#briosa pokemon

[randomwriteronline]

The moment a tree is cut in half before his very own eyes, Emmet’s hands grasp little shoulders tighter as if that alone could keep them still forever.

“Absolutely not,” he sentences.

“It’s the only way,” Irida argues.

“That is a safety hazard!” he replies instantly, eyes snapping suddenly to face her own. “Verrry dangerous even for an adult. They will not enter the arena.”

But the Commander has ordered otherwise: this is the child’s duty and nobody else’s, and neither Pearl nor Diamond Clan must attempt to take upon the grievous task in their stead lest they want him to get quite crossed at them - and considering what is known of him, nobody wants him to get crossed at them.

However! Emmet will sooner die than let a passenger (let alone a minor) on a train destined for derailment.

The little kid pulls at his fingers to pry them off of their shoulders; he doesn’t fight them.

He turns around, goes back to the river, refuses to look at the child while they stuff as many satchels of balm as they can in their little bag, and starts making small spheres of mud.

He keeps making them when they make their way into the arena, heart in their throat beating wildly and scared beyond belief.

Once he decides he has made enough, Emmet bolts - runs up the hill hissing through clenched teeth as his bad leg aches and sizzles in pain just in time to see the gargantuan beast descend into the small enclosed space, shining bright and golden yellow with a kind of insatiable blind wrath radiating from every joint of its exoskeleton as the axes of its arms glint like broken glass.

The cry that bellows out of Kleavor shakes the secular tree to its core.

Then something vaguely wet slaps the back of its head before it can charge against the kid.

“I am Emmet!” Emmet announces, and throws another ball against the side of the Noble's jaw. “I will be rude now!”

Mud splatters against Kleavor’s face when it turns to roar at the man.

“Your mandibles are laughable!”

“The Lord doesn’t have mandibles!” argues enraged the young Warden.

“That’s why they’re laughable!”

Miss Zisu be blessed for her insistence of keeping one’s sorroundings as heightened in the mind as possible; by the time the stone-cutting blow soars through the air with a hiss as Kleavor swings one of its blades with a horrid cry in his direction, Emmet has already rolled away to safety.

He hears something crack and fall where he previously stood.

A shrill laugh, all adrenaline and terror, leaves his bewildered mouth; then, once he has the Noble’s attention steady on himself (and not on the child pelting the back of the beast with soothing balms) he throws another mudball, and moves.

The beast follows him in raging hot pursuit as he forces it to crawl in circles around its tree, heavy axes hindering its speed as the wet earth cracks and falls to dust as it hits its carapace - he doubles down whenever it seems to realize there is another presence right behind it, whenever it appears to turn around and the kid begins scrambling for cover.

His bad leg strains. He powers through it.

Well, he doesn’t really.

His foot slips and he thumbles down into the arena gracelessly.

Ouch.

He groans as the pain blooms and spreads further all around his knee.

And now he cannot stand.

Verrry inconvenient.

Emmet looks up to meet the furious eyes clouded by golden light that are Kleavor’s, and feels horrendously cold all of a sudden.

The axes are planted firmly into the ground as the Bug pulls its body back, clearly giving itself the momentum necessary to hurl itself forward like a Feather Ball - no, on second thought its idea has it mirroring the parable of the throw of a regular Pokéball to catch a beast just out of reach, making a long arch in the air before landing heavily onto the target.

The kid yells his name and throws another satchel of balm.

Kleavor jumps.

There’s a loud BONK that makes Emmet wheeze uncontrollably for a moment together with the absolute agony of his injured limb after that very last minute roll to hide behind the secular tree, and all he can think as the adrenaline makes his hands shake and his stomach feel like he’s going to puke is something like oh my god oh my god oh my fucking god oh fucking sweet god oh my sweet fucking god holy mother of fuck that worked oh my sweet fucking mother of god.

A blinding light covers the tree: when he crawls on his good leg and two hands around the trunk he is positively ecstatic to see the child stand, unharmed if not for a couple bruises the few times they fell, before a much calmer Kleavor.

“Bravo!” he shouts (though the word feels weird in his mouth, like he should hear it but not say it) as he approaches the two of them.

The little kid beams at him, immediately trying to help him up.

“Don’t worry! I am fine,” he assures them, “Wyrdeer will carry me. You did verrry well! Are you hurt?”

The little one shakes their head; Kleavor instead nods.

Emmet turns towards it: “Ah! I would like to apologize,” he explains quickly, before the Pokémon gets mad again and tear him into many bloody ribbons, “I did not want to be rude. I had to distract you to ensure this passenger’s safety. Your warden is right to say you’re incredible. You are verrry strong! Verrry charismatic. Yup yup! I would like to battle you one day. If you’d like that too.”

When it’s not full of wrath, twice its size and shining with golden blinding light, Lord Kleavor seems a little bashful when it comes to praise. It chitters something with its deep croaky voice and scurries up the tree in a hurry.

After a moment it’s back down, holding in its mouth a sort of rock slab: it presents it to the little hero.

“A gift?” the man asks, and it nods. “How nice! Thank you.”

“Thank you,” AkaRei echoes him. After a second they add: “Very much.”

And off runs Lord Kleavor again.

Well, Emmet thinks as Lian yells at him for insulting poor Kleavor. Thank goodness the commander never said anything about anyone from Jubilife not taking care of it in the child’s stead.

-

The moment Elesa sees that the nice little Jubilife child at the Diamond settlement and hears that they’re going to stop Lady Lilligant all on their own, she insists on following them all the way to the Arena.

“It’s the only way,” Adaman explains.

To hell with that!, Elesa’s face says.

“You don’t want to get on the commander’s bad side,” the leader warns her, dead serious and concerned like she’s rarely seen him. “It would take him no time or hesitation to declare a state of alert and run our settlement over like a herd of Rapidash. With no help against him... It’s just not worth it, even if you think it’s unfair. Do you understand?”

Of course she does, and she would agree that he’s right. But that kid is what, eight? Why shouldn’t they be sitting on the sidelines and letting the adults handle something so dangerous?

The child pulls at her sleeve: “It’s fine,” they reassure her.

She doesn’t look at them as they stuff the balms for Lilligant in their little satchel, turning around and stomping back down the slope. Her leader watches her quizzically as she then stops, waits, and turns to the side of the cliff.

After a moment or two, right when the kid is almost done, she is running along the elevated land and edges the arena, scraping the soles of her boots against the rocks until she disappears in the mireland’s ashy fogs, unseen as she finally arrives on the small hill right behind the tableau that makes up the arena.

The wind picks up: in the middle of the small cyclone dissipating the low clouds, Lilligant shines brilliantly with her battle cry.

Well. Let’s cross fingers and pray it works.

Elesa takes as long a running start as she can on this strip of land, leaps, and near slams her chin on the cold hard stone as the sudden ground under her feet makes her stumble forward.

No time for that! The child hasn’t noticed her arrival, nervously scrambling around like a headless Starly as they are, throwing satchels aimlessly while Lilligant avoids them with a couple stretches and prepares her attack. She needs to act quick.

One of the soothing projectile landing near her gives her an idea.

Lady Lilligant’s performance comes to a complete halt before it can even start as she hears a wolfish whistle.

Who dares? Who dares?

The Lady turns.

The balm launched directly into her face (the motion of the arm and leg accompanying it to lend more strength to the throw is extraordinarily professional, clearly rehearsed many times) carries so much momentum that it sends her straight to the ground like in a cartoon - whatever a cartoon is.

The kid shouts Elesa’s name with such relief as she hoists them on her own shoulders to limit the harm coming to them that she almost manages out a croak to reassure them.

Adaman, Arezu and Calaba shout her name for completely different reasons, divided rather evenly between ‘what in the name of Sinnoh do you think you’re doing get back here this instant this isn’t a Stunky you can kick across the swamps’ and ‘did you just knock over a Noble with your bare fucking hands, you absolute madness in the shape of a woman’.

She waves in their direction as if to assure them she’s got this (not really but they don’t need to know) and nothing bad will happen (so she hopes).

Luckily her strategy is simple enough for the child to grasp even without her using words or signs - heavy feeling in the legs permitting, she’s going to run circles around this feisty overgrown weed and they just have to throw everything at it until the Lady calms down.

Easy peasy.

Lilligant, shining as golden as the midday sun, raises herself to her feet with some difficulty and turns, gleaming eyes full of fury.

She jumps something like four feet straight in the air.

Fuck.

Elesa is lucky she has such long limbs and a good enough awareness and coordination of every single part of her body that allows her to speed away as soon as the parable is two quarters of the way done, or she would have had her head split in half by, well. That apocalyptic split she just witnessed. And here comes another, and another, and another, each at the very least telegraphed by these immense jumps she does, and Elesa keeps running across the other side of the arena until the Lady loses her patience and jumps faster, landing so close this time that she damn near chops her foot off.

The kid beans the pale golden face with a balm that makes it stumble back. Elesa blesses them a million times over as she regains a good enough safety distance between the two of them and the Noble.

Lilligant composes herself with a spin and leaaps again, graceful and wrathful, and lands... In the middle of the clearing.

Huh?

Oh, no, wait.

There come the shockwaves.

Running was already putting a horrible strain on the entire lower half of her body, which is now ablaze with pangs of pain, and Elesa dreads the thought of having to jump. She tries to time herself and sort of step across the first wave, but it makes her legs howl and nearly knocks her down.

Fine.

She’ll just... Have to tank through this.

Hands grasping the kid’s legs like her life depends on it while they keep throwing balms, Elesa sucks in a breath through her teeth.

Second wave comes.

Hits her right in the ankles.

Third wave comes.

She almost buckles.

Fourth wave comes.

She bites her lip nearly hard enough to bleed.

Fifth wave comes.

The light explodes in a burst of glimmering gold and distracts her from the scream of anguish seeping into her nerves from her bones, and she barely notices she’s trembling.

The kid hugs her head tight, which doesn’t help the way it throbs. She lays them back down, taking the chance to kneel and rest a moment.

Are you alright?, she signs, too tired to wonder if they can understand them.

The kid just nods enthusiastically, searching in their bag until their arms are so full of Oran berries and medicinal leeks and some potions too that they begin falling from them, handing them over to her.

She smiles and drinks a bottle of medicine slowly: what a sweet child.

Lilligant also approaches, a little mortified and worried. Her long leaf arms hold a small slab which she offers to the child, and a petal plucked from her head for the woman, to soothe her aches.

Elesa touches her own chin and pulls then the hand forward.

“She says thank you,” AkaRei translates. “And thank you. From me too.”

Lilligant curtsies very gracefully.

Well, Elesa thinks as Arezu reconciles with her noble and Adaman and Calaba fuss over her. Thank goodness the commander never said anything about anyone from the Clans or Jubilife just helping the child.

-

The moment the kid is spotted speeding around on a large fish towards the other side of the coastlands, Briosa grabs Volo and drags him along while she climbs all the way up to the very end of the cliff.

Her eyes squint: there the little thing is, she can see the trail of tgeur aquatic steed.

“Hey,” she says snapping her fingers so Volo is paying attention before pointing at the speck dashing on the waves, “They’re going directly for the active volcano island, right?”

The apparently younger man squints too.

He nods.

“Not under my fucking watch,” she sentences.

Thank Arceus the madman decides against diving straight into the sea from the top of the cliff; she does however slide down from it back to the beach exceedingly fast, making Volo scramble to keep up with her, then seizes the first row boat she finds, hurls the other on it with little fanfare, and starts rowing away at a frankly breakneck velocity for a guy with such apparently spindly arms dragging along with herself a body roughly twice her weight.

About halfway through her arms start cramping, and a Tentacool has the genius idea of throwing a poison dart at her nose (which is indeed not small and, if it did extend a little further out instead of straight down, would definitely be a good target), missing her entirely.

The Scary Face she glares at it with is enough to make it lose all animosity.

A Pokéball to the face later, the small beast is latched onto the backside of the boat and propelling it with Hydropulsars, and Firespit Island is reached much quicker this way - though the Tentacool does halt and stutter in fear as a horrendous thunder is heard mere hundreds of meters away from it.

With the jellyfish freed (she already has a Water type, and a Poison type too), after knocking out a Venomoth that tries to pick a fight, Briosa drags her associate and ward into the isle’s boiling heart of rock and molten lava.

They hurry between the pits of lava heaving burning heat, dashing past the Magmars and the Gravelers eyeing them quizzically - thank goodness none are quick enough to keep up and simply remain where they stand instead of chasing them, since those pests are rather feisty.

A small group appears as they round the corners: Volo recognizes the young Pearl leader, the dead Lord's warden and that poor Iscan fellow who can't catch a break from neither ghosts nor exceptionally short men.

Beyond them, he also recognizes the enormous shape of an Arcanine.

Which is. A surprise.

Considering the Lord should be dead.

Briosa does not see the three more or less adult bodies before the arena.

She sees an enormous dog on fire, and a very small child in the middle of a sea of lava, on a thin grey pavement.

“SHIT!” she eloquently shouts.

Shedding her backpack and howling at whoever is not currently in the middle of a pool of molten rocks to remain behind the yellow line she bolts off with a Pokéball in hand to get that tiny, very clearly endangered passenger off of the tracks this damned instant.

Thank goodness Walrein is half Water type or she’d be melting in the heat. Thank goodness she’s half Ice type too, or that Hydropulsar would have been vaporized in a second instead of creating a path across the magma.

“Return to the platform!” she shouts as loud as she can.

The kid turns to her, smiles gladly, waves a little; just as the enormous Lord charges towards them, they roll across the temporary flooring in a pinch to evade the monster - and get on the other section of the arena.

“I SAID RETURN TO THE PLATFORM!”

Arcanine roars with a might that shakes the Earth to its very core.

Briosa, who is completely deaf, points her finger at him and barks right back: “DON’T TRY ME YOU SON OF A BITCH, I’LL RIP YOUR TEETH OUT!”

(Behind her, both wardens and young leader stand bewildered, stunned out of their wits in vaguely horrified silence; Volo’s hands run to hide his face within them, torn between screaming, praying this doesn’t completely destroy relations between the guild and the Pearl clan, and desperately holding back an explosion of nervous laughter as a Hydropump slams into the Lord’s side and makes him stumble back into the lava.)

The kid launches something against the very angry beast’s snout and hits it.

“STOP ANTAGONIZING THE MURDER DOG!” Briosa shrieks with such exhasperation that she can almost feel in slow motion which one of the blood vessels in her brain is about to explode with enough strength to leave a fuming crater in place of her frontal lobe.

Another roar, a charge.

Ice Beam hits the Lord right in the chest and has him stumble back.

Other projectiles are thrown, other fragile paths to shore are built on the magma; the kid uses it to move to a different section of the arena, still launching satchels as Walrein struggles to keep the massive beast occupied.

She extinguishes the flaming circle in the middle of the arena, she stops his charges midway, she tries to drown the big bastard on land at every opportunity.

The kid still never returns to more solid ground.

A badly timed roll, and one of their sleeves is nearly incinerated by fire.

For the love of all that is good, if they don’t die nor do her in with a heart attack by the end of this, Briosa is going to kill them.

What takes several minutes seems to pass in just a handful of seconds.

A flash of blinding light dissipates to show a much calmer but still enormous Arcanine, and the child cheers with too much adrenaline in their system to realize their arm has a burn that nearly covers half of it.

They barely have the time to turn around and thank Briosa that a bullet roughly as big as Terusho (the very nice older sibling they got when they joined the Survey Corps, Laventon’s assistant) shoots right towards them and they are uncerimoniously grabbed from under the armpit with a Rillaboom grip, raised in the air, very quickly transported away from any semblance of magma, and settled back down on the ground.

Briosa stares into their eyes with her own that look like rotten olives, and she is absolutely livid.

“PLEASE comply with station staff when asked to return to the platform!” she snarls, but the pitch of her voice makes her a little amusing even with the worry in her tone. She points at the arena, dead serious: “That is LAVA! If you fell there would not be BONES left! You would have been SOUP!”

They laugh nervously. The high is slowly going away and the terror is settling.

Briosa turns them around like a sack of potatoes, inspecting their wounds, muttering of Cheri berries. Something strikes her.

“Why the hell where you there anyway?” she asks, and gestures at the three waiting by at the edge of the arena (a little scared of her honestly): “They’re older. They should be handling a dangerous Pokémon.”

No help, they reply. Rule says only me. Clan no help.

“Who made the rule?” she demands.

In her mind she is replacing the bastard’s teeth with her fists.

They furrow their brow and put their hands under their nose, clearly imitating someone. Good choice, since they clearly have trouble spelling and she’s good with charades for reasons she can’t remember.

A moment and she clicks her tongue loudly - the Jubilife galaxy chief...

She gives them another look to assess the damage.

“First we cure those burns,” she decides, “Second I teach you how to throw someone thrice your size and weight, third...”

She waits a moment.

“You did hear me swear, right.”

They nod.

“Third don’t repeat anything I say ever. Fourth, we get that mustached motherfucker and hurl him into the ocean.”

The kid laughs.

Lord Arcanine approaches sheepishly and very, understandably afraid - he retreats for a moment when Briosa notices his arrival and hides the child behind herself, with a look like death in her pupils and Walrein readying a Hydropump that without the power lent by the frenzy is sure to destroy him.

His little savior stops both threats by pulling at the Ginko sleeve and talking with their hands, and he is free (though under a glare that could freeze his blood) to gently lay a plate from his mouth into their little palms.

“Att’a boy,” the small man comments.

“Thank you,” AkaRei says and signs before gently patting his snout.

Arcanine’s tail wags a little bit.

Well, Briosa thinks as people she doesn’t know finally come over and start talking while Volo eyes the plate hungrily as he hands her berries for the kid. Thank goodness the fucker never said anything about the Ginko guild helping.

-

The moment he actually realizes how the noble is to be quelled, Ingo’s hands grasp little shoulders tighter as if that alone could keep them still forever.

“Absolutely not,” he sentences.

“Now you come to your senses?!” Melli shrieks.

“I had not understood they would have to physically fight Electrode!” the other replies horrified. “This is no task for a child to take on! It’s inadmissible!”

But the Commander has ordered otherwise: this is the child’s duty and nobody else’s, and neither Pearl nor Diamond nor Ginko nor Jubilife must attempt to help them in any way lest they want him to get quite crossed at them - and considering what is known of him, nobody wants him to get crossed at them.

However! Ingo will sooner die than let a passenger (let alone a minor) on a train destined for derailment.

The little kid pulls at his fingers to pry them off of their shoulders; he struggles against them just for a moment.

He watches, uneasy, as they expertly stuff their bag with satchels with Melli’s begrudging help while the gears of his mind churn and turn to find some way to stop this trainwreck of a situation before the kid is grievously injured so much that they overtheat and his temples start hurting.

Considering they’re still alive however, either they have miraculously fought alone and survived each frenzied Noble (something hardly likely, because despite how skilled their battling abilities might be they are still a small and frail and slow 8-year-old), or someone has managed to help them. There has to be some kind of loophole to the commander’s orders, he is certain of that, but where? Effectively, anybody in Hisui has been ruled out.

The child fixes their bag and walks quickly into the arena.

The solution explodes in his brain.

He hurriedly shoves off hat and coat, grabs at the hem of his tunic - Adaman and Melli turn away from him in tandem, suddenly embarassed as they realize he’s undressing, but they’re late anyways: haggard uniform back over his undershirt, Ingo entrusts his fellow warden with both ornate bracelet and Pearl insignia.

His eyes pierce the opposing leader’s: “Please don’t tell Miss Irida of this.”

And then he’s on the rock wall sorrounding Moonview Arena, climbing upward like his life depends on it.

Lord Electrode is akin to a Sun fallen on the ground - enormous, glowing brilliantly, and in an incredibly worse mood than usual. In front of it, the kid looks even smaller than they already are.

It shakes fiercely, beady eyes overrun with wrath, earth quaking with it.

A fulmineous Poison Jab has it rolling on its side with a growling groan.

There is a relief in the terrified child’s face as they recognize the Gliscor soaring just above them that makes his heart hurt.

“I APOLOGIZE FOR THE TREATMENT I WILL BE RESERVING YOU, LORD ELECTRODE!” perched upon the rocky ring Ingo shouts as loud as he can, hoping the volume will break through the anger of the beast turning to face him at least a little: “I CANNOT ALLOW HARM TO COME TO PASSENGERS!”

“Don’t hurt him!” Melli’s voice comes from beneath.

“I WILL TRY TO MINIMIZE THE DAMAGE!”

Electrode shrieks at him and hurls a ball of pure electricity towards him. Gliscor tanks it without a scratch thanks to his Ground typing and replies with another Poison Jab.

A pinkish satchel hits the back of the round body, and a bit of that rage chips off.

The Lord turns around with horrifying speed, fuming. The spook is such that a second balm hits him straight in the face, but the problem is now clear: if Ingo wants to keep the kid alive and in one piece, the distractions need to come in a constant stream.

Gliscor will have to work overtime.

Luckily, he already loves playing with his food.

Even more luckily, it takes very little to get on the Lord’s nerves.

The only thing that can deal at least some noteworthy damage is Poison, so he has to make the most of the one move he managed to re-teach him right before the start of this rodeo.

It’s a game of Glameow-and-Rattata, hit-and-run after hit-and-run, and the only ones having fun seem to be Electrode’s offsprings as they gleefully try to self-destruct in the hovering Pokémon’s face and at the child’s feet. A rogue spark traveling too far from its detonation makes the kid yelp and Ingo want to jump in himself, but that would then leave his partner directionless and thus the passenger vulnerable and--

And the Lord is readying an explosion of his own, its range wide enough to cover almost the whole arena and there’s no way those little legs can evade that.

The child half scream in terror for a moment when a poisoned tail wraps around their middle and they find themselves high in the air; Gliscor, unable to apologize for the suddenness of the situation, does his best to keep a strong but not bruising grip on their little body just like his trainer has instructed.

The detonation blinds and deafens Ingo for a moment.

His ears ring and dark splotches still blot out his vision when a shower of satchels pelts the equally confused Electrode - it seems gravity, though forgotten in the middle of the chaos, came to their aid nonetheless.

A smaller bang of light: Lord Electrode shakes the last bit of frenzy off of himself as the child is lowered back to the ground.

The warden climbs into the arena like he’s just been possessed by a famished Dusknoir, power-walking his way to the very much not completely alright kid, case in point the piece of leg he can see through the ripped side of their pants with is very much getting purplish in color and a little bloody (though thank Sinnoh it’s more akin to a scratch instead of a gaping wound).

“Are you in pain?” he asks immediately, completely skiping pleasantries, one hand recalling his partner to get him some rest and the other rummaging in his pocket for a sort of ‘health kit’ he keeps on himself at all times.

When the kid shakes their head - bravely, but they seem to limp a little - he kneels before them to better inspect their leg and ignores their response, soaking a piece of bandage in medicinal leek juice and wrapping it carefully around their bleeding bruise.

“I apologize - I’ve committed a horrible mistake and made you pay the consequences,” he tells them sheepishly as they shake a little and hiss for the burn and Almighty Sinnoh they are just so small in his hands: “If I had been attentive this morning I might have been able to devise a better plan as we ascended to the arena, keeping you away from the battlefield entirely-”

He would go on if the little arms didn’t hug him tight.

He hugs back. Right. They are shaken. Comfort should come first; there is more than enough time for an apology later.

“You were incredibly brave,” he murmurs.

(Kamado is still going to get his ass handed to him verbally, physically or even both and no force in Hisui is going to spare him from his fate.)

There’s a sharp ‘spock’ sound, like empty wood against wood. When Ingo turns his head slightly to inspect where it came from, he sees the much calmer Lord near the tree that is his home, trying to roll in a few different directions before settling on his side and carefully approaching them, some kind of slab held tight between his teeth.

“Lord Electrode,” he greets him, to give the kid time to retract into his coat if they feel unsafe or wipe their tears away if they don’t want the Pokémon to see them: “I’m sorry for the treatment I’ve reserved you. I had no ill intentions...”

Electrode grumbles amiably through the thing in his mouth - it seems he recalls the apology yelled beforehand and is willing to let bygones be bygones seeing what the situation was. He can be surprisingly level-headed despite... You know. The exploding thing.

He offers the slab of rock very gently to the half hidden child.

“A gift?” the man asks, and he nods. “How kind! Thank you.”

“Thank you,” AkaRei echoes him. After a second they add: “Very much.”

Electrode accepts the Oran berries the warden sheepishly hands over to him rather gratefully.

Well, Ingo thinks as Melli rushes in to assess the damage and pretends he doesn’t sigh in relief at the kid being in one piece. Thank goodness the commander never said anything about foreigners being forbidden from helping.

-

The moment Avalugg emerges from the ice, shining brilliantly in a mound of light, as big as a mountain, roaring hard enough to make the Earth tremble, the child before him seizes with a shiver that even in this weather is more from terror than chill.

Adaman pales into snow.

Irida bites her lip.

“Almighty Sinnoh,” she hears him whisper, “He is a colossus.”

She knew already. She all but grew up on his back, after all.

Gaeric remains immoble next to her, unable to disobey her orders, with a face she isn’t sure she can interpret. She knows he cannot stop the kid after giving them his permission; she also knows, from the tension in his arms, that he does not want that child to be out there in the arena now more than ever.

Nobody can help.

Kamado has finally figured out a way to word his decision that doesn’t leave any breath, any opening, any slightest attempt at circumnavigating it: he’s left the kid alone to fend off a giant with only their Pokémon and nothing else.

But Avalugg is relentless, she knows, and slow and steady: it might take a while before the child has a moment to battle him, and nothing assures their little legs will manage to move quickly enough to evade any of the frozen boulders he hurls at them.

Her nails sink into her palm so she can't bite at them.

Next to her, her fellow clan leader thumbs at his bandages.

Avalugg roars.

Irida turns sharply to Adaman, entire body facing his, a determined look in her awfully nervous eyes; her fist intercepts his a moment too late, and their stiff arm stumble against one another for a moment before the tension in their bodies blocks them.

“I ask for your alliance,” she says with a throat that shakes with the knowledge that she is too young to be ready for war, “In the case Jubilife turns against the Pearl Clan for what I wish to do.”

“I ask for your alliance in the case Jubilife turns against the Diamond Clan for what I wish to do,” he says with a voice that shakes from the cold and the fear, “And your permission to do it.”

It’s her people’s Noble, after all.

Their wrists link for a second, as the enormous beast begins his attack: the contract is sealed.

Adaman darts into the arena without a word more, because he is impatient and an older brother, and he grabs the kid in a roll that gets them out of the way of a ball of ice hurtling their way before tucking them under his arm like a basket of softfoot roots, and Irida briefly forgets their just stipulated accord to clench her fists tight enough to break rock within them and think as strongly as she can that he’s an idiot and she will kill him because who in the name of Almighty Sinnoh would run directly into Lord Avalugg as if it were a sound decision under any circumstance, let alone this one in particular.

The Diamond leader could not hear her if she were shouting at him, busy as he is shielding the child in his haori as he tries balancing them on his hip, evading rows of frozen boulders, and thinks to himself that this was not, in fact, his greatest plan - to run in, Leaf Blades blazing, and set himself up against an enormous creature he cannot dream of attacking; firstly, because Gaeric would kill him on the spot, and he would be in the right; secondly, because the Lord is so much bigger and so, so much angrier than him.

The kid grabs him tight, arms around his waist, yells that he’s not supposed to be there, that Kamado will get angry, and they’re crying a little

Adaman hoists them up in his arms as the beast makes him dance about to not get skewered by the icy shards jutting out from across the length of the arena and gives them what he hopes is a genial, comforting smile.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures them: “I’m not alone.”

Avalugg roars.

The first icicle misses narrowly, the kid holding tighter onto his neck; the second one has him stumbling on his heels and falling backwards.

The third one disappears into the sky.

From where he lays a moment more Adaman recognizes stripes of red on white tails shaking in the wind, and wheezes a blessing at Irida.

The Pearl leader, iron grip on the paraglider carried by Lord Braviary, spares him a glance just to ascertain that he and the child have gotten back on their feet as she flies in circles over the enormous Noble to redirect his attacks somewhere she know he will struggle to aim at. She can tell the wings keeping her in the air strain as the frenzied Avalugg targets them with increasing fury.

A ray of freezing energy grazes Braviary while they fly a little too close, making his mighty wings flap in fright for a moment - the piercing chill escaping her Lord’s maw so violently nearly snakes its way under her skin, but she grits her teeth and sucks cold air through them.

She did not mean to hurl the Eternal Ice at the docile giant so harshly, but from such a height and in such a situation, she supposes it can’t exactly be helped.

Avalugg takes it all, all the balms thrown at him from smaller hands as well as more well-known ones, stunned in place by the dizziness his fully unleashed fury envelops him in. By the time his massive head shakes to regain composure and his eyes are again alight with wrath, the golden glow has drastically reduced its splendor; he still can’t hear his warden trying to plead with him, nor can he recognize the shape insistently circling his head as the little human girl he’s seen grow up under his careful gaze.

Between the small projectiles dirtying his maw and the avian annoyance, he decides the latter is more worthy of his rage.

Braviary shrieks, doing his best to evade the boulders of ice hurled blindly in his general direction, some coming far, far too close to him and his passenger for comfort (on land Gaeric yells something and Sabi, despite her reassurances that all will go well, clings harder to his leg). Irida grip slips just for a moment, half of her Eternal Ice falling to the ground uselessly, wasted, but she steels herself enough to fly to safety.

The good part of her strife is that, down below her, the danger level has been drastically reduced and the kid is getting their arms sore with throwing balms without rest.

That is, until Adaman decides he has a better, quicker idea.

It’s a very good thing that the child has no complaints about getting swung around in his arms like a moderately sized sack of flour, and also that they trust him completely as he jumps off the platform into the arena, a few meters away from the gargantuan rock pillars that are Avalugg’s legs, shaking the ground with every lumbering step as he turns and turns increasingly furious. There’s no doubt he’s too clouded by rage to even realize what he’s stepping on - even if it was a trail or bunch of his favorite treat.

Dozens of satchels of ice crack beneath the enormous weight of the Noble.

A golden burst blinds Lord Braviary for a moment: Irida’s hands slip to cover her face, but the ground meets her halfway.

It rumbles beneath her with an apologetic growl.

Despite his normally still impressive size, the Lord of the Tundra looks so much more docile, much more gentle without the frenzy coursing through him. He turns bashfully to the small humans at his side, shaking his head as if to apologize; his fellow Lord carefully perches hiself on one of its great tusks and rubs the soft feathers of his head against his large maw, crooning softly.

“Irida?” Adaman calls for her out of breath while the enormous beast lays slowly, trying to see past the block of ice and rock: “Are you alright?”

From the flat back of the Pokémon his fellow Leader’s voice comes weakly: “Yes,” she replies; her head peeks from above. “I’m fine.”

He helps her down from the Lord, and the kid rushes to hug her tight.

All three got out of this in one piece.

Thank Sinnoh.

Avalugg digs something up from the dirt: he pushes the plate a little closer to the smaller humans.

AkaRei picks it up, and smiles weakly: “Thank you.”

Well, Adaman and Irida think grimly as Gaeric, Sabi and Terusho (who hurried over worried by the quakes caused by the Lord’s attacks) slide down into the arena to ascertain that they’re alright. Now, to face the consequences.

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon irida #submas emmet #kleavor #pokemon adaman #pokemon elesa #hisuian lilligant #pokemon volo #hisuian arcanine #submas ingo #hisuian electrode #hisuian avalugg #hisuian braviary #briosa pokemon #random writing #not tagging the wardens bc they have minor roles and these are already. too many #THIS IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! everybody gets eebie deebied au strikes again #not satisfied with that last segment but i dont care! its done! at last! woo!

[randomwriteronline]

(A Day)

The sun was pouring in through the window, calmly, stretching like a drowsy Liepard. They had forgotten to get the blinds down, yesterday - but in their defense they had been too horrendously tired by the end of their snickering dinner to remember to do that, or to move back to their respective rooms for that matter. It still felt incredible that Elesa had managed to remain lucid and awake enough to go home on her own.

Emmet was asleep still, his cheek resting on his brother's sternum and arms wrapped in a loose hug around his neck. Ingo patted his back softly, intermittently, trying to follow along to vague memories of songs.

He wasn’t used to being awake before anybody else - usually he would continue snoozing only to be quickly yanked out of his torpor by a sudden sound caused by the activity of somebody already up and about, whether that be Tangrowth stumbling out to get some sun, a clansman checking on him, a Pokémon prowling around in an attempt to strike him unprepared.

It had taken just a moment to assess that his twin, even trembling so fiercely and twitching uncomfortably with his brow furrowed deep, muttering something like ‘viva’ in a pleading tone, was very much not conscious.

His nightmare had been dissipated quickly, thankfully, when his nape was scooped into a scarred hand and his hair kissed by a dry mouth that began to soothe him by muttering a litany from the Icelands, with a soft beat like patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat, patta-pat.

It was a sort of nursery rhyme, if memory served him well, to scare away Ghosts and bad dreams; and now Ingo struggled to recall the words to it.

There was one about Bergmites, but it had their ice armor melted in the sun, and this one was more of a playful march. He was half sure it featured an increase in number of some sorts - or maybe he was confusing it with the Aipoms swinging across the side of a river? Very likely; though he still had a feeling math played some part in all of it. What Pokémon do scare off Ghosts... Well, that’s easy, Dark or Ghost types, but it certainly wasn't about Glalies or wandering spirits. Might have been about... Riolus? Or Glameows. No, no, Riolus was more likely. Walking in rows after a Lucario acting as their teacher, or training together by attacking and blocking. Ah, but that didn’t have anything to do with shielding from apparitions - they couldn’t even touch them, Fighting types that they were! Though Steel is very effective against Ice... But what did Ice have to do with anything? Now he was thinking of Irida and Gaeric.

He rushed back to focusing entirely on the beat against his brother’s ribs before his mind wandered into territory that turned his own chest into a suffocating iron cage collapsing under the deep sea pressure.

Patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat - patta-pat, pat, pat, patta-pat.

Not remembering the lyrics was making this quite a challenge.

Did he at least know the melody?

Ingo tried humming a note or two, just to hear how that would sound like. He remembered to draw them out a little, like chant, or a lament. When he had heard Lian sing it to one of of Kleavor’s smallest Scythers while swaddling it in a blanket, his young voice had sounded a bit akin to the whine of a Swinub; Ingo traced over the fuzzy memory of his singing with his own buzzing throat, as if the still incomplete tune were a drawing and he himself an unskilled child learning to draw by following someone else’s lines on a paper held against the sun.

Had he ever listened to it properly? No, probably not. What a shame.

A part of him thought it was a relief. That meant it would have been easier to go back to everything being normal, being right; he would leave all of Hisui behind himself in some lost nook of his brain like he had left it behind in time and space alike, and he would return to being whoever he had forgotten he was, and it would have been good.

Not a trace of change.

(The warden that was bound to fade away from his self eventually was fiddling with the stark white kimono Irida had given him, lamenting without words how he wished he could still see in its place the pale pink of his former tunic, and mumbled that he didn’t like the idea of forgetting. It was just something that nobody could stop, Ingo tried to reason with him, sheepish and defensive: it wasn’t out of malice, but simply how things are. The warden looked at him very sadly, with that pale unhappy face of his.)

(I think it was about stars, the warden said: I’m not certain, but I believe the words sounded a little like this.)

The head on his chest lowered for a moment, nuzzling his ribs, and its shoulders moved as if trying to properly push down or take off a shirt too tight.

“Oh,” Ingo said, interrupting the string of vowels he had begun singing and stilling his hands over the bony back. “I apologize. Did I wake you up?”

Emmet shook his head with a sleepy groan; his arms stretched and tensed to make his joints crack imperceptibly, imitated by his legs; his eyes were still closed, and his mouth felt full of clay-like paste that stuck his tongue to his palate and his teeth to his lips.

“Already awake,” he lied.

“I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Don’ worry.”

He tucked his knees against his chest and curled up a little more to be more comfortable, slightly tightening the hug he had his brother ensnared in. He couldn’t remember sleeping like this, like a rock placed on top of an ironing board, in what felt like ages. It felt warm, and nice, and familiar.

His twin’s hands rested back on his spine, as light as feathers, no longer patting it. Emmet hoped he wasn’t embarrassed by it, nor that he thought himself silly for it. It was calming, really.

He could have stayed like this for another hour.

Huh. Weird for him to want to keep sleeping. He was the early riser. Could have been the sleeping pill again. No, no way. He must have had digested it by now.

But his brother definitely would not wake up before the alarm.

“What time is it?” Emmet asked, groggy voice a little gurgling despite the fact that his mouth seemed drier than the Route 4 desert.

“I don’t know,” Ingo replied, “But considering the sun, it’s morning.”

Considering the what?

The sun doesn’t rise anywhere near 5:30 in the morning in early spring.

Emmet furrowed his brows and slithered, with some difficulty, one of his arms away from under his twin’s neck. Forcing his eyes to open (shutting them for another moment with a groan as the light bothered his not yet constricted pupils) he squinted at the numbers on the Xtransceiver. It took him a hot second for his brain to once again comprehend any written sign.

It was currently 9:03.

“Shit,” he croaked out with a wheeze.

With all the gracefulness of a nightstand falling down a spiral staircase and launching itself through the wide enough hole in its railing to bounce with a horrid crunch directly into a den of hungry Bidoofs, he began climbing down from his brother’s hold face-first, possibly emulating Eelektross when the dastardly Mold Breaker emanating from Haxorus would reduce him to pitifully crawling on the floor like a wet tube in disdainful protest.

His attempt at not worsening his disastrous delay was however quickly vanquished by a pair of arms slipping right back under his armpits and around his neck, which pulled him back up, and by the body attached to them, which turned and squashed him against the back of the couch.

“Fucker,” he spat out.

“You’re still tired,” Ingo commented casually like he wasn’t constricting his younger twin in a grapple: “From what I understand, you spent the entirety of yesterday extraordinarily drowsy. It can be dangerous to go about not well-rested, you do know that, right?”

“Let go. I am verrry late.”

“By how much?”

“Three and a half hours.”

“Ah! That’s quite a shame. At this point it might be better for you to take another nap and head out later, if not at all entirely.”

Punches began pelting his back.

As a response, he leaned a little heavier; his younger brother made a sound that reminded him of a Magby whose paw got stepped on, and started hitting him even harder.

“You’re a little weak,” Ingo noted, genuinely slightly concerned: “Have you been eating enough?”

“Fuck you.”

“I am very serious.”

“So am I! Fuck you!” and seeing as brute force was having no effect, Emmet was now trying to wiggle his legs back up to his chest in the hopes that he would manage to punt his feet directly in the older twin’s stomach. “I am already late on schedule! Don’t make that worse!”

