Archive of Our Own

They'd told him, at some point after he woke up, that he got hit on the head. Pretty hard. That he was attacked and barely survived and really it was a miracle he was still breathing, had Lady Sneasler not come to his aid surely he would be lost to the vast snowy expense.

Thinking about it, trying to remember, hurt Ingo's head. It never yielded any more than he already had, which was disappointingly little.

It left him only with his name and tiny torn shreds of memories that were Juuust out of reach when he tried to actually think about them, to figure something out of them.

That and his speech patterns, which were apparently stiff and weird.

That gave him almost nothing to go off of.

And then there were his feelings. They told him he was attacked and that the noble Sneasler had saved him, and he was eternally grateful to her for that, and honestly he thought that was where his feelings should end, so why?

Why was he feeling so much guilt?

He barely remembered the attack himself, flashes of white and so, So much blood before his world shut down, so what was the reason then? What did he have to feel guilty about?

And he couldn't just ask Lady Sneasler about it, because unfortunately she wasn't one of the few pokemon that could talk (he'd joked about that to lady Irida when it came up and gotten some strange looks from her for it) so he was left not knowing anything about the day he came to Hisui the way he was right then.

There was an emotion settled in his chest, right beside the dulled inexplicable guilt, that felt a whole lot like homesickness. Wherever he was from, it was not from Hisui, it was not from a land that looked and felt like it did.

He thought he was dealing with it well enough, if he had to grade it, though. He was part of the pearl clan now. He had a job, he was contributing, he had a house (away from the main settlement, closer to his charge), he was doing ok, he thought. He missed home, and he was doing his best to figure out where that was and what exactly he was missing, but with only so many options he had to make peace with what he had.

And what he had was his name, some new acquaintances, and Lady Sneasler, who seemed to take a shine to him more than anyone else in recent memory, or according to Irida, at least. That and a few shredded memories that he could barely hold onto on the best of days.

On the worst of days… Well, he didn't like to think about that.

But yes, he was coping ok, he liked to think.

It's been a few months. Nothing changed but the seasons, the harsh winter giving way to a prickly and still-cold spring. The people were a bit cold to him but all in all pleasant enough. The pokemon were just as hostile, but apparently he had the best handle on taming them out of everyone so far.

That sure was something. He wasn't sure it was always like that, or if in the place where he came from everyone had little difficulty taming the wild creatures around them. He was inclined to think it was the latter, but he just didn't remember so he struggled to give a solid answer when asked.

He'd worked with pokemon before he was sure, though he wasn't sure what his job actually was, the image of it, the idea simply refusing to form in his head.

And whatever it was he couldn't remember he missed it so dearly and deeply that it hurt.

The clan's people were kind enough and left him alone for the most part, and he was glad for it, but something inside him nagged at him that he wasn't Supposed to be alone.

That there was a glaring absence at his side that he couldn't ignore, but he didn't know what was supposed to fill it.

There weren't a ton of mirrors in the places he frequented. In fact, both Jubilife village and the Pearl clan settlement only had a handful that he'd seen, so the first time he properly saw his reflection in the time he actually remembered was a month or so into his stay. It wasn't even a mirror, it was a canteen window, for once not backlit by the light of day and close enough for him to see his reflection.

It gave him momentary pause as he looked at it and instead of his ragged frowning form he saw someone else.

It only lasted a moment. Once he blinked it was gone, replaced by his own bedraggled visage, but the vague, shredded, not-memory stayed. White coat. A smile.

Who was that? Why couldn't he form an image of them in his head, why couldn't he remember what they looked like? They were a mirror image of him, but what did they actually look like? Why did he miss them so dearly?!

Why did the unexplainable guilt almost morph into drowning grief when he tried to think about them?

He knew they were important but try as he might again and again he couldn't remember their face. The image, the memory, slipped through the cracks of his mind like sand through fingers, not stopping, not slowing down, leaving maybe a grain or two that paled in comparison to how much there actually was that he couldn't hold onto, bits and pieces of things he should know.

He knew they were important to him, that he'd give so much to get back to them, to make sure they were ok, but he didn't know why, or who, or what the feelings he was feeling were.

The thing that might have been grief smothered him in its suffocating embrace as he struggled not to let tears fall. He was fine! He just saw his own reflection in a window, that should not make him cry!

The thing that might have been guilt clawed at the inside of his chest, making it hard to take breaths as he hurried to the house that wasn't his home, that was way too quiet and empty despite being barely big enough to be livable. He choked on malformed sobs that didn't make any sense.

His head hurt so much as he tried to breathe but got ragged gasps instead. Damn it, why couldn't he at least remember why he was feeling these things?

Though maybe it was for the best he didn't remember, because as he tried and tried again to figure out why he was suffocating it hurt so much, it hurt it hurt it Hurt IT HURT.

A usually dull throb at the back of his skull grew to be a world-ending pain, his train of thought having not just derailed or held up or hit an obstacle, but crashed and burned and exploded again and again and again, sending sparks like shrapnel into his vision. As the trainwreck of his thoughts piled more and more onto itself and he found that he could only whimper, he wondered idly, with whatever part of his brain that still functioned, separate from the rest of him somehow, what a train was.

Then the frenzied pain of not remembering reached a new height, one that he didn't know was possible and he saw the world, the narrow tunnel that it'd become, fade away into a cool nothingness.

They thought he had a fever, or so they told him. Apparently they heard him screaming and found him, passed out and feverish, not even halfway to his house. They blamed it on the weird weather and the stressful Warden position.

He didn't tell them what led to him passing out on the way to his own house-not-home, lest they try to stop him from trying to remember more.

Not that he knew how they could do it, but the prospect of never regaining his memory scared him enough to keep his mouth shut.

He had to know. He had to know what happened. He had to.

…

It was less painful and disorienting the next few times that he'd tried to remember something and came up just short.

The Wayward cave, one that he'd kept accidentally calling a tunnel, that he'd placed torches all over to create a path, reminded him desperately of something so, so familiar. It was too quiet, way, Way too devoid of all kinds of miscellaneous noise, but the regularly spaced light of the torches was comforting to see, despite the gentle headache it caused to think like that. He'd memorised the path by heart in under a month, to the point where he probably didn't need the torches to navigate the turns and twists of it from one side to the other.

He wouldn't do that, of course, with all kinds of wild pokemon dwelling in the passages and dead ends of it it would be far too unsafe to travel and, Sinnoh forbid, lead someone through it, and passenger safety was priority number one (What did that even mean?).

So if he had anything to say about it the torches stayed lit and maintained.

Sometimes the swaying of the torch flames themselves reminded him of something too, a pokemon, though he knew they were somehow the wrong colour, the wrong shape. He used to know them, they ‘wielded flames with mastery’ as he’s told someone before. They were his partner, maybe? Their shape was too hazy to fully tell.

There were other things, more fleeting, somehow even less solid. Passing thoughts, jokes that he didn't fully understand but still found vaguely funny, of conversations past about completely mundane things, such as what they (they?) should have for dinner, what pokemon moves complemented each other, among other things. Nostalgia for something enveloped in fog.

Nothing concrete, nothing ever concrete enough to deduce something without the context that was missing, blank spaces where something should be, completely incomprehensible on their own.

Only a sense of longing and guilt.

Guilt

for

what?

For…

Something missing, something gone, but it couldn’t be gone because if he could just remember what it was it would come back, grief for a world, the people he left behind, because where he was wasn’t where he belonged, but if he thought about it too hard it became suffocating.

So he let himself feel like he was adjusting fine to a life that should by all accounts be all he ever knew but still, after months, felt unfamiliar, and he let the grief, and guilt, and longing, and frustration sit and fester somewhere deep, smothered in his chest, thrum, dormant behind his ribs, not as easily awoken yet unforgotten. He let himself be ok, be fine, to just simply live and do his job and wait for something he had no way of knowing would happen but yet still he hoped would.

…

Lady Sneasler took to him like a spheal to water - with speed and familiarity and an affection he couldn't grasp the cause of.

And it really was just him, even her previous Warden she wasn't as close with, only really interacting with them when necessary. Keeping to herself, never quite cold to people but never quite friendly either.

With him though? He was pretty sure some domesticated eevees could be put to shame at times. He was also pretty sure he saw Irida's eye twitch when Sneasler bumped into him with her forehead for the first time. He thought it was cute and funny.

She still liked her solitude, and as spring rolled into summer she became preoccupied with her own goings, but whenever she did spend time with him outside of their duties she almost showered him with small affectionate gestures. A soft wet nose against his cheek when he became too spaced out, a nudge with her forehead against his shoulder when he seemed frustrated, a soft warm side to fall asleep against when the trek through the highlands lasted a bit too long.

Soft purring when the unplanned midday nap ended in a disorienting headache and cold sweat and him trying to call, or ask, or something, for someone who's name he could not recall.

The solid presence of Lady Sneasler had become a comforting thing for him in the months that he'd been her Warden. A reassuring one. She kept all the people around her safe.

Which was why he missed her presence quite so badly when he came face to face with a zorua while elbow deep in a berry bush.

The creature, to its credit, didn't attack immediately and actually didn't seem to be hostile at all. It also didn't ring true as to what a zorua should look like, or at least what he'd thought it should look like, but he'd seen enough illustrations and warnings about them to be able to identify it.

It was looking at him, almost cautiously, but without fear, and was that excitement written on its tiny kitsune face?

Why would a zorua be excited to see him, or any human for that matter, though? He could recall that their whole line fed on fear, could this one just be excited for a meal?

Maybe it already had an illusion to hit him with at the ready. Or maybe he was already under the influence of the illusion and just didn't realise it yet.

He didn't feel scared though. And he couldn't see anything particularly out of the ordinary, just the usual berry bushes. And the zorua itself, of course.

And the pokemon didn't seem malicious to him, on the contrary it almost felt excited and appeared to be bouncing on its front paws as it looked at him with eyes of glowing silver.

"Uh… hello, little one?" He tried in as low a voice he could manage in the nervous disposition as he was. It wasn't very quiet but it seemed to be enough to not startle the thing.

It yipped an excited little noise as it bounced more, some unexplained happiness making it run a small circle into the ground. He felt his brows furrowing slightly in confusion.

"Are you lost?" It was awfully far away from where the rest of its kind usually lived, the snow and cold being apparently their favourite conditions (or maybe it was just the absence of people that made them more favourable to the icelands).

It seemed to stop for a second and ponder this before making a couple warbling noises, and looked at him again before making another high-pitched Yip! noise, apparently saying that no, it wasn't lost! It’d meant to be here, as was immediately evidenced by it racing the couple of feet towards him and bumping into his leg unceremoniously, rubbing up against his ankle the way a pichu asking for comfort would. From his position crouching on one knee he could see its eyes were closed and its strange ghostly mane wavered gently around its form. It actually seemed happy, which only raised more questions in his mind. Was it tamed and got decoupled from its human and lost? But then why would it be happy to see Him, of all people? He never had a zorua in his party, not for all the memories that he had.

The sight of it didn’t ring a bell, so he didn’t think he’d just forgotten. That wasn’t the most concrete way of knowing, but that was the best he had and surely he would feel Something had he had a zorua and found it again.

The vague feeling that zorua were supposed to look different corroborated this thought.

It made a mrrp sort of noise and almost thoughtlessly he reached his hand down to it to pet it on top of its head. It leaned into the touch, making more little tiny warbling noises and clicks.

“Well, if you’re sure” he said, scratching it behind the ears “Would you like an oran berry, little one?” He reached into the satchel he was using just moments ago for collecting and produced one of the blue berries. The Zorua made a surprised but happy noise as it twirled around itself at the promise of the treat. He held out his hand palm up with the berry on it and the little creature snatched it up without a single moment's hesitation.

“Do you have a person who is awaiting your arrival, perhaps? Do you want to try to go and locate them?” again, the creature stopped to ponder something for a monet, licking its muzzle in the meantime as a tiny amount of oran berry juice got stuck in its fur there. After hardly a moment though it seemed to make up its mind as it once again bumped into his ankle, content. He chuckled slightly.

“Would you like to come with me then, little one?” he mused, standing up and stretching his legs, achy from crouching for a little too long. It yipped excitedly, weaving around his legs in loopy circles “Ok, ok, I see that suits you nicely” he smiled “Do you have a name?” he asked, unsure a moment later why he’d done that.

The Zorua hadn’t seen this as weird though, and, very loudly and solidly gave an answer, which consisted of a high “YIP!”. It thought for another moment, then tried again, producing the same result. Once more, the same noise left its mouth and it appeared to be getting annoyed by this, seemingly expecting something else.

Before this cycle could go on longer, however, Ingo intervened “Hey, it’s alright, it seems there is a bit of a language barrier, but that’s ok!” he assured “We’ll just have to figure something out. In the meantime would you like me to come up with something to call you, just temporarily?”

The Zorua pouted but agreed, headbutting his leg, hiding its face in the fabric of a pant leg.

He thought about it for a moment. The snow motif would fit a zorua like this one, but that almost seemed cliche and redundant. Likewise anything to do with red didn’t fit its aesthetic, despite the markings on its mane and tail, no… but he knew almost nothing about the little creature, he’d just crossed tracks with it and had yet to observe its character.

Why was he so worried about this, it was just a temporary nickname for a pokemon, right?

“How’s… how does ‘Argen’ sound?” He wasn't sure where the word came from, but there it was. Shortened version of Argentum “Another word for silver” he explained. Silver like their eyes, that glowed up at him, white pupils staring into him deeper than they should.

They cocked their head at him but didn't protest, just looking a bit confused. A small, hesitant yip was all they gave as confirmation that it was imperfect but it shall have to do.

"Ok, then, Argen, come along" He turned and pointed, habitually, in the direction of his house "All… huh?"

Argen, newly named and by all accounts presumably content just a moment ago, seemed to be looking around with increasing worry. Their mane stood every so slightly on end, the ghostly wisps dancing irregularly about them. Their distress only increased within the next few moments and, after sparing him what he thought was an apologetic glance, they bolted in the opposite direction, disappearing into the bushes as fast as they had appeared when he'd first met them.

He had a moment to feel a little heartbroken and betrayed before he heard the footsteps behind him. Turning revealed the tall and imposing form of Lady Sneasler, coming towards him without any particular hurry.

"Good evening, my Lady" He greeted her and received a lighthearted warble in reply "you appear to have scared away my new friend, they seem a bit shy"

She bumped her forehead into the side of his head, gently enough that it didn't hurt but forcefully enough that he'd felt the Bonk of it, and he reached up his hand to scritch her on the side of the neck. It was their little private habit, one that he wasn't sure how it started but it felt nice to do. He was sure the other wardens would baulk at this kind of causal interaction with a noble, but they didn't have to know, and so long as it pleased Lady Sneasler it was fine in his book.

As if only then processing what he'd said the tall pokemon made an inquisitive “sneaa?” sound.

"Yes, they ran away when they heard you coming this way. I'm sure we'll cross tracks with them again though, they seemed to enjoy my company well enough"

She harrumphed, as if offended at the implication that someone would be afraid of her, which he knew wasn't what she'd actually felt. Plenty of pokemon were intimidated by her and she didn't bat an eye.

"Don't be like that, my Lady. They're little and scared, they'll come around, you'll see" he murmured, reaching around her to scratch between her ears. She warbled in a pouty sort of way, but there was no heat behind the noise “Yeah, I know. I do wish they didn’t run away though”

They couldn’t help it, he was sure. They were a zorua, a young creature, small and skittish, possibly used to people but now alone and meeting an unfamiliar human and a much, Much bigger pokemon.

“We should head back” he said, turning back to Lady Sneasler “It’s getting late”. She nodded, or gave an approximation of it, inhuman but familiar.

He wished to see the little Zorua again soon.

…

He got to do that the night of the same day. He had a feeling they’d followed him home, probably at a distance, wary of Lady Sneasler till she left to attend to her own chores.

They scratched at his door and yipped till he opened it a crack, which he only did because he recognised their voice. The little creature snuffled at him for a moment before darting past him and into his house before he could do anything to stop them. And from the couple moments that he did see them they appeared to be carrying something in their teeth, though he didn’t get to see what it was. He turned around to look where it went, closing the door by sheer habit.

None of his pokemon were out but he still felt a pang of worry that they’ll pick a fight anyway. He sighed when nothing happened and Argen just looked around the room curiously, still carrying something in their teeth. From the angle he was looking he couldn’t tell what it was but it was mostly white, seemingly made out of fabric.

“Good Evening, Argen” He greeted amicably “You departed in a bit of a hurry last time we saw each other, is everything alright?”

Argen made an unclear noise, which sounded a bit dismissive, like a person trying to change the subject, though it was a bit muffled by the thing in their mouth.

“Did Lady Sneasler scare you? I’m sorry, she is quite an imposing figure” he hummed “But she’s nice if you get to know her, so if you can you should stay and meet her next time, ok?”

They made a noncommittal noise and turned back to look him in the eye. Finally he could see the item they had.

It was a hat. White fabric and a black brim, a shiny emblem sitting just on the front that he couldn’t quite make out but he knew exactly what it was anyway.

It was a mirror of his own cap. His own, in black fabric, was battered already, the hard brim scuffed and some of its cotton coming out, but that one, its white counterpart, was less beat up, though still definitely not new. There weren’t obvious tears in it, though it has definitely seen better days, no longer the pure white it once was.

He felt a headache pick up behind his eyes.

"Why do you have that?" He asked, his voice flat and uncomfortable. His hand snaked up to grip the brim of his own cap.

The Zorua made another noncommittal noise before walking, very nonchalantly, the couple feet towards him and presenting the cap proudly to him.

Ingo took it almost without meaning to, the surreal sensation of it in his hand only heightening the disorientation that came from the pain spreading like melting ice through his brain.

Agren headbutted the piece of clothing in a way that left it resting on their head and they were peaking at him from under the brim. Their expression shifted from playful and curious to concerned as they met his eyes.

Ingo couldn't grasp what this cap meant. Did it come from the same place he had? It must have, it was so different from any headgear people had in Hisui, and it was almost exactly the same as his hat, sans the colour, so it must have come from the same place as him.

So where did that leave him? It was familiar, but out of context all it produced was pain and no information that he could hold onto.

It was unfair.

Frustration welled up in his chest and he tried his best to not let it rise up. Some of it must have shown on his face anyway, since Argen whined at him, a questioning noise.

He snapped out of his revery "Yes, I'm ok, just… trying to remember something and it's not quite… not working out"

Argen whined again, cocking his head to the side slightly, the hat shifting with him. He was essentially wearing it at that point so Ingo, with a monumental effort, took a deep breath and let go of the item, letting it rest fully on the Zorua's head "Yes, I'm sure, don't worry about me. I'll be in perfect working order shortly, just a slight delay, that is all"

He blinked a couple of times, trying to focus. Nothing changed. Argen bumped into his leg again, evidently aiming for comfort and doing a good job at getting that hat to stay on his head. The sensation grounded Ingo enough to take another deep breath and force himself to move, leaning down to run his hand through the fur on the little creature's back. It felt soft and silky and the creature in question seemed to enjoy the contact so he repeated the motion a few times before stepping over to a chair and taking a seat.

Argen was in his lap almost immediately, a slight excited energy about him but traces of worry, of concern still visible in his expression. Ingo raised his hand to give him scratches behind his cheek fur, which also seemed to make the Zorua happy, and, as a side effect, let Ingo occupy himself to stay present.

He'd not thought about it too hard since meeting his little guest, but zorua were skittish, especially here in Hisui. This was the first one he'd seen, and he had no intact memory of actually seeing a zoroark, which was for the best of course, but it meant that the one in his lap was an anomaly. Another thing was how, for the lack of a better word, demonized both zorua and zoroark were. People were afraid of them, said they fed on fear and would draw people in with their illusions to kill them.

So what was different about this one? He'd not felt any threat from him, found nothing malicious in his expressions, and he was, apparently, drawn to him, and was enjoying his company, as he'd chosen to come looking for him the second time.

And whose hat was that? The way it sat on Argen's head seemed simultaneously completely alien and so natural it was hard to imagine it belonging anywhere else. Was it just his then? But if so where did it come from, and if it wasn't his whose was it, where did they go?

The Zorua yawned, a sight that, for all its cuteness, revealed the creature's sharp fangs that clicked as his jaws slammed shut. He almost seemed embarrassed about the display, turning his face away from Ingo with only a slightest pout.

"It is rather late, isn't it?" Ingo rubbed a hand across his eyes, feeling suddenly just how tired he was from the oddly exciting day he's had "About time we turn in for the night, right?"

Argen yipped a small, curt reply in the reluctant positive and jumped off his lap to let him stand up.

When he'd finally laid down, some minutes later, he felt the sensation of the Zorua jumping up onto the bed with him.

"You really like contact, don't you?" He asked, though it wasn't a question. Argen only replied by curling up against Ingo's side and getting comfortable "You are quite lucky that I don't mind"

There was a stray thought, somewhere at the back of his head, just barely within his reach, that usually he did mind. He didn't pay close enough attention to this thought as the tiredness and the sensation of a warm body against his side rocked him quickly to sleep.

***

Sneasler knew of the little pale shadow tailing her Warden.

She’d noticed it rather quickly, even as it tried to hide from her by keeping to the bushes and grass and staying far enough away that if she ever thought to give chase it would be lost to her within moments.

She was not built for speed. So she let it be as long as it didn’t stray too close.

This only became a problem when she realised it was sneakier than she’d thought, as she found the lingering smell of zorua on her Warden’s clothes. That was a bad sign to her. He didn’t need contact with those. She had to put a stop to this.

She needed to act at the first chance she got. The pale shadow was smart, so she had to be smarter.

Her Warden didn’t seem to be concerned. She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t be but she couldn’t convey to him that he should be. No matter, she would deal with it herself.

The pale shadow made a mistake when it didn’t flee at her approach a whole one time. She took advantage of it.

It squirmed under her gaze as she held it up by the scruff of the neck. She hissed a threat at it and it tried to argue back at her, though she didn’t listen. She told it, in no uncertain terms, to leave and never come back and ignored its furious protests at this as she prepared to hurl it as far away as she could.

“Lady Sneasler, stand down” she heard her Warden tell her as he gripped her forepaw to stop her “Argen is a friend, please refrain from harming him”

She hissed at him and tried to move out of reach but couldn’t do so efficiently and quickly enough as he pulled the small creature out of her grip. He held the pale shadow protectively as it eyed her suspiciously. She hissed at it and it growled right back, both displeased and annoyed.

"Now now, halt it you two" The man scolded both of them "You are not enemies, you don't have to do this" He said, as if he wasn't holding a shapeshifter full of malice in his arms. She scoffed at them both, willing the man to understand what a mistake he was making by not letting her deal with it. He dismissed her displeasure with a wave of a hand as the small creature shifted to sit on his shoulders. It glared at her.

"Leave" she snarled at it, baring her teeth. It did not seem moved.

"No" It growled at her, curt and choppy "I'm staying. Ingo will be unhappy if I leave. Will be unhappy if you make me leave" He threatened, thought it was more like a statement of fact than a threat. Her Warden would be displeased if she made the Pale shadow leave. She was supposed to believe that.

"Why would he be?" She entertained the little creature, seeing how she wasn't able to punt it away at that very moment. "You're a pest, a danger to humans. I don't know why he would miss you"

"He doesn't remember me, but he knows" The creature drawled at her, monotone and off-rhythm "You wouldn't understand. But I won't leave" It promised, solemnly.

"... Fine" She conceded "But if you do anything to hurt any human I will not care for explanations, Pale Shadow. I will make you leave, one way or another" She warned.

"Fine, Purple Feather" It spat at her, curling around her Warden's neck, gently "Be that way"

She huffed at the creature and backed off. She would be keeping an eye on it, to catch it in the act when it did something nefarious.

“See? You should talk it out before doing anything drastic” Her Warden continued, having caught on to their uneasy truce.

Whatever. She would be there to act when the little pest slipped up and showed its malicious intent. She would be prepared.

…

Except it never happened.

She refused to admit that she didn't mind the creature, because he was a brat and didn't respect her like she was used to, but she didn't want him gone quite as much after a while.

He used the fact that she couldn't throw him out to laugh at her, within reason, but otherwise he did nothing untoward. He just 'hung out' as a human would put it, not causing trouble, not being suspicious, which initially just pissed her off but with time she just accepted that he was not going to be a problem. Begrudgingly.

