03. AVOID ASSASSINATION.

Gavin's tongue drags across teeth as he licks dry lips.

"Not I."

They bend to my will — to her will.

He recalls his corrupted army to step through the portal, betraying little of his fear. His heart thuds hard against his ribcage. He does not trust this 'Father Winter'. He does not trust anyone. But the chance at such power—

—is, as always, his Achilles heel.

The portal vanishes behind him and Gavin curses low under his breath, fingers curling around the heavy beast ball tucked inside his blazer. He tosses it high and Shadow Lugia emerges from what had once been her prison, the thrum of her wings sending up a fierce gale.

Do you know where we are?

How should I?

They fly.

From the air, Hoenn does not look too different from the realm they'd left. Gavin begins to suspect they're not in another realm at all. Father Winter was toying with him, and they'd simply been transported to a different part of Hoenn. Then they glide over Sootopolis, and Gavin's blood chills. The Tree of Life is gone. The city stands as it once had, open to the sky. Other landmarks he'd grown used to are also curiously absent from this place — Melody Miro's gym, Killian Decker's casino, Bill Anderson's cliffside home.

He has grown so accustomed to flying openly about Sootopolis that he'd not given it a second thought, but when Lugia lands upon the beach near where Gavin called home in their own world, panicked civilians flee from the shadowed leviathan.

Are we in the past? He remembers encountering snapshots of Hoenn's history, Dialga's might as it expelled him from its realm. Or...?

Gavin's guard is up when he spots the Unown. It's what saves his life — instinct sees miasma swell around him in a purple-black tide, and a burst of adrenaline in his veins gives him the speed to leap clear of a searing hidden power.

Lugia's jaws snap around the would-be assassin with a sickening crunch.

"Fuck," Gavin breathes, picking himself up from the sands and brushing off his clothes.

I warned you this was folly.

Feeling not unlike a child being scolded, Gavin purses his lips and looks away. She had only agreed to go when it was clear he could not be persuaded otherwise.

You waste time with your moping. Now he does look at her with a half-hearted glare. The legend is unmoved, her red eyes fierce. You brought us here; you will lead us out. Come. Let us observe what else has changed.

04. DEATH STRANDING.

His home — their home — is gone.

Gavin had paced the smooth expanse of white stone where its foundation had stood for some time before Lugia tired of his delay and spurred them onward. In Fallarbor, the home where he'd once lived is occupied by a family who close their curtains and call the authorities when he tries the handle. In Slateport, the apartment building where he'd spent many a rough night during Rocket's takeover of the city has been condemned for demolition.

They return to Sootopolis for want of somewhat-familiar surroundings in which to formulate a plan, and that's when he finds the body.

He does not know the identity of the victim. With half their face burned by a glancing shot and another hole blown clear through their chest, it is clear that this interloper had not been so lucky as Gavin to avoid the Unown assassins. They've had to fend off several more on their route through the alternate region, through Lugia's own swift intervention or by other means.

"I don't intend to die here."

I should hope not.

She nearly knocks him flat even with a gentle nudge of her spiked tail, bone-white protrusions narrowly missing his neck.

Gavin's Unown dart anxiously about him as he resumes his pacing. This time, perhaps sensing his determination, his patron does not chide him.

"At the Soiree, underground, in the Tree... we used Unown to escape. I need you to find me a way out of here." The Unown shaped as a question mark seems to mock him as it hovers. "Look for others like you — the ones that don't want to kill us? Get as many as you can. I'll meet you back here. Consider this base camp." He feels silly. Can they even understand him? "OK?"

There's a long pause, and then the Unown dart off in different directions.

He can only hope this works.

05. TEMPORARY TROUBLE

"Gav?"

Gavin's heart leaps into his throat at the sound of his lover's voice. That he does not call him Cillie should be the first clue, but for a moment Gavin is so overjoyed at the thought of seeing his partner again that he doesn't hesitate to whirl around and face the man he thinks to be Tempest Quinn. Subtle differences are overlooked entirely in the interest of reunion.

"Where's Ho-oh?" the doppelganger wonders, but Gavin is talking over him in a rush of breath.

"Temp! What are you doing here?"

He's opening his mouth to warn his lover that it's dangerous here, that they need to leave, when he notices the other's furrowed brow. A scar on his jaw, unfamiliar. A strange set to his nose, as if it's been broken one too many times.

