You are going to be up against people who can rewrite reality....[break][break]

She better not be. More than that, for all the verbal beating she was taking right now from her very disappointed professor, she was stuck on that thought. How do you even the playing field with gods? She was certain, in all future interactions with the League, she could create favorable frameworks for herself. Distance, high ground, the works. But. There were gods on the enemy team. Zev had talked to her about survival, but the dream realm was one thing and reality was another. [break][break]

Just as she was about the snap from the lecture, he relented and summoned... a butler? She was stunned to silence -- and committing this to memory, what kind of spoiled... -- and numbly accepted the pokeball as he explained himself. "Duchess," she repeated thoughtfully. "So I have homework." She leveled him with a gaze, but she understood all of his complaints to stem from concern. She was good at placing outbursts to their core emotion, as it was some basic work of psychology, but it was interesting to see how deep his concern seemed to run. She had yet to see him gift something like this to another colleague. [break][break]

She examined the pokeball in her hand. She had since his Princess in action and knew these to be capable. But she had to practice with it to understand what it could do. Her own studies would have to be pushed a few weeks, so she could dedicate enough time to this project to guarantee success. Instead of inquiring more specifics for the stipulations, she asked, "And when I pass?"

TAGS – Amor Rose [break]
NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She wasn't sure what he was getting at until she was looking at the little sprite. This was the prophet he put so much stock into?[break][break]

It was small and unimposing. The imprisonment only exacerbated the weakness it embodied. She squinted and really examined it, but ultimately, it didn't matter what it seemed like. This pokemon had earned Amor's faith. She truly hated to admit it, but he had yet to be wrong. This prophet's prophecy was not yet disproven, and it apparently had a power related to dreaming themselves out of the prison. [break][break]

"Well. Is our faith going to free it?" She had no idea how else they could garner enough power in the walking world to free not only themselves but whatever bindings held a god down. "If the wishing doesn't work... well, I guess we will need a contingency." She didn't know how much longer they had in this dream. "I intend to go down fighting, if freedom is not possible." She was angry at the stupid trio of deities that held them here and held this little guy down. Screwing with her was one thing, but using dreams as a part of it was insult on top of injury.

TAGS – Amor Rose [break]
NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Ameena smiled with teeth as Lulu admitted to using two in her latest project. She needed to embrace that very mentality: using what you have and seeing what happened. Hoenn had too many unique opportunities to pass up for fear. She had to work on this anxiety. She wouldn't get anywhere if she feared an explosion in her lab. She had the capacity to get protective gear, after all. [break][break]

"Let me know how the crystals treat you," she said warmly. She suspected her fellow scientist would see excellent results with the use of them. [break][break]

The solution of not thinking about things... Ameena couldn't let Eternatus go, in her head. It stood in front of the other fears like the DRK Triad and all of the deities running around Hoenn. If she didn't think of Eternatus, there was no way to avoid the other thoughts. She couldn't avoid stressing about all of it, or she wouldn't have any involvement in her own research which often related to these threats in some way or another, inevitably. [break][break]

"I see," she said instead of continuing to voice her worries. "This seems like a natural response to the chaos in Hoenn. I must learn to adopt it in some way." She put her tea cup down, feeling moderately better about things, particularly the permission to continue her research. "Talking to you has a way of clearing my head of all these doubts. I appreciate you, Lulu."

TAGS – Lulu Flint [break]
NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

He held a rather romantic view of dreams. The emotionality of people did contribute to their dreams, particularly strong negative feelings that the brain wanted to work through. Still, she wasn't sure she put so much stock in emotion. Pokemon could falsely manipulate these. Hell, so could people. They weren't good, authentic indicators of anything beyond, perhaps, the nervous system. [break][break]

Of course, his suggestion that dreams had power because of feelings... [break][break]

It wasn't supported by her current research, but it was a hell of a theory to look at later. His question was a much simpler matter. "Very dangerous. Any dream version of Hoenn will be dangerous just like this region, and it will have added abstract threats, too. Everything in reality is in the dream realm... there are just a few extras, too. I believe it access the multi-verse: endless threats and bad days." Multiple Eternatus... [break][break]

"Still interested in a sleep study?"

TAGS – howard slayte [break]
NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Her pokemon flounder outside of the imprison without direction. Presumably, none of them have ever seen the barrier before. She shakes her head, disappointed. "I definitely do not want to fight Erebus. But he looks like he needs some sunshine." She smiles, though she's not immune to his point. [break][break]

"Sure, I am dead," she says non-chalantly. "But in a 'real battle,' I would not find myself in close quarters. So, sure, you have me here in unfavorable conditions. I take your point: more time with my pokemon can foster a better outcome. But for all that honing, I find my tools are not the same as yours, at their core. I picked pokemon that serve non-combat purposes, while yours seem well-equipped. I need to find different tools to hone altogether, for the most part."[break][break]

She sighs, then turns to face him as its clear he won't be gutting her -- and the sight of the pen only secures that thought. "I maintain that I would keep more favorable conditions, but I am willing to put in the work on a field team." She has no other moves to pull, even if imprison is gone. Her team cannot pull a victory from the jaws of defeat, though she suspects they had lost the moment they started.

TAGS – Amor Rose [break]
NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

How foreboding. [break][break]

Her development lead had kept talking about that app, but Ameena had been in the middle of visiting her notes from the long Alola excursion, trying to decipher a connection between the Tapus and the dream realm. She had not put any time into trying the game out, but it sounds like that had been a mistake. [break][break]

"What do you make of the crystals?" She sipped at her tea. She had considered investing in some for her team since all of her recent interactions with colleagues had ended with a clear lesson that she was too unprepared for the war ahead of them. Lulu's words had done a lot to convince her that she couldn't abandon her dream research in favor of defenses against otherworldly threats. It might be the only way to survive them, in the end. [break][break]

The interdream mist seemed to be around every corner Ameena turned, just like the DRK Triad. She felt a headache coming on as she considered just how many simultaneous threats and scientific developments were occurring. "I feel so unprepared for the coming battle. How is it you seem to be keeping a cool head?" Ameena needed to adjust herself if she was to juggle her research, power-building, and obligations to Rocket properly.

TAGS – Lulu Flint [break]
NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She considered his words. She was looking for a clear-cut answer to the problems and disastrous, world-ending threats on the horizon. But it boiled down to survival, and survival meant doing whatever necessary. She needed to build herself and her team up to be capable of all of those methods of attack, and she currently had none of them mastered. [break][break]

"Of course," she said simply. The scent of ash filled her lungs as she removed them from the simulation, the world abruptly going dark. [break][break]

She came to herself more gently than the dream's ending suggested, though she felt the opposite of well-rested. She needed to dedicate serious time to preparation for the coming war if she didn't want to be left behind. The beginning tendrils of a headache made itself known.

TAGS – Zev Harcourt [break]
NOTES –

[attr="class","pkmn"]