If anything he was actually somewhat helpful. He was another pair of eyes that could keep a watch on the surroundings, whether that was for an attack or for foraging, he was another creature that could actually fight, knowing some moves, and mostly he just made her Warden happier by sticking around.

She didn't quite understand that last part, but she could see it. He was less melancholic, less spaced out, less… lonely.

She liked her Warden. So as long as the little creature didn't do anything to warrant hostility she would tolerate him.

But she wouldn't like him. Or at least not admit to it.

***

Warden Ingo, in Akari's humble opinion, if anyone asked, was a perfectly alright guy. He was pleasant, he was patient, he talked a little bit louder than he probably meant to but that was overall ok. In her own time, back in Sinnoh, she would have probably not interacted with him for over a few minutes, if at all.

In Hisui though he was the only other person who was, quintessentially, the same as her. He was from the future, possibly from the same time as her, he was kicked back through time, and once she saw Arceus again she would ask them, angrily, why in the world was there an amnesiac man from the future there with her, and to put him back.

That was one of the key differences in their experience that she had no way of accounting for beforehand - the amnesia. The man definitely still remembered words and phrases from his past/the future, but when it came to actual memories those were almost fully gone.

He missed his home, his time, regardless of missing memories or not. He shared Akari's own crushing homesickness.

But even discarding all of the kindred connection they had through being divinely dunked into the past, Akari found that Ingo was someone she'd want to hang out with anyway, because under that surface of played up normalcy he was such a thoroughly weird person.

He was apparently a big fan of trains, not unexpectedly considering the way he spoke, despite the fact that a train wasn't a concept he really remembered, until she re-explained it to him. She almost regretted this decision immediately when Ingo developed an instant headache from this but the sparkle of recognition in his eyes was a joy to see. Also he told her any memories did that, and that it was ok, he wanted to remember more than anything, headaches be damned.

He was weird in different ways too, what with all the dramatic pointing and posing and short, almost out of place speeches that were clearly rehearsed and only survived him losing all context by being so ingrained into his routine that it wasn't a question of actual memory, it was a habit he couldn't get rid of.

He was good with pokemon, like her, which was not even slightly a surprise considering they, supposedly, came from about the same time. Sneasels took to him like Magicarp to water, normally wary pokemon warming up to him exceptionally quickly, like his Glisgor, a feisty little venomous creature that had no qualms being handled like a damn burger ("burger shaped" She said once, pointing at the purple critter, which didn't mind one bit. She thought she saw the corners of Ingo's mouth quirk ever so slightly up).

His eyes almost seemed to glow in the dark, and even though he didn't fully remember if this started when he arrived at Hisui or before he didn't seem surprised by this, which led her to believe he might have just been like that.

Oh and also he had a Zorua. Sort of.

Apparently he didn't Have it, as in he hadn't caught it, but it was his friend, and outside of human settlements and trails it hung out with him all the time.

It was uncatchable, as proven by Akari herself when she hurled a pokeball at it on instinct and it just bounced off its face, completely inert, and rolled on the ground and into the grass, which meant that either this creature was already caught or it was, somehow, immune to the act like the Nobles.

She wouldn't know how that last part worked, but hey, who even knows anymore, she sure didn't, she didn't think she could be drop kicked through time till just under two months ago, but here she was.

The Zorua, named Argen ("Like silver?" She asked, and Ingo looked at her with surprise "Yes" He answered, almost uncharacteristically quiet "You're the first person to actually know that''), got mad at her for beaning him with a pokeball, as he declared with a lot of small annoyed 'Ruff!' noises and a pouty sort of face, and weirdly she felt compelled to apologise to him. He got over it after a day and let her pet him with no complaints, especially after Ingo apparently vouched for her.

This creature was another sort of weird, fitting with Ingo's brand of odd like he was made for that. For one Argen wore a hat exactly like Ingo's just in a different colour, and the man couldn't give her an explanation as to where it came from because Argen actually got it himself from somewhere. So either it fell through the rift and the little creature picked it up, or the creature fell through the rift with it, but it was a Hisuian Zoroa, so where would it have come from other than here?

For another he understood jokes. Somehow. That ‘Hrhrhrhr’ sort of noise that he would make in response to her attempts at humour was definitely a laugh, she would swear that on her life.

Anyway, yes. The man had a Zorua who was not on his team but was his friend, who had the same hat as him, and who could, unless her eyes were deluding her very thoroughly, smile. And laugh. And some other things she was probably forgetting.

And she loved the little furball, even if he was an entire bastard at times. Ingo seemed happier with him around.

The Zorua never went near settlements, the fear that the people had towards their line too ingrained and too much of a risk to even try and explain that this one was as friendly as can be. Both the citizens of Jubilife and the various clans people that she came across were friendly enough but never seemed to trust outsiders like her 100%, like just being from somewhere else made her automatically suspicious.

Though before the advent of mass communication she had to give them the benefit of the doubt and say outsiders Were more suspect than people one lived with day to day, especially when communities were small enough to vaguely know everyone else around you.

Still. She would have appreciated it if people gave Her the benefit of the doubt, considering she was doing the work no one else seemed to be able to do. Like catching pokemon for research en mass. And battling alphas. And all the other errands she was running for them.

And she would absolutely appreciate, alongside that, the Pearl Clan not shooting their own Warden shifty looks behind his back. The man had enough to deal with.

…

She leaned against a rock in front of the fire she and Ingo had set up for the evening. They were camped out in the highlands, in a smallish, safeish outcropping, and it was a bit too far to walk towards any settlement, but they'd manage. They prepared for this outcome, the hike they were on was a multiple day affair to begin with, so they did have supplies for this. Their 'Safety checks', as Ingo would call them, were all in order.

And it was just a research survey. A multi day research survey.

It was fine.

She signed, feeling tired and restless despite the late summer evening's pleasant atmosphere. "I want mac and cheese so Baaddddd it's torture" She growled into the air.

The tell tale Khrhrhrh sort of noise told her Argen, who was draped around Ingo's neck like a fur collar, was having a good time at the expense of her misery. Looking down from her perusal of the darkening sky she glared at the furball, who did not even try to hide his mirth. How dare he? He didn't know what she was going through, the brat.

"Mac.. And cheese" Ingo murmured, thoughtfully, his expression becoming a weird mix of nostalgia and confusion.

"Did I just remind you that it existed?"

"I'm afraid so"

"Ah, hell, sorry" She scowled momentarily "I forgot you wouldn't know"

"I think I want it too now" The man continued, seemingly unconcerned.

"My bad" She murmured apologetically "now we're both miserable and want mac and cheese"

"Such is the way of the world, it seems"

"And all we got is veggie stew"

"Yes"

"Which isn't bad" She was quick to add, lest she insult said stew, which she didn't even make, she only helped gather for it "It's perfectly good, it's just not… "

"Not mac and cheese," Ingo concluded for her.

"Yeah, it's not noodles covered with a grotesque amount of cheese" God damn it all she wanted some so bad "But we do have pecha berries, so that's something"

"Indeed"

They did have pecha berries. They raided a bush of them some hours back and the berries? Were good.

She threw one at Argen at one point when they were setting up camp and missed. He did not let her try again by snatching it up the second it hit the ground. He stuck his tongue out at her. She mirrored the gesture. Meaningful conversation.

She sighed again, louder this time, and looked back up at the sky. She missed home. She missed her room, her bed, she missed processed foods and the internet.

She missed her mom. She wondered if her mom missed her.

When she comes back, how much time will have passed? Would she get brought back to the same moment? A month later? However much time she spent in Hisui later?

Would her mom even have a chance to miss her too?

She bit into a pecha berry.

She wasn't going to dwell on that now. She had to finish her mission to Arceus, then she could yell at them for throwing her and Ingo into the past and Then go home. And even if it turned out she was gone only an hour, well. That would mean no one would have to worry for her, and it would all go back to how it used to be.

Or, maybe it would after a short vacation. If she didn't rest after running around Hisui like her ass was on fire for months then she would fall apart and blame god for it. Because, actually, honestly, it was God's fault she was running around Hisui like her ass was on fire.

Arceus owed her a vacation. Add it to the list of things to yell at them about.

Her Samurot dropped his head into her lap, a heavy boof that brought her out of her thoughts. She reached a hand around the shell of his head and scratched his neck, eliciting something that some would call a purr, but she would call a faulty engine noise. It was great, she loved it.

God she missed her old pokemon team. They were, unfortunately, left behind at home, leaving her quite stranded at the beginning of her journey in Hisui, but even more than the battle value she missed interacting with her team.

She missed them as her partners, like she missed her friends.

She wished she could see them again soon.

She reminded herself that she would.

Thankfully professor Laventon was kind enough to give her a pokemon when she'd first arrived, that's how she got an Oshawott in the first place.

The one that was effectively pinning her in place now.

His name was Ripley. She hoped she would at least have the option to take her current team with her, back to her own time.

But she could only really hope.

"Good night, Uncle" She murmured, thoughtlessly as she let herself curl around Ripley's head, barely cushioned by the sleeping bag on the ground.

"Good night, miss Akari" She heard before closing her eyes and hoping to not be woken up before dawn.

…

She was telling no one how she got into the ditch.

It was her own damn fault, she didn’t look closely enough to where she was going and her foot slipped, and now she was in a ditch. And her tool belt was torn and in a bush. At the top of the ditch. Where she couldn’t reach it.

Her pokeballs were there. So was her flute.

She cursed under her breath. Either she was gonna have to somehow climb out by herself or she was gonna be stuck in here till someone found her.

And she would’ve Loved to climb out on her own if not for the fact that, among the scratches and bruises she acquired falling down was an ankle that fucking hurt to put weight on. So after a few attempts that ended with her falling over on the account of the pain she was left sitting at the bottom and fuming with anger at the situation.

She’d need to get that ankle looked at once she was out, but how was she going to get out? She didn’t yet know.

She wished she at least had a god damned rope. Or that her flute would fall down to her level so she could call one of the Nobles she'd befriended. But no dice.

Maybe if she screamed loud enough someone would hear her and come to her aid.

That or she would attract an alpha. Or just a hostile pokemon in general.

She was thoroughly out of options.

Damn it all to hell with this stupid ditch. She swore again, colourful language loud against the near silence of her surroundings.

Maybe if she could get the attention of a curious pokemon she could get it to knock her tool belt down to her. She wouldn't have a problem then.

She sighed. That was a flimsy plan, like real flimsy. There were so many ways that could go wrong and what then? Run on her one good leg? Dig straight down to the earth's core with her bare hands?

There was a rustle somewhere up above and she froze. Whatever vestiges of a plan she might have had evaporated immediately as she tried to breathe as soundlessly as physically possible and looked up, slowly.

There was a shape on the lip of the ditch, and it took a few moments for it to resolve itself into something she recognized. She let out a breath as her eyes met with a glowing silver gaze.

"Hey, Argen" She waved weakly at him, letting herself relax "What are you doing here?"

He murmured at her, an inquisitive noise. She chuckled.

"As you can see here I am. At the bottom or a hole in the ground. Are you alone?" A small nod "Do you think you can get Ingo for me? I'm kinda stuck" She pointed at her bad leg.

After another curt nod the Zorua made a small, soothing noise in her direction then disappeared over the edge of the ditch. Akari sighed again, less frustrated this time. This was good. She wasn't stranded anymore.

Now she just had to wait.

It didn't take long, just about 15 minutes, for Argen to return with Ingo in tow, even if it felt a lot longer to her. She was bad at passing time without anything to engage with.

“Miss Akari?” she heard Ingo calling out to her and looked up at him. He was leaning out over the lip of the ditch, his and Argen’s eyes glowing down at her. She waved weakly “I take it you are in need of assistance?”

“Hi Ingo. Yeah, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I dinged up my leg on the way down and it hurts to stand on” she gestured at her bad ankle, visibly bruised under the rolled up pant-leg “So I can’t get out myself”

The man nodded, understanding “Give me one moment” he retreated away from the edge slightly to root in his bag. A few moments later he took out a rope and held onto one end of it before throwing the other end down to her. “Tie it around your waist and hold on. I’ll pull you out”

She nodded and did as she was told. She held on tight as Ingo pulled on his end of the rope and she was jolted upward, off the ground and against the almost sheer wall of the pit she was in. She belatedly curled away from it to not get her clothes torn up by the rocks and branches of the bushes. Thankfully the ascent wasn’t long and soon she felt Ingo hook his arms under her shoulders as he pulled her completely out of the ditch and onto the flat ground. A few seconds later Argen dropped her tool belt on the ground next to her with a self-satisfied grin. She took it and huffed a breathless thank you at the both of them, staying on the ground, half propped up against Ingo.

