Author's Note: Just a reminder that at this point in the story, Ingo can understand humans but humans cannot understand Ingo.

Spring warmth began rolling in early that year, just warm enough that the snow was beginning to melt but cool enough that Ingo was thankful for his thick pelt. It'd grown thicker during the winter, and then even thicker since he evolved, and it'd served Ingo well. Still, in cold mornings like these, it was downright cold, cold enough that Ingo forwent his illusion and padded out of Lady Sneasler's den in full Zoroark form. It wasn't difficult to cast an illusion but sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth, like how sometimes he hadn't wanted to change out of his pajamas as a human child. Tiredness often won out.

Being able to slip into his old skin was a godsend though. Even if it wasn't real, sometimes Ingo could believe it was and that was enough. It really felt like he was his old self sometimes, so much so that he could forget these past few months and pretend he had his old life back. He still didn't have his life back though. There was one more step before he could really be Ingo again. The one thing that set Zoroark illusions apart from the real thing.

"B͏ra̧v̷̶̧o," Ingo tried, whispering to the horizon as steam leaked from his warm maw into the freezing morning air. "B̧͘͟͠r̨̕a̸҉͢v̴̛͡o̡͡҉!"

Magnezone, ever dutiful to its patrols circling Lady Sneasler's mountain, didn't even slow down as it came by and said, "Still pretty bad."

Ingo slumped over and tried not to let the words hurt him. Magnezone hadn't been trying to be mean. This wasn't anything new. Ingo's attempts to replicate his human voice had enough failures that they'd all grown calloused enough that they could tell Ingo he was doing a poor job without feeling bad or making him feel bad. But this morning, Ingo's frustrations were bubbling up.

He'd been trying this for so long! Granted, he hadn't been at it as long as it'd taken to get his image down but at least then he'd been making some progress. It felt like Ingo had gotten worse the more he practiced and he had no idea what he was doing wrong. This was one of the only things he couldn't give up on though. Sinnoh, he wanted to. Oh how he wanted to.

"I'm going to take a walk!" Ingo called to Magnezone. He didn't wait for a response and began scaling down the mountain. As much as he loathed being a Zoroark these days, a Zoroark body really was quite useful. He'd gotten pretty good at climbing up and down the mountain in his human body but having claws was really incomparable.

Ingo made to check in with Probopass before heading off. He didn't exactly have a destination in mind but he needed to go somewhere. He loved Lady Sneasler's territory but he was feeling cooped up. Maybe he could go find something to eat. The Stantler were starting to put on some spring weight and a few berry trees were starting to get their fruit back. With eight powerful Pokémon in the den, collecting food was a lot easier than it was for other wild Pokémon but it never hurt to spend a productive afternoon hunting or gathering. More Pokémon contributing meant more hungry mouths.

Ingo's paws carried him toward the Fieldlands, away from the cold of the Icelands and the stetch of the Mirelands. Neither were his favorite and he'd always choose the Fieldlands before them. It was warmer there and it had better things to eat, Ingo reasoned. It'd been awhile since he'd gone after a flock of Starly. Maybe he could grab a quick snack before going after something bigger and better. Bibarel had been shedding their winter coats lately. He could probably find a nice fatty one no problem. But before he could start sniffing out a flock, something caught Ingo's attention.

"...been working on the railroad, all the livelong day. I've been working on the railroad…"

"Just to pass the time away," Ingo found himself murmuring, surprising himself. What was what? Why did he know the next words? The sound didn't sound natural. It was a voice but it didn't sound like a human singing. Maybe a Chatot? No, Chatot were more common in the Coastlands. Hey, he should've gone to the Coastlands to ask a Chatot how they did it. That was something for later though. What was that sound?

"Can't you hear the whistle blowing?"

The words weren't in Ransein, or at least that was what Ingo was pretty sure the language spoken in Hisui was called. Did humans speak more than one language? That sounded right but Ingo had no recollection of why he would know that. Maybe this was the tongue he'd spoken before he'd lost his memories. Then how did he know Ransein? Ingo had too many questions and not enough answers.

"Rise up early in the morn…"

Ingo crept closer, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. Eventually, he happened upon a log and a very familiar human sitting atop it. It was Rei again! His- his- whatever. Ingo didn't remember but he knew he was important. This was the human that had tried to catch him though. Ingo knew Rei didn't mean anything by it but it still made him freeze up at the sight of him.

"Can't you hear the captain shouting?"

The sound was so intriguing though. Ingo couldn't just turn away now, not after he'd ventured so close. The sound was familiar in a way Ingo didn't understand. It drew him in like a Mothim to a lantern. He needed to understand it.

"Deino blow your horn!"

Ingo was practically right next to Rei.

"Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow your horn? Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow your horn?"

