THE CRAFTSMAN IS THE LAST RESORT.

"The text spoke of a singular craftsman, and there were murals of a three fingered hand in those ruins, raising up statues into giants. Statues like that little statue you and priam conrad pulled from these ruins." For four years, that statue had sat dormant and had done nothing, before finally rousing itself in Petalburg's eleventh hour. "And that hand..."

That hand. It was ruining everything. It had ruined everything. The Desert Ruins. The Island Cave. The Ancient Tomb. How long had it scraped against the earth to form cities in its wake?

"Every since we pulled Regice from those ruins, I've thought that we built those statues. I thought that we breathed life into those golems using parts of Eternatus that we pried off. Cillian, you..."

He punched the statue, causing magenta blood to fall from his knuckles and drip against the floor.

"FUCK!" He spat.

"I'm proud to be Hoennian, Cillian! I'm not a member of royalty, I'm not a Draconid or a rich businessman! I'm just me. That's all I've ever been. Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza are strong without human interference. We could fight them on equal footing with our own engines of war."

When he had fought freya morningstar, it wasn't Regice that had been deficient. It had been Howard. Machinery was not secondary to blood. Ice and rock were not inferior to scale and claw. That was why declan walsh had given him Regice, and it had not been seized by the admin's hand.

Humanity's legacy had been given. Howard had not earned it.

"If something else beat Eternatus, then humanity did not triumph over the divine. Cillian..." Howard looked at him, his breath stinking of liquor and tobacco and painkillers and shame. "...what if my belief is a lie?"

---

Cillian Quinn

Lulu Flint was as subtle as a brick. Specifically one flung towards an innocent Rocket Admin's cranium.

"Every time we talk about Tera Crystals, Head Scientist, I feel validated. You're telling me that the crystal's kneejerk reaction is to make our life a living hell? Even more of a reason to place faith in the three still awake." Howard read the metalworking book quickly as Lulu picked up a book. "No, you'll want the one on moon cycles. Specifically new moons and full mo-"

When Howard looked up, a book on the history of Galarian gangs was rushing towards his face.

The dream quickly collapsed into nothingness, and the entire spaceship was met with an absurdly loud shout.

"SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!"

---

Lulu Flint
HOWARD DONK

Her eyes distracted him for a moment, just long enough to abate the mounting pressure of this dream. When had they changed? Why hadn't he noticed before? Then again, his memory in regards to people was always secondary to his knowledge of humanity.

He didn't believe in love at first sight. It was illogical. First impressions weren't that powerful.

"If you equate the unconscious to a 'dream', then we're dreaming, yes. It's more apt to call this my memory." He broke eye contact to observe the imprints in the sand. He rubbed a few grains between his fingers. He recognized the particles and the way the sand clumped together. Hoennian dunes. "It's my dream."

Now more than ever, the different definitions attached to the word 'dream' amused the admin more than ever. He dug into a pocket on his cloak, and found a student ID for Rustboro University nestled away. His name was printed in hard plastic, and two eyes stared back at him.

He stared at his younger self for several moments, before tearing his gaze away to look at June.

"From when I lost my eye." Howling wind filled his ears. "Come on."

He started trudging forward. Quickly, as if trying to outrun his fears.

"Let's get this over with."

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

"Lulu's into some pretty fucked up shit, Grigori." Howard scratched his chin as he helped the older grunt to his feet. "I don't think anyone who sleeps for four hours a night is particularly normal. Abnormal, more like."

He didn't actually know when Lulu Flint slept and when she woke up. It was an anomaly wrapped in a coffee mug-shaped container. He knew little of the Head Scientist, actually, despite their vaguely shared interests in academic subjects. Hopefully she didn't kill him when they flew towards the moon later on.

"If the Hyper Beam doesn't hit, Pumpkin can serve them up on a silver platter. We'll adjust accordingly, and no matter what, we'll have knowledge on how these entities work, and we can send SPECTRA in to clean it up."

SPECTRA was supposed to deal with this, anyway, but with Beast Inoue in Petalburg on the admin's orders, it fell on Howard and Friends. It helped that all three of them wanted to throttle the Loyal Three until the life left their eyes. In a red flash, Shirley appeared, snarling.

