"That's stupid." Howard's eye rolled to the heavens as he gave Shred a look. "You're stupid."

When had the academic process turned from a well-maintained chain of experimentation, theorizing, and discussion into throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck? Shred didn't even know how to spell academic, as far as Howard knew, and he wasn't even remotely close to a scientist, but his line of thinking was dangerously close to several of Rocket's sharpest minds.

Whether that was depressing or telling on Rocket's science division, Howard didn't know.

"Still, it's crazy to think that this is it. Reshiram." The Dragon of Truth being reduced to a mere white stone was something that happened in legends, but seeing it in person made the admin's eye twitch. It was a rock. He was getting paid to study a rock for once. "This is it."

His words were laden with meaning. The touchy subject of Shred's incineration sat between them like a subject neither dared to reach for. Perhaps this was the time.

"Was it worth it?" Howard blinked slowly. "Was this rock worth fighting for, Shred?"

---

Shred Zeppelin

"Why are you always trying to make me sad, man?"

How many days did you spend in that hospital bed? How many weeks were you confined to the medical bay? How many months will you be stuck eating modest soups? And how many years of surgery are ahead of you? Too many. And you've spent too much of that thinking about what you did and didn't do. You don't have any more introspection left to do.

Leave it to the archaeologist to be stuck in the past. You want to focus on the future. And to that end...

"Look, Reshiram is all about truth and shit, right?" You ask, though you don't give him a chance to spout whatever "smartier-than-thou" answer is resting on his tongue. "And Pokepedia is all a bunch of facts, right? And facts are basically just truths, so, you put that together, pump in a thousand pages per second, and... Shit, dude, I don't know! But what do we have to fuckin' lose? Not like we can make it any more of a rock than it already is."

With that half-impassioned-plea and half-bitching-out, you tap a Pokeball and release your Porygon-Z. At the same time, you pull out your phone, cracked and scuffed and held together by tape and dreams.

"You got a Rotom?"

---

howard slayte