They appeared, but they were not blessings.

Admin Fox was a specter. He lurked in the darkness cast by this world's harsh electronics lights, wiggling and squirming like a worm attempting to escape the harshness of the world it existed in by carving a route back into the dirt from which it came. The mask remained on, hiding Howard's face from any passing onlooker.

"Doug..." His voice was a rasp, like a harsh stone brush scratching against stone. Instead of clearing away dust to reveal a fossil underneath, all this prison had revealed was that Howard was mortal. Fallible.

He thought that he learned that lesson in the Island Cave. He thought he had learned it when fighting Palkia. Apparently not. Apparently the world still had another lesson to learn.

"Doug..." The bear's death had been broadcast. Everyone would know it. Few would recognize it as Howard's bear, but Grigori would. "Where...?"

He had yet to find the container it was suspended in, yet. He wandered the city with that purpose, ignoring Azelf's call to the central tower that held up this dream.

The specter stopped.

"Grigori?"

---

Grigori Sokolov Shred

How many days had it been?

How many weeks had it been?

How many months had it been?

Had it been years or decades? Surely, it couldn't be centuries? And there was no earthly way that it could stretch for millennia, could it? You hope not, but some long-forgotten memory is gnawing at the back of your brain, telling you to expect the worst. You believe it wholeheartedly.

At first, the dreams had been a safe place. Away from the prying eyes of the guards and wardens, a place where you could do as you please without the fear of beatings of executions. But the passage of time, be it seconds or aeons, is cruel. The punishments wear down your body, and the humiliation wears down your mind, and there's no need to wear down your soul, for it was already worn down a long time ago.

All you've got left are your fading hopes and your growing obsessions.

"Gotta lift it... Gotta lift it... Gotta lift it..."

This city is a fucking sham. It's all pretty lights and fancy architecture, but in the end, it's all nothing. Nothing here has any weight. You keep searching. You keep getting disappointed. You can pick it all up like it's nothing. It's not REAL. It won't HELP. It isn't what you NEED. You--

--stop. Howard and Grigori are standing there. Immediately, you step back, out of sight and into the alley you came from.

And then, you listen.

---

howard slayte Grigori Sokolov

His eyes stayed shut. A dream within a dream? Unlikely. But he kept his hands gripped into that possibility for a moment longer.

“Mr… Howard.”

Grievances could await in the world of the living and reality. Here, the truth could be momentarily ignored. Not for forever, but long enough for a single proper conversation. “You’re here.”

"Pardon me,” he yawned big and wide, “but… I would ask how you’ve been, yet I feel I know the answer all too well.”

The prison. The dream. Doug. “That was him, right? On the projection, that first day? My condolences.”

The truth also hurt, and neither of them needed the sting it provided when they had a dozen other wounds to nurse. His eyes blinked slowly, and he was looking toward the sky. As much as he wanted to, the desire to meet Howard’s own gaze had to be ignored. Even if they were friends, he was still above him in Team Rocket.

He could tell the others of his shame, if he saw it in the grunt’s eyes. “If you need a shoulder, then let it be mine.”

---

howard slayte Shred

Dead eyes gazed up at the older grunt for a few moments. There was no light there. Nothing to see, nothing to gleam, nothing to discern. Shred went unnoticed in his alleyway, a kingdom in which he could not be found. Like a worm on the ground, he hid out of sight of the giants that might crush the remains of his feeble dreams.

For him, there was the rock. For Howard, there was... what?

"It was him." An undeniable fact that would be chronicled by all sides in this conflict. Both Rocket and League would write that the Gigaton Ball was destroyed. Why wouldn't they? It was undeniable. "It was just a bear, man. The Gigaton Ball is more important. It was one of a kind."

Flesh was fallible. Soft. Malleable. It suffered the ravages of time in ways that metal did not. Doug would've died in the end, but the ball would have persisted, preserved for future generations.

That was what mattered.

"It was just a bear, Grigori. Nothing to cry over."

Silence.

"It was just a bear, man."

He sniffed and wiped his eye.

"It was..."

Tears fell as the admin looked up.

"...just Doug. T-that's all."

---

Grigori Sokolov Shred