With his Aerodactyl out, Howard's Sygna Suit sparked to life. With that, he used his Strength to lift up Serizawa. Grunting, the admin threw the Pupitar towards the Loyal Three with remarkable speed.

"DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!"

A Hyper Beam sent the Loyal Three up in smoke. Howard's eye narrowed as he looked down over the smoking crater. "Did I get them?"

---

Grigori Sokolov Shred

Words were wind. Hideo's conviction was validated by years of experience. Howard's conviction was cemented in a life of fear.

Yet while the words of humans were nothing more than whispers that disappeared in the howling storm, those spoken by Pokemon were far more significant. They weren't words of utterance, but were instead words of thought and knowledge. Uxie's query was parsed by Regirock, which responded with the speed of stone shifting over epochs.

⠝⠕
⠊⠞ ⠊⠎ ⠁⠃⠕⠧⠑ ⠍⠑

Ancient programming denied change. That did not change the fact that Regirock had come to a conclusion with its response. There was a form of logic to its 'thoughts', even if it could not 'think'.

The Ice Punch connected, though it was blocked by the golem's massive arm. Rock chipped and shattered, sending splinters of stone flying across the battlefield. With Hideo's Medicham in close proximity, Regirock quickly capitalized with a Fire Punch.

---

Hideo Kino

"No shit, Abs." Howard groaned as he held his knee in pain. "I would've never noticed. Thank you. I really appreciate that."

Sometimes, he considered cutting the chemist's pay. Then he realized she'd force him to pay his tab at her bar. Given that the admin's wallet had exactly ten dollars in it, Howard wasn't particularly willing to invite Absinthe's wrath unto himself. Getting drunk in her bar was vastly preferable to getting drunk at home.

Her Shiinotic made for good company.

"I have, um..." The admin dug around at his belt and produced a canteen. "Glacial water from Regice. Tastes pretty good!"

It was ordinary tap water, but Howard wasn't going to explain to this lawnmower that Regice couldn't melt, because then he'd have to explain a two thousand year grudge war between Hoenn and Eternatus, and that wasn't something he was willing to elaborate on. As he crawled towards the lawnmower to offer the beverage, it sparked to life.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

Howard blinked once, frowned, and jumped off the roof as the lawnmower followed him, screaming for bloody murder. The washing machine, meanwhile, made an vaguely microwave sounding ding! The washing machine's hose pointed towards Absinthe, before spraying her with an absurd amount of bourbon.

Flicker.

A small flame flickered to life within the machine's hose, evidently powered by whatever long-dead propane system the machine had used to heat water.

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Regidrago and Regieleki were anomalies. They made no sense. Why were three constructs carved from common materials, while two were formed from energy. How had they been built by ancient cultures, and where did they fit into the great puzzle that was Hoenn's bygone age?

Still, they filled Howard with pride. Humanity had built them eons ago. Millennia ago. If they could do that, then what wasn't humanity capable of? Though it did make him fear for June's well-being. Her seizure of Regieleki had been a mistake. Still, it was... comforting.

Comforting that knowing that, even though she didn't care, Howard wasn't alone in shouldering the weight of giants. It was a selfish comfort, and one that june sleigh would never hear of.

"I don't know. When Registeel fled, it unburied ruins with an ancient braille script. It spoke of a Craftsman. A creator." Strangely, the admin's voice turned angry. Furious, even. "When I look at those giants, I worry."

Craftsman. Craftsman. Craftsman.

"I worry that these giants weren't built by us. If that's the case, then our initial victory against Eternatus thousands of years ago was nothing more than a lie."

---

Cillian Quinn

Howard's eye flickered as it regarded the Pokeball. Occasionally, the admin felt less like a human and more akin to a porcelain doll, carved from stone and ore where flesh and bone had withered away and died. Inhuman. In spite of that, he still raged and hated and cried all the same.

He had done so over Elisabeth's grave while Theo had watched. Yet now, while the underboss questioned him, it seemed apparent again.