Hm. A reasonable complaint. Very well then.

With a final squishing that got him another fist banging on his shoulder in an attempt to stab him with air (as there were no knives or other silverware available) Ingo sat up, stood on his creaking legs, and began making his way to the kitchen so his poor mess of a baby brother could sit down and get something in himself stat, before he decided he did not need to ingest anything before spending a whole day doing Sinnoh knew what with nothing to keep him standing upright on those bony ankles of his.

He spaced out for a moment once in the room, right before the fridge which still buzzed as loudly as the day before, wondering why his arms seemed to be occupied when he could have sworn he wasn’t holding anything in them.

Once he actually opened his eyes - must have been tired himself, trying to sleep even as he walked - he noticed he was indeed holding something.

That something happened to be Emmet, whose hands were holding extremely tightly on the fabric of his older brother’s shirt and whose legs were wrapped around his sides in a similar iron grip as to not fall onto the ground despite the fact that firstly, the arms keeping him airborne were very much not going to let go of him, and secondly, he could have easily stood on his own feet if he just put them back on the floor since they were the same height.

Emmet might have forgotten that in the throes of being picked up like a packet of potato chips, because he seemed slightly terrified by the current situation.

Ingo gently put him back down.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t like that you can do that,” his brother stated plainly. “You could use that for evil.”

"I most certainly would not," Ingo scoffed. "And you are just thin. Please sit down and get something to eat."

His twin fake-slapped him to shut him up. The slaps turned more frantic as he unceremoniously picked Emmet from under the armpits and hoisted him back up in the air, completely deaf to his string of no-no-no and sorries and ingos and put-me-down-put-me-down-Dragons-above-put-me-down until he planted his ass on a chair.

“You are going to eat,” he declared.

Excadrill, who had just scuttled into the room, agreed loudly with the sentiment.

In true younger brother fashion, Emmet pouted: “See,” he argued as he slumped in his seat: “I was right. You used it for evil.“

“I wouldn’t call making sure you don’t starve an ‘evil’ motive.”

“It is! Because I’m late.”

“By three and a half hours.”

“Exactly.”

“Which is so late, at this point the schedule must have been already rearranged to accommodate for your absence,” Ingo rationalized, trying to search through the fridge: “So might as well take your time and eat properly first.”

He then spent a few moments looking mesmerized as Emmet struggled on his chair against apparently nothing with such violence that, after rocking it over and over in all directions, he finally slammed so hard on its back that he should have by all means launched himself right onto the pavement tiles. Instead, he stopped just short of that, winning against gravity in a way that made no sense; the chair settled very gently back on all fours, and the younger twin whipped his head around to stare directly into Chandelure as she deflated in the relief of having caught him in time.

He then turned back to his brother older by eleven minutes exactly. His mouth was flat and his eyes told of unspeakable rage.

Ingo turned to the haunted light fixture: she gracefully showed him her back.

He could hear the younger twin wheeze and whistle in fury like a kettle left too long on a burning stove as he retreated back in the metal parallelepiped in search of something that could have constituted a good first meal. He sighed, re-emerging from the cold.

“Please let him go,” he demanded politely.

His brother gave a victory groan and slammed his face on the table to make sure the Psychic bindings on him were completely gone.

Archeops took the opportunity to sit on his nape.

“No!!” his trainer’s shout was muffled by the weight pinning him down as he reached up and harshly scratched the scaly body covered in feathers with hands hardened into claws. The overgrown snake-headed chicken gargled delighted by the annoyance of his mischief accompanied by Excadrill’s snickering chitters while Ingo reached out to get something in the pantry he was pretty sure he had seen yesterday.

Resuscitated fossil manhandled off of himself with the help of a couple belly rubs, Emmet jumped to his feet and shot him a glare.

“I am Emmet,” he announced irritated, “I am tired of being bullied.”

His brother hummed: “When are you set to return home?” he asked, completely ignoring the other’s demand.

“Eleven thirty at night.”

“I see,” Ingo commented.

The strange conciseness of the sentence set off alarm bells.

The second he tried to move forward to grapple him again, the younger dropped into a defensive stance and grasped the table to keep it as a barrier between the two of them.

“Nooo,” he growled.

“I will not pick you up again,” Ingo promised, only half-lying.

Emmet pointed at his face: “No!”

If the older took a step to the left, he moved to the right, and vice versa. They did that old comedy routine for maybe less than a minute before juvenile impatience overwhelmed the younger brother, and his brain suddenly shot to a completely different topic: had their Pokémon eaten? He glanced around to find their bowls, planning to pull off a fulminous move in some way or another and disappear first into the livingroom to somewhat set up breakfast for their teems and then into his own room to change shirt at record time and teleport out the door before he could be wrestled into a chair again.

The bowls were missing though, and the cabinet holding the various Type-specific foods had been left open to reveal its insides empty if not for a variety of edible pellets that must have fallen out as they were moved out.

Right. They were smart. And Gurdurr had sort of human-like hands. They probably got tired of waiting but didn’t want to wake their humans up. Especially not with one of Crustle’s spoiled baby tantrums. Dragons, how come that crab of a Bug was still behaving like an unsocialized only-child Dwebble? They had trained him like everybody else. Maybe it was because of that time they made him a fancy shell. Now he exploited the fact that they loved him to death and back. Verrry unfair.

The crackle of a clear plastic packet being opened got him focused on avoiding his brother again.

“Emmet,” Ingo sounded a little exasperated.

“I am Emmet. I am verrry late.”

“If you do not eat anything, you risk fainting in the middle of the day and putting yourself in danger.”

“False! I didn’t eat anything for a whole day once. Twice. I am alive. I survived. Cease and desist.“

Hm.

Considering the wide-eyed, pale-cheeked, brow-furrowed, very noticeably worried look he was getting, maybe that had not been the best thing to reveal to his renownedly protective twin at this time.

“Forget that,” he ordered in the bossy tone of baby brothers.

“I think I will singe it into my brain instead,” his brother replied in a horrified tone. “Emmet, what the hell do you-”

“I survived!” Emmet repeated.

Ingo ignored that and approached him directly: “Two days, you forgot to eat?”

“Not consecutively!”

“That doesn’t change anything!”

“It does. And I’m still alive!”

“That alone is surprising,” the older brother replied, nonchalantly handing him something no larger than his palm, “And your survival is not an indication that you are safe to repeat that experience whenever you want.”

The younger stuck out his tongue as he took what was being offered to him without even looking and opened it, almost as a reflex: “I can handle it.”

“Not if you faint in the middle of the street.”

“I am Emmet. I have never fainted ever in my life.”

“Maybe so, but I’m afraid that I truly cannot remember an occasion in which you have not fainted before.”

“I have not! You-”

He interrupted himself, biscuit halfway bitten through. His face fell into such an annoyed frown so fast that Ingo couldn’t help snorting a bit.

“First you lift me. Then you Psychic me. Now you use your amnesia to bully me.”

“Chandelure was the one to Psychic you, I unfortunately lack the power to make you sit down consistently with my mind.”

“You’re the worst.”

The lifeless delivery stung a little, hit a bit too seriously. But the comically disgruntled grimace that accompanied it, similar in every way to how a Pachirisu tries to fold its face into itself after biting into a horribly sour Rawst Berry, both eased any possible tensions and felt so familiar that he couldn’t help cracking a misshapen dastardly smirk at it.

“I am only looking out for my baby brother,” he defended himself.

Emmet groaned at being called that, shoving another biscuit in his mouth.

“I am not hungry anyways,” he still argued back as he chewed, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “I don’t need breakfast. I’m fine as I am.”

Ingo only looked down at his hand and replied: “Alright.”

His twin followed his gaze to the clear plastic.

He squeezed it with a crackle, the last few biscuits inside it swimming in crumbs.

“Fuck you.” he spat through the fifth bite he was taking.

Ingo snorted horrendously loudly.

Boldore peeked in to somewhat chirp at them, with its strong tripod legs clicking very gently against the floor and Eelektross in tow, who wrapped around his trainer in a loud gurgling hug. He rested his huge mouth on his head careful not to scratch him but all the same insistently reminding him, in his own very loving and very deadly enormous electric tube of a lamprey kind of way, that they were supposed to go, possibly as soon as they could, and he was notably being very slow this morning.

As Emmet grabbed his long head and swayed it back and forth, sputtering something like a whiny ‘I knooow’ through his mouthful of biscuits, Klingklang tried to persuade their impatient flatmates by whirring that he likely deserved a lie-in, or at the very least that they should have let Ingo have a bite to eat first.

Before Durant could agree or Galvantula could sneak off to try and get some jam for herself (because she was one bastard of a lady) Archeops began screaming wildly, jumping up and down all antsy and obnoxious in the hopes of speeding up the process until Crustle got bored of the other crybaby and threw a pebble at his coarse bald head to shut him up.

That worked for approximately ten seconds. Then the overly scaly chicken turned all teary eyed and wobbly lipped and broke out into wailing sobs, waddling away to Haxorus to get some comfort from his fellow reptilian.

“Harsh but fair,” the twins sentenced in favor of the hermit Bug.

The fossil bawled harder.

Excadrill interrupted the heart-breaking scene to ask her trainer if he was going to sit down and eat something himself or if her, Gurdurr and Chandelure would have to make sure he did that in his stead with a stern chitter.

In response, he showed her three ravaged clear packets, without even crumbs inside: “Ah, don’t worry! I’ve already met my stomach’s needs for the morning.”

His brother eyed the spoils with mild bafflement: “What- when?”

“Earlier, while you were making a fuss about not eating.”

“How do you eat so fast?”

For a moment, a rush of paranoia made him inclined to just lie. His common sense managed to shove through it, however, reasoning that he just had to not say one single stupid word, and how hard would that have been? So he looked straight into his twin’s eyes, praying his voice wouldn’t shake in a way that made it clear something was up, and told him, dead serious: “Sneasles are horrible little thieves.”

After a long second of confusion, the reply he got made him almost deflate in relief: “Oh right. You were on the mountain.”

“Yes.”

“Lots of little burglars.”

“Exactly. Heaps and nests of them, to be quite frank.”

“Man.”

A loud wail distracted them.

“YES!” the younger twin almost yelled, launching the clear plastic into the sink - or at least trying to, as it was so light that it got caught in the air and fell to the ground with a miserable pirouette of sorts to be picked up by Garbodor’s slinky arm for her to snack upon it. “I AM AWARE! We are going. Hold on.”

He marched out of the kitchen to a variety of jubilant shrieks of Joltiks waiting for nothing other than to be left alone to wreak havoc (accompanied also by the distraught beeps of the ones who didn’t want him to leave) and fetched his Pokéballs in a somewhat swift movement, trying to recall all six members of his team to varying degrees of success.

As he watched him fumble, Ingo suddenly remembered something he’d been aching to ask since yesterday.

With barely any fanfare or build up he ensnared his brother’s wrist in an iron grip; he hadn’t meant to spook him into stillness, but before he could apologize different words were already leaving his mouth as fast possible, as if afraid they wouldn’t have gotten through otherwise: “May I come with you?”

Emmet blinked for a moment.

“Where?” he asked - a little stupidly, he had to admit.

“To the Station.”

“... Why?”

“I’d like to see it. The inside of it, I mean. I’ve never... I’ve yet to see one. Since I’ve gotten my amnesia.”

Ah. Yes. Good point. Reasonable request.

Problem: nobody was aware of the fact that previously-missing-for-years Local Minor Celebrity Guy was back in the region, except for people who definitely were not going to disclose such a detail to the public before the man in question was allowed some time to at least re-acquaint himself with everything in a geographical sense and also with his own family instead of letting the doors of the media circus swing wide open to drown him in unwanted attention.

Second problem: previously-missing-for-years Local Minor Celebrity Guy was perhaps one of the most recognizable people in the region after a maximum amount of three glances in his direction.

In conclusion: fuck.

Emmet stared into his twin’s eyes for a span of time that would have made anybody nervous and uncomfortable, and to be completely fair, Ingo himself wasn’t necessarily enjoying the situation either.

Finally he clamped his older twin’s shoulders between his hands, tightening his grip around them for a moment: “Dress up,” he only ordered.

“Pardon?”

“Yes. You can come. But. Dress up,” he repeated, trying to formulate a proper sentence in the chaos of having to change and trying not to worsen his delay and making sure hordes of journalists wouldn’t materialize as soon as his brother stepped out of home: “Change clothes. Get normal ones. Random ones. Not much attention. Unrecognizable. Otherwise. You know. Newspapers.”

The last word clued Ingo in on the bigger problem, as his eyes widened and he nodded with an air of great gravitas: “The Sewaddles of life...”

“The Sewaddles...” his brother repeated with a horrified expression, agreeing.

Now the older twin clamped his hands over his shoulders, tone growing almost comically determined as he reassured him: “I shall endeavor to give myself as generic an appearance as possible!”

His brother gave him a thumbs up and launched himself in his own room.

It dawned on him, suddenly, that he’d been wearing the same clothes for something like 48 uninterrupted hours.

An invincible itching took over his limbs.

If he didn’t change immediately he was going to physically explode.

-

Ingo had only gotten a glimpse of the station when Elesa had kindly taken him to the fairgrounds the day before: despite his eyes feeling almost magnetized in its direction he’d barely seen it as they had passed it in a rush, an imposing cement shadow colored in a light muted yellow intervalled by steel blue veins.

Its entrance was framed by white stairs and pillars, he could notice now that he was walking directly towards it, and each of them was topped by what resembled an opaque petrol green gem, the same color as the roof.

Its windows seemed rather dark from the outside. From the upper floor a sort of balcony stuck out; he recognized red and yellow banners hanging beside it.

The style reminded him vaguely of the Galaxy Team’s headquarters, though notably smaller in size and completely different in coloration, and otherwise void of elaborate rooftop decorations or visible chimneys. It’s rather modern, professor Laventon had commented when he’s seen him look at it intently once, to tentatively try and strike up a conversation before he found out the warden’s love for his study subjects: I suppose it wouldn’t look quite as out of place if it were in Galar instead of here among much simpler architecture, don’t you think?

He stumbled on his own feet for a moment as he attempted to take the whole thing in as it came closer and closer, becoming larger and larger. Emmet was still pulling him by the wrist, and kept him from falling.

There must have been some kind of carpet before the door even though he hadn’t noticed it, because the clack of his soles was muted for a few steps.

In a moment he was hurtling down a flight of stairs, barely getting the time to acclimate to a strange sort of artificial light that gave them an orange hue (no, it didn’t give them anything, they were simply colored like that, he realized as he looked  better) - and then the sound beneath his feet turned completely different again, shoes hitting unfamiliar terrain, yellow tiles looking like bricks that had been worn and smoothed and dimmed and lightened by constant passage, almost vibrating from the way they were illuminated until somebody walked in front of him and cut him off, and he stumbled back, head rising from where it had been stuck staring mesmerized at the floor to catch brownish veins slithering through it before fixing his eyes on the face of a large clock, the glass encasing its hands gleaming in a way that burned his retinas against the dark grey behind it; he shut his eyes only to be shoved off by a passing shoulder that was already gone when he turned to apologize, and a different golden shine made his pupils hurt enough for him shove the brim of his cap down on them - but now that he couldn’t see came the noise, an incessant downpour of noise, voices talking, someone screaming, music playing, metallic words being spoken garbled and aloud from all around him at once, something rushing hurriedly making the air tremble, discussions about food school work outings did you see what they and then she said are you coming to the damnit i told you it’s not I’ll see what I can that lying piece of next train for delayed by ten arriving in platform 3 unavailable mother what is the it not clang twang you to stop here! where what minutes hour drift theater route 14 8 20 12 1 9 sand of to which go by from juice next close crack rrrrrrrrrrr up at in nacremistrusveilton bank multi single ville train track grrck see now then soon when down here him? in in an the that this it’s those go! ahead behind he’s she you how we’re sorry for ‘scuse me get off open on buzz go! inconvenience it not got rot thought hold on--

Suddenly he felt cotton on his skin, and a force yanking him away, and then he gasped for breath and saw his own face looking back at him in a dim light.

A hand was exerting pressure intermittently on his palm. He was holding that hand’s wrist.

He gasped again. Then took a deep breath.

“I-”

“It’s a lot,” Emmet preceded him. He kept pressing intermittently. “It’s a lot.”

Ingo nodded, staring at their hands.

It was a welcome respite from the overload of that unfamiliar environment.

(But it should have been familiar, shouldn’t it? He had worked here. He should have known its every nook and cranny. It shouldn’t have been so disorienting and frightening, to find himself inside it again.)

“It’s alright,” his brother reassured him. “It’s always a lot. Weird light. Weird sounds. Too much light. Too many sounds. Too many people. Many bump into you. Verrry bright. Verrry loud. Verrry intimidating. The first impression is always like that. Always a lot. I cried the first time. It was too much. Verrry much too much. The first impression is always a lot.”

The older twin swallowed, feeling his mouth dry: “But it gets better?”

“Yup. You get used to it quickly. Stops being so scary. And the hat helps.”

The conductor hat did have a rather large brim, he noted absentmindedly. Must come in handy against the golden sheen of everything.

Speaking of that, wherever they were at the moment was notably azure in hue.

Ingo blinked at the four walls around them.

“Where are we right now?”

“Elevator. We’re going down to the control room.”

“Ah. ... Wouldn’t an elevator go up, considering its name?”

“That’s the good part. Goes both ways.”

“Fascinating...”

Emmet snickered a little at his very honest delivery. His thumb began squeezing slower, slower, slower on the scar of a cut on his brother’s palm, until he stopped pressing completely.

They waited a moment more in silence.

“Better?” he asked.

Ingo nodded; he watched the gloved fingers leave to press a button, and held onto Emmet’s wrist a little tighter for the surprise when the elevator moved.

“The control room is better,” his twin reassured him: “A lot less lights. Dimmer ones. And less sounds. And less people. A lot of beeping but it’s not bad. The Depot Agents will be there.”

An extremely vague idea of what the title meant struggled to resurface, so he felt safer asking: “Is that bad?”

“What’s bad?”

“The Depot Agents being there.”

“Nope! They work here. They know you.”

“Ah,” Ingo noted in a weird tone.

The thought of a room of people who knew him made him uncomfortable. Pokémon were one thing, to have re-introduced to himself in bulk, but humans - so far they’d shown up one at a time divided by fairly long intervals, giving both him and them some time to assess and handle the whole thing. Would they have asked a lot of questions? Did they even know he likely didn’t remember them? Would he freeze up on them? He feared this would have ended badly.

His brother waved beside his hand with a wide motion, snapping him out of his worried musings: “They know about the amnesia. They won’t be mad.” he smiled. “I bet they’ll be verrry happy to see you.”

The older deflated a little: “That’s a relief.”

For now, he would blindly believe in his little brother and hope for the best.

His hand was squeezed intermittently again, slowly, softly. It hushed away his worried thoughts, allowing his eyes to wander.

The elevator whirred very quietly as it descended.

“There’s something misspelled on your coat,” he noted.

The other blinked: “Something what?”

Ingo pointed at what seemed to be a paper square of sorts hanging for dear life on the white fabric through a piece of tape: “It’s misspelled,” he repeated, “I would guess it’s meant to be ‘substitute’, with an additional ‘s’.”

Emmet plucked the makeshift tag to examine it; then he gave a short wheeze; and pocketed it without a single explanation.

A soft ding: the elevator’s sliding doors opened upon a dark colored corridor, much more pleasantly lit than the upper level had been. It wasn’t particularly long, opening into what, even from the relatively limited angle they had as they stepped out of the machine, appeared to be a fairly large room out of which was running a young person in dressed in green from the bottom of their trousers to the top of their hat - very similar to Emmet’s in shape.

“Cameron,” the conductor greeted.

The man blinked twice and stopped in his tracks with a little difficulty, skidding across the pavement for a moment, genuinely surprised.

“Boss!” he exclaimed; he sounded rather young. “We thought you weren’t--”

His boss interrupted him: “I am verrry late. Didn’t hear the alarm. Awfully sorry.”

“Oh, I mean, we got everything under control, sir, that’s no problem, it’s just that we’ve already, uh, we’ve... We’ve... Uh... We’ve...”

His words had begun trailing as soon as he’d spent just a moment too long on the man who was standing a little hunched and awkward next to Emmet, just long enough to recognize the shape and color and brightness of the eyes stuck between the face-mask and the brim of the hat.

Under the intense gaze of those vaguely disbelieving ever-widening eyes Ingo realized there was little to no reason to keep his frown hidden in a so deeply underground place, where media outlets very likely had no chances of hounding him. Should he have taken the mask off in the elevator? Should he take it off now? Should he leave it on? His time in Hisui hadn’t exactly left him looking, as the kids and various medical professionals who had been one breath away from declaring him legally dead say, good. Was this a good time to be self-conscious?

Emmet picked up the conversation again: “You have?”

“Oh, uh, yes, we’ve - we’ve adjusted shifts and everything to cover for, to cover for everything, so, so, yeah, you know? Yeah,” Cameron stammered, struggling to take his eyes off of Ingo.

He fiddled with his hands a moment, looking about to ask a question but holding himself back. At that point the amnesiac decided to try his luck: mask hastily taken off with a little titubancy, he watched the Depot Agent’s face turn bright with recognition and, more concerningly or heart-warmingly, genuine excitement.

“Good morning,” Ingo cawed out on instinct.

The young man flashed him a huge smile: “Good morning, boss!” he replied, almost a little out of breath: “It’s been a while!”

That was oddly sweet.

“He asked to come,” Emmet butted in.

Cameron turned to him with his fingers shaking: "Is... Does, the press--?"

"Absolutely not."

“So we’re the first to--?”

“Yup.”

That seemed to throw the agent for a loop. A very awed, clearly happy loop, but a loop nonetheless - one that was keeping him planted where he stood, entire body jittery with a joyous energy that couldn’t find any release.

“Cameron,” his boss called him.

His shoulders jumped a little as he turned to fully face the white clad subway master: “Y-yes! Boss!”

“You were going somewhere.”

 The enormous grin on the young face faltered in an instant to be replaced by pure terror: “RIGHT!” the poor boy shouted; his head sunk into his shoulders immediately in utter mortification at the realization that he had yelled in their faces, and he repeated with a squeak as his legs began anxiously attempting little steps to bypass them (offering apologetic glances as they helpfully moved away to let him get to the elevator): “Right, sorry, sorry, right, I should- sorry, I’ll-! I’ll be, I’m going now, sorry, sorry - right on schedule, right, sorry— ah, boss!”

Both twins raised their chins in his direction and widened their eyes ever so slightly, to assure him they were all ears.

Cameron smiled again, all wobbly and earnest: “Have a good day!”

“You too!” they replied in unison.

His excitedly waving hand vanished behind the sliding metal doors, and they were once more by themselves in the short tunnel.

It had gone… well.

It had gone well. All things considered.

Ingo repeated the sentiment to himself a few more times as he was turned around until the moving machine was no longer in his line of sight. It had gone well, with a single person and his brother by his side. Maybe it would have gone well for a whole room of people with his brother by his side, too.

A gentle pressure on his palm asked him if he felt ready to go into the control room.

He nodded without a word; they began walking again, a little slower.

It was definitely darker than the main hall, which was a pleasant surprise: the deep petrol green of the roof coated the walls, light bouncing off of them with a slight metallic sheen, coating the entire chamber in a nice penumbra. A few doors broke their compact appearance, leading deeper into the entrails of the earth, away from civilization, from the noise, from everything. Perhaps they opened upon spaces specifically designed for quiet and repose, or dedicated to specific functions or people. He imagined Emmet must have had his own private quarters of sorts.

Illumination was provided by thin insertions between the panels glowing a bright neon green, as well as coming from the wide curved screens that took up half of the room itself, all blue gradient backgrounds and dark magenta squares popping up on them every so often, azurish words blinking or typing themselves into existence. The floor too was of a deep blue that made it almost seem, if one were caught up in their own thoughts enough, like a large shallow puddle of semi stagnant waters, like those of underground springs or basins. Ingo had moved his first steps on it very carefully, holding onto his twin’s arm, convinced he would have heard a muted splash each time he shifted his feet.

Emerging from the pavement was an imposing hexagonal table emitting a dull glow from whatever the screen upon it was displaying. He noticed several chairs, and long desks full of dark buttons and small lights and smaller screens like those of old televisions, and a few strange stiff metal stalks with what looked like porous round petal-less flowers on the end protruding forward.

Those are microphones, you dollar-store poet, a little voice smacked him from inside his head. Hopefully his embarrassment wasn’t obvious.

A small concert of beeps, trills and cues filled the air just enough to be noticed without resulting as totally overwhelming as the cacophony a few hundred meters above his head. Even the chatter, although very much present, was also notably more subdued.

It felt comfortable, all in all.

He’d likely spent hours upon hours every day in here.

It really was no wonder that he’d taken to caves as naturally as a Zubat might have. Him being constantly magnetized towards them made so much sense now.

Also it thankfully meant that it did not have anything to do with the electromagnetic field around the mountain, or the enormous space-time distortion directly above his head, which certainly gave him some manner of confused relief from a vague concern he was still unable to articulate.

The rubber soles of his shoes were awfully quiet as he advanced into the room, in stark contrast to the click-clack of his twin’s.

That did not stop a fairly older man from noticing him near instantly and making his way over to them at a fairly quick pace, his face ever so slightly contorted into a gentle reprimand as his hand already stretched out to stop him.

“Sir - sir, I’m sorry, passengers are not allowed in this area of the station, I must ask you to return to the upper level,” he explained in an amiable tone; his gaze shifted onto Emmet for a moment, with almost a hint of exasperation in his eyes as he noted how he was holding onto the dark sleeve trying to slip away in mortification at the scolding: “Boss, what about following the rules?”

“I am following them.”

“Bringing some other person here like that is following the rules? You more than anybody else know only personnel have access to the control room, it’s a…”

His pupils had shifted back onto Ingo as he’d spoken, and while the vowel dwindled in the man’s mouth he could tell the cogs of recognition apart as they grinded as fast as they could to process every bit of visual information available to them. Finally the agent smiled in a vacant manner, like someone who struggles to believe what they’re seeing, and adjusted his cap.

“It’s high time I got myself a pair of glasses, it is,” he corrected himself with a short laugh. His hand, square and wide, stopped halfway over to the younger man: “The name’s Ramses, by the by. Sorry for the scare, you’re not in trouble.”

He quickly shook it, surprise overtaking his momentary fear of having messed up.

The strangest part was that the agent had immediately recognized his anxiety. Had he suddenly grown more expressive?

Then he realized he had moved to be almost completely behind the back of his (by barely above ten minutes) younger brother, actively trying to make himself smaller, and in order not to crumble into twelve thousand little bits from the embarrassment he hid his face all the way behind Emmet’s shoulder blade.

In part also because he noticed, not without a slight apprehension, that more and more people were turning towards them to stop everything they were doing and stare, very pointedly, very specifically, at him.

Ramses cackled without any malice to turn over to his boss again: “While you are rather late, aren’t you.”

“I am Emmet.” his interlocutor replied, unamused: “I am aware.”

“May I ask just what happened to cause such a strange lapse?”

“Didn’t hear the alarm.”

“Only that?”

“I was. Verrry tired. Also a victim of a conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy!”

“Yes.”

“And what would that have been all about?”

“Nobody wanted me to get out of the house.”

“A tragedy, truly.”

“Ah ha. Ah ha. Ah ha.”

“By all means, I admire your dedication, boss, but I really don’t think it would’ve been that bad for you to–”

Somebody gave a loud, gross cough with the specific intention of focusing the general attention onto their person.

That happened to be a gaunt young man who seemed to have been clenching his jaw from the second he had begun having enough teeth to grind them together, who had still had the courtesy of spitting up that racket into the crook of his elbow instead of the open air.

A less intentional cough wracked him as eyes settled on him.

Must have been the nervousness.

Finally, he found a way to articulate the words he was trying to get out of himself: "Emmet, sir, sorry - but are- are we allowed to perceive-" and he made a nervously stiff wide motion with his arm to indicate the man in dark clothing, though there was still something respectful about the way he flailed his hand about, "-This? And, and acknowledge, the situation currently happening? Or is there an unspoken rule to not... Do that?"

Emmet did not answer right away.

"Hm!" he eventually replied, not necessarily responding. He turned to his brother, who had remained all but frozen in place where he had been pinpointed, and looked right into his eyes: "Since you're the one this will be impacting the most: do you wish to agree to subjecting yourself to the mortifying ordeal of being known?"

Ingo blinked.

"That was very verbose," he noted flatly.

“Please answer.”

Ah. Yes, right.

He turned to the agent who was trying to singe holes into his head by staring at him with the intensity of a billion suns concentrated through a magnifying lens that he couldn’t decide if it was enormous or minuscule - whichever made the light burn hotter.

He retreated a little more. The man must have realized how impressively intimidating he was being and moved his gaze a few inches away, to allow him room to breathe.

Masking a cough that was meant to give him courage, Ingo forcibly dragged himself out of his brother’s shadow and extended his forearm in his direction, lying only a bit as he said: “But I can assure you that I have no problem about my existence being acknowledged by the people in this room, mister...”

"Isadore, sir!" his interlocutor replied. He rushed to shake his hand - his arm nearly dislocating for the speed at which he had moved.

His stalwart grip wasn't particularly strong, and unlike the nervous warmth of Cameron's gentle if slightly trembling hold it or Ramses’ jovial light pressure it seemed to almost carry a sort of chill, an attempt at maintaining the correct distances at all costs in the name of professionalism; despite his best efforts, however, his dark eyes shook a little as he tried to set them somewhere on Ingo's face, failing.

He opened his mouth - a small mouth all in all, more akin to an isosceles trapezoid than a circle or a line - to suck in a breath: "I'm honestly glad to see you again," he said, tenser than a well-pulled rope, serious. A little emotional.

Ingo nodded and hoped not to come off as too stilted: “Likewise.”

He thought he heard something crack weakly, in a way that did not inspire alarm - like a thin layer of half-melted ice breaking between the soles of a boot and steady ground.

Then his brother nudged him a little, and the comfortable murmuring arose again.

Suddenly, he felt fine.

The people in the room no longer appeared as oppressively terrifying as they had been just a few moments ago, not even when they reached out to him to introduce themselves all over again.

He took note of each name being offered to him, each differently built face smiling at him, to store them in pairs somewhere in the back of his mind. It felt familiar.

(It was the same as the first few days in the Icelands, the warden reminded him in an absentminded tone: he was more disoriented than nervous, and more trying not to freeze where he stood than to keep himself from hiding somewhere he could find enough air to breathe, but his modus operandi had been the same - associating sounds to as many somatic traits as possible to minimize the embarrassing chances of mixing people together.)

(He didn’t have the heart to slap his mouth shut, feeling as though that would have been uselessly cruel.)

(It was completely different now, he reasoned with him gently. And as he had noted earlier, they needed to stop thinking about Hisui. It wouldn’t be good for them.)

(The warden looked at him sadly as he slowly greeted more people.)

(It’s not that different, he murmured.)

(Then he fell back into silence.)

The green and yellow of their uniforms also felt familiar, comfortable, easy on the eyes, and the worn cotton of their gloves gave him the strangest sensation, like an incorrect deja-vù: he recognized the texture, yet found the lack of stitches running along the sides of his fingers awfully weird.

He must have worn plenty of these for days on end across the years before everything had happened if that specific feeling was so ingrained in his brain.

And he had forgotten he hadn’t been wearing gloves for about three years, after all, hadn’t he?

Not forgotten, actually - just, assumed he was wearing a pair.

Hm. Yes.

He had definitely spent a lifetime in gloves like that.

An entire lifetime.

…

They must have reeked.

Heavy steps bounced off of the floor with a notable stomping rhythm; he turned his head around for a moment to find the source of the noise together with a few others until he ended up facing towards the corridor that led in from the elevator.

Something was there which had certainly not been there beforehand.

It appeared to be a smaller replica of Emmet, head turned to the side.

One that had not seen the gentle hand of a cleaner in quite some time, if the spent dullness of its form and the heavy grey patina covering every inch of the subway master uniform was of any indication.

An even smaller humanoid form trotted next to it, dragging around a black ponytail larger than their entire body without any apparent struggle.

It took him a moment to realize that those were not long black gloves, nor black shoes, nor wide, pleated, bright yellow pants - though in his defense he had been misled by both their shape and the presence of a red vest, which instead was, indeed, an additional garment.

And of course nothing could have prepared him to see the supposed hair snap open to reveal a sparse set of sharp teeth and what looked like the inside of a mouth.

His shoulders had jolted at that, he was certain.

He turned his head left and right, to check if anybody else had seen it: not a single person in the room seemed to have any interest in whatever was happening at the room’s entrance, glancing over in silence and returning to work.

Was this a common occurrence?

Was he having some kind of hallucination?

When he turned his gaze back to it, the head of the replica was definitely in a different position.

Which distinctly did not help.

His fingers grasped his brother’s white sleeve, pulling gently if with a very obvious urgency to direct his eyes to the very uncanny sight of a smaller, dirtier, technically (hopefully) unmoving version of him standing not that far away.

Thankfully, he followed his gaze without question.

Puzzlingly, he smiled a little wider, and waved.

The eyes of the statue twitched, the head shifted slightly to look at them.

And then the mouth opened with a squeaky, delighted sound.

“Oh!”

The dusty miniature living copy of Emmet was not, in fact, as he could now tell while it approached very quickly with a gait that was nothing like his brother’s save for the intensity, a copy of Emmet.

For starters, it was not nearly as pure white or extreme in pallor, skin taking on a faint maybe yellower undertone, hair being a grayish brown whilst also lacking their distinctive sideburns, replaced by braids. The nose also bumped forward around the eyebrows’ height and hooked to fall straight down instead of pointing outwards - possibly having been broken once, too. The mouth was much too thin as well, while the shape of the eyes was almost exactly an inversion of the twins’ hooded ones: a flat line underneath, turning rounder towards the eyebrows.

And obviously neither had irises of such a dusty, rotten green.

A small hand in a white glove was extended out to him before he could fully process just how quickly the distance between them had been traversed: an incredibly angular turn of the lips’ corners forced the previously emotionless neutral expression into the amiable squint of a smile.

“Pleased to meet you!” a voice that sounded the way overly saccharine artificial strawberry tastes squeaked at him: “Briosa Crociera, Substitute Subway Master! I’m a recent development.”

He greeted her just as enthusiastically, noticing vaguely the lack of even the slightest budge at his volume or handshake: “My name is Ingo!”

He liked that description - recent development.

Something about it put him at ease. Perhaps it was the somewhat elegant way it managed to completely remove his amnesia from the conversation’s equation. Of course he wouldn’t be aware of any recent developments even under normal circumstances, like taking a three year long vacation or moving to a new region or getting himself another job, or something similarly plausible.

“She’s deaf,” Emmet filled him in, as though the fairly crucial detail was little more than an afterthought.

Almost as if to corroborate or prove the statement Briosa continued cheerfully without taking her eyes off of the man she was replacing, oblivious to the fact that she was repeating the same exact information: “I cannot hear a single thing!”

That explained her total stillness when he’d yelled his name in her face.

Hearing people tended to shirk away afterwards.

“If at any point you need to communicate with me, please refer directly to my hearing aide, Mawile, so she can translate you!”

His gaze shifted even lower to encounter a pair of crimson eyes on a short yellow snout looking back up at him. The Pokémon greeted him with a nod that had the black flaps (hair? Ears?) framing her face sway a little, small arms folded behind her back.

He could read now, on her vest, a proudly displayed SUPPORT POKÉMON written in big bold letters.

She seemed surprised, or perhaps amused, when he somewhat awkwardly sat on his heels and extended his hand to her as well, to shake her paw as he had done to every other human in the room with him at that moment.

“It is a pleasure to meet you!” he told her, as genuine as they come.

She chirped her own greeting and shook on it.

Her black paw felt less fuzzy than he would have expected, as well as cold but receptive, like Klingklang’s core, Excadrill’s claws or the surface of Magnezone’s body: she must have been a Steel type then, despite not looking like one at all. The unusual appearance and more lively texture must have come from a secondary Typing. Psychic, perhaps, considering her role?

“Pardon my curiosity,” he added following that train of thought; she craned her neck and listened intently. “I hope it’s not a bothersome question, but, ah - may I ask how exactly does a translation work? I’m not quite sure I can imagine it…”

The little creature nodded. He would have assumed she might have simply redirected his words into her trainer’s brain or something of the such through a telepathic power; instead, much to his surprise, she let go of his hand, unfolded her other arm, turned to her aidee, and began making a slew of quick signs with outstanding precision despite how small and stubby her fingers were.

Briosa waited for her to finish before looking at Ingo and gesturing to the proud beastie: “Like that,” she answered in her stead.

“Ah!” he noted loudly, impressed, eyes very wide. “I see!”

Mawile huffed a cackle through her nose. What a whimsical human. He’d known him again for less than five minutes and yet his at times sort of awkward propriety and excited politeness were already bewitching her body and soul, as she liked to exaggerate. Which was an impressive feat considering only Briosa herself had won the throne of her affections in more or less the same minuscule amount of time.

(Unseen, Emmet shot her a glance and signed: “Be nice.”)

(“I am nice,” she replied in equal silence: “He is fun and silly. I like him.”)

(“You never told me you like me. In two years.”)

(“I did not.”)

(“You wound me.”)

(The Fairy snickered and discreetly signed a little ‘love you’ at him. His small triumphant smirk made her cackle in silence again.)

The substitute snapped her face with a sudden stilted movement: “By the way, good morning! Did you sleep well?” she asked the twin in white, using a particular inflection on certain words that made them almost sound like rubber being bent and released to produce a goofy kind of wobble.

Emmet placed his nails against the underside of his chin and lazily thrusted his fingers forward, producing a soft ‘twhip!’ noise as his skin was pulled along.

Briosa turned to Ingo: “Did he sleep well?”

Being addressed made his shoulders jump for a moment, and he forgot she could not hear him: “Oh, uh, I - yes, yes, I believe he has, at least, for the most part.”

Thankfully he’d nodded vigorously as he’d spoken, so the other had still managed to get the gist of it: “Yes, I could tell,” she reassured him, “His eyebags are looking a lot less sapient today.”

Emmet repeated the gesture with an added stiff emphasis.

He regretted it as his brother asked: “Does that mean something?”

“Nope.”

“That means fuck you,” Briosa helpfully corrected, helped by Mawile’s snitching.

“Does not.”

“He’s telling me to go fuck myself.”

“Am not.”

“He’s denying it, isn’t he?”

Ingo nodded.

