#but i am also thinking abt ingo and emmet i think this is also them

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i love when you have a pair or group of characters in any situation and people look at them and go "ah this one is clearly The Normal One. unlike these other people" and then they proceed to prove them immediately and passionately wrong

[randomwriteronline]

(Catching Up)

If the XTransceiver had not buzzed on his wrist, Ingo might have sat there for the rest of the day, gently running his hand on the side of Excadrill’s neck.

He was glad he’d seen the kid again.

He was, really.

It was good to know they were doing fine despite it all, and they’d seemed equally happy to see him acclimate to his own life once again - though he was awfully sorry about forgetting the difference in time zones and keeping them awake so long into the night (no matter how much they reassured him he wasn’t ruining their sleep schedule with one single call).

It had just…

He kept thinking of their tone in that single moment.

Just turning the sound of it in his mind, round and round, over and over.

(It had struck him too late, after the call was already over and he’d been mulling for a minute or two, that he hadn’t apologized.)

(For what?)

(The sky.)

(The sky had cracked open upon them with its sickly vermillion color interlaced with green, and he had been outside the dojo, and he had watched them be banished from Jubilife Village without saying or doing anything. He had just stood there, like the dumbfounded cretin he had actually been.)

(What could he have done, anyways? It wasn’t as though they’d known each other too well - he’d been glad to aid them along their way up the Highlands, and they’d been kind enough to take on his requests and try to help him with his memories and entertain themselves with his challenges, and that had been it. Why would they have expected him to do anything? Why would he have thought of doing anything? What good would it have been either way if he had, indeed, tried to make a case for their innocence? Jubilife Village was not the Pearl Clan: what little power his status as warden might have given him was easily rendered null and void outside of the walls of the huts built to stave off the Icelands’ powerful winds; and besides, he was an outsider like them. He had barely had the right to argue for his own departure. He could have easily been detained or ostracized just like them.)

(Still.)

(He was a conductor.)

(Passenger safety was his responsibility.)

(He should have done something, anything, for them.)

(But he hadn’t.)

The distraction on his wrist dragged him back to the real world in the matter of a moment, his eyes blinking quickly and his hand halting in the middle of a caress to Excadrill’s back.

In the time it took him to angle himself so he could look at the display while still allowing the enormous Ground mole to stay comfortably seated on his lap, the buzzing repeated again: the screen showed him an unknown contact had sent him two messages. He fumbled a moment with the small device until he managed to open them up, squinting at the small letters.

Very gently, Klinklang lifted his wrist closer to his face so he could read better.

9:07. Hiiiiiiiii this is Briosa Crociera Substitute Subway Boss/Master

9:07. Its my free day and Elesa apparently is busy so Emmet gave me your number n asked if i could check in on you

A rectangular smile came to his mind. With Haxorus’ help he immediately saved the number, just in case.

9:08. Good morning Briosa! I am doing quite fine, thank you. How are you? I hope Elesa has not run into any trouble.

9:09. Im fine thank you! and dont worry abt her shes just working

9:09. Can i ask you a couple questions real quick

9:09. Of course! I shall answer to the best of my abilities.

9:10. First of all you got plans today

9:10. No, I can’t say I do.

9:10. Second of all how are you with water

That was a weird continuation.

9:10. I do drink it, yes. It’s important to remain well hydrated.

9:11. Wish that were me

9:11. My brain is convinced im a maractus and my thirst reflex is non existent

9:11. But i meant more generally like being in water or swimming

9:12. That does not seem quite healthy. Perhaps you should visit a doctor about it. I’m also afraid I’m not familiar with what a Maractus might look like, so I fear your comparison is a little lost on me.

As he was typing his response to her other text, an image appeared suddenly on the screen: it depicted a sprawling desert landscape, dunes falling upon each other in cascades of fool’s gold, with a vibrant green beastie in the middle of it all.

The footless Pokémon stood out like a sore thumb in the dull yellow of the sand. Its body seemed full much like a balloon sagging with water, but the brilliant golden eyes and the mischievous smile were filled with a restless excited energy, as though it were about to break the stillness of the picture to bounce around happily, causing both its spikes and the lovely flowers sticking from atop what might have been its large antennae to sway to the beat.

Was this Maractus, then? Briosa’s next messages confirmed as much.

9:13. This guy

9:13. Lives in the desert n does not need water for ages bc it stores it all in the lil pigtail things over there

9:14. What a delightful Pokémon! It seems very friendly. Thank you for offering clarifications - I understand now. Regarding your question, I am indeed capable of swimming and floating, but I’m still a little lost on what “being in the water” would mean.

9:14. Fair, hold on

9:14. Please, take all the time you need.

9:16. Do you suffer from a debilitating fear of any of the following: - water - the sea - the ocean - boats - being on a boats - fish - seafood - jellyfish - water pokemon - drowning - storms at sea - other things related to water/sea/fish/algae/boats/etc

Oh! A very thorough list! Then again, if the subject was severe phobias, it was good to be precise and include as many options as possible.

Ingo read it carefully.

9:17. Thank you for asking me. Here are my answers in order: - No - No - No - No - No - No - No - No - No, though I do not have any - I am reasonably afraid of drowning - I am similarly reasonably afraid of storms at sea - I cannot think of anything else relating to the subject at hand

9:18. Baller

(He snorted despite himself. Who the hell says ‘baller’?)

(It sounded old even to him.)

(And if anybody was supposed to know old, that was definitely him.)

9:18. You wanna go feed some frillish?

9:18. Water ghost

He thanked her quick wits for specifying before he had to ask.

So she was talking about Pokémon once again. Maybe it was a friendly species, or in this case a colony designated to a precise area. The name did intrigue him, bringing images of something graceful and wispy to his mind… It sounded like an interesting change of pace from his past sedentary days. And he would have gotten to see more of the region – so, why not?

9:19. I would indeed like to see more Unovan Pokémon!

9:19. Nice! wait uhhhhh ten minutes

Since she did not add anything onto that, he supposed he would have just waited.

Seven minutes later, he jolted six feet into the air while searching for a snack as someone tried blowing a hole through his door with their fists.

“HI!” came a sugar sweet voice at terrible volumes from beyond it: “IT’S BRIOSA!”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised at seeing, once he’d opened the door, that it indeed was her: wearing a different hat, much boxier in shape, and different clothes, with no sleeves nor a coat to speak of and pants much too baggy for her little frame and heart-laced shoes with enormous soles that made her seem slightly taller, and Mawile on her arm instead of on the ground or biting down on her limbs, but with the same rotten green eyes and short stature and saccharine tone.

She smiled her square grin at him: “Hey.”

“Hello!” he greeted back, nodding in acknowledgement at both her and her Fairy, who nodded back politely. He stood there in front of them for a moment, like some kind of decorative alabaster column; then, a little awkwardly, he saw it fit to inquire: “May I ask how you found this address, seeing as I did not mention it at all?”

“I’ve cooked here,” she answered curtly.

He was about to apologize for the silly question – obviously a friend of Emmet’s would be aware of where his residence was – but her instant reply blocked him for a moment or so to better process what that meant.

Not that Briosa would allow him, because she immediately continued without giving him any chance of voicing his thoughts: “Wanna go?”

He stalled, turning back towards the corridor and then to her once more: “Should I take my own team along?” he asked. “I lack any Water Types, but if we are going into uncharted waters it would be perhaps safer to bring them either way.”

She shrugged: “That’s fair.”

He jumped again a few seconds later, as he was collecting his team – all of whom seemed very excited at the prospect of going out – when she shouted at him from the door, so loud that her voice squeaked: “REMEMBER THE FACEMASK!”

Ingo briefly wondered if that was how he sounded like to others.

He understood now why people tended to jolt or wince.

He also wondered, as they speeded through the streets, if Briosa was a relative of theirs that his brother had neglected to include in the family tree - seeing as she sporadically had both his egregious volume and Emmet’s bulldozing gait when walking, which was the main reason as to why they were currently making their way further and further west of Nimbasa with nary an opposition from other passersby, who perhaps took notice of her a little later due to her stature but were quick to throw themselves to the side and let her pass instead of getting their knees completely pulverized by such an unstoppable bullet of a person.

Now that he thought about it, her unmovable resolve could compete with Marshal’s, and Iris did have a similar brand of assertiveness and a tendency to drag people around like empty bags…

As lost in thought as he was, he very nearly found himself completely alone in the buzzing crowd, almost losing sight of his chaperone - though luckily he was able to locate and rush after her thanks to the long trail of empty space and terrified pedestrians left in the wake of her passage.

If she was indeed part of their family, she had not gotten their height.

“I didn’t know Nimbasa had an outlet onto the sea,” he noted loudly, half worrying his voice would get lost in the air currents created by her mad sprint.

Mawile, sitting on her aidee’s arm, translated him without problem: “Oh, it doesn’t,” Briosa replied without even turning, “It has one to the desert, we’re going to Driftveil.”

“To the desert?” he repeated.

“No, to Driftveil.”

“But you said something about a desert?”

“Yep.”

“There’s a desert?”

“Yep, the Desert Resort, or the Quiet Desert. I like Quiet Desert more than Resort, it makes it sound less like a tourist spot, which it isn’t really, because, you know! Desert! Just sand! Nothing else! And the castle, barely. But mostly sand!”

“And the what?”

“Castle, barely.”

“There’s a what?”

“Technically yes, practically no.”

Unsure how he was supposed to get clarification on that, he briefly changed the subject: “Why is it called quiet?”

“Because it’s quiet.”

“I imagined as much, but is there a more specific reason?”

“There used to be people and now there aren’t.”

“There used to be – sorry – people lived in the desert?”

“It probably wasn’t a desert back then but yes, I told you, there’s the castle and everything - barely, but technically there is one and I think you can get lost in there. Never been there! Just heard about it.”

Ingo looked around at the urban reality around him with completely different eyes compared to when Elesa had first dragged him through it – at the large fountains that sometimes dotted the streets, the shimmering of the amusement park’s gate preceding the clear moat around it, the plants, the small forest they were quickly approaching: all of this, right outside of a desert?

Such bountiful nature so close to a near complete lack of life?

Perhaps there was a fresh-water basin underground, and the city had been built on top of it; or perhaps it had been an oasis, and human intervention had then turned it into a properly lush continental landscape.

And to think of an inhabited desert… The thought of wandering people making a life through it didn’t sound as alien as he might have thought, but a castle within the dunes!

Who knows what kind of kingdom that could have been, now drowned in a dry sea…

Unova was such an interesting place.

“You can see it from the station, I think,” Briosa interrupted his musings.

He snapped back into focus: “What?”

“The desert, I think you can see it from the station,” she repeated: “There’s a balcony at the top, and if you stand there you can definitely see Castellia, so you should probably also– AH CAZZO L'HANNO TIRATO GIÙ ADESSO SANTI DRAGHI DI ‘STA MINCHIA,” she interrupted herself suddenly; her free hand clutched Ingo’s, and she all but dragged him through the asphalted path so quickly that he was fairly sure he was about to start majestically flailing in the wind: “Dai dai dai prima che non ci veda e lo tiri su di nuovo!”

A woman in a small booth replied to her greeting gesture with a reassuring thumbs up; in a moment, the two were standing on a marvel of metal and pulled rope, as red and white as truth itself, while above them circled flying winged shapes, dark against the morning sun.

Briosa let go of him and stomped to a stop a few steps away, leaning down onto her knees as she inhaled really noisily to regain her breath.

Ingo noticed only then, in-between heaving enormous quantities of air back into his burning lungs, that Mawile was still hanging onto her aidee’s arm, eyes enormous and claws sinking into it holding for dear life - by extension realizing there were also a discrete amount of small paler stripes of skin on the same limb, roughly as large as the cuts the hearing aid Pokémon had just opened.

The fact that this sort of phenomenon (bursting into a sprint out of nowhere) was, apparently, common enough for the Substitute to not even flinch as the Fairy simply dangled from her limb greatly befuddled him.

Then again, being in a semi-constant state of great puzzlement seemed like the standard reaction to Briosa in general.

“Porca di quella puttana troia d’una Emboar tua madre, c’è mancato un pelo,” she continued once she finally no longer exhaled like the rickety exhaust pipe of the world’s worst put together car.

It sounded like an incredibly blasphemous thing, so he held himself back from asking for a translation.

She stretched back to her entire three-Rawsts-and-an-Oran worth of height and waved at him with an easygoing attitude while her poor aide struggled to sit back up on her arm: “Questi se non ti vedono che sali rischi che ti tirano su il ponte sotto i piedi quando sei a metà. È successo a un amico di mio papà, s’è quasi polverizzato l’osso sacro scivolando giù fino a terra - che è una caduta mica da ridere, non te la raccomando. Noi siamo a posto comunque, non ti preoccupare, non c’è nave che tenga, finché non ci vedono arrivare dall’altra parte questo pezzo di merda non si muove d’un millimetro. Dai ora, che il ponte non è lungo ma se ci beccano gli Swanna non la finiamo più. Ecco, attento agli Swanna appunto. E ai Ducklett. Che son bastardi pure loro. Piccini e tutto, ma bastardi.”

