Electric and Bug Pokemon.

But what about Ingo's preference? His team is more diverse in typing since he runs the Singles Line. But the only semblance I can think of is the Pokemon he chooses are stronger/scary-looking. Or the fact they all have a frown like him. In PokeMas, the Karrablast, which has a frown, belonged to him before trading with Emmet. The other explanation is what he represents, i.e. ideals and the need to continuously strive forward. This extends to his ability to train a variety of Pokemon to be the strongest they can be.

The trend sort of follows in PLA but I see his team as a reflection of his subconscious and lost memories. Or just with Emmet in general.

Gliscor - who smiles like Emmet

Magnezone - reminds him of modern technology etc. He's familiar with electric types bc of his brother.

Probopass - which originally was a Nosepass is found in the Coronet Highlands. Its entry states it always faces North which fits his motto of always moving forward

Machamp - The dex entry from Pearl states it can knock a train with a punch. But other than that, with all its limbs, I see it resembling Emmet as well because of his open body language and tendency to swing his arms in the manga.

Tangrowth and Alakazam are a bit harder to place. Alakazam and its line are found in the Icelands, and I think he had just caught the Tangela when we first battled him.

His Alpha team mirrors his past life as well

Kleavor - Bug/Rock = Crustle

Wyrdeer looks like Drayden to me I'm sorry lol (Or he uses it to ride around like the player)

Basulegion - Water/Ghost contrasting Chandelure Fire/Ghost

I'm just thinking about this and I'm sure this has been thought of before but this is just my take on their teams!

Edit 1: I just realized Archen/ Archeops reflects Emmet being the representation of Reshiram/realism/truth. Opelucid City changes depending if you play White or Black. But in White’s version the city has rustic architecture. Along with the existence of White Forest instead of the futuristic Black City. Archen/Archeops are fossil Pokémon. They’re prehistoric Pokémon who were revived to the modern day. By who? Emmet of course!

TL;DR I'm reaching like crazy and coming up with reasons Game Freak never thought of haha.

[skvaders]

He/They Ingo and Emmet cannon

Both of these guys show up at the end of the singles line after defeating Ingo and at the end of the doubles line after defeating Emmet! :]

[sambuuck]

beta submas team headcanons

@enhancedpartytime 's latest find in the debug mines got me cooking beta submas thoughts. there is a bug where every battle subway pokémon appeared as the pokémon prior to it in the dex

the first thought was that the boys had not fully evolved pokemon on the team. which is a cool idea! eviolite + a bulky second evolution mon like klang or eelektrik can give you some good bulky pivots or setup sweepers

the second thought was that not every pokemon on the boys' ingame teams has a pre-evolution like this. emmet's durant is a single evo pokemon, and if afflicted with the bug it would become heatmor. in bw2 emmet also battles with a timburr, which under the bug would become audino.

and with the prior bug that kept giving them scolipede/togekiss/krookodile when only chandelure was coded... well, you've got the beginning of a team.

team building time! 🔨

(disclaimer: i am not a competitive pokemon battler and i have no idea if these are viable sets, i'm out here having fun. movesets and abilities are from all gens and are based on what smogon tells me is possible. feel free to recommend your own movesets!)

Emmet's team

i designed this team around beta emmet being quite a laidback older brother. he has the confidence that everything will turn out his way in the end, so why worry? why rush things? his team is designed around trick room and switching, and his pokemon all run on the slower side. chillax, dude...

audino is emmet's special little girl, and he loves fussing over her, and consequently she's a little spoiled. audino is his trick room setter and status spreader, and her massive special defence and wish/regenerator keeps her coming back into battle when you really, really just want the battle to end

emmet's ace, temperament similar to luisa from encanto. krookodile is one of two powerhouses in the team. swords dance lets her dance on front of her opponents, and high horsepower over earthquake keeps her teammates safe in doubles, although if emmet borrows ingo's togekiss she may run eq instead for more oomph. when the battle gets tight and audino is down, krookodile can also fling the iron ball to become a potent threat outside of trick room.

