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[attr="class","skullbody"]Oh, Cygne. Cygne, Cygne, Cygne. Didn't you know the value of a bird in the hand? There were some jobs where when your shift was over, you walked away and never looked back. But a bar was not one of those.[break][break]

"You mean a place where I know all the best cocktails, can cash in on some sweet employee discounts, and may have a favor or two I can throw around after wingmanning for the guy on bar a month ago?" A victorious smirk spread across Isaac's face. "Oh, you can bet your ass I wanna drink here. And there's nobody I'd rather throw my weight around to show a good time than you."[break][break]

Ah yes, Isaac's weight. All the weight this 5'4", surprisingly athletic twink had.[break][break]

Still, the scowl on Cygne's face made it clear that this wasn't her #1 choice. And her word choice was certainly interesting. "Huh, what do you mean?" he asked. It was a Rocket front business, and increasingly sliding into that role after somebody ratted on a bunch of other ones. Big whoop. You couldn't throw a rock in a big city without hitting at least one Rocket front business. Also, they were literally Team Rocket members, so that rock was gonna shatter a glass house or two along the way.

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"What can I say? I've got a good eye." He paused. He blinked a few times. And then he practically doubled over in his chair, laughing. "And I guess I've got a bad one, too!" he sputtered out, barely able to focus.[break][break]

By the time he recovered, he was still wheezing out a few laughs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just. Arceus. I'm not even trying to make eye jokes, I swear."[break][break]

Still, it seemed Cygne wasn't talking about the shady and mysterious kinds of dirty little secrets. She meant the literal dirty little secrets, the ones that any establishment had and chose not to talk about. "Honestly? The nice part about working for a perfectionist is that we're actually pretty low on those by restaurant standards."[break][break]

It also tied into the whole Rocket front direction. The last thing Zev Harcourt would want, after so many Rocket businesses got called out, was for a "health inspector" to go poking around where they shouldn't. The Howling had never been cleaner, and it was hardly a greasy spoon in the first place.[break][break]

Now, what was good at the Howling? "Well, when I'm up there, the better question is what isn't?" he teased, a little smirk spreading across his face. Hey, congratulations on the self esteem! "But if you're willing to wrestle with something big and complicated, hard to go wrong with the signature Sazerac. Classic style, too; did you know the original recipe apparently doesn't even have whiskey in it?"

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"Right? I swear, these things just keep sneaking up on me."[break][break]

And maybe more would sneak up on them, because apparently they were starting their night with absinthe! The need to shill for the place's most popular signature drink had once more laid Isaac low.[break][break]

"Luckily, pretty sure that's just an exaggeration. You know how those artsy types can be," Isaac remarked. " 'Ah, yes, my green fairy, my muse, I can see foreveeeeeeeeeeer.' " He looked back at the ceiling, a mock look of euphoria on his face as he traced patterns in the air.[break][break] "Yeah, nah. It's a strong spirit, but we only slap a little bit in there. Not enough to get you writing 17th century poetry or anything like that."[break][break]

A small, mischievous grin spread across Isaac's face. "Unless you want extra, of course."[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Cygne was down. Of course Cygne was down. If anything, he was surprised she didn't get bummed out by him pointing out it didn't actually cause hallucinations.[break][break]

He couldn't say no. Not to her . . . Cygne-ness. "Alright, alright, I get the hint," he said, laughing warmly. "I'll go put in an order and make sure they really put some pepper into these ones. Though, uh. Let's make sure we can stay on our feet through the rest of the night, eh?"[break][break]

This was going to be a long night. The last thing they needed was to flame out on the first stop of a seven stop bar crawl.[break][break]

He made sure to put in an order for some bar snacks, too, because he wasn't about to tackle a night like this on an empty stomach. Luckily, the Howling had a pretty good spread of those as well, so when their drinks came a bomb-ass sampler platter came right on its heels.[break][break]

What's that? The Howling didn't normally put all those apps on one sampler? Isaac couldn't hear you over the remaining portions being distributed among the bar and kitchen staff. His co-workers deserved a little snack break.[break][break]

A familiar space, two cocktails in large glasses, a platter full of every appetizer offered at the place, and the love of his life sitting at the other end of the table. Yep. This was living, alright. "Hell of a way for us to ring in the new year, huh?"

