#so Ingo's both Black Kyurem and just Zekrom

[nell0-0]

The Hollow Beast and its yellow eyes

Ingo, Zekrom, doesn't remember anything from his past. Can't. Kyurem makes sure of that.

I give up on this concept for now, so a one shot it is ^^

[zeravmeta]

We are two days before the Pokemon DLC and although i will not buy it i also do enjoy the Pokemon worldbuilding/lore so my big hot theory on Terapagos is that it and the Tera Phenomenon specifically manifests dreams and turns them into reality.

We already have all the implications from the Paradox Pokemon being born from the professors dreams of an ancient/future world, but also I want to look at a bunch of the promo materials/events surrounding it: Gen 5 has been weirdly hinted at a bunch of times throughout Scarlet/Violets lifespan so far, with things like Ingo in Legends Arceus (as well as a bunch of the ancestors + the portrait of ancient Alder), the focus on the Tao Trio in the DLC trailer showing off past Legendaries & the DLC itself having us actually go to Unova, the introduction of the Treasures Of Ruin as the rivals to the Forces Of Nature genies, and the hinting of a new Pokemon mainline game coming in early 2024 (dear god Nintendo just let Gamefreak rest) supposedly being a Legends Unova game, there's been a whole bunch of Gen 5 hints scattered throughout.

The main story behind the Tao Trio is that there was once an Original Dragon who shared its power with two brothers, but when the two brothers clashed between their truth and ideals, the dragon could not decide and split itself in two, becoming Zekrom and Reshiram and leaving behind Kyurem as the empty husk that was once their body.

I think Terapagos is another fraction of this equation, specifically the dream of the Original Dragon itself to have truth and ideals (the two brothers) reconcile and coexist once more, because while truth and ideals are fundamentally incompatible, dreams can make the impossible happen. It can make a paradox exist. This would also work thematically: Zekrom and Reshiram, of course, represent the Yin and Yang, the literal black and white of their namesakes. Kyurem, however, isn't representative of the balance between the two, but actually gray, the concept of Wuji, which represents both infinity and nothingness, the absence of yin and yang and equally the limitless infinite potential born from it, the way that Kyurem is constantly freezing itself because its genetics are incredibly volatile and constantly evolving, especially when it absorbs one of its fragments. I think Terapagos is representative of Taiji, the idea of balance between Yin and Yang.

Yin and Yang originate from Wuji (infinite nothingness) and become Taiji (supreme ultimateness). So, Kyurem is the "nothing" left behind by the Original Dragon, which, when combined with Zekrom and Kyurem (Yin and Yang), would then achieve their supreme/original form, representative of Terapagos (ultimateness).

These Chinese inspirations would line up actually, since the Forces Of Nature and the Treasures Of Ruin are also references to Chinese mythology, specifically The Four Symbols and The Four Perils.

Terapagos and Kyurem also share a very weird similarity: they're both vessels for a greater power with the implication that they themselves are not truly alive (Terapagos' baby form enhanced by Terastalization + the Area 0 note and Kyurem being a literal frozen corpse, an empty shell of great potential for Zekrom/Reshiram's power).

There's also another dimension to this (literally): the fucked up crystal monsters from space and how they relate to the Pokemon world

The Original Dragon which split into Zekrom, Reshiram and Kyurem was also originally from a meteorite which came from space, so I believe that Terapagos, being part of it, was also from space (esp given its depiction in the Scarlet/Violet book as being among space and the stars).

Now you may be wondering "hey dude why is Zygarde up there, it isn't from space, what gives?" well I have an answer for that and why it's related.

Zygarde is the Pokemon planet's own natural born giant crystal guardian monster.

The same way that Necromza was once the god of Ultra Megalopolis and shared its light before being drained, Zygarde is a similar entity born on the Pokemon planet made to protect it. They're all, after all, composed of interlocking crystal parts and are essentially incomplete beings reshaping themselves when in their baser forms, with Terapagos also being composed of interlocking hexagonal parts in a similar manner as Zygarde.

Alright, so we've established a whole bunch of world building lore, but what's the big deal about it? Well, let's talk about Eternatus, The Darkest Day, and Infinity Energy next.

The Darkest Day is an event where Eternatus came to Galar from a meteorite in order to steal all of its energy. However, Zacian and Zamazenta appeared to protect Galar and were able to defeat it, sealing it away before Rose awakened it to try and bring about another Darkest Day to resolve Galar's future energy crisis. However, a key point to this is that the reason WHY Eternatus was stealing energy is because it was trying to keep itself alive after having LOST all of its energy, with its Eternamax form being closer to what Eternatus' actual form should be compared to the skeleton dragon we see.

And the Wishing Stones and Power Spots, which are what allow Pokemon to Dynamax, are incredibly similar to both the Mega Evolution stones and the Z-Crystals, which in themselves are fragments of The Ultimate Weapon and Ultra Necrozma respectively: Fragments of incredible power which are the building blocks to a space-originating Pokemon's original form. When Ultra Necrozma had its original light stolen by the ancestors of the Ultra Recon Squad, it shattered, opening Ultra Wormholes which spread the Z-Crystals (fragments of its original body) across Alola and allowing people to tap into Z-Power. Similarly, the Mega Stones were made after The Ultimate Weapon was fired and spread the life energy (Xernas/Yveltal/Zygardes powers) across Kalos, which mutated the landscape and developed Mega Stones. And in ORAS, The Devon Corporation specifically calls out this phenomenon from Kalos as the origin of Infinity Energy, the literal life energy of Pokemon.

Another key aspect to this is that this extreme level of energy, as well as Eternatus' own Pokedex entry, make note that this can even warp space-time as a consequence, which is likely why Ultra Wormholes are so common in Alola despite being a miracle occurrence: The fragments of Necrozma's body are constantly exuding this energy, which makes space-time unstable. It's also likely the reason as to why the Hoopa portals and Mirage Islands appear in ORAS, with Devon's use of Infinity Energy being the cause for these distortions to appear.

Alright, so what does any and all of this have to do with Terapagos?

Well, I think Terapagos is one of these crystal energy repository Pokemon, specifically the infinite energy source for the Original Dragon that all of these space crystal Pokemon also utilize. As well, the splitting of the Original Dragon caused the Terastal Phenomenon to occur, spreading across Paldea in the distant past as Terapagos laid dormant in the deepest recesses of Area 0. We know that Paldea is directly connected to Kalos, and us going to Unova likely means that it's close by as well, especially when Zekrom/Reshiram on their own are described to have enough power to cover the entire globe.

The Terastal Phenomenon wasn't really able to make the professor's time machine work, because while the high amounts of energy can warp spacetime, the professor misunderstood how to use it: Rather, because the professor dreamed of a world of ancient/future Pokemon, the Terastal Phenomenon made the Paradox Pokemon by channeling the energy into the professor's machine. As well, the Terastal Phenomenon works by manifesting dreams with the use of Tera Crystals, which envelop the Pokemon/Person who uses it, so a Pokemon, which is composed of Infinity Energy and controls the typing/energy of its moves, can alter their type in this way with an appropriate amount of Tera Shards of a different type.

In our hypothetical Legends Unova game, I bet that we'll see the Original Dragon, which wields so much energy that when it splits, it'll create the Tera Phenomenon. Given that the Treasures Of Ruin are not originally from Paldea (they may have been brought there by Volo, but all we know is that it was a travelling merchant), and that Paldea itself was under the control of the Paldean Empire (which is why it has that name in the modern day), it's even possible that the kingdom that Team Plasma tried to establish may have been inspired by/are the remnants of this original Paldean Kingdom, with N being the new modern day king chosen by Ghetsis, who was actually part of this ancient lineage. It's very likely that Terapagos is not originally from Paldea.

Paldea, connected to Kalos and Unova, could have even been the battleground of the two brothers when the Original Dragon split, creating the Great Crater and leaving Terapagos there, the remnants of the dream of the Original Dragon for the two brothers to reconcile.

I think a very interesting little promotion for the lead up to Part 2 of the DLC is that players, via Mystery Gift, were randomly given a Darkrai, a Pokemon meant to embody nightmares. I think that this is a little teaser hint to Terapagos, and the Terastal Phenomenon as a whole, being able to control and manifest dreams.

And that dreams coming true aren't always a good thing. They may even spell disaster if the infinite energy they possess goes out of control and envelopes the world. If Zekrom can envelop the world in an ultimate truth and Reshiram can envelop it with an ultimate ideal, both of them scorching it to ashes, then perhaps Terapagos can envelop it in an eternal dream, an eternally frozen crystal, similar to how Kyurem can cover an entire region and potentially the planet in an eternal blizzard.

So basically. This is what's going down in the grand scheme of things

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

That's exactly right, actually! Kyurem/Warden Ingo has more of the personality traits, and some scraps of memory, but remains empty and unfocused without Zekrom to bind them together. (The full Ingo is the gestalt-the fusion of Black Kyurem. But to do so would render Zekrom at least partially subsumed. Would he even agree to it when he learned the truth? And hat would Emmet/Reshiram think of this?)

[ Anonymous: Ingo takes his coffee relatively sweet. Zekrom/"Ingo" prefers Black Tea with no sweeteners-but he remembers hating that exact flavor of tea, and not caring for the drink in general. It's a very small thing that hammers home the feeling of wrongness he'd felt. ]

emmet just wants his brother to be happy, in whatever form that takes. and he can probably tell that he's, not, right now, for one reason or another. (though, would "ingo" resist telling him about the feeling/try to act out the memories despite how ill-fitting they are now? afraid of being labeled Not Ingo and being under suspicion or cast away...)

though i wonder if as reshiram, emmet also feels some sort of... wordless antagonism towards zekrom. something that was repressed/dispelled when he was part of black kyurem, but now that they're both unmasked, the elder twin's Truth won't stop nagging at him, an instinct to fight that's relatively small and easy to ignore... for now

[leggerefiore]

Since we're on the train of hybrids, what're your thoughts of Reshiram/Zekrom Submas hybrid? I know they're legendaries but, black and white dynamic? Cmon

funny you mention that because i was actually chatting with someone about that recently (more as a joke).

Basically imagine you're going through your daily commute, and you entered the subway station. There you see giant fuck-you legendary dragons from your region trying to appease someone upset their train is running late. Well, they're not necessarily giant. Just a bit bigger than normal dragon hybrids. You nod, those are the Subway Bosses Ingo and Emmet. No one even questions why the hybrid, twin dragons of your region fell into public transport management anymore.

Another day, you catch the Emmet, the Reshiram hybrid, crying his eyes out because his Joltiks are clinging to Ingo, the Zekrom hybrid. The betrayal of the precious pokemon he raised choosing his brother over him for food was truly heart-wrenching.

Oh, oh! And since their legendaries I'm in between making them unable to have children or letting them but it's so rare that they don't even both hoping. Which absolutely saddens both of them because they want families. No twin Reshiram children running about for Emmet, and no strangely quiet Zekrom child clinging to Ingo.

No one is rude to them as they are other hybrids, being basically part of the lore for their region (and running the subway verrrrry well).

Oh, and, of course, certain Kyurem hybrid that is identical to the twins doesn't go unnoticed, just unacknowledged.

[yama951]

Driftveil City, Unova Region, 2022 AC

The two stayed in Driftveil just a little bit longer, needing to rest themselves as well as getting their bearings on what to do next. That and letting Emmet mentally get away from his dragon side. Elesa had to buy some self-help books and helped Emmet stay calm during the practice. Meditation wasn’t really his strong suit, being so high energy.

They had some success. His claws had pulled back though they remained black, giving him a more black nail polish goth look.

Emmet soon groaned as he laid back on the floor of their hotel room.

“I am Emmet. This is verrrrry dull.”

“I know but we need to keep meditating and calming down your Zekrom side or we’ll have a repeat of you going ‘oh treasure ours’ at me. Which is honestly very objectifying in hindsight.”

“I apologize. Zekrom does not think like a human.”

“We are talking about some thousands of years old dragon of legend.” Elesa said as she placed some lunch on the table from the hotel’s restaurant.

“Well, we can’t stay here. Reshiram’s condition and they don’t know what happened to my brother…”

“We could go to Opelucid City and talk to Drayden. He is the dragon expert.”

Emmet couldn’t help but growl.

“He is also Kyurem in a human meat puppet.”

“Look, I know I don’t know about all this dragon nonsense but, what’s the difference? Aren’t you also connected to Zekrom?”

“I…” Emmet started before he made himself calm down. “I am Emmet. I am Emmet. I am Emmet.” he then took a deep breath in and out. “What I did in Nimbasa City. What I did to Rood. It was similar to what Kyurem did to the person that would become Drayden. The progenitor dragons have the power to devour the Will of others, partly or completely. I as Zekrom even more so, to enforce my Ideal upon others. But I did not subsume them. I kept them within me but I did not dissolve their Will into my own. Kyurem, on the other hand, had no Will, and like a starving pokemon, they devoured the one unfortunate enough to meet him. In fact, they must have been full enough to just devour the Will instead of everything else. I remember bits, or at least I pulled out some of Zekrom’s memory, of being born. The Original Dragon of Will split in half and for the first time, Zekrom and Reshiram fought against the living corpse that was Kyurem and drove them away. They were… less filled out then. Less… real, so to speak.” Emmet then looked out from the hotel window. His eyes glowed as ancient memories flashed before him. Only for the train of thought to be broken by Elesa placing her hand on his shoulder. The glow on his eyes faded.

