Draco: Might be simultaneous storylines, but they're not all given the same amount of detail and I'm okay with that.

Pokémon and protagonist © Nintendo. Character designs © Koei. Ransei © somewhere in the middle.


Pastoria: A Terrifying Possibility

"Raining up ahead, is it?"

Nōhime's remark had Dawn shaking her head. "On the route that's covered in mud, no less. It's already a bad idea to go to Pastoria City through 212 in nice clothes, but in this weather..."

"I'd rather go through it in nice clothes than go all the way around," Kaguya insisted. "Come on, let's go!"

Mitsuki grabbed her hand to stop her. "Slow down, Kaguya!" she protested. "Can't we wait a bit and see if the rain clears up first?" Shelgon gave a loud cry of agreement.

Kirlia slapped Mitsuki's hand to get her to release her grip as Kaguya rounded on her. "What's wrong, Mitsuki, can't the ninja sneak past the mud?"

"Sneaking's got nothing to do with it!" Mitsuki protested.

Dawn chuckled. "You know," she mused quietly, "if I had to guess which one of those two would be averse to getting dirty..."

"You wouldn't put your money on the little ninja, would you?" Evia mused. Then, loud enough for the little ones to hear; "Mitsuki's right, let's not go charging ahead just yet."

Kaguya turned to her. "Come on, Mama Evia!" she protested. "It's not gonna kill us to get wet!"

Evia shook her head. "It's not the rain, it's the mud," she insisted. "Going by the map, we're not gonna be in Pastoria before the sun goes down. Do you wanna try and pitch a tent in a bog?"

"...Okay," Kaguya conceded, "but what do we do instead?"

Dawn shook her head. "Well, you wanted to see what was on the other side of those walls earlier, right?" That got a smile on the children's faces. "Come on, Mr. Backlot doesn't mind visitors."

They went back north, arriving at the mansion as the sun went down. A somewhat rotund man in a very nice suit greeted them as they arrived, and on hearing they were travellers, invited them to stay at the mansion for the night, and train on the grounds in the meantime; thus did the four Warriors, three Pokémon, and one Trainer make their way into the expansive Trophy Garden.

"Oh, wow," Mitsuki exclaimed. "This place is so big!"

"Maybe you two would like to train against the wild Pokémon while you're out here?" Dawn suggested.

Kaguya grinned. "Definitely! Come on, Kirlia!" The Emotion Pokémon gave a cheerful cry as she and her Warrior charged forward, with Mitsuki and Shelgon following close behind.

Nō sighed. "They needed this," she mused. "A little something familiar." She glanced around the Trophy Garden. "A nice, expansive area where wild Pokémon are free to gather... not too far from a community."

"I mean, that goes for most of the Routes in Sinnoh, doesn't it?" Dawn mused.

"It's not the same," Nō insisted. "Fighting wild Pokémon while you travel is a different experience than fighting them to train, specifically. We've had far too much of the former just getting to Hearthome."

"...And how long were you in Hearthome?" Evia asked.

Nō rounded on her. "I beg your pardon?"

"Were you trying to find a way back to Ransei, spending time in that big city?" Evia argued. "Or did you have something else in mind? The fact that Fantina knew you from the crowd at the Concert Hall-"

There was a rush of movement; a hand closed on her throat, and claws dug into the underside of her chin as she was slammed against the wall of the mansion. Dawn started in shock as Nō pinned Evia to the wall, and she would swear that ghostly flames danced around the older Warrior in the motion.

"Don't. You. Even. Suggest." Nō's voice was ice. "My husband and my junior Warlord are still back in Ransei dealing with the fallout of whatever the hell sent us here. Mitsuki is separated from all her training partners, and we didn't even know you and Kaguya were here. Do you think me so blasé as to cast aside everything that I hold dear in Ransei, resign myself to this new region, and condemn Mitsuki to grow up in a land of Trainers?!"

"...I'm sorry," Evia gasped. "I'm sorry..."

