#Other Skyla | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-land-lacking-sleep · 2 years

Text

PLA/Submas Fic: Electric Trains are the Future Ch. 7: Like a Big Pecha Pie

Previous Chapter (6) - Current Chapter - Next Chapter (8)

The next chapter is here, with Pizza, Domestic Vibes, and talk about Unova! I actually had to go and adjust dialogue after making the timeline post because they didn’t line up haha

Chapter Summary: Ingo and Elesa celebrate Ingo’s memories with a homemade pizza. Chapter Word Count: 4096

Read it below the cut, or on AO3 with additional notes! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated. I’ll be taking a break from the fic after Chapter 8, since I’ve hit some writer’s block, but I should have a side-story for you then.

Like any born and bred Nimbasan, Elesa was always down to destroy a good pizza. So seeing Ingo there, standing straight up and tossing a pizza was like she’d been hit by Attract and become infatuated with him. Not to say that she didn’t love him before, but having your man make you a pizza just hits different.

“Yes! I’ve had a craving every few weeks for years now, and it hit when I woke up,” Ingo says as he drops the crust back onto the counter and picks up a bowl of crushed Tamato Berry that she could see he had added sugar to sweeten it. “And this time, when I woke up, I remembered what it was!” He takes a serving spoon and scoops some onto the crust, spreads it in a circle.

“You remember pizza before anything else, huh?” Elesa asks with a laugh as she checks the ingredients. Oh, Petilil leaves, she likes those! “Wait, are you making a Margherita pizza?” She could always go for an Emboar sausage and onion pizza, but a solid Margherita might be what the doctor called for.

“Wasn’t my first choice, but this is what my station is stocked with, and it’s what I will use,” Ingo says, reaching past her to grab the small wheel of cheese that was on a chilled cloth. It was a notably different color, a little more yellowed than she expected. “Unfortunately, there isn’t any solid trade with Unova, so we don’t have Bouffalant mozzarella, nor Paldea for the Tauros mozzarella that they make. So I had to improvise a little.” He pulls up a thin, sharp knife, and gently cuts a thin sliver off the end and lays it on the sauce.

“Don’t they have Tauros down in Kanto?” Elesa asks as she picks up a knife and pulls the Petilil leaves over to a clean part of the counter. She looks for a cutting board, and snatches it over, dicing the leaves quickly. “Couldn’t you order some from there?”

“They do, but my memories just returned to their station, and I believe that Kanto doesn’t use them for cheese,” Ingo says with a loud laugh. “So, I’m trying some of the cheese that Laventon and I devised.” He cuts his last slice, putting the slice in the center of the other five. “Most people in the Clans are apprehensive of making food from other’s of the Noble Pokemons’ stock, but we made some Wyrdeer cheese that isn’t too bad.”

“Wyrdeer?” Elesa asks off-handedly as she takes her knife and cuts a small sliver off for herself and pops it into her mouth. It’s soft, surprisingly creamy and rich, and instantly begins to melt on her tongue! Maybe not the best for a pizza, but not a bad substitution, and definitely good for snacking. “You know, nevermind,” she quickly says, gently putting a finger on Ingo’s nose to stop him. “I don’t want you to tell me it’s gross and ruin this cheese.”

Her heart warms as Ingo’s expression softly sinks into the little Skitty mouth she finds so adorable, where the corners of his mouth turn up from his frown. “Fine then, I won’t tell you the beauty of Stantler’s evolution here in Hisui.” He reaches over and grabs the diced leaves, bumping up against Elesa with purpose before sprinkling them over the pizza. The brief contact made Elesa’s entire body feel fuzzy, like she was snuggling up to Emmet’s Galvantula. “Though it’s a Psychic-type, much more up Caitlin’s alley than yours.”

“You really are remembering things, Ingy,” Elesa says with a huge smile, bumping Ingo back before giving him some space to move the pizza from the counter.

“Seeing your Slim and Specs actually reminded me of Emmet,” Ingo says, his decibel rating dropping slightly. He lifts the pizza and turns towards the center of the room, where he has a pot of coals hanging from the ceiling. “Seeing the combination of Eelektross and Galvantula knocked the rust from the engine, and allowed the train to finally kick into gear.” He sets the pizza down onto the metal grate above the coals, and then covers it with a lid to properly cook it.

