#The next few chapters do get pretty angsty but it'll be ok all will be well

[a-land-lacking-sleep]

Electric Trains are the Future Chapter 10: An Unexpected Disruption

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We hit the angsty part today, sorry. Well, next chapter is the angst, this chapter is the catalyst. But for now, we send the group to go find a new village! We're ramping up for the climax of the first part, and then we're on to new pastures!

Chapter Summary: Jubilife needs to expand with all of the incoming immigrants, and Ingo and Akari are the right people for the job! Chapter Word Count: 4848 Chapter Warnings: Major Character Injury (Skip from the blue text to the next linebreak)

As always, read here or on AO3 with additional notes! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated.

-

13 Weeks since Elesa’s Disappearance

“Sorry, Uncle, but it seems that Solgaleo can’t get a lead on it,” Elio says, stroking the fur on their giant lion before feeding it a malasada. “He can feel that a Wormhole was here, yeah, but he can’t really get anything else.”

Emmet is standing with Elio and Volo down Tunnel 3 in the Nimbasa Subway System, in the approximate location where Ingo had disappeared during an inspection. Emmet clearly remembers what had happened. Several Depot Agents had seen figures of Pokemon rushing out of the way of trains in Tunnels 3 and 4, and once they were able to shut the lines down, Ingo and Emmet had split up to check each tunnel.

Ingo never came back. Emmet had found a small purple Pokemon, incredibly injured from when it had been clipped by a train. When he described it to Elio, the young Champion had exclaimed it must’ve been a Poipole. Emmet had cared for the Pokemon for a time before it suddenly disappeared.

Just like Ingo.

“Uncle?” Elio’s voice snaps Emmet out of his reminiscence, and he turns to face Elio. “Are you ok?”

“I am Emmet. I was thinking. I am fine, yup,” Emmet says, his smile looking verrrrrry tired, but still real. “This is where Ingo disappeared. An Ultra Wormhole makes sense.” He nods, and looks over as Volo clears his throat.

“Since we didn’t get any leads, should we get going?” He was back in his baggy blue hoodie, hands buried into the pockets. “We did make plans to talk with Cynthia.” The ‘old’ man began to tap his foot and look around the group. “And I really don’t like how these tunnels feel. I feel like I’m being watched.”

“Yes,” Emmet says, turning and beginning to walk down the tunnel, back towards the Subway terminal. “We should get going.”

—

16 Weeks since Elesa’s Arrival

The sun in the coastlands was brutal now that summer was beginning to roll in. With how bitterly cold the winters got, and how the Icelands stayed under a constant sheet of ice, one would expect cooler summers. But Ingo was a Unovan. He lived just as far north there as he did here, and he knows how hot the streets can get in the height of summer.

Elesa and Miss Akari, meanwhile, managed the heat by wearing lighter clothing for the expedition. Miss Akari had changed into the pajama shirt she’d worn when she first arrived and wore thinner pants that covered her legs, and Elesa had modified yet another uniform to be thinner with removed sleeves, and shortened her pants to capri length. Ingo refused to remove his coat and hat, though he had the sense to remove his Pearl Clan tunic. If they came across Palina, he was sure she’d understand.

“So, game plan!” Miss Akari says, putting a map of the Coastlands down on the table for both adults to see. “Kamado and Sanqua want us to find the best place to build an additional settlement for the Galaxy Expedition Team. We’ve been getting a lot of new incomers, and Jubilife is almost full!” The girl smiles and nods, satisfied with her explanation.

“We also need to remember to plot our course around Pearl and Diamond Clan lands,” Ingo says, picking up the fountain pen that he had haggled from Ginter, and circling the upper cliffs of the bay, and the area around Aipom Hill. “If we put tracks on these lands, we not only break the treaties, but risk discontent. The Clans and Jubilife are allies and on good terms, but if we accidentally start an invasion, then we have forgotten about safety checks and gone into a dangerous tunnel.”

Elesa swats his shoulder softly, drawing his look. “We’re not going to start anything, you Worry Seed! I don’t think Akari is that dumb!” She very much leaves the implication that Akari is dumb enough for other things unsaid.

