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Emmet didn’t know what was wrong. He’d been following his standard operation procedure, and was in good health. His head wasn’t bothering him.
Not the normal way.
He yawned, long and wide, and rubbed his eyes.
Depot Agent Ramses glanced over, from the other side of the security room. That wasn’t the right name, he couldn’t remember at the moment.
“Did you get any sleep last night, Boss?”
No ‘hello.’ No ‘are you alright.’ Just ‘did you sleep.’ He’d be more offended if this hadn’t been the millionth time. Two years is a long time.
“Yes,” he answered simply. Monotone as ever, but Ramses still looked a bit worried.
“... How much…?” he prodded. Emmet hummed. He covered his mouth in thought, distantly remarking to himself that he’d lost his smile.
“Between 7 and 9 hours,” he said, plastering it back on. He didn’t want to smile, which was very strange, because he always wanted to smile. Smiles made the entire vibe nicer. What was with the language in his head today?
Depot Agent Ramses raised a single eyebrow. That was an interesting thing that he could do. Emmet didn’t know very many people who could do that. Had time slowed down? When were the trains getting here?
He made sure to make his smile bigger. He wasn’t sure if it looked right- his mouth felt weird. His entire body felt weird. Unstable. Wobbly.
“I am telling the truth,” he tacked on for good measure. He wasn’t sure why he thought that would convince anyone, but Agent Ramses shrugged and turned back to the big table with all the train trackers on it. Emmet liked that table.
Emmet himself turned to the big screen taking up most of the wall, with a bunch of security camera feeds on it. His eyes skimmed over them, never really catching on any. There were a lot. They were so big. So much. A biiiiig, biiiig screen.
He hadn’t realized he’d zoned out until Depot Agent Ramses waved in front of his face. He looked down. Why did he have to look down? Was he wearing heels today?
“You, uh… haven’t blinked for a while.”
Oh. Emmet blinked, on purpose. “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, turning back to the security feed.
He slid his gaze from camera to camera, blinking again for good measure. This time, something did catch his eye: A little Tynamo, floating above someone’s head. He assumed this someone was its Trainer. As he watched, the slippery little eel leaned down to bop its person on the side of their head, and they turned to walk that direction. A seeing-eye Pokemon of some sort? A strange one, to be sure. People tended to prefer four-legged companions for that, or at least bigger ones.
The Tynamo and its Trainer disappeared from the camera’s view, and Emmet immediately started searching the others to find them again. He knew each of these cameras by heart, but it still took him some time to find the two again.
From the looks of things, they were headed for one of the East-bound lines. Emmet knew the route to the East-bound lines!
He quietly followed along with their journey, nudging them in the right direction with his thoughts and internally cheering when they got it right. Sometimes, the Trainer would reach up and give their companion little head-rubs, which Emmet was delighted by. It was such a good little eel baby!
Eventually, they boarded a train, and Emmet flapped his fists in pride. They’d made it! They’d get to their stop now!
He was entirely unaware of Depot Agent Ramses watching his silent celebration, wondering what had him so worked up. He hadn’t seen the Tynamo and its Trainer, and he wasn’t enough of a snoop to try and follow his boss’s line of sight.
Not for the first time, his hand hovered over his Xtransceiver, this close to hitting an emergency contact. Emmet wasn’t acting bad, he was just acting weird.
The Subway Boss watched the cameras for a little while longer, but nothing else caught his interest quite as much.
His smile twisted into an uncertain little grimace. He was bored. He had no battle lines today, which meant no fun Pokemon battles.
Instead, Emmet looked around the room. While he was distracted with the cameras, Depot Agent Jackie had floated in from somewhere with a cup of coffee. Coffee sounded nice. Did they have a coffee machine in here?
He swept the room with his eyes at least three times before finally seeing it, blending in with the low light and the shadows of the walls. The low light was nice. It meant they could see the screens and the big tracker table better. Unfortunately, it also meant that anything black or dark-colored would inevitably get lost among the carpeting and navy paint.
But! He had found the coffee machine! And he strode over, and picked out something sweet. Almost as an afterthought, he plucked out another flavor, something a little more bitter, and got to work setting it all together.
He liked coffee machines. They made drinks so much easier.
