#nimbasa trio origin story START

[astrocassette]

fuck it i'm reposting caleb's ref sheet to add a little bio + full story summary

caleb elloway (they/he)

a casual trainer who works at a quilt shop in nimbasa

a pretty lighthearted + easygoing guy, on the quiet side + shy, but is also goofy + enjoys making people laugh. they can be awkward at times, but try to make up for it with politeness + sincerity

❤️: hard rock + metal, quilting + sewing, horror fiction, rpgs, casual battling, retro aesthetics

❌: driving, cooking, large bodies of water, waking up early, bitter foods, the competitive circuit

more character notes can be found on their toyhouse profile

and now, story summary under the cut

so!

as it says, caleb's originally from (an) earth like this irl one! they fell asleep on the metro on their way back home from visiting friends, and woke up on the nimbasa subway. the earth they're from doesn't have pokemon, even as a franchise, so they've got NO idea wtf is going on

ingo + emmet find them incredibly confused + speaking no known language with a phone map that doesn't match the world, rightly figure maybe dimensional shenanigans are about, and take them to the interpol. while a case is opened up for caleb, the nimbasa trio adopts them as a sort of interdimensional exchange student, showing them around, and then helping them get their footing in the pokemon world when the interpol isn't able to find a way to get them back home.

caleb has to grapple with the language barrier (learning galarian from scratch) and culture shock for a while, plus mounting guilt as they slowly realize they prefer the pokemon world to their earth, but have no way to let their loved ones know what happened and that they're okay (they eventually come to terms with it, but it takes a couple years)

in between language lessons, they hang out a lot with new friends (the nimbasa trio + a whole host of ocs i am slowly drawing), and pretty much everyone encourages them to give training a try. so they do! they do their own little gym run, and earn a few badges before tapping out and heading back to nimbasa, content with being a mid-strength trainer.

as they get further settled in, they pick quilting back up, and after showing a few projects to the local quilt shop, get hired there! they make friends with many old ladies + the shop sewaddle and gain a reputation amongst the regulars for having a good color sense.

there's a good stretch of just peaceful life for them, happily working, getting to know ingo + emmet + elesa + various ocs better as their language skills improve, and traveling around the region in their spare time. they even nearly start building a romance with ingo, but this gets interrupted when the interpol find another person from earth in hoenn, and caleb ventures abroad to meet them + see the region! they extend the trip to see a little bit of johto, but that gets cut short when ingo goes missing.

it takes over a year, but caleb + emmet manage to get to hisui with the help of a celebi, and are able to find ingo! but, arceus is miffed at their meddling and removes celebi from the premises, stranding the three of them in the past for a couple years. during this time, the events of legends arceus happen, with caleb + emmet joining ingo as npcs. ingo does what he does in canon, emmet helps laventon with the pokedex + manages the training grounds with ingo, and caleb apprentices at the clothier's in jubilife!

i'm still working out how the three of them factor into the canon storyline of pla and how big a role i want them to play, but they for sure join the wider party of people supporting akari. and, post-rift-fixing, caleb does get together with ingo :]

that's everything i've written out so far (my document is so fucking big. this is as concise a post as i could make it lmao), but i'm considering bringing in elesa with jirachi for the post-game of pla, and i do intend to get everyone back to the future

if you read all this, god damn, i appreciate it!! if you found this interesting and want more, here's the tag i've got going for this au!

[redolentgrove]

Cascade observed Hope's arrival with her own respectful curiosity, making note of the Blaziken's anatomy and her statements. She wondered if maybe Hope had been from Kanto, given that the Dragonair line ssentially made up the only dragon Pokemon in that region. But she didn't make the assumption, instead nodding at the fire-type's statement.

"Yeah, I can't disagree with you there," she trilled, stretching her arms out and shifting her serpentine coils with a yawn. "Excuse me. Anyway… yeah, I'm basically living amongst centuries of history and creation, and it's hard to feel anything short of pure admiration for what's been built here in White Forest. I'm glad I get to be part of it."

Cascade regarded the arriving Meowscarada with a warm smile, her eyes perking slightly at the mention of Loki. Ah, I know who this is, she thought, the back half of her tail craning upward, coils shifting while she continued to get comfortable.

"You know about Loki? the Dragonair asked, offering her right hand for the feline to shake. "Then that must mean you're Charade. I'm telling you, there are days that girl won't stop talking about how pretty you are and how much she looks forward to seeing you again." She let out a little chuckle. "If I didn't know better, I'd say she's crushing on you harder than a Snorlax using a Body Slam, eh?"

Cascade shook her head, her face straightening back from the playfulness of her previous statement toward Charade. "Anyway… uh… yeah, you know, it's funny that both of you ask about what brought me here. I didn't exactly mean to make White Forest my home. It was a case of 'right region, wrong place,' so to speak."

"I actually wanted to live by Dragonspiral Tower and Icirrus City. As a dragon Pokemon, I was hoping to study it and learn more about the Tao trio of Unova, as well as Kyurem's origin formes. I got directions at a forest just outside of Castelia City, telling me to go west from Nimbasa City. Funnily enough, that place called itself Redolent Forest, just like this grove is named. Anyway… I got turned around in Nimbasa and somehow ended up taking the east exit by accident, and instead of ending up in Driftveil after the bridge, I arrived here. I asked some of the locals how much further I needed to go before I reached Driftveil, and they laughed at me saying I was clear on the other side of the region from that."

