She falls. He waited for Genevieve to catch herself, but ultimately she does not. As she does, a small part of him curdled and died. This woman believed in something, and he was crushing her for the simple fact that she was not strong enough to oppose him.

Instead of looking at a lifeless woman fighting for what was right, he looked up at the sky. A fringe of snow dusted his armor as he did so.

"It's a beautiful day." Regice paused its attack to follow its owner's gaze, before looking up at at faint rays of sunlight that broke through the storm and filtered onto the Grassy Terrain below. "And this world is a beautiful one. I just wish that you could see it."

In this final serenade, he spoke to the Tapu.

The moment of solidarity with the tin soldier that held a heart ended quickly. The Max Thunder continued to charge. It fired, meeting the Max Overgrowth with aplomb. It's a ferocious contest of wills, and it looks like Tapu Bulu is actually going to win the battle. Red energy crackled like lightning, lighting up the sky from Petalburg to Rustboro.

Yet there is a crack of a crystal in the admin's palm as his Z-Crystal shattered.

A shadow loomed over the fallen Pokémon Ranger, blotting out what remained of the sun. Rocks rattled past Genevieve, accumulating at the base where the largest part of Regirock had landed. It grew higher and higher, before sucking in the power of the crystal. From Regirock's stone arm, an oddly carved fist smashed into the immobile Tapu Bulu from behind.

The gentle caress of ice and snow is replaced with the grating nature of sand.

ROYAL DECREE: EARTH-CRACKING FIST

Manifesting the will of its creator, Regirock's fist shatters the land, causing a shockwave that pierces defenses, leaving a sandstorm in its wake.

"This world is a paradise." The admin said as Genevieve was attacked from two sides. "I will protect it."

He looked up at Tapu Bulu, gauging its reaction to a Z-Move from behind. A large part of him felt immense satisfaction, waiting for its eventual reaction to the joint assault. After being cursed by Tapu Lele and mocked by Tapu Fini, this felt... just. Deserved. Yet Bulu had actually faced him, instead of scheming in the dark.

Genevieve had as well.

"Challenge me again as often as you like, Genny." He spoke like they were close friends, his eye somber yet kind as he spoke. "I will battle you as many times as you need to truly become strong. I promise you this:"

He smiled.

"I will never bore you."

---

Genevieve Cromwell
+90 (Post)
+10 (Weather/Terrain)
+50 past thread
+50 tag a character
+50 respect another character
+50 (cast shade on Genny's loyalties)
+50 (KO)
+50 (Z-Move)
+50 (dynamax)
+50 (use a legendary to reflect your character)
+50 (rock bottom)
+50 (weakness - refusal to leave rocket)
+50 (strength - double regi)
+50 (get wounded by an attack)
+50 (regrettable decision)
+50 (pokeball 'throw')
+25 (music)
+25 (three barriers)

Team Rocket's HR consisted of being told to shut up and do your job. Somewhere along the way, an admin would sign a piece of paper regarding a casualty report and that would be that. Team Rocket was meant to usurp Hoenn and overturn the world. Humans were definitely a resource, and often an expendable one.

Not to Howard, though. Even if every member of Team Rocket was a gear, they had nowhere else to go but Team Rocket. If the organization left those desperate to live behind, what message would that send to those who remained?

Yet what did the archaeologist know? Archaeologists didn't have HR departments. They just dug up rocks and got paid nothing to do it, unless they got a comfortable job in some museum. If only Howard had gotten that job, he wouldn't have joined Rocket. Yet Absinthe had a cushy job and she was here, giving death glares to furniture.

The Absinthe Blackwood special.

"Neither do I, if it's any consolation." The admin rubbed a layer of dust between stone fingers. "If you want a raise, climb the ladder. Just know that with each rung you climb, you lose a bit more of yourself."

He let out a bark of laughter as the rocking horse began to creak. Timber carved into the likeliness of a Ponyta rocked to and fro.

"Or you can be like me and lose all of yourself. Literally." He slowly scooted behind Absinthe as they regarded the child's toy. Yet no ghost appeared. Nothing showed up. As soon as Absinthe glared at it, the spectral force vanished. "Hm."

He poked out from behind her shoulder.

"I'm anointing you as my new ghostbusting bodyguard."

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Regirock and Regice work well together. They were born together, after all. Statues raised up by the faith of their creators under the watchful gaze of some three-fingered god that threatened to undermine the work of the species that dominated the world in the modern day.

