March 17th, First Year
"I'm fine! Really!"
"Not according to the other scouts, you're not! Attacked by a Luxray and paralyzed too. You and that other fellow you came with. You need adequate rest, ma'am."
"Not as much as he does."
Ingo rapped on the doorframe to the medical office once and entered. He had been here numerous times before during his less than fortunate journeys here in the past. The pink and white wallpaper was heavily chipped and starting to lose saturation. The warmth in the room was stifling especially with each section of the room being screened off to prevent strangers from peering in. This was the busiest he had ever seen it.
A few smaller corpsmen scurried around him carrying bags of supplies and rope, giving him curious stares as they passed. Eventually, one of the other nurses noticed him, gave him a polite nod, and disappeared into the back. She came out with a clipboard and a pen. "Back again so soon? You certainly don't look injured."
"No, my engine is well-oiled, though thank you for asking. I am looking for my fellow warden. Warden Lian."
The nurse nodded. "I figured as much. A bunch of Pearl Clan folks showed up over a week ago with the poor boy but none of them stuck around to keep an eye on him." She flipped over a page. "That lord of his certainly did a number on him, but he's young. Kids are robust," the nurse nodded to herself. "He'll heal up quick. Won't be as good as new but he'll be okay."
"I see. May I speak with him?"
"You may, though I'm not sure whether he's awake right now. Follow me. I suppose we can check together, and you can send some sort of note to your leader or this boy's guardians." The nurse led him along the corridor of white curtains, little glimpses and snippets of conversations piping up here and there.
He passed a section where a young man lay, his body wrapped in bandages and covered in blankets. Messy blond hair spilled down his face and over his scrunched-up eyes. Two other passengers sat at the bed, their eyes filled with worry. Ingo averted his eyes to spare them some privacy.
"What happened to my pokémon?" came a tired voice. "That strange one? The one that keeps making me dizzy whenever it comes near me? I thought I had the pokéball on me?"
"The captain wants that thing to be contained. Not a big fan of ghost-types, her. Not a big fan myself, either. What kind of pokémon naturally looks like that?"
Ingo ducked behind the farthest screen and as he had suspected, Warden Lian was unconscious, half wrapped in bandages and much paler than Ingo had ever seen him before. There were numerous items at his bedside guarded carefully by a large Goomy. It blinked sleepily at him, a damp spot spreading from where it was sitting.
A polite tap landed on his shoulder. "Guess he's asleep," came the quiet murmurs of the nurse. "He should be awake in an hour or two. I'll tell him you plan on visiting if he wakes earlier than that. If he's not in the proper shape, I'll ask if there's anything he wants to pass on to you."
"Thank you very much," Ingo declared, trying his best to level out his volume. "Your skill with your trade is very much appreciated by myself and the Pearl Clan. You have our utmost gratitude."
"Oh please! There's no need to-"
"Tamiyo, who are you talking with?" came a sharp voice. Another lady, short and slim with dark hair, popped her head around another curtain. "We don't have any new patients, do we?"
The nurse before Ingo perked up. "Warden Ingo of the Pearl Clan is here," she replied daintily. "He's just visiting Warden Lian but the young man is asleep. Please, pay us no mind."
"Of course." Nurse Tamiyo had briefly left him to collect a document of information about Warden Lian's wounds, presumably for him to send to Leader Irida.
"Did somebody say 'Ingo'?" came the tired voice from before. "Could've sworn I've heard that name before. He's still here, isn't he?"
"He could very well be," the nurse from behind the curtain gave him an exasperated glance before turning back to the owner of the voice, "but you'll just have to wait until you're all taken care of."
"Fine, fine. Do you think you could give this to him, then?"
Ingo looked back. He could spare a few moments if needed. He carefully made his way to the curtain. "Give me what?"
Then came a pause. A very long pause. Ingo was almost afraid that he had unconsciously let his volume take over before noticing the spooked look on the nurse's face. Then came the sound of a pokéball breaking open.
"Subway Master Ingo? He's here? I've been looking all over for him!"
Ingo did not recognize that voice. He did not recognize why the fervor behind it disturbed him so deeply and why the moniker of 'Subway Master' made his heart start racing in his throat. A ghostly heat filled the screened-off section like a well-lit hearth and Ingo could almost collapse in the heat if not for his mind switching tracks rapidly. His legs pulled him toward the screen despite the chill in the room and he hastily pulled it back.
"I am so sorry, Warden Ingo." The nurse from before barred his way before he could continue in, a look of sheer horror and panic in her eyes as her eyelids began to droop. "The pokémon within got loose and it keeps putting people to sleep when it's out," she yawned. "No need to come in-"
"Everything is fine," the voice corrected smoothly. "I want- I need to speak with him. Where is he? Where's Subway Master Ingo? Where is he?" The voice escalated in volume until the nurses were covering their ears.
