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The cuckoo wraps its pup in lambskin, and sets it into the nest, taking the other creatures’ hatchling into clawed hands and tucking it away to eat later. These beings are strange, with their wood-and-stone dens and odd-smelling nests. As it turns to leave, a strange kitten — not its own, but drawn by the warmth and aura it gave off — climbs out of its comfortable hiding place in its mane. It smells the pup beneath the disguise, and following its instincts, it matches the shape, settling beside it.
*
Catalina wakes to sound in the next room, and rushes into the nursery. She’s just in time to see a zoroark standing by the crib, who flees at the sight of her. She starts to give chase, but stops when she sees into the crib.
There are two babies, identical in every way, blinking up at her sleepily. Zoroark aren’t fools, she knows; they know better than to try and put two pups in the place of one stolen baby. So she reaches the most logical conclusion: the zoroark left without taking the human child. She locks the window tight, carefully picks up both infants, and carries them back to her own room to wake her husband, and present him with her best (worst?) idea yet.
There’s no way to disrupt a baby zorua’s illusion. It isn’t their own, it’s placed by the mother before she leaves, and it will persist of its own stored power until the zorua is old enough to create an illusion of its own. It usually takes around three years, until which point, they’ll raise both children. She grabs the first pokeball she can find — a cherish ball, she realizes after she’s gently tapped it against one of the babies.
She gets lucky, apparently; red light spills from the ball, enveloping the child, and draws him inside. It clicks immediately — hatchlings never give any trouble, especially not sleeping ones — and she lets him back out to sleep beside the human baby.
What an incredible opportunity that has just been dropped into her lap!
———
The ‘twins’ aren’t just identical in appearance, they’re nearly identical in mannerisms, too. It’s a point of mild frustration for Gavin, but his wife seems fascinated. His Catalina has always loved pokemon and their behaviors, and as long as it doesn’t hurt their child, he doesn’t mind her turning this case of nature and nurture into her new pet project.
She’d been so excited to present the idea to him: “Zorua don’t usually leave on their own. They’re chased off by the host family when their true nature is revealed. But what if they weren’t chased off? I mean, we kind of have to raise him for now anyway, he’s going to be stuck looking like our son at least until he’s three. But we know pokemon are extremely intelligent, what if we just kept raising them as twins? Do you think he would just grow up to be a slightly weird kid? Zorua are mimics, he’d imitate his brother in most things.”
He’s honestly not sure which kid is imitating the other, though. They both crawl early and walk late. They don’t really babble, but they do mimic sounds, both human and pokemon. The pokemon noises are more accurate, and much more frequent.
It’s Gavin’s idea to dress them in different colors so they can keep track of which is which, though the boys quickly proved to have one solid difference in their appearances. The human one, Ingo, is dressed in blue and hasn’t smiled once, and while he’s not really more vocal, he’s definitely louder than his brother. The zorua — given the name Emmet, and dressed in red — is quieter but doesn’t ever seem to stop smiling, filled with hyperactive energy.
He realizes one night that he’s grown just as attached to Emmet as to Ingo, when he refers to them as “our sons” and finds that he means it wholeheartedly. Catalina laughs, and admits she started thinking of them like that within the first month.
“There’s a challenge coming up,” she warns him. “We don’t know how Ingo will react when the illusion breaks.”
When the twins turn three, he and his wife hold their breath. One day, about a month after their birthday, Gavin and Cat wake to crying in the next room for the first time in over a year.
*
Emmet stirs at the feeling of aura in the air beside him, and rolls over to look at his brother, a sleepy question humming through their bond. When he opens his eyes, there’s a small black and red fox curled up on the mattress beside him instead of his twin. He can tell Ingo is here, can recognize the other’s aura beside him, but he looks wrong, and so he starts to cry.
Ingo wakes to his brother’s crying, and panics; his shape is wrong, is that why Emmet is upset? Running on instinct he isn’t fully aware of, he reaches into himself and wraps his form in aura until he feels like he’s the right shape again. It feels… slightly off, but he’s still young and he doesn’t know how to make it better than this, and at least it seems like Emmet is calming down.
