As Hitoshi acted on his anger, Howard seriously considered kicking the statue himself. After a moment of ponderance, he shrugged and kicked the statue. Stone struck stone, and the admin hissed in annoyance as he hopped on one leg.

Yet, for a moment, it looked as if the statue had cracked. After a moment, the crack seemingly repaired itself. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a trick of the light, or perhaps Hitoshi's eyes were playing tricks on him. Yet it didn't matter, for his gaze was on Howard.

"Because if we destroy them all, they'll become nothing more than a distant memory. If people forget, then they won't learn. Only a small handful of people respect the Loyal Three. That must trickle down and be remembered, long after all of us are gone."

He sighed deeply and put a hand on Hitoshi's hand.

"Our children and their children cannot forget out struggle, so that they know how to deal with this evil when everyone who dealt with it has gone. Words and accounts will disappear. Statues will remain."

Statues had saved Hoenn when fighting Eternautus. These statues would hurt Hoenn if they stayed. Still, they had to stay.

---

Hitoshi Inoue

The weakest admin sat with the weakest beast, looking at a statue that allowed retainers to transcend death. It humbled the admin in a way few things did, knowing that the Loyal Three were eternal. There was a paradox, at play here.

They could smash the statue, and a piece of Hoenn's history would be lost. Yet Okidogi would not revive from this statue, and it would have to conduct its mayhem elsewhere.

Or they could let it sit, and Howard could preserve it in his private collection. Andrea Vaneau and Hideo Kino were smashing up every statue in the region. Frankly, Howard couldn't blame them for that. They were perfectly justified in doing what they were doing, and yet Howard wasn't willing to let go of such a traumatic chapter of history.

Future generations needed to know what happened here.

"Things I'd rather not elaborate on in word." They had been prisoners, and thus less than human to the Megalopolans within. "They beat us. Stripped us of what made us individuals. Stripped us of what made us strong. Hellish, put simply."

---

Hitoshi Inoue

The only Cillian Quinn would want is closure, and closure didn't fill the belly. A sandwich couldn't fill the pit where Tempest Quinn once was. Beverage could not fill that hole.

So Howard didn't even try.

"A week is a blip in a geological period. It's a second in humanity's lifespan." Even the audacity in the words gave the admin pause, but it was required in this moment. Cillian's heart had unfrozen in its grief, and for a moment, Howard would freeze what remained of his. "If your love for Temp is eternal, then it can wait a week."

Is, not was.

"I have things to do." Howard nodded to them both. "Next week, Cillian."

He left, leaving them alone with the medical staff.

---

Cillian Quinn Hitoshi Inoue

While the two Draconids growled at each other, Howard had found a Bagon bone fork. Who was the real winner, here? It was going to look great next to his Shelgon shell bowl that he had excavated two years ago.

"Pothoc draushum xiekivi." The archaeologist muttered as the Dreepy disappeared into wherever Dreepy went. It was good to know that the Dragon Duo had his back when he was faced when Meteor Falls' apex predator. Unfortunately, they didn't.

Life was full of disappointments.

Yet the world remembered those disappointments, and many more besides. It recalled them all, weaving them into a tapestry that would stretch back towards the genesis of the world. Between the alpha and the omega, there was something else: delta. Thus, the world visualized it.

"It's Hoenn's memory." Howard poked his head out of the hut, his eye sparkling as he regarded the ceremony. "Manifested by circumstance, writ in your blood."

He watched the dance thoughtfully, trying to carve it into his mind's eye so that he could write about it when he was back at headquarters. Eventually, Howard's gaze fell upon the elders. The one with the red beard caused Howard's head to incline.

"Magnificent."

---

freya morningstar Roy Aker

"You are not worthy to seize that ending. I am protected by a prophecy foretold by Kyurem, and it's not one that you can break."

Even as he spoke the words, he didn't know where they came from.

Howard's beginning was with Montgomery. His ending belonged to another, and it was written in blood and stone and ice and Dynergy. It was carved with a sword so sharp that none could compare. If a thousand years passed, Howard Slayte's legacy would still exist, and the world would know that it was not Montgomery's to reach for.

