There is a girl lost in the Wayward Cave.

In another version of events, perhaps she might be found by a fellow explorer, but today, she is not. Today, the cave is dark and, though she professes that Flash is among her favorite moves, her Kadabra is incapable of performing it.

So when she catches sight of reflective silver, it’s the only thing she can focus on. What could it be, she wonders? Surely not a Gible. A Bronzor, then? It draws nearer, and she makes out an unexpected shape: a human emerging from the depths, even further than she’s found herself. They’re still difficult to make out, but the proximity forms a reliable silhouette. Maybe they can help Mira?

“I was catching Pokemon, and then I got lost. I’m so scared! Please, please take me to the exit!”

“Not to worry,” They say, sympathetic and reassuring, “I know the route. I’ll conduct you safely to your station.”

They offer her a hand, and Mira takes it, but nerves still wear at her. She chatters to them under her breath, talking about the moves she likes and the Pokemon she’d caught. Her guide hums in appreciation, prompts her at all the right moments; it’s nice to play support, they agree, to watch a plan come together and elevate an ally. After that, they go quiet for a little while.

Mira wonders if they’re just humoring her. Whenever they run into a wild Pokemon, they lead with a Gliscor and, while they prioritize covering Kadabra so Mira can set up her status moves, she sees the damage it can do as a physical attacker. It seems to her that they’d be just as well off attacking right off the bat. She’s not complaining, of course– her whole strategy hinges on Kadabra not being hit– but with a moveset that seems specifically geared toward countering the wild Pokemon here, it strikes her as strange. That’s all.

The path is long and winding, so convoluted that Mira’s not even sure they’re getting closer to the exit, but not once does her [guide] falter. Her distracted mind serves her well, and though the trip isn’t a short one, it’s over before she expects it to be.

The person tucks something into her hand and lets her go as daylight shines into the mouth of the cave, offering some kind of reassurance about a torch. Mira turns back swiftly and digs out the TM she’d found in her blind stumbling; she doesn’t have any use for Earthquake, but it will be a good fit for Gliscor.

As she does, she sees him finally, in the threshold of the cavern. Somehow, even with the light shining in, he’s cast in shadow, but she can see the lines of a beaten up coat, the high collar and scuffed buttons. He stares at the TM, puzzled in spite of the thumb running over the disk’s edge, then looks to her and nods. It’s okay that he doesn’t smile at her; Mira can tell it’s a happy look by the way the reflective eyes narrow.

She chirps a goodbye and a promise to get stronger, to be braver. He gives a low, indulgent chuckle, but when she turns to wave one last time– just a second later– he’s gone. All throughout the trek back across Route 206, she kneads at the sachet of bright powder in her hands.

In another reality, Mira meets a helpful trainer in her hour of need. In ours, she’s met with the Pearl Clan’s Warden of the Highlands.

—

It was odd that such a young girl had made it into the depths of Wayward Cave– even stranger that she hadn’t run into any serious trouble on the way. While her Kadabra would have the advantage over the likes of Golbat, it was still quite young; Ingo meant no offense, but he was certain it would be bested by the Alpha Crobat that called the cavern its home.

Fortunately, he’d found her in time to prevent any undue tragedy. She’d been a lovely companion on the walk to the exit– it wasn’t often he had the opportunity to speak with someone else about battle strategy, and rarer still to hear a [strategy] beyond an all-out physical assault. Something inside of him ached at the concept.

That said, the entire debacle could have been prevented if his safety measures had been left in place; he was going to have to speak to Melli again, and didn’t relish the prospect. Absently, he continued to trace his thumb along the side of the odd disk the girl had handed him, trying to figure out the most diplomatic way to approach the problem. One of these days, he feared patience would abandon him entirely; he’d already addressed his fellow Warden in a manner far too short to be polite, and he refused to be the inciting force that rekindled the animosity between the Diamond and Pearl Clans.

He decided to take a cue from his departed passenger and turned his mind back to battle strategy, trying to distract himself from the [conflict] that would, eventually, await him. The moves she’d used to protect Kadabra were vaguely familiar, though he didn’t recognize them, exactly. Gliscor actually favored similar tactics, using Mud Bomb to inflict damage and give himself a defensive veneer of dirt; combined with his naturally high defenses, the extra bit of evasive potential gave him a wonderful opportunity to follow up with Stone Edge.

