Doctors were a luxury. Finding individuals willing to twist their moral code to 'do no harm' while also abiding by Rocket's policies made medical staff a luxury. Finding doctors who were actually willing to do work was even more rare, given that Howard found his newest hire smoking outside.

"Doctor Whateley." Howard's voice was akin to a manager that found his subordinate slacking on the job. Laurence had barely been formally inducted into Rocket, but here he was, slacking away. "I thought you were working on those Iron Moth antivenoms."

Normally, he would've asked Xenon Antheil to do it. However, she was temperamental and often busy with her various studies into the RKS Simulation and Area Zero. Sometimes, it was best do diversify in Rocket. Leave the medical professional to the antidotes.

As he prepared to chew Laurence out, he stopped. Seeing the doctor smoking alone brought back memories of Howard's smoke breaks in Rustboro with Shred . They hadn't had one of those in... months.

Oh, how time flew by. Occasionally, he forgot what it was like to be a free man, lounging around and selling fossils for Rocket's benefit. There had been a childish freedom to it, but that had been replaced with desk work.

Still, he felt nostalgic.

"Hm." His eye softened as he joined the doctor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of Purple Koffing cigarettes. "Got a light?"

---

Laurence Whateley
J0KUnnIs

“They’re resting on the desk for a moment…fifteen minutes to myself hopefully won’t have the work I did disappear…”


He replied, his apathy palpable as he exhaled, the smoke coming from him like the remnants of ash from a torkoal. He knew he was doing work, if he weren’t he’d have shown such a lack of care when the bastard had stumbled into his hospital long ago…And from when he left, that morning, he had already been a few pages deep.

His eyes glossed over the landscape a bit more as Howard got ready to go about his managerial rant of work and the need to do it, taking a moment to notice the small things that he hadn’t given much thought the first time as he prepared to have his words blend into the noise of the cavern. Blend into the crunching rocks of dwebble who had littered the ground, the occasional brute bonnet who stomped about, and above the cries of swellow who circled the skies, However, luckily he was spared from it, a rare start from the admin.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll offer it if you give me a bit more time to breathe…”


Laurence gave a dry laugh as he fished in his pockets for his light, tossing it towards the Admin as he took another drag of his vice.

“So, what exactly are these Pokemon…I mean, I see they are based on Volcarona…But why do they look like that? From the typing of it, to its look, nothing should have it so distorted…And just how many of those things are out here?"

howard slayte
pSgXvvjL

Laurence asked a question that many of Rocket's eggheads had been asking since Paradox Pokémon began to manifest. It was a question that they were still asking, despite the ever-increasing frustration. Tera Crystals and Paradoxes did not reveal their secrets easily.

"They manifest from Tera Crystals, based on the collective unconsciousness of our species. That's my theory, anyway." He waved his cigarette like a wand, deftly catching it between his fingers without a hint of burns. "Besides that, hell if I know. They're dangerous, and they're strong."

He wished he could give the doctor more than that, but it simply wasn't possible. The lack of knowledge was unfathomably frustrating, especially to the inquisitive mind.

"We're hoping that this place answers your questions."

Howard watched the Swellow flying in the sky for a moment, his eye transfixed on the bird like it was his last lifeline to the land above. Laurence had asked his question. Howard had answered it. There was no need for exchange, with someone as curt as Laurence. He wondered if the doctor despised him, or was simply always prickly.

If Howard met himself, he'd despise him too. A moment passed before he resumed conversation.

"You like working with us? Is the added PTO satisfactory?"

---

Laurence Whateley
xWSMugQD

So, he'd been researching something that even the man before him didn't know...That made his throat itch, a sense of discomfort at the idea of Hoenn harboring such unknown things. Had he just been ignorant of it all? Letting him and his child stay in a place that had been a den of mysteries all along? He kept his concern to himself, finding it easier to nurse the shortening bud he smoked.

"So you're just sitting ducklets here too then with these anomalies...typical. You really have no idea how hard it is to not be able to get close to one of those things and still expect much of an antivenom…The least Rocket could have done was give me something to work with.”


In a breath of exasperation, Laurence scratched his head with his free hand, trying to think what more he could have extracted from just observation on camera. The things had floated with nothing to propel them, and when they weren’t trying to simply roam around, in some strange manner he’d seen even the largest of Kangaskhan be taken down with but a few strange cuts of its sharp wings. There wasn’t much he could do unless they would bring one of the things up close and ensure that he’d live to observe it.

“And don’t get too comfortable saying I like working with Rocket…You may be up there, but my opinion stays the same. The benefits are nice, and Sophia seems to be doin’ great even with the change…But you’re still a bunch of doomed criminals.”


You’re. He wouldn’t go and bring himself to call himself one. He healed and protected, he had a difference to this. However, even the thought of it seemed to make his muscles twitch in defiance. He could sense his body had known he had been now a part of this.

howard slayte
9OLP6tJp

"Yeah, doomed. That's what they are."

They. Even the admin seemed unwilling to place himself amongst the ranks of Rocket. He wore their clothes, used their name, reaped their benefits, but he would never truly view himself as one. You had to view yourself as doing the right thing in order to survive in this work. If Howard didn't lie to himself, he'd break under the strain.

A broken admin did little. A broken admin would be discarded like an overused toy or overworked Mudsdale.

"But it's because they're doomed that the fight is worth something. Their names will echo forever, and you're simply easing their suffering as they slip away. Rocket will fall, but their story won't. It will echo forever."

Treasonous words, but spoken from the mouth of a high ranking official, it almost seemed like propaganda. Howard was content to keep his mask off for this man. He liked Laurence, and nobody was going to believe that a doctor strong-armed into the organization. Laurence was his silent witness.

