Even in shambles, the Spear Pillar-- what had once been the Temple of Sinnoh-- was grand.

Or, at least, it would have been if Emmet had the wherewithal to appreciate it. He wasn’t out of shape by any means, but scaling Coronet to its peak was an endeavor when one lacked any prior mountain climbing experience, and between his burning lungs and the knowledge that this was it-- he was here-- he didn’t have much attention to spare for the scenery.

He was worried for what came next. If he had to battle, he would, but he wasn’t going to play fair. If Arceus hadn’t had any issue flaunting battle etiquette, then neither would Emmet; he’d brought both of their teams with him, and Gliscor to round them out. He knew he couldn’t dodge all those impossible attacks the way Ingo had, so he would just overwhelm his opponent instead, two on one.

Emmet liked the symmetry of it. Ingo handled single battles, and he dealt in doubles.

He had each of the pokeballs at his belt for easy access, but had to take his backpack off to retrieve the pointy ocarina. His research indicated that it was actually called the Azure Flute, and that there was a fair amount of mythology surrounding it, but that didn’t change that it was basically a miniature Qwilfish that a person was expected to blow into.

Before that, however, he took his coat and shook it out. Normally, he wouldn’t wear his uniform on personal business, but he really wanted to drive home just who Arceus was dealing with. He knew the jacket’s counterpart had been torn apart and remade, but it didn’t matter what it looked like. It still existed.

He slipped it over himself and adjusted his cap to account for where he was in relation to the sun, then fished the flute out and re-shouldered his bag. In the moment, the utter silence escaped his notice; not even the wind blew, like the temple was holding its breath, waiting to see how he would proceed.

Ingo had described a sense of being guided through playing, but that didn’t tell Emmet what to expect as he tried for himself. Whatever he might have anticipated, it wasn’t the familiar sense of company at his side, laughing good-naturedly and helping cover for any mistakes.

The stairway into the clouds winked into existence and, ruefully, Emmet began the climb up.

It was terrible. He tried to follow his brother’s lead and not let himself look down, but his wandering eyes got the better of him. The sight made him want to pick up the pace and get it over with, but that was too great a risk-- there were no guard rails, and would be nowhere to rest until he reached the peak. He forced himself to stay calm and maintain his clip. This would all be worth it in the end. When his destination came into view, he had to remind himself not to act in haste.

Stepping foot on one continuous platform was a massive relief, even if it did mean there was a horrifyingly powerful Pokemon lurking nearby, ready to initiate a battle he could never be fully prepared for. He didn’t know why, but he found himself looking down one more time, to confirm that yes, that had been terrifying.

There it was again-- the sense of being chuckled at. Emmet moved away from the staircase, farther onto the platform, and when he arrived near its center, the Pokemon appeared opposite him.

It was laying with all four legs tucked beneath it, watching him with a curious tilt to its head. Even in a resting state, its dark body was remarkably large-- and then it started to its hooves.

Emmet didn’t wait for it to offer any balms or ready its halo of light; he plucked Archeops and Excadrill’s pokeballs from his belt and hollered out their orders.

Only one spot of movement answered him, and it didn’t come from any of the Pokemon involved. At Arceus’s side, tiny motes of light glittered into existence and then, instead of launching themselves, distilled into an inky black form. Studded like a constellation, it stepped protectively in front of Arceus, bearing its claws at Emmet’s Pokemon in warning.

It didn’t matter much. Both Archeops and Excadrill were looking back at him like they didn’t understand the strategy they’d used in hundreds of battles before.

Arceus leaned over the constellation’s shoulder and bumped the sides of their heads together. The silhouette stood its ground for a moment, but gave a terse nod and faded back, making itself a glittering band that hung in midair, circling fondly around Arceus’s neck.

The Pokemon seemed to fold in on itself as it stepped forward, paradoxically shrinking as it came nearer. When it drew even with Archeops and Excadrill, it touched the crest on its head against both of them in greeting, and both headbutted it right back.

Emmet had seen what this creature could do; he should have been afraid for all of their lives, but, instead, he stood his ground as it reached him. Arceus pressed one light-furred cheek against his and leaned in as it circled around him, acting like an over-affectionate Purrloin. With some doing, it corralled him into the platform’s center and then settled itself in again, curled around his back to rest its head on his left shoulder.

“You… don’t want to battle?” He asked it, blindsided.

The sense of amusement came back, clearly emanating from the Pokemon that was sitting with him.

“Never thought I’d see the day.” Said his brother’s voice.

Emmet’s head snapped up and he looked around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arceus startle as he called, “Ingo?”

There was no immediate response, but Arceus pressed close again, this time nosing in to toss his hat aside and rest its chin on his head.

“Can you hear me?”

While the rational part of Emmet’s mind was rapidly making connections, the part attached to his mouth said, “Where… where are you?”

This time he did hear laughter. “I’m right here.”

Emmet looked straight up. His twin looked down, eyes smiling like they always had.

“Oh.” He said mildly. Then his brain caught up. “How?”

He didn’t leave room for an answer, too busy scrambling up onto his knees so he could throw his arms around his brother’s neck. A quadruped couldn’t hug back, but Ingo did his damnedest to try, leaning in hard enough that Emmet had to exert an opposite amount of force to stay upright.

“I’ve missed you so much, Emmet.” He said, and they weren’t really words, but Emmet understood them with perfect clarity-- he recognized the aching fondness in every syllable.

He pressed his face harder into the sleek, dark fur, and his own response became more vibration than enunciation, “Me too. I heard you. I know.”

His declaration sank into that black coat, absorbed as though it was sunlight, and something in him wryly noted that this wasn’t the change he’d anticipated on the way up. The main point still stood, though-- he didn’t care about the exact shape-- and he dismissed the thought entirely, preoccupied with the face nestling into his hair.

Neither of them said anything for a long time, simply basking in the fact that the other was finally right there next to them. Emmet found a secondary function in keeping his face pushed against Ingo, using the pressure to forcibly moderate his breathing. His arms began to tremble from the intensity of his grasp, begging him to loosen the hold, and the instant he indulged them, his lungs turned on him, gasping for air.

The silence he’d failed to notice at the temple finally broke, the winds originating from the body beside him, coaxing him to breathe in, and then out. It felt a little bit like having the concentrated interest of an entire stadium focused on him, but he reveled in it; didn’t he deserve his brother’s undivided attention after so long apart? He was going to give it back in equal measure.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that before his knees started complaining, too, but it wasn’t long enough. His breathing was steady by that point and, reluctantly, he pulled back to change his stance. Ingo bumped his head against Emmet’s one more time, and then followed suit, taking the opportunity to nuzzle at Excadrill and Archeops, and then chase them back into their pokeballs.

Emmet recognized that he was saying something as he circled around, stretching his legs, but the only indication was a very strange translation of body language. It came across in the way his shoulders moved, as though he was talking with his hands, but that and the tilt of his head were the only indications that he was trying to speak.

“I can’t hear you.” Emmet said, and his twin blinked at him, dumbfounded.

After a second, Ingo settled in and leaned up against him once more. “My mistake; I’m still trying to figure this out. Is this any better?”

“Yes.” Emmet considered him for a second, and then took him by the sides of the face. He’d let the question slide for this long, but they really had to address it now. “How did this happen?”

There was something like a sigh without the accompanying puff of air. “The Original One gave me a choice: either I returned to Hisui and lived out the rest of my life there, or I took up the role it was vacating. Theoretically, it wouldn’t have been impossible to find another route home, but Dialga would be too close to defy its orders, and there was no guarantee I’d be able to find Celebi. This… would be slow, but it ensured that I would get here eventually.”

“What do you mean ‘the role it vacated’?” Emmet asked, not slowing in his pursuit of the truth for even a second.

Ingo turned his head, but was careful not to break the physical contact between them. “We’re veering dangerously close to a topic that could hurt you if not afforded the proper care. If you can content yourself with the idea a project manager appointing their replacement before they move on to bigger things, that’s essentially what’s happened here.”