His brother’s hair is still bloody red, his eyes are still bright blue, he still has pointed ears and a tail lashing nervously behind him, and a thick fur ruff around his neck and chest. He still looks more like a zorua than himself, but he’s looking at Emmet with his little worried frown. It’s definitely Ingo, and now his eyes are agreeing with the aura-sense, and he relaxes. It’s still wrong, though, so Emmet taps into a well of power he didn’t know he had, grabs ahold of his brother’s lambskin cloak and pulls it a bit tighter.
*
The couple rushes in as quickly as they can, but the crying is already calming as they get up and leave their room. When they reach the nursery, they find two perfectly-human toddlers holding each other tightly. They look at each other, and Catalina steps forward to settle the pair. Once the twins are sleeping again, she and her husband head back to their own room. Gavin lets himself sigh, long and tired.
“Well, they seem to have sorted it out,” he says, equal parts confused and relieved.
“I’ve never seen such a perfect illusion on a zorua, much less a young one,” Cat responds, scribbling notes down. “It seems like they’ve really bonded. I’m glad,” she adds, yawning, and climbs into bed beside him.
———
When the twins are nearly five, they still haven’t spoken. It doesn’t seem to prevent them from having conversations, though; a mixture of rapid gestures and stolen sounds make up a language all their own, and occasionally they’ll seem to communicate with just a look. They love pokemon, excited every time they meet a new one, and the first time they travel by train, they spend the entire trip mimicking the mechanical sounds, clearly delighted.
For their birthday, Catalina gets them each a klink. They’re well-behaved, hatched and raised by a local trainer who assures her that they know how to be careful with children. As expected, the boys adore the gift, and spend a lot of time with the pokemon.
They’re almost never in their balls, which she expected to some degree; the first time the twins saw her return her own partner to his ball, they were extremely distressed. She’d let the flaaffy back out so the boys could see that he was okay, and watched as they seemed to have a conversation with him about it. After a minute or so, they’d relaxed, and Signal had turned back to her and gently headbutted the ball in her hand, going in of his own accord.
The boys understand pokeballs now, but still seem to dislike them somewhat. Cat figures that this is fine, so long as the klinks are well-behaved, but she does explain to her sons that if they want to have more and bigger pokemon, then they’ll probably have to keep them in pokeballs sometimes. They listen intently, as they almost always do when the topic is pokemon, and nod when she’s done, and she releases them to go play with their starters.
The twins train their pokemon to battle. That’s not a surprise — she’s known for a while that they were interested in battling — but it’s during one of their practice battles that she and Gavin learn something they didn’t expect. Ingo stands a bit too close to the pokemon, and when his klink uses thundershock, he yelps, jerking back. As he moves, the illusion shatters, leaving a static-fluffy zorua where he stood a moment before.
Before either she or her husband can react, Emmet starts to sniffle, and then outright sob. Ingo’s little ears prick up and he darts across the room to his brother’s side, then closes his eyes. The air seems to waver, and a short but bright flash forces them to look away for a moment. Blinking the bright spots out of her vision, Catalina looks back over to see Ingo back in his human shape — well, mostly. He still has dark fox ears sticking out of red hair and a fluffy tail curled against his side. She looks over to her husband and sees her own confusion mirrored; did they mix up the boys at some point before their expressions set? Have they had it backwards this whole time?
But when she turns back to the boys, she watches Emmet reach up and neaten his brother’s hair. To her surprise, a soft glow gathers in his palms, and as he fusses over his brother, the illusion smooths out until Ingo is left looking perfectly human again. A new thought occurs to her; they never did actually check the pokeball’s data to make sure it caught a zorua, because they’d assumed that one was the pup and the other was human. But if Ingo is the zorua, then what is Emmet?
Then the boys seem to remember that she and Gavin are there, because now there are two pairs of pale silver eyes watching them intently, a mix of emotions on their faces. Somewhere between ‘I want my parents’ and some level of fear, she thinks.
Gavin surprises her when he takes the initiative. “It’s alright. Let’s get Ingo some berries to help him feel better and then we can talk about it, okay?”
The twins are subdued enough that they manage to get Ingo to eat a cheri berry, even though the boy hates spicy things, with the simple point that they want to make sure he’s alright after getting caught in that thundershock. They end up giving Emmet his own bowl of berries, too, and he gives a few of his favorite berries to Ingo to cheer him up. After they’ve eaten, Catalina sits down on the couch and motions for the boys to come closer. They hesitate for a moment, but after a look between them, they both climb onto her lap.