"Get back in your ball, please! You're scaring the nurses!" came the tired voice, now agitated.
"You are not Ingo. Where is he?"
"I am Ingo." He pushed past the nurse and stared; stared at the patient in the bed beside the window who stared unblinkingly back at him with a look of disbelief and confusion. Their bandaged arms were locked around the pitch-black metal frame of what looked to be a lamp. The 'lamp' then proceeded to whip around, two golden pools of light focusing on him.
"There you are!" the pokémon cried, moving closer."I've been looking for you! Searching for you! I thought I would never find you again! It's you! It's really you!"
Time seemed to stand still. The pinks and whites of the medical wing blurred and lost their color and all the warmth in the room drained away. He was left facing the lamp-pokémon and the patient wrangling them.
The patient was now slumped over, eyes glassy and clouded over as their arms fell limply to their sides as though in a trance.
A metallic looking pokémon floated closer, its ethereal flames cloaking the room in a soothing violet light. It emitted a haunting screech, swaying and turning and dancing around him in a cacophony of noise and bell-like laughter. A ghost-type pokémon. Its eyes closed in happiness before it wrapped its metallic arms around him, squeezing him but not rough enough to actually hurt him. He felt warm.
"It's you! It's really you!" the voice sounded again. "I'm so happy to see you! We're finally back together again. Don't ever lose my pokéball again!" A thick static poured into Ingo's head, his mouth dry and his hands tingling. Burning, even. "Now we can go home!"
Then, without any warning, the pokémon was hoisted back by its frame.
"Again with this? How many times are you going to put me to sleep so you can escape?"
A pair of arms restrained it from floating any closer again and the pokémon flailed about looking quite agitated. The young lady from before gave him a worried frown before forcing the glowing pokémon into a wooden pokéball; it immediately broke free and tried to float back over to him with an accusing cry, surrounding itself in the same strange violet light.
"Could you not? I'm trying to help you," the young lady complained. She eyed him. "Give me a hand here, will you? I think she's yours, but she's kind of putting everybody to sleep when she does… that."
"I- Chandelure?" Ingo rasped.
The lamp gave him a happy trill at the sound of its name and tried to float closer. The feeling of dizziness flooded Ingo's mind again. In an instant, the young lady was hauling the luring pokémon back with the assistance of an Eevee.
Ingo started back to attention. "Please mind yourself around the passengers, Chandelure."
His supposed pokémon gave him a wilting look before reluctantly calming down, floating behind him as if hiding behind his back.
"So you do know this pokémon," The young lady kept one hand on the Eevee, moving to shift her blankets as she reclined back against the headrest. "I thought as much. You might want to sit down, by the way. You look paler than I did when I got here." She then turned. "Nurse? Nurse, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." The older lady dusted off her apron and with a pensive look, fled the room. "I'll check on you in a moment."
Ingo was slow to begin the looming conversation. He was never one for small idle chat. "I-"
"You called it 'Chandelure'? That's its name?"
Ingo forced himself to look away from the hypnotizing flames. Once again, his mind was becoming derailed again. And he had been faring so much better for the past year, too. He looked toward the young lady again. "My apologies. It must have been my mind playing tricks on me. It seems I am prone to this disposition."
"Oh, that's ok," she responded curtly. "Anyway, I think I know you from somewhere. You do seem familiar." The young lady gave him a polite smile. "Name's Jaku. I'm with the Diamond Clan. That doesn't make us enemies, does it? Your name's Ingo, right? Wait." She paused. "Weren't you the first faller? I think I've heard your name mentioned several times since I got here."
So this was one of them, Ingo supposed. Right. She certainly asked a lot of questions. One of his letters had mentioned two new strangers falling from the rift. He offered a hand in kind. "Yes, that I am. I am Warden Ingo of the Pearl Clan. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Same here." Jaku paused and then grinned. "So you are Subway Master Ingo! I thought that name rang a few bells when I first heard it." She scratched noisily at the back of her head. "I'm not sure what 'Subway Master' means but that's what comes to mind. Maybe my own mind might be playing tricks on me too!" she joked.
Warden Lian did not wake up for the rest of the evening, so Ingo retreated to his assigned lodging back at the row house. Even though Miss Jaku had insisted that Chandelure wanted to come with him, Head Nurse Peselle had forbidden it. Part of him wished that the pokémon was here with him, too.
He tossed and turned, his mind only going back toward the luring pokémon and the calming heat that ebbed from it. It had hugged him. It had been overjoyed to see him. He hadn't been truly alone in his fall after all, then. If Chandelure was here then- Ingo immediately braked hard on those rails and drew his blankets over his face. No. The man in white had not fallen with him. He couldn't have. But…?