Nō ripped her hand off of Evia's throat with a slight slash of her nails, and Evia slumped to the ground as the Spectran stepped away. "We woke up in Canalave," she proclaimed. "No one had ever seen a Warrior, much less knew where we might find passage to Ransei. We made our way to Hearthome, asking anyone who might have any idea how to find travel to another region - no one had an answer. Mitsuki had started to despair, so we decided to stay for a while, try and lift our spirits. I let her watch one last Contest Show before we left, and you happened to be in the crowd. That's all."

Silence between them for a long time.

"...I'm going to ask if that Backlot fellow has any wines," Nō muttered, and stormed into the mansion.

Dawn let her go and dashed up to Evia, helping her to her feet. "Are you alright?"

Evia took a deep breath. "I'm fine," she insisted. "She didn't hit my horns."

"Good night," Dawn muttered, "but the fact that that's your only concern says a lot about what Warriors go through."

A weak chuckle escaped from Evia. "You're not wrong."

"Mama Evia!" Kaguya's call from further into the garden drew their attention. "Mama Evia, come quick! You gotta see this!"

"Oh?" Evia started towards her voice. "What did you find that's so interesting?"

She got her answer when she and Dawn caught up to her daughter - and found Kirlia was facing off with an Eevee. The Emotion Pokémon seemed to be trying not to land a hit, and Dawn was as surprised at the sight as Evia was. "Didn't you mention...?"

"Yeah," Evia admitted. "You don't think Backlot would get upset, would he?"

"No way," Dawn assured her. "He invites Trainers to catch Pokémon out here."

Kaguya grinned. "Kirlia, back up!"

Kirlia nodded, leaping away with a dancing motion; the wild Eevee seemed about to chase after her before Evia raised her hand towards him. A shining glow appeared between her and the Evolution Pokémon - whose aggression vanished, replaced with a startled curiosity. With a smile, Evia made to step closer, and Dawn watched in amazement as the light grew stronger, maintaining a central distance between Warrior and Pokémon and getting brighter and brighter... until she knelt down, with Eevee just out of reach, and the glow seemed to fill the space between them.

After a moment, the Eevee moved his head forward, and the glow pulsed across the two of them as he nestled his head into Evia's palm. With a grin, the Warrior stroked his fur, satisfied.

"So, this is what it is for a Warrior to forge a Link," Dawn mused.

+x+x+x+

They ended up encountering another Eevee before they called it a night... and Kirlia's battles in the garden earned a radiant reward. Evia went to bed with two new partners, and slept the best sleep she'd had since arriving in Sinnoh, in the same room as Kaguya and Gardevoir.

The next morning, the rain had let up enough on Route 212 for the group to continue southeasterly. Dawn had not been kidding about the mud; Nō's singing dress had been rendered silent after the first bog alone, and Evia could feel it seeping into the joints of her greaves and sabatons. Mitsuki's black ninja ensemble was completely brown by the time they arrived in Pastoria City, and even Kaguya seemed to be rethinking her whole mud's not worth getting upset about stance.

Without any friends of Dawn's in Pastoria, nor a hotel they could buy a room in, the Warriors had to try their luck with the Pokémon Center. To their relief, not only did the staff not have any issues with hosting the visiting Warriors, but there were several dedicated laundry rooms in the basement for people who had come through Route 212. Dawn presumed they were separated for the privacy of those who didn't have a spare set of clothes to wear, which was convenient for the displaced Warriors who had been dragged out of Ransei without so much as rations.

"So, Mitsuki," Evia mused while she was scrubbing the mud off her armour, "where'd the wooden sword come from?"

Mitsuki looked kind of embarrassed. "It's not much of a sword," she admitted, glancing over at her weapon - a simple straight stick of cypress wood, with some cloth wrapped around one end to serve as a handle. "I kind of... bent the toy one you gave me. Like, into a boomerang. So Lady Kichō and Lord Nobunaga said I should get something that'll last a little longer."

Kaguya grinned. "Mama Evia and Mama Oichi got me the new one for the same reason," she admitted. "My toy spear's all beat up, so they got me 'a growing Warrior's first weapon' for my birthday."

"Lucky," Mitsuki teased. "Lady Kichō just took me to Spectra and told me to figure it out. Like, when I said I wanted to make a weapon out of a branch, Lady Okuni helped me with cutting the wood, but other than that I had to do it myself."

