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POSTED ON Aug 29, 2024 18:51:35 GMT

The sun shines through grasping branches that reach for the heavens, an orchard of Pinaps tended to by bryan delarosa before his disappearance at Sootopolis. The loss of a Rocket Beast is a blow. The loss of Bryan Delarosa even more so. Yet until they can find his body, the admin maintained hope.

It was the only thing reserved for the deluded.

"An interesting flower. I've never seen anything like it." Howard frowned at the Floette as he lounged on a lawn chair, looking up at it. "And it has an infinite reserve of Infinity Energy?"

He puffed up his cheeks, slowly letting air out as he exhaled. The childish motion looked strange on the porcelain body of a doll.

"I'm not familiar with the concept, Alba. I'll be honest."

Alba Evovae

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POSTED ON Sept 1, 2024 15:56:11 GMT

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Last holiday season, Admin jayden cross had gifted Alba a bottle of Kantonian wine, which he’d kept unopened for the right occasion. Sitting here in an alien desert after having survived the turpitude of war seemed like a good occasion to break it out.[break][break]

As it turned out, the Cursed had good taste in vintage.[break][break]

“It’s a rechargeable battery, essentially. It can’t hold an infinite amount of Infinity Energy, but even if you drain it completely, it’ll just regenerate in time.” In another life, maybe Alba would have become a full-fledged professor, instead of the kind of doctor that performed shady experiments in an even shadier submarine. In this life, that possibility was relegated to explaining an immortal fairy, treated as little more than a power source, to a man with his fingers in all manner of wretched business.[break][break]

In the last few weeks, it had probably seen more sunlight than it had in the last few years. It danced around the orchard, conjuring a Grassy Terrain to bolster its attempts to draw out the potential of these plants.

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• Bingo: Professor[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

[break][break]howard slayte

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Eternal Floette ♀ | Flower Veil | Aromatherapy, Grassy Terrain, Light of Ruin, Misty Terrain, Petal Dance, Wish

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POSTED ON Sept 1, 2024 18:26:12 GMT

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Hoenn would have benefitted from an Alba Evovae that was kind and wise and sought to benefit the region through his academic pursuits. It was a shame that Rocket had gotten to him first, and were the only group that could offer him the capacity to speedrun the academic process.

Morality was a constraint that academia lauded but could rarely afford. The admin could not chide Alba for it when he was in Rocket for student debt.

Frustration and poverty made for odd bedfellows.

"Strange. That seems impossible." The admin chewed his lip as he swirled his glass thoughtfully. "You can't get something from nothing. It has to be pulling it from somewhere, right? Maybe not its body, but somewhere."

Truth be told, the admin didn't know how Infinity Energy worked beyond the most basic of applications. Dynergy was his forte. Know thy enemy.

"What will you do with it?"

Alba Evovae
BINGO: HOENN

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POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 9:44:45 GMT

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Alba was not typically one to speak about his history; it was all a region away, and beyond landing him a cover job at Mossdeep’s observatory, the shadow it cast over him was a distant thing. Suffice it to say, it was neither a wise nor kind man that had chosen to leave Unova behind for the constant chaos of Hoenn and Team Rocket. He had abandoned that path when it was clear the world did not want to make a hero of him.[break][break]

“It does seem impossible, right? Maybe there’s some trick to it we haven’t discovered yet. Then again, we did have a Pokémon that governed eternal life, to my understanding. Rule-breaking anomalies might be our regional export.” Alba was not an expert on Xerneas, and bryan delarosa was not a Beast he had crossed orbits with. How it did whatever it did was mostly rumour and guesswork to the astronomer.[break][break]

“I suppose that’s part of what I’ll be up to; figuring out what makes it tick, seeing where its limits lie. It’ll still need to serve its role as a battery, of course, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of energy left for myself.” Infinite energy represented infinite potential. That tiny fairy was his best hope for plucking a dream from the void.

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• Bingo: Anomaly[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

[break][break]howard slayte

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POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 18:59:45 GMT

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Hoenn's exports were anomalies, misery, and death. That, the admin could not deny.

"Fair enough." He chuckled to the professor. "Fair enough."

It certainly was an interesting fairy, to be sure. An infinite supply of energy was a dangerous thing, but if Team Rocket could alter the course of the war with it, Howard suspected that they would've done so long ago, instead of scurrying for scraps whenever the opportunity presented itself.

An infinite well... was there anything that they could sway to their side with such a treat?

"If anything, it seems to like the farm. You both can stay here for as long as you like." It might be the safest place in Petalburg, admittedly. Kantoan forces are not allowed here, lest they raze and loot. "Though if it can help grow more crops, I'd appreciate if you would put it to work. We could use the boost."