Akari, thankfully, didn’t catch on, and motioned for the pen from Ingo. “Yeah, I’m not gonna start nothin’,” she says, circling the area at the end of the bottom hook of the bay, where the sand spreads out like a hand. “We already have a base camp here at Sand’s Reach, and it’s far enough from where Basculegion usually rests that it shouldn’t be an issue.”

The trio look at the map for a few moments, plotting the various courses there. Eventually, Ingo speaks up. “Though we already do now, we would have to route freight lines for the settlement through Aipom Hill itself, most likely right where Iscan lives.” He reaches over and grabs a pencil this time, marking the path of least resistance from the beach of Gingko Landing to Sand’s Reach. “While I’m sure he will be fine with us simply having a route past his house, it might cause a logistical problem down the line.”

“What?” Akari looks at the map intensely for a few moments, then shakes her head. “They don’t need to go that close to the cliffs, Uncle Ingo! There’s other ways through that pass!” She grabs the pencil as soon as Ingo sets it down, and amends his route to cut north of the pass, right over the mountains.

Elesa sighs as Ingo carries on. “Miss Akari, you forget that you and I have the ease of Lady Sneasler’s help. Even with her, we make only a two-car train. But if we need to build and supply a new village,” he smudges the line that she had made, then taps his original route, “then we have a freight train and must go through the pass. We can check the route again today, but we would need to discuss the plans with Adaman and Iscan to be sure.”

Miss Akari crosses her arms and huffs, knowing that Ingo was right but not wanting to admit it. Ingo, meanwhile, was proud of himself. Once Kamado and Sanqua had learned that Ingo was the head of transportation for a region the size of Unova, they had asked him to help with the planning of the next settlement. Someone with such expertise in planning trade routes and roads for moving people was invaluable, and the Galaxy Team was not going to pass it up.

The silence is broken when Elesa taps a spot on the map, a lake across from Firespit Island. “What about here? Would this be a suitable place for the village, if we can find a way through the mountain?” Labeled under the name ‘Spring Path’, the lake was isolated from everywhere else unless they took a boat all the way around the Veilstone Cape. But in a straight line from where the trio were now, they would entirely avoid dealing with the Pearl Clan land that stretched down Veilstone and the Castaway Shore, as well as the area directly around Firespit.

Ingo and Miss Akari look up at each other, both trying to communicate silently. How steep were the cliffs? Was there a shallower part to take carts? Maybe a small cave system that could be extended, and kept lit so that Zubat didn’t infest it? Were there any Alpha nearby that they would need to try and coax into relocating?

After a few moments of silently debating it between each other and alone, Miss Akari takes the pen and circles the lake. “This might work. I haven’t gone up here much, so I don’t have the best idea of what we need to do. But,” swapping the pen for the pencil, she circles the area of the cliffs that separate the lake from the main area of the Coastland, “if we can find a way through here, it’s viable.” 

Ingo looks at the map to think of ways around Akari’s conundrum, and eventually he shrugs. Dancing in excitement of her victory, Akari rolls up the map and puts it away before pulling out her Arcphone and opening the map app on it. “So, this one doesn’t show any more detail at all. But I can have it track my movement so that it plots a path for us!” She holds her finger on the screen and puts a pin. “There, it’ll track us now!”

“Then let’s hope we don’t have to go up and down cliffs, Akari,” Elesa says, ruffling the teenager’s hair as she starts walking down towards the beach. “But no use worrying about that until we get there. Might as well use the thing to route a way around the Alpha nests, no?”

The group carefully makes tracks through the Coastland, keeping off the sand itself to keep the path as straight as possible. The Alpha Walrein that normally rests on the coast north of the cliffs had decided to come visit the main coastline with their children, which Ingo made sure to note down as a potential obstacle to future routing. 

To say nothing of the normal Alpha Drapion, whose Skorupi minions caught wind of the trio as they passed by, even with the wide berth. Ingo didn’t miss the larger Pokemon trudge towards the edge of its territory. Nor did he miss the fact that it trailed their movement as they skirted around the Pokemon’s nesting area. 

Just from those two brief encounters, Ingo was second guessing this potential location. With this many Alphas nearby, most traders wouldn’t want to take the route, even with easy tracks for them to follow, let alone villagers with little protection. Gripping the brim of his cap, he looks down towards the ground as he walks, thinking to himself. They’ve stuck to the cliffs to the west of the area, barely staying in sight of these Alphas, yet the fact that they had to worry about them meant that they would have to worry about them again in the future.

Eventually though, Akari pops her hand up, her phone screen lit up. “We’re at the point!” She puts her hands to her hips triumphantly and looks around expectantly, though Ingo was unsure what she was hoping to find. All he could see was a cliff.

“Akari?” Elesa asks, tapping the teen on the head. “What are you Seaking? Cause I’m not seeing much of a path.” Ingo had to agree with her, there wasn’t much of a path at all. He knew to the east was a path up the cliffs towards Veilstone Cape, and eventually to Lord Arcanine’s grave. But that went in the opposite direction, and was decidedly in Pearl Clan territory.

Miss Akari crosses her arms and looks out east anyway. “We could see if there’s a place on the path that way that could either be workable, or maybe carved into a path with Pokemon?” It seems that Miss Akari had already given up on the idea of using this as a way to keep out of Clan territory, and she didn’t even sound too sure of it herself. 

Ingo opens his mouth to speak, but Elesa cuts him off. “That could be the case,” she says, walking past Miss Akari while tapping her chin. “How about this, Skiddo. I’ll go check that path for places we can use, and you two,” she pauses, pointing at Ingo and Miss Akari before pointing up the cliff and continuing, “can HM08 your way up the cliff and look for a way down on the other side.”

Ingo frowns, not that there is much of an outwardly difference. “I am not sure that’s the track to go with, Elesa. Honestly, that proves that this route is unsustainable for travel if we are needing to make concessions before construction begins. Always remember your safety checks, as Emmet would say.”

“And safety checks are why I’m having you two check up there,” Elesa says, gesturing to the cliff face again. “Sticking to the path down here isn’t too rough, so I can Gogoat around with ease!” She pops a cute little pose, putting her hand on her hip and popping it to the side while flashing a peace sign up by her face. Ingo had to struggle not to laugh at her joke, since he was trying to prove a point of not approving of the plan. 

But before the point could be argued, the pair were surprised by Akari blowing two loud notes from her Celestica Flute, then looking at the pair with a smile. “Sneasler’s on her way!” Elesa pumps her fists in excitement while Ingo just gives her a flat look.

“Fine,” Ingo says, pulling his cap down a bit to cover his eyes. “Once my Lady arrives, we can depart from this station.” Miss Akari dances in place in joy, then high fives Elesa. Ingo stews, having been betrayed by not only his adoptive niece, but by his own girlfriend. 

After a few minutes, Lady Sneasler climbs down the cliff that Ingo and Akari were about to scale. Elesa waves as she turns to head off, and Miss Akari climbs up into Lady Sneasler’s riding basket. “Now, my Lady,” Ingo says as he walks toward the cliff with his hands behind his back, “we’re planning on checking if the cliffs on the other side are conducive to regular travel.” Sneasler has a look of realization across her face, then nods enthusiastically. “I know that you would be able to traverse it easily, so Miss Akari and I need to check for ease of human travel.” 

Sneasler rolls her eyes and points at Ingo. “Snea?” Ingo just nods, and she shrugs before starting her way up the cliff. Adorably, Miss Akari sticks her arm out and waves at Ingo now that the basket is facing him, and Ingo waves back, his eyes crinkling slightly in his own kind of smile. Once Lady Sneasler gets a good distance up, her claws easily digging into and gripping the stone, Ingo begins to climb, finding the best path of handholds and footholds that he could.