Dawn's phone rang in the middle of Kaguya asking a question; she drew out the device from her bag and checked the caller before hitting Answer. "Hey, Cynthia. You're on speaker, what's up?"

"Hey, Dawn," Cynthia greeted. "Evia, Kaguya. I've, um... got some bad news."

The laundry machines went silent as everyone turned to look at Dawn's phone. "Don't tell me..."

"Unfortunately, trying to negotiate a boat to get the Warriors home has ended... disastrously," Cynthia confirmed. "Seems whatever cast you guys out of Ransei is having some big effects. They've sent word to prevent ships from coming in or going out until things resolve."

"What?" Evia couldn't believe her ears. "Do they have any word on what happened?"

"Nothing specific," Cynthia admitted. "But supposedly, it's affecting the entire region, and they need all hands on deck."

Kaguya's gaze fell. "No..."

"I'm sorry," Cynthia pleaded. "I want to get you home, but sea travel isn't viable. I'm so sorry."

"It's alright," Evia insisted. "You did everything you could."

"No, I'm doing everything I can," Cynthia insisted. "I'm not going to quit after one failure; I'm going to explore all other options to try and get you home. I swear to you."

Evia closed her eyes. "...Appreciate it. Thank you."

Cynthia sighed into the line. "Hold tight," she insisted. "I won't stop trying until you're back in Ransei, you have my word."

The call ended, and Dawn lowered the phone. "So," she murmured, turning back to her bag, "that's a few days wasted."

Mitsuki brought her hands together. "We are gonna get home, right?" she asked. "We're gonna see Lord Nobunaga again?"

Kaguya nodded, determination on her face. "We will. It might take a while, but we will get to go home! I'm not gonna give up!"

Nō crossed her arms. "What a hellish situation we've found ourselves in," she muttered. "Would that legendary Pokémon were more consistent companions."

Evia glanced up at her. "Even if they were," she admitted, "I don't know if this sort of situation would be enough for-"

"I wasn't speaking of yours," Nō insisted.

"I'm... sorry?" Evia muttered.

The Spectran Warlord took a deep breath. "...Some time ago," she explained, "there was an occurrence in Spectra. No one had ever seen its like before. In some forgotten corner of the kingdom, right on the border with Dragnor, there were statues of Ghost-type Pokémon surrounding a strange rift. Nobunaga and I thought to venture inside, entrusting Ranmaru and Okuni to the kingdoms in case the unspeakable should happen." She shook her head. "What we found on the other side defied explanation - a floating rock like I had never seen before, drifting in an emptiness that extended in all directions. There we found-"

SNAP!

The sound from Dawn's direction cut Nō off; she and Evia both turned to find the Trainer standing with her back turned to them. She was holding the straps of her bag, which had each split in two; the hook it had been hanging from seemed to have been deformed, what had formerly been an upward arc now horizontal and almost straight. Her hands seemed to be shaking, but after a moment Evia realized it wasn't just her hands - it was her whole body.

Evia reached towards her. "...Dawn?"

"Could you get back?"

Her voice was quiet, as shaky as her body seemed to be; slowly, she turned to Nō, and there seemed to be tears welling in her eyes. "If you found yourself on that floating rock again, could you get back to Ransei? If you knew the road there?"

"I... I wager I could," Nō admitted, "but... what road? I already said, I reached it by-"

"By a rift. A dark rift that opened in an otherwise harmless place." She closed her eyes. "Alpha damn it, I swore I wasn't going back..."

"Dawn?" Evia got to her feet. "Dawn, calm down. You don't-"

"Don't tell me I don't have to do this!" Dawn yelled. "Your home is in danger! You have no idea what your loved ones are dealing with, and you don't know how long it'll be before you can even try to see them again! I can't..." She shook her head. "You saw Manaphy back to us. I have to repay that. I can't sit here and do nothing if there's any chance that I can see you home again."

She lowered her bag at one side.

"Rest up tonight. Tomorrow, I'll take you to the Distortion World."


Draco: Ohhh, that hurts. That hurts just in prelude.