Elaine's head snapped back. Sports bars were generally not the kind of place someone would normally see her frequenting. Nevertheless, there she had ended up being, smack dab in the center of Mauville.

Cases tended to take her to this region of Hoenn quite a bit, but that didn't mean she had known all of the best places to grab a bite.

For once, she had ended up in an unfamiliar area with her stomach growling and a fragrant scent wafting into her nostrils. The pangs of hunger knew no quarter as they took Elaine victim and pulled her into a sports bar.

Supposedly, it was a top choice from the local Gym Leader, but she had met the man a few enough times to know that there was little chance that their tastes would mesh.

On the other hand, just because it was not something she expected to be a 'favorite' didn't mean that it wasn't something she couldn't at least expect to be delectable in such trying times.

As she found herself taking a seat, she could hear one of the adjacent patrons singing praises for the food. She had ordered a sandwich on her own and was waiting for it to be prepared, but the loud man's praises were not ceasing.

In fact, the voice sounded very familiar.

She had recently heard it at a masquerade.

And she had recently heard it at a cooking competition. In fact, she could swear that the voice belonged to the one who beat her to first place in that competition.

She could feel one of her eyes twitching as she turned back.

"I don't know what type of bread this is, but it's insanely good."

And those words were enough. They were the final nail in the coffin. The one man she had completely associated with one specific food item.

"I swear, every time I run into you, it's always with bread. I hope you don't have any plans to throw it at something this time."

---

Tag: howard slayte

As Elaine suffered a mental breakdown over the umpteenth mention of bread, Howard looked up from his sandwich. His eye was wide and innocent, even as his cowboy hat was slightly askew on his head. He took another bite, chewed deliberately, before swallowing.

"It's good bread." He said simply. This was the person who had won Aurelie Lefevre's little cooking contest? It was almost too much to bear. It was a Herculean effort to not feel shame at losing to a man whose attire bordered on costume who also got extremely excited over bread of all things. "You'll see when your sandwich comes in. Trust me."

He went back to utterly demolishing his sandwich. If the authorities learned that this man was one of the region's most wanted criminals, it was likely that much of Hoenn's law enforcement would retire overnight out of shame.

More work for Elaine, in that case.

"Wait." He swallowed again. "The only person I've thrown bread at recently..."

His expression quickly turned pale.

"Were you at a masquerade a few months ago, by any chance?"

---

Elaine Highland

The man at her side truly had a one-track mind. Granted, good food was still good food and while the man was one of Hoenn's most wanted (not that she was aware), he was still just as valid as anyone else when it came to the taste of food.

She took a short sigh. She had already poked fun at the man's hyperfocus on bread. So there was no need to keep doing so.

Instead, she could take the time to enjoy the moment when the man had grown pale. She was not the type of person who would outwardly focus on the moment where everything was all revealed and revel in it. After all, revelations tended to be a bit more of a somber affair.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, 'Arslan.'"

But she could revel in it here. Just a tad bit.

"Or should I say Howard Slayte. You can just call me Elaine."

She brought a hand up to her mouth in almost demure motion as she took the chance to give a quick chuckle.

---

Tag: howard slayte

"Aslan." He immediately said, before silently kicking himself at the correction. The name meant nothing, unless one was an avid fan of Josh's Pyroar. If he had been trying to hide his identity, he would've just spilled the beans in front of Elaine. It would've been embarrassing if it was a secret worth keeping.

Howard had to tighten his lips in the future. In spite of his position within Team Rocket, he had a tendency to blab. All it did was sow misery. He loved digging himself into deeper trouble with a shovel. It was a tool any archaeologist had in spades.

"Of course. Call me what you like. Aslan does have a layer of mystery to it, wouldn't you say? I don't hate the name, even if I strung it together at the last minute." Elaine's brilliance had gotten Maki through her eleventh hour with the Megalopolan, though the alien had timed his attack poorly.

Two detectives in one room? He had been doomed from the start.

"I'm surprised Mauville's Gym Leader didn't call me out on it." The admin took another bite of his sandwich as he peered at Elaine. "Is that a secret? Josh has always had a flair for theatrics."

