the agony of being a fan of the “villain who also is/acts like an uncle/parent/guardian figure to the protagonist” and “funny road trip” tropes and also sinking too much emotional investment into pokemon ranger guardian signs characters means my white whale of a fanfiction is post game summers out doing some international mission r something. maybe undercover idk but it’s something where she’s mostly cut off from official support. and mewtwo finally decides to spit Ed out of whatever limbo portal rand and him got Got in back on the sky fortress and now she’s gotta deal with this bullshit, and all the hurt that came w his betrayal that she thought she successfully buried is suddenly there again like it was just yesterday gs happened (except it’s been marinating for a few years at least so now it’s uhh definitely off color a bit) and Ed’s gotta deal with his survival being entirely reliant on the girl who effectively wild card-nullified any reputation n standing he built and decades of work towards world domination in the span of a month (maybe two). and despite the fact that they both feel very deep resentment towards each other they still had a genuine friendship in Oblivia and still very clearly see aspects of themselves in the other and they’re both stuck trying to reconcile the urge to fall back into that familiar weird grandpa n weirder grandchild dynamic versus the urge to scream at each other until their voices give out.