“I’m glad,” Elesa says, sitting down next to the pot, and leaning against Ingo once he joins her. “So, I talked with Irida a bit, and she told me about how you were found.” She gently kisses the side of his head. “I’m glad you were in the company of good people, Deerling.”

Ingo softly claps. “And I’m glad you think so well of them. Lady Irida has done so much for me here, and allowed me to work with my Lady Sneasler in the Highlands, which helped me feel so much more complete.”

“Complete?” Elesa asks before gently poking his side with a finger. “What, because you had another sassy tall girl ordering you around? Trying to replace me, even when you couldn’t remember?” She kept her tone light and teasing, so that she didn’t upset Ingo.

Thankfully he wasn’t, as he let out another one of his thunderous laughs. “I wouldn’t go that far!” He continues to chuckle softly before he continues. “Being with Lady Sneasler not only allowed me to have a proper companion here in Hisui, someone to live for other than myself, but it gave me a way to help others.”

“Irida didn’t mention what you do as a Warden,” Elesa says, closing her eyes on Ingo’s shoulder. “Would you mind telling me?”

If Ingo could smile, Elesa imagined he was; and in fact, he was! The one time she wasn’t looking since she got here, elation etched itself on his face as he got the opportunity to share his life in Hisui with the woman he loved.

“So, my duties specifically for Lady Sneasler herself are two-fold,” he began, his face quickly dropping from the large smile he had to a more neutral frown. “I’m to ensure her health and safety, whether that means I help her with her hunting and foraging, or I concoct medicines when her engines need maintenance. She very much loves Plump Beans and Springy Mushrooms, though she also enjoys Hearty Grains, which isn’t native to the Highlands the two of us normally keep to. I tend to gather some in the Mirelands when I have the time to run different tracks, and it’s what I used as the base for tonight’s pizza crust.”

He pauses only for a brief moment to hold his hands in front of him like he’s holding a Sneasel. “Honestly, she never likes it when I fret over her, as she considers herself to be the Highlands Boss, and sees me as one of her kits. She acts young, but from what Irida has told me, she’s been the Ride Noble for a little over 15 years, and fully grown for over three decades. Her cab is durable, and her paint has yet to fade, so at times she has to remind me that she is indeed in charge of our partnership. Especially when it comes to her actual kits.”

“Oh, those kits need a good smacking every once in a while to remember their manners,” Elesa mutters from Ingo’s shoulder, and feels him shift as he puts his hand to his chest in faux outrage.

“Elesa! They are beautiful little babies, and absolute paragons of virtue! They are tiny little cars that would never act as trains of chaos!” Elesa sits up and gives him a dead look before Ingo drops his arm. “Yes, I know that’s Bouffalantshit. Those kits of my Lady’s are Hell-Sunnans on a good day. Their favorite pastime is seeing if they can beat their record climbing atop me, like I was some derelict train in the scrapyard.”

“Yeah, they were climbing me too,” Elesa says before leaning back onto his shoulder. “So, other than working with her, what else are you doing as a Warden?”

“Ah yes, of course, allow me to get my car back on the rails,” Ingo says with a huff, taking a moment to get his thoughts together. “So, in a fitting bend on the tracks, I am in charge of safety checks and proper guidance in the Coronet Highlands. If someone needs to be guided to the summit of the mountain, or the safest paths through to the Coastlands, the job falls to me.”

“Head of Transportation wherever you go,” Elesa says with a giggle.

“Indeed, yes!” Ingo shouts in glee. “Bravo to Lady Irida for assigning the right job to the right person. The one consistent problem I have with that unfortunately is my fellow Warden in the Highlands, young Melli of the Diamond Clan. Though he cares for Pokemon deeply, he places his own thoughts and desires above the needs, and often the safety, of others.” He sighs heavily before continuing. “There have been many times where I was required to delay my passengers' travels through the Wayward Caves due to his worry that the torches would disrupt the Pokemon in the cavern. He would often extinguish the torches that I put up.”

