And when the chime came, it cut through the silence like a knife.

The door creaked open. The person the chemist wanted to see least in the world walked in. A blue eye littered with specks of red from Dynergy poisoning surveyed the room. Naturally, he came alone. No guards. Only his Pokémon. They, of course, remain at his belt.

There is no use of startling the snake in its den, though perhaps pit is a more accurate term. Luckily for both Howard and Absinthe, the pit is empty besides them, though the archaeologist's eye lurked in the shadows.

declan walsh's domain. Damn that man.

"You're here. That's good." He crossed the room to the counter. He sat before her, looking up at the walking corpse going through routine motions to keep her mind sane. How he knew that feeling. The constant desire to do anything to maintain functionality. "Absinthe?"

His eye inspected her, looking for any crack in the guise. The scent of spores on her is noxious.

"You look terrible. Not enough sleep?"

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Eventually, the waves battering against the mind will deepen the cracks in the ramparts and send them crumbling into the sea below. The mind is a bastion, but eventually it will falter without proper support.

Howard's had been on the verge of collapse for months, now. Absinthe's had been under siege for years. Nobody had bothered to check on her.

Nobody cared.

"Ab-" His voice was muffled by the lab coat thrown at his face. It's laundered, which should be a good thing. Yet the admin suspected that it was the result of the chemist doing anything she possibly can to keep her mind still. Something is amiss. She lies, yet before he can point it out, she disappears into the lab. "Damn woman."

Taking her to that Power Spot had been a mistake. He had erred somewhere within, and he didn't know where.

"The lab doesn't concern me. You concern me. Howard's voice was quiet as he murmured to himself. "What the hell happened?"

He slipped the lab coat on and rushed into lab after her.

---

Absinthe Blackwood

It's like a switch flips as she enters. For a brief moment, Absinthe is functional. He can sense it in the way she carries herself and from the pristine nature of the domain she calls her own. It reminds the archaeologist of his own home, where fossils and tapestries and ancient things are stacked to the heavens.

It is the place where passion overruns rationality, where the joy in a cultivated craft and satisfaction of one's skills can be praised and lauded.

Yet as he looks around, there is nobody to praise what she's done. Nobody will acknowledge that what Absinthe has done here today is 'good'. She produced toxins for wealth and the sake of creation. This was not a good act. Yet still, there was nobody to laud the skill required to create these concoctions.

Nobody but the Shiinotic in the corner. How the admin hates it.

"Hm." He inspects the boxes and their contents. The labeling is reminiscent of a true scholar, one used to meticulous chronicling. The process is familiar to him. "I have faith in the quantity produced, and in the quality."

When she glanced up, his gaze meets hers. Judging. Suspicious. Concerned.

"But not in the manufacturer."

---

Absinthe Blackwood

There is not a single person in Team Rocket who is not defective. Every single one lacks something that allows them to function.

It is their force of will that allows the organization to keep marching forward, in spite of the cracks and the breaks and the shattering limbs that continue to trail behind them as Team Rocket continues to strive towards its ultimate goal of conquest. It is a coalition of broken men and women.

Absinthe is damaged more than most.

Admin Fox's hard gaze melts.

"Yes. I do." It's honesty. The admin is one of the few in Rocket who abhors lies. Historians do not muddle facts. True ones don't, at least. "I didn't see it at first, but that Power Spot stripped the mask away."

Not the physical one, but the identity that hid the person buried deep beneath the waves.

"I failed you. Few react to Dynergy well. It mars you. Scars you. Breaks you. I'm still putting myself back together." He rolled up his left arm, where dozens of red scars snaked up his arm to his shoulder, where he had touched Regice's Wishing Star in a bid to save Dewford from his arrogance. "Should've realized you were already broken."

A deep exhale. He had no idea how Navy did this. How he brought people into the depths to ensure they were ready to face Eternatus when the time had come. Howard had sent Absinthe down there to prepare her for Eternatus, when she hadn't been prepared to face herself.

"I want your work, but I also want to work with someone who doesn't hate themselves. I have too many people like that back in Sootopolis." And whenever he looked in the mirror. He grimaced. "So please..."

"Please tell me what's wrong."

---

Absinthe Blackwood

The reason is that he's just as shattered as she is. Rocket is full of the rejected, and the rejected crawl deeper into depravity as the world denies them the basic right to exist. His journey into Rocket is one of necessity, a desire to chase his own dream until it breaks him apart.

Without something to chase, he'll break down. Stop. Howard doesn't even know if he can go back to archaeology anymore, knowing that the world is rotting on one end from Tera Crystals and the other is collapsing from invaders from other worlds.

It's all just too much. The only thing he can do is care and wait to die at the hand of a god that denies the species it created. If he can prove that humanity had mattered until its final breath, that'll be enough. If humanity matters, then why not one person?

Why not the woman before him? Absinthe mattered. She deserved to.

Still, he exhales slightly as she slips her mask off. Beauty transitions into horror as flesh is broken and twisted and melted. His brain leaps to a lab accident, like an exploding beaker or substance. His heart decides that's too simple an explanation. Nothing is ever so simple.

Her story was anything but simple.

"You... I'm sorry." He reached out, his fingers a hair's breadth from her mangled face. "And this?"

It feels shameful to demand answers from someone like this, he always hated his missing eye and the patch that covers it. Yet Absinthe's face is a mirror, and below the mask is a series of cracks that distorts any reflection.

"Who did this to you?"

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Her memories were tattered. Recalling anything would be difficult. Impossible, even.

Rocket's technology was impeccable, and there were scientists who specialized in the dreams and memories of others in an attempt to unlock the universe's secrets. There were those that could stitch flesh back together and make Absinthe whole, if she wished.

But that journey is long. It is hard. It not his to make. Finding purpose is hard. That does not mean that she has to take it alone, though. He knows what it's like to bury memories, to forget things to keep his sanity intact. He can barely remember Necrozma's Avatar's name.

"Ruined. Disgusting." He tastes the words on his tongue, thoughtful. His eye flickers again, specks of red in a sea of blue. "That is what Team Rocket consists of. The forgotten and the shamed who did not get the chance to pursue their own happiness."

Howard deserved that chance. Absinthe did as well. Abby, though he did not know her, most of all. He took the leap. He touched her cheek with a scarred hand.

"Ruined. Disgusting." His fingers traced over torn flesh and muscle, before reaching the unmarked section of her face. "Pristine."

He moved his hand away.

"Are you brave enough to find the truth?"

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Or she would die. The terrifying thing was, he believed her. He believed that she desperately needed this because the results of forgetfulness were carved into her eyes, her face, and eviscerated flesh.

"You're welcome." Howard murmured softly. He was a historian. An archaeologist. Every story in the world would be woven into a tapestry that would echo through millennia. This woman's tale was a small part of it. "I'll help you fill in the pages of your life's chronicle."

If they could restore it, they would.

"Rocket's resources are yours. But." He raised a finger. "When you're put back together, if you're willing..."

He suddenly regretted bringing this woman into Rocket. He tamped down the guilt and buried it. He had never been given the luxury of letting emotions consume him. Nobody asked. Nobody cared.

"...please help me kill a god."

---

Absinthe Blackwood