Ingo did not respond to that.

His eyes covertly turned to Mawile, hoping they could convey what his lack of expressivity couldn’t, that being: was it a little late to ask for a translation?

Because while he would have very much liked to comprehend what all of that had been about, it had sounded like a whole lot of information, and he wasn’t even sure if Mawile had understood it either.

The Fairy sighed deeply, tiredly setting her paws up to relay his question.

She was interrupted by a loud graceful shriek approaching ever quicker, as if diving right for them: a large shadow was closing in on them from the sky, slowly unveiling a sharp beak and white plumage as it approached with the speed and murderous intent of a heat-seeking missile.

Oh, shit.

When bird pokémon got like that, one’s best hope was to duck in time and sprint as far into the opposite direction as possible. And Ingo was all out of sprinting for the day.

He couldn’t even manage to be mad when Mawile jumped off of her aidee out of what he rightfully assumed to be a burst of preservation instincts, only patting her shoulder to give her a speedy farewell before leaving her to her no doubt agonizing end - since the beast approaching was fairly large and by the looks of it could have easily swept her off her feet and carried her away much like a Hunchcrow nabbing a very unfortunate Buneary. That was a fair response from the little Steel type, he reasoned, since she was even smaller than her human ward.

He, on the other hand, who was significantly larger than all parties involved, should have done something about this.

Before he could move, the Flying Type had reached his prey.

Said prey proceeded to instantly grasp the Pokémon’s long white neck in an iron grip, slap the beaked face hard enough to make it squawk, and hurl it over the red edge of the bridge as it flapped its wings in frantic terror, with no additional fanfare outside from a squeaky: “E vaffanculo!”

Ah.

Well…

Yes, actually, he should have expected this.

Honestly he wasn’t sure why he’d even entertained the thought that the poor creature had any chance of survival.

Briosa turned to him again: “Vedi?” she asked, and gestured at the Flying beast clumsily fluttering as far away from her as possible in a hurry: “Gli Swanna son stronzi così. Per quello dobbiamo sbrigarci, altrimenti ne arrivano altri dieci e a quel punto siam fottuti. Dai, metti in moto quelle pertiche che hai al posto delle gambe e andiamo.”

Then she turned around, and Ingo nearly tripped on his feet to keep up with her.

The bridge was marvelously built, he could still notice in spite of how little time he got to spend on it. The open sea greeted him from one side, and the enormous river from the other: despite the brine and limestone the metal structure remained a splendid red, its powerful metal cables holding strong against the winds and constant stress of lowering and raising the heavy platform. The sudden familiarity he’d felt when looking at modern Canalave City on the Sinnohan map was thus explained - he’d seen those kinds of drawbridges before! Right here!

An inexplicable joy lifted his heart a little. Hurrying to the other side didn’t feel as winding anymore.

The massive structure groaned as though to bid them goodbye while it was pulled up to let a ship pass, carrying whatever precious cargo it had upstream, when they finally touched down in Driftveil City.

If he had to describe the place in one word, he might have said it was very… Brown.

That did not mean it was monotonous, or ugly: just that the color and its variations seemed to dominate the city’s palette. Past the small green park meant to welcome visitors from Nimbasa the brick-built houses went back and forth between all sorts of earthy hues, from burnt orange to tan to something even closer to a fiery red, and the thin clay dust sometimes swirling on the gray asphalt gave the streets an appearance similar to some exotic kind of sandstone, or perhaps some yet unknown kind of semi-precious gem. Buildings with yet lighter colored walls appeared by contrast to be struggling against the city’s weather, finding themselves a little dull, almost gaunt or sickly, covered in graying patches nowhere to be seen on older constructions.

Briosa walked confidently between the slightly less bustling avenues, letting Ingo observe from the wake of her bulldozing passage. They passed a large market, silver tiles a little dusty, and took a wider road south from which vans periodically emerged to get swallowed up by the city life.

“Do you like fish?” she asked for no apparent reason.

“I do!”

“Then I’ll call you on Thursday for a list! That’s when the fish market comes around!”

“A list of what?”

“Motorbike parts. What do you think they sell at a fish market?”

“Oh! Please, there is no need to bother yourself with my own groceries. I will be glad to return on the correct day and get some myself.”

She laughed her rubbery giggle and drastically reduced her walking speed, appearing beside him in the blink of an eye: “No way, they’re able to swindle your underwear from under your nose if you can’t keep up with their bullshit arguments,” she winked: “Let the king of the market handle it. I’ll get you some great quality Feebas at a price so low you’ll shit your pants twice.”

Ingo processed the words like a steel ingot to the head: “I hope it will not come to that, but thank you.”

They turned sharply as they approached a long cement bridge connecting some kind of small island to the rest of the peninsula, apparently inhabited only by stern gray warehouses with roofs of a beautiful blue surrounded by large ships, mysterious green parallelepipeds, and gargantuan rust-red cranes; his short guide led him instead to a port for smaller vessels of varying sizes and capacities, most white and with some kind of sail.

Briosa navigated through the grove of masts and ropes as naturally as she would have in a subway tunnel.

Her search came to an end as she jumped into a small motor powered boat - perhaps the smallest in the entire sea: it was large enough to hold maybe two people, with a layer of vaguely blueish paint that wasn’t waterproof chipping away to reveal dull metal. Between the two seats lay a plank of wood similar to a cutting board, while near the front sat a large airtight sealed bag brimming with something and a toolbox was secured to the back right under the engine.

Mawile settled in the rickety thing with fond familiarity, finding a comfortable spot right at the front. As she stretched, Ingo couldn’t help imagining her as a miniature ship’s figurehead, impassively braving high tides and stormy weather.

With a brilliant square smile, Briosa opened her arms.

“Boat!” she announced proudly.

The man before her nodded and clapped by reflex before remembering she was deaf.

She bowed deeply nonetheless with a noticeable sense of theatricality.

“Now get in - CAREFULLY, with your freakishly long legs,” she ordered at last, pointing him to the seat in front of her. “We’ve got Frillish to feed.”

Ingo complied, taking all necessary precautions - Palina had shown him how to avoid accidentally capsizing vessels even smaller than this one, and he repeated her instructions under her breath as he added his weight to the boat.

Mawile lent him a paw to help him stabilize himself: he took it gratefully despite the very obvious fact that the difference between the various values of their bodies would have been enough to send the Steel Fairy flying directly into the horizon if he so much as briefly slipped, repaying the favor by helping her down from where she stood and offering his lap as a much more cushioned seat for her with a very polite ‘allow me, madam’, in the spit image of an old-fashioned gentleman. The tiny pokémon snickered a bit at his courtesy, but made herself comfortable on his leg nonetheless with a kind little signed thanks.

The motor suddenly stuttering to live scared the wits out of him briefly: he turned just in time to see Briosa smack her hand on the engine appreciatively with some kind of strange coo (“e anche oggi, ti si butta domani”) and face him with a wide toothy grin that cast a dangerous shadow all over her face.

The little boat then lurched ahead with impressive vigor; Ingo felt his back fold quicker than lightning as the dingy little thing speeded forward out of the harbor, almost squashing Mawile under him and slamming his nose directly into his own knees. He managed to catch himself just in time for neither of those things to happen and looked up with the wide eyes of a Pichu caught stealing a berry.

Briosa only grinned wider, rotten olive eyes squinted hard, square mouth opening just a moment to let out her squeaky saccharine laugh.

He would learn later that evening that she had that terrifying expression not because she was planning to spook him (or worse, grievously injure him) in the coming days, but because that was just how she looked when her teeth showed.

In the current moment, he thoughtfully considered whether he should fear for his life.

Water sprayed his back as they took off.

Ingo took his face mask off and turned to soak in the salmaster scent, eyes closed.

The engine coughed and croaked against the waves’ smoother hisses as they zipped around the hull; the wind seemed to cut into his nose, scraping his cheeks, howling in his ears until he had to pull down his hat to cover them.

Oh, this was so much better than flying. A million times better. The unstable gait of the boat still made him feel as though he was sitting on something solid, the buildings slowly growing smaller didn’t turn miniscule as soon as he blinked, and the vast expanse of the sea beneath him was far less terrifying than however many kilometers of completely empty air could have been between him and the ground.

He leaned against the side, almost laying down completely overwhelmed by some kind of inexplicable bliss.

“Having fun?” Briosa asked from behind his eyelids.

Sunlight pressed onto them, turning their darkness pink.

He nodded solemnly and gave her a thumbs up.

He could hear Mawile laugh goodnaturedly about it in his lap.

The rumbling engine sputtered to a halt after what felt like hours, but had very likely just been minutes; Ingo opened his eyes to be greeted by a sky with very few clouds, blue waves in every direction, and a good dozen beady red eyes creeping closer from beneath the water’s surface.

Not the most relaxing detail to notice.

A vaguely onion shaped mass began breaking through, rising towards him with a haunting empty look like that of a wandering Duskull fixed upon a pale azure skin. He stared back at it while it gripped the side of the boat with a wet flap similar to some kind of fabric to heft itself out of the water better and lean towards him, closer and closer, reaching out for him…

Mawile’s enormous jaws snapped around it, and the creature yelped comically loud.

Ingo felt himself yanked back to reality: “Oh!” he exclaimed while Briosa almost deafened him with a fit of maddened laughter, “Thank you!”

The little Fairy nodded back at him with a pleasant smile as she let go of her blubbering victim and smacked her aidee’s offered hand in a high five - or high three, considering the number of fingers on her paw.

“Are these the Frillish?” he asked.

The other human nodded after receiving his translation while she slammed one of her ridiculously tall-soled shoes onto the head of another one of the strange beasts (a rather pink one, who also gave a strangled wail when the hit drove its spectral jaw onto the metal and back into the water) to drive it off: “Their food’s right behind you,” she said as she pointed behind Ingo.

The man turned quickly, noticing the airtight bag secured at the front and bringing it to the middle of the boat: “Ah, pardon me - of course they were trying to climb in, I was blocking off their source of sustenance.”

“Oh no, they were trying to climb in to eat you,” Briosa corrected him. She opened the bag wide and pulled out some kind of shovel to mix around the kibble. “They would’ve dragged you into the water, drowned you and made you their lunch. It’s happened! They found the victims’ bones and everything!”

“... I see. Why do you feed them, then?”

A rain of kibble landed into the water and was promptly devoured by the hungry Ghosts: “Fun, I guess.”

She handed him the shovel.

With no other clear option, he shrugged mentally and launched another handful of edible little cubes into the sea.

They spent an almost infinite amount of minutes just taking turns at the bag, tossing food at the swarm and watching the blues and pinks mingle just underneath the surface as they hurried to get a bite before they were all gobbled up.

It was strangely satisfying.

Relaxing, even.

Kind of like watching Gravelers roll up and down a ravine.

He could see why Briosa enjoyed this.

They were rather curious Pokémon, he mused. He could feel a certain strange charm oozing out of them, the same that wafted from Chandelure, a certain eerie quality to their movements and their calls that he could compare to the Ghosts haunting Mount Coronet; yet something was especially heavy about them, as if they were bound by a sort of gravity that dragged them downwards instead of letting them waver lightly in the breeze.

Could it be the weight of the water they made their home within? The dampness of the infinite depths which hid away shipwrecks and sunken treasures, challenging any foolish divers that dared search for pearls within the rotting and rusting relics…

Perhaps this was what had brought the Substitute Subway Boss to care for them.

“Do you do this often?” he asked.

“On my days off.”

“This swarm must know you well, then.”

“Probably.”

“Do you like this type of Pokémon?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Have you ever considered catching any of them?”

“No.”

“I see.”

Like his brother, she could be well-versed in the art of conciseness.

As someone who’d never really been able to wield it successfully, he couldn’t help but feel in equal measure frustrated and envious by this pattern of conversation.

The Frillish heads bobbed upon the waves like buoys when the feeding suddenly stopped, watching them expectantly.

“I think they want more,” Ingo noted helpfully.

“They know food time is done,” Briosa replied while laying sideways across the boat. She was short enough that she fit perfectly within it, leaving only her feet poking out as though she were on a hammock.

The man looked back at the Pokémon staring at them with their terrifying beady eyes: “I do not believe they’re as aware of that fact as you might think.”

“Give Mawile a moment.”

The Steel Fairy smirked at the confused look he shot her.

