“Not at the point where reality and the digital world crossed.”

That was what he would say first, before choosing his next words carefully.

“But at the crater, with the smoke. That mist. It brought up. More. More things that…”

He fell silent as he quickly raised a hand to one side of his head and pressed it hard, gritting his teeth as more of the ‘holes’ were revealing themselves in flashes.

He had to close his eyes as hard as possible to fight off the sudden explosion of pain that erupted from the back of his head.

“It brought up. More. More answers to… to what happened last year.”

Much as he wanted to retort back with ‘easy for you to say, you weren’t there’, he couldn’t.

He had no words left as he finally finished stripping down and ever so gingerly stepped into the bath tub—not wincing even if he knew the other had drawn a hot bath.

That was just how out of it he was as he slowly, painfully sank down into the water—normally he would be complaining and bitching a storm about the water, however the way his mind was ticking right now wasn’t exactly at full function therefore his descent into the tub was unnaturally quiet.

(Now if that wasn’t really a sign something was really wrong with him, then he didn’t know what else would be.)

He then stared at a certain point beyond the bath tub, the hot water hazing into a mist around him as the overwhelming feeling of tiredness caught up with him again.

“It… the water… the water’s nice,” he hummed quietly.

---

timelined right after the end of the rusted sword raid; dorime

“Just outside of Hammerlocke… things. Things are looking hopeful, but we can’t go too far from beyond the city limits. It’s… tough, considering that these wildflowers normally grow anywhere and everywhere there’s dirt and water,” he hummed quietly.

“Some of the others are trying to bring some color… some greenery back into the city limits, so they’ve been bringing back wildflowers to replant. It’s been awfully slow going, though.”

And then it was here at this point he was hit with his crippling indecision—one of his major problems whenever it came to doing something absolutely serious.

Go on and get with the program before your bravado deserts you! he yelled at himself from within the deepest recesses of his mind.

“Okay, so. Uhm. Remember what we talked about the last time we were here?” he finally managed to say a few moments later.

---

timeline: six years, seven months and eleven days to their arrival in Hammerlocke

(timeskip FC is Yuri Leclerc from FE3H)

The moment she mentioned that even Amor Rose had also ended up in an alternate reality, he stopped dead for a few moments.

“Wait. You said he was also in an alternate reality. But. But I don’t remember seeing him on our battlefield during the charge near Postwick,” he backtracked. Were there two separate instances?

Because to be fair, the one he was more familiar with was their ‘version’ of Hammerlocke, be that as it may.

“Did. Did he mention what city he was in?” he continued a few moments later.

Surely… surely there wasn’t like some kind of ‘alternate’ alternate universe within where they were whisked away to?! How was that even possible?!

---

who ordered even more emotional damage?! timelined after this as if he didn’t have enough already good grief

The moment the blue-plumed avian recognized their guest, he gave a ‘salute’ in welcome—never mind if it accidentally kicked up a small gust of wind in the process.

“Good news? Kyouya here remembers you,” he began with a wry smile as most of the Rufflet were literally converging around his feet, trying to get a bite of the treats he was holding in his hands. Why were they all being rowdy little shits today?

He would never know.

One of the other normal-colored Braviary gave all the five young Rufflets his best imitation of a ‘stink eye’, however the small ones paid absolutely no attention at all.

“Why not try feeding one of them? Watch what happens,” he offered as he held out his hand that was weighed down with the Pokémon treats that the younger birds were trying to peck out of his hands.

“For what better way is there to get to know a Pokémon than with food?”

It was at this point he belatedly realized that the setting of the entire thing was going to be…

Oh, boy.

(Was there going to be skeleton unpacking happening as soon as they started? Who knows? Let’s see!)

Unfortunately it was way too late to back out now, however he’d already bitten the bullet and now had to legit face the music, there was nothing else to it.

“Alright, hope you don’t mind then,” he continued as he kept his eye on the Musharna, who was following him around and eventually settled down close to where he’d chosen to pretzel himself into.

And then—

Darkness.

---

The next thing he was aware of, was the fact that he’d woken up in what appeared to be a clearing of the forest—while the skies were dark, the nearby areas were strangely… lit up.

And then, oh boy, came the one thing he was hoping to not run into so early.

He was wise to the stories, the fabricated fictional tales of how fae creatures—the spiteful ones, at least—could control humans that got lost in their world by taking their name…

“One… one thing,” he clarified before laying down his suspicion. “Do you mean well, or not?”

In a way, he’d already made his choice (indirectly at least), by not revealing his name, at least for now.

“I remember this place used to be a water park-themed obstacle course, yes,” he hummed quietly—he was sure of it because that friend of his was one of the few who managed to win a badge from this Gym. Had it really been so long ago, now?

“So you left most of the place as it was? Have… have you considered adding a non-trad challenge that maybe people who want to watch can come by… or live stream it online?”

Because he was more than certain some of the other staffers at the Sanctuary had live streamed some of his more… interesting matches.

(See: Isaac Merlo and Martín del Mar for a few examples.)

“Okay. In my defense, it’s to protect Fortree as much as I can. Considering I already own a sanctuary that specializes with flying as a theme overall, it was easy enough to add an outdoor, open-air arena to the grounds.”

(That was a story for another day.)

