"It's difficult, maybe even absurdity, but Rocket's done it before, in Kanto." Kanto was different, though. It didn't have beings thought to be Gods intervening and freaks from different dimensions. Maybe he had a point. Approaching anything in Hoenn like Kanto... maybe that'd been Silas' folly. 
Howard's question, while simple, peels at her ego uncomfortably. She was weak. It was a fact she'd known since her youth.

Weak-willed, weak-bodied, weak-hearted, weak. It saturated her insides like a second skin she couldn't remove; yet another fact she despised of herself. Thankfully, in her years, she'd grown adept at playing the role of someone strong. As long as others perceived her as such, or at least as weaker than herself, what she actually was didn't matter.

While she could easily lie and keep that guise going that she wasn't just as cowardly or simpering as a common grunt, Ceres spoke truthfully.

"I'm smart." She retorts without hesitation. "While strength wins the war, the smart commands the victors." 

"What about you? Excuse me for making assumptions, but you don't seem like the type who enjoys going in, guns blazing and bodies falling." For even someone as weak as herself, no, she wasn't intimidated by any prowess Howard may have possessed. Call it foolish arrogance that somehow existed in her anxious mess of a mind, but, he didn't necessarily seem 'strong' to her. 
No, he seemed 'smart' too. And that was what made him a threat in her eyes. 

howard slayte