The world was frozen.

There was nothing more to Route 104 than an eternal plain of ice that expanded into infinity. Statues of ice lined the side of the road where people had attempted to hide from the Dynamaxed colossus that marched towards Rustboro. There was no meaning to its march. No justification to its programming. There was simply an order to march, and thus march it did.

Howard Slayte marched too.

They were just more bodies. More people that he had killed on accident. It was hard to truly aim a Max Move with the precision that it required. One strike was enough to level a mountain or destroy a city, and even constraining it down to a route had been remarkably difficult.

Yet he had garnered quite the view from atop the mountain of bodies.

Those were his thoughts as he sat upon Regice's shoulder, marching forward. Until a man came into view, right in the middle of the route. A frozen tumbleweed danced past, and the admin's helmet flickered.

"Move." Howard and Regice waited, a red heart pulsing through the golem's Clear Body. "Or freeze."

The figure did not move.

---

Montgomery James

His head reeled back, and stars appeared in his vision as he collapsed backwards into the sand. If it weren't for the red haze of a Pokeball returning Shirley to her domain, the gangster would've lost the hand he wounded the archaeologist with.

"I'm not one of you. I'm just... an interested party." He didn't meet Montgomery's eyes. "I'm not part of your family. I'm different."

He was just here for money. He was just here to preserve history and use Team Rocket to coast on easy streak for the rest of his life. He wasn't a criminal, and he wasn't a hypocrite. He just wanted to survive. Fuck Montgomery James. Fuck Team Rocket. Fuck everything.

Yet he didn't say any of that.

"Clear." He staggered to his feet. When Howard spoke, it was like a child afraid of his father's belt. "Am I dismissed?"

---

Montgomery James

"To ensure your victory?" Howard's voice was a whisper. "You blew up your own Pokémon just to make sure you won? Even if everything was already going your way?"

It was baffling. It made no sense. Montgomery had done it with all the grace and care of tossing a piece of trash into a bin. There had been no grandeur to his Claydol's sacrifice. It made no sense. He had simply did it because it had been convenient, and he had wrecked a piece of history for his own ends.

Even if it recovered, Montgomery had still destroyed it.

"What the hell are you, Montgomery?" He looked up at the man in utter confusion. "Why're you like this? Don't you care about anything? Don't you love anything?"

---

Montgomery James

Area of effect.

That was the term used to describe an attack that encompassed a wide area. When creating a sandstorm to hide behind, it was impossible for a scalpel to perform any precise strike. Any attack would come down to luck. There was nothing to it, other than luck. Howard thought himself lucky, but found himself the fool.

Shirley's head snapped towards the ticking doll, her fangs glimmering with ice crystals as she lunged forward with an Ice Fang.

Too slow.

Detonate.

"SHIRLEY!" Howard shouted as the sand was dispersed by the detonation, the prehistoric Pokémon being blasted backwards and rolling into a dune. Instinctively, he ran after her and caught her before sand could collapse onto her form. "You..."

Anger. He turned to the gangster.

"You'd blow up your Pokémon just like that!? It was three against one! You had me either way!"

---

Montgomery James

"I doubt it. Throughout history, freedom has been given in degrees and iotas by those with authority. Kings. Governors. Rulers. There is always a limit to how much freedom one can reach for." He picked up the vintage, gauging how much remained in the bottle. "After the battle, I suspect that I've overreached."

Elisabeth had died. She had died and she was buried and all Howard had to do was deal with roses and ghosts.

"But Calyrex didn't just escape, did it?" He stood, disrupting his Aerodactyl, who growled in discontent as she was forced to adjust. "Its court did, as well."

His voice was a fervent rasp, and his gaze wandered to the memories of a Galarian epilogue that only he had seen.

"Those two heroes, Alba. They're back, too. What of them?"

---

Alba Evovae

Three on one. Frustrating. Maybe Crumble would've been better than his other two Pokemon that had fallen. The Baltoy had a few good utility moves that could've kept the pressure up, but it was an Aerodactyl against the world. He felt bad for his poor girl.

"What the... they're not tools! They're my friends and coworkers!" Howard protested. Half of his digs were thanks to the Pokémon that Montgomery had just knocked out. "You call them tools and they still follow you?"

