July 10th, First Year
Days. Many, many days Emmet has been wandering the mountain paths. His fingers twitch and curl outside of their leather gloves, abandoned in the humid heat of summer. His eyes, narrowed against the merciless mountain gusts sweep along the endless mountain range like, dull from exhaustion and irritation and red from the constant showers of dust and dirt into his face. His mouth is set in a tired smile, a dull ache settling into his cheeks.
He stops, takes a seat on a nearby boulder, and runs his fingers through his dirty, disheveled silver hair, letting his false smile drop for just a minute. Now he can feel the unyielding ache of his joints settle in, a brief respite from what was going to come next.
A loud inquisitive buzz warbles though the air, two sharp mandibles coming to gently tug up a strand of his hair. "Zzz?" the creature hummed, its distorted cry making faint echoes in the canyons.
Emmet reached up and gave his friendly bug friend a pat on the head, albeit very carefully. "I am fine, Vespiqueen. Yup. All black here." He let out a chuckle as his partner continued on, messing around with his hair knowing full well that there was nothing the subway master could do about it.
Days, he had been travelling around the mountains searching for his brother. Searching for Ingo… So much had been conspiring against him since he first set foot into this horrible place. Everything was working against him: the pokémon, the weather, and the clans to boot. He growled in frustration, taking out what little portions of berries he'd scavenged while wandering around like a wild pokémon.
This wouldn't be nearly as easy as he thought it would be. Emmet had thought that he would come in, find Ingo, and have Celebi get them both back to Unova. A simple in-and-out mission. That kind of thing. Emmet glared at the horizon. No. No, things had just been so… so frustrating!
Emmet swallowed an oran berry and pulled out a scrap of paper from his pack, careful not to spill the ink pot that he'd successfully swindled from another travelling merchant. He needed a plan. He needed a to-do list. He needed something to ground him, so he didn't go crazy!
Was this how Ingo felt when he got here? I wonder how he's faring on his tracks. I wonder if he knows how to get home. Emmet grimaced, a new bitter thought clouding his mind like poison. I wonder if he wants to come home… Ugh! Everything stinks here!
He had started with just walking towards where Jubilife should've been. Key word: should've. He had lost almost all of his carried items the moment he stepped across the time rift: his beloved passengers? Gone. All of his items? Gone. His map of Sinnoh that he'd purchased along with the encyclopedia about ancient Hisui? Gone! All of it!
And it was just his luck that he had run into that brain-dead pokémon ranger back on that hill months ago. They didn't remember him. Emmet didn't care. Wherever this ranger went, Emmet knew that they would eventually bump into Ingo; they had come back to the present carrying his hat, so Emmet would act the part and listen in for information.
The man grimaced. It's not like I had a choice. Emmet had no pokémon and he was wildly unprepared for how vicious pokémon in the Hisui region were. He'd thought the ranger had been joking when they called him suicidal for showing up with a Celebi that, in their words, was "unequipped for battling with". To his chagrin, the ranger had been right on the money. Celebi was not a battling pokémon.
On their way to the Crimson Mirelands some time ago, Emmet had had to stand back and watch as the pokémon ranger cut through whatever beast decided to get in their way and boy, were the fights he'd seen brutal. Battles there weren't anything like how they were back in Unova or in the Battle Subway. The fights in Hisui were… disturbing. Lawless. Violent… Messy. He'd originally assumed that the idiot ranger didn't know how to battle when he had enlisted them as his battle assistant back in the present. Emmet had seen their credentials. Emmet knew the gist of their capabilities.
But it was different, watching the same dopey ranger that used to lean against the side of a subway car with a bored expression now weaving between two battling goliaths with practiced skill, a saber, and a bone-chilling desire to maim. It was sickening. Nobody in modern times battled like that. As a matter of fact, it was illegal even with wild pokémon. Did Ingo… does he also battle like that?
And then came the irritating games of cat-and-mouse with his brother. He had been surprised to hear how well-known his brother was in this time and age whenever he wasn't missing him by a few seconds. Warden Ingo. A man that had come from nowhere, revered by his fellow wardens and by the clans for his calm demeanor, his excellence in training pokémon, and for his knowledge far surpassing anything that the clans knew about the creatures. Even the expedition team in modern-day Jubilife City who were, as Emmet put it, grasping at straws in the middle of the sticks.