Still, it was hard to make use of the combination against Crobat. If the argument over the torches was doomed to failure, it was only [logical] to have an emergency backup plan. Maybe he would have to look into catching an Abra, himself…

———-

A phantom haunts the ruins in Celestic Town. It’s rare that anyone enters, but Carolina is the elder, and she has a duty. Ever since those Galactic fools stormed the village, she’s taken it upon herself to watch for any suspicious activity– and suspicious this is.

The man isn’t always in the ruins, but he’s never outside of them, either. It’s as though he ceases to exist the moment he crosses into the light. Carolina’s made a point of confirming this phenomena; not only does the ghost leave without a trace, but he enters much the same. Without any way to confirm whether or not he may be present, short of camping out in the cavern, encountering him is a roll of the dice. As a matter of fact, she’s only run into him twice before, and both times, he’s seemed far more surprised than she had, apologizing profusely for his inhospitality and offering to escort her home. It’s cute that he thinks he can.

Since their first encounter, Carolina has contented herself to step back and watch. He conducts the same measures that she, herself, does here: checking the cave’s humidity, ensuring that no cracks have developed in the thick stone and flushing out any rogue Pokemon. As he works, today, she notices the Old Charm on his wrist, the purples and gold gem visible even through the [shadows] that cloak the specter.

A friend of Celestic Town, then, a protector carrying out his duties even in death.

She wonders if the Spacemen’s intrusion called him back to this plane, or if he’s been here the whole time, filling his task without ever alerting the townsfolk.

She assumes the latter. There’s never any suspicion in his eyes as he studies her– not the way there would be if it had been desecration that interrupted his rest– just curiosity and concern. Carolina knows that, once he’s completed his work, he’ll offer to assist her again. Someday she’ll tell him that it’s a futile effort; maybe it will even be today. It would be kind to absolve him of any further obligation when it’s a routine she’s already adopted.

His investigation of the southernmost wall concludes, and he looks to her.

“If you’ve come to study the murals, you may be interested to hear that there are others nearby. I completely understand if you’re not prepared for the extra commute today, but if and when you’d like, I can chart a course to the Moonview Arena and Cloudcap Pass.”

More murals? She’d only ever known of this one’s existence: the balanced triangle in opposition of the deity. But ‘Cloudcap Pass’ and ‘Moonview Arena’… surely those are far, far from Celestic. The poor man can’t even walk into moonlight; how can he be expected to lead the way out of this cavern?

“Not today, friend,” Carolina says, putting her plans for a humane exorcism on hold for the time being, “As you’ve said, I’m unprepared. These old bones can only take so much in one day– I’m sure you understand?”

He gives a huff of laughter and mutters something under his breath. As he does so, his face doesn’t move.

“There’s nothing to be done for it now, but I’ll bring a map next we meet. If you can show me the distance, I can prepare accordingly.” Technically, it’s the truth. There will be plenty of preparations to make– it’s just unlikely that her spectral friend will make it one step beyond the ruins’ threshold.

“Of course. It’s crucial to have a plan before departing for an unfamiliar station– follow the schedule and check for safety.” His gaze wanders from where she stands to the entryway, and the harsh lines of his face soften. “Ah. It seems my presence is being requested elsewhere. If you require assistance, I would be happy to oblige, but I’ve noticed our tracks hit a junction from here; while I’m unable to escort you to your destination, if there’s anything else I can do before departing…?”

“No,” Carolina says softly, contemplating. How odd, for the ghost to have altered his script. “No, I’ll be fine to see myself home. See to it that you do the same.”

He nods to her, tipping the brim of his hat, just in time for a dark shape to fill the entryway.

“Apologies, my Lady,” He says as figure creeps nearer, a looming bipedal figure with impossibly long claws. Like the ghost, she too [idk] with an inner shade. “It wasn’t my intention to cause a delay. Our passenger doesn’t require further assistance, so if you’re ready, we’ll depart immediately.”

At the mention, The Lady’s head swivels toward Carolina, tearing her attention from the apparition for the first time since her entrance, and she stalks nearer, settling well past a comfortable distance to lean in even closer. She raises the back of one hand and tilts Carolina’s chin up for study, meeting her [?] gaze with piercing red eyes.

There’s a sigh from somewhere beyond her massive form, and the man’s hand appears at the fluffy scruff of The Lady’s neck, dragging her away. She chitters– meaning unknown– and relents, bobbing down briefly to rest her own chin atop his hat before swapping roles. As she urges him outside, he offers a hasty, “Have a safe journey, ma’am.” and vanishes.

Carolina’s own hand raises to her chin, where she can still feel the blunt edge of The Lady’s claws. They were solid, real– and if the man had been able to move her, then he is as well.

