Elesa was contemplating what pun she might send Emmet to maximize his next response when word of an attack reached the gym. She didn’t quite process it at first. Of course there were battles ongoing at Gear Station-- it was one of the facility’s main attractions.

Then she realized what Fleming was actually saying, which sent Elesa flying out of her dressing room and down the new catwalk.

The station’s main entrance was in chaos, police vehicles forming a broken half-circle around the front. A great number of people coming out of the building seemed to be those returning from their daily commute, utterly bewildered by the state of things as various Depot Agents kept the foot traffic moving or rebuffed entry, directing those poor waylaid patrons to one of the nearest substations. There was a not insubstantial subsect of individuals who seemed to be midway through being detained. Some of them boasted actual restraints, others bits of vine or even what looked like webbing; oddly, she recognized several faces among their number.

No sign of head-to-toe black or white cutting through the crowd, however.

Making intense eye contact with Furze, she walked right up to him, daring him to tell her she couldn’t go inside. Instead, what he did was give his head a little tilt and say, “Security office.”

“Good man,” She said, and slapped his shoulder as she darted by.

The building’s interior was even worse, grime smeared across the ground and tracked every which way, loose bits of debris kicking around as she beat a path toward internal operations; as she crossed through, she noticed minor damage in the cracked tiles, popped lights and singed walls. Even if she hadn’t been told ahead of time what had transpired, the hallmarks of a Pokemon battle-- or multiple battles-- gone wrong were easy to spot. Drawing farther from the main thoroughfare, though, things began to look more like she was used to.

As promised, she found the twins in the room dedicated to managing the station’s security system. Emmet paused midway through a wide gesture as she opened the door, but passed her presence off readily enough, turning to resume his conversation with a stranger in uniform. Sidelined-- and no doubt forced into the chair that usually sat in front of the security feeds-- Ingo waved her over.

“I’m sorry, did we miss a call? Things have been rather hectic since late this afternoon.” He said, voice about as low as he could force it, so as not to interrupt the conversation going on beside them.

She shook her head, “What happened? Is everyone okay?”

“All I can tell you is that station came under fire; we're attempting to help the investigation into why. A number of minor injuries have been reported since the attack concluded. To my knowledge, none were so threatening as to require hospitalization, but I should ask the medical team to make entirely certain.” His attention drifted to the door as he spoke, as if considering it right that minute, but he didn’t make any move to get up.

It wasn’t immediately obvious given the room’s dim nature, but at this distance, Elesa noticed his far hand slowly tracing up and down his side. “It’ll keep. How about you, specifically?”

With his free hand, he waved it off, “Unharmed. The passengers, however, seem quite distressed. I’m unsure how they’ve managed to stay so active all this time, but suspect that they keep setting one another off.”

Elesa muffled a snort into the back of a hand, “They learned that one early, then.”

Ingo hummed, but didn’t actually say anything. The both of them stayed quiet as the man talking with Emmet jotted something down onto a notepad, handed the sheet of paper over and left. Emmet stuffed it into a pocket without a second look, then-- in something most closely related to a double-take-- moved to take his hand out, reached back in, and emerged with some kind of granola bar. He promptly pushed it into his brother’s possession.

Elesa didn’t see Ingo roll his eyes, but knew it had to have happened.

“An officer will return for copies of today’s security feed.” Emmet announced, folding his arms over his chest, “There is a chance it might turn up something noteworthy. It looked verrrry normal to me, however. That was the entire point of planting subway trainers.”

Pausing to digest that information, Elesa asked, “Is that why I saw a few out front? This wasn’t just a spur of the moment riot or something-- it was a planned attack?”

“That seems to be the case. Yup.”

“I can’t speak to what occurred here at the station, but the events on the Single Line were certainly premeditated. Both the trainers ahead of my car and the challenger were cooperating with each other-- albeit in the loosest sense of the word.” Ingo said, and the fact that he’d allowed the mild dig through his filter spoke volumes.

“That reminds me.” Emmet turned back to the main console, though interrupted his own thought midway there to point accusingly at his brother and say, “Eat that.” before resuming to search through the various feeds.

While that was happening, Ingo glanced to Elesa, frown tilting into a wry sort of affection. She glanced at the clock, then back. “Yeah, no. I’m on his side.”

She heard him sigh, and then the crinkling of a wrapper.

The flickering on the main screen stopped as Emmet presumably found whatever it was he was looking for, and the Single Line’s silent footage began to play out.

It was eerie watching Ingo’s head snap up in response to something she couldn’t hear, the way he kept ground in between himself and the people who’d entered the car, never showing his back, and that he’d been rightfully concerned enough to send Haxorus out as a second line of defense. Logically, she knew he was right next to her, ruefully working through half of a shuca berry protein bar, but it was difficult to get past the threat the footage depicted.

The tension didn’t fade when more Pokemon came out so much as it transformed, but this, at least, was something familiar. Her pregnant best friend opposite three hostile individuals was worlds apart from Subway Boss Ingo tearing through his opponents.

“I should have gone on the offensive from the beginning; it might have saved Haxorus some damage,” He intoned lowly as the recorded version of himself reached for his radio and the Heracross lunged toward Garbodor, “And I made a massive mistake with Excadrill.”

Emmet shrugged, “Dragon Dance helped her dodge Fissure. High Jump Kick might have been avoided if Aerial Ace had been used evasively. But no guarantees. And Excadrill did enough damage to allow Crustle the finishing blow on Scrafty. It was not bad. Not bad at all.” There was a pause as Heatmor took two attacks head-on and he asked, “But you only had Chandelure and Klinklang up when you returned to the station?”

“Technically Crustle was able to battle as well, albeit having sustained heavy damage.” Inclining his head to the screen he added, “I didn’t recognize Kaleigh’s play until far too late.”

Echoing the name to himself, Emmet followed the gesture to where the third person was taking up the challenger’s side of the field.

“Ah.” He said tersely, at the same time that Elesa realized there was another part of the battle yet to be seen-- and maybe it was just because no gym challenger in their right mind would face her Emolgas with an Emboar, but she didn’t notice anything amiss until a Zoroark went careening across the car in its place.

“I withdraw my statement.” Emmet decided, eyes trailing the Bronzong as it fell to Giga Impact, “One Pokemon falling for every three knocked unconscious is a verrry good ratio.”

No kidding. Elesa wasn’t even sure she’d seen Chandelure take a single hit.

As Emmet noted the timestamp with several keystrokes, he said, “Maybe we should swap lines. It would allow you some more practice. And it would be thematically appropriate.”

“There are two problems with that: the first is that we don’t offer triple or rotation battles at this time, and doubles is simply inaccurate.”

“And?”

“And the second is that I’ll be conceding to an acting Subway Boss by the time operations resume.”

Emmet didn’t exactly look happy about that, but what he said was, “You handled yourself well. But it’s best not to risk repeating any of this.”

“Agreed. Now that the matter of video evidence has been settled, we should see if there’s any way we can be of further assistance in the investigation.” Here, Ingo hesitated, gaze drifting down sheepishly. “It’s just the nature of this chair, but if you wouldn’t mind…?”

Eyes roving over the chair in question, Emmet puffed a laugh and braced a foot against its base, rolling it back to allow space to stand. With that done, he held both hands out and helped hoist his brother upright. Ingo dropped one almost immediately to run his knuckles over the contour of his back, but it couldn’t have accomplished anything through the layers of his uniform.

While Emmet turned away, scribbling down the relevant timestamps down for whoever got stuck with copying files, Ingo caught Elesa’s eye, then looked pointedly to Emmet’s hand and back again as if to say ‘watch this’. Deliberately, he shifted the grip until his brother’s palm was mostly empty, and then slowly guided it to the spot where he’d been focusing on trying to calm the passengers. There was a beat of silence and then Emmet startled, pulling his hand away and shooting his twin a dirty-- if begrudgingly amused-- look.

Mouth hidden behind his free hand, Ingo stifled a snickering fit. Elesa openly scoffed. “That seems a little extreme.”

“It’s always verrrry weird.” Emmet said defensively, “But it’s weirder than usual right now.”

“If they’re just Espathrally active it can’t actually be that different.” She preened to herself as it earned a renewed chuckle.

“It’s rather more extreme than he’s felt before.” Ingo told her, taking some semblance of mercy on his twin, “If you’re so inclined, you can feel for yourself; they’re not acting particularly shy at the moment, so it should be quite easy.”

She hesitated. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

There was a short inclination of his head, “I wouldn’t have offered otherwise.”

Haltingly, she raised a hand and nearly dropped it again, thinking better of it-- but Ingo took it loosely and guided it to the same place as before. It took an awkward seven seconds, wherein she was terribly aware that she was maintaining physical contact with a touch-sensitive friend, but eventually she felt something come to life beneath her fingertips.

It was a bit like static, albeit obviously lacking any electrical component: an almost amorphous tickling sensation that clung to her nerves several seconds after the fact.

“Huh,” She said, a bastion of insight, met near immediately with an unenthusiastic, “Yup.”

When she felt a second spate of movement, though, her mild fascination took a different turn. Taking her hand back, she asked, “How long ago did you say this started?”

“2:48 PM.” Emmet supplied, glancing at his own writing, “Or maybe just after. That was when the Single Line was attacked.”

“Truthfully, I’m not entirely certain at what point along the line they began to act up; I only noticed it after Chandelure had the intruders contained. In their defense, they’ve settled down substantially since then. The activity was… rather sickening at its peak.”

She’d noticed. Emmet had glanced away to write just after Chandelure caught the unofficial challengers in her psychic grip, but Elesa had kept watching, and she’d seen the way Ingo had stumbled to the side in the recording, how he’d leaned into the bench for support as he wrapped an arm tight around himself.

Conscious of the fact that she’d nearly bitten her lip, Elesa allowed herself to run her tongue along its inner edge instead, humoring the urge without giving in, “And… you’re sure it’s not a problem that they’re being so active? There’s no way you’re in labor?”

“No.” The twins said in unison.

Swinging around to shoot a look at the brother who was not only not pregnant, but sterile, she said, “Thanks. I didn’t realize you were such an expert on it.”

He scoffed at her, “The passengers would not be active if labor was imminent.”

“There’s no cause for concern; the worst to be said about it is that it’s rather uncomfortable.” In a slightly lower, much more exasperated tone, Ingo added, “Which is to be expected when you pack two creatures the size of small Purrloin into an enclosed space together.”

“Wait,” Elesa said, struck by that last point, “What the fuck? Purrloin are the same size as Emolga. Since when are your babies as big as mine?”

“Just this week, actually,” He said ruefully, back to kneading at his side.

Feeling something akin to a cold chill run down her spine, she reluctantly asked, “How big are they supposed to get?”

“Ideally, they’ll be eighteen to nineteen inches long when they’re born.” He said, tone growing that much more weary-- though whether that was tied to the kind of day it had been or the topic at hand, it was impossible to tell.

Elesa wracked her brain for an easy comparison, and the one she found wasn’t comforting, “Ingo, that’s the size of a Cinccino.”

“Correction.” Emmet cut in, taking over for his brother, “That’s the height of a Cinccino. The mass involved is not comparable. If you want to argue over the passengers’ size, you’re free to do so. But please continue only once we are not dealing with the aftermath of a terror attack.”

Oh. Right. She’d gotten so distracted with baby-related concerns that she’d nearly forgotten why she’d run over here in the first place.

“That’s okay,” She said, eager to wipe he hands of the matter for now, “I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Thank you.” Emmet said, and, as he herded them toward the door, Elesa briefly spared a thought for the fact that he hadn’t held his twin accountable for the distraction. Typical.

With fantastic comedic timing, if an unfortunate one in terms of accomplishing anything, Ingo’s Xtransceiver went off. He spared it a glance and sighed; Emmet leaned into his space to look before contributing a grimace. “He called you. You get to deal with him.”

There was very little doubt who they were referring to, and while Drayden had responsibilities in play as an elected official, they all knew why he was calling Ingo’s personal line right now. It wasn’t really funny, but Elesa couldn’t help but voice an observation she’d made over the course of the interaction. “You just picked dealing with the terrorists instead of your uncle. You didn’t even stop to think about it.”

“He called Ingo.” Emmet said again in justification.

“The terrorists are easier to talk down.” Ingo said mildly. The hand hovering over the ‘answer’ button waved them off, “I’ll walk him through what’s happened. See how we can be of assistance from here on out.”

“Taking one for the team.” Elesa eked out just before he accepted the call, and hurried after Emmet as if Drayden would be able to sense her sass from cities away.

Just as the door swung shut, she heard the line connect and an exhausted, “I would like to preface by saying that I appreciate your concern. Please don't do anything drastic."