Her maw, which had now long been dipped in the water, quivered lightly. Out of nowhere it began thrashing violently, slamming into the side of the vessel as if trying to rip itself from her head; both humans hurried to grab her tiny body before she was dragged overboard while she very calmly persevered in her mysterious unseen struggle much to the slowly increasing terror of the Frillish witnessing the scene.

Finally, the black mass escaped the ocean with a pinkish bounty roughly twice its size caught between its metal teeth. It slammed onto the board with a horrendous wet noise: the Ghosts paled at the spectacle and scattered as quickly as they could, sinking back into the abyss from whence they’d come.

Briosa whooped, grabbed her hearing aide’s catch, and gnawed a chunk of fin off with her teeth so quickly she almost choked right on it.

Ingo stared.

She stared back. A sudden embarrassment overtook her after a couple of minutes: she coughed, risked strangling herself again, swallowed her bite, and offered it to him.

“No, thank you,” he courteously replied.

“They’re safe to eat raw,” she insisted. “Honestly fresh and raw is the only way you can eat Alomomola fins, because if you freeze ‘em they get all mushy and gross when thawed and if you cook ‘em they get hard as wood and you may as well just use them as paddles. Ah, no, wait, maybe not this side, I chewed all over it - hold on a sec.”

As Mawile took her own bite off of the poor thing now turned into a near-midday snack’s appendages, Briosa rummaged with the toolbox beneath the engine. She pulled out a few knives before settling on one of them: laying the dead Pokémon on the cutting board Ingo had noted the presence of between the seats earlier with no shortage of curiosity, she expertly chopped off both vaguely hand-shaped fins and cut them into fairly long uniform strips that looked like chunky, yet to be dried beef jerky, a couple of which she raised to Ingo in a second, slightly more refined offering.

He accepted only one with a slight sigh, not eating it - not that he was scandalized by the method it had been obtained with (he’d had to hunt, too) or her table manners (he’d seen plenty worse): the smell of fresh fish simply was not a favorite of his.

Briosa was now busying herself with the rest of the corpse, cutting it up with clear and well honed motions.

It reminded him of Palina, of the few times he’d seen her work on a catch.

“You’re rather skilled with a knife,” Ingo noted. “I would not have expected this kind of proficiency nowadays.”

She slipped a fin strip in her mouth, chewing it a bit like a pipe: “Yeah, this isn’t really something you need when you don’t have to survive in the wilderness,” she nodded. “What with supermarkets and everything else.”

“May I ask how you learned?”

“First job was on a fishing boat for a brand of frozen fish sticks. They stuck me below deck to clean catches and prepare everything for the cooking since I was deaf and couldn’t really be of much help upstairs if somebody fell overboard. I did almost stab a guy when he tried to spook me, but also I’m the only one who didn’t end up in jail for Pokémon abuse and illegal fishing techniques, so.”

“Pardon, what?”

“Oh, you know,” Briosa shrugged.

“I do not think I do.”

“No, wait, you can’t know. Amnesia. Ok, so!” and she shoved another strip in her mouth, chewing as she picked up the momentum of her story like a train rolling down the side of a mountain: “By Driftveil, there’s Chargestone Cave, right? Chock full of Joltiks, I know you know those because Emmet has a thousand of ‘em. So what they used to do to minimize costs and maximize catches was, they’d set a few traps up in the cave, catch as many buggers as they could, and then dump them all in the sea so the poor things would panic as they drowned and shocked the fuck out of everything, and then they’d pick up all the dead fish in nets and pull ‘em over below deck for us shitheads to debone and cook and pack and all.”

Ingo absentmindedly bit into the fin, eyes wide as he listened: "That is tremendously inhumane." he noted.

"Hm, absolutely. And super illegal. Which is why when the researchers worried about the sudden decrease in the Joltik population and the several hundreds of little yellow corpses washing ashore discovered the traps and who was setting them up, they shut the whole thing down and almost everybody went to jail."

"Except for you."

"Except for me! Because I was deaf and working below deck and nobody told me anything ever. So they couldn't find anything on me and I just went home to look for another job."

"Is this when you moved onto railroads?"

"Oh no, I was in highschool back then, I paid uni with that job. They made so much cash from the illegal lures and I worked so fast that they kept giving me bonuses. I could even afford uni books. You know how much uni books cost? I could buy out the whole fish market for the same price as like, twelve of them probably."

Ah. “It seems to have worked out for you.”

Briosa threw yet another fin strip in her mouth (he had eaten a few by now as well, and so had Mawile) and nodded sagely.

She had fully cleaned and deboned the Alomomola while talking, now busying herself with cutting it into large enough fillets and wrapping it in papers so the blood and other fluids wouldn’t stain wherever she would settle her haul in. Ingo observed her carefully.

“This isn’t for me, by the way,” she told him while stuffing the fillets into a cold bag. “There’s a Galarian guy who makes fish and chips by the docks.”

“You sell your catches to him?”

“No, I just give ‘em what Mawile gets and he gives me a free meal for her or me or whoever. Equivalent exchange and all. Unless you want this? You can have it. Alomomola are great in a pan with a bit of salt and finely chopped chives on top. Plus they’re fat as hell so you don’t need butter or oil. And their sauce is good for your veins, too.”

“No, thank you,” he replied. “We have enough fish at home.”

She shrugged: “Suit yourself.”

Ingo watched her stretch, thin arms up in the air as she leaned back and to the left. Her strange shirt seemed to cling on her frame for dear life in the way it might have on a too small clothing hanger, ribs threatening to cut through her skin if she bent a little too much; similarly, he noted now, her legs seemed to take very little space inside her pants compared to the mass the fabric would have suggested.

His first thought was: no way she’s not going to survive the winter like that.

His second thought was that heating existed, and she did not rely on hunting, gathering and sparse agricultural practices to get sustenance, so she would have probably handled the coming cold just fine.

His third thought was that she should have still made some substantial (and abundant) changes to her diet.

A powerful ringing tore him out of his own head. He looked to his wrist to find the XTransceiver all abuzz with light and sound, insistently displaying INCOMING CALL FROM: EMMET in bright glowing letters; he tapped it hurriedly.

“I am Emmet,” his twin greeted him.

“Hello! I can see that!” Ingo very loudly waved back at him. “How are you?”

“I am fine! Tired. Usual day stress, though. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I am glad to hear it. Remember to take breaks!”

“I will. Lunch is soon anyway. Got two sandwiches today.”

“Bravo!”

“How are you?”

“I am doing quite fine! Briosa kindly offered to keep me company today, so we have taken a small trip to Driftveil.”

“Nice! Fun place. Lots  of fish.”

“Indeed. I’ve even had the chance to feed some Frillish with her.”

The near instant way his brother’s smile dropped to make way for a wide-eyed pale-cheeked look of pure terror made Ingo consider the possibility that, perhaps, simply mentioning he had been surrounded by man-eating ghost jellyfish without much further elaboration could have sounded a little bit concerning.

“It was done after taking good safety precautions,” he kind of half lied.

Emmet did not effectively hear him, as he instead asked in a very urgent tone: “Are you on the boat?”

“The what?”

“The boat. Briosa’s boat. Are you on the boat?”

Briosa returned her attention to her guest roughly right at that moment, eyes falling on the device at his wrist: “Who’s calling you?” she asked, pointing at the Xtransceiver with her chin.

“I - it’s Emmet,” he replied while struggling to keep his attention divided between the two of them.

“Hm,” she hummed: “Don’t tell him we’re on my boat.”

“You’re on the boat?” Emmet wheezed in a very, very shrill voice.

“I - Emmet, hold on–”

“You’re on the BOAT??”

“I’m- please calm down-”

“ON THE BOAT??”

“Alright, you seem very distressed about the boat.”

“I told you not to tell him about the boat!” Briosa reprimanded him as she read his lips.

Ingo briefly covered the device to at least muffle his twin’s newest shriek: “He can hear you,” he explained as sanity threatened to leave him completely; “He heard you saying I should not have mentioned we were on your boat.”

“YOU’RE ON THE FUCKING BOAT??”

Briosa clicked her tongue loudly after Mawile was done translating.

“Shit,” she just noted.

“GET OFF THE BOAT,” Emmet demanded from under his brother’s hand.

“Emmet, we are currently at sea,” Ingo informed him. “If I were to leave the boat now, I would likely have to swim the way back, which I very plainly refuse to do.”

“I AM EMMET. I DO NOT CARE. GET OFF THE BOAT.”

“You are being a little unreasonable.”

“YOU WILL DROWN.”

“Is he saying we will drown,” the Substitute butted in.

“YOU WILL,” Emmet insisted.

Ingo nodded.

“We’re not gonna drown,” Briosa reassured him.

“YOU WILL.”

“We’re not gonna drown.”

“INGO. TURN ME AROUND. I NEED TO YELL AT HER.”

His twin pursed his lips at him: “I do not think she will hear you.”

“INGO.”

Ingo dutifully unlatched the XTransceiver and handed it over to Briosa for her to more easily see.

He imagined his brother signing furiously as he heard him hiss through gritted teeth: “Briosa. Take him back to land. Right now. Immediately.”

“Emmet, we’re not going to drown.”

“You cannot know that. You will drown. Take him back. Right now.”

“He’s literally fine. I asked him if this sort of place freaked him out beforehand and he said he’s ok.”

“You can’t know that!”

“I can and I do know that because he’s directly in front of me and he’s been nothing but relaxed the whole time he’s been here. We haven’t had any accidents or anything of the sort. Everything is literally just fine. We’re chilling, even.”

“You cannot be chilling on a boat. Boats are death traps. Get him back on land. Now.”

“Emmet, porca puttana,” Briosa said gently, “Adesso ti corco di botte.”

“Do not speak tongues at me.”

“It takes thirty minutes to get back to shore,” she continued in a much sterner tone: “Then it takes ten more to walk back to Nimbasa. Your brother will be safe and sound at the station in forty minutes at best and forty-five at worst. So you will calm your anemic Sudowoodo ass down this instant or when I get back to work tomorrow the first thing I do will be waterboarding you in the bathroom sink.”

Please do not do that, Ingo thought but sagely did not say out loud.

A beat of tense silence passed between them; then he heard his twin sigh loudly.

“Verrry sorry,” he mumbled. “I am Emmet. I am tired. I panicked.”

“Fair. Go eat and you’ll feel better.”

“Soon. Please get off the boat.”

“We will! Tell your brother bye and then we’ll be on our way.”

She handed the XTransceiver back to Ingo, leaning down again as soon as it was not in her hands anymore.

He looked down at his brother with no shortage of concern: “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked softly.

Emmet nodded, though he looked a little exhausted - as though all that shouting had drained a lot of his energy: “I am Emmet. I am fine. Really. I just don’t like the boat. But don’t worry!” he reassured him quickly, “Briosa knows her way with them. You are safe. I’d like it if you came back, though. I’d feel much safer.”

“We will set sail for Driftveil right this moment, don’t worry,” Ingo replied. “I will be back to the station according to schedule! Please take care until then!”

“I will! Have a good trip back. Love you.”

“Love you too!”

The video feed cut off naturally, and the screen returned a vague reflection of Ingo’s characteristic frown. He turned to Briosa.

She continued to lay down, eyes closed, enjoying the warm sun.

He coughed gently in Mawile’s direction; the Fairy, also relaxing against the hull, turned to him with an inquisitive chirp.

“Are we not supposed to depart immediately?” he asked.

She stood back up and scampered to the side of her aidee’s chest, smacking her paw against her cheek. Once she had her attention, she quickly relayed the question.

“No.” Briosa replied without moving an inch.

“But you said it takes thirty minutes to return to shore,” Ingo argued. “We must leave this station quickly, or we will accumulate quite a delay.”

“The port is fifteen minutes away,” she replied.

Ingo blinked: “But you said thirty.”

“I lied.”

“Why so?”

“Gives us ten more minutes to stay here.”

“Don’t you mean fifteen?”

“Five minute headstarts never hurt anybody.”

“You have an interesting way of handling time.”

“Thanks.”

And so, they waited.

-

The man who waited for them on the pier seemed to be at least middle aged, although his brown hair without a single streak of silver could have suggested otherwise; he had glanced at the coming boat as he walked past the port, slowed down, done a double take, tilted his large white hat upwards in a surprised motion, and sauntered over to the incoming vessel with a smile that pulled at the laugh lines around his mouth – the sight of which reminded Ingo to pull up his facemask.

Briosa instantly bristled like an irritated Luxio.

“Well, howdy there,” the stranger greeted them once within talking distance.

“FUCK OFF YOU OLD CUNT,” she replied, “THAT’S MY SPOT.”

He raised his hands in a show of innocence, clearly taken aback by the volume: “Now there, ma’am–”

“SIR.” she stated firmly. Her small olive eyes were wide and still, laser focused on the man’s face with an intensity that would have crushed his bones and the kind of wrathful expression of an extraordinarily small Glalie.

