"Eelektross, Discharge!" Emmet ordered, shifting his weight to lean with the subway as it turned a corner. "Make sure you get Emolga too! She could use a Motor Drive boost after taking that hit from Beartic!"

It had been six years, six months, and six days since Ingo disappeared. That morning, someone online made a joke about it being the 'Giratina number' and Emmet promptly deleted the Chatter app. He didn't even know what it meant and he didn't want to know. It killed all the excitement Emmet had for today's scheduled battle.

"Sawk! Earthquake!" Hilbert ordered and Emmet tried not to cringe. He'd only be doing that if Sawk had Mold Breaker. Eelektross was going to get hit. Ingo was the only twin allowed to hit Eelektross with a Mold Breaker/Earthquake combo!

Emmet's xtrans rang and he quickly slapped it off. He needed to focus on the battle before him and he already wasn't off to the greatest start. Thankfully, Elesa had his back. "Electroweb before Sawk can hit the ground!"

"Emol!" Elesa's Emolga cried, momentarily swooping by Eelektross to gather some of his excess electricity in her wings and hurl it in Sawk's direction. As planned, the webbing caught Sawk up and threw him off just enough to keep him from getting the Earthquake off. Eelektross was safe for now.

"Nice move," Hilda complimented, sounding half genuine and half snarky, "but Hilbert and I are the Multi-Battle king and queen! Beartic, Shadow Claw on Sawk! Get him out of there!"

"Sawk, Payback on Emolga when you get free!"

Emmet wanted to reply to that Multi-Battle comment but battles often moved too fast for him to get any thoughts together quick enough to participate in any kind of witty banter. That was more Ingo's thing and, now that they occasionally had a fill-in for him on the Multi-Battle line, Elesa's.

"More like prince and princess," Elesa shot back, a sharp gleam in her eye. "Pretty sure everyone in Nimbasa knows who their royalty are. Emolga, Volt Switch! Use U-Turn to bounce back in!"

Emmet loathed to admit it but Elesa took advantage of the confines of the train car far better than Emmet could ever dream to. It wasn't his fault his Pokémon weren't the nimble type. "Eelektross, try to get a Drain Punch in between Emolga's hits!"

"Sawk, take the- shit," Hilbert swore, realizing Emolga and Eelektross were targeting Sawk instead of Beartic like he expected. "Reversal when Eeletross gets close!"

"Coil!" Emmet barked. The xtrans on his wrist rang again and he slapped it quiet, keeping him from explaining his strategy to Eelektross but Eelektross was smart enough to figure it out. Emolga slammed Sawk with a sphere of buzzing power and flew away so Eelekross could get a punch in. When his foe got close, Sawk lashed out, trying to grapple Eelekross but Eelektross twisted out of his grip without much trouble so Emolga could slam into him once more.

"Endure!"

"Beartic, disrupt them with Stone Edge!"

Beartic roared and plunged a paw downward. Stones erupted from the metal floor, putting distance between the battlers and forcing them to reset. Emmet's xtrans chose that moment to ring again and, thanks to the lull in battle, everyone knew it.

"Um, sounds like someone's trying to call you," Hilbert said, pointing a weak finger in Emmet's direction. "You should probably get that."

"It's actually mine," Elesa said, holding up her own xtrans. Emmet glanced down at his own to see that she was right. That was a bit concerning after all the calls Emmet had just ignored. If someone was calling Elesa to get ahold of him, that probably meant it was serious.

"Eelektross, stand down," Emmet told his Pokémon as Elesa answered the call.

"Hey Skyla," Elesa greeted and that was not who Emmet was expecting. "We're kind in the middle of a battle right now. Want to say hi to the twins? Hilda and Hilbert, I mean."

"I don't care about them! Sorry, that was mean," Skyla apologized through the screen. "Is Emmet there? Drayden's been trying to call him."

"I am Emmet. I am here." Emmet poked his own xtrans. Drayden had been trying to call him? And he'd gotten Skyla to call Elesa? That was worrying. "Is something wrong?"

"Have you looked at Chatter today?"

"No. People on the internet were being mean so I deleted it."

Emmet could see Hilda and Hilbert opening up the Chatter app on their own xtrans devices as the tiny image of Skyla on Elesa's wrist pinched her brow and sighed. "Okay, that's fair. Just, get to Mistralton as fast as you can! Actually, wait, no, go get Chandelure first. You have time. Drayden's on the phone with Interpol right now and we should probably finish that before taking off…"

"Taking off?" Emmet echoed, blinking a couple times in confusion.

"Interpol?" Elesa cried. Elesa and Emmet spoke at the same moment but Emmet immediately felt bad for reacting to the plane part instead of the police part. He didn't like flying but it had to be serious if Interpol was involved. "Is Plasma back or something?"

"Emmet, Elesa, over here," Hilda called, waving the two over to Hilbert's xtrans. He had the hologram feature on, making the display a bit bigger for them all to see. She elbowed her brother urgently. "Play the video."

Hilbert slammed his fingers down on his xtrans, nearly closing the video by accident, and hit play. Right off the bat, Emmet knew the video hadn't been taken in Unova. Too many cars. No one drove in Unova and when they did, it was always in cities way bigger than that one. That was somewhere farther East. Johto maybe? No, people in Johto didn't like cars either. They liked trains too, like respectable people. Sinnoh or Hoenn then?

There was a Machamp in the video and clearly he wasn't following his safety checks. Most people trained their Pokémon to stick to the sidewalks and crosswalks but this Machamp was running through the road alongside the cars. Emmet supposed the video had a humorous appeal to it but he didn't find mistreatment of Pokémon funny at all. But, everyone knew if a trained Pokémon evolved all the way to their final form like Machamp, their trainer always made sure they knew to stay out of the street but the panicked expression on the Machamp's face told Emmet the Machamp had no idea what it was doing. A new catch then? But Machamp were near impossible to come across in the wild.

The next thing Emmet noticed was the figures clinging to it. The Machamp's lower two hands were cupped around a small Pokémon that Emmet couldn't see all that clearly. There was a red and white tuft on its head poking out from behind Machamp's thumbs but the video quality wasn't clear enough for Emmet to tell what it was. Or, maybe it was and Hilbert had just forgotten to connect to the subway's wifi. Whatever. That wasn't important.

There were two humans in the picture too. The Machamp had the first one tucked under one of his upper arms like one might carry a Lillipup or maybe a football. The boy's arms and legs were totally limp like he was used to being carried that way but the rest of his body was rigid with fear. Totally understandable, in Emmet's opinion. He wouldn't want to be carried by a Machamp through a busy road either.

The second human seemed more sure of himself though. He was sitting on Machamp's shoulders, only not really. His thighs were tucked between Machamp's upper and lower biceps so his arms rested on Machamp's true shoulders. Efficient, Emmet thought. The human was too tall to sit on Machamp's shoulders without falling off. This way he could hold onto Machamp with one arm and direct him with the other.

Wait a moment. The human was directing the Machamp in a verrry familiar way. The audio of the video wasn't the clearest and Emmet couldn't understand the language being spoken but it was unmistakable. He knew that voice. No one else could shout like that. No one else pointed that way either. More importantly, no one else could get that loud.

Emmet's eyes darted around the video in search of clues. His suspicions were too good to be true but everything was there. The conductor's cap, the black coat, the frown, the face… They were different but they were there. Emmet would know that man anywhere.

"That's Ingo!" Emmet gasped aloud. "He's back!"

The next couple hours were a blur. Emmet and Elesa recalled their Pokémon and fully abandoned Hilbert and Hilda the moment the subway came to a stop. The subway was returning to Nimbasa, at least, so they didn't have to wait around for another train but it was verrrry annoying to have people constantly trying to stop them. Where are you going, boss? Don't run in heels, Elesa! You'll snap an ankle. Where are you going in such a hurry? You've got another shift in ten minutes! Where are you going? Those were not the types of things Emmet wanted to hear when he was trying to find his brother.

He did stop by his home to grab Chandelure and the rest of Ingo's team though. Skya had told him to and he owed it to them anyway. They just weren't the same without their trainer. Emmet had moved out of the apartment so they'd have more space to roam when Emmet wasn't around to entertain them and it'd helped but Emmet was regretting it now. He was not built for running this much. He'd do it for Ingo though.

Ingo was back. It was hard to believe. Emmet wasn't even sure he believed it yet. It was one video. It could've been a Ditto or some number of other flukes but this was the first flash of hope Emmet had in years and he was going to cling to it. It'd been six years. Closer to seven, actually. That was too long. Ingo and Emmet were supposed to be inseparable. If this really was him, Emmet would never let his brother out of his sight again.