After some time, which he spent impatiently swaying and watching the cups fill, the drinks were ready and he snatched both up at once, forgetting to put any sort of lid over them.
Scalding hot coffee splashed across his hands.
Emmet froze, holding the two cups up in the air, almost like he was being arrested. His smile had cracked like glass, stock-still in a painful grit of the teeth.
A noise came out of his throat. The sort of noise from a creaking door when you were trying to open it juuuuust slowly enough that your parents wouldn’t notice you sneaking out of your room. Or the noise from a stress toy, like in that clip from the witch cartoon everyone seemed to like a while ago.
The two Depot Agents had been facing away from him, so they didn’t notice the spill, but they definitely noticed the sound that crawled through the air. They turned around and noticed their boss, frozen in pain while burning coffee soaked through his gloves.
They looked at each other. Then they both got up at once, suddenly hit with the same freak-out at the same time.
“Oh Dragons, boss, are you okay!?”
"Oh man that cannot be good,”
They each took a cup and Emmet finally saw fit to lower his arms, somehow less concerned about the possibility of burn scars and more upset over the fact that his nice gloves now had sticky coffee all over them.
He attempted to pry them off while Agent Jackie grabbed as many napkins as they could feasibly stuff into their hands. Alas, wet fabric was clingy, and it was way too difficult to get the dang things off him.
Emmet didn’t like this. Emmet didn’t want to deal with this. All he wanted was some coffee. Why would Zekrom shun him like this?
Frustrated, he yanked at one of his gloves harder and harder, finally managing to get the whole thing off and nearly smacking Agent Jackie in the face when it happened. They had come back with a bundle of napkins, one end damp with cold water, which he gratefully accepted for use on his bare hand, without taking off the other glove.
Jackie looked at Ramses. Ramses looked at Jackie. Emmet looked at neither of them. Then, Jackie carefully took Emmet’s other hand, and gently rolled the wet glove off.
Emmet stared, bewildered, for a moment. He examined his hand as thought he wasn’t entirely sure it was real. How had Jackie gotten it off so easily when Emmet himself had so much trouble?
The Depot Agents were just as confused. Their boss had never acted this way before. At least, nowhere they could see. Ramses mouthed a word to Jackie, and almost imperceptibly, Jackie tilted their head towards Emmet.
Suddenly, Emmet snapped back into motion, surprising both of them. He signed “thank you” with a bright smile that certainly didn’t fit the situation, then went back to cleaning off his hands. He only stopped for a moment, frowning at his browning sleeves with such disdain that one could’ve mistaken him for Ingo.
He didn’t take off his coat, though. If anything, he pulled it closer to himself once he was done with the napkins, flicking them towards the nearest trash can with very little accuracy.
That was that, then. He hadn’t even made it til lunch; new record.
“Boss?” Ramses asked, in as kind a voice as he could manage. “Would you like us to call Elesa?”
Emmet perked up at that. Elesa? His best friend, Elesa? Of course, he wanted to call her! Elesa was his favorite friend!
He nodded eagerly, smiling brighter than before. Ramses nodded back, slowly, and brought out his Xtrans. Jackie, meanwhile, got to work cleaning up the coffee spills on the ground, which reminded Emmet to grab his cup and start drinking. Be careful, something in his mind warned him. It’s hot.
A dial tone came from Ramses’s Xtrans. “The person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the beep.” Then it beeped.
Ramses stood, stunned, for a moment. The two other times he’d called her for his boss, she’d picked up. So either she had a modelling gig or a challenger right now. He shook himself back to reality and started talking.
Emmet, having previously been distracted by his coffee, also stared, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. That kind of look had never been on his face so openly before.
“No Esa…?” he asked, just loud enough. Jackie sighed.
“Not… not right now.” They didn’t know what to do if Elesa didn’t pick up. “Hey Boss, why don’t you go home? I think you need some more rest.”
Emmet did something no one could have predicted. Emmet pouted.
“But I like the trains,” he mumbled, almost indignant were it not for the absolutely wrong tone of his voice. It was indiscernible, something that showed emotion, but no one was sure which one.
“I know,” said Agent Cloud, appearing out of nowhere, smoothie and frantic Pokeball in hand. Luckily, most of the staff were used to every Depot Agent appearing out of nowhere at random times with random items in hand. The translucent red Pokeball with a candle flame painstakingly scratched into it was strange, though. “We all do. That’s why we work here.”