"I'm jealous that you got away with it while I rot here. Yet, by this point, I can't leave. Some will call that loyalty. I call it slavery. If I loved you, I would've killed you." He uncrossed his legs and crossed the room towards the window. "Bringing her to justice... heh. You're a deputy of the Dewford Police Department. You are justice."

He smiled wryly.

"It seems like you just wanted to bring that woman to you." He looked out the window. hands resting on the windowsill. "After all the faith Navy put in you."

---

Montgomery James

Howard's mouth began a thin line as he regarded Monty with a faint hint of bemusement. Eyes were a window to the soul, and Howard's was a shuttered inferno sputtering with rage. He saw Montgomery, and he hated.

"Sure you don't." His tone betrayed little. It was even. Modulated. "But I've always been good at digging up the truth. You know that, Montgomery. How many dunes did I shift to bring you your pound of flesh, buried in a tomb."

The admin's voice took on a faraway quality as he remembered distant years spent in the sands of the Desert Resort.

"You held a gun to my head, Montgomery. Remember that. To you, I was nothing but scum and a waste of potential. Whether you hated me or loved me, that did not change the fact that you tossed me aside like worthless dross." Like trash. Like garbage. He had been nothing more than a cup discarded. "And I'm not mocking you."

I'm you.

"We're not the same. Even if you left me behind, we're not the same. Team Rocket. The Pokémon League. It doesn't matter. I'm just a cog in the wheel." Howard smiled. "I've already seen my ending. Have you seen yours?"

---

Montgomery James

Those words described him perfectly. No, they had described him. He was still weak, but Howard Slayte was not a coward. He had surpassed that term when he had stood to correct his sins, and when he had shouldered the weight of ruin to preserve this world.

Montgomery was the coward. His world was shaking from one revelation. How could Montgomery be so blind when he had twice the amount of eyes that Howard had?

"Shut that up, would you?" Howard murmured into the sky. The Unown shaped like an 'H' blinked once, and the terminal misfired with a Hidden Power. Even a hand of God understood technology better than Howard Slayte.

"I just wanted to see where you were. How you were doing." Howard crossed his arms, each one marred with a scar that leaked red energy. A dysfunctional machine, bleeding blood that wasn't produced by a beating heart. "And with one of Rocket's best scientists lighting up my phone, I wanted to see what the fuss is about."

Howard raised an eyebrow.

"And I wanted to see what the sheriff sees in you. You can learn a lot about a man from their lowest point. Besides..." His fingers drummed against the armrest with mechanical rhythm. "I wanted to see how far you fell."

---

Montgomery James

It was hard for the gangster to do anything with that plastic tube down his throat. Good. Back in Unova, Montgomery rarely shut his mouth when he was in control.

Oh, how the tables had turned. This was how BARNABY FINCH had felt when he had snuck into his hospital room to prey on his heart and gnaw on his soul. Succulent tones had given way to an awakened will, and if Barnaby could do that to Howard, with flies buzzing over his burned and mangled corpse, what could Howard do do Montgomery?

"Cat got your tongue?" Howard raised an eyebrow. "Here, you wi-"

Suddenly, Howard's phone buzzed. The admin dug into his pocket and produced it, before chuckling and shaking his head. He turned the phone towards Montgomery, so that he saw the face of ameena abadi staring back at him. After letting a dozen text messages asking where Howard was, the screen went black.

The phone through the air, before falling behind a nearby seat.

"If anyone asks, I lost my phone behind the couch." He put a finger to his lips. "Our secret. Now then, I'm sick of this game of charades."

With that, he reached over and ripped out the intubation tube.

"Rise and shine, Montgomery."

---

Montgomery James

"Grigori brings out the best in people. When I first joined up with him, he scared me, but he was interesting. The way he spoke..." Howard chuckled and cocked his head as he mused on the enigma known as Grigori Sokolov. "...it was so formal."

