Chapter Text
Emmet would later swear that it started out normal.
He woke up in his bed, his team asleep in the room as well, at exactly 4 am. He would take a shower and get dressed, his white shirt and pants ironed and freshly pressed. He made a light breakfast, consisting of a bagel with peanut butter and some coffee. He'd fed his team their breakfasts and grabbed his coat and hat and had done all the normal morning things. His day bag hadn't felt any different on his shoulder, the walk hadn't been any longer or shorter. The station doors opened the same, that one light still flickered slightly, his office was exactly the same as he'd left it. He'd sat at the lone desk in the room to fill out some paperwork before boarding the same line for the day.
The battles had gone similar (but never the same) as normal, he'd congratulated and praised and encouraged as normal, he'd reached his destination as normal. He'd eaten his lunch and texted Elesa and checked in with the depot agents as normal.
The first sign of something not normal was during his break in the control room. He could still remember idly chatting with one of the older agents when he'd heard that sound. The same one he'd heard only once, exactly a decade prior.
It sounded like someone was trying to cut sheet metal with a pair of fabric scissors. A horrible, loud, ripping noise, reverberating in his ears and chest and lungs. A distinct sound.
He'd started to run.
He could barely hear the voices calling for him over that sound. It was getting louder, droning, crackling, ripping, searing, it was unnatural, it was something he was not supposed to hear.
And then were the screams. He burst out the maintenance door into the main area of the Subway. People were screaming, running, trying to get away from something, that sound. Emmet ran straight towards it, a pokeball raised in his hand. This was not normal .
He merely caught a glimpse of a hole in the air, a hole leading to somewhere and yet nowhere, a purple and black and yellow and blue and red and green swirling things that spat out matter. And then, with a horrendous sucking noise, it closed itself and disappeared.
The sound had left a ringing in his ears. He thought about leaving. Not investigating. But he needed to, not just for the Subway, but for himself. He knew he recognized that sound.
He directed the depot agents to handle the panicked passengers as he ran to see what the thing had spat out.
It sat in the middle of the floor. A huddle of fabric, mumbling to itself. Emmet could not make out what it was. He crept forward, unsure of how to proceed. This was not how he remembered that noise happening last time. In fact, instead of leaving something in its wake, the ripping had taken something from him. Something precious.
He pushed the thought aside to focus on the matter at hand.
He kept the pokeball ready as he approached, his shoes squeaking on the floor. He caught a faint voice speaking a foreign tongue. What language was it? The voice was rough from use.
But it was also familiar.
Emmet summoned all his willpower to speak. "You are halting the activities of the Subway. Please state your intentions."
The thing - no, the figure - froze completely. Then it stirred, getting to its knees, then its feet. As it rose, Emmet could see the hauntingly familiar coat it wore shredded and sunbleached, the large collar in tatters, the two lines reminiscent of train tracks faded, but still present. The hat it wore, torn and bleached like the coat, most of the stuffing gone.
And then he turned. And Emmet saw his own face reflected in them. The sharp chin, now covered with facial hair into a trimmed beard. The silver eyes, the sharp cheekbones, even the hooked nose. Their face was tanned, their eyes slightly sunken, but bright and confused. Their silver hair had streaks of white. Wrinkles, small and numerous, riddled their cheeks and eye sockets.
Emmet's eyes had widened as his hand lowered.
"Ingo?"
The man's eyes had also widened. He'd slowly nodded his head, visible confusion still written across his face. Emmet's vision grew blurry as he reached in for a hug-
That was not reciprocated. Ingo had held firm, stiffening. Emmet had stopped dead in his tracks. "Ingo?"
He had opened his mouth to speak when Emmet had noticed something else. Two small sets of chubby white hands gripping the bleached and torn coat, tugging at his black pants. Two matching sets of silver eyes staring up at him, wide and alarmed, hiding in his coat.
Ingo had leaned down and plucked them up, scooping one into each arm. They'd buried their small faces into his chest, refusing to look.
Emmet steeled his resolve suddenly. People were staring. "Let us take this to my office. Somewhere more private." Ingo had said nothing, but had followed his brother, the two children glancing up as he'd begun to move, watching Emmet with large eyes.
And yet the day, he later swore, had started out normal.