He bowed his head slightly: “My mistake.”

(Ingo found this small exchange completely incomprehensible.)

“I didn’t mean to get y’all up in a fuss,” the other continued – he spoke with a very strange accent, as though he had picked up a second one and mixed it with a first one for so long that he couldn’t separate them anymore – and smiled gently at a very surprised Ingo: “I reckoned I saw a familiar face and thought of sayin’ hello is all.”

Was this a journalist? He didn’t look like one, but it would explain why the Substitute had gotten so riled up. As far as the public was concerned, the missing Subway Master was still possibly in Sinnoh; if it turned out he’d suddenly appeared in Unova, it would certainly stir up one hell of a media storm, and the tentative peaceful existence he’d been living up until now would have no doubt been annihilated.

 Unsure what to do, the amnesiac turned his eyes to Briosa.

She was squinting hard.

“I did not get a single bit of that,” she concluded. “I can’t read shit if you speak like you’re trying to hide that you’re still chewing lunch.”

Not being a hearing impaired person, it took the man a hot moment to understand what she meant.

That gave her ample time to reiterate, even louder: “FUCK OFF.”

“NOW there,” the stranger finally continued (opening his mouth a lot more to accommodate her, which certainly had An Effect on his accent) as he grabbed a hold of his headwear and tilted it downwards, perhaps in an attempt at covering his ears, “I don’t mean to cause trouble. I am a friend of that young man’s uncle.”

“CAN YOU PROVE THAT, HAT BOY?”

A green glint caught Ingo’s attention as the man sighed. That hue… The facets, the shape - but it couldn’t have been, no, there was no way. None at all. Simply–

(The warden reached out with a sort of misplaced hope.)

“Lian?”

The man looked at him, puzzled.

Ingo blessed the facemask for muffling his words.

He pointed at the gemstone perched upon the cream fabric: “That,” he explained, trying not to sound strangled, “Looks like a hisuian jasper. The stone.”

A hundred wrinkles creased the stranger’s face as it brightened with a smile.

“You remember this dusty piece of rock but not lil’ ol’ me?” he cawed out in the beginning of a laugh, more than elated by his words. He pulled off his hat for a moment with a wistful, almost nostalgic air, while Mawile hurriedly explained the situation to her aidee before she screamed at him to speak clearly again: “Ah, but you two were quite taken with it when you first saw me in person, I reckon that!”

He looked exactly like Lian. His hair was darker and his build stouter and his eyes harder and his skin paler and his nose bigger and his clothes completely different and his hat only vaguely similar, but he looked exactly like Lian.

His hand was warm in Ingo’s own, firm and steady as he shook once with practiced confidence, and he realized he’d automatically gone to meet it when he’d offered it.

“Name’s Clay,” he said. “This here city’s gym leader.”

Like Elesa! Somewhat less worried, the former conductor shook back: “It’s a pleasure to meet you again,” he said, relieved: “I’d introduce myself, but I have a feeling that would be redundant.”

“Unless there’s something new about yourself y’think I should know, I’m inclined to agree,” Clay replied easily, with a grin and the beginning of a laugh.

(No, Ingo decided very quickly, there was nothing he wanted to share.)

(Not now. Not ever, probably.)

(The warden still clung to the memory of Lian. What were the odds? That they would find someone of the Pearl clan, of the young man’s own family here? Perhaps it was a sign of sorts, trying to communicate something.)

(Perhaps it was some cruel trick of fate.)

(His palm was slowly dampening the kindly grip so very happy to see him.)

Ingo slipped out of the handshake with as natural a movement as he could while he carefully moved to stand on the pier: “I would love to get to know you better once more, but I am afraid today I am on a tight schedule,” he apologized: “My brother requires my presence shortly, and I would hate to upset him.”

“By the Dragons, don’t let me keep you then!” the gym leader reassured him, patting the side of his arm with almost as much strength as Briosa. “And don’t go lookin’ sheepish about that, I’ve got my own day all filled up… Mighty glad to have seen you again! And give Emmet my regards, would’ya?”

He watched the older man leave with a wide wave and a similarly wide smile, still huffing one or two raucous chuckles every now and then. His stout legs moved quickly down the port, past the boats and ships docking or leaving; then he crossed the bridge, and disappeared.

Briosa watched him pointedly, like a Braviary surveilling an intruder in its territory.

“So who was that?” she asked, sounding on edge.

Ingo blinked: “He is the gym leader,” he reassured her.

“Of what?”

He blinked again: “Driftveil City?”

“Huh. Really?”

“I… Did you… Not know?”

“No? Should I?”

The man stared at her for a brief moment.

“I was under the impression that you lived here?”

“I do. And?”

Now, he may not remember much in regards to modern times.

But he was pretty sure that a Gym Leader was someone that most people in the town in which the person in question operated were likely to know the existence of whether they actually wanted to or not.

A bagful of filleted fish unceremoniously dropped into his not exactly waiting arms, taking his mind off of the curious conundrum: “Go get yourself fish and chips,” Briosa ordered simply. “It’s almost midday and you should have lunch. Emmet too, probably, but you can get at least one free with this.”

“Oh - er, thank you,” the man replied: “Wouldn’t you want to have it for yourself?”

She shrugged: “I’m not hungry.”

Considering the voracious way she had eaten the majority of the Alomomola’s fins a little more than ten minutes ago, Ingo had his doubts on that, but kept them to himself: “Where can I find the fish and chips man?”

“Red food stand with FISH ‘N’ CHIPS written on it as big as a house.”

“Concise and evocative! Much like you tend to be in your speech.”

Briosa gave him a wide, square smile and signed back a very proud little thank you.

She shooed him off with a half wave goodbye, to which he replied with a gentlemanly dip on his hat; then, as he walked off and Mawile did a few stretching exercises after having sat crumpled like a boiled Clauncher or a roasted Tatsugiri for roughly the past hour, she got to work securing her boat to the pier so that it wouldn’t float away on its lonesome while she wasn’t looking.

Engrossed in the familiar motions as she was (and being very, very deaf), she only noticed the former Subway Master had traced his steps all the way back to her only when she turned around and subsequently almost kicked him across the face with a magnificent vertical split for the spook of seeing him so close out of nowhere.

Luckily, they both survived the mutually inflicted heart attack unscathed.

Emmet would have probably killed her otherwise.

Before she could wheeze an apology, Ingo dug a hand in a plastic bag that had suddenly appeared in his hand and thrust forward a small white container, its two half taped shut by a perhaps excessively long line of papery tape.

She looked at it with wide eyes, not making a single move to take it; so, the taller man pulled his facemask down and told her as clearly as he could: “Fish and chips!”

“Oh!” Briosa squeaked. Either he’d been really fast at ordering, or she was dang slow at mooring her boat – though both possibilities being contemporaneously true wasn’t unlikely, either. She still made no motion towards what she assumed was Ingo’s lunch, which he appeared to be excitedly showing to her awaiting approval like a kid who managed to order an ice cream all on their own for the first time without bursting into tears or hiding behind a chair when the pressure became too much to handle. “Good job. It’s really tasty, hope you enjoy it.”

The other remained perfectly still for a moment, much like her, before extending his arm a little closer to her: “For you,” he specified.

“What?”

“This one is for you.”

Her head shot forward, big broken nose almost bumping into the container while she regarded it with brand new bafflement.

Her gaze returned to Ingo: “For me?” she repeated, voice very high pitched.

He nodded.

“You didn’t have to! I told you to use that Alomomola to get yourself something!”

“I have mine and Emmet’s servings here,” and he shook the bag lightly, careful not to accidentally make an oily mess in there. “I wanted to repay you for inviting me on your boat! I had a very good time.”

Briosa seemed a little stunned. She grabbed the container in a careful, almost suspicious manner, her limbs moving a little stunted until her fingers were finally clasped around the white plastic: she regarded the flavorful package for a couple seconds once it was safely in her grip, still perplexed.

“I’ll share it with the lads,” she concluded at last.

Ingo nodded again: “Food shared with friends can be more enjoyable!”

Mawile translated him, since Briosa was still looking downwards and had completely missed the chance to read his lips; from her small face, she not only seemed to agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, but also appeared a little exasperated.

Evidently he wasn’t the only one concerned with how much her aidee ate.

The Substitute twisted her mouth briefly, squinting hard and curling up her nose as though reflecting on the words very intently.

At last she faced Ingo again, flat lips curled into a square grin and voice so saccharine and honest that he could feel his teeth rotting as the phonemes left her tongue: “Thank you!”

The man tipped his hat at her again, hoping she could recognize his own smile.

-

Emmet walked into the control room stiffer than a block of cement.

His brother perked up from the chair he had been seated on while waiting for his twin and waved enthusiastically at him.

Softening immediately, Emmet waved back just as cheerfully.

They spent one entire minute waving in perfect silence.

Then Ingo, who must have grown restless from the quiet, raised his other arm and bellowed: “Emmet! I got you food!”

“I am Emmet! I appreciate the thought. I already have food, though. I told you.”

“It’s fish and chips!”

Oh FUCK yeah. “I am Emmet! I will accept the food regardless!”

“NOT inside of the control room!” Eloise shouted, pointing at him with a face that was torn between the wrath of the Dragons and a not particularly silent plea for mercy.

Vip twisted her nose, also grimacing in a terrible way: “Please, boss,” she added. “Last time Briosa brought some we had to call those high-end professional cleaners to get the odor out after three days.”

“Hm.” Emmet noted: “You are right. Better eat elsewhere.”

“LEAVE THE BREAKROOM UNBREACHED,” arose, from afar and shrill with terror, the voice of Depot Agent Hank, whose sense of smell was beyond keen and had been mauled into a delirium during the last incursion of the delicious stench typically emanated from fried tubers and ichthyic matter.

Hm. Also a fair request.

After briefly cycling through the few options remaining in terms for lunch spots, the Subway Master smiled a little wider: “Let’s go to the roof.”

“The roof?” his brother repeated.

“The roof,” he nodded back: “Open air. Smell won’t get caught anywhere.”

A loud array of relieved sighs blessed his choice.

Roof it was.

Ingo followed him diligently as they both made their way back to the elevator, seeming in truth a little curious.

“I had no idea we could go to the roof.”

“I didn’t mention it the first time. Didn’t think of it.”

“I take it it’s not a very popular spot amongst employees?”

“It is!”

“Oh!”

“We come up here sometimes. Good way to destress. Breathe in fresh air. Then back down! Just for a moment of rest.”

“I see. It would be easy to forget about mentioning it, then.”

“Yup. But now you get to see it. As a surprise. Are you excited?”

“I am!”

His brother grinned.

The clouds above them were sparse, but marvelously plump. An astigmatic who’d forgotten their glasses that day could have been led to believe that the biggest Cottonees in the history of Unova were currently leisurely making their way onto a new pasture via a stroll through the stratosphere.

Both twins watched them for a few seconds, the brims of their hats shielding them from the otherwise blinding sun.

Emmet searched in his uniform’s immense pockets, pulling out a couple sandwiches.

“Split?”

“Oh, gladly!”

They sat down near the railing as they got to work unpacking their lunch and handing each half of the food in their possession before finally chowing down, not speaking for a while – their hunger surprised them a little, but considering the morning the other brother must have had they concluded they couldn’t blame one another for being so focused on ravaging what they had.

They got done with the sandwiches first, eating them in a handful of massive bites. The fish and chips stunned them briefly when they opened the plastic containers and the fried aroma they had subjugated until now slammed directly into their noses, long enough for them to digest their appetizers: wisely, they decided that their impromptu picnic’s main course should have probably been enjoyed a little slower. And without the aid of gloves.

“How was it?” the Subway Boss asked as he carefully stripped his hands of the white cotton seconds away before he could soak it in grease. “The boat.”

Ingo blew on a fry before putting it in his mouth: “It was a pleasant experience,” he replied while he munched, palm raised to his mouth so he wouldn’t spit potato at his brother while talking: “I saw quite a few Frillish up close,, fed them kibbles, enjoyed the sun, and had some raw Alomomola fins as a snack.”

“Yum.”

“Yes, they were rather tasty! And with an interesting texture to boot.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

The tone was genuine enough, but Ingo couldn’t help but furrow his brow: “You did seem rather worried about it. Did you have an unpleasant trip on a boat yourself, or–”

His brother slurped up three fries at once, almost choking: “Oh – no no no. I am Emmet. I am just verrry afraid of the sea,” he explained a little embarrassedly. “I didn’t know. Briosa didn’t know either. She took me on her boat once. That’s how I discovered I don’t like the sea. I panicked. Started crying. Breathing hard. She took me right back. Haven’t been on a boat since.”