Elesa lets out a soft gasp at that, knowing just how dangerous it is to go through caves in the darkness. When the three of them had gone on their Pokemon journey, they had nearly gotten lost in Twist Mountain during the night, when the sun was no longer lighting the cave through the various holes and cracks to the surface. Chargestone Cave had a few issues with darkness at night as well, but the natural luminescence of the electricity in that cave system meant that one could usually see what was around them.

“Don’t worry,” Ingo says, patting her head. “I eventually caught his Leader, Adaman, coming out of the cave in a bad mood, as he had nearly gotten lost due to the lack of torches. Once he found out that it was Melli’s call, my fellow Warden stopped taking the torches down!” Both of them laugh as Ingo lifts the lid to check on the pizza. There was a bubble forming on the edge of the crust that Ingo pokes with the knife that he had used for the cheese, letting the air leak out with a soft hiss. It will take some more time for the low heat of the coals to fully cook the dough of the pizza.

Sitting back down, it was Ingo’s turn to lean on Elesa’s shoulder, though he kept talking. “After Akari quelled the Lord Electrode, I decided to come work part-time with the Galaxy Team, which is what you found me doing yesterday. My job is to mostly train the Security Corp in battling, so that they can work in better sync with their partners, as well as any villagers that wish to learn battling for self-defense.” He breathes in deep and lets out a happy sigh. “I’ve gotten quite the reputation of being a monster of a trainer. To better challenge Miss Akari, I devised the Path of Solitude, where we are both limited to one Pokemon, with my Pokemon specifically chosen based on what she challenges me with.”

Elesa lets out a low whistle. No matter where Ingo went, he was a battle fiend. Take him through the Gym Challenge, and he’s the only one to face Alder of the three. Take him on the Subway, and he not only gains a reputation, but such popularity that it was a minor scandal among trainers that he was in a relationship. And now take him to the past, and he starts teaching random villagers how to battle and then creates a challenge for both himself and his opponent under heavy restrictions. She wasn’t surprised, and would’ve been shocked if he hadn’t done so.

“I also have a special team for Akari to face, composed of three Alphas that I have made a pact with.” Ok, that one sounded odd.

“Ingy, Bounsweetie?” Ingo hums slightly in acknowledgement. “What the Shellder is an Alpha?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Ingo says, though Elesa feels that there is nothing simple about it. “They are extremely large and violent Pokemon that tend to claim territories of land for themselves, often pushing others of their packs away. Their eyes glow red when they aren’t tamed and they will attack most things on sight.”

“And you caught and tamed three of them to use in a challenge?” Elesa really hoped that was the case.

“No, I convinced them to couple with me in a battle with Akari,” Ingo says with a content hum. “They’re still quite wild, and I don’t think I’d be able to convince them to go another round after the loss they suffered to Akari’s team.”

Elesa stays silent for a few moments before swatting the bald spot on his forehead. “You brought dangerous Pokemon into the village?! You never change, Ingo, oh my goodness! You act like the responsible one around Emmet, but I swear you’re more impulsive than he is!”

Ingo sits up straight, frowning deeply in an effort to save face. “I am quite responsible, Elesa! I was the Head of Transportation, I know how to keep responsibility! Safety checks were conducted, and no one was harmed!” He pauses briefly to lift the lid and check the pizza, then moves it from the grill now that he’s deemed it cooked, using the time to change tracks of conversation. “Additionally, I often couple with Akari and Rei to do some research with them. Not only are they studying Pokemon, but also the local plantlife and the best places for new settlements for incoming immigrants.”

Ingo slides the pizza onto the cutting board Elesa had used earlier, and Elesa stands to admire the work. The cheese has browned somewhat, but thankfully didn’t burn, though the dough looks a little undercooked. Perhaps the coals didn’t generate enough heat, but when Ingo presses a finger against the crust, it is solid enough to not deform, and does crunch satisfyingly when he takes the knife to cut it into pieces.

“This is going to be the best thing I’ve eaten since arriving at this station,” Ingo says with a smile in his voice as the pair sit down to eat. “I enjoy the cuisine here, quite a lot, but this is what my bones have needed.” Without a further wait, he brings the pizza up to his mouth, takes a bite, and sinks into a puddle of Nimbasan bliss.

