There is no way to easily verify how the Celesteela made it so deep underground, but the admin had his suspicions. As an archaeologist and geologist, he could make an educated guess.

"This is an old world, little lady. Constantly changing. It could've simply failed to launch, or a mountain could've collapsed on it. It could've just died. The best way to describe this would be..." The admin snapped his fingers. "...a living fossil!"

When hundreds of tons of stone collapsed onto a living being, all that remained were the whispers of the past.

"This place is pretty lively, though. Look at all these plants!" Howard sucked on his teeth as he looked around. Suddenly, he had an idea. oscar clayton and bryan delarosa would likely agree that this was a prudent strategy. "I'm going to take a few soil samples. See if we can replicate this back home."

Without blinking, Howard began to grub about in the dirt while Eris watched. The familiar sensation of soil getting under his fingernails reminded the archaeologist of a better time.

He was silent for a spell.

"Did you really want to learn?" He said quietly. "Megalopolan script, I mean."

---

Eris Halla

"Ha." His laugh was as dry as a desert as he gave his senior colleague a look. Wordlessly, the admin shuffled through a desk drawer before finding the correct one. "Fuck you."

Thud. A thick stack of papers up to Barnaby's head slammed onto the desk.

"I've been keeping busy with your work. I've gotten through a good chunk of it, but since you're back, I offer it unto you. A gift for taming Galarian Moltres to our cause." Not that Barnaby was wrong. There was always something else to capture. There was always another thing to allocate. There was always another thing to place firmly in Rocket's grasp.

Galarian Moltres was just the beginning. Howard's eye lingered on priam conrad's Regi Statue. Three eyes glimmered in its socket, while two remained dull.

If Rocket wanted to acquire more resources, than Howard would oblige.

"The chase never ends." He agreed warmly. "What's next? Any word on Zapdos?"

---

BARNABY FINCH

The Megalopolans. Howard was getting pretty sick of those blue fuckers after Route 119.

"Yeah, it wasn't an easy translation, I'll tell you that. Most languages I know can ultimately be traced to the same tree. When it comes to another universe's languages, we're talking a completely different forest. I had to relearn everything from scratch."

It helped that Rocket had Velmos and Jules in their custody. Their testimonies sped up the process greatly. Even if they were enemies, and Jules was partially responsible for the displacement of New Mauville's Regi Ruin, Howard used whatever assets he had in the pursuit of knowledge.

If he was going to be a part of Rocket, it was best to reap the benefits.

"Sure. Let's see if the Megalopolans left us anything useful after running this place into the ground." Howard followed Eris down the stairwell. When they reached the rock basement, there was another large door. With Howard's great (poor) physical strength, the exit door to the bunker grinded open.

"Wow." Howard's eye widened as he and Eris bore witness to a giant Celesteela that had partially fused into the stone walls of the cave. Around its fallen corpse, life bloomed. Flowers and trees dotted the inside of this pocket of Eden. "You seeing this, little lady?"

---

Eris Halla

"Your mark burned?" Howard was so surprised at the revelation that he forgot about the crippling hole in his soul. Doug's death was forgotten, and the circumstances of their imprisonment vanished. Even the mask he kept close to his chest fell off, and the admin glared at Priam with one good eye. "Seriously?"

The dream had not seen fit to return his other eye to him. Instead, it had removed the scarred runes that covered his eye, leaving a smooth mass complete with a round stone where his eye used to be.

"Shit, um, okay..." Howard paced back in forth in front of Priam, the neon lights of this city of dreams threatening to blind them both. Howard looked up. "Where? When? How? Why?"

There were only a few things that triggered Priam's mark. Eternatus. Legendary Giants. Power Spots.

None of them were ideal, but they were preferable to the prison they lived in.

"This is a development."

---

priam conrad

If they went deep enough, Eris and Howard could die to a cave-in instead of Celesteela's liftoff.

"Nice work, Reiner." Howard let out a laugh and scratched the Luxray's ears with jolly merriment. Reiner was almost as reliable as Shirley. He would've liked to see his Aerodactyl interact with Eris's Luxray, but Howard didn't bother to bring the Aerodactyl with him anymore.