Yet this was not the time to doubt the purity of the machine he commanded.

"Sign it out whenever you want, just let me know when!" Howard shouted at Hitoshi as the lord of decay releases a Dark Aura that sucked the breath from the admin's lungs. "If I give the order, it'll listen."

Regice was a tool to be used by humanity. It held no affiliation to Howard beyond being its master and lord. Yet Howard was not held in contract with the frozen machine. He was not its Avatar, nor did he subscribe to a heavenly contract with it. Regice and Regirock were just pieces in a collection that he loved.

Sometimes, he loved the Pokémon. That was rare compared to the love he held for the artifact.

The Dark Pulse slams into Regirock, though the golem is resolute as many of its stones crack from Yveltal's raw power. Yet Yveltal is a foreign threat in a foreign world, and thus it is Regirock's duty to excise it and return the world to its proper order. Dynergy thrums in its chest.

"Get up, Temp!" Howard ran towards the fallen Rocket Beast. "Do what you do best, you two."

His steps thudded against otherworldly stone.

"Beat it."

---

Cillian Quinn Tempest Quinn Hitoshi Inoue

"We are."

Oscar looked ecstatic to be dragged into hell. Academics were strange, curious creatures. They would throw themselves into the incinerator if it meant that they could understand this world just an iota more. If Oscar came out this with an understanding of how physics failed to function, he would laugh at the sky and cheer.

To have such gusto for a world that denied human life made the archaeologist scratch his head. Despite that, Howard couldn't blame him too much. How much had the admin given to understand yesterday in anticipation for tomorrow.

"We have something to do. I need you to focus, Oscar. I don't know how the hell we're supposed to get back home. Even worse, I've been hoodwinked."

Artificial arms crossed. The admin's shadow was not his own, but belonged to his original body.

"Before all this happened, Regirock disappeared from Petalburg while demolishing a building." Howard's brow furrowed as he thought about this revelation. "Yet before I fell in here..."

"...I heard that it had vanished. It's here, somewhere. I can tell."

---

oscar clayton

"Underground. Beyond that, I don't know. I suspect that it's defending the region from something, as the other giants have done. We can't track it. All we can do is wait for it to awaken and seize it."

As he spoke, the golem discarded a large swath of excess stone in order to shrink itself down. Stone was a common material, and that made it remarkably expendable. What could be shed could be recovered again, when it was needed. It was a flexibility that the admin wished Regice held, but alas.

There was nothing to be done regarding Registeel but wait for it to emerge.

"And I'll catch it, just like the rest." Howard spoke with confidence as darkness enveloped them. An electric lamp lit the way forward. "It's weird, though."

He frowned.

"Sometimes, I feel it. Then I look up at the sky and laugh because I think I'm going insane."

---

Cillian Quinn

The hand remained outstretched, cracks of red splitting keratin nails. The weight of a star crushing an ant is heavy on the admin's shoulders. There was nothing more decadent than an excess of power. That, Howard's foe had in spades.

"You honor me. Thank you, God General." The admin smiled, seething at the prospect of being placed behind a desk again. When he had been promoted to Rocket Admin, the last vestiges of joy at the promotion were crushed by the fact that his job took him out of the field and placed him behind the desk. "Yet if that is what our bosses and underbosses desire, then I shall provide. Just as I always have."

This was a farce. He was being flayed in part of everyone for daring to reach too far. He had tried to catch a star, he had overreached, and now he was falling.

"As I said earlier, what the League razes, we shall raise anew." He found Cillian Quinn , Tempest Quinn , and Naomi Sato . "I cannot give you back your homes. I'm sorry, you three. But I can give you something new. A home that the League won't take from you. But first..."

He stretched his hand out further, artificial digits creaking as he did so. As they reached for the God General, Howard reached into his pocket, feeling the sensation of cloth and the crackle of paper. He produced them in his other hand.

"If I'm sharing my victory with you, it's only fair that you do the same with me." A victory few could partake in. Only Elisabeth and Priam could drink deep from the chalice of victory. Only Priam had helped the admin capture Regirock. They had made the admin's dream a reality. "Mossdeep. Sootopolis. Give them to me. I want to feel them in these hands that can't feel and see them with this eye that can't see."

All parts of a body that wasn't his. Yet it didn't matter. His soul was still intact. He was still human raging against the malignant star in the sky.