Whenever he didn't have a snide remark, that is.

"I'll check with someone. We're bound to have an Iron Moth in containment." Howard puffed a cigarette and sighed. "If we get you one, you'll work faster?"

---

Laurence Whateley
53ZVfBQw

He had always raised a brow whenever Howard had gotten into that spiel about Rocket and his distancing about it, that same way Laurence did however, with how his current "employee" was, there was little to prove it. If he hated it, and yet he went and dragged someone else into it...How much could he have hated it? That was the doctor's thinking anyway...But Howard surely would have known that was the thought process behind it. He was a perceptive man as always. But, for fear he'd have to sit through such a thing, Laurence rose a hand, waving both the smoke and the speech away. 

"Right...Right...Well, you getting an Iron Moth for me up close and personal would be great, it'd make this damn thing a lot easier too, much easier than having to try to guess and wait for the remains of whatever victim it gets. I just need a bit of venom it produces fresh to get an anti-venom ready. But me working faster would simply depend on whether you can get one fast."

Laurence could almost see the notes he had been working on, each one documenting what little he could find from the prey of the paradox Pokémon, he'd been working but with such few opportunities to actually observe or take venom directly from it, it simply made the work a lot harder than need be. 

"So, think you can do that, Boss Man?" 

howard slayte
fB_wHH_j

The admin was silent for a few moments as he pondered the request.

"We'll get you an Iron Moth to study. Shouldn't be too hard to rent one out." Howard scratched his chin thoughtfully as he thought of the numerous owners of Paradox Pokémon in Rocket. Immediately, he thought of Xenon Antheil . She was likely plumbing Area Zero for its secrets right now, though.

Worst case, they could pull one from storage. Rocket had no shortage of resources for research. Howard would get this doctor whatever he needed, as long as he stayed close to Rocket. It was easier for someone to accept their lot in life if they wanted for little. He knew from experience. Howard had been given riches, and in exchange had closed his mind to the truth of what he was doing.

Laurence was no different. He was a doctor, yes, but he was just a grunt. He was a cog in the great machine of Rocket, no matter how many freedoms Howard offered him.

"I'll have to make some calls, but it should be doable. Prioritize this. I'm sick of losing men to poisons we should have an antidote for. Even when we do, it's in short supply."

The admin exhaled smoke as he looked off into the distance. The Giant Chasm shouldn't have existed, yet it did. An impossible landscape born from the cradle of the battle with Kyurem.

"What do you make of the Paradox Pokémon, Laurence?"

---

Laurence Whateley
fDMxuYJM

"Perfect. Then you'll have an antidote for it soon."

He sounded assured of himself, confident that if Howard fulfilled what he wanted, then he'd meet his quota, as he always had since the beginning, Laurence may have been someone who regretted joining Rocket, but he was consistent with what was needed. That was what mattered anyway. Howard's complaint brought out a groan from the man, he'd seen plenty of patients who had wandered into the hospitals, pale as snow due to whatever poison coursed through them from an agitated opponent. Neurotoxin, corrosive, almost any and everything under the sun. 

"It's only natural that a few of 'em be taken out by toxins, it's only the dumb ones who go about things without a cure though. And like any smart person, knowing to stay away from something dangerous is always good advice. As for the Paradox Pokemon, if that's their proper name, I'll admit, I'm no researcher, but it's clear the Iron Moth isn't from here."

Laurence tried to recall what he had written on his notes, the blurry image of a doctor's scribble only going so far to be helpful, so it often came times where he simply had to think from simple observation too. 

"At first I could only assume that its appearance had only just looked like the Volcarona, from the looks to even how it attacks...I've seen the footage you gave me a few times and in the same way it seems to just overwhelm other Pokémon with those rays of light...And I can't help but wonder if either they were just made in the likeness of Pokémon, or if the damn things are just not normal. If they're made from Tera Crystals, then why don't we have any on hand...And just what collective unconscious have we been thinking about to have created this?"

The Doctor's brow creased when he was conscious, he felt the only thing he could think about was his work and his daughter, and when he wasn't immediately thinking about it, he was sure that she still took up the rest of the time in his mind as a permanent resident. Subconscious or not, he wouldn't have thought of...these things. What would they have given him? If anything, he'd have wanted them gone, with how many had been struck by its strong toxin, they posed a threat.

---

hMTE_gZZ
howard slayte

"The collective malice of our species."

The admin grunted and took a deep drag of his cigarette. He gave Laurence a look full of anger and despair and absolute apathy. His eye was an abyss that reflected everything that humanity ever was. Its vilest moments, its most bloody defeats, its events overflowing with enough wrath to drown the region.

Mankind was a vile species. Its base nature had not evolved one step beyond the stone edge.

"That's all they are. They are our worst thoughts given form, our desires vile. They're proof that humanity's limbs are old and our vision feeble, and that by all intents and purposes we should walk into oblivion without raising a fuss."

Another long drag. Howard flicked it to the ground and stamped it until the last embers died beneath his uncaring heel. He looked up at the glimmering entrance to the world above. Above the Giant Chasm was Oldale, and around Oldale was Hoenn. The entire world was spread out before them.

"But there's potential, too." Howard grunted and shook his head. "Paradox Pokemon are vile, as are Tera Crystals. They have the power of the future, though, I suppose."

Silence. The admin nodded to Laurence.

"Get ready. We're going out. Maybe we'll catch you an Iron Moth. Meet me here in thirty minutes."

The admin trekked off.

---

Laurence Whateley
ZjcQa1Ja