Emmet found himself at something of a loss.
Oh, sure, it was all well and good when he’d had a direction to move in, but after the convoluted chain of obstacles he’d dealt with, he found his engine idling. Dreams of a weird box? Sure, he could find it. Nobody could get the box open? There was a time and place for everything– and he had years of experience with their array of model train tools. A stubborn latch was nothing in the face of a hobbyist with five specialized screwdrivers and a single-minded determination.
But now that the box was open? He had no idea what to do.
He knew this had something to do with Ingo, just not what it could possibly be.
Lenora had informed him that the polished slab of black glass he’d found inside was called a scrying glass, and that this one was quite old, judging by the Victinian setting. He hadn’t needed her to tell him it was old– he’d spent a solid week whittling away at the patina of rust holding the lock shut.
The weird thing was the functionality– or lack thereof.
Someone had decided a slice of obsidian wasn’t enough, and added a decorative piece to the back of the mirror– made distinct from the main body with its white Liepard spots– but the stone’s curvature made it impossible to set the mirror flat against a wall. He supposed it may have been crafted as a hand mirror, but that just seemed short-sighted, given the fact that it had no grip. It was possible that it was meant to be held directly, and he couldn’t help but shudder at the idea; the smudges that would leave behind, incredibly visible against a dark backdrop, would be hideous. There was a reason he only handled it with his gloves on.
So now, Emmet had a poorly-conceived mirror and no forward momentum.
It wasn’t the worst position he’d found himself in over the past three years.
Truth be told, he hadn’t known where he was going with this from the beginning– just that he hadn’t had any other leads, and it felt like he was on the right track. As much as it held the mirror back, he had a hunch about the cracked stone decorating it. It wasn’t an evolution stone– none that he was familiar with, at least– nor was it a type gem or mega stone, but the world of held items was a diverse one.
It was his understanding that legendary Pokemon had a tendency to resonate with shiny rocks. That could help. He could definitely use that kind of back up. Sometimes a legendary Pokemon was a rock. He hoped this one wasn’t– the split running through it was fairly deep, and if his time caring for Gigalith was anything to judge by, developing a fracture was no fun.
(Developing into a Fraxure was another matter entirely. That had been an entertaining stage of evolution, and Haxorus had been incredibly cute back then. Not that she wasn’t, now.)
In any case, the mirror likely held some significance to a Pokemon. He just needed to narrow down which one.
There was folklore pertaining to the Forces of Nature and a mirror, but that had been a dead end. Boosting the nutrients in soil or starting a lightning-induced forest fire seemed unhelpful to his cause, if in incredibly different ways.
The day’s research had been a bust, but he’d faced a halfway decent challenger on Super Doubles, so it wasn’t all bad. That silver lining didn’t stop him from staying awake long after he’d gone to bed, trying to figure out how to maximize efficiency tomorrow.
This was the only reason he noticed a seam of light in the dark, like a Xtransciever that had fallen onto its screen and turned on. For several sluggish seconds, that was exactly what Emmet thought was going on, until he remembered that it couldn’t be, because his Xtransciever was charging on his nightstand, well within arm’s reach.
That was coming from where he’d left the mirror, right-side down so it wouldn’t overbalance and fall over in the night.
The supposed scrying mirror didn’t… work did it?
Emmet sat up with a trepidation more at home in the limbs of a trainer crossing a wooden high beam for the first time than a man getting out of bed, snagging a rogue pen from the nightstand as he went. Just before he could leverage its dull end beneath the glass’s edge, the glow faded, and he spent a second wondering ‘what now’, but there was no way he was laying back down after seeing that. He poked the pen underneath and tilted the mirror enough to peer under, still shiny and blank, just as he’d left it, and then considered his options.
He had no idea if it would happen again– whether it be that night or ever– so, while he had no qualms about spending some time monitoring it, he couldn’t watch indefinitely. If he wanted to accomplish anything tomorrow, he had to at least try to sleep. The glow had been surprisingly bright, but if he’d been asleep, it wouldn’t have woken him– not flat against his dresser, at least. Would it stand a chance if he turned it right-side up? He’d only oriented it this way because he was worried the rounded gem at its back would unbalance it during the night, but if he used it to angle the scrying glass at him, instead, it could strike two Pidove with one Thunderbolt.