“So you’re Arceus now.” Emmet said blankly, to an affirmative that matched his enthusiasm beat for lack of beat, “Why you?”

His brother huffed in thought.

“To continue the analogy, you could consider everything in Hisui an interview I didn’t realize I was participating in: the Pokedex, the clans and the frenzies, Volo’s… ambitions. With all due respect, the Original One was terrible at communicating, so I can really only guess at what it was thinking.” He looked at Emmet, and then his eyes drifted upwards as he mulled it over, “Personally, I believe it was down to Unovan sensibilities, our ability to handle Pokemon and oversight of the Battle Subway. Between us, it would have been a coin toss.”

In the face of that explanation, Emmet realized that he’d phrased things poorly. His question wasn’t why it hadn’t been him, he just wanted to understand why all of this had happened to his brother, of all people-- someone who already had a place he belonged, and hadn’t wanted anything more.

That was probably part of it, actually. Ingo had been content, responsible with the power trusted to them as facility heads and station managers. So then, between them… it had to be their personal philosophies. Emmet tried to imagine what he’d have done, put in his twin’s situation, and his very first thought was that he wouldn’t have forgiven Arceus. He would have been furious at it from the moment he saw it, and once its instructions failed to bring him home, he would have raged against it without reprieve. Instead of finding solace in Hisui and its inhabitants, he would have started making his own plans-- and if, somehow, that still led him to Volo and Giratina, he wouldn’t have bothered to empathize with them in the aftermath.

In a text he’d received not so long ago, Ingo had posited that someone else might have mercilessly torn Volo to shreds, and Emmet was that person. He wasn’t ashamed of that fact-- he actually thought it was one of his strengths-- but he felt certain that had been the difference.

It didn’t bother him, because now he had an incredible piece of leverage over his brother.

“By the way.” He said, putting up his best air of faux innocence, “You’re banned now.”

Even if they hadn’t been in direct contact and he hadn’t heard the annoyed groan, the dramatic eye-roll would have been enough to get the point across.

“You couldn’t wait another two minutes, could you? I can’t believe I missed this kind of behavior…”

Somehow, out of everything, that was what got him. By virtue of not producing sound, it couldn’t be the same annoyed muttering under the breath that Emmet was used to, but to him, it still was. He moved closer and pushed his head against his twin’s, arms wrapping around his neck. There was no one else there to see him crying, but the instinct to hide his tears against Ingo persisted.

Ingo didn’t try to tell him it was okay or not to be upset. What he did was breathe a fond, “Oh, Emmet…” and push against him in solidarity. Emmet knew it was the best that could be done right now, and he had been serious about not caring about how a coat-- or person-- could change, but damn it, all he wanted was the familiar weight of his twin in his arms, and to be held back.

He didn’t notice the shift as it happened-- either it was too slow or simply untraceable-- but when he got what he wanted, and his brother’s arms gathered him up, he didn’t give it a second thought. What he did do was bury his face in Ingo’s neck and continue to weep, and it only redoubled when he felt something rest against his shoulder.

It took a long time for him to cry himself out, and that would have been embarrassing if he had been the only one affected, but he was very well aware that he boasted a wet patch in the shoulder of his own coat. He sighed into Ingo’s collar, adjusted his grip on him, and… ran into something in the process. He cracked an eye open and peered past the wide collar, where he caught a glimpse of the thing that didn’t belong. Just as soon as he noticed it, though, he was distracted by something much more important.

“You’re human again.” He said, and tried to back off to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Ingo gripped him tighter for a moment, halting his backwards momentum.

Sounding slightly sheepish, he said, “I’m aware that I didn’t get it quite right, but I can’t tell how.”

That was intriguing, but also terrifying. Emmet made to break the embrace again, and this time Ingo let him. A single look found him stuck between laughter and renewing his sobbing fit out of relief-- so he did both, resting his forehead against his brother’s.

It wasn’t… bad. It looked like someone had applied fairground face paint, and he’d forgotten to wash it away. Both eyes were lined in green, with a large dollop at the corners, like a Yamask’s exaggerated tears. He looked silly, but that was, without a doubt, Ingo. For a moment, Emmet had feared that his twin had forgotten their shared face.

“Got something right there.” Emmet wheezed when he was finally able.

The upper half of his brother’s expression twitched and he reached up, as if the abnormality was something that could be wiped away. He did actually reemerge without the markings, but somehow managed to replace them with a gold crest above his brow. Emmet tapped on it, and that got scrubbed into nothingness, too.

After a few tries, he came away without any extras, save for the embarrassed blush across his cheeks-- but that was both natural and well earned. Emmet grabbed him by them, palms flat, soaking up the flustered warmth. “Why didn’t you do this earlier?”

“It hadn’t occurred to me that I could until you needed it. I’m… not very good at this yet.”

“But you had hundreds of years?”

“My predecessor held this position since before the advent of time; that didn’t stop it from communicating primarily through a to-do list.” Ingo said, folding his arms indignantly over his chest, and tried to pull himself out of his brother’s unrelenting vise grip.

Emmet was about to concede the point when something about that pinged as strange. “It communicated via device. Why didn’t you?”

His brother gave a solemn shake of the head and Emmet allowed his hands to fall away, down to his shoulders. “Unless I’d sent you on a quest, I couldn’t, and I wasn’t about to pitch you into the far future of the Johto region just to text you.”

“Oh.” He said, and while the texting part would have been welcome, if the circumstances had to be the same as Ingo’s-- no warning or preparation, no Pokemon coming with-- then he could easily see his twin’s logic. “Thank you. Then why is this okay?”

That silly little down-turned smile of Ingo’s finally made its appearance. “If someone comes here actively seeking an audience, it’s my prerogative whether or not to answer. By that point, they’ve demonstrated their awareness and… I hesitate to say ‘respect’, but an acknowledgment of the old ways. That you went out of your way to acquire the Azure Flute certainly helped skew the circumstance in your favor.”

That was a funny way to phrase it.

“It was on your bed.” Emmet said flatly, “It was exactly seven steps out of my way.”

“You didn’t have to look there.” Ingo said, arms folded into his usual thinking stance, a finger tapping at his bottom lip as he considered his twin, “You were under no obligation to call me, or to listen to any of my messages. I wouldn’t have facilitated this meeting if you’d been unresponsive.”

Emmet hesitated, thinking that over. “Is there another rule? Is that why you waited so long?”

“I… didn’t wait, actually. The first time I tried to signal to you, you were too busy looking for me to notice. I made several more attempts after the fact, but after those failed, I decided I’d wait until you were more receptive, once your grieving seemed less… bombastic.” He turned his eyes away as he said it-- not out of anger or shame, but as if he wasn’t sure how appropriate it was to address.

That definitely meant he knew how harshly Emmet had spoken about him in the thick of things.

Emmet spent several seconds staring at the platform beneath them-- hard. He really didn’t want that to be a matter of discussion today; he hadn’t prepared for it at all, banking on the fact that he would be in conflict with Arceus, not navigating a labyrinth of ugly emotions with his brother. A hand found purchase on his shoulder, and he glanced over from the corner of his eye.

“I understand. It only stood to reason that you’d be upset; I don’t want you to be ashamed of how you felt.” Ingo said, voice steady and reassuring as ever.

Emmet breathed out and briefly closed his eyes, giving his head a little shake. “It’s not how I felt that bothers me. It’s how I thought. I knew better.”

“Your entire life was in upheaval; how could you be certain of anything?”

That, finally, made him pause. Ever since he’d been convinced that the first batch of messages was legitimate, he’d berated himself for his doubts. He still thought he’d been ridiculous to entertain the idea that Ingo would have left voluntarily, but… this much was true. There had been so much going on-- so many people asking him questions he couldn’t know the answers to, an increased workload upon returning to the station, the rumors that started circulating straight away-- that he’d hadn’t even known which way was up. Maybe it hadn’t been logical, but in hindsight, it was understandable.

“I missed you so much.” He muttered, looking back down at the platform to keep from crying again. A heavy breath sounded from nearby, saying the exact same thing, serving the exact same purpose. Since he kept his eyes down, the sudden pressure against the crown of his head took him by surprise, and startled a short laugh out of him. He headbutted back and left them to rest against one another for a few seconds, then grabbed his brother’s hands, proceeding to drag the both of them to their feet.

In the process, a flash of gold caught his attention, and his head whipped around to track it. He’d studied Ingo’s battle against Arceus in as much detail as he could, and something about the shape immediately set him on edge, ready to field an attack. Emmet didn’t find anything poised and ready to battle. All he saw was his twin, looking at him like he’d proposed a new strategy to make better use of Mold Breaker: dubious, yet compelled to learn more.

When his nerves settled, he realized that it was the same crest that had circled around Ingo as Arceus, still upright instead of changing orientation to match his human form. Eager to set a more lighthearted tone between them, Emmet circled around his brother and held a hand out to keep him in place when he moved to follow. He didn’t know what he’d expected. It was the same symbol, hovering idly right behind.

The sudden fascination made Ingo look backwards, and he immediately caught sight of the crest. He seemed annoyed if anything, and muttered under his breath as he reached back-- probably intending to get rid of it the same way he had the other anomalies. Before he could do that, Emmet snagged it with both hands and pulled it out of his reach, curious to see how it would react.

There was a startled yelp, and he immediately dropped it.

“Sorry,” He said, followed urgently by, “It hurt?”

Ingo reached back for one of the points and gave it a little shake, sincerely frowning at it. “A bit-- nothing bad! I realize now that I felt when you brushed against it before, so that wasn’t the issue. It was just… a pulling sensation, like when you would try to remove Litwick’s wax from my hair.”

He shook the crest harder, grimace intensifying. It got to the point where he swung it so that the opposite end smacked into his other shoulder, and then reached over to rub at the resultant sore spot. Emmet turned his palms up, as if to ask what he’d expected would happen.

“I’m afraid that I don’t know how to hide it yet.” Ingo sighed, rolling his eyes when it stubbornly swayed back into place. For a moment he went still, working on the clasp of his coat; he only removed it long enough to throw it over the crest and then settle it again. Emmet blinked as the bumpy shape melted away, leaving the cloak to hang as usual, but Ingo pouted when he didn’t say anything.

“Still too noticeable?”

Emmet shook his head and reached over to pat his back in demonstration. “Nope. It’s gone.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I clearly felt that.” Ingo said as he reached blindly behind himself. His hand moved around, unable to find what it was looking for, and then bumped into Emmet’s.

“It’s not there. Would I lie to you?” Emmet asked, and realized his mistake almost instantly.

“In a heartbeat.” His twin answered, just as keen on the uptake, but it was all in good humor. He sobered enough to add, “Not about something like this, though, you’re correct.”

Emmet moved to retaliate, lightly bonking him on the back of the head. “Why did you want to hide it?”

Ingo moved to look at him over his shoulder, mildly incredulous-- as if he was the one who had that right after everything that had happened today.

“Correct me if the societal norms have changed in my absence, but I was under the impression that people would take notice and ask about it.” He said, using his infuriating ‘helping an oblivious commuter’ voice. It took Emmet a minute to process what he’d actually said, because he was caught up in nostalgia and annoyance all the same time.

He walked around to look his brother in the eyes, and took one of his hands.

“You can leave?” He asked, and even though his voice didn’t carry it, he knew the hope got across.

“Conditionally.” Ingo said. He gave Emmet’s hand a squeeze, but didn’t say anything to elaborate on that point; instead he looked to his left, where the twinkling lights reappeared in the form of the lanky, long-clawed silhouette from before. He spoke to it in soft, fond Hisuian, and the only thing Emmet could recognize was the word ‘Ohnyula’. The shape tossed its head and a ribbon of darkness billowed behind it.

After he’d settled whatever that was about, his attention landed back on Emmet, and in his own way, he smiled.

“If someone proves worthy, I’m free to walk the world with them. All I need to do is set a test, and since you came here looking for a battle… who am I to disappoint?”