"Shut the fuck up, Ameena."

Howard said conversationally as he poured another shot of whiskey into his glass. With a magic tap, small ice cubes shaped like Regices filled it. He swirled it thoughtfully, before taking a sip. He balanced the glass on his seat's armrest, before regarding the scientist with a dour expression.

"Do you think that story is new? Do you think you're the first person to have sold the conversion of League operatives? We can't even convert the Alchemist to our cause. 'We're going to convert Freya! Walsh will sway her, surely! This Gym Leader is on the cusp of defection!' If I hear it again, I'm going to fucking lose my mind."

Slam. The book slammed shut with a noise that echoed through the library. Howard snapped his fingers and produced another book on ancient Galarian forging.

After a moment of turning pages, the admin's voice grew soft.

"Human beings are strong because, when our backs are pushed to the wall, we find strength that nobody believed we had. The more you push on Montgomery, the stronger he will become. His resolve will shake, then it will crack, then it will reforge itself into something great and terrible. I have bore witness to the creation of several avatars. This is always the case."

He gave Ameena a look.

"If you care about that man, tread carefully, lest you create a version of Montgomery too strong to keep living. As for June..." The admin crossed his arms. "...I love her, yes. Now go tattle to Walsh or Cillian or Theo, and know that you've killed her by doing so."

His eye flickered.

"Do that, knowing that when I had him bleeding on the floor in front of me, I let him go. Because the sheriff trusts him, and that's enough for me."

---

ameena abadi

There is no such thing as a secret in the dreamscape. Howard Slayte loathed misinformation. It was part of the reason Elisabeth's gambit was causing him such distress. Information was meant to be shared. Academia was meant to be exalted.

Yet Howard would not enter Ameena's dream and see her lover.

"I lost my phone behind the couch. Haven't been able to get it out. I'll ask Chu-e to get it out when I next see him." That wouldn't be for a while, given that Howard was in space and Chu-e Choi was likely hiding his alcohol. Moments like this made him wish Eris Halla didn't hate him. Her small child hands were excellent tools in getting things out of small places.

"Montgomery..." The archaeologist leaned back in his seat and sighed. "...yes. He opened that door to me. Kicked me through. Left me. I thought he had died in Unova, but as we both know, old hurts hardly stay dead."

He took a deep, shuddering breath. There were too many emotions regarding the deputy. Too many similarities to the sheriff her served. Too many memories that the admin could not forget, lest he contradict his reason for living as an observer who remembered eons.

"I'll ignore that you're corresponding with the enemy. I assume you're friends with him. Maybe more. Everyone in this fucking organization is fucking someone from the other side, at this point." The archaeologist looked up and raised an eyebrow. "So what's the problem?"

---

ameena abadi

The archaeologist looked up from his book.

"Ameena." He gave her a look, raising an eyebrow at her robe and eyepatch, before looking back down at his book on Almian history. "Welcome."

There were numerous ways to justify Ameena being in his dreamscape. She had been to it before, they were both members of Nebula, both are members of Lulu Flint's expedition, and both had a connection to the deputy she had been shamelessly railing in the room next door. The admin's is less explicit; he simply wants to see Montgomery buried under six feet of dirt and stone.

Frankly, it's more than Montgomery James deserves.

Then again, everyone on this spaceship will likely swing from gallows for the crime of attempting to overturn the foundational principles of Hoenn for their own aims. Of that, Howard is remarkably guilty. Yet he told jayden cross that he would shoulder all of Rocket's sins, when the time came.

If they could walk free, he would likely die. There was no good ending for Howard Slayte.

"Try my section on 1929. Unovan stock market crashed and sent Galar spiraling into a depression. Fun times." He does not bring up Montgomery. That's for her to broach.

---

ameena abadi

"We're lucky because we live here." He waggled his finger, positively elated. His cape flapped in the wind as he did so. "Of that, I am positive."

Otherwise, why would Hoenn's legacy echo back, thousands of years into yesterday? Even in the face of total collapse, the region continued to yield fruit to its survival. Not external factors like Dynergy or Tera Crystals or any of the new technological advances made recently, but secrets hidden for eons.

Howard Slayte had plenty of time. More than Yuina Higashi did, with her ability to peek between the folds of epochs with Celebi's aid.

"And one day, you'll see that. I have a statue to seize." From behind the admin, his Claydol constructed a portal akin to a Teleport for him to walk through. He fingered the container where that statue had once sat over his heart. "Rejoice, girl."

He stepped towards to portal.

"The wish of our forefathers is about to bear fruit. If you're really someone who studies the world, you'll accept that it should never change."

The portal winked shut, leaving Yuina Higashi alone with Regirock. With a low groan, it turned and began marching diagonally towards Route 102.

---

Yuina Higashi

He shrugged in response.

"When I was wandering through Kalos, I once stayed in a duke's estate for a few days. I had amused him, and he decided to shelter me from a storm." One of his few good interactions with nobility. Remiel and Diana caused too many memories to resurface for him to enjoy their company. "I found a room near mine that was empty, but as soon as I opened the door, it was like I had just missed someone sitting in a chair."