“Ingo,” his brother said in his most betrayed monotone.

“Hold on,” his substitute stopped Emmet before he could go on and turned around, once again repeating the gesture: “Anybody know what this means?”

Several hands left their duties to spell and an equal amount of voices arose to reply, in a slightly confused tone since she should have known that well: “Fuck you?”

She triumphantly faced Ingo again: “See, that’s a fuck you.”

To which he craned his neck towards his younger brother and exclaimed quietly, flabbergasted: “Emmet!”

“She’s being mean!” was the explanation he got.

“Well, you cannot just walk around telling people to go fuck themselves whenever they are mean to you!”

His brother groaned loudly.

Then, a mischievous glint overtook his eyes.

“You’re right,” he conceded.

His hands then carefully signed a sentence that caused Briosa’s amused expression to morph into a puzzled one, furrowing her brow and reducing her mouth to a thin austere line as some of her fingers joined together to attain a peculiar shape that seemed to ask ‘what do you mean?’.

The thin strip of paper that read ‘susbstitute’ was handed over to her.

She held it for a moment, staring at it quizzically.

“It’s not misspelled,” she objected.

A helpful finger pointed her to the superfluous S.

It took another few seconds before she spurred into action, but when she did she slammed her hands closed, trapping the heinous label between her palms before hastily shoving it in one of her pockets.

The look with which she gazed up at Emmet was mostly barred from Ingo’s view, as he was still sitting on his heels, but he did catch the glimpse of an absolutely furious smile wobbling with an attempt not to laugh; her hands flew with the quickness of intense, snickering anger at his brother’s face, probably promising who knows what sort of retaliation, and he wheezed out a cackle of his own.

Ah! So they were friends.

The realization felt like a strange weight off his chest.

-

The agents were, of course, laser focused on their job.

A subway station, especially the region’s central subway station, needed constant care and supervision, after all. There was always something lurking out there ready to create a Situation of some kind which would then require to be remedied somewhere between ‘as soon as possible’ and ‘if we could do it instantly it would be great but alas we are mere humans incapable of even the simplest Skullbash without caving our heads in so we will be handling This as best as we can, Please Hold On, We Are Very Tired’, and the more brain and muscle power available, the better.

However.

In their defense.

It was really hard not to want to look at what Ingo was doing.

Partially because, of course, he had disappeared from the face of the world three years ago and then re-emerged out of the entrails of a snowy mountain in a foreign region with said region’s most powerful teenager in tow, which to be honest felt a little bit unreal, so it was nice to see that yes, it had indeed happened, and yes, he was physically present in the room.

But in larger part it was because Ingo reacquainting himself with the machinery he used to operate daily was a joy to watch.

He looked around the control room like a kid in a candy shop.

Granted, neither twin had been too enthusiastic about duty calling Emmet onto the Battle Lines, and everybody could see how their boss had very clearly wished he could tear himself in half to keep one eye on his brother and do his job at the same time; but in the end he had been forced to compromise with the promise that Ingo would remain with at least an agent at all times, even in the case he would leave for the upper levels.

Luckily for him the chaos and brightness and noise that had first welcomed him had not made leaving the underground chamber particularly appealing to the just repatriated man, who had gladly preferred watching the subway’s hidden machinations behind the trains for entire hours now.

At first he’d stuck to looking at screens and wandering very carefully, with an exceptional silence to his step, in order not to bother anybody.

The pose and attitude reminded Furze of an old man watching a construction site - the kind that stands there a little hunched, with their hands held behind their backs, just above the hip bones, that always waves back at polite Gurdurrs and Conkeldurrs and tries to yell instructions at them sometimes because ‘he knows how it should be done’.

Ingo had not the faintest idea what he was looking at nor how it worked, so he refrained from offering suggestions or tips.

Instead, at some point, after gathering enough courage and being as certain as possible that he wasn’t being bothersome, he very shyly approached Eloise and bashfully asked if she could explain what an ATO was.

Once he knew all about Automatic Train Operation, he asked about everything else.

It was pretty fun actually, to split the various topics between them to sort of teach him the ropes as though he’d been a newbie - he was an attentive listener after all, making pertinent questions, interrupting explanations only when necessary, and by the way he looked at both the agents explaining and the object or program being explained he was very much one notebook and pencil away from compiling an entire work guide where he stood.

It also helped that the various explanations took up a discrete amount of time, meaning that it was almost midday and the entire control room had successfully contained the still sort of flighty ex-conductor.

Not that they didn’t trust him to be out and about, of course!

It was just… Well, they’d been worried about him.

As everybody had been.

And now he was back, and there was still a sort of fear that any wrong move would have had him bolting away and disappearing into the fog again.

So knowing he was there with them, asking questions, being interested… Showing how, despite the time passed, despite the amnesia, he was still indeed very much enamored with their job…

To call it a relief would have been putting it mildly.

But when the bulk of the questions were over and Ingo’s presence had melted back into familiar commonality again, their attention to where he was at all times might have sort of faltered slightly.

It did not lead to losing track of him, thankfully - but it did lead to them all freezing in horrified realization as an announcement about the train to Undella experiencing a five minute delay rang out across the correct platform by a voice that was notably not coming from any of their mouths.

Furze met his boss’s eyes just in time for the older man to widen them in a sudden shared awareness.

“I should not have done that,” Ingo peeped, guilty as charged, hand still near the mic.

The agent did not reply yet.

He turned around quickly, checking a couple of things. One: Isadore was notably absent. Good. Two: were the others thinking what he was also thinking?

Jackie definitely was, because he and Jackie had a lovingly defined “telepathic connection” since they were kids that came with people who grow up together and are obsessed with trains to the point of either exploding or phasing through the floor about it, so he knew they were absolutely down for what he was thinking; Josh had a notably vacant gaze that would not express anything beyond a very intense dial-up tone, so jury was still out on him; Hank, one of the older agents, seemed very intent on waiting for him to proceed with the plan - he definitely knew exactly what it was about, and as a fairly important figure to the youngsters in the room he wanted to make it very known through his expression that he thought it would have been funny as hell; Eloise on the other hand was gripping her desk in an attempt to repress or at least hold herself back from beating him to the punch with a delighted scream that might have scared the hell out of the poor man.

Everybody else in the room approached his inquisitive gaze with either trepidation (like Vip) or a shy attempt at stopping him that didn’t quite work (like Billie).

Oh come on. They’d done way worse bits when prey to boredom before.

Strengthened by the general agreement, Furze raised both hands and took a big breath through his open mouth, making Ingo worry. Then he curled his lips inside his mouth, held still by his teeth as he appeared to be trying to eat his own chin, and cocked his head to the side.

“Technically, that’s… Not good,” he admitted. He clicked his tongue very loudly before continuing: “Because, you know. You’re, uh… Not here yet. In the region. Technically.”

“I apologize,” the poor amnesiac cut him off. “I don’t-”

“HOWEVER!” the agent cut him off now, both index fingers outstretched to point upwards - causing a few to actually look up.

Pause.

“However. I don’t think. That anybody, here, would be too sad about having some… Help, with announcements. You know. Since we’re all busy with other stuff…”

Ingo’s face lit up at the prospect of being helpful.

Oh hell yes.

This was going to be so funny.

Would anybody even notice that the missing Subway Master was now warning about staying behind the yellow line? Probably not, since even when newly maintained the intercom still garbled voices just enough to make them hard to recognize.

Even if a few of them did, they would probably just be really confused - which only added more fun to the bit itself.

The problem with this assumption is that Furze’s brain was so overwhelmed with the love for anything related to railwork that he had completely forgotten a couple of fundamental things: firstly, that humans are extremely nosy creatures that really, really like to make friends or strangers aware of any weird business they come across; secondly, that the Subway Masters were still immensely popular figures in the region with their fair share of fans and an indescribable amount of clips of their voices readily available on the internet, so it wasn’t that hard to recognize them.

Also, thirdly, this was Nimbasa City.

A not insignificant percentage of the urban populace probably met the twins more times than they could count properly.

So imagining that the Nimbasians wouldn’t have near immediately recognized the voice of a minor local celebrity who was technically still missing through the vague garble of the speakers was like imagining that a shiver of Sharpedos wouldn’t have found a wounded swimming tourist bleeding profusely in the Hoenn seas.

Which is to say it would have been incredibly stupid.

But Furze (and Jackie, and Hank, and Vip in a way) lived in a world that did not account for such silly things, and so the control room had a bit of a blast for the better part of an hour listening to their boss bellowing out warnings like nothing had changed..

Then a little crackle coming out of nowhere made them all jolt, and a well known voice calling out for an answer had them all getting a little heart attack.

Josh fumbled a little with his radio and finally replied: “Yes, boss?”

“Why is Ingo’s voice doing the announcements?”

“OH you know!” Josh quickly replied as he began sweating buckets. His voice failed him for a few more instants before he wheezed out: “Briosa. And her... Impressions.”

The other end remained quiet for a moment.

“Sure, I’ll take that,” Emmet said cheerfully.

Then the radio went silent and the depot agent gave out a wheeze.

Billie would not, however, let him take a break: “BRIOSA?” she nearly shouted, “The ONLY deaf person here?”

“I panicked!” the poor man shrieked back.

“And you chose HER?”

“What was I chosen for,” the Substitute asked roughly at that moment, her small size and light weight allowing her to make her way over to barely two centimeters away from Vip unnoticed until it was too late for the agent, who proceeded to jump and smack her in the face with her elbow by mistake as they retreated for the spook.

The hit did not make her budge in the slightest; the girl, on the other hand, immediately clutched said joint in pain.

Her Mawile's large mouth snapped sharply when the small gloved hand pointed at her: "Apparently I got chosen," Briosa stated plainly. "Chosen for what?"

She had not seemed that threatening when Ingo had first looked at her earlier.

The agents, frozen in place, with eyes wider than tea saucers and cold sweat coating their brows, clearly had a different opinion.

Hank at last waved a hand with a sort of airy, light-hearted motion, smiling as amiably as he could despite the anxiety making the stubble on his abundant chin wobble: "Oh, you know, we were just comparing out impressions of Mr. Ingo here - and in the end, see, we concluded yours might've been the best!"

He swallowed a knot in his throat as the small three-fingered hands signed.

The Substitute read them intently, laser focused; then her mouth produced a squeaky sound, as if her tongue had been made of whistle grass, that couldn't have come out of Ingo's lips after a thousand years of practice.

"Sure, I'll take that!" she replied cheerfully.

Immeasurable relief swept through the depot agents in a fairly noisy cacophony of wheezes and sighs and held back breaths being released.

Completely oblivious to it, Briosa turned her attention solely on Ingo, gazing at his face with a small smile, flat lips barely curved upwards: “Have you been to any of the train platforms yet?”

He shook his head.

It dawned on him, in the time that it takes for the thunder to crack a small distance away from where the lighting has struck, that he hadn’t seen a single train so far outside of the ones in the books they had at home.

“Would you like to?”

His eyes widened slightly with interest.

Could she read his mind?

Ah, no - the subject was different. Still, the outcome was the same.

He nodded.

Or at least, he was fairly along in the motion when Jackie slithered between him and the small conductor and hurriedly began signing: “Maybe it- maybe it would be better not to, actually! Right?” they turned to Ingo for all of two seconds before deciding he agreed with the sentiment: “Right! Right.”

Briosa stared directly at them and blinked, slowly, leaving a long beat of silence: “Why?”

Even with their reputation as the most off-putting of the Depot Agents, Jackie couldn’t help but shrink a little at the weird inflection and pause. Their fingers felt as though they could only move in a small area, mimicking their voice as it came out in a whisper: “It could be dangerous. For, for, you know. News.”

The only answer he got was a second, slower blink.

Ingo felt the weirdest kind of deja-vù, like he was looking at a Purugly intimidating a Beautifly into submission, with the main difference being that the Purugly was excessively small and the Beautifly was not flying at all.

Point being, it was so utterly alien that he could not tell what was happening other than that it was comically strange.

Eventually Jackie began slinking over behind him, gently pushing him forward to take their place (to shield themselves or not to hinder him?) as they conceded with nervous signs: “But he’ll probably be fine, it’ll–”

“He’ll be fine,” Briosa finished for them.

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine, you’ll be fine boss, don’t worry, you’re in good hands, right?”

A chorus of ‘Right!’ replied from the rest of the room.

Rotten olive eyes shifted back onto Ingo: dusty eyebrows raised beneath the cap to silently repeat a question, and he nodded again.

The sudden grip on his wrist did not hurt, but it did make his heart jump in his throat from the scare; not even the time to yell out a prayer into his head that he was already being dragged away with the same ease as a fairly large leek.

In the tunnel preceding the elevator the substitute casually remarked: “Sorry for throwing you back into the pits of hell that’s the upper level but I’m imagining that whatever you did that got pinned on me is not something you could do outside of the control room, right?” and turned to him briefly, staring him down with an unblinking gaze inside the azure walls.

With a foreboding feeling crawling along his spine, Ingo nodded. An apology, stuck in his throat, decided to get swallowed back down just in case it attracted her ire.

“Nice!” was the calm reply; at the hit of a button the elevator doors closed, and the machine began rumbling upwards. “Remember to pull your face mask back on once we arrive. Do you have any Pokémon with you?”

He shook his head.

Maybe it had been a bad idea, in hindsight, to leave without any of his Pokémon in tow; but Emmet had reasoned that being back in the subway after all that time would have filled his team with the urge to launch themselves into battle thus causing a rather destructive commotion, an hypothesis which had instantly proved itself to be correct when they’d all perked up at the mention of any sort of scuffling, each quivering excitedly with sportsmanlike bloodlust.

Ingo also still hadn’t properly reacquainted himself with their movesets, their personalities, their dynamics and the ways they each took on the battlefield, so he would have likely been left at the mercy of their enthusiasm, unable to handle them nor lead them into a satisfying match. It would be better to practice on their own somewhere quieter.

Briosa clicked her tongue in a rather curious manner at his answer, the hint of a sympathetic smile on her face. Her small hand reached wordlessly to her belt to pull out a Pokéball, opening it without even looking.

The beastie emerging from the metal sphere was relatively stout and not too big, easily standing without too much trouble on her arm. Its paws were relatively small, white much like the fur on its belly, while the flaps of skin between them were of a bright yellow replicated on the round cheeks, or at least on one of them. The other had an enormous gash of naked skin ripping through it, joined by a few more which forced one of the black eyes into a perpetual squint and one of the nostrils to reach almost up to a lacrimal duct. One of the black ears also seemed to have been halfway through a rudimental shredder.

“This is Emolga!” Briosa cheerfully introduced the defaced rodent: “He will make sure you’re not getting bothered.”

“Ah,” the man only commented. “It seems he’s gone through quite a lot.”

“He has! A Mandibuzz tried to have him for lunch but he disemboweled it and ate it instead!”

“Oh my!” Ingo noted, now genuinely impressed.

She grinned, handing her partner over to him: “He’s not going to bite off your face, don’t worry,” she reassured him as she made a motion for him to cover his mouth and nose while holding the door closed for a moment more. “These days he’s more into fruit and Type-specific food, you know, like a normal apex predator.”

He waited until Emolga had crawled onto his shoulder before pulling up his facemask and following her out: “Perhaps he’s related to Gligars.”

“Hm! Never saw one,” she replied, easily bulldozing her way through the crowd via a one-armed iteration of Emmet’s patented terminator walk as she held Mawile aloft on her other hand to keep on listening to her ward.

“They are fairly common on Mount Coronet,” Ingo helpfully explained: “Their main means of sustenance is sucking the blood from prey.”

“Hm! Intriguing! You ever got bit?”

“No - luckily, my quick reflexes have left me unscathed from Gligars and Gliscors, their evolution, alike.”

“Ah, good for you!” she spoke louder now, to be heard above the chatter of the station: “I can’t stand getting blood taken to be honest! Even when it’s just for a blood check I have to look away and clench my fists really tight, so I guess if something tried to suck it out of me I’d freak out and knock it clean off. No clue why it bothers me so much!”

“It’s always more comforting knowing one’s blood is not out and about,” Ingo noted thoughtfully.

She nodded, solemn in her motion: “So it is, so it is.”

Emolga squeaked gently on his shoulder as if to join the conversation while getting comfortable; kind scritches behind the round ears had the mangled rodent chittering in delight.

They must have kept talking about blood or Gligars or similar small death machines, if anything because while he struggled to retain information he could still feel the way the facemask molded and stretched around his mouth as it kept opening and closing. He was rather glad of her determination in keeping this somewhat gruesome small talk going, as he was so concentrated on replying to her that the mass of bodies and sounds and colors and lights couldn’t pierce through his senses as it had when he had first entered the station: it still hung all around him, waiting to strike him at the worst possible moment, but so long as he had the muted grey coat to follow and answer to he found himself powering through the sensory overload with relative ease.

It somewhat helped that the rest of the crowd wading through the station seemed to magically part at the first glimpse of her, likely repelled by her potent aura of menace.

Her voice was squeaky as it raised in volume, her words getting lost along the way between the chatter and the fuzziness of his senses but still managing to lead him along through the dark and dull gold with a candy rose trail. He wasn’t perfectly aware of where they were going, though he did thankfully take notice of the stairs; otherwise he would have likely catastrophically crashed along them knocking out anybody who accidentally happened to be in his way like a Golem down Bolderoll Ravine.

The rush of wind from the tunnel distracted him as he was answering something. While not daring to step over the yellow line he still leaned a little towards the darkness snaking away into the earth, just in time to see the blinding light of a pair of beady Bug-like eyes rise out of it as it kept approaching.

It was almost more reminiscent of an Onix than of a Steelix, if he had to be honest; and if he really had to ponder over the matter a moment more maybe he would have even preferred comparing it to a Gyarados, between the roaring and the fairly evenly sized sections of its long body. Of course none of them blasted light from their eye sockets, nor did they travel on long threads of metal or carry dozens upon dozens of people inside them, opening their enormous bodies to let them in and out.

Emolga’s paws kneaded into his shoulder, and he realized he was heaving inside his facemask. A hand went to place itself on the black and white fur so he could ground himself while its twin reached out beneath him to be sharply stopped by a firm palm around its wrist.

“Are you ok?” he heard being asked to him.

Ingo swallowed and looked down, meeting Briosa’s unmoving eyes. Something in her and Mawile’s faces read like slight worry.

He nodded as he absentmindedly caressed the electrical rodent’s ear.

“It’s... Awfully loud,” he explained, like it was an apology.

The substitute tilted her head sympathetically once it was signed to her: “So I’ve been told,” she replied, and without him noticing she pulled him away from the crowd pouring in and out of the steel shell, towards the end of the platform. “Can’t know from experience, I’ve never been on a train before I was twelve - but it sure does look like it’s real loud.”

“You were not deaf at twelve?” he asked, to unconsciously distract himself.

“I was, actually! But not before that.”

“May I ask what happened?”

“No.”

“Understandable. My apologies for prying.”

“Don’t worry.”

The train huffed and puffed and groaned, and at last it pulled itself forward, gaining momentum faster and faster until the lights of its tail disappeared behind a curve of the dark tunnel.

Emolga squeaked and bumped his soft head against Ingo’s. A tepid comfort washed over him at the contact.

Furred Pokémon were such blessed creatures to have around. Ah, why did he have to favor the ones with harsh skin, jagged scales, impenetrable carapaces and cold metal bodies? No, that was not the right question - why did the universe have to be so cruel not to grant his most beloved beasts with at the very least some kind of plush texture, just to let them be hugged more often? Why did it have to make his body so delicate to the point where he could not hug them without bruising himself?

Not that their rough exteriors deterred him all that much, but it would have been nice to lay his head on a comfortable tummy that wasn’t Excadrill’s yet again. The others deserved to have their own chance as living pillows, too.

Doors sliding shut spooked him out of his musings. What was it with making doors slide? Who was making them slide? Wouldn’t they slide open due to centrifugal force?

This was going to drive him insane.

Much like the noise.

The noise might have done him in first.

Luckily, the rumbling beast was off somewhere else already, dragging a wide number of people and its infernal chatter along with it. Those whom it had deployed onto the platform slithered away like generous swarms of frightened Zubats into the tunnels leading upwards, towards the main hall, and the void they left was quickly filled again by other commuters arriving from the opposite direction.

He scratched behind Emolga’s ears again; the sight of Briosa still leaning against the fencing by his side quieted down his worries.

She locked eyes with him for a moment and gave him a tiny smile.

“Better?” she asked.

“I’m… Not sure, actually,” he admitted: “I fear I’m not used to so many people and lights and noises all at once anymore. But I’m certain exposure will help me.”

“You were on a mountain, right?”

He nodded.

“Without anything around you?”

“Aside from the occasional Pokémon cries or small avalanche, there was not much clamor, no.”

“Yeah, a large city’s subway station will do that to you then. Must have been real quiet.”

“It was.”

“Do you miss that?”

(No. Not at all. Not in the slightest. The quiet had been horrifying at first, maddening, and then it had curled around him and prevented him from resting. It felt impossible that ever since he left he’d been able to sleep so easily when it had become such an arduous feat.)

(Not even the warden could deny that.)

“I prefer the noise, in truth. Even though it’s not always pleasant.”

Briosa hummed: “I feel you.”

(Ah. Of course.)

(She more than anyone must have understood the restless terror of the quiet.)

A second loud cacophony quickly approaching had Ingo startle out of his skin and try to back away into a trashcan, stopped only by the conductor’s titanium grip and Mawile’s jaw very quickly wrapping around his leg to put it back on the ground with a surprising amount of gentleness for an appendage made specifically to maul and chew.

He looked on with dismay and disbelief as the train returned, causing everything that had happened barely a few minutes before to repeat in a nearly identical manner.

Did it…? How the - no, there was no way. It had just-

“That’s not the same one, is it?” he asked just to get confirmation on his doubts, because otherwise that would have been absolutely batshit.

“Same what, train?” she replied. When he nodded, she clicked her tongue: “Aaah… No, it’s a different one, that’d be way too fast even for our standards. These ones pass every three to five minutes. It’s a busy commute, so there’s usually a very small waiting time between them.”

Oh, thank goodness. He wasn’t fully sure of how long the whole journey might have been, but certainly the train wasn’t just running in circles in three minutes.

Speaking of the second train, the beast had already departed with no more additional fanfare than a derogatory flash of the headlights on its tail, dragging its body into the tunnels with as much clanging and roaring as it could, and the new passengers were already congregating on the cement floor, all careful to stand by behind the yellow line.

It was frankly a little amazing how the chatter and general noise never subsided at any point. It was less like waves washing upon the shore before being pulled back and more like a school of extremely young Magikarps jumping constantly in shallow water.

Despite that, however, he couldn’t help but sense a sort of disturbance among the disharmony - some kind of even less pleasant sound intermingling in it.

Almost on the other end of the platform a woman let out as high a shriek as possible.

She then proceeded to yell at length at the top of her lungs.

A second similar voice replied in the exact outrageous volume.

Ah.

So that was the additional worse noise.

Oh joy.

On his shoulder, Emolga growled.

Everybody else either shut or lowered their voices, turning to the extremely loud argument before facing away, not interested in joining the two screamers who very much looked ready to tear each other apart from what he could see among the sea of passengers dutifully waiting. Glancing at Briosa to figure out what the right procedure in this case would have been, he found her blissfully continuing to lean onto the railing of the platform’s end with not an ounce of concern in her eyes; Mawile on the other hand, sitting next to her on the same railing, had a paw to her face pinching the bridge of her snout, approximately five seconds away from taking a long inhale before sighing just as deeply, ruefully and tiredly as a Fairy could.

Hm. Perhaps he should help.

His hand was blocked by gloved fingers before it could gently nudge the substitute’s shoulder to get her attention, eliciting the same desired effect of having her turn to face him in an inquisitive manner.

The problem of communication returned to his mind at that moment, though in the span of a second he had already opted for the simplest of solutions: without a word, he pointed his index finger straight at the two commuters violently yelling and making threatening gestures at each other without a single concern for the space nor the people around them.

She turned towards the source of the commotion. Clearly being too short to properly visualize the matter, she then effortlessly pulled her body to stand completely vertically upon the metal bar through the strength of her arms before settling her feet down on it and getting a better look.

The groan she let out was more like the sound of a revving motorcycle with chainsaws for wheels.

“These types again,” she lamented, flat lips parted in an annoyed grimace. As Mawile climbed up her coat to get on her shoulder she extended her hand over to Ingo: “Can I have Emolga back for a moment?”

He complied, allowing the electrical rodent to climb into her palm.

The little scarred beast laid on it on his belly, pointed directly towards the disrupters; his trainer then reeled her arm back, snapped: “Get’em, GGGuts!” and launched him into the air, apparently attempting to splat him against the opposite wall - which thank Palkia did not happen, as he opened up the flaps beneath his arms to stall in the atmosphere a moment and angle himself so that he would land right on the head of one of the screaming idiots on the platform.

Said screaming idiot shrieked even louder for the surprise.

Hm!

Interesting technique!

Briosa patted his arm as she jumped back on the floor: “Gonna be back in a hot minute, do NOT move,” she simply instructed, and before he could even just nod off she was, cutting through the crowd like a Mamoswine through a snowstorm.

Ingo might have kept on looking (and if had indeed been solely focused on her he might have eventually gotten to take in the rare sight of Substitute Subway Master Briosa Crociera, roughly as tall as two lemonade cans and as heavy as a Leppa Berry and a half, lifting two entire women three times her weight and height into the air to hurl them up the stairs to the platform like a pair of feathers after harvesting at least a couple molars from each of their mouths) if the next train hadn’t rushed into the station at that moment, distracting him.

Rivers of people poured out once again, blocking his visual. Hundreds of feet tried to cover the enraged yelling with the sound of their stomping - thank goodness he’d been shoved a little away or he would have been right in the middle of the flood - passing over the gap between metal and cement in either direction.

Among the indistinct clamor rang out the name of a flower.

He turned immediately, as though he’d been called.

His eyes searched immediately, feverishly, looking for something or someone like he knew exactly what he was searching. A bloom? Sprouting from the cement, from the paint on the walls? From the lamps? The faces rushing past him?

(The flower had roared before talking, and roared straight at him, with the viciousness of a little prune moving little hands like little claws, but he couldn’t remember that.)

Pupils fixed onto the heads slowly disappearing left and right, all unfocused as they passed faster and faster despite his attempts at… At what? He had no clue, no clue at all. He sifted through them over and over, left and right, left and right, only managing to catch glimpses of each of them, not finding anything, anything, not even the slightest thing.

Somebody called out once more to a flower.

Bodies passed, eyes and noses and hair and mouths and ears, and he just kept on searching, and searching, and searching, without even knowing what to look for, so focused that he didn’t even notice every head he looked like was turned to show the profile except one.

Hold on.

He just lost that one, actually.

A sudden panic struck him and closed his entire digestive tract in a painful knot.

The impact on his stomach had him double over, but at least it completely obliterated that terrible feeling.

His face’s disastrous descent towards his own knees was stopped only thanks to his chest hitting something soft and voluminous that was doing its absolute best to lodge itself into his body just below his sternum; arms were wrapping his waist in as tight a grip as it was humanly possible, holding onto him like a lifeline, trying to sway and strangle him all at once.

He choked something out as a reflex, though the words were completely unintelligible even to himself. His hands found small, sturdy shoulders, with the kind of still wiry muscle that kids who haven’t yet finished growing have - he pushed them away from himself as the embrace around him loosened enough for him to actually manage that.

While he struggled to inhale after getting the breath knocked out of him so suddenly, the girl came into his focus very slowly - first her hair, of a dark and deep violet color, held fast by some yellow bands of sorts, then the brown of her eyes, the shape of her nose and mouth, the little faded scar next to her ear from when (she’d run into the edge of a table faster than a Blitzle as a tiny itty bitty prune and started to cry as loud as she could and he had cried even louder with her in solidarity so that she would stop to try to console him while her dad fixed her up, but he couldn’t remember that), the hunch of her back that made her seem so small, the strength in her hands as she still held onto his middle, onto his clothes.

She seemed about to apologize, but between her huffs and humid eyes she could barely make a sound.

A boy shouted for the flower again.

A half-asleep conversation came back to mind.

His grip on her shoulders tightened slightly.

“Forgive me for the strange question,” Ingo asked with a sudden hurry: “Would you happen to be my cousin?”

She inhaled in a noisy, watery way a few more times, a trembling smile creeping up on her face as it lit up.

She nodded.

A moment later arms were lifting her into the air from under her armpits in a bone-shattering hug, so tight she could feel her chest being compressed and yet filling her with such an incomparable wordless joy that she couldn’t help shrieking out a laugh as she wrapped her legs around the man’s middle, holding onto him like a Komala to its log. He swayed the both of them left and right, faces buried in each other’s hair, gripping so hard they were probably bruising - then suddenly pulled away to face her again, eyes wide and shining like he was about to cry.

“I’m sorry!” he apologized, “I’m sorry I didn���t recognize you, I wasn’t aware that you were such a beautiful young lady!”

Iris laughed even louder and found it impossible to stop herself from tearing up a little, and gently slapped his cheeks over and over, forgetting her soon-to-be nineteen years of age in favor of returning the five-year-old who didn’t like to be called like that because she was a Dragon Tamer, not some noblewoman.

She buried her face in his shoulder again, heart beating frantically. Ah, why did words have to be so hard now of all times!

A sob wrecked through her, unable to be contained.

Before she could chastise herself for it, an absent minded hand had already started patting a song on her spine.

She hugged him even tighter.

She knew it.

She knew he still remembered her.

She knew they couldn’t have been that unlucky.

A male voice called for her: she unwound herself from her cousin to turn around, his white arm still gripped tight in her palm, wide and tearstained grin illuminating her still somewhat child-like face.

“Marshal!” she cried out, waving at the man whose approach was slowing down more and more the closer he came to the formerly missing Subway Master as though frightened by the possibility of doing something too brash, too wrong, to come off too strong, “Marshal, come here, quick! He knows me! He knows me!”

(That would have been an exaggeration, but this wasn’t the time to make it known.)

He looked at the empty expression on the ghost of a man before him as bright white eyes stared into him.

He’d been stuck in situations that sparked and screamed with tension before, competitions and brawls and battles alike, close calls and last hits the anticipation of which had made time stretch endlessly as though it were a long, infinite rubber band struggling to return to shape after being released in an ocean of air denser than drying cement, but this - this had his heart and throat in an iron grip, squeezing them so hard that he could feel every single vein pulse with how desperately quick his heart was beating against his chest.

Speaking didn’t come hard to him usually. He’d honed that skill like many others, balancing himself as he always had been taught to do. And yet now his tongue felt dry and tangled, and his mind was blanking hard.

Should he have even said anything at all? Should he have just waved? He could have always turned around and left. He would have been ashamed of it for the rest of his life, like any fighter with some self-respect, but it was still an option. He could have just gone.

But could he, really?

How much had he missed him? That idiot who’d gotten poisoned by toxic trash enough times to become immune? To whom he’d tried to teach capoeira with no success at the tender age of seven, only managing to flail him around despite their difference in height? Was he seriously going to leave him like that, staring, not even offering a simple greeting, an introduction of even the barest kind?

His cousin was looking at him.

Not vacantly.

With purpose.

He raised a hand to give a little wave, offering a small bashful smile with it, but didn’t get to accompany either with any sound: the taller body slammed into him after carefully setting his sister back on the platform so quickly he barely saw the motion, and squeezed him in the spindly arms.

It took him a second for him to fully feel the hug.

A few moments after he heard a loud bony pop coming from a spine that wasn’t his own and reverberating against his arms, he realized he was hugging back.

Oh boy.

That must have hurt a bit.

“I did need that,” Ingo thankfully wheezed in his hold.

Marshal coughed out a laugh. These guys - they had such a way of being goofy…

His embrace grew a little softer as he nestled his face into his cousin’s shoulder, and he allowed himself to chuckle again: “Good to see some things don’t change, eh?”

The grip around him seemed to grow fonder.

-

Ingo was not there.

Locating him in the control room should have been easy. For starters, he would have stood out by being the only person not wearing any uniform; then, even if he could have melted into the penumbra with his dark clothes, the area of his head was so white between eyes and hair and pale skin that it would have been impossible to miss.

So, vice versa, the fact that he was not immediately recognizable among the small crowd and dim lights made it all the more obvious that he wasn’t there.

And if he wasn’t there, either he was somewhere else, or he had never been there to begin with.

Both of which were equally terrifying possibilities.

Cloud jumped a little when a hand grabbed their shoulder with a grip strong enough to just yank it off of their body in one go like a dangling baby tooth waiting to be pulled out of a child’s mouth.

“Where is Ingo?” Emmet asked with a face that could have effortlessly killed a man.

Luckily for the Depot Agent, their gender crisis which had decreed them to be no such thing decades ago spared them long enough for the moment of blinding terror to subside and let them answer in a peep: “With Briosa, boss.”

“Where is Briosa?”

“She should be on one of the platforms - she wanted to show him the trains, I think-”

“Which platform?”

“I - I don’t know, boss, it’s-”

“When did they leave?”

“I, ah - uh,” they scrubbed their brain to recall what the other had said and checked the clock: “About, uh… Maybe an hour ago, an hour and a half at most, by now.”

Perhaps they should have lied - whatever little color was in Emmet’s face was draining rapidly leaving him almost transparent, and based on how his grip was trembling, how his chest was squeezing quicker and quicker, how his eyes were shaking to find something to focus on, he was very close to breaking down.

They needed to fix the mess they made now, before it turned into a catastrophe - but how, how, how…

By chance their eyes fell on a printed copy of the staff schedule.

The subway master jumped when a palm laid on his wrist: kindly furrowed brown eyes forced him to look into them to ground him.

“Boss,” Cloud spoke more securely, “Briosa’s on the Single Train right now, right? Her shift started a while ago and she didn’t come back to the control room, so she likely went straight to the train. Ingo seemed interested in seeing one, so maybe she decided to let him tag along and let him watch some matches!”

It sounded right; it sounded plausible. Emmet gave a few small nods: “Yes,” he conceded, “Probably. Maybe. Possibly."

“You can check in on her on the radio,” they continued, “Just to make sure.”

Radio! Right! Right. He had the radio. He could contact her. He could ask her.

He should have done that.

He should have thought of that.

He would go do that.

He would go.

His hands unclenched: “I’ll call her,” he managed to force out of himself.

Cloud offered him a smile and gently patted his forearm: “Sounds like a good idea, boss. Your office is probably better for these sorts of things - we’ve got everything under control here.”

“Yes. Thank you.” he breathed. “Verrry much.”

“Anytime, boss.”

Bless whoever had ever decreed the existence of the Depot Agent profession.

Who knows where he’d be without them by now.

Emmet counted the long swinging steps that covered the distance spanning across the control room, the short corridor opening from its wall, and the office it lead into; then he counted them again as he marched laps around the furniture, trying to find a spot where he could lean onto (sitting would have worsened his panic, he just knew it, he had had a taste of that on his own skin enough times before that he was certain he had to keep moving) while searching around in the pockets of his coat.

At last having found the small radio, it sizzled to life as he tuned the correct frequency and spoke into it: “I am Emmet. Calling Briosa.”

He could feel a panic attack climbing up his leg.

It hurt like hell when he slammed his shin against the side of his desk, but at least it staved off the spiraling thoughts for a moment as he hissed.

He waited for the snap of Mawile’s maw to come through the receiver and urgently asked: “Is Ingo with you?”

The answer came a moment later, extremely calm: “He’s outside.”

“Where?”

“The city.”

“Alone?!” he almost shouted, stopping in his tracks..

“Nope,” Briosa popped her lips: “Two people came over to pick him up I think, one girl looking younger than I do, one guy not older than me, both from the Opelucid train. Ingo said they were his cousins and they were all sort of crying in the middle of the platform, so I figured I could let him go with them.”

Opelu - oh!

The tension in Emmet’s shoulders completely dissipated as they uncorked with a snap when he laid against a wall, like the cap of a heavily carbonated drink flying away, and he let out a relieved sigh.

Oh, alright. This changed everything. Thank goodness. 

“Champion Iris and Elite Four Marshal?” he asked just to be sure - though that was most definitely them. They must have heard about that mess with the announcements somehow, and the girl had probably dragged her half-brother to see Ingo as soon as possible. They had both missed him dearly, after all, he was certain of it.

The other end remained quiet for a bit longer than usual.

“If that’s a code I don’t know what it means.”

“No - question. Were the people Champion Iris and Elite Four Marshal.”

“I don’t know.”

Confusion settled on Emmet’s brows, making them furrow.

“What do you mean?”

“That I don’t know.” Briosa repeated.

“Don’t know what?”

“I don’t know if they were who you said.”

“The Champion and Fighting member of the Elite Four?”

“Yes.” now she started to sound annoyed. “Should I know them, anyways?”

Out of all the new things to learn about his co-worker today, this was not one he had remotely considered.

Also!

It was possibly the worst thing to short-circuit him at this precise moment, while he had no clear whereabouts of his brother and was beginning to doubt if his company was indeed who he thought they were and not somebody else.

His Xtransceiver decided that was the right moment to start ringing: an unknown number blinked on the display.

“Please hold until further notice,” he ordered automatically, too torn between panic and bewilderment to think, and just as he shut down the radio before getting an answer he opened the call.

His own eyes, magnified, replied.

A distinctly much louder and more expressive voice then made the speakers shriek: “HELLO! EMMET! CAN YOU HEAR ME!”

“No,” the conductor replied thoughtlessly with a wheeze that almost collapsed him.

“OH NO!”

“No no no, he can - he can hear you just fine, don’t worry, maybe just- just lower your voice a little, actually, I don’t think the speakers can survive that,” a definitely darker hand said as it came into view to gently pull Ingo away from the screen so that he wasn’t trying to shove his head through it.

The video feed trembled as it was yanked a little lower, revealing bright maroon eyes and an enthusiastic smile: “Hi Emmet!!”

“I am Emmet,” he replied fondly, out of breath: “Hello Iris. Hello Marshal.”

After another adjustment, the Fighting Elite Four member also properly came into view, waving back at him.

“You’re looking nice,” was the first thing he said.

His not-quite-cousin’s eyes narrowed, smile turning playfully angry: “Ah ha. Thanks.”

“No, seriously, you seem well-rested! That’s a relief!”

“It’s likely due to the fact that he slept in today,” Ingo snitched.

Iris gasped: “Slept in? Did a shooting star pass by? Did someone pray for a miracle?”

Oh no. Not this again. “I have been bullied enough about this already.”

“Oh yeah?” Marshal egged him on, “By who?”

“Ingo. My team. His team. The Agents. Briosa. Elesa, if she finds out.”

