Lucas really needed a break. Join the Survey Corps, they said. We won't kick you out of the village if you do, they said. Well, it sure seemed to him like Kamado was finding any excuse to get him out of the village as much as possible. Sure, Lucas was apparently the one competent Trainer in the entire region, which felt weird since here he only had a half trained team and even back home there were plenty who were much stronger than him, and he did genuinely want to study Pokemon and help quell the Nobles' frenzies. But was he not allowed to have a single day off? No. The answer was no. He should start a union. He never had these problems with Professor Rowan.

Lucas suppressed a sigh from his crouched position in the tall grass so as not to startle the Starly he was observing. He had yet to complete its entry and that one lady in town he couldn't remember the name of had started bringing it up to him whenever he walked by. Not that he would usually begrudge her much for it since it had been a while since she asked, but due to his lack of rest, Lucas was not in a pleasant mood.

At least Starly weren't the worst Pokemon to track down and were present aplenty in the Obsidian Fieldlands. Readying a Poke Ball in one hand, Lucas carefully aimed at the Starly in front of him as it stopped to peck at the ground. Shifting his hand back for momentum, he prepared to toss the ball at the Starly, only for it to fly off with no prompting.

"Dang it," he muttered to himself as he stood up from the grass. "Can't one thing go right for me today?"

Lucas snapped his head toward Mount Coronet as the rift, almost as though in response to his question, audibly thundered.

"Alright, alright," Lucas said, raising his arms in a placating gesture. Man, he really was getting tired if he was actively talking to the thing. "I get it. My apologies for questioning your plans to ruin my life oh great and powerful sky hole."

Unfortunately, the rift did not seem to care for his apologies as it thundered again. But this time, there was a flash of light, and as Lucas watched, something seemed to fall out of it at lightning speed. And it was headed directly for him.

Shaking himself out of his frozen shock, Lucas dove to the side right before the object hit the ground with a thud. A gust of wind and dark colored energy flattened all of the nearby grass as the ground shook slightly from the impact. Lucas grabbed Dewott's ball from his pack as he rolled to his feet and turned to face whatever had just fallen from the rift, only for his jaw to drop.

While the energy had hit the ground hard, it appeared that the true contents of the streak was gently floating to the earth as though something was cushioning its fall. At first all Lucas saw was a white hat, white shoes, and a mass of white and brown cloth, but his eyes somehow widened further as it landed and he saw what was being hidden in the clothing.

Lying unconscious in the ring of flattened grass was a child.


Emmet really needed a break. In the years since Ingo disappeared, Emmet had not only spent countless hours over countless days searching for his older brother, but also running all six of the Battle Subway lines throughout the day. While someone else now did multi battles with him, Emmet refused to let anyone except himself using Ingo's team take over the Singles line. He couldn't shut down such an important part of Ingo's life and the lives of Ingo's Pokemon. So he would run it instead until Ingo came back.

While this left Emmet pretty stressed all on its own, being combined with the anniversary of his brother's disappearance coming up in a week did not do his mood any favors. He'd already been getting calls from news agencies wanting his comments on the situation for their coverage of the event. While he appreciated that Ingo was remembered by the people of Nimbasa, that did not mean he wanted to share his deepest darkest feelings and fears about his disappearance, thank you very much.

And then things had to get worse.

There was a disturbance in one of the commuter lines, massive spikes of energy that shorted out the equipment of the area. Emmet had immediately volunteered to inspect the line, grateful for any excuse to be away from people at the moment.

But no, it couldn't be anything normal like some wild electric Pokemon wreaking havoc on the tracks. That, he could deal with just like he had many times before.

Instead, he found a wall of swirling energy he could barely see through. Emmet's plastered on smile twisted into something closer to a grimace as he readied Eelektross's Poke Ball before stepping through the barrier of blue, purple, and red-

-only to be faced with a massive Rampardos with glowing red eyes standing directly in front of him. It did not look happy.

Emmet dove to the side as the Rampardos charged, barely making it out of the way of the rampaging Pokemon's path. With almost no time to think, he quickly stood, swapping Eelektross's ball for his Klinklang's as the Rampardos turned around with a roar powerful enough to shake the ground in preparation for another charge.

"Klinklang, prepare for departure," he called out as he threw the Poke Ball behind him. Turning on the ball of his foot, he pointed at the oncoming Rampardos. "Use Flash Cannon!"

Emmet watched as with a shriek of grinding gears, Klinklang fired the powerful steel-type attack at the hostile creature, knocking it back several feet. The Rampardos roared again, its sights now set on the mechanical Pokemon hovering in front of it. Lowering its head, which Emmet now observed taking on the metallic sheen of Iron Head, the Pokemon ran forward again.

"Protect!" Emmet shouted to his Pokemon. "Then aim for victory with Thunderbolt!"

