A colonel on a Rocket-affiliated ship made Howard want to laugh. He would've, if it didn't hurt to breathe.

"Yuina called for the best archaeologist in the region, so I answered." The admin shrugged modestly, as if he hadn't been passed out in GIDEON GRAVES 's museum on his lunch break when she had asked for his help. Besides, he'd take doing a bit of archaeological work over trading safe houses and warehouses in Mossdeep with Gwyar. "Anyone else would've done the same."

He needed a break. He needed the sun. He needed enough vodka in his system to crash for the next thirty hours. Unfortunately, he didn't drink on the job.

"It's right." Howard unfurled his map and frowned. "Probably."

He offered Yuina the map and peered out towards the small spit of land.

---

Yuina Higashi John Sullivan

Indiana John

ft. howard slayte, Yuina Higashi

He watched their banter for a bit, once again curious of what Yuina looked like when surrounded by her friend-colleagues.

It was refreshing to see— and it gave him some insight on the man he was relying on for this expedition.

Plus jokes and banter were a lot easier to follow and vibe with than his girlfriend's ramblings about ocean currents and historical drought patterns.

He raised his nose in the air, take a deep, profound breath and absorbing the salt water fragrance.

"There's people here." He said, rolling his shoulders as he hopped of the ship's prow and onto the sand below. "Let the captain know we're going out for a bit!"

The island was not massive, but it would still take a good few hours to explore every nook and cranny— whether they would need that much, or the society on the island would be out in the open, was yet to be seen.

---

TL;DR:
Mission

"That's because the region is fucked to hell." Howard chuckled and shook his head. "Language, sorry."

Hoenn's environment was a walking dumpster fire. The ocean rose and swelled and wax and waned. The land trembled and quaked, splitting open and unveiling ancient and unknown horrors. Every time Howard woke up in the morning, the region was being ruined by something else. If they saw Registeel on this island, Howard was going to drown himself.

Click. A cigarette lit in the admin's mouth as he gave it a long drag. After regarding Yuina and Doug for a moment, the archaeologist turned to the front of the ship.

"I'll let him know." As Doug jumped down onto the beach, he began walking towards the ship's cabin. Make sure your boyfriend doesn't wander off. I'll catch up with you in a sec."

Howard sauntered off, a trail of smoke following in his wake.

---

John Sullivan Yuina Higashi

Indiana John

ft. howard slayte, Yuina Higashi

He should've waited for Howard, really, but he was a little too excited to take it slow.

The man would catch up eventually, surely. In the meanwhile—

"Hrgh!" He froze midstep, shoulders bouncing in the air as if jolted as he slowly peered over his shoulder.

The love of his life stood there— laying down the law, to boot.

"You know I ain't got nothing on me, come on." He answered with a snicker, pulling open his jacket to show that he carried nothing except for his pokeballs.

He was walking backwards as he said this. Very unsubtly.

"Well, it would sure suck if they weren't here, no?" He said with a cheeky grin.

Oh, so he was just assuming there had to be people there. Neat.

"Asking people is a lot easier than trying to decipher hieroglyphs for ourselves, no?"

Little did he know, they would have to do that anyway.

---

TL;DR:
Mission

They had a guy for hieroglyphs, but he was chain smoking on a potentially deserted island, likely getting the local wildlife addicted to secondhand smoke. Not ideal, but Howard was a moderately smart cookie, so it evened out.

After a quick chat with walter delmar , the admin extinguished his cigarette, the ash blowing away in the wind as he tossed the dead nub into Walter's ashtray. The captain knew Howard well enough to indulge his smoking habits, and the two were close enough friends that they'd probably kick the bucket with lung cancer together.

Alas.

"There's a chance at people." Howard manifested, having caught up with the duo during their quick exchange. "Keep your expectations low, though. People on this island likely didn't want to be found, and even if they did, isolation changes people."

He was silent for a spell.

"Let's hit the wilderness and find a path. Shouldn't be too hard, but keep your wits about you. If we run into any threats, you two will have to fight." Shameless until the end. "I'm pretty worthless there, see."

He whistled and adjusted his hat as he started walking into the unknown.

"Come along, lovebirds! My next payday awaits!"

---

Yuina Higashi John Sullivan

Indiana John

ft. howard slayte, Yuina Higashi

There were mentions of 'draconids', a word Doug only knew from reports regarding Mt. Pyre and their earlier talk with Remiel Calcifet. One of Hoenn's ancient tribes, still active to this day and with many a strange features of their own.

Still, he doubted whoever they found here would belong to that group.

"Right behind ya!" The colonel declared after Howard, hopping to it. his girlfriend was quick to scoot up close, however, putting any briskness on his part to rest. "Somethin' wrong, good lookin'?"

He leaned against her, humming thoughtfully as she mumbled.

"_{Nah. Honestly, doubt she'll help out anyway. She's very lazy.}" He said with a snicker. "And... well, just looks like any other deserted island to me."

He would've recognized the island in his dreams the moment he laid eyes on its silhouette. The mountain-turned temple dominated its skyline.

Still, he didn't seem too concerned, grinning airily as he slid an arm around her shoulders.

"Don't worry too much, I've got a good feeling about this place."

Ah, blind faith, a famously effective alternative to facts or evidence.

"Oup, our guide's getting far." Doug said, taking longer steps. "Come on, Mr. Slayte will get on our case if we let him trouble alone!"

Though the island wasn't huge, it wasn't small either, and the foliage in the tropical jungle was thick. The massive canopies above them and thin rays of light cutting through suggested that flying over the jungle would not much help.

They had to walk through it.

There were pokemon there, naturally— not the myriad available in Hoenn's thoroughly corrupted ecosystem nowadays, though. Far as one could see, these were Hoenn's originals.

Tropius, tailows and wingulls, wrumples and cascoons and beautiflys, volbeats... everything one would expect of a jungle, if entirely hoennian.

"A preserved ecosystem... Well, it is pretty far from the mainland." Doug mused. Didn't even feature in any modern maps, either.

He turned his gaze over to Howard.

"Any signs of people to ya, Mr. Slayte?"

The answer would've been no, but at right about then, Howard would run over a nearly wholly buried, cracked block of clay. Hard to the touch despite the material, covered in moss, dirt and blending well with the grassy dirt beneath their feet.

---

TL;DR:
Mission

"Hmmmm?" Howard looked up from his greatest discovery of the day: a block of clay. He had been pondering how to tell Yuina to beat it in Draconid, but this had taken priority. "No. Maybe. Let me confirm."

A finger dragged against the block before being popped into Howard's mouth. After a quick moment of grimacing and cursing, Howard nodded to himself. Yep, that was clay. A big block of something notoriously terrible for tunneling. Rusturf had a few side tunnels that had been shorn into clay. Few remained.

They were lucky this block hadn't collapsed.

"Mr. Sullivan. Doug. Corporal, oh, whatever." He gestured down. "We're standing on something manmade. It's not concrete, so we can't chalk it up to a nest of Conkeldurr. I'd bet one of my degrees that there are, or were, people on this island."

The pride in the archaeologist's voice was admirable. For human beings to have reached so far and with such impunity, that was what their species was all about. They had settled the ends of the earth and had survived the apocolypse.

Humanity was unstoppable.

"Get Lele and your girlfriend over here. I'll take a sketch and mark our position." Howard's bag was magical. He opened it up and an obscene amount of tools came out. "Hopefully they don't try to kill us."

---

Yuina Higashi John Sullivan

Indiana John

ft. howard slayte, Yuina Higashi

"Colonel Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan was my dad." Doug corrected airily as he approached, hands on his knees as he peeked around Howard. "John's okay too."

It looked like a regular ass block to him— but cubes were not natural shapes, so... bingo bango. He was right.

Naturally.

Only one problem.

"Who?" He said at Howard's request, face blank for a moment. "Oh. Right. Uh."

Slowly, he turned around to blink slowly at Yuina, mouth set in an awkward line, before he rose back to his full height.

Breathing in deeply, he rubbed his neck awkwardly before looking around the jungle.

"Uh. Lele... Leeeeleeee..." He said into the forest. Then— "LELE!!!"

His voice thundered through the island, scaring away birds and other tinier critters.

And still no goddess.

He turned a poker face to the archaeologist, totally not embarrassed.

"I don't think she's comin'." He said.

Unfortunately, not all avatars could just herald their Gods whenever and wherever they pleased. Though perhaps Doug was just more unfortunate than his peers.

"Well, no problem." He declared after a moment, huffing and puffing his chest as he rolled his sleeves up, scarred forearms showing as he marched up to stand in front of the scientist. "I'm pretty good at diplomacy, if i do say so myself! Just let me do the talkin if anyone does come 'round."

Curious that he looked like he was fixing for a scrap...

In the meanwhile, if Howard attempted to dig out more of the clay block, he would find barely remaining, mostly eroded surface relief sculpted into the block.

He may even realize it was not just a block, but part of a likely collapsed, larger whole.

It was difficult to identify the cultural source for the relief due to how eroded it was, but both archaeologist and historian present should've been able of vaguely seeing some minor similarities between some of the remaining fine details in the clay, and older draconid artifacts.

A very faint link, but a link nonetheless.

---

TL;DR:
Mission

Only a time traveler could call exploring a place without GPS 'time traveling'. Howard thought it involved zipping around the timestream like Dr. When, but that was why he was stuck with the ice cube that had turned Dewford into a glass crater instead of a time traveling sprite.

Alas.

Human life had existed here, so it wasn't some unmarked corner of the world that had not been altered by anthropic decline, but it was so ancient that it hardly even mattered. The land and nature as a whole had seized much of humanity's mark, though echoes remained.

It was those echoes Doug chased.

"Doubtless. I have absolute faith in your diplomacy." Which was why Tapu Lele was off ruining someone's life instead of helping them. Instead of bemoaning the fickleness of the divine, Howard simply peered at the crumbling clay cube. "Draconid?"

Annoying language. Too complex for its own good, and the admin's translation skills were paltry when it came to reading the draconic text. Except...

No, not Draconid. Draco-adjacent. Draconid pieces were notoriously well preserved, and to find one so far away? This place didn't share in the awe of Sky Pillar or the murals of Granite Cave. At least, not anymore, since Granite Cave had turned to glass as well.

"Huh." He fished for a cigarette, before slipping it back into his pocket. "Odd."

---

Yuina Higashi John Sullivan