He swirled his glass thoughtfully.

"What will you use the excess energy for?"

Alba Evovae
BINGO: Professor

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POSTED ON Sept 10, 2024 0:15:29 GMT

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Alba was not typically one to speak about his history; it was all a world away, and beyond an unopened letter stored carefully away, it simply did not exist anymore. But despite that, it was not an unchanged man who had awoken on the other side, even if the world had only seen it as a single blink of the eye.[break][break]

For a while, he says nothing. There is a dull ache where the flesh of his right foot used to be, where a lump of cold steel is strapped to the stump. That empty space, the abrupt caesura in his ‘self’, feels more like home than the rest of his body.[break][break]

He stares at his shoe, and the missing part inside, until he finally lets himself speak, an old vintage loosening his tongue just enough.[break][break]

“Have you ever lost something, Howard? Something irreplaceable, something one of a kind? Something so precious that when it slips from your fingers, it haunts you as a dream, just barely out of reach?”

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• Bingo: Space[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

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POSTED ON Sept 10, 2024 0:47:52 GMT

Without a word, the admin unclasped his eyepatch and stared at the scientist with one functioning pupil. His other eye had been replaced with a Key Stone, and had turned a faint magenta due to John Sullivan's influence. Faint scales covered the connecting flesh.

"Yes." The word was heavy with meaning, and cursed with knowledge. There was a void there, as if emptying one's soul through suffering would somehow allow knowledge to fill what remained. "Though I suppose you'd call it 'two of a kind', hm?"

The eyepatch was reclasped, and the admin tipped his hat down slightly to avoid the flicker of Tapu Lele's scales in this scathing desert heat.

"I've come to the conclusion that human beings break far too easily." Shirley appeared and put her head on the admin's lap, an eyepatch covering her right eye. "Pokémon, too."

Alba Evovae

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POSTED ON Sept 10, 2024 23:25:55 GMT

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“Mm.” An eye. The non-response Alba gives is a disappointed one, perhaps even dismissive, the sound of someone expecting a better answer than that.[break][break]

The idea that a single eye can be compared to the lives of his children borders on the insulting. But dwelling on that will get him nowhere — and the man who has disappointed him is still his superior.[break][break]

“Everything breaks. The pages of a book always curl and yellow in the end, no matter how well you take care of it. But I…”[break][break]

Howard and Shirley bond over their mutual loss. It is a raw, tender thing: genuine affection between human and Pokémon.[break][break]

Alba does not spare a glance towards the Eternal Floette. It has not been genuinely loved for a long time, and its new warden is no different. Doctor Evovae simply indulges in the false freedom elijah gardner scorns, allowing it to dance across flower fields to oil the various gears Team Rocket sets into motion.[break][break]

“...I have been given a rare exception to that rule. And with that, I will save what has been taken from me.” Mossdeep had given him nothing to work with, but there would be a way, somewhere; something the League had overlooked. Something the League could not do.[break][break]

“Tell me, Howard. Where do you think dreams go, when they end?” Alba’s gaze bores into Howard’s remaining one, ready and waiting to devour his thoughts.

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• Bingo: Meme[break]
• “how is this meme bingo” memes are just the Interdream Zone, actually[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

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POSTED ON Sept 10, 2024 23:38:02 GMT

"They don't, because people's dreams never end."

The answer contradicts the question. It will likely frustrate Alba in the same way that the phantom pain of missing a limb was ceaselessly annoying. There was no way to solve the quandary. It was an unending labyrinth did not end, despite the systemic desire to consistently turn left.

Yet Alba desired a feast. Howard provided him with one.

"We are all driven by something, even if we don't know it yet. There is something that every single person desires that they cannot easily attain, and it's why we exist in this world. If you can easily reach it and take it, then it wasn't your dream at all."

Shirley growled, and the admin scratched her head thoughtfully. The rim of his hat covered a large swath of his face.

"It was... simply a 'want'." The admin broke eye contact to observe the Floette. "And what are human beings if not wanting creatures?"

Alba Evovae

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POSTED ON Sept 25, 2024 1:29:36 GMT

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Alba holds the gaze for a while, silver against ruby, an impassive set of scales weighing the balance of the Admin’s words, before he breaks out into a grin.[break][break]

“Good!” One mortal man’s word didn’t mean a thing in the grand scheme of things. Even still, it was nice to hear that Howard’s opinions aligned with— no, suited Alba’s own agenda.[break][break]

“I suppose it wasn’t my dream. But the dreamer has abandoned it, so I’m going to make it mine. I have to make sure it stays alive.” Dreams didn’t end, but that was different to dreams never dying. Or maybe they just continued to rot forever, eternally approaching zero but never managing to touch it.[break][break]

Maybe that was the fate that awaited the Eternal Floette, far, far into the future.[break][break]

“Humans are complicated things, with all kinds of desires. Dreams of all kinds litter the Interdream Mist. It was the sludge and detritus, the nightmares rejected by the world, that turned my Musharna into the Shadow it is today.” Something clouds Alba’s face, something bitter, then he finally looks back at the Eternal Floette to see it still happily darting around.[break][break]

“Well, I guess there’s always something that has to fill that space. Not everyone can be the golden dreams people like to look towards.”

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• Bingo: Ruby[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

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POSTED ON Sept 25, 2024 8:37:52 GMT

"They don't need to be. If everyone has a beautiful, pure dream, than none of them are pure. The mediocre and unappealing make the truly special ones worth chasing." Howard swirled his wine glass absentmindedly, watching his reflection distort in the liquid. "Still, every single dream is worth something. Even an ugly dream is worth defending."

As he uttered the words, he thought of Shred and his final stand against both Palkia and Kyurem. It had been an ugly, selfish dream, but it had been his. That had been a dream worth protecting, because it had been Shred's dream.

Now? Hell if he knew.

"Tell me, Alba." He fully drained the glass and set it aside, regarding the scientist. "Who owned that dream, before you took it for yourself?"

If the dream had changed at some point, did it truly belong to its original owner anymore? Seizing someone else's property for his own gain was a very Team Rocket thing of Alba to do. It amused the admin, and he found himself chuckling and shaking his head.

Alba Evovae

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An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

POSTED ON Oct 1, 2024 17:13:49 GMT

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“Was it a speech like that that earned you your promotion?” All that talk about defending all kinds of dreams, no matter what… If they were on a battlefield, maybe the soldiers sent to die at Howard’s word would have given him a standing ovation.[break][break]

“I guess that’s why I’m here now, in Team Rocket. Not everyone shares your opinion. Most people don’t, probably. So… Here I am. In a place better suited for me.” And when he returns to the place he truly belongs, he will step through that door with a thank you, and goodnight.[break][break]

“That dream… came from the shield of one of the League’s hero mutts. But the only time it appeared in the dream was to end it. The High King managed to escape, but it was only there for the beginning, before it died.” The aged taste of the wine is littered with notes he cannot fully articulate.[break][break]

“And in the middle… It was tainted by the people who were dragged into its orbit. I don’t know if we ‘changed’ it, but we did have an impact, at the very least.”

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

[break][break]howard slayte

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POSTED ON Oct 1, 2024 18:56:25 GMT

The shield. The admin's eye twitched. How many times had he wondered what the fate of Zaria's brother had been? He had not been present in Galar's pristine garden, yet the shield's absence had been noted. In a twisted sense, Howard was furious Cyan and Magenta had been reunited in this world.

It made Howard far more vulnerable than he cared to be, so he simply didn't acknowledge it.

"Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. Does it really matter? Each time we interact with another, our dream changes slightly. Minute corrections that keep us on track for our ultimate goal. Even as I talk your ear off, am I not influencing your dream now?"

As he spoke, he scratched his Aerodactyl's head thoughtfully, remembering a dream and a vision that did not seem fully real. Every time he looked upon Shirley, his eye hurt.

That didn't mean he'd stop looking.

"My promotion was based on practicality. I did well at the Island Cave, and I was promoted. It sucks, though. I enjoyed the freedom that being a grunt entailed. Freedom is traded for responsibility, and responsibility begets a pay raise."

Rows of trees rustled in the hot desert wind.

"That's life."

Alba Evovae

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An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

POSTED ON Oct 8, 2024 18:22:36 GMT

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“It matters. It has to be changed. That dream was made for the heroes of the story, and nobody else. Why else would only the High King — and us, I suppose — manage to escape?” The rest were simply stock characters, figures meant to fill in a background, and nothing more. Even Alba could not list out the quirks and individualities of those that had been under his care over those years. They had been, and now they weren’t, and that distinction was what mattered for his own dream of a dream.[break][break]

“Is that so? How terrible. Freedom does feel nice. I’m sure even you could find it if you looked hard enough, though.” He himself needed all the freedom he could be afforded. Getting too caught up in things was never helpful when you held the stars as your ideal. Besides, for all the liberation Rocket gave, it had its own restrictions that were foisted onto its members.[break][break]

For the glory of Rocket. The scientist drains the last of his wine, letting the heat of the Ultra Desert beat down on him.

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NOTES

• Mission: Into The Wild[break]
• ALBA DELETE YOUR SALACS

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The future will tempt you, the present will indulge you, but the past will shackle you.

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