"Far better than you, I'd say. Bringing your children on the job is against the rules, you know?" The woman whimsically chides, glancing at the duo from the corner of her eyes.

"Four. There was one hidden in that alley we passed— the one between the mart and flower shop." The lie leaves her lips easily. She can't resist the appealing lull of finding any way, subtle or not, of showing herself as more capable. As better. Especially under the enticing eye of an admin.

It was too early into their task for her hourly power trip though, so Ceres swallows the budding satisfaction as quickly as it arrives. Instead, pale hues fixate on the shimmering little pokemon.

"I can hold it if you'd like." Truthfully, the offer came before she could stop it, and the overwhelming urge to bite her tongue after was immediate. Her own desires, once more, culled by her insistent need to please others, as though any 'point' in her favor was better than none.

Of course, her tiny smile remains relatively authentic as she pauses in her walking to offer both hands to the admin and his troublesome chick.

---

howard slayte , thanks for starting!

His children? Howard's eye looked up towards the Skarmory chick pecking at his hat. His eye rolled as they kept walking forward.

"Not my kid." It's the tone of a man coming to the realization that the tiny critter he's been left with is slowly becoming important in his life. The Skarmory distribution network was working well, sending small Skarmory chicks to destitute archaeologists who needed them. "Sure, go ahead. Stop him from messing up my hat."

The bird is pulled from the hat, chirping angrily as Howard plucked him from his fingers. Denying Ceres was like kicking a puppy, truly heartless.

He placed the bird in the young woman's palms and sighed to himself.

"I saw three. Good eye." He admitted casually as they turned around a corner. He tapped his missing eye. "No depth perception."

Lying to the crippled was a truly heinous act.

"There's a coffee shop near Petalburg General that we can sit at. I want to check how many officers pass by for the invasion."

---

ceres

There's a faint purse of Ceres' lips in an inaudible 'mhm' at the admin's disgruntled retort, disbelief apparent. She doesn't press it further though, merely eyeing the chick as it's placed into her hands. Unfortunately for the bird, she may as well have been the equivalent of the crotchety old woman next door— his cuteness had no effect on her.

She eyes the pokemon for a moment before finally settling it in her arms akin to holding a baby. Except, much tighter. She didn't need peck marks on her arms by the time this dumb babysitting farce had run its course.

"I'm sure a researcher could look into fixing that for you if you asked the right person." A gentle prod for more information, as she curiously eyes his face. Eventually, however, she offers a slight shrug even if she internally preens at his casual praise.

"Offering to take me on a date so soon? Oh, my! I guess the moniker 'fox' does fit you." Ceres hums, the corner of her lips quirking upwards faintly.

---

howard slayte

Steelheart chirped angrily in the liar's arms. Maybe he could smell the vindication in her heart, or the pathological need to sow discord and chaos with falsehoods. It was possible that this Skarmory chick was the secret to revealing Ceres's true self.

Or maybe, just maybe...

...she was just holding Steelheart too tightly. It was truly a great mystery.

"You wish." The admin's lips twitched upwards in a mirror of Ceres's own. Even he could sense the mockery in the question, the jape in the remark, as she hummed along innocently. Still, he allowed it. Banter was good. It made the duo look more innocent. "But foxes are tricky. I must warn you—I split the bill."

Instinctively, he went and brushed against his vacant eye socket. The only thing he felt was a Key Stone embedded in the flesh.

"Probably, but it's a memory of a lesson. Getting rid of it would be disrespectful."

---

ceres

"Hah..?" Ceres' lip curls in a look of disdain— of course, expecting a rocket man to know any practices of chivalry was her own mistake. "Figures. Might hold your kid hostage if you don't pay up." She declares under her breath with an outward sigh. Like a true Rocket, of course, ransom was the first idea that came to mind instead of simply asking.

As much as the idea of actually managing to somehow strong-arm her own admin into giving her an 'early bonus' appealed to her, it was abundantly clear she was, probably, joking.

Probably.

Loosening her grip on the chick if only to appease it, she shuffles it closer. Holding something so gently, Ceres realizes, feels odd. She doesn't particularly like it.

"You've managed to weasel your way to the top of a brass filled with scoundrels, and you're worried about being disrespectful?" The words came out slightly more judgmental than she wanted them to— but, there was genuine curiosity in them, too. She was learning, however slightly. "You're odd."