Not being able to sleep, Ingo departed from the training arena and switched his rails toward the hills by Prelude Beach. The Galaxy Headquarters were silent and so too was Jubilife Village. The main road was utterly deserted. Cilan the Tangrowth had insisted on following him and so they passed through the guarded gate into a grassy clearing where they could hear the sounds of the ocean waves striking the sands of the beach.
To his surprise, something was already there: a Luxray. A ragged-looking Luxray with a large scar across its muzzle. It was hunched across the boulder in the middle of the clearing, its glowing eyes watching the gates of the village as if scanning for something. When it spotted Ingo, it hardly looked him over before its eyes roamed back to the torch light. Cilan did not react, either.
Ingo, sensing something was greatly amiss but not dire enough to be in straits, went back to his row house room and waited for daybreak.
March 18th, First Year
When the morning finally came and the village started to move about, Captain Zisu came and gave him his signal to be off: a friendly clap on the back, a large rucksack, and an extra supply bag with medical equipment stamped with the Galaxy Team's official logo. "Be vigilant and be quick!" she'd warned him. "And stay clear of Verity Bank!"
To his surprise, he saw Miss Jaku amongst the extra Galaxy Scouts. Still bandaged and weary-looking but relatively fine. When she'd noticed him, she waved and made a slapping motion toward a pokéball on her belt.
"I don't quite understand your gesture," he pardoned himself as he drew closer.
"Oh! Sorry. Force of habit." She unlatched the pokéball from her belt and handed it to him. "It's ranger lingo. It means 'caught and contained': the Chandelure. It's been talking about you nonstop since yesterday. It even came into my dreams to try to persuade me to sneak it out to you," she chuckled. "Says you're her trainer so here's her ball. Have fun."
Ingo hesitantly took the pokéball. The word 'trainer' scratched just the tiniest itch in the back of his head. "Thank you very much. I do hope her dream meddling hasn't stolen your sleep from you."
"Not at all."
Ingo held the pokéball aloft in his hands. A pleasant familiar warmth surged against his palm and the ball broke open.
Chandelure immediately wrapped its tendrils around him, laughing and singing and chiming, but this time, the dizziness wasn't so heavy, and the static was much quieter. It wouldn't stop laughing. Wouldn't stop smiling. Its violet flames burned so brightly, Ingo thought that perhaps it was a second sun.
"It must really like you if it's that happy to see you," Jaku commented. "Ghost-type pokémon are really hard to befriend. That also might just be a fragment from my own amnesia. But still."
"I suppose it is." He smiled at the ghostly pokémon. A flicker of memory came to him.
One of wandering through a dark tunnel along train tracks. Chandelure floated silently behind him, making a chime once or twice as he inspected a detailed map. He would point at a different section of the tunnel and Chandelure would follow dutifully at his heels.
Another of standing atop a large tower, the luring pokémon floating curiously around a bell. Somebody else was with him, too: the man in white.
When he snapped back to the present, Miss Jaku was staring worriedly at him. "You alright there? We're setting off already. Didn't want you to pass out or anything."
True to her word, the group of scouts mixed with Gingko Guild merchants was already filtering out of the gates, snow crunching underfoot. He hurried to keep pace and fell in at the back, Chandelure effortlessly keeping pace with him. Miss Jaku was not far behind.
"I am quite fine," he spoke after a while. "Their appearance seemed to knock loose a few memories." He cleared his throat. It was awkward being around another faller. Years of being the only one of his kind and dealing quietly with his amnesia and then, suddenly, there's another. "Did you lose your memories too?" he asked quietly.
"As a matter of fact, I did. Both myself and Akari. We washed up on Prelude Beach without knowing our own names," she laughed. "'Jaku' is just a placeholder until I can figure out what my actual name is. I don't think you've met Akari yet. She's out in the fieldlands again; you missed her by about two days but you might run into her at some point since we're heading in the same direction." After a moment, she asked quietly, "How long have you been here?"
"Two years or at least, that is what I've been told by the Pearl Clan. It is difficult to keep time here with only the seasons to count as a timekeeper." Ingo struggled to find the words he was searching for. "You said that you could've seen me from somewhere? Do I look familiar to you?"
"I can't be too sure. You definitely look familiar like I've seen you before. When Chandelure talked to me in my dreams, she kept showing me images of you." Jaku made quick work of backtracking. "Your jacket and hat looked shinier, and you looked sort of different? I don't know exactly what that pokémon of yours was doing in my head, but I know it was messing around with my memories. I think it pulled me into some sort of dream I had a few days ago. I remember seeing a video of you on some contraption somewhere, but I forgot the context."
"A contraption?"
"I can't even begin to describe it." Jaku shrugged. "I think I was supposed to be looking for you way back when but then again, it was only a dream. Finding Chandelure probably just intensified that idea."
"Where did you find her? Perhaps if she is here, then maybe there are more- more of my pokémon, I mean."
"Oh, I didn't find her. That Luxray did."
