Draco: So... I ended up splitting my "one more addendum" into two more. This is the one that will be followed by Hisuian notes added to the previous chapters. The next one will explore how Cynthia added them to her book.

I will tell you right now, I reject the "Akari/Rei is Dawn/Lucas displaced" theory for the player character (though I'm not opposed to the "Rei/Akari is Lucas/Dawn's ancestor" theory). Go into this with that in mind.

Pokémon and all related properties © Nintendo.


Jubilife Village, Hisui

"Prepare for departure! One Pokémon to the field! The rest, remain aside!"

At Ingo's command, Gaeric thrust a palm forward, prompting Froslass to drift onto the battlefield; Glalie drifted side to side behind him, seeming impatient. Melli aimed a finger forward assertively, and Drapion stomped forward, clashing her claws together aggressively as Skunktank pawed at the dirt beneath him.

"And... Full steam ahead!"

Akari watched from within the crowd as the two wardens urged their Pokémon to act. Ingo had suggested a "battle festival", that he could introduce more and more people in Hisui to the joys of battling - not a disorganized, reckless battle with hordes of Pokémon facing against one another, but a proper, formal battle, as he had begun to remember from before he came to Hisui. Members from both clans had come from all over Hisui, whether in the hopes of participating or with the intent to make merriment, and a true festival was ongoing in Jubilife Village; battle was merely its centerpiece, with Ingo overlooking the formal battlefield in the Training Grounds, and Zisu commanding a secondary battlefield just outside the gate leading to the Practice Field.

As Froslass wove around a Night Slash from Drapion, someone came up on either side of Akari. "Waiting your turn?"

"Considering whether I want to join in," Akari admitted, looking to her right. Rei was standing there, dressed in a nickel kimono and wearing a Baneful Fox mask; a glance to her left revealed Rei was also standing there, in a kimono of white lily and with no mask. After a moment, she turned to the Rei on her right. "This trick again?"

"Still not good enough to fool you?" Rei asked as Zoroark scowled through the illusion. "I thought the eyes were right this time."

Akari shook her head. "Too pale, too much fang, and the fingernails look too much like claws." She beckoned to his hands as she turned her attention back to the fight... and then abruptly turned back to him as she realized what he was wearing on his feet. "Wait, are those...?"

"The sandals I was wearing when I landed on the beach," Rei confirmed, glancing down at his feet. "I know I wore geta sandals last time, but the crook of my toes hated me for it."

The craftswoman pursed her lips. "They don't clash as much as a satchel did on the whole ensemble," she admitted.

"Comfort over appearance," Rei dismissed, lowering his mask; the illusion cloaking Zoroark shifted, so that the white-clad Rei was holding a mask that he promptly set over his face.

"Do you intend to join in?" Akari asked.

"I don't think I will," Rei admitted. "Let the budding Trainers have their fun."

"Trainers," Akari mused. "It's hard to imagine a Hisui full of people carrying Poké Balls, battling to better understand their Pokémon and their opponents."

"It'll happen," Rei insisted. "And it'll be a lot more than just Hisui." He turned to her. "Lian brought honeyed Leppa Berries."

"Oh, yes, please," Akari enthused, turning to slip her way through the crowd and prompting Rei and Zoroark to follow suit.

Kleavor's warden was all too eager to give them a couple of the treats; the two of them made their way to the edge of the pastures, where there were few enough people that they could enjoy their snacks in peace. The illusion of a second Rei briefly faltered as Zoroark vaulted the fence, taking a seat inside as the two Survey Corps' members sat down outside.

Akari was noticeably slower at eating hers; after a moment, Rei asked, "Is it gone bad?"

"No, no," Akari insisted, "it's not the honey." She took another bite and swallowed it before speaking again. "May I ask you something?"

"No, Akari," Rei sighed, "I don't have a problem with staying in Hisui."

"That's not what-"

Rei turned to her.

"...I wasn't going to ask you about that, specifically," Akari defended.

"Well, my answer stands if you walk to it," Rei mused, taking another bite.

Akari took a deep breath. "What I was going to say, is... Do you not find it odd, that the spacetime distortions continue, in spite of the rift's closing?"

Rei hummed. "A little," he mused. "But honestly, it might've been weirder if they hadn't."

"Pardon?"

"The way I see it," Rei insisted, "what Volo did, what Antimatter did, ripping open that huge rift... it's damaged spacetime, as a whole. Closing up the rift stopped it from getting any worse, but... it still needs to recover. That's why the distortions keep appearing. And, I bet... why they've been appearing."

