Maybe, in a different life, Grigori could’ve been a mover. The work was hard but rewarding, and it offered some cathartic peace to the rhythmic movement. Slowly but surely, a home was constructed from a mismatch of appliances, books, and personal belongings.

And several dozen ancient funeral urns.

“It is no problem, Mr. Slayte,” the grunt, well, grunted as he lugged the television to the stand. It sure beat the massive boxes he had in his early twenties, but they still packed a surprising amount of weight. Thus, it hit the wood a little harder than desired. But the legs didn’t snap in half, so he pressed his lips and wiped his brow.

“If the water is connected, then some of that would do well,” he walked over to the kitchen. “Good for the body, when doing physical activities.”

It wasn’t hard to procure one shiny clean glass and fill it to the brim with water himself. For the sake of it, he grabbed a second one and filled it as well. He returned to Howard and offered him the second one while he sipped from his own.

“So, you desired a change of pace as well?” Grigori motioned to the luscious yellow sand, “Or, perhaps, you wanted to feel like you live on the job.”

---

howard slayte

"Water? Got it." He hadn't connected the water himself, but he had faith that Navy would've set everything up for him prior to moving in. If Howard was going to do treason, it was best to get a few benefits from it. Sure, both Howard and Navy would hang when this was over, but that required Howard to fuck up and make a mistake.

The chances of him doing that were slim to none. He was not as foolish as a few of his colleagues.

With a nod of thanks, Howard accepted the Aerodactyl mug that he had plundered from the National Museum of Natural History. If he was going to make pennies on the Pokedollar, he was going to take merch home.

Dewford's water was cool and good.

"The change of pace is nice. Dewford's a nice place when it's not turning into a smoking crater." Last year, the League and Rocket had fought over the Ultra Deep Sea. A few months later, they had squabbled over an island north of Dewford in search of a great treasure that now unceremoniously sat in Howard's freezer.

Regice.

"Being frank, I had to move. My landlord's been trying to get me out on the street for years. This was a long time coming." Howard frowned as he looked out over the golden sand. "There are other reasons here as well."

He blinked slowly.

"Who are you loyal to?"

---

Grigori Sokolov

Grigori did not want to relive the pain that was Dewford. Thus, he didn’t offer any commentary or insight. Howard was an expert in history, and Grigori a master of all the wrongs he did. They likely shared a similar experience and thoughts, if only from different perspectives. A conversation for the sake of it.

But loyalty? That could be an entire area of study for Philosophy. One he desired to give input on, but lacked the academic credit to ever hope of it.

Not that it would stop him. “A good question. It would depend on who is asking.”

He set his glass on the counter and turned around to the sand. What beautiful sand. What a beautiful view. It matched the colors of League perfectly, and likely the faction of the ‘sheriff’.

“While my answer might change, they will all be the truth. I hold loyalties to many a people, and many a belief. For Mr. Fox, him and his own loyalty to Rocket. For Mr. Slayte, him and his academic ventures. For Mr. Howard…” He stopped. Frowned. Right, his original answer no longer worked. All because of him. Would today be the day they opened that chest, buried underneath the corpse of the name?

“Him and his desire to do the right thing, no matter how hard or impossible it may seem,” he said. “So, sir, may I ask which face you wish to put on today?”

He may not have the book smarts of his boss, but he made up for it in street smarts. People smarts. And that let him, occasionally, read Howard like an open book.

---

howard slayte

Grigori's question seemed to amuse Howard.

"Your question, my life." Howard's eye stared off into the distance, as if envisioning something. Masks upon masks, lies upon lies. A different one hid his intentions every type he met with another living person. A different mask for the admins, a different mask for the grunts, a different mask for civilians.

Howard didn't even know who he was anymore. Fox. Slayte. Howard. They were all facets of the individual who observed and chronicled epochs eternal. An observer of eons did not need to be mortal. They did not even need to be human.

Yet Howard was. He bore the shame of being Admin Fox, he could bear this shame as well.

"I don't know. I don't even check what mask it is before I wear it anymore." The admin's smile was dry yet sad, a shade of the man who had joined Rocket a year prior. The weight of responsibility caused a man to change. Cravens could become heroes under the right circumstances. "But..."

His throat itched. He needed a smoke, yet he tamped down the desire.

"I'm asking you to help me save the world from a god." The admin's eye flicked. "And myself from Rocket. I fear my back will be pressed against the wall soon. There are people who will see me moving to Dewford as suspicious."

---

Grigori Sokolov

‘Our lives’ sat on the tip of Grigori’s tongue, but he kept it hidden behind his lips. It was quite different to be nice to the admins and beasts when you were not among them, as opposed to be on the same rank. Fake formalities, but on an entirely different level. He didn’t have to work with them every day of his life.

Howard was bound to them like the keystone to his empty socket.

“For a god, I’m afraid I can do little more than whatever you order, Mr. Slayte,” he said. A deity? Well, well beyond his jurisdiction. Of a person, of a grunt, or even a friend. But he’d try. “Those are not an enemy I am familiar with.”

“But I am quite familiar with Rocket, Mr. Fox,” he crossed his arms. Hrm. The statement felt in conflict with itself. What suspicions could Rocket hold for such a move? If anything, he figured it’d be the League at the admin’s doorstep in the middle of the night. With them, enough questions to unearth even the slightest of contradictions.

“It would depend entirely on whom you’ve created such an opportunity for, and what said opportunity is,” he stepped forward and turned his back to the glass. “Because there are some things, and some actions, that there is no saving anyone from.”

Treason, for starters. Seldom few members of Rocket were gifted televisions or beach homes from loyal League members. “Please, Mr. Fox, spare no details. What's the situation?”

---

howard slayte

"Eternatus." A single word filled with doom. "Though you might know it by another word."

Grigori had not experienced the dream of Galar, full of nightmares and annihilation. If he had, Howard suspected that the grunt's beliefs would manifest differently. The dream had changed everyone, including the town's sheriff.

"The Ultra Deep Sea."

An entire dimension dedicated to the innards of a god. It was a vast concept to grasp, and a terrifying one to behold. The idea of walking upon the corpse of a divine foe was too much to handle for most. Occasionally, Howard had to remember that it was real, and not some deluded dream.

"I'm here to study it in case it rouses itself. If it awakens, both the Pokémon League and Rocket will need to be prepared." Howard put his hand on his hip and gazed at the gifted television. A poisoned chalice, but researching gods in exchange for luxury appliances was a deal that Howard could stomach, if it didn't mean daggers in the dark.

"At the behest of a member of the Elite Four." Dewford's sheriff and interim Gym Leader, at that. "See the problem?"

Treason.

---

Grigori Sokolov

“So that’s what the Ultra Deep Sea is…” Grigori said. It made sense, in retrospect. Not too many locations had a heart beat. Walls that felt more like tissue than rock. Deposits moist in liquids that felt anything but natural. Hindsight was 20/20, yet he felt stupid for not reaching such a conclusion before this moment.

Ultimately, it was irrelevant to the actual matter at hand: if it ‘woke up’, then the region would see destruction in a way it’d rarely had before. The meteor came to mind, and this surely rivaled it. At least, if it worried Howard this much– how could it not worry him as well?

“But…” his gaze fell to the floor, hopeful he’d find the proper words there. Unfortunately, all he saw was brand-new carpets, perfectly installed wood panels, and a multitude of boxes that held incredibly expensive relics.

Howard’s friend and beneficiary had put him into a rough spot, but it ultimately fell to the archeologist to know when to say no. “This is a problem with very few answers. And none of them kind, Mr. Slayte.”

“As I see it, you have three realistic options: tell the Underbosses and Mr. Walsh you took this offer as an advantage to spy on the League,” his eyes met Howard. The grunt felt a tension unlike any other, and he was back in the office with Mr. Quinn. They both knew that wouldn’t happen, but stranger things had been done by the admin.

“You could also be honest and explain the situation. Hope they view the threat of Eternatus in the exact same lens as you do. What I recommend, but…” he trailed off. They also both knew what would happen if they didn’t. Howard’s face and name would end up on a missing persons report, and that’d be the extent of his legacy. “And the third option– which is the worst one. It may seem appealing, but it will only bring you grief and misery later down the line.”

“Hide this fact, and hope they never find out.” Unfortunately, he had a strange feeling in his gut. That they both knew what’s exactly what he would do. “Highly unlikely.”

Such was the price of treason against Rocket and all her glory.

---

howard slayte

Grigori loved the truth. He would naturally push for being forthright with the high command of Rocket, because he could not believe in a world where people would lie for their own needs. That's why Howard liked him so much. They both valued the truth, but in Rocket, even honest men had to lie.

"We delayed stopping the apocalypse for personal gain, Grigori. Remember Meteno? We stalled the warping of that meteor in order to get a leg up on the League." Rocket's goal had not been the destruction of Hoenn, but they had danced the line on that day.

It had been hard to explain to the conscripts of Rocket that they were potentially dooming the universe. Howard wondered what Isaac Merlo thought of that.

"What's to say Rocket won't let Eternatus stir for their own gain? Grigori, no matter what you think of me, I'm not a butcher. These lives have value." Howard blinked slowly. Information had to be shared, and the League was aware of his quandary. When he asked Naomi Sato for help, she had doggedly pursued the DRK Triad. "There's another way."

Strength. The wisdom of the ancients.

"We prepare with the tools we have, including the tools of those long past. We use my golem." Regice had pushed Eternatus back millennia ago, but that seemed impossible now. "It's low on power, but I have a plan. Grigori."

He clapped the grunt's shoulder. He felt flushed, as if about to take a massive leap. When the words were said, there'd be no going back. A crime done in order to save the world.

"We have to raid Dewford." The admin said solemnly. "Or this will all be for naught."

---

Grigori Sokolov

How could one forget Meteno? World-wide obliteration was hardly an event that Grigori could push from his mind. Yet he did it all the same. Maybe because the reality of it all was too much. Too nonsensical. Like a fairy tale, except without the happy ending.

More like an adult’s rendition of a fairy tale: bittersweet, and left a foul taste in the back of his throat.

And when Howard both claimed that the lives of the people of Dewford held value and then damned them to a terrible fate, the bittersweet taste bubbled. He pushed the archeologist’s hand off his shoulder and returned to the counter. “Of course, Mr. Fox. These people are not livestock. I would agree: you are not a butcher.”

“You’re a Rocket Admin, and these people are obstacles.”

The phrase came out much more violently than he anticipated. “They are a means to an end. Granted, Eternatus sounds like a massive threat– but is there truly, impossibly, no other way? One that doesn’t potentially wipe out half a coastal city?”

Conflict would be violent. Messy. The seawater would be stained red, and the beaches would become the graves of countless souls. They’d dig up their bones for decades to come, and slowly, their families would find the truth to the deaths of their loved ones.

“What do you even hope to find, in Dewford? In the Ultra Deep Sea? Did Eternatus consume a weapon that only the Regice can wield? And can your golem, alone, stop the colossus that is this god?”

---

howard slayte

Grigori looked to him for an answer. Despite the man's decades of experiences, he looked to a youth that had offered him nothing but follies. Every day Howard looked at Grigori Sokolov, it felt like the gulf between the two was growing. Widening. Stretching.

Sometimes, he even woke up and believed that Grigori's visit to his apartment was nothing more than a terrible dream. Yet all it took was a passing glance from him for Howard to know that it was very much real.

If anything, Howard could at least be honest with him.

"I don't know." The last thing he wanted to say, but the thing that Grigori had to hear most of all. Even if it was a bitter draught to swallow. "I don't know if we can win. If we can even beat it."

It sounded sad, coming from his lips.

"But we have to try." For everyone. For the world that they lived in, for the girl that Grigori loved, for the one that Howard had scorned, for the millions of souls that lived in this region. They had to try. "Because Eternatus's rift is under this city, Grigori. If it wakes, what happens here?"

Screaming. Ashes. Charred corpses that stretched beyond the horizon. A million June Sleighs. A million of her father. A million people who did not deserve to become cooked meat.

"Do you know those operations I've been sending you to oversee? The extractions of Wishing Stars from various Power Spots?" That had been one of the conditions of Grigori's promotion. The admin had twisted the older man's arm, and he was going to use the body attached to do what was needed.

Even if Grigori hated both it and him.

---

Grigori Sokolov

“Then anything we could ever imagine to do to Dewford will look like child’s play, compared to it,” he responded. Grigori knew the idea all too well: damn the few to save the many. What was a thousand dead people compared to a million? In all honesty, the choice was a painfully easy one. One he’d choose as well.

But then again, he wasn’t the one that had to suffer the consequences. He and Howard held the position of power over Dewford, and he loathed every moment of its absolute truth.

“What about them? They’ve been running smooth as they could be, given circumstances,” he responded. His head tilted until one eye met Howard’s own. “And given that you bring it up…”

“Is… is that what it’s been for? Your golem?”

He’d never pieced it together until now, and a wave of guilt crashed over him. Of course. The Regieleki in the alien world had been the foreshadowing to this Brothers Grimm, and this was the rising action. Recreate what it had, but within something they could ever hope to control.

If only it would be enough. “Unfortunately, if this god is what you make it out to be, I fail to see how even it, massive as that ball of sparks in the Wilds, could ever hope to put a dent in it.”

What they’d damn a few thousand souls to even attempt. Not do, attempt. They could still very much lose. It’d be for nothing. More blood for a fairy tale that’d yet to run its course, and one drenched in treason and lies. Although the alternative offered a worse outcome, this one would make him a perpetrator. Again.

---

howard slayte

It was a fairy tale, but a necessary one to tell. Mankind's greatest asset was their ability to produce stories. Even greater still was their capacity to believe in them. They had to believe in this one, even if it was a lie. If they believed with enough fervency, that lie could become truth.

Was that transmutation of fiction into fact worth it, though? Wasn't it the admin's duty as a historian to sift through lies to find the truth?

"Not at first. It was originally for Dynamax Bands and money. The ore goes for a hefty sum on the market." He admitted with a nod. The extraction of resources from the Ultra Deep Sea was subsidized by the League. It made the ore expensive, and Rocket had used that fact to garner a large sum. "But I realized something."

Perhaps he had always known the truth that he was about to utter.

"Regice is weak, Grigori. It's really weak. I'm weak." The admin clenched a fist in despair. When he began to lose against random trainers in Lilycove's tournament, when he lost against Gwyar Wledig in Mossdeep, when he needed Noelani Kekoa's help to vanquish several Nihilego. "It's just not up to snuff. It couldn't beat Kyurem. It couldn't beat Palkia. It couldn't save Shr-"

He stopped as the flash of light from Regice's Hyper Beam danced before his eye. It was a memory he wanted to forget, but never could.

"It can't even beat that monster in Ultra Plant. How is it supposed to beat Eternatus, like the texts claim?" His voice cracked as he stared at Grigori. "I'm failing."

The words hung in the air.

"We will raid Dewford, but you will stay your hand. Do not reenact Kanto."

---

Grigori Sokolov

Grigori knew Howard wasn’t weak. Weak men did not make it to positions such as his. Team Rocket had a way of weeding out the undesirables, the rejects that wouldn’t amount to anything no matter the circumstances. They did not get granted the title of Admin: they were discarded or sacrificed.

Unfortunately, what he thought meant little if the Admin could not see it for himself. Even worse, the grunt wasn’t sure he wanted to see a Howard with self-confidence. The mere thought sent a shiver throughout his body.

“If you think for even a moment, that your command will save my soul, then please save yourself the breath,” he whispered. Kanto did not give him nightmares like it did others. It kept him awake into the mere hours of dawn. But when he fell asleep, its events did not invade the privacy of dreams.

Gabriel managed that perfectly fine. “I know, Mr. Fox, that you are technically my boss. Or however the relationship has worked out. But do not think for a moment that I may disobey a command from the likes of jayden cross , Elisabeth Fiorelli , or even Cillian Quinn . If they tell me to do something, I will still do it.”

Even if it made his bones ache and his mind dissociate.

“If you think it necessary to raid Dewford, then people will die.”

Much like Howard’s admittance of failure, Grigori’s own acceptance of this fact hung just as well. “But… if you think it will also prevent another cataclysm like Meteno, then… who am I to disagree or judge?”

“Perhaps, in the future, the golem could save those you care about,” he faced Howard proper. His eyes held a twinkle of hope which cut through the darkness of the topic. “Even those you think will never forgive you. Or those you don’t want to forgive you.”

It always came back to her.

---

howard slayte