He was elated. The demon was elated.

"How poignant." The archaeologist rolled his eye, blind to to ■■■'s expressions. It was likely a mask, even as the Rocket Beast gloated. It was the words that provided the window into the heart. That, and the eyes. How fortunate, then, that the admin's had fogged over. "Try not to spend too much of my money on your indulgences."

Then again, Rocket was always wasting money on idiotic things. If he was lucky, Elisabeth Fiorelli would foot the bill from her personal inheritance—a treasury born of deception—for whatever vainglorious tribute ■■■ demanded for his ascent.

"Ha."

If the admin was afraid, he couldn't show it. His body hardly worked. When he answered the Devourer's question, his words were slow, contemplative.

"I always thought I'd die in some tomb, muddling the historical contents within. Besides that, it never occurred to me. What interests me more, as it tends to, is the when." The doctors said I'd die of apoptosis three weeks ago."  A foggy pupil flickering between red and blue met the God General's. "In retrospect, I disagree with their assessment."

His lips curled slightly.

"It will be five minutes from now."

---

Zev Harcourt

"Don't be rash. I gave you five minutes, didn't I?"

Whether Howard was mad or flippant hardly mattered. The archaeologist's tongue danced as what tattered remains of his consciousness waltzed in the clouds of delusion. At the end, it didn't matter.

The archaeologist was afraid, but fear meant little when he was this close to the end.

"A lot of them. More than you, most likely. I do love to talk. Yet I figured you'd like to gloat, first." A streak of white hair twirled between two fingers. A memento of the transition between worlds that only one other had experienced shined with the facets of Tera Crystals. "Who else will you get to be so forthright with?"

Dead men told no tales, after all. Howard had been keeping the Devourer's words to himself for almost a year. There had been no better motivator in his case than fear.

"I'm proud of the masquerade you've concocted. How much have we exploited from Team Rocket for our own ends, you and I?"

---

Zev Harcourt

The window that ■■■ stood before was the same one that allowed mist to seep in. The sheriff had visited him through it once before, to demand penance for his sins. Seeing the Devourer stand where the Warrior once did more to annoy the admin more than any clipped word that came from lips encrusted in crystal.

"Who else to paint it? Who else cares to?" It was an easy image to concoct, for its paint only required one color: black. "I can't be the only person to see how high you've risen, yet I seem to be the only person howling at the moon you've become, hanging far in the sky."

Distant. Cold. Untouchable. There had been civilizations that had worshipped the celestial objects as gods. Distant Alola, with its night and day came to mind.

"But you must be proud, or incredibly amused. How else do you feel when a group you don't care for raises you up even further than you were before?" Howard rasped, his voice thoughtful in spite of its hoarseness. "It saddens me."

A coughing fit ensued.

"It's how I rose to admin, though. Guess I can't fault it."

---

Zev Harcourt

"No. The only similarity we share is the understanding that Team Rocket is a farce." The words were treason, but Howard had accepted that his death was imminent. If he was going to fall here, he was going to speak his mind and shout into the void between the stars. "But that is enough. It is more than enough to understand."

Howard's tone clicked against ■■■'s. They were dissimilar, and thus were not alike. Still, the admin could at least pretend to understand the man sharing a space with him. Even so, Howard hated ■■■ on principle. The power of humanity had no right to be challenged by a being from beyond the stars.

Yet it was winning. Dammit, it was winning.

"I care because somebody should." Howard said simply. It's the answer that an academic would give. "Consider it... a satiation of an academic curiosity."

His voice is deflective. The conversation continues as another bout of coughing wracked Howard's body. Howard's mouth came away red.

"Can you do me a small favor? It is nothing taxing, I assure you. I'll answer any question in exchange."

---

Zev Harcourt

A cog was loyal. A gear could not work against the greater mechanism without being crushed into scrap. The great mechanism known as Team Rocket had cogs that went every which way, but they ultimately all agreed to pretend to lock teeth and work together.

Few in Rocket put the organization over themselves. Team Rocket satisfied those who reached further than their position allowed.

Loyalty was a lie. The 'glory' offered to them was a lie. Yet if everyone believed in it, the deception became reality. That was the true nature of Team Rocket.

It was also the true nature of the query that left the admin's lips.

"Can you..." A deep breath as Howard's gaze fell upon the God General. "...tell me your name?"

---

Zev Harcourt

■■■.

■■■.

■■■.

This was never going to end until one of them was dead. There was something comforting about knowing that he'd never hear it again. The primal instinct, buried deep within the darkest recesses of his brain celebrated the fact that there was no logic or reason to this execution.

There was no need to but a label on the incomprehensible. It was not meant to be understood.

Yet the archivist in his soul screamed and raged and demanded that something be tied to the man standing over him. A way to define the undefinable, a way to for those that crawled across the land to comprehend the eldritch.

"Devourer." The title is a curse. "Do it. Suck the light of another star from the sky."

Bold words spoken from cattle.

"Kill me before I kill you."

---

@■■■