“I’m going to tell you both a story,” she says. “Once upon a time, your dad and I had a baby. Just one, and he looked just like the both of you. Then one night, we put him in his crib, and when we were asleep, a zoroark snuck in. She woke us up, though, and we ran in and chased her away. But then there were two babies in the crib. That was you two. We knew one of you was a zorua, and we decided that it was okay, and we were gonna raise you both as our babies anyway.” A small lie, but not an important one.
Emmet tugs on her sleeve, pointing at himself. “You’re right,” Gavin says, “you’re not a human baby either. And that’s okay, but zoroark wouldn’t put two babies in the crib. Can you show us what you look like, Emmet?”
The twins consider this, exchanging a look filled with meaning, and then Emmet begins to glow as well, form shrinking and shifting. When the light fades, there’s a small pink kitten-like pokemon curled up where the boy they thought was human was sitting. A pokemon most people have never seen, spoken of only in stories.
“A mew,” her husband breathes, and they trade a look of their own. We’ll talk later. “Thank you for showing us, you can look human again if you’d like.” Emmet takes the offer immediately, returning to his human shape and holding tight to his brother.
“Well,” Cat says after a slight pause. “Human or not, we love you both so much. You’re still our baby boys, no matter what.”
*
Ingo stirs at the sound of the door closing, and shakes his twin awake as well. They slip out of their room and down the hall to investigate.
“They’re asleep?” their father asks, and they look at each other for a moment.
“Thankfully,” their mother replies.
“I love them both so much, but it’s a bit sad that we lost the human one after all. Maybe we should have noticed sooner, he was always a little sickly.”
“Yeah… I checked the ball, it’s registered to a mew named Emmet. We didn’t mix them up, we just made assumptions. I’m going to go out and get a matching one for Ingo, and we should talk about it in the morning.”
“Take Signal with you,” their father says. “I know you’re not doing well right now. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The twins scramble away from the door at the sound of footsteps, managing to slip into their room and shut the door just as their parents’ door opens.
Emmet grabs his sleeve and Ingo can feel worry from his little brother, so he wraps his arms around him and tucks his head against his brother’s shoulder.
‘We’re going to be fine,’ he mumbles through their bond, and Emmet just hums and holds him closer.
———
The pokemart has cherish balls. They’re a bit pricey, but Catalina wants her boys to match and that’s what Emmet ended up with. Besides, it feels right. She does cherish her sons, so much. Even if she’s worried about them even more than before. There’s just so much to worry about.
Signal baas and headbutts her gently; the slight shock draws her attention and she realizes she’s biting her nails again. “Thanks, buddy,” she says, reaching down to bury her hands in the staticky wool on her partner’s head. It’s grounding, as usual, and she takes a moment to breathe.
The son they thought was human is a zorua, and the one they thought was a zorua is a dragons-damned mew. That’s a lot, even if it explains some of the strangeness about her children. She’s processing that, and grieving the child she never got to meet, and worrying over how their lives are going to go. They demonstrate human levels of comprehension, she’s not doubting that she’ll be able to continue raising them like human boys aside from small adjustments. But can they go to school? They can never let people close enough to see what they really are, they’ll only have each other. And the schools will want to separate them because twins need to meet other people instead of relying on each other —
Signal bleats more urgently and sparks, just strong enough to get her attention; her fingers are tangled in his wool. “Sorry,” she says, carefully removing her hands, and he butts her palm again. “Let’s go home.”
*
Their parents sit them down the morning after Ingo’s shape slips. Signal is sitting beside their mother, who encourages them to let their klinks out as well. Emmet and his twin sit on the floor with crossed legs, across from their parents, and he stares at the pair of strange red pokeballs in their father’s hand.
“Do you know what these are for?” He asks, and they both nod; Ingo holds up his hands, showing off his klink hovering above them as it clicks happily. “That’s true, we do keep pokemon in them. We use them for lots of reasons; it makes it easier to carry them to a pokemon center if they get hurt, or bring big pokemon with you even in places where they don’t fit. But the most important thing about pokeballs, is that a pokemon can only ever belong to one. So if anyone else tried to catch your klinks, they wouldn’t be able to, because you have their pokeballs. Even if you never put them inside. Does that make sense?”
They both nod, and their parents smile. “Well, when you were very little, we knew that one of you was a pokemon,” their mother explains, “so we put Emmet in a ball just for a moment, to make sure no one could ever catch him on accident. But you’re a pokemon too, Ingo, so we need to keep you safe too.”
Their dad offers one of the weird balls to Emmet. “These are cherish balls. They’re not any different from normal pokeballs except for in color, but people like to use them for pokemon they love the most. So it makes sense that they’ll keep you safe, because we love you both the most.”
Ingo turns to his brother as the red-dressed boy takes the cherish ball he’s offered. ‘Is it safe,’ he asks quickly, more in their language than their bond. Emmet smiles—separate from his default face, even if most people can’t tell—then hands the ball to Ingo and pushes the button, vanishing in a flash of light. He panics, immediately pushing the button again, and then his brother is back, standing in front of him.
‘It’s strange,’ Emmet responds in his mind, in that way that Emmet is better at than he is. ‘But it’s not bad. It feels like I’ve done it before.’
With his brother’s reassurance, Ingo turns back to their dad, and reaches for the ball. The moment the button clicks under his finger, everything feels strange. Warm, and then there’s a sort of pulling, and then he’s somewhere weird. It’s like being nowhere, but also somewhere, like when he and Emmet built a fort to curl up in. He kind of wants to sleep, actually, but then the pulling feeling is back, and he blinks and he’s standing in front of his parents again.
*
Ingo honestly looks so confused when they let him back out of his ball, and Gavin has to bite back a laugh as he hands over the cherish ball. “These are very important,” he tells them. “You need to keep them safe. Don’t let anyone touch these unless you trust them with your whole self.”
“I think I have an idea on how they can keep the balls with them all the time without anyone knowing it’s a pokeball,” Catalina muses, fingers tapping against her leg like they always do when she’s excited. “You’re better at woodworking than me, Gav, I’m going to need your help.”
“Later,” he tells her, and pushes himself to his feet. Ow, maybe sitting on the floor wasn’t great for him. “For now, I think our boys deserve a treat for being so brave. I think we still have some pecha sorbet?”
The twins cheer, and he takes them into the kitchen to scoop them each some sorbet, tossing his wife a notebook as he passes the shelf. She immediately starts to sketch. Once the boys are settled at the table with their treat, he heads back into the living room to see what she’s drawn.
It’s a beautiful concept; a pair of necklaces with a handful of wooden beads, ending with a larger, hollow bead that will hold the pokeball. They’re a little bit clunky, but they look nice, and he thinks he can make it work well.
———
Raising the twins never stops being strange. There’s always something new.
Gavin lets the hedges grow tall around the yard, and the boys delight in the newfound play area where they can drop their disguises. Ingo doesn’t like to; Cat suspects it has to do with his apparent hatred of (or maybe just difficulty with?) illusory clothes, and the way dropping his physical illusion has the side effect of burying him in his (now too large) clothes.
Emmet, on the other hand, drops his disguise somewhat frequently, for various reasons; he wants to fit into a small space, or get up somewhere he couldn’t reach in human shape, or maybe he just wants to transform into something else, like their klinks or the various wild pokemon he’s seen. Ingo watches intently every time; sometimes he’ll try to mimic it, but his illusions are always flawed.
The summer after they turn seven, on a particularly hot day, Ingo walks up to Cat, and leans his head against her. The call in her head isn’t a thought or a voice, but somehow, it feels like both at once. ‘ Too hot. Ice cream?’
She’s almost too startled to respond, but she pulls it together enough to ask several questions. “How? Wait, we taught you sign, why ? You can’t even have ice cream, you’re lactose intolerant.”
Ingo frowns up at her, his sulky expression shown mostly in his eyes. ‘Don’t know the sign for ice cream,’ he informs her.
Emmet looks up from his toy trains, apparently noticing the conversation for the first time. ‘Ice cream?’ It’s somehow more and less expected from him, considering he’s a psychic type, but he’s also on the couch and not pressed against her.
“No ice cream,” she says, even as both of her sons pout at her. “You can have popsicles, but I want to know when you learned to do this.”
*
Their mother gives them each a popsicle and sits them at the kitchen counter. “So, tell me about that,” she says.
‘The mind voices?’ Emmet asks, and Ingo shrugs, reaching for their mother. She understands the gesture for what it is, stepping closer so he can grab her arm.
‘Emmet is better at it than me,’ he replies. ‘I have to touch skin to do it, but he can do it just by being close.’
“Your brother is a psychic-type,” their mother says gently. “I’m very impressed that you can do this at all. Telepathy isn’t really a dark-type talent.”
‘He’s verrrry good at copycat,’ Emmet announces. ‘I can show him things and he can do them!’
‘I’m still learning,’ Ingo replies. ‘I can’t transform.’
Their mother is silent for a moment, an odd look on her face, before she says, “Sweetheart, most pokemon can’t transform, even with copycat. Emmet is unusual in that regard. Your illusions are getting more and more impressive, though,” she praises, and he smiles in that odd Ingo-way that he does.
The twins turn in unison when they hear footsteps outside. Their mother is confused for a moment, but seems to understand once she hears the door open. She considers for a moment before grinning, mischief on her face. “I’ll let you two pick dinner if you scare your father with your telepathy.”
Ingo can see his own delight mirrored on his brother’s face, and they take off running.
———
Ingo figures out physical speech quicker than Emmet, and translates for his twin in day-to-day life outside the house. They prove that they can keep a human shape, and resist using moves or telepathy, and their parents relent, letting them going to public school.
It’s mostly good; their teachers are nice, and school is interesting. They did try to separate the twins, but quickly realized that it wasn’t really feasible and left them together. But it’s not perfect; other kids find Ingo and Emmet strange, but especially Emmet. They’ll ignore him entirely sometimes, and when they do acknowledge him, it’s usually mean. “Hey, Ingo,” they’ll call, “Your zorua is really cool! Did you have to teach it to look like you?”
Neither of them really understand it; their parents have told them that most people don’t like zorua, but they still don’t see what the big deal is. It hurts them both, though, hearing the malice in those voices, knowing that people mean it as an insult. Ingo chases people off for it, and Emmet growls, which probably doesn’t help their point, but it’s instinct.
Today is different; it’s their ninth birthday next week, near the end of third grade, and the twins are excitedly chattering, Ingo aloud and Emmet in their minds. Some prick from the other class starts the usual taunting, and if Ingo was in his fox shape, he’d be hackling, barely restraining the low growl that wants to spill from his throat as he turns to the boy to retort.
Before he gets a chance, Emmet lunges. “Shut the fuck up,” he shouts, and his fist makes contact — not a move, Ingo is pretty sure, so he doesn’t worry too much.
“Bravo, Emmet! You figured it out!” he calls, watching the pair struggle. “Don’t hurt him too bad, you’ll get suspended.”
*
“So, why am I here again?” Catalina asks the office staff.
“Well, your son swore, and got into a fight.”
“They’re both usually so well behaved, I have trouble believing Ingo would swear. I’m not even sure where he learned it.”
The receptionist hesitates. “Actually… it was Emmet, ma’am.”
“Emmet spoke? Oh, fuck yeah!” Cat freezes, clearing her throat. “I mean, I’ll talk to him about appropriate words for school, and I’ll definitely talk to him about the fight. I have to say that makes more sense if it was Emmet, though…”
She maintains a stern-looking composure until they reach the car, the boys trailing behind her looking put-out. Once all the doors shut, she lets the expression slip. “Alright, you two. Where do you want to get lunch?”
“We’re not in trouble?” Ingo asks, looking surprised.
“Hell no, Emmet spoke. And he stood up for himself, I’m not gonna punish you for that! Now, where do you want lunch from?”
“McDonalds,” Emmet chimes in, and Cat laughs.
“McDonalds it is.”
———
Ingo tries to keep his breathing steady as he stares at the pawniard readying another attack. Their pokemon are at home, which was stupid, but they can’t fix it now. Emmet has fainted; Ingo can see his chest rise and fall shallowly, but he took a really bad dark attack that they couldn’t dodge or block in time, and Ingo knows he’s not gonna wake up without help.
The pawniard takes another step towards them, and he shifts to stay between the wild pokemon and his fainted brother. Pawniard are carnivores, aren’t they? And he doesn’t know how he’s gonna beat it, it’s so much stronger, and he doesn’t know any effective moves. They’ve thrown a couple of actual attacks between dodges and protects, but the pawniard dodged Emmet’s flamethrower, and Ingo doesn’t remember how to do it.
No. He won’t lose here. He won’t let his brother be (any more) hurt. He reaches into his aura wells, feels energy flowing around him, and pours all of his rage and desperation into his next attack: Revenge. It takes the pawniard by surprise, and it hits hard. His opponent doesn’t faint, but it’s clearly pretty close to it. Ingo tries not to show his own fatigue as he readies another attack, and the pawniard turns and runs.
He slumps as soon as he’s sure it’s gone. “Emmet,” he says, shaking his brother. “Emmet, please wake up.”
Emmet groans, but he shifts and opens his eyes a bit. “‘ngo? What…?”
“You got really hurt. Mama and Dad aren’t home, we have to go to the center. Can you turn into something else so they don’t know?” he asks, already focusing and trying to pull his illusion back together. Learning to copy transform helped a lot; he doesn’t lose his humanoid form anymore, but he still needs the illusion for his tail and ears, eyes and markings.
Right now, he doesn’t care that much. He leaves the eyes and markings, leaves his red hair, changes his clothes. Then he looks down at Emmet, who’s turned back into his true form. Too tired to take another form, apparently. Ingo shoves his now-oversized clothing into his bag, wraps Emmet in a scarf, holds him against his chest, and starts running.
*
If the pokemon center doors were on hinges instead of sliding, the boy would have kicked them open. Even as it is, he very narrowly avoids slamming into the door when it doesn’t open quickly enough, and runs to the front counter, chest heaving.
He’s an odd-looking boy, Nurse Joy thinks, with bright red hair and blue eyes, and sharp teeth visible with the way his mouth hangs open a bit as he struggles to get enough air. He’s bruised and bleeding, but he’s clutching a cloth bundle to his chest, which he holds tighter as he looks up at her. “I can’t show you here,” he says, “and you can’t tell anyone. He needs help.”
“He?” she asks, already calling another nurse to handle the front counter so she can find out what’s in the bundle. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, your pokemon will be just fine. Come with me, I have a room if you want privacy,” she says as soon as her coworker arrives. The boy growls, but follows her. They’re a long way from Lostlorn Forest, but the boy makes her think of the zorua she saw there. She knows that sometimes wild pokemon will come to centers if they’re desperate; is the bundle a sibling?
When the door shuts, he walks over to the exam table and carefully sets down the bundle. “Promise you won’t tell anyone,” he growls again, but she can see how scared he is.
“I promise,” she replies, and he unwraps the bundle. “Oh.” There’s a mew wrapped in the fabric, clearly injured and breathing more shallowly than she’d like. “What happened?”
“Pawniard,” the boy replies. “Chased it off, but not fast enough. Weren’t safe, this was closest healing.”
Joy works slower than she usually would, talking the boy through each step as she patches up the little myth. The (zorua?) boy can tell her exactly what move hit the mew, how many moves he managed to dodge first, how many times he used protect before he was hit. Once she’s done, she fetches a towel and wraps him up in that. “The towel isn’t part of my usual treatment,” she says, “but I figured you’d want a way to hide him, and that scarf is filthy.”
“Thank you,” the boy says, accepting the bundle and holding it close against his chest. Now that the mew is better, she looks over the red-haired boy, who’s swaying on his feet. Even so, he turns to leave.
“I can heal you too,” she offers before he can do more than set his hand on the doorknob. He stiffens immediately, hair fluffing up at his neck especially, and she realizes just how damaged his illusion must be if she can see him hackling. “I won’t tell anyone about you, either, but I can’t in good conscience let you leave when you’re this hurt.”
“Not hurt,” he protests, “just tired. Revenge is… new. Never used before, went too far.” And then he collapses, the illusion cracking more until she can see dark grey ears flattened against his head.
“Either way, I want to help you. It’s alright,” she says soothingly. “I’ll tell you what I’m doing, just like with your friend.”
“Fine,” he says, barely audible. He flinches when she comes closer, but when she goes to pick him up, he leans into the touch, and she can’t help but feel so sad about this pair.
“It was very brave, coming to a pokemon center. And it was the best thing you could have done for him,” she reassures, setting him down on the table. “Could you remove your illusion for a little while? It’ll be easier to find and fix the injuries that way.”
He starts to shake his head, then winces. The air wavers around him, and his illusions fade, revealing… different clothes? It really does look like the illusions are all gone, but he’s still mostly humanoid, aside from the ears and tail, the ruff of fur around his neck, and the teeth he had before. The non-illusioned clothes look familiar, actually, as does his messenger bag, now that she thinks about it. But at least with these, she can follow the tears and bloodstains to patch him up more quickly. His arms seem to have gotten the worst of it, probably used to protect himself when the move failed. She cleans the wounds, sprays potion over them, and lets it sit for a moment while it works.
While she waits, she looks over the zorua boy, and it clicks where she’s seen him. Twins with a smile and a frown, and a pair of nearly-identical klinks, as well. Always excited to chatter about pokemon, especially since the smiling boy started to talk. How old are they now? Even as tall as they are, they can’t be more than ten… Even if he wasn’t a pokemon (or maybe part pokemon? She thinks of old stories her grandmother used to tell), she’s actually not that surprised that one of the twins managed to befriend a rarely-seen pokemon out in the woods.
Once he wakes up, he pulls his illusion back together; the red-head he’d come in as, not the form she’s accustomed to. He sits upright, looking around before spotting the little mew beside him, still bundled in the towel. “Thank you,” he says, clearly trying to keep his voice down, but it’s still pretty loud. It’s a good sign that he’s feeling better, if his lungs can support that much sound, so she smiles.
“I’m happy to help,” Joy responds. “Ingo, right?” The boy tenses, eyes widening as he picks up the sleeping mew carefully. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone; doctor-patient confidentiality,” she says, winking. “Just make sure to bring your klink next time, alright? And tell your brother hi for me when you get home, alright?”
He blinks for a moment, looking slightly confused, and he opens his mouth for a moment before closing it again, nodding. She walks him to the door, and he heads back in the direction of the woods.
*
When he gets to a good hiding place, Ingo adjusts his illusion until he looks like himself again, and takes Emmet home. “I won’t ever let this happen again,” he promises, more to himself than his brother, and he can feel the strength of his resolve, his aura wrapping around him.
“Ingo, you’re home! Where’s — oh my god, Emmet ,” their mother breathes, rushing torwards them and pulling Ingo into his arms, along with his sleeping twin. When she pulls back, she says, “Ingo, you’re glowing.”
He’s started to notice it as well, but he can’t focus on much except for the feeling of energy and strength. He opens his eyes — did he close them? — and sees his mother staring. He looks down at himself.
His transformation has slipped entirely, but he’s still bipedal; thick dark grey fur, two clawed fingers and a thumb, his ears twitching on his head. “You’ve evolved,” their mother says. “Congratulations!” He can’t focus on it, though; he’s tired again, and he can’t transform again until he sees his brother do it, so he curls around the little mew and lets his eyes close.
———
When Catalina dies, only somewhat expected due to her poor health, her husband puts off the funeral as long as he can. He makes all the preparations, does calculations, sets aside money for it. He gets his and his wife’s affairs in order. He writes a letter to his sons, marks it accordingly, and goes to the cabinets.
They find him in the morning, when Signal shatters the windows. Not to get out, and not in a frenzy, as far as anyone can tell. Just for attention; as soon as someone comes to investigate, the flaaffy returns to Gavin’s side, laying down on top of his body the way he had when Cat had passed.
The twins take a week off from work at the subway for the joint funeral. They try their best to care for Signal, but with his partner and her lover both dead, he’s lethargic, refusing to eat, and shocking anyone who tries to give him an IV. After a few days of this, they go to the pokemon center and explain the situation; Joy gives the flaaffy a shot to stop his sensations, and one to stop his heart.
They cry. They hold another mini-funeral for their mother’s partner. They find the letter their father left for them, and read it. It’s long and heartfelt, but the part that stands out reads:
“Your mother and I take a lot of our secrets to our grave, and very few regrets. You two were never one of them; we love you more than anything else in this world. I’m sorry I can’t be there to keep helping you. Remember what we told you; don’t let anyone touch your pendants or see what’s inside, unless you trust them with your entire self. Find someone who can help protect you, and watch out for each other.”
*
Elesa wears black when she goes to see her best friends. They came back to Nimbasa surprisingly quickly, after the funeral was settled. She saw them then, checked in with them, but today they called her and asked her to come over. When she arrives, they usher her inside quickly, shutting the door. All of their pokemon are out at once, the furniture pushed aside to make more room in their apartment. “What’s going on, guys? Does this have to do with your parents?”
“Yes and no,” Emmet says. “We wanted to tell you anyway. This just… forced the schedule.” He sits down, letting Eelektross coil around him.
“We told you before that we were a surprise,” Ingo says.
Elesa makes a face. “Yeah, she only expected to have one kid. But then you turned out to be twins. Why is this important?”
“No, Elesa. Our mother only had one child. She had one child for nearly six weeks.”
If she hadn’t already set her things down, she would have dropped them. “What do you mean?”
“We love and trust you a lot,” Ingo tells her. “Please don’t panic when we show you this.” And then, before she can ask what the hell that means, the air shifts around him, then a flash of light, and when it fades, she stares at the man she’s come to consider a brother.
His eyes are bright blue, instead of the pale silver she’s accustomed to, and there are red marks around them, and at the corners of his mouth, emphasizing the tiny kind-of-smile she can see there. His hair is red, black tips visible without his hat on. He’s watching her with a mix of nervousness and hope, which she can see mirrored in Emmet’s eyes.
“You’re… a zoroark?” she asks. “Okay, but why make another illusion instead of just showing me?”
“Not an illusion.” Emmet corrects. “Ingo can copycat transform. He learned from me.”
Ingo nods. “While Emmet’s transformations are flawless, zoroark aren’t actually supposed to be able to shapeshift anymore, so I must rely on my natural illusions to look properly human,” he explains.
“That makes sense,” Elesa responds, and then her brain catches up. “Wait, Emmet’s transformations?” She looks back over to see Emmet start to glow. Eelektross releases him as he changes shape, shrinking, and when the light fades, Emmet is a mew.
Elesa is handling this better than she’d expect, but she’s still kind of losing her grip on her emotions at this point as Emmet turns back. Apparently, his clothes are not part of his transformation, and are instead piled on the floor, leaving him in what looks like a pink leotard. “What — how — wait, if you’re both pokemon, what happened to the human one?”
Both twins immediately look sad; a sore topic. “Our mother did not realize that we were both pokemon, and assumed one of us was the human baby,” Ingo answers after a moment. “By the time she realized this was not the case… it had been years. Our human sibling was likely eaten, I’m afraid.”
She covers her mouth. They’re all quiet for a little while, before she speaks up. “Why did you call me? If it was just to tell me, then why did Emmet say that what happened with your parents ‘forced the schedule’?”
“Elesa, if it was ever discovered that Emmet or I was a pokemon, what would happen?” Ingo asks, and she considers it.
“You would lose a lot of your rights,” she realizes. “Pokemon can’t have jobs, or property, or other pokemon…”
“Correct.” Emmet says. “We have plans. Everything we own belongs to both of us.”
“But it won’t help anything if we’re both discovered,” Ingo continues. “Previously, our parents helped us to keep our true natures hidden, and served as a contingency plan if the worst were to happen. Everything we owned would be given to them, including our pokemon… and our own pokeballs.”
“Your own…?” Elesa asks. Then it clicks. “Your necklaces. Wait, does this mean you’re asking me to be your backup plan?”
The twins nod. “We were told never to tell anyone we didn’t trust with our lives, our whole selves,” Ingo replies. “We consider you a sister, Elesa. We trust you with this, and we trust you to help us protect ourselves.”
“I’m honored,” she tells them. “Of course I’ll step in to help, just in case everything goes wrong. But it won’t ,” she insists, pulling them both into a hug. “It won’t.”
———
Elesa’s daily routine begins with breakfast, for herself and her pokemon. Even if that number has more than doubled, as of recently.
Ingo and Emmet disappeared two weeks and three days ago. The depot agent who came to see her said that they’d found most of the twins’ pokeballs, but not their galvantula and chandelure. And not, to Elesa’s surprise and relief, their own balls. All she can hope is that they’re together, and their pokemon will keep them safe.
“Damn it, boys,” she mutters. “I know we agreed that your pokemon would go to me if everything went wrong, I just… didn’t expect it to mean I’d lose you entirely.”
*
Many miles and years apart, the twins wake in a pile of little purple sneasels, stretch, and begin their daily routine with breakfast.