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POSTED ON Jul 27, 2024 4:22:10 GMT

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A loud roar erupted from the mummy wrapped in cloth, gauze, and artificial skin. The machines that prolonged the mummy's life grinded and screamed along with him, and Howard Slayte felt a hurricane of emotions whirling through his heart. Rage. Scorn. Confusion. It was frustration mixed with utter awe at Walsh and Monroe's executive decision.

Another emotion rang out as well:

Fear.

The phone flew across the room with the force of ferocious wrath. It struck the wall, bounced off, and landed on the floor, cracked and sparking.

"FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING!?" Howard's vocal cords threatened to snap as he continued to bellow curses at Rocket's new God General. "WHAT A LOAD OF..."

A vase on the bedrest fell over with a crash.

"BULLSHIT."

Hours later, the admin's voice was quiet. Silent. Raw. His head hung limply in defeat as he stared at trembling hands. They'd make for good donations to a museum. Bones afflicted by Dynergy poisoning, twisted and fragile.

He hardly noticed when, shortly after Rocket's war council ended, the door creaked open and a shadow slipped in.

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Aug 1, 2024 21:04:37 GMT

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A meeting concludes after the fox has already slipped away with its tail between its legs.[break][break]

But that Fox is not forgotten by all, and Cillian is quick to corner it in its hole. There is little that howard slayte can do to get away from him, bandaged and broken as he was.[break][break]

The underboss steps over a cracked and broken phone. Shadows follow him as he moves, twisting despite the absence of wind.[break][break]

"It was stupid, to leave like that."[break][break]

Ceramic shards crunch underfoot as Cillian comes to a stop at the Admin's bedside. He is calm as the air before a storm, his tone unreadable.[break][break]

"You've drawn attention to yourself."

[break][break]

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

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POSTED ON Aug 2, 2024 6:32:16 GMT

The underboss points out the obvious. It's obvious why. When faced with someone so willing to sign a death warranty, you assume the worst of their mental state. Not that Howard Slayte had ever been a particularly clever man. Smart, but never clever.

That, or too self-loathing to care.

"I'm acutely aware. I know. I know. I fucking know!" The admin's face twisted, his eye twitching in its socket, its partner vacant. In its place was a Key Stone, recently inserted back into Howard's skull when his strength had returned to him. "Come to gloat? To silence me? I thought he'd come and do it himself, but I guess he's too proud."

He looked up to meet the underboss's gaze. His face was scarred and his hair streaked with white from his stint into a world made of dreams. Every time that he and Cillian shared a room, they came to blows. They were too dissimilar.

Or perhaps it was the opposite.

"Get to it. Stick the knife in and twist."

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Aug 7, 2024 22:25:37 GMT

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Ordinarily, snapping and snarling at an underboss like Cillian Quinn might get you hurt. But Howard's words seem to slide off the underbosses stoic countenance. He's not here to fight.
[break][break]
"Gloat?" There's a hint of disbelief in the echo. "What do I have to gloat about?"
[break][break]
Howard wasn't the only one who'd had misgivings, after all.
[break][break]
Perhaps he thinks Cillian is here to gloat over his imminent demise. But Cillian shakes his head, dismissing that possibility with a deep frown.
[break][break]
"I'm here to stop you from bleeding out," he growls under his breath, continuing with the knife analogy. "On my own time. The meeting was more concerned with carving up their kill than over your little stunt, but it hasn't gone unnoticed. What were you thinking?"

[break][break]

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POSTED ON Aug 8, 2024 16:54:19 GMT

"I wasn't." Howard's voice was flat, a low burr of pain mixed with discontent and barely restrained rage. "That was the only way to justify what I did."

Madness was the only way to justify treason. Delusion was the only way to scream at a mountain and not rage when an avalanche came crashing down, leaving little behind but ice and stone. His move had been brave, but in his bravery, the admin had marked himself for death.

Cillian would do it. He had to.

The waves of the Ultra Deep Sea crashed in the admin's mind. He waited for the end to come. It never did.

"Wait." Howard frowned as he looked up at Cillian. "What do you mean, stop me?"

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Aug 14, 2024 23:45:26 GMT

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There's no way to justify it. But Cillian keeps the thought to himself; there's no undoing what's been done, and it's clear Howard understands his mistake as well as anyone.[break][break]

At last, the cornered Fox seems to catch on.[break][break]

Cillian's not here as an executioner.[break][break]

"Use your brain," he growls, "unless you've fried that, too?"[break][break]

It's rhetorical, of course.[break][break]

"If he gets bored, he'll try to leave. You know what Rocket would do, then." His eyes are narrowed. "Better he's kept on a leash, even if it's longer than before."[break][break]

Zev was not invincible, but he would make a powerful enemy that Rocket couldn't afford on the brink of war.

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POSTED ON Aug 15, 2024 20:47:54 GMT

A dip in the Ultra Deep Sea's toxic lakes or touching an irradiated core of a god? How easily the human body broke and shattered into bits.

How impressive that it adapted with such deftness.

"How can you all..." A rattling gasp, venom and rage boiling over as Howard's eyes dilated as the archaeologist threatened to go into shock. "How..."

"BE SO COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY..."

"...FUCKING BLIND!"

His screeching turned to lucidity. Machines beeped and buzzed in alarm as the archaeologist's heart threatened to stop. The Devourer. The Devourer... Rocket had raised that man up and given him everything, and now he threatened to undo the world itself.

