But his camp wouldn’t stay peaceful for long, either because of some incident with his own Pokemon or some other wandering closeby. The best he could hope for was that whatever happened was low-key.

And sure enough, he heard something floating close. “Is that one of ours?” Hideo asked, unsure exactly what Pokemon it was.

“Roc.” His Lycanroc’s answer - a “no”.

But before he could think of how to respond, he could hear something else flying, this one from behind. It flew over him and towards this other Pokemon. As the second Pokemon spoke, he could recognize it making Unown noises - and it was soon met with the noises of another Unown.

Hearing them both speak brought back memories of what occurred at the Soiree - that weird “Interdream Zone” that showed him (and many others) illusions. He was pretty sure he heard someone throw the term “multiverse” around when they were describing what had happened, but it was just a whole bunch of stuff he wanted to forget. He just wanted to bury what he heard deep into his memories, where he could forget it.

He then heard the two Unown fly towards him, the two making more of those noises. Hideo felt he was pretty good at understanding what his Pokemon tried saying to him after a time, but it was taking him longer with this Unown, so he’d have to work off context. “You want them to stay with us?” he asked, earning a flurry of chatter - and his X-shaped Unown brushing against his head.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Hideo said, “Just let me finish my tea first, then I’ll get a ball.”

Attempting to capture the M-Unown