---

howard slayte

"There was an empty seat that needed filling, and I had rent due. I was offered a hand up, and spitting on it didn't seem to be a particularly wise decision. Didn't seem too odd to me. Made perfect sense."

His voice was bitter, but only just. It whispered of scorn and hate. Self-loathing and a realization that taking the devil's hand to make it to heaven had marred his future. It was the type of drama that Ceres feasted on. Knowledge she could sink her fangs into and shake until it curdled and died.

Not that the admin cared. They're colleagues, and Rocket's upper brass already distrusted him. Let them glare, let them stare, and let them gossip.

"Sit. Look natural, be happy." Howard's voice is casual, but an order is an order. The coffee shop is somewhat full, but the outer porch was vacant and the two would not be disturbed. A deep sigh followed as he plucked a pair of menus from a waitress. He slid one across the table. After a moment, he inspected her. "You're odd."

He mirrored her words. They almost reeked of mockery, if not for the wry smile.

"Why Rocket?"

---

ceres

And sink her fangs in she did.

Like a starving beast catching the faintest hint of sickness, she latched on to even the slightest fragment of details he so graciously offered. Some greedy part of her begged for more— it wasn't enough. She wanted to pry, more and more, to reveal his blistered and beaten insides. And how delicious it was, truly, to glimpse even a hint of his misery.

Call it fucked, but bitterness, however slight, suited him. More questions burned at the back of her throat, to see if she could provoke further from him...

But, instead, Ceres briefly let her brow furrow in a twisted mockery of concern, even if she wanted to sneer, point, and laugh.

Taking the offered menu and scarcely looking over its contents, his question was met with a soft hum. She didn't like questions about herself— hated them. But, it was easy enough to lie and to try to appeal to whatever camaraderie she could. She tried to recall what she told the last person...

It was all blurring together.

"Odd? Me? I don't think so." Her lips curl into a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. That mistake is, promptly, fixed. She lets her gaze drop back down to the menu.

"You've got to ease a lady into those types of questions first," her complaint is riddled with a playful huff, "It's so personal and dear to my heart, you know? I usually only tell my friends." Ceres' lips purse.

"Unless..." Her smile grows, seemingly good-natured. "You trying to be my friend, Mr. Fox?"


howard slayte

Not even slightly. This woman was a member of Team Rocket. There were few within the organization that he could truly call friends.

Shred, yes. Grigori? Almost certainly, despite their strained relationship. He even enjoyed Jayden's company from time to time, even if Howard had needed to choke the truth from him as they lay fighting in the streets of Littleroot. Everyone in Rocket was scum, and yet...

Howard did not mind that. Rocket was where the dregs of society coalesced into one abhorrent entity. Whether they were rich or poor or adept or inept, there was a place for them in Rocket. The only shared bond that everyone in the organization lacked something. Ceres was no different.

"I could be persuaded." His eye did not leave hers. This woman was pleasant. Despite her badgering, he even almost liked her. Yet she, like everyone else in this organization was broken. Otherwise she would be living a happy normal life. "But I'm also your admin. When I ask you a question, you will answer."

The fox peered from its den, as bitter and jaded as it was. Pessimism and hope swirled within, each threatening to snap out and praise mankind's virtue while denoting its sin. Both could be applied to this woman, even if he did not know her well.

"Let's try it."

His lips curled slightly as his eye sparkled. The menu was placed aside, discarded.

"What would you like to drink?"

---

ceres

She'd pressed her luck, however slight, and was nearly nipped by the waiting fox. And though her insides churn with bitter envy and relent at recoiling even faintly, she accepts his authority with grace. There is a faint twitch to Ceres' smile, however, it does not falter.

"Of course." Her head slightly dips in a faint nod of acknowledgment, a hint of begrudging respect forced through teeth that ache to bare. "My apologies, Howard. It won't happen again." She lies to him for the second time today. It won't be the last.

Stifling her irritation, Ceres offers a pleasant hum once more in thought.

"If you're paying? A Fuecocoa with a dash of caramel. Otherwise, a muddy water cappuccino." One was significantly cheaper than the other. "Unless you have something you'd recommend," she offers a slight shrug. "Yourself?"

howard slayte

"My tastes are destitute. They'd ruin your poor taste buds with the reeking stench of poverty." Howard sighed as he murmured a request to the passing waitress, who nodded and smiled faintly, before departing with their order. "Comfee. With a lot sugar and milk."