Elesa doesn’t wait to take her own bite, and lets out a happy sigh. She liked the potato mochi earlier, and the rice from the night before, but this? This spoke to her, told her how much care Ingo put into it, and also how poor the cooking method was. The outside of the crust was cooked through, but the center was still somewhat doughy, where the sauce was thicker. The crust had also risen slightly more than either of them had wanted, with Ingo having aimed and missed a much thinner crust.

But it was pizza. The both of them were just happy to have it.

“3 years, 5 months, 21 days, and 17 hours since my last pizza,” Ingo says after his first slice, rattling it off like a computer listing its last update time. Elesa notes that he still didn’t have Emmet’s accuracy, as the younger twin would often trail off by counting the seconds when he did similar. He pauses a moment before speaking up again. “And it’s been 3 years, 5 months, 17 days, 22 hours, and 12 minutes since I arrived in Hisui. I’ve missed a lot at home since I’ve changed tracks.” He picks up his second slice of pizza. “Would you be able to fill me in on any of the changes to our home station?”

Elesa chews on her bite for a few moments before swallowing and starting. “So, on a personal level, Emmet and I got married last year. Had our anniversary last month.”

“Bravo!” Ingo shouts, clapping quickly with stars in his eyes. “I’m so proud of the both of you! Though…” He pauses, and goes to grab the brim of his hat before realizing he wasn’t wearing it, and moving to stroke his beard. “If my memories aren’t still foggy, hadn’t you and Skyla married a year before I left? Is everything well with that two-car train?” Ingo and Emmet felt out of place putting themselves into the relationship Skyla and Elesa had. They were good friends with the Flying-type Gym Leader, but nowhere near close enough to intrude on them.

“Oh, we’re doing fine, still flying high,” Elesa says with a wide smile, leaning onto a hand. “Unova actually legalized polygamy recently, allowing people to have multiple marriage partners! It’s still not common, and I doubt it ever will be, but Dragons, is it nice.” She sighs, looking over Ingo’s shoulder while in thought.

“They legalized it while Emmet, Skyla, and I were still in our private grieving stages. We never had you declared dead, on the in case you would reappear one day, so we were just going to let it happen after seven years, when the police normally call in absentia deaths.” She sighs lightly as she takes another bite and chews it, then swallows the delicious pizza. “Once we had all moved through it though, Emmet surprised me after a modeling show by proposing onstage.” She laughs, remembering the moment dearly. “He was stuttering worse than he did in school, he was so nervous. But it was so sweet, and I just can’t say no to him, you know this.” It was Ingo’s turn to laugh now, imagining his brother red as a Tamato and stumbling over his words.

“That was also the last time most of us have seen Grimsley,” Elesa mentions offhand, which she sees Ingo zero in on.

“Did he disappear as well?” That was worrying to Ingo. He himself had a back up to his positions as Subway Boss (he had offered an internship to Hilda years before he’d disappeared) and to Head of Transportation (Emmet was basically co-Head by the time he’d disappeared), but Grimsley was an Elite Four member. That was an important position, and for one of them to suddenly disappear could cause issues.

Elesa pulls a bit of a face now that they’re on this topic, though. “I wouldn’t say disappeared,” she starts, before quickly correcting herself, “well no, that is a good way to put it.” She taps her nails against the table for a moment, thinking about how to put it. “So, Grimsley suddenly announced his retirement last year, a few months before the wedding. There were rumors that he had been embezzling money from the League, or that he had accrued a large enough gambling debt that he had to escape before they came to collect.”

Ingo nods, knowing that these would be the kind of rumors to circulate. Grimsley was an gambling addict, even if he wasn’t always putting money up on the bets. He wanted the rush of chance, to see if he would win or lose, chasing the high of repeated victory through grace of luck. But he also wasn’t the kind of man to embezzle money from his job to do so. He was impulsive, but smart with the money he had. “There is something else, isn’t there?”