She doesn’t linger, not for fear the pair might make their way back, but because she has new information to consider, plans to make and research to conduct. The alleged murals, the realization that it was The Lady’s silhouette carved into the Old Charm, the fact that her ghost might not have been a ghost after all– she’s going to be busy for weeks, and there’s no telling when her next encounter might arrive.

Well, if she’s unable to get around to it, at least she knows someone will mind the ruins in her stead.

—

The woman had always disappeared when he tried to lead her to safety.

Ingo had the strangest feeling that she wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with such a phenomena, but, of course, it was impossible to tell why that might be. She wasn’t a ghost– he was as certain of that as he was that she shouldn’t have been in the Celestica Ruins on her own– but he didn’t have words for what, exactly, was going on. It might have been easier if she was a ghost. Tricky as they could be, ghost Pokemon were still Pokemon when it came down to it, and Ingo found that they were far simpler to deal with than the humans of Hisui.

Case in point, the Noble ushering him toward the Clamberclaw Cliffs. He could see her basket from here, just outside of the territory the local colony of Gligar had claimed. In all likelihood, that meant she saw something she wanted, but couldn’t get for herself due to her role as peacekeeper– so she was going to make him collect it in her stead. This time, at least, it was a matter of respecting boundaries. Back when he’d been learning the basics of cliffside navigation, she’d had a nasty habit of inventing reasons to convince him to scale the rocks.

Sneasler pointed insistently toward something at the base of one gnarled tree. Some manner of stone had caught her eye, today– the mundane sort, from what he could tell. He nodded and slinked closer, keeping to the high end of the ledge for as long as he could.

Admittedly, the stakes here weren’t terribly high. It was one thing for a Pokemon to encroach on another Pokemon’s territory; it was something else for a human to trespass. He was one of the Wardens here, and the wild Pokemon tended to recognize that fact, so, while they still might take offense, the Gligar were likely to tolerate his presence, so long as he remained unobtrusive.

It didn’t hurt that Gliscor had a history with this bunch, and would be happy to start bossing them around if need be. Really, though, there was no reason for that– not if he could just duck in, grab the stone and get out.

Patiently, Ingo waited until the Alpha Gligar’s back was turned and hoisted himself up, moving quickly, but quietly, toward the rock caught in the roots. Two of the smaller specimens watched, but seemed content to let him be if their Alpha hadn’t raised the alarm. Without pausing in his stride, he scooped the stone up and slid back down the incline, circling back around to where Sneasler was waiting for him.

When offered, she immediately grabbed the stone from him, turning it over in her paws and scrutinizing it under the warm hues of sunset. He hadn’t taken the time to look at it before, and now he understood why it had caught her fancy; it was the same sort of purple rock that was embedded into his bracer.

That would be kind– to collect materials for when his inevitable successor crafted their own. The unearned generosity was incredibly out of character for Lady Sneasler, though, and defeated the purpose of foraging for suitable [materials] as a show of dedication. She was up to something.

As he considered her potential motivations, she began to rub the stone between her paws, sending dirt flying everywhere. Absently, Ingo sidestepped, his unknown lifetime’s worth of avoiding dust clouds coming in handy yet again. It was nice, at least, how familiar ground and poison types felt.

Eventually she was satisfied with her attempt at polishing it, and Ingo expected they would be off. He hefted her basket– loaded, today, with crunchy salt packing the bottom and an assortment of berries above– over one arm and waited for her to deposit her newest treasure into it. Instead, she stalked around behind him and deposited it into the pocket of his coat.

Though he knew it didn’t show in any conventional way, he smiled at her. “Your cargo is secure, my Lady.”

Sneasler’s nose scrunched and she shook her head. Carefully, she reached into the pocket with her claws– so very mindful not to rip the fabric any more than it had already endured– and maneuvered it back out, only lay it in Ingo’s free hand and fold his fingers over it.

“Oh. For me?” / “Lady Sneasler, I’m already your Warden. I’m not sure what I’m meant to do with this.”

She huffed fondly and patted his head through his hat, knocking it askew, but didn’t provide any further insight.

Correction. Most Hisuian Pokemon were easier to understand than their human counterparts, just not all of them.

———- 

It’s 4 am, and the power has failed. During normal business hours, this would be a major setback, but as it’s obscenely early in the morning, Jackie’s urgency defaults to [idk] rather than ‘catastrophe incoming.’

Is she scheduled to be at the station this early? No. Has that ever stopped her before? Not in the slightest.

She likes it here before-slash-after hours. It’s peaceful. It’s peaceful when the trains are coming and going, too, in a different way– during the day, it’s less about sound and more about consistency. Some people find white noise comforting; Jackie appreciates Gear Station’s ambiance in both its active and dormant forms.