At that point, it was hardly a beverage anymore. It didn't matter how cheap coffee brewed with Comfey flowers was, if the admin diluted it with milk and sugar he was hardly paying for the cup anymore.

Broke bastard.

"I'll pay. Consider me won over by your charms." Howard smiled lightly as he turned to face the sprawling Petalburg City. Kids laughed in the park and people went on their shopping trips. Summer was ending, and fall was threatening to begin. "This city..."

A deep sigh. A transition into melancholy.

"It will be gone soon."

---

ceres

You'd think an admin could afford to have more expensive tastes. Ceres was, quickly, proven wrong.

She offers a small smile back, "oh, must be my lucky day." She muses. She had a creeping feeling that being treated out by Howard was a rare occurrence... Thus, she'd enjoy being a freeloader with him while it lasted.

Shifting in her seat, a brow soon arches. She pauses, as though thinking over his statement, and words leave her lips easily enough.

"For good reason and cause." She wasn't entirely sure if she believed that answer herself. Wanton violence via war hardly ever passed without blameless victims. Was there ever a 'right' reason for that? She briefly follows his gaze, watching the bustle of clueless lives going about their business.

...And all she felt was a stinging numbness. An inability to care, aside from what doors their sacrifice may open for herself.
What soon followed was a sting of, perhaps, slight envy that even a corrupt admin could afford more sympathy than she could.

Refraining from the urge to bitterly smile at herself, she decides to stop focusing on her own thoughts. Nothing good ever came from it but unwanted self-reflection and realization.

"Right?" The words came off more challenging than she intended. Ceres was quick to soothe them, however. "It will rebuild. People will learn to live through it and move on. Like a scabbed wound, they'll heal. Scar, maybe. But heal."

"Unless," she continues, "you have some other grand idea to pitch to the head honchos. Maybe I'll even back you up if you do." Her sincerity seemed genuine.

---

howard slayte

"Even a scar can fully fade, if it doesn't mark flesh." The clinking of dishes and the admin's distinctive tapping on the table added a smidge of background noise to the conversation. There was a coolness to his gaze, although his face was pained. "There is nothing we can do to this city over a single generation that cannot be rebuilt in millennia."

In an eon, they would both be dead and their descendants would mark their burial sites with great stone effigies and speeches to their greatness. It would not matter to Ceres nor to Howard, but it was a small comfort to know that this was all for something.

Even if that something was childish. Delusional.

"There is no good reason for the taking of this city. We are simply seizing it to annoy the League and split their forces. It is tactically irrelevant, strategically meaningless. We are simply here to fulfill the desires of fallible men."

What a meaningless battle. What a pointless war. Petalburg would offer them nothing. While Mossdeep burned under Rocket's banner, Petalburg was a mediocre after course.

"We will rebuild it. I have no plans beyond it. And yet..." He leaned forward, thoughtful. His eye sparkled with bemusement as he deflected her question. "I feel like you do. Tell me what you would do with Petalburg when it is ours."

---

ceres

Pale hues narrow in thought. Or judgment. Faintly, Ceres wondered if this was a test. The paranoid thoughts twist further into her mind, tearing between what she wanted to say versus what she believed he wanted to hear. Of course, in the end, her own desires seldom ever won.

"Propaganda." She gave the faintest shrug. "Or, intimidation. If we can keep Sootopolis secured and also procure Petalburg, that will be two cities under Rocket's siege. It'll prove our strength and further show the League's incompetence." That was a given, though. Their public relations made sure to nail that part in with each conflict between the two opposing sides.

"People cling to those who are strong. Power is what makes the world run. If we want to keep PR manageable, the rebuilding process could be prioritized. Get the citizens back into their usual life. There'll be plenty of jobs available in Petalburg for reconstruction among other things. Money always makes people shut up. Income brings in people." She scoffs.

"I can see the advertising now. 'Petalburg, reopened and ready for your business. Find a job today'!" Stifling a laugh, she continues.

"Either way, we show people we're not complete terrorists. Show them that Rocket is better than their precious League."

In times of desperation and hellfire, people were weak. And the weak would always latch onto the strong like parasites. Though the fires of war would run red and fear would be high, they could use it to their advantage, still.

"Sugar will always attract more cutieflies than salt. So, we shouldn't go around salting the earth too much, hm?"

howard slayte