"I — sorry, you look so much like him."

"Like who?"

But the creeping dread in his chest tells him you already know.

Not-Temp's gaze seems drawn to Lugia, and the shadowed leviathan lets out a haunting scream as her tail lashes toward him. IMPOSTER! she thunders, and Gavin flinches at the psychic assault. He feels sudden, overwhelming anger flood him like a rising tide. HE IS NOT THE ONE YOU WOULD CALL 'TEMP'.

"Lugia, STOP," he snarls, her anger fueling his own. As he whirls on his patron, Not-Temp sees an opening and runs. "What's gotten into you, what are you—"

DO NOT PRESUME TO COMMAND ME. All at once, the PRESSURE to which he was ordinarily immune closes in, suffocating. Lugia's chilling red glare pins him in place and he is reminded of her power, of his insignificance without it. A single flap of her wings summons a gale with the force of a HURRICANE to bring him down. THAT WHICH HAS BEEN GIVEN CAN BE TAKEN AWAY.

Struggling to catch his breath against the crushing force, palms scraped raw and bleeding against the white stone, Gavin finds he cannot fight the pressure enough to rise. When the beast ball had subjugated her will, the Guardian of the Seas had been terrifying in her wrath... but there had always been the knowledge that he could simply press a button and be free of it. Now...?

He offers a shaky nod, leaning his weight against one knee and clenching his jaw.

I'm sorry, he thinks, for he has not the breath to speak. When you attacked him, I wasn't thinking—

THEN THINK. The pressure vanishes, and Gavin gasps. His head swims as oxygen floods his lungs, dark spots dancing in his vision. WITH YOUR HEAD, FOOL, NOT YOUR BLEEDING HEART. HE IS NOT YOURS.

Gavin nods as he gets back to his feet, casting a wary glance at Lugia in fear she'd knock him down again. She does not; her wings fold, though her tail lashes from side to side as she watches him.

"Called me Gav," he agrees, "should've known, I—"

ENOUGH. He is fled, and we shall follow. You know where he is like to have gone.

Gavin gives a grim nod. He'll be looking for 'me'.

01. SHADOW AND BONE

They find him at the summit of Mt. Chimney.

It's the shadowed legendary they see first — a dark imitation of the rainbow's splendor, with wings cast in differing purple-and-black hues.

Ho-Oh.

The ones this universe know as Gavin Merlino stands in the great bird's shadow, so much a spitting image of himself that Gavin feels a chill down his spine. It's not until the alter steps forward into the sun that the differences become apparent. His right arm is missing up to the elbow, replaced with a cruel black prosthetic that crackles with dark electricity. A hideous scar disfigures one side of his face, vanishing beneath a patch that Gavin suspects might hide a missing eye. He favours one leg, but the stance he takes under the 'real' Gavin's scrutiny is one of eerie confidence.

"Norman told me you would come."

"Norman?"

Gavin's so surprised he can't help but echo his doppelganger.

He is not yours.

Not-Gavin ignores him. One hungry eye of amber sweeps over Lugia's looming form.

"So you are the fabled Guardian of the Seas." He grips a capsule with the claw-like fingers of his false hand. "I will give you one chance to cooperate and come quietly."

Lugia screams at him, and a bolt of lightning splits the clouds with a deafening THUNDERCLAP. Not-Gavin catches it against the metal of his arm, jaw clenched but posture firm as the prosthetic absorbs the worst of it. He laughs, a hollow sound that sings of Kanto.

"By force, then. So be it."

He clicks his tongue, and Gavin understands his own command to attack.

Sacred fire the colour of smoke and shadows erupts across the mountain's peak, searing heat clawing at Gavin's skin. A flap of the HURRICANE herald's wings keeps it at bay, and overhead the skies fight between Lugia's RAIN and the Ho-Oh's want of sun.

Miasma swirls around Gavin as he avoids a blast of energy from a terrible Lucario with hollow eyes and a black aura. Faolan, he realizes, heart wrenching as a Crowbat's air cutter nearly gives him a missing limb to match its master. Lugia's tail knocks the creature aside as she takes to the skies to tangle with the rainbow's corruption. Maeve.

But there is no trace of what had once been his partners in their eyes.

Miasma strangles around the fallen Crobat and snakes into its open mouth until its eyes, too, fall open — it flutters back to its four wings beneath the command of a new master, and Not-Gavin takes notice as Ho-Oh blocks a sinister CROSS POISON.