“Are you alright?” the man asked her “Any new damage to your cab?”

She snickered at that “No, i don’t think so?” She looked over her scrapes and bruises and found nothing new “Just the usual. Ankle’s still fucked tho”

“Language” Ingo scolded automatically. He looked down at her leg thoughtfully “So walking to a settlement is out of the question then.”

“It would seem that way,” she nodded.

“Then I guess I will have to carry you”

She paused for a second to think about what she’d just heard. “Why?” was all she could say in the meantime.

“Well, you cannot walk, so in order to get you to a medical facility someone would need to carry you. And i’m the only one here, so it only stands to reason it is my responsibility to get you the help you need”

“Shouldn’t we just call Sneasler?”

“Lady Sneasler is dreadfully busy with her cubs these days and I don't want to call her away from them to do something I can accomplish myself”

She squinted up at him. All of what he said was logical. He almost seemed excited at the prospect.

“Uh… sure, alright” she gave in without putting up a fight “Just don’t throw out your back”

“No worries Miss Akari, it’ll take more than one piggy back ride to put me out of commission” he was grinning behind that frown she was sure of it. It was infectious.

After a couple of minutes of maneuvering she managed to get a secure hold around his neck as he held her legs so she wouldn’t slip off his back. Argen danced around his legs, his usual spot on the man’s shoulders being unavailable. He didn’t seem upset by this though, on the contrary he was apparently having a good time.

“Attention to all passengers” Ingo started in a voice that let Akari know for sure he worked around trains all the time in his past “Keep your hands and belongings clear of the closing doors, the train to Jubilife is about to depart” there was a sort of cheer in his voice she rarely heard and Argen seemed to be picking up on it too, seeing how he almost seemed to parrot it in high pitched happy cries “All Aboard!”

She broke down into a giggly mess as he took off in a jog towards Jubilife.

***

She needed to see a Zoroark.

That wasn't a debatable point, that wasn't a thing she could dispute, she needed to see, and possibly capture, a Zoroark, to complete her mission to Arceus. They specifically said all pokemon in Hisui, so she had no way out of this.

She had to study every pokemon species available, so that meant every little bug, every fish, every bird, every everything.

That included a fucking Zoroark.

That thing that she's heard so many warnings about.

Sure it was just another pokemon, one that was probably not as dangerous as the myths had made it out to be, sure she's dealt with alphas before and came out alive, sure she had experience and a good team.

But it never got any easier. Facing unknown and dangerous creatures, that people didn't even have proper pokedex entries of yet to even figure out what typing to expect and what caveats might arise, was terrifying.

And it was too damn bad Argen wasn't catchable, the brat. He was right there.

She didn't mean that, she wouldn't want to separate him from Ingo. Ever. She didn't completely trust the Galaxy team to return him to the wild after they were done scrutinising him.

Also he was a Zorua. She somehow doubted they would let her hand them a Zorua and wait till it evolved. She would either need data from or the actual evolved creature.

So that left her with the quest of going out to the alabaster icelands, going to the territory in which Zoroarks dwelled and trying her luck.

She hated every level of that idea to some degree but she had to do it.

And no one wanted to go with her. Not one person she talked to, in either clan or Jubilife wanted to accompany an outsider to look for an Icelandic cryptid that could cast illusion and hated people. Go figure

Except Ingo. Bless him.

It was official, she was adopting him as her uncle. She's made slip ups by calling him that before and she was not going back, uncle Ingo sounded good and she would stick to it. Her mom would have to deal with it and whoever Ingo's relatives were would have to deal with it too, she didn't make the rules, she just was his niece now.

She told him this, on impulse. He spluttered but didn't protest. Argen almost fell off his perch on the man's shoulders. She just laughed.

Their hike to alabaster icelands was uneventful. It was almost worse that way, how nothing prevented them from just walking into a dangerous territory. A chill clung to her far before they reached the cold.

And it was cold. Incredibly so. She was grateful for her winter outfit. She bundled her face into the scarf up to the nose. This was fine.

She hoped to god there wouldn't be a blizzard while they were there.

But it should have been fine otherwise, right? They had provisions, they had pokemon, two full teams of them, they had prepared for this, they weren't going into the icelands for that long even. So it should have been fine, right?

Of course, Akari failed to account for something.

Zoroarks could cast illusions with mastery. And some of them hated people. So much.

It started with a sound, out in the distance. It was vague and barely audible, and she'd discounted it as cries of pokemon on the wind at first. Lord knows there were enough of those, and she'd learned to ignore them for the most part.

As it got closer though it got harder to do that. It didn't sound like a pokemon cry she's ever heard before, even discounting the fact that she'd not seen all the pokemon of this region. It was a mournful, longing noise, like something hurt.

It sounded… almost human.

Closer and closer, calling out for something, one word, too distorted by the distance, swallowed up by the cold, mourning and searching.

She didn't decipher it fast enough to understand what was happening when she saw Ingo take off in a dead run, never minding the snow. Argen yelped and scrambled to try to stay on the man's shoulders but just couldn't find the perch. He landed with a startled noise in the cold white and took off after Ingo, worried yips escaping him all the way, and only then did Akari understand what was happening, what the voice was calling out.

Ingo. It was calling out for Ingo.

She ran after them but couldn't keep up.

There was a person, up ahead. Somehow she'd only just noticed. The sight of them made dread seep into her chest but she didn't dare stop running.

They were wearing all white, a coat tattered at the edges, a blue tie flapping haplessly in the weak wind, a white cap damaged by the elements, torn cotton spooling out. Their face wasn't clear, half covered by the brim of their hat, half obscured by the fog of their breath. They seemed to be smiling.

Ingo hit the breaks, coming to a stop just a few feet in front of them, panting. Akari was still yards away.

"Who are you?!" Ingo demanded, his voice betraying the desperation he must have felt "Why can't I remember you? Why do I feel so… so… "

"Guilty? Well maybe you feel that way because you can't remember me" The person said, their smile stretching even wider "What kind of person doesn't remember their loved ones anyway"

Ingo took a sharp breath.

"Or maybe" The person theorized, raising one finger up, almost playfully "It is because you left me"

Akari could see vestiges of mist starting to swirl in the air as she ran. She tried to run faster.

"What?" Ingo croaked.

"Oh, don't you remember?" They cocked their head to the side, short mirthless laughter ringing out from them, as the world filled with fog "You left me to die"

***

The cold was total and mind-numbing and their coats did precious little to stave it off. They weren't made for a blizzard, or any sort of heavy snowfall, after all, they were made for wearing in the city subway system. Light enough to not be smothering in summer, heavy enough to not let the wind of the tunnels get quite chilly enough to be cold.

Here, however, wherever here was, was not the city. They couldn't even be sure they were still in the vicinity of Nimbasa, if they were honest, and it was freezing.

They stuck close to each other, less for warmth and more for the fact that the visibility was almost literally nonexistent, and if they walked any distance apart from each other they would surely get separated, which was 'inadvisable', as Ingo had eloquently described it, and, quite honestly, the last thing either of them wanted to happen.

They weren't sure what happened for them to wind up where they were. Both of them concluded that they'd lost some time between the subway tunnels and the wherever icy wasteland that they ended up in, the absent stretch of time replaced by icky static.

So there they were, in the middle of nowhere, at risk of hypothermia, with no pokemon and no clue which way to the nearest civilization, if there even was one within walking distance, and if yes was that a journey they could make before freezing to death.

But at least they were together. That was a comfort. They could figure it out together.

It was Emmet that noticed it first, in the endless flurrying, moving white of the blizzard. A shape, vague, a bit far away, barely visible on the snowy backdrop.

The figure looked human. He couldn’t see which way they were facing, and they weren’t moving, rooted in place. He nudged Ingo’s shoulder to get his attention and pointed the figure out. They didn't move in the time it took for his older brother to focus and search them out in the constant barrage of interference, which probably felt longer for Emmet than it actually was.

He couldn't tell if they moved when Ingo called out to them. They couldn't be sure the figure even heard it.

They couldn't be sure it was even a person, and not just a small enough tree. Or a pokemon. Ingo called out louder and Emmet joined him this time just in case it helped, though he felt a chill creep into his bones that wasn't from the cold. He couldn't tell if they'd moved at all, half considering that the silhouette wasn't even real, that it was a trick of the light and the blizzard.

A bad feeling settled in his chest, pushing onto his already aching lungs. A dread rose and overshadowed everything as he saw, out of the corner of his eyes, as his brother started walking forward, towards the figure, and he reached out his hand, with speed he didn't know he still had, to latch onto his brother's shoulder, to stop him in his tracks. The inquisitive look Ingo sent his way quickly morphed into something more wary, more afraid, more akin to what Emmet himself was feeling.

He didn't know exactly why but he felt that getting closer to whatever that was was a very, verrry bad idea. And considering everything, how they didn't know how they got here, and wherever here was, he wasn't going to ignore this seemingly random insight.

He didn't think he could ignore it anyway, seeing how something deep in his subconscious would not let him take even one step forward and was telling him, screaming at him, to turn back. To find another way, go anywhere else.

He pulled Ingo back and the latter didn't protest. Emmet caught his brother's hand in his and held on like a vice and walked, definitively, away. It wasn't a very fast procession, the ankle deep snow slowing them down considerably, but he would rather had been cold and tired and uncomfortable than being where they were right then, and judging by the fact that Ingo kept pace without even as much as a question he either shared that sentiment or trusted Emmet's judgement.

He glanced over his shoulder, just for a moment, hoping to confirm that whatever That was it was no longer visible, no longer their problem.

To his infinite disappointment it wasn’t gone, still very definitely there, somehow even more visible than before. He grit his teeth.

Then it moved.

He couldn't tell how he knew, but it definitely moved. It Turned around to face them and somehow through the snow and the distance he could see its face. Its eyes bored into him.

He must have flinched at this because right then Ingo had slowed down, just a fraction, and looked back too, and Emmet felt him startle at the sight as well. He tried to walk faster, to maybe break into a sprint but the deep snow threatened to trip him if he did, and with the two of them no running in these conditions was possible.

There were pinpricks of dread littering his back and he glanced back again and the thing was moving some more, but this time it was moving towards them, taking great leaping strides.

It definitely wasn't human. Whatever it was it was getting closer and he felt a yelp leave his vocal cords before he had any chance to stop it because its eyes blazed with something furious, and there were no questions as to what it was intending to do once it reached them.

They ran. It didn't work for long, but for a few dozen seconds they tried valiantly, holding onto each other for dear life, to escape from the freight train of a pokemon coming at them.

Then it was upon them, and the scant few moments before it brought one of its clawed paws down in a swipe they could feel its shadow loom above them.

The slash caught Ingo on the back and threw him to the side immediately. A sound of ripping fabric accompanied his hand being wretched out of Emmet's as they were finally separated by the attack. The creature brought down another attack without a moment's respite, and he felt it connecting with his side, knocking him to the ground in an ungraceful heap and robbing him of his breath. He rolled in the snow for a second before regaining his footing.

He could see snippets of Ingo getting up as well, with a little more difficulty than him, but the creature was faster than either of them and rounded on his older brother in moments, its bite narrowly missing his face as he dodged.

Emmet let out a wordless yell, trying to pull its attention to himself, to give Ingo an opening to get out of the way of more attacks, and it worked, as the blazing eyes focused on him. He didn't have much of a plan from there, but he managed to roll out of the way as a blast of shadowy energy barreled past him.

He'd barely gotten the sense of his surroundings again when another swipe tore through the flesh of his arm and the scream that let itself loose from his chest was more shock than pain but it was definitely partially pain. He stumbled, suddenly part blind, and felt its jaws close on one of his hands.

He heard the crunch of broken bone before he felt it, the detached noise loud in his ears, enough to overshadow his own heartbeat. It sounded disgusting, a short series of wet cracks that probably signified his digits grinding into dust.