"I got a little embarrassed from that, but as I kept going around the forest, I kept liking what was here. The lake water was clear and beautiful, there were trees as far as I could see, and just when I didn't think I needed any more convincing… boom, here I was, in this giant grove of flowers." She gently plucked a blue iris from one of the outer beds near the lakeside, sure to be careful with its petals. "And then I met Loki."

"She and I immediately hit it off well enough, so I figured that I would go to Dragonspiral Tower and try to remember this place once I was finished. Then I started doubting my sense of direction because, well, if I couldn't remember east from west, how was I supposed to make it back here from Dragonspiral, let alone make it to that tower in the first place? Not to mention, I was getting kind of tired and frustrated from the journey up to that point, and I asked Loki if she had a place I could stay for a night and get my bearings."

"She did me one better and noted that one of the caves by the lakeside was vacant, and said she wanted me to stay for as long as I needed. I thanked her, unpacked some of my supplies, and got comfortable in there before I knew it. Then… I don't know. It started feeling right in there. Loki checked on me the next morning and offered me some tea and breakfast. She had made it all herself, and I couldn't just say no. It was wonderful… she was one of those neighbours you dream about having but never meet."

She looked over toward Hope, with a shrug of her shoulders. "Then before you know it, I'm sitting there, talking with Loki, listening to stories about her flowers, the local dogwood tree, and without any intentions, now I'm invested in this grove of White Forest. I start helping with some of the flower beds, making friends in the lake, feeling really cosy in that cave she offered… and then weeks start passing. Stupidly, I find myself asking Loki if I can make that cave my home, and shockingly, she said yes. And I've called this place home ever since."

She looked at Charade with a smile. "So, yeah, Loki's a neighbour, a friend… and unfortunately for her, she was also interested in me romantically. I felt bad letting her down and telling her that I'm straight. I was scared she might get mad and not let me stay here anymore, but she was incredibly accepting of that, and I could almost sense some sort of relief in her face. I haven't dared ask her why she seemed glad about it. Maybe she had someone else in mind; I don't know."

"It doesn't matter; she's become quite close with me regardless. I guess in a sense, we're like sisters. I help her, she helps me, and we tease each other at times and share secrets and history. She always seemed so trusting of me… it feels like the least I can do, is to trust her with some of my own more difficult-to-share things. I really admire her; she's the living embodiment of kindness and caring. It's an absolute enigma as to why and how she's single… I'm almost sensing some self-sabotage on that front. Like there's some reason she thinks she doesn't deserve to stay happy, despite how much she does to earn the kindness she's been shown."

Cascade blushed once she realised what she'd said at that point. "…but you didn't hear it from me." She looked at Charade's eyes. "I wonder…"

You get the sense that her staring at the Meowscarada's purple eyes has given her an idea about Loki. Perhaps by combining Loki's love of the colour purple and the Dragonair's subtle statements…

((Ask hints have been updated!))

(( @ask-the-royal-absol / @ask-meowscarada ))

[truthaspired]

Tao Trio Split Aftermath Headcanons

Blaming @luckynatured‘s post here for giving me some random inspiration here.

The split happened in the Unova’s sky, likely over Entree Forest or current day Nimbasa; a spectacular and tragic flash of light formed to fill up the entire region’s sky, as the original dragon tore themselves essentially in half.

Reversal Mountain was a dormant volcano.... Until the Light Stone crash landed in there from the split.  The extreme heat of Reshiram awakening in there right afterwards forced the volcano to become active again.  Ever since then, the volcano has gone through many cycles of eruptions and dormancy, though scientists have not been able to determine a pattern as of yet.

Meanwhile, Chargestone cave was not charged until the awakening of Zekrom from the Dark Stone, which crash landed in the caves around there. The caves were and still are rich with various metals and minerals, a perfect storm of long-sustained electromagnetic activity. Despite this, scientists have had a challenge determining why the cave has been electrically active for so long.

Of course, the discarded husk of the original dragon, Kyurem, crash landed into the earth where the Giant Chasm is now, although only the people of Lacunosa Town remember that this event happened.  Kyurem’s Cold immediately started taking effect, to the point that the surrounding area is always much colder than the rest of the region.

The main battleground of the war between the princes and their respective legendary dragons was the stretch of desert that encompasses Route 4 and the Desert Resort. The carnage was absolute and devastating, with Relic Castle being and surrounding city being ruined, and many of the beautiful life once there burned to the ground and turned to dust. 

Surprisingly, both people and pokemon have managed to survive the carnage and adapt, and the native people who claim this area as their home continue to pass down the story of this dark war via oral tradition.

An unknown time after the war, both dragons fell into slumber and returned to their Light/Dark Stone forms. These days, the Light Stone and Dark Stone have been rumored to have various resting plces, including but not limited to Dragonspiral Tower and Relic Castle.