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POSTED ON Jul 23, 2024 6:25:35 GMT

Howard Slayte's transfer to a Sootopolian hospital was a quiet one. It was not a glorious procession, but a silent one born of necessity. The silence from Admin Fox's office was deafening, and as the days grew long and the paperwork piled up, more eyes turned inward, searching for the admin's location, wondering where the admin had hid.

Barnaby Finch had never lost him. In the shadows cast by marching boots muttering doctors, the Infernal's talons found purchase.

"aaaaaaa..."

A low moan of pain echoed through the night. Large swaths of Howard's Sygna Suit were fused to his flesh, though much had been extracted and left in a lead room where Dynergy radiated off it in waves, irradiating much that touched it. A large section of the right arm remained covered in steel, laid suspended on a slint.

The whirr of machinery created a low dun in the night, flushing the admin's blood of Dynergy.

In the darkness, a door creaked open.

Barnaby Finch had arrived.

BARNABY FINCH

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Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

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POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 1:25:38 GMT

howard slayte likes this

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"Oh, Howard."[break][break]

What a pitiful sight Admin Fox made. Beaten, broken, half-dead from a succulent poison coursing through his body.[break][break]

Where was that earlier confidence now? Perhaps it had crumbled away like half of Dewford.[break][break]

"Flew a little too close to the sun, didn't we?"[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH watched his colleague from where he sat at his bedside, in a middling, uncomfortable hospital chair. Hearing Howard's pained moan, however, caused him to lean closer and place a soft hand on the man's good arm.[break][break]

Perhaps he could offer Howard some relief? Siphoning energy from living beings came easily now — could he capture DYNERGY from a body as well?[break][break]

It quickly became apparent that this hypothesis proved fruitless: just attempting it left him feeling a foreboding unease, as if simply trying would be unsafe.[break][break]

He removed his hand with a sigh.[break][break]

"I warned you."

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An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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Magnetic

Admin Fox

He/Him

May 9th

Rustboro City

Bisexual

Archaeologist

Rocket Admin

5'9 (with hat) height

The future will tempt you, the present will indulge you, but the past will shackle you.

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POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 2:38:11 GMT

BARNABY FINCH likes this

Dynergy was a toxin not meant to be absorbed, even by those chosen by the divine. It existed solely to bestow misery unto those who dare shoulder its weight.

Such was the cost of interfacing with power that gnawed at the fabric of spacetime.

"aaa..." Lips parted again, revealing a flickering ember of red light in the admin's blackened maw. It resonated as Barnaby attempted to pry Eternatus's poison from mortal flesh, before Howard spoke again. "Barnaby..."

It was a moan of pain. A whisper of memory. A forgotten exchange threatened to bubble up in the recesses of his mind, before curtains woven from shadow part to reveal what the admin had forgotten.

Oddly, the first thought in Howard's mind was a cloak left in an abandoned tower.

"I want to die."

BARNABY FINCH

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Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

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TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 3:42:20 GMT

howard slayte likes this

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"Not yet," Admin Bee cooed, his voice a calming salve to ease Howard's dark desires.[break][break]

But it would be so easy, wouldn't it? He was already on the brink — a little nudge would suffice... [break][break]

"Who's going to do all of our clerical work if you leave us so soon?" BARNABY FINCH teased, humor thrumming in his throat. Ribbing Howard usually worked to get his heart beating faster and blood pressure up. Would it now, under such dire circumstances?[break][break]

"You're not allowed to die, Admin Fox. There's much still to do."[break][break]

howard slayte had made himself known in quite the explosive way. He was now on the chessboard — and barred from leaving.[break][break]

"Perhaps I can make you a little more comfortable, though, hm?"[break][break]

Six or so button taps at the equipment near the headboard of the hospital bed resulted in Howard's morphine drip pumping again, ahead of schedule.

[attr="class","barnaby-notes"]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

[attr="class","barnaby-pkmn"]

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Magnetic

Admin Fox

He/Him

May 9th

Rustboro City

Bisexual

Archaeologist

Rocket Admin

5'9 (with hat) height

The future will tempt you, the present will indulge you, but the past will shackle you.