"What power is that?" His eye gleams.

MINE.

A violent SHADOW STORM threatens to hurl the doppelganger from the mountain, but Ho-Oh catches him in its talons and sets him back down, reeling back as Lugia slams into it with violent force and sends them both crashing against the peak.

"It'll be mine soon enough."

Not-Gavin begins to rise, capsule clutched in his claws, and Gavin sees an opportunity in the hesitation caused by the injured leg. It makes him falter just enough. Not-Gavin aims the ball at Lugia, still struggling to right herself after the crash into the mountainside, and Gavin lunges.

They go down together much like their legendary partners had, but whatever horrors this world's Gavin Merlino has suffered leave him vulnerable. Gavin drives his elbow into the imposter's jaw and hears something crack, then rolls off with the pokeball clutched in his own flesh-and-blood right hand. His heart is hammering, eyes wild as he staggers to his feet. Not-Gavin spits teeth into the dust, coughing blood and reaching for a new arsenal of Pokémon to rise to his defense. Shadows, all.

Turn them! There is no indication that Lugia has heard him as she once again clashes with her counterpart. Blood sprays like red rain over the mountaintop as they tear at one another with tooth and talon. You did it with Raziel; do it here! Please!

Gavin finds himself on his back, muscles seizing from the force of a thunder wave fired from the doppelganger's false arm. A Rotom? It reminds him of Raphael Pryde. Was he missing an arm in this world? Was his son alive or dead? Rocket or traitor?

The pokeball has rolled a few feet away, out of reach of twitching fingers.

"Lugia will made an excellent addition to my collection."

Not-Gavin steps on his hand, breaking fingers, and Gavin sees white. Then the imposter is yanked off his feet by one of his own shadow Pokemon, the spectral chain of a dark Dhelmise holding him at bay. Lugia's miasma swirls around it.

Pain stabs through his broken hand but he bends his working fingers around the discarded capsule and tries to angle a throw toward the false Ho-Oh. It curves wide, then strikes against a link of the shadowy chain.

Dhelmise vanishes in a swirl of dark smoke.

AWAY FROM HIM. HE IS MINE.

This time, with RAIN's triumph over the weakening sun, Lugia's THUNDER strikes true. The doppelganger is thrown from the mountainside by the force of impact, a sickening crunch of bone as he crashes below.

As the pokeball containing the Dhelmise stills, Gavin clutches it in his good hand and licks blood from his lips. He'd bit near through his lower lip when the thunder wave had knocked him to the ground. The air tastes of salt, of iron, of dust.

"GAVIN!"

Even knowing this 'Norman' for a falsehood, the anguish in his voice tears at Gavin's chest.

IMPOSTERS, BOTH. Lugia's voice cleaves through his own thought. WE DO NOT KNOW THAT YOUR SHADOW HAS PERISHED. WE MUST GO, NOW!

With a heavy heart, Gavin turns from the sound of Norman pleading over his fallen lover.

02. ALPHABET ORIENTEERING

As they soar in wide circles above Sootopolis in search of a place to land, Gavin OBSERVES a curious sight near the beachfront property he called home in their origin world. Moved by his plea for HELP, his own Unown had gathered many of their kin from this ALTERNATE world to gather by the waves that tug upon the shore.

Lugia lands gently to account for the injuries sustained as a result of her COLLISION with Mt. Chimney, and Gavin slides from her back with a wince.

He's done with alternate DIMENSIONS, with WORMHOLES that lead to ULTRASPACE and dangle him in front of Necrozma's terrible claws. His only WISH is to be at home in his own bed, with the real Tempest Quinn by his side. With no DIALGA to free him of this TEMPORAL rift, the Unown are his only hope.

"I want to go home. My home."

They swirl around him in a dizzying tide that he must close his eyes against.

When he opens them, the portal looms.


It's like stepping into a MIRROR; the reflection barely different, at first.

"What YEAR is it?" Gavin demands of an alarmed passer-by. He must look a horrific sight with blood running down his chin and broken fingers, Lugia looming behind him with her menacing glare. "Rocket's in charge here, yeah?"

She nods, bolts, and Gavin sits down in the sand with a shaky cackle of relief.

"I'm gonna find that Father Winter and I'm gonna kill him."

But first? He needed to figure out what this Dhelmise could do.