His twin’s eyes widened: “I had no idea!”

“It’s ok! I didn’t either. It’s a recent development.”

“Still, Briosa didn’t mention any of this to me! Though she did inquire if I would have been comfortable on a vast body of water before offering to take me on this excursion… Did she not do the same for you?”

“Nope! She’s lived in Driftveil her whole life. Lots of boats, and the sea at her door. Nobody’s afraid of the water there. Comes with the job. She didn’t even imagine it could have frightened me. I am verrry glad she asked you about it first! It makes me feel a bit more relieved.”

The breaded fish – Alomomola, likely, as Basculin was much tougher under the teeth – crunched pleasantly as they bit down on it. A nice breeze had picked up, and after meticulously licking their fingers clean they removed their hats before they could fly off of their heads and down into the streets of Nimbasa, inevitably getting crushed under a hundred busy feet or ending up held aloft by trembling hands like a relic before being auctioned for who knows how much on some online site where no one questioned where the sellers would get their wares.

“She’s an awfully strange woman,” Ingo mused.

“Man.” Emmet corrected.

“What?”

“Briosa is a man.”

(The small, extremely strange exchange between the Substitute and Clay suddenly made a lot more sense.)

“Oh! Thank goodness I never said anything to his face.”

“Her.”

“What?”

“She’s a man.”

“Oh, but the…?”

“Yup.”

“I see!” he gladly accepted a gulp from the water bottle offered to him, washing the oily flavor from his mouth before he could dig back in. “I had no idea…”

“It’s alright! A common mistake.”

“Thank you for telling me either way. I would’ve been mortified to make such a faux pas in her presence.”

His brother gestured reassuringly as he drank a little himself.

Ingo had another fry.

“She remains a strange man.”

“Yup, yup! Verrry weird. Nice, but verrry weird.”

“Did you know she had no idea there was a Driftveil City gym leader?”

Emmet sputtered pieces of fish everywhere with a bewildered expression.

“What,” he wheezed.

“When we arrived at the dock, we met Clay – he gives you his love, by the way–”

“Hm! How was he?”

“He was doing fine, it seemed! We spoke a little, it was lovely to be introduced to him again – but Briosa did not recognize him at all! She had no clue who he was! I assume she thought him a reporter, because the first thing she did upon seeing him was shouting obscenities at him to make him leave.”

“Oof. Poor Clay. Briosa goes hard on the insults.”

“Yes, I’ve had the chance to discover that.”

They snickered to themselves.

The sun was warm on their shoulders; the city mumbled and grumbled somewhere further away, all around them yet also completely severed from them.

Their appetites sated as the fried mixture of fish and tubers began settling at the bottom of the stomach with the weight of a concrete column, the twins stretched their arms and backs to fight against the grogginess that followed a satisfying lunch. Ingo pulled himself to his feet and paced leisurely around the roof, always careful to remain in Emmet’s sight. Hands cleaned and hat placed back on his head, he turned to the world beyond the petrol green tiles.

He could see the desert from here.

At least, a chunk of it. Tall rocky walls stretched forth, shielding the city from the onslaught of debris that seemed to never cease.

The route which crossed it was a stretch of dulled bronze, hazy from the sand lifted and thrown about by restless winds, interrupted in its middle by an elevated road and seemingly emerging from a long structure of crystalline glass and light turquoise metal that, on its other end, led into Nimbasa itself – connecting their antithetical worlds, so completely opposite from one another in every way and yet so geographically close. If he squinted he could begin to make out a large shadow beyond the granular storm, something squarish and dark: perhaps another city? Another haven from the heat and dunes, forcing the winds to billow and howl within the modern walls of a (mostly) man-made canyon?

He could not see the rest of it, nor the ruined castle Briosa had mentioned.

“Have we ever been to the desert?” he asked without looking away.

His brother hummed as he stood back up and walked to be at his side: “Nope. Uncle Alder comes from there, though. But we’ve never been there.”

“Alder?”

“I didn’t mention him?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Our uncle’s friend. Former Champion. Was born in the desert. Now he travels.”

“Former Champion!” Ingo mused. “We know a lot of powerful trainers, it seems.”

Emmet grinned: “Yup, yup! Happens when you’re verrry good at battling.”

The former Subway Boss smiled back, inclined to agree.

His eyes wandered back to the dark silhouette beyond the sandstorm.

“That’s Castellia City,” his brother informed him without even needing to be asked. “Verrry big. Verrry noisy.”

“Noisier than Nimbasa?”

“Worse! Too many people. Like rush hour at the Station, everywhere, all the time. Though Burgh is there too. Artist. Bug-type gym leader. Verrry nice. He livestreamed your rescue for us. But! He comes over, too. I can call him. We can have a fun time out. Us, Elesa and Burgh. Maybe battle! He’d be happy to see you.”

That would have been a welcome alternative to going to such an overwhelming place, Ingo reasoned.

Still, he couldn’t shake from his bones a certain antsy eagerness, a restless desire to explore. The wondrous nocturnal sights that had rushed past him on his so far only venture on a subway train still flashed against his eyelids sometimes, begging him to wander back into their once familiar unknown and reacquaint himself with it, make it his own again.

He wondered how much he’d once seen of the region. 

His hand gently gripped the railing.

“I would like that,” he replied truthfully. “And I would love to explore Unova as well.”

Emmet tried not to flinch and failed.

His brother’s hand moved to hold his, gently squeezing his palm to calm him down: “We can go together,” he offered. “It could be a journey of our own – you could be my chaperone! You might even use this occasion to pull the brakes and enjoy a short vacation. It’s been brought to my attention that you… You haven’t taken much time for yourself, in these past years.”

The other stiffened. He held his hand back nonetheless.

“Can’t,” he wheezed at last. “I… Too short notice. I need to plan… New shifts, and schedules, and… I don’t – I don’t, want. To. To…”

“Leave the station so suddenly?”

That wasn’t what he meant; Ingo knew that. Emmet swallowed: “Yes.”

The older twin massaged his knuckles comfortingly: “I wouldn’t want to derail your routine so drastically, then. But I do wish to explore Unova. I was planning on taking short treks through it, just to enjoy the scenery. Certainly the subway touches picturesque locations on its many winding rails?”

He was planning to visit him in the Station after each trip, to reassure him he had not vanished again as soon as he had taken his eyes off of him.

It was a sweet sentiment, dripping with earnest intentions; but there would have still been long, impossibly long stretches of time between their parting in the morning and those reunions, and he would have had to wait through those terrible moments just like he’d had to wait for someone, anyone, to call him again and tell him something – even something as terrible as ‘I’m sorry’.

“Remember safety checks,” he recited quietly, as their uncle would recite to Alder: “Bring water and snacks. And bandaids. Cover your head. Keep your XTransceiver charged. Call often. Set the number for emergencies to be dialed in case of damage.”

“I can do that?”

“Yup.”

“Do you have the time to show me how to? It would be better to get it done right now, no matter what my plans might be.”

Emmet sniffed and nodded. A weight lifted itself from his chest.

They sat down, tinkering on the device together.

[furiouskettle]

So there’s been a LOT of fics about Ingo going back home, or Emmet going to the past, and i’ve definitely been inspired a bit by Detours...

but what if Rei got teleported to the future instead of either of them?

I’m no writer, and i only have so much comic juice (and i havent even played Arceus) so i’m not gonna polish these any further... but i wanted to share it anyway. more thoughts and even messier scribbles under the cut!

Some ideas, most of them copypasted from me and my friend’s chats, ordered approximately in chronological order. (C= me, Y=friend)

 Rei is fully convinced the train is some sort of horrible alpha pokemon nightmare beast the first time he sees it.

Y: he hears it coming and is like "oh shit oh fuck is it a steelix???? oh god i've only ever seen the one akari brought back to pasture i can't confront one oh god oh no" and then it's a train and he's just "THIS IS WORSE SOMEHOW???"

Y: this poor child is going to have a heart attack

Emmet doesn’t consider Rei a legitimate lead at first- he’s hardly the first kid to try and find the missing subway master in the subway...

Y: on the one hand rei probs doesn't know about the Time Travel and ancestors/descendants of people he knows on the other him just awkwardly trying to convince himself "ah they must be... related..." before Emmet is like "8> no shit sherlock"

(i think im leaning towards no idea abt time travel)

C: man tho. like. rei saying that ingo never said anything abt a brother would sting emmet So Much Y: like i imagine even with rei saying he's got amnesia it would still hurt in that way where he knows it's illogical but surely he would remember. surely. C: and like. rei wouldnt know that ingo vaguely remembers but also its funny that rei would mention that ingo remembers So Many Train Phrases despite never saying what a train IS Y: rei, genuinely never more confused in his life: well at least one thing makes more sense now

Y: rei starts asking all these weird questions about extremely simple terminology and emmet suspects the kid is fucking with him but every answer he gives rei is so earnestly like "80 OH MAN I GET IT NOW" C: and like. then the kid namedrops hisui, and like. idk how good emmet's history is so either it's like. "where?" or "why are you using the outdated name" Y: i honestly imagine he'd just be like "that's not a station on this line. where did you get on" and they go in circles on that for a bit Y: eventually he says he's from Jubilife and Emmet goes "that is verrrry far away. you did not come here by train" and rei is like "i said that!!!! many times!!!!!!"

I feel it might take a while for it to sink in for rei just how far away from home he is, both geographically and chronologically.

C: also im just imagining rei just sitting politely w a cup of tea in the breakroom and some kinda vending machine snack emmet got him fbjfvgcd ill prolly have to add the electric type leader lady to the au mix just so emmet won't go too hard on rei

Y: rei explicitly says his thick layered clothes are to protect him better against pokemon attacks so i imagine elesa finding him a nice outfit (bc emmet would not care) and he's just internally sweating "aaa i'm so exposed aaaaa" C: get him a denim jacket tough material might make him feel a bit better Y: at his most powerful in a Joutfit C:no pokemon will get him now Y: i'm basically imagining him piecing together "wait akari is from here????" based purely on seeing T-shirts and going "oh damn i remember that stupid outfit"

Y: also i am imagining emmet being very focused on the ingo side of things and kind of treating poor rei as an afterthought but eventually rei just breaks down bc he's a kid and he's scared and he wants to go home Y: emmet is not the subtle or assuring type but he can use the reminder that there's more than one reason to figure this out

Y: i imagine him (rei) getting super claustrophobic in crowds just like. oh god there's so many people. there's so many strangers and he's so small and lost and how is he ever supposed to find a way--

[peachy-doodles]

ohhh you guys rly liked submas portal crossover damb.... well i will def have to draw them talking to P-body and Atlus then :]

also at @moothebloo​ ‘s tags: YES the co-op robots as siblings youre SO right idk why i never realised that they 100% have a sibling dynamic. why else would they drop the other into death pits and constantly shoot each other with lasers and fuck with each other if not because of the cain instinct....its so obvious and i am a FOOL.

pls enjoy the thoughts i was sharing with my friend whilst i was doodling the piece. abt them meeting glados kshgskhgs :

but i think if emmet or ingo ever met wheatley they would hate his ass KSHGKGHS american on brit violence </3

wheatley: oh, so you two work on the chube then, eh? emmet: im sorry. the what. wheatley: y’know! the... train tunnels! all that underground buisness? ingo: if you ever call the subway “the chube” again i will personally rip you off of that rail and drop you down the nearest pit myself. wheatley: blimey! alright mate, no need to get violent!

i think they would make perfect co-op partners and solve all the tests with as little mistakes as possible or as little amount of damage to themselves as possible (until glados puts more turrets in to fuck with them) and that would piss glados right off because as we all know and have seen from the co-op mode she lives for the drama and would try and seperate them every given chance but it would just Not work because whatever she says to them they have probably already said worse to each other under the guise of brotherly banter skghskghskh <3

[puppy-pokemon]

so i finally read @blueisquitetired‘s new fic and its making my brain...go feral. HAHAHAHAJHBSDVFGSDJFG uh anyways i KNOW this isn’t gonna happen but my brain kept thinking abt how funny it’d be since like. ingo’s the only person in the clans who isn’t scared shitless by zoroarks. maybe he offers a ricecake first idfk you can tell when i started getting tired while drawing this LMAOO also i like the hc of laventon teaching ingo celestic since like..he would speak galarian too. but just imagine they’ve never met here idfk it ruins the joke

captions:

[PANEL 1] Emmet: [Galarian] Hello! I am Emmet and I’m looking for my brother Ingo! We are twins so he looks like me, except he frowns. He usually wears black. Have you seen him? I’ve been looking for him for a verrrrry long time! So please tell me if you have! I miss him verrry much!! Arezu: [Celestic] OMG IT’S SO CREEPY!!

