Naomi Sato arrived, yet the admin did not blink. Howard was used to her trick by this point, and while she could certainly atomize him with her mind, it wasn't a particularly big worry. They were allies. She was the Visionary. She knew the direction that they would walk.

He was needed. His purpose had not yet been reached, yet. Howard's pieces had not yet been assembled on Hoenn's chessboard. When it was time, the board would break under the weight of epochs, and they would enter a golden age.

"Underboss Quinn and I have looked into the plates. We've both seen them before." He raised a relit cigarette to Cillian Quinn and nodded to him, a mutual chain of respect forged for their passion for ancient and forgotten things. "The ones we hold are not noticeably different from these new ones. The old ones are carved with distinct phrases that the new ones only universally share."

Carved in an old language, ancient and dusty. It had not been a hard one to read. If anything, Howard welcomed the challenge after toiling with mountains of braille.

"I can't accommodate that request, Beast Inoue." He addressed his beast with a shrug. With Kanto's introduction and the scouring of Petalburg and Sootopolis, funds and material were required elsewhere. "When the opportunity presents itself, we'll look into it. Until then, have faith in the Head Scientists and Neon. They will unravel the secrets of this world, and of these plates."

And he would toil over ancient texts. Perhaps it was finally time to look more closely into the various knickknacks that GIDEON GRAVES and Remiel Calcifet had stashed away in that museum of theirs.

"We will not be hoodwinked by the divine."

That was the purpose of the Arc Suits. A fraction of heaven had been chained up and bound to the will of humanity. Every god's gift was poisoned, but occasionally they had to sup from the chalice. With that, his eye turned to Shred . He refused to comment on Elisabeth Fiorelli 's broken grave.

He shredded rose petals between his fingers.

"A paradox cannot form a bond like that. It's impossible! It cannot be done." They were abominations born of delusion. How could they instill anyone with this much power? "You cannot-"

With a horrible thought, he thought of june sleigh . His eye twitched.

"No."

---

Nomi arrives, Howard thinks of their exchange in the Unown Dimension. Thinks of their goal and of Hoenn's future.
Tells Hitoshi that the budget isn't there (tell shiv to discount sygna suits in the shop and we'll talk) and to trust the nerd squad to crack the code. Moment of solidarity with Cillian
ELISABETH IS NOT REAL SHE IS NOT
Tweaks over Shred

Cillian Quinn raises a good point. He had not been aware of the curiosity behind Shadow Lugia's existence. It was a tale that he had not bore witness too, nor did he know about the pound of flesh that it owed to Sea Hoenn. Not that it mattered. The admin was far more interested in its land-based counterpart.

"Touché." Howard admitted, taking another drag and tapping the burned dregs of the stick from the edge. "Though exceptions do not make the rule."

Elisabeth Fiorelli had been an anomaly—a woman with two Legendary Pokémon bestowing power onto her—but that did not stop a stone from crushing her, no matter how exceptional she may have been. She was incapable of overcoming her mortality, and that proved that the anomalous could bleed.

The admin's eye lingered on ■■■ (Zev Harcourt) as he pondered that realization.

Yet it was Shred who snapped the admin from his musing. A magenta eye met its orichalcum counterpart. This game unnerved him. This persona enraged him. It had been easier to treat Shred as an ally when he had been limited by the constraints of his own mediocrity.

"You were never in my shadow, Shred." He blew smoke at the Boundless as the admin lounged in his chair. "You were always stuck in yours. Building a throne doesn't make you a king, no matter what material you construct it from."

Howard rose, mechanical joints creaking as he did so. He put his hands on the table and leaned across, eye twitching.

"And why would that be difficult, Shred Zeppelin?"

---

Shred
FUCK YOU SHRED WE BALL FIGHT ME ON DEADLOCK

'Because you've lost Regieleki.'

'You've lost Regieleki.'

YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. YOU'VE LOST. 

How the fuck did he know? That was secret. There were no records of Regieleki's seizure and the admin had kept it that way. Nobody looked into the Ultra Plant besides the ones salvaging Megalopolan tech for their own aims.

His eye twitched. Violently. Howard was going to break this man's jaw when this meeting was over. If he knew, then he knew about june sleigh . If that was true, then things were going to get messy.

If he knew about her, then his patron was like hers. He couldn't let his surprise show, nor could he allow himself to stumble here. All he had to do was wait until the meeting was over, then he'd bash Shred's head against the wall and see if his blood was red or painted in an orichalcum hue.

"A temporary setback." He said simply. "Where'd you hear about this?"

---

Shred was going to ruin everything. Here, in front of the entire upper command. If Howard didn't kill him, Grigori Sokolov would.

Shred could lap on his blood until he drowned in it.

"Hmph." The admin turned from the Rocket Beast and slowly walked around the table, passing Elisabeth Fiorelli's empty chair as he regarded the open door, torn off its hinges in a fit of childish rage. The reek of nicotine and Shred's ungodly stench made his frown deepen. "And yet failed to capture it. How capable, you are."

Regieleki was already his. The admin did not believe in fate, but June would hand over her giant by the time everything was over. He would have three, and two would remain.

But first, he would lie.

"Beast Conrad loaned a statue to me. Its pattern lights up when a giant is in our plane. A fourth dot activated recently, and Regidrago remains out of reach." It's a lie, but a lie that priam conrad and Cillian Quinn can support. They've both seen the statue, and now it sits within Regirock as a genuine heart. "I keep an eye on things that interest me, and Walsh tasked me with Regirock's seizure."

He turned to face Shred and leaned in close, letting the king place his poisoned dagger at the admin's jugular.

"Just as he will entrust me with the rest."

---

His eye flicked to Naomi Sato . He regarded the Head Scientist for a moment, before returning to deal with Shred. She was an ally. Yet as the secret grew , so too did its ability to leak. Shred had already upset the chess board, though. He was so hardhanded, and his ascension had done little to curb his ego.

He was becoming a liability. As their foreheads met, the admin's voice turned low, so the others could hear little.

"Just like you fucked up with Kyurem, Shred? I didn't see you dragging the Light Stone back with your head held high. You fought ferociously, you fought bravely, you fought nobly. For the first time in your life, you fought for something other than yourself, you piece of fucking shit. And you know what?"

Howard's flesh was not warm. It was cold, like stone and ice, sapping heat away from the Boundless to continue its own kinetic motion. Dynergy thrummed faintly beneath the surface.

"You lost."

The words are cooed with the softness of a gentle caress, meant exclusively for Shred and Shred alone.

"So while you were beating up little girls and cashing my checks, I was conquering cities and seizing world-enders. Even your successes are fuck-ups, and my failures are not. That's why you'll always be Shred Zeppelin."

It was why he'd always be ■■■■ ■■■■■■, even if that name had been scrubbed from the annals of history.

Nomi and Tempest Quinn drag the admin out of his stupor. Howard leaned back, taking a drag of his cigarette. He coughed into his fist, before nodding to Temp in agreement.

"Naturally. We will seize her golem and use it to locate the rest. No muss, no fuss." Howard said loudly, now speaking for everyone in the room again. He meandered back to his chair, whistling as he did so to contain his rage. When this was over, he'd expedite Shred's reunion with his old body.

As his body returned to freezing, the admin took a seat at next to his fellow admins.

He would deal with Shred after the meeting.

---

Yaps to Shred exclusively, before speaking up for the rest of Rocket regarding Regieleki. Plans to kick Shred's ass when the meeting is over. Returns to sit back with his admin buddies and play Flappy Pidgey.