Elisabeth entered the hospital room with silent footsteps that nonetheless sent the panicked medical staff parting in a sea of white garments. They'd remembered the time she'd spent here after her Avatarship--surly and spiteful and full of rage without an outlet.[break][break]

None of them wished to repeat that unfortunate episode. She couldn't blame them.[break][break]

"Slayte," was her simple greeting, eyes scanning over him to assess the damage that Dewford had cost him. The eye hadn't been one such injury, but to witness it like this brought to mind another one-eyed man in another hospital room, who'd also somehow escaped death's door.[break][break]

'Gawking.' That was one way of putting it.[break][break]

The underboss averted her gaze suddenly, more out of respect for that memory than the discomfort of this one. It was better not to think of FERNANDO SILPH these days.[break][break]

"I brought you flowers," she said instead, gesturing to a vase placed beside him. He'd recognize them as the same arrangement that he'd delivered to her on behalf of Navy, not so many months ago. Her face remained impassive, devoid of any emotional cue to explain her choice in gift. Her voice was likewise deadpan. "It's the done thing, I've found, in moments like this one."[break][break]

She'd delivered more than enough on behalf of complete strangers to know.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I wasn't aware that Dewford was a copycat crime."[break][break]

At that, a hint of levity hummed through her reply, out of place in such a dour setting. Only the mad could truly comprehend the etiquette of madness.[break][break]

"Hyacinths have many meanings," she continued, letting a hand idly reach up as if to touch the petals. Of course she didn't, for flowers despised human touch. It was a sentiment Elisabeth shared more often than not. "Sincerity. Forgiveness." A pause, and then a lowering of her gaze towards the singed hat on his table. "Jealousy."[break][break]

Had Mt. Chimney inspired this, then? Did that mean the ruin of MATIAS SILPH and kyle lopez invited the ruin of Navy and his city?[break][break]

There was nothing of Mt. Chimney's fall to envy or to emulate, not to her knowledge. Though perhaps the security it had given her was worth invoking that emotion, if he himself lacked in it.[break][break]

"At any rate, you needn't apologize to me. Your mission was your own, and its success or failure is something Walsh holds you accountable to answering. Not I."[break][break]

Her indifference to most of Rocket's exploits might be seen as callous, but in this case she wondered if he'd find it a relief of some burden he'd been carrying. He seemed the type to concern himself with perception in Rocket's hierarchy, at least.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"We stand on the precipice of a great transformation," she agreed, a sly and cat-like smile creeping upon her lips. "There will be many actors, Walsh included, and the world will forever changed by their actions."[break][break]

"More than you know," laughed an inner voice that she herself only half understood. "More than anyone else could possibly know."[break][break]

Somewhere, PENELOPE LIVY and jayden cross sat in their cursed knowledge all the same.[break][break]

The vase lowered to the table, sitting beside the charred hat. For some reason they seemed to belong together. There was a balance in it.[break][break]

"You didn't correct me," she pointed out, having waited long enough to be certain this correction would not come. "Usually, you remind me that you are 'Admin Fox,' and not 'Slayte.' Have you relinquished the namesake, then?"[break][break]

She levelled him with a piercing look, one that revealed not judgment, but curiosity.[break][break]

"Has the Elite Four Navy unearthed the man behind the mask?"[break][break]

MATIAS SILPH had threatened to do so to her, long before Wo-chien ever had.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Better their backs than ours," she acknowledged in return. Scars of past transgressions they'd both endured undoubtedly marked them both. They'd learned that lesson the hard way.[break][break]

Most in Rocket found themselves learning the hard way. Naomi Sato was merely the latest casualty among them.[break][break]

"Masks inspire fear. But there is power in names and in reputation, too," she continued, clicking her tongue. She'd fled hers in Kalos, hoping shedding her husband's hateful surname and the nickname he'd christened her would allow her to start over. "'Fiorelli' means something different in the region than it once did."[break][break]

A blank slate was an intoxicating fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. The past followed like a shadow, always.[break][break]

"But you're right. People are predictable." She weighed his gaze with her own, wondering at how he deflected the question, and ultimately deciding it didn't matter. "They believe what they want to believe."[break][break]

Admin Fox, Howard Slayte, it didn't matter what she called him. What mattered was what he intended to become.[break][break]

"What would you have them believe, then? Were the choice yours to make."

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She mulled over his words, going still as a sculpture while she listened.[break][break]

As quiet and motionless as she was, her heartbeat had become an erratic and wild thing, beating furiously to the sound of distant trumpets. One, two, three... no, it had been seven bells in all. And one of them had rung for her and only her, singing loudly of the Ruination yet to come.[break][break]

"This is all for the good of Hoenn."[break][break]

She stared blankly at the vase of flowers, and saw instead the jewelled heart glistening at the center of a wide bowl, upheld by antlers weighed by fearful divinity.[break][break]

"It's a difficult thing to believe," she said at last, her throat dry. "But the world already operates on such logic. Wildfires purge rot. Floods cleanse rivers. Destruction can beget creation."[break][break]

A single hyacinth petal fluttered down onto the table, landing neatly on Admin Fox's much-maligned hat.[break][break]

"I believe in that future," she admitted, voice soft and distant. I have seen it, she stopped herself from adding. "I've begun to believe in Fate, I think. That some pieces are meant to always fall into place."[break][break]

Slowly blinking away the memory of destruction, she shook her head of such vague and abstract thoughts. This was not the time for that. Perhaps no time existed to ever discuss such things.[break][break]

"How long will you allow yourself to languish here, while history remains to be written?"

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"But humans share this world, do we not?" she asked, canting her head at him. "A world shaped by deities greater than us, though they lend their powers to us for a little while."[break][break]

That was the eternal riddle, really: if humans were such impactful forces on the world, why did Pokemon hold so much influence? It seemed so strange to consider such ancient beings willingly subjugating themselves to man.[break][break]

And yet, hadn't she done the same? Hadn't she yoked herself to Walsh and Rocket and chained herself willingly in all this miserable servitude that masqueraded as power?[break][break]

Theirs was a kinship she didn't want to examine too closely, but staring into the void demanded allowing it to stare back.[break][break]

"I believe this will be an era of monsters and men."

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Heroes. Who makes them so, Fox? Your history books?" She wrinkled her nose in disapproval. "The man you saw knighted is but a man. And mankind is the greatest monstrosity this world has ever known."[break][break]

They wielded Pokemon in war, but it was men that waged it. As much as meteors and invasive alien species were looming threats for the region, it was the presence of other human beings that proved the greatest danger in their day-to-day lives.[break][break]

Even archeologists and florists could not be trusted to be benign.[break][break]

"Our machines are not designed with peace in mind. The future you predict is a bloody one."[break][break]

A finger traced circles on his side table, aimless and distracted. The distinct scent of fresh hyacinths perfumed the air, untouched as yet by grudges and spite.[break][break]

"When the world is better for all the misery we've inflicted upon it, would the world call us heroes for doing so?" She exhaled through her nose, stifling a wry laugh. "Surely not. We are ultimately but pieces on some greater chessboard, making do with what limited moves are available to us."[break][break]

Rage churned within her at this exasperating reality. Once you'd seen the limits of your own freedoms, it was difficult to ever unsee them.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]