Ingo couldn't help the snarl that escaped his lips, making Rei jump up but Ingo didn't care. The tune was all wrong! Whatever Rei did to make that noise got the tune wrong! He wasn't sure how it was supposed to be but it wasn't supposed to be like that.

"Singing...fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o, fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o-o-o-o…"

"Zoroark!" Rei cried out in surprise as he jumped to his feet. The device that was in his hand fell to the ground. That was what was making the noise but Ingo hardly noticed, attention split between Rei and trying to recall the right tune to the song. "Hey, you probably evolved from that Zorua!"

"Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o. Strumming on the old banjo!"

"Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o," Ingo tried. He knew his words came out as a Zoroark bark but they carried the tune in the way he remembered and he was louder than the device so Ingo didn't care that Rei couldn't understand him. "Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o-o-o-o. Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o."

Rei calmed down a bit and reached down to pick up his phone. "You like this song? Come sit with me. I'll start it over from the beginning."

Ingo was surprised but he didn't protest. He wanted to keep listening to the song. Tucking in his haunches, Ingo sat down next to Rei as he tapped his device to replay the song. They'd missed the last couple lines but Ingo didn't mind. He'd get to hear them soon enough anyway.

"I've been working on the railroad…"

"I realized my Arc-Phone has an MP3 player recently," Rei explained, holding up the aforementioned device for Ingo to look at. "I think Arceus converted it from my old phone so it makes sense it has all my old downloads. This was my mom's favorite Unovan folk song."

Unovan folk song? That meant absolutely nothing to Ingo but it felt like it should. He felt a throb in the back of his skull, the telltale sign of an oncoming headache, but Ingo ignored it. The song was more important. He hadn't remembered anything from his life before Hisui in awhile and this song was probably the first chance he'd get in awhile.

"All the livelong day. I've been working on the railroad…"

"See, MP3 players are super interesting. They're able to condense down big song files into smaller ones so you can have a ton of them on your phone at once. I've got like forty of them on here," Rei explained, loosely gesturing at the screen as he talked. "I think they do it using this process called masking."

"Just to pass the time away…"

Masking? Ingo knew what masking was. It was when someone learned to display certain behaviors to hide other ones. He didn't know how he knew that but he did. Ingo was pretty sure he did it too. Masking. It sounded incredibly familiar. Ingo didn't know how it related to music though.

"When they record music, it picks up all these other sounds but there are tricks you can do by cutting out certain noises or adding certain noises before or after the music to cancel out different noises or make new ones to make the sound quality better and the file smaller."

"Can't you hear the whistle blowing? Rise up early in the morn…"

Ingo could practically feel the clockwork ticking away in his brain. A Zoroark's illusions were all about adding stimulus to hide others. Now Rei was saying sound worked the same way? He could make sound with his illusions. It wasn't as easy as visual ones but he could. And Ingo, the human Ingo, was practically defined by noise. Sound was what he did.

"When you make a super loud noise, you can't hear whatever else is going on behind it," Rei started, capturing Ingo's attention, before breaking off into a wordless sob. Ingo hadn't even realized Rei had been close to crying and then suddenly two human arms were thrown around his shoulders and Rei was sobbing into his fur.

"Can't you hear the captain shouting? Dinah, blow your horn!"

"I just miss him so much!" Rei wailed and Ingo put a paw on his back, patting him awkwardly. He had no idea what Rei was crying about or what he could do about it. He was also getting snot in his mane and it was really hard to focus on the boy when he was thinking about how hard it would be to get out of his fur. He immediately felt bad and pushed that thought away. The cleanliness of his fur didn't matter when Rei was upset about something.

"Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow your horn? Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow, Deino, won't you blow your horn?"

What was a Deino anyway?

The song played on a loop a couple more times before Rei pulled back, wiped his face, and paused the music. "I'm sorry. I'm just-"

Rei burst into tears all over again and Ingo offered a wordless moan of comfort. In that moment, part of him was glad Rei couldn't understand him. He had no idea what to say when someone was crying. It didn't happen all that often but as badly as he wanted to, Ingo never learned.

"I think my dad died! No one's seen him for months," Rei said aloud through his tears. Ingo whined in sympathy. He hadn't realized Rei was going through something like that. He could understand why he was so upset. Then, Rei said something that threw him for a loop. "I was going through my Arc-Phone and I found this song and it just really reminded me of him since Ingo's always talking about trains, even if he doesn't know what trains are anymore."

Ingo froze. Rei was talking about him? He called him his dad? He didn't think Rei was his pup. Or- er, his son. Wouldn't that mean he had a wife? Or someone to mother his child? That didn't sound right. He also didn't think he was all that old. No way could Rei have been his son, at least biologically. Had he adopted Rei? Pokémon didn't adopt all that much and Ingo wasn't certain humans did either but it wasn't unheard of. He didn't remember adopting Rei though and he was pretty sure that had nothing to do with his latest bout of memory loss.

