Chapter Text
Ingo had gotten pretty good at chopping vegetables.
It had taken a bit of trial and error, (as Emmet’s mother refused to teach them to cook and just expected to fend for themselves) as well as a few kid cookbooks from the library, but he had gotten the hang of it! Mostly.
“Ow!”
Pain blossomed from the spot on Ingo’s fingers that the knife had struck, a silvery liquid leaking from the fresh cut. Grimacing, he began to weave his mana into a simple healing spell- but was interrupted by Emmet grabbing his hand.
‘You are bleeding!’ His twin thought in a panic, examining the injured finger with fear in his eyes. ‘We need to- Where is a bandaid-’
“It’s fine Emmet.” Ingo reassured him, gently extracting his hand and finishing his healing spell. “See? All fixed.”
Emmet didn’t look convinced, following Ingo to the sink as he washed the knife and his finger.
“Seriously Emmet, I am fine! It is not even actual blood!”
‘What is it then?’ His brother leaned on his shoulder as Ingo washed the silver liquid down the sink, the concern refusing to leave his gaze.
“Concentrated magic I think? It is certainly not blood though- I would require a heart for that!”
“Mmm” He still didn’t look convinced, but at least he didn’t struggle when Ingo grabbed his hand to wash as well.
“Still, I doubt it is safe for humans…” The droplets that had rubbed onto Emmet’s hands were washed off as well, ridding the room of the silver substance. “There! Safety checks complete! Now there will be no wayward magic in this lovely dinner of ours!”
Emmet rolled his eyes, but the tension in his expression had finally washed away, much like the mana down the kitchen sink.
“Now!” Ingo cried, clapping his hands together with a satisfying smack. “Where were we?”
Something was wrong.
Everything was wrong from as far as Emmet could tell- if the sharp, echoing pain resonating through his body was anything to go by. He felt like he’d been hit by a train, his muscles and body screaming at him as he attempted to pull himself to consciousness… with the exhaustion that filled him doing nothing to help with that.
Still, he tried anyway, pulling away from the grasp of sleep bit by bit until he was finally conscious enough to recognize the sensations around him.
A grating beeping noise filtered through his consciousness, the rough scratchy texture of blankets surrounding him as he pried his eyes open, face to face with a blank white ceiling staring down at him.
It wasn’t- It wasn’t a ceiling Emmet recognized… not Gear Station or their apartment so where…
A hospital his blurry mind supplied, vaguely recalling that he had attempted to wake a few times previous.
Right, so that must mean that the beeping was a heart monitor, and he must have… gotten injured?
‘Ingo?’ The thought was weak, but he sent it out anyway, needing some kind of reassurance from his twin. ‘Ingo, did I get hit by a train?’
There was no response, which was…. unusual.
‘Ingo?’ He asked again, trying to ignore the way the heart monitor sped up. ‘Are you asleep?’
Reaching along their bond Emmet-
A crack in reality, large claws tearing through the space he stood in, red eyes staring at him as something t o r e
-recoiled a bit at the memory Ingo had sent him. Was that what injured him? But that was Ingo’s memory…
Bypassing the memory, Emmet continued reaching out until-
Until-
no no no no nononononononononononono
Emmet could vaguely hear Elesa shouting his name as the heart monitor sped up rapidly, it’s beeping doing no favors to the abject terror he was feeling because-
Because-
Forcing his body upwards, Emmet frantically glanced back and forth, ignoring a panicked Elesa as he attempted to locate his twin. When he couldn’t see Ingo in the immediate area, he pulled himself out of the bed- and immediately found himself sprawled on the floor, his legs too weak to carry him. He tried to press on anyway, desperately clawing his way forward because he needed to find Ingo because something had happened and now he was-
“Emmet!”
He couldn’t- Elesa was blocking him now, kneeling in front of him with tears in his eyes.
“Are you okay? Dragons, you’re in no state to be-”
His distressed shriek interrupted Elesa before she could finish, his dry throat garbling the words he was attempting to say
“-what?”
Pulling himself a bit more upright, he grabbed at Elesa’s left arm in a desperate attempt to get her xtrans off- something he didn’t have much luck in.
“Woah hey calm down, gimme a second-” She unlatched the phone from her wrist and let Emmet claw it off, the man curling around his freshly won prize as nurses rushed into the room.
He ignored them as he began scrolling through Elesa’s contacts, easily locating Ingo’s number and dialing it. Dimly, he was aware of an audino lifting him back into his bed with psychic as strangers attempted to speak with him, nurses and doctors asking him questions and admonishing him for failing safety checks.
Not that he could really hear them- not with the way his whole entire being was focused on the screen in front of him, the message Calling: Dork #1 burning into his retinas with how hard he was staring.
Finally, the call connected- to the answering machine, his brother’s voice telling him that he was away from the phone and to leave a message. Hanging up, Emmet called again, trying to breathe through the panic in his throat as he ignored-
Not quiet like Ingo was sleeping, not muted like that horrible day back in July- no, their bond had been t o r n , ripped apart like someone had pulled a kitchen appliance out of the wall, sparking and broken and i n p i e c e s-
Emmet let out a shriek as the xtrans was torn from his grasp, Elesa holding it out of reach as he attempted to grab it back.
“Emmet. Emmet I need you to calm down and talk to me okay?”
‘I need to call Ingo!’ He signed at her, his hands shaking with adrenaline. ‘Something is wrong! I need to talk to him!’
“Emmet….”
Sighing, Elesa asked the nurses for some privacy, sitting down at Emmet’s bedside and taking one of his hands. Squeezing it slightly, she leaned in close, her voice a whisper.
“Why do you need my cell? Are you not able to call Ingo with your magic thought sharing thing?”
Emmet shook his head, tears blurring his vision as he began sobbing.