This was not, however, indicative of the pain that followed. It was worse than he'd expected.

The pain radiated up his arm and he could feel every bone in his palm, his wrist, what seemed like his whole arm, lighting on fire as the creature bit down on it. The shock wasn't numbing him enough. His screams were purely agony now.

There was another yell that wasn't him but through his burning brain he couldn't really process it.

The creature pulled on his hand, lighting more fires, and it felt like all his weight was being dragged by his one, completely mangled limb, and he felt himself being swung through the air as it threw him a short distance away, finally releasing its hold on his hand. He landed in a pile of hurt and limbs and it took him a moment to remember who he was.

He pushed himself up on his knees and one working arm to see the thing that just destroyed his wrist latching its teeth onto his brother's shoulder. He was on his feet again before he knew it, yelling, flagging it down.

They managed to repeat this song and dance a couple times. One of them would call the beast's attention to himself, get hit by an attack or two, and then the other one would flag it down and draw its fire as the first one recovered and repeated the process. Emmet numbly registered getting slashed in the chest, getting thrown again, by the leg, and the distinct warmth of blood gushing down the side of his face as one of the lucky swipes tore his ear off, among other new injuries.

It hurt less and less and it worried him, somewhere deep inside, in the part of his mind that usually ran strategy and wasn't in control just then. He was getting numb. The blood loss and the cold were taking their slow, inevitable effect.

Ingo wasn't faring any better, sustaining the same amount of injuries as Emmet, his whole frame shaky and unstable.

The battlefield, once undisturbed pristine snow, now lay mangled and covered haphazardly in blood, all of it theirs.

The delicate yet graceless dance ended when the beast swung with the back of its paw and caught Ingo full force on the back of the head. It sent him sprawling in the ravaged snow and after a few moments he did not get up. He didn't move at all.

Emmet yelled again, strained and desperate, to get the beast's attention, but it did not go after him. It seemed it was done with the game they'd been playing. It towered over Ingo, its claws raised, teeth bared in a snarl of malice and fury, its eyes blazing with otherworldly rage.

Emmet saw red. He was tired, he could barely move, absolutely everything hurt and many of his bones were surely broken, but he still found it in himself to run at the thing that'd hurt them and to latch himself onto its back, a primal battle cry tearing itself out of his throat.

He tried his best, his one working hand contorted into claws, the other one buried uselessly in the beast's fur, to wrestle the thing back, away from his brother. He kicked it, his shoes connecting with its sides and doing wayyy less damage than he'd wanted, and writhed and clawed at it, and all of it was futile.

His grand victory of staying on its back lasted all of 5 seconds, before it reached back and threw him off, almost effortlessly, before rounding on him. He lay on his back, out of breath, out of energy, out of everything, as it descended and he felt, almost distantly, it clamping its jaws around his throat.

Fangs sank into skin like a knife into butter, scalding hot blood gushing in rivers from the new wounds and pooling beneath him. He barely felt it, yet the pain tried to make him scream, only there was nothing to scream with, his voice box being crushed between the monster's teeth. He couldn't even gasp for air, his lungs hurting already and now beginning to ache anew as he tried but couldn't take a breath, more and more blood pooling under his neck and head.

He felt a sort of… pleasant nothingness touch his mind, as the thing bit deeper, its teeth finally connecting, severing everything between them completely. The edges of his already fuzzy vision darkened. The warmth of the blood on his neck and whatever was left of his throat felt far away, like it was happening to someone else. The pain felt distant, fading away into a dull discomfort before disappearing completely.

He just hoped Ingo would not suffer the same fate.

The nothingness, the void, wrapped itself around his mind. His eyes never had the chance to close.

***

He did remember the person, now that he saw them. Their face was obscured, even now, in his mind's eye, but not completely.

But he remembered now, of course he did, he… he wasn't alone. He wasn't alone when he came to Hisui. Back then, in the blizzard there was someone else.

Something happened, he remembered now, there was something that chased them, wanted to kill them. Something that threw him into the snow, again and again and again, made him bleed over and over, but he got up every time despite having no energy to do so, because…

Because what?

The figure, the one now in front of him, whose name spun just out of the reach of his grasp, laughed again, and it was familiar but somehow so so wrong.

"I d-.. I didn't.. " He choked on the words and felt his eyes sting. There was a warm sensation on his face, quickly gone in the cold air.

"Oh? So you do remember" The man in front of him, what was his name, stated, smile ever widening "you left me out here, to die'' He took a step forward, red stains forming on his white shirt "you saved yourself and left me" His coat, a white mirror of Ingo's own, was tattered and torn and covered in blood, and the man's ear was gone, blood drip drip dripping down the side of his face.

"No, no you-.. you were" He sobbed, tears burning his face. Fog was creeping into his mind, colder than the icelands, colder than anything, painful shards of ice digging into his mind.

"I was dying" The man leered, stepping ever closer. There was a torn, awful, ragged wound on his throat. Blood spurted out of it in a river, staining his shirt and coat even more "I was left here to die alone and you got to live! Why did you get to live?" He stepped closer again "Did I deserve that? Did you deserve that? Do you deserve to be alive over me?"

Did he? No, no no no he couldn’t think like that, no one deserved to be alive over anyone else, that's not how that worked, but it hurt hurt Hurt to think about it because why did he get to live? Why was it him? Out of the two of them, why did He survive? Why not… ? Why… ?

He clutched at the front of his shirt, at his chest, where a feeling smothered him, guilt pressing down on him, cracking his ribs under the pressure. Why why why why did he get to live, why did he get to live, why didn't the beast that attacked them tear his throat out, not his… not…

Why did his brother have to die? It was unfair, why didn't he do more to help? Could he have done more to help? His head hurt so much, the fog obscuring most of his vision as the man, his mirror, his brother, his twin, loomed in front of him. His blood stained the snow and he couldn't tell if this was a memory or not.

Did it even matter? If it was a memory? If this was happening now? He left his twin, his other half, to bleed out in the snow, to die, and he still, still couldn't even remember his name.

"I'm… i'm sorry" He sobbed "i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm so sorry, so sorry, sorry.. " He muttered again and again "i'm sorry i left you, i didn't mean to, i'm so sorry"

"Are you? Sorry?" The man laughed, monotone and cruel, inches away from him "are you really?" His hands, gloves stained red with blood like the rest of him, rested on Ingo's shoulders "are you?"

He was still muttering, probably apologising, probably begging for forgiveness, but it was so quiet, his voice not working like it should anymore as he struggled to breathe. Guilt and grief pressed on him from all sides.

"It should have been you" The man drawled like it was a fact of life "you should have been the one who died, you useless, pathetic creature" He said, and he was inclined to agree "Yet here you are" He smiled but it was fake, he would know "But we can fix that, can't we?" His hands squeezed Ingo's shoulders, to the point of pain, but he almost didn't feel it.

He felt a pinprick of pain in his side, barely there but cold, freezing, getting worse with every second, clawing deeper, grazing his insides, scratching, burning. It hurt but he couldn’t make a sound, his voice coming out as a strained wheeze.

“Match with me, brother,” his twin's voice whispered in his ear as Ingo slowly sank to his knees, the pain spreading from his side driving him deeper into a stupor, thoughts lost in the drowning fog in his mind “perish like I did”

He was going to die, wasn’t he? He probably deserved it, but he didn’t actually have a choice, did he? If the wound in his side didn’t finish him off the cold would. He would drown in his own grief and guilt out here and he’d deserve it. He wasn’t meant to survive his first night out here anyway, it was overdue.

He hoped Miss Akari would get home ok. Find a better friend than him.

And then

it was over.

He felt the pressure on his side cease, the burning not gone but not spreading, dulled enough for him to be able to think again. The looming visage of his brother disappeared from in front of him and when he looked up he found his figure staggering a few steps back as a small hurricane of white and red assaulted his face. The fog around them swirled and thinned.

The image of his brother flickered, like a glitched out special effect in a movie, before fizzling out. It almost didn’t surprise him. Maybe he knew it was fake from the get go, he probably did, actually. His mind felt clearer than it’s been in months, if he didn’t count the guilt, but even that felt dulled down somehow.

The creature that’s been his brother till a few moments ago, No, just looked like him, was now just a mess of anger and grey-white fur. The creature attacking it, the Zorua, his friend, was yelling at it. It wasn’t squeaking or hissing or any number of the usual pokemon noises, no this was actual yelling, those were actual words. He didn’t hear all that was being said, but something like “leave him alone” did register in his mind.

The bigger creature flailed for a few seconds before trying to swat at its attacker. The Zorua dodged out of the way by jumping off altogether, landing some feet away, between the beast and Ingo himself. The little creature hissed something akin to ‘stay behind the yellow line’, which wasn’t the most threatening phrase to hiss but as far as it went Ingo approved of it.

The shapeshifter roared its rage and he found the whole thing dreadfully familiar. Its face was raked with scars, one of its eyes sputtering with otherworldly light, with fury as it bore down on the much, much smaller creature in front of it.

Then there was another shape, a dark one, one that he could make out was a Samurott through the last vestiges of the fog, if he squinted. It was charging the beast, the horn on its head thrust forward in an attack. The alpha dodged, barely, by stepping back some more and swiped the dark type with its claws, which bounced harmlessly off its head. He could hear Akari shout orders from somewhere to his side.

At this point Ingo temporarily tuned out the starting battle, his eyes drifting to the Zorua between him and it. The creature was still on guard, still in a fighting stance but not moving to join the fray, and he was unexplainably glad for it.

A blunt pain shot through his skull as he called out to the Zorua.

"Emmet!"

That wasn't… that wasn't the name he meant to use, and he just got to see as the creature turned to him sharply before his eyes snapped shut and he clutched at his head. That wasn't the name he'd meant to say, that was… his twin's name.

He opened his eyes and found the Zorua staring up at him, worried but anticipating something.

"Emmet" He said again, because this was the exact correct name to use.

"Ingo?" His brother said, his voice different, too high pitched, but his flat tone exactly the same as he remembered.

"Emmet!" He felt new tears rolling down his face. He felt something vaguely resembling a smile touch the corners of his frown.

"Ingo!" And just like that he was upon him, headbutting him in the side of the jaw in a way that sent a jolt of pain through to his already aching head but he didn't care, he could not care less for the pain as he hugged his brother tight and sobbed with renewed vigour because it all made perfect sense now. He wasn't alone anymore. He remembered now, he remembered his brother, the negative space in his mind no longer empty.

"I missed you so much" Emmet told him, his voice a bit too loud almost right in his ear "i'm sorry i tried to tell you but you didn't remember me and i couldn't talk and i didn't know what to do and i couldn't find you at the beginning so i couldn't let you go and i'm sorry Ingo"

It was so much. He laughed through the tears.

"I missed you too!" He assured "even when i couldn't remember you i missed you so much, and i'm sorry i didn't recognize you sooner, i'm sorry, i missed you so dearly, Emmet" He held tightly onto the small furry body pressed into his chest and neck and let the tears run their course as both of them muttered to each other.

He didn't notice when everything had gone quiet. When he looked up, an unclear amount of time later, there was no sign of the great scarred alpha with only one eye. There was only Akari, talking quietly with her Samurott, Ripley was his name, right? petting him and just generally giving him praise for being so strong and driving away an alpha.

She really was a strong trainer with strong pokemon. It was a wonder the Galaxy team didn't seem to see it.

There was another headbutt, connecting with the side of his neck, and he couldn't help but laugh. Tears still stained his face. He hasn't felt this happy in months.

Akari turned and looked at him, her expression giving him the impression like she only now remembered he was there "ah, Uncle Ingo, are you alright?"

He sniffled and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand "yes, i'm in perfect working order, miss Akari" His voice hasn't sounded this uplifted in so long it almost doesn't sound like his voice anymore "better than ever, actually"

Emmet laughed, perching himself on Ingo's shoulders, his tail tickling the side of his face. He didn't mind one bit.

"Are you… crying?" She asked, more concern flooding into her voice.

He has been doing a lot of that in the past however long it's been, huh? "It has been… a lot. But I remember now!"

"You do? You got your memories back?" She flapped her hands excitedly in front of her.

"Not all of them, but I did get some back. The, the ones i… " He was going to start crying again if he tried to talk about it now so he just leaned his head to the side and was met with another headbutt, the gentlest one yet, to the side of his skull.