Emmet actually did end up doing some explaining to Chandelure and the Depot agents. He had to take a subway to Mistralton afterall and his employees were rightfully confused as to why he wasn't getting on the right train. Family emergency, he'd told them. He'd whispered the truth to Chandelure's Pokéball on the way over, hands shaking the whole time. Elesa took it from him before he could spiral and held his arm as he tried to calm down. He would be no good to Ingo like this.

"Do we have any news?" Emmet demanded as he barged into the plane locker behind Skyla's gym. Drayden was already there, he noticed. He was pacing in a circle around his Druddigon as he spoke roughly into his xtrans. Emmet couldn't make out what he was saying but Drayden gave him a gesture of greeting before refocusing on his call so Emmet turned his attention to Skyla.

"If my doom scrolling counts as news then yeah," Skyla answered. She was sitting on the ground beside of her plane, petting her Swanna with one hand and scrolling through her phone with the other. "I'm guessing you two saw the video?"

"Yeah but nothing else," Elesa told her with a nod. "Are there more videos?"

"Yeah but they're not really important. That was the only sighting but multiple people caught it on video. All the other videos are the same thing, just in different places and at different angles," Skyla explained. "The angles are actually pretty helpful. My Ransein isn't the best so kind of relying on translations here but it seems like that Pokémon the Machamp is holding is some extinct kind of Zorua."

"That's interesting but not helpful."

"True but it got Interpol's attention," Skyla responded, waving loosely in Drayden's direction. "The kid in the video is on the Sinnoh Hall of Fame too. Went missing a couple years ago, apparently. I don't know anything about him but people have been trying to find a connection between all of them the past couple days."

"Sorry, days?" Emmet was stunned. His brother had been back for days and no one told him?

"Again, my Ransein isn't the best. The video only went viral on the Galarian side of the internet this morning," Skyla explained apologetically. "A lot of people were pinging all the Unovan gym leaders but I was taking challenges and you know how Drayden is with social media…"

"I am Emmet. It is fine, Skyla," Emmet told her and he meant it. "I did not mean to imply it was your fault we didn't see any sooner. You've already done so much."

Skyla's expression softened. "Thank you. You know Ingo's my friend too, right? Even if I wasn't your ride, I'd want to get him home."

"We're going to Jubilife City," Drayden announced, recalling his Druddigon as he made his way over.

Emmet brightened. "Is that where Ingo is?"

"Not quite," Drayden told him, apology and frustration ebbing into his voice. "The video was taken in Jubilife though. The Interpol agent I was talking to has been working with Cynthia and they have reason to believe the people in the video went to Sandgem town. Jubilife's the closest we can get unless Skyla wants to land in a lake."

"I will," Skyla threatened and Emmet didn't know if she was kidding or not.

"No. As much as I want to get Ingo back, he would insist we follow our safety checks. No flying us into a lake."

"Boo," Skyla complained as she recalled her Swanna and climbed into the pilot's seat. "Alright, we're taking off. Everyone get in. Sinnoh, here we come!"

The plane ride was long and Emmet wished he'd brought something to do. He wasn't much of a reader these days but at least a book would be something other than having the same conversation with Elesa over and over again or getting lost in his own head. He had too many thoughts and not all of them were good ones. At least planes didn't have internet. As much as Emmet wanted to redownload Chatter and glue himself to it, Emmet knew he'd just end up doom scrolling, as Skyla had put it. That'd probably be worse than anything his brain did to itself.

They landed in Jubilife though and the gym leader there was kind enough to let Skyla leave her plane nearby. Emmet had no idea who the gym leader was but he was grateful for their kindness. Actually, now that he thought about it, that building hadn't looked much like a gym. He'd probably know if Jubilife had a gym, wouldn't he? Had Skyla just ditched her plane on some random building? Whatever. Something for later. Now, they had to hurry to Sandgem. Skyla's Pokémon were kind enough to make the trip quick and the group quickly found itself at what seemed to be a Pokémon lab.

"Where is he?" Emmet demanded, barging into the lab and startling the people inside. Immediately, he could tell who was who. Cynthia was obvious, being the champion of Sinnoh and all. The other two dressed exactly like their parts. One of them wore the same type of lab coat as Professor Juniper and the other had a trenchcoat. Really. Emmet thought they only wore those in the movies.

"Pardon?" the guy in the trench coat asked. He turned away from the table they all were gathered around. Reaching into his pocket, he dug out a very official-looking badge and flashed it in their direction. "If you're here for the Professor, I must ask you to come back later. Interpol business."