“You are Emmet.”

“I am Emmet. Right. I am Emmet. Thank you Elesa. I am Emmet. Kyurem ate other things, trying to be real again. They performed subsumption to survive. A terrible action. To consume and dissolve the entirety of an individual, body… mind… heart… will… every aspect of their soul… leaving nothing, truly nothing, behind.”

Elesa then noticed Emmet’s grip on her hand as he shuddered, eyes quaking in fear.

“I am Emmet.” he muttered out in horror. “I nearly… I could have… Nimbasa could have…” he covered his mouth with his other hand and quickly ran to the bathroom. Elesa glanced at the bought lunch at the table as Emmet hurled out his breakfast. She went to wait by the bathroom door.

“Think of it this way Em, at least you were human enough not to… dissolve people’s will into yours.”

“Yes, I only end up having a mental hoard of people’s free will for a while. Zekrom’s dream or not, I will make both of us not to subsume anything. I will make it Zekrom’s new ideal if I have to.”

“Would Ingo have the same power?”

“I… I think so. But he’s connected to Reshiram, and… Reshiram is more about enforcing their will on the world than on people. I… recall Reshiram taking in what they learn of the world and enforcing it out… it is hard to explain.”

“It’s alright. Just, keep yourself out of Zekrom’s memories, Em. Thousands of years of memory might not be healthy for humans, even if Zekrom was asleep through most of it.”

“I am Emmet. I totally agree. But Zekrom knows things.”

“Emmet.” Elesa loudly said. “If you regrew your claws and damaged the bathroom, I will make you pay for damages.”

“Understood. I will keep myself far from Zekrom’s memories.”

Elesa then heard the sound of the sink being used before he exited the bathroom.

“So, Opelucid City and Drayden?”

“I am not sure. He is our only lead but the idea of going to anyone close to Kyurem…” Emmet then shivered as if someone stepped on his grave. “I understand that what they did was out of desperation to be whole again but Kyurem forced a fusion with Reshiram and Zekrom at different times. Not to mention that Drayden held the DNA Splicers in the first place before Neo Team Plasma stole it from him in their attack of Opelucid City, which begs the question on when and how did he have it and how long was he planning on reforming the original dragon?”

“Honestly, that is suspicious. Dragon lore expert or not…” Elesa said as her rotomphone then floated out.

“Mistress! A new hashtag is trending that you might be interested in! Hashtag Ingo Conspiracy!”

That derailed their conversation as they went to look at Chirper and Vidtube about it. Discussions online about Ingo time traveling filled the phone screen as the two soon found the video from the Sinnoh History Museum’s Vidtube channel.

“That’s… that’s Ingo’s voice.” Elesa muttered as she went to the video’s description. “‘Found and restored from a miraculously intact smartphone in an area north of Mount Coronet. The video is dated to two hundred years ago in the Hisui Era.’ H-how?”

Emmet pulled out his phone and began calling Ingo’s number, recalling every time he ended up with the voice message. It took a couple tries but someone picked up. Emmet quickly went on speaker phone.

“Uh,” a man replied. “Hello? Is this the owner of the phone? If this isn’t, the ICRS is interested in how you got this number.”

“I am Emmet. You have Ingo’s phone. I want an explanation as to how and why his phone ended up in Sinnoh two hundred years ago.”

“I-I’m sorry?” the person on the other side said as the phone picked up other people’s voices in the background.

“Wait, the ICRS?” Elesa pointed out. “That’s great, we could ask the ones here in Driftveil and they might help us find Ingo.”

“Driftveil? I’m sorry but I’m with the Temporal Division, not the Legendary Division…”

“Well it’s now both divisions’ problem since we’re sure Ingo’s connected to Reshiram and we just found out that he’s in the past!” Elesa shouted.

“Thank you Elesa, for voicing out my thoughts.” Emmet added.

“You’re welcome.” she said to Emmet before facing the phone. “So, where do we have to go to get the phone? It might help us find Ingo some more.”

“There’s probably some paperwork-”

“Paperwork, schmaperwork. It’s at Sinnoh right? Do you want Emmet fistfight a god to get his brother back?”