Or, at least, she usually does. The aforementioned outage is putting something of a damper on that, and will start causing problems before long. Usually, the safety net that is the backup generator would have kicked in automatically, and she doesn’t know why it’s failed this morning, so she finds the flashlight on her belt and clicks it on in anticipation.

Operations for the day begin in under an hour, and if the systems haven’t had a chance to recalibrate before then, it’s going to throw everything off. If she can resolve this quickly, they can still have a perfectly normal day.

…well, mostly normal. She needn’t address the Avalugg in the otherwise empty room– especially not when she’s lurking around the station by herself. It seems unlikely that whatever happened to Boss Ingo would strike again so long after the fact, but you never know. Jackie’s relatively sure that’s why Boss Emmet spent two solid months giving her [lurking] a run for its money.

Gear Station is peaceful these days, and that’s nice, but she misses what it used to be.

But there’s no use in dwelling on that right now; she has a job to do, even if she’s not technically on the clock.

The original power failure won’t have any roots here– if she has to place a bet, her money is on something going screwy over at the Gym and tripping the grid– so, instead, she heads to investigate the backup generator. When she makes it around the corner, she feels the darkness pressing down on her. The air is heavy and buzzing with ozone, and it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Jackie is in the process of stepping away when she sees a flutter of movement down the pitch-dark hall and instinctively tries to track it with her flashlight’s beam. The flashlight, however, has suddenly gone dead.

She squints and creeps further, trying to make the shape out without giving away her position, and, eventually, her efforts pay off.

A Rowlet. A wild Rowlet. In Unova. That’s not possible on so many levels.

From where it tumbled to the floor, it spreads its wings and gives a couple of flaps, propelling itself into the air and down the corridor.

She gives chase, thinking maybe someone lost track of their Pokemon at the last minute yesterday– surely they’ll be back for it when operating hours resume. As it glides, it weaves in and out through the solid wall, before abruptly vanishing. Jackie immediately hits the brakes, terrified and intrigued all at once– is this it? Are they finally on the verge of figuring out what happened?– and skids to a halt. She isn’t fast enough to stop before the point she saw Rowlet disappear, but that’s alright. She’s still very much in the station; the only difference is that the weight pressing down on her has vanished.

She looks around, her highbeam finally flickering on as she searches wildly. No Rowlet, but she expected as much.

With unusually tentative steps, she goes back the way she came, until the static tingles on her skin again. Still no Rowlet, but something red flashes through the wall, the same way the little bird had swooped back and forth. She picks up the pace and reaches for the door before she’s come to a full stop.

There’s an Octillery inside– clearly the owner of the red tentacle that waved out of the wall– and it’s not alone. Flanking it on either side is the most furious-looking Sylveon Jackie has ever seen and a Drapion that, frankly, should not fit in the dimensions of the room. Half of it isn’t even visible, and must be phasing through into the space next door.

None of them pay her any mind, intent on the Magnezone opposite them, and it’s plain to see that the Pokemon have been going back and forth for some time. Octillery fires an Ice Beam that ignores the generators to connect with Magnezone, and Sylveon shivers– [furious], but stunned.

She can hear the ongoing battle, Jackie realizes, but it’s hard beneath a roaring in her ears that she hadn’t even noticed up until this moment. And because she can hear it, her attention [snaps] to Magnezone’s side of the room, where a familiar voice calls out strange directions. She’s distantly aware of Magnezone moving twice in one round, knocking Octillery out before starting on Drapion, but the rampaging Pokemon in the station’s inner-workings suddenly seem unimportant.

“Boss?” She breathes and, in spite of the din surrounding them, his eyes snap to her.

In several swift strides, he abandons his post– which was far too close to Magnezone to be safe– and places himself between Jackie and the battle, hands hovering at her shoulders as if to turn her around and usher her away, but stopping short.

There’s a quiet urgency behind his words that almost makes her question whether she has the right person, but there’s no mistaking him at this distance. This is Boss Ingo. She can’t understand him, though. She can infer that he’s trying to ensure her safety, but his words mean nothing.

“I don’t–” She says weakly, “What?”

Behind him, the Drapion pulls off the quickest Swords Dance Jackie has ever seen, and follows it up by lunging at Magnezone, Crunching down on its leftmost eye. It glances off the steel, no lasting harm done, but it’s a solid hit. Immediately– belying the fact that he’s been watching even as he spoke with her– Ingo calls a series of orders over his shoulder. Magnezone fires off Flash Cannon, then its stance changes and a muted clap of Thunder rings out.