The climb up looks like it will be easy, with plenty of handholds in view already, though it would take some time to actually traverse, giving Ingo the time to think. Since Elesa arrived, Unova not only had a name in his mind, but it was actually a real place to return to. Elesa would definitely go home, she’s talked about it a few times since she’s been here, and he thinks she may be getting homesick with how he’s been catching her looking at her Xtransciever.

Ingo missed Unova as well. He missed his mother Eiko in Anville; he missed his uncle Drayden and cousin Iris in Opelucid; he missed the sound of the Subway running down the tunnels as he would rest between battles. He missed his daily life with Emmet, and their teams, all 14 Pokemon and two humans in one house, existing together.

But can they even go back? Ingo remembers a few days after Elesa arrived, Miss Akari had admitted that she probably wouldn’t be able to send her or Ingo back. The fabric of time-space was still weak, and Dialga and Palkia were apparently refusing to do anything like that again. She said she had another plan, but nothing came up after that. Ingo wasn’t sure if the plan was being worked on or not, but the young girl had thrown herself into the Pokedex soon after.

And can Ingo even go back? He’s a Warden, an important member of the Pearl Clan, even if he doesn’t spend too much time around the Clan as a whole because of his duties and the general discomfort that the others felt with his origins. And in Jubilife, he was expected to conduct the Galaxy Team and various villagers in battling, teaching them how Pokemon battles work and how to properly care for them. He also had friends among the Wardens and Leaders, and each attachment was beginning to feel like a chain.

Ah, he has reached his destination. Ingo pulls himself up over the cliff’s edge, nodding to Miss Akari and Lady Sneasler, who were chatting as they waited for him. Even after 2 years of climbing the cliffs alongside her, Ingo could never match Lady Sneasler’s speed. “I have arrived at the station,” he calls out to grab their attention, gripping his hat.

Miss Akari jumps over to him and points away from the cliff, in the general direction of their destination. “Then we’re set! Let’s go check out the path!” Without a moment’s more wait, she starts moving. Lady Sneasler takes a moment to look back at Ingo, as if asking if she should follow, and all Ingo can do is shrug before following himself. 

After a few minutes of walking through what was honestly a calm route, Ingo speaks up. “So, Miss Akari, I do feel the need to ask.” Once he’s sure that the girl is listening, he continues. “Just as you don’t know the stations and towns in Unova, I don’t know those in Sinnoh. Is there actually a town here in your time?”

Miss Akari chews her bottom lip in thought for a moment before answering Ingo’s question, which he took as a sign that his suspicions were right. “Really, I’m not sure. Veilstone is supposed to be in this area, but the coastline is really different.” She pouts and puffs her cheeks out slightly. “I feel like the cape that Arcanine is buried on has either eroded or was taken down somehow, ‘cause that is not there back home.”

Ingo brings his hand from his cap and strokes his beard in thought. “That is a lot of stone to remove in a century and a half.”

“It’s a big change, yeah…” Akari says with a sigh. “Not only that, but Eterna, Oreburgh, and Floaroma seem to be in different places if their names are in the right spots, and Jubilife is Canalave in our time. I could’ve missed that sort of thing in school, but it feels wrong”

“If it helps, there are historical references to my position in this era,” Ingo says quickly, hoping to stop Akari from a potential spiral. “It was a joke my brother and I would share, so if we are indeed from the same 2022, then this is indeed the past of your region.” They walked silently for a few moments before he continued down similar tracks.

“Have you made any progress on returning us to our original homes?” Ingo had stayed behind by a pace or two while they walked, so he was able to see Akari stop in her spot, and so he stopped as well to let her think.

After a moment, Akari pulls out her Pokedex and turns to show him the filled out page for Munchlax. “I caught my last Pokemon yesterday morning. My Pokedex is complete, outside of one page that I think is… The Pokemon that sent me here.” She’d mentioned this Pokemon before, a deity from her region supposedly. She puts the Pokedex away and steps over, pulling out the phone that she had with her. “The page appeared after I got this text.”

Come to the Temple of Sinnoh for your final test.

