Chapter Text
The last thing Akari could remember clearly was a loud roar. That and falling.
Everything before the roar was a bit of a blur. Shouting, someone grabbing at her wrists, maybe something red in the sky? Arceus, her head hurt. Was this how Ingo felt when he tried to remember things?
Ingo.
He had been arrested. That’s the first thing Akari fully remembered. Ingo and her had been arrested for something and she had escaped without him. And now all of Hisui was in danger.
She tried to sit up but was almost immediately pushed back down by an Unown. As her eyes focused, she could see dozens of the living letters swimming above her, muttering something amongst themselves. Had she ended up in the Solaceon Ruins?
Akari sat up again, waving the few Unown near her away. Looking straight ahead, she could now see that she was standing in a dimly lit cave next to a statue of some pokemon she couldn’t recognize.
This was definitely not the Solaceon Ruins. She instinctively reached for Mischief and Rhythm, her Mismagius and Gardevoir’s pokeballs, but felt nothing in their place. Akari looked to find her most powerful pokemon gone and two plain pokeballs in their place. They must have been taken when she and Ingo had been arrested.
Akari released the two unidentified pokemon she had on her. Nightshade, her Gastly, and Cinnamon, her Cyndaquil, popped out. Akari pointed into the darkness of the tunnel and Nightshade nodded, floating off to investigate.
When she could see the shimmers of Nightshade’s blue smoke heading in her direction, Akari limped over to the wall and sat down. Cinnamon curled up in her lap as she emptied her bag on the floor.
She didn’t have much. All that fell out was a day’s worth of rations, a few tumblestones, her old photo album, and a letter addressed to her in Professor Laventon’s handwriting.
Akari shoved her things back into her bag and read the letter.
Judging by the ink smudges and the messy writing, she assumed the letter had been rushed. Laventon seemed panicked, writing about how he knew Kamado’s accusations over ‘this tragedy they’re facing’ were baseless, and how Captain Cyllene had pulled a few strings to give her a chance to get to safety before everything got worse.
The letter also promised that her father would likely remain unharmed and that Kamado was convinced, for the time being, that keeping Ingo contained would make these distortions go away. Laventon also urged her to convince the Clan leaders to meet with Rei and Volo in the Fieldlands as soon as possible.
The end of the letter was just Laventon wishing her well and telling her to avoid the Galaxy Team camps. Akari folded it up and stuck it back in her bag. Nightshade was now hovering to the right of her head, a little too close for comfort. She probably wanted to tell Akari something.
“Did you find anything? Are we in any danger?” Akari looked at the ghost. Nightshade mimicked shaking her head and made a worried cry.
“No to both?” Nightshade mimicked a nod this time. Akari hummed as she scratched Cinnamon’s back.
“You don’t know where we are?” Akari guessed. Nightshade nodded. She sighed and looked at Cinnamon who had dozed off. Of course she’d managed to get lost after being given what she could only assume was an important task. She’d have to scout out the tunnels and find an exit soon.
She was rather jealous of Cinnamon at the moment. The poor thing had no care for the change in location or the undoubtedly rough trip they must have had. She was pretty sure that the tiny Cyndaquil didn’t even realize they had to have been in danger.
Akari stretched, wincing as a sharp pain shot through her left leg. She nudged Cinnamon over to look at it, ignoring his protests and groaned. There was a light wound running across her from her knee to her ankle. Great. Not only was she lost in some dim cave, she was injured. Not to mention the migraine she was developing from trying to piece together her situation.
Nightshade floated up to say something to a few of the Unown. When Akari looked up to find her pokemon, she saw a chunk of the letters disappearing into the darkness. Nightshade floated down to inspect her leg before chirping.
“Making friends?” Nightshade nodded. “They’re going to help us out?” Another nod. Nightshade floated closer to her.
“I’m not going to sleep,” Akari groaned. “I need to see where we are and how to get home.” Nightshade chirped again.
“Do not start using hypnosis on me. I have to warn the clan leaders of-” She cut herself off with a large yawn. She swatted at Nightshade, who moved above her and looked down with a grin. “I have to warn them of something.”
She glared at the blue Gastly for a few seconds before yawning again. She patted the ground next to her and her pokemon floated down and nuzzled a little into her side, as corporeal as the ghost could make herself. Akari rested a hand on Cinnamon as she stared at the shimmering blue haze at her side, slowly nodding off. The pain in her head and leg decreased and her eyes grew heavy.
“You’re not getting treats for months after we get home,” Akari grumbled. Nightshade hummed and the girl slumped over in sleep.
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Lyra had a list of things she expected to happen on her Gym Challenge. Of all the things she had on it, getting lost in the Ruins of Alph was not on it.
The ladder Lyra had been climbing down on broke and she fell. She tried to follow the lanterns on the walls to the next ladder but a loud roar rang out and the tunnels went dark. She panicked and strayed far enough from the wall to get lost.
In her mind, she reacted perfectly normally for an upset twelve year old.
Lyra reached into her bag and pulled out her pokegear, using the light to look for a nearby exit or statue or anything that could help her figure out where in the ruins she was. She wished she’d been allowed to memorize the map before going into the tunnels, but her older sister brushed off her concerns and rushed her down with nothing more than her pokeballs and a few potions.
Honestly, she hadn’t even wanted to go to the ruins. But she hadn’t even made it to Falkner in the gym before having to rush back to the Pokemon Center, and mentioning training here was the only way Lyra had been able to avoid the topic of switching out her team for a better one.
Who cares if grass types are seen as weak. They’re Lyra’s favorite, she was going to use her team of them on the gym challenge, and she was going to show Kris and her friends that they could take on any type of pokemon.
She just had to find a way to get the upper hand on Falkner’s birds.
The light from her pokegear illuminated something moving in the dark. Lyra paused. It was likely just an Unown. She should send out one of her pokemon and battle it for experience. Her sister did tell her to train here. Or she could try to ask it if it could show her to the exit.
She didn’t want to think about if it wasn’t an Unown. If something happened down here then that sure did suck for Future Lyra.
She inched closer to the pokemon. As soon as she reached a hand out, it turned to look at her and she flinched. An Unown stared down at her, unblinking. Lyra took a step back and froze when something bumped against her back. She turned around and came face to face with a handful more Unown.
They circled her and stared at her for about a minute, still unblinking. Lyra could feel her hands start shaking. The Unown then darted off in one direction. Lyra took a shaky step after them and they paused. One of them, shaped like an ‘A’ and still unblinking, flew back to her and nudged her forward. She gulped and began walking a bit faster.
She followed the group of Unown into a tunnel that looked much more ancient and decrepit than the rest of the ruins open to the public.
“You know, I don’t think I’m actually supposed to be here,” Lyra started before one of the Unown bumped into her and maybe glared? She couldn’t tell.
They continued in silence for a bit longer until Lyra could make out something shimmering in the dark. The Unown rushed towards it and looked back at her expectantly, so she pointed her pokegear in its direction.
Lyra did not know what she expected to see, but an injured girl with a shiny Gastly and an oddly blue Cyndaquil was not it.
She knelt next to the girl and began to lightly shake her shoulder. When she groaned and raised her head, Lyra put her hand in front of the girl’s face.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” The girl squinted at Lyra’s hand.
“Uh... three.”
“Ok, uh, that’s correct. Can you tell me your name?” The girl looked like she was about to answer, but paused and grabbed her bag.
“Tell me yours first.”
“My name’s Lyra,” Lyra said. “I’m twelve years old and, um, I’m training to get my first gym badge.”
“I’m Akari. I’m thirteen.”
“Nice to meet you, Akari,” Lyra smiled. Akari looked suspicious of her, but nodded. After some silence, Akari pulled out an ancient looking pokeball and recalled her Cyndaquil. Her Gastly floated away from the two to interact with the Unown. Lyra offered a hand.
Akari made an offended face at the hand and tried to stand on her own, but stumbled and grabbed onto Lyra as tight as she could. Lyra winced and lifted her back up. She pulled Akari’s arm over her shoulder.
“Do you know which way you came in from?”
Akari shook her head. “Nightshade is talking to the Unown. She said they can help us out.”“Nightshade?”
“My Gastly. The only not Unown pokemon here.”
Lyra looked at the ground. “Oh, yeah.”
They waited for the Gastly to finish talking with the Unown. A few seconds passed and the Unown flew back in the direction Lyra came from, Nightshade staying behind to make sure its trainer and Lyra were following. Lyra readjusted her grip on Akari and smiled at her before they began to walk forward.
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The walk to Lyra’s settlement was rather quiet. They managed to get out of the tunnels without too many problems (“A LADDER?” Akari screamed. “THE ONLY WAY OUT IS A SINNOH DAMNED LADDER?”) and were now walking towards a place Lyra had called the Violet City. In Akari’s opinion, it was much better named than Jubilife Village. This Violet City was certainly violet. She didn’t have the slightest clue what a jubilife was supposed to be.
Learning the name of Lyra’s home also helped her narrow down where she had ended up to “most likely not Hisui”. She had visited almost every single space in Hisui, and hadn’t heard one word of a city like the one they were in. Most of the buildings in Lyra’s city looked similar to the ones in Jubilife. The oddly smooth metal looking buildings that they occasionally walked past made Akari wonder if she was even in the same time period.
Lyra told her as they entered the city that they were headed to the “Pokemon Center”, a large building with a red roof, where she and her pokemon could get medical assistance. After that, Lyra said she could make space in her room for Akari to spend the night. Akari had thanked her multiple times for this and was now wondering what she had to do to make it up to the younger girl.
Maybe Akari could make her some pokeballs? She hadn’t seen any on Lyra, so maybe she’d like to have some. And if she did have some already, Akari could probably give her some tips on customizing them. She also had to figure out what the Pokemon Center would want from her in return for fixing up her leg. She asked Lyra if money would be able to cover it, but Lyra just laughed at her.
After they arrived at the Pokemon Center, the two were whisked away to a separate room by a few nurses. They reminded Akari of a somewhat softer Peselle, multiplied by 3. A long time passed with the two in what Akari assumed was the hospital wing of the building. For a city this big, there weren’t many other patients Akari could see. If she had any hope that she was still in Hisui it was long gone.
A doctor came in at one point. She asked for their names and what they were doing, which Akari left for Lyra to explain, and then looked over Akari’s injuries and deemed her well enough to leave. Lyra dragged her up a flight of stairs on the other side of the building and into a hallway. As they entered a room on their right, Lyra flopped down onto a soft looking bed. It reminded her a lot of the ones in Laventon’s home.
“Alright. First thing’s first, you’re going to tell me the truth about what you were doing down there,” Lyra was digging through a large bag on the side of the bed.
“If I’m being honest, I have no clue.” Akari sat down in a chair by the desk in the corner. It felt wrong. Lyra rolled her eyes and pulled out a loud crinkly sort of mini-bag. “I don’t remember how I got here or what I was doing on my way here. I don’t even know what region I’m in. Only that this definitely isn’t where I’m supposed to be.”
Lyra stopped trying to open the bag and made a face. “How do you not know what region you’re in?”
“I just don’t.”
“Can you tell me where you’re from? You sound like you’re from Sinnoh.” Sinnoh? From the god?
“I don’t really know what you mean by that? I am from Hisui, I am part of the Pearl Clan, which worships Sinnoh-”
“To my knowledge, Sinnoh’s not something you can worship, it’s a region a bit north of here. And I’ve never heard of a region called Hisui.” Akari was about to yell at the younger girl for interrupting her but stopped. How had she never heard of Hisui but knew of something called Sinnoh? Akari didn’t have much to compare her home to, but she figured it was pretty big region-wise, given how the .
Lyra seemed to notice her confusion. “I can look it up if you like,” She offered, holding up the weird metal and glass rectangle she had used to see in the ruins.
“Look it up?”
“Yeah, online or something. I can probably find an article about it or something.”
“Online?”
“Don’t play dumb, Akari. Online, the internet, things like that.” Lyra began tapping her rectangle and sounding out Hisui. After a few minutes she spoke again. “Akari, what year is it?”
“1870.”
“Do you have anything on you that can prove that?” Akari made a face before fishing out her photo album. The professor had written a bit in it and dated a few of the older photos for her. She flipped to a page near the front that had a photograph of her, Ingo, and Rei holding a few sneasels. Ingo had been trying to show Rei how to hold them without getting scratched and risk being poisoned. The photo was dated ‘July 5th, 1868’. Lyra studied the book for a minute and began tapping her device again.
“What pokemon are you handling in this?”
“Sneasels, duh.” Lyra shook her head. She made a somewhat worried face.
“Akari, can you tell me the names of anyone else in this?” Akari pointed out Ingo and Rei to Lyra, and told her Laventon had been the one to take the photo. After a long pause, Lyra spoke again.
“I think you might have time traveled.” Akari closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and leaned back. She counted to ten in her head and looked back at Lyra.
“Yeah,” She sighed. “That doesn’t really surprise me.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Well I mean of course it does. I’m trying to ignore it.” Akari had to close her eyes again. Her head was starting to hurt.
She figured she was taking this well enough though. She hadn’t started hyperventilating, her vision hadn’t gone blurry, she was just getting a headache. She ignored that her hands were starting to shake.
“Well,” Lyra started after a minute. Akari opened her eyes and brushed off the fact that the girl she was looking at was now very blurry. “I might know a way we can try to get you home.”
Akari launched herself in Lyra’s direction and grabbed her by the shoulders, ignoring her shout of surprise. “Tell me now .” She commanded, trying to channel every ounce of intimidation in her small body into her words.
“CelebiliveinIlexForestandwecangothereafterIbeatBugsywhoIcanfightinAzaleaTownafterIbeatFalkner!” Lyra squeaked out. Akari tried to make sense of what she said.
“None of what you just said makes sense.” Lyra moved her hands off her shoulders.
“I meant to say that there are Celebi living in Ilex Forest and we can go there during my Gym Challenge.” Lyra smiled at her idea. Akari frowned.
“None of your words mean anything to me.”
“Oh.” Lyra readjusted herself while Akari walked back to her chair. “What did you not understand?”
“I don’t know the locations of this place, and I don’t know what a Celebi is or what it can do.” Lyra nodded and tapped her device before showing it to Akari. It displayed what seemed to be a map of the region she must have ended up in.
“We’re about here right now, in Violet City,” Lyra pointed to a red square near the center of the map. “After I defeat Falkner, the leader here, we can go through Route 32 and Union Cave to Azalea Town-” She traced a line south of the city down to the very south of the region and tapped a much smaller square. “-where I’ll defeat Bugsy, the gym leader there, and we can enter Ilex Forest.”
“So you just need to ‘defeat’ the leaders of these places?” Lyra nodded. “Ok. What did they do and why are you being sent to fight them?” Lyra shook her head.
“No, no, it’s not like that! It’s a challenge, a coming of age sort of thing!” Lyra laughed. This place was weird.
She pulled a card out of her pocket and showed it to Akari. It had a few dates written on it and a clear photo of Lyra. “This is my trainer card, it shows that I’m old enough to be taking on the Gym Challenge and travel the region on my own.”
“It’s a sort of trial for you?”
“Yeah!”
“Are you in training to take on a title or something?”
“Uh…” Lyra shook her head. “No, everyone does it, even people who aren’t, uh, doing anything important.” Akari hummed. She was pretty sure she understood.
“Can you explain what a Celebi is?” Akari asked. Lyra lit up at this.
“Oh! They’re a very popular legend here! See, they’re these tiny little fairies that live in the forest and travel through time. I was thinking we could find one and go to Sinnoh to put you back with your family.”
“Travel through time?”
“Yeah! Like you!”
“Alright. You’re sure it can do that?” Lyra nodded enthusiastically.
“I’ve read, like, every book my mom had on them. If they like you, they can take you to any point in time you want. All we have to do is befriend one and get it to follow us, which shouldn’t be too hard. Did you know they’re supposed to be grass type? I’m really good with grass types. Oh, in some stories, they even have ties to Dialga, which you probably know more than me about…” Lyra trailed off. Akari didn’t know what a ‘Dialga’ was (probably some Diamond Clan thing), but she was pretty sure she could grasp the basics of what a Celebi was.
“So the plan is basically I follow you on your trials until we get to this forest and then we befriend a fairy so it can send me home?”
“That’s all on the list, yeah.”
“Then I guess that’s settled then.” Akari stood up and stretched. Lyra offered her something from the weird bag and she shook her head. “I’m going to sleep then.”
“Oh, do you have any pajamas?”
“Huh?”
“Ok, adding ‘clothes shopping' to the front of the list. Do you want to sleep on the bed?” Akari shook her head. She kicked her bag over to the edge of the room and beamed back at Lyra. She grimaced and grabbed one of the white blankets off her bed and tossed it at Akari.
“Ok, at least take a blanket.” Akari nodded at her.
“Goodnight Akari. I hope we can get you home soon."
“Thanks. Goodnight, Lyra.”