Chapter Text
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
A soft groan permeates the air. A dull throb pounds in his side. Slowly, he opens his eyes to (un?)familiar darkness. He was in a tunnel, the surface much too smooth to be natural. There were no holes in the ceiling nor any on what parts of the walls he could see. His right hand lays on top of something raised and cool. It felt like some kind of metal. He tilts his head to his right. Metal did, in fact, line the ground, along with… wood? He did not know what to make of it. What he did know was:
This is not Wayward Cave.
Ingo was getting very tired of waking up at unfamiliar stations.
With a strained sigh, the warden sits up. His hands flew to his injured side as a sharp pain shots through it. He pulls a hand away from the injury and looks at it. It’s covered in blood.
That was…
Bad.
Very bad.
He tries to remember what could have possibly happened to get him here but all he gets for his effort is a migraine. Wonderful. Having gotten accustomed to this since he arrived in Hisui, Ingo brushes this off and simply pushes himself up onto his feet. He picks a direction and starts walking, using the near wall to support himself.
The longer he walks, the more unnerved he got from the tracks(?) beside him. He doesn’t know why but he gets the feeling that he should not be so close to them. The odd silence of the tunnel didn’t help. Luckily, said silence doesn’t last. He starts to hear… footsteps, mainly humans but a couple sound like the steps of Pokemon. He hears a buzzing sound and what sounds like conversation.
He thinks the silence was better.
It sounds like there were a lot of people up ahead. Sounds like a village full of them. There were never that many people in Wayward Cave, certainly not all at once. Were they friendly? Or would they chase an outsider like him out? He’s not sure if he wants to know. But he couldn’t go back nor could he stay where he was. It just wasn’t safe to be on the tracks(??) so all he could do was push onwards.
Then barking filled the tunnel. Startling to a halt, Ingo looks up towards the sound, tense as his hand flies down to his pokeballs. Which were surprisingly still there. He briefly chides himself for not remembering to do a safety check before departing his starting station. He doesn’t have long to dwell on that as a bright light shines down at him. He hadn’t noticed the cliffs that formed on the sides of the tunnel. He covers his eyes from the bright light, the barking getting more urgent. He hears words too.
Humans.
And he understands them.
Or rather, he should understand them but the bright light
(lights, when did it get so bright?)
and the increased noise level
(other Pokemon sounds have joined the barking and words on top of
words on top of words-)
brought back his migraine.
All Ingo could do was start to curl in on himself at the pain.
He feels something
(hands, terrible uncomfy hands-)
grab him and haul him up, up, up.
Oh, this was so much worse. He stumbles and scrambles to get away, managing to lodge himself into a corner. He was breathing too quickly. His vision is blurred and unfocused. There are people, so many people, talking at him and talking at him and- too bright, it was so bright. When had they gotten outside?
He needed to get out out out.
The sound of something slowing to a stop cuts through everything. He looks at the strange metal object. (A train. A subway train.) A hiss sounds as the doors open and more people (how are there more people??) pour out of it. He almost gets dragged back under all the sounds, sounds, sounds and lights, lights, lights - but then he seems him. A man with his face steps off the train. (He knows what that is, he knows what a train is.)
The man had his face.
The man had a bright smile and no beard.
The man had his hat and coat.
The man had a hat and coat of pure white, not a single rip or tear marring their surfaces.
Ingo inhales sharply. He feels like he’s been punched in the gut as a name screeches into his head.
(He wore a black dress shirt.)
“Emmet?” He wheezes quietly.
(He wore no blue tie.)
The man (Emmet, he knows him,) does not glance in his direction.
(He wore the shirt with the top button not buttoned.)
He keeps walking, keeps walking away from him.
(He wore black jeans.)
Ingo struggles through the sounds and the lights and the hands, hands, hands.
(He wore sneakers.)
He pushes past the dense crowd, desperate to reach him, to reach Emmet.
(...)
He has to reach him, he has to reach his brother.
But Emmet does not look back. He doesn’t slow down. Ingo is desperate to reach him. He inhales deeply and bellows his name, as loud as the trains they both so dearly love.
“EMMET!”
Finally, finally, his (younger but not by much) brother stops. Finally, he turns around. And finally, Ingo reaches him. He does not hesitate to pull his brother into a tight hug, tears already streaming down his face. (Or were they already there long before he spotted his brother? Did it matter?)
…
Why.
Why?
Why wasn’t he hugging back?
Emmet was tense in his grip. Had been the whole time. Why was he not relaxing?
The glimpse Ingo got of his twin’s (Twin! They were twins!) face before he pulled him into a hug finally registered. He looked shocked. Horrified. Uncomfortable. Unnerved. There was no joy. Of course, it’s been 5 years and Ingo was currently bleeding, why would Emmet look elated to see a ghost. A corpse. But no, that wasn’t it, was it? Something wasn’t right.
What was wrong-
Pain. Ingo let out a pained wheeze as his back collided with the hard ground. (Concrete, he landed on concrete.) He looks up at Emmet, at his brother. His vision was blurring, the only thing in focus was his twin. His twin. Who had his arms held out?
He had…
A…
Disgusted?
Expression?
On his face.
What. Had, had he? He- he did. Why had Emmet shoved him away?
“Emmet…?” Ingo rasped, too shocked to even register the searing pain from his injured side.
Emmet’s face flashes through so many emotions. Ingo could barely keep up. Disgust. Discomfort. Confusion. Fear. (Why was he afraid.) Pensive. Guilt. And then carefully… Blank.
The words that left his mouth shattered Ingo’s world.
“I don’t know you,” Emmets states, in his usual clipped way. He says as he stares Ingo down without any recognition in his gaze.
What little clarity Ingo had moments before vanishes in an instant. His world spins. He struggles to breathe as the sounds and lights and everything drown him and drag him
down,
down,
down.