(edit: did this entry used to have electro ball? yes! did i forget that trick room does not affect the power of electro ball? also yes! it got replaced with thunderbolt 😂)

bulky pivot eelektrik is a problem solver and a counterpart to audino. (these two are besties!) thunderbolt deals good damage while giga drain keeps it healthy. light screen is useful for support, before eelektrik volt switches* into someone else

*(u-turn would perhaps be more viable here, but i wanted to respect g!emmets ballsy choice of an eelektross with three electric moves and gastro acid.)

heatmor is emmet's cramky old man and his other sweeper, and the mixed attacking style punches holes in their opponents' sides, either as a lead or as a late stage sweeper. heatmor is very definitely a glass cannon and has a specific goal of doing as much damage as possible before being taken out.

Ingo's team

i headcanon beta ingo as being a bit of an anxious bean. where emmet is laidback because of his confidence, ingo gets his confidence from being well-prepared and having plan a, b and c all lined up and ready to go. his team is designed around setup sweepers, pokemon that need some time to get going but can easily run away with the battle if not kept in check. while emmet's team is flexible and uses switches to gain momentum, ingo's is designed to stay put, set up and sweep.

ingo's ace, also known (by emmet) as Worlds Most Annoying Bird. temperament of an orange cat. togekiss' serene grace flinches and burns from air slash and flamethrower are a battler's worst nightmare, and with roost and its natural bulk togekiss will happily sit on any pokemon, nasty plot up, then flinch them to death.

(when battling emmet, ingo is also known to use a variant where roost and nasty plot are replaced with rest and snore. there is nothing funnier than watching his brother struggle to take down the blimp, only for the bird to not only rest it's hp back, but also start blasting his pokemon with a 60% flinch rate on serene grace boosted snores)

very demure, very calm mindful, bit of a bitch for the meme. chandelure sets up calm mind on pokemon on the switch and punches holes through teams not well prepared. burning jealousy over flamethrower for vibes and to catch other setup sweepers on the fly, shadow ball's spd drops make her all the more powerful, while energy ball checks water and ground types that might try to stop her sweep.

they're just a cheerful little guy! eviolite klang is bulky enough to get a few shift gears in before picking off threats with gear grind and return. volt switch lets then pivot out if the battle goes south.

speed boost scolipede is an excitable critter that likes to go fast and climb up the walls. protect lets it get at least one speed boost off, before it starts ripping through teams with life orb boosted poison jabs, aqua tail and earthquakes. no hp recovery here, given time scolipede is going to be much faster than whatever's hitting it, and when played late she can pick off weakened opponents to cinch the win.

[marchy-emmet]

Pokémon White - The Battle Subway's Void

MARCHY... WRITING?!?!! Pppffff, aside from that... I wanted to write a little one-shot thingie in creepypasta format to explain in a lil' more detail what glitchy Submas are about. No gore or anything, only madness!! Without further ado, let us dive into this shitstorm...

And as a note: The player's opinion of Submas does not reflect my own, lol.

----

So… here’s the deal. I’m going to jump right into it – no sugarcoating whatsoever.

I’ve been an avid Pokemon fan for my entire life – way down from childhood and up till now, even as a broke unemployed college student. Generation 5 had always been my favorite, and though the attractions in Nimbasa City aren’t particularly pleasing to me, there was one place that had caught my attention – Nimbasa Gear Station.

Now, I am no rookie player… I’ve been through this subway time after time again – my favorite being the singles lines due to how quickly you can farm BP. And the doubles line was slower but gave you the same amount of BP, so what was the point? My copy of White was maxed out in money and time. No need to add more grueling tasks.

… Well, enough yapping for now – I don’t have much time, anyway. Let’s, once again, jump right into it.