Not after Area Zero. Shirley was constantly by his side, and had been since the beginning. She was his first Pokémon, and the one that mattered most to him. They were inseparable, but after she lost her eye, those similarities had become too close.

He could not bear to look into her remaining eye and see himself.

Deep in thought, he stumbled, catching himself on Reiner's fluffy form. After standing up, Howard poked around the bunker, looking for clues. After Eris found a tattered book, the admin poked his head out from behind her shoulder. He peered at the notebook, silently translating it. With dozens of languages under his belt, learning another had been no issue.

"It looks like a soil report." He said over her shoulder. "They were probably trying to bring materials back to their own world to revitalize it. Desperate. Can't do anything without light."

Howard pointed at a stairwell descending deeper into the bunker.

"After you, little lady."

---

Eris Halla

"Nah, never been." The admin swallowed nervously as he poked through the wilderness. In truth, he had been, once, with Necrozma's chosen. He tried to bury that memory though. For the purpose of this visit, this was his first time. He couldn't rely on the Devourer for protection this time. "Reminds me of Fortree, though."

Hoenn's jungles were thick, humid, and dangerous. At least those jungles had Tropius berries. These just had explosive bamboo spaceships that could level a rainforest on liftoff.

Luckily they were in a cave.

"Not to worry. Caves are my specialty. Your small hands will be a huge asset down here!" Even in another universe, child labor lived on. Eris yearned for the mines, after all. "I doubt we'll be safe for a little while. We need to get deeper in to avoid the chaotic surface. Getting really sick of Celesteelas."

As if to prove his point, the admin kicked a stone wall as they descended deeper into the crater's bowels.

CLANG!

Instead of stone, Howard's foot struck steel.

---

Eris Halla

Howard hated sand, he hated the ocean, and he hated his life.

An unfortunate combination when trying to find the keys to his condo after getting lost in the sand. The admin had gone out for a quick walk on the beach. Shred Zeppelin claimed it was a really cool way to impress people. It made you look deep, introspective, and thoughtful, allegedly.

Plus there were dozens of Kabuto fossils on this beach, so who was Howard to complain? Win-win situation.

Except for the sand. Sand sucked. Fuck sand.

"This sucks. I fucking hate sand." Howard whined as he dug around in the shoals in a desperate attempt to find his keys. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. After a moment, Howard blinked. "I've got it!"

Reaching for his belt, Howard threw out his Probopass. Ayer's Magnet Pull immediately triggered, resulting in every piece of metal on the beach being drawn in. Engagement rings, bracelets, keys, and even a credit card with a magnetic strip attached itself to the Probopass's massive nose.

"Nice." Howard pumped his fist. "I'm so fucking smart! It's all coming up Howard, baby!"

That wouldn't remain that way for long as a massive sandcastle manifested behind the archaeologist. He frowned as he turned back to it.

"What the-"

---

woRKmgWk

"Nice speech." The admin crossed his arms in thought as Walter spoke. "Very nice."

They crossed the docks in silence, boots clicking against wood and stone. Howard's Aerodactyl scraped her claws against the dock as they walked towards a fishmonger's stand. As they grew close, the admin checked his wallet. His earnings were squalid, in spite of the sheer supply of resources Sootopolis received with his guidance. He could finance an organization, but not keep his own balance in check.

"You were made to sail. I would never take that from you, man." Howard sighed as he scratched at a bit of stubble on his chin. "That's your dream. Your life. I can't take away something that's so fundamental to who you are. It'd be like clipping your Wattrel's wings. Cruel."

With a murmur to a fishmonger, the admin exchanged a few coins for a flopping Magikarp, still breathing. They could survive out of water for a remarkable amount of time with minimal inconvenience. As it flopped in his arm, Howard gave the captain a gentle smack to his head.

"I still need Captain Walt. You wanna make amends?" Howard tossed the fish to Walter. "Stay safe, and keep an eye on your ship. Make sure she's still your own. The seas are getting more and more dangerous, now."