[PANEL 2] Adaman: [Celestic] Warden Ingo, I’ve heard you’re amicable with the Zoruas. There’s been one wandering the Mirelands, do you think you can do something about it? Ingo: [Celestic] Ah. I’ll see what I can do.

[PANEL 3] Ingo: [Thinking] Hmm... This IS the illusion they usually take around me, though a bit roughed up... but why is it so clear now? Why are they in the Mirelands? Are they perhaps in need of assistance and are looking for me? (And why do i feel so disgusting for calling them a Zoroark?)

[PANEL 4] Ingo: [Celestic] Hello! It appears you have been derailed from the Icelands. Are you in need of assistance?

[PANEL 5] Emmet: [Galarian] omg Ingo it’s really you I’ve been looking for you for 3 years and I needed help getting here but I finally found you I have Freight and Tiny you two come out we found him also I can’t understand you you’re speaking a different language I didn’t know you were bilingual -- I’m still verrry happy to see you though!

[PANEL 6] Ingo: [Celestic] ALMIGHTY SINNOH [Galarian] SOMEONE ELSE SPEAKS GALARIAN?? Emmet: [Galarian] Yup!

[alcordraws]

peeks into the room nervously. hi its me the guy who drew the comic i have. wiggles. questions, cuz i Cant Stop Thinking Abt This AU. head injuries can be super wonky and im not gonna pretend to be an expert on them (havent even looked anything up recently, so my knowledge is super bare bones) but does ingo's state improve with time? how permanent are his issues with long term and short term memory loss, do u think? how bad IS his short term memory loss, on that note? it looks like from ur art they at least get different clothes, which probably means either galaxy team or one of the clans helps them out, so are they still living with mama zoroark out in the Wilds? if they get shzooped back to their present time, do they regain their og ages + does ingos Brain Heal from Traumatic Head Injury?

sorry uh. that this is so much. u dont have to answer, feel free to ignore this if u want, i am just excited :]

hello yes i love questions!! :D I am also not an expert on head injuries, I just like the idea of Ingo's amnesia from PLA and wanted to incorporate it here somehow. In this case, he has trouble holding onto information and easily loses his train of thought if he doesn't focus, and on occasion will forget what he's saying in the middle of a sentence (based on my own experience with adhd). He has to retrace his thoughts to figure out what he was trying to say, but luckily Emmet is already fluent in Ingo so he can typically help him out. With time, he's able to retain memories better, but it's difficult for him to recall memories from before they fell into the rift (on occasion, this makes Emmet feel like he's talking to a total stranger and sometimes emotions are Too Big for both of them in their tiny bodies so it can feel. Overwhelming for both of them). They both still live in the wild with mama zoroark, however, she'll sneak into the village to get things for them. There's already bad blood between zoroark and most humans since zoroark are seen as malevolent creatures. She also doesn't think that the humans would readily accept these odd children from nowhere since they don't act much like most of the humans she's observed. This is half because they are adults in tiny bodies (and Ingo's brain damage) and half they are neurodivergent, which wasn't as well understand back then. If they are sent back to their OG time, yes they get their normal ages back, and Ingo's memory loss gets better but there are still some holes here and there that he just won't get back. Hopefully this long and rambly answer is somewhat coherent, i am. Very excited about this au!!

[sporesgalaxy]

god i have 1 million half formed ideas in my head and i just never get around to them.

Here's some rambling abt the relationships that people have with Scrangle in my brain. Specifically Prof. Laventon, Rei, and Emmet.

Laventon: is honestly a little scared of Scrangle in some ways bc he witnessed some of the earliest most unfiltered Eldritch Horror Talk. But he also he witnessed this

Laventon: This is a proper pickle indeed. Do you think you'll be able to survive on your own?

Scrangle: [opens eyes again] Of course I--!

Scrangle: [They pale, and then look at their tiny hands again. They look around wildly, at the world around them, which is huge compared to them, and utterly unfamiliar.]

Scrangle: I... [swallows] ...um...

Scrangle: M-maybe...if I just...ah...

Scrangle: ... [glances at Laventon, who looks heartbroken at her] Don't look at me like that! I don't like that at all!!

Scrangle: [stands back up] I'll figure it out, I'll figure everything out, I don't care!!!

He's prone to being swept up by Scrangle's posturing and buying into their hype, because their talent is his hope for completing the pokedex, so he really wants to believe they're strong and capable. But also he's more keen to notice when they start to crack and get scared.

Rei: in contrast, has more of a tendency to idolize Scrangle. They seem like everything he's not in so many ways, and Scrangle does nothing to discourage this. They make him nervous sometimes, but he and Laventon get to see more than most how much Scrangle absolutely adores their pokemon, and how much said pokemon adore Scrangle, so he can't bring himself to really believe Scrangle is as scary as they act. He wishes he could understand them better, though.

Emmet: Swerving sharply out of actual games and into purely fanfic territory, Emmet has a fun little arc with Scrangle. Initially he doesn't trust them; they are connected to his brother's disappearance, after all, and they seem verrrry weird.

As he gets to know them better, he develops some jealousy of the time they got to spend with Ingo when Emmet was unable to. Especially knowing Ingo's memory was wiped, it can feel a little bit like Scrangle was a replacement for Emmet. He eventually comes to terms with it and lets go of his bitterness. Scrangle had nothing to do with Ingo being taken away from Emmet and blaming them for it won't fix anything. Plus, this poor kid really needed the direction that Ingo gave them.

Besides that (and constantly developing in tandem w that lil arc), Emmet finds he has a lot in common with Scrangle, and is charmed by how aggressively weird and deeply excited about pokemon and battling they are.

bonus Ingo: literally just explodes

I: ...Although we are from very different places, I believe that we have something in common.

S: We do?

I: Indeed.

I: Neither of us sees the world in quite the way that the people of Hisui are used to.

I: I appreciate knowing that there is someone by my side who understands what that's like, even just a little.

I: I sincerely hope that I can offer the same reassurance to you.

&

For once, I am at ease spending so much time in a town. Pokemon battles have given me the sense of connection with the people here that had been alluding me since my unsheduled arrival. I owe Scrangle more than I could ever hope to repay for directing me down this new track.

[lilacstarvix]

Now i know in the OG au Emmet becomes Ingos warden but now there are two of them. I imagine Emmet probably helps Ingo with keeping the zoroarks at bay but i also dont think the people are going to be as accepting of the hisuin form. Sure Irida (i honestly dont know if im spelling that right i just call her irritation or irritable) knows that Emmet is good but convincing the masses is different. Would you still have Emmet become his warden? Or maybe Adam (wtf was the rest?) tries to claim that zoroark as diamond clan. “There are two its ment to keep things balanced between the clans” or something. Emmet probably openly rejects the idea of a warden. “I am Emmet all i need is my brother!” Oh oh lord im thinking about it now holdmy beer (crap i gotta google adams full name for this)

Adaman decided to take matters into his own hands. Hes a clan leader and its about time they stopped waisting time discussing this. Clearly almighty Sinnoh sent two for a reason. That reason is because there are two clans. Its clear as day. So he sets off to find the Zoroark. He finds Emmet around Lady Sneaselers den, not thathe dares barge in. To his luck the Zoroark in wuestion actually approached him! Quite a good sign, no time wasted indeed!

Right before that of course Ingo and Lady Sneaseler had know of his approach. Ingo was venting a little about the whole situation. They dont need anyone following them around and getting into their business. Not to mention Ingo has his own warden duties! He doesnt want to add more by having to pretend to be a warden himself. So Emmet decided to take matters into his own hands(claws?) and just said be would deal with it. Oh Ingo you should have stopped him

So Emmet walks up to Adaman. Towers over him menacingly. Adaman feeling the pressure a little starts his lil speech he prepared. Emmet just stands there waiting unfazed. Once Adaman finished he looks to the Zoroark with determination and hope. Emmet almost cridged. “I am Emmet, i do not need a warden. All i need is my brother!” Adaman.exe has stopped responding. Sneaseler laughing her ass off while Ingo face paws (~w*) Much to his credit Adaman recovers rather quickly “I understand but a warden would only be there to help you. And even this brother of yours!” Wow give the man some applause, he just recovered from a talking pokemon in record time. “I said NO and that is all i have to say on it! Neither me nor my brother require your wardens nor do either of us want one. Good-bye” and Emmet just climbs back into the denn. Leaving the man to struggle with a rejection that stung as much as his childhood sweethearts.

Wow that got longer than normal xD i actuslly wanna keep going but my cat keeps stepping on my phone smh she almost sent this halfway in

Ooooo that's actually pretty interesting to think abt ngl, Ingo's warden situayion being unresolved and then having a random hisuian zoroark follow him around is interesting.

Honestly IDK whether the 'pretending to be Ingo's pokemon' or 'hanging around Sneasler and undisguised Ingo works better' tbf.

I could definitely see accusations going around when Emmet is seen near the new noble black zoroark, but also the idea of the clans bickering over having two zoroark nobles is another path to take so I'm gonna have to add one of those plot points to the next part of the story.

[lunar-lair]

Ooo I’m always a sucker for soul eater au’s, even if they aren’t that common. tell us more abt Ingo’s no good v bad day?

VERRRRY EVIL LAUGHTER OHOHO..YOU WISH TO HEAR OF IT?! then i will gladly inform you omg <3 glad youre enjoying this madness lmao (throws formal writing at the floor and it shatters. this ones go crazy go stupid super-specific stuff im going feral. also its 3 am and i do what i want)

technically its. ingos no good very bad day(s) bc it happens TWICE bc ingo is Silly and has Trauma from Bullies!!!!

tldr: elesa scrapes emmet against ingo The Wrong Way, ingo gets Fucked Up, he doesnt tell her, she does it AGAIN before he heals properly, emmet says FUCK this and tells her, she cries a lot abt it, ingo feels bad but is glad it wont be happening again, and then later on ingo n emmet teach elesa how to do it The Right Way

too long read it anyways: beneath this read more!! This Is Gonna Get Long (by the way, warning up ahead! ingos side literally gets Shredded so a minor gore warning? its described vaguely but theres some creepy skin stuff)

later ill be copy pasting a Written Out section from my doc that i couldnt do justice to again but for now ill pull from my brain instead

the beginning of all of this happens when the trio are surrounded by madmen that are too powerful for them to subdue. theyre out of options, and emmet and ingo start thinkin'

back when they lived in aniville (did i mention they still come from aniville? and still like trains? anyways ive mentioned it now), they were often accosted by bullies. they were twins who were Autistic, in a Tiny Town, and then inevitably, known to be weapons as well. this brought them a Lot of negative attention (a lot of which ingo tried to keep emmet safe from). when they were surrounded, theyd scrape a rock against the other (or emmet against a rock more like, in his case) and like. yknow OW thats an AWFUL fucking sound Goodbye

at the time, they thought it would be simple for elesa to figure out. that she could scrape the two of them together, and do it right, and not hurt them.

they were 14, and they forgot elesa didnt know emmets blade like it was her own, or ingos blade like it was her own.

(she didnt even have a blade.)

so they tell her about it, and tell her to scrape emmet against ingo.

but shes panicking, and the easiest way to scrape emmet against ingo is back to side.

emmets back is sharp.

the noise is very, very loud. loud enough for them to escape. louder than it should be, emmet thinks.

his back hurts.

when he tries to reach out to ingos soul, he gets nothing.

nothing but a hiss of pain.

oh.

when emmet transforms but simply asks for ingo, and emmet says ingos simply tired when elesa asks, she doesnt think much of it. (only 14, new to this, doesnt know that staying in weapon form takes more energy than getting out of it.)

when ingo doesnt show for a while, and emmet says ingos just tired, elesa tries not to think much of it.

emmet is seething.

on the way home, he told ingo to tell her.

he hadnt transformed back. emmet couldnt carry him otherwise.

ingo refused. refused despite the roughness of his blade, refused despite the chips taken out of his metal.

two days later, when ingo had finally woken up again, emmet pleaded with him, asked him why he didnt want to tell her.

because she might get rid of us, he said simply. and his voice was quiet, and it wasnt right. because it saved us. because it was necessary.

over and over. every excuse.

he didnt want to give her any reason to throw them away.

they were already twin weapons, already a bit too mad.

he had taken the brunt of all the bullying, over the years, for emmets sake, but it had taken its toll.

he believed in emmets worth, wholeheartedly. he believed they were strong together.

he thought, just a little, that he was the weak link.

months later, once ingo had almost healed, once elesa had forgotten about the moment entirely, they were sent with drayden as their leader along with some other teams their age to group-tackle a mission to subdue a good lot of madmen, as a learning experience.

they got separated from their group. elesa grew desperate.

she stood behind her cover, and straightened up, and held ingo a little flatter.

emmet shouted, tried to stop her-

she scraped emmet against ingo, and the sound resonated back in her soul.

is that pain?

ingo cried out, and emmet shouted, and elesa was silently terrified as she ran.

what did she just do?

and now. presenting,,the section ive copy-pasted from my doc bc im not rewriting this its already decent

(uhhh. ok including some stuff mentioned above bc its good writingtm and if im copy pasting you all should see it. and maybe doctored to be better idk well see this post is hella more freeform than the others)

of course, elesa did not mean to hurt them.

of course, she still made the mistake of scraping them incorrectly.

of course, ingo is afraid to make her feel bad for it.

and of course, emmet does not give a single shit. (well, he gives enough to not mention it the first time, because ingo is hurt, and hes a little too worried to be angry at anyone.)