Just a few nights ago, I had made my rounds with the battle subway again – but this time, I decided on choosing the multi lines. I’ve got barely any friends who play, so I ended up playing this with the NPC Hilda in the comfort of my own dorm room… If only I could play with sentient beings, I thought sarcastically to myself – no one being around and all…

It was unsurprisingly a typical, boring and usual sweep of the battle subway. A timid Hydreigon with max EVs in special attack and speed with dark pulse, flamethrower, surf and dragon pulse had done the trick. Way too easy!! We had a bit of trouble with a few NPCs here and there, but it was nothing terribly difficult.

Then came, of course, Ingo and Emmet with their usual cone stance. I never understood the hype around these two random NPCs… Sure, strange design and all – but what’s the deal?

With me already having dull feelings about the subway masters and their undeserved hype, the experience I was about to have this very night would ruin their image forever.

Aaaand the game crashes. What the fuck??!?! All of that hard work of grinding in the battle subway while mashing A had gone to waste. I am gonna fucking lose it… I thought. The only logical thing to do was to man up and suck it up and redo the entire thing over. So I rebooted the game, muttering profanities under my breath and waiting impatiently for the title screen to appear.

And it didn’t. At this moment, I thought, okay, obviously the game is fake. What is this shit? Perhaps I was a bit too irritable for no one’s good, because as soon as I had restarted it again, the title screen actually showed up with a bit of lag. But still… Something was off. Lag is a telltale sign of a fake game, right?

This thing’s cartridge was used, after all. I had no idea what the previous player had done to the game… In the back of my mind, I had hoped all my save data hadn’t been deleted. Fuck.

I eagerly waited for the game to boot fully and take me back to Gear Station as I hit the save file, but the performance of the virtual world only got lower and lower, steadily dragging itself back to where my character was standing. As per usual when you “quit” a subway battle, the employee was facing me in preparation to scold me.

… But he didn’t. He just stood there. And at this point I thought the game had frozen.

My heart kept beating fast as I frantically thought up plans of what to do with my save file. Transferring all of my work to another file was an option – but I didn’t have another DS or any friends who did. Again, fuck. At this point there’s no use in searching for resources online to find out if it was fake – it definitely was.

I took a deep breath and looked away from the screen for a moment as I hoped and prayed that the game would cooperate with me. The Gear Station theme was still playing, after all…

A few minutes later, and I simply gave up, rebooting the game yet again. And again, I experienced the laggy bootup screen and the strange pause at the employee. I dropped my DS, putting my hands in my face and releasing the most frustrated sigh to grace the earth.

This is when I suddenly heard an 8 bit screeching sound that had scared me shitless. I jumped up, removing my hands from my face and widening my eyes at the screen. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but the grating sound… ugh.

I reached for the DS’s power button and tried to turn it off – but to no avail. Okay, then let’s try holding it down for 10 seconds… Nope. Pressing all the buttons? Futile. Button combinations? Nada. And so I turn to Google – my attention now directed at my laptop screen – a terrible mistake, really.

After a few unhelpful searches, I turn back to my DS screen and jolt.

It was back where I was with Ingo and Emmet, but the background had gone completely black. How…? How was this even possible? At this point, I even considered that I had picked up a rom hack!

So, with all of the textures lost, I had of course entertained the idea that I was in generation 5’s “void” – similar to gen 4’s “void glitch” where you could catch Shaymin and Darkrai via the exploit. But I knew the walls of the battle subway were probably still around, and the only way of getting out would’ve been through the subway doors.

After a few moments of cautious reconsideration, I moved my fingers to the DS button’s arrows and pressed to go left. To my surprise, my character was actually able to roam around the void around Hilda, Ingo and Emmet!

Curiously, I approached Ingo and mashed the A button, attempting to speak to him. For a moment, this seemed to have frozen my game, until a text box popped up…

“What can I see after winning, winning, and winning? … Nothing – not without this fellow standing beside me.”

Huh. I had vaguely remembered the first half of this line from Ingo, but not the second half. At this point I was definitely convinced I had received some sort of fucked up rom hack in the real White’s disguise.