“According to Arceus,” Akari says with a grimace at acknowledging who she thinks brought her here, “I should be going to the Highlands to see Him.” She sighs and puts the phone to her mouth, biting the small protrusion on the top before leaning against Ingo. “I was afraid to go, and leave you two behind. And not get to tell people good-bye.”

Ah, Ingo could see the problem. She was worried about the same thing he was, having put roots into Hisui, only to rip them up. “I miss home, Uncle Ingo,” she says softly, staying leaned up against his arm. “I miss my mom, I miss Auntie Cynthia, I miss Lucas and Barry. But I’m also scared to leave here, ‘cause I’ll miss everyone, like Rei, Irida, Adaman, Laventon…”

Ingo lets her linger for a second as he thinks. Akari had begun to feel truly at home, which makes sense. She’s still a child, in the bigger picture, and despite the trials she went through here with Volo causing the rifts and Kamado’s less than stellar reactions to disaster, she’d found a place to be comfortable. She had adults to rely on, a friend her age to spend time with, Pokemon to bond to. He could see her dilemma quite clearly.

Sighing, Ingo reaches up and takes his hat off, then plops it down onto Akari’s head. As she looks at him with a soft giggle, he points a finger upwards while keeping her left arm behind his back. “Follow the rules. Safe driving!” He steps back and points at her. “Follow the schedule. Now, everybody smile!” He pauses briefly to let her smile, before asking softly, “Have you checked safety?” 

Giggling through a smile now, Akari nods and mimics his current stance, putting her left hand up and her right behind her back. She’s been through this before. Even before Ingo remembered his past, he’d remembered this phrase, and often used it to help cheer her up during rough days. “Everything’s ready!” They both click their feet together and spin to face their path, pointing outwards before shouting “ALL ABOARD!”

Akari struggles to not fall into a giggle fit, and Ingo smiles at her, a genuine soft smile, before snatching his hat back. Akari immediately tries to grab it back while he holds it high above her head. “You can have a hat when you are a depot agent, young lady.”

“Fine then,” Akari says with a huff, crossing her arms and facing away. “I’ll be a depot agent, and fight so well that I’ll replace you in the Single Lines!” The both share a laugh, Ingo’s echoing off of the cliffs around them and nearly covering Akari’s entirely. After they calm down, Akari bumps her shoulder against Ingo and points at the cliff ahead. “We’re here!”

The pair approach the cliff and look over the landscape below. It’s nearly a sheer drop from their position, with the need of either Pokemon assistance in this time period, or machine-made paths in their time. Looking down, Ingo could see several swarms of Mothim in the area, including two Alphas actively engaged in a territory dispute. He lets the silence hang for a moment before gripping his hat. “This line is a bust, Miss Akari.”

His teenage passenger stays silent a moment longer before pointing over at the raised rock formation in the center of the area. “Well, there’s the lake. I recognize this area,” she says, her shoulders slumping. “It’s where I caught Giratina. There’s a cave on the water inside of the crater.” She kicks a rock by her foot, launching it over the edge of the cliff in front of them and tumbling down. “I came by the water last time, so I forgot it was this area…”

As the girl starts to wallow, Ingo pats her shoulder. “It’s fine, Miss Akari. Even if this line did not lead to a station, it is still information to use for future expeditions.” He watches her look out at the area below them and then pick herself back up. “Now, let us reverse course and return to our previous station. We shouldn’t keep Elesa waiting.”

“Yeah, don’t wanna keep Auntie held up much longer,” Akari says with a half-hearted grin, turning around on her heel and starting back towards the far cliff they had climbed. The way she swung her arms mirrors how Emmet had always walked when he got excited, swinging like the stiff arms of a toy soldier or nutcracker. “Besides, it’s not all bad, we got some exercise!”

“We get exercise daily, Miss Akari,” Ingo says, laughing as he falls in line with Lady Sneasler. “We could’ve used this time to prepare the route to the base camp and discuss plans with Iscan.” He didn’t want to rain on her parade entirely, but she had delayed their course pretty heavily.