“That last one doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does.”

“She doesn’t even know it!”

“She will. And she will bully me.”

“Can I call her on this as well?” his twin instantly asked their cousins at that, feigning innocence: “She will surely be glad to hear he’s gotten enough sleep.”

“No.” Emmet prohibited.

Iris ignored him candidly: “Oh, you can call her right now if you want-”

“Nooo,” came from beyond the screen, and she giggled. “Stop that.”

“You only need to get the number pad open down here and then you type in–” Marshal began to coach him.

“Stop that!”

Ingo snorted loudly at his furious pout: “Don’t worry, don’t worry - I will delay the inevitable as of now. I shall save her contact and call her later in the day to let her know of your prolonged nap, which I’m certain she’ll approve of.”

“Do not.”

“I cannot make promises.”

“Yes you can. Promise you will not.”

“I would have to make a promising gesture in order to do so, but unfortunately both my hands are occupied.”

“No they’re not.”

His supposedly free hand came into view, very much held by Marshal’s own in an invincible grip. The young man’s smug grin followed suit.

Emmet almost forgot he was behind a screen and tried to physically wipe it off.

Remembering he was behind a screen, however, brought him to a slightly delayed realization - together with the much needed question, as embarrassing as it might have been, of whether or not he was still suffering from the excessive sleepiness of the day prior in order for him not to be noticing horrendously obvious things.

If anything, he concluded, getting more rest was proving to be much more detrimental to his attention than getting less, so he probably shouldn’t have slept at all instead.

Everybody he knew would have likely strangled him for coming to such a conclusion, but even they couldn't have argued against the stone cold facts his lackluster performance was serving up.

Anyways.

“You have an Xtransceiver,” he noted with no shortage of relief.

“Took you long enough!”

A gentle elbow playfully pushed the girl’s head away: “Give him some slack, Iris, he was busy letting us make fun of him.”

“Ha ha. I was also verrry worried. I didn’t know where Ingo was. I got verrry scared.”

Ingo’s mouth was already halfway open to offer an apology, but Iris beat him to the punch, throwing her arms in the air triumphantly: “Well you won’t have to worry about that anymore! Now you can just call him whenever you want!” she added, moving her hands in a very goofy way as if to showcase an invisible product: “On his brand new welcome back gift we got for him so he never loses track of anybody of us again! And we don’t lose track of him!”

“Which I’m assuming was the main point,” her constantly frowning cousin pointed out.

“Good job making him feel like we’re putting him on a leash,” Marshal mumbled at her sort of jokingly, getting a slap on his arm for it.

“Oh no, by all means, it’s perfectly sensible! It will certainly be much easier for you to keep track of me than the opposite - I’m still not sure how to use most features on this blasted thing, I’d likely mess up any simple function spectacularly…”

“Trust me, we’ve seen worse.”

“Yeah, nothing can beat Grandpa Alder on that.”

“He took out the batteries by accident once, I don’t even know how, just pulled them out manually somehow. We brought it over to the manufacturer and even they couldn’t figure out what he’d done. You’ll be fine.”

“You’ll figure it out super quick.”

“You still should have told somebody. Have them send a message to me. I was worried.” Emmet brought the three of them back on track sternly. He still allowed a smile to creep up on his lips, relaxing his shoulders a little: “But I admit, it’s a verrry good idea for a gift. Yup!”

“Of course it was,” the girl gloated, “I had it.”

“She did not,” her brother shot her down.

“Yes I did!”

“For the sake of truth I must confess,” Ingo interrupted their argument: “It was Marshal who first proposed it.”

Iris gasped at him in furious outrage: “You’re supposed to side with me! I’m the baby!”

“I thought you disliked that definition?”

“It’s situational,” Emmet predicted.

“It’s situational!” she replied a moment later. Her piqued finger took up the entirety of the screen: “You shut up.”

The conductor wheezed in her face.

Overwhelmed with righteous fury, the current Unovan Champion loudly stomped her foot: “Whatever! I had a better one right now!” she declared, “And it’s to go get lunch because it’s midday and I’m kind of starving.”

Then she gasped again, and smiled wider: “You could come too!”

“No.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Too abrupt. Damn panic.

“I’m working,” Emmet added hastily before she thought he was denying out of anger or annoyance. “I can’t. Sorry. I should not leave the station. Sorry. Sorry.”

“It’d be quick!” she pleaded back to him, and the saddened look on her face made him want to crumple into a dead leaf and turn to dust. “It could take what, maybe fifteen minutes? While you’re on your way we can get a sandwich or something, we hide Ingo in the bushes so he’s safe–”

“Excuse you-”

“-Shush, and then we can eat out here! And maybe once we’re done the three of us can go around to see the city and you can go back to work, just–”

“My,” he started, and then stopped. He had a hard time swallowing the lump in his throat, but there was no need. It was the truth. “My lunch break. It’s not now. Later. I’m working. Sorry.”

“We can wait then!”

“No. You’re hungry. You get cranky when you’re hungry.”

“No I don’t!”

“It would be disastrous. Can’t put Marshal and Ingo in that kinda danger. Better appease you verrry quickly.”

Iris furrowed her brows at him and pouted.

It would have been funnier if looking at her didn’t feel like getting stabbed in the gut.

“Not sure if it’s a good idea though,” he decided to change the subject, “Walking around with Ingo.”

“Why not?” Marshal asked.

“You know. Paparazzi. And other Sewaddles of life.”

“We can deal with those.”

He doubtfully scrunched up his face in response.

His cousin took that personally: “What, you don’t trust the Champion and her loyal fist-fighting knight to be able to handle a couple flashing cameras?”

That had Ingo turn to the still somewhat distraught Iris with eyes as wide as the moon itself, shining brilliantly with absolute surprise and a pride that was undoubtedly going to explode into a sonic boom in roughly eight seconds: “You’re the Champion?”

“Yeah?” she just replied.

Emmet quickly pulled the Xtransceiver down and stuck it close to his back. His fulminous reflexes saved him from the shrieks of the speakers as the latest contender for the title of world’s loudest BRAVO rippled through them in an attempt to make them explode.

He could envision the ear-ringing state of deafened daze Iris and Marshal were in at the moment extremely clearly, which likely said something about either himself, his brother, his cousins, or all of the above.

“YOU DID NOT MENTION THAT!” his brother was continuing in the same volume of voice, too caught up into the prideful euphoria to lower it: “CONGRATULATIONS!”

Faintly he made out Iris shakily replying her thanks.

“THAT’S INCREDIBLE! WHEN DID YOU MANAGE SUCH A FEAT?”

She responded it had happened around four years ago.

Whatever Ingo shouted next was completely unintelligible, so perhaps he should have intervened before the Xtransceivers completely gave up and burst into flames on their wrists, which would have been notably distressing.

.

“Fine! Fine.  I am Emmet and I’m convinced. He’ll be fine. Go for it. I trust you with him. Show him the city. Catch up with him. Hide him in the bushes.”

“Emmet.”

“I am Emmet.”

“Please do not advocate in favor of shoving me in any nearby shrubbery.”

“Would be a good hiding place.”

“Emmet.”

“It’d be much more effective than having you pretend you’re a lamppost.”

“Marshal.”

“It’s true!”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Iris insisted. “We can wait just fine, seriously…”

“I am Emmet. I am sure. My lunch break is at… “ fuck. When was it? “Two. Do not worry for me. I will eat. Have a good meal. Go see the rest of the team home. They’ll be verrry happy, I bet. And Elesa. But don’t tell her I slept in.”

At least she smiled mischievously: “Immediately tell her you slept in, got it.”

“Nooo - avoid.”

“Instantly.”

“No!”

“Right now.”

“Iris Wittle Wyvern Lophiris. Stop that.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Call you what.”

“You know what you did!”

“I do not. Anyway!” he decided to cut it all short, before the credibility of his excuse began to dwindle: “Enjoy yourselves. And avoid paparazzi like the plague. I love you.”

They must have answered. He wasn’t sure he heard that.

By the time the call was closed and he wasn’t under their eyes anymore he was fairly sure the only thing keeping him still upright was the wall against his shoulder and the grip of his soles on the dark pavement.

Maybe he should have fainted for a while. Just slumped right down on the cold floor and lost consciousness for about half an hour. Maybe he could have gotten himself a nice little cardiac arrest for all of two seconds to ragdoll his way out of the wildly spinning tornado of thoughts passing by his neurons so fast they were essentially incomprehensible, some shifting amalgamation of panic and shame and a general desire to slam his head very hard somewhere and cause a dent either on the unfortunate surface of the day or in his skull.

What was even the matter? He hadn’t even talked to them. He hadn’t shut his door in their face. He had just not answered after the first two calls.

He hadn’t even been rude.

(I love you.)

(What a stupid fucking thing to say after as prolonged and obstinate an avoidance as his own. He was going to–)

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

How did that… The stupid one… How did that song go? About the, uh… The stupid… Ugh. He scratched at his forehead. The one… With… The fish. Captain.

Ca-pitan Findus, controilran-cido As-do-mar…

He couldn’t scrape the rest from his brain, but at least it cleared it enough.

Should have used this instead of medicine. Then again, he’d been half asleep and easily conditioned by his brother’s own less than stellar feelings, so he was excused.

Normal things now.

Things to do.

… Save the number. That would have been verrry useful.

He opened his eyes as little as possible to check on the display, so that he wouldn’t fuck it up by trying to do that blindly.

A warning; he selected ‘yes’ without even reading.

That was something he’d have to figure out later. Or tomorrow. No matter. Just… Not now, please.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Things to do.

The ringtone made him first jump, then cuss.

Dragons help him. These five minutes were feeling even more never ending with every millisecond that passed.

Breathe.

Marshal nodded at him in greeting from the screen as he walked leisurely.

“Heya.”

“You just called.” Emmet noted dryly. He bit his tongue at how annoyed he sounded to himself; luckily for him, it came out just as monotone as always.

“I wanted to talk with you for a moment more. Without the whole…” he moved his arm in a fairly eloquent way towards a couple of louder voices off-screen. “You know. And it was Ingo who called you first, to be precise.”

“Tamayto, Tamato. Same thing.”

“Ugh, whatever,” the younger man stuck out his tongue at him.

“Unsportsmanlike. Penalty.”

“Hey!”

“You taught me that.”

“Can I talk to you for a second or are you going to keep doing this?”

“Hm. Perhaps.”

“Cuz…”

He was smiling. He was smiling - he wasn’t angry. A little annoyed, but in the way one is annoyed at a friend being a little too goofy. He was even chuckling a bit - his chest shook slightly from it.

The relief the sight of such a simple expression gave him left a disgusting aftertaste all over his mouth, not sparing even a singular cell. It was similar to that of gastric acid.

“I’ll be quick, I know you’re busy and all,” Marshal got to the point, now that the interruptions seemed to have finally stopped. “I just wanted to say it’s good to see you again, too. Even if you’re only on a screen.”

Emmet’s throat dried up.

Marshal didn't notice: “Maybe another time we can all meet up, with Mom and Dad too, and Grandpa. I bet I could rope Grimsley in if you wanted,” he laughed a little.

“Maybe.” his cousin conceded faintly. “Another time.”

“You’d be up for that?”

No. “Yup. Sure. Another time, maybe.”

“Of course! Of course.”

It was still weird to see white teeth when he grinned. He was so used to him wearing that teal guard over them in recent times (recent years, a few years ago, which meant they weren’t so recent anymore, and it made him want to look away and leave and curl up in a ball and apologize and never talk again) that he’d almost forgotten that wasn’t their natural color.

“I’ll see you then,” his cousin waved.

The conductor waved back a little: “Bye.”

“Have a good day!”

“You too. Love you.” (what a stupid thing to–)

“Love you too!”

The image sizzled away; Emmet breathed in again sharply through his nose, swallowed, and slid down the wall until he was sitting in midair.

He waited in a limbo devoid of thoughts for a few seconds that felt more like a couple hundred minutes, eyes closed, trying to quell any tremor that attempted to make his muscles quiver with nervous antsyness.

They’d looked honestly happy to see him.

Honestly it was going to make him cry.

Or have a breakdown.

Calm down, calm down - other things to do, there’s other things to do first.

Work to do first.

Briosa to call first.

To tell her.

And also for the other thing.

He turned the radio back on and spoke into it without registering the action, clawing his way back into his body as the words left it. Mawile’s snap arrived right on schedule to assure him his messages were being received.

“It was our cousins,” he confirmed.

“Oh, nice.”

“But.”

Silence.

“But what.”

“You don’t know what the champion looks like?”

“No.”

Emmet willed himself to calm down. Maybe she hadn’t kept up since Alder had gone off in grief; champions change often. That made sense.

That could not be applied to Marshal.

So he changed his question: “You don’t know what the Elite Four look like?”

“No? Should I?”

He could not answer that in a way that kept him sane. So he remained silent, absolutely stunned.

“Am I supposed to know them?” Briosa insisted.

Was she - “They’re the League!” he replied.

The response came in the same unbothered shrug of a tone as before: “I don’t know the League.”

She what.

“How.”

“I’m not into competitive battling.”

…

Huh??

“This is. This is the Battle Subway. You work at the Battle Subway.”

“Yes! And here we just run over trainers. By the way you should get over to the Multi Line as soon as possible, would be better somewhere around uhhhh this precise instant, there’s an obnoxious pair that’s been very slowly making their way through the twentieth car with some kind of stalling strategy and should be done in about fifteen minutes. If they come in and you aren’t here I will not guarantee for the safety of their tendons.”

Alright. Yes, he should have returned to the train. Ingo was safe with family, so he had nothing to worry about.

And he could have continued this hell of conversation much more easily, too.

-

Emmet was notified of Ingo’s return to the control room somewhere around six in the afternoon, while he was still rushing through the tunnels of the Double Line. Moments before the arrival of the next challenger, he was then notified that his brother was currently snoring away on one of the breakroom’s couches.

When he peeked his head in a little less than two hours later, he was still asleep.

Iris did have a tendency to drag people around as though they had as boundless an energy as hers, and while Marshal had trained for years and had enough stamina to actually keep up with her, her not-quite-cousins definitely did not; so his poor twin was probably exhausted from being flung around the city like a gymnastic ribbon on a go-kart passing through a wind tunnel, or a wacky inflatable tube man being pulled into one of Tornadus’s storms.

A weight settled on his bones.

Ah, damnit. He should have eaten his lunch after all. Not his fault he forgot about it.

His glove scratched his eyelid a little as he rubbed it.

Hm, yes, had to be sugar withdrawal. Nothing else. Nothing at all. Not sleep, definitely. He was Emmet. He wasn’t tired. And certainly it wasn’t having stayed here instead of going to see his cousins. Nope. No way.

He’d been busy. Verrry busy. He was working. He couldn’t just go around. Sorry. He could not. Nope. Sorry. Sorry. Verrry busy.

He repeated the words to himself ad nauseam as he mindlessly chewed through his previously abandoned sandwiches with all the glee of a thoughtless automaton spending its days stamping bottle caps. He could have sat for a moment, just to stretch a bit and get this torpor out of him - yes, he nodded with a yawn, he’d do that, timing himself with Ingo’s snores.

A hand shook his shoulder: “Boss, you’re needed upstairs.”

Emmet opened his eyes to find himself hunched on his knees.

When did that happen?

“How long?” he asked vaguely, feeling his tongue stuck to his palate.

Thankfully, Hank had a degree in barely awake communications and was currently getting a coffee not too far away: “About ten minutes, maybe,” he replied.

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Ramses nodded.

Their boss hummed; like a Purrloin, he snapped his back into a sitting position, listening to his spine as it popped while stretching his arms upwards.

Well, that didn’t do him good.

He was going to need a chiropractor. Or maybe Marshal could have just realigned his backbone with some kind of grapple.

If he ever managed to crawl back to his cousin in shame.

“I am Emmet,” he groaned to ignore his own thoughts: “I’ll be there in a second.”

Ingo was still sleeping. His brother gave him a gentle pat on the arm and left him to continue resting.

-

By the time he opened his eyes again he felt like a few geological eras had passed.

He checked the nearest clock, squinting to figure out what he was looking at: the hands told him it was 10:23. Most likely in the P.M.

He was suddenly very hungry.

They probably would have eaten once they were back home though, right? In the meantime he should have probably had some water. He felt like a dried up Petilil slowly shriveling under the midday summer sun.

On second thought, where was he, exactly?

Because this did not look like home, or the control room, or his hut. Perhaps he had been abducted, which however sounded unlikely as he did remember finding the elevator with Cameron (Cameron? That was his name, right? Not Cloud. Cloud had longer hair. Hm, yes, that was Cameron.) and descending away from the piercing golden glow all around himself.

“Oh! Finally. We were thinking you had a heart attack.”

His eyes shifted groggily onto some gaunt young man almost glaring at him..

“Is… Adore?” he tried, unsure whether it was that or Isaiah but feeling a preference for the former.

The agent nodded and reached for some weird large thing standing against the wall to stick a sort of key in it before poking at it repeatedly with one finger: “You’ve been asleep for four hours and forty-seven minutes,” he let him know with surprising precision. “Did you sleep at all before coming here today?”

“Yes,” Ingo replied dryly. “The whole night.”

The weird thing spat out something similar to a very small paper cup.

Isadore looked at him in bewilderment as something trickled into the tiny container; he shook his head after a moment, as if remembering something: “No, that makes sense.” he nodded again.

A hiss escaped his heavily clenched jaw as he grabbed the little cup in his palm for all of one second before retreating his hand.

By the time Ingo had finally managed to sit back up without almost falling asleep in the process the liquid must have finally cooled down a little bit, because the young man was finally able to pick it up and bring it over to the couch. He took note of how carefully he maneuvered the little thing, gripping it with the precise grip of a machine, moving in perfectly strides so that the contents of the cup could not have so much as moved in the slightest.

He stood for a short while, narrow eyes fixed on the beverage.

“Do you like lemon tea?” the agent asked finally.

Oh, that sounded nice: “I believe so, yes.”

“I hate it.” Isadore replied, and with the same precise robotic motions he lowered the cup down so he could take it from him. “But I messed up my order and ended up with this, so if you’d rather drink it than let me waste it I’d be fine with that.”

“Ah! Thank you.”

“It was a mistake.”

“Still, thank you.”

Like he couldn’t tell that he’d done that deliberately, just to be nice - especially from how he insisted it hadn’t been intentional and how he’d left in an embarrassed hurry. He might’ve not had that good a relationship with Ingo before.

And the tea tasted just fine. He didn’t know what he was missing.

-

The Battle Lines were officially closed.

As much as he loved them, Emmet sighed in relief. They could really drain one’s energy worse than a whole candelabra of Litwick.

Now all that was left to do was ensure that all passengers left the station for their final destinations, return the trains to their rightful resting platforms, close down for the night, and go back home.

And make sure his brother still existed.

Because there always was the possibility of him not existing.

Which was the worst possibility, right next to him being found dead.

(Him being found dead was so close to the former in the scale of worst things to be real because by ‘not existing’ he meant specifically ‘not existing here and now back home’, not ‘not existing since the beginning’, and that left the window very terrifyingly open for the latter to happen.)

Briosa cracked her phalanxes with her thumb one at a time.

Once she was done, she moved onto those of her left hand.

She did not say anything. He focused on the quiet snaps muffled by the cotton gloves and tried to relax his shoulders.

The tension suffocating him in the elevator thankfully disappeared as soon as he stepped into the control room and an incredibly pale head all but literally lit up at the sight of him.

Ingo waved at him as though they were twelve kilometers away from each other, remaining perfectly still right where he was. Emmet waved back in the exact same manner, smiling as wide as he could.

Mawile found them impossibly silly and held back a cackle.

Billie decided to interrupt their silent waving by gently launching the older twin towards the younger with a hand on his back, promising under their breath that Vip was going to help with the last few things to check, and the man took the momentum in stride and slammed directly into his brother so quickly that neither even had the time to outstretch their arms for a hug, headbutting the shit out of each other and ending up stumbling a little for the recoil before they grabbed each other’s forearms to keep themselves from falling on the pavement.

“I apologize for falling asleep for nearly five hours!” he told him once they had established some distance again: “Iris and Marshal have the same terrible grip and powerful legs. I was no match for such behemoths.”

“Marshal was pulling too?”

“Yes!”

Memories of getting thrown around by an eight-year-old who could wrestle a Fraxure made the other at once smile and wince: “Oof. Did you try any opposition?”

“Absolutely not. They would have run me over like a herd of Piloswine.”

“Good call.”

He took a long breath through his nose and groaned.

“I am Emmet. I will admit. I am verrry tired.”

“Preach!” Vip (short for Venipede - her mothers were from outside the region and really, really liked Unovan bugs) hollered back at him unprompted before slinking her head down onto the desk in defeat. Josh, ever the sweetheart, patted her back in solidarity; Billie preferred shoving her a little out of the way.

Emmet was very tempted to imitate her, but pulled all of his remaining willpower to resist, only hunching his back forward in a slump and giving a long sigh: “Exactly. Let’s go home.”

“Oh! Is the Station shutting down for the night?”

“Yep.”

“I see! It is very late after all…”

Noticing the saddened tone, the younger tilted his head: “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, just a silly thing. It could be handled tomorrow, or another day - it’s not a big deal anyways.”

“What is it?”

“... I would have liked to see the inside of a train,” Ingo admitted bashfully, like he was confessing something embarrassing or ridiculous: “I know the vague layout of an old locomotive from the books I’ve read a little from at home, but I have no idea how current trains look…”

“Ah! That’s fine. We can do it an-”

“The last train to Anville Town departs in a few minutes,” Briosa helpfully interrupted him out of nowhere.

Mawile must have filled her in while they weren’t looking.

Josh checked on one of the monitors and nodded: she was right, the last run for the day would have left in a moment or two.

“I can accompany him,” she continued simply.

Emmet tensed: “It’ll be verrry late for you,” he tried to dissuade her.

“I’ve gone home later. Plus I’ve got business on it.”

“I know. But it’s late.”

“I know. And I need to go anyway.” she turned her head towards Ingo: “Do you wanna come along?”

“Briosa.” Emmet signed before his brother could reply, not smiling. “Look at me.”

She did.

“It’s late. We can do this another time. It’s fine.”

She gave a short hum. Her fingers moved quick in the total silence: It’s forty-five minutes of ride at most. We’ll leave around 10:50 and we’ll be back by closing time. Rapid and painless.

It’s late, Emmet insisted equally quiet: It’s verrry late. We can do it tomorrow.

Do you want to come along?, the substitute asked then.

He hesitated; then he shook his head imperceptibly.

Being on unmoving ground was making the prospect of getting back on a train worse than anything, almost to the point of nausea. It happened, sometimes. It had happened several times, in the past years. Once the seasickness had even had the horrid idea of manifesting physically, and it had been mortifying to clean that cab.

At the same time, he didn’t want to leave Ingo alone on a train launched towards an unknown destination. Anything could have happened, literally anything, and instead of arriving at Anville Town he could have ended up across the world again, or somewhere he could have never returned from, or the train could have derailed with him on it, or he could have fallen out, or, or, or…

He couldn’t know how much Briosa could have known about what was going on in his brain since she couldn’t read his mind, but she didn’t smile.

Her stout fingers just moved, with as much understanding as they could have: I’ll be with him. I’ll make sure he’s fine and return him home right on time. Nothing else will happen. I’ll protect him. You know I’m good at these sorts of things.

Yes, she was. And yes, he did.

He took a long breath.

“Is everything alright?” Ingo asked softly.

Emmet waved a hand to reassure him: “Technicalities,” he replied, hands signing as he spoke: “You can go. If you want. Briosa said she can come with you. I’ll stay here. I’m feeling a bit lightheaded. Is that ok?”

“Of course! Please take care of yourself.” then, after a moment of nervous pause: “Are you sure I can go? I can stay here if-”

“Woof, train leaves in seven minutes,” a little voice interrupted them again. “Better go now unless you want to wait a whole day. There’s other ones, actually, but this one actually gets out of the ground, which is much niftier.”

(“Woof?” Vip mouthed.)

(“Niftier?” Billie mouthed back.)

Briosa fixed her rotten green eyes directly in Ingo’s: “So! You wanna go?”

Ignoring the brief sensation that she was challenging him to a hand-to-hand combat match to the death, he looked to his twin.

Emmet gave him a thumbs up.

The older nodded; the minuscule Substitute smiled, stuck her entire arm down Mawile’s open enormous maw so the little thing could safely dangle from it instead of having to scuttle after her, grabbed his wrist with her free hand, and left without any additional words to anybody in the room.

Had the tightening deadline put wings at her feet, or was he so baffled by the fact that she had just consciously and willingly had one of her limbs swallowed by her hearing aide that he forgot to take time into account?

Either way, he could have sworn they had taken much longer to reach the platform earlier today.

He also could have sworn that they had returned to the same exact platform.

He blinked hastily several times, finding a definitely smaller amount of people than he had seen on his first visit waiting for the mechanical beast to come pick them up, and turned left and right before looking down to find his guide’s translator - still happily dangling from the arm she was chomping on..

“Are we going to-” he began, stopping himself for a moment out of uncertainty “-Opelucid City, I believe?”

“Anville Town,” Briosa corrected after raising Mawile to her eye level.

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly certain.”

“I don’t want to doubt your expertise - you know much more than me, that’s without question - but are you absolutely positive this is the right platform? It looks a lot like-”

He couldn’t finish that thought as the conductor howled: “OOOH - oh ok, no, that’s fair, they’re all designed to look the same. They have signs before the entrance though, and Anville Town trains and stations and signs all have a brown line on them? Like that one over there.” and she pointed to a long bright brown line painted across the shorter wall of the platform. “It’s because it’s the oldest train line in the region and all stations were initially decorated with brown lines. Did you know that the slang for railway officials is brass collar?”

Actually, he did! From the moment she mentioned ‘slang’, but he did. Huh. He nodded, genuinely surprised by himself, and even added: “Or main pin.”

“Yeah!” Briosa grinned, squinting a lot: “Funny stuff to know.”

Funny indeed.

The train still made a horrid amount of noise, causing Ingo to regret not having asked for Emolga’s support again before Mawile very gently patted his leg to offer him some comfort. The sliding doors hissed open; the Substitute Subway Master positioned herself perpendicular to them and extended her arm towards the brightly lit interior of the rumbling millipede titan.

“All aboard!” she encouraged him - stretching the first word and rushing through the second, in a perfectly opposite intonation to his own and Emmet’s.

Ingo complied, stepping onto the train.

They were in the cab directly behind the locomotive (Briosa seemed to privilege this placement, as she had moved them towards the end of the Opelucid platform earlier as well) and if he turned his head to his left he could see a corridor made of long sections like the abdomen of a Bug stretching all the way into infinity, all identical as far as he could tell: same two lines of blue plastic seats built almost like sofas, same metal bars right above them, same handles dangling from them, same grey doors with wide windows, same openings into new cabs, same rows of glass separating the inside from the outside wind, over and over and over and over.

Gently buzzing above him, the neon white lights didn’t hurt as much as they could have.

(He remembered dreaming something like this once or twice.)

(Hadn’t he dreamed it in Sinnoh?)

(Not Hisui - Sinnoh. On the couch of Johanna and her child’s house… Yes, he recognized it now. He’d dreamed of sitting here, on a train, headed who knows were; he recognized now, the more he thought about that dream, the scratch of Marshal’s hair on his nape, the scent of Elesa’s Persim shampoo coming from his shoulder, Iris’s weight pressing on his lap, Emmet’s face leaning against his arm. He wondered who it had been, then, on whom he was sitting.)

A mechanical voice instructed him to stand away from the doors as they closed, and a rumble startled him so much that he almost jumped.

Briosa, at his side, made no motion nor betrayed any emotion.

The man looked around for a moment, thinking back to the plane and the car and finding a glaring problem.

He turned to Mawile with great urgency: "Where are the seatbelts?"

Both she and her aidee gave him a funny look.

"Trains don't have them," the substitute told him.

What?

The gigantic wretched beast moved with a jerk, and Ingo felt his entire body, completely stiff and as straight as a perfect line, get yanked back like a catapult towards the floor.

A thin arm pressed harshly against his back to stop him from actually making contact with the ground, keeping him upright despite the notable difference in height almost effortlessly, and as his freefall was stopped in time he became fully conscious of the fact that, oh! Yes! He had, indeed, been descending right into a concussion!

So he screamed.

The body under him seemed to shake incredibly hard for a moment; he was then grasped between two hands, manhandled for a hot second, and firmly planted on one of the smooth plastic seats.

Briosa looked directly into his eyes. Her vaguely square smile had an air of disbelief, and her hands trembled a bit.

"PLEASE MAKE SURE TO HOLD ONTO THE HANDRAILS OR TAKE A SEAT BEFORE THE TRAIN DEPARTS!" she said, not quite screaming but almost, sounding incredibly shrill. "ALSO DEAR DRAGONS YOU ARE LOUD!"

Ingo sunk in his mortified shoulders.

"I - I apologize, I did not-" he only managed to babble.

"I'M NOT MAD BY THE WAY, I'M REALLY IMPRESSED!" the Substitute interrupted him (not out of a lack of manners but because she could not have heard him if she wanted): "I DON’T THINK THE HUMAN BODY IS MEANT TO BE ABLE TO MAKE A SOUND AT THAT VOLUME! THE CLOSEST THING I CAN COMPARE IT TO IS WHEN I ACCIDENTALLY LAID AGAINST A VERY BIG SPEAKER AND A BASS LINE RIPPLED STRAIGHT THROUGH ME AND JUMBLED MY MARROW LIKE GELATINE!"

This must have been what roughly half of Hisui had felt when he spoke to them most of the time, Ingo managed to think for a moment before his brain focused on imagining how exactly something like a ‘bone marrow gelatine’ would have looked and tasted.

In a fraction of a second he concluded that it would have been abysmal, and not for the shape or ingredients; despite having apparently never eaten gelatine as far as his brain could remember he could feel it in his mouth, and the texture made him want to shrivel and implode.

He quietly snuck it on the shelf of his mind reserved for Things I Forgot I Found Abhorrent And Would Like To Forget Again.

Blissfully unaware of the plight her boss had unleashed upon himself through the power of recalling horrendous attacks at his senses, Briosa then made her tone and volume drop drastically to much quieter ones as her whole body relaxed: "But seriously, make sure to secure yourself next time you're on a subway car. You can get really hurt and injure other people along with yourself. If you screamed again you could also probably bust their hearing."

She smiled again, looking right into him as if pinning him like one does to the wings of a Beautifly, with that flat smile that stuck the corners of her lips up in a sort of strange parenthesis and her rot green eyes a little squinted.

"You can't hurt mine in a way that matters," she chirped, as if to reassure him.

That actually was a relief. He’d had enough complaints about his shouts risking avalanches and attracting dangerous Pokémon, without counting all the ringing ears he had caused; he was truly glad the only living beings in this car were himself (naturally immune to his own volume), a completely deaf person and --

His head retreated inside his shoulders as a horrified realization hit him and he turned, absolutely mortified, to the small beast sitting right beside him.

“I am - so sorry,” he started off as her big red eyes tilted curiously, “I did not mean to - I am honestly, earnestly sorry, this is - probably very bad, considering what you - did I, did I hurt you? Did I hurt your ears, was my voice...? Again, I am terribly sorry, I, I hope I did not cause you any harm...”

Mawile blinked twice before snapping her smaller mouth open with a chirp of sorts, not looking cross at all. She began twisting her tiny fingers at him, but before he could apologetically remind her he could not understand sign she realized so herself, and turned towards her aidee: Briosa read her paws and furrowed her brow, replying in the same silent language with a certain puzzlement to her motions.

There was a moment of stillness that followed - their equivalent of a beat of flabbergasted silence. Mawile then gestured something with a very amused shit-eating smirk on both lesser and greater mouths, and her owner quickly clamped her hand in front of her little face as though to force them both shut.

“Vai a ciapa’ i Patrat, bimba, vai - che sarò stanca pure io a quest’ora, eh?” she sneered softly, chuckling a little as her fingers repeated whatever completely incomprehensible thing had just come out of her mouth. The little Fairy insisted on something with a grin, getting a gentle swat from a gloved hand: “Stocazzo che glielo dico, me lo posso anche tenere per me che mi son scordata che tu ci senti per lavoro.”

She then turned her gaze on Ingo’s face, ignoring her snickering companion.

“Steel types are actually virtually immune to hearing loss!” she explained chipperly: “They’re often employed in dangerously loud jobs because their organs can only get deformed under extreme pressure from all sides, like at the bottom of the ocean! But in that case they’d already be dead before the compression could do the trick so it barely counts really. But yes. No matter how hard you scream you cannot deafen this little beast.”

Three-fingered paws waved to get her attention once more and added something else.

“She still appreciates your concern!”

The poor man wheezed out a sigh of relief. Oh thank goodness. No harm done. He would have climbed out of the train window out of mortification otherwise.

Mawile seemed to be amused by his reaction, considering the gentle chittering laugh that left her lesser beak-like mouth and the cackling snap of her larger one. Her little three-fingered paw went to pat his arm in a comforting manner, as though she understood his feelings perfectly: maybe this had already happened on a previous occasion? Or perhaps she was simply very empathetic, as Fairies tended to be?

She and Briosa appeared to be on the exact same wavelength, that was certain, since they understood each other perfectly despite the language barrier.

Wait, no, they had no language barrier.

The both signed.

Right.

Yes.

That made sense.

Wait.

He furrowed his brow suddenly: “You translated her right now, did you not?” he asked the substitute, realizing only at that moment what had happened.

She turned her attention to the beast next to her and answered him with a slight lag and a fairly satisfied smile once his words were made understandable to her: “I did! It’s a mutually beneficial kind of deal. Makes it a lot easier to understand other Pokémon as well.”

“Your communication with your team must be on another level!” Ingo replied.

“I doubt that!” she struck him down airily: “I don’t want Mawile to work overtime translating every single thing my lads say. They’ve learned to be real expressive for that. My communication with her is on another level, that’s true - I forget that five-fingered sign exists sometimes.”

“Five-what?”

“Five-fingered sign,” and she waved her fingers in a sort of cheeky goodbye. Then she held down her thumb and pinky, moving the other three as she spoke: “She only has three fingers, so she most usually tends to use three-fingered sign. She’s also fluent in five-fingered, but that takes her two hands so, you know, it’s much less convenient.”

Ingo nodded, eyes enraptured by the fluidity of her signing: “It’s as though you were trilingual,” he commented in awe. “Or quadrilingual, perhaps? I believe you were speaking something else, before...”

“Ah. That. Yes.”

The stilted way she said that had him shrivel in his own shoulders, convinced he’d overstepped another boundary.

Mawile laughed louder and mischievously gestured something at her aidee.

“Zitta.” she was shushed.

She laughed even harder.

“I apologize,” the much taller man peeped as quietly as he could, which admittedly wasn’t that much: “I didn’t mean to bring back any animosity.”

The beastie found his addition even more hilarious clearly, because she leaned her back down on the plastic seat and kicked up her feet as she wheezed and cackled uncontrollably to the point where she had to grab her stomach as it started cramping. Still coughing a little she wiped away tears of absolute mirth from her eyes as she pulled herself up once more before launching in a series of signs so fast and naturally that it would have likely caused him to short circuit in an attempt to follow had he been able to understand her.

He turned to Briosa with a frown that told of being completely at a loss.

She replied by keeping her mouth perfectly shut.

Mawile egged her on.

“Stocazzo, t’ho detto,” the substitute insisted.

Not at all deterred, the Steel Fairy snapped her maw as though accepting a challenge. As she turned back to Ingo she clearly threw sign to the wind and began, instead, to mime at him: whatever they had talked about, he pieced together from her performance, regarded Briosa asking her a question related to her hearing.

His comprehensive noises with which he began commenting on the show clearly sent the subway master into a short panic, launching herself forward to grasp her aide to shut up her theatrical endeavors before she could get to the point.

She did successfully delay the ending of the story; she also however got laughed straight at her face with each miss.

After not even thirty seconds she threw her patience out of the window with wild abandon: “Basta!!” she softly shouted as she trembled with an exaggerated cartoonish rage, “Guarda che ti mangio!”

Not frightened in the slightest, Mawile signed back a retort.

“Va bene!” the substitute caved in.

She rubbed at her eyes to try and mask her snickering as she attempted to recollect herself enough before she could properly turn to Ingo, who had been left a little concerned by their interaction.

“It’s stupid,” she reassured him immediately with a wave of her hand and an easy smile. “I just. When she told me you were worried about having destroyed her eardrums, I got confused. Because I forgot that she can hear. Even though that is literally her job.”

“Oh!” he sighed in relief. That was kind of humorous. “I see.”

“She’s not letting me live this down now because she’s mean,” she then specified, putting a special emphasis on the last word as she eyed the utterly remorseless Fairy, who seemed proud of her mischief. A gloved hand pressed onto her flat nose: “You’re lucky lip reading only gets me so far or you’d be still stuck back over there in Kalos.”

Mawile made a motion as if to hug herself before pointing back at her.

“Love you too.”

“If I can -” Ingo began, lifting a finger to catch Briosa’s attention, but he stopped and retracted it as he reminded himself she couldn’t hear him right when she actually looked at him.

His attempt at turning towards her Pokémon was however stopped by the substitute herself, who quickly motioned with her hand towards her face to incite him to speak directly to her. Had she forgotten he couldn’t sign? It seemed very much unlikely. Still, if she was encouraging him to engage with her instead of Mawile, she must have had her own reasoning, right?

“You mentioned lip reading,” he tried.

“I did,” she replied without missing a beat, staring at him. Her eyes seemed to be focused a little under his own.

“I... Assume it would be something akin to... Figuring out letters from how the mouth moves?”

“I’d correct you since I’m reading the individual words, but yes actually, it’s mostly telling letters apart.”

“Is that what you’re doing right now?”

“Yep.”

“Ah! It seems more convenient than the translation.”

“It’s not!”

He tilted his head in surprise: “How so?”

“It’s hard,” she explained matter-of-factly: “The mouth can only move in so many ways. A lot of letters end up looking exactly the same. Plus I can’t do it on phones or radios, I can’t read multiple people at once, if I’m in a group swapping between person to person is a whole struggle that gets annoying real fast, sometimes it’s just plain difficult, like when Emmet’s got his neutral face on--”

“His neutral face?”

“You know--” and she gave him a somewhat vacant smile, forcing her mouth into what she probably believed to be a V shape of sorts. “This face. The bane of my eyes. You know how he doesn’t speak much? Makes a lot of pauses? That’s actually perfect since it’s little bits of information. Easy to read and digest. But this face makes everything so much harder.”