"Easy, Looker. I invited them," Cynthia soothed and Emmet wanted to say something verrry rude. What kind of guy was named Looker? Sounded like he was overcompensating for something. "They think they know the Machamp's trainer."

"The Warden?"

"Ingo does not have a Machamp," Emmet told them before his mind caught up to Looker's words. "Wait, Warden?"

"Looker, Cythnia, and I were just about to get all of our stories straight," the professor explained. "If you'd like to join us, you're more than welcome to, Mr…?"

"I am Emmet," Emmet told him and waved aimlessly behind him where he knew his companions were. "Elesa, Drayden, Skyla. All Unova gym leaders. I assume we will continue speaking Galarian?"

"Interpol conducts most operations in Galarian," Looker said before turning to Rowan and Cynthia. "My apologies for not asking beforehand."

"We're both fluent." Cynthia waved him off as she invited them to sit. "Now, Emmet, would you like to begin? I think your story is a bit shorter than any of ours."

"I am Emmet. I am not good at speaking. Elesa?"

"Ingo and Emmet are Battle Facility Heads in Unova. They run the Battle Subway," Elesa explained quickly. "Around six years ago, at the end of their shift, Ingo went into the tunnels for a routine sweep. Or, uh, not routine, I guess. Someone reported some Drifloon in the tunnels and Ingo headed in with his Chandelure to check them out. Chandelure came out later without Ingo and seemed very distressed. Emmet asked her to bring her to Ingo but there was nothing there. We thought for awhile he'd gotten lost or the Drifloon had something to do with it but we couldn't find him and there's no way the Drifloon would've been able to carry him out. The search, um, ended and Ingo was declared dead almost four years ago."

"Strange," Looker murmured and Emmet desperately hoped he didn't explain why. There was no body, maybe Ingo didn't want to be found, Emmet had heard it all. "And you think your Ingo is the man riding the Machamp?"

"I am Emmet. I know he is," Emmet insisted, flat tone hiding his nerves. "We are twins. Identical twins. I would recognize him."

"I understand," Looker told him and Emmet didn't believe him. "See, there's a problem though. Or maybe it isn't a problem. Depending on what Cynthia says, both your stories may fit into my theory."

"Maybe we should get to Rei first," Cynthia suggested. "Cover both the missing person cases first. Rowan?"

Emmet wanted Cynthia to get into whatever she was going to say but Emmet had to admit he probably wouldn't listen to what Rowan had to say about Rei if he started talking about him after Cynthia's spiel. "Rei was- is one of my lab assistants. When he was fourteen, he started his Pokémon journey and did rather well for himself."

"Did well," Cynthia snorted. "He swept my Elites and defeated me in battle."

Rowan chuckled. "He did. But, he never came home from Victory Road. The Elite Four found his Pokéballs and brought them to me. It's been two years since then. I thought a wild Pokémon had gotten him on his way home. You have no idea how relieved I was to see him show up safe and sound."

"He came here?" Drayden asked, voice cracking a bit from underuse. "Was Ingo with him?"

Rowan nodded. "He- I had a bit of a hard time understanding him. Real heavy Hisuian accent. Rei told me Ingo had been taking care of him these past couple years though. They- um, Rei came back here to collect his team before heading home to his mother but she… She died a few months after Rei disappeared. Her neighbors said- well, I'll spare you the details. There really aren't many. After finding out, well, Rei was pretty upset and Ingo said something about having other connections in Sinnoh and then left."

Emmet's mind whirled as he tried to process everything Rowan had just said. His mind decided to fixate on one thing though. "Hisuian?"

"I think that's where I jump in," Cynthia spoke up. "Hisui was what Sinnoh was called before it was, well, called Sinnoh. The language has changed a lot since then but some people in Sinnoh still speak it, mostly close descendents of the native Hisuian people. It's actually rather interesting stuff. The first settlers of Hisui were a mix of Johton and Galarian-"

"Cynthia," Rowan warned lightly. He huffed fondly and turned to the Unovan group. "History majors. She could go on and on."

