Things are simpler back on the ground. Human beings were not designed to leave their green and blue cradle to ascend beyond the stars. They did so because it was hard, and because it was the human condition to prove their capability to triumph over the universe's greatest mysteries.

They were never meant to be here. That terrified him. He could deal with a falling mountain or being killed on the battlefield, but the void weaponized physics to ensure that every inch towards the moon offered a new challenge. Every iota of breath was calculated. Every square inch of material was painstakingly calculated to ensure that they could be here.

That, he thought, was beautiful. Lulu Flint was a genius, even if her handwriting was terrible. As was Naomi Sato , thus he turned to her.

"Kal." He shortens the Unown's name as a sign of affection. The name was chosen deliberately, and it felt disrespectful to shorten the decision, yet the admin did so anyway. "You look better, Nomi."

He paused, hand twitching towards his cigarette box and lighter. He needed a smoke, yet he suspected that lighting up in a space shuttle was akin to tapdancing on landmines.

"I prefer Draconid etchings of the night sky, but it's not a bad sight." He frowned, thoughtful. "I once told Lulu that exploring other universes is a redundancy when ours is such an unknown. You could spend a thousand lifetimes, and still not know everything about the one we call home."

He smirked despite the fear of infinity.

"Is it egotistical if I feel validated by my belief, looking out at it all?"

---

YAPPING TO NOMI ABOUT SPACE
AFRAID BECAUSE MANKIND IS WHERE THEY SHOULDN'T BE BUT IS PROUD THAT THEY'RE HERE
OOOOOOOOOO NECROZMA OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Nicknames Kal
Open to yappage

"Nothing groundbreaking." The admin says, peering at faded letters through the bag on his head. Frustrated, he takes the bag halfway off so that he can actually read over it. "Pretty standard research, honestly. There's a bit on magnetic fields, though."

He closes a notebook with a huff, more annoyed than terrified. It's hard to be afraid of the mansion when Cillian Quinn can wipe the entire mansion off the map with a Shadow Blast if he wished. Even with their Pokemon sealed, Cillian was the only avatar Howard had seen at the party. If he was betting on Cillian or the ghosts in a fight, he was picking Cillian every time.

"Looks a lot like notes I'd take in the field, though. Except mine are actually labeled and placed on a bookshelf."

He poured the wine directly into his mouth to accelerate his march towards inebriation, only for it to drench the bag he had just removed.

"Dammit! I just took this off!"

---

Howard digging through research with Cill
Yapping
RIDDLE: FIELD

He grimaced. Caught red-handed.

"Guilty as charged. If we use it, the League uses it. If we don't use it, the League will still use it. There's no way to justify not using its power, even if it means indulging in destruction." After ripping tons of Dynite Ore from the ground, the admin had funded several Power Spots on his own. "Guess that makes me a hypocrite."

He spoke flippantly, even if it bothered him that his integrity had been compromised by Team Rocket's war. Howard's opinions didn't matter, and his values didn't matter.

He was just a cog.

"This is a good piece. Good cut. Looks like something my mom would've sold." He scratched Mudkip's damp head and tossed the gem to Nina. "Keep it. Call it your signing bonus."

His eye twitched when he looked at the gemstone.

"Saves me the hustle of converting it to cash. You'll be doing me a favor."

---

nina larson

"Cold, but not cold enough. I suspect there's some trick to it that I don't know, but I haven't studied it enough. Maybe if I went far north, I could find something sufficient. There's no time for it with the war, so I make do."

Maybe if there was less battle on Routes 102 and 104, the admin could go on an expedition to confirm Cillian's suspicions about Shoal Cave and elsewhere. As it was, he simply made do with what he had, and what he had was a lot of rocks. Rocks were common. Ice was not. It wasn't like they could just mine it out of the ground.

"Kyurem's ice might work, but after Dewford, I'd rather not open up Regice up to more interference. Dewford fucked up my arm. Petalburg fucked up my body. There's not much left for me to give for my mistakes."

His heart, maybe. Yet even that no longer belonged to him. Red lines of divine circuitry caused the admin to emit a faint glow, conflicting with Cillian's umbral aura. Magenta mixed with dark purple as the two poked over the ruins.

"Golems and heroes are the same. They're built." Howard frowned as he plucked at the statue resting where Regice's ruins were. He inspected it for a moment. "The giants have never been brought together, but they haven't been awoken in millennia. The only thing I can hope for is that when they're all united, they can kill Eternatus instead of stave it off."

He put the statue back.

"And by then, I'll be done."

---

Cillian Quinn

The Oblivion Wing cuts through the ground like a hot knife through butter. In its path is the admin's Claydol, teleporting around the battlefield sporadically to avoid the worst of the attacks. Its purpose is to provide utility and to ensure that the admin's Sygna Suit remained active.

With it, Howard could dodge. As long as he could dodge, he could live.

Yet maybe due to luck, or due to the knowledge that death eventually came for all things, the attack was lined up remarkably well to decimate both Howard Slayte and Crumble in one attack. As soon as the dark blast fired, Crumble teleported into the attack. Immediately, the clay doll shut down.