It didn't feel wrong though. Rei was Ingo's son. Not his pup though. Ingo himself was barely more than a pup. Warden Ingo could have a son though and it felt right to say it was Rei. Ingo looked out for him and Rei brought light to his life in turn. Ingo wouldn't be opposed to say that was something akin to a father-son relationship.

It still felt kind of weird though. Even if Rei was Warden Ingo's son, Ingo wasn't really Warden Ingo anymore. He was someone else. Something else. He was Zoroark Ingo. Pup Ingo? Alpha Ingo? Pokémon Ingo? He didn't know but he wasn't who he used to be. Rei was something to him but it wasn't what it used to be and Ingo mourned the loss of something he'd never really had.

Rei was still crying though. It wouldn't be very fatherly of Ingo to ignore that. Leaning in slowly, Ingo used the back of one claw to wipe the stream of tears off one of Rei's cheeks, making him look up in surprise. He didn't say anything but Ingo settled down next to him, curling around him almost protectively, and let Rei cry on him all he wanted for the rest of the afternoon.

The first thing Ingo did when he got back home was climb to the top of Lady Sneasler's mountain, cup his paws around his muzzle, and scream for all of the Highlands to hear.

"AL͠L͏ A͢B́OOÒO̸A͝R͝D̶!"

In the distance, Yanmega and Mothim took to the skies, buzzing in annoyance.

"Was that a Boomburst?" Magnezone asked, veering from its path to come closer to Ingo's perch. Ingo didn't give it a response and merely yelled again.

"ALL ABOOOOARD!"

A thump sounded as a Cherubi fell out of a tree near the base of the mountain.

"That was pretty good!" Magnezone said, coming closer. Its magnets were spinning in excitement. "That sounded just like a human!"

"ALL ABOOOOARD!" Ingo roared again. Somewhere, a Rhyperior roared.

"Okay, I think you should stop now."

"SORRY!" Ingo cleared his throat and then, in Zoroark tongue, repeated, "Sorry. I got excited. I think I got figured it out!"

"Really?"

"Really!"

"Say 'Magnezone, use Thunderbolt!'"

"Mag̨n̛e̵zon͞e, us̡e T̡h̡u͟nde̕r͟b̧ol̕t̸."

"That one wasn't as good but it was pretty close."

"Magnezone, use T̷hunde̵rb҉olt."

"Better!" Magnezone told him, eye crinkling with joy. "I think you're almost there!"

Ingo felt his fur flush with delight. "I think you're right!"

"Say 'car,'" Lady Sneasler drilled.

"Car," Ingo responded in a perfect human voice. His voice, specifically.

"Say 'destination.'"

"Destination."

"Say 'bravo!'"

"Bravo!"

"Say 'prepare for departure!'"

"Prepare f͘o͏r departur͝e͡."

"Again!"

"That was almost perfect!"

"Almost won't convince the humans. Again!"

"Prepare for departure!"

"Good. Bravo!"

"Bravo!"

"That wasn't- nevermind. Let's keep practicing."

Eventually came the time that Ingo couldn't keep practicing with just his Pokémon. If Ingo were to return to human life, Ingo had to convince a human. And he knew exactly which human he'd practice on. Maybe it was the impractical choice– Ingo knew it'd be a lot easier to just walk over to Lord Electrode's lair and talk to Melli- but Ingo knew it had to be Rei. No one else would do.

Ingo cast an illusion over his Zoroark body, turning into his familiar human form, and walked out to the Fieldlands, Pokémon trailing behind him. He didn't put them in their balls today. They didn't mind but what Ingo was about to do was momentous. They'd all put effort into what was about to happen and they deserved to see it for themselves.

"Ingo?" Rei looked absolutely gobsmacked when he saw Ingo sitting on that log, the same one the pair had listened to that song on. A bit cheesy, Ingo supposed, but he couldn't think of a better place, even if Rei might doubt it was really him for a moment. "Is that you?"

"It's me," Ingo told him and Rei shot forward. He threw himself against Ingo and clung to him like he'd disappear if he let go. It made Ingo's ribs hurt a bit but he returned the embrace, patting Rei's back softly. "It's good to see you."

Rei said something but it was muffled by his chest. Ingo thought he caught the word 'Dad' in there but he didn't comment on it. Rei hadn't known he'd told Ingo all those things that day all those weeks ago when they'd sat here listening to the music on Rei's Arc-Phone. Ingo would let Rei mention it to him on his own time. But when that time came, Ingo would happily accept the title of 'Dad.'

"Where have you been?" Rei asked once he tore his face away from Ingo's hoodie. His real hoodie! Ingo was surprised all his old clothes still fit but he was thrilled they did. He really liked them, especially his cap. "You were gone for so long!"