"If you can't, then give me your defeat. I'll shoulder that too. Yet I'm aware that losing is a hard pill to swallow." Howard tossed the scrap of cloth and the drawing towards the God General. As it flew, a whisper of the north wind guided it towards the Devourer. Howard Slayte bowed his head. "So here's proof of my success and my failure."

An artistic rendition of Suicune and a piece of Isaac Merlo 's jacket landed on the table.

Petalburg was his success. His success. Isaac Merlo was Team Rocket's failure, one that continued to gnaw at them even as they seized Petalburg with worldshaking power.

"I took Petalburg. I failed to kill a traitor. If I'm willingly shouldering that blame, then we should all strive to relieve ourselves of that burden." Howard scanned the room, his eye meeting every member of high command before ending on declan walsh . "But this was your failure first, wasn't it, God General? It was Underboss Quinn's, afterwards. If we cannot correct our own ineptitude, then we will never break this cycle of blame and failure."

Or he'd finish the job first.

"What do you all think?"

---

Howard seethes at being hit with community service, remembers why he hated being Rocket Admin
Apologizes to Nomi/Quinns about them losing their homes in Sootopolis, offers them a new place to live
Gives Zev a part of Isaac Merlo 's jacket and a drawing of Suicune by Eris Halla  (WANDERER/MYRIA APPROVED)

Fire licked at stone contusions, causing small drops of molten stone to pitter-patter against the ground. Rocks rumbled upwards, attempting to repair the minute wounds that harmed its surface. Regirock had yet to fall on the battlefield, and even if it did, the golem would not stay down for long.

It was designed to rebuild itself. Stone was a common element, after all.

Thus, as the fire licked at Regirock's massive form, its pattern merely flashed as if receiving a distant signal. It combined with the Whirlpool to stall the titan's advance, but a mountain was not designed to be stopped. It could be stalled, but just as a valley could be obscured by a rockfall, a few paltry attacks could not stop a deathly advance.

A barrier could crack, though.

Then the Solar Beam struck, and the golem stopped with the resounding echo of another shattered barrier. For a moment, Yuina held the upper hand, directing her team well against one colossal threat. The moment quickly ended as the golem looked up at the shining sun.

"Multiple Pokémon?" The admin muttered as he looked down at the ants scurrying below. His cape flapped in the wind as he regarded the threats that risked overwhelming him. "That's hardly fair."

The golem's pattern flashed. A signal was sent out.

"It's not a bad strategy, though. It's a shame that it's so... dated. Hammers banging against steel in an attempt to break through. Sometimes I wonder if I'm blind, or if nobody knows how to fight Dynamax anymore."

This sun had to go, though.

A Max Rockfall swallowed the battlefield, blotting out Yuina's sun with a sandstorm that buffeted against her Pokémon. Dynamax's greatest strength was the collateral damage it could cause, and changing the weather while leveling the battlefield? Remarkable.

"Now..." His eye scanned the battlefield, trying to pick out the female historian through a sandstorm. "Where is she?"

---

Yuina Higashi
Five barriers
Stone Edge = Max Rockfall
Howard yapping

"You ever see the people you kill?"

Long trees stretched into infinity, umbral hands causing the shadows cast by branches to extend far beyond what was natural. It reminded Howard of when he and Grigori Sokolov had gone bear hunting last year. It had actually been a year since the whole Bloodmoon Beast incident, which was insane for the admin to think about.

Yet even as the admin's well-worn hiking boots squelched into the mud, Howard felt a disconnect with this world that he had once experienced. He clenched a hand exquisitely carved and clenched it.

"Do you ever dream of them?" Howard uttered as they walked. For him, this was a mere moment of recollection. "Are you even capable of dreaming, my faithful shield, or did you discard that on your way to find enlightenment through swordsmanship?"

Faint lights flickered through the trees. Ghosts grew near.

The archaeologist was afraid, yet unconcerned. His eye fell upon Tsubame, unblinking.

---

Aoki Hana

"Don't remind me of the prison."

The Megalopolan prison had been a train wreck that Howard was content to leave buried in the past. Prison life hadn't agreed with Howard, and he hadn't agreed with it. It was a remarkable gauge of his character that he hadn't left his cellmate as a bloody pile on the floor.

He hadn't been allowed to throttle her, but still. Good character on Howard's part.