(besides, having your back scraped against anything doesnt feel the best either…especially when it means your blade is being dulled.)

what this all results in is emmets back being sore,

and ingos side being ripped to shreds.

it turns out raw, like a layer of skin or two has been ripped away, and a few spots where there are full chunks taken out of his side.

this reflects in a rougher surface on his blade, and few shreds of metal being torn out.

the roughness heals with time, as does the rawness on his side.

the chunks heal with time, as well, though scars are left behind.

the chunks taken out of the blade never go away. (because ingo never forgets. because ingo is admittedly terrified of the thought. because ingo hates that his brother hurt him, that elesa hurt him, that he couldnt tell her at first for fear of being blown off, or hated.

because the scars stay.)

so in the end, they dont mention it.

and in the end, a good 4 months later, once ingos wounds have healed (for the most part) and theyre in a similar situation, elesa goes to do the same thing.

emmet tries to stop her. ingo grits his teeth.

ingo cries out in pain, this time, and emmet cries out in turn, and elesa is alarmed, but still moves to get out of the area before enemies they cant handle find out they can handle them.

the moment theyve made their way to a far away forest, where the madmen (who barely have a mind of their own) surely cant find them, emmet is transforming back, and carefully snatching ingo out of her hands.

he carefully avoids the blade, instead working at her fingers to make her drop it so he can hold the hilt instead.

she stares blankly as emmet holds ingo close to himself, baring the edge elesa scraped emmet against. after a moment, his gaze turns a little darker, and he hides ingo beneath his coat.

Elesa opens and closes her mouth a few times. She's hurt him, she doesn't know how, but…"Is…is Ingo al-"

"No!" Emmet interrupts, voice louder than she'd ever heard it, frown baring teeth and gaze hard as stone. His voice was still monotone, but only almost. Anger leaked in, somehow, in a way she'd never heard.

She steps back, just a little.

"I…did I do something…?" She asks, voice weak, faltering under Emmet's stony gaze.

Emmet stares back, and she hears, faintly, Ingo pleading for Emmet not to yell at her, that she didn't mean to.

"You should not even be talking," he says quietly, and Ingo stops.

"...Emmet?" Elesa says again.

He takes a shaky breath in, and looks her in the eyes.

"What do you think happens when you scrape the sharp part of a blade against the blunt part of another?"

Her eyes widen.

Ingo…he'd screamed, earlier, hadn't he? And Emmet had yelled, too-

"I…" There's nothing she can really say. She reaches forward, just a little, and takes her hand back when Emmet steps backwards in response. "I…I'm so sorry…" She finally said, voice soft, eyes filled with tears. "I had no idea…"

Emmet paused.

Elesa finally started crying, drawing back, looking away.

She hated to cry in front of others. She'd told them that much, by now.

And much, much more.

She could be trusted, he thought.

Ingo muttered the same, still hurting, but conscious nonetheless.

"Can I…" Elesa started, pausing to sniffle. "Can I at least see what I've done?"

Emmet carefully pulled Ingo out from beneath his coat, holding out Ingo's injured side.

She sobbed.

Chunks of metal, taken out. A rougher surface, visible even to the untrained eye.

"Did this happen…"

Emmet nodded, frown softer now, but still a little angry. "Ingo forced me not to tell you." He paused. "I…I am not truly mad."

And she turned up to him, and blinked.

"It is not truly your fault. You did not know. I…I am mad you did not notice him hurting. And I am mad Ingo did not let me tell you." He pulled Ingo closer to him again. "Just please, do not do it again."

She nodded, over and over, falling to the ground.

Emmet kneeled to the ground with her.

Ingo muttered that he would be alright between them, voice quiet.

After a long while, Elesa crying and apologizing, Ingo asking her not to, Emmet simply sitting there, she looked up at Emmet.

"Are you alright?"

He smiled, but it was small. "My back is a little sore. Ingo is hurt far more."

She looked down to where Ingo had been set on the grass, injured edge face up. "Why is he still…?"

"He would be much harder to carry," Emmet said simply. "And he cannot walk. We learned that the hard way last time."

She turned away, and said quietly, "I can't believe I did that to you two twice. Without even noticing."

'It is alright,' Ingo spoke, quieter than he ever had been or ever would be. 'I am the one who chose not to tell you.'

"...can I hold him?" Elesa asked, knowing Emmet would care far more than Ingo would.

Emmet nodded, and Elesa carefully held him by the hilt, a hand supporting his uninjured side.

"I am so sorry," she said softly, yet again.

'You have promised not to do it again,' Ingo said softly, reaching out to her soul just a little, 'and that is enough for me.'

She laughed, a little broken. "I doubt it's enough for Emmet."

She looked up to him.

He looked away.

"I…I am still very angry."

"I used you to hurt him," she said simply. "I would be, too."

And he looked back.

"But you did not mean to. And Ingo kept it from you. And he is alright."

He set a hand on Elesa's, the one holding Ingo's hilt.

"I am still very angry," he said again, and his voice was still monotone, and his eyebrows were still furrowed, but his eyes were soft, and his frown was more worried than anything else. "But not expressly at you. You are forgiven. As long as you do not do it again."

She nodded, and kept nodding, and laughed, relieved. "Ok. Ok."

Soon enough, the team they'd been separated from (and who had heard the noise, scraping and loud but wrong, the weapons of them hearing the scream from another soul like theirs) found them, and soon enough, Elesa was forced forward to explain, having already given Ingo to Emmet to keep safe.

Emmet walked forward, showing the damage, as well as the remains of the last time showing through.

Their honorary uncle, teacher of the school, and demanded leader of the mission (he wasn't letting his boys go out there on their own if there were others going, too), Drayden, gave a gasp. "Are the wounds from that time also…?"

Elesa nodded, head tilted down, eyes hidden behind her hat.

Her hiccups were still audible.

"Elesa did not know," Emmet defended.

They all turned to him, including Elesa.

"I wanted to tell her, of course. But Ingo thought she'd think us weak."

'It saved us,' Ingo added, voice weak. 'If it was necessary…'

"You would do anything if it was necessary," Emmet snapped.

Ingo quieted.

"...sorry," Emmet muttered.

'I know.'

"I didn't know," Elesa said. "But I should've noticed he was hurt regardless."

Emmet and Drayden gave a laugh.

When she turned, the latter gave another chuckle. "That boy could hide a broken arm if he wanted to."

Her eyes widened when Emmet laughed again.

"He has."

Drayden spluttered a little at that one; everyone got a good laugh, at the least.

"She has promised not to do it again," Emmet added. "It is water under the bridge."

She gave a weak laugh. "Then why'd you make me explain?"

"Because you did it," Emmet said, smile a little cold, eyes closed. "And I am still a little angry at you and Ingo."

After a moment, Drayden held a hand out. "May I hold him?"

Emmet relinquished Ingo easily to the man.

Drayden held him just as carefully, one hand on the hilt and one under the unharmed side.

The other kids (this was supposed to be rather easy, but they all ended up retreating and leaving it to stronger teams) started whispering around them.

One said something like 'what a weak weapon'.

Elesa and Emmet turned to stare coldly.

Drayden frowned, disappointed.

She shied away.

Another muttered 'won't staying like that hurt him?' and Emmet flinched.

Drayden gave a sigh. "Ana has a point." A weapon himself, one who wielded himself without a meister, knew this well.

Emmet's hand flew to his mouth. "I…it's so easy for us these days, I almost forgot…"

Elesa turned to Drayden. "Is staying in his weapon form hurting him?"

Drayden hummed, worried and deep in his chest. "It's expending a lot of energy and focus…and probably isn't the best for his wound."

'...it will bleed if I transform…' Ingo said. His voice was shaky.

Emmet made a pained noise in the back of his throat.

"I'll be here to carry you," Drayden said, voice gentle, but sure.

After a long moment, Ingo transformed.

And once the light faded, he laid in Drayden's arms, already unconscious.

Emmet walked forward, and picked up Ingo's hand, dangling over the side of Drayden's hold. "He wasn't allowing himself to pass out so he wouldn't transform."

Drayden nodded.

Everyone went quiet. Elesa walked forward and put a reassuring hand on Emmet's shoulder.

Drayden finally turned, Emmet and Elesa turning with him. "We should get back to the school. He can be treated there."

Emmet never let go of Ingo's hand, and Elesa never let go of Emmet's shoulder.

Drayden made sure his hold was firm, that he carefully avoided touching Ingo's right side (luckily the one that was facing away from Drayden, since he was holding Ingo's uninjured side in the first place).

The school nurse was able to learn what had happened this time, Elesa accompanying Emmet and Ingo as well.

She got a bit of a chewing out-'be careful with the blades of your weapons, even when it comes to each other'-but it was more about being careful than being truly bad to her weapons.

Emmet kept insisting she didn't know.

Drayden affirmed it, having come with.

The nurse dropped it rather quickly, but still made sure Elesa knew to be careful.

Once she was gone, and it was just Drayden, Elesa, and Emmet, Elesa stared, with hollow eyes, at Ingo's unconscious form.

And she asked again, "How didn't I notice?"

Emmet gave a quiet laugh. "We are verrrry good at lying when we need to."

Ingo hadn't woken up by the time they left. (Emmet stayed, the nurse having given up trying to drive either of them away at this rate.)

After a 30 minute wait the next day, though, Ingo opened his eyes.

Elesa apologized, over and over and over, and Ingo simply smiled, tiny but real.

"It's not your fault," he said, again and again. "I kept it from you. You are an excellent meister. I could never blame you."

Years later, after a few too many run ins with situations where it would save them a lot of trouble, and with the knowledge that it could be done right, Ingo convinced Emmet to have them teach Elesa how to do it right.

Luckily, Drayden had gifted them replicas of their weapon form for their most recent birthday, on the grounds of 'never forgetting who they were'.

(The chips in Ingo's sword were built in, perfect replicas that they were.

He laughed when he first saw it.

They were like prizes now, reminders of Elesa's care for them, reminders that he still had his own mind, even as a weapon.

He had always taken the brunt of bullying for Emmet.

He had always wondered about his worth just a little more.

After all of that, he could be just a little more sure of it, instead.)

They were a perfect way to show her how it was done.

Once they'd figured it out themselves, they booked an open Saturday for all three, and set out to Elesa's apartment to invite her to the training ground in DWMA.

Their first lesson: side against side.

This was the hardest.

Emmet's side is rather small, and unless you know his blade very very well, it's hard to remember where it is without looking for quite a while.

Inevitably, though, she could do that.

The second lesson, and pleaded for by Emmet: for the love of Arceus, lower your pressure.

Part of what made both incidents so damaging was the sheer pressure Elesa used when pressing down.

This was the easiest part to get down.

The third, and final, lesson: be sure, but not hasty. If you stutter, it doesn't make the right noise. If you're too fast, though, you risk damaging the blades in the process.

After a few weeks, Elesa training in her own time, she asked to try again.

When they paused in return, she promised to be gentle at first, promised she knew what she was doing now.

They agreed.

She did it gently, at first, for the first 50 rounds.

On the 51st, she did it the way she had been.

An awful noise rang through the clearing.

Both weapons cheered, Ingo giving a loud 'Bravo!!'

Neither had been harmed.

After some more training, and once they weren't afraid of it, Emmet and Ingo got talking, once they'd gotten home.

The next time the three trained together, they asked Elesa to try again, saying they wanted to try something.

She simply shrugged and held her hands out for them as they transformed.

When she scraped Emmet against Ingo, the awful noise echoed throughout the clearing in a way it hadn't before, bouncing roughly off of her soul.

They apologized for that, admitting they didn't mean for it to affect her, as well; she just shook her head, saying she was used to the sound by now, asking them how they'd done it.

They transformed back, explaining the process of bouncing the sound between each other and out into other souls in the area.

She was very impressed.

Drayden was cheering them on for it within the hour, having been called over to see by his excited nephews (and honorary niece).

you have made it to the realm of non copy pasted stuff! i added the part where they train her how to do it right instead of writing that part again bc its 3 am and it was already good

okok. more fun non copy-paste stuff (that i discarded and had to rewrite UGHHHHH)

once ingo has healed and been sent home, and once drayden has the time, he comes over to visit.

