For the third time this week, Howard Slayte thought about setting BARNABY FINCH's office on fire.

Barnaby had returned from his birdwatching adventure, submitted a report, and had returned to his traditional admin duties. What he hadn't done was come back to Howard's office to pick up the leftover work. Instead, he seemed to have forgotten about it. Signing off on grunt pay, various executive orders, requests from the higher ups, Barnaby had been content to add his own work on top of Howard's and forget about him.

At this point, it was par for the course. It simply meant that Howard would have to find a way to get his revenge. Murder would be ideal, but Barnaby likely had insane wizard powers like lighting Howard on fire with his mind. Instead, he'd have to bide his time.

Patience was a virtue, not a sin.

"Aurelie?" The admin's eyes were glazed over by the time he finally looked up from his desk. His office looked more like a museum than a productive place of work. Rich tapestries and paintings and swords and fossils gleamed. A Relicanth in a fish tank stared beadily at the smith, before swimming away. "Take a seat, please."

Hopefully Calyrex didn't need a chair. Howard rubbed his eyes, which quickly turned from dead and vacant to bright and sparkly as he saw what Aurelie had brought him. He quickly tamped down on his excitement as he gave the smith a look.

"To clarify," he steepled his hands as his eye darted from Calyrex to its retainer. "To make this absolutely clear: you're asking me for my advice on a historical matter. Not only that, but you brought me food. This isn't a trick? Did Admin Delaney put you up to this?"

He seemed incredulous, as if it were too good to be true.

---

Aurelie Lefevre

If by the 'finer things in life', Aurelie meant smoking, spending paychecks on artifacts, silently hating his life, and playing Varoom Kart 64, then Howard fit that definition flawlessly.

"Luckily, I'm also a man who barely cooks." Not a lie, but not the truth. Years of college, piles of degrees, and a decade of poverty had taught the admin much about scrimping on a budget and sacrificing quality for quantity. His years of wandering Unova's deserts, Sinnoh's icy wastes, and Kalos's eastern mountains had taught him much about cooking.

It was either that or starve, and starving disagreed with Howard. He much preferred a full belly to dying in a ditch in some forgotten corner of a nameless waste.

"Aurelie, you can't call that a caveat. You're asking me to do what I love. If anything, you're helping me."

The admin stood up and frowned as Calyrex vanished, before his gaze focused on the smith.

"If you'll give me a moment, I can clear off this desk and we'll eat. I'll explain as I do so." Aurelie's smile worked, and the admin plucked the bronze dagger, twirling it as he placed it in a drawer. In the corner, a jade statue given to the admin by dorian westcliff glimmered. "Plus I can get some tea simmering, if you wish. New import of leaves from Johto came in last week.

As he spoke, various knickknacks were deposited into cases and placed on shelves and in cabinets, each piece could sell for enough to finance Aurelie's forging operations for a month. Despite his destitute nature, Howard's policies had brought much wealth into Rocket. He was good at accumulating money, but spending it on himself? Not so much.

Letting food spill on his precious collection would be a betrayal of his passion. It'd be like using pig iron to forge a sword.

"First thing's first. You're familiar with Calyrex's barrier, right?" Howard said as he put a gold bar from Lumiose City Mint into a desk drawer. "And its imperial decree?"

"None shall dynamax in the capitol while this barrier stands."

Thud. Howard placed a chunk of Dynite Ore in front of the smith. Thud. A small Wishing Star much like one affixed to a Dynamax Band followed.

"You're aware of what these are? Maybe through attempting to forge them or otherwise? The League had a grip on Dynite Ore recently, but their grip has slackened."

Through his designs, mostly. Howard had excavation teams working across Hoenn in an attempt to rend as much material from the earth as possible.

---

Aurelie Lefevre

The dream. It all came back to the dream of Galar. It was a frustrating realization, given that there was no way for Howard to verify its existence, beyond the specter that haunted Aurelie. In a sense, Howard was glad that the dream had occurred, as it had enlightened many and given them purpose in life, and yet...

...almost every person who came out of that dream was changed, for better or worse.

"This, my lovely smith..." Howard tapped his desk with his knuckle. As he spoke, his voice became more professional. "Is Dynite Ore, a type of metal impacted by the raw power of Eternatus. The League's been mining it for a while, but I've been pulling it from the Ancient Tomb. My family had a stake in Rustboro's mining sector before it dried up, and the experience has proven useful. It sells for a lot on the black market, and I have a few containers of it shipping off from Lilycove. We will not want for supply."

Supply. Demand. Logistics. There were those in Rocket capable of awesome feats of power, but Howard controlled the pulse of supplies. Sootopolis would become the heart that pumped dangerous goods throughout the region, and gold and wealth would fill their coffers.

When the time was right, that heart would stop beating by Rocket's will alone.

"I'm showing you this because Calyrex's barrier has dulled its power. If you were to take this chunk out of Sootopolis, it'd thrum with more power. It's quite annoying, as my golem isn't as powerful within the city now that the barrier is up. This means Calyrex is stopping the flow of Dynergy, not just Dynamax. Our Dynamax Bands will not work, nor will any Power Spots."

Despite that, the admin didn't have a band affixed to his wrist as he dangled a spoon between his fingers. For one so invested in the workings of a god, he seemed to refrain from touching it. Likely wise, given Eternatus's corrupting influence from Galar's dream.

His eye brightened as he tried Aurelie's dish. His eye visibly sparkled for a moment, before he pondered the smith's question.

"Delicious." Howard put the spoon down and frowned as he contemplated something. "Calyrex's barrier will not be enough."

He said it with the casualness of a man foretelling the weather, as if it were a simple observation, though ultimately inconsequential.

---

Aurelie Lefevre

"I wish I had a billion in the bank. That'd be nice."

Howard's voice was dreamy as he imagined being able to pay his electric bill. That hadn't been an issue since he moved to Dewford Town, but the trauma of paying utilities was one that the admin constantly thought of. As he mused, a nameless grunt walked in with a Kalosian tea set. She set it on the table, whispered a word into Howard's ear, and left the office.

The joys of having grunts at his beck and call was something that Howard loved dearly. Luxury was the spice of life, and Howard's life needed a bit of spicing up.

"As I was saying," he shook off dreams of wealth and harems, "the barrier will not be enough. Dynergy is still flowing. Regice can still move within the city, which makes me suspect that other entities can as well. Eternatus was in that dream, I've heard. You're familiar with Eternatus?"

It was hard to forget. The shadow it had cast over Galar in that dream had turned a dream full of light into a nightmare. It was the ouroboros that threatened to devour the sun, given form. If Howard had seen it in its glory, he would've ran, hid, or fell to his knees to die.

He did not want to know which option he would choose.

"Aurelie." He stared at her. Not as Howard Slayte, not as Admin Fox, but as the third person. The purveyor of the yesterday's memoirs, who cared about humanity as a collective but could not recall the names of each individual. Not the historian who wept as he chronicled the deaths of thousands, but as the archivist who simply noted the event and moved on.

The gaze of a man who was firmly committed to his ideal. He spread his hands to let Aurelie inspect the chunk of ore.

"Do you truly think Calyrex can stop that alone?" His one eye bore into hers, an intersecting of insights and perspectives. "Calyrex is a king, but what is a king to a god?"

He rose to look at the map of Hoenn that extended behind his desk. Such a massive region, and it would fall like weeds in a hurricane if Eternatus roused itself.

"Your ignorance is understandable, but it is now insufficient." He said as he looked at the map. "It is the king that Galar needed to survive Eternatus. You ask what I know of Calyrex, and the honest answer is little. It is whispered of in storybooks and fairy tales, meant to amuse rather than instruct. Yet what little we have on it is myth. If you dilute myth, you will eventually get fact."

Even if what little fact they had was hardly helpful.

"A king is only as mighty as its subjects."

---

Aurelie Lefevre

"Do you really think a god can be held back by something as trivial as a rift?"

Eternatus? One of the four born from Arceus's egg, presumably on the level of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina? All three could wander between the boundaries of the world like they were nonexistent. They were the strongest entities in existence, and nothing could compare.

In moments like this, Howard's faith threatened to shake. How was mankind supposed to stop something like this? How could they manage to wage war against a god that could rip the world apart? Hoenn and Galar had subdued Eternatus with their own weapons, but Eternatus had lived, and it seemed to be a bigger threat than ever before.

"A dream can be just as real as you or me. Dreams guide us all. They're the foundation of what makes us... us. Both unconscious dreams and the dreams that guide us." Aurelie seemed so out of water with this. She was a humble smith who forged. She followed her dream and passion, and she had been entrusted with a shade and an order that could determine the fate of the world.

Poor girl. It didn't seem fair. It was best if he tried to raise her spirits. Seeing her mood dour made the admin feel guilty.

"Yes. There are records, but they're not particularly helpful. What we know is that it is the source of Dynamax and the Wishing Stars that dot Hoenn and Galar, but as for tools, I'm glad you asked..." Howard smiled as he played with his fork. Aurelie's reflection glimmered in shining silver. "We have one. Regice."

The admin's eye widened as he tried the bread.

"Delish~" After realizing how embarrassing that reaction was, Howard desperately tried not to choke. He chewed the bread and swallowed. "Ignore that."

Every second, he could feel his credit as a Rocket Admin going down the drain.

"Hoenn's Legendary Giants fought Eternatus to a standstill. I have one. The other four have been located over the past few years. As for their current locations..." Howard shrugged. "I do not know."

---

Aurelie Lefevre

Upon the mention of Necrozma, the admin choked on his bread. After a momentary coughing fit, he regained his composure. When his airway was cleared of the foodstuff, he quickly corrected Aurelie.

"Do not put faith in Necrozma's chosen. He is unreliable."

Calling the Devourer unreliable and leaving it at that felt like a disservice to the threat that the man was, but there was little to be done. He could not be removed from Rocket. He could not be killed. He could not be locked away. All they could hope for was a world where illeana reyes put him six feet under.

The admin spooned some stew into his bread and let it sit, akin to a trencher. He tore off a piece of bread and dipped it into the stew, reveling in the smith's cooking. It was certainly better than stealing dollar store ramen that he couldn't afford.

"But you are correct, Necrozma is a tool. It has the potential to succeed where many other entities in our world will fail. But it's not a victory you should be satisfied with. If Eternatus falls, Necrozma will simply take up its mantle. Hoenn must be defended by those loyal to it, not something with outside interests."

Which was why the idea of relying on the bosses and underbosses amused Howard so. He wished that those who stood at the top of Rocket would agree on policy, but that seemed unlikely. Aurelie was right. They were playing with something far beyond their comprehension. They were human, and yet were being forced into a war of the divine.

It was not fair. Which was why...

"I don't stand it." He said quietly. "I just do, and hope that my actions matter in the end. We'll get through this because we have before. Because even if people like you and me cannot kill a god, we can enable the people who will. Each generation must experience their own form of suffering, after all."

Theirs just happened to be on a universal scale.

"You will complete Calyrex's commission." Howard's voice was soft, gentle. "Because it must be done."

He gave her a small smile.

"Think of the glowing review it'll write for your smithy, if it keeps you going."

---

Aurelie Lefevre

"Just because it's born of a storybook doesn't make it any less real. It's here. It's interacting with us. It has a stake in our war." Howard's spoon clinked against his dish as he stirred the dish absentmindedly. He rose a spoon to his lips. "Seriously, this is delicious. Quit Rocket. Open a shop. I'll visit every day."

He dipped a warm crust of bread into the dish and ate it. Even the bread was spectacular. He made a note to get the name of the bakery in mind when this was over.

These were the moments that made life worth living. That, and screaming into a pillow. At this point, the struggle barely phased him anymore. As long as he or Aurelie had a purpose in life, they would keep going. Forging was a lifelong passion. Aurelie would never stop honing her craft. She had her struggles, but she shouldered them with a smile.

When this war was over, where would Howard go? Would he just... stop?

It saddened him that someone so talented and kind was chained to Rocket. He almost cursed Calyrex for confining her to this fate.

"Not much, but I have few doubts on the person who has it. Even if I'm wrong, the person who holds it will reveal themselves soon." Soon, Elise Calcifet would have to play her hand, and it was a very risky one to play. It would result in many trials for the princess. "Myths have a way of changing people."

A pang of fear crossed his face upon the mention of Necrozma's Avatar. A touchy subject. The fact that he was still around terrified the admin. Couldn't he leave and go to the next universe, already?

"I assume Calyrex will do what people with saddles and shields do." He shrugged at her. "Ride horses. There are no recorded texts on Calyrex's existence. I know thousands of years of Galarian history, and it does not exist. Instead, consider this:"

He raised his teacup to her with a raised eyebrow.

"How many times does something die?"

---

Aurelie Lefevre