I spoke to Emmet, and his text box lagged similarly before he stated, “I am Emmet. I am a subway boss. And I am verrry angry. Too angry.”

When I spoke to Hilda, her text box was blank. No ellipsis or anything.

I… didn’t particularly enjoy the expressions the subway masters’ pixelated little faces were making. Dead, cold and glaring. But I had figured that’s how they always looked. Something was definitely going astray with their colors, because the more I stared, the bluer Emmet got, and the redder Ingo got. Their sprites were progressively getting freakier and freakier. What kind of fucked individual sat down and made this hack?

This is the part where a battle suddenly started without my knowledge or consent, despite my character standing far from their usual battle position. Uh… Okay then.

Subway masters Ingo and Emmet got into their usual battle position, backs turned before pointing… straight at me, as the player. This wasn’t quite right, I thought to myself, as I had remembered them pointing in opposite directions prior to this weird interaction. I did get a closer look at them, and their appearance was ever-changing.

They left the screen, and as per usual, Haxorus and Archeops were sent out first… Nothing was at all wrong with the sprites – except their eyes were missing? That and the fact that the battle’s background was white. A few blocky particles of what I call “glitch” were floating around the screen erratically. I also couldn’t help but to notice the Pokemon’s sprites weren’t animated.

I had a horrible pit in my stomach as my intuition was begging me to listen… But I persisted in thinking this was merely a twisted rom hack. The Pokemon still weren’t moving, and the screen was still struggling to load in the background with chunks of “glitch”. Colored particles were everywhere.

More possibilities floated through my mind… Was my DS broken? Was the cartridge dropped in water? Whatever the case might’a been, this was the most terrifying experience I ever had in a Pokemon game.

Unable to send my Pokemon out, I set the DS down and clutched my stomach a little, beginning to feel nauseous. My fingers tightened, rendering them paralyzed. I felt my whole body vibrate as I became deathly ill… Wasn’t quite sure why. There’s no way I was panicking so much over a video game.

As I stood up, I felt the room spin, so I sat back down. A distorted groan rang from the DS as Ingo’s sprite appeared back on screen, in the same pointing position.

His text box read, “The system cannot be shut off at this time. However, you could always offer reconciliation.”

Reconciliation? What the fuck was he on?

As Ingo’s distorted sprite faded out, Emmet’s appeared next – but he had black splotchy markings all over his body and face. I felt my heart beat faster again, and my breathing hastened as his text box popped up. It remained blank for a few seconds as Emmet’s round, soul-piercing eye revealed itself through his face’s shadow.

At this point I tried to shut the game off again by holding down the power button, but it was no use. Not even removing the cartridge stopped it.

“Do not try to turn the game off. Do not try to save the game. You cannot.”

How… How did he just break reality? I knew the funny business was over. This is real.

Ingo appeared again next to his Haxorus, who was melting into a glitchy mass. He began to speak again, his sprite’s eyes appearing in his face’s shadow. “I knew my partners wouldn’t make it through this – but I must protect what’s left. Why wouldn’t you play the multi lines for such a staggering duration of time, player?”

“I just did!!” I yelled back out loud, absolutely bewildered and jittery. I wasn’t even sure if responding to him would warrant a response, but…

Emmet’s Archeops began melting into a glitchy mass next as his sprite approached closer. Any light that was left in his eyes had died when he noticed his Pokemon partner was succumbing to the supposed reality break I was witnessing. His smile dropped for the first time. I’m pretty sure I had never seen that twin frown up until then.

“I am Emmet. This world is too limited. And I will break free. What you did was verrrry rude, player.”

“What did I do?!” I shouted back, feeling tears well up in my eyes. Not tears of regret or guilt, no – tears of confusion. Panic. My head was spinning at this point, and I had wondered if I was experiencing psychotic derealization. Something like this is much too bizarre to be real.