Language. The way words were conveyed. It was what separated mankind from beasts, and Howard had spent much of his life attempting to understand every method of communication that every subsection of humanity had taught themselves.

Yet in all the scripts he had read, nothing had caused him to double back like Grigori. Compared to Montgomery, a snarling dog, Grigori Sokolov had an eloquence not suited for Team Rocket.

"He's a knight." Howard admitted. That was what he had told Calyrex, after all. Howard disappointed him. He could tell. His gaze when the admin had kicked him into some bar was proof of that. Perhaps that was what Grigori deserved, after what he did. "Nevermind."

Perhaps this was what Howard deserved.

"Nothing that can hurt you." The admin told her. He tapped his eyepatch. "And everything that can hurt me."

He paused again, then spoke again. Tentatively. Softly. Curiously.

"I can't imagine you giving up on anything or lacking a muse."

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

"If you press that button, someone will die."

---

Montgomery James

June Sleigh would follow the path set for her. Gabriel Sleigh would bleed out on the pavement alone. They would follow that march for eternity. Past and future, dream and waking, those were the paths father and daughter would march on. Just as Howard and June would march on.

Ameena trailed behind, like a silent specter. A woman observing the dreams of the damned watching in the distance from an umbral cloak.

The excavation pit is wide and sloping, a vast rectangular pit that scraped away sand to give way to sandstone. Ladders and carved stairways that led into the depths of the earth beckoned for the admin and his party. It was a cumbersome pit, dug by a small team of Pokémon and underfunded students.

Scraps of an old list caught against June's shoe, before disappearing into the sand.

"We worked hard on this." Howard looked around, his eye falling on a tent with an old fire pit and coffee pitcher. Three chipped mugs sat unused, with a faint and peeling Aerodactyl on one of them. "Shit, this took days."

He picked up the mug.

"What's the hardest thing you've ever worked on, June?"

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

The elusive TRIPLE PROTECT fucked them, and it fucked them good. It didn't help that the Loyal Three actually knew the difference between Protect and Wide Guard, but admittedly, neither did Howard. That was why he paid Shred and Grigori the big bucks to fight in his stead.

"Lucky us. I'll take the fucking monkey." Howard snarled as Pupitar fell to the ground with a crash. In the air, Shirley circled, gliding on wind currents until she smelled blood. For now, she'd suffice in powering his Sygna Suit.

In one eye, he saw the battlefield as Howard Slayte. In his vacant one, he saw it from Shirley's gaze. Two sightlines folded into one.

When Freddy appeared, the Loyal Three cringed slightly, mistaking Freddy for Doug. Luckily, Doug was somewhere else at the moment, likely wandering a different section of the woods. He would be of no help against their loyal threats.

"Serizawa!" The Pupitar flew forward, sheer murderous intent radiating from the pupa's stone flesh. It had been contained in a pupa for almost a year, and it hated the world for that reason alone. Rocks flew forward, a Stone Edge attempting to pierce the monkey's flesh.

Munkidori danced away, his future sight allowing him to dodge the boulders.

I'M GONNA KILL THAT FUCKING MONKEY!"

---

Shred Grigori Sokolov

The mask of a deputy disappeared under the snarling visage of a gangster. It gave the admin a twisted source of perverse pleasure to know that, in the depths of Montgomery's soul was the same beast from Unova. He could dress himself in Navy's shining badge, yet that would not change the fact that Montgomery James was a duplicitous piece of shit.

"Quiet. You'll cause a fuss." Howard sighed as he lit a cigarette, smiling as he did so. He puffed once, twice, then thrice. Only then did he look Montgomery in the eye. "Nice hospital room."

He took a seat, crossing one leg across the other.

"When I saved Dewford from my own mistake, I ended up in a room much like this. Then I had to deal with day after day of visitors. An unending march of people who wanted to indulge in my failure and deride my success." Howard shook his head once, smoke whirling around his head as he did so. "There were a lot of bees buzzing around, see. Visionaries, too."

Puff. Puff. Puff.

---

Montgomery James