"What the...?" Howard tried to teleport away, but his Sygna Suit turned lifeless without its partner Pokémon to instill it with power. "REGIROCK!"

The stone golem moved to intercept, before being cut in half by the Oblivion Wing. Rather than turn to stone, it simply split down the middle, before beginning to reform with nearby stone.

"Shit. SHIT. SHI-" Howard disappeared as Compass traded places with him. "What was that? A switch?"

Temp had saved him. Why? He had almost killed him in the Ultra Deep Sea. He was a defective Rocket Beast only accepted by his husband. It made no sense.

Maybe it didn't need to.

Slowly but surely, Regirock reassembled itself from the Border's rubble, before marching forward, using Dynergy to propel itself in the face of death. Superpower erupted in artificial limbs, swinging forward at the bird. With Compass turned to stone, it ultimately relied on the three to bring down this bird of destruction.

"Grab your husband! We'll distract it!" He shouted at Cillian. "Go!"

---

Tempest Quinn Cillian Quinn Hitoshi Inoue

"You're sorry?"

His expression was a mystery behind the expressionless helmet. Howard processed the information for several moments, before inclining his head. This was who his journey had started with? This man? The one who had influenced everything? Without Montgomery, there would be no Admin Fox.

And he was sorry?

"Fuck you, Montgomery. Fuck you. You get to disappear for years and then come back and take responsibility for your actions now that they actually matter? I looked for you in the records when I joined Rocket, and I couldn't find shit. I thought you died. I was fine with that, because it seemed like a realistic end for someone like you."

He clenched a fist.

"And yet..." He stared at the Skarmory and remembered his three months in Galar, training under the strongest heroes of a generation. "...you get to stand on that side. You left. You left and you washed your hands of everything, just like everyone else. Not me, though! I get promoted and have to shoulder the moral weight of annihilation while you get to live a new life. But it doesn't matter anymore. This war has grown beyond Team Rocket and the Pokémon League."

Yes, there was a war. Howard would fight in that war because if he didn't, he would die. If he followed Montgomery, he would die. He couldn't disappear into the night like many Rocket defectors. He simply had to shoulder that weight alone while people left Rocket and left him behind.

He missed when Eris Halla considered him a part of her family.

"The salvation of the world. That's all I'm here for. I'm just a cog with no future." Dynergy began to coalesse in Regice's divine heart, and glowed bright with flashes of the skeletal dragon reflecting in icy facets. "And you're a remnant of an era that has long since vanished—a time where Team Rocket's struggle had no meaning."

ameena abadi could bury another person next to her mother.

"You chose to be the worst version of yourself." A flash of red. "And you can't help me. Nobody can."

A Max Wyrmwind blotted out the sky as it descended downward.

---

Montgomery James

From beneath the helmet, a magenta eye fell upon the Illumina Skarmory. It was similar to the one that Howard had found by his hospital window after Navy had retreated into his fae garden to consult with spirits and tales of yesterday.

A reminder of what could have been if the admin hadn't turned Dewford into a frozen crater.

"I'm listening."

He sat on the golem's shoulder, hardly flinching from the cold. A mechanical form couldn't feel warmth or heat, anymore. All Howard had to experience was a crippling freeze, and even that bit gently upon stone flesh.

"Go. Elucidate me."

---

Montgomery James

Adrian Malcolm was a moron. An idiot. Yveltal must have killed the majority of his braincells. That was the only way that Adrian throwing his phone at the incoming swarm of specters made any smidge of sense. As it was, the horde of draconic ghosts simply shrieked and went around the phone as it bounced against the floor.

Snap! Snap! Snap! Several photos were taken as the phone bounced against the rock floor.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!" Howard yelped, before running into a wall due to the lack of light. Yet without the light, the admin glowed faintly in the darkness as Dynergy rushed through his body like divine circuitry. It offered a faint glow, better than none at all. "ADRIAN!!!"

Rather than reach for a Pokeball, the admin elected to turn around and run, before stumbling on another rock.

"Dammit!" A Pokeball fell from his belt, erupting open to reveal the Skeledirge from the admin had used against Registeel. "Owowowowow..."

Setet growled at the horde of phantoms, which in its spectral light revealed themselves as Dreepy.

---

Adrian Malcolm

There was a moment of shock. A moment where the admin was in his early twenties, broke and afraid of the world and the fact that he was getting left behind. Yet what surprised Howard was that the deputy had recognized him despite his helmet and armor. Had Navy blabbed?

It was possible, but the sheriff knew that their fates were intertwined, and that risking the admin's capture by anyone other than himself was a foolish venture, lest he end up like bryan delarosa , rotting in a cell somewhere.

"Montgomery." Of course the teacher would recognize their student, even if they were a failure. That was the connection between a teacher and the student whose path they shaped. "I thought you were dead."

It would've been easier if he had been. 

