The same trait she abused to get what she wanted from the League, that empathy, had caused Gwen all this pain. Ameena cursed herself for not pulling Gwen into the fold earlier. She could have taught the Ranger to let those useless feelings go. Now, Gwen was hurt and blaming herself. [break][break]

That fear inside Gwen that had reared its head months ago was still there, alive and well. Gwen didn't see all the challenges she had faced this year and how she'd overcome them, all the adventures she'd been on, all the things she'd learned, and all the difference she had made in the world. When those things were habitual and day-to-day, they were easy to miss. Not knowing her worth would've made her more malleable, more manipulatable, but it wasn't enough. Gwen was not some easy prey. She had promise. Genuine promise. She was an unpolished gem.[break][break]

"You can never be what you were before." [break][break]

She did not parse her words. It was true, in all senses. Gwen could not go back. No one could. The reality of that had forced her to spend her life studying dreams to enter an alternate reality as the past was simply impossible to change. [break][break]

She sighed. She could tolerate long recovery - though she doubted it would be, with how ferocious Gwen was - and she could tolerate the adjustments and support Gwen would need from here on out to be successful, but she could not cope with the girl's low self-esteem when she was so valuable to Ameena. But there was one way to nip that in the bud. [break][break]

"Gwendolyn. Do I strike you as a fool?"

TAGS – Gwendolyn Conway [break]

NOTES – post first wave[break][break]

His disbelief over the code and the Tapu Lele alike matched her own, though she had had many weeks to process it all. She was currently in the stage of grief called acceptance. She hoped Howard would familiarize himself with it, and soon. [break][break]

Her eyebrows shot up at the concession that Lele had nearly cost him Regirock, but she was positive he was in no mood to share further. So, she continued. "Musharna has a z-move, one that generates a dreamy terrain. Everyone inside of it stays mostly awake, but each mind can project images into the mist." She didn't have a lot of data on it. There was no time to experiment with it after the study and before Sootopolis, but she had used it on MATIAS SILPH . [break][break]

She was thankful he'd sought her out about the dream thing, and shortly after the study, too.[break][break]

"Theoretically, you and June could be in dreamy terrain and revisit the dream as you have stored it. Those images should provoke her to remember, especially given that you two would be sharing the terrain, much as you shared a dreamscape in the study." Heavy on the 'theoretical' part. "The only other alternative would be putting you two under in the sleep study again. But it would require her to make a different choice." She doubted that would be the case.[break][break]

After all, people who preferred to forget terrible things were wired to want to forget, and it was the easier choice. There weren't many who preferred the burden of knowing, but of course Howard would.

TAGS – howard slayte [break]

NOTES – musharna's dream mist spreads throughout the area and creates a DREAMY TERRAIN. those caught in this terrain and stuck between sleep and wakefulness, and that that they dream of manifests in semi-visible hallucinations in the mist for all to see.[break][break]

Sometimes, in Hoenn, you just had to shrug and go, yeah, this might as well happen. After all, what other move did you have to make in the face of angry gods, record breaking natural disasters, unknown phenomenon, and alleged plots to fuck with the universe? [break][break]

So, of course, when Ameena saw giant, glowing, golden pokemon start to appear, she shrugged and pursued. She needed more data on these. They seemed related to Kyogre's tantrum, given the timing. [break][break]

That'd been an hour ago. [break][break]

Now, she was battered and bleeding, and the behemoth Ursaluna was undeterred by Moira's yawn and hypnosis. The Musharna was currently crushed underneath Ursaluna's paw, and Ameena had been little help. Her shoulder was dislocated, her jaw hurt, and her nose was bleeding. She feared she would be stuck watching the beast eat her most precious pokemon.

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

She wasn't used to seeing him distraught. [break][break]

She hadn't expected him to pull rank, but it aligned with what she was doing anyways. "What do you think I am doing, sitting on my hands?" Her words dripped with such disbelief and anger. The latter was not necessarily a new emotion for her, but lately, it had been impossible to quell. [break][break]

"I woke that day to my laboratory in use, running an experiment I had yet to okay, with people I never wanted to put under, and," her voice broke on a laugh, "I do not even get to keep the data." Stupid, wasn't it? "Tapu fucking Lele was in my laboratory. Drank the fucking concoction of dream serum and fucked off after disrupting Porygon's data transfer." [break][break]

She leaned back, forcing herself to take a breath to return to her role as the scientist. She compartmentalized the fuck-up again, the scorn and the betrayal and the guilt. [break][break]

"You said she forgot both. I hate to tell you this, but the solution to the problem looks rather similar to the cause." She didn't hate to tell him that. He took this long to address the cufant in the room and it looked like he hadn't thought any of it through. What did he think she could do? She wasn't sure if it was wise to share the details, that Musharna could put them into a dreamy terrain and revisit the dream without risking unconsciousness. She was certain he would never fall asleep in her presence again.