That was unhinged. It was insane. Then again, Montgomery held himself like a man who viewed lives as nothing more than blank checks to be signed at a whim.

"Find that Claydol! Stop it!" Howard ordered, his Aerodactyl flying into the sand despite the suspicion that it was a trap. She followed her trainer, a beast taken off of her chain. "Iron Head!"

The dinosaur's cranium gained a silver sheen as it lunged forward into parts unknown.

---

Montgomery James

The dream answered her question.

YES. YES. YES. YES YES. YES.

The behavioral issue that Ameena wanted to understand is not tied to the dreamscape. It is tied to reality, to war, to the thousands of bodies that the admin has stacked to the heavens over the course of a campaign in Dewford and in Petalburg. They've grown so high that there is nothing more to be done but simply sit at the pinnacle and look down on the world from a throne made of flesh.

He had lied. To June and to that bird and to himself.

Now, standing atop a pile of innocent corpses and lies and Talonflames and Howard Slaytes, the admin realized something.

I've garnered quite the view for myself.

The dream distorted for a moment when the question is asked. Even though he was prepared for this outcome, Howard still grimaced at the question. He didn't look at the dream. There was no need to. He simply hid beneath his hat, his hand pressed firmly down to ensure that it didn't move.

"Yes." The archaeologist said. He self-sabotaged remarkably well. Howard had always been remarkably defective. Selfish, too. Yet that was what Team Rocket needed from an admin. "There's no combination of words that can justify my actions. There's no need to justify them. What I did was wrong. It was a mistake. I didn't mean it."

He had said 'sorry' enough for one lifetime in regards to this sin. He'd let this dream do it for him. Yesterday could shoulder the sin of today, just this once.

"Do you think I'd do it? Still?"

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

For the best of everyone involved, it was for the best that nobody mentioned the initial takeoff. It portrayed Howard in the worst light, and made his inclusion on this space mission dubious at best and a question of nepotism at worse.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!!!"

Best to shelf that until the post-mission briefing. The worst thing that it did was make Shred look bad by association in the face of Lulu Flint, not that it particularly mattered. Howard's outbursts were expected by this point, and at least he brought two members of royalty with him.

Now that they were in space, though, all was well. The outburst of the launch would (hopefully) be forgotten.

"Hm." He stared out into the open void of space for several moments, before looking away. The void reminded him too much of the Devourer (Zev Harcourt), and that was something that the admin would prefer to avoid thinking about. As Ameena descends to get a drink, the admin shouts after her. "Get me something good!"

Something with alcohol, ideally, though it was likely that Lulu thought far enough ahead to ensure that the admin would remain sober.

---

Howard breakdown during launch
Looking out the window before getting scared of LE SPACE
Tells Ameena to get him BOOZE THANKS
Open to interactions

He let the man organize his thoughts. High above in the paradox spiral, a silouette flew by. It was so swift and sudden that the admin wrote it off as a trick of the light, even if he knew in his soul that it was something far worse. Rather than let Oscar notice his distress and thus imply that the shadow had existed, he stood.

"Does it matter?" He let the question hang in the air. Howard's hand rested on his hip. "If you trip on a stone, does the placement of the stone have a reason? Is it meaningful? Maybe, but it's ultimately you who ran into it and stumbled."

He turned to a path that cut through antimatter like a hot knife through butter. In the distance was a vaguely shaped mountain.

"All you can do is pick yourself up and keep marching forward." That vague chunk of earth was familiar to the admin, though he didn't know why. He felt a need to meander towards it, though. "So let's pick ourselves up and find my golem."

'Peculiar'. It almost made Howard chuckle. What an understatement.

"If you need a reason, then maybe climbing on Regirock during the battle caused the world to make a mistake." Howard gestured towards the path. "Lead the way."

---

oscar clayton

Regice is not Kyurem. Yet trauma does not make the distinction. Cold is cold, and ice is xarzith.

It'd be easier if Howard could take that logic and apply it to the part of him that threatened to break whenever he saw a knife. Flashes of sight being torn away to the dirge of grinding stone and smiling faces proclaiming him as a king. The prophecies of yesterday are the histories of today.

