Jacqueline whatever (lol) begins her Pokémon journey the same day as her two childhood friends, Cheren and Bianca. Bianca picks the Oshawott, Cheren the Snivy, Jacqueline the Tepig. Things are going fine and dandy even when Jacq ends up finding a blind Patrat and taking it in as her first route catch. They stop being fine and dandy as soon as she’s challenged by a green haired fellow and finds her Tepig collapsing after an Ember. It turns out that there was a birth defect of some sort - no breathing fire for the piggy unless you wanna kill the poor thing. Jacqueline doesn’t take it well.

She presses on after giving the go ahead by the nurses and Professor Juniper, though. No fire moves? No problem. Why, they even said there might be a chance to use Flame Punch so no harm no foul, right? She manages to pull through her first gym battle well enough, she thinks, even though she has to be mindful of her Pansage’s allergies. A rough start shouldn’t deter her, right, right.

And then she keeps getting the cripples and the deaths start rolling in and and it stops being funny. It stops being funny and she’s still trying, still taking in every poor thing she can because it’s the right thing to do and they say she has potential (if she’d have a healthy pokemon just once, Jacqueline, come on now -) and as long as the nurses give her the ok, why stop, y’know? She’s getting further and further, and sure, yeah, she didn’t train for a month straight after a string of particular deaths but she’s already over halfway through the gyms and yes she’s a good healer at the arena but she should participate too and they believed in her even though others definitely thought she did the abuse on purpose, like it was all her -

Plasma keeps rearing their ugly heads and N hasn’t relented but he’s still amicable in that rude quiet judgemental sort of way but she’s just trying to do her journey, you see, leave the heroics to Cher and Bianca and Alder because she’s [i]her[/i] and she’s [I]weak[/i] and [I]she can’t just send them out there[/i] but she supposes she still tries to help. She tries, they can’t ask more of her, they really can’t.

They do. She luckily had enough badges to go and fight the league and she’s doing it, she’s doing it, she has to because N must’ve lost it and she actually makes it with a Deino still nipping at her arms, with the revelation still sinking in that the cute gym leader she had a crush on is on the other side, because there’s no time to waste. N’s on the warpath and suddenly a dragon’s staring her down and she catches it, she does, but something feels [i]off[/i] and she’s scrapping against N and she wins through some godawful miracle - godawful because in comes that odd man, Ghetsis wasn’t it? And his Hydreigon comes out and N can’t move fast enough but her Emboar’s closer anyways. It doesn't seem to be deterred by the corpse though, just aims for her next.

She wishes that it'd go away.

Jacqueline “Dracula” White (the nickname after a childish slurring of words that had the unfortunate happenstance to stick) is a young girl attending university in New York, thankfully still in the early enough stages of class to not worry about deciding a major just yet. (Probably.) She’s had nightmares for god knows how long - they must be nightmares given the cold sweats, the tightness of her throat, even if she can’t remember what exactly to be afraid of - and she has the most unfortunate luck shaking them off. She has the most unfortunate luck as a whole, really. Focusing on her studies is a little harder because of the nightmares, admittedly, but she has Cheren to stoop down to her level to help try and drag her up. Bianca too, and oh, oh, she never expected for them to still hang around her after they graduated, after all the years of being stuck with her. She tries to appreciate it, though, and never brings up the odd pangs of regret when she passes by the Ferris Wheel, catches a glimpse of a supermodel or an actor or the mayor on tv.

She’s manages to nab a job waitressing a charity event in the city one day. It’ll be good for her to go out and work, she figures. It’s just the one night and there are worse odd jobs. It’s going swimmingly until she catches a glimpse of the most peculiar man across the room, older than her with red eyes scary in the dim light, and chills run up her spine as [i]something[/i] makes her heart quicken. There’s no reason for it. He catches her eye - they’re brown, she corrects herself, only brown - and she nearly drops to her knees. There’s no reason for it. It must be her nervous around such famous folks, it must be. The supermodel, the actor, the mayor might’ve been there too. She doesn’t notice. She can’t look [i]him[/i] in the eye but she can certainly end up distracted by him more than she honestly quite should.

The waitresses murmur next to her about uppity snobs and it doesn’t really sink in until he’s sent her back over the same drink for the fourth time and she’s pretty sure the barista is about to spit in his drink and of course she’d end up in a situation befitting her typical luck for the night. The gut feeling hasn’t vanished yet and thunder roars in her ears and she’s overthinking it she really is and then he [i]talks to her.[/i] Tells her that she’s smarter than the others. To not go far for the rest of the night. It’s almost shameful how much of a compliment she makes it out to be.

She gets a card to his room for her troubles. She debates not doing it, she does, please give her credit. He must do this every night, there’s no denying it.

He still picked her, though.