“Ah,” he nodded without much conviction. He did remember that specific expression now that she mentioned it, but he still failed to see what she actually meant. “Why does that make lip reading difficult?”

“Because his face gets locked in place and he speaks real small and cramped keeping all his words to himself, like this,” she answered: following her finger as she pointed he noticed then that her lips moved quickly, although describing them as ‘moving’ almost sounded like an exaggeration (a more apt verb could have been ‘twitching’), barely parting as they did. “Every single sound looks the exact same. It’s a nightmare.”

“I can see that…”

 She then began switching between expressions as she continued, her entire face shifting in ways that conveyed all sorts of emotions like a theater actor’s might have: “But when he’s actually reacting to things it’s so much easier, because he uses every single muscle he has to show what he means and his mouth gets dragged along, like this! See? He’s verrry expressive. Verrry readable.“

Ingo nodded again, transfixed: “You’re very expressive yourself!”

Briosa giggled at that: “Thanks! It’s the circus training!”

Thefuckingwhat.

He shook his head to clear it of the dozen barely comprehensible questions that clamored to be asked. Keep focus. No getting off-track. We’ll be here all night if you keep changing the subject.

“I imagine I’m giving you a lot of grief then,” he noted as he got back on his train of thought, “Since I’m... Not quite good at conveying emotion through my face.”

“No, actually. You’re really loud.”

Her knowing such a detail should not have come as a surprise, because she had already remarked on it previously when he had thanked her for saving him from a concussion after almost slamming his head against the metal floor with a blood-curdling scream directly in her ear.

However, she had mentioned she could tell because the vibration had vigorously coursed through her like an electric shock.

So in the end, he was again left completely baffled.

She seemed amused by how wide his eyes had turned when he finally got her back into the focus of his gaze, cheeks almost red with embarrassment, and asked: “Is it... Is it visible?”

Her smile curled a little more; she opened her mouth as large as she could and replied at a fairly high volume, to show him properly: “The louder someone speaks, the wider they tend to open their mouth! You do that all the time! It makes it much easier to tell the individual sounds apart since there’s a little lag between each of them and they’re enunciated fairly well!”

Huh! She was right!

At least, it helped her understand him better. He’d been worried about the opposite, so it was nice knowing that.

“You are extremely observant!” he noted.

She laughed with a rubbery sound: “And you’re trying real hard to make your lips as readable as a book!”

“It seems to make it much easier to converse!”

“It does! But watch out.”

“For what?”

“Long sentences. My brain fries a little if I’ve got too much on my plate.”

“Oh! That’ll be a problem. I’m fairly talkative, as far as I’m aware.”

”I figured.”

“I must admit this feels more natural than on-the-fly translations - I mean no offense for your line of work,” Ingo specified quickly (Mawile reassured him with a thumbs up) “But it is easier to speak directly to you instead of having to relay the information to a third party first. I suppose it’s a matter of awkwardness, or perhaps just a feeling of strangeness in the process of having to first speak to you, Mawile, who then has to translate it all to you, Briosa, in order for you to give your interlocutor an answer. To put it much more simply, it just... It feels a little weird. Is it not a little weird to you?

The Fairy nodded sagely in wholehearted agreement. It was very likely surreal for her, to have the vast majority of her daily conversations be in actuality a game of telephone between two other people.

Briosa instead looked at his face intently, mostly without any emotion.

It dawned on him a little too late that his musings had been in fact expressed in a tempestuous river of words which had likely stunted her comprehension.

She shook her head repeatedly for what felt like the span of a second, very quickly, in a very brisk movement: “Got the gist of it but lost half of that, hold on,” she apologized before turning to her hearing aide: “What’s weird?”

A few quick signs.

“Oh, yeah, absolutely,” she then immediately agreed as well, “I forget it is because I live like this but it’s weird as all get out for everybody all the time, everytime. Ramses still tries to talk directly to me even though he's known that his mustache covers his entire mouth and I cannot read a single syllable since I first told him five years ago.”

Five years?

But she’d said...

Wasn’t she a recent development?

Five years was not necessarily recent.

Five years...

"Then -” Ingo noted, confused: “We do know each other."

"No," Briosa's reply was quick, sharp, completely flat in tone.

The train hit a harsh curve; unbothered, she simply leaned in the opposite direction and remained upright on her feet, not changing her stance in the slightest, as though it were the easiest thing in the world.

"You were definitely aware of me, but we didn’t know each other,” she explained: “You hired me and I worked here. And anyways we probably wouldn't have made much progress because I'm not particularly sociable and as far as I'm concerned you didn't sign. I've gotten to know Emmet because it's been about two years, but I didn't know him either before the promotion."

"Before you became a substitute?"

"Yep."

But he had been in Hisui for at least three years. He mentally counted the seasons that had passed again: yes, the math made sense.

The tracks had returned straight; his interlocutor had returned upright.

"Why didn't you replace me as soon as I went missing?" he asked then, confused. It made no sense to wait a year or so - running such a network alone would have taken a toll after a few months, probably.

"Oh, I'm not replacing you," she corrected: "I'm a temporary solution. Speaking of -” and before he could ask her what exactly that meant she seemingly changed the topic of conversation entirely: “How much do you remember about how to drive trains or running a station in general?”

The man blinked.

He simply shook his head.

Briosa loudly clicked her tongue in a way that briefly reminded him of how Mawile’s larger mouth would sometimes snap when opening: “Huh. Then I guess it’ll be a while before I get demoted back to depot agent. If you want to be a subway master again, of course, which is likely. Not a fan of having to wait, because I hate being responsible for things, but oh well!”

“Why should you be demoted?” the man asked, furrowing his brow. She had seemed to be doing a fine job, hadn’t she?

“Because you’re back,” the substitute replied: “I told you. Temporary solution.”

“But you are already a subway master! There’s no need to for-”

“I am not!” she interrupted him before he could finish. Mawile hadn’t even gotten to the beginning of the second sentence.

Her thin, gloved finger pointed at her dusty face, at her broken nose and flat-lipped, straight-lined mouth: “I am a Substitute,” she repeated a little slower, spelling out each syllable carefully. “I am temporarily filling in for one of the two Subway Bosses. You are said Subway Boss. You were before and you have remained as such.”

“... For all three years I’ve been missing?”

Mawile did not translate that. She answered him herself, nodding. Her owner probably had already understood.

Ingo was still, on paper, a Subway Boss.

No, actually - he had never stopped being a Subway Boss.

For all that was worth it, the whole world might as well have hallucinated his disappearance: checking Gear Station documents one would have been certain to have found him in the tunnels, or maybe in the control room, in a locomotive or one of the stops, casually making his rounds, checking maintenance, battling, driving, working as if his own friends and family weren’t desperately looking for him in every nook and cranny. Like a ghost, or a cutout. Empty air in a shape that resembled his, doing what he ought to be doing, unseen, unfelt, unheard, mindlessly performing tasks it was convinced it could achieve while being completely mute and deaf and blind and incorporeal, incapable of feeling hungry or tired. Housing the station like some kind of specter.

He had remained a Subway Boss, in Hisui. He had held onto those rags of a uniform like his life depended upon them and worn them religiously every second he could - but that was different. That was him trying to preserve and maintain whatever scrap of his own identity he had left. That was not important to others, nor did it conflict with the reality of his situation.

It was just yet another symbol of his many statuses: he was a part of the Pearl Clan, as his tunic showed; he was Sneasler’s warden, as his bracelet showed; he was a strange foreigner, as his old clothes showed.

Why was he a Subway Boss?

Why was his replacement something that should have lasted what sounded like a couple of days, maybe a week, always ready to be replaced back?

What if he had never met that kid, Sinnoh bless them, and had never had the chance to come back home?

“Why?” he only managed to say.

His throat felt weirdly dry.

Mawile made a quick gesture. The train swerved again, and the overhead handles leaned to Ingo’s left; Briosa’s body shifted towards his right with the fluidity that comes from practiced ease while her feet remained unmoved on the ground, and he watched how the corners of her rectangular smile eased downwards until her mouth was a perfectly emotionless straight line.

She looked at him intently, with her rot green eyes; she blinked.

“I don’t think anybody could ever really understand just how stubborn your brother is.”

So it had been Emmet’s decision?

What was his plan? To go on his whole life like that? Pretending his brother was still there, somewhere, doing everything he always did, just always out of reach? Was he ever going to give up, eventually? Bury an empty casket? Or was he going to keep convincing himself that somebody was still just sleeping coated in dust in that empty room until the day he dropped?

Something abnormally cheery snapped him out of his spiral.

He looked up. Briosa was smiling again, in a strangely stiff way, and looking right into his eyes like she was trying to drill through his pupils.

Her words reached him with a slight delay, her voice squeaky and disgustingly dripping with sugar-coated honey.

“I collect teeth!”

Ingo was so taken by surprise that he completely stopped thinking.

Alright.

“This is a conversation stopper!” she continued, tone unchanged, the shade of her visor over her unblinking eyes making her suddenly appear mildly terrifying. “I would like for the conversation to stop!”

Frankly, that sounded like a marvelous idea.

He gave her a thumbs up.

She cheerfully nodded in thanks. One of her hands shot up from where she had held both behind her back, pointing somewhere behind her passenger.

Ingo followed it.

The world outside the glass rushed past him, an endless cave carved by fulminous winds and globes of light flying towards the end of the train; and then the walls ended, and it was bright.

Not bright as in daily - bright as in bright, deep blues, and bright, swaying greens or golds. Bright as in bright, far off stars, illuminating houses in dots or clusters with hundreds of different colors against the shadowed backdrop the night draped over hills or plains or mountains in large blue paint strokes.

Raising his head skyward he found only bright, small white sputters in that waveless celestial ocean - all their brethren fallen to inhabit a poor thing like the Earth, to shield it from the fear of a dreaded something hiding in the same shade humans could not see through: their sparks pierced apart the foliage of any trees they found to reach bright, murky waters flowing away, streams like long sleeves of light fabric left out to flutter in the wind.

The mountain coming closer colored itself a bright, luminous silver as the night peeled back from it momentarily only to return all at once when the train ran right into the tunnel dug through its entrails, fitting within it perfectly. The lights were back once more, rectangular in shape, and began zipping past the metal giant, eager to reach what to the passengers had been the entrance - he couldn’t help but wonder where they would have gone next, once out of this cave, if they would have flown away into the sky they’d been taken away from or if they planned to head towards the cities instead to escape the monotony of their previous home - as the clanging of the rails spurred them onwards between the empty patches of carved rock left in the wake of their travel.

Outside there was a long line of darkness, extending bright, golden beams into the night sky to lead the winged beasts trying to lower themselves to the ground with utmost care: the Mistralton City Airport. How weird, when looked at like this, from the outside in! Skyla’s bright red hair would have certainly glowed in the dark, even if such a big distance would have shrunk her to the size of a doll; if she’d been out he would have been able to spot her and wave at her. But how could she notice him back? He strained his eyes looking for her, but it was too bright and too dark at the same time.

Fields of crops distracted him, black soil ready for sowing interwoven with already matured stems. He found himself half entranced by the way the latter danced in the cool wind and how they rustled, piqued, like Staravias furiously preening their feathers back in place after a gust of wind left them in disarray, as the train passed them by. Under the nightly veil they looked like a cobalt sea; beneath the sun they must have seemed like forests of green algae misplaced, somehow, on land, moved by invisible currents...

So Unova was this, too? Beyond the paved cement roads and the sturdy buildings and the endless man-made light? He looked up again: more stars had come out, but nowhere near the galaxy the Pearl Clan so adored to gaze upon, the same he’d watched up there near the peak of Mount Coronet. They seemed lonely in the same strange way that makes melancholy feel lovely.

Those were Unovan stars. The Hisuian ones had gone, had left with their era. Somewhere out there they were traveling, maybe in a train.

Maybe they were resting on the ground, in the many lights of the many cities.

He liked both of those ideas.

(He needed to stop thinking of Hisui.)

Ingo turned back to Briosa after what had seemed like ages spent looking out the window like a little kid, bright white eyes wide with wonder.

She smiled, the corners of her mouth curling it into a square bracket.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he only managed to say.

She read his lips and conceded, sweetly: “It’s nice.”

Mawile chirped in agreement.

Anville Town introduced itself first with the sight of its bridge closing in, its station appearing only once the train was fully out of the thick forests around the small settlement. From above the bricks, once everything was quiet, the breeze carried what seemed like the sound of a flute.

Through the glass on the other side of the car he watched as the few passengers still on the train stumbled out and hurried back home as instructed by the conductor over the speakers.

They awaited a minute, maybe two, in near perfect silence.

The buzzing of electric lines above them was becoming comforting.

Mawile clacked her large maw and signed something; Briosa made an indescribable face ascribed to some sort of yet undiscovered emotion, though certainly leaning towards negative and vaguely malicious.

“Excuse me,” she began.

Ingo nodded, excusing her, as she turned towards the cab.

“JACKIE! FURZE!” she screamed so loud that he jumped in his seat: “I KNOW YOU’RE STILL IN THERE! YOU’RE NOT GONNA HAVE ANOTHER STATION SLEEPOVER! IF BY THE TIME I GET TO TEN I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU GET OUT OF THIS TRAIN I’M TEARING THE PHALANXES OUT OF YOUR FINGERS AND BOILING BROTH OUT OF THEM! ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX-”

The door leading into the car slammed open: scrambling messily as though the pavement was covered in oil, the two Depot Agents forwent any friendship between them in favor of avoiding the very real threat, even at the cost of sacrificing the other.

They barely had the time to raise their hats as a goodbye with a pair of hasty ‘goodnight boss!’ before they quickly disappeared into the station.

Briosa watched them without changing expression. She took their place in the cab naturally, her composure utterly unbroken, and made quick work on the control panel to set the Grade of Automation to 4 so she wouldn’t need to drive it herself. Ingo looked as she activated the intercom for one last warning, her cavity-inducing saccharine voice reverberating through the empty Steelix carcass on wheels.

Then the sliding doors closed with a gentle, dull sound; the metal beast set itself in motion, inertia pulling the overhead handles to the side before they settled back into their unsteady stillness, shaking with every rumble on the tracks.

The Substitute walked out the cab and closed it behind herself.

“Sorry about that,” she said with such simplicity that it almost scared him. “They’re idiots.”

Ingo blinked heavily.

He turned away from her, looking instead Mawile in the eyes: “May I ask why such a harsh sentence was warranted?” he asked, watching as she translated.

“Remaining in Gear Station at night, let alone overnight, is strictly prohibited,” her aidee replied, “But those two have camped in there before and will try to again. Furze because he’s obsessed with trains and Jackie because they like making it seem like they’re a ghost infesting the station.”

Ah. “That is reckless behaviour,” he conceded, “But I’m not sure the bodily harm was necessary.”

She shrugged: “It works! And I like making colorful threats.”

As mean as that was, he could believe that. It was still an exercise in creative writing or improvisation after all - even if maybe not that pleasant for others to hear, especially if it was directed at them very specifically.

“Speaking of which, I would like to ask you a favor.”

Ingo studied her face: nothing about it said that she was going to request he lend her one of his bones willingly or otherwise, so he nodded.

“Emmet should not come to work tomorrow,” she began: “It’s a scheduled break day. Every Gear Station employee including him has one and it’s a regular occurrence specifically so nobody risks overworking themselves.”

That sounded like a very useful idea. Commanding the station seemed like stressful work for everybody involved, even despite the fact that by now they were probably used to it. Between conducting the trains and the myriad of things to keep in check in the control room, departures and arrivals and delays and scheduling maintenance and whatmore and whatnot - it really wasn’t any wonder such a decision had been taken. He doubted he would have managed such a routine.

(But he had, hadn’t he?)

(He had, once. It had been his routine, once. His life. Not even four years ago, it had been his life.)

Briosa tilted her head slightly, snapping him out of his musings with the slight movement of her braids: her right one draped itself along her cheek, while the left one - which started at the front of her temple and ended up tied at the back of her head - moved away enough to show the thin sideburn following the curve of her jaw, ends split into diverted scissor blades.

Oh!

So she did have them too.

Something about them suited her face.

“Please tell him that if he so much as tries to walk in tomorrow I will fold him like a shirt and hurl him straight home through a window, frisbee-style.”

Ingo replied with a blank stare.

On one hand, that sounded a little extreme.

On the other hand, this was about Emmet.

He gave her a solemn thumbs up.

She adjusted the brim of her cap to cast a dark shadow over her rotten green eyes and gave him a toothy, rectangular grin: “Thank you for your cooperation!” her sugary voice chirped: “We hope you enjoy the remainder of your ride home.”

Mawile gently pulled at his sleeve and helpfully pointed back to the glass, to the world breezing past the three of them, only living beings in the rumorous stomach of a wheeled Gyarados, as if to steer him into a more pleasant experience with her beak-like smile and the slight snap of her much larger maw.

Ingo thanked her with a deep nod, and let himself become absorbed once more by the beauty of nighttime Unova.

-

The train arrived at 11:31 p.m., with the slightest delay. Emmet notably deflated in relief when the doors to the last car opened, his brother’s silhouette stark against the neon white light as he rushed to greet him. Briosa only peeked through without getting on the platform, upper body bent at a forty-five degree angle and face inscrutable; Ingo, though he lit up as soon as his younger twin came into view, seemed a little worn by the rather busy day he’d just had.

“You’re back,” he said. He could have sounded a little more emotive, or at least not as overwhelmingly flat - even more than usual - but evidently he was also pretty exhausted.

“I am!” his older brother replied without missing a beat. “It was a very interesting journey! It was quite enjoyable, despite a minor accident.”

“Oh? What happened.”

“Nothing to be too worried about - I simply had not expected the train to ricochet me into the floor when setting into motion,” Ingo commented (getting a slight wheeze out of Emmet), before turning a little bashful: “Briosa was kind enough to catch me before I actually fell... And regrettably, I repaid her by almost deafening her.”

His white-clad sibling furrowed his brows almost imperceptibly. He turned towards the substitute, who looked back at him with the gaze of someone who has no idea what the hell is happening but does not want to interrupt.

“That’s an achievement,” he noted.

“I would not call ‘causing irreparable damage to the senses’ an achievement.”

Emmet signed as he spoke: “It’s hard to deafen the deaf.”

Ingo did not reply to that.

Briosa, on the other hand, threw her head back and cawed out a single rubbery laugh before gently slapping the very embarrassed freshly returned (if not going to be operative for a long while) subway master’s back a couple of times, in a sort of attempt at comforting him while also sharing in Emmet’s amusement.

She pushed him a little closer to his brother: “That’s a sign you need some sleep, boss,” she said airily: “I’ll handle things here.”

The younger twin signed something at her, probably a question to make sure she was certain about that, if she didn’t need any help at all; she waved back at him as if to shove away his worries and replied silently with a formal salute - two fingers leaving the brim of her cap and a squinty-eyed smile. Mawile chirped her own goodnight to them from her shoulder when Ingo waved, jaws snapping merrily as the two men departed.

Golden lights had dimmed to dirty silver in the rest of the station to match the eerie silence dripping from the walls. Gone was the noise and the chaos; exiting into the night lit up by the spherical lights of the street lamps somehow felt as though they were still underground, rushing through a now spacious tunnel.

“Was it good?” Emmet asked as they walked: “Coming along?”

“In spite of how tired I am, I’d say so, yes,” Ingo nodded. “It’s been an interesting day, despite the noise. And I got to see Iris and Marshal!”

“That was a nice surprise, yep.”

“I wish you’d been able to come along too. They were so excited at the prospect of seeing both of us.”

“Were they?”

“Yes, I’ve told you. But maybe for another time.”

“Hm. Another time.”

“Oh - I saw Unova, you know? While on the train?”

“Oh?”

“Yes! I saw the fields and the mountains, the city lights - the airport at Mistralton City, even. It’s a beautiful place.”

“The airport?”

“Everywhere. The whole region.”

His brother smiled, and nodded.

They both yawned.

Good thing they still had some leftovers from yesterday. They probably wouldn’t have managed to cook on their own if they had to.

“And Briosa?” Emmet asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“Briosa. How is she. What do you think of her.”

“She’s...” several words he wasn’t sure he could have found in any dictionary come to his mind, but for the sake of being at least somewhat comprehensible he had to compromise: “A lot, to be completely honest with you. But I cannot say she wasn’t also quite kind and overall pleasant company to have.”

“She is, yup! Nice. And a handful. I’m glad.”

“Of what?”

“That she was nice. And that you enjoyed her.”

“Ah! I’m glad as well.”

The faintest buzz of electricity and metallic rattling within trash cans accompanied their silence for a while.

“That reminds me, she had a message for you.”

“A message?”

“She politely asked me to tell you that if you come to the Station tomorrow, which is your scheduled free day, she will - and I quote - fold you like a shirt and hurl you straight home through a window, frisbee-style.”

The younger wheezed.

Ingo stared at him awfully stone-faced.

“She meant it.”

“I know.”

“Do you also know I too will enforce your free day upon you?”

“I know.”

“I am serious.”

“I know.”

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #submas Ingo #submas emmet #Depot Agents #pokemon iris #pokemon marshal #briosa pokemon #mawile #emolga #random writing #IT IS DONE AT LAST. AFTER ALMOST A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #these are. exactly. 30 thousand 5 hundred words. #this ENTIRE CHAPTER. is less than 2k words away. from being the length of a 43 chapters long novel of mine. #WHAT the FUCK is it about POKEMON that does THIS to me #ALSO FINALLY HELLO BRIOSA YOUVE FINALLY BEEN INTRODUCED IN THE STORY I SPECIFICALLY CREATED YOU FOR #+ ALL the depot agents (including josh and hank (everybody forgets him)) #+ 3 spur of the moment depot agents ocs (Eloise Vip Billie) bc theres no fucking women in this station i need to fix that STAT #I AM FREEEEEEE (to start the next chapter)

[randomwriteronline]

The man is fairly pale. The dominant hue of his clothes should help giving his skin a little color through contrast and make his hair and irises stick out with their brightness, but instead he almost melts into it until he’s some amorphous blob with red or blue bits and pieces stuck in it. His general appearance isn’t quite helped by the fact that the only thing that sticks out on his face are the two purplish bags under his eyes.

“I see,” he says dryly.

Volo blinks.

“You promise?”

Volo nods.

The Subway Boss takes a big breath through his nose, stiffening his chest and rolling his shoulders back. He lets go of it with a weak exhale and drops his posture in a way that makes him seem exhausted. A hand passes over his face.

“I trust you,” he says. “Thank you.”

“I thought you would have at least punched me,” Volo confesses.

The man replies with a tired look, not smiling, not frowning either: “I’m a bit busy. I’m figuring out what I’m feeling. It’s a lot. I might want to hit you. But I’m too out of it. Wouldn’t be satisfying.”

“That’s understandable.”

Volo watches him sit down on the station bench with his face in his hands for a little while until he huffs loudly. He does not stand back up.

“I need to make two calls first.”

“Go ahead.”

-

The man is fairly wide. Which is particularly evident when one finds themself up so close to him. His head is tilted slightly to the side, citrine eyes glaring daggers: between the frankly impressive beard and the bushy eyebrows knitted together, his face has no trouble displaying the absolute furious array of thoughts he has decided not to voice aloud.

“And you trust him?”

Volo looks back at him.

“Yes,” his nephew answers.

The man hums in a way that sounds more like a growl.

Volo makes the rather educated guess that it’s less chiding some kind of naivety or excess in faith, and more quietly threatening the man not related to him.

“He’s our best option,” his nephew continues.

“I know.”

“I know it’s not smart.”

“Don’t say that. The whole situation is complicated. I understand your thinking. It’s a fair decision.”

The moment those yellow eyes shift away from the known pale face they harden again. A terracotta-colored finger the size of two of his own rises to point at Volo.

“I don’t trust you,” the man states very plainly, slowly, so that the words can sink into the blond head better. He moves his digit onto his nephew: “And if at any point in time you give him any reason not to trust you, you will be facing the consequences of that.”

Volo nods; then tries his luck: “I’d imagined you would just kill me now.”

“Not a chance,” the mayor replies instantly, as dry as his nephew. “I’m not giving you the legal upper hand.”

“A very good point.”

-

The woman is fairly tall. It is increasingly apparent as she approaches that her heels don’t actually contribute that much to her natural height, which can make a man used to being the tallest person in a room sort of dizzy when such a slender thing towers right over him. Her blue eyes are attentive as she listens to what she couldn’t be told on the Xtransceiver beside her much older fellow gym leader, black bangs hanging a little over her lashes.

She remains unreadable, stoic in her beauty. It’s a little intimidating.

It’s really intimidating.

In a way, she reminds him of Cogita.

Volo recoils only slightly when her hand smacks his cheek so weakly he barely feels a sting.

She glares at him without a word. Her eyes are humid.

“I was expecting a harder hit,” Volo says simply.

“Will that bring Ingo back faster?”

Ah.

A good argument.

“No.” Volo admits.

“Then I don’t see how that could help.”

She rubs her knuckles against her nose as she sniffles.

“If all of this turns out to be Bouffalant I am going to zap you though.”

“That’d be a fair reaction.”

It seems Volo will get out of today with his proposal accepted, two harsh warnings hissed at him, and no bruises or broken bones. All in all, this sounds to him like a complete success.

...

“You should tell Briosa,” the model notes.

Her friend leans against his uncle for support, nodding: “She’s coming.”

Volo furrows his brows. Who the hell is that? The Subway Boss did explain his relation to the two gym leaders, and they have a good reason to be worried about the missing conductor. This third person is coming completely out of nowhere. She’s never been mentioned up until now.

The door to the office opens.

“Hey,” says someone who is very short and has one arm in a Mawile’s maw.

The model and the conductor wave at her.

She points at the mayor as she approaches the four of them: “Who’s this?”

Her boss signs something Volo doesn’t understand.

A small hand grips the gym leader’s exceptionally firmly: “Hi,” she greets quickly, directing her attention to only non-Unovan present: “Who’s that?”

Her boss signs something else.

She shakes Volo’s hand: “Hello,” she repeats; after a quick check her attention turns fully to the other conductor: “Am I involved in whatever’s happening or am I just for flavoring?”

His hands move to explain what the four of them have decided to do.

“Weird, you never take vacation days.”

He lets her in on the good news.

Her face lights up: “I’m glad!” she smiles wide. “And he knows where he is?”

He tells her the full story.

“Oh!”

In the split second that takes her to exclaim that with a tone that sounds like liquefied wrath she’s thrown coat and cap off herself like it’s water sliding off a Ducklett, and before anybody can fully comprehend it she’s punched Volo straight in the stomach hard enough to make him cough out his soul while doubling over before he’s hauled over her shoulders and launched back-first to the ground, knocking the breath out of him.

She squats over his miraculously conscious body to grab him by the shirt.

“Hope you have enough funds to repay the psychological damage you caused,” she says abnormally cheerily, “Or I’ll be ripping the teeth out of your mouth with my bare hands!”

Volo retracts his previous statement.

Today can still end very badly.

A monotone chuckle has him look up in fear.

Emmet smiles softly, a little life in his half-dead eyes. He raises to his co-worker a hand with his thumb, index and pinky sticking out while middle and ring fingers retract to the palm: “I love you, man,” he says, flat voice awfully fond.

#pokémon #submas emmet #pokemon volo #pokemon drayden #pokemon elesa #briosa pokemon #random writing #fun fact: i feel like i completely failed in the intent of this fic #anyways enjoy

[randomwriteronline]

"Would you like to be made aware of an incredible biological fact," Briosa says, notably not asking.

Emmet is going through possibly the worst type of day. He has willingly constrained himself to the empty tables of the control room and to his office despite being barely of any help in either location (effectively just going back and forth between them as though he kept forgetting something he had walked in to get, trying to be useful but keeping himself very far away from anything actually important and necessary for the station to function) because he knows that any second now, something small and mildly upsetting will happen, and he knows that any second now, he's going to have a horrible, exhausting breakdown, and if he were on a train that would lead to catastrophic results. He is, very visibly, one second away from falling apart. He is not in the mood to be amused.

He nods.

"Each morning I wake up and thank every single one of my ancestors for biologically engineering me with the smallest breasts to have ever been known in the history of humankind," his brother's substitute informs him.

.

.

.

Alright.

"Everytime I lay face up it's a free mastectomy."

Emmet wheezes like he just got a punch straight to the gut. After a moment of baffled silence, he wheezes harder, leaning heavily on the table, and tries to give her a bewildered look; he fails, because he is still wheezing too much.

Sounding more and more like a large teapot left too long on the stove his knees bend slowly and he sinks to sit in his heels on the floor, forehead ruefully finding itself sliding against the metal frame of the piece of furniture as his chest spasms like something is going to leap out of it while he laughs uncontrollably. He tries to groan as his stomach starts hurting but ends up wheezing some more instead. His face is so red he looks like he's either crying his heart out or about to explode.

Briosa stares him down with a satisfied little bastard smile of hers.

#pokémon #submas emmet #briosa pokemon #random writing #i need to write more briosa and pokemon in general and i wanted to be silly so here #for those unaware a mastectomy is a breast removal #briosa doesnt need top surgery she gets it done every day by gravity

[randomwriteronline]

Briosa Crociera my FUCKING beloved

#pokémon #briosa pokemon #random draws #FUN FACT if i ever fucking get through my paralysis and finish writing that fucking chapter: this is how she looks in it! #shes not wearing a binder underneath that its just one of those loose elastic bras #small reminder bc she hasnt been seen in a while but shes a she/her trans man

[randomwriteronline]

He didn’t remember what had happened.

He didn’t remember anything aside from the sudden way the winds had picked up, from how pitch black clouds had curled around the mountain’s summit as he screamed as loud as he could, from the thousand cracks of thousand lightning bolts as he shouted to any god who might have heard him to let him go back, go home, go anywhere that might have seemed like home.

He didn’t remember anything aside from the sudden weightlessness of being in the air, clawing at it as if to ascend higher and higher like a wrathful dragon; aside from the colors mixing suddenly in a strangely quiet apocalyptic second, talking to him in a language he knew to be his birthright yet couldn’t have described to anybody; aside from responding louder, angrier instead of afraid, and being answered with a kind, gentle, sweet, understanding that chilled him to the bone.

Then he’d wriggled as though his body had been longer than it really was, and he had run, or flown, or crawled, and now he cowered alone in a cave, crying as soft as possible, convinced he’d never go home.

“Older Twin?”

Ingo turned his head, terrified, and scrambled away from the entrance.

Someone, blocking the light only partially with a small thin body draped in a robe, with black sclera and horizontal pupils, looked at him with a terrible worried love in rotten green eyes.

Someone crawled towards him, long black nails scraping the ground as lightly webbed hands and feet moved forward to reach him, necklace of dusty brown braided hair intertwined with beads dangling before hunched clavicles. The empty attush sleeve dragged on the floor, exposing a breast, and the gaze never left his face; but as much as he kept backing away into the wall, he found that he wasn’t afraid at all, that it wasn’t an alien sight at all.

Someone cupped his face in those thin webbed fingers, tenderly, gently.

Someone opened a flat charchoal black mouth upon pairs of fiersome fangs and tusks and asked him with a voice like melted down candy: “What has happened to you?”

Ingo opened his mouth - sharpened canines brushed against his azure lips - but did not manage to reply.

Someone looked him over, at his terrible clothes and his shivering frame. In a moment the pink robe was off of the skeletal body and over him, envelopping him with a well known comfort, the comfort of an Eldest Brother who laughs lazily at the troubles caused by younger siblings.

“You’re filthy,” Someone said, frowning in an angular way and curling a broken nose in disdain - not angry at him, but at who had reduced him like that.

Ingo tried speaking again, and again failed.

Someone grabbed his arms and wrapped them around her neck, making sure they were fastened tight; then she turned, letting him barely glimpse a large tattoo like the cloudy carapace of a tortoise before she hoisted him up on her back as though he were but a feather. A sweet rotten smell like fresh mud struck him, and he buried his face in his Eldest Brother’s neck, pressing hard against the strand of hair tht was both the start and the end of her necklace like a snake eating itself, and felt safe in her grip.

“Come,” Eldest Brother said, “Our siblings have looked for you everywhere.”

Ingo held on tighter.

He didn’t know whether they flew or swam, and he wasn’t sure there was a difference, when it came to Eldest Brother, who had taught them all to swim.

He didn’t know when they arrived, let alone where; but there were gasps, and a raucous sound like a choked cry, and he raised his eyes from Eldest Brother’s neck as she carefully set his feet down.

The man who looked like him stared back at him with triangular pupils in vermillion scleras.

The woman’s lips were pure white, the dark tattoo on and around them taking an almost smiling shape as her mouth hung open and her eyes grew humid.

“Older Twin,” Eldest Sister only managed to say before she began crying quietly.

Younger Twin said nothing, and charged to hold him in his arms.

Ingo held him back.

Then he whined.

He whined, and whined, and whined louder, louder, louder, until he was sobbing so much that Eldest Sister had to hold both him and Younger Twin upright, or they would have collapsed and hurt themselves.

“You’re filthy,” he heard her say, and felt something rough and gentle brush him, like the tongue of a tiger taking care of her younger sibling.

Something picking at him, like a bird’s beak, preening silently, was too much.

Thundurus curled on Enamorus’ back, crying in relief, as Tornadus laid next to him sobbing as well, while Landorus held her poor brothers in her strong arms.

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #submas ingo #submas emmet #pokemon elesa #enamorus #thundurus #tornadus #landorus #random writing #briosa pokemon #:) and now i think the au abt the vessels of the forces of nature has been SLIGHTLY cleared up #anyways nobody will give a shit abt this but HAVE AT THEE

[randomwriteronline]

Terusho joined the Survey Corps because the Professor caught them trying to figure out how to use his photocamera.

They had started out as an apprentice of the Manufacture Corps, and had gone to the ground floor offices to ask for something they had forgotten. The strange abandoned gadget had captured their attention.

It wasn't a punishment, truly - the Professor had been ecstatic to see someone interested in the technology and willing to learn how to use it. He had managed to rope Dagero into teaching them the basics and encouraged them to take pictures of Jubilife Village to practice and document its development.

So for a while, Terusho was 'the One-Eye Kid'. Wandering the world with only one eye opened behind mechanical lenses.

They took photos of buildings at first, then of people: the first ones were average at best, but that was to be expected. One day they took a marvelous one of Colza, and they blushed deeply at the praise it received.

The Professor had a lot of film for his camera, because he wanted to take pictures of Pokémon while he studied them; so one day, even though they were terrified and their legs trembled, Terusho followed him out to the Fieldlands to photograph a few of the mysterious creatures as he wrote down their behaviors from a safe distance.

As nerve wrecking as it had been, they had both returned to Jubilife safe, sound and satisfied with the day's research. The Professor was very enthusiastic about their improvement in photography, and especially complimented their pictures of a Shinx yawning and of a Starly caught in the middle of its first flight.

That was all it took them to become 'the Professor's assistant'.

Terusho wishes they would not have to go around catching and battling Pokémon as Survey Corps duty, that they do.

They're not good at either, basically a lost cause: how can you take on something that makes your blood freeze solid, and having to rely on one of its horrifying kind to booth?

They'd rather spend hours making all sorts of Pokéball for Choy to sell. They are good at that.

So while it is a little embarassing to be outclassed by an 8-year-old, they aren’t exactly complaining when AkaRei excitedly takes over the most perilous part of the Survey Corps gig, leaving their senior to just craft items they might need - because they are too young to properly grind medicinal leeks and Oran berries into potions, let alone carefully cut and carve an Apricorn to turn it into a functioning capsule.

One of the strange and good things about AkaRei is that they love to catch Pokémon: they love to complete the Pokédex pages, and they love to hear the Professor talk about Pokémon.

Being only able to carry six of them, this means that there are plenty docile specimens sitting around in the pastures - perfect for one to make a small collection of up close and personal pictures that Terusho would otherwise be too scared to even just try and attempt to take.

Terusho takes AkaRei’s second photograph in Hisui (the first one was taken by the Professor, of course): they have just gotten Lord Wyrdeer’s approval and promised aid. They look so small, sat upon the imposing creature’s back, little hands lost in the white beard; they smile brightly as they nuzzle the Lord’s neck.

It comes out beautifully.

AkaRei always smiles when told they are having a picture of them taken. They also sometimes say “cheese!” for no reason. It’s very curious.

Mr. Emmet of the Survey Corps also smiles wider when he notices Terusho is photographing him: he tips his hat, as if to get in a pose of sorts, like he’s used to it. He is surprisingly photogenic, too. He has a special look to him on account of his... Well... His entire face, really.

White of hair and eyes despite not being that old (as far as anybody knows), skin so pale that if he stood in the sun a minute too long he would turn completely red, a long straight nose that jumps out of his profile whenever he turns to the side. He has a certain piercing glare and frozen smile that make him seem unpercievable, yet curious.

(In the photograph of him and AkaRei to celebrate the quelling of Lord Kleavor, despite being forced on the ground by the aching in his bad leg, with that toothy grin and his eyes almost squeezed shut as he raises the triumphant kid's hand in the air declaring them the winner of the battle as if he’d been a mere a spectator and not a helper in it, he looks so friendly.)

It starts only with him, and then it snowballs: Terusho begins stealing secretive photos of the people around them.

It’s by no means new - this is what they do with wild Pokémon. They sneak about with their mechanical eye in hand and snap! A photo is taken without anybody noticing.

But with people it’s different, they think.

Sometimes there’s an expression that paints a face in a special way, and so they scramble silently to capture it before it disappears. Sometimes it’s just a certain way of being, repeated day after day, that when looked at from a slightly different angle turns it into a gorgeous scene.

The Professor stretching after a long day or the Captain resting her eyes a moment as she lays back in her chair. Captain Zisu crouching while she warms up. Beni making mochi batter. The Commander meditating. The Ginko merchants setting up and tucking away their caravan.

The Clans going about their lives.

Their first visit in the Diamond settlement was a year ago, actually - and they were nervous as all get-out about going around with a photocamera, eyed with at best an intense suspicion.

They had not at all expected for the quiet lady to ask for a picture - to be honest, there were so many thing they had not expected, like her apparent recognition of the gadget and quick approach of them with a shine in her eyes as soon as they had met her gaze, let alone for her to very enthusiastically invite them amidst her people's confusion to take a photo, even striking a bit of a pose. It did certainly ease her clansmen about the strange contraption enough for some to accept having pictures taken of them.

Miss Elesa seems to appear breathtakingly beautiful in every one of her photos, and Terusho is just an amateur. Who knows how heightened the effect might be if they were done by a professional.