He asks Emmet to leave the two of them alone (just for a small while, he promises, when the boy hesitates-caring as ever, the both of them, same as they've always been), and sits down on the twins' couch, ignoring the creak when he sits down (but revelling in the snort Ingo makes as he does).

And, after a moment, he asks Ingo to look at him, turning as he does.

Grey eyes stare up into his, focusing intently.

"If your meister dismisses you when you tell them they have harmed you," he begins, slow and methodic, words to live by being spoken, words to respect, "they should not be your meister. And if your fellow weapon dismisses you when you tell them you are harmed, they should not be your fellow weapon."

Grey eyes stare up back at him, glassy.

He pauses for a long moment.

These are words to let sink in, words to remember.

They are a lesson he learned the hard way, words he should've lived by.

There is more than one reason he now wields himself, this among the many.

They are words he taught himself, words he teaches many, whenever he has the chance.

Ingo nods, firm and sure, after a moment.

He recognizes that, that they are words to live by.

He figures he won't need them, with people like Emmet and Elesa around.

But they will stay safe in his heart regardless.

n e ways. its 3:50 am PASKSKD and i had to rewrite it so srry if it looks fucky ^^' however that's it for our midnight-4 am soul eater au post bonanza!! gn everybody lmao

[akirasdigbick]

pls talk more abt dilf ingo! :oooo i loveeee your art so much!! and ur blankship family is soo adorable like my heart melts thinking of them!

I am glad to hear you like my art and the blankship family au as well! :) I might try to doodle more of it after I sketch some more of my MHverse AU.

I definitely will talk more about DILF Ingo. Here are some tidbits.

Man's the definition of, "Yes I look tough, big and scary, but I am just a big oaf who likes mechanics and my family. :<"

Dude is muscular. The type of muscular DILF you would just stare at in public. Lifting heavy objects becomes easy work for him.

He is also the type of dad who does dad jokes without even realizing it. He and his husband could just be talking to a Depot Agent and he just replies with the most dad response you can think of. Emmet just stares at him like, "you did not just say that did you?"

He also gains those dad reflexes. The first time those reflexes really kicked in, he was sleeping on the couch, husband across from him, and their kid playing on the couch. The kid drops his toy and tries to reach for the toy he threw on the ground from the couch. Before the kid could fall head first to the carpet, Ingo instantly wakes the fuck up to catch his kid. Emmet just stares like "??? how the fuck did you just do that???"

Ingo just goes ??? after fully realizing what the fuck just happened.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

This is a little out of the blue, but I'm curious if you have any headcanons about Ingo and Emmet's general state of health when he returns to Unova. I've started reading pla fics again and reunions tend to vary wildly, including if Ingo and/or Emmet have any health issues or not. Being kind of a fandom hermit, you tend to stray from the norm (in a good way! I find it very refreshing and insightful), so I thought it'd be interesting to see if you've ever given it some thought.

ACTUALLY IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE SPECIFIC SCENARIO hskhssh but yes i have. given it Thought

i think in general ingo's sort of let his standard of self care slip in hisui bc he just... doesn't. care i mean. he's not really consistent about things like sleeping and eating, out of a combination of like... brain static and indifference. like half the time the feeling of "wow i am exhausted and my arms hurt from climbing" doesn't even make it to consciousness, and then half the remaining time he doesn't care enough to act on it. i think there's also a sort of disconnect/reluctance around meals specifically which i've like. vaguely nodded at in one or two things i think? but he has a hard time like, Sitting Down For A Meal, bc he always feels like he should be waiting for something. someone? whatever it is, it's like a kind of exec dysfunction-adjacent fuzz that makes it hard for him to like, commit to eating, so half the time the food will be cold and unappetizing by the time he manages to will himself through whateverthehell that block is anyway.

also if you like, having a human body, and radically switch up the level and type of your physical activity without any real lead-in or instruction, that's uh, not safe generally. so i feel like there are probably some stress injuries hanging around that he's just been ignoring bc sadly hisui doesn't really. do physical therapists. so i guess the tl;dr is his state is generally Bad but in sort of a lowkey way. this is not mentioning the brain stuff bc that's Definitely there but it's not really related to like, physical health

meanwhile if we are talking abt an emmet who has been in unova aware that his brother is just Gone the entire time (as opposed to one who was like, also caught in the distortion, or anything) i think he's physically fine but he's just been like. a robot. he takes fine care of himself and doesn't overwork himself to a point that anyone can call him out on, bc those things would make other people complain and be a pain in the ass and he's trying Not to make any more work for himself, but it's all like, entirely mechanical. there is zero life behind his eyes. there might be some like stress based health issues but i think he's been trying to actively counter them, under the assumption of like, he's continuing to believe that Eventually ingo will come back. and if when he does come back emmet's a wreck and gear station's in total disarray well that'll just be a whole thing on top of whatever circumstances surround his return. can't have that. gotta keep everything neat and orderly. including himself.

though semi relatedly but on the topic of like, injuries, i think if he got into a situation that was actually life threatening or whatever he would not. give a shit. he's already maxed out on things to worry about just by like existing day to day, go ahead and shoot him, that's fine, c'est la vie or whatever they say in kalos. it's actually a similar problem to ingo's general indifference but caused by almost the opposite underlying thing (Too Much going on internally instead of too little). not that i think he's routinely getting into life-threatening scenarios but like, it IS pokemon, evil teams grow like weeds over there, so who knows really. that could be a fun postcanon to explore actually, if ingo gets back memories included but in the meantime emmet's gone and decided to fight [insert bad guy here] bc they were Being A Problem so he decided to fix it and did not have the bandwidth to be impressed by any threats they threw at him. gce but in reverse kinda

this is getting long i hope any of this makes sense it's. late. i guess the last thing i would leave off on, which is kind of another tangent, is i think the one thing both of them DO have going, in terms of self maintenance, is that they both have teams! very well trained and closely bonded ones! who simply Will Not Let Them get that bad. they all Care obviously but i think chandelure and kadabra/alakazam specifically are like, trained emotional support pokemon, if maybe not like, technically service ones. but they've got like, psychic as a pressure source and to pick things up, hypnosis as a bandaid for insomnia, etc etc and also they're among the smartest of the teams in terms of human intelligence. chandelure has a very close bond with both of them and they've worked out a system over decades so it's perfectly suited to emmet. meanwhile kadabra has simply self adopted the role kind of begrudgingly after ingo gave it a vague half-remembered instruction in the concept cause otherwise its trainer will like, starve or something, which would be Annoying, cause it likes this setup. it gets soup. it will do whatever is necessary to ensure regular soup opportunities in its future.

[karaktcrs]

@zeconductor​ asked:

OH HI I DIDNT SEE U RB THE PORTRAYAL THING hold up i have a LOT to say!

marley was always a fav in gen 4 for me but mai never hit me quite the same until u followed me!!! mai in canon is good but i didnt rly read too far into her character for some reason??? and i love her so so so much now because of you. the emphasis she puts on family is so good and like its touched on in game but not to the extent that you do!! and thats very obviously a very very important part of her character and you write it SO WELL??? you bring this wonderful energy to her that i cant even explain but i adore it so SO SO SO SO MUCH!!! i LOVE ur interactions with everyone. seeing ur mai interact with velvets adaman. oh my God. it makes me adore both characters SO SO much more and i think we were ROBBED of them in game they need more canon interactions so bad imho? im hoping to see a lil more in the update but im not done w it yet...

i havent seen too much of ur ingo outside of headcanon posts but i am obsessed with him. when i read the thing about him being selective mute it really really hit me, as someone who often experiences bouts of being nonverbal myself. (it was 10000% more prevalent when i was a kid but still). i really appreciate mental health analyses about characters and that specific take on him is SO interesting and unique but also 10000% fitting and i cant believe i havent thought about it before.

ur cilan is so funky!!! i was obsessed w the triplets in 2011 (tho not quite as bad as my love for the twins) and i think hes so cute!! and i love that u put up w my headcanons abt emmets animosity towards him. i cant wait to see more of him im obsessed with gen 5 always

x

[lunar-lair]

lays on the ground h. hi its 2 am welcome to the post abt how the mcs fit into the soul eater au girl (note: timeline is a bit fucky!! i am. Working On It)

Hilda and Hilbert

Our first duo still grow up with Bianca and Cheren! They're twins, a weapon duo, but ones who have no meister, and instead choose to wield themselves!

Cheren and Bianca are a meister weapon duo respectively, having decided early on they'd be working together since their best friends refused a meister (which they honestly think is really cool, Bianca especially. She'd never be able to do the stuff they do on their own)

Cheren is the only meister Hilda and Hilbert would let wield them (besides themselves). Bianca also has an open invitation, but she's not really a fighter

Also ive just decided a lot of the stuff im abt to write a QUICK warning OSJDDO

Bianca is a shield, and though she has some sharp edges, in truth she's made for support

Her, Cheren, Hilda, and Hilbert actually form a four-man team, Bianca and Cheren often acting as support

They barely entertained the thought of working alone, realizing very quickly Bianca was meant for support

Around the time of 16, Bianca actually learns how to heal through soul perception

This is gonna sound weird. But Listen,

Think of it as a heal pulse move. She can only do it to nearby people, but it's through manipulating the soul into calming, and wounds into healing through fixing the form of a weapon. She can only calm meisters, but weapons find her a big help.

It's sort of like. Reverse madness? Except. It's more like, with meisters, simply calming the soul, and with weapons, using madness to mold an almalgamate form into a form it was previously before harm

I honestly have no clue what Hilda and Hilbert (or Nate and Rosa) would be. Maybe swords for the first two and then guns for the second two? Smth smth old then modern. Genuinely, I have no clue, and will absolutely be taking suggestions.

These four are a couple years younger than Elesa, Emmet, and Ingo, showing up to the DWMA when the three are 15.

Around the same time, team Plasma show up.

The main characters still do a lot of the work, but Elesa, Emmet, and Ingo are important goals for all four of them to look up to.

see.....this is why i said the timeline was fucky. i wanted emmet n ingo to know the kids when they were also kids ok :(

After team Plasma has been Thrashed, by the time everyone has aged a year, all 7 of them are given madness stones.

We've said where the trio keeps there's, but as for these four

Bianca and Cheren keep theirs on a bracelet (Cheren didn't really care where it went and Bianca wanted to match) and Hilda and Hilbert also wear theirs as earrings! Though they don't keep anything else on their other ear, it's only one.

(yes there are special smiths who make the stones into jewelry. yes i just decided this)

Rosa and Nate

These two still show up about 10 years after Hilda and Hilbert do their thing, appearing when Ingo and Emmet are 25, Elesa is 26, and the other four are more like 23

Bianca still becomes an apprentice, but to the nurse of the DWMA, this time

Cheren becomes a teacher, well known for his stern but kind teaching

Hilda and Hilbert travel a LOT and Bianca and Cheren are the only ones who ever know where they are. They go around doing random jobs that weapons are made for, cleaning up random madmen and helping other meister/weapon duos and DWMAs across other regions

Rosa and Nate,,,like I said no CLUE what they are but they just chill at the DWMA, also have no meister, but don't have support in Cheren and Bianca, they're solo

They take Emmet and Ingo's class for Obvious Reasons and Instantly become some of the two's favorites

OHHH MY FOD I FORGOT ABT. THE RIVLA

i know nothing abt him..

um. he. uh. goes to the dwma,,hes a weapon who can wield himself but. iS LOOKING FOR HIS MEISTER. Who became part of team Plasma!!!! WOO ok I FIXED IT

he looks for a purloin right. whos forgotten abt him. ok YES lets go

N e ways UHH. Rosa and Nate beat the shit out of team Plasma (w/ the help of N this time, along w Emmet, Ingo, Elesa, and the quartet described above (so many names..)) in a similar fashion to 10 yrs prior and get some madness stones. Which they wear as earrings too (weapon twins who wear madness gems as earrings 🤝)

(Once it's all over, Emmet and Ingo, Hilda and Hilbert, and Rosa and Nate happen upon each other, the former two having been called by the president and the latter just leaving.

They all notice the placement of their stones, and even Emmet begins to laugh.

They stand in a perfect triangle, the three duos all making a side.

Their stones of madness glint in the light, all two halves of one whole, all made to be worn near each other, all made within the same breath.

The president laughs, Arceus looking over his shoulder.

"All is as it should be," the president hummed.

Arceus made a booming sound.

One that meant, 'finally...indeed.')

UHHH ANYWAYS. thats one more post done!!! team plasma next which is. kind of a doozy. a lil. im still mentally ironing out their details like i said this au has existed for like a couple of days PSJDODDKFJF