"Because he's annoying. He keeps calling my phone and sending me gifts and breaking into my office."

He gave his fellow admin a look, as if he didn't believe what Jayden was asking. Was he blind, or just playing dumb?

"He doesn't do that to you?"

Above, Eternatus groaned as it buckled under the combined weight of one of Galar's heroes and one of Hoenn's giants. Each were built for the sole purpose of waging war with the god above, and said god was feeling the weight of their wrath and discontent.

The simulation started to fail.

"It's hard to imagine Chu-e as anything other than a pain in the ass."

---

jayden cross

"That so?"

If Chu-e Choi had been Jayden's everything at some point, there was only one thing to say.

"I'm sorry."

Howard hated Chu-e Choi. He wanted to hate Jayden Cross. Still, the fact that Jayden and Chu-e had once held something filled the admin not with disgust, but pity. It was a sad thing to be spurned, and it was a sadder thing to be spurned by the sack of dead meat that Chu-e now was.

At some point, the Necrozma Avatar had been something great. Now, he was a husk. A husk that should have whittled away to ash, taking Jayden Cross's affection with it. Like many things, it outlasted its time in this world.

Good. History was meant to be studied.

The simulation shifted. Howard let out a shriek and the moment was lost as a titan raised over the ruin that he and Jayden found himself in. This box would become their tomb.

⠁⠝⠝⠊⠓⠊⠇⠁⠞⠑ Regirock raised a mighty fist and swung it towards Jayden.

---

jayden cross
KnWaVdsp

Chien-Pao's hatred is a festering emotion. It rots stone and causes foundations to crumble. There is no emotion more fiery in the heat of the moment than the hatred that burns in the sword's breast. Yet it is quickly burned to cinders, and the only sensation it leaves behind is an uncaring coldness.

Where fiery rage once burned unfettered, only ice could remain.

"Who cares if it's sealed? Seals can be broken." Howard frowned at Jayden as they danced against the raging Regirock. The earthern construct groaned as it fell back part of its body crumbling, before swinging a fist at its cousin. Its pattern blinks in confusion as it meets its cousin, but that does not stop it from burying its fist in Regice's chest.

Ice shattered like glass as stone punched through the void where a heart should have been.

"Regice, get up! You're not going to lose like this." Howard shouted as it fell, beeping weakly. "You're supposed to be stronger! You're-

A stone fist crushed his legs, causing them to crumple like paper.

"strong..."

---

jayden cross

This is what death feels like. It's not the first time the sensation creeps in on him like a dark tumor. This will not be the last time that Regirock crushes its sibling into powder and its trainer along with it. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It's simply... a process.

Fate.

How Howard loathes that concept. That premise. It doesn't exist.

"Fate... isn't real. We make our future, and our future is filled with victory." A dry rasp as lungs fill with fluid. The dry voice turns wet as the admin's body breaks down alongside Jayden's. They're both dying here. 'Because we deserve it. Because we owe it to those who came before.'

Jayden is being squeezed beneath uncaring boulders that were cobbled together in a haphazard imitation of something greater. It's a human replication, yet the arms are too long, the legs too short, the expression too alien. It feels too inhuman to be human, yet its imperfection makes it so.

Jayden is imperfect. An ugly sword taken off the display to bathe in the blood of his foes. That imperfection makes him beautiful, even as Howard wishes for nothing more than to choke the life from his throat.

Even as the life leaves this virtual body behind and blackness takes hold.

Reality embraces the two like a warm blanket. Howard looks up, pale and shaking, though his eye gleamed with resolve.

"We deserve to win. We deserve happiness." Not him or Jayden Cross. Not anyone in Rocket. They all deserved to die. But humanity? Yes, they deserved joy.

---

jayden cross

The Cursed asked for much. Too much, even.

When Jayden asked for it, it felt almost reasonable. It turned from an unscaleable cliff into a gently sloping hill, even if Howard knew that his capacity for strength was never going to reach or surpass the man that offered his hand. Still, Howard grasped it.

There was an undeniable fact to this world: every human being was blessed with some measure of natural talent in certain fields. Jayden held a special capacity for instilling order through slaughter, and that extended to the battlefields he often commanded. Rocket Beasts could become admins, but admins could never become Rocket Beasts.

Howard was proof of that.

Still. He could make an attempt. An attempt to bridge the gap of raw skill with hard work. Even if it was easier for him to build than destroy.

"First..." Howard grunted as he rose. "I think I'll need a shovel."

To dig a grave for himself, when the man known as Howard Slayte no longer carried that name.

---

jayden cross