He saw a large swath of zeroes. He stopped looking before his heart exploded.

It made his own debt to Rocket look minute in comparison.

"I'll have to borrow the money from our Kantonian contemporaries. Team Rocket will have to do something they haven't done in years. Ever, perhaps." The admin reached into his wallet and pulled out a card and a paper with a long list of numbers. "We'll have to establish credit."

Kanto's higher ups would be instrumental, after all. The average rank and file member was a brute, but Team Rocket had been running Kanto for years with minimal effort. They had switched to governance remarkably well, all things considered.

"In the meantime, here." He offered a hand, the card and paper clasped between two fingers. "Access to Elisabeth Fiorelli's fortune. She won't be needing it."

She had paid for her own funeral, after all. Elisabeth Fiorelli didn't need any money where she was going. