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Schedules were good, verrry good. Even outside of the Battle Subway Emmet enjoyed making a timetable to follow whenever it came to planning an outing or simply dictating the chores he had to do on the weekend.
So! When Ingo returned home- the happiest moment of his life, yup!- the first thing Emmet did was, off the top of his head, make a detailed schedule as to what their next steps should be.
First step: hug his brother for a minimum of two hours. The maximum bound was until the end of eternity.
Did he come up with the rest of the steps whilst hugging his brother mid-reunion? Perhaps. But Emmet was great at double tasking so it was all good.
Step two! Get Ingo cleaned up, preferably, before they reported his reappearance to the Nimbasa Police Department. The sooner they got that business out of the way the better.
And it wasn't that Ingo smelled horrible (he did) but it was a matter of presentation. With his current looks, it almost seemed as though Emmet dug up his grave to retrieve his body and revived it with some sort of Pokémon move. So. Make Ingo take a shower, force him to shave- facial hair did not suit his brother...- get in clean and not barely hanging on by a thread, literally, clothes. All those were a must on the agenda.
Third in line: hospital! Ingo claimed he was fine but Emmet would see for himself once a professional doctor with knowledge of modern medicine cleared him off. Because Emmet had heard things about what people hundreds of years ago used to do for healing and he would not be happy if Ingo was lying to him about his health.
Fourth step was another bout of hugging. Could never have enough hugs.
Back on track with step five was slowly telling everyone that Ingo was back. Slowly being the keyword here. Of course, their parents had been informed immediately as it would have been cruel of Emmet to keep them out of the loop. There had been plenty of tears- happy ones!- shed.
Letting their friend, Elesa, know was important as well. And it was also fortuitous that he had shoved Ingo in some new clothes because they had forgotten to put his old ones away when she was over and Emmet swore that there was murder in her eyes. If she came back a day later with a box of new clothes for Ingo to try on and a match in her hands for the rags that were formerly the uniform coat that she designed herself then Emmet was saying zip! Nada!
Never get in the way of a designer's warpath. They had learned that early on in their friendship with her. Emmet would also make sure that she never saw even a glimpse of any of the historical photos that Ingo had left behind in the past which revealed he was the number one fashion disaster in all of Hisui. She just might maim him, which would be funny, but maybe at a later date when Ingo remembered exactly why his style of dress was a crime against fashion.
Seriously. Everyone else in the pictures had dressed quite nicely. Very lovely.
According to Ingo, he had been encouraged by someone who he considered a bird of a feather to wear those… he hardly wanted to call them outfits but sure. Those. He would not tell Emmet their identity, however! Suspicious.
With their parents and Elesa out of the way that left... literally everyone else.
They had been stuck on step five for a while.
But that was because it was a delicate process to reintroduce Ingo to all the loved ones he forgot and totally not because Emmet was stalling. Why would he need to stall? Nope! One at a time telling their family was the way to go, yup.
Definitely. Well...
Their relationship with their extended family had seen better days. Not for lack of trying or for genuine distaste for their relatives, nope! But because they were primarily all professionals in the battling circuits that made it prettty hard to line up schedules just right to get everyone in the same place all at once.
Also. There may or may not have been a plethora of interfamily feuds and grudges. So many in fact that it was hard to keep track of in Emmet's opinion.
Let's see... well for starters Drayden, their uncle on his father's side, and his half-brother, the Sinnoh Pokémon Professor Rowan, had been at war with each other ever since Ingo had initially gone missing. Because apparently Drayden was annoyed that Professor Rowan was not more helpful in the search... a million miles away in a completely different region.
Professor Rowan, in turn, was annoyed that Drayden wasn't more helpful when his research assistant's daughter went missing a couple of months back.
"Unova/Sinnoh is too far away, why would they be here!"
Neither saw the irony in their answers.
Drayden's ex, Gym Leader Clay, was also petty about the man. But that was normal and longstanding behavior. It did mean that League meetings in Unova were awkward, which is why Emmet and Ingo were both glad as Facility Heads they didn't get called as often as the Elite Four or the Gym Leaders.
But! He had heard some wild arguments between the two when the Unovan side of the family got together to celebrate the winter solstice.
Who else... ah yes, Iris was currently mad at her cousin Hop for something that Emmet boiled down to as 'teenager problems.' And because she was mad at Hop that meant she was mad at Leon too for some reason. Emmet gave the argument about another week before they all got over themselves.
While Emmet would never admit it... he too had a small grudge going on at the moment with Leon's partner Raihan. Something about the fact that up until they had gotten together it was Emmet who was the reigning double battle king. Now he had competition.
