Fear quickly turned into anger. Anger bubbled up and became rage.

Not rage at being called worthless. He was used to being considered a failure. His family had branded him with that when he chose archaeology over business, when he had chosen a dream and passion over the expectation thrust onto his shoulders. Yet there was wisdom in the gangster's words.

So he rose.

"Fuck you! I want to live!" Howard's shout rang through the tomb, echoing and rebounding in harsh symphony. "Your purpose is to fight! Mine is to find the tomb, break its seal, and make us rich! And look what you did!"

He gestured at the widening cracks in the ceiling, his rage evident.

"These are the only remains of someone's work! Their legacy! And you went and spat on it! You shattered someone's eternity just for one moment!"

He nudged the coffin in annoyance, before snapping his fingers. His Baltoy floated by and began to generate energy within itself, preparing to teleport the coffin to the surface.

"We marred this place. We fucked it up."

---

Montgomery James

Light was the cornerstone of civilization. Fire allowed man to venture out into the darkness and place names and descriptions on the vague and nameless forms that haunted the night for epochs. Fire was not a great invention because it allowed for the sizzling of meats, but because it had brought elucidation to the human species.

When the stars in the sky had flickered and died, the Megalopolans were left to devour each other in the dark.

A golem of electricity. Even now, june sleigh continued to haunt him with her success. The way she had thrown that Pokeball, the passion reflected in her gaze that seizing the giant would fix her life...

...he wanted that for himself. The capacity to seize what did not belong to him. Even if her path had been wrong, he wanted the ability to walk it with confidence.

"I was wondering if that was you. Head Scientist Flint and I spoke about it, once. I had wondered if your Xurkitree had swapped places with Hoenn's Regieleki." A deep exhale. A flicker of rage in his heart threatened to erupt. One that had been building since his conversation with Lulu Flint . "That was ours. You stole part of our region's history, Jules. Kicked it away to a world consigned to the universe's trash heap."

"But." His eye twitched. He finally turned to face the general. "I got to see something special because you did. The reason why we always win."

The moment leading up to that moment had been miserable. June had been miserable before catching Regieleki. June had been miserable after catching Regieleki. Yet in that moment, she had shined. She had done something that the Megalopolans could not.

Rage turned to pride.

"Did you find a ruin? An effigy? Did you send anything else to Ultra Space when you fought it to a standstill?"

---

"Yeah. I have this friend I grew up with back in Rustboro. Had a big thing for dragons." Roy Aker is a distant memory, like dust in the wind. In his place is an organization that despises him and a job that crushes him down. Chemistry is Absinthe's passion, and she practices it freely. "Must've been here a hundred times, just to play as heroes and dragons and go on adventures for buried treasure."

The treasures they found were meaningless. A shiny rock, a chunk of meteorite, commonplace in an environment where the sky bestows treasures openly allows humanity to pluck the leavings from the ground.

As the name implied, meteors fell here. Their leavings mark the walls with the echoes of other worlds.

"I ran a bit, but for me it was working with my hands." Her answer surprised him. He had her pegged as a lab rat, not a person who used exercise to work through their problems. The way she keeps up with him verifies her answer. "Cleared my mind like one of your stimulants."

He frowned. Was it the other way around?

Regardless, they rushing water eventually surrounds them as they reach a cavern with a shrine built into it. Chimes ring in the still cave air, and Dratini slither away into the depths as the duo approached.

"Pretty cool shrine, yeah? Draconids built it, back in the day. When the world was young and they prayed to their sky god to protect them."

He walks not towards it, but past it.

---

Absinthe Blackwood
CONTEXT

Admin Fox, because he pays your salary. Jobs are better than one time payments." The archaeologist spoke from experience. Years of single jobs, indulgent vices, and expensive auctions had taught the admin that he'd rather get a paycheck every week than a pot of gold every six months.

A deep sigh. Preparing for Petalburg had taken much of the admin's time, but he was willing to go rock hunting with Hitoshi because of the dog's capacity for sniffing out valuables.

When you wanted to play fetch, you brought your dog. Simple.

"They pay a decent amount, but they pay more if you turn big rocks into little rocks."

---

Hitoshi Inoue

The mech cannot release its grip on the sword, so the ridiculous shot of a mech being shaken around by a colossal Wooper is streamed to Andrew Fisher's ten viewers. A ding rings from the streamer's phone as he gets a subscriber.

Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's fortune. Maybe it's the 100 that Eris Halla rolled, but the Stakatakas are sent flying through the bay, before crashing near the streamer and gaius marcellus, a large gash in the beach signifying where the mech crashed.

Near the head, two doors open up for the streamer and the battle junkie, offering entrance to the mech.

---

8/1 - Pokeball
8/2 - Tera Bug (Aerodactyl)
8/3 - Big Pearl
8/4 - Incense
8/5 - Incense
8/6 - pokeball
8/7 - pokeball
8/8 - big pearl
8/9 - Incense
8/11 - pokeball
8/12 - egg tutor
8/13 - pokeball
8/14 - pokeball
IELVdTKe

"It's a secret!" He waggled a finger at her as they reached the mouth of a cave, vaguely shaped like a dragon. Not that the formation was uncommon in Meteor Falls, where ancient stones shifted and dragons reigned as kings. "It's a popular spot with the locals."

Still, his eye sparkles with delight as they hike upwards. He's passionate. It's like a hike from his youth, where he and other boys from Rustboro would try to find dragons, only to hitch a ride on a friendly Drampa for a ride home.

It's the expression of someone in their field with few regrets, even if this trip has a purpose beyond a mere hike.

The cave quickly darkened, only to be lit with glittering stones that sparkled like stars in the sky. The sound of running water filled their ears.