His attire had been... remarkably obvious.

---

Elaine Highland
BINGO: BRILLIANCE

She had to have been really hungry if she had misremembered a detail like a pseudonym. Nevertheless, he seemed to have taken it all in stride. To be frank, it was a bit of a blow to her pride that she had screwed up, but she couldn't let that set itself upon her like this.

"I'll admit, Aslan does have a mystique that a name like Howard doesn't have." So, she chuckled along with him. If there was one thing she could trust, it was her ability to fall into the same pace as others and not be too perturbed by it.

"But yeah, he never said anything. He's a strange man, but he seemed like a decent guy, if a bit overbearing at times. And at the very least, he seemed to have caught on to the cue that you didn't want to let your name out."

Elaine shrugged. She had recently undergone his gym challenge, so she had gotten a decent feel for the kind of person he was from their limited interactions.

It was often said that people's true selves came out during battle (or in this case, a race), but she could at least say that Josh Devlin seemed to be a considerate and honest person.

"I mean, it was obvious it was a pseudonym, but I don't think I ever heard your actual name till you were called up as the winner of the cooking contest." Elaine shrugged.

---

Tag: howard slayte
Bingo: Pride

"I still don't know how I won that, if I'm being honest." Howard at least had the shame to look embarrassed about it. Aurelie Lefevre's cooking contest had taught him much, including the fact that messing up a sandwich was considered a regional delicacy in Paldea. "I didn't see your dish, but it was probably pretty good."

His dishes were poverty dishes. They were meant to be things he could scrounge up with roughly three PD in his bank account before the next paycheck. It didn't need to be good food. It just had to keep him from dropping dead.

Given that the biggest threats to the archaeologist's life were dying of embarrassment, getting killed by his colleagues, and getting mauled by a Pupitar, he thought it was going pretty well.

"He's a good man, though. You're not wrong, miss detective." He waggled a fork, silently keeping his opinions on Josh to himself. He was honest, but honesty didn't win wars. Especially given his refusal to acknowledge New Mauville, where Team Rocket mined Dynite Ore. "You're pretty sharp."

He made a note to keep her away from Team Rocket, if possible.

"Any cool cases recently?"

---

Elaine Highland

Though he would call them poverty dishes, there was something that could be said for the talent to take ingredients that some would consider scraps and turn them into good food--or at least food good enough to be judged well on a public competition floor. The man sold himself short and that was a sad thing to see.

"Any cool cases recently?"

Elaine crossed her arms, crossed her legs and peered off towards the ceiling.

Any cool cases? She hadn't had any major ones in a bit, all things considered. No giant murders, serial killings, or criminal rings. Well...at least most of them weren't.

"I guess there was that smuggling ring I was dealing with back then. Got ended up looped up in a fight with Rocket by accident because of that."

It wasn't the most pleasant of memories. But it was probably the most interesting of her recent encounters. And one that the man before her would probably be even less fond of.

---

Tag: howard slayte

Elaine mentioned a smuggling ring, and Howard took a bite of a sandwich to avoid saying something stupid. As he ate and she spoke, the archaeologist cocked his head. Was that smuggling ring one of his? He had too many of them, these days. Too many sources of income, and not enough brainpower to handle them all himself.

Team Rocket's income was simply too massive a stream for the admin to recall on his own. Most of his personal attention had been delegated to illegal Dynite Ore mining and Wishing Star extraction. In an attempt to crack the code on Dynamax, he had ripped up the earth to discern the truth of yesterday's world.

He was getting close. He could sense it in his bones. After a moment, he swallowed the sandwich bite.

"That's pretty impressive. Don't sell yourself short!" Internally, meanwhile, he considered kicking her out the window for fucking with Rocket's cash flow. "You're doing good work. Be proud of that!"

He gave her a wide grin, before shamelessly paying for the sandwich with exact change.

"Stay safe, Elaine. Don't get anything with rye bread. Terrible stuff, that."

---

Elaine Highland