"It was all I had on hand, at the time." Howard said brusquely, frowning as he did so. Whenever Regirock's seizure was mentioned, it often led to Petalburg. After the upper command's meeting, the admin had grown defensive over the fragility of his success. "I should replace it, but it's not time yet."

He gave Theo a look.

"I get the feeling in my gut that there's a better Pokeball for it than any I can offer."

---

THEO BECKETT

Huh. So that's where the ogre from the prison ended up. What an exquisite mask. Its make was incredible, and the admin silently wished that he had a replica in his collection. Though, now that he thought of it, there had been more masks hidden within the prison. He wondered what had happened to them.

"You don't know that!" Howard protested as he hopped down from the statue pile. "This is a problem that could extend for generations. If we tear every monument apart, then those that come after will forget!"

He put his hands on his hips, before spreading his arms to stop Ogerpon from walking any further.

"Come on..." Howard glared at the Ursaluna that allied itself with him. "Doug! I fixed your Gigaton Ball and this is how you repay me?"

The bear growled.

Something, meanwhile, rustled in the trees.

---

Andrea Vaneau

Carter the Pokemart Guy was actually Carter the Pokemart Lie.

How sharp a gaze, Andrea Vaneau held. Despite the losses she had experienced in Petalburg, she still remembered Carter the Pokemart Guy. In a way, her loss had been avenged. Kouji Matsubara now wandered underneath Hoenn, searching for something very important to the admin. There, he would never see the light of day.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Toukon. My name isn't Carter, it's Howard. I'm an archaeologist!" He gestured at the pile of statues. "I'm here to preserve a few of these statues for future generations. They're an important part of this region's history, now. We can't afford to destroy all of them."

Beneath Andrea and Ogerpon, Doug huffed and rolled his eyes.

"Here we go..."

---

Andrea Vaneau

"Rocks, knickknacks, a few pieces of plate and bone utensils is my guess." Howard inclined his head, considering lighting a cigarette. Knowing his luck, they'd step on gas pocket and explode as soon as he produced a lighter, so he suppressed the urge.

After getting attacked by a handful of Dreepy while entering an abandoned shaft with Adrian Malcolm , Howard was beginning to accept that Meteor Falls wasn't particularly friendly. Not that it ever had been, for him. This range had always preferred the exalted, thus it had always preferred his childhood friend to him.

"Hm." The preserved Meteor Village spread out before them. Charred holes dotted the cave walls where Claydol Hyper Beams had been haphazardly fired. Frustrating. In their desire to protect their associated dwellings, the dolls often destroyed them in the process.

Their programming demanded they preserve their ruins, they they did so by destruction. As he considered the thought, Regirock and Regice came to mind. For another moment, he thought of their draconic sibling before pushing the thoughts aside to work.

"Don't look so glum, you two. Smile! He clapped the two on the shoulders. "You're exploring with the best of the best. Think of it is a release from deskwork and cleaning dragon teeth. Be... what's the word, Freya? Lotoc?"

Happiness was a scarcity, these days.

"Everything is gonna be fine!" Howard waggled his fingers as he meandered into a vacant hut. Two seconds later, there was a shout from the small building. "GAH!"

A Dreepy floated out of the hut, before giving the duo a look. It quickly turned transparent and disappeared.

---

freya morningstar Roy Aker

"I see." Howard bowed his head once. Unbeknownst to them both, Yveltal would be Rocket's, soon. They would chain it to their whims and use it to dictate the flow of causality. "Very well, then."

Regice disappeared into a frozen Pokeball, and Howard took a deep breath. He dusted frost from his arm, hardly shivering from the chill as he did so. The cold wasn't a problem, anymore.

"If you're really a warrior, you'll go find Tapu Bulu's avatar." Even if Howard had beaten Genevieve Cromwell, she had been on the verge of collapse. Pushing herself to that extreme for no visible result puzzled the admin. It had not been Genevieve's resolve that had won her that prize, it had been the benevolence of a land spirit known for its fickleness. "And help her, as only one who knows the curse of such a boon can."

Even if the Judge was gone, that didn't change anything. Thomas was Thomas, regardless of any gift of divine origins.

"Until next time..."

The admin disappeared into the snowstorm.

"...Thomas Benoit."

---

Thomas Benoit