She nodded, "Well that's a start!" She then pointed at Emmet and exclaimed "And you! How did you learn to talk?"

"I am Emmet!" He answered "I tried really hard to be understood and it worked! But I always knew how to talk, yup!"

"I thought your name was Argen" Akari cocked her head to the side, only mildly confused.

"Ah, that name was a temporary measure before we figured out how to align the rails properly again" He reached up his hand and rested it on his brother's flank "this is Emmet. He's my brother. The actual one"

…

"I should have known"

She wasn't as surprised as she thought she ought to be, but deep down she understood that the weak, vague suspicion of something like this being the case softened the blow. Did she expect the weird Zorua that could smile to be Ingo's brother? No. Did this make perfect sense? Yes absolutely. Or well, it didn't not on a logical level, but on the emotional and vibes level she couldn't imagine anything else being the case.

"You have the same eyes" She added before either of them could say anything about her statement. It was true, besides Emmet having slit pupils, their eyes were basically identical. Silvery grey and glowing from within. Two peas in a pod, absolutely fantastic.

Though the phrase 'the actual one' struck her as odd for a moment before she realised what it meant. The man she saw just before the fog scrambled her sense of direction and left her stranded in the snowy expanse, and then after she found her way out of it, that man that the Zoroark was impersonating, that was someone Ingo knew. And he wore the same coat, he was his mirror image.

That must have been what Emmet actually looked like, when he didn't look like… Well, like a pokemon. He even wore the same hat.

In Hisui the zorua line were ghosts. She had a bad feeling that she didn't exactly Want to know why the man was a pokemon now, but somewhere deep inside she understood.

She wondered if Ingo understood too. She suspected he might have.

Welp, no time to dwell on that right that second, they did what they could, time to get the hell out of dodge. It was cold.

"We should get going," She said, as Ripley bumped into her side. He was also eager to go. She pet him absentmindedly "We're not getting any more data today and i would like to get out of the icelands before nightfall"

Ingo looked at her like he didn't understand what she'd just said for just a moment before his eyes cleared and he perked up "Ah, yes, i'm sorry we got… quite so horribly derailed" He fidgeted with the brim of his cap, as if any of this situation was in any way under his control.

"It's fine, we saw what we needed, right? I got data from an alpha no less. See, it's fine" She waved her hand in dismissal as the man finally got up. He seemed a bit worse for wear but overall unharmed. She shivered slightly.

"In that case I guess it really is for the best for us to depart" He said, also shivering for a moment. His hand hovered over his side for a second before dropping. He shook himself off "Are you ready to go, miss Akari?"

"Ready as I'll ever be" He cheered slightly, her reactions dampened by tiredness and cold.

Emmet and Ingo looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes and barely perceptibly nodded "In that case.. " Ingo started, corners of his mouth pulling up in what she could only call a facsimile of a grin.

"ALL ABOARD!" he and Emmet yelled and she found herself laughing almost hysterically at the sound.

***

Sneasler heard the commotion way before she had the chance to see any of it.

The visibility was low, snow coming down in heavy curtains that made it hard to see farther than the tip of your own snout. Under normal circumstances had she heard any sort of commotion she would have ignored it in favour of continuing to get back to her cave and waiting out the snow storm there, but this was different somehow.

It sounded so much like a human scream. What were they doing out there, the snow started coming down hard a while ago then, hadn't they had the sense to hide by now? Humans were so stupid sometimes, she knew, but she didn't favor the thought of leaving someone alone to freeze. They were like little cubs, helpless while alone in hostile places like the icelands.

She'd felt something warm towards the humans she had to cohabitate with. She couldn't leave one of them in trouble.

So she trudged through the already way-too-deep snow towards the distant noise, hoping that they'd hold on for a while longer and not run off further into the blizzard. They never knew where they were going, especially when they couldn't see, their sense of direction undone by the flurry of snow. Thankfully she didn't have that problem, she just wished they wouldn't make it harder for her.

And then there was another noise, one that made her nervous. It wasn't a scream, not a human one, and it wasn't the snow or rocks falling, or anything she'd wanted to hear.

It was a howl.

It was a bit hard to make out at a distance but that didn’t matter, she knew it well enough to recognize. She’d heard it before, after all.

She sped up as much as she could in the snow, afraid that any second spent on the way was a second too much. She was getting closer now, the human noises drawing nearer through the blanket of white, but so were the snarls and howls. She had hoped the beast hadn’t yet gotten to her target but the possibility of that was nonexistent at this point.

She heard a scream cut out just as a blurry silhouette came into view and she sprinted at it at top speed. The dark shape resolved itself into a hulking maned figure, just about as big as her if not bigger, white fur splattered with a crimson pattern. Its eyes shone with an otherworldly rage as it turned towards her. Its muzzle dripped with red, staining its snowy fur as it bared its teeth at Sneasler and growled with fury. She hissed right back at it, readying her long fore-claws to attack.

There were shapes at its back legs, a little ways away, half buried in the snow. She thought they might be human but she couldn't see them well enough. She didn't exactly have the time as the Zoroark lunged for her with a snarl.

She took a step back and clawed at it, catching one of its forepaws in the swipe, which didn’t seem to deter it much. Its jaws snapped shut on empty air as she dodged and swiped at it again, catching it on its muzzle. Three angry red slashes opened across its face, one of its eyes losing its furious light. An anguished cry from the beast confirmed its pain as it swatted in front of it blindly, narrowly missing her, and pawed at its face. It recoiled backwards, half-blind now and stumbling and Sneasler took the opportunity to give chase, landing two more swipes on its forepaws and head, poison claws sinking deep into flesh, yielding more pained and enraged howling.

It reared back, red spraying from its wounds, staining fur and snow alike, and seemed to teeter on the verge of falling over before dropping on all fours and darting into the white expanse, the sheets of falling snow quickly hiding it from view. Sneasler did not give chase.

She had more important things to do, and so, releasing a final threatening hiss after the retreating beast, she turned back to the vaguely-human shapes.

The sudden fear of the fact that she was too little too late to come to aid struck her as she did so. There were two, and from where she stood, panting and reeling, they resembled less actual humans and more corpses of ones. She hurried close to their side, snuffling at them, trying to find any signs of life.

The one closest to her had a light fake hide, once probably as white as snow, now soaked through with red. They were lying face up and, as she inspected them closer, seemed to not be breathing. Their cloth hide was torn to shreds, through the holes in it she could see their skin seemed to be littered with wounds.Their head was turned a bit to the side and their eyes half open, but as she stared into them, they were empty and lifeless. The side of their head where an ear would be was ravaged and caked in drying red. A heinous wound peeked out from under their tall collar, their throat torn out.

She hissed mournfully before moving on to the other one.

This one had a similar fake hide but in darker colour, also torn and soaked in red, though it was less visible on this one. This human was laying on their side, and as she nudged them gently while trying to figure out whether or not they were breathing, they seemed to let out a tiny, almost inaudible, whimpering noise. As she nudged them onto their back she could see their breath coming in short bursts of weak fog from their mouth. Their eyelids almost seemed to flutter for a moment, but ultimately stayed closed.

They were alive! And they were probably very cold and hurting very badly, half of their face obscured by drying streaks of red that started out somewhere at the top of their head, so she had to hurry.

She shrugged the transport basket off her shoulders and set it in the snow in front of her before starting the ordeal of getting the dark-hided human into it. This took a little bit of maneuvring, as she had to be careful not to jostle them too hard, not to hurt them further with her claws, but soon they were stuffed, a bit haphazardly but ultimately harmlessly, into the small space. They didn’t wake during the whole process, only whimpering once or twice as they were moved.

She looked back momentarily at the other human, still laying motionless in the snow, still just as lifeless as before. She let out a sigh and heaved the basket, as carefully as she could, onto her back. Had they still been breathing she would have figured out how to get them to a human settlement, but as it was she couldn’t risk carrying a dead weight while the other human could be in mortal danger. Still, it saddened her to leave them there, to be buried by snow.

With another mournful noise she turned and began her long trek to safety. She’d hoped she would be fast enough this time.

…

It would be maybe minutes or hours later after she left that a small figure awakes in the snow. They stare out across the now seemingly unbroken surface of white with shining silver eyes. They don’t recognize it but they know they don’t belong here.

They hear a howling on the wind, one that brings to mind images of claws and teeth and vague memories of pain. The small figure gets clumsily up from the snow and starts walking in the opposite direction.

***

It took a little bit of time to get used to, but less than he would have thought.

The idea that his brother was a pokemon now, one that had been with him for a few months already, unable to tell him anything on the account of not being able to speak, took about a week or so to fully sink in, down to the nitty gritty, but it didn't alarm him as much as he'd expected.

He felt worried, he felt a loss, a guilt for Emmet's passing away, but, as the man himself reminded him, that was ancient history. That wasn't his fault. That he couldn't have prevented it.

He still barely had any memories of that first night in the blizzard when he'd lost himself as he was before and Emmet lost his life. Mostly flashes of red and white and the potent feeling of fear and grief.

Emmet didn't have such a problem. He remembered everything from that night. And before it.

He didn't tell him too much, just enough for him to get the jist of it. Enough to hammer it through Ingo's head that it wasn't his fault. They were unlucky to unexpectedly come to a strange hostile land unprepared. Verrry unlucky.

Ingo felt the bittersweetness of the sentiment Emmet was trying to convey. Maybe with slightly different luck their roles would be reversed.

It was bitter. He thought that maybe it would be better if that was the case, but somewhere underneath he understood that would put Emmet in his position, and that just became a whole recursive circle of regret. It made him shiver.

And besides, Emmet was there. With him. In a different shape but nonetheless. That was enough. Whatever shape he took was enough.

The empty space next to him was no longer empty, not filled with void. There was life there again, his brother was by his side again.

Their routine fell back into a rhythm, like he thought it was before his memories ended. It felt familiar, it felt right.

He was happy that way. He could see Emmet's happiness too, in his eyes, in his ever-present smile. They were alright. Hindered but ok.

…

So

The conclusion that Akari came to was that she got two uncles for the price of one.

It was more involved than that, but that sure was a takeaway from the whole situation.

Emmet was a sweetheart, if a bit of a brat. He was quiet, his voice monotone compared to Ingo's, but his expressions, bizarrely, were easier to read, even through the filter of a Zorua face.

He was rambunctious and chaotic, mischievous in a different way to Ingo, and just as odd as his brother.

And he still had his memories intact.

So when it came to modern jokes they were on the same wavelength.

They made a pact to prank Meli together. As practice for Emmet's ability to cast illusion. But mostly just because it was funny to prank Meli.

It was a grand ol time.

She would have to somehow explain to her mom how she got not one but two uncles in the past. She thought she could do it, considering they were a package deal, even if she didn't know that from the get go. Her mom would have to understand. She wouldn't be given a choice.

…

Sneasler was frustrated to find she'd actually grown fond of the Pale Shadow that dogged her Warden's steps.

He was a sibling of her Warden's, allegedly, though she failed to understand how that was supposed to work. The thought made the both of them happy though, so she didn't think too hard about it. It became easier to see once he evolved and started using illusions more.

She’d have thought he would become more annoying when he did that, but no. He just became preoccupied.

If they were siblings somehow, well, sure. Humans were weird, she thought. Whatever.

They were happier like this.

She liked them.

…

The shattered sky was loud and angry and made his brain buzz with an uncomfortable energy that felt vaguely familiar. It inspired fear when he looked at it, fear that dug deep into his insides and stayed there, painful and ever-present. It agitated pokemon and people alike.

None of this mattered because he was angry and wanted to yell at Kamado but he could not.

The man deserved it, he deserved worse, because what kind of commander exiled one of their own on an unfounded suspicion. Honestly it was preposterous, how could he even think Akari could have caused the sky to turn red, for the rift to widen? What did he take her for, a demon? A goddamn monster, come to infiltrate them and destroy the world from within?

So, Ingo was very angry but could do nothing about it, because it was highly probable that the second he came even close to Jubilife he would get handcuffed and thrown in jail, if not worse, because unfortunately he too was an outsider in the eyes of the Galaxy team, and that, apparently, was enough to warrant immediate hostile action.

Irida warned him not to act. He fumed at the suggestion but his hands were tied. If he was seen helping Akari there would be reason for both Diamond clan and Galaxy team to suspect the Pearl clan of treason and then all hell would break loose.