There was a world where Howard Slayte was a dashing hero who bravely marched up to the door, kicked it open, before slaying three ghosts in one hand while petting Doug with his other. Unfortunately, that world was several universes down on the multiverse. Instead, Howard watched as Aurelie bravely went up to the door.

It creaked open without being touched.

"See? I'm telling you! Shit's haunte-"

Then Aurelie got attacked by a spider as Howard let out a remarkably shrill shriek. His eye grew wide as a Spinarak fell into Aurelie's hair. Quickly mustering his courage, Howard grabbed his hat, rolled it up, and swatted Aurelie on the head with it. Once. Twice. Thrice. Each time he thwacked her, the Spinarak dodged.

Better that he use the hat than his hand, lest he concuss her with a hand carved from something other than flesh.

The spider leapt from Aurelie to Howard, who immediately let out a scream and ran into the open doorframe.

"GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!!!!!"

---

Aurelie Lefevre

The sideways look confirmed her suspicions.

"I'm not going in alone, and I'm your boss. For how much I pay you, you can investigate a few houses." The admin rolled his eye in mock disbelief and stared back at the house. There was no Regirock or Regice with him today. The logical deduction is that the admin doesn't view this settlement as a threat. "I'm not sending you in alone, at least. I don't make people do things that I wouldn't do myself.

The truth was that the two golems were laboring in Petalburg.

"Alone, at least." He amended as he leapt over the bush, hair flashing as he did so. "Besides, you spend too much time in your lab. Fieldwork is important, too."

Bold words for someone who spent most of his time behind a desk. There was a time where all the admin did was fieldwork, back when he had been a humble archaeologist living paycheck to paycheck.

Before everything had turned to shit.

"Come along, Absinthe. Adventure awaits!" He wandered towards the nearest house, whistling as he did so.

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Realistically, they could have waltzed through Rustboro without raising much of a fuss. Howard was moderately noteworthy in the city from his time lecturing at the university, but Adrian had the unfortunate label of being a turncoat.

"Draconids?" The admin's cigarette lost a centimeter as he took a deep drag. "A bunch of really bothersome people that pray to a dragon and have hero complexes."

He thought of Roy Aker and freya morningstar as he spoke. When it was clear that Adrian wanted an actual answer and not a halfhearted joke, the admin thought for a moment before continuing. It wasn't his specialization, and Draconid lore was often buried in cliffsides and deep in Meteor Falls, but it wasn't a complete mystery.

He'd be a pretty shitty historian situated in Hoenn to not know about them.

"Put simply, they're people who talk to dragons. They coexist alongside them, and they charted the stars in the sky." Howard sucked his teeth and scratched his chin. "They're all pretty strong trainers, I've heard."

His eye flicked to Adrian. Howard had little fear for Draconid ruins. They were history. History was dead and buried, and even if it wasn't, Howard didn't mind.

"Why the interest?"

---

Adrian Malcolm

He chuckled lightly, before raising his hands in surrender.

"Sorry. Sorry! I get giddy when Dynamaxed Pokémon get knocked down. Call it a personal quirk or a defect." The last time he made a comment about a woman's weight, he had slept on the couch for a month. Diana couldn't do much beyond that, but she could mess with all his lab stuff back in Area Zero. "I'll drop it."

Crumble floated by, innocently. Howard looked at it thoughtfully.

"Can't Dynamax again, sorry. Besides, that'd turn my Sygna Suit off, right? How else could I teleport while calling you names?" He crossed his legs from the boulder he sat upon. "So unless you want to say hi to Regice, that's it."

Nobody wanted to say hi to Regice, and frankly Howard didn't want to do another repeat of Dewford.

"But seriously..." His eye flickered with veins of red energy. "That was good. You did good."

He blinked.

"Be proud."

---

Diana Cavendish

"Of course." Howard inclined his head, tapping his finger against the table. Stone grinded against stone as he did so. "You planned the attack well, ■■■."

There was nothing to fear here. It was only a name. If the battle had been planned from the very top of the chain, then that chain had been shattered when the first link in that chain had been bashed against stone until there had been nothing left but debris.

"We share our victories with one another, and that elevates us all."

Howard held out a hand. palm upwards, as if expecting the God General (Zev Harcourt ) to hand him something.

"Well? Hand it over, then."

---

Asks Zev to hand 'something' over while being vague