"You ever go on hikes, back in college?" She didn't strike him as the type. More of someone who blew up the chemistry lab. "Tons of good spots in Hoenn."

---

Absinthe Blackwood

"Sorry for this." Howard said as he and Absinthe trekked up a narrow path in the side of Meteor Falls. In the sky above, a Minior flew overhead, its shell shattering into a dozen pieces as it crashed into a distant wall of the mountain range. "Everyone in Rocket is busy, and I needed a guard. I figure you've kicked enough drunkards out of your bar to be a pretty good ask."

Everyone in Rocket was busy because within the next few days, Rocket's invasion of Petalburg would begin and the city would burn. Mossdeep would burn. Both would be Rocket's.

Howard silently wished that the organization would fail.

"Besides, I figured you wouldn't mind some fieldwork." He didn't add that leaving Absinthe to her own devices for long periods of time worried the admin. If he brought her along, she'd be doing something other than silently musing in her lab. A dark place led to dark thoughts. "There's something I want you to see."

At his belt, he held only one Pokeball.

---

Absinthe Blackwood

The cavern is vast and the smell of recently shifted earth assaults Adrian's nostrils. There are few Tera Crystals in this cave, though shifting through the recently upturned earth reveals Tera Crystals glowing beneath, infinite possibilities as their purposes.

It does not take a geologist to deduce that this tunnel was recently made.

Howard was in an awkward heap, collapsed from the fall. He shifts slightly, groaning, as Adrian descends into the cavern. Yet Howard recognizes that is not, in fact, a cave, but a tunnel. Years of geological consultations are his resume. Not that it is a hard deduction, given the tunnel's source is still in the darkness.

"Adrian." The admin's voice was thick and delirious from his fall. In the umbral reaches of the tunnel, something shifted. Rocks tumbled and fell over themselves as something emerged from the wall, roused from its senseless digging.

"Run."

---

Adrian Malcolm

He and Navy could never make up. They had simply agreed to a ceasefire until Eternatus was dead and its corpse lay unmoving in the dimension it called home. In regards to the war, they were foes. Navy would try to kill Howard and he would try to kill Navy. Their war would not end.

Not until one of them was dead.

FAILURE. FAILURE. FAILURE.

"No, but he won't kill me. Not yet. Too much to do, too many things getting in the way. He'll get his pound of flesh when the time is right, but not a moment before."

He locked eyes with Aurelie, feeling ashamed. It had all been for nothing. She had forged thousands of things with purpose, and he had thrown away months of good living for Rocket and ego.

Even if Navy had erred. Even if his successor was unreliable.

He had thrown it away for nothing.

"No, nothing like that. By the time I got there, all of you were gone. It was like I joined in the epilogue, when the main cast has left the stage, and the region was poorer for your departure. I made it back, though." A weak smile flickered across his lips. "It was the best three months of my life."

There had been no Rocket. No League. Just a purpose, and a long journey with Zacian and a band of Pokémon. He had killed Elisabeth. He had killed Penelope. He had killed Jayden. Finally, he had killed Ting-Lu's chosen: himself.

Fear had not ruled him since. He was not its slave.

"...I hope you're the one who survives."

His spoon clattered against the plate. A clear noise that cut through the conversation like a bell. Aurelie was wrong. She was wrong. This moment did not deserve this. This moment of peace, this food she prepared. Someone better deserved it.

Why was she kind? Why did she care?

FAILURE. FAILURE. FAILURE.

"Aurelie." His voice was small. He looked up at her. "Remember what you said back in my office a few months ago?"

He trembled.

"I could really use that hug you promised right now."

---

Aurelie Lefevre

Her response is immediate. It warms his heart.

It is a story he can tell, but it is not a particularly memorable one. It is the purpose of the Legendary Pokemon he serves, the obligation of the sheriff he admired and the blade-wielding Zacian that the admin helped crown. Ultimately, it is the necessity of their species.

If they were to survive this war, they must best the god that threatened the world millennia ago. Even if it kills him. Even when it kills him.

The march will continue. Even when the world is broken and remade and the war is done, the admin will ensure that people like Absinthe have a place in it, even when he does not. That is the purpose of heroes, after all. That is the request of Zacian.

"Of course. It's a long story, though." A deep sigh. It's one that is bigger than both of them. A missing past is much more manageable in comparison. "So you'll have to bear with me."

The two boxes are collected. In his mind, it was a good visit. Productive. Not because of the chemist's production, but because Absinthe's gaze didn't bore into his skull like a drill. There was a hint of warmth, a dream of spring. The day that it became summer would be a happy day indeed.

As he prepares to leave, he leans against the doorframe.

"I'd appreciate it," he said with a wry smile and an inclined head, "if you'd let me start a tab on my next visit."

His eye sparkled mischievously.

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Of course the man had grills. Expensive ones, from the looks of things. He wondered how many skulls Hunu had cracked together to plunder enough gold for their forging. How many jobs had the Alolan taken to afford such a display of wealth? How many shallow graves had been dug for such opulence?

It was wealth with a purpose, but the extravagance made the archaeologist's stomach churn.

The ranger with the Pidgey fell quickly enough, the small bird hardly needing much of a tap to bring down. The ranger, meanwhile, had proven much more brazen. Until his confidence had been shaken by an Aerodactyl's open, snarling mouth. The roar that followed echoed off into infinity.

"Fun? You thought that was fun?" Howard turned to look around. Blood. Mangled Pokémon. Marred rangers. It was a bloodbath. There was so much that the archaeologist risked slipping in what remained of a Machoke's intestine. "When an entire platoon of rangers goes missing, Lilycove is gonna lock this place up."

The Ancient Tomb wouldn't have much to offer if the League turned it into the fortress. The archaeologist took a deep breath and sighed.

"We'll move fast. You good?"

---

Tangaroa Emzar