Prior to the amnesia, Ingo was mad at their very, very, verrry distant cousin, the Kahuna of Ula'ula island, Nanu for some reason or other. Emmet hadn't exactly been paying attention when his twin had been pacing back and forth as he ranted about it.
Oh! And cousin Anabel. The whole family was sort of peeved about her ignoring all their calls. Wondered what that was about...
So many others with so many feuds... really it was sort of absurd how big their family was and how interconnected they all were throughout all the different regions. It was almost as though their world was so incredibly small that the largest city, Lumiose, had a population of only four hundred and forty-eight which should have been more accurately described as a rural area over a city!
Where was he going with any of this? Oh right, yes, yup. They were telling their family members that Ingo was back individually.
Next on the list was Drayden, if only because if they told Clay before him then he would blow a gasket and it was best to avoid that entirely. So currently, here they were waiting at their small home in Anville for the sound of their gruff and frankly intimidating uncle to get there.
Emmet, like a gentleman, was getting a pot of coffee ready. Ingo was... what was Ingo doing?
He turned. His brother was putting up a banner in the living room.
Emmet blinked. He read the banner.
Congrats! It's a Girl! and below that was written in, And a time traveler.
"Ingo," he spoke, frozen in his spot in the kitchen. "Why are you putting that up?"
Ingo stepped down from the stool he was using for some added height, "To get ready for the party, of course."
A car door closed from outside. Drayden did not like to travel by car. He took the subway, the same as them. Or he flew if the location permitted it.
So whose car was that?
"Ingo," Emmet said, smile twitching in exasperation for there could only be one culprit. "What did you do?"
His horrible twin didn't even try to hide his scheme as he exclaimed, "As much as I have loved meeting everyone one by one, I admit it has been taking such a dreadfully long time. So I figured one massive gathering should help with my memory plenty. This sign is so that I don't have to keep repeating myself."
Emmet looked back at the sign. He read the last half and then he went back to the first.
The meaning of it finally sunk in.
"What girl," Emmet rushed over to Ingo, grasping him by his shoulders. "Ingo, what does your sign mean by the first sentence?"
"He means me!"
"Gah!" Emmet whirled around, arms ready and poised to deliver a chop to whoever it was that snuck up on him.
Out from behind their couch popped out a young teenager, with black hair and a roguish grin. Clearly happy that she had managed to scare him.
She was wearing clothing verrry reminiscent of what Ingo wore when he first came back to the future.
"Who are you?" Emmet demanded, before whirling toward Ingo. "Who is she?" How did she get into their house? When?!
"Haven't I told you about my wonderful niece, Akari?" Ingo said, faking innocence. Akari waved at Emmet before pushing past him to slide up beside his brother. "She was the one who brought me back from Hisui, remember?"
"No?!"
"Perfect! Then that means that you are on equal footing as the rest of our family," his brother gave him a cheeky and vexatious smile.
More car doors closing. But now with adding shouting.
You know, he really should have expected this. He should have noticed the sly look in his brother's eyes before now. That was Emmet's fault for being too wrapped up in what should have been a perfect schedule!
This was a disaster. Everyone reuniting with Ingo again all at once.
This also brought about a new problem though; Drayden was supposed to reach their home. Soon.
And soon would all the rest of their extended family considering he could already hear Iris' voice loudly yell something at a distinctly more Galarian one.
Pulling aside the curtains, Emmet took the smallest of peeks- anddd Iris just tackled Hop. Great. Wonderful.
Follow the schedule, that was all he asked for! But here his rotten brother was ruining it all, getting a giddy look on his face at the swiftly impending chaos that was this unprecedented family reunion.
Screw having a heated rivalry with Raihan, Emmet was about to start feuding with Ingo instead.
Extra:
The house that they were walking closer and closer to muffled the sounds of what seemed as though a rather heated argument, or multiple, between a large group of people.
Nanu, to his credit, did not seem the slightest bit surprised. He simply sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Every year with these knuckleheads," he sighed before turning to look at her. "I have no idea why Emmet sent me an email asking to meet, but considering that the whole family is here it better be damn well important."
"And you brought me along, why?"
He shrugged. "What better way to bring you back into the fold than now, I figured."
"Are you sure about this?" her stern gaze pierced his own significantly more tired one. "You know just as well as I am that I'm not their original cousin."
"So?" he didn't seem bothered by that at all. "We got step-cousins, half-cousins, pseudo-cousins, cousins just for the sake of calling 'em cousin; what's one more?"
Without another word he slunk up to the porch and kicked open the door with his foot, not bothering to announce himself. The shouting got louder.
Anabel shook her head at him. But followed him inside. What a mess.