Though he didn't admit it, he didn't want to lose the young captain. Inexperience was not a crime. Failing to learn from it was.

"Take the Magikarp, make it swallow the tracker, and set it loose when you're out at sea. Let your stalker follow Magikarps instead."

Not an ideal solution, but it was one nonetheless.

---

walter delmar

"You're correct, but you misunderstand."

He could not match the adamancy or drive of Naomi Sato in this field. She saw things on a level that few would ever comprehend. Howard had one functioning eye, but Nomi had dozens and more. If the Visionary did not see the route forward, then what was the point of her title?

Her gaze was too wide. Too broad. Too omniscient. They needed to tone the conversation back slightly, lest the admin's brain explode.

"They are wrong because humanity cannot be crushed into dust. We will persist, and even better, we will flourish in spite of the struggle because it is the human condition to do so." As Kallistatus left Howard for Nomi, the admin resisted the urge to point out its treason against him. Howard thought that he and the Unown were tight. "We will survive because we always have. The other universes must face that fact as well. History is a loop, and time is a flat circle."

He did not wait. The teacup was lifted to his lips. A functioning eye gave Nomi a look, while the other was concealed under an eyepatch. A glimpse of scar tissue poked out from behind the cloth.

"Our victory is assured because we as a species have always won." His faith in humanity was unshakeable. While Howard didn't study what would happen tomorrow, he knew from what happened yesterday that mankind's resume was broad and expansive.

"Arceus? Shit." His ears reddened. "I mean shoot. Where does Arceus factor in? That staircase in the RKS Simulation?"

---

Naomi Sato

"It's not Rocket's pity." The words hung in the air for a spell. "It's mine."

Rocket did not pity. They did not care. Laurence was a sack of meat to them. A valuable sack of meat, but not irreplacable. Even Howard was replaceable. Someone else could run his network of supplies. Someone else could hold Regice. Someone else could don the cowboy hat.

During a press conference at Dewford, someone already had.

But Laurence was right. Rocket would ask much from the doctor, and he would answer the call. Just as Howard danced under the weight of bureaucracy, Laurence would dance under the weight of a debt owed to a ghost.

"I haven't chained you. You chained yourself." He snorted, amused. "You are simply another life ruined by this war. Rocket and League will take everything for it. They burned Kanto to win the war. They took Sootopolis to win the war. They've taken me to win the war. They'll take you and everything that you hold dear in order to win the fucking war."

Annoyance leaked into his voice. Rage. Wrath. Scorn. The realization of a man who knew this battle would never end, because it had been fought hundreds of times. That was the truth.

"But I'll let you go. You're right, I can't force you when you're off the clock." Yet, anyway. "I'll see you on Monday?"

Laurence couldn't outrun Rocket forever. Time would fade. His moments with Sophia would fade into mist when he left her alone in the morning.

---

Laurence Whateley

Laurence owed a debt to a memory. Howard could relate with that. He owed a debt to his dream.

"Poor girl." The admin did not push against the fierce protectiveness of the father. How could he understand Laurence's emotions? Howard was not a father. He did not love another. He simply existed within the great cogs of Team Rocket, chasing after the dream that Rocket promised him. "I pity her. I pity you."

The dream that Howard dreamed was one that the admin couldn't wake from. Despite that, he could not allow Laurence to remain in his dream. It was time to wake up.

"I said that, true. I promised you time off, but that time is coming to an end." Howard frowned at the doctor. The contract that Laurence had signed was writ in blood, but it was one that had to be obeyed. "War is coming. Soon."

Sophia looked so innocent. This must've been the emotion that Michael Navidson experienced as his daughter disappeared into the mist of a long-forgotten dream.

"Sophia should not be here when it starts. Broken hearts can mend, but broken bodies cannot. Laurence." He clapped the doctor on the shoulder. His missing eye bored into Laurence's skull with a gaze that saw beyond humanity. "If you will not move her, cherish this moment."

He blinked slowly.

"But you will struggle to keep your promise to her when the walls of Sootopolis fall. Think of Diana."

---

Laurence Whateley