Was Emmet proud? Absolutely. Ingo had caught a brand-new team and was of report the strongest pokémon wielder in the region, having no reported defeats.
Emmet trembled, a smile finding itself back onto his face. Yes, I will find my brother, rescue him from this awful place, and then battle him! He couldn't help it. He loved a little competition… But would Ingo still have his old pokémon with him? And why couldn't Emmet have brought his own then?
While staying with the ranger and the Diamond Clan, Emmet had been working on his own team. So far, he had his beloved Vespiqueen, a Rhydon, and an Electabuzz. They had been a great help on these mountains. Especially given the fact that Emmet still had yet to figure out where Ingo lived around there.
And there was one thing that… bothered him: they way people looked at him. Emmet was no stranger to… to having people stare at himself and his brother. They were oddities, them. Natural silver hair and eyes- it ran in the family.
He didn't really care when people thought he was his brother, waving them off after they realized that Emmet was a different person altogether. The other brother. But then he always felt a twinge of apprehension when the person- after they had noticed- they would step far, far away from him, their faces twisted with fear, mistrust, and confusion. What was that all about?
"Alright!" Emmet got back to his feet, still tired but feeling a little bit better about his current tracks. "Let's get back to work. Next stop: the top of this mountain I'm sitting on. All- "
"I beg your pardon?"
Emmet paused. Scuffling noises sounded a little further up the cliff. Metal clinked. Boots thudded into the dirt. Pebbled rolled down the slope, slipping off of the cliff as the shadows wavered and then parted. A tall, man appeared from the shadows, his skin dripping with sweat.
The man suddenly tensed and then a cat-like smile appeared on his face. "Emmet, is that you?"
"…Ingo?"
The man- no, Ingo- he froze too before quickly hurrying down the slope toward him, tying his familiar but heavily weathered jacket around his waist. "Emmet! There you are!"
And Emmet was running. His legs carried him far, far up the slope as he finally made contact with his brother. "Ingo!" He then grunted in surprise as Ingo hefted him up into a bone-crushing hug.
It was quiet. It was so, so quiet. Emmet had wondered whether he had fallen asleep. Months of waiting. Months of guarding an empty room in an empty apartment. Months of defending Ingo's disappearance to the press. Months of hungry days and sleepless nights tossing and turning. Months of lying to Elesa about how he was doing. Months of being alone at Gear Station. Months of walking alone on their usual route to downtown Nimbasa. Months of having to wave off the sympathetic passengers on the Battle Subway. Months of not even being able to run the Battle Subway. Months of losing his passion- losing his dream that he had once shared. Months of reading false news and eager journalists putting their two cents about what happened to Ingo: that Ingo had purposefully deserted his brother. That he had travelled abroad for a career change. That he had committed suicide.
"At last!" Ingo cried, tightening his grip. His voice shook, dissolving at the edges as he enveloped Emmet within his warm embrace. "I was wondering when we might meet each other again! It is good to see you! Bravo, Emmet! Bravo!"
"I- dragons above- finally!" Tears spilled over Emmet's cheeks as he buried his face in the crook of his brother's neck. He barely even cared that his ears were ringing from his brothers raucous voice. "I've missed you so much! But you're here! You're here!"
"I'm here," Ingo muttered gently, helping Emmet to stand as they slowly separated. He held him at arms-length, a wide smile Emmet had never seen before on his face. "I've been looking all over for you! It's been quite the venture, hasn't it? I'm sorry to have left you alone at the station. I couldn't have predicted the tracks I would be put on."
"How did you even get here?"
"It is a long story," Ingo rasped. He carefully removed his hands from Emmet's shoulders, readjusting his familiar coat around his torso. "And I think it's about time we both get back to our home stations."
Emmet chuckled weakly, wiping the tears from his eyes. "No. Really? You think?" He pulled himself away and fixed his clothes. "Okay! No more time for crying!" he declared. "I came here to take you back home and now that you're here, I can finally do that. Are you ready to go?"
Ingo blinked. Once and then twice. "My apologies, but I'm not quite ready to depart from this station just yet. Apologies, Emmet. Forgive my enthusiasm. There are some things that I must retrieve from my cabin- my pokémon for example. I cannot leave without them."