Thousands of men like Montgomery James had found themselves deep in their cups only to end up with a few extra holes in the back of their skull by an envious colleague or old threat. Howard hadn't thought about him for years, but now that he was here, in front of the admin...

His heart sparked with rage.

"You haven't moved."

---

Montgomery James

This felt personal. Ameena had seen too much for this to be comfortable anymore. She was Nebula, and that meant that she was almost family. Yet that did not mean that he appreciated her looking in on business that did not include her.

Yet to obscure information was against Howard's dogma. He did not distort the dream for her to hide the truth.

The admin's memory was solid. Remarkably so. For a man who spent much of his time misplacing his keys and struggling with computers, he kept his mind relatively organized when it came to recollections. Years of sorting, filing, and chronicling historical events by the date of their occurrence ensured that no story was forgotten.

There were imperfections, of course. Yet the Boundless had none. She, he remembered perfectly with not a hair out of place.

"It doesn't. You're right. So hate me if you want to. Hell, you should. I've done nothing but bring you misery. That's all we do in Team Rocket. We just make lives worse while proclaiming that we're just and that our pain should be everyone's pain." Yet he was rehashing the same bullshit again. It was all he did. Cycles upon cycles upon cycles. "But I'm not letting go until your debt is repaid and you're free."

The dream continued to play like an accelerating film, as if the admin was trying to skip the part that would ruin everything.

"Doesn't matter if it's ten dollars or a million or a fucking quintillion." Money was worthless. It was just paper that people agreed had value. If that was the case, then when this war was over, and if Rocket won, Howard would reassign that value has he saw fit.

"Because I wish someone had done that for me, instead of forcing me to live like a slave. If someone had decided that I wasn't worthless because I had a few less zeroes in my account, I would be with the Pokémon League right now."

The film slowed slightly towards the damning moment. Just because one stupid delivery girl delivered rocks really well. Just because she worked really hard. Just because he had never once seen her alive.

"So if you leave Rocket because of this..."

'I-'

"...please wait until you have nothing binding you."

'-loved you.'

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

Freya Morningstar was the talk of the town. Howard couldn't blame Adrian for trying to brush up on his history. If anything, he respected Adrian's newfound interest.

"They're as big of a deal as the capabilities of the people within the group. If the modern generation of Draconids were pathetic, then the group would be lost to time. They've persisted, and Rayquaza destroyed that meteor and saved Sootopolis. We respect the accomplishments of the people, not of the group." Now that he said it, it was a remarkably un-historian thing to say. Howard quickly corrected himself. "Though the Draconids as a whole are important, yes."

They owed him a giant. Regidrago was connected to them in some way, even if Howard himself didn't know how or why. Had the Draconids built it, or had the ancient civilization that had built the other four offered a helping hand?

It was strange.

"Sure. I used to play here when I was a kid, actually. I know the range pretty well." Time spent with Roy Aker had gone down the drain, and the wonder of childhood had been placed with the methodical clockwork of adulthood. "Wait..."

Howard poked his head out from behind Adrian. In the depths of the cave, where the phone's light did not shine, were a dozen spectral wisps.

"What the...?"

'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE' The wisps rapidly approached.

"OHSHITWHATTHEFUUUUUUUUUU-"

---

Adrian Malcolm

"They won't."

He spoke with utmost confidence. There was not a sliver of quavering resolve in Howard's words as he regarded this child that proclaimed herself a witness to the tales of heroes and giants and creatures of myth. There were few in this world as storied as this fourteen year old child.

Even if her eyes weren't bright or innocent anymore.

"Because they will not betray you. They will not betray you or Navy or Tsubaki or Eddie or anyone." Howard inclined his head, a mechanical pop ringing out as he did so. "Because you are human. They could turn their backs on me right now and join your side."

The Pokeballs lie on the ground, unused.

"And it would not matter. They would kill Eternatus regardless of if I led them or Navy. As for why I give them hearts..."

He thumped his chest, which let out a dull thud that rang out into infinity.

"...I just want to see what would happen. I want to prove that humanity has far surpassed godhood."

---

Eris Halla

"You strike me as someone from Celestic Town, with how much you love myths and legends. Yet I've been there before. Your dialect doesn't add up."

Howard pondered, before shaking his head. Chu-e's dialect had been eroded by years and years of warring with Team Rocket. Maybe that was it. It wasn't someone from Veilstone, and it wasn't someone from Snowpoint. He had spent a hot minute in both of those locations, and Chu-e didn't seem like a local.

He'd think on it.

"This world is broken. It needs to be rebuilt. Snow falls in summer. It gets hot in winter. Parts of Mt. Chimney aren't even the right color anymore, and Granite Cave is just... gone." The admin prepared to yap some more, before realizing where he was. "Ha."

He started to chuckle, covering his face with one hand as he snickered.

"We're buying clothes and I'm talking about the fate of the world and dumping it all on you. It's so ridiculous."

His laughter quickly turned into something else. Tears.

"I'm so fucked up."

---

Chu-e Choi