Locke frowned down at his own charm. ”I see I on both of ours though…Maybe it’s supposed to sound different than it looks?” He held the accessory up to his ear and shook it around, until an irritated buzz from the Rotom in his phone stopped him.

”Well, I’ve seen a couple pink ones without letters…” That didn’t sound quite right, but Locke couldn’t recall anything on the face of either Eris Halla or Sénon Game’s amulets, so they let their own doubt pass unheeded. ”But yours is the only other yellow one I’ve seen so far. I figure it’d make sense if there were more, but I guess it could be just us,” they shrugged. ”Sorry bud, I don’t really know any more than that.”

De-De watched the conversation in uncharacteristic silence, casting a concerned look between Elga and the charms.

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Locke flipped over onto his back as the world shifted around them nauseatingly. Trees turned to buildings, the previously eerie silence was filled with the distant sounds of city life, and the stars above faded under the light pollution of a thousand street lamps.

Watching it made his head pound, so he closed his eyes until the illusion had fully faded and Skyler had finished helping him stand.

Their growing headache and worn out body protested any activity after wandering around in apparent circles for several hours, but curling up alone in a tent outside the city felt like too miserable an end to the night.

And some Alto Marean sounded really good right about now.

”…Yeah. Why not.”

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

The feeling of being watched within the many caves and tunnels of Hoenn was no longer a new sensation for Locke.

He absentmindedly scratched at the ink beneath his palm as Indi-Indi’s blue glow guided him and Shi-Shi deeper into Granite Cave. The Minior seemed unaware of their trainer’s tension, but the Absol kept a carefully pace beside him, haunches raised and crimson pupils darting quickly around the cavern as though searching or some unseen threat.

The party paused at the base of the steps, Locke’s eyes lingering over the familiar form of Kyogre before beginning the painfully-slow ascent upwards to where “Father Winter” sat waiting. Though Shi-Shi growled at the mysterious man as he came into view, the courier just politely listened to Winter in silence.

They wanted a lot of things. They wanted to see their family again. They wanted to go home. They wanted a home to go back to. They wanted things to go back to how they were; before Rocket, before Hoenn, before Avatars and fate and curses and near-death experience after near-death experience.

And this man was offering all of that.

And they didn’t trust it for a second.

He’d been raised on stories that warned against supposed wish-granters. Whatever fairy or genie or used car dealer or some such would offer the hero’s greatest desire at a secretly terrible cost, but the hero would come up with some clever wish that turned that cost back on the granter.

Of course, Locke was neither a hero nor very clever.

They eyed the Unown behind him warily while Winter spoke, recalling how a similar one had evaporated a legendary Pokémon back at the Soiree. It was with that night in mind that a suitably impossible request came to mind.

”Ok, so a couple months ago I got accused of being an Avatar by some-” They stopped themselves short of saying ‘by some weirdos with white hair and a buncha Unown that actually kinda looked you now that I think about it.’ ”Uh…by some folks, I guess. So if you can actually give anything, then how about whatever Pokémon I’m supposedly the Avatar of?”

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Locke barely reacted to the portal opening, because honestly this was their life now, even as their certainty in the impossibility of their request waned significantly. But a new game was set before they could even change it to something less troublesome like money or a motorcade or whatever, so all they could do now was follow through and hope they could outrun whatever happened next.

”T-Tails?”

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Locke gave luka chêne a weak and dripping thumbs up. ”Oh yeah. All good down here,” he answered in a sardonic tone, then, more concernedly, ”You?”

A familiar Magnezone rose out of the water behind them, and he inched away from the electric type even as he greeted it. ”Hi Joules.”

Its master followed soon after, and Locke looked at the dry clothes paxton concordas produced with envy. ”Ugh, all my spares are probably…uh…hm…” All coherent thought escaped him as paxton concordas suddenly and without warning began to strip down.

He wasn’t as quick to avert his gaze as Luka, too distracted by the sheer amount of musculature on the other man to even realize he was staring. It was like someone had photoshopped some twink’s head onto a pro wrestler’s body.

Locke was in the middle of deciding whether this was attractive or just plain unnatural, when the earth shook beneath them again, jostling them away with a sharp yelp and into Amber Lenoir as something tunneled through their resting space.