"Shit. It's Freya." His heart wasn't going to be in this fight, and that was an issue when he was waging war against someone who would not be so generous. She was stronger. Rayquaza was stronger. The Hero of Sootopolis, they were calling her. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

He wondered what those who lost loved ones to the flood called her. Likely the same thing that the people of Petalburg called him. Murderer. Failure. Traitor. Oath-breaker. Yet she would not receive any criticism from him. She had fought. She had won. He had fought. He had won.

It was time to see if his star could even hope to catch hers.

Despite his cowardice, the admin did not balk as the Fire Blast engulfed him and sputtered against Regice. Dynergy Barriers protected him from any damage to his person, but that did not stop him from breathing a sigh of relief from beneath his helmet as he came out unscathed. The golem, meanwhile, reeled, before scooping up the admin in a giant hand to protect.

Regice could not melt, but it could feel pain. Such was a defect of the design. Yet Dynamax made the mightiest blows feel like a Sliggoo's toothless gnawing.

Much like sun or rain in the presence of the king of the skies, the hail ended.

"Any chance I can get you to back off!?" He questioned Freya as Regice threw a frozen javelin in the form of another Max Hailstorm. "I don't want this fight, Morningstar!"

The Dynamaxed Regice took a step forward, its massive foot blotting out the sky as it began to descend on June.

---

freya morningstar june sleigh

"Home."

The word is echoed through the deep array of tunnels. It bounces off carved stone and ornate runes and causes ghosts to stir from their cryptic haunts. Whether one is dead, alive, or lifeless, home was a universal word. Hoenn is home. This world is home. This universe is home.

"And no. Regirock's stone is common. Regice's ice is hard to replicate."

What lies beyond the veil is not home.

"It unveiled ruins for us as it fled. I suspect that it was protecting them." Howard said, lines of red energy lined his body like circuitry that glowed in the dark, even as a light cut the way forward. "Not that I blame it. I suspect those ruins were where it was born, after all."

He let the revelation sit in the air as stale air filled their lungs. Stale. Unmoving. An archaeologist's delight. He wondered if it excited Cillian as much as it did him.

"I will answer, but not to form the connections that you and the rest of Rocket indulge in." They descend down into a large room, complete with a table of Hoenn. Five statues indicate the positions of ruins. All have been found. "Regirock and Regice would have formed that contract with me by now, if they were capable of it."

He stared down at the carved map of Hoenn.

"They're not. Because they are our avatars, instead of us being theirs."

---

Cillian Quinn

She spoke and he listened, like a grandson listening to a grandparent's tale as they rest in a deathbed, tales uttered between rattling gasps as the elderly attempt to pass on their last pieces of wisdom before departing into the void. Yet this Kimono Girl, as gray as she was, had much more to do.

Her tale had not yet ended. A chapter had concluded, and they were now in the process of penning the header of her next act.

"No. I simply wanted your opinion on this mockery. I have it. Thus, I am thankful. The rest of this was merely
a bonus. I try to understand the logic that drives those who follow Team Rocket. I think that, maybe if I understand the people I lead, I can attempt to justify my own madness."

He let out a cool laugh, mirthless and humorless. A social deflection designed to distract from the words of weakness that fell from his lips. If a superior heard him, they'd think Howard Slayte was a traitor. He was. Yet he was no less loyal than even the most dogmatic follower.

Because at the end of the day, Admin Fox was still here.

"The only thing I ask of you is that you find a place in this world that suits you. If that happens to be with Team Rocket, then fight and win. Make my dream a reality." Another discarded cigarette. Worthless cannabis was not meant to be enjoyed. It was cheap for a reason. "Idealistic nonsense like that."

Idealism and realism are remarkably linked in the admin's opinion. He wondered if someone who had seen so much could have an iota of idealism left in them.

"I've nothing left to say." Howard sighed, standing. "If you ever truly wish to try your hand at restoring honor to that order of dancers, let me know. I'd love to see what you can add to Petalburg when it's done rebuilding."

He bowed his head, before turning away.

"I hope you meet Ho-oh and its retainers."

---

Yotsukura Yotsugami