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You wake up in the middle of nowhere. This is fine.
Apparently this is somewhere in the Moor of Icirrus, even though you’d fallen asleep on a train to Orre, and this looks nothing like either. This is also fine.
Your X-Transceiver doesn’t work — it’s on, yes, but the “NO SIGNAL” flashes across the screen tauntingly. This is still fine…?
No one knows what an X-Transceiver is, apparently, if the bizarre looks you’re receiving from the people around you when you ask them about Wi-Fi is any indication. This is starting to get pretty suspicious.
Your Pokémon are missing. This realisation, as you search frantically around you, in the Moor, is what puts things in perspective, makes you realise that things are maybe more than a little bad.
You realise belatedly that everyone’s wearing bedsheets (okay, fine, togas) and the language you hear is antiquated like in those old historical movies. That they speak of Unova as a brand new nation, formed just a scant few months ago from names you’ve only ever heard in history books. When some people in armour insist on bringing you, the one who fell from the sky, to their twin kings; when they head towards shining, new Dragonspiral Tower, in an Icirrus without any tall buildings or ice sculptures or even windmills, it all comes crashing down on you like a freezing wave.
You’re in Unova. But 2,500 years before you’re supposed to be. And this is totally fine, no risk of being trapped here forever, no risk of dying here before your grandparents even existed, no risk of being unable to see Bianca and Cheren and Professor Juniper and Mom again —
“Move,” the guard (?) on your left orders you. You can’t help but think he looks a bit like Burgh, with the wavy hair and the shape of his face. You obey, because damn, that sword looks sharp. The guards lead you into the tower, and you wait.
Dragonspiral Tower was in ruins when you first climbed the tower to stop Team Plasma, just months ago (was it really such a short time ago?); crumbling pillars and cracked floors, the ceiling shaking as N summoned the dragon of legend, debris falling to the ground. It’s a wonder (and blessing) the entire tower didn’t just instantly collapse after all that. You now wonder how much of that was due to Team Plasma blasting a hole in the wall and installing a staircase, as you take in the splendor, the rippling water, the magnificent pillars.
Cheren had mentioned the Tower as a marvel of ancient architecture once. You’d been unable to appreciate it even with the opportunity to climb it, because 1) you’re not an architect and 2) Team Plasma. Gotta admit, though, the giant circular labyrinth at the top was pretty neat. From what you can see, it seems the ancient Unovans had fountains too, which you genuinely didn’t know was possible. The more you know.
The guards return with two people in tow. These must be the twin heroes of legend, the two whom N had sought to emulate, the original partners of Zekrom and Reshiram, the first kings of Unova. You’ve grown up hearing the legends. In Unova, they, along with the twin dragons, are regarded as deities. And now you’re meeting yet another pair of legends in the flesh, just after their Pokémon counterparts. You bow respectfully, and when you raise your head and look them in the eye —
“What the fuck?!”
Okay, you could have worded that a lot more…elegantly. Especially given that you’re right in front of the first kings, and that was the literal first thing you said to them. But how could you not be shocked to see the faces of none other than the train guys running the Battle Subway back in your Unova?
The one in white (they’re in black and white too, sweet mother of dragons) seems quite amused by your outburst, surprisingly enough, if his little laugh and his wide smile are any indication; the one in black regards you with a stern look instead, a serious frown on his face. “I am Mors, king of the new Unova. The person beside me is my fellow king and twin brother, Somnus. What troubles you?”
How do you even begin to explain to Not-Ingo that you’re from the future and have been thrown into the past with no idea how or why, without being called crazy and getting Blacephalon’d or something? Is this the consequence of befriending a dragon god thing? You frantically scour your mind to think of some way to convince the kings that you are harmless and also have no clue what is even going on.
“I believe you,” Mors finally says after you finish your hastily cobbled-together story, still frowning, but something about his demeanour has changed; in his pale eyes, you see sympathy and even understanding. Somehow, you’ve succeeded in convincing him. Thoughtfully, he raises his hand to his chin, likely carefully considering his next words. “You appear to have been a victim of mysterious circumstances out of your control. I intend to help you return to your rightful destination. Anything you’d like to add, Somnus?”
“Brother, they’re hiding something. It’s verrrrry suspicious. But I don’t think it’s anything we can’t handle. If it’s even dangerous.” The king in white replies, his gaze piercing, as if a warning. Rather than the loose cloths and tunics most of the town wears, or the intricate finery worn by his brother, Somnus is clad in white armour, a pair of knives at his hip. Combined with his now almost threatening smile and how tall he looms over you, if you weren’t worried about offending him before, you certainly are now. “After all, they don’t seem to have any Pokémon with them. What can they even do against our armour, weapons and Pokémon partners?”
The kings eventually let you depart, with orders to their soldiers to give you somewhere to stay until your situation can be resolved. You may or may not have been hired by Mors in the meantime to help research Pokémon. Could’ve gone a lot worse — at least you’re not dead, or at risk of getting thrown out into the wild if you don’t make yourself useful.
You’ll have to get used to seeing familiar faces on strangers, like Not-Burgh the guard, or the aides to the kings who look strikingly like the Striaton Trio, or the cheerful medic whom you mistake for Bianca at first glance; it aches, to see the long-dead ancestors of your friends in the future. You’ll have to watch history play out knowing what will happen, the anger, the sorrows, the deaths, the destruction of Unova. The twin kings who fight side-by-side for a bright future for Unova will soon drift apart, and turn upon each other in war. It will hurt, being unable to change the past despite your knowledge of the truth, to watch the myriad of ideals crushed harshly.
Eventually, however, they will achieve the future you were born in, with all your friends, living in the peace that you fought to defend months ago and millenia later. And that is something to stay optimistic for, knowing that their dreams will be achieved one day, in the beautiful Unova you remember. It is a truth you’ve lived through, and an ideal they strive for, and a hope you carry in your heart as you embark on your new life here.
(In the turmoil, you do not realise, until a long time later when it is time to say farewell, that Mors and Somnus had been speaking your language the whole time. That maybe, you weren’t that far from home; that your actual experience of getting yeeted into the past would’ve been believed anyway.
But in the meantime, you’re just trying to survive. The twins’ whole deal can wait another 2,500 years, which turn out to fly by in a decade and a single day all at once for all 3 of you involved. Time travel is really weird. Whatever.)
***
The Entralink is a mysterious place, where dreams become reality, where worlds collide and meet. Once, when Ingo and Emmet were in their teens, they had travelled to the island to train. A few hours later, they came back different, more shaken, looking upon the region with a new sense of wonder.
No one knew what had happened to them. Some would allege that they once heard Subway Boss Emmet remark, at the opening of an exhibit regarding the Time of the Twin Heroes, that they put his underwear up on display. Subway Boss Ingo has been known to tear into unsuspecting curators who label relics of that same specific time period wrongly, including an instance which led to the discovery of Pokémon Pithoi, which the ancient peoples of Unova used to carry their Pokémon around, which had formerly been mislabelled as chamber pots. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely a coincidence that the founders of Unova were twin brothers; perhaps calling the Subway Bosses the princes of Unova, as the press release for the opening of the Battle Subway did, was more apt than they would care to admit.
All that’s just speculation, though. Just a legend, just a dream.