In college, Howard hadn't been able to afford eggs. His diet consisted of ramen, illegally grown Pinaps, alcohol, and cured meat. The diet had stuck like a proverbial leech for years after graduation, and he had only recently kicked the habit thanks to having money to burn.

And burn it he did, just not on food. When choosing between starvation or purchasing a statue found on the estate of a Kalosian duke, Howard picked the statue. Before that, the paintings of the dead artist. Before that, a complete Shieldon skeleton.

"It's not. I thought I'd be signing off on the shipment of poached Pokémon, then moving on with my life." Life, unfortunately, had different plans. Howard wondered who was behind this scheduling mishap. Probably fern delaney. The admin likely thought of it as a joke. "Though I'll admit..."

The admin plucked a bright green egg out of a bush and stretched his back.

"...it's nice to be out of the office." Howard's eye gazed up at the courtyard's dome, where a replica sky had recently been installed. "I miss doing stupid shit like this, if you can believe it. Reminds me of my grunt days."

Those days had sucked, but nostalgia was a great way to blind one's self.

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ameena abadi

In exchange for sacrificing free time, admins burdened responsibility. The more responsibility that was accumulated, the more that people like Howard could influence policy.

"Right? Pay's nice, and I was pretty excited when I got promoted. That quickly drained away once I realized I was inheriting the seat of a traitor and a mountain of work." Remiel Calcifet continued to cast his long shadow. It was rare for two admins to share the same callsign, but Howard had found it notoriously ironic. "Still, can't complain about the office space."

His large office had quickly become cramped when he filled it with the aforementioned skeletons, statues, and paintings. Now, it felt more like a museum than a place of bureaucracy.

"There should be about..." Howard puffed out his cheeks as he thought on it. "Two more. Let me see..."

He found them in the trash can. That was fine, he had done that for years anyway. One man's trash was another man's treasure, and one man's treasure helped keep the crippling student debt away. A depressing prospect, but an amusing one nonetheless.

"This is all of them. Most, anyway. Let's go." A few shattered shells would not undercut Rocket's bottom line. Their coffers would remain full of gold. "What kind of study?"

Dreams. The lifeblood of Rocket's capacity for violence. He immediately thought of Lulu Flint and her various tests.

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ameena abadi

'Loyal'. Right. If he ever defected his head would be put on a spike outside of the Cave of Origin as a warning for all to see. Given that Howard actually liked living, he decided that not committing treason was ideal. He had a good thing in Rocket, even if he hated most of his coworkers.

He wondered if Ameena would join that conga line of bad decisions masquerading as people.

"My experiences aren't particularly special, but signing papers for seven hours might be considered otherworldly, depending on who you ask." It was more hellish than otherworldly, but it was certainly an out of body experience. Nonetheless, he could respect Ameena's drive towards academic progress. "But who would say no to a free nap?"

Hell, all his colleagues did was take naps and slack off. He wondered if Ameena's experiment had been making the rounds.

With a murmured word to a grunt, the eggs were taken off the duo's hands and prepared for dispersal. Somehow, Howard suspected that the incident report for this kerfuffle would find its way onto his desk. Somehow, someway.

With the task done, that left the duo alone. Howard turned to her. Despite what many said, the admin was still an academic.

"Explain your theory to me, I'm interested. Do you think that every dream is its own universe? If so, what happens when we wake? This isn't my field of study, so humor me."

He really should've paid attention to Lulu's lectures.

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ameena abadi

The idea of there being a universe where the dream where Howard got devoured by a Pidove was real terrified the admin.

He would never admit that to Ameena, though. If he started asking her about all the random and unrelated dream he had, Howard suspected that this conversation would collapse in on itself like a house of cards. Still, the subject was interesting. If it could be applied, Ameena's theory could be used to grant Rocket access to assets they hadn't had before.

Yet still...

"I see. There's a lot of potential behind the power of dreams." The Island Cave had leaked Interdream Mist like an sieve, and that mist had been capable of manifesting delusions of reality. To dream was to delude, and to delude was to believe. "Yet hearing you describe this..."

He looked up for a moment.

"...makes me sad. Not due to your progress, but my own beliefs."

Dreams were beautiful because they were intangible, impossible to pin down, capture, and chronicle. They were life's great mystery, and hearing Ameena describe her process was like watching the veil be torn down. It was their job as scholars to answer questions, but what happened when there were no more questions left to ask?

He posed one that he still had.

"Do you think there's a difference between the dreams that drive people and the dreams you have while sleeping?

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ameena abadi

"Are they different?" Howard scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Aspirations versus the subconscious, I mean. The meanings are different, but the words are the same."

Why was that?

The linguistic enthusiast in him simply chalked it up to a logical shorthand in communication. There were only so many sounds the human tongue could make, and it was simply easier for the average person to tie definitions together for the sake of convenience. Yet why? What was the point?

Why tie dream to those two words?

The romantic warred with the academic. Languages mixed and merged and words had their definitions combined with particular reasons in mind. There was a method to this madness. There was a truth if Ameena sought to look for it.

"People just have certain interest in things. Motives don't have to make sense. We just have to feel that they do. That's why dreams have power, Ameena." He put his hand on his hip and scratched his chin again. He didn't intend to hijack her theory and humanize it, but dreams were the source of humanity's power. "Instead, let me ask you this..."

He gave the scientist a glance.

"Are these other universes dangerous?"

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ameena abadi

Damn. Of course it ran the risk of killing him in his sleep. At least it was better than half of the other experiments ran in this madhouse. If he was going to die, Ameena could bet her ass that Howard was going to do it while taking a nap.

Hopefully it came with a comfy blanket and pillow.

"Sure. Why the hell not?" His tone implied that the idea of getting murdered by his dreams didn't sit particularly well, but there wasn't really anything else he could do. Howard had committed to this conversation and digging his own grave. Like any good archaeologist, he couldn't just throw down the shovel.

"You better have a way to pull me out, though, unless you want to explain to the upper brass why an admin died while taking a nap."

Hell, that would've been pretty funny to see. Maybe dying was worth it in that regard.

"Do I at least get to keep my Pokémon during this study?" Howard frowned thoughtfully. "If so, are they dream versions of them, or my own Pokémon sleeping alongside me?"

The questionnaire never truly ended.

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ameena abadi