Akari turned to him. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

Rei finished off his Leppa Berry, sucking the honey off his fingers before he spoke again. "I think... every time a distortion appears, here in Hisui... a distortion has happened, or will happen, somewhere and somewhen else. And whatever's inside the affected area gets taken along for the ride."

"You mean..." Akari glanced into the pasture. "The Pokémon that appear only within the distortions - Cranidos and Porygon and Sneasel that aren't poisonous..."

"They're pulled from a time and place when they're not... unusual," Rei confirmed. "Johtonian Sneasel from Johto. Living Cranidos from before they were fossils. Porygon from around people who wouldn't look twice at my phone. And not just the Pokémon, either. Shards, stones, discs, all of it - whatever we find inside the distortion, came from another time and space. Which means that distortions like that have been appearing, and will keep appearing, up and down history. Maybe less common, more erratic, but they happen. And Hisui, right now, is their destination."

Akari looked towards the Training Grounds. "Then, Warden Ingo..."

Rei nodded. "I'll bet he was in one of those distortions. It plucked him right out of the station. It's a cruel miracle he's the only one who got brought here."

"But... surely it can't be a one-way road, then," Akari insisted. "If people and Pokémon and items are being brought from elsewhere - elsewhen - to Hisui, then surely things from Hisui must be brought to when and whence they came."

"Probably," Rei confirmed. "And maybe... whatever's still inside the distortion when it fades out gets brought back." He shook his head. "Not that I blame the Pearl Clan if they saw a man unconscious in the middle of twisted time and space, and wanted to save him."

"Nor I," Akari agreed.

Silence fell again.

This time, Akari finished her Leppa Berry before she broke it. "Would you test it?"

Rei turned to her. "Sorry?"

"If a distortion appeared, while you were on a survey, would you test that theory?" Akari asked.

"I don't... think so," Rei admitted. "Not if I got there after it manifested." He shook his head. "Even setting aside the question of where and when I'd end up, it does a number on the Pokémon that get transported. They're disoriented, and that makes them aggressive. Sitting in the middle of it and fighting them off, for a complete roll of the dice, is a recipe for disaster."

He leaned his head back. "But if it manifested around me... I'd probably tough it out and hope I came back to Hisui."

"...Even if you recognized what you saw on the other side?"

Rei turned to her. "Akari..."

"Is there nothing that would make you go back?" Akari demanded. "You were baffled when you arrived here. The entire idea of Pokémon being terrifying was insanity to you. When Mai first mentioned an alpha, you thought she was talking about 'the Alpha' as though it were almighty Sinnoh. How often have you bemoaned needing to apply a Potion carefully to your Pokémon? Or having to wait while someone from the Security Corps delivered one to the pasture and came back with another? How many times have you thrown a Poké Ball at a moving target and forgotten to lead it, because you expected it to compensate for you?" She shook her head. "Does none of that make you wish you could go back?"

A sigh escaped from Rei. "When I came down from the Temple of Sinnoh, with Pokédex data on the Original One... did you think I hadn't been offered the chance to go back? That I wouldn't have asked for it, if I wanted it?"

Akari bit her lip.

"I'm not gonna say that there's nothing I miss," Rei admitted. "Roads that you don't get stuck in when it rains, a soft bed that's more than blankets and a pillow, a whole variety of food I could prepare by myself with no cooking skill. High-speed transportation, or long-distance communication. Pokémon Trainers." He shook his head. "But when I arrived here... people wanted me. The Professor asked for my help with the Pokédex. You wanted to see me succeed in Cyllene's trial. And that was more than I had when I left."

He shook his head. "The Alpha wouldn't have brought me here if it wasn't better than what I left behind."

"...I'm sorry," Akari insisted.

+x+x+x+

As the festival wound down, Rei and Zoroark returned to his quarters. The illusion broke over the Baneful Fox Pokémon as soon as the door closed, and Rei unbound his sandals and moved them aside before raising a Poké Ball for Zoroark to return to. The slides to his 'bedroom' were brought closed, and he removed his satchel and his Poké Ball belt, setting them on the shelf behind the bed before dressing down for the night.

...After a moment, he reached for his satchel and drew out his Arc Phone. When he had first found it lying on Prelude Beach, Rei had discovered that it lacked call and text functions (not that there was anyone to call or text in Hisui) and wondered if it was his phone, or something that had been manifested from the Alpha's power. But after he'd joined the Survey Corps, he spent a sleepless night poking around on the device to discover that it was in fact his phone, just empowered; its offline functionality was completely intact.

