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昔者庄周梦为胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻适志与，不知周也。俄然觉，则蘧蘧然周也。不知周之梦为胡蝶与，胡蝶之梦为周与？周与胡蝶，则必有分矣。此之谓物化。 — 庄子 · 齐物论
Once, Zhuangzhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a dream so vivid as if it were real. He fluttered about freely, not remembering his life as Zhuangzhou. When he suddenly woke, he was startled to remember that he was Zhuangzhou. Was it Zhuangzhou dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being Zhuangzhou? There must be some difference. This is the concept of transformation. — Zhuangzi, Essay on the Uniformity of All Things
***
A man wakes up in a blizzard. His name is Ingo, and that is all he remembers.
He knows he needs to find civilisation, and so he picks himself up and proceeds onward. All aboard!
He is found by a young girl with the weight of a centuries-long legacy on her shoulders, who speaks a tongue he vaguely recognises, enough for him to introduce himself. She offers him shelter despite the protests of her elders. He learns that this place is called Hisui, and the girl, Irida, is the leader of the Pearl Clan, who worships Almighty Sinnoh who rules over the ever-expanding space. The words and names seem familiar, an ache in the back of his mind.
He is an oddity among the people of Hisui; no one knows him, and he speaks in odd turns of phrase no one understands. No one can figure out where he was from, but perhaps the Almighty Sinnoh brought him across the vastness of space for a reason.
For now, he is fatigued. The tracks before and after him are both untraversable with a low visibility warning; a haze seems to have settled over his mind. He needs time to process all this.
And so, in a tent in a settlement in the Alabaster Icelands of Hisui, Ingo, man from nowhere, drifts off into sleep.
***
“Ingoooo! Wake up! We are going to be late!”
Subway Boss Ingo groans as he opens his eyes and unfurls his arms from their crossed position, lifting his head up from the table. His coat is slightly rumpled from his unplanned refueling stop and the almost-identical figure shaking him by the shoulder.
“Good afternoon, Emmet…what time is it?”
“It is 3.00 p.m. We have a Super Multi Battle scheduled for 3.30 p.m. We need to catch the train at 3.10 p.m. The walk to the platform takes 5 minutes. So you should hurry up and get ready. You don’t like looking dishevelled on the job. Especially not during battles.” Emmet replies, holding out a Joltik. “Do you need help waking up? Little Bobeep can help you! Her Thunder Wave has been getting verrrrrry strong lately.” Which certainly explains why as of late Emmet has been frequently accidentally shocking whichever unlucky soul (usually Ingo himself) he has had the opportunity to touch.
“No, thank you.” His entire body hurts, though he is fairly sure Little Bobeep has nothing to do with that. In hindsight, taking a nap at his desk in between battles was not a good idea. It’ll probably be the death of his posture someday, and he is already feeling the effects now. But what was he to do, when his favourite coffee place was closed for the day and he was running on fumes without caffeine? He has had trust issues regarding the Sawsbucks outlet in Gear Station since the Rotom incident.
He manages to make himself look a bit more presentable while Emmet lectures him about maybe having an actually decent sleep schedule instead of being a caffeine addict. His brother has already fetched their Pokémon, pressing two Pokéballs into his hand as they leave the office, all tidied up.
The battle starts on schedule at 3.30 p.m. Their opponents for this round are a pair of teenagers with multicoloured hair and a slight Galarian accent. Ingo can’t help but think one of them looks familiar; usually, he relies on checking records to recognise previous challengers, and both of them have to have previously fought on regular Multis given their presence here on the Super Lines. However, this young lady stands out in a way he can’t quite place. The memory of their Multi Battle is beyond reach, like most other battles Ingo has had as part of his job. There’s something more, like a shadow of a ghost train over distant tracks.
The challengers send out Espeon and Umbreon, with Emmet’s Eelektross Ray taking the field on their side. He decides to lead with Axel, his Haxorus; from the few replays they had managed to watch of the challengers’ teams, Espeon does have Dazzling Gleam, but tends to use Baby-Doll Eyes on the first turn, giving him at least one turn to set up with Dragon Dance, while Umbreon has a full arsenal of attacking moves without any status, meaning it won’t be a threat at all.