(Even in the one where she is being helped back down from Lilligant’s arena, tired and pained and so unable to stand on her legs that she is only able to leave because AkaRei carries her on top of Ursaluna, she still flashes the lenses a genial, genuine smile by the child’s side. Her expression makes her eyes too small and her face too round - and yet she is still so pretty.)

They don’t need to hide that they’re taking pictures with her: she is always glad to be their subject or show off some clothing.

Terusho’s parents used to be weavers, working close with Anthe’s family (their child moved to Jubilife with her after all, as if she were their aunt), and when they were little they used to comb through wool and fur and fibers of all sorts to help around, watching as they were turned to vests and robes and coats. They were never too good in that trade - their hands were clumsy with needles and too heavy on the scissors - but they had remained fascinated with handywork all the same, with the ways one could spin thread to sew clothes, carve wood to make tools, melt ore to fabricate blades, mush herbs to produce medicine.

The guildsmen know how to make all sorts of things, of course. They learn quickly too, to the point where Choy jokes that they’ll put Anvin out of work with all the potions they learned to make from him. Not like they didn’t have their own recipies for that sort of thing - but many of the ones for Pokémon had gone lost in a very long oral tradition, as it happens sometimes.

But most of that knowledge is safe, and while not necessarily eager to share it they don’t mind it being documented in pictures if asked politely.

And Terusho is a very polite kid.

They have a way of singing that doesn’t sound like anything else, and they’re very good at making textiles and fabrics and ropes on their long journeys across Hisui, and wooden utensils: they’re great carvers. Must be why their pipes are so... Elegant, for lack of a better word.

Mr. Briosa always plucks hers from her mouth and snuffs it out when she sees kids around her - though once she didn’t notice Terusho in time, and they managed to snap a photo that they think is lovely.

From what they’ve heard she must know a lot about cooking, but they can’t really say they know a lot about her. They know more things about Volo, whom she always hangs around for some reason - probably to pull him along when he starts getting sidetracked while asking a million questions and such, and he said once half-jokingly that he lets her stick to him only because she can make a mean fried Barboach - and Volo is a secretive person himself.

(The closest they’ve ever come to her in a non-commercial context was after AkaRei had handled Lord Arcanine, on the shore of Firespit Island. They took a photo while she was tending to a big burn on the child’s arm: her mouth was perfectly flat, and her eyes wide, like she didn’t expect that. They can still hear her yelling in another language what was unequivocably a swear right after.)

They do know she can throw Volo, who is much taller than her. So. That is certainly something to remember.

Something else they need to remember - the Nobles. They need pictures of them, too.

...To be honest, Terusho doesn’t think they could ever approach any of the Nobles without their wardens around them. Actually, they feel safest when AkaRei is there, rolling around and throwing treats at them in a safer version of the frienzied trials the commander imposed on the kid as if to beat some record.

It’s only partially a matter of fear, though for Terusho that’s obviously the main point; but ignoring the natural scare factor, the main obstacle has more of a religious root. Rather understandably, considering they are holy descendants of blessed beasts, the Pokémon’s wardens are less than keen on having just any stranger come waving some strange device to make sounds and flashes at them for what seems like no good reason. The opinion of the Nobles regarding the camera are also something to take into consideration - some seem curious, others look at it with suspicion; some remain completely neutral to it, or might get frightened once it’s properly in motion.

The wardens tend to relent once informed that the purpose is only documentative, and that it won’t hurt them nor their wards. They still discuss with the Pokémon first, and only officially agree once they’re on board as well.

Terusho likes to photograph both the Nobles and their humans together. On one hand, it serves to show the unusual size of the creatures when compared to others of their own kind, though that’s usually achieved much more easily by putting them side-by-side with specimens grown or caught by AkaRei; on the other, it documents the wardens, their existence, their work. Terusho asks often if they’re allowed to take pictures of how they care for the Nobles, and notes if they’re permitted: this is also part of the research after all, isn’t it? For the betterment of relationships between Humans and Pokémon, one must know how to care for them, no?

Warden Ingo is often happy to dispense his more practical wisdom, if not to just invite them to come with him in Sneasler’s den to show them examples of what he’s talking about. Where others are skittish or focus their explanations on only a few things, he enjoys talking at length and very precisely about every aspect of caring for his ward or her kits - and his own team, too.

His face was awfully familiar when they first met him, what with that long straight nose, those piercing white eyes, the snowy hair, the squalid skin, something in the sharp angles of his mouth. They feel terribly silly for not piecing it all together sooner, but in their defense, neither had anybody else, it seems.

(The photograph Terusho took after his and AkaRei’s succesful quelling of Lord Electrode is gloomier than the other ones. It’s not a matter of lighting, nor because of the warden’s constant frown; it’s the kid’s furrowed expression despite a weak smile, and the bandages being wrapped around them. He made them laugh afterwards, though: so Terusho thinks of that instead.)

Ever since he started spending a lot of time in the training grounds of Jubilife, he’s been eager to explain battle strategies as well, to both them and Zisu, and a few of the Security Corps. They don’t really understand what half of the things he says mean, but they appreciate the effort and enthusiasm.

As for Terusho specifically, they already have a tutor. That’s AkaRei.

It would be much more embarassing if the 8-year-old wasn’t one the most skilled battlers in Jubilife, and also the only one who can explain battles simply enough for someone as hopeless as the professor’s assistant.

But it’s working! Their fear has eased up considerably, Pikachu actually likes them, and they’ve even managed to evolve Mime Jr! Even the prospect of participating in excursions through the various lands of Hisui makes them excited to capture wildlife scenes instead of causing them a stomach ache for the dread and anxiety that used to overtake them. They’re still as cautious as ever, but it feels much less daunting.

The clan leaders speak to them, even. This is something they would have never expected - Terusho is nobody important, let alone someone interesting to speak to - but they come to camp from time to time and greet them politely, asking news from Jubilife or wardens they’ve visited recently while the professor barely manages to tear himself away from his work enough to welcome them. The two of them even asked how the camera works, in a different occasion each - and Terusho did teach them, to the best of their abilities.

(They had to physically guide Adaman’s face closer to the device, as he kept getting further away and trying to squint into the lens, while Irida was so tense in handling the machine that her fingers jerked the focus too quickly, constantly pulling the image out of it. Their skin was rough in different ways, one dusty from remains of sunbaked muds, one harshly carved in by wind and ice, and if Terusho starts thinking about those little photography crash courses they gave them they end up spending the whole day in an embarassed daze, thinking only about their hands and faces and everything.)

(Their first photographs were of Terusho. Of all the subjects they had pointed to the two leaders, both insisted on chosing some Jubilife kid instead. Irida smiled, proud of herself, as she thanked them and apologized if it ended up all blurry despite her attempt at keeping her hand as still as possible; Adaman repeated the click with his tongue and changed pose and framing a few times, as if taking multiple pictures, and laughed sweetly at their bashfulness.)

(Terusho hadn’t had the guts to ask to take a photo of them until after Avalugg had been quelled. Hands clutched tight in AkaRei’s as the kid raised them into the air solemnly, Adaman does his best to fight the shivers that would make him a shaky mess while Irida remains unbothered by the cold. Despite wearing worried faces, they smile at the photographer: Terusho’s heart skips two beats.)

“We are zoologists, my dear!” the professor said when they first complained about the dangers of photographing wild Pokémon. “We aim to discover the secrets of mysterious and strange creatures to understand them! To better our relationship with them!”

Isn’t man too a strange, mysterious creature?

Despite all their works on human subjects, the professor has never chastised them for wasting film. Maybe he understands their fascination with mundane things - with making and washing and sewing, and living and eating and talking.

What Pokémon do - eating and flying and burning and sleeping and shocking and hovering and yawning - it must be mundane for them, too. 

Everything looks so... Weird. Behind the lenses.

The world closes in and focuses on a little piece of itself in perfect clarity. That’s the moment, the place: click! Immortalized.

All is where it should be.

Even the five of them, of all things and people, look in Hisui’s landscapes like Pokéball halves slotted together in a perfect fit.

They call them ‘the Misplaced’ - through time and space, and maybe even fate, why not. This is not where or when they belong, although they’ve molded themselves in the ways of the land enough to be plenty comfortable in it.

Terusho has documented gods and ghosts by now, beasts that tower over houses and others that barely reach their ankles; they’ve stuck them in photographs as they raged in battle with incredible feats of strength and mastery of the elements.

Still, they like above all to capture the subtle differences between the warden and guard while they watch a battle, to pause the forager in the perfect moment as she raises her arm in a certain graceful way, to press onto paper memory the way the merchant’s muscles carve into her skin. To catch the hero of Hisui off guard as they rub the tip of their cold red nose on the back of their hand.

They take one of the four adults as they speak to one another in the Highlands, sitting on the ground in different stances, hands flying; they call for them and they turn, and click! A smile, a frown, a small ‘o’, a perfectly flat mouth. A catalogue of human emotion in one shot.

If they were to count the ones where AkaRei joins them, it might take them a week and a half, both night and day. In part because they’d have to distinguish the from all the other ones with AkaRei, who likes to do what they call a ‘photobomb’ by jumping into frame when they see Terusho ready to take a picture, and whom the older kid likes to amuse by not telling them to move away and letting them pose.

A good number of the ones with their fellow Misplaced feature Mr. Emmet, usually with him holding them in his arms; this is because - as they themself said - he is their favorite one. (This doesn’t seem to happen often, asafter the initial surprise he moved on to bragging to his brother about this for a while.)

The picture that they’ve taken with Miss Elesa which they like the most features both of them showing the lens their tongue, noses all curled from how hard their squinting eyes are shut, index and middle fingers in the shape of a V, the child proudly displaying the badge they just earned on their kimono.

Their best one with Mr. Briosa has them in the middle of being thrown onto a futon. They’re just about to leap off of her bare shoulders and are clearly laughing madly; grinning wide, sarashi and ribs out in the open like nobody’s business, she’s clearly dosing her strength as to not hurl them in the sun.

Warden Ingo doesn’t have much luck with photos despite being as photogenic as his twin - he’s awfully embarassed by them, by his lackluster expressions. But they managed to take a lovely one during a long day, of him sprawled under a tree, the kid resting on him, the both of them snoring peacefully.

There’s a lot more, of course. But aside from a few  that migh interest future historians, and an even smaller part they gladly gift to the four adults, Terusho will probably end up keeping them for themself.

Never to be seen by anybody else. Maybe passed down in the family.

It’s not at all a bad thing.

On the last day the five spend in Hisui, because their return home has finally been granted and they want nothing more, they have two photos taken of them.

The first one has the professor behind the camera. They stand in a nice row for him just before the snowy patch of land preceding the cave that leads up to the peak of the mountain, an artful mismatch of what survived of the clothes that came with them and new garments in place of the uniforms they’ve worn for years or months, looking into the lens for a picture they can’t sign the back of and that they hope to maybe see one day, perhaps in a museum; after it’s done the kid runs into the poor man’s shins and hugs him tight, saying thank you and goodbye as he embraces them back and cries a bit.

They say their goodbyes; they go.

Terusho watches them for a while, until they seem to disappear. A knot in their throat makes their eyes prickle.

It takes a look to get the professor’s undying support as the camera gets almost shoved in their hand, and off they bolt! Their feet are cold and the tips of their socks are a little wet, and thank goodness the Electabuzzes and the Alpha Electivire have taken a vacation today so they don’t have to worry about dodging lightning strikes as they run - there they are, all set to get in the tunnel - wait, wait, hold on, just one, just-

“Hey!”

All five turn towards them.

They stop without reaching them, seeing as the Misplaced don’t continue on their path, instead waiting for them. Their heavy breaths, tired from the sprint, turn into clouds as they leave their mouth.

Terusho raises an arm and waves, smiling.

AkaRei raises both of them and waves back, smiling.

Click!

The Misplaced say one last goodbye to Hisui, arms up in the air caught mid-motion, smiling.

Terusho, professor Laventon’s assistant, the One-Eye Kid, turns around satisfied by a photo nobody will ever care for and walks back to the camp near Moonview Arena, rubbing their cold red nose against the back of their hand.

(”I know this one!” Luce tells their mother, gasping as their hand gently caresses the old glass frame that preserves one of their great-grandparent’s photos from deterioration, and recognizes first and foremost their pijama peeking through the large plush kimono they’re still not done growing into of all things: “Terusho took it right before we came back home!”)

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #professor laventon #submas emmet #pokemon elesa #submas ingo #pokemon irida #pokemon adaman #briosa pokemon #random writing #EVERYBODY GETS EEBIE DEEBIED AU ONCE MORE LADS YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY #THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO WRITE #AND IN THE END THE TRICK WAS JUST LISTENING TO Starbound OST Novakid Theme I Was The Sun (Before It Was Cool) FOR LITERAL HOURS #i have written. the entire last half of this. tonight more or less. to a WILD WESTERN SOUNDTRACK #anyways! terusho my beloved <3 #if youre wondering abt their name! its a mix of the japanese protag names! Teru (male) and Sho (female)! like AkaRei! #photography #idk how to tag this but im so happy abt it #also terusho gets a crush on adaman AND irida. 15yo bi mess for the win

[randomwriteronline]

The kid is small.

Probably eight, or nine. Somewhere between those two terminals.

He has heard of them of course - through hushed whispers between guards and villagers while the Commander and the Captain handled them.

Something about that age tells Emmet that it's not quite the right time for them to be going around the place like that, as far as he knows; then again, other regions might let children that young engage in this vague, character-shaping quest he can't quite remember the details of.

He is a foreigner, after all.

When they first arrive to the gate, he takes in just how tiny they are.

All swaddled nice and cozy in the large survey corps jacket that drowns them, with a nice red scarf stuffed into it and a hat that the Professor must have put on their little head to shelter their eyes from the sun, sitting snuggly on the handkerchief keeping their bangs out of their face.

They hold the Professor's hand tight, trying to hide behind him.

"Hello," Emmet smiles nicely at them, bowing a little. His wide hat tilts with his head: "I am Emmet. What's your name?"

They mumble something that sounds like either Okehri or Acrei.

"What a nice name." he nods honestly. He remains tilted forward a little: "I can take you wherever you like."

That's only partially a lie -- because he knows the sentence was a test to be performed in the Obsidian Fieldlands, but he could indeed easily escort them wherever they would ask - rather easily too.

After a pause, they speak a little louder: "I want to go home."

Hmmm. That might be hard.

What with having fallen from the sky and all.

He sits - with a little difficulty, due to his bad leg - on his heels.

"Do you know where it is?" he asks.

"Twinleaf," they answer.

"Do you know where Twinleaf is?"

They mumble a moment.

"Near the Lake," they reply, "The one that's... Not the cold one. Near, hm. Forest."

"Aaah," Emmet nods: "Lake Verity."

They nod back at him.

"That's a verrry dangerous place," he comments. The way he rolls his Rs makes them smile a little bit. "I can take you there! But first, you need to train hard so you can be safe. The Obsidian Fieldlands are a good place to start. The Lake is close, too. So you can still see from the shore."

That is a good enough compromise; the child nods.

"Very well!" Emmet straightens up so stiffly and suddenly that Okayri laughs a little at how cartoonish it looks, arms springing into position as they point to the horizon behind them: "All aboard!"

A hand lowers and opens for them to take: "Please do not become uncoupled from me."

The kid's hand is small and warm.

Twinleaf... What a strange feeling it gives him, to think about it as they walk to the camp. Twin leaf.

"I had a twin," he says, and doesn’t go on.

Acory hums in reply, and doesn’t go on.

Emmet is verrry grateful that they don't question his use of the past tense.

-

Mistress Calaba’s foul mood was the first thing that clued her in on something not being quite right.

The next thing was, of course, seeing those brigands trying to sneak back to their camp without noticing her, carrying around a large slab of stone.

Then there was a little kid looking very scared as the Miss Fortunes cornered them and threatened them with a three-against-one battle, and at that point Elesa had quite enough of them already.

Clover yips when a huge metal shell knocks her Abosmasnow straight out, her and Coin turning around in genuine terror as Goodra unfurls before the very mesmerized child they tried attacking; when their eyes meet Elesa’s, they struggle to regain their fiersome snarls at the positively furious glare the foreigner shoots right at them.

Charm remains collected, of course.

“You again?” she groans, annoyed.

Grabbing her younger sister’s arms, she turns Coin back to the kid: “You take care of that runt,” she orders while her Rhydon growls at the dragon: “I’ll make sure to cut down this fake diamond once and for all.”

Good luck with two Pokémon weak to Steel, Elesa quips back in her mind.

It’s not even a fair fight, honestly. It takes no time at all for her to handle the oldest, no matter how angry she might be or how loudly Clover encourages her.

More importantly, the child -- oh!

She’s rather pleasantly surprised to see Croagunk fall to the ground just before slinking back into Coin’s Pokéball.

The three brigands blabber something that frankly doesn’t matter and disappear, so livid at their defeat that they abandon their loot, and Elesa looks the little kid over to assess any kind of damage that could have been done to them.

They seem pretty alright from what she can see, if rather shaken.

She searches for a potion to help heal their partners, but they already have quite a few; she passes them instead a sweet Nanab Berry, to steady their nerves.

“Thank you,” they mumble very quietly and a little embarassed.

Their cheeks are a little red when they hide in their scarf.

She waves gently to assure them everything is alright. With a stick, she writes her name down in the soft ground for them to read.

They squeeze their eyes a little: “El- El-e-sa.”

She nods, and points at them inquisitively.

The kid gives a little ‘oh!’ and answers with a mouthful of munched berry to muffle their words: Kroei, or Akme, or Ecoli.

She still gives them a thumbs up.

Pointing at the Pokéball peeking from their bag she makes a motion with her arms, as if to say: Your team is strong!

They sway their whole body happily, flustered.

Once the berry has completely disappeared in their tummy and the shock has passed, they try to lift the slab of rock on their own; Elesa grabs it for them, holding it against her back almost without breaking a sweat, and they look at her in awe for a moment, mouth agape.

She tilts her head, nodding towards it a little: What now?

They point to the other shore: “It’s for the old lady,” they explain.

Ah, that makes sense. No wonder the warden was so upset today...

Following their lead, Elesa glaldy helps them take the slab back to where it rightfully belongs.

She finds herself sad that the kid is so young.

They can’t challenge her yet.

-

Old man Ginter told her to keep an eye on Volo.

Because he’s afraid that boy will end up killing himself one day, through one mean or the other.

The weird lady who lives alone in the middle of nowhere and dresses like some kind of mistress of the night style sorceress also asked the same of her, for the same reason.

It’s not exactly like her job (what was her job?) but if it’s for the safety of a passenger she can juggle aggressively selling goods to anybody she meets and keeping an eye on the young man entrusted in her care like a Staraptor waiting for the right moment to snatch a Buneary.

The main problem with that is that Volo himself hates being followed.

Ironic! As he constantly follows others and pesters them.

Including a baby now, apparently.

Briosa doesn’t scream at him to get his ass back down to her if he isn’t going to be selling anything to trembling brick of a man who lives in the dark blue tent at first, when she sees him on top of a hill with a toddler-sixed unit made up entirely of what she can only assume is sweat and dehydration, because the sun is shining hard enough to split rocks in two and this kid is over here bundled up in Bibarel fur with a hat which she imagines is made of felt or some other extremely not good material to be wearing in this weather.

“VOLO,” she finally shouts, making him jump six feet in the air.

The kid turns too, not as scared as they could be. If Volo is constantly around them, they might know her by voice.

“ARE YOU SELLING THEM THINGS?” she asks him.

He takes a very deep breath and shakes his head.

“ASK THEM IF THEY HAVE SNACKS,” she keeps yelling from the foot of the hill, disturbing Aipoms and Wormadams without a care. “KIDS ALWAYS GOTTA HAVE SOME SNACKS ON THEM. FOR ENERGY. HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU HAVE, KID? SHOW WITH YOUR HANDS.”

The child pulls back their enormous sleeves; they fall back on their hands. Volo helps them roll them up, they and start opening and closing their fists.

Ten, twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty, six seven eight nine hundred ten two three four fivesixseveinine two hun onetootreefofisiseveini three hun-

“DO YOU HAVE MORE THAT A THOUSAND?” she asks to speed things up.

The kid nods.

“SELL ‘EM RICE CAKES FOR SIXTY-FIVE EACH,” she instructs Volo, “THAT’S A GOOD PRICE FOR A BABY. SELL ‘EM LIKE FIVE. I HAVE BERRIES TOO, YOU WANT BERRIES? I GOT NANAB.”

The kid shakes their head. Then thinks about it; puts their hands around their mouth to shout back at her.

“I’M DEAF,” Briosa yells. “I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING.”

The child motions for her to come closer: she does, and they sign, Oran?

Holy shit, Briosa thinks as she gives them thumbs up and begins searching for oran berries in her backpack, this kid signs, that’s fantastic. She introduces herself and asks for their name with her free hand: they’re not that good at spelling, so what comes out is something that could be anything between Nroki, Ankara, and Ray. Good enough.

She points at Volo: “He follows you around?” (she can see him mouth hey! rather piqued).

The child nods (another hey!, a little less venomous).

“If he’s always around you, teach him sign language sometimes,” she tells them as she watches them make a few potions for the road: “It gets boring with no one to talk to and I’m too busy to do it myself.”

They sort of giggle behind their scarf.

By the by, why does he bother you?, she asks.

They answer with a single sign. Then they note: Was telling something. Can continue? I was curious.

With Briosa’s approval as she wordlessly convinces the kid to at least lose the heavy jacket in the warm climate, the Gingko merchant manages to get back on his train of thought (whatever a train is) and continue on rambling about who knows what with a sweet smile and dulcet tones.

At least, she imagines his words are spoken nice and saccharine, because that’s how his face looks like.

The kid at least seems interested in his spiel.

Both watch the child while they head out to the hand of the coast once they’re done getting their ears chewed by the merchant’s ramblings.

“So,” she says and signs at her ward. “Plates, huh?”

Volo jolts, surprised, as if he was caught doing something bad; in a moment he is back to waving a hand dismissively with a huff, and starts going down the hill.

Briosa looks back at the kid before following her ward.

A minor shouldn’t be boarding such a ride alone.

She’ll keep an eye out for them, too.

-

He reasoned that going was only the polite thing to do.

Granted, he had a bit of trouble following the Commander’s words, what with the lingering drowsiness and the slow spacing out blocking his words - but he understood the assignement well enough.

And besides, getting to go to this settlement the news of which had greatly intrigued him and meeting the person doing so much good for the Nobles?

He’ll gladly go wake up someone so kind.

When the door opens, though, Ingo is immediately puzzled.

This... Is a child.

He waits a moment to take in just how tiny they are.

All swaddled nice and cozy in the large survey corps jacket that drowns them, with a nice red scarf stuffed into it and a hat still in their hands that they quickly put on their little head to shelter their eyes from the sun, sitting snuggly on the handkerchief keeping their bangs out of their face.

How have they dealt with the Nobles, exactly?

Perhaps talks of battling were imagined; since they belong to the survey corps, they might have found a safer alterative method, or simply distracted the struggling Pokémon with a calming gadget and sat on the sidelines, observing their behaviour and taking notes until the frenzy finally passed.

“Good morning, young one who came from the sky!” he bellows anyways, politely. “Commander Kamado told me to let you know he awaits your arrival in his office.”

The strength of his voice wakes them up fully.

And their eyes light up.

That... Is new.

Usually, people aren’t very keen on his yelling.

Miss Irida and a member of the security corps fill him in on their situation a bit more properly while the Commander and the child talk - about how they fell from the sky like him, and how they’ve latched themself to the Professor and his young assistant like glue. Something sticks out to him in particular: that they were apparently greatly saddened by a small announcement they received yesterday, regarding a chaperone.

Seeing as they are so young...

He waits patiently for Miss Irida to introduce him, to explain his role and their similarities. He hopes the lack of a smile doesn’t put them off when they turn their big black eyes to look at him.

“I apologize, I don’t believe I’ve caught your name,” he says.

Their reply is muffled by their scarf: what comes out could be Raise, Eh, or maybe even Armory.

“What a nice name.” he nods honestly. He pinches the brim of his cap between index and thumb to tip it at them, which makes them grin: “To reach Electrode, you will need the help of Lady Sneasler - though I’m rather certain she will be glad to lend you her claws since you’ve proved yourself to be so kind and helpful to her fellow Nobles. More importantly, I’ve been told your usual conductor is unfortunately unavailable at the moment, which has rather upset you.”

They nod deeply, importantly. Like they know Ingo perfectly understands how sad that makes them.

“I am aware it would be a momentary replacement, but if you would allow me I’d be more than glad to escort you and the Professor to the Highlands myself.”

The way up the mountain is rather dangerous after all, and he would feel much calmer having undeniable proof that such a young passenger arrived at their destination safe and sound.

Seeing as the child wastes no time seizing his free hand and beams up at him with unbound excitement and a smile as big as the moon, they like the idea.

He just didn’t really expect them to pull him to go so quickly

“Oh - very well!” he exclaims, his back fixing upright with a loud pop as his free palm extends to point at the gate he can see at the other end of the village, legs all straightened out in a long step as the child giggles and drags him away under Irida’s amused gaze: “All aboard!”

Their little legs can’t sprint too far.

By the time everybody’s on the way, they are tired of running already; they still hold him in their little warm palm, scampering by his side, happy as can be.

“You look a lot like him,” they say suddenly.

“Like your chaperone?” he asks.

They hum affirmatively.

Ah, Ingo nods: “It’s the sideburns, is it not?”

They laugh. It makes him almost smile.

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #submas emmet #pokemon elesa #briosa pokemon #submas ingo #pokemon charm #pokemon clover #pokemon coin #pokemon volo #random writing #back at it again with the everybody gets eebie deebied au! meeting the kid #who ive decided to make younger for funsies #emmet has a deep sadness inside him and ingo is zoning out to keep sane #meanwhile elesa kicks ass and briosa is iscans new nightmare #also its not particularly clear here but ingo has. no clue that the kid actively fights the nobles #otherwise hed be shitting his pants for them and filing a formal complaint against kamado

[randomwriteronline]

The girl old man Ginter has stuck to his side does not listen to him.

Correction: the boy Ginter has stuck to his side does not listen to him.

Correction: the man Ginter has stuck to his side does not listen to him.

Correction: he does not listen to anyone.

Correction: she does not listen to anyone.

Correction: she does not hear.

It takes some trial and error to properly figure everything out, including the stranger’s name, spelled out in strange finger gestures and a loud thrilling voice: Briosa.

Volo dislikes Briosa.

She is precise, she is efficient. She does her job without even questioning why, where, when, how, who, or what. She gets her supplies and chases down potential costumers, gets them in a corner, screams about ingredients at them until they cave in and buy something; then she grows completely quiet, grabs him, and proceeds onwards like a Rapidash on a mission. She follows him impatiently on his detours searching for plates, smacks his hand off of her when he touches her, shrugs when he manages to convey a question in her direction.

She knows nothing, and she never speaks.

In short, she makes for terrible company.

At the very least the guild cannot fault him for slacking off anymore. If there’s something she never stops doing, that’s working.

And fiddling with her hat.

Her not-Ginko issued hat.

She outright refuses to be parted with it, and Volo won’t be the one incurring into her wrath trying to get it off her head. Another merchant already broke a wrist like that; he won’t be her second victim.

(In truth, he won’t be her fourth victim.

Little warden Sabi was already frightened to death when Briosa promised to eat Lord Braviary whole upon finding out the Noble was a Psychic type; warden Gaeric, on the other hand, would have very likely died in the topless hand-to-hand fight which followed the man refusing to put on a shirt to ‘COVER THEM UP, SLUT’ as she had ordered. His only saving grace had been a bout of some illness that had her gasping for breath until she downed the strongest potion in her backpack.

She had then turned around and called him a slut boy, saying he wasn’t shit and she was going to get him eventually.

She and Volo are now indefinitely banned from the Icelands.)

The shape of her headgear is strangely familiar; Volo realizes where exactly he has seen it before when they meet the foreigner warden of the Coronet Highlands, and he notices they both wear the same exact design. The white haired amnesiac (he too can’t help him on his quest to learn more about the true Almighty Sinnoh, and so Volo resents him ever so slightly) buys some simple rice cakes from her while she stares right in his face, her mouth wide and pressed into a perfectly straight line as always, expression unreadable.

Then the strangest thing happens: she parts her lips and tells him: “You speak very loudly, don’t you!”

And even weirder is - she’s perfectly right.

She explains to Ingo that the trick is lip reading -- that she can tell because he opens his mouth so wide and takes so long to finish his words, and she does that too. She spends a little more time telling him of another example (of how she can tell ‘very’ from ‘verrry’ by the stall and puckering of the mouth) which both taller men listen to with remarkable interest before both merchants decide it’s time to part from the warden.

Briosa stares at Ingo for a while longer as he walks away.

“He’s a bit wrong,” she remarks.

Volo gives her a look and mouths, as clearly as he can: “How so?”

She shrugs: “He looks wrong.” she just repeats.

That’s the first proper conversation they have with each other.

The closest they’ve had to one before was when she instinctively caught a Buneary. It had taken three Pokéball in quick succession (she had gotten them on a quick visit to Jubilife Village), thrown with terrifying precision each time the previous one failed until the little thing finally stayed put; she had grinned, all teeth and inexplicably menacing eyes, and she had chirped, beyond joyful: “Did you know that nothing on this green Earth will ever hate me half as passionately as the little bitch in this ball?”

Volo had shaken his head, vaguely concerned; she had just widened her god-awful smile and laughed: “I love him so much.”

That Buneary is a Lopunny twice her size now. And with it there’s a Drapion, and a Walrein. All huge, all terrifying, all very much loving their obnoxious and violent little bastard of a partner as much as she clearly adores them.

Briosa is good at battling. A natural.

An expert.

Volo wonders where he might have pulled her from.

-

The woman kicked a Stunky.

She kicked. A Stunky.

Across the damned swamps.

Made the damned thing fly.

Because it bit her.

This is what they finally gather once she wakes up once cured from the poison at last because nobody believes the account from the one who saved her and who swears to have seen her do something so dangerous and brave and careless and exhilaratingly unheard of, through a few rounds of rather hard but not impossible charades - because the woman doesn’t speak, for one reason or another. She makes very clear gestures with her hands, gestures that must have meanings, but that none of them can understand.

Either way, she is fearless. Kicking a Stunky, and that hard, to retaliate a bite! Around an Skuntank, no less! And such nonchalance with it too!

That is what Adaman tells her once he learns of her misadventure, genuinely impressed, and she just waves her hand dismissively. She has faced worse, then, apparently...

Insanity: that must be what she has.

But she is also polite, and very beautiful, and very foreign for certain.

Whatever dress she had when she came, it’s unusable now, the materials composing it ruined beyond recognition, and her slippers fell off her feet as she stumbled about in a poisoned stupor - but her coat is mostly safe, voluminous and airy, a vibrant yellow, much softer and much warmer than Bibarel fur. Around her throat dangles a strange necklace, a sort of metal cable with iron shells at its ends, their insides soft. It’s unlike anything any of them have ever seen, and she herself doesn’t know what such a strange piece of jewelry might mean, but it is assumed it’s likely the gift of a lover (if anything to make sure nobody bothers her too much, since - again - she is very beautiful, and some people are awfully bothersome with lovely individuals who do not talk).

Mai teaches her the alphabet, as she does know how to write, but only with symbols that are absolutely incomprehensible. At last, she can introduce herself to the Diamond Clan.

Her name is Elesa.

She does not know where she comes from.

All the children are scared of her a little, because she always fights with Pokémon who bother her when she goes gathering supplies through the Mirelands (and since she always comes back, she always wins); she uses this to her advantage to make sure they don’t cause trouble.

Not that they don’t have reason to fear her. They can see it throught the uniform - she could crack a wooden branch with a flex of her back.

That’s why she’s the unofficial guard of the settlement.

Arezu likes her a lot, since the woman seems to enjoy dressing up and modifying clothes, and letting the warden change her hairstyle as she pleases.

She picks up embroidery, she picks up sewing; makes herself shirts and jackets and dresses for the fun of it, tries to piece together jewelry of some kind. She has no use for any of this, knee deep in the mud as she usually is, so she gives it all away to the other women and men of the settlement - she even gives some to ancient warden Calaba, uncaring of the fact that the venerably old woman also spends her days in dirty waters, or that she is of the Pearl clan; she spends quite some time with her, in truth, comfortable silence rippling through them as they sternly smack Hippodowns trying to nibble at the Sootfoot Roots they have worked hard to pick from the earth.

She knows how to use a Pokéball, too. The first Pokémon she tames is a Sligoo, then a Petilil, then an Ursaring: by the time they’re all fully evolved, they’re almost as tall as her - which is certainly a feat, because she’s really tall. That’s also when she stops kicking and brawling with the pests picking a fight with her, knocking them out instead with her partners.

She’s a natural! She insists Adaman should train his Leafeon with her, even though she’s way out of his league in terms of strength. A few still try to take on her challenge, especially kids: when she lets them win she gives them little tokens that she carves out of stones, to congratulate them.

(It’s a habit of hers, it seems. One from before.

Before when? It’s very unclear.

She makes a lot of them, as if she is expecting many challengers to come through to fight her. She must have lived in a very animated, very dangerous place; that’s why she’s so fearless.)

They don’t make Pokéball in the Diamond settlement; she gets her own from a pair of wandering merchants of the Ginko guild, an awfully curious man and a shouting little thing who terrorizes half the settlement.

She hears the menace loud and clear, and when she’s in front of her she doesn’t think and signs on instinct, asking what the wares may be.

And the little thing shuts up in an instant -- and signs back.

They have a good conversation, in perfect silence, about prices and what to buy; they snicker when the merchant’s peer asks what they are talking about and sign quicker, keeping him out of their discussion about how weird he is.

My name is Elesa, she finally introduces herself.

The other replies with a slew of letters shaped by only three fingers - at least, those seem to be letters, but she can’t understand them, and she mouths what?

“Oh!” the merchant shouts then, with eyes huge: “You speak!”

They stare into each other for a moment.

This has happened before, Elesa signs slowly.

Briosa (as she learns the little thing is named after the shock of deja-vù expires) nods, mouth a perfectly straight line: I think so.

That’s the last time she has a proper conversation with someone.

The little shouting merchant hasn’t come back in a long while. She carves another little badge out of reddish and blueish stone, planning to ask her for a match if she ever shows up again.

Elesa can’t shake an incomplete feeling of familiarity.

-

His name is Emmet. That much he does remember.

He also remembers that he has a brother.

An older brother. A dear older brother.

Not what he looks like, or what his name is - but that’s a start.

Peselle thinks that one of these days she will have to chain him to the bed before he ends up breaking his leg (already martoriated with bites and punctures and bloodloss) by insisting on dragging himself to Prelude Beach every time he can, whether near literally crawling or misusing the crutch she uncautiosly provided him with, asking the security corps if they’ve found his brother yet.

That’s all he cares about: if they’ve found his brother yet.

He tells them to look a little further on the cliffs, or on any other shore.

At last, one day, after hefting him up in her arms and gently carrying him right back on the bed, Zisu sits next to him and tells him she needs to know a couple of very important things from him.

She asks him, firstly, if he remembers if his brother wore clothes similar to his.

His head lolls a little: yes, he concludes, he must have. They always dressed similarly. Verrry similarly - and he rolls his Rs.

She asks him then if he remembers if his brother was with him, before they found him on Prelude Beach.

He admits he doesn’t know. But it’s very likely that he was - he and his brother are always together, inseparable. They are a... And his gaze unfocuses for a moment. They are a... He struggles a moment, wordlessly, before he at last shakes his head -- he doesn’t remember the right figure of speech, but the point remains: they are two things that go together, always. They are always together.

He doesn’t understand why Zisu seems heartbroken at that.

But she explains.

She explains that they have searched for the shipwreck from which he most definitely came (because nobody simply appears in the middle of the ocean from nowhere and starts drowning), but haven’t found any trace of it, which means that it has sunk completely - if not immediately then slowly, in the passing days. She explains that no other person was found, and that when he was rescued they had to let his heavy coat be lost to the depths or it would have dragged him along with it.

She explains that he is the only survivor of that tragedy, and that his brother likely did not have anybody to lessen the weight soaked on his back, nor the stamina to swim to shore or fight against the Pokémon circling around him.

She explains that his brother died at sea.

Emmet stares at her.

And he cries.

Like a child, with big tears and no sound at all; she just rubs circles on his back as that strained smile he hasn’t been able to wipe off his own face disappears and he remains still and quiet on the bed where Peselle finally can finish mending his wounds until he is fully able to stand again, if with a little help from a crutch or a cane sometimes, when he puts too much strain on his leg, and by that time he has somewhat worked through his all-consuming grief.

He has legs now, but nowhere to go; he is welcome to stay in the village, but he must make himself useful like everybody else.

So he chooses to train with Zisu, to join the security corps.

His zeal to ensure safety can’t exactly make up for the weakness of his body, but he insists, and he insists, and he insists. The others are worried -- wouldn’t you prefer something simpler, like helping the professor, or Tao Hua? You are still frail - maybe you can ask Beni to work at the Wallflower, or Dagero at the photography studio? No; he insists, and he insists, and he insists.

After the fifteenth time she knocks him over on the tatami, Zisu has to ask him, leaning over his face to assess if she’s hurt him badly in some way: “Don’t you get tired of this?”

He shrugs, struggles to pull himself up, accepts her helping hand: “What I do. What I say.” he replies: “Always the same.”

What he lacks in physical strength he makes up for (much to Kamado’s suspicion and chagrin) with his prowess at handling Pokémon. His first outing in the Fieldlands ends with three of them being in his care, a fourth one acquired already on his second patrol. Then all of a sudden he returns to Jubilife, and along with a Staraptor, a Bibarel and Luxray he introduces his fellow security corps to his very own Wyrdeer.

The clans are so shocked that neither have the strength to consider blasphemy.

The commander orders Zisu to keep a leash on that boy, watch him closely - have him stop wandering about, especially when he joins the professor’s expeditions. Emmet is perfectly fine with his limitations.

Safety first, always.

Phrases like that are all he has left of his previous life, together with some sort of commemorative coin, blue and white and with a strange pattern, which he held onto even as he was drowning. Dear old Lucille has kindly made it into a charm for him, once she noticed how devotedly he would hold it -- a charm against homesickness, which wrecks him so.

Emmet holds it around his neck, under his jacket, close to his heart.

It works only a little bit.

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon volo #pokemon elesa #submas emmet #pokemon ginter #submas ingo #pokemon adaman #warden mai #warden arezu #warden calaba #pokemon peselle #pokemon zisu #commander kamado #briosa pokemon #random writing #ive dubbed this au Everybody Gets Eebie Deebied #basically elesa and emmet and briosa (an oc) all get thrown in hisui and get some nice amnesia as a bonus #warden gaeric #warden sabi #woooops forgot to tag those two

[randomwriteronline]

"Do you have rice at home?"