Drapion twitches, paralyzed, and tries to bite again, but fails; as Magnezone regains its bearings, a mass of purple energy gathers in its mouth as it lashes out with Shadow Ball.

Without further instruction, Magnezone finishes it off, and it falls to the floor in a massive heap.

“You understand… er, this language?” Ingo asks, haltingly, now that the biggest threat has been dealt with. When Jackie nods, the [idk] confusion leaves his expression, replaced by a stern tilt of the mouth, “You need to be mindful of the distortions; an otherwise safe station may be rendered impassable under their effects. The situation here is well in hand, but I must ask you to evacuate at once.”

“Ev–? Uh, sure, but only if you come with me!” Impulsively, she grabs the wrist lingering by her shoulder; Ingo jumps, “It only reaches the turn leading to the control room, and the Pokemon can’t get out, right? That’ll complicate operations today, but this is more important.”

Without waiting for a response, she starts to run forward, out the door, but stumbles as the Sylveon rams into her from the side. Right, she’d forgotten these Pokemon can ignore walls for some reason. She’s fine; it wasn’t a real attack, as much as it smarts. As she rights herself, Ingo calls to the Magnezone again, and it promptly fires off another Flash Cannon; the Sylveon tries to fight through the super effective move, swaying on its feet, but faints right there, one half stretching into the hallway while the other lays on the other side of the wall.

Jackie ignores her boss’s concern and drags the both of them onward, making a sharp right turn toward control.  Before they can get more than a few steps in, he throws an arm back, pokeball in hand, and it recalls what’s presumably his Magnezone. What catches her attention in this is the fact that he reaches through the wall to do so and never connects with it, just as unbothered as the odd Pokemon.

She’s worked at Gear Station for years. She knows how its laid out. Still, just in case, she reaches over to touch the wall as she runs, and her fingernails scrape against the brickwork.

The howling in her ears grows louder, the pressure on her greater, and then the strange feelings lift entirely. One hand still solidly rests against the wall, the other is now empty.

Behind her, the generator roars to life.

—

There had been a lot of people in the Highlands lately. People who shouldn’t have been there. People who couldn’t have gotten so far without being noticed or attacked. It was worrisome, and, for a time, Ingo wondered if there was just some passage he was unaware of that permitted relatively safe travel into the territory.

He wasn’t so sure anymore. The others, odd though they were, had spoken Hisuian– an odd form of it, but there were days where, despite his best efforts, his own words came out in an informal jumble, so he really couldn’t judge. This person… didn’t. There hadn’t been a flicker of comprehension on her face as he’d tried to warn her away. She hadn’t understood until he switched to the language he’d slowly been pivoting away from. It was a familiar problem, to be stranded in a land without a clue what the surrounding people were saying, and he’d been happy to ease that burden, but then, like the others, she’d disappeared.

He had guesses as to what might have happened– he’d been trying to figure it out since the first wanderer vanished into the fading sunlight– but nothing concrete enough to say for certain. It had seemed irresponsible to assign blame so haphazardly when he was simply a man living in the mountains, ignorant of what the greater world may have discovered. Today’s visitor, however… it was almost as if the woman was one of the Pokemon summoned by the distortion– solid as it persisted, but whisked away once the rip in reality mended.

Could the distortions do that? Had he…? No, no. If a space-time distortion had brought him to Hisui, he would only have lingered for a few minutes.

But what if he’d left its confines? Pokemon torn from their time and place could pursue unfortunate trespassers beyond the edge of a distortion. Were they recalled before it ended? If they missed their stop, would they be left where they stood, [abandoned] by the whims of [???]?

He’d captured a Magnemite in a distortion. It had stayed by his side ever since, long after the hole in reality righted itself. Had he, unknowingly, inflicted his own pain onto it? Ingo turned Magnezone’s pokeball over in his hands, rolling it between his palms. The smoothness of tumblestone and woody apricorn grain were a nice distraction from the lingering phantasm of fingers around his wrist, and he only halted the motion to toy with its little metal clasp.

He could try to release Magnezone by way of apology, but the damage had already been done; even if he found another distortion heaving Magnemite to and fro through existence, there was no guarantee that it would take Magnezone with it as it vanished, or that it led to Magnezone’s place of origin to begin with.

No, the best he could do for Magnezone now was to look after it, to be a companion to it. Releasing it now wouldn’t be an apology, it would be abandonment.

How cruel the thought, to tear something away from its home station and leave it by the tracks.