The world passes him by, but mankind does not.

To embrace memories is to be chained by the past. It is easier to embrace a brighter yesterday than it is to hope for a brighter tomorrow. It is easier to look backwards or forwards. The immaterial is far easier to embrace than the physical. Dreams are lovelier than reality, after all.

If that's the case though, why does this world leave them with pain and misery? Why does it leave them with memories?

Doug is dead. My bear is dead. My sweet and loving bear is dead. My precious artifact is dead. My bear and my Gigaton Ball are gone. Howard stalked the city of dreams like a specter, not willing to embrace the hope that Azelf offers to bring. That is a gift for the brave and the bold, those who will write the history books that Howard studies.

That tower is not his to visit. Yet he steps forward.

Just because he is not worthy does not mean that others are. Mankind will escape from this prison, and it will be with Howard's help, but he will not lead the charge. He will simply lay the groundwork for success. Why, then, did he refuse to visit the tower?

"Doug..." His eye was still missing in this world. "Where are you? Shirley... where are you?"

Their containers eluded him, even now. Still, he asks himself the questions. Questions have answers. Answers have truth. Truth has purpose. The admin stopped in front of a bench, at the wreck sitting there, chained by worldly desires.

"Navy?"

He didn't expect to see him here.

---

Navy

"It is what it is."

As far as Howard was concerned, it didn't matter if he was in this prison or another. When he woke, he was imprisoned by a monkey that mocked his existence. When he dreamed, he was imprisoned by the chains of Team Rocket. It didn't matter, really. Not for him. There was no light at the end of this tunnel.

He conformed to prison surprisingly well. Better than Navy likely had, at least.

"Not your fault. There was no justification on a ward getting picked. It was a coin toss." A coin toss they had lost, but at least the coin toss hadn't killed anyone. If anything, Howard had committed the greater crime. "It's not your fault."

He said it again. There was no blame to be issued. No individual to be tried. No guilty to be punished. The system dissolved blame by making the system impersonal. Dummy. Weakling. Ugly. They were just words, freely uttered from the lips of the shackled.

But Howard would not forget. It was his duty not to.

"You're not at the tower. I thought you'd be there, leading the charge. Instead, you're here." He gestured at the shattered city. "Gathering moss. Why?"

He had a suspicion, but fact trumped fiction every time.

---

Navy

"...what?"

Howard didn't know what he had suspected. It was a million different things at once. A million scenarios that could cause the flame of passion in the sheriff's heart to sputter. Maybe Navy had lost a Pokémon too. Maybe the prison had beaten him down until his knees were rubbed raw and his back was shattered and his palms bloody. Maybe as he had tried to rise, they had taken something to remind him that he belonged in the dirt.

Those would have been fine. They would've been understandable. He could empathize with that. He had been mocked and laughed at. It had broken him, forcing him to find solace in this unconscious fiction that acted as the single salvation for the dozens trapped here.

No, Navy's reason for breaking was not what Howard suspected. It was worse.

"You..." Images flashed. Memories. His tether to the world that Navy turned his back on. "You..."

A historian vowed to preserve the past and the truths that it held. To destroy was to potentially raze information from existence. Destruction was a tool, but it was not Howard's tool to use.

He could make an exception, though. He struck Navy in the jaw, the admin's fist scraping against rough and unkempt hair. If the sheriff was half the man he had been, he would've blocked it.

"YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"

But a shadow could block nothing.

---

Navy

"Liked it?"

One good eye bore down on Navy, judging him. The sheriff was used to waging his war on Dynamaxed Pokémon. He was used to looking up at monsters who could rip the world apart. There was a comfortability to standing among giants that dwarfed him like an ant. When was the last time a man looked down on Michael Navidson?

"I fuckin' loved it."

There's no shame in admitting it. Everyone indulged in the dream. Everyone supped upon the mochi-coated lies that were whispered into their ears. That icebound world that he had envisioned was a perfect one where nothing ever changed. A universe that was eternally preserved and unchanging. A multiverse where Howard's ideal was applied absolutely, where his viewpoint became truth.

He loved that world.

But he still woke.

"If I could make that world exist tomorrow, I would. If I could live in that fiction tomorrow with no repercussions, I would. But that won't change the fact that the people who put us into that dream are fucking murderers." He leaned down and peered into Navy's eyes. The admin's breath stank of mochi and shame and hatred and self-loathing. "Everything I've done to get where I am, I've done because I want to reach the world I saw in that mask."

He had dealt with so much shit to make it possible. He had dealt with snide remarks and derision and scorn and poverty and everything else under Hoenn's blinding sun to reach this precise moment in time. june sleigh had almost died at his hands and every time he looked in the mirror, he recognized himself less and less.

There would be a day where he forgot himself. People would cheer for Michael Navidson, but what about Howard Slayte? Who would remember him?

"You made me a promise. You promise to not abandon Hoenn for a fictional Galar. Was that a lie? Did I paint a target on my back and move to Dewford so you could fucking lie to me?"

---

Navy

"Then get the hell up."

A past that never happened? What could compare to that? A perfect world that existed outside the paradigm of fate could never be replicated in yesterday or today. Howard knew of a million years of history. A thousand different skills and stories were coiled up inside his mind. A tapestry of unadulterated truth. His truth.

Elisabeth Fiorelli was right. The truth was dictated by those who wrote it. If history was written by the victors, then he'd need to be the victor. Only then would his truth exist as undeniable fact. If his truth of yesterday was real, then...

"...make a future that's better than what you lost." All Navy had to do was reach out his hand and dream of dreaming. Howard studied the past so that others could build the future. He would never partake in building that paradise. That Eden was closed to him. "Reach it. Grab it. I don't care what you do, but don't break your vow."

Even in this dream, he was needed. The Pale Rider had to saddle his horse again and march for that tower. Crystal's name enraged him. That fictional person's name enraged him. Even if she was real to Navy, that reality had faded. It was gone.

"You are a liar." Spittle flied from his mouth as Howard's rage warred against his composure. "Crystal is gone. You can't make amends with her. She'll always be with you, but your daughter is gone."

Despite his wrath, the archaeologist's gaze softened.

"But you have another waiting for you." Navy's successor. "Her and this whole damn region need you. I don't care if you're tired, if you're spent. You'll give everything you have, because you must. I can't do this alone."

None of them could. Hoenn needed a hero.

"So pick up your sword. Pick it up and fight."

---

Navy