"Office?" Howard looked around the steaming bathroom. "If you don't think the chairs in my office are comfortable, you could've just said so."

Howard rarely used these bathrooms since he only came to headquarters for work, but it looked far cleaner than it had when Elisabeth Fiorelli's Wo-Chien had set up shop in one of the pools. Even still, the faint smell of bleach wafted in his ears. To him, this bathroom would always smell of manual labor and snail goop.

Regice didn't seem to mind, though. It floated in a hot tub, beeping aimlessly. Miraculously, the water didn't seem to freeze over.

"You look like shit." Howard said casually, even though he also looked terrible. His body was still recovering from frostbite, and the admin looked one gust away from falling over. "You've got questions for me, Temp?"

He gestured towards the Regice, then towards Temp.

"Go ahead, fire."

---

Tempest Quinn

The thought of Howard's office flooding drained what little color remained of the admin's face. He stammered for a moment as he imagined the damages.

He spent a lot of money at Rocket's behest. You had to spend money to make money, he had learned the hard way. You spent money on a college degree in the expectation that you'd receive a high paying job in exchange. During his travels, he had come across many valuables sitting unloved in pawn shops and at auction.

History should be valued by those who could learn from it. Since Howard could learn the most, he bought up everything he could find.

That methodology had ultimately led him to the greatest treasure of all: Regice.

"Temp..." Howard's eye flicked up as he read the clipboard. "It's as you say. I'm not an Avatar. I'm just a historian."

Regice floated aimlessly in the hot tub. Howard turned to glimpse at it, before turning back towards Temp. It was insane to think that Regice would ever bond with Howard. It was just a golem built by his and Temp's ancestors, in an attempt to defend the world from Eternatus. It did not need to form a partnership with Howard to fulfill that objective.

It was just an artifact; his greatest treasure.

"Do these Avatarships really change people? How'd it affect Cillian?" Howard said as he peered at the clipboard sheepishly.

---

Tempest Quinn

"Infinity Energy and Dynergy. In that, it's unique."

The only other Pokemon that Howard could think of that was similar was Eternatus itself. Having a Pokémon with such a connection to Eternatus was vile, but Regice and the other golems were all made from its ribs. He didn't know what the 'rib' entailed, but he was looking into it. He was getting close.

"I see..." Howard looked worried for a moment. He bit his lip and grimaced in obvious discomfort. "I don't want to change, Temp. I'd rather be human. I'm a historian. If some inhuman monster is what chronicles our history, it's no longer ours. It's theirs."

History. His story. When would it become theirstory, instead?

His face doesn't change when Temp explains his husband's change in demeanor. Was that the change brought on by Lugia, or was that the weight of Rocket causing his shoulders to sag? Where did Lugia end and where did Rocket begin?

"I see." He peered back at the clipboard and looked up. "Sometimes when Regice uses its power, its ice creeps across my body. Sometimes I hear things that aren't there. I think that's from Dynergy, though?"

Dynergy was an eternal drug that kept giving. Delusions were quite the chalice to sup from. 

---

Tempest Quinn

"It's an artifact. It has no feelings, only duty. It's not subject to the fickleness that plagues Lugia. It has a single objective, and it will fulfill it."

Love was the death of duty. If Regice grew to care about anything, its objective to defend Hoenn from Eternatus would be compromised. Hoenn would lose to the emotional connection known as love.

Too many empires and lives had been lost over millennia to people shirking their duties for personal whims. That was to be expected. To love to was to be alive, to be human, to be living. Regice did not live. It was a construct born to defend the region. It could not love. It loved nothing.

"Of course it hurts." Howard looked at Temp like the beast was delusional. "Is it not supposed to?"

He figured that Avatars of ice-types likely had to be immune to the cold, lest they die of frostbite. He was getting used to it, but that didn't feel like a special power. More like he was simply acclimating.

"As for the voices... they whisper too quickly for me to process them. I'd chalk it up to Dynergy exposure, like from the Deep Sea."

---

Tempest Quinn

"Cancer?" Howard stared at him. "I can get cancer from this shit? Do Avatars get cancer?"

His eye flicked from Temp to Regice innocently floating in a nearby hot tub, beeping contently. It seemed remarkably innocent for a golem that had tried to kill both Rocket and League at the Island Cave. To the senior Rocket members, such actions and changes in behavior were considered normal.

Howard considered them neurotic. Most Legendary Pokémon acted like children flitting from one act of violence to the next when you got down to it.

"I'll take the tests, of course." Howard shook his head once and grunted. "I'd rather not die because of energies I'd need an extra four degrees to comprehend. How many Avatars have died in the past, Temp?"

It was an ominous question to ask. He knew that Bailey Cooper had died a few years ago, but was that related to Avatarship or from the weight of Top Champion? Howard didn't know, but he didn't want to die for some senseless power.

There was too much on the line.

"My relationship...?" Howard peered at the clipboard.

---

Tempest Quinn

"I heard that the Top Champion kicked it back in the day when I was wandering the world." The admin sucked on his teeth as he called it. He had learned about it from a half-broken radio that had been in a desert trading post in Orre. "The one before kyle lopez. Bailey Cooper."

Losing Hoenn's Top Champion had been a major tragedy. The League had lost one valuable piece on their board, and Rocket had gained a massive boon. The vacancy that death had provided had been quickly filled by Hoenn's finest, and even her legacy had been stripped away with MATIAS SILPH holding her title.

Both sides forgot, but history remembered. The world remembered.

"That so?" Howard's eye widened as he suddenly began to pat himself down. He wasn't turning to ice or anything. If anything, he seemed to be fine. "Fuck, man."

Howard looked stumped. How did you react to the fact that you were changing, day by day, on a level that you couldn't comprehend?

"It's a construct!" Howard sputtered at Temp as he pointed at Regice. "It's a golem! We made it! Us! It's an artifact! How can it hold so much power?"

---

Tempest Quinn

"That'd be nice, but the secrets to building it are lost, gone under the waves."

Howard's promotion after raiding the Island Cave was hardly mentioned. It had been an unceremonious promotion that had not attracted much attention. Only after allegedly defeating six of FERNANDO SILPH's Pokémon in a battle to the death had the admin's name grown popular. The battle was a farce, but nobody needed to know that.

What people did know was that the admin's reaction to the loss of an entire city had been apocalyptical. His rage had been terrifying to behold.

"The League held the place before it went under, and they released a lot of intel to those translating the runes found in the cave. I'd know, I helped translate a big chunk of it." The admin snorted, flashbacking to the many sleepless nights spent translating the runes. "If we want the secrets for construction, we'll need another ruin."

Fat luck. Most of them were either buried or vacant.

"And Dynergy? What do we have on that?"

---

Tempest Quinn