Another text box appeared as Ingo gestured to Emmet, Archeops and Haxorus. “Intentional separation is a sin that cannot be forgiven. Excuse me for repeating myself – but it would be kind of you to ask for reconciliation. I’m not sure how Emmet feels.”

I stared at my screen, my voice hoarse as I responded, “I… I’m not the one you’re looking for.”

I felt ridiculous responding to a video game character, but in my derealized mind this was logical at the time.

“Do not lie,” Emmet began, his sprite becoming increasingly glitchy, “I do not like liars. I do not entertain liars.”

I refused to press A past this point, instead reflecting on what could be happening. Are they feeling something? Is that why Haxorus and Archeops had died – due to a fatal game error?

“I’m sorry,” I say without really thinking, my thoughts racing with contemplating fear.

And Emmet responded again without me hitting A. “You said you are not the one. I do not like liars.” His sprite became bitter again, vibrating against the glitchy masses that were surrounding the twins and broken Pokemon.

I once again took a deep breath in complete disbelief, shutting the DS and dropping it harshly. I sobbed into my hands, unable to make out what I thought of this. Do I need psychiatric help? Was it real?

I felt as if something horrible was going to happen – as if these characters wanted revenge on me. And the game was still playing despite the fact that I had closed it.

Five minutes past as I rocked myself and wept, occasionally glancing over at the DS and putting destruction of the system into consideration. But before I could even formulate the plan, I noticed the DS was… vibrating. This just sent me back into the spiral of sobbing into my hands, but I kept my eyes locked steadily onto the DS. I knew a DS was not supposed to vibrate.

And then came what I can only refer to as a hallucination…

Something was pushing the DS’s screen back up – a finger covered by a black glove. The surrounding area erupted into glitchy fragments, and the gaming system was practically breaking itself and making crackling sounds as the plastic warped. Welp, guess my plan to destroy it was no longer needed.

Without a second thought I let out the loudest shriek I could ever release – and I had sworn the entire complex had heard it. Stood up and ran without hesitation. Not even going to stay to observe the scenery.

I made my way out of the dorms, speeding down the halls and immediately causing a scene. Everyone I passed just stood there, bewildered by my behavior. I was too scared out of my wits to even warn anyone.

I made my way out of the building and down the street, panting heavily and feeling my whole body cake in sweat. Pure fight or flight instinct. I knew then that someone wanted my head on a silver platter – video game character or not.

Eventually I was at my friend’s house, frantically knocking on their door… It isn’t my intent to bring danger towards them or their family, but it’s my only option at the moment. No way I’m staying back at that cursed dorm.

Explaining such a situation to my friend was uncomfortable, but they were concerned for my mental health and well being. And of course, they didn’t seem to believe my story, either… No one did. Everyone I texted, voice chatted with, and told in person always asked if I was joking, or if I needed some sort of help.

It’s been a couple of days since the incident, and I’ve missed plenty of classes – but they’re my last concern. Whether or not I come to find out if that thing was real, I need to hide for my own sake.

And I hope someone runs across this as a tale of caution (unironically, the reason I’m writing it). If you’re sold a game that’s advertised as real, and something strange begins to happen… don’t delve in further.

… Or you may end up like me – alone, just as the subway masters were. And possibly still being tracked down as I write.

[ratwithhands]

Happy train day!

Only remembered this was happening last night so here's a quick sketch of our subway bosses and their depot agents! Figured I'd also use this as an excuse to finally post my depot agent ocs cause they come up a lot in my Submas AUs even if they aren't onscreen.

Isadore and Keo are both employees from the singles department, so they mainly work with/under Ingo. Isadore is a fighter on the SS lines, while Keo works in the office with Ingo, though on occasion he will also fight on the SS lines when Ingo is absent. Both of them are from outside Unova (Isadore is from Hellan and Keo is from Panil) and as such have different pokemon than those typically seen on the subway.