“They actually considered me for an Elite Four spot, but I was like, ‘how in the ten circles of the netherworld am I going to do that if I excel in non-trad challenges?’ was what went through my mind. So. As long as I can protect Fortree to the best of my abilities, little as they are, then I’m happy.”

“I only had one tiny little thing about Vortigern, though, Michael Navidson doesn’t allow the Garchomp to fly even though the Garchomp line can surprisingly do,” he cackled quietly as he swung the bag around front and reached in for a plastic container that had the mentioned Pokémon treats.

“Oh, thanks for the heads-up,” he remarked once she mentioned how… bitey the Shelgon seemed to be, considering the Dragon-type seemed to want to go straight for the spread of food she’d laid out for them to consume while recharging their energy.

“Okay, here you go,” he gestured at the Bagon and Shelgon’s direction, making sure to scatter enough treats for them to pick off of. The Murkrow on his shoulder took flight to look for some Berries, considering that there would be some that could be found nearby.

Oh, man… before the meteor…

“Would you believe me if I said, just staying home with my partner and letting him spoil the ever-living daylights out of me with his home-cooked food?” he admitted a few minutes later as he then reached for an apple and gave it a light rub.

(Love you, Guillermo Marceliño!)

“I’m not moving until you answer my one question,” he continued.

Never mind if he was tired, there was this burning desire for him to know, because that strange mist from where they’d come from had seemingly triggered something inside him—the fierce itch to know.

“Why did you leave me back there when I couldn’t see anything? You promised… that you wouldn’t.”

Maybe that would be enough.

Of course someone was going to remain in mid-air, because two of them were down on the ground (again) and he was of the mind that—

“Are you both seriously going to stay down there?” he called from his perch aboard Kyouya the blue-plumed Braviary. And then what was up with the strange assortment of Pokémon they were all busting out…

“Does anyone have like a Turtonator or something? I’m trying to pick out what we can use for ‘dragon’s jewel’ and a ‘jeweled branch’…”

A few minutes later, the Braviary came swooping down low, before he revealed a Typhlosion. It was his best guess for ‘a robe of fire rats’ because… well, looking at what the Typhlosion’s back resembled, wasn’t it on fire? And it did kind of resemble a…

Yeah that was one hell of a stretch.

“So we’re missing two,” he hummed before seeing that they weren’t alone—huh?

Okay, why was there a young woman riding a Hydreigon out here—

“Oh my god, please don’t tell me you’re also lost?” he said in the other woman’s direction. But he couldn’t help but wonder if there was something familiar about her…

---

trying to help out #18 with Typhlosion as the ‘a robe of fire rats’ + also hello who dis new girl on the Hydreigon

“Oh, hell no,” he grumbled as he saw what they were up against next.

Did… did he bring his Gardevoir along? Perhaps… but not now, because those were Poison-types and they were the ultimate bane of a Fairy-type’s existence. So yeah.

“Nope, nope, nope, let’s move! Unless there’s a treasure chest in there or something we cannot avoid, we are skipping past anything that will take too much time to deal with!” he said firmly as he then made to take off in another direction.

Nope, he was not going to lose the Gardevoir this early on. Who knew how long (and how large) this place was?!

The Salamence that was airborne gave the other Pokémon in the room a sibilant hissing noise, before following his human companion to wherever they were headed off to next.

---

Salamence stares at the Poison-types in disgust…!

“Look. You’ve organized one big race and there’s a second big one coming up. Getting a public event like that is huge, you know. I’m here on the quieter side with just taking tours of the Sanctuary grounds when I’m not busy with the challengers that keep showing up at the front door,” he chuckled.

He then poked at the empty basket of fries, running a finger along the salt that remained on the paper before sighing.

“Having a Gym isn’t about winning at all, it’s about teaching whoever comes through that door about what you want to impart. Although… my style got a bit cramped because of the ‘you know what’,” he hummed with a pointed eye roll.

(The eye roll wasn’t for him, though. He would know if it was.)

“If we win, then fancy that, a rare occurrence! Kind of like winning the lottery. But then again, that’s kind of why everyone comes knocking on my door because I’m admittedly one of the easiest to get a badge off of when traditional battles are considered.”

He then took one more sip of his drink.

“…of course I give everyone a run for their money when they come knocking for the non-trad challenges—I mean, you know it because you went through it yourself! So did Isaac Merlo,” he cackled.

The poor Pikipek, though—he was sure that this wasn’t one of the ones living in the aviary (or the one that had become yet another indoor Pokémon because the ovine herd was pretty tight with keeping an eye on their other companions at the flat)—was literally screaming and crying indignities the moment the ‘not-quite-a-Salamence’ approached, before flying out of the Roaring Moon’s mouth and like.

Making a beeline straight towards Alexei chittering and chirping about how they were just minding their business and all that.

“…one last question, do they eat other Pokémon?” he clarified; making a mental note to read the report later after the match was over.

Even if the Dragonite wanted to take a swipe at the ‘Roaring Moon’, his Salamence decided to step up to the plate—so it was going to be a showdown between the ‘known’ and the ‘unknown’ along with…

“Hera!” he exclaimed as the Gyarados let herself out of her Dive Ball, roaring and just really, ready to cut a bitch get going.

(Looks like someone was excited.)

“You get first move!” he said as he made his way over to his side of the battlefield; Salamence and Gyarados ready for one hell of a showdown.