Elesa nods softly, putting her slice of pizza down. “Grimsley was diagnosed with bone cancer.” They seemed to hit Ingo in the chest, considering how she could see his eyes go wide and pupils shrink, and all Elesa can do is nod softly. “I know. It wasn’t too late, it was Stage 2, but it scared him, just like the others at the League. He’s been taking medicine and doing treatments, but the whole situation made him want to leave. See the world. That whole ronin schtick that Shauntal kept assigning to him whenever she used metaphors for everyone, y’know?”

“And so he walks the earth, no home station, allowing his cab to see as many sights as possible,” Ingo says, his expression softened in what Elesa can read as a sad smile, even though it was still a frown. The twins weren’t officially a part of the Pokemon League, but often worked with them, and had been going to events with Elesa for the better part of a decade since she was a Gym Leader, so between that and Drayden being their dear uncle, they knew the Elite Four members well.

The pair sat quietly for a moment before Elesa picks her slice of pizza back up and begins eating again. Ingo follows suit, then begins back onto the topic. “So, who is in there now as the Elite Four member?” He seems like he was trying to piece it together before he speaks back up. “I remember now that Hilbert had returned some time ago from his travels, finally stopping back at his home station.”

“Yeah, he is back, but he’s not actually in the Elite Four,” Elesa says with a shrug. “Kid decided to fight against Iris for the Championship, and is the Champion again, which I’m sure you remember. Iris stepped down to be Opelucid’s Gym Leader like Drayden had originally planned, so he’s officially retired from being a League member outside of administrative work.”

Ingo chuckles as he starts on his third slice of pizza. “That will do wonders for him. He’s over 70 now, he needs to cool his engines before any structural damage happens.”

Elesa pulls a face and laughs. “You say that, but he is the one who pulled the stress test on Grimsley’s replacement, though I’m not sure you’ll like it.” That got Ingo’s attention, as he stopped thinking back to the past and looked right at her. “N kicked him in the Nosepass with a Dark-type team.”

Elesa was glad there wasn’t an explosion of noise, because she knows that Team Plasma, under both iterations Ingo was there for, had tried to rob the Subway of their Pokemon several times. Even then, the Driftveil Plasma’s were on a short list for a while until Rood began mending the bridge. Ingo opened his mouth wide, his brow furrowed, but he paused before saying anything. “He better be following Rood’s safety checks.” Good, he remembered.

“What about the rumors I was hearing? About Ghetsis returning?” Geez, he remembered.

“Ghetsis didn’t return,” Elesa says with a sigh as she grabs her last slice of pizza. “Neo Plasma returned with one of the no-names running it, not even a Sage. They didn’t get all that far, because Rosa, N, and Hilbert came together to Rock Wrecker them. That’s what let the League even think to ask N for the Elite Four. Emmet was just glad they didn’t bomb the Subwa-”

“BOMB THE WHAT?!” Ingo yells at full force, and they both hear their neighbor pound on the wall. “Oh, sorry!” he calls out to them, looking sheepish before turning back to Elesa. “They tried to bomb the Subway?!” His volume was much lower, but he still sounded pissed.

“As I said, they didn’t.” She makes sure to stress that with a finger point. “Your trains are fine, Deerling. They had put the bombs near Emmet’s Joltik nests, which apparently distracted the little things and they ate the bombs’ wirings before they were even primed. They even chased out the Grunts when they started trying to stop them.”

“Maybe he had a point about Joltiks being good for the abandoned tunnels,” Ingo says, rubbing his temples before standing. After taking a few breaths, he grabs a cloth and wraps it around the last slice of pizza. “I think after hearing about my Subway almost blowing up, that will be all the updates for now. My head is beginning to hurt, and I have to work with Lady Sneasler in the morning. I’ll save this for her to try. She keeps begging me for my food.”

“Yes, spoil yet another Pokemon with people food, Ingy,” Elesa says, sticking her tongue out before she goes and grabs the mattresses for the futon. “I should get some sleep, I have to check with Zisu what I’m doing for them.” She drops the mattresses and goes to grab the covers.

When she turns back around, she sees Ingo carrying the mattresses to his room. “I’m not going to make you sleep alone, Elesa,” he says, looking over his shoulder. “It’s cold tonight.”

They were both going to sleep so well.

4 notes · View notes