Sometimes life splits and runs parallel for a while. She remembers the last time she arrived here: sitting in the Sheriff’s ride as he pointed out all his favorite haunts in the town.[break][break]

Well, sometimes those split ends fork down ugly throats.[break][break]

“Your town. Your gym.” She lets her fingers run across the dashboard. “Even your truck.” [break][break]

She glances at him. “And of course, you.” [break][break]

Older, armed, carrying a sky that only gets heavier.[break][break]

“...You grew a beard.”[break][break]

They come to a brief halt and explore the map. The town is splayed open like ribs spoiling in the sun, the impact line its jagged cut. But already there are people baking meat onto those bones.[break][break]

She sighs and looks out the window. “It seems I must make it indestructible, then. My services are too pricy for a third time.”

There is no such thing as truly indestructible in this world. But still they sit there, smiling over a sentiment thinner than a strand of hair. It would be a good dream, maybe even worth a twenty-year dream.[break][break]

Then they arrive by the seaside. The beaches that once rivaled Alola were now pitiable: debris and chunks of ice interlock with one another like toothpicks in teeth against the sloshing backwash.[break][break]

“Too many gods in Hoenn these days for my taste.”[break][break]

She frowns wordlessly. Where one god draws in the breath of life and rises, another expires.[break][break]

“It’s not just you. There are a lot of pieces moving outside of Hoenn now. Everyone wants to touch the freckled faces of these gods.”[break][break]

She sighs. “I don’t think I’ll get that seaside suite in Alola any time soon. I’ve been stationed in the region for the long term, Sheriff.[break][break]

That’s only the first sign that things will get worse, not better.”

“Officially, yes.”[break][break]

With aid to whatever poor beleaguered route or town needed the technological or civil assistance.[break][break]

“Unofficially, Mossdeep.” Her tone implied no further discourse about it.[break][break]

Ever Grande was guarded by no less than a host of elite trainers and high priority figures. Mossdeep had the Space Center, and considering her agency’s contract with the Aether Foundation—and specifically, her own role—the location had become hot.[break][break]

“Now that you’ve seceded the gym and become Elite Four—” she pauses slightly, thinking of how Navy had replaced Callan in that regard— “will you still be steward over Dewford? Still Sheriff?”

She couldn’t live the way he wanted to live. Hometown hero, friend of the smallfolk; the safe harbor, the anchor, the ship, the horizon it ever sails towards only to never meet.[break][break]

Much better to be a force of nature, she thinks. The hurricane that sweeps through when the time is good or bad to make things right or wrong.[break][break]

“What makes you different, darling?[break][break]

You’ve accrued quite a bit of power, no? And you think you’re the only thing standing between these people and an unkind world. You may be right, but what’s next? When gods and ice giants walk the whole region, will it be up to you then? While your peers row with Rocket, will you go, there’s a bigger problem at stake, and if you don’t see, I’ll just do it myself?”[break][break]

She’s then distracted by the ambling words of some pimply faced teenagers that look vaguely familiar. It’s only when she hears the ’Woah, is that Agent MILF again?' that she smiles in pleasant surprise. It’s always nice when the young survive—as they should.[break][break]

“Speaking of day jobs, how’s that arcade doing?”

In small miracles do the best memories lie. For most of the League preparing for the oncoming conflict, the simple joy of playing games in the arcade will be a luxury. But the structure still stands amidst the rubble like a solemn promise that such days will come again.[break][break]

“Is the League failing you, Navy?” She tents her fingers and looks straight at him, genuinely curious. As an ‘outsider’—a member of said organization not in technicality but only in the cooperation of their agencies—she finds this public perception fascinating.[break][break]

“With a conquered Sootopolis and terrorists active at nearly every level and angle across the continent, I’d say the League is making the best of its resources.[break][break]

"When you operate at a large scale, it all becomes statistics. You know that. You may look rugged now, but you’re still as soft as I remember.”[break][break]

She glances at that covered sword again.[break][break]

“Don’t dwell on the past. Don’t daydream of the future. This is the present now. There’s no agonizing over what will replace Rocket if they succeed anyway.”

Though he veers back from that dark cloud, she can’t help but label his thoughts as disillusioned—a step further than its cousin, resigned.[break][break]

The councilor of accountability is not the only one with an interest in allegiances. Purging dissent from the ranks were also the duties of a criminal investigator. And Hoenn was rife with it, if the reports were anything to go by.[break][break]

So she nods sympathetically, and her eyes narrow one-sixteenth of an inch.[break][break]

“It’s a shame you’re Elite Four. You would have made a very grounded councilor yourself, dear Sheriff.”[break][break]

She raises a hand to her mouth, to poorly hide the grin.[break][break]

“I would say it’s good to be back, but I only come around when it rains. When it’s time to celebrate the sun again, I should be long gone.”[break][break]

She looks out the window at the resilient Dewford again.[break][break]

“Thank you, though.”