Besides the map of Hisui, the Arc Phone still had a camera (though Rei didn't take a whole lot of photos), a voice recorder, a calculator, a notepad, and all of his funny Purrloin pictures and clips. Not having an internet connection in Hisui hadn't gotten rid of his browser, email provider, or video service. His ebook app was still present, and although he couldn't get anything new, all his books were still there to be reread at his leisure; with the Arc Phone not needing to be recharged, he had more than once fallen asleep by reading until his eyes couldn't focus.

Now, he tapped to the reader and scrolled through his library until he found what he was looking for: A Collection of Notes on Personal Experiences with Legendary Pokémon (VIIth edition).

Akari was right - Rei had been been baffled by the Hisuian attitude towards Pokémon. But it wasn't because he had never heard of such a thing; it was because the only instance of such a thing had been from someone who had seen the Distortion World and Antimatter firsthand. And even then, Dawn's terrified records were in regards to mighty legendary Pokémon like the dragons of Time and Space; she had a loving passage about the Sea Princess. In Rei's time, when Pokémon Trainers were common and cities were massive, common Pokémon like Shinx, Buizel, and Geodude weren't frightening; even something like a wild Gyarados was more of a threat to a Trainer who had just come off a loss.

But when he had faced Palkia and Dialga at the Temple of Sinnoh, Rei had understood. Hisui was untamed, and wild Pokémon ruled. Hand-crafted Poké Balls were unreliable, compared to the ones Rei was familiar with. There weren't exactly safe havens, in the form of communities large enough that wild Pokémon would avoid them unless provoked. Pokémon Trainers were very nearly not a thing; the vast majority of people were still grasping the concept of living with Pokémon, let alone being companions with them. And in this world, it was clear: humans and Pokémon were on entirely different spectrums of strength. All but the absolute weakest of Pokémon could easily overpower most humans - and even the strongest and most well-armed of humans would fall against sufficiently powerful Pokémon.

And every legendary Pokémon that Rei had encountered had hammered that point home.

He knew, if he intended to remain in Hisui, that he would never be able to contribute to Cynthia's compilation. But Rei wanted to note his experiences nonetheless. Even if the likelihood of them reaching the likes of Red and Dawn and Hilda were infinitesimal, he wanted the possibility to be there.

With a deep breath, he opened up a memo and typed at the keyboard.

Legendary Pokémon Notes by Rei of Jubilife Village


Draco: I had a friend to whom the idea of a benevolent creator deity was so foreign, he went into the final battle of Pokémon Conquest rooting for Nobunaga - who said he wanted to destroy Ransei - because Nobunaga's opponent was Arceus. Never mind that the Original One is guilty of nothing but being the subject of an unreleased event in Sinnoh, as far as the games are concerned. Hell, I saw the first half of Jewel of Life, and the Alpha had a very good reason to be angry during those events. And by all accounts, events in the Adventures manga were basically the Alpha wanting to be proven wrong on the "mortals are bastards" front.

(For those of you wondering why I only saw the first half of the Jewel of Life; let's just say it had nothing to do with the movie itself and more to do with my means of viewing.)

I know Abilities aren't a thing in Legends' gameplay and so Hisuian Zoroark don't actually disguise themselves with Illusion, but the Abilities are in the data and Zorua and Zoroark still have illusion powers mentioned so I'm making use of it. Legends is slated for HOME compatibility, and I am looking forward to it for all the wrong reasons.

So, here's what I'm adding to my canon. ([quote]Can you use the term "is canon" when referring to gameplay elements present in a fanfic?[/quote]) Legends: Arceus happened, by Rei's hands. Mostly because Akari is more entertaining as an NPC than Rei is, but also because her Survey Corps hairstyle makes a lot more sense for the NPC role than the player role. Rei is NOT quite a natural at crafting, so he prefers to buy rather than make; his craftsmanship is very much function over form. It's obvious from the Poké Balls they're caught in which Pokémon he sought out to catch and which ones he caught at an inopportune moment. After the exile, he went hunting for materials with Irida; partly because her reaction to the Baneful Fox is more interesting than Adaman's reaction to Overqwil... and partly because the one who gets the Origin Ball is fought in Origin Forme and I do prefer Dialga's. On that subject, Dialga and Palkia were released as soon as the festival was over following the closure of the rift. And the Forces of Nature were entrusted to Cogita's care after they were caught and she gave the whole "let's not let them run wild wild Hisui is recovering" speech. Other legendary Pokémon were not caught; battles for the Plates, a friendly encounter with Manaphy and the Phione, another friendly encounter with Shaymin, and a shut-up-and-frick-off match with Darkrai.

And I could write an entire literation about his experiences in Hisui if I would stop fearing another Kingdom Hearts situation.
(Novelization, whatever.)