“Oh, it’ll be fine.” Akari waves her hand in dismissal. “I know for a fact that the camp becomes a city in Sinnoh. It’s Sunyshore, the last city before the Elite Four.” She spreads her arms wide like she’s showing Ingo a floating image of the town. “A few buildings built on the shore, with raised platforms of solar panels that you can walk on to access the Lighthouse or Volkner’s Electric-type Gym.” She turns around and walks backwards so she can shoot finger guns at Ingo. “Pretty sweet, yeah?”

“So it was the correct choice, and this was a whim.” Again, Ingo didn’t want to actively rain on her parade, but this was absurd. They had spent almost two hours on this diversion, and it was completely unneeded. All it had done was send Akari’s mental state into disarray thinking she had been derailed so heavily that her future didn’t exist here for a brief moment.

“Well, kinda, yeah,” Akari says, visibly deflating and turning back around. “I was thinking we could find a place for Veilstone, but yeah, this was… This was kinda useless. Sorry.” Lady Sneasler shoots Ingo a tired look, basically reading as You don’t know how to talk to kids, and trots to catch up to the teenager, licking at her hair. “Hey! Sneasler! My hair is fine, I don’t need to be groomed!”

Ingo breathes in deeply and sighs before stopping next to the two parked girls. “I was not trying to imply that you made a worthless decision, Miss Akari.” Normally, he was the one to put out the bad news to an employee at work, as Emmet was far too blunt for his own good or Cameron’s self-esteem, but with the girl who genuinely saw him as an uncle figure, he was struggling. “Simply that this would’ve been better done by checking here after we had set up the other line. We’ve lost daylight, yes, but not the way.” He pauses for a moment, trying to think of how to wrap this up, though Akari cuts him off instead.

“You’re good, Uncle Ingo,” she says, reaching out to gently shove him. “It just sucks being wrong, y’know? Especially when it normally works ou-” Akari pauses suddenly, her brows furrowing and her head snapping towards the cliffs that they were approaching. “Do you hear battling, Uncle?”

That sets off alarms in Ingo’s head, and he tilts his head to listen closer. He hears the Growlithe in the distance running through the trees, the occasional Staravia or Chatot flying by, but beneath it, yes, he can hear a battle. There was a pattern to it, and then what sounded like a burst from a generator. Elesa was battling something.

“She needs our help,” Ingo says, immediately making for the cliff and looking down to see his partner fighting off the Alpha Drapion from earlier. It had seemed interested, and apparently enough so to leave its nesting area to investigate what they were doing. Looking back, he calls to Akari, “She’s fighting an Alpha, we should move to assist! All aboard!”

He turns back as Akari starts scrambling into Lady Sneasler’s basket, and kneels down to look for a foothold on the cliff face. Seeing one, he plants his hand and pivots, briefly hanging off a loose grip before his foot lands on the hold, and then he braces himself. A hurried Lady Sneasler comes over the cliff’s edge now, turning in midair to sink her claws into the stone, and quickly makes her way down the cliff.

Ingo moves fast to keep pace, moving from handhold to handhold, foothold to foothold in practiced motions. Release my hands here, plant my feet here, grip my hand here. Release here, plant here, grip here. Release, plant, grip.

Cool your engines, Ingo! Remember your safety checks! Is everything ready?

Before he can react, the small ledge where Ingo had planted his foot crumbles under his full weight, not only leaving him with no support from below, but also causing gravity to tear his fingers from the stone they were clutching. 

It’s a short fall to the next ledge, his extended right leg meeting it full force, and he can feel the bone snap, the pain nearly causing him to black out. He falls backwards, twisting to try and catch himself, his head barely missing the edge as he free falls for a moment. He swears he hears Akari and Sneasler, but he can’t focus to hear as the ground is now rapidly approaching him. Tuck and roll enters his mind, but he can’t get his body to respond, still twisting itself to try and right itself.

His shoulder connects with the ground, the bone snapping audibly before his head hits next. His flip completes as he slides across the ground on his back, and finally blacks out.

—

In Sinnoh, 16 weeks after Elesa had disappeared into a space-time distortion, Emmet falls to the forest floor and lets out a loud scream as he clasps his left arm.