What a weird question. Emmet turned to Briosa and nodded, an eyebrow crooked up to make a confused expression.

Why?, he signed.

She shrugged over the back of her seat: "You know," she replied vaguely, not answering, and added: "Do you have butter, shredded cheese?"

Emmet nodded again, more puzzled.

"Mushrooms?"

He shook his head. She clicked her tongue.

"Zucchini?"

That he did have, yes.

Briosa hummed loudly.

"Do you have broth cubes?" she asked. Her hand rose from beneath her chin and made a gesture as if holding something small between her index and thumb: "Like the uh, the ones that you put in boiling water and it makes stock broth?"

Did he have those?

He shook his head, struggling to find the right signs: Broth... Powder.

"Oh, that's still fine."

You... Need? Thing?, he asked. The vagueness was tiring him out more than the already long day had.

Briosa hummed for a long while.

"Are you hungry?" she didn't answer.

Emmet raised a hand to give an exhausted half-half gesture.

"Same," she replied - which was strange, because according to Briosa she was never hungry. She turned off the last computer still on: "Let's go."

Home sounded awful. Home sounded empty and soulless. Home sounded like Crustle yelling because he had missed feeding time by 1 minute and already trying to rip open the food cabinet to forcefully get his supper like a big cement baby, and that did make him chuckle a little and give him the strength to be on his way.

His head pulsed a bit. Mawile must have been as tired as him, because Briosa held her in her arms like a little kid as they walked down the street at a pace that was clearly not up to the shorter man's standards.

Emmet yawned. Goodness. So tired.

Briosa skipped a little at his side.

"There's some foods you absolutely cannot eat at dinner," she began unprompted, but her squeaky voice was a welcome distraction from the noisy quiet, "Not because there's some actual rule - technically there is but I call bullshit on that, it's all food - but because they're so heavy on the stomach that if you do eat them you'll be dreaming of green Raticate and pink Donphants like you got five shots of ketamine before bed."

His head snapped to face her with eyes wide from vague concern.

"I don't actually know if that's what ketamine does, I've never had it," she added, oblivious to his look.

"That's not how you pronounce that," Emmet managed to deadpan.

Mawile translated him sleepily.

Briosa turned to face him, the corners of her otherwise perfectly straight mouth pointed downwards and her forehead creased in puzzlement: "Pronounce what?"

"Ketamine," he replied - the last syllable making a 'meen' sound.

"Ketamine?" she repeated - the last sillable making a 'mine' sound, like the possessive pronoun or the place where miners work.

"Keh-tah-meen," he sounded out carefully so that she could easily read his lips.

Her brows furrowed over her crooked nose: "Ketameen?" she said correctly with a tinge of disgust. Being treated with a nod, she scoffed: "That sounds stupid. It's not a 'meen'-ending word, it sounds too stupid. It could be if it ended in 'a' but otherwise it sounds way too silly for me. I'm gonna keep calling it ketamine."

"That's wrong."

"Well, it sounds better."

Whatever makes her happy.

Emmet blinked heavily.

"Why are we talking about ketamine?" he muttered. The streetlights were too bright.

"We aren't," Briosa replied as soon as Mawile had translated him in sign. "I'm just trying to keep you awake and you derailed the conversation with what is the right way to pronounce ketamine."

"I am awake," he mumbled back.

"Are you?"

He showed her his tongue - immediately covering it with his hand. An awfully unprofessional thing to do: Briosa wasn't Elesa, even though her name ended with the same syllable, and as far as he knew they weren't quite considerable friends.

How had he even thought of confusing them enough for a mistake in etiquette like that? They were nothing alike, in looks and sound.

The substitute didn’t seem that bothered, proceding without a care: “Is it ok if I ask you for some food for my lads while I’m at yours? I’ll pay you back. It’s just because otherwise they’re gonna eat at 2 AM.”

Emmet nodded without really paying attention; only when the words swam from his ears into his brain and began being digested did he narrow his eyes and stop right where he stood.

He turned and looked behind himself.

Briosa only noticed his sudden stillness after a dozen or so steps, when Mawile pointed her back to the flabbergasted man in the middle of the street.

“You good?” she asked.

He pointed to the direction from which they had come silently, in deep thought. He blinked, then finally turned back to her.

“This isn’t the way to your house,” he noted.

“It’s not.”

The matter-of-fact tone didn't help.

"Why aren't you? On the way home?"

"I'm following you."

"Why are you following me?"

"I'm going to your house."

"You're coming to my house?"

"I'm coming to your house."

"Why are you coming to your- my house?"

"To cook you rice with zucchini."

"Why?"

"For dinner."

Emmet took a moment to pause and ruminate on all that.

"Did we agree on, on that? That you were... Coming to my house to cook?" he asked, because he genuinely didn't remember if they had.

"No."

Ah. Made sense.

A slow roundhouse kick that was probably meant as gentle (and while it did not send him hurtling across the street, it was still imbued with a discreet amount of strength that made him wobble on his unsteady knees) hit him with the back of the foot square in the ass and propelled him forward a little bit.

"Come on, let's go," the man (when had she gotten back at his side?) egged him on, much like a father dragging his noisy tired child out of the supermarket by an arm with as much vague kindness as possible: "You're sleeping on your feet like a Rapidash and you need to get some food in you."

He was too tired to complain or make a comment about that first part, and could not argue with the second.

He was really hungry.

Excadrill seemed perplexed when Briosa snuck under his arm as soon as the door was opened and made a beeline towards the kitchen, but Emmet just waved a hand, letting her know all was fine.

“She’s helping,” he told her with a yawn: “Said she’ll make dinner.”

The Steel mole looked back at the room the small vaguely antropomorphized Electrode had disappeared inside of, not very certain whether or not leaving someone like that in the vicinity of gas outlets, fire, sharpened blades and various more or less dangerous tools at her whims’ disposal; but she did consider, turning once more to the man trying to slip his shoes off while Archeops was nibbling at his wrist to shake him out of his tardiness, that was a risk she was willing to take if it meant her ward would eat before collapsing into uneasy sleep.

Footsteps stampeded heavily all the way back out of the kitchen, and Briosa appeared from the doorframe.

"I don't know where anything is," she said very flatly.

The light that came from the room hit the side of her frame, almost painting a yellow line where it landed, making her look something akin to incomprehensible in the dim sorroundings.

Emmet managed to blink slowly.

"I did find the refrigerated foods and knife and the tap water," she continued as if to reassure him she wasn't a complete cretin, "But I don't know where anything else is and I thought maybe I shouldn't slam open all the cabinets of some house that's not mine to find the rice jar."

Her boss raised a finger in the air to ask her to wait a moment; he stood slowly, heavily, and wobbled on his socked feet over to her.

He didn't have a rice jar, but he did have a box of rice, as well as a rice cooker. He provided Briosa with a pot, some oil and a plate at her request: she struggled to pour the grains into her small palm six, eight times, each fistiful dropped in the plate, cursing softly in what seemed like gibberish, and he watched her absolutely transfixed by the motion and sound similar to rain.

Something vaguely pinchy pulling at his leg snapped him out of it.

"Durant," he assumed as he croaked without looking, leaning down a big to pet lightly something vaguely metallic but not at all like his Bug's carapace, "I'll get dinner. Hold on."

A tongue clicked loudly while he reached for the pantry under the silverware that held the Pokémon food, and a large blackish mass delicately helped him get the bags out. Mawile's large mouth was a little clumsy, since the stem connecting it to the back of her head was quite thin, so Emmet ended up reciprocating her help to save her some of the strain.

Above himself he could hear the gas sparking into fire on the stove.

He nudged Briosa with an elbow to get her attention while remaining crouched - it was a little surreal to be looking up at her as he signed: Zucchini?

"Water," she replied. "I need to boil it. Also I think we forgot the broth powder."

Why boil?

"For the rice."

Sitting on his knees so he could peek over the counter, he pointed at the rice cooker; she looked at it, then turned back to him with a completely blank expression.

Rice cooker, he explained.

"Ah," she replied, and made no motion towards it.

For cooking rice, he continued.

"Yeah, I figured." Briosa checked around the station for a moment more: "Hm, yep, we missed the broth powder."

His brows furrowed: Why powder?

"For the rice. You gotta boil the rice in broth to cook it."

Emmet blinked: Rice cooker, he repeated.

Briosa blinked: "Hm," she noted.

Her boss pointed back to the utensil.

Use rice cooker.

"I don't know how to use that."

I teach you.

"That's gonna take longer than just letting me boil the rice," she waved her hand, her stoat fingers grazing his nose with a certain resolution to the movement that told him not to worry: "I know what I'm doing. You do what you gotta and try not to fall asleep. If you need me to do something or you gotta tell me something just punt your elbow on my shoulder."

Might hurt.

Briosa smiled, toothy grin not nearly as terrifying as usual: "You're a wet noodle when fully awake," she laughed, sounding like a repeatedly squeezed rubber Ducklett: "You won't hurt me."

Then she turned to wash the zucchini a bit in the sink, humming something. Mawile slowly dragged a bag out of the kitchen, struggling a bit; Emmet carefully placed the powdered broth next to the stove where it could be easily seen and raised the other end of the heavy sack to help the little Fairy bring it all the way over to the livingroom, others following behind them in mid air, held floating in the air by Chandelure's helpful Psychic - to keep it away from Crustle’s impatient grabby claws as well.

It took him a hot moment to realize he would have needed seven more bowls (the other twelve already fetched by their respective owners, thankfully); he then also realized that other than Mawile, the six guests were not actually there.

Briosa was chopping a zucchini very slowly and heavily when he came in to ask her for her team, which sat in their Pokéballs on their counter a little closer to the kitchen door. Emmet saw it fit to collect them without bothering her, noting distractedly that she seemed to be singing and deciding, against his will, to listen in.

“... Amministra-zio-ne, e liquida-zio-ne, rateizza-zio-ni anti-previden-zial - misura came-ra-le, calcolo dell’IR-PES, scarico dell’I-VA, misura cata-stal...”

The tempo of her chopping increased to a horrendous degree immediately after as she vocalized quietly; Emmet watched her cut through the vegetable with admirable technique and fury for a moment more before deciding he did not want to have her turn around a little too fast and get that blade flying right in his eye socket, and went right back to the livingroom where his brother’s Bug was starting to scream his little bulbous eyes off in hunger.

Knowing full well how big, bulky, destructive and aggressive ��the lads’ could be in battle, he was somewhat surprised to see their politeness outside of their Pokéball when he first released them. Their sizes did cause bit of a stirrup, especially among those who hadn't seen them before, and Emolga's heavily deformed scarred grin certainly did not put anybody at ease - but Seismitoad croaked very gently, as a kind greeting, and Bisharp bowed in an incredibly courteous manner; Klinklang did seem a little more than uneasy at the sight of Heatmor, trying to scoot behind Excadrill and to drag the much more relaxed Durant with it, but the Fire type seemed just as scared of the hunk of metal as he hid behind the only lady of the team.

Speaking of Conkeldurr - the poor girl was trying her hardest to shrink in her shoulders as soon as she noticed where she was, eyeing co-workers and new curious faces with a sheepish kind of apprehension, large rough hands playing with one another.

"Hello," Emmet welcomed them too tired to stop Boldore from running into the newcomers repeatedly. "I live here. You eat here tonight."

Cryogonal made a horrifying sound not too far from Candelure' worst cough.

He gave her a thumbs up: "Yes."

It struck him very suddenly that roughly three out of six out of Briosa’s team effectively could have been considered full ass human people by size, and that while one of them was indeed an enormous bulbous frog he should have probably just let Conkeldurr and Bisharp sit on the couch.

It also struck him that Cryogonal (from whom Haxorus was inching away) was a pure Ice type.

“We don’t...” he muttered, turning around to check on the bags. He stared at them for a second or so before remembering the rest of his thought: “Have Ice type food. Food for Ice types. Uh...”

Mawile’s little hands moved quickly to tell him something.

He blinked a couple times, trying to understand before giving in, pointing at his hand: “I cannot - three finger sign, I’m not. Fluent.”

The little Steel Fairy nodded apologetically and chittered as she repeated, slower so that he could try the signs out himself to properly translate them: No problem. C eat nothing or anything. C eat wood if want. No worry.

The chittering was probably so that Cryogonal could listen in herself and assure Emmet of the veracity of the statement with another ghastly shriek.

Which she did.

That got her another thumbs up.

It took a while, to properly get everybody their bowl of dinner, and he had to be helped a couple of times - mostly by Mawile, who seemed the most well-versed in reading written symbols.

He was so, so tired.

In the end they had managed to split the food around more or less evenly: both Durant and Excadrill had graciously declined the portion of Steel-specific food that should have been mixed with their other ones so that Bisharp and Mawile could have it, since they had nothing for Dark or Fairy types, and Emolga was more than fine getting only Flying-specific (Archeops wasn’t necessarily keen on that, but very wisely had not argued with the rat that looked like he had been through a shredder and survived) since Eelektross’ size demanded quite a bowl for him; Seismitoad had at one point striked up a conversation with his fellow Ground type regarding, Emmet imagined, which types of dirt tasted better, whereas Heatmor was still snout-deep in his can of beans, apparently eating them one at a time to better savor them, as normal Fire-specific food didn’t account for his digestive troubles.

Even Cryogonal had managed to snack around without causing an excess in panic. Gurdurr seemed to be the only one a little embarassed, glancing every now and then to the much bigger Fighting type in the same manner an elementary-schooler glances at a substitute teacher he may or may not have a puppy crush on.

It was relatively quiet, in the end. A lot of crunching and munching, and unintelligible words, but it was quiet.

Emmet shook himself a little when small teeth gently bit down on his arm: Mawile looked up at him with a slight concern, her little hands pulling at his pants to make him sit down properly instead of squatting on his toes.

“Hm?” he asked her - or, well, tried to - as he felt his head strangely light.

The Fairy insisted he take a seat first before explaining: No sleep yet! Rice not ready. Ready soon. Stay awake.

“I am Emmet. I am awake.”

Before no.

“Yes I was.”

Mawile pointed at Boldore: Called you, she explained. Food stolen. You asleep! No answer. Crab say shut up.

At that, he looked up to the three Bugs.

Durant and Galvantula both followed his gaze: Crustle turned his bulbous eyes in two completely different directions to try and feign ignorance.

That clearly did not work, as a perfectly straight finger pointed right at him.

“Bad boy.” his trainer’s brother decreted. Crustle (who by law knew any word he could have said could have been used against him) chirped out an indignated whine in protest. “No. Give Boldore some of yours.”

Bugs cannot quite huff, though the crustacean definitely did try; with no other option, he haughtily shoved what still remained in his bowl to the block of rock he had stolen the lunch from in the first place, who made a crumbling sound similar to a piqued ‘thank you’ and very slowly helped himself to the rest of his supper while the other retreated in his cement house as though he were the offended party here.

Well, that was solved.

Emmet rubbed one eye with his hand to shake the sleep dust off of it.

A three-fingered paw pulled at his shirt again: “I am awake,” he reassured Mawile, “I am not falling asleep.”

She did not particularly care about his blatant lies at the moment - not as much as she cared about getting him off the floor, at least, as evidenced by how she tried to pull him onto the couch despite her obvious size disadvantage. Bisharp, noting her struggle, quickly put aside his own bowl and rose to his feet, metal arms outstretched to catch the man in them.

“No thanks,” Emmet stopped him. “Can do it myself.”

Alright, he thought, time to stand up.

After a whole minute he had not moved an inch.

Bisharp, with as extreme a tenderness as a creature composed partially by sawblades could muster, gently slipped his hands under Emmet’s arms, lifted him into the air as one might lift a cat, and sat him on the couch.

“Thanks.” the human peeped.

Seeing the Dark type bow a little in response while Archeops blatantly laughed at him gave him some weird new kind of mortification to feel.

Maybe if he focused on the incomprehensible sounds somewhat reminscent of words coming from the kitchen, he would manage to trick himself into not thinking about having had to be picked up like a bag of cement because his joints didn’t respond.

From the door connecting the two rooms he could see Briosa perfectly still before the stove: a vacant look seemed to dwell in her eyes as her lips moved quickly, and perhaps most concerningly she was holding a kitchen knife in her right hand, bits and pieces of zucchini still stuck to the blade, with a grip that could have concievably crushed a piece of wood into shavings or caused a small enough pumpkin to explode under the pressure.

Not a very reassuring sight.

But it did immediately cancel his embarassment.

“... E il carica-to-re svuo-te-rà, sul-le aliquote della-li-bertà...”

Very suddenly, she began banging her fists against her hips in asynchrony, large knife very much still grasped tight in her palm, as if her body was a drumset and she were playing it after getting a dose of pure sugar injected in her veins.

“Ed il so-cio scompa-ri-rà, sul-le aliquote della-li-bertà...” she continued unperturbed by neither her own choreography nor the possibility of accidentally stabbing herself for that matter.

The rest of the chorus turned a little garbled from her furious headbanging, the movement so violent and so spread out through her entire frame (her torso and pelvis were oscillating in tandem back and forth to lend more strength to the motion, making her look a little like one of those bird-shaped toys that are constantly quickly dipping their beaks in the water, rising out of it, then diving back in for another sip) that it made him fear for a moment she would slam her head on the counter and either knock herself out or destroy it completely, with a higher chance of the latter.

Emmet turned back to Mawile, who had climbed the couch to sit next to him.

“She is always like this?”

She followed his finger with her gaze as he pointed to the kitchen.

Then she nodded.

“Man.”

No like silence, the Fairy explained.

"Aaah. So she talks."

The little beast waited a moment, then waved a hand in the air in a sort-of-yes-sort-of-no kind of gesture: Talk, no really. No hear voice. Feel mouth move, remember how voice sound. But no hear.

Emmet tilted his head: "She can't hear her own voice?"

Mawile nodded.

He clicked his tongue in thoughtful aknowledgement and blinked.

That was such a weird concept, not being able to hear yourself. It was the sort of obvious thing one never ponders on at all: so he had always assumed she could, without really thinking about it enough to question whether or not that was possible. And even if he had found himself reflecting on it in a sudden burst of curiosity, he would have probably still rationalized that she could, maybe by feeling the vibrations in her neck as she spoke.

But that would have meant keeping her hands on her throat all the time, he reasoned, and it would have been really bothersome for someone as prone to action as she was.

He wondered, suddenly, if she knew how squeaky she sounded.

Probably not.

"Could she hear herself?" he asked. "Somehow?"

Yes!, Mawile nodded enthusiastically.

Emmet blinked again. From what she had told him, he hadn't expected that could have been a possibility.

Headphone! Microphone!, the Fairy continued without needing any prompting. Ear implant! But no wear for long. Hurt ear. Or yell!

"Yell?"

If loud enough! Like before!

Did that mean she had been yelling?

This whole time?

Oh, Emmet suddenly thought: yes, actually, she must have been. The kitchen was a room that in some strange way never let any noise escape it; no matter how much the oil could have sizzled or how agonizingly the blender could have screamed, their agony remained hushed into silence between those walls. It was very nice, by all means - he still remembered having to retreat in his closet to escape the noise of his uncle in the kitchen so it couldn’t make him feel like there were Stunfisks flapping around in his veins - but it brought along the slight side-effect that if they had to set a timer that wasn't the oven's (which turned the machine off as soon as it was done) they would have to put it in the livingroom, or they'd never hear it.

For him to be able to listen to her, Briosa must have been belting the hell out of her incomprehensible song like tomorrow wasn't planning on being a thing.

“Verrry loud,” he commented, slowly.

Mawile nodded, whirring her tongue to imitate him as she signed: Verrry loud.

Some minor inconvenience must have happened, because Briosa shouted something irritated, possibly profanity of some kind.

Emmet leaned his head on the back pillows.

Now she was singing again.

“Al-me-no-fi-no-a-do-mat-ti-na-ti-pro-me - tto-che, sarò la fa-ccia, di-cui-hai-più bisogno...”

This one was much calmer. More melodic. The way she pronounced the words had a strange cadence, quick yet slow - it was hard to explain. He blinked, feeling drowsy all the way into his marrow.

“Me-glio-non-di-re-nien-te-aspet-tando-il-mat-ti-no, sor-rido, se-pen-so-al-no-me-che-tu mi-darai do-ma-ni...”

Huh. This verse had a completely different rhythm. Weird.

Maybe the author was part of some avantgarde musical genre he didn’t know.

He felt something lukewarm pulling his forehead back and realized his eyes were closed. When had that happened? Chandelure chimed at him something that sounded like ‘don’t fall asleep yet, you still have to eat’.

Ah.

So it wasn’t the song’s fault for having different-sounding verses.

He mouthed that he wasn’t asleep, voice barely leaving his mouth. He hadn’t even noticed he’d dozed off.

“... che, orati-mangida-den, tro, piccolo-pianeta-spen, to, come-una bri-ciolaal-ven-toe-un-bu-co-ne-roe-un-oc-chio-blu,” Briosa was continuing.

He wondered how much of it he’d missed.

“E, so-no-po-co-più-di-un-jamais-vu, tra tutte queste persone, nella-mia-testa-io-gioco-a-tabù, perdo-se-dico-il tuo no - me...”

A pinch at his leg.

Ow, he murmured, furrowing his brow; Durant chittered worriedly at him, nudging him to spur him into action. His eyelids felt horribly sandy against his sclera as he rubbed them with as much vigor as possible to shake any tiredness away.

He was not tired. He was not sleeping.

His knees popped when he straightened them to tense his legs.

He was not about to fall into a nap again.

“Io ti terrò la mano, tu tienimi l’anima...”

He bent down to grasp his feet.

“E pure se non sai chi sono non lasciarla mai...”

Maybe, if he went to check on Briosa, he would avoid knocking himself out on the couch for the next five hours.

He stood as though he were made of lead.

Following her saccharine voice, he slowly began wobbling towards the kitchen.

“Ve - di, ci sono, dei-ri, cordi, che-mi de - vi, sei grande, ma-ti, chiamo-an, cora ba - by,” (oh, a word he recognized) “Ho gl’occhi rossi ma non te ne accorgi, ti guardo mentre dormi, ma solo ieri-”

Her nose stuck out so much when you looked at her from the side. It jutted out from her forehead out of nowhere, somewhere a little above her eyes and almost right below her eyebrows, and then it came right down like a straight wall. It wasn’t perfectly straight, because there was a dent where it had likely been broken and incorrectly healed; so more than a wall it was like a waterfall interrupted in the middle by a rock. Despite the contrast with the rest of her more graceful features, it fit everything about her like a glove. Emmet’s nose showed no signs of harm and pointed outwards instead, like half the head of an arrow. What weird things to notice in the split second between two verses of a hook.

“-C’e-ri, nei giorni ne-ri, quelli che piove troppo fo-rte per stare in pie-di,” she sang: “E fottevamo anche la morte volando legge-ri, m’hai chiesto dimmi cosa te-mi, in che cosa cre-di, la mia risposta sei tu.”

She hummed loudly, thin lips pursed tight, tilting her head with the melody.

“La mia risposta sei tu...” she repeated while stirring the mass of rice in what little broth was left.

Emmet stared.

She had a nice voice.

When she turned to the door - maybe to call for him - she had a startle and flattened herself closer to the floor, little eyes blown wide and hand grasping the counter. She looked like she had a heart attack.

They simply stared at each other for a moment, before Emmet remembered she couldn’t have heard him come in and likely had shat her pants.

Whoops.

Briosa was quicker: “Hello!” she grinned apologetically. “I was really really loud, wasn’t I.”

Her boss shook his head, smiling back: No problem. You sing nice.

Expression losing any mortification, she flipped her wooden spoon to tap her chin with it a few times as though she were thanking a deeply captivated audience - giving a ‘youch’ and a ‘porca puttana bastarda’ when the heat carried by the utensil scalded her a little.

He wasn’t sure what that second thing meant, but it made him chuckle.

Briosa turned back to the pot and twisted her mouth: “Ok, since it’s almost ready, do you want me to put...” she rocked in place for a moment, hand waving a little, “A sensible person’s idea of a good amount of cheese and butter, or my idea of a good amount of cheese and butter?”

Second, he signed.

“Gotcha.” and she got her big knife back in hand and grabbed the brick of definitely softer butter like she was going to squeeze it between her fingers and annihilate it completely: “Drown it in dairy it is.”

Emmet wheezed weakly.

He fetched a couple plates and forks to set on the table, slowly, so slowly. By the time he found the glasses and started checking for a bottle that still had some water before pikcing one and putting in the sink to fill it, the rice had completely dried up, and Briosa was stirring it with butter and shredded cheese with such a focused gaze and furiously quick hand that an inattentive onlooker might have thought she was busy making merengues instead.

(They had tried exactly once, and in the end they’d both ended up with aching wrists and a bunch of half whipped egg clears despite their best efforts. In the end they had made sweet white omelettes that weren’t as bad as they could have turned out to be.)

“You wanna lick the spoon?”

Before he could even register the question he had already clamped the wooden utensil in his mouth.

Clearly the correct course of action: that tasted great.

Must have been all the cheese.

Now he was salivating.

“This’ll kill you,” Briosa assured him with a calm tone. “If you’re not gonna be sleeping after this I might have to punch a hole in your head.”

He gave her thumbs up. A good last meal either way.

They ate in silence, fairly quickly. Had he really not noticed how hungry he was up until now? Dragons. He shouldn’t skip meals. But maybe it was just because this rice specifically tasted so good. Why, he couldn’t really tell. It was just rice and zucchini. Drowned in dairy, but still rice and zucchini. It wasn’t even that hard to make. He probably could have made it on his own.

Maybe it was because he’d fasted the whole day.

He stood and fetched a second portion. Briosa was eyeing the pot like a Braviary waiting for the right moment to strike a Basculin.

When he motioned for her to hand him her plate she shook her head: “I’m not hungry,” she claimed, though he never quite believed her when she said that, even when she sounded so honest - maybe she was trying to convince herself, but as to why he couldn’t tell, “It’s just gluttony. Keep that in a tupper or something, I made a lot for that especially. And!”

Her index waved a little in the air, possibly to distract her boss from how she was standing to wash her dish and everything before he might object: “And, when you warm it, do it in a pan. With some oil. Gets all crunchy like popcorn. Good shit, let me tell you.”

Emmet nodded. You know a lot, he signed back once both his hands were free.

“My dad always fries his rice instead of putting it in the microwave.”

I see. It was very good.

She smiled at him weirdly.

“You gotta do it like this,” and she signed ‘very’ back at him - though her index and middle fingers paused for a moment after parting, dipping just a second towards the floor before she finished the sign.

He tilted his head: he’d been fairly sure he’d learned how to sign that correctly. Nevertheless, he imitated her.

“There you go!” she grinned. “It’s too weird when you say it with no gemination.”

Twin?, he asked, even more confused.

She spelled the word quickly: “Gemination - doubling letters in a word to make a longer or stronger sound. Like rubble or throttle or bottle. In this case it’s over-gemination because no letter in ‘very’ is doubled but that doesn’t matter. You geminate it. It doesn’t feel right if you don’t.”

How do you know?

“Know what?”

Gemination.

“Ah. Your mouth.”

He pointed at it, surprised. It likely looked a little comical, since he had taken a rather big bite at that moment.

Briosa smiled a little wider: he watched her clearly mouth the word twice, slowly.

“The eh sound opens it a little wider than the ee sound,” she explained, and mouthed it again. “The R by itself has a shwah sound, a sort of ‘uh’ - that’s really weak, so it gets replaced easily by a different one. If you stall it after an eh sound, the lips remain in a similar position, and you can see how they flatten more once the ee sound comes along.”

He looked more carefully as she repeated the motion once more before gulping down his last forkful and imitating her, trying to feel the sounds on his lips. Huh! That was true. He could tell the different shapes made by the vowels. Curious.

Verrry interesting, he signed. The stalling made her grin. Where did you learn?

“Phonetics class in college I had to take to meet the right amount of credits. I actually chose it mostly because the professor was deaf too, so.”

Emmet clicked his tongue, understanding; Briosa clicked it back in affirmation.

Who knows where they’d picked that up from.

He leaned his strangely heavy head on his crossed arms, splaying himself on the table with a sigh. He felt comfortably warm, at ease; he grumbled a protest when a smaller hand slipped his empty plate and dirty silverware away to wash it in the sink, but didn’t quite manage to coax himself to stand up fast enough to stop her from doing his dishes. He did manage to seize the still half full pot before her, emptying its contents into a glass container and managing to hold onto it long enough to squirt some dishsoap in it - not to clean it, because Briosa twisted his arm behind his back without breaking a sweat (without hurting him either) forcing him to hand it over to her.

You should not clean, he pouted once he had both his hands free again: My house. I’m host. You’re guest. I clean.

“I invited myself over though.”

And cooked.

“And ate also.” and she kicked his hip gently to get him out of the kitchen: “Get your pijamas on while I’m busy, you’re going straight to bed once I’m done.”

You’re not my dad.

She stared directly into his eyes with a face so blank it almost made him laugh.

“Do you want me to adopt you,” she said like it was a threat.

Emmet’s entire body began shaking to contain a giggle. He shook his head.

“Then wash your teeth and put on your jammies.”

He wheezed in her face.

She snorted back.

“But seriously,” she chuckled, “Go get changed. The rice is gonna hit soon and you’re not gonna be able to move a muscle for the next three hours otherwise.”

Alright, fair.

He didn’t notice it, but the Pokémon chatting about in the livingroom were all greatly relieved to see him stumble into his room giggling to himself like a kid.

Flannel felt good on his arms. It was soft, warm, loose... It seemed like forever since he had last worn those pijamas. They were awfully comfortable. He had to make an effort to change into them more often when he came back home. They were much better than a dirty button up and dress pants.

(He hadn’t called before eating. He should have called now.)

(One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.)

“If you’re naked stick out your leg!”

The sound of Briosa’s voice shouting from the corridor made him almost throw the Xtransceiver into high heaven, fumbling to catch it so that it didn’t shatter on the floor and hastily closing the call before she could hear the ringing and ask about it.

The fact that she was deaf dawned on him a second too late, but that was done.

(And he hadn’t replied, anyways.)

He settled the gadget on the nightstand, trying to pull himself out of the spiral he’d almost been sucked in; without even thinking he proceeded to stick his leg out through the doorway.

There was a beat of silence; then: “I said naked!”

Emmet cawed out a laugh.

His head peeked through as well. Briosa looked at him, face plain, coat in her arms and hat in hand.

“I thought you’d passed out,” she noted.

Nope, he signed back. Still awake.

“Not for long!”

Sounds evil.

Her brows furrowed: “What’s that mean?”

You sound like you’ll knock me out.

She thought it over a moment before squeaking a chuckle.

It would be verrry easy, he shrugged.

“It would!”

He accompanied her back to the livingroom. The various bags of food had been transported away, the bowls had disappeared back into their cupboard, Crustle still refused to grace the room with his handsome face, and Gurdurr hurriedly scuttled away from Conkeldurr despite having barely come close enough to graze her, deathly embarassed by his crush and round nose redder than usual; Cryogonal shrieked something in his general direction as greeting.

He gave her thumbs up.

“Alright my beautiful death machines,” Briosa called with a tone so affectionate it felt as though her mouth was dripping cotton candy: “We’re goin’ back home! Time for the circus trick.”

She patted her belt a few times, looking for her set of Pokéball. Emmet helpfully pointed them to her from where he’d laid them on the table; Mawile took that as an opportunity to gently bite her shirt as she collected the spheres to rapidly sign something at her and direct her attention over to Heatmor, who was fidgeting rather nervously with his yellow claws.

Once he had her undivided attention, he pulled the sweetest pair of Baby-Doll Eyes he could muster, wiggling demurely as though whining.

Briosa smiled: “Go on, give her a snuggle,” she allowed.

In a second the Fire type wrapped Durant in a tight hug, rubbing his snout on her with a concert of thrilled chirps; the Steel Bug for her part clacked her mandibles rather happily as though to remind him they were going to see each other tomorrow at work anyways.

The beasts who hadn’t visited the station in quite some time eyed the exchange with genuinely dumbfounded gazes.

It probably felt a little like beholding a glitch in nature itself.

A brief whistle tore Heatmor from his friend; he waved her bye one last time before a reddish ray sucked him right back into one of the six balls being juggled by his trainer, followed suit by each of his associates while Mawile latched herself onto her aidee’s elbow.

Emmet followed the trajectory of the flying spheres without trying to keep up with their increasing speed, head heavier than lead lolling back and forth until all six were caught with a fluid graceful motion between the fingers of the Substitute, the little Fairy swinging from her arm leaping onto her head and landing perfectly balanced - thanks to her main maw acting as counterweight - right on her buzzed mousy hair with a little flourish, like an olimpic gymnast.

He weakly waved his hands in a silent applause. Mawile bowed deeply, proud; Briosa curtsied and thanked him by grazing all ten fingertips to her chin.

Must teach me, he signed as he forgot to stifle a yawn.

“Maybe when you’re not falling asleep on your feet.”

Agreed.

Galvantula gently nuzzled her leg.

“Ye, ye, I’m leaving him to y’all now,” she assured the Bug. She saluted the rest of the beasts as she slipped her coat back on hurriedly and helped her aide back down into one of her pockets: “Thank you for not mauling me!”

A chorus of noises she couldn’t hear bid her farewell.

Socked feet accompanied her to the door. Emmet stalled for a moment before opening it; his fingers drummed on the knob under eyes of rotten green waiting patiently for him to send them on their way.

Instead he turned towards her, hands a little sluggish as he signed: Thank you. For rice. And company. Elesa does this, usually. When she can.

“That’s nice to know.” Briosa noted.

Not always. She comes, not always. I mean that. Always nice, when she comes. But doesn’t come always.

“Yeah, I imagined you meant that.”

Sorry. Verrry tired.

“I can see that.”

I am... Bothering?

“Not at all! You just kinda look like you’re melting. You should go sleep.”

Will do.

Briosa smiled. It was the most angular smile he’d seen on her yet, and it fit her like a glove. It made him think like the smile that made Elesa’s eyes too small and her face too round. It was sweet.

“Next time I’ll make you a soup,” she said. “And if I remember them I’ll sing you some songs from old cartoons to keep you awake.”

He liked the idea of a next time.

He gave her an ok; she tilted her hat at him.

“Goodnight.”

Goodnight.

Then he closed the door behind her; tucked his and his brother’s partners to bed; turned off the lights; crawled under the covers.

He slept well.

#pokémon #submas emmet #too many pokemon to tag... its both the twins teams + briosas as well #briosa pokemon #random writing #MAN this has been in my wips for a LONG while idk how or why i powered through tonight to finish it but im glad #feat. Sulle Aliquote Della Libertà (by nanowar of steel) and Ricordi (by pinguini tattici nucleari) aka the songs briosa sings #ricordi is such a submas song to me (stripped of any romantic undertone in there) #its written from the persective of someone whose loved one suffers from alzheimer #and the verses briosa sings are the ones that i feel are most connected to ingo and emmets situation #(tho first one is more abt elesa n briosa being there for emmet - 'at least until tomorrow morning i promise ill be the face you need most') #theyre written weirdly bc i was trying to recreate the songs rhythm btw you should look for the proper lyrics. its a great song trust me #sulle aliquote della libertà is there only because of the dramatic comedic timing #it has no special meaning its a song abt how to commit tax evasion gdhsgdhjsgaj #also! the spoon thing. my mom always asks if someone wants to lick the spoon/licks it herself after she makes rice. its tastey #i NEED to reiterate that briosa doesnt Know she and emmet are friends at this point #so in her mind shes doing this for her boss who shes come to know better and enjoy and who she knows is Going Through It #elesa asked her to look after him as in 'make sure he doesnt work himself to death' #and briosa went 'got it chief' and overachieved spectacularly #emmet: mmm. briosa never says im her friend. maybe she thinks its obvious #briosa (who made him dinner n kept him company n ensured he took care of himself): this is a normal boss-employee dynamic

[randomwriteronline]

"Hello girlies," Elesa announced herself as she opened the door.

"Hello Elesa," she heard Emmet reply.

She didn't turn to him immediately, instead crouching to first pat Durant's head as she greeted her with a clicking chirp and then scratch at Galvantula's chin. Excadrill welcomed her with a careful hug too, while Archeops tried to briefly get tangled in her hair to express his fondness.

Raising her gaze she expected - very reasonably, if she could say so - to catch sight of her friend bonelessly draped over the back of his own couch, looking at her with a vague melancholic sleepiness.

Instead she froze for a moment, unsure what she was looking at.

Because the nose of the head and shoulders peeking from the furniture as they oscillated back and forth did seem to be broken very much like that of Briosa Crociera, and the braid of mousy hair hanging right next to the ear did remind her of the ones the Substitute would wear.

"Oh," the person said with Briosa's voice after finally turning and noticing her, "Hey."

Elesa blinked.

Her dumbfounded gaze was held by rotten green eyes as the small frame kept oscillating slightly.

What are you doing?, the gym leader signed.

"I'm flattening his back with a rolling pin," Briosa explained.

Elesa blinked again, longer.

"That's a euphemism for sex!" the man cheerily informed her.

"It's not," Emmet corrected.

"We're having sex."

"We're not."

The woman stopped the both of them by raising her index in the air; she stood back up, walked around the couch, and met Emmet's white-ish eyes as his chin rested on a pillow. He waved at her with a very relaxed expression.

Briosa was sitting squarely on his very much still clothed ass, rolling pin indeed in both hands, pressing it on his spine as if he were stubborn cookie dough.

She looked at the woman like she was interrupting something.

"What's with the rolling pin?" Elesa finally asked, hands flabbergasted as they signed.

Emmet shrugged: "Back hurt."

"His back hurt," Briosa repeated.

Ah, Elesa reasoned, That makes sense. I think. Probably.

"Why did you say you were having sex then?" was the natural progression to this very confusing conversation.

Briosa raised her hands: "Sounds more normal that rolling a spine flat."

Again, I guess that makes sense, the gym leader had to concede.

A very pale hand reached to touch hers.

"Can you sign something for me," Emmet asked tonelessly, "Because she can't see it."

"Ah, uh, sure... Feedback on the, uh... This? I suppose?"

He nodded slightly, raising a thumbs up. "Verrry nice! Pin needs to be bigger though."

"Yeah, I did think that," the shorter man agreed once Elesa finished translating, knocking pensively on the back of his ribs: "You're way too long for this one. Probably wouldn't be that big of a problem if you had a little less vertebrae."

"Please do not remove them."

"Or shorter femurs!"