There had been no dust upon the seat, despite the rest of the room being unused. The door had creaked loudly, so it had not been opened in recent times. The duke's family had not been large enough to require use of the room.

"When we touch something, we leave a bit of warmth behind to prove that we were there. Do ghosts do the same thing?" Howard cocked his head in confusion. "Or does the land just remember? Maybe our actions are being recorded, even now."

Howard spoke not of the Cloud. He had little care for multiverse backup storage systems.

'Reverse it!' Cillian Quinn's voice emerges from the statue of a Pokémon the admin had never seen before.

"Huh." Howard turned to Cillian. "Since you're not dead, I'm betting on memories."

---

Cillian Quinn

Falling. Air rushed past Howard's face. Regice retreated into its Pokeball.

Dying.

A blast of hot air. Rayquaza's attack taking form in the dragon's maw. Unnecessary. He was already falling. When he hit the ground, he would shatter like porcelain.

Dying.

An arc of lightning. Thunder. The rev of industry roaring in his ears. An engine powered by subatomic particles became the only sound he knew. An impossibility. An anomaly.

Dying.

Maybe this was for the best. He certainly deserved this. There were people in Team Rocket who had done far worse things for better reasons than him. Abuse. Neglect. Groomed from birth to shoulder the weight of Team Rocket's glory. Ultimately, Howard's reasons were superficial. He had killed people for nothing. He had committed atrocities for nothing.

It had all been for a dream and a promise carved in sand. When it had been swept away in shifting dunes, it no longer mattered. The world had annulled it. Yet he remembered. Thus it still mattered. As long as he could remember, these struggles would continue to have some twisted form of meaning.

Perhaps forgetting was a mercy, but it was also a sin.

So he grabbed June's hand as she reached for him. She could've let him fall. After the Island Cave, she should've let him fall. Yet she reached, and he grabbed.

Living.

____.

"Please don't let go, please don't let go...!" The admin stammered as Violet shot away at an impossible speed. "Why did you do that? Why did you choose?"

He didn't understand, but he was glad that she did. He raised his voice towards the distant Ascendant.

"NEXT TIME, FREYA!"

---

june sleigh freya morningstar

Katherine had quite the tenure, it seemed. It felt more prudent to comment on how a Gym Leader who had once been a member of Team Rocket had somehow clawed their way up into the League's Elite Four, but if Remiel Calcifet can dine at the table after his list of crimes, all Howard can do is shrug.

"Shit, man. The Giratina Gal? I thought she went missing! Any chance she ended up here?" The admin's voice became a hushed whisper. He knew nothing of her disappearance into the Distortion World, only that declan walsh desperately wanted to return and seize her crown of fantasia.

Of course the Malevolent appealed to Walsh. It wouldn't surprise Howard if the Rocket Boss decided to kill four Rocket Beasts just to get an avatar with the epithet of 'The Bad'.

"We have Regirock. You have your menagerie. We can take her." Howard said in hushed tones as Regirock lumbered into a room with a colossal statue holding up the world.

"Help! Somebody, anybody, help!"

Stormy Silph's voice rang out from the statue.

"Cillian...?"

---

Cillian Quinn

"There will come a day when this vessel is filled with something." Howard gestured to himself, armor clinking as he did so. Sand scraped the heavens and grinded the earth down to a featureless plain. All to preserve this world. All to ensure that it continued to endure. "But until that day, I will continue to have faith in what drives me. Even if I'm a gear in a greater machine, that will not change."

He thumped his armored hand against his chest, which produced the hollow thud of a vase being rapped on by a knuckle. Howard's hand then fell limp at his side.

"I choose to believe. Faith fills this vessel like a second heart, although..." He chuckled as she tried to toe her line across a wire that, when overstepped, would end in Yuina Higashi's annihilation. "I have no heart."

Several moments passed, and the sound of a heartbeat did not fill Howard's ears. A reminder of the sensation he had once felt no longer belonged to this clockwork monstrosity of a form.

"...or perhaps I have too many. Anyway..." The admin's mouth opened to order a Max Stonefall to descend from the heavens, crushing them both. Outrunning an attack that had leveled Petalburg seemed impossible, but the admin was willing to prove his point to Yuina.

Before suddenly, Claydol teleported back. Crumble's eight eyes flickered.

"Regice?"

Another pattern flash. Howard's specialization had been ancient languages, and dealing with Regice had given the admin a healthy understanding of mechanical speak.

"I told you to bring it."

Flash.

"Really now? Is that so? It found one?"

Another flash. Howard let out a loud laugh that was marred by static.

"Spectacular!" He turned to Yuina, clearly pleased. Crumble floated behind the admin, and his Sygna Suit flickered to life. "It's your lucky day, Yuina Higashi. I've found something truly incredible!"