Klinklang threw up the protective barrier just in time to block the Rampardos's attack, before unleashing a devastating bolt of lightning on the stunned fossil Pokemon. With a final roar, it collapsed to the ground.

Emmet pressed a hand to his chest to try and calm his racing heart. Rampardos did tend to be aggressive Pokemon from what he knew, but this one seemed unusually hostile. And the fact that it was so enormous and had glowing red eyes had been more than a little unnerving. Not to mention Rampardos was a Pokemon native to Sinnoh. How had one ended up in Unova?

Ignoring Klinklang's concerned vocalizations, Emmet looked around. With the Rampardos attacking, he hadn't had much time to consider his surroundings. But now he could clearly see that he was no longer in the subway tunnel.

He was in a rocky area under a large dome that crackled with lightning and swirled with the same energy of the barrier in the tunnel, but with the top of the dome visible, he could see a small rift sparking dangerously. Was this dome some sort of portal?

But what Emmet noticed next made his stomach drop. It was harder to see with the dim lighting inside the dome, but as Emmet took a few steps toward the edge of the dome, it came into greater focus.

He may be from Unova, but he had seen enough pictures of Mount Coronet to recognize the landmark.

Maybe the Rampardos hadn't ended up in Unova. Maybe Emmet had ended up in Sinnoh.

Feeling a careful nudge against his arm, Emmet turned to face Klinklang, who made another concerned sound.

"I'm alright," Emmet told the Pokemon with a smile. "I am Emmet. I can handle this."

Klinklang's gears clicked slowly as it evaluated Emmet's statement, before it gave a satisfied rumble and retreated to its Poke Ball in a flash of light.

Emmet sighed and turned back to look outside the dome. Then his heart froze in his chest. Outside of the dome, less than a hundred feet away, a man in a tattered coat and hat was walking up the mountain trail. The colors were distorted by the energy field, but Emmet would recognize that coat design anywhere, even if it should have been impossible for it to be here. Afterall, he had the matching one.

"Ingo?" Emmet's voice came out as a whisper, before growing to a shout as he took a step closer to the edge of the dome. "INGO!"

The man's head perked up and he turned toward the sound. His eyes widened as they met Emmet's matching ones. The few seconds the twins stood frozen taking in the other's appearance seemed to last an eternity, only broken by the crackling of energy from the dome.

Then both Ingo and Emmet started moving forward in sync, neither believing their eyes. Was this real? How could it be? It had been so long, but now what he had been searching for was right there and-

Just as Emmet started to breach the barrier, the energy shifted. Emmet gasped as he felt the energy inside the dome pull at every fiber of his being. The energy of the barrier swirled around Emmet, growing thinner and thinner but pulling at him harder and harder, trapping him between two worlds. Ingo stopped moving forward, a look of horror forming on his face.

Emmet reached out an arm. "No! Ing-"

But before he could finish saying his name, Ingo was gone and Emmet's hand was reaching out towards the darkness.

"No." His arm slowly fell to his side and tears blurred his vision. "No! He was right there. He was right there!"

Emmet fell to his knees clutching the sides of his head and heaved a massive sob. How was this fair? Ingo was right there! He had been so close to reuniting with his brother only to have him ripped away again. What could possibly be so cruel as to do this to him? Emmet clenched his eyes shut and screamed.

It was a few minutes before he opened his eyes again, Emmet came to the startling realization that the darkness of his surroundings wasn't the low lighting of the subway tunnels or the dome. The ground beneath him was rough and reddish brown in color, a stark contrast to the smooth gray of the tunnels. On top of that, the ground came to a drop off a few feet in front of him, only to pick up a short distance later with an…upside down waterfall?

Looking around, Emmet saw that this was far from the strangest thing in his new surroundings. Chucks of earth floated above, beside, and beneath the one he was sitting on, some of them rotated sideways or upside down. Some plants grew from some of them standing straight up, but only in regards to their specific chunk. Emmet would have thought that they just grew as poles, but based on how they swayed slightly, it seemed as though they were under the effects of different gravity.

Emmet slowly pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his coat as he did so. He had a sneaking suspicion as to where he was. This wasn't Sinnoh, and this wasn't Unova either.

And as Giratina flew up from the void in front of him with a screeching roar, Emmet's heart somehow sank further as his suspicions were confirmed. He had heard of what happened with Team Galactic years ago in Sinnoh. Giratina opened a portal to its home realm at the top of Mount Coronet. While the others who had gone through the portal had managed to escape the realm, the leader of Team Galactic was supposedly still wandering the Distortion World to this day. This could only mean one thing for where Emmet was right now.

Emmet was in the Distortion World. He was in the Distortion World looking at Giratina, who had settled into a hover directly in front of him, observing him. For the dome of energy to collapse and place him here of all places left one culprit. His disbelief grew into anger and his hands clenched into fists.