"Please do not remove them."

Elesa snorted a little at the slightly panicked urgency of the repetition.

A large maw gently tugged at Briosa's dress pants to get her attention: her hearing aid Mawile gestured gently towards the kitchen door as if to remind her of something.

It took the Substitute Subway Boss a hot second before widening her eyes in what seemed to be horror and exclaiming: "SHIT THE RICE", athletically dismounting Emmet and rushing as quietly as humanly possible into the room to turn on the stove and start boiling some water.

Elesa found her vocal chords failing her briefly.

So instead of speaking she simply turned to her friend with a grimace halfway between beyond concerned and utterly puzzled, nodding towards the doorframe.

Emmet stretched: "She cooks here sometimes," he just said.

"As in, you ask her to?"

"Nope. She decides. If she thinks I'm too tired for it."

"So she just, invites herself over?"

"Yup."

"And you let her?"

The man hummed softly. He looked awfully, awfully tired.

"She's nice," he said, voice soft. "Good company. And verrry good at cooking. Yup."

Elesa smiled at the fondness in his voice.

The menace was upholding her promise spectacularly, it seemed. It gave her an intense relief.

She sat on the armrest; crawling upwards, Emmet's head went to lay on her thighs with the kind of heavy abandonment of sleepy younger siblings looking for somewhere soft to nap on.

"Thank you," he croaked: "For... You know. Finding her. And getting me help."

The model ran a hand through his hair gently (it was rough and coarse and a little oily, maybe, like he had forgotten to wash it): "You should thank her for taking up the offer."

The man in question appeared in the kitchen doorframe as if she had been summoned, sliding along the floor to peek her head through first.

"Fifteen minutes to midnight snack, except the snack is saffron rice with copious amounts of cheese and butter," she announced. Her finger went to point at Elesa, helpfully adding: "Unless you can't eat dairy in which case I'll scoop out your portion so you don't get any cheese or butter."

The model made a reassuring gesture before signing: Dairy is fine.

"Nice."

Briosa did not hurry back to the stove just yet, as the other two would have thought; she quietly stood still right where she was for a few more moments, staring vacantly somewhere around them, the dim light behind her casting a shadow over her entire small body.

"A dinner for three!" she noted suddenly, with a strange tone, as if it were a special event. "Man, I haven't had one in ages. Didn't think I'd have one again to be honest."

Elesa and Emmet tilted their heads in tandem, faces twisted in matching confused looks.

"My mom’s sentence is life in prison," Briosa explained. Then she turned around in perfect silence and disappeared inside the kitchen, not elaborating.

#pokémon #pokemon elesa #submas emmet #briosa pokemon #random writing #theres profanity and sex mention but no sex at all so dw #this is so fucking stupid i love it. thank u briosa for giving my brain stupid stupid thoughts to write ily

[randomwriteronline]

"Why... Do you work here?"

Cameron won't lie - he doesn't like to be the one having to talk to her on account of him knowing sign most fluently, because she freaks him out a little bit.

Granted, something like that could be said about talking to Jackie too, someone who likes actively and purposefully being cryptic and weird all the time with all the ominous stuff they spout, but Jackie can still be fun.

Briosa looks at him with her eyes that look like dark rotten olives and blinks.

"It's a job," she answers flatly.

"But why?" he insists.

Her lips are perfect parallel lines, her expression unreadable: "Living costs money," she repeats: "It's a job."

Cameron shifts the weight on his feet and twists his mouth nervously.

His fingers move a little faster: "All of us Depot agents like trains. We're passionate about them. But you don't seem like that."

"I'm not." she confirms.

"Then why do you work here? Instead of somewhere else? There's less stressful jobs for sure. Less demanding jobs."

Briosa hums.

"Can you keep a secret?" she asks.

Cameron nods fervently, heart in his throat, curiosity bursting from his eyes.

She treats him to one of her horrendous grins -- wide and bony, stretching her mouth into a rectangle of teeth that, with the angle at which her hat casts a shadow on her face, makes her look menacing beyond belief.

"Me too!" she replies as loud as she can, her voice turning cutesy and almost squeaky with the heightened volume.

Then she turns around and keeps at her paperwork, ignoring anything he might want to sign at her, and Cameron feels like he just got out of a death trap with a tap on the nose and a hissed threat curled around his ear; the rest of the Depot agents retreat from behind the corner with beads of terrified cold sweat dampening their foreheads, praying she did not see them.

-

There is, effectively, extraordinarily little they know about Briosa.

She is from Driftveil City, she is deaf, her Mawile is her hearing aid Pokémon. She eats mostly cheese, meat, and boiled kale. She could beat a man to death.

She listens to - feels, it’s maybe more correct to say - incomprehensible music.

She detests being touched.

She is a man.

There is also a small series of unnerving facts she has shared about herself for the sole purpose of ending a conversation, but there’s no way of telling whether or not they’re true, and nobody really enjoys thinking about any of that.

What else is there?

She calls her Conkeldurr “babygirl” (because she is female) and her Cryogonal with she/her pronouns (because she doesn’t mind). Her Emolga, with a face scarred and mutilated enough to look straight out of a horror movie, comes from a hippie sanctuary, but she’s not fond of hippies. Seismitoad was likely her first Pokémon, but Bisharp might be her favorite. Apparently, she has held her Heatran in her arms like a flamethrower against at least one person with the intent to either scare or severely burn. Or kill. But usually she has a  more hands-on approach when it comes to violence.

What else is there?

According to Ramses, she has a grudge against telepaths. Or was it Kalosians? Furze could swear it was Kalosians. Might be both. Who knows.

Cloud claims she wears full body lingerie. No, they have not seen it. No, they have not slept with her! Shut up! Shut up! She’s aromantic anyways! And yes that doesn’t mean she’s also ace, but like, shut up!

A known voice coughs loudly and reminds them they’re all still at work. All six apologize, mortified; Briosa, blissfully unaware, departs for the platforms.

Still no clue on why she works here.

-

There is a man getting on the train to Castellia City who is always in full Arlequin get up. He gets in his seat, pulls out a make up kit from his suitcase, and spends the entire ride carefully yet quickly applying his face paint.

This isn’t weird at all of course. Man’s gotta go to work! Gotta make the most out of every precious second he can - he’s from Driftveil, after all, having to take a coincidence in Nimbasa - and besides, he’s just your average respectful passenger. They’ve had people almost having their Pokémon start fights in the cars and some others with some very specific (and illegal, whether consensual or not) ways to get their rocks off. A clown getting ready is nothing worth taking note of.

But Isadore does take note of the still make up-less Arlequin as he boards the train, and not because of any bad behaviour.

The man beams and grins, waving excitedly in the direction opposite his train.

Briosa - Briosa - beams and grins, waving back.

The interest in the clown skyrockets.

Who the fuck is that guy?

Why does he wave at Briosa? Why does she wave back? Why do they know each other? Why are they so happy to see each other? Is he her much older boyfriend? Are they in a queer-platonic relationship? Why did she go for a guy who looks like he could be her father? How old is Briosa, actually, now that he thinks about it?

“Twenty-five,” she answers him.

Isn’t she too young for him? Even if it’s a platonic thing?

The questions plague Isadore.

Arlequin Guy returns at with the eight-forty-five service to catch the subway that will bring him back to Driftveil: he’s cleaning the make up off with a humidified handkerchief, lips pursed so that it doesn’t go in his mouth.

Suddenly his eyes light up: Isadore follows his gaze and wouldn’t you know it, there she is, Briosa, giving him a rare grin that doesn’t show her teeth.

Arlequin Guy presses his clean fingers to his mouth and sends her what is unmistakenly a booming, silent kiss followed by a quick wave; she replies with a wave of her own, and a similarly enthusiastic kiss.

He fakes being hit by it in the chest as if it were an arrow.

What. The fuck.

Isadore speed-walks his way over to the Depot agent as she leaves (Arlequin Guy also leaves, but that’s not important) trying his hardest to catch up to her. Damn her short legs for being so fast.

“Do you know that guy?” he asks Mawile instantly.

The little thing bites gently at her dress pant; she doesn’t stop, but she gets her entire arm in the steel maw to let the Fairy hang from it loosely instead of havig to run around as she signs her coworker’s words at her aidee.

“Who?”

“The clown! That Arlequin guy, do you know him?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“Who is that?”

Briosa keeps walking: “My dad.”

Isadore stops. He immediately picks up the pace, because she’s still going and will leave him in the dust with no remorse or hesitation.

“And you just do this everytime he’s here?”

“Every day.”

“Where does he even go?”

“To work.”

“Well, what does he do?”

“He’s an Arlequin.”

“Well, what kind of clown is he-- does he work in a circus?”

“No, and he’s no jangleur either.”

“Jan--?”

“He works for the gym leader.”

“Burgh? Gym leader Burgh?”

“Yes.”

He has several questions, each feeling more important to ask than the last, but he just can’t choose which one to go for.

Then: enlightenment.

“Is that why you work here?” he asks. “So you can see your father?”

Briosa stops.

She turns to him and stares right into his pupils with her eyes dark and green like rotten olives.

Her mouth is pressed into a tight line.

Is this really the reason?

“Once I threw a guy off the docks and left him to drown while I stole his bike.”

Ah.

Isadore cough lightly: “Is this a-”

“This is a conversation stopper!” she cuts him off cheerily: “Stop asking me things that aren’t your business!”

He doesn’t follow her when she leaves, Mawile still dangling from her hand - partly because she could easily break his ribs with a kick if she got annoyed enough, and partly because he realizes he’s late on schedule, and needs to hurry across the station.

#pokémon #briosa pokemon #depot agent #depot agents #random writing #small cameo from one of the submas twins of your choice telling the depot agents not to discuss bedroom time at work #anyways gOD i want to show off briosa so bad #also her dad is great i love him

[randomwriteronline]

Mustrudi came cold, and with it came the university’s winter break; and on its eve Ingo blew gently on his fingers to keep them warm.

The sea was calm, and there were slow heavy flakes falling from a grey sky. He could immagine the top of those clouds with a staggering clarity - the shifting waves and the softened rush of the wind, smoothening everything into quiet, like the ocean of cumuli that had his knees weak as he watched it pass by through the ruined top of Dragonspire Tower.

(They had seen it as children, taken by their uncle, and they had spent what felt like an hour looking at it breathlessly, Emmet had said - and then they had dragged Iris along when she was old enough, which was why she had been the one to bring him back to those beautiful old stones to see that vaporous sea so perfectly reflected in the saltwater he was sitting on right now.)

His eyes followed the light gray trail of the cigarette’s smoke back down, until he reached the reddening tips of Briosa’s fingers, peeking through her mitts.

She took a drag and swayed it out of her mouth with a lazy motion, letting her hand fall on the knee she had propped up on its twin; flat lips pushed forward, she blew without whistling, slow, so that the smoke would build up, turning into big soft bouts of fog.

Her short frame let her lay across the width of the boat, heavy boots hanging safely above the waves without getting wet, an arm sitting on the railing, head reclined and cap down over her closed eyes. Relaxed.

Mawile was swaddled tight and warm in an old repurposed fleece scarf, following Cryogonal’s trajectory as she floated about way too high.

The air was crisp.

It reminded him of the Icelands when the summer ended (always too quickly) or the Highlands when the spring came (always too slowly).

Ingo breathed in and felt at peace.

How nice.

Briosa sniffled: the tip of her long broken nose curled like a Buneary’s, red as a Cheri, and she rubbed it with the coarse wool back of her gloves.

“Alright,” she announced, pulling her legs back into the boat and slapping her cigarette back in her mouth, “Better get back to shore before our asses fall off from the cold or Emmet finds out you’re over the big terrifying ocean and tries to kick my rotulas in.”

Ingo snorted.

The wind cut at his face; he hid it deeper in his coat.

She stopped him before he could say bye on the docks, reaching into her backpack and pulling out some kind of plastic bag chock full of little dumplings.

“Warm Mustrudi!” she said, handing them over to him. “Turtlén. With the pasta and the meat stuffing made by hand by me. Takes two minutes to cook in boiling broth. Don’t know how many people y’all might be having with you know, family, Elesa, so I got you a bunch since I make way too many just to be safe.”

“You did not have to!” Ingo replied, signing slowly as he spoke.

Briosa smiled sharply with her wide rectangular grin: “Yes I did! I promised Emmet a year or more back I’d make them for him and then I kept forgetting. And anyways it’s tradition! Turtlén in broth on Mustrudi eve. It’s even snowing. Perfect weather.”

The taller man accepted, thanking her profusely and asking her to wait just a moment. The substitute looked curiously as he rummaged in what seemed to be an endless pocket of his coat.

When the other pulled out a pair of tall disks wrapped in thick white papers and offered them to her, the cigarette nearly fell out of her mouth.

“Is that the-?”

“Gogoat brie!” he nodded.

“The one you guys had back in--?”

“Correct!”

Briosa looked up at him with eyes so wide they barely fit in her face.

“For me?” she asked, voice so high in pitch and cutesy it was almost enough to give him twelve cavities and then some.

Ingo nodded again, thrusting the cheese in her hands. For a moment, she did not seem at all a thirty-one years-old man with a tooth collection and a penchant for violence; she was giddy, like a little boy with the world in his hands, eyes shiny and gleeful with disbelief, holding the food to her chest like it was the most perfect gift ever.

It was literally just cheese.

Knowing her, she couldn’t wait to cut a slice for her father to try out that evening.

Warm Mustrudi!, Ingo signed as loudly and fluidly as he could.

Briosa laughed her rubber Ducklett laugh as he began to leave, Mawile waving at him from her shoulder, her squeaky voice hindered by the cig she was still trying to hold onto until it finally fell into the water; she slapped a hand over her curly bracket-shaped smile and blew him the biggest kiss.

#pokémon #submas Ingo #briosa pokemon #random writing #Smoking tw #hello hello hello hello hello hello hello i have an exam next morning and i got possessed to write abt ingo n briosa being pals #also winter holidays fic! #mustrudi has gift giving but its small kinda like channuka #its only one day and its just chilling with pals and ppl you love day and give them like. socks. a mug. bandaids. #mustrudi lore is: swords of justice get hurt; human helps even tho the soj dont like em; soj make a truce with humanity and accept them #mustrudi celebrations include nice dinner for evening and 1 silly gift by morning #im shitting my pants abt the exam #btw thank you to the music tapes for their song takeshi & elijah that made me write this

[randomwriteronline]

Furze stares at her in bewilderment.

Briosa stares back at him and crams another handful of salad leaves into her mouth with her bare hands.

She keeps munching.

She is sitting at her desk in complete silence doing nothing, with a small stack of paperwork she has worked on, another one she will work on once her break ends next to it, her hearing support Mawile sitting on the edge of the desk nibbling at some kind of biscuit at her side, and one of those plastic bags with a zip for storing vegetables in the fridge in one palm from which she is busy intermittently grabbing entire fists worth of what is very likely raw unseasoned lettuce to fit in her jaw as she basically unhinges it.

It gives a few quiet crunches as she chews.

“Is there something you need me for?” she asks with her mouth half full.

Furze shakes his head.

“Is it your break?”

Furze shakes it again.

“Is it a slow day?”

Furze shakes it again.

“So do you have better things to do than gawk at me?”

Finally, his hands unfreeze from the confusion and ask, because he has never seen that bag in the small office fridge: Where did you keep that?

“Cryogonal,” she replies.

Furze blinks: “What--”

“Can I eat my fucking salad in peace, please!” Briosa interrupts him.

Furze scrambles out, and she shoves the rest of her greens down her throat.

-

“Agent Furze claims you eat salad right out of the bag like some kind of large hungry Bunnelby during breaks,” Emmet signs and says at the same time while they wait on the Multi Line.

“I do,” Briosa confirms.

“Why?”

“To not get scurvy.”

“You can eat it in a bowl. Still no scurvy. Or at least salt it. You salt your kale.”

“I also boil my kale, and it tastes too wet if I don’t salt it,” she notes: “But you can’t salt raw salad like that because it defeats its purpose as the anti-chip.”

Her boss tilts his head and makes a confused face.

He latches onto the handrail as the car hits a long curve, while Briosa simply leans in the opposite direction with her torso, legs unmoving, as she begins to explain: “You know how chips are salt in the shape of a potato and after you eat a bunch of them you get super thirsty and you have to stop eating to drink?”

Emmet nods.

“Ok, well salad is just water in the shape of a leaf, and if it’s good salad then it sorta crunches like chips, right?”

“Zucchini.”

“Nope, zucchini is water in the shape of a stick, you can’t just pop it in your mouth, you gotta bite the pieces off, it’s a completely different feeling. I guess it’s the anti-breadstick? Good breasticks have so much salt on them.”

Emmet nods again.

“But yes, what I’m saying is that if you’re eating a bag of chips you should also keep a bag of salad right next to it and just pull handfuls of it right out to keep hydrated. Boom! No need for water. No breaks. We’ve reached non-stop munch central station.”

The white-clad subway boss hums.

“Why were you eating it?” he asks then.

“Scurvy.”

“Not hunger?”

Briosa shrugs: “I’m not hungry usually.”

Hm. Emmet is not sure of that.

Instead of arguing with her, he asks: "Where do you keep that, anyways?"

"Cryogonal."

"What does that mean."

"I put it in her mouth and she keeps it nice and fresh."

He gives her a look that feels like pure exhilarated horror.

"What!" she argues: "She doesn't drool!"

Before he can sign anything back at her, Mawile snaps her enormous jaws to get their attention: one challenger carefully slides the door to the car open, their partner right behind them, and both bosses seamlessly slip back into familiar poses and scripts.

-

Emmet pinches the bridge of his nose. The healing station at the end of the car, courtesy of the Pokémon Centre Association, is slowly working on getting the strength back in his team.

“That was verrry bad,” he comments to himself, holding onto the handrail.

It’s good that Briosa cannot hear him.

“You were pretty good,” she reassures him.

Right. Lip reading.

“No,” he corrects her. “You did good. The two of them did good. I did not. I wasn’t focused. Wasn’t serious. Battles are only fun when they’re serious.”

Briosa hums.

Emmet’s hand returns to his face and makes a motion as if to wipe his head clean of thoughts with it. He lowers it under his nostrils and there it lingers, palm making a tent over his lips, drumming his fingers a little on his cheek.

“It just doesn’t work,” he mutters. “It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t. It just doesn’t. I like combinations. I like combinations of two Pokémon. I like combinations of two people sometimes. Not like this. I don't like them like this. It just doesn’t work. Nobody works. It’s unfair. It’s just unfair. I cannot work in these conditions. I should be able to. Combinations of two people, I should be able to crack them. Figure them out. It just doesn’t work. I just can’t manage it. It’s stupid. I should. But it’s hard. It’s three Pokémon and one person. It’s hard. It’s many things. How each Pokémon works. How the person works. How they work together. Moves, abilities, if it's physical or special. Technique, preferred methods, general way of strategizing. How to work with all that. How to synchronize. Synergize. With all that. I'm tired. I'm so verrry tired and I have no time. No energy. I'm so tired. So in battle I must keep watch on my team, on the opponents', on my partner's. I need to crack the challenger's strategy at the moment, and my partner's strategy at the moment. It distracts me. And if I am distracted, I am unfocused. I am not serious. Battles are only fun when serious. This is not fun. This is just tiring. Just tiring."

He sighs softly.

"It just doesn't work," his tone sounds a bit like sobbing. "It's unfair."

The train leaves the station again, making every part of the car rattle and shake as it runs down the tunnels. Mawile sits snuggly on one of the plastic seats, little legs dangling from them.

"I know you were talking."

Emmet turns to her, hand still over his mouth: "No you don't."

Briosa points just above her throat: "The chin moves when you talk," she continues. "I can see it,  and pretty well too from this angle. Being this short has its perks."

Observant.

He huffs loudly. His shoulders drop forward.

"Is it about us losing?"

He shakes his head. His hand moves (he wonders why he didn't learn sign earlier: it's so much better than having to speak verbally, sometimes) and he replies, with a bit of difficulty: Tired.

"Of what?"

No, not that. Crack your style, needs time. No time, no energy. Try during battle. Get unfocused. Not serious. Not fun. Angry. Tired tired tired.

"Ah," and she clicks her tongue loudly, like Mawile does: "I get it."

They hit a long curve, very fast. Emmet watches Briosa lean her entire body except for her feet in the opposite direction and remain upright effortlessly; she doesn't hold onto anything. He wonders how she learned to do that.

She hums loudly.

"We could get a pair of Depot Agents to handle this," she proposes.

He frowns deeply and shakes his head: no no no. Bosses, must be. Not Agents. People know. Expect Bosses. If no Bosses but Agents, disappointment.

"Yeah, life's got a lot of those," the substitute replies dryly. She holds his upset gaze: "The line isn't closing," she replies to his silent complaint, "You're stepping back from it because at the moment you don't feel like you can provide a service of the quality you think it should be. If someone's got anything to say about that they can talk to the manager and the manager can tell them to fuck off."

Manager you?

"Of course."

Yeah, he had a feeling that was the point of the analogy. Still, it feels like a cop-out. A cheap way to handle this.

"Plus, it's not like less stress and a little more rest wouldn't do you good."

Am fine.

He has to admit the Depot Agents were right: Briosa does have irises the color of rotten green olives.

"I've seen Pokémon on the brink of death looking less miserable than you."

Can confirm, Mawile finally butts in from her seat. She cackles in gleeful betrayal at his glare.

Emmet shows his tongue at her, piqued.

“You wanna try stepping down for the day already?” Briosa asks, and her squeaky voice is kind.

He shakes his head: No, he replies: Challengers were verrry strong. Might manage 48. Would like to try again. Figure out arrangements later.

Briosa looks almost lovely when she smiles with her mouth closed and her squinty eyes grow even squintier, pleased that he already considers her proposal. Not to say she isn’t generally pretty otherwise: simply, she momentarily loses the impenetrable cloud of menace she is usually sorrounded by.

She juggles three Pokéball in one hand almost absentmindedly, tossing one in her other other palm and trapping the remaining two between her fingers: “Couple Doubles?” she grins toothily - and with the sight of those pearly whites comes again that threatening aura - “To help you figure my strategy out, since we’ve got the time?”

Emmet smiles a little and fetches his team from the healing station.

#pokémon #submas emmet #submas #depot agent #briosa pokemon #random writing #started out as a silly 'briosa is weird' and ended somewhat seriously #aka yea shes a weirdo but also shes competent and observant

[randomwriteronline]

9:34. Wait fuck shit can yoy say hi to ny dad n give him a smooch

9:35. Bc i cant see him for 7 days

9:35. His xtrans has gone to fuck so he cant talk to me

9:36. Last time he sent me a text it took him 20 mins so he probably busted out my fucken flip phone in the meantime

13:02. yours?

13:03. Yea

13:03. Pastel pink

13:03. Pink conch shell background

13:04. verrry pretty.

13:05. I miss it so much it was great

13:05. Its the absolutely worst fuvking thing for me since ive gone deaf bc i can only message on it and its hell on earyh to try do that on a flip phone

13:06. can imagine.

13:08. do i have to. hm.

13:10. kiss him.

13:10. physically.

13:11. Do NOT shove your tongue in my dads mouth if you dont want me to clean your ass with it if thats what youre asking

13:12. I WAS NOT GOING TO.

13:12. You better not

13:12. But also no not necessarily

13:13. OK GOOD.

13:14. Also do yall not fucken kiss your pa on the goddamn cheek???????

13:14. What the ryck

13:20. how do i find him?

The Harlequin was rubbing the last bits of make up out of his face when he figured that the particularly tall white clothed man was approaching him specifically at vertiginous speeds, arms swinging like either a grandfather clock’s pendulum or the slowly descending curved blades used in a certain type of torture which he vaguely remembered being described in a thrilling short story.

“Hello.” said man began, and his voice was very familiar. “I-”

“Oh, I know you!” the clown interrupted him with a smile and a moderately heavy accent that the other could not quite place: “You are, ah, the boss! Of the metro, yes, no? Ah, ehm...”

He looked to his fingers as he snapped them once or twice, not noticing the sudden tension overtaking his interlocutor.

His expression turned sheepish as he faced the white eyes again: “Emmet?” he tried, starting to correct himself instantly: “No-”

“Yes.” the conductor assured him, deflating. “I am Emmet.”

“Ah, good, good! Sorry - I’ve got trouble with, ah, faces, you know,” the man explained as he waved a hand in front of his own nose to better drive his point home. Emmet found that to be hilarious affirmation, considering the only person he could have been mistaken for happened to have his exact same face, but did not say anything as the man’s eyes shined on him with newfound enthusiasm: “You are Briosa’s friend! No? She tells me about you!”

Her friend.

That was... Well, maybe not news - but it was weirdly relieving to hear.

So Emmet nodded in confirmation: “She says hello.”

“Ah!” and Mr. Crociera clapped once, very gleefully, and it might have looked not nearly as goofy if he were either still wearing Harlequin make up or not in otherwise full Harlequin costume: “Ah, thank you, thank you! She told you of the phone - oh my son, he’s sweet, my boy. She’s sweet, my boy.”

“Verrry sweet,” the conductor nodded again. “When she wants.”

The man laughed and made a strange sound, a sort of eh-jah, eh-jah, with his eyes crinkling at the corners as they turned small and squinty like his son’s (though exponentially less terrifying). His smile was more lopsided though, sliding all over his face to widen only on one side.

He made a wide inviting gesture with his hand, nodding his head in tandem: “Come, come, I know a place - I offer you a coffee, would you like? ‘s late, but I know a place in Nimbasa-”

“No no no,” Emmet replied quickly, though he did hold himself back from stepping away - that would have been awfully rude, a little voice in the back of his head reminded him: “Sorry. Still working. Sorry.”

“Ah, it’s fine, it’s fine! It’s on me, I forgot, of course, of course, we’re in the metro, you run it... But one time, you can come by us? I mean by me, in Driftveil?” and he said that with an intensity in the way he brought both hands to his chest to emphasize his person that made the conductor almost stumble deeper into his coat, “For dinner! I’d be glad, no problem at all! I like guests, and you know Briosa, you can both come, I’d be glad!”

Emmet clicked his tongue loudly and froze solid.

He only managed to get out of himself a strangled 'ah’, overwhelmed.

Getting invited to dinner by a very enthusiastic 50-something divorced clown father of one he properly met two minutes ago was not exactly something he had expected complying with Briosa’s simple request would have spiraled into.

It didn’t really help that he felt like he was being set up for a date.

With which one of the two Crocieras was up for debate.

Which! Didn’t exactly put him at ease either.

“I am.” he began, stunted, scrambling around his brain for a script that he could use in a situation like this: “Not. Ah. Hm. I am Emmet. She is. A friend. I’m not. We are. Not. Uh-”

But Mr. Crociera waved - he did that a lot, hands flying short distances in all directions as he talked - and made a funny noise like the trembling huff of a Zebstrika.

"Oh no no, I know, she said already - no boyfriend or girlfriend, she's not bringing one home, not now, not never," he laughed to bring him back to a comfortable lack of tension in his shoulders. "It's just - Briosa, you know how she is, she is not very, uhm... Socheble?" (sociable, he meant, though his pronounciation was a little butchered) "So now that she's got a friend I'm happy, I'm excited! I'm glad! Ah, but maybe too much, eh? A little early to--"

"A little," Emmet agreed.

"A little." the clown smiled. He stuck out a gloved hand suddenly with a little oh!, realizing he had not even introduced himself: "I'm Giglio, anyways."

"Geeyo," Emmet tried to repeat as they exchanged shakes.

"Like that, yes! Or Jack if it's easier for you. I don't get angry about it, you know."

Jack, with a wide ah sort of sound?

"You work for Burgh," the Subway Boss recognized him. The artistic Bug-enthusiast stressed that was how the name of one of the performing battlers of his gym was pronounced even when told it seemed a bit silly, so it was hard not to recognize it.

Giglio nodded: "I do! You know him?"

"I like Bug types."

"Me too! You wanna see, we can battle! I got a Combee, a Venipede, a..."

"I run the Double Battle Line," Emmet interrupted him. "Please keep you Pokémon contained on regular trains. Battle 20 challengers and face me!"

"Ha-ha! I don't know if I have time for that, but I can try!" the clown snickered, seeming not at all put off by the sudden stiffness of his script. His eyes were still a little squinted by his grin when he opened them again: “But I do mean it, the dinner - when you think it’s a good time! When you think it’s a good time, you tell Briosa, or you tell me. I’m always here at this time. Except Saturday! Saturday is day off.”

Saturday is day off, Emmet found himself memorizing as he nodded.

“But you tell her or me, and I give you the address and we all eat together. Sounds good? I fix us something nice - I like having guests, it’s no problem!”

And then Giglio’s face changed in a way that the conductor couldn’t exactly place, his eyes turning to slightly wider half moons, his mouth straightening slightly more evenly across his cheeks while still smiling.

“You look a bit lonely.” he just said in that same jovial tone.

Emmet’s expression didn’t change, hit by that sudden statement as he was. He remained smiling, mind completely blank.

Did he?

Was it that obvious?

The hand he had not retreated from the shake was cupped by both of Giglio's: he watched the clown gently rub it between his gloved palms a couple times before twisting it to lay on them, knuckles looking downwards - and a little yarn Swadloon frowning sleepily upon it.

"Ha!" he squeaked.

A genuinely amused chuckle reached him: "A neat trick, eh?"

"Verrry neat!" he agreed, feeling his grin turn more honest in delight. His free hand went to pet one of the fuzzy leafy antennae with genuine awe: the craftsmanship maybe was not the most precise, but it was absolutely adorable.

“It’s based on mine,” Giglio said, pointing at it. He gave a little wave as he tilted his head to the side: “I mean, they all look like that, I know, I know. But that’s mine specifically! So you can have a little friend in your breast pocket, to keep you company. Eh, I’m still - working, on the, the handywork, it’s not the best, but it’s nice, no?”

The conductor nodded giddily, yarn Swadloon safely and quickly tucked away; he wanted to thank him properly, but words were failing him.

"You think about that, eh? Coming for dinner?” the Harlequin spoke in his place, wagging a finger in his direction as if he were a kid being playfully admonished, “Don’t leave me hanging on that. I told you, I’m happy to have guests, no problem at all. So think about it, hm?”

As he began nodding again, Emmet’s eyes fell on the numbers brightly displayed on his Xtransceiver: “The next train for Driftveil will arrive at Gear Station in five minutes,” he noted helpfully.

He could see why Mr. Crociera had kept his job at Burgh’s gym for as long as he had: the extreme expression and loud ‘ueppa!’ as he brought a hand to his head, almost shoving it down his torso with the extreme pathos of the movement, made for a great subject to observe like a newly hatched Durant under a magnifying glass during any battle, and had probably fascinated the artist to the point of growing fond of his employed challenger. No doubt he had inspired some pieces, with a face like that.

A pair of hands clapped on Emmet’s arms and sandwiched him within them, snapping him out of his musings: “Thank you, I was gonna be here all night!” Giglio laughed, patting once or twice: “Been nice meeting you! Good work then, and ah,” he added as he already started darting off, “Thank you for Briosa!”

“She sends you a kiss!”  the conductor remembered a bit late.

From already halfway down the tunnel Giglio slapped a hand on his heart as if hit square in the heart by an arrow, giving a loud AH!, launched first a grinning kiss towards his train, and a Thank You sign right back at him with a laugh.

21:07. your dad sends you a kiss.

21:08. A

21:08. Thank youuuu

21:12. he is verrry verrry nice.

21:13. Ofc he is id never lie about him

21:13. Worlds most perfect man

21:14. gave me a yarn swadloon.

21:14. :O can i see?

21:16. (picture)

21:17. OH holy fuck WWAIT

21:18. Thats fucking Pantalone!! His swadloon!! Id recognize that little greedy bastard anywhere

21:18. Thats so cute ill shit myself

Waiting alone for a challenger on the forty-ninth wagon of the Double Line, Emmet wheezed his lungs out.

21:26. please don’t.

21:27. TOO LATE

21:27. ah! fuck!

#pokémon #submas emmet #briosa pokemon #random writing #direct sequel to briosa gets the fucking plague #FT HER DAD. THE WORLDS MOST PERFECT MAN #giglio my beloved #fun fact his name alludes to the accident of the costa concordia (cruiser ship belonging to costa crociera) #it got stuck in the sand bc captain schettino wanted to 'bow' at the isola del giglio (isle of the lily) but came too close #and then it turned on its side #hes also a canonical npc! the only harlequin of burghs gym to appear in both bw and b2w2 (jack) #this was mostly just to introduce him. just to make yall aware of him #ending might be rushed but!!! small price to pay for giglio crociera

[randomwriteronline]

His wrist beeped. When he looked down, a few messages saluted him from the thin bright screen.

5:45. Bad news: caught the plague. quaranteening, wont come to work

5:45. Good news: no fever, just clogged nostril n throat kinda sore

5:46. Bad news: entire body fucken hurty

Ah. That's where she was.

5:47. agony?

5:47. Good news: dull ache

5:47. Bad news: annoying as hell

5:48. good. rest up.

5:49. Im gonna watch all of raikou man in one sitting

5:50. seems excessive.

5:50. I cantbpunch

5:51. Raikou man punch for me

5:51. Fucken grab those bastatds

5:51. Did yoy know theres a guy called mr no in raikou man

5:52. no.

5:53. DO NOT LOOK IT UP HES LOOKS LIKE A DIVK

5:53. Did you know. Its based. On a paldean gifaragaig

5:53. Giafarigarf

5:53. Falafal

5:54. girafarig?

5:54. No

5:54. Other bastard

5:55. Long ruckwn neck

5:55. tropius?

5:56. How tf dis you understand tropius from my attempts

5:57. long neck.

5:58. Whatever not important

5:59. After that. Lady oscar time baby

5:59. all of it?

6:00. Yeags

6:00. please sleep.

6:01. Oh im fucjeb gonna my head is heavy

6:02. Anyways. Is the ramen packets good for tonight bc i dont thonk i can do anything other tahn cjop veggies

6:03. you cant come.

6:03. ??? Yes???? I can??? You will eat bic

6:03. Bicth

6:03. Birg

6:03. Shat

6:04. take your time.

6:04. Im bitng your spleen

6:04. Oh wait no the goddamned. Plague. I agce it. Fuck

6:05. yup.

6:06. Eat

6:06. will do.

6:07. You better you fpeixe of fuck

6:08. My stomach is shifting to the side its veey annoying n uncormfortable

6:09. gross and concerning.

6:10. Yea

6:11. But anyways

6:11. Good day on the traisn

6:11. Kick ass

6:12. Ill ve here stretching my back and napoing probably

6:13. have a good nap!

6:13. Gnap

A couple hours later, his wrist buzzed again.

8:45. Mawile

8:46. B sent

8:47. Emolga with letter cover wnvelope envelope to your home

8:48. Falvour flavour packet inside

8:49. Flavour shrimp

8:50. When see envelope under door worry no

8:51. Remember eat when home

Emmet smiled a little.

8:52. thank you. is briosa asleep?

8:52. Yes

8:52. good.

8:53. Fememberd remember dinner

8:53. a bit early for that. but i will. thank you.

8:54. Remember!

8:54. will do! thank you mawile. take care of briosa.

After five minutes he got a thumbs up. Good to see they had found the tab with the emoticons.

At around midnight, while Emmet failed to force himself to wash the dishes, his Xtransceiver rang; he positioned it on the dinner table, at a good enough distance from himself so that his hands could come into view clearly.

“Hello,” Briosa croaked at the other end as he waved. “Did you get the flavor packet Guts sent you?”

Emmet nodded.

“Made yourself dinner with it?”

“Had a nice bowl of broth.”

At that she brought her own bowl into view as if it to toast with it: “That’s the life!” she laughed. “I had some... Fucking, spinach, in it, whatcha put in yours?”

“Cut some maccheroni and put them in.”

“Ourgh, fuck yes. Pastina. Did I ever bring you the turtlén?”

He shook his head.

“Gotta make ‘em. Gonna make some while I’m stuck here and bring ‘em over. You know, uh... Wanton soup? They’re kinda like that, but not fried. And it’s, I mean you’re not... Supposed, to add stuff. To, uh, when you make soup with... Turtlén - I mean you can also eat them dry with sauce, but broth is... So good.”

“So good.”

“So good.”

“Sooo good.”

“I’m gonna make stock broth and turtlén since I’ve got all this time. I’m gonna put that fucking delight in a bottle and drink it nice and lukewarm on shifts.”

“Not really hydrating, is it?”

“Yeah... Gonna put the broth in a bottle and boil the turtlén in it for you. When Mustrudi comes I’m gonna make you a lil’ bag of ‘em.”

“Why on Mustrudi?”

“Ah, tradition! You eat turtlén on Mustrudi eve. All the rest is usually stuff you can make cold, but not turtlén. Turtlén in broth on Mustrudi, with the snow out...” and she leaned her head back and gave a gurgle that sounded disgustingly funny: “Absolute delight. Peace and love on planet Earth.”

Behind her, Seismitoad made a long croak echoing the sentiment.

Emmet laughed softly.

“I’ll make ‘em,” Briosa promised, words slurring a bit. “Gonna steam clean ‘em and lock ‘em in the fridge for quaranteen and once I’m out it’s over for you.”

“Alright.”

“Over I say!”

“Go to sleep. How are you? Still hurts?”

“Nah, not much. Dull aches, but overall good. You?”

“Am alright.”

“Nice. Ok! Wash the dishes and get the hell to bed. You got work tomorrow. I’m gonna go sleep too. In solidarity. And also because I’m, kinda tired.”

“Good, good.”

They waved each other goodbye; Emmet finally managed to get himself to the sink, soap and sponge in hand, and slowly but surely cleaned his bowl and the little pot that had seemed like such a gargantuan task moments before.

#pokémon #submas emmet #briosa pokemon #random writing #im quaranteened rn and my back hurts and also i wanted emmet n briosa to be friendos and mention briosas vague love for 80s anime #its not that shes a super fan its just that i have a cd of all the italian openings and tigerman's is burned into my soul #lady oscar is the italian name for the rose of versailles which tbh. i like more than the original title #the rose of versailles = oh romance in france #lady oscar = intrigue of Gender #it also helps that lady oscar was a fucking BAMF despite her father being a dick and fersen friendzoning her in the cruelest way ever #also yall should listen to tigerman's italian opening (L'Uomo Tigre - sigla) its Great #finally! turtlén is just tortellini but with a milanese accent. my grandma makes em for christmas every year i help her close em #every time i introduce something abt briosa casually its like NEEDS MORE ITALIAN #so anyways yea thats why briosa is plagued #mawile doesnt have hands made for typing poor gal shes Doing Her Best