"The leash, Cillian." Howard's voice rasped. "How much longer can it go before he wraps it around us and strangles us all? We do not matter to him. You and I play with spades and brushes, he plays with people."

A deep breath.

"He has to die."

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Aug 24, 2024 12:36:01 GMT

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Howard screams at him, and Cillian's patience hardens with his eyes.[break][break]

"I am far from blind," he says coldly, his voice soft in contrast. "I am more than aware of what he is, and so is Walsh. You think I've not told him?"[break][break]

He was an underboss, an advisor to declan walsh. Of course he'd raised his concerns about Zev Harcourt's loyalty the moment the Devourer had admitted to Rocket's fleeting importance in his grand design. But,[break][break]

"I'm not in charge." Howard's voice rasps, and Cillian's growls. "You're even less so. You think Walsh will thank us for killing Harcourt?" He scoffs, sharp. "If he dies, it'll be on the Boss' orders, or I won't be involved."[break][break]

But he says nothing of stopping howard slayte.

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POSTED ON Sept 3, 2024 6:43:05 GMT

declan walsh likes this

"It is our obligation, Cillian. An obligation! The longer that he is allowed to run unfettered, the further his roots sink and the harder it will be to pull him out."

There are moments where the admin wonders if declan walsh is blind. They are rare and fleeting, and evaporate within mere seconds of being born. The idea that the man who sits in every shadow being incapable of sight is a laughable one, yet there exists moments where it genuinely feels true.

It seemed impossible, yet Howard had grumbled silently in the dark to minimal complaint. Walsh had not raised a hand to strike him down as much as Cillian had.

This was the man who had shot him in the back when he had tried to flee from Eternatus's bowels; a commissar that prevented his soldiers from running.

"You-" Cillian's game comes clearly. The admin is politically blind often, he is foolish even more so, but Howard Slayte was not an idiot. "Cillian. No."

Fear flickered like a dying ember.

"I can't do it."

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Sept 7, 2024 13:58:46 GMT

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Cillian bares his teeth. They're sharper than they should be, the jaws of a predator poised to tear out the throat of their prey. A blink, and everything's back to normal. Only his shadow remains warped, its claws stretching long across the floor.[break][break]

"If Harcourt turns on Rocket, I'll be the first in line with an axe." Golden eyes glitter dangerously, the deep ring of purple around his irises seeming to grow. "But do not ask me to do what you won't do yourself."[break][break]

For as much as Howard wishes to be different from Cillian Quinn, they are both governed by a fear of Rocket. A fear of stepping out of line. A fear of the end.

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POSTED ON Sept 8, 2024 1:21:20 GMT

"If I could, I would. We both know I can't kill him. You could."

There was a constant cycle of blame, where the weak blame the strong for being mighty while demanding that the mighty cast down their contemporaries into the dust. Howard could not defeat the new general. Cillian could give him a run for his money. They both waged war in Kanto, after all.

"You were baptized in the Ultra Deep Sea. You changed in those waters. What am I supposed to do? Throw Regice at Necrozma and hope that it wins?"

The end was coming for them both. All Howard could do was choke out a laugh and shake his head.

"It has grown stronger, but not strong enough."

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Sept 9, 2024 11:35:33 GMT

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"I could."[break][break]

He is far from humble about his skill. Zev may be functionally immortal so long as Necrozma lived, but the death of the patron would strip an Avatar of their power. Rocket have proved that.[break][break]

Deal with Necrozma, and Zev was only a man.[break][break]

But, "I won't. Not without an order, or a damn good reason."[break][break]

If he saw Zev take an action against Rocket, he wouldn't hesitate. If Walsh were to order the Devourer's execution, his pet Harbinger would be the first in line.[break][break]

"Walsh knows my reasons for distrusting Harcourt, and they promoted him regardless. That alone is proof that his lack of loyalty to Rocket is not reason enough." He was useful as a tool of WAR. Perhaps in its aftermath, they would discard what was now a liability. Until then? "I will not act against the Boss."

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POSTED ON Sept 9, 2024 18:45:33 GMT

They would not act out against Walsh's decree, even if it was wrong. Cogs did not work against the mechanism they were a part of, lest they get replaced with more functional gears.

Such exchanges were undesirable at this point, with war on the horizon. There were many accidents on the battlefield, and Cillian Quinn and Howard Slayte could suffer any number of terrible fates after speaking out against the machine they represented. So they simply waited.

They were both cowards.

"Fine." The admin growled, clearly discontent. But I will warn you, Cillian, that the longer you let him sit, the deeper his infestation grows. If you won't crush him now, you will struggle later."

The perspective of a historian is a helpful one, but often one that equates to a mountain of frustration.

"Am I in trouble for the meeting?"

Cillian Quinn

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POSTED ON Sept 9, 2024 19:49:46 GMT

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"I'm loyal," Cillian grumbles, "not a fool."[break][break]

He knew as well as Howard how this was likely to go. Zev would get bored, and Zev would turn on them. By then, who knew how much power and support he'll have amassed? It was easier to cut down a sapling than a redwood.[break][break]

But just as Cillian knew that, Howard knew why Cillian could not act. Why his hands were tied.[break][break]

They were two cogs in the same machine, and their design was more similar than Slayte might like to admit.[break][break]

"Not from me," he says of the meeting. "Frost tried to drag you back; he might raise a stink about it, but you can pull rank as long as Walsh or the others," meaning his fellow underbosses, "don't step in."

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