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Ah, hard seltzer. It was basically a LaCroix, if along with whispering the name of a fruit from across one room, someone whispered "you're getting drunk now" from across another. It was like double homeopathy in drink form, but for the purposes of sipping a beverage at a bar without losing control, it did its job.[break][break]

With his little appetizer party idea set in motion, Isaac was able to build up quite the platter. There was a good three to five pieces of every appetizer in the Howling on display, everything from the most common mozzarella stick to a few rarer and more unique bites. He couldn't help but smile as he beheld his handiwork. Even on a break like this, he was always scheming.[break][break]

"Only the best for you," Isaac said, a grin on his face in the wake of Cygne's praise. Really, it was just a little bit of killing multiple birds with one stone. Scheming 101. But it meant the love of his life could eat well, and the Howling staff would get an excuse to charge up on snacks before the big Bar Crawl rush started, so why not?[break][break]

It was also a nice change of pace from the usual shit he had to scheme about. "Right? This year's been insane," Isaac groaned. "I'd say stop the ride, Arceus, I wanna get off. But, uh. Considering a bunch of us have a bad feeling Arceus is trying to stop the ride, maybe I shouldn't encourage it." What a jackass. Isaac made a mental note to add that to his long, long list of reasons to throw hands with Arceus.[break][break]

With how Done Cygne was with the whole endless apocalypses thing, it was no surprise that her resolutions were a touch more grounded. She wanted to get more sleep and explore her hobbies more. See? She really was the normal one of the duo. Isaac wished he could come up with resolutions like that in the face of all this insanity.[break][break]

"Nice ones," Isaac said, nodding appreciatively between bites of a potato skin. "Me? I've spent the last year or so trying to find myself. Hoping next year, I can finally put a cap in that."

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"Shit, how would that even work?" Isaac asked, contemplating a baked clam as if it would hold all of the answers. "Like, are we going off Santa Clause logic here? You break it, you buy it? Or is there gonna have to be some big god election after the fact?" His nose wrinkled at the idea. "Voting for whatever schlub's gonna lead our region is hard enough. I don't want the pressure of having to fill out a god ballot."[break][break]

Was it too early to be getting the giggles? Isaac sure hoped not, because this shit was hilarious. Somehow, being under the thumb (the hoof?) of an uncaring god (their Dee Lord, as he liked to put it) was more amusing when putting it in increasingly implausible scenarios. Who knew?[break][break]

Yet for all their snickering over the idea of fighting Arceus, life was an even bigger and scarier conundrum to confront than god itself. "Y'know. Who I am. What I'm doing with myself. Where I go forward from all this," Isaac said. "Sometimes, it feels like the question's more open than it's ever been. I mean, I'm a contest winner and race champ, for crying out loud. Never thought I'd even give those a shot, let alone take the gold in 'em. I'm so much better at this whole existing thing than I used to give myself credit for."[break][break]

The other shoe loomed in the back of his mind. "But, in other ways, well . . . not like I've got the chance to walk every path out there anymore." Rocket enabled him to be the person he always wished he could be. Now Rocket was the thing holding him back from running headfirst into that life. How ironic.[break][break]

"It's so crazy to think how much has happened this year. For better, for worse, hell, sometimes for both."

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"I say we give it to a Legendary nobody cares about, myself," Isaac said. "Figure that way, we don't have as many people declaring big, dumb crusades in its name. Like. Oh, no. Not all three people who really give a shit about Volcanion. We can't piss them off!"[break][break]

He had the power to be wet but also hot. How amazing. Clearly, he was the best fit to control Everything.[break][break]

Even Isaac wasn't as bad at existing as Volcanion was. But he was a pretty close second. "Coulda fooled me," he said, choking down a harsh laugh aimed at himself before it could slip out. "You didn't know me during my four years of wandering the region by myself like a dumbass. Or all those years before that of being a silver medal. Trust me, the me you're sitting with is brand new, and he's making up for lost time like crazy."[break][break]

It wasn't that he wasn't proud of himself for it. He was! But a little, bitter part of him wished that it had kicked in a few years earlier. A larger, harsher, and fresher part of him wished that he hadn't jeopardized that growth by heading to Mt. Pyre. But in the end, the sacrifice he made was the sacrifice he chose, and the loss he endured was the loss that gave him strength.[break][break]

He'd keep living, because Kiryu wanted him to live. And because he did, Ashley Shepard was still with them to this day.[break][break]

Nothing was impossible. But some things were more possible than others. "I'm walking a line that gets thinner every day. I've been doing a damn good job of following it, but, shit. You see what's been going on lately. You see what's being asked of us. Sometimes, I wonder what happens when that line gets too thin to stand on."[break][break]

Isaac wasn't the only one with that struggle. Hell, Hoenn wasn't the only region having that struggle. Everyone fought the same little battles, even on a drastically reduced scale. "Hoo boy, yeah. Boatloads of context," Isaac said, nodding in agreement. "But, hey. Maybe 2023's gonna be a lot more great and a lot less terrible."[break][break]

It'd only take a million people's trajectories doing a total 180. No pressure!

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