Chapter Text
If there was one thing on the island of Pasio that Volo could not decide how to feel about, it was absolutely the familiar faces. His first instinct is to sag in relief; he knows Adaman and Irida, had known the leaders for over a decade back in Hisui, he knows what makes them tick.
On the other hand, Akari and Rei know him inside and out. It's his own fault, he never expected to see those kids again, not after he spilled his soul — and scheme to destroy and rebuild the world — to them at the summit of Mount Coronet.
If he's lucky, he can skirt around those who would recognize him, who know what he tried to do, at least until he has a new plan.
Yes, here lies his hubris: Volo assumed he could just find Giratina again, and it could help him, it can set him back on track. Giratina can figure out how to create the world Volo always dreamt of.
But the chaos deity was nowhere to be found. Not in Hisui, that is. Volo asked to be taken to Giratina, and was catapulted through time and space to this strange, overpopulated island. It must be here. It just has to.
—◇—
As Volo mentally mapped out Pasio on foot, he analyzed every person and pokemon he passed by — none of the latter seem to be wild, he noted, only walking alongside their human companions.
The missing weight at his hip burns his heart to a charred dust.
It seems past customers from Hisui were not the only familiar faces in this strange land. There was also the odd doppelgänger of those he had met in his homeland. A young lady with Warden Mai’s face, Captain Cyllene but a broad man. He even spotted two kids walking side-by-side with Akari and Rei who were just carbon copies of the teenagers he once saw as pawns. Truly, this was quite a strange land.
The sun hung high in the sky, right before midday strikes and toasts Volo in his merchant uniform. Early summer nips at his sweat-coated forehead, not yet too warm to find shade, but Volo contemplates taking a siesta beneath some large tree after his venture.
Volo meanders through the scrappy ruins. From what’s still standing, he theorizes this was some temple or church, considering the attentive craftsmanship of the marble statues and stained glass. Standing in the brilliant painting of light — a prism in the middle of the piece splits the sun rays into a hundred tiny rainbows decorating Volo’s face and chest — he rubs his chin and takes in the geometric art.
A pokemon of gold and white floats in the middle of the window, its star-shaped head framed with waving sky blue ribbons. Within its tiny, cupped hands sits the crystal clear gemstone, unassuming at first, but once the sun hits it just right, the glass projects the colorful, dancing fractals that caught Volo’s attention in the first place.
The Wishing Star pokemon, he recalls seeing a page depicting it in some old Hoenn mythos book he had once read. Perhaps the library in town has more information on the legend.
In the silence of the forest clearing, the snapping of a stick felt like an explosion right behind him. Volo whips around, scanning the treeline for the fellow trespasser. Just a short distance away, a woman emerges from the wooded path leading towards the city. Without thinking, Volo hides amongst the brush, crouching behind wild shrubbery, perfect for him to observe the person without being spotted easily. The lady strolls into what’s left of the temple like she had been there a thousand times. For all Volo knew, that could be the truth.
Trailing silently behind her floats a togekiss. Volo’s heart aches, his hand instinctively reaching for his own cloud-shaped partner, but all his trembling fingers grip is his work apron. Clad in a long, black coat, the woman expertly navigates the ruins, stopping at points with engraved scripture and hand-etched busts of pokemon.
Just before he stands to evacuate and find somewhere else to spend his afternoon, the lady turns and faces his direction. She wasn’t looking at him, but it was close enough to make him flinch. Then he realized; she looked familiar. Terribly familiar.
It was like looking in a mirror.
From her silver irises, to the blond hair covering half her face. Volo has found his own doppelgänger.
A shiver racks its way up his spine.
Only the curious cooing from Togekiss was able to break him from the shock, freezing him in place. The trainer turned to her companion and said something inaudible to his ringing ears, then the duo walked further into the maze of half-standing walls.
Volo takes the chance and slinks away, keeping his eyes trained on the point where the lady slipped from his sight. Who on earth was that? How long has he been wandering this island, unaware of his long-lost clone sharing his space in the tiny region?
His boot knocks against something solid. A lone pokemon egg rests right under a large oak tree, cool in the shade. Volo glances back up to the clearing, he is certainly out of view of the stranger, but who knows how she would react to meeting someone wearing her own face. Hell, Volo is currently reeling from the experience, his blood pumping adrenaline throughout his being, his whole body shaking with tension like a bowstring.
His body acts before his mind can catch up. Before he knows it, Volo is dashing away from the ruins, a green and white egg securely held against his chest.