"It's coming in handy so shush," Cynthia responded good naturedly before her tone grew serious once more. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, the Hisuian people. Their history can be sort of spotty in places but the first settlers were fairly good at recording so we have a decent idea of what Hisuian life was after they landed. Colonizers don't tend to understand native people and their ways all that well but they were able to capture the basic structure of clan life fairly well. There were two main clans of Hisui: the Diamond and Pearl Clans. They both worshiped a deity they called Sinnoh but they disagreed on who exactly Sinnoh was. Later, it was discovered there were actually two deities and the clans set aside their differences, merging into one when the colonizers got more aggressive."

"As interesting as this is," Skyla said politely, "what does this have to do with Ingo? Or Rei?"

"I'm getting there," Cynthia promised. "Both clans had a set of Noble Pokémon they believed were chosen by their god to protect them. Each Noble Pokémon had a Warden tasked with their care. These Wardens were some of the only people well-documented, especially the last few. The most notable records were written by a boy named Rei. It's believed he created the first Pokédex. His notes were remarkably detailed and his pages on the Nobles had descriptions of their Wardens, including Warden Ingo."

Emmet couldn't believe what he was hearing. Thankfully, Elesa voiced his thoughts. "And you think our Ingo and this Waren Ingo are the same?"

Cynthia nodded. "I knew the man in the video was Warden Ingo when I saw it. I never realized Warden Ingo looked like the Subway Master until Drayden called me."

"That aligns with my theory," Looker spoke up, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Now, it's needless to say that this is Interpol business and this doesn't leave this room?"

Emmet was a bit surprised to suddenly be part of the conversation and jerkily nodded, his companions doing the same. Looker smiled amicably and continued.

"My career with the International Police has been focused on resolving issues surrounding and trying to understand what we call the Faller phenomena," Looker explained. "I imagine you've all heard theories about the existence of other dimensions? They're quite popular in Sinnoh, not as much in Unova but I know the Ultra Wormholes in Alola made headlines. Sometimes breaches in the fabrics of reality, such as Ultra Wormholes, cause things to… fall through into another world. Sometimes, that includes people. We call those people Fallers."

Emmet felt his mind go blank. He'd been getting a lot of information poured into his mind these past few minutes but this was a whole new level.

"Interpol employs a number of Fallers, including my own partner. She's not here today," Looker added. "When we saw the sky rip over Jubilife, we believed it to be an Ultra Wormhole but evidence suggests it was a rip in time, not space. Mr. Emmet, it seems your brother is a time traveler."

Emmet stared at him, not believing his ears. Ingo had gotten lost in the past? That… Emmet had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that. "Well, fuck."

"Emmet!"

"How else am I supposed to react?" Emmet demanded, throwing his hands up. "I- You said Rei and Ingo left? Do you know where they went?"

"They Smoogled the clans on Rowan's computer before they left," Looker provided. "We're hoping that since Rei doesn't have parental support anymore, Ingo decided to see if he was still considered a clansman and get help there."

"Great." Emmet stood up. "Where do these Hisuian people live?"

"It's not that easy," Rowan told him. "The settlers of Sinnoh don't have a great history of treating the Hisuian people well. A few decades ago, the Sinnoh government passed some pretty serious laws protecting the remaining clansmen. They have some protected land and they aren't very keen on letting outsiders in."

"I am Emmet. Maybe they will mistake me for Ingo."

"Emmet," Elesa deadpanned, "no."

"Emmet yes."

"One of my Elites is a clansman," Cynthia told them, eye twinkling in amusement at Emmet's actions. For that, Emmet was grateful. He wasn't changing his behavior just to get someone to like him but having the Sinnoh champion like him made this a lot easier. "He's working on it."

"Make him work faster."

"Emmet has a point about looking like Ingo-"

"Of course I do, Skyla. We are twins. Identical twins."

"Yes but not what I meant," Skyla continued. "Maybe that'll be enough to, you know, verify that we're cool?"

Rowan, Cynthia, and Looker looked doubtful. Cynthia broke first. "I'll call Lucian."

"Alright!" Skyla cheered and drew six Pokéballs, leading the group outside and releasing her Pokémon. "I only have six of these so Professor, you're going to have to hang back. All aboard everyone!"

"All aboard!" Elesa exclaimed, climbing onto Skyla's Unfezant.

"All aboard!" Drayden agreed, hopping on Skarmory.

"All aboard?" Cynthia and Looker each echoed as they selected one of Skyla's Pokémon, hesitantly going along with what the Unovans were doing.

"All aboard," Emmet whispered more to himself than anyone else as he found his grip on Mandibuzz. "We're coming for you, Ingo."