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POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 5:12:57 GMT

BARNABY FINCH likes this

The board was shifting beneath their feet, and they were mere bishops sliding across checkered tiles, capable of touching only one color or the other. Their motions had been dictated from the moment that 'Admin Bee' and 'Admin Fox' were conceived.

Though there had been a Fox far before Howard Slayte had slid into view. Perhaps his fate had been sealed from the moment that Remiel Calcifet had been crowned in his stead, and before a Kalosian l'oiseau had fluttered onto the board, knocking pawns aside to take his seat.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh..." A dull moan of pain slowly transitioned into a weary sigh of relief, causing Howard's eyelids to flutter. An instinctive reaction, for sight only graced one eye and left another unseeing. As beloved as stone was, a Key Stone could not replicate sight. "Thank you."

How the desire for death curdled and perished when pain was taken away.

Words fall, deliberate without the haze of pain, but before the deliberating effects of morphine could result in stifled mentality. He found the Infernal in the darkness.

"We..." He swallowed, throat dry. "We are all replaceable, Barnaby. Gears meant to be exchanged when we outlive our usefulness. Clerks are a dime a dozen. Even we who engage in theatrics will inevitably lose our audience."

He peered at Barnaby, disoriented. "Even we who command gods or raze cities."

BARNABY FINCH

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Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

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TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 23:16:56 GMT

howard slayte likes this

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"My, what a dreary outlook, Howard. I hardly recognize you." The physical was one thing — but had he lost his constitution as well? Where was the champion of the people from before? "The pain must have addled your brain."[break][break]

The two men talked quietly, hushed by the late hour and the scant illumination. Only a small lamp by the headboard and an assortment of LEDs on various pieces of equipment lit the room. Otherwise it was only darkness.[break][break]

It was quite an intimate affair in that regard. BARNABY FINCH handled howard slayte with a gentle care reserved for tending to bedridden loved ones. Settling stray hairs away from his face with a delicate finger, wiping beads of sweat from his brow before they could fall into the abyss behind his KEY STONE. [break][break]

Affection he didn't necessarily show everyone.[break][break]

"You wouldn't have done what you did if we were all simply replaceable."[break][break]

His tone was soft, gentle, guiding. Putting pieces back into place.[break][break]

"Godkillers are not so commonplace."[break][break]

A beat, and then he added, "You passed, you know."

[attr="class","barnaby-notes"]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

[attr="class","barnaby-pkmn"]

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Magnetic

Admin Fox

He/Him

May 9th

Rustboro City

Bisexual

Archaeologist

Rocket Admin

5'9 (with hat) height

The future will tempt you, the present will indulge you, but the past will shackle you.

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POSTED ON Sept 5, 2024 6:12:43 GMT

Yet every day, another being that challenged the heavens was placed on the board, before threatening to break it under awe-inspiring power.

"Yet we built machines to breach the heavens. We as a species decided that heroes that bled were lesser to constructs that did not."

For a brief moment, Howard wondered if Barnaby Finch was humble. If this man who had tamed a demon thought of himself as a gnostic instrument or a mere Faustian tool, dancing to the whims of something greater in order to satiate his pleasures. Even among the admins, Howard could never deduce what moved the piece that caressed his hair.

Occasionally, he forgot that he hated this man.

Yet this was not the first thing that Howard had forgotten regarding the Infernal. Memories were the thread upon which his loom bred tapestries of misery.

"Passed?" Howard frowned, confused, even as comprehension gnawed at his brain. "I don't understand."

BARNABY FINCH

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played by

Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

awards

2,366 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Oct 20, 2024 3:54:47 GMT

howard slayte likes this

[nospaces]

[attr="class","barnaby-wrap"]

[attr="class","barnaby-main"]

[attr="class","barnaby-words"]

BARNABY FINCH was not a humble man, no. That was by design.[break][break]

But Barnaby L'oiseau? The true man at the center of the farce? He'd scratched and bit and clawed his way out of the depths. A grudge-filled fire filled his heart and fueled his every ambition. Anger and hate and selfish spite were his lifelong companions. And he let those feelings drive him.[break][break]