TAGS – howard slayte [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

As Gishath settled, she stepped closer. The reality of Gwen's state set in...[break][break]

She hadn't seen an amputation in years. Science had progressed far, so it was largely an operation left to soldiers who had taken too long to make it off the battlefield. That, and those that had succumbed to explosives. [break][break]

Gwen should've been neither. [break][break]

"Gwendolyn," she said softly, coming close enough to grab her hand and squeeze. "Do not worry about anything." She feared sharing the day would stress out the girl further, remind her of how long she'd been down. "I came when my text was left unanswered. I assumed the worst." Mostly the truth, actually. She had come to Dewford knowing it was the most likely place for her, either in a hospital or at home if she hadn't been in Sootopolis at all. [break][break]

Ameena didn't want this fate for the girl. Stupidly, she wondered if she should have been more aggressive in trying to get Gwen under her wing. As her mentee, Gwen would've never been left to die out there. Anger sat at the pit of her stomach like a hot stone. She should've asked how the girl was doing (despite the obvious answer) or what had happened (despite the obvious answer), but all the small talk and sweet nothings and platitudes were a waste of breath when what she really wanted to know uncoiled in her chest. Her eyes were ablaze as she asked - no, demanded - [break][break]

"Who did this to you?"

TAGS – Gwendolyn Conway [break]

NOTES – post first wave[break][break]

She followed in his steps, restoring her outfit and becoming the Ameena Abadi that the outside world knew. She was more than pleased as he tugged her close, her hands coming to hold his face like they were made to do so. [break][break]

She held on as long as she could. The real world beckoned. As much as time seemed to stop when he was around, her internal clock would always ring the alarm when it was time to perform her duties. She was kept upright by all the different forces that kept her moving, moving, moving. It was only with him that she could stop.[break][break]

"A dangerous invitation," she teased against his lips. "I will see you around, Deputy."

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

She couldn't afford to run, either. He couldn't keep relying on flight to solve his problems, because it so clearly didn't, but she couldn't afford to leave her laboratory behind. Fleeing - and fleeing with Rocket on their tails - meant leaving behind most of her resources to avoid tracking. She could not keep him and her research and safety. She could only hold two at a given time, and all of it was too fragile to risk juggling anyhow. [break][break]

She shook her head at his prompting. Their morning couldn't last. "I need to report in. I was on the clock last night, and my supervisors are expecting a dossier." A cold reality. She didn't want to mention her Rocket work at all and leave a sour taste in his mouth, but there was no alternative. Reality could no longer bend around them. [break][break]

It's not quite a concession, but, "I will be around. Petalburg, I mean." To secure Rocket's newest conquest, she didn't speak aloud. "Might be in Dewford, committing petty crime, when the moment finds me." It was all she could offer him, now. There was no permanent solution that didn't cost either of them too much.

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

A lot has happened. [break][break]

She knows the broad stroke of things, but ultimately, she had been too optimistic to hope he would be either too busy to revisit the sleep study or outright forgetful of it himself after all the trauma to his mind and body of late. As it is, she knows when to face the music. Howard's reason outweighed blood lust, which she wasn't sure could be said for the boss she feared more, Cillian Quinn . [break][break]

Not that Howard's making it easy for her. "I did not intentionally take you into the study," she pushes back, though incompetence is not much of an improvement from malice. "Or that woman, June. Or any of them, really." She shakes her head, angry beyond belief but restraining it just enough to leave some mirth. "One line of code. One line to ruin everything."[break][break]

His questions, however, interrupt her planned defense and explanation of the study in its entirety. "The study was designed to see how the dreamscape can be managed by two different minds. The only influence on memory should have been the malware, which encouraged participants to revisit a memory they had previously desired to forget." The mind was never so cooperative, of course. "What do you mean, 'the exchange?' That within your dream, or that of the original memory?" Was it possible June had forgotten both? The dream concoction was not designed to impact the hippocampus; the dreamers on their own would activate it as they remembered.

