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"Life finds a way." Howard agreed, wiping his brow as he picked another weed. "So why can't life find a way to fuck off?"

Unlike ■■■ (Zev Harcourt ), Howard approached gardening with a mixture of bleating and whining. When Bryan asked for ■■■'s help, the Rocket Beast had come and lent his assistance with weeding. When Howard tended to the crops, there was a lot more noise, and a lot more complaining.

Yet there was a passion, there. A love for the craft as Howard complained about his aching back. There was emotion, a genuine care.

"I hate my liiiiiiiiiife..."

He was enjoying this. Yes. This was the right thing to do. Using his knowledge for good, to help people. As he leaned his head back to stretch and yawn, he found himself coming face-to-face with the x-shaped pupils of Xerneas.

"Um... Bryan?" Howard said sheepishly as he began to sweat buckets. He was in the audience of the purveyor of all life. "I want to bow, but..." His eye flicked to the Shaymin on his foot. Damn, it was so cuddly!

Xerneas or Shaymin. Xerneas or Shaymin? Xerneas or-

Shaymin.

Howard picked it up and cuddled it, risking the ferocious claws as he did so. He'd lose his other eye if it meant picking up the fluffy lad.

"What do you mean, 'beloved'?" Howard cocked his head at Xerneas, before bowing in reverence. "Sir, my lord, boss, chi-"

---

bryan delarosa

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"I..." Howard blinked slowly and turned from Xerneas to Bryan. "Okay."

He didn't feel very beloved. He felt very overworked and tired. Between Beast and Admin, the two should've been able to find a handful of grunts to till the land in their stead. If Clayton could automate this, even better. This Ultra Desert project was slow running, and the 'base' was mostly a complex of stapled sheet metal.

oscar clayton claimed that when it was done, it'd be a paradise on earth. Yet there was a long trek between that and this.

"I'm glad you asked, Beast Delarosa." Howard said as he squatted in place in order to rest. His hat covered his eye as he looked up at Bryan. "Shaymin can purge poison from their bodies with Seed Flare. Works for radiation too. They're natural cleaners."

He plucked a weed from the soul and pondered it for a moment. As he did so, he let the Shaymin go so that it could demonstrate its power to the Rocket Beast.

"There's something else." He stood up as he regarded Xerneas and Bryan. "Oscar's sensors keep picking something up, flying overhead occasionally. It's too fast to track. Whenever it passes by, we have a huge burst in plant life. One of our rows of wheat doubled in length overnight."

Bryan was one of Rocket's best minds when it came to taming the land, even if it wasn't by science as much as it was by a gentle hand.

"I figured you might have an idea. You, or..." He gestured towards Xerneas.

---

bryan delarosa

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"That's why I like you. There's no room for scheming, because you're too busy bashing people black and blue." Howard tapped his forefinger to his temple and smiled. "You scheme nothing, and you say nothing. That's all we ask of you, and you do it very well indeed."

Bryan was a musclebound brute, but Howard could work with a brute like that. He was vastly preferable to The Devourer (Zev Harcourt ), who had his own best interests at heart. It was difficult to know what that man was thinking. With Bryan, what Howard saw was what he got, and Howard saw strength.

Bryan was one of Rocket's strongest, after all.

"Ah, Blue Mulch..." The sigh that left his lips was all Bryan would need to hear. It would've been so nice to have a stockpile of Blue Mulch, but it was a dream that would never come to fruition. "We don't know what it is. Oscar is putting up sensors. Maybe we'll get lucky with it. If it attacks..."

The words were unspoken, but the intentions were clear. Bryan was strong. Several times stronger than the admin. If it came to blades, Howard wanted Bryan in their corner.

"Question." Bryan's swarm of flew around the farm. "What do you mean by 'anymore'? Did you give up on thinking?"

---

bryan delarosa

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The admin laughed, a crisp sound that cut threw the hot air like a knife. He tipped his hat and leaned on a hoe.

"You're a very interesting man, Bryan Delarosa. You and Xerneas." Howard let out a laugh and smiled at his colleague. After a moment, he glanced at the divine deer capable of bringing new life into the world. After starting at it for a moment, he bowed his head. "My lord."

Meek to the end, especially when faced with someone capable of cracking him in two. When faced with a trainer as strong as Bryan, all Howard could do was avoid getting on his bad side. That made him the same as any of the other beasts, admins, head scientists, or underbosses. Each of them was strong, and Bryan sat at the pinnacle.

Howard stood at the bottom.

"Do you miss it?" He asked softly. "Thinking things through? When did having brawn outweigh the need for brains?"

---

bryan delarosa

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"It's not. It's the most miserable experience in the world. Not all of us are as strong as you, Beast Delarosa."

He knows nothing of the older man's silent war, of the battle waged between justification for his deeds and the necessity of what needed to be done. Howard figured that the average Rocket omitted these feelings, that he was the only one with a beating heart. Then he had gotten drunk with Temp, spoken with Cillian...

There were humans in this organization, capable of comradery. That should've disgusted him.

But it didn't.

"I never thought I'd be pulled out of the mud to my rank. I never wanted to be promoted, if you can believe it." Not this position, at least. He wanted to be a researcher, but somewhere along the way he had become a pencil pusher instead. "Hm."

He pondered the question for a moment. Memories flashed through his mind, such as Elisabeth Fiorelli and her cursed snail. jayden cross and his monstrous feline. Bryan and Xerneas, Cillian Quinn and his corrupted Lugia.

That man and his dark crystals. Howard took a deep breath as he leaned on his tool.

"No." He stared into the distance of the farm, where the tilled dirt gave way to sand. "I'm a simple man. I want salami to go on discount when I buy groceries. I want to study my histories. I want to catch Brycen-Man 2 on cable this weekend. You people..."

Disgust me. Terrify me.

"...need someone who dreams bigger."

---

bryan delarosa

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"Woah..." Howard watched in awe as what was once a desolate field blossomed into a large orchard. In a dreamlike state, Howard reached for a tree and plucked an apple from it. He inspected it, as if expecting it to dissolve into mist.

Bryan Delarosa was amazing. Not Xerneas, Bryan. He wondered how such a violet warrior ever met such a creature, and convinced it to form a partnership with him.

"Rocket is good at nurturing talents that the League casts aside. They see the rejects of the world and mocks them for not being born pristine and unmarred. That's not a surprise. Authority has always cast out the rejects that question it. I've read about it dozens of times over."

His face was reflected in the apple's dew, distorted by its red sheen. It didn't seem real. When was the last time this field had bore witness to life, to something green and good?

Years, likely. Centuries.

"We've been repeating the mistakes of our species since we crawled out of caves. Our base nature has not changed. Mankind has not evolved one step beyond the stone age." He turned to look at Bryan, before tossing the apple towards him in a high arc, giving him plenty of time to catch it. "Elisabeth Fiorelli is proof of that."

She would never change, he suspected. If he knew her before Wo-Chien, he might've had faith in her. Now? Who knew. Wo-Chien hadn't changed her. It just made her true nature more apparent.

Mankind could not change their base desires.

"But we as a species can learn and improve. We have before." He plucked another apple for himself and bit into it. "Rocket gave me value, and for that I thank it."

And for that he cursed it.

"What did Rocket offer you?"

---

bryan delarosa

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