There was some noise as someone else picked up the phone.

“Hello, this is Cynthia, a Sinnoh champion, speaking. Who am I talking to?”

“Elesa Nabovsky, the Nimbasa City Gym Leader, and Emmet Jameni, the co-Battle Subway Master. We were on the lookout for Ingo Jameni, the other Battle Subway Master, who disappeared months ago. Recently, Emmet Jameni has gained the qualities and powers of the progenitor Zekrom and when we went to talk to the progenitor Reshiram, we found that they recently gained some sort of illness affecting their mental faculties, roughly at the same time as Ingo’s disappearance. If Ingo ended up in the past…”

There was a sigh.

“We might need to get Interpol’s help.” Cynthia muttered. “Okay, get the ICRS to help you in Driftveil City. They’ll contact other groups given how big this suddenly turned out to be. From there, you can head to Jubilife City. Oh Arceus, Lucas and Barry might call Dialga and Palkia soon and that’s gonna be a disaster…”

Noises from the other people with her spoke up at that reveal.

“Look, we’ll try to restore the rest of the phone’s data as fast as possible. That’ll be a good starting off point. We’ll continue this conversation once you’re here.” Cynthia said before she ended the call.

Elesa and Emmet then looked at the phone screen in silence.

“My brother’s in the past…” Elesa simply hugged him, trying to keep him stable.

“Don’t worry Emmet. We’ve made progress now. We just need to get help from the professionals alright. We’ll find him and save him. Let’s go eat lunch. I’m sure the ICRS people in the sanctuary would help us even more now.”

“I am Emmet. I will… I will try not to rush on this. Ingo would want me to take all the necessary safety checks after all.”

Elesa simply smiled at that before the two went to eat their lunch.

[nell0-0]

For my Black Kyurem Ingo AU: Ingo's behavior shifts subtly. He still loves trains, but things like how he takes his coffee change overnight-and enough little things change that Emmet gets worried. The thing is, Ingo doesn't know why this happened: he's just as freaked out as Emmet. (Ingo just remembers encountering a rift and coming to about a minute later with a panicking Chandelure. He's felt weird ever since-and yet, paradoxically, he's never felt freer.)

Z!Ingo (Zekrom) being unaware of the change at first is a nice twist. It makes sense that he feels freer since there's no Kyurem anymore and AUGH. Not sure Z!Ingo would be able to go back to the previous state after this, or maybe yeah? Up to you anon, both options would be interesting to see because there's still K!Ingo's side of things in which he doesn't remember anything

Not sure if the lack of memories would be a deterrent to become one once again? Or would this end up as an usual Zekrom Kyurem situation in which K!Ingo tries to fuse again with Z!Ingo to fill the emptiness? Not only that, but there's the twist of both being technically Emmet's twin brother. Definitely could be explored if you decided to add it.

A discarded plot I had for the Black Kyurem Ingo au was that the reason so many people in the Pearl Clan were immune to the cold was because of Kyurem's influence slowly bleeding over to them. Feel free to use that if you want. It can be something Kyurem does to be nice or supposed to do the complete opposite, or maybe K!Ingo is not even aware at all.

The coffee tidbit was particularly funny to me, couldn't help the mental image

[nell0-0]

I've actually been toing with a "Black Kyurem Ingo" fic-except that Ingo has always been Black Kyurem, and the Rift to Hisui tore him into his component parts. Zekrom is left behind in the present. (The catch is that, while Zekrom has the memories, his personality is different from Ingo's-and Kyurem's interference in the reincarnation process scrambled all three dragons' memories. So Zekrom feels a keen disconnect with his memories.) Meanwhile, Warden Ingo struggles with the horrific emptiness.

That sounds like a cool premise, I would totally read that if you end up posting something about it on AO3. The struggle with the emptiness both in memory and spirit is such a fascinating concept to explore when mixed with Kyurem. The general public that don't know the twins personally wouldn't notice a thing probably, but those who do... Ingo must seem so off.

Does this mean Emmet would be White Kyurem? (I think the Kyurem + Reshiram fusion was named like that but not 100% sure). Because no matter if he is White Kyurem or just Reshiram, oh boy, there's a lot of potential there to explore in fic form.

Emmet has his brother, but he's not complete and not the same Ingo as Emmet is used to. And yet, he is Ingo, but where did the rest of him go?

Anon, if you post this, or want to elaborate more on this, I'm curious 👀