Emmet bit back a twinge of disappointment, but he forced himself to keep up a smile. Right. Ingo has new pokémon. Of course- he's been here for such a long time, he's bound to have tracks to clear up before we can couple again back in our home station. "Of course. No worries, Ingo. Take your time. Just… don't leave me again, okay?"
Ingo grinned and it was almost like Emmet was sighting another sun in the sky. Ingo rarely ever smiled.
A horrible snapping, squelching noise filled the mountains like a train's whistle would a stone tunnel. Emmet felt his body freeze, warmth bubbling along his face and chest, pooling around his throat. He couldn't breathe.
He fell onto his knees, clawing at his throat as blood began to pour from his mouth. It stained his clothes and fingers and soaked into the dirt like a grisly puddle. He tried to call out to Ingo but his body would not obey him. Ingo hadn't even noticed his plight, his brother's shiny black jacket disappearing into the depths of the mountains.
Ingo, come back! Don't leave me here! Help me! He couldn't yell. He couldn't scream. He couldn't claw or kick into standing, falling onto his stomach as his body involuntarily writhed in the dust.
A terrible heat surrounded him, biting at his skin and face. The mountains around him crumpled and disappeared, replaced by a dark ice-filled cave that echoed with the sounds of a violent pokémon battle. The space around him shuddered and shook like a train rumbling down loose, unfinished tracks. Shrieks of pain blasted into his ears.
A massive beast now hovered over him, one singular golden eye staring at him with a mixture of shock, surprise, confusion, and bitter malice. It ripped its teeth out of his arm and snarled, blood oozing from its maw as it pushed Emmet back into the dirt to hiss at something approaching from afar.
"…Wha-"
A wave of smoky purple flames exploded through the cavern, causing bits of stone and ice to fall to the floor. The Zoroark above him howled in agony, its ghostly white pelt ablaze as it careened into the cavern wall and out of his field of view.
All Emmet could hear was something wailing in frustration. The cave shook as yet more fire moved past him, not burning him but cradling his broken and battered body. What just happened? Where's Ingo?
And as if to answer him, a pair of strong arms dug him up from his position on the floor and with a loud pained grunt, Emmet was up in the air and quickly unconscious.
July 12th, First Year
When Emmet woke later, he was situated in a small cot, his head fuzzy and his body clammy with sweat. He scrambled for purchase, groaning as a wave of nausea filled him. With a pained sigh, Emmet collapsed back onto the cot, blinking his eyes open as he tried to take in his surroundings.
He was in a hut of sorts. A lantern and a wooden washbin were settled on a crate right beside him, his Celebi dozing as the rest of his pokémon were bandaged and resting peacefully near an unlit hearth. His clothes were hung up nearby alongside various other clothes. Expensive, silky looking garments, some delicately embroidered, were either folded near a wooden chest underneath a counter or hung up like a fur-lined cloak splattered in blood. Trinkets hung from the rafters: bits of tied herbs, numerous other crates and chests, tools like pickaxes and shovels, weapons like hatchets and spears.
His uncle Drayden had a cabin like this in the northern mountains. Filled with things from his youth and from his days as a dragon tamer. Emmet felt a tad comforted by this place, wherever he was. But where was Ingo? Why was he all bandaged up? Did Ingo bring him here?
Emmet found his way into a sitting position. He only then noticed that his guild uniform had been removed as well as his uniform and his pack. He'd been bandaged in all kinds of precarious places, and it was especially thick around his throat and chest. He had been delicately wrapped with cotton sheets, nothing having been left untouched by him. He tried to get to his feet and- twang! The cot rocked once, a taut sensation burning in Emmet's arm. He blinked, confused, as he noticed a bulky section of rope dangling from his wrist.
"What…. What is this?" Twang! The cot rumbled again as Emmet yanked at his arm, a horrible sense of dread and horror filling his gut as he noticed the web of rope and well-tied knots covering his body. He was completely entangled. Not a single joint of his had gone neglected, the thickest of the ropes tied thrice around his throat from what he could tell. And along these ropes, small plate-like shells jangled with every small movement he made. He tried to fight back the lurching sensation in his stomach- twang!
Heavy footsteps landed in the dirt outside the tent. There was a deep grunt and then more heavy shuffling. The door to the tent opened, a tall and massive silhouette pausing in the doorway before glaring in his direction.