He looked Giratina in the eyes and with the cold fury of a man who would not take no for an answer, Emmet projected his voice through the emptiness of the Distortion World to the legendary Pokemon in front of him. "My brother was there. You have taken me from him. You will send me back."

Giratina only tilted its head.

"Ingo and I are a two-car train," Emmet continued, his sentences clipped and to the point. "He has…had been missing for years. And before I was here, he was right in front of me. You can send me back. And if you will not, I will fight you." Emmet took out a Poke Ball that was only his by technicality. He could feel Chandelure trembling inside her ball in quiet fury at hearing how close she had been to reuniting with her partner. "And I will win. I am Emmet. And I like winning more than anything else."

The tension in the air was tangible as the Subway Boss stared down the legendary Renegade, the already silent world seeming to hold its breath.

Slowly, Giratina dipped its head, and all the tension collapsed with it. Emmet exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Good. Thank you," Emmet said, though he only lowered Chandelure's Poke Ball slightly. "Now, if you please."

Giratina nodded again and slowly backed away a short distance. Then, the legendary's tendrils flared as its shriek echoed through the void, a blast of energy radiating out from the space between them.

The increasingly familiar feeling of twisted energy washed over Emmet as he threw up one arm to keep his hat firmly on his head, Chandelure's ball still tightly clutched in the other. Giratina shrieked again and Emmet's eyes widened as he watched it happen.

The rift started small. A black shadow slowly formed in the empty space in front of him, only for it to quickly expand to fill the gap between him and Giratina. Then with a massive crack, the swirling energy was split with white.

Giratina looked at Emmet and gestured at the rift with one of its tendrils.

"This will take me to Ingo's location?" Emmet asked to confirm.

Giratina hesitated for a second, but nodded. Emmet's smile tightened. Well, that was probably the best confirmation he was going to get. It wasn't like he had many options at the moment. Either way, he would need Giratina's help to get out of the Distortion World, and if a tentative reassurance of seeing his brother was the best he was going to get, Emmet would take it.

"Okay. I will trust you on this." Emmet walked up to the edge of the rift, then looked up at Giratina. "Thank you."

Giratina tilted its head to the side once again, giving a softer cry than its previous screams. Then, the legendary turned and flew away.

With a deep breath, Emmet looked back at the rift. The dark energy crackled with power that made his hair stand on end. Before he could second guess himself any further, he stepped off the platform and into the rift.

It did not take long for him to regret his decision.

Immediately, his body completely seized up. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he felt the energy settle into him, chilling him to the core. Emmet hissed in pain as he felt the energy rip at his body. He almost felt as though he was on the brink of being ripped apart while simultaneously collapsing in on himself.

Then suddenly, time almost felt like it was moving too fast. He could move again, but his body felt as though it was being squeezed into a plastic bag, an unimaginable pressure pushing in on him from every side. A headache quickly formed as his brain felt like it was being run over by a freight train. Eyes squeezed shut, Emmet lifted his hands to hold his head, only to be bonked in the forehead by the cuffs of his sleeves instead.

Startled enough to open his eyes slightly, Emmet's eyes quickly widened further despite the pain. He couldn't see his hand poking out of the sleeve.

Emmet didn't have time to process this as another burst of squeezing and pain set in, the cold in his bones omnipresent as always. His heart and thoughts racing, Emmet screamed, but it sounded wrong. His voice was usually slightly deeper than Ingo's, but now it seemed higher.

Not that he had much time to think about this as the pressure on his brain increased, driving pretty much all logical thought from his head. Emmet thrashed and screamed in agony as the energy continued to tear away at him. Tears streamed down his face in uncontrollable waves as he felt his hat fall off his head, his shoes and gloves close behind in their departure. Everything hurt so much.

He wanted his brother. He wanted his parents. He wanted someone to tell him that everything was going to be okay even though his quickly fading rational mind told him that wasn't going to happen.

He wanted everything to stop.

After his voice, which had only climbed higher in pitch, had become too sore to scream, Emmet was left to silently sob until he finally lost consciousness as he exited the rift at last, unaware of the eyes on him as he fell from the sky.

AN: You know, I've seen some stuff where Ingo gets turned into a kid (on ao3 at least), but I haven't really seen much with Emmet. Time to change that :D

o7 for Lucas who Did Not Sign Up For This

If you want to talk to me about this AU or honestly anything submas or Pokemon in general, I have Guilded server! (Guilded is like Discord but has some fancy features I like) Make sure to pick up the Pokemon and Fic Reader roles to have access to those parts of the server :D Guilded .gg/i/Ewb0JYjp (remove the space)

Shout out once again to /anxiously-introverted for the inspiration for this au. I am definitely changing some things to fit the story I want to tell, but smol Emmet in Hisui was definitely inspired by the art for her Little Spark AU.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy!
Comments are appreciated ^D^