‘No- Our bond- Broken!’ Elesa was rubbing soothing circles in his hair as he signed, but it did little to calm the maelstrom in his heart. ‘Something happened- Something bad! Need to call Ingo!’
“The call won’t go through.” Elesa looked away guiltily, a grimace settling on her face. “There was…. an incident, in Ingo’s train car. The police still aren’t sure what happened, but there was some kind of… struggle, and Ingo’s gone missing.”
Gingerly, she wiped at the tears gathering in her eyes, still not looking directly at Emmet who was trying desperately not to fall apart at the seams, to scream at the heavens and shatter into pieces.
“Of course, to make matters worse, you manage to collapse at around the same time, coughing up blood and getting yourself hospitalized. You’ve been out for about three days.”
‘….struggle?’ Was all Emmet could manage, clutching Elesa’s hand like a lifeline the second he stopped signing.
“Yeah it- it wasn’t pretty. The train car had a lot of damage, and all of Ingo’s stuff was just kinda… thrown about? That’s why the call won’t go through- his xtrans is currently being kept as evidence.”
‘Do they know what…..?’
It would be fine. It would be fine. This was just like last summer- everything would be fine and turn out okay and he just needed to keep it together-
Elesa shook her head.
“Not really. Some kind of Pokémon maybe? There were a bunch of claw marks around the car and a… weird silver liquid everywhere that the police haven't been able to identify yet.”
‘Silver-’ Keep calm. Keep it together. He can’t find Ingo if he’s being held in the hospital for an extended panic attack- ‘Ingo’s blood is silver.’
“Oh- oh no that’s not good.”
Emmet clutched his hospital blankets with a white knuckled grip, trying to focus on breathing and not Ingo what happened to Ingo why couldn’t he-
“If you- If there’s blood and your- your connection is broken then does that mean Ingo is-”
“NO!”
no- no he couldn’t- he wouldn’t he- Emmet’s brother wasn’t dea-
‘He is-!’ The heart monitor was far too loud, the shrill beeps driving a hammer into his skull. ‘He is not dead! He is just-’
The memory- the one Ingo sent him, of something tearing through space-
‘The fae took him.’
Elesa’s eyes widened- and Emmet felt something inside him settle, the crushing despair twisting into something much more productive-
Rage.
“Of course. Who else would- or could do something like this?” Emmet could see the rails righting themselves in Elesa’s mind as well, their combined anger giving them a new track to follow.
Face set in determination, she grabbed Emmet’s hand and squeezed, a glint in her eyes that Emmet knew could move mountains.
“And we’re gonna get him back.”
Something was wrong.
It wasn’t sure what was wrong, but it knew, knew that something was not as it should be. That somewhere along the line, something had gotten twisted and mangled and now everything was b r o k e n.
Blearily, it attempted to open its eyes, but the pain in its body made that difficult, a dull aching that made it want to just curl up and go back asleep. But it couldn’t. It needed to get up before something even worse happened.
Pulling itself into consciousness, it reached out for… something…. something it didn’t find.
That must have been the problem! Its something was missing and it needed to find…. whatever it was.
A sound startled it slightly, its eyes darting up as a man entered the room. He was a tall, pale skinned fellow, with long blonde hair that covered one of his eyes. He seemed a bit… upset… but that mood seemed to fall away when he caught sight of it, his face breaking out into a big smile.
It wasn’t the right smile
“Oh thank Sinnoh! You’re awake!”
Setting aside the book he had been carrying, the man quickly made his way across the room and sat on the floor beside it.
“How are you feeling? You were out for quite a while!”
‘Bad’ It managed to gurgle out- but the man didn’t seem to understand, his eyebrow furrowing slightly in confusion.
Had it not spoken clearly enough? Or had it forgotten how to speak entirely, the concept of language lost along with everything else?
No, that wasn’t it, it realized, peering at the man’s limited mana and realizing him to be a human. A human would not be able to understand its words, so how was it to-
Working more off instinct than anything else, it reached out to the man, laying a shadowy limb on his arm.
‘I am… not feeling well. There seems to have been a…. derailment?’
The man blinked in surprise, before letting out a low chuckle, holding its limb in his hand.
“That’s a bit of an understatement! I was worried you weren’t going to make it!“
That must be why everything hurt, why its body and soul were screaming in agony. But… what about its something?
‘What…. happened exactly? I am having trouble recalling…. much of anything at the moment.’ It squirmed for a bit, trying desperately to look through its empty memories. ‘I know that I am…. missing something at the very least, and that it is extremely important to me. Do you know what that might be?’
“You don’t remember anything? ” There was… something in the man’s gaze, something it could not identify- but it was gone in an instant, replaced with the worried, friendly gaze from before. “Well that’s… probably for the best actually. Especially after such a terrible….. event.”
‘Terrible event?’ There was dread creeping up on it, a panic that bordered on despair as it worried for the something it was missing. Surely it couldn’t….?
The man nodded solemnly, his expression somber.
“Yes, it was…. bad. But there’s no use dwelling on something that you can’t even remember hmm?”
But that wasn’t right- something was wrong! The- its- where was-
‘Something is missing.’ It told the man again, stress coloring its mental words. ‘I cannot recall it at the moment but it is imperative I find it.’
“Oh….” The man’s gaze turned pitying then, an expression that chilled its soul. “Well you… are a mirror fae, so you would probably be looking for your host.”
Host was….. not the correct word for- for him …. but it would do for now.
‘Do you know where he is?’ It asked him, desperately pushing down the anxiety that threatened to drown it. ‘I need to make sure he’s okay.’
“That’s…. well… you see….” Another stifling silence, the man once again fishing for words. “I’m not sure the best way to say this but….”
No. Please no.
“I’m sorry. Your host is dead”
And the grief swallowed it whole.