Admin Bee was somewhere in between. Calculating, tempered. He was what he needed to be for ROCKET, but his true nature always simmered just beneath the surface. Sometimes others saw cracks in the patina.[break][break]

howard slayte was not one of them. Not yet. Not ever, if he could help it.[break][break]

"Why shed the blood of mortals if constructs can fill that role? You begrudge those heroes their ingenuity."[break][break]

These constructs were not automatous. Someone needed to guide them against the enemy. And Barnaby had just the man in mind.[break][break]

"When you came to my office that day and spilled all those pretty words," He began, a pleasant, disarming smile on his lips. "At the time, I doubted you had the gumption to see Dewford through." [break][break]

Admin Fox's ploy involved lies of omission and operations outside of the standard hierarchy. He wasn't playing by the book — something that BARNABY FINCH had helped with from the shadows.[break][break]

"I thought to myself, 'Our Howard? The one chained to his desk and anchored down by his little fossils? Surely not.'" There was affection in his voice as he teased his bedridden colleague, but also a kernel of truth. Before now, Howard hadn't necessarily proven himself to BARNABY FINCH.[break][break]

"Now look at you. What a surprise. A pleasant one, at that." Broken and poisoned, but redeemed in Admin Bee's eyes. [break][break]

"There's more to howard slayte than I first realized, hm?"

[attr="class","barnaby-notes"]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

[attr="class","barnaby-pkmn"]

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Magnetic

Admin Fox

He/Him

May 9th

Rustboro City

Bisexual

Archaeologist

Rocket Admin

5'9 (with hat) height

The future will tempt you, the present will indulge you, but the past will shackle you.

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TAG WITH @magnetic

POSTED ON Nov 3, 2024 20:46:41 GMT

BARNABY FINCH likes this

The Rocket Admin had the decency to flush and look away as Barnaby words found purchase. His eye looked everywhere: the monitors, the window, the door. Yet it refused to find purchase with the Infernal's bemused gaze. If he looked, he would eventually blink and lose.

Thus, he chose to avert his eye.

"No. I'm me. I've always been me." His voice was composed. Dry and dead, but as composed as one could be as synapses fired in a losing war of attrition with the endless march of drugs forced into his body to keep the heart beating and cells from dying. "I haven't changed. I'm not you. I'm not like any of you."

That line was his prayer, chanted over and over again until it became tradition in an attempt to separate himself from Admin Bee and Team Rocket. Yet as Howard's fellow admin spoke of an office chat, the admin's blood curdled.

When was that?

"You're always there, yet I never remember you. A songbird whispering truths into my ear, before backing away before I can put a finger on why you say the things you do." A caged canary, meant to sing until it died to indicate a gas leak in a cave. Yet Howard had dug so deep, relying on his canary to stop singing when death was approaching.

Yet, when he had turned around, the bird was gone. When Howard looked back at the tunnel he had dug, all he saw were corpses and frozen islands.

"What're you getting from all of this?" Howard protested weakly. "I don't understand."

BARNABY FINCH

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played by

Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

awards

2,366 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Nov 11, 2024 2:58:03 GMT

howard slayte likes this

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Oh? What was this? Admin Fox — bashful? Embarrassed? Or too afraid to confront the truth laid bare before him?[break][break]

Whatever it was, howard slayte wouldn't be allowed the relief of avoidance. A soft hand sought ownership of his chin, gently but firmly drawing his gaze back to BARNABY FINCH.[break][break]

"Sshh. Look at me," The Infernal beckoned, coaxing and quiet.[break][break]

"You're right, you're not like us. You're you — in all of your intricate little ways, uniquely your own."[break][break]

A man who'd proven himself to the worst people in the best of ways.[break][break]

"Special. Chosen. Worthy." Barnaby spoke the words as if they were a mantra to meditate and marinate on. "...and that's what I want, Howard."[break][break]

"You." [break][break]

ALL OF YOU.[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH would give a few affectionate pats to Howard's cheek before withdrawing his hand and adding with a smile, "...to help you, that is."[break][break]

And he'd need it, too, if he was to be a god-killer.[break][break]

"Your ambitions have grown beyond you."

[attr="class","barnaby-notes"]