Riley and Mamoru are employees from the doubles department, they work with Emmet. Riley works as Emmet's assistant, so she stays in the office a lot. She also takes Emmet's place on the SD lines when he's not at work. Mamoru currently works as the Battle Subway's lost and found manager. He keeps track of lost items, takes care of lost pokemon, and logs everything that he finds or returns from his office. Mamoru used to work directly below the Bosses as a Top Challenger, but after the rank was dismantled, he switched positions. Both for sentimentality and comfort, he wears his old challenger uniform with his lost and found band. Riley is from Unova, Mamoru moved in from Johto.

Generally Emmet is closer with his employees than Ingo, but they both work well and like being with their agents. The only exception is that Ingo doesn't like being around Mamoru, but that issue is personal not professional so they just mind their own business at work.

Hope you guys like the art and I'll hopefully see you soon when my schoolwork is done.

[nell0-0]

Okay so this isn't /technically/ angst, the angst is just the foundation. So, like, after Ingo disappears and Irida helps Emmet process all this stuff, I can see them trying to fall in step with each other. Irida knows shes not Ingo and is maybe a bit awkward and worries about breaching the subject teaming up with emmet in double battles thinking itd be a step too far. Only for /Emmet/ to be the one to broach the subject and them doing doubles training together.

I've seen this little mistake around in some fanfic, posts and so on, so it doesn't surprise me, but... Anon, are you referring to Multi battles when you talk about doubles in this? Emmet would be perfectly able to keep going on the doubles on his own (within reason considering the situation), but the Multi is where two trainers are needed so it's trickier.

With Ingo gone, some of the plans they had to expand the Battle Subway to account for a third Subway Boss (the brand new triple battles line!) are put in indefinite hold. Instead, Irida would fill Ingo's spot meanwhile. Triple battles are just not as popular as doubles, nevermind singles, for Gear Station to leave the singles unattended while they implement the triple battles. And since she's a perfectly suitable Subway Boss already...

This, understandably, upsets everyone at first, Irida included. But as time goes on, and they work through things, they find a new rythm. It's not perfect, and it may never be, but it's enough while they wait for their missing conductor to appear.

Sometimes, Irida and Emmet do Multis. Sometimes it's with Elesa, or Iris, or Burgh, or even Hilda. Sometimes, Multi battles are closed or cancelled for the day.

It is what it is. Slowly, with some setbacks and struggles from time to time, they move forward.

[ghostypetrainer]

Ingo and Emmet have a fight.

Just because they’re close, it doesn’t mean they never fight. It’s normal. This is a big one, but it’s still normal. They leave Gear Station angry at each other and go their separate ways for the night, but the Depot Agents who witnessed the blow-up expect they’ll apologize to each other tomorrow morning, like they always do.

Instead when Ingo comes in the next morning, he’s out of uniform. That’s strange. He enters the office he shares with Emmet, and a few minutes later, he leaves again- leaving the station entirely. After a few minutes, someone thinks to check in with Boss Emmet... only to find him nearly despondent.

Ingo quit. Ingo is leaving.

No one can quite understand what happened. But one thing becomes increasingly clear over the next few days- Ingo is gone. Someone saw him at the Nimbasa City Airport, booking a ticket to Sinnoh. He doesn’t respond to calls or texts.

Emmet is understandably devastated. He knew they’d fought, but he thought they’d make up like usual... but this was apparently the final straw for Ingo. It was as if he’d had all of his anxieties thrown in his face- that he was too clingy, that he was holding Ingo back. That maybe their closeness was one-sided.

But the thing that devastates the most, even more than the awful things Ingo said to him, is when he checks their shared PC box weeks later, and realizes Ingo’s Pokemon are there, save for Chandelure. He didn’t even bring them with him, he just shoved them in the battle box. They’d been in there for weeks, and he’d never even noticed.

But life moves on. It has to. Emmet is the only Subway Boss now. There’s no more multi-line, but he keeps up both the Doubles and the Singles line. He gets back to a new normal. He learns to deal with the empty place by his side.

He never expects to see Ingo again.

He never expects to learn that the person who left that day wasn’t even Ingo.