"Oh… You're finally awake."
In walked Ingo. Emmet involuntarily twitched back, the skin along his arms tingling. He didn't look like the Ingo Emmet had been expecting.
This Ingo was slouched over but Emmet could see new lines of taut muscle along his shoulders and chest. Coarse silver hair bristled from underneath the man's cap, a crop of stubble around their jaw ending in a goatee. The man closed the door behind him, taking off his hat and stowing it on a hook before fixing Emmet with a stare that made the hair along his arms and neck stick straight up.
He didn't see his brother in the man's eyes. Not Ingo, no. He saw the eyes of one of those alpha pokémon found commonly within Hisui. Sharp and cruel mercury discs bore upon him unblinking as the man approached closer. With his lips twisted with ire, he didn't even seem to recognize who Emmet was.
"You're supposed to be that Zoroark running amok, aren't you?"
"I-" Emmet rasped. "I'm not a Zoroark," he clarified, his voice wavering. He was quickly reminded of his old bullies' favorite taunt, surprised to find this Ingo look-alike using it. It was beyond the tone his brother used to take with unruly passengers or when they caught Team Plasma skulking around in the abandoned subway tunnels. No, this was far worse. "I am Emmet," he spoke nervously.
Ingo chuckled darkly. "That's a phrase I've heard more times than I can count." He seated himself heavily on another crate a ways away from Emmet's cot, taking a drink out of what looked to be a leather bag. "Chandelure. identify this passenger, please."
"Wait, you have Chandelure?"
A familiar crystalline pokémon made a beeline for Emmet's lap, wrapping their black tendrils gently around his chest. Chandelure! Well, that solved one thing.
Emmet turned to face the strange Ingo look-alike again. "You… you don't look like my brother," he began weakly. "You don't look like the Ingo I remember."
"And I suppose you're yet another one of those vile creatures sent to mock me, then? Hmm?"
Emmet recoiled at the man's acidic tone. He had never seen his brother so pissed before. "I-"
"Lucky I didn't kill you then," the man cut him off. "Lucky I didn't have Chandelure set you ablaze like the others of your kind. She is the only reason I have left your cab intact. So, give me a reason."
"… To trust me?"
"To kill you." Ingo's look-alike did not waver in his venomous glare, his hands clenched around a hatchet that he hadn't let go of just yet as though he were ready to follow up on his threat. "First, I'm going to test you- to check to see whether you're a person or not-"
"I am Emmet! I am a person! I'm your brother!" Emmet cried. He hadn't imagined this. He hadn't imagined that somebody who would look so much like Ingo- somebody who could be his brother- would look for an opportunity to kill him. "I came here to find you! I came here to bring you home!"
"Home to where?" Ingo's tone was laughably playful like an adult entertaining a clueless toddler. "These mountains are my home now."
"Not here! Not in this place! Home! In Unova! With me! With Elesa! With Uncle Drayden! Don't you remember?"
"No, I don't."
Emmet fixed this look-alike- no, his brother- with teary eyes, understanding a truth that he didn't want to accept. Ingo didn't come home because to him, home didn't exist. Ingo didn't remember anything... Ingo didn't remember him.
Tears spilled down his face and with a shuddering sob, Emmet curled into himself, every once of hope that was once within him shattering like glass under a hammer. His Ingo was here but he wasn't the same as he had been a year ago. His Ingo hated him. His Ingo didn't remember him. His Ingo didn't remember anything. He almost found himself wishing to have stayed in that illusion.
July 21st, First Year
Emmet was careful to keep his distance from Ingo as they made their way out of the wooden hut, a warm rain lashing against the cliff sides. The lake folded and poured forward, a loud roar filling his ears. Bird pokémon dived amongst the jagged rocks, pulling up fish in a harrowing dance.
Ingo still didn't trust him and was quick to turn on him if Emmet put one toe out of line; what the line was, Emmet couldn't tell. Just the slightest things tended to set Ingo off and if Ingo was scary when he was mad before, then he was downright terrifying when agitated.
Once a week, Ingo would leave Emmet under the supervision of one of his pokémon. More often than not, it was Ingo's Machamp with its four arms easily being capable of snapping Emmet's limbs like toothpicks should he try to esc- to leave. He would be gone for five days at the least, coming back reeking of sweat and dirt and like a wild pokémon. They didn't talk apart from Ingo bringing him things like food and water or of his brother assigning his partners to bathroom escort duty.