TAGS – howard slayte [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

Her eyes are ablaze as Maki mentions the penitentiary's chamber of desires. Ameena, too, had gazed upon its offerings. She had seen her mum, alive and well, and unlike the dreams that chased Ameena every night, the other shoe did not drop. She did not have to watch her mum bleed out or suffer a heart attack or get torn to shreds. What a pleasure, it had been. [break][break]

But reality had followed. She was just as far as ever from seeing her mum in another reality, permanently. So far from walking the dreamscape and sliding into a world where Mum never died. [break][break]

Her fingers clenched before she could stop the tic. "What is the vision?" She has no right to the information. But she's learned many people are forthcoming when in the presence of someone they trust to help them. Trust might be wrong, in this case, but she's frequently seen as the 'last hope' of solving the problem, when it comes to dreams. [break][break]

"An orthodox sleep study is all I can normally offer," she continues, "but I have learned my Musharna knows a new trick. She can create a semi-waking dreamscape, and we can revisit it. That, or the more immediate but riskier solution of a mind wipe, but... my go-to is a little spoken for." She darts a knowing glance at Gardevoir. She wouldn't let the psychic back in her own mind until she'd found a remedy anyhow.

TAGS – MAKI YUKIMURA [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

Those words were abstract, non-committal by nature, and yet, her stomach flipped as he said it again. She could never tire of his voice, but when he said those sweet nothings, she wanted the moment etched into her memory. She wanted to revisit it every night, in every dream. [break][break]

The thought was traitorous. If she had control of her dreams, it would always be of Mum, she'd said as much years ago, certain each dream was walking through a door, certain that visiting and visiting and visiting would get her there eventually... but still.[break][break]

She wanted. She pulled him close, so their foreheads could touch. This was what peace felt like. This was freedom. She felt relieved of the pressure of her research and her promises and her ambition. She felt unmistakably human in his arms, and desired. Precious. She had been a tool in the hands of her generals, an asset in Rocket's clutches, but to him, she was a treasure. Foreign, is what it was.[break][break]

Addictive, too. [break][break]

Still, she pushed. Even as those parts of herself broke away, she would always be somewhat of a curious scientist, a persevering soldier, a greedy criminal. "What does that look like? Running away? Out of Hoenn?" Could he live with himself if he did, after being so certain his forgiveness would be found in this soil? [break][break]

"I want you," she answered, though he had not interrogated her the same way she did with him. He did not push her boundaries. He treasured her, and it made her want to give and give and give. "No matter what that looks like, as long as it's you."

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

Sootopolis left a watery grave in its wake, now a ghost of what it once was. She had walked out uninjured after the small burns she'd taken were healed by Gardevoir. Many were not as lucky. More still were houseless but confined to a battered, barren warzone. Constant reminders of the battle taken there that those civilians had been helpless against; after all, they were not just durants to a god, but casualties to a war they had never consented to be in. [break][break]

If you did not fight the war, you were the spoils. Or the spoiled. [break][break]

The hospital was overflowing, even though Dewford was no small hop and skip from Sootopolis. People had been flown out of the war zone en masse. She knew, even if Gwendolyn had been sent to a closer triage, she would have ended up here for longer rest and recovery. It was easy to get what she wanted from the secretary, and easier still to walk through the hallway filled with the symphony of beeping machines and haggard breath. Who knew how many dozens were left with pneumonia from the drowning and the storm? [break][break]

CONWAY, the paper slot read within the plastic sign. She prepared herself for the sight and stepped in; despite her expectations and despite her war experience in Galar, she found her breath caught in her throat. Gwendolyn looked so small, so limp. The monologue she'd prepared fell silent on her tongue.

TAGS – Gwendolyn Conway [break]

NOTES – post first wave[break][break]

Ameena is a stark outlier in the dreamy mist that surrounded her office. The mist created visions and projections from the subconscious, everything filtered by the eye of the beholder, in a manner of speaking. She did her best to keep her mind blank lest she contribute her own projections and muddy the experiment. [break][break]

The woman who appeared was one she did not recognize. It was obviously not Elisabeth. The woman was gorgeous; perhaps she really looked like this, or she was put on a pedestal in his mind and rendered far more heavenly than she could appear in reality. [break][break]

She fought herself to keep from painting what she was seeing with her own expectations. She was expecting Elisabeth, she was expecting to see what was bothering him, and she was expecting something obsessive. The study had hindered the chemical responses that gave people inhibitions and kept their desires in check. What consumed his thoughts?

Gently, softly, so as not to jerk him out of his relaxed mindset, she prompted, "What are we seeing, Matias? What are you chasing?"

TAGS – MATIAS SILPH [break]

NOTES – [break][break]