The end result is an easy win for the Subway Bosses — they didn’t even need to send out Montgomery and Flapper. He even manages to end the battle with a bang, which is to say he ends it with an Earthquake and an apology and promise of extra treats for Ray, with a side serving of Emmet’s colourful language. As he thanks the challengers for the battle, encouraging them to come back, he looks into the girl’s eyes for a moment. There is a look of fondness, but also sadness, in her gaze. Then, the challengers alight, and the train leaves the platform.
“Ingo. Axel has Mold Breaker. You didn’t have to use Earthquake. You could've used Dragon Claw and still knocked out the Glaceon. I am verrrrry pissed. Little Bobeep is also pissed. She will use Thundershock while you are in the rain. And I will watch with popcorn.” Emmet grumbles as the train pulls into its final destination. The only response he receives is a light hum as the light of the healing machine flashes, fully restoring their teams. “Anyway, do you know these people? They were pretty easy. But they must’ve been verrrrry skilled! They got here with only Eeveelutions. With horrible movesets. Who even packs Shadow Ball on an Umbreon?”
“Perhaps they had the matchup against Fighting- and Fairy-types in mind? Their choices of moves were certainly quite unorthodox. And, to answer your earlier question; I would’ve answered to the contrary, but for some reason, I do feel as if I should know these passengers from another journey. It is rather bizarre.”
“Do you think this is another Juniper situation?”
“I would prefer to think we have both become more familiar with notable people in and out of Unova since five years ago, and such an error would be far less likely to occur nowadays.”
“You didn’t know who Diantha was when you saw her on TV yesterday. She’s Kalos’ Champion. And a movie star. She was in the Amaurbius remake.”
“Perhaps, then, how about the fact that you do not seem to know these challengers either?”
Emmet simply shrugs and returns to checking their schedule – though now that his head has cleared, he knows exactly what is next on the line for them both. His own schedule is packed; at 4.30, he will have to be on the Single Line awaiting another challenger; at 5, on Super Singles. He’ll barely have time to eat before heading back to Singles for the rest of the night. They’ve been facing a huge boom in popularity lately; he isn’t even sure why, but it is hardly something to worry about.
As he alights from the Multi Train, bidding his brother goodbye, he can’t help but feel the slightest bit – just a trifle, but one he notices – of sadness; of grief, as if he has just lost something. Completely nonsensical, of course, when these are the same tracks he travels every day, hardly anything out of the ordinary as he sees his brother off. Though for a brief moment, he worries; for why would the feeling arise out of the blue? Surely it is not an omen of something more; and if this were the last time he saw his brother…
Of course, that worry is forgotten quickly, as the afternoon battles continue, each fight demanding his full focus; as he sees Emmet in the crowd briefly, a quick glimpse as he passes by the Doubles Platform on his way to buy dinner, and he knows that his brother will be fine; as the night descends, the station truly roars to life and he is absorbed in battle after battle at his beloved work. The afternoon strangeness is no more than a simple hitch in the journey, fading quickly out of sight and mind.
***
“See?” Adaman says, lounging casually against the wall, a bag of cheese fries in his hand; against the colourful backdrop of Gear Station, the two immortals slip through, unnoticed, unremarkable. He offers a fry to his companion, who takes it. “I told you he’d be fine!”
“He wasn’t your Warden, Adaman. You know that if it was… well, maybe not Melli, but let’s say, Mai. You know that if it was her, you’d be worried for her and her family too.” Irida replies. She pops the fry into her mouth, chews and swallows, before continuing – her days as leader of the Pearl Clan may be long over, but she will not discard decorum and speak with her mouth full just for that. “With everything that Almighty Sinnoh has done to us by now, is it really strange that I expected the worst?”
“Well, no…” Adaman turns back towards her, and they share a look; it’s a memory that still clings to them, even more than a century later, their home aflame, their people scattered or fallen, their prayers unanswered save for one cruel mercy granted to them both. Their bodies are young and unscathed and alive, but their spirits are scarred; they have lived long, too long past the day their clans died, hosting their gods and carrying out Their will.
The one person in the clans still alive today – actually alive, not a half-life extended too long – is the man they’ve come to the bustling, terrible city across the ocean from Ransei to visit, just to see him well and happy. Even if he doesn’t know Adaman’s face or name yet, even if he only vaguely seems to know Irida from a fragment of memory. Even if Hisui may never matter to him, for it is but a dream that he can simply wake from.
But dreams are another reality of their own. And were it not to be real to him – all the pain and sorrow and joy soon to come – it’s real to the both of them who remember.
And maybe that’s enough.