---

Yuina Higashi
YAPPAGE
CLAYDOL RETURNS, HOWARD YAPS TO IT

The Thunder Wave finds purchase. Regirock ran on its own programming, ceaselessly tracking down the intruder with little care for their identity. Many people have encountered the golem over the years, whether it be in its ruin, Area Zero, or while it was under Katherine Fairburne's control.

Yet those memories do not save people from crudely designed stone fists. Especially when Kyle Lopez exists as an anomaly corrected by the world itself.

His correction is too severe. Thus, as the golem sluggishly moves under its paralysis, it decides that the Emergant detective has to die. A Rock Slide descends from the heavens, causing nearby trees to crack and splinter under the weight of large boulders.

Meanwhile, a signal is sent out.

⠉⠕⠍⠑

---

kyle lopez

"Alright, Hunu." The admin said as they sat on the side of a cliff face. This was the second time the duo had gone through this song and dance. Howard would warn him that combat was dangerous, the Alolan would run in, kill several things, and almost die. "Listen to me."

He hoped that his tone would caution Tangaroa against another death march, especially when their foe was roughly the size of a skyscraper. A Gigantamaxed Appletun stood proud about a mile away, and spat out sticky globules of acid that melted anything on contact.

It was hard to close that distance with remarkable ease. If Dynamaxed Pokemon were good at one thing, it was leveling cities. Howard himself was familiar with that, and hopefully Tangaroa would be as well, given his experience in Petalburg.

"We gotta bring that thing down and steal its trainer's Dynamax Band to stop them from doing this again. I can get us close." Howard drank deep from a canteen of water and wiped his mouth. "Probably gonna need Regirock. Damn."

Howard stood.

"You've got no band yet, right? Can't Dynamax?"

---

Tangaroa Emzar

Contrary to popular belief, Howard's dreamscape was remarkably organized. ameena abadi would remember it as a golden plain, back when the archaeologist was recuperating from his siege on Dewford. While his mind rested, his soul wandered through dusty forests and Galar's epilogue.

Now, it was a library. Bookshelves that stretched into infinity were lined with books discussing events that had happened millennia ago.

More importantly, there was a whiskey cabinet that Lulu Flint and Shred couldn't steal from. Ameena had brought him tea back from the kitchen, and Howard had drank his leaf water begrudgingly while wishing he was sloshed. It wasn't that the admin didn't like tea, it was just that when Lulu was footing the bill of this particular space-venture, he wanted to partake in all of her alcohol.

Ignoring the fact that he had probably signed a check to fund this trainwreck, anyway.

"Hm." The admin drained his glass of dream whiskey while reading a book on the Almian War of 1812. "This is nice."

He poured himself another glass of whiskey and continued reading up on his histories. He made a point to ignore any potential dream-fuckery that would likely occur. Out of sight, out of mind. Or so he hoped as a distant part of the library flickered in and out of existence.

---

Howard's dreamscape is a vast library of books chronicling every year of history
There's also a liquor cabinet because it's Howard
There's also a book with these two images.
Merge (farm) your dream with his idk
0Dth9MYr

[break]

[player]https://file.garden/ZmEdgoE2EklfKRWT/HOENN/random%20shit/Garden%20Of%20Avalon%20-%2001%20At%20the%20garden%20%5B%20ezmp3.cc%20%5D.mp3[/player]

At the Garden

[break]

"So that's why you're still alive. Do you understand the situation?

(Yes. The reason that I still move forward is still there. Even if I am incapable of understanding tomorrow, the key to yesterday is carved into my eye.)

"There's only so much that you can do, moving forward. You will look backwards and decide what needs to be done about tomorrow, but you will not experience tomorrow or the present. You will exist solely in yesterday, as a memory of what had been before.

It does not matter where you are. It does not matter where you go. You have already died, _______. We're simply waiting for the world to catch up. Know this, though. Even though you've died, you will persist. Use that human spirit to fuel your broken body, hm?"

Joints creak as I stand. This sensation is familiar. I try to blink the sand from my eye, but it doesn't change the fact that _____ is right. There's nothing left but drive and a memory. My mind is ash. My memories are ash. Yet I remember eons.

I remember what it was like to see.

For that reason, I step forward.

---

The dream is an empty desert. Nothing but sand fills the stage. Far in the distance, there are a few rocks jutting out of the dunes at odd angles. There's a trail of footsteps that lead towards them, miles out. Heat causes the air to shimmer, though whether that's due to the efficiency of the dream of due to the fragile nature of the dream is a mystery.

Functionally, it doesn't matter.

Howard Slayte is on his knees. He groans.

"Fuck." He staggers to his feet, eye bloodshot. He's covered in a cloak meant to protect its wearer of the sun. Should ameena abadi or june sleigh look down, they'll be wearing similar attire. "I finished this. I finished this."

To Ameena Abadi, it's similar to the pile of dreams forced into her mind when asking about what happened in Galar's epilogue.

"June." Howard Slayte turns towards her. "Stop thinking. Please. This shouldn't be possible. Nobody is meant to see this."