That something soon revealed itself to be another swarm of wild Pokémon, the species of which was unfamiliar to Locke but no less terrifying to look at. Vee-Vee was less intimidated, thankfully, as the little Eevee danced around the field without a care, Psychically picking up the aggressive beasts with the move he’d Copycatted from two sun and moon Pokémon.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

How Locke kept letting himself get roped into these spelunking missions, he’d never know.

Technically the route between Rustboro and Verdanturf was a manmade tunnel rather than a full cave system, but it didn’t stop the usual claustrophobia that followed him down here, or the itching feeling beneath his palm. Wandering back and forth between the entrances for the better part of an hour certainly hadn’t made either feeling go away, and with no Whismur in sight he was about ready to call it a day.

Locke jumped as their Riolu’s eyes briefly lit up, nearly knocking their Volbeat out of the air as Rio-Rio suddenly started scanning the area with his aura sight. ”What is it? Is there something here?” they asked nervously, trying spot anything beyond Volty-Volty’s light.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Locke watched Joules’ sudden attack in nervous silence. ”…Jealous type, huh?” Hopefully it didn’t extend to people.

”Ah, a friend of mine mentioned some kinda report about Unown the other day. Was kinda hoping to find some…” he explained, bringing Ji-Ji to a momentary stop to let another set of Pokémon pass through. ”To be honest, I’ve got all the Pokémon I could ever want, so it’s just letters I’m looking for. Still, it’s nice just taking it easy like this. Definitely an improvement compared to how things’ve been lately,” he added nonchalantly, rubbing under his Drampa’s chin as the party continued onward.

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

BOOM.

Locke jolted awake as one mini-nose slammed into its target, sending both a Shiinotic and the branch it was hidden in crashing to the ground.

BOOM.

Another mini-nose found its mark amidst the brambles, clearing the undergrowth in a small radius around it and exposing the clump of Morelull underneath.

BOOM.

Dirt and grass rained around them as one nose revealed a Shiinotic hiding beneath the earth.

BOOM.

The last of Probo-Probo’s mini-noses exploded behind them, just beyond the wall of blue flame between them and their captors. Locke peeked out from underneath Skyler, heart pounding with adrenaline, but found it impossible to assess the damage form this angle.

Nonetheless, it did the trick. What Shiinotic remained quickly scattered until the two trainers were alone, seemingly free of whatever spell the Pokémon had held them under.

Locke let out a sigh of relief, though it came out as more of a long wheeze while crushed beneath the older woman.

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Locke shook their head. ”My family didn’t have any Pokémon growin’ up. I do it now cause I can’t really afford anything but the basic capsules, so it’s the only way I can tell em apart,” they admitted embarrassedly. ”I did have a friend who was like that though; he’d put so many on they’d get stuck closed! I never knew how his Pokémon put up with it…”

He smiled fondly at the memory. It felt like he hadn’t thought about that boy in a long time, though it’d really been less than a decade.

A lot can happen in that amount of time apparently.

Speaking of time actually. ”Oh yeah! The Sawsbuck’s winter coat already came in!” He clipped the Pokéballs to his belt and dug around for his phone, rather than summoning the deer where there might be fragile equipment. ”I wasn’t sure if it would change at all, to be honest, cause I dunno how the seasons affect the inside of the tree, but look!”

The image on the Rotom phone was of a shiny Sawsbuck lazing about in a forest somewhere, grooming the fresh white fluff around her neck while surrounded by dead trees. Dangling off the phone itself was a set of charms, including a rather Unusual one nestled between a Delibird and Dragonite.

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

”You would have a whole aquarium in your house…” Locke said with a fond, but exasperated sigh. Rich people were really something else. ”We didn’t really have a lot of Inkay in Kanto, but I’ve seen em floating around the Slateport docks a bunch. Real pretty at night.”

Liza-Lia watched the wildlife pass by with a mild disinterest mirrored by her trainer. ”…Ya know, I’m starting to think we’re not gonna find any Unown here…”

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

They thought about their Pokémon splattered against every inch of a pristine conference room.

”I doubt that.”

Again, Locke wanted to point out that nobody knew what killed Sae. Again, their head pounded in the absence of that knowledge, as if to scream that they should know, they should know, why don’t they know?

Instead, his hand lowered a bit when Eris still held back, retreating back to the safety of solitude like the wounded and cowardly thing it was. But the ink tugged and his head hurt and fate twisted around them both with too-red strings that Locke just wanted to rip and tear at until the threads laid frayed and harmless around them; until they were finally free.

Wordlessly, he reached out and took her hand anyway, coaxing her down into a hug.

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz