This place had been special to Celebi long before Yuina Higashi had come along. It would be special to Celebi long after Yuina Higashi was gone. No matter the dubious state of her temporal existence, no matter what axis she walked upon, that fact would not change.

A time traveler that was meant to be would outlast one that was not. Yuina reeked of anomaly. She had no reason to be here. There was no commitment to being here. Yet she was.

⠁⠝⠕⠍⠁⠇⠽ ⠙⠑⠞⠑⠉⠞⠑⠙

Errors drew janitors, meant to clean up the source of bugs that gnawed away at reality like a mastiff with a bone. Ironic, given the janitor being summoned was one fueled by an anomalous energy source itself. The ground began to shake and tremble and quake. Trees fell over and Pokémon fled.

⠗⠕⠥⠎⠊⠝⠛

The scent of John Sullivan sealed her fate and death warrant. Amidst a haze of fear, that which shook the ground from below recognized the Jinxed, even his latent traces. It remembered how Tapu Lele had aided it, before harming it, before aiding it again. Ultimately, the emotions of its owner dictated its opinion.

The ground cracked open as acres of woodland and route infrastructure folded in on itself as a Dynamaxed Regirock emerged from the Tera Tunnels below. Seven dots the size of suns basked Route 104 in a magenta haze. On its shoulder stood a man, a microscopic speck clad in armor.

"SULLIVAN!" The voice roared. "WHERE ARE YOU? FACE ME!"

---

Yuina Higashi

There was no Jinxed here. Now that it had fully surfaced, the stench of a false guardian deity had vanished, leaving only faint whiffs of Tapu Lele's presence beyond that which marred the admin's face. Even now, a phantom situated in pink mist hid in the distance, behind Yuina's distant body.

Even now, Tapu Lele was haunting him. Even now, John Sullivan was mocking him.

"Hurt him?" The admin's voice rang out, echoing over distant clouds of Dynergy and across the torn remains of earth and plant life. Laughter left Howard's lips, and his eye narrowed with disdain from beneath a mechanical helmet that housed a mechanical skull. "No."

A brief part of him recognized this woman. Most of him didn't care.

"He hurt me first. I'm simply...seizing what's due." He had climbed Regirock by hand. He had climbed a mountain by hand. He had watched a city get leveled by his hand. And, when he had finally reached the top of Regirock to grasp the proverbial summit, Doug had watched him fall. "That's the price you pay when you put yourself on the board."

A barrier shattered. Howard did not blink.

Instead, he simply sat and watched as Regirock moved. Dynamax limited the motion of normal Pokemon, but Regirock was of a different design, built to defend the world from threats not of it. It did not balk from the traditional limitations of the phenomenon, instead scoffing at them as it forced humanity to rewrite the history books on Dynamax with technology millennia old.

So it stepped forward, and the ground shook.

Dynergy coalesced in the golem's chest, and a Max Wyrmwind blotted out the sun as it rushed forward.

---

Yuina Higashi
7 barriers (im so sorry)
Regirock/Regice/Regieleki can move under Dynamax w/o time constraints
Dynamax Cannon = Max Wyrmwind

Fire licked at stone contusions, causing small drops of molten stone to pitter-patter against the ground. Rocks rumbled upwards, attempting to repair the minute wounds that harmed its surface. Regirock had yet to fall on the battlefield, and even if it did, the golem would not stay down for long.

It was designed to rebuild itself. Stone was a common element, after all.

Thus, as the fire licked at Regirock's massive form, its pattern merely flashed as if receiving a distant signal. It combined with the Whirlpool to stall the titan's advance, but a mountain was not designed to be stopped. It could be stalled, but just as a valley could be obscured by a rockfall, a few paltry attacks could not stop a deathly advance.

A barrier could crack, though.

Then the Solar Beam struck, and the golem stopped with the resounding echo of another shattered barrier. For a moment, Yuina held the upper hand, directing her team well against one colossal threat. The moment quickly ended as the golem looked up at the shining sun.

"Multiple Pokémon?" The admin muttered as he looked down at the ants scurrying below. His cape flapped in the wind as he regarded the threats that risked overwhelming him. "That's hardly fair."

The golem's pattern flashed. A signal was sent out.

"It's not a bad strategy, though. It's a shame that it's so... dated. Hammers banging against steel in an attempt to break through. Sometimes I wonder if I'm blind, or if nobody knows how to fight Dynamax anymore."

This sun had to go, though.

A Max Rockfall swallowed the battlefield, blotting out Yuina's sun with a sandstorm that buffeted against her Pokémon. Dynamax's greatest strength was the collateral damage it could cause, and changing the weather while leveling the battlefield? Remarkable.

"Now..." His eye scanned the battlefield, trying to pick out the female historian through a sandstorm. "Where is she?"

---

Yuina Higashi
Five barriers
Stone Edge = Max Rockfall
Howard yapping

The Dynergy Barriers softened the blow. Yet they did not break it.

As Higuemi's blast lunged towards the mountain-sized Pokemon with the ferocity that his Breakneck Blitz entailed, he got remarkably close to Regirock, before being met with the golem's barriers. Dynergy gnawed away at space, turning an inch into a meter and a meter into a centimeter. An attack that should have landed instantly took moments, and an attack that took moments took seconds.

"That looks like a Blood Moon. How many Hisuian Ursaluna are here in Hoenn, right now?" It wasn't a common species, but the admin recognized a few of them. Doug had a lot of friends, after all, and the Ursaluna was a stalwart ally of Howard's through thick and thin. "Can't be more than... ten?"

His eye narrowed in on the woman standing so far below, through the sheen of Dynergy. His eye twitched when he recognized his fellow historian.

"Why'd Doug have to make this personal? Damn you, Lele. Dammit!"

Damn. N owonder Regirock had sensed Tapu Lele around here. Yuina reeked of the land spirit.

Crack. A Dynergy barrier shattered. That got the admin's attention. Snarling, Howard spoke something in an ancient language to the colossus. Words older than dirt fell over his lips in twisted pronunciations, before the golem's eyes glowed red as a second barrier shattered.

Rather than release a typical Max Knuckle, Regirock began to run forward, a building-sized limb ripping up several tons of earth as it dragged across the ground, before releasing a Max Move towards the Ursaluna.

Earth blotted out the moon, and a fist fell.

---

Yuina Higashi
SUPERPOWER = MAX KNUCKLE
Earth falls from the sky
3 barriers (z-move = 2)

There was an acute disruption in space. A ripple that echoed across magenta mist as Ryu appeared on the admin. As soon as the Arcanine made landfall on Regirock, red lines of Dynergy began to creep up the the canine's legs. Being in proximity to such toxicity was bad for the body.

Howard, meanwhile, was mostly unaffected. His flesh was already saturated with Dynergy, and he was ███████████████.

"Alright, Kano. Let's play." The admin turned, cape flapping, to face the Shadow Arcanine. Even a year later, and the admin still recognized the curator's Hisuian menagerie. "Wait, you're not Kano. Then who-"

The dog lunged. The admin met it with an open palm, attempting to use an Earth Power on the Arcanine's skull. No power thrummed from the Sygna Suit, for there was no Pokémon outside of its ball to enable the connection. The admin scrambled for his Claydol's Pokeball, before being teleported away.

Incapable of swinging now that its trainer was endangered, Regirock resorted to a Max Guard that caused the Focus Blast to fizzle. The admin's eye narrowed from behind his helmet at the woman standing before him, and at the Arcanine whose fangs were attempting to burrow into his Sygna Suit-turned-armor.

"It is you." Howard blinked once, before reaching for his belt. His Claydol appeared in a flash, before promptly Teleporting away. "Damn."

He let out a static-filled sigh.

"Tell the dog to let me go before I level the route with another attack. Teleport as much as you want, that won't save you."

His eye fell on the Celebi.

"That might, though."

---

Yuina Higashi
Lock On = Max Guard
3 barriers

The admin rolled his eye, and leaned backwards as a stool of stone manifested from an Earth Power. He flexed an arm, hissing in pain as he did so. Red light leaked from the wounds like a gas leak, creating a haze around the admin.

"Yuina Higashi, twenty-five, blood-type... something or other. Curator. What, do you think it's some big secret after the prison? Even if Legendary Pokémon holders area a dime a dozen, I can still count past twelve. Maybe that's why I get six figures and the people I employ get five."

Good on Tempest Quinn for befriending civilians while the admin hung out in his office and drank himself silly. If the admin was afraid, he didn't show it. Cowardice was expected from the admin, but a craven he was not. That was something he had overcome.

"I'm dealing with a human. That is the highest level of respect that I can offer. Fate is a sham. If I decide your future, it'll only happen because I beat you and my strength surpassed yours." The admin let out a laugh that echoed with static between a distant, shifting sandstorm. "Not that it'll happen. After all..."

Regirock looked down from the heavens, red light emerging from cracks in the contusions of the golem's surface.

"...I'm not that strong."

---

Yuina Higashi
Earth power to make a chair cannot believe I spent 10k on this shit are you fucking SHITTING M-

"Everything is a job to me, but seizing your life isn't one. It's not mine to take, unless I beat you in the field. Call it the right of conquest. Better me than another. Better a king than a god. I'm just tomorrow's slave."

The admin inspected his other arm, peering at an armored fist where he knew cracks of Dynergy formed within. He was just a puppet in this body, waiting for the moment that the genuine article could be recovered. Yet even now, he did not accept a world where he danced to the strings of some divine notion.

"Work. Passion. Fate. Destiny. Love. Hate. Food. Drink." The admin lounged on his chair and looked up at the sun, glimmering through the sand. "We spend our lives drunk on something. But I ramble."

He crossed his arms thoughtfully, eye flicking from Yuina to the Celebi that floated beside her. What he wouldn't give to align himself with that sprite, to seize its power and travel back through time to verify various historical facts with it. With it, he could discern what Regieleki's ruins once looked like.

Alas.

"If I order it, Regirock will drop a mountain on us and kill us both. Or we can sit here and wait for Regice to arrive from Route 102. Claydol should be back with it sooner rather than later. Machines always fulfill their purposes. They always give it their all."

The admin shrugged again, his bleeding arm hanging limp.

"How do you want to proceed? Which path?"

---

Yuina Higashi