Ingo didn't ask how long. He wasn't sure but he was pretty sure he'd died mid-autumn and it was now well into spring. Rei was right. That had been a long time. "My car became… damaged."

Rei looked up at him with round eyes. "You got hurt?"

Ingo nodded. They'd practiced this story, him and his Pokémon. He needed some explanation for his absence and needing to learn how to be human again wasn't a very good one. Besides, this one wasn't far from the truth. He just couldn't mention the damage had been fatal. "I got attacked by an alpha on my way to the Pearl Settlement. My Pokémon got me back to Lady Sneasler's den and she didn't let me leave until I could pass all my safety checks."

"That bad?"

"No," Ingo lied, "but my memories…"

Rei blinked. "Again?"

Ingo shrugged. He hadn't planned on including this in the story but, again, it wasn't a lie. "They run off course from time to time but this time it got pretty bad. I assure you though, it won't happen again. Everything is back in working order. Or, at least as well as it had been when I d- since before I was attacked."

Ingo hoped that would relax Rei a bit but it didn't. "And you didn't think to go get help from the Pearl Clan? Or even the Diamond Clan? Melli would help you if you asked."

"It was not up to me," Ingo told him, feeling a bit guilty for pinning it on Lady Sneasler when she wasn't here to defend herself but he didn't know what else to say. "My Pokémon took good care of me though and it all worked out in the end."

Rei turned to Ingo's Pokémon. "I guess I should thank you all. I'm really glad you took care of Ingo, even if you should've gotten help. I'll buy you a big pile of potato mochi next time you come to Jubilife, you hear?"

Ingo's Pokémon cheered. Getting Ingo back was enough of a reward but they'd never say no to free treats. Rei's words reminded Ingo of something though. "Can you… Can you not mention I'm back to anyone though? I'm not quite back to full strength so I'd like to take my time getting back on schedule."

Rei looked displeased. "Irida's been really worried about you. Zisu and Melli too!"

"I promise I'll visit them soon. I just don't want to overdo it," Ingo soothed and that seemed to appease Rei enough. "Do you want to come back to the Highlands and see Lady Sneasler? It's my understanding she's been ignoring your calls."

"I thought she was grieving or that she'd had another litter of kits or something," Rei told him, falling in step after him as Ingo turned to walk back home. "I guess I can't be too mad at her knowing she was taking care of you!"

Ingo chuckled. "She always looked like she wanted to run off when she heard your flute. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you."

"She better! I've had to climb everything myself thanks to her!"

Ingo laughed and the pair fell into easy conversation. It wasn't quite back to the way it used to be. Ingo's absence affected every sentence in the most underlying way, even when they didn't want it to. It wasn't stifled though. Ingo couldn't believe he'd forgotten Rei. He really was his son and Ingo was happy to have him back in his life.

That night, Lady Sneasler let Rei crawl into the sleepy Pokémon pile in her den. She had once or twice before, usually only when she could tell Rei was really tired and Ingo didn't want to walk the boy all the way back to his Warden's tent, so this was really something special. Ingo was always at the center, often squished between Gliscor and Lady Sneasler with his head resting on one of Machamp's forearms or Tangrowth's vines, but tonight Rei was right in there next to him. Ingo would be more comfortable if he could drop his illusion for the night but he found he didn't mind. It wasn't hard to maintain and it was worth it to have Rei nestled against him.

"I really missed you, you know," Rei told him quietly once most of the Pokémon had fallen into a heavy sleep. Gliscor was snoring, Magnezone was powered down, Alakazam was dozing, Machamp and Tangrowth were totally conked out, Probopass was muttering in his sleep… Only Lady Sneasler remained awake, draped over Probopass at the edge of the pile with one eye open to watch over the group in these final waking moments, but she too was pretty close to falling asleep. "It was really scary."

Ingo blinked away his drowsiness to look over at Rei. It was too dark to see much but he could see the moonlight reflected in the boy's eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You were just gone! For months. No one knew where you'd gone or what happened to you. We all thought you'd died," Rei explained, careful to keep his voice down despite his distress, shifting a bit to lean a bit more heavily against Ingo. "Promise me you won't disappear again."

"I can't promise that," Ingo said, his heart breaking a little as the words left his mouth. "Hisui is a dangerous place and I'm a Warden. It's my job to live in danger. And with my memories-"

"Please," Rei said so softly Ingo wouldn't have heard him if his ears were just human. "Don't leave again."

Ingo felt himself caving. "I'll try. I'll try my hardest. But don't ask me to promise you. I don't want to hurt you."

'You already have' left unspoken in the air but Ingo could feel the words hovering around them, weighing down heavily and practically suffocating him. Rei didn't utter them though, instead answering with a nod. "Okay. Okay, I won't ask."

"Thank you," Ingo whispered, relief washing over him. "And for the record, I didn't want to leave. I missed you too."