But! They had a plan.

Just because he couldn’t go help Akari didn’t mean that Emmet couldn’t.

So! He would stay put, keep up the appearance of not helping, also stay away from the Galaxy team on all fronts (Hiding out with Lady Sneasler was an idea, she would be cool with that), and Emmet would go look for Akari and help her if she needed it.

Which wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best they had.

…

There were no joltik in Hisui.

She knew that, she would have seen some by now. There were none, joltik didn't live in Hisui.

There was a joltik on her shoulder.

It got up there at some point of her mad dash to the mountain above which the rift sat. She didn't notice when.

Now, she let them stay there because they seemed friendly, also their eyes were an opaque silver that she recognized.

She thanked the little creature as she ran and it bumped, very gently, into the side of her neck, making encouraging clicking noises at her.

She didn't stop her run, but it felt less desperate and lonely anymore.

***

"Uncle Ingo!" Akari called out, waving at the man from afar.

It's been a good long while since they'd crossed paths, she was really busy lately, what with the leftover anxiety after that little conundrum when the sky shattered like a sheet of glass, and new research on top of that. She was tired but the sense of accomplishment kept her warm and going forward. She didn’t have that much left to go now, even if the ‘not that much’ was some of the most time consuming work. It’d be fine.

The warden waved back at her as she walked towards where he and Lady Sneasler stopped walking at her call "Good day, Akari" He greeted, a bit stiffly. Her eyebrows furrowed, ever so slightly. Lady Sneasler made a humming noise, acknowledging her presence.

"How's it going?" She asked, airy and unconcerned nonetheless, and was met with a dismissive warble from the tall pokemon as the latter interested herself in something else. Ingo didn't respond right away, his expression drawn into a tight but shaky frown.

"Uncle, are you ok?" Akari asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Yes, i’m perfectly fine, nothing to worry about” he tried to assure, unconvincingly. She just frowned more and tried to discern his expression. His eyes caught her attention.

“Uh, Emmet? What are you doing?” she crossed her hands in front of her chest.

He looked like he was going to protest for a moment but then just sighed, his frown upturning and becoming a weak smile “I knew you’d see through my disguise but I didn't think it’d be quite this fast” he grinned at her.

“Ingo calls me *Miss* Akari” she informed him, a smile crossing her features as well “Also your eyes are still kitsune, I hate to tell you”

“Ah, I see”

“You’ve gotten quite good at illusions though”

“Thank you muchly, i've been practising”

“Yeah, why are you pretending to be Ingo tho?”

He fidgeted with his hands for a moment “I’m subbing in!” he started, and when that didn’t clarify it he continued “Ingo’s been feeling unwell for the last few days and i’m making sure his duties are taken care of”

“I see. Is he ok? Wait, shoot, I know he’s unwell, but it’s gonna be fine, right?”

“We think it’s just a cold, I’m sure it’s gonna pass soon” he told her. His smile turned just slightly more strained.

Akari raised an eyebrow "For someone who's faking their entire appearance right now you're surprisingly bad at lying"

"I'm not faking it!" He protested "I look like this, this is my actual face" He waved a hand pointedly in front of his face.

"Not denying the lying though, huh?"

"... Touche" He pouted.

"What's going on, Uncle Emmet?"

"Nothing to be concerned about, I promise! I'm just… a little, tinsy bit worried, that's all, yup!"

"About a cold?" She asked. Emmet's smile turned more strained, almost fragile "You don't think it's a cold, do you"

"I want to but I just don't know" He looked away from her, fidgeting now with the hanging parts of his coat collar "If we were back home I wouldn't worry so much, but here it's a hit or miss. There aren't real hospitals, there's a med bay at Jubilife but I don't know how much I can trust them, or how much they can do. And i know if he doesn't get better soon i should do something more drastic but i don't know what I Can do"

"I see your predicament" Akari hummed "What Have you done so far?"

"Some herbs that are supposed to boost immunity, he's on bed rest at home right now, Tangela and Abra are there with him to make sure he rests and to be on the lookout. We have fever reducer in case it gets too bad, but it hasn't so far, it's mostly just fatigue and dizziness"

Akari hummed in thought "I'm going to Jubilife at the end of today, I can try to see what kind of meds they got that I can buy if you want? If you don't want to risk going there yourself I mean"

He seemed conflicted but looked back at her after a moment "If it's not too much of a hassle?"

"Sure, it's on the way" She'd do it even if it wasn't "I can meet with you tomorrow, maybe?"

"Thanks Akari" The man smiled, a bit more genuine, if still very worried.

"No problem" She beamed.

…

It felt like he'd been sick forever.

Time passed by slowly when he was awake, at a crawl. His mind was hazy, unfocused, his body felt weak. It made him angry, somewhere at the beginning, but the frustration was too energy consuming now.

He got up sometimes. Rarely now, once a day at best. Too tired, too weak to do more.

He wasn’t alone, not really, ever. His pokemon, some of them, stayed at his side at all times. Sometimes Tangela and Abra, sometimes Gliscor and Machamp, sometimes some other combinations. He was never just by himself, never left completely to his own devices, never in complete silence, and he was grateful for this. Quiet was rough. Quiet was too much, too much like he was alone again, like back when he didn’t remember anything, and waking up to an empty house would probably send him into a panic. In his mind he understood that it was fine, when he woke up alone it just meant Emmet was out, but he couldn’t promise himself he would understand that next time. That he wouldn’t forget. That he wouldn’t assume that his new and barely recalled memories were wrong, or that they wouldn't be too fuzzy to make out, out of reach once again.

He was so tired now. How long had he been sick? Few days? Week maybe? A month? Longer? His brain felt fuzzy. It couldn't have been longer than like a week right? Wait, no, that wasn't right. He couldn't have gotten this bad in a week.

Was he doing really bad? Being bed ridden was probably a sign he wasn't doing great.

He was tired.

It was hard to stay awake.

People visited him. Or, well, only two people really did. Akari was the only one for a while, not counting Emmet, who bothered to make her way to their house. She brought medicine at the beginning, then she just offered to hang out. To keep him company.

He just didn't want to be alone.

Emmet tried to not keep away for long but he was still out most days.

The second person who ever visited was Irida. Just once. He didn't remember what she talked about. He thought Akari asked her for a medical opinion, maybe? The young trainer was there too, so that seemed like a valid option for what was happening. He wasn’t awake for very long at that time, which was a shame.

How long ago was that?

He missed home.

He still didn't truly remember what home was like, even if Emmet had told him a lot about it. He understood things that happened, in broad and vague strokes, even if it wasn't truly remembering them. The images, snapshots of knowledge or moments of life, just didn't come back.

He knew in theory what a subway was, but he couldn't truly remember what it looked or felt like. He knew in theory that he ran one with Emmet, but didn't remember how it came to be that way.

But that was more than nothing, more than he had when he first came to Hisui.

So he dreaded, when he couldn't concentrate on these new/old not-quite-memories, that even those would leave him soon.

That, maybe, he’d forget Emmet again, so soon after remembering.

Sinnoh above, he hated being sick so much. His head was full of cotton and his limbs full of lead. Thinking was hard. Being mad was even harder.

…

He was tired.

…

“You sure you feel well enough for that?”

He really didn’t. He’s really not had any energy in a long time but either he tried to walk outside now or never because he would waste away. His head felt clear enough now and he had no guarantees that would ever happen again.

“Yes. I’m in a good enough condition” he nodded “Safety checks all in order” he lied through his teeth.

Emmet’s eyebrows furrowed, corners of his mouth quivering as if trying to frown “I don’t know if this is wise, Ingo”

“Please, Emmet. We don’t have to go far” he pleaded “Before the snow starts falling”

“Can’t this wait till you get better?”

Ingo shook his head “I’m afraid not. I just want to go for a walk though. It’ll be fine”

Emmet seemed unconvinced. He fidgeted with his hands.

“You’ll be right there with me, you know that, right? If it gets too much we’ll go right home”

“Ok. But only if you promise to tell me if you feel worse”

“Sure” he promised.

The air outside was cool. It felt nice.

His legs were shaky, way more than he'd like. He leaned into Emmet's side for balance and also because he was sure that if he didn't he would actually fall over.

He was fine. Good enough for now, not about to pass out.

He'd just wanted to walk around because being cooped up in his house was getting on his nerves. No other reason.

Well…

The autumn sun was warm but not scorching. They walked out to a small outcropping near a river. It wasn’t a long walk, 20 minutes from their home, maybe. He didn’t think he could go any further without collapsing.

That was fine. The place was picturesque. Some really nice scenery. Not just here, but Hisui in general.

A clearing near the river, short grasses going from green to orange, leaves changing colour before winter showed its face. The river blinking cheerfully in the sunlight. The sun shining through the trees. The sky so clear. Quiet.

He didn’t know what kind of place he and Emmet came from but it wasn’t like this. He could almost remember what it was actually like, if only a glimpse through the cotton in his head. Bright lights, tall buildings. An apartment in the city that overlooked a brightly lit street. Noise, so constant, at his job, outside the window, some sort of noise, never quite fully silent.

Pokemon that didn’t attack on sight.

He didn’t know when he’d sat down.

He was leaning on Emmet's shoulder almost entirely. He was tired. Sinnoh, he was so tired. They had to go home soon but maybe they'd just stay here for a while.

He gripped Emmet's hand in his and let his eyes close. He was tired. They would go home soon. He would just nap for a second, in this little hidden clearing. In safety.

For just a moment.

…

The second time he woke up somewhere in Hisui and didn’t know how he got to that place it was much less confusing than the first.

For one he still remembered who he was. And everything else.

Huh. Everything else?

He thought back and found no fog between him and his past.

He was one of the subway bosses. He could picture that clearly now. He could actually picture what a subway was.

Oh god he knew what a train was! Not through an explanation but he actually knew.

The tracks of his mind were back in working order. His memories were back at their station. No more empty spaces, no more void or static where memory should be.

Man, it’s been a while since he’d felt this complete. Since recalling things didn’t hurt.

Where was he though?

He looked around. It was bright, a sunny autumn day, and the grass was dry and coarse. He could see trees a little distance away. Sounds of a small river reached his ears.

Ah the… the clearing that they'd walked to earlier, the one he liked. Where he decided to rest.

Wait.

Where was Emmet?

Ingo tried to get up to look around better, maybe he'd just missed his twin, but what he ended up doing was to just fall back over, his limbs not cooperating with him like he expected. The jolt of his head hitting the ground, soft as it was, broke him fully out of his revery as some amount of panic seized him.

"Emmet!" he tried to call out but the noise that came out of his mouth was garbled, high pitched and overall not the sound he'd meant to make. He tried again with the same result. No one in the vicinity answered as he tried to make sense of himself, of the signals his body was sending him, because they were Wrong.

His head was clear. He didn't know how or when that happened because the last he remembered he was Very sick, barely able to think or walk, yet here he was, not a trace of fatigue or cotton that stopped his thoughts before. In its place there was… a body that didn't feel right.

Why was he alone? He’d gone here with Emmet, did something happen?

He managed to get his legs under him but couldn't stand up anyway, only able to lift himself with his hands also supporting him. Why was he so damn close to the ground? He could barely see above the grass, what was happening?

What was wrong with him? He strained and managed to stand up on his knees for a moment but that barely gave him any height before he fell back down to all hours. He let out a noise of frustration, and the sound that he actually made sounded foreign, more of an actual growl than anything.

He looked down at himself and was met with black fur. With soft paws and claws and a body that was unfamiliar and wrong and not human-shaped.

Paws. He had paws. Why? Why was he shaped like that?

He tried to pinch himself except he just grazed his cheek with a claw. It hurt momentarily so it was fine anyway, that meant this wasn’t a dream. He looked back over his shoulder. Back covered in black fur. A short poofy tail. Back legs, also clawed and tipped in cyan ‘socks’, same as his front paws. He tried to walk and it almost worked perfectly, considering he’s never walked on all fours before, not like this. He only stumbled slightly as he made his way to the river to look at his reflection.

The vision looking back at him was dark. A kitsune face, top of its head tipped with cyan fur and silvery eyes glowing back at him.

What? Happened to him? Why was he a Zorua?