After a whole week of recovering, of sitting still in his brother's cabin in the woods while being treated by the world's largest Blissey Emmet had ever seen, the man was finally well enough to walk around without his chest tightening with pain. He always had supervision. Always. His pokémon made sure to accompany him, Emmet's Electabuzz looking for walking sticks so that he could walk unburdened.
Ingo had called them his "first scars". Emmet hated it. A set of jagged, crescent shaped tears marked the space where his shoulder melded with his bicep encircling his arm like disturbing bangles. Two large puncture scars had formed where the Zoroark had sank its teeth into his collarbone, the mark ripping across the back of his neck. He had shuddered when Ingo had begrudgingly showed him a matching set on the back of his neck too.
"You need to be diligent," his brother had lectured him, leaving no room for arguments. "Zoroarks are known to draw their victims into an illusion to incapacitate them."
"I know all that," Emmet huffed. "There're Zoroarks back home too. They do the same thing, but they don't kill people. Just take their things, the great big jerks."
Ingo's sharp gaze zeroed in on him immediately, a cold decisive fury within forcing Emmet to look away. "There is no room for softness here in Hisui. You need to pay better attention-"
"I thought it was you! What else do you want me to say?"
Ingo opened his mouth, his eyes flashing with anger before just as quickly, they settled with a cold frustration.
"Where are we going anyway?" Emmet questioned him, tucking up his hood as he waited for Ingo to gather some things from the hut.
"We are going to find a friend of mine who lives near the highlands. I fear that things are not all well with her so I will be checking in on her well-being."
"… Who?"
"You have met her before, I'm sure. You were quite set on stalking her back to the Diamond Clan when you first arrived here."
"Oh, them? You mean that pokémon ranger?"
"Just a ranger," Ingo corrected him shrewdly.
"You're friends with them?"
"We are good acquaintances. They were the one that found Chandelure and returned her to me. They also lent me one of their partners; the very same partner that you'll be riding so that I may go and check in on her."
"Why? Aren't they supposed to be in the Crimson Mirelands?"
"Leader Adaman has moved them to the mountains bordering the mirelands to better help escort supplies and food to those suffering from Lady Lilligant's frenzy. Nobody has heard from them in a while. I- I have heard some concerning things regarding their whereabouts, so I plan on checking in to make sure all is well."
"…I only understood about twenty percent of what you just said."
Ingo only grunted and pulled another pokéball off of his clip. "No more questions, then. Here. You'll be led by Miss Jaku's pokémon. There's not enough room on Gliscor."
With a little fuss and Emmet clinging onto the strange Mandibuzz as though his life depended on it, the two men were gliding through the skies on their pokémon. Within the next hour, they were alighting on a cliff where a deep furrow ended with a sharp drop over one thousand meters to the canyon floor.
Ingo quietly recalled his pokémon, urging Emmet to do the same as they crawled through a shallow recess in the rock towards where a sandy path opened up. Torn yellow flags marked the way through, shafts of sunlight reaching into the tunnel before it opened up onto a wide mountain clearing.
On the other side of the clearing was a small sloping cave, one massive boulder tucked in front of it with thistly bushes and weeds obscuring the sides. Emmet looked closer. A torn black canvas tarp fluttered in the wind, shredded from the sides as though something had forced its way in.
Ingo unsheathed the saber at his side and advanced. "Miss Jaku? Are you here? Please make a noise if you are!"
Silence. Cold dreadful silence followed. Emmet followed after his brother as they carefully picked their way in.
Things had been scattered hastily, inked papers tumbled into messy heaps, some filled top-to-bottom in crazed scrawls. There were numerous broken pokéballs over the floor, some snapped cleanly in half and others dented and forlorn.
Emmet picked his way further in, his eyes landing on the walls. "Ingo. Over here," he whispered.
Tallies. So. Many. Tallies. They covered the cave wall, some so closely knit that Emmet couldn't even count them if he tried. There were pigments splashed across the wall, depicting Arceus-knows-what. The scrawls were everywhere: on the ceiling, on the floors, on the walls: even on the makeshift furniture.
But there was no sign of the ranger or her pokémon.
