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Since returning from Hoenn, Luke had been plagued by the occasional sense of being watched. It was a fleeting sensation that left as quickly as it came, and it was accompanied by no feelings of danger, and so the young noble had brushed it off as some kind of deja vu. Recently, however, it was a more frequent, more intense feeling - rather than feeling watched, Luke felt almost as though he were being called, as though the presence would not rest until it had his attention. It was bothersome and distracting when it occurred, only serving to further scatter the boy's thoughts. When his conversation with Guy days prior finally put to rest much of Luke's worry, it became all the more difficult to dismiss the invisible gaze and silent beckons as his imagination.

That difficulty was what now found Luke wandering through the brush at the base of the mountains. Fed up by persistently fleeting distraction, he had pursued a vague trail of movement from Camphoreon's outskirts to his present location - an unyielding feeling of summons was all the proof he had that he was indeed chasing after the responsible mysterious presence. He had, in his pursuit, caught the occasional glimpse of something white, or perhaps of something yellow, but now he had nothing: not a vanishing flash of color, not a trail of quivering branches, not even a feeling of rightness in direction.

Whatever it was, it had dragged him all the way to the mountains and ditched him. Fantastic.

The other redhead wasn't nearly as quiet in his own procession through the forest - though perhaps he should have been, if he had any hopes of finding whatever it was he thought he was looking for. Luke perceived that his search was a futile one, but now he had the dilemma of needing to find his way out of the forest before he could fly anywhere with Leste, unless he wanted to feel every branch on the way up (he did not want to feel every branch on the way up).

His movements quieted as he slowed in his exploration of the woods. It was tiring to beat a path out of the brush, and it wasn't as though he needed to be anywhere, so Luke chose to rest, leaning against one of the great trees that made his navigation so difficult. Having finally stopped generating noise of his own, he was able to listen. The sound of the leaves taking in the warm, late winter wind was almost music. He perceived something like the flow of a stream - perhaps he had come close to Elemi Lake? And then there was something else: a hushed, electronic beeping. Luke's brow furrowed in confusion. What would make such a sound in such a place...?

Newly aware of his own noises, he moved more quietly in what he understood to be the direction of the faint beep, in search of its source. He pushed through a large shrub to the other side to see what he could see.

"Ah-" That was unexpected. Luke ducked back into the bushes for cover-- Wait. What the hell was he hiding for?! He didn't want to face Asch - so what? He didn't want to admit being related to him either, but he'd managed that. How much harder could it really be to stand before his brother?

Steeled by this, he pushed back out of the large shrub and stood clearly and resolutely at the top of the slope. He drew a steadying breath, and, "Hey, Asch!" ...Wait, 'hey Asch' what? 'Give back Vahy'n'? Yeah, sure, that would work fabulously, just like it had every time before then. 'What are you doing here'? He was clearly walking through the forest, idiot. Well shoot; too late to turn back now.

The sound of metal leaving its sheath incited Luke to draw his own blade. He hadn't intended to make this encounter a violent one, but if Asch had other plans then he certainly wasn't going to just stand there and take it. The sound of his own sword coming to life in his hand was a reassurance all its own, and he felt and carried himself all the more confidently for it.

"Real polite," he commented offhandedly at the insult used in his address. "I could ask the same of you. I'm not even that far from where I usual train; you're the one that's out of place here!" Unless Asch usually hung around in the forest like some kind of hermit. With all the other unbelievable stuff being verified recently, Luke couldn't really be surprised by such a thing.

Luke matched Asch when he returned his sword to its sheath, if not reluctantly. He huffed, "Looks to me like you're already on a detour. There's no path here; seems like a weird place for a walk." Not that he had a lot of room to be so skeptical, considering he didn't have much a better excuse as to why he was here. He wasn't about to admit that he had been following after a 'something' that he thought was probably watching him.

He couldn't just walk away, no matter how rudely - or even politely - he was told. He had questions that only Asch would have the answers to, questions about the unknown time before he had been called 'Luke.' He hesitated to ask, though, as if knowing the answers would sever him once and for all from the life he always thought he had lived. Even if it was untrue, it was familiar, and it was frightening to let it go. Nonetheless, they were questions that wouldn't leave him alone until he had answers for them.

"Well... wait a minute." A sigh, and before he could begin to speak, a small, drifting, yellow and white form appeared in front of him, meeting his green eyes with its own bronze. "...Wha--" The thing darted away and vanished into the forest, headed toward the mountain.

The sudden noise and motion caught Luke off guard, but when he became aware of his situation again he was already chasing after his brother. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but if the whatever-it-was - a 'Mew' apparently - was running, then it obviously didn't want to be caught.

"Hey, leave it alone!" he called ahead of him, dodging branches and underbrush as he did. That thing, the Mew, wasn't that what had been watching him...?

He frowned. Maybe if Asch weren't bothering a pokemon that didn't want to be bothered then Luke wouldn't have to tell him to stop bothering it. Then everyone would be happy - except for Asch, and he didn't seem like the kind of person who would be happy over much of anything anyway.

Asch slowed down when the ground grew steeper, and though the raising of his hand to his head raised an instinctive sense of concern in Luke, the other redhead forced those feelings from his thoughts and took the opportunity to push ahead. He wasn't even all that sure what he was chasing, but damned if he was going to let an opportunity to pass his brother go by so easily.

Though he wanted to push his pace, however, his body rebelled in much the same way as Asch's seemed to, dizziness blurring his vision and giving him pause. The odd spinning sensation made it difficult to notice the rumbling welling up from within the earth.

Earthquakes were even less common in Grande Ile, and Luke could only stare wide-eyed at the landscape before him as it groaned and shuddered. The earth rocked and threw his balance, and he braced himself on his knees. "Wh-what the hell--"

Whatever thoughts he had were drowned out by the sudden distress that erupted behind him. He turned to look, horrified as the great maw of the earth opened up and swallowed Asch. All at once he lost awareness of his own actions, perceiving only that he was moving forward, only that he was calling out, "Asch!" And then he, too, was falling.