“What, uh… what do you have there?” asked Depot Agent Ramses, pointing clearly at the Pokeball in her right hand.
“A smoothie,” replied Depot Agent Cloud, grinning and holding up the smoothie in her left.
The exchange drew a laugh out of Emmet- a tiny thing, more like a childish giggle than anything.
“Hey, Boss,” said Agent Cloud, striding up to him. “I brought someone for you.” She plopped the Pokeball in his hand. It was warm. Warm and shaking. Vibrating, almost, with intensity. “I think she wants you to go home, too.”
Instead of answering, he pointed at the smoothie.
“Oh, it’s Leppa and Lum berry,” she said, still grinning with the knowledge of how, exactly, that would affect her coworkers.
Emmet immediately retracted his hand, looking comically disgusted. Jackie made a fake-gagging sound and Ramses went “NEVER say those words ever again.”
“Oh buzz off, Amethyst likes it!”
“Amethyst is a Gastly swarm that lives in the abandoned tunnels!”
“Your point?”
Emmet sighed, and tried his best to tune out the Agents’ playful arguing. He rubbed the engraving on the Pokeball, quietly curious about who could be inside, even though a temperature like that could only belong to one. She always got worked up when he was like this, as though protecting him was her job, and not the other way around.
He clicked the button, and Luxa the Chandelure came out in a flash of bright lavender-red-white light.
The Depot Agents all silenced, except for Cloud, who smugly took a long sip of her abomination smoothie.
Luxa wasted absolutely no time in burrowing herself into Emmet’s chest, chiming chidingly while he mumbled nonsense to try and soothe her. He looked like he was about to cry.
All too quickly, she set herself firmly back into the air, one coiled-metal arm wrapped around Emmet’s arm, and she pulled him right out of the room.
Emmet followed without question, because Luxa was Ingo’s and Ingo knew best. He waved goodbye to the Depot Agents as he exited, laughing at their funny stumped faces.
Luxa pulled him all the way home, though she was sure to be gentle. This had happened enough times before that she knew the force to pull him with that both wouldn’t upset him and would keep him on track.
She opened the door with her ghostly powers and floated them both in. Emmet giggled for real at the sudden feeling of weightlessness, even if he didn’t understand why.
He was sat down on the couch, dropped from a little bit higher as a silly little prank. He laughed again.
Before he could snuggle into the pillows and blankets, Luxa lifted him up again, chiming a reminder. She was only lifting him by his coat, which made for a very funny scruffed-Purrloin look.
Emmet lifted his arms and let her take the coat off, having forgotten about the coffee stains and thinking it was only because they were home. His Pokeball belt was taken, too, which he frowned at, but let her do. They were all placed neatly on the coffee table, and Luxa tapped them each in turn, looking at Emmet expectantly.
He tilted his head like a lost Lillipup. The wide-eyed, vacant look had gone back onto his face. She tapped a Pokeball again. He leaned over and tapped the same one.
Tony the Durant popped out. Already he clicked his pedipalps impatiently, having expected a quiet day in his ball. Luxa gave a command, and he sighed, stretching from the edge of the table to the couch to reach Emmet, who met him halfway.
He hugged Tony close to his chest, and felt the cold metal rise and settle before he flopped back. His eyes were still wide and bright, a toddler in a 6-foot body. Tony scooted upwards and nipped at his cheeks a little, in an approximation of a kiss. He giggled again.
Luxa had floated off somewhere, chiming and clinking like bells in the wind. The sound was nice, he was almost lulled back to sleep. What time was it? He didn’t care.
He didn’t get the chance, though. When his eyes were closed, he felt something pressing into the side of his face, and had to open them again.
The dear haunted chandelier floated above him, along with an oversized baby bottle and pacifier.
Emmet hadn’t finished his coffee, he just realized. It didn’t seem to do anything, either way, never mind how little he actually drank. He halfheartedly lifted one hand in the direction of the bottle, which was promptly floated into his mouth.
Mmm. Luxa always knew how to make the best drinks.
Elesa arrived at the house somewhere around 30 minutes later, and the only thing she saw was Emmet and the two Pokemon, peacefully snoozing on the couch.