But actually he’d seen this before, right? Yeah, the same thing happened with Emmet. He became a zorua, and now the same thing was happening to him.

That meant… well.

He was ill before. He was fine now.

He took the thought surprisingly well, even by his own standards. Somehow he thought he’d react worse to his own death. But somehow it wasn’t… that bad. He wasn’t really a ghost, he remembered who he was. It was fine. He’d deal with it later.

He just wondered how long he’d been gone.

Did people already know he was dead? How did people react? Had they already buried him? How was Emmet doing?

Emmet. Oh Dragons, Emmet! Was He ok? Ingo felt a new wave of worry rising in him. How was Emmet holding up? Ingo remembered himself in a position, however brief, when he’d thought he’d lost his brother forever, back when he didn’t remember him fully but felt every ounce of grief without context, Dragons only knew what a similar situation but with perfect awareness would do to Emmet. Stuck in a different time and place than he belonged to, turned into a pokemon, and now alone.

They were a two-car train. Not meant to be alone. Ingo needed to get to his brother. He hoped he was ok.

Please be ok.

Please.

Ingo found himself dropping into a stumbling, wobbling sprint. His legs only sort of listened to him, unused to this method of movement but knowing it instinctually. It didn’t matter, he had to run, he had to run as fast as he could. He’d figure it out later.

Their house wasn’t far. With any luck Emmet was there and he would just explain everything without fuss. It’ll be fine, he thought.

It was not fine.

The house was empty. No pokemon, no signs of life.

No Emmet.

Where was he? Where the hell was his brother?

He held the panic back, it would not help him. What were the possible places Emmet could be? Jubilife and either of the clan settlements didn’t seem likely, with Akari maybe? But that didn’t entail a location. Sneasler was also an option, but again that didn’t mean a specific place.

So. Plan.

No dice on Akari. Unfortunately.

Coronet highlands for Sneasler. Maybe. Hopefully.

Hopefully he wouldn’t run into anyone else before he found someone he wanted to see.

For now he had to run. Run at top speed and think more about it later.

…

Akari was tired and sad.

That was an oversimplification of it. But it was true. She was a wreck, Emmet was a wreck and Ingo was gone.

She was gonna yell so hard at Arceus, they were going to regret having anything to do with her by the time she was done with them. It was their fault the three of them were here in the first place, and it was their fault both of her fake/adopted uncles were dead now. And the fact that one of them was still around did not soften the circumstances any, because the other one was not.

She was angry but the anger didn’t result in anything but faint growling. The fact that she was so powerless about the whole thing drove her up the wall. Stupid early medicine and stupid unforgiving environment. Stupid things she had no power over. Stupid stupid stupid.

She was tired and one of her closest people in the whole of Hisui was gone. It’s been just about a week since he died. And another one was actively seeking ways to overwork himself. He was a warden now, technically, how you overwork yourself in that position she didn’t know.

She couldn’t concentrate very well. She missed home all the more. She wanted to see her mom, to confirm that she was alright. That something she couldn’t prevent either because she was away or just because it was unpreventable didn’t happen to her too.

She wanted to stop feeling so powerless.

She almost didn’t care about the survey she was doing. She could do it another day if this one didn’t work out. Not like she had a real time limit on these things. The Galaxy team still didn’t dare be strict with her after her banishment, which she was still mad about, even if she didn’t show it much these days.

She paid half-attention to her surroundings as she walked, her garchomp, named Chainchomp, straying close to her, so she wasn’t at all worried. Even if an alpha showed up and she didn’t notice Chain would. She was a good, strong girl. Akari loved her and trusted her to keep vigilant.

So it was a complete surprise when a small dark shape shot out of the bushes and almost barreled into her at full speed.

She yelped, completely undignified, and backed away from the creature that at that point had stopped in its tracks and was pointedly making noises at her. Chain hissed a warning at it and it backed off a few steps but didn’t run. It made more warbling noises at her and she focused in to take a better look at what it was.

She thought it might’ve been an Eevee initially, but its face was wrong for that. Black fur, cyan highlights.

So. This was a shiny Zorua. But not a Hisuian Zorua, a regular one, which made entirely no sense. They didn’t live in Hisui.

“What the fuck” she said without thinking. It yipped at her, sounding like it was berating her. She was getting chewed out by a Zorua. Awesome.

Chainshomp hissed some more, not quite sounding as threatening and more intrigued. The Zorua murmured something to her which made her even more confused. The garchomp leaned in, sniffing at the small creature, which didn’t even flinch.

They seemed to… come to an understanding. Chain leaned back away and let out a self-satisfied sigh, as if having confirmed something. She bumped her head into Akari’s shoulder idly. Akari just became more confused.

The Zorua headbutted her leg without hesitation or any protest from Chain, who apparently readily trusted the little creature. Akari stared at it, dumbfounded. The hell was its deal?

She leaned down and ran a hand through its mane. It looked startled for a second but leaned into her touch afterwards. Weird.

It looked up at her and she got hit by a sense of dejavu. Its eyes were a silvery grey, unusual for Zorua, and were exactly the same as eyes she’d seen before.

She went out on a limb and assumed something mildly insane but not without precedent “Uh… Ingo? Is that you?”

The creature, very deliberately, nodded at her and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop the string of swears that she had loaded and ready to go. Lord, she was going to throw a chair at Arceus. They deserved it.

"Oh gods, Uncle Ingo!" Was all she could say as she awkwardly wrapped her arms around the Zorua in a hug and held him close. It was weird how she could very easily pick him up now, considering he was over a head taller than her last time she saw him. Bizarre. "We've missed you! It was bad! Where have you been?!"

He made a warbling noise next to her ear, as if actually trying to explain but not fully realising he couldn't talk just yet. Chain bumped into her again, a sort of facsimile of a hug.

Akari realised there were tears on her face. She didn't know when she'd started crying. She didn't care. It was ok. Relatively ok.

She let go of her hug and Ingo dropped down to the ground. He seemed happy, sort of, with his weirdly inexpressive face being even more so now that it wasn't human shaped. She sighed.

"What are you doing out here?" She didn't know why she asked, knowing that he couldn't talk to her. He knew this too, making a small whining noise, like a regret that he can't communicate "Were you looking for us?"

He nodded but didn't seem entirely satisfied. She thought for a moment.

A thought hit her like a brick and she mentally scolded herself for not realising immediately "Were you looking for Emmet?"

This time he nodded with more enthusiasm, letting out an affirmative 'Yip' and bouncing his front paws on the ground. She got it right.

She wiped her face with the back of a sleeve. "Well, let's search together then. Gotta be easier than searching alone, right?" The survey could wait, this was way more important.

He agreed with another yip, excited. She heard herself giggle at his enthusiasm.

“All aboard?” she asked. He seemed to lose it laughing at that in that weird pokemon laugh that he now had.

…

In the end it didn’t take that long for them to find Emmet. Two hours was nothing compared to how long they Could have been running around Hisui for. So it was fine. It was nothing compared to a week.

He was out with Lady Sneasler, gathering materials. He was out with Lady Sneasler a lot now. They benefited from each other's company.

She called out to him from afar as she jogged at him. Ingo, who was riding on her shoulders for the sake of convenience at the time, perked up infinitely. He made a loud happy noise, right in her ear, which made her head ring.

In the distance Emmet turned to them, waving a weak greeting at Akari. She frantically waved back, concentrating on keeping her pace. Chain hurried behind her, heavy footsteps following her own at a distance.

Ingo called out to Emmet too, loud and clear, and, apparently fed up with being a passenger, made a leap off her shoulders and booked it the rest of the way towards his brother with his own power. He was faster than her, so he quickly broadened the gap between them, calling out the same noise all the while.

She could guess at what it meant. Apparently Emmet could too. Or, well, he actually understood it, unlike her, since he was a pokemon now, too. The man stood dumbfounded for just a moment before tearing forwards, towards Ingo, arms thrown wide open. Lady Sneasler didn't move from where she'd been gathering berries, just cocked her head in confusion at the two.

They collided with some force, sending them both spinning into the grass. She could hear happy zorua noises and laughter, and her guess would be that both were coming from both of them.

…

He couldn't believe it.

He thought it was a hallucination at first. He wouldn’t put it past his brain. There was no way the pokemon that was accompanying Akari had actually called out his name, right? How could they, a scant few people, or even creatures knew who he actually was here in Hisui. So he must have misheard. Or that the whole pokemon wasn't real, his brain was just making things up now to deal with stress, dragons knew there was a Lot of that for him these days.

Then he heard it again, and it was clear, and it was real. The pokemon jumped off Akari's shoulders and was sprinting towards him, and it definitely, definitely yelled "Emmet!" as it ran.

He recognized the way the word was said, the inflection, the tone, even if the voice was way high pitched and different. It was just as loud. He knew who it was instantly.

He didn't hesitate in running towards his brother, arms open wide.

When they reached each other Ingo barreled into him at full speed, knocking him off balance and sending them spinning into the grass. That was perfectly fine. It was Ingo! He couldn't be happier to have fallen on the ground when it was followed up immediately by his brother headbutting the side of his neck.

"Ingo!" He wheezed, finally finding his voice. He held the small furry body close to his chest, as if it would disappear if he let go, as if he just couldn't believe what was happening was real. He was crying, probably, happy tears taking the place of grieving ones for the first time in a week. Honestly in probably the last two months. It didn't matter, not at that moment it didn't "I missed you. I thought i'd never see you again"

"Emmet, I'm so sorry I took so long. I'm sorry that changing tracks like this held up the schedule quite so bad and caused you so much distress" He apologized, as if any of it was his fault "I came looking for you as soon as i could" He promised. His voice was wrong, different, but familiar. It was the same high pitched bark he'd had, back when he found Ingo for the first time since becoming a pokemon. That made sense.

"It's ok" Emmet assured, not letting the hug go "You've arrived in the end and that's what matters" He said and he wasn't lying. No sort of delay changed anything, especially since he didn't have any sort of control over said delay "I just missed you so much, when you…" he choked on his words and closed his mouth.

"Emmet" Ingo started, leaning finally away, just enough to look him in the eye, a sort of fragile sternness on his face "I'm sorry you had to go through this. I'm sorry I'm different now, I'm sorry my cab is not the same. It is still me, however” he promised.

Emmet blinked at him for a moment, before his smile widened “Brother, you shouldn’t worry about being different now” he let his human facade fall away, leaving only his now-true form stay. White fur with crimson highlights spilled around his coat collar (not his, Ingo’s, he was borrowing the coat) and from under his hat “You’re not the first one. We’re the same now”

Ingo’s frown betrayed his happiness better than a smile could “We’re truly in the same train car now”

He snickered. His eyes were still watery but he could see through the tears now at least “You’re shiny” he stated.

“Yes it appears that way”

“We match colours now”

“Elesa would be happy” Ingo then thought for a moment before coming to a sudden conclusion “Dragons, How are we going to tell Elesa?”

Emmet hadn’t considered that but he was more concerned about something else at that moment “You remember her?”

“Oh, Yes!” his brother stated, louder than before “I almost forgot to tell you, I got my memories back!”

“You Did?!”

“Yes!!”

“That’s fantastic news!” he laughed, wiping at his eyes with one hand, tears finally fully stopped but still stinging. He didn’t have any more words, only giggles.

He held his brother’s much smaller form tight and took a deep breath through all the laughter. This was fine. This was better than fine! There were more problems, of course, but they would figure it out later. Together.

At some point Sneasler joined their little cuddle pile, giving each of them a bonk with her forehead like the big softie that she was, purring all the way. She too was happy to see her Wardens happy.

He looked up to where Akari and her Garchomp had come to a stop, a dozen feet away from them. The girl was smiling at them in a kind of nostalgic way. He would have to thank her later, when he could talk without crying again.

…

Akari does get to scold Arceus in the end. When her job in Hisui is over she does get to voice all her complaints to the deity themself in a rapid, loud monologue that the higher being does listen to, and gives a curt apology.

An apology in itself isn’t enough though, which the girl is about to point out before launching into more yelling, but the deity doesn’t give her much of a chance, nor do they give a chance for the other two people they flung into the past to really even talk to them. With a gesture that could both be interpreted as annoyance and desire to not be scolded anymore Arceus sends all three of them back home.

And maybe if they could they would chuckle at the disgruntled yelp they get to hear while doing so.