She figures she might as well stop by and say thank you if nothing else - it might take just long enough for the rain outside to lighten up. Sure. Yeah. And like hell I’m going to allude even heavier to anything that goes down there I don’t have that much nerve tonight. There’s pastebins up there for a reason.

It’s at least six months into a confusing series of chance meetings and gifts and she [i]knows[/i], Cheren, please don’t give her that look. Six plus months of pampering and someone to talk to when her friends go and have actual lives. Of feeling [i]good[/i] for once, twice, another round if she does what he wants. It’s nothing awful, she figures. If he wants her to keep him company for a bit she supposes there’s no helping bad taste.

Six months in and suddenly she realizes just who she’s been associating with. Six months to realize that she must be losing it, that there’s no reason for her to think such rude thoughts about someone so kind to her. It must be the nightmares making her more tired than she thought. There’s no proof that it isn’t more than her losing her mind - it must be the stress from classes, from the stormy weather of the summer.

There’s no proof until there is, when she gets lost and stumbles across a little world hidden between skyscrapers. She meets a her philosophy teacher there, the teacher, the champion (wait what?) and he’s just as confused as her, asks her if they’ve met before. (Didn't they? On Twist Mountain, wasn't it? But wait -)

It doesn’t take long to notice the odd little pedestal in the of the park, that one of its grooves matches the badge on his chest a little too perfectly. There’s no proof until he remembers too. They talk, they try, but there’s only so much when there’s still so much hidden.

When he leaves, he forgets again right as she remembers just who the curator of the National History Museum really is.

She can’t leave [i]him[/i] yet though. No, no, he’s got her too good for that. She should know better, and she suppose she does. He’ll be suspicious though, and if she can remember, if Alder can remember, couldn’t he?
...

Or...?

Regardless of the Ors, there’s still a lot to ask. She doesn’t have to worry about dead Pokémon in this world, isn’t that right? Everyone else seems to be doing fine but her. Successful. Perhaps a little too successful, for one.  She shouldn’t deny others something that seems to be working well for them just because there’s a chance she can’t get over the past. Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? So does her remembering too though, she supposes, and now that Lenora or Drayden remembers she figures she might as well turn two into three. Or nine. Or fourteen, counting the champion and the elites too.

N sits at a café on Narrow Street in the meantime, sips at his grasshopper and waits. (The hero of truth never had the privilege of blissful ignorance.)

---

Modus operandi: Jacqueline has to collect the badges from the gym leaders, as well as a certain sort of League pin from the Elite 4. To access the badges, she has to go to a Hidden Grotto with the proper Gym Leader, who serve as essentially (unknowing) dungeon keepers. By collecting them, she’s creating a “key” that lets her merge the Pokemon and the human worlds again.

The ghetsis problem: The gym leaders can’t remember the truth for too long or else Drayden or Clay eradicate the Ghetsis issue by simply killing him. Ghetsis must remember permanently at a certain point to create the climax of the story as well as serve as a dangerous threat in case he does remember. N and Jacqueline are unsure about what could potentially trigger his memories since only the gym leaders/e4 have physical badges and there is no significant item they can associate with Ghetsis.

For the majority of the story, only N and Jacq know the full story of the former world. N knows it from some undefined point, years before Jacqueline does. Jacqueline is months into a relationship with Ghetsis when she remembers, which cues N to actually speak with her. In their first real conversation, Jacqueline brings her empty badge case (revelation > get case > hunt down N) while N has his cube on him. They discuss the fact that while it wouldn’t be technically odd for N to still have his cube, they can start a logical string of assumptions due to Jacqueline having her badge case, without the badges that were previously there, in a world where there is absolutely no need to have the case exist or be naturally manufactured. There is the possibility that other remnants from the Pokemon world exist, but that doesn’t stop the assumption that they don’t hold as much weight as N and Jacqueline’s items due to the fact that N’s cube has a keyhole, a huge indicator when Jacqueline obtains a badge in a Hidden Grotto highlighting its significance, and the added weight that they were the two to technically be the ones to split the world in the first place.

The cube’s significance is assumed to simply be the second part of the mechanism needed to merge the worlds with Jacqueline’s apparent quest likely leading to the “key” for it (“why else would they make a show of hiding the badges? Why just you and the leader?”) and they assume it can be left at that. What they don’t realize is that N’s item, due to it being the Hero of Truth’s, has additional properties that, when touched by someone who was at the League and in close proximity when the split occurred (ex. Alder, Ghetsis, gym leaders) can restore their memories permanently. Ghetsis gets his hands unwittingly on it either after Jacq obtains the seventh or eigth badge, sends the Shadow Triad (still under his tutelage in this world) to handle N, while he summons Jacqueline under the pretense of a normal meet up.

She realizes that he knows as soon as she sees him, but by then it’s too late.