The bathroom stall creaks open as a man sheepishly poked his head out. His hat was askew and his eye was bloodshot. He looked less like a Rocket and more like a disheveled survivor of an apocalyptical wasteland. His eye was narrow with suspicion, though it cleared up as soon as Howard saw the sheriff.

"Navy!" Howard's voice was relieved as he saw the newest Elite Four member. "What the hell are you doing here?"

As Howard stepped out into the bathroom proper, the door on one of the stalls was blown off as Doug's head poked out. The bear let out a low growl as he sniffed about, looking for food.

The stench of poison was in the air, and it was a familiar scent indeed. It reeked of home and death and misery and despair. The trauma of Route 119 was ever present in the Bloodmoon Ursaluna's mind.

"Toss me a pint, too." Howard said as Doug shamelessly rummaged through the gas station's beef jerky section. The price on even a stick of fried meat would put a dent in the wallets of even Amor Rose, yet nobody was present in the gas station to force them to pick up the tab.

The admin snorted at his friend's question.

"Nah. I actively pushed at keeping an eye on the phenomenon. It's not the first time we've seen them in the region." Judging by the state of Littleroot, Rocket didn't actively listen. Luckily, neither did the League. "If we were, I'd push against it."

We, not they.

---

Michael Navidson

That caused the admin to laugh.

"There's more evil in the world than just Eternatus."

Unfortunately, there was still a chance that the sheriff was right. There were only so many sources of poison in the world, and Eternatus was the font from which all bile spilled. An unholy chalice that spewed dark mud and poison. The Toxic Chain felt more like a contagion than a curse placed on the world by Eternatus.

This did not reek of Dynamax. It reeked of a plague that history had experienced time and time again.

"Probably not, but I know a thing or two about profit. There's money to be made from this, there always is. The rich get richer, and the hardworking become monsters." He gestured outside to where several zombies were doing a strange dance. Doug continued to maul the beef jerky.

Howard's words applied to the zombies, to the average civilian, and to himself.

"They'll never listen to me. Everything I have, they gave me. Still..." Howard twirled a spoon in his fingers. "Rocky road? Good taste, sheriff."

---

Michael Navidson

As the question leaves his friend's lips, Howard cocked his head to muse it. He's spent much of his career asking questions. He's spent even more of it answering them. He wasn't a scientist who understood the core mechanics of reality. He did not study physics, nor did he understand the multiple universes that intersected from beyond.

He simply took knowledge that had been lost and returned it to humanity. Mankind's inheritance was the knowledge that they had lost when the world was young.

"When I was bear hunting on Route 119. I was with your kid, Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki. A few other people were there too." Howard didn't like to remember the events of that hunt, but it had brought Doug to him. The bear was as important to Howard now as any of his other Pokémon. "There were Nihilegos infected by the same Toxic Chain, but so were some Megalopolans."

The admin frowned. Maybe it was related to Eternatus, with the various Nihilego that had attacked him. They had left no bodies behind, though. Instead, they vanished into glimmers of light.

"I think it comes from Tera Crystals." Howard scratched his chin with the butt of his spoon. "You guys were mining the stuff? And you have the gall to sneer at us?"

The admin didn't seem upset. Instead, he seemed amused and unsurprised. Just as Rocket attempted to harness the power of Tera Crystals, the League tried to bring Eternatus to heel. Humanity had controlled such forces since epochs eternal.

"Sorry." Howard's ears reddened slightly as he ate his ice cream.

---

Michael Navidson

"The mochi didn't feel poisoned. I ate some and turned out fine."

As if to elaborate, he tore into his pint of dairy with the gusto of an archaeologist who made a living from hewing fossils from stone. He waved his spoon thoughtfully as he pondered Navy's words. Mining Dynite Ore and Wishing Stars in an attempt to outpace Rocket was a folly, but it was one that Howard and Navy couldn't stop.

They'd make their error, and Rocket would profit from it. This was proof that history was an eternal samsara. Mankind would reach for fire, and it would burn them.

"You know that wouldn't work. If it was so easy to seal away an evil, our ancestors would've done that rather than fight it to a standstill. We couldn't defeat it. We merely stalemated it."

"I don't even know how Regice is supposed to beat it. It's weak in comparison."

After a moment, he returned to the present as he audibly crushed a pecan between his molars. "I don't think it was the mochi. I think it was the Tera Crystals. The cave was lined with them, it was like..."

Howard's eye twitched as he came to a realization. Where else had he seen underground Tera Crystals? Two places came to mind.

"The Island Cave. That cave network under Oldale."

---

Michael Navidson

"We're working on it. My colleagues would rather use use and accept the phenomenon." Howard's voice was dry as a desert as he remembered BARNABY FINCH . "Why do we care if it breaks the world apart? That's for the League to solve. They're idiots."

The admin grunted as wandered to the front of the gas station and plundered a knife from the display by the cash register. The blade danced in his hand. A weapon meant for slaughter was not meant for the hands of a historian who sought to preserve his home.

That was the one thread that tied Howard and Navy together. Not their love for old movies, not their hated for Eternatus, but for their mutual love of home.

Did it matter if the war was won if Hoenn was nothing more than a burning husk?

"It's like Dynamax. They'll use to beat you and the League, even though Eternatus doesn't care who ends up on top. It'll kill us all the same. Mitigation is not a solution. Diversion is not the key. If you want proof of that, ask Johto."

The war in Johto ended, and the war in Hoenn began.

"Come on, I'll show you how to deal with the Toxic Chain. I learned this one from a walking midlife crisis." Howard opened the door to the gas station. "After you."

---

Michael Navidson

The tone in Navy's voice made Howard's heart ache. The internal conflict and the struggle to choose between righteous rage and the path of light was a hard path to walk. Howard knew from experience, it was one he was still walking now.

"People have killed more for less, Navy. Ashes make for fine fertilizer."

The empathy turns off, and cool observation takes its place. Centuries of experience and millennia of wars and suffering are poured into the vessel known as Howard Slayte. After reading about so many wars, after witnessing so much destruction, the only thing left is the pessimism of the historian and the optimism of the living. Mankind would come back from this war, he knew.

The issue with studying so much history written both in the ink of the dead and the blood of the living is that it frayed the soul. It wasn't that Howard cared too little, but it was that he cared too much. There simply wasn't enough for him to understand Navy.

Hatred for Rocket, though? He understood that well enough. Howard woke up every day and wondered if it would fade. It never did.

"It will spread. I wouldn't be surprised if a ranger or grunt was infected and already spreading it. Want my advice? Test your men when this is over." Howard grunted as Doug lumbered behind Navy and Hattori, barely fitting through the store's door. "Take the knife..."

He picked up an unconscious Linoone. With a flash of steel, a twitching Toxic Chain rests on the ground.

"Cut it off. Simple as." Howard handed Navy the knife, handle first. "Can you handle that, cowboy?"

Sometimes the best option was the simplest.

---

Michael Navidson