Worth a shot, he figured, and set the pen to the side, taking the mirror gingerly by the edges.
The plan went off without a hitch, until he blindly ran a hand along its back, trying to ensure that the stone’s curve was set at the correct angle, at which point it lit back up.
It was an experience equally enjoyable as looking at a backlit Xtransciever in a subway tunnel. Which was to say not very.
Emmet recoiled, rubbing at one eye in an attempt to help clear it, squinting dubiously with the other. He couldn’t make out much, for a few seconds, but he was aware that the smooth black surface had something new on it. Words? Text?
Was the Victinian scrying glass texting him at two in the morning? Seriously?
When his eyes adjusted, he realized there was a new line of text decorating its face. It had started with one already complete, and steadily filled a new one out as he’d squinted at it. Unfortunately, those two lines of text didn’t make a lick of sense. It was Galarian, alright– with the correct Unovan spelling, even– but broken Galarian, like a machine that had been made to run a foreign sentence through multiple languages instead of translating it directly.
Something nonsensical in Emmet distantly wondered if, since the thing acted so much like a Xtransciever already, it might have language settings.
Holding it by the edges, he watched for several more minutes as another garbled sentence filled itself out, then sighed and set it down. After a few seconds, it flickered out. He hated to think it, but maybe it wasn’t the actively-texting mirror that was scrambled; it was just as likely that Emmet’s sleep deprived brain was making this more difficult to parse than it should have been. Tilting it the opposite direction, so it would light the wall up, if anything, he circled back around to the head of his bed and idled there for a moment, thinking.
He’d already gotten a two am text, so why not pass it on?
Weird mioor just sent me a text. No brain power rn. Help tomorrow?
He had exactly enough time to lay back down before receiving an answering:
wtf is wrong with u. sleep.
He glanced, briefly, to the scrying glass, just in case it had anything to add to the conversation.
When it stayed dark, he took that as confirmation that even the slab of obsidian was ready for bed, and stopped fighting unconsciousness.
---
“I’m assuming you meant the mirror texted you last night.” Elesa said, without preamble, once they met up the next day, “What do you mean the mirror texted you last night?!”
“I am Emmet. I mean what I say.” Fiddling with his Xtransciever, he amended it to, “But you’re correct. That was an error.”
Emmet scrolled past a picture that consisted mostly of Chandelure’s bulb and, instead, to the one he’d been looking for. Once he’d found it, he handed the device over so Elesa could see.
Somewhat disappointingly, the words hadn’t, in fact, reoriented themselves to make sense that morning; Emmet had legitimately thought he might have been the problem last night. They appeared in the same exact order as they had then, the mirror dutifully reflecting both Chandelure, crowding in to look, and the face Emmet had made at her back as he tried to keep her out of the shot whilst clearly capturing the text.
“Okay,” Elesa said slowly, “I see what you mean. Congrats on being more coherent than a slab of rock.”
“I will take what I can get.”
“So… the mirror talks. Kind of. What are we supposed to do with that information?”
Emmet shrugged. “Talk back? It was verrrry early in the morning–” she shot him an irritated look, “–and I didn’t think to try.”
“You’re going to talk to the mirror,” Elesa said, affectation flat, “Emmet. Sweetie. I thought you were past this.”
“This is different. Our bathroom mirror does not generally initiate conversation.”
Elesa opened her mouth, as if to retort, and then thought better of it. A small, slightly vindictive thrill of triumph ran through him.
Eventually she sighed, coming to terms with the fact that there was no logical counter to that statement. “Fair enough, I guess, but don’t try anything until I get to your place, okay? The last thing you need is another seven years’ bad luck.”
“This one is a rock.” He said, accepting his Xtransciever and strapping it into place, “I would have to try substantially harder to crack it.”
---
Emmet had forgotten that the decorative piece at the mirror’s back was already broken. If he’d remembered, he might have thought it a portent of things to come– that, perhaps, someone had already lost their temper with the mirror’s nonsense and thrown it down in frustration.
Even with two heads trying to puzzle meaning out of the garbage text, there were no results to be found. Talking to it worked… to an extent. It responded when one of them said something– even if it wasn’t directly to the scrying glass– but it was always more of the same.
He had to give it one thing, at least: it seemed to know its audience. Even when he’d been more targeted in his questions– before he’d fallen back into his usual speech patterns– the gibberish was studded with railway terminology. Not that it was using any of those terms correctly, but given its grasp on language in general, he would give it points for trying.
They’d kept at it for some time– dutifully recording their questions and the ridiculous responses it turned out– before deciding that it was an exercise in futility and going to get dinner. Someone had to know what was going on with it, but it wasn’t them, and any networking would have to wait until reasonable business hours.
When he returned, the apartment was brighter than he might have expected, but only due to the combined forces of Chandelure and the mirror. Maybe it was just some kind of occult-object-to-occult-object fascination, but that had to mean something. Emmet made a mental note to add Shauntal to the list of people he’d need to speak with; she knew ghosts and writing, which automatically put her near said list’s top.
For now, he asked Chandelure, “Any luck?” and, to his surprise, found that she may, in fact, have gotten a semi-coherent sentiment out of it.
To be entirely fair, it consisted entirely of:
~(OHO)~
But it made sense in context, at least.
Just in case he needed to prove it later– and also because it was kind of cute, in a weird way– he snapped a quick picture of the tableau. Chandelure crooned at him, but he didn’t know what that particular cry was supposed to mean, so he gave her globe a couple of firm-but-loving pats and then made the rounds, settling everyone in for the night. The mirror, of course, lit up as soon as he touched it. He wondered if he should get a towel to lay over it, signaling that it was time to sleep the way one might care for a domestic Chatot.
Archeops had certainly benefited from that practice, back when he was an Archen. Was he smarter than a mirror? Actually, in this case, that was the same as asking if he was smarter than a rock. Emmet wanted to say Archeops was, but had to hesitate before making any definitive statements. Gigalith could be a conniving one, after all.
Gods, he was tired.
He set the glass aside long enough to get changed, ignoring whatever message it sent in the interim. In the middle of debating whether or not he actually should toss something over it for the night, it lit up again, making the decision for him.
What was meant to be a brief glance, just to see where he was picking up in the morning, quickly became a full-fledged stare.
The mirror seemed to have learned his name.
Should he encourage that? Was a proper noun the first step to making some kind of grammatical sense? He didn’t think Elesa would be particularly happy to hear about its new trick…
Absentmindedly, he brought it with him as he sat down on his bed, still staring the oddly plaintive Emmet?
Enthralled as he was with this new development, he failed to notice as his reflection slowly warped, the whites of his eyes fading to black. The same couldn’t be said for the way the text, too, shifted, the first letter of each word shining bright against the obsidian backdrop.
I-R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R-N-O-W, said the line just under the depiction of Chandelure, followed by, Y-O-U-R-E
Bracing the mirror against a knee as he tried to keep his hands steady, his eyes flickered up to the sentence at the top edge– the last thing it had output before they’d called it a night.
S-A-F-E-D-R-I-V-I-N-G
Okay. So the mirror was substantially smarter than Archeops. That was one question answered. Hands shaking, Emmet set it down on the bed and went to turn the light back on, venturing out to the living room, much to their Pokemon’s confusion. He did a bad job of hushing them, but, while they were all wary, the only one to call him on his bullshit was Chandelure, who followed him to his bedroom after he grabbed the notebook they’d been using to record responses.
That tracked. She’d known something was up for the greater portion of the evening, after all.
The glass was dark when he returned, which was just as well. He settled himself a good foot away, so as not to accidentally activate it again, tore out a sheet of paper from the back of the book and began to decrypt the text.
Every one of the nonsense sentences– even the ones they hadn’t thought to record, that he had to refer to his Xtransciever to find– spelled out a different message.
W-H-E-R-E-A-M-I
I-K-N-O-W-Y-O-U
C-A-N-Y-O-U-H-E-A-R-M-E
P-L-E-A-S-E-H-E-L-P
I-C-A-N-T-G-E-T-O-U-T
The list went on and on, gradually turning from pleas for help to idle conversation.
Rooted in place, Emmet slowly turned to look at the scrying glass. It had stayed dormant the entire time he’d been writing, even in spite of Chandelure’s impatient tapping at its surface, and it didn’t seem like that was going to change any time soon. Ironic, really, that it would take the hint right before he needed it to respond to him.
With a newfound care, he reached over and picked it up.
It flickered to life a heartbeat slower than before and, with a cadence Emmet was tempted to call exasperated, said G-O-T-O-B-E-D
W-E-L-L-T-R-Y-A-G-A-I-N
T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W
“No,” He said softly– almost too softly to hear, himself, “No. I get it now.”
The mirror didn’t seem to believe him, and swiftly faded to its usual polished surface.
“I mean it. Get back here.” He said, trying to sound stern, even though he was talking to a slab of stone, “I hear you. I want to help.”
Its response was a single ?
“You asked for help. You said you couldn’t get out. If I help you, will you assist me?”
W-H-Y-A-R-E-Y-O-U-L-I-K-E-T-H-I-S
Y-E-S-F-I-N-E
“We’re in agreement, then. What do you need from me? How do I extract you?”
T-A-K-E-M-E-O-U-T
“Yes. We’ve covered that. But how?”
Y-O-U-D-O-N-T-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D
I-M-I-N-I-T
R-E-M-O-V-E-M-E
At a loss for what that was supposed to mean, Emmet looked to Chandelure, just in case she had any insight into the matter. She dragged herself across the bed, intent on what he was doing, but too lazy to take to the air. It didn’t help in the slightest, but it was cute, so he shifted the mirror to his far hand and ruffled her bulb.
When he looked back, the scrying glass had updated to say, N-O-W-T-A-K-E-I-T-O-U-T
“She hasn’t done anything wrong.” Emmet said, defensive.
N-O-T-H-E-R
Y-O-U- H-A-V-E-I-T
N-O-W-T-A-K-E-I-T-O-U-T
He moved back to hold it in both hands. Since he wasn’t wearing his gloves, he was going out of his way not to smudge the surface, and the grip was a bit awkward; he was supporting most of it with the heels of his hands, leaving his fingers to find purchase on its back panel, brushing intermittently against the cracked embed.
Emmet paused and turned it over.
There was one thing that could feasibly be removed from the setting. Hadn’t he posited, to himself, that a Pokemon could hibernate inside a rock?
Tapping on the part furthest from the fracture, he turned it to look into the glass’s surface.
“This?”
Y-E-S
He hummed, acknowledging the answer, and set it flat against his lap. The stone was smooth– he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get a grip on it– but he could try. If all else failed, he still had a multitude of screwdrivers out from when he’d been fighting the box it came in.
To his surprise, it was actually very easy to work his fingers beneath it and pry it loose.
For several seconds, he sat there with a rock in one hand and a mirror on his lap, wondering what now. He turned the latter over, but it didn’t respond.
“Was that what you intended?” He asked.
The mirror didn’t respond.
The lights, however, flickered wildly before shutting off.
Cursing to himself, Emmet got up and started in the general direction of the light switch. He had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t do him any good, but it would still be the first step toward diagnosing the problem.
Only, two steps away from his bed, the rock changed– like he wasn’t holding a cracked palm stone anymore, but someone’s hand. He tried to drop it on instinct, but it closed around his and– even worse– he felt something very solid wrap around him, holding him in place.
Did his body do the reasonable thing and retreat? No. Instead, his own arms betrayed him and he grabbed on in return.
He had just enough time to realize that Elesa was right, he really shouldn’t have been talking to strange mirrors by himself, when everything came crashing down around him.
The weight against his shoulder spoke– and though it, too, was utter nonsense, that wasn’t the important part.
That was Ingo’s voice.
That was Ingo’s voice.
A burst of purple flared from somewhere behind him, and with the ambient lighting, he could make out the familiar– if worn– lines of their matching greatcoats. He stopped fighting.
“Emmet!” Said the presence pressed tight against his neck, all gleeful relief, “Emmet!”
Shaky, he set his head down against what had to be a shoulder, turning to face inwards.
“…Ingo?” He tried, and was rewarded with a frantic nod, “Oh thank gods. Ingo.”
---
(The next morning, when Emmet called out of work, Elesa came around to find the missing conductor futzing with a mineral-group first aid kit, and the other missing conductor sitting still and letting Emmet apply something to his right hand. Eyes dark, ragged as all get out, form flickering like a glitching hologram, Ingo offered an utterly incomprehensible greeting, as though nothing about the scene pinged as wrong to him.
When she finally managed to ask what the hell, Emmet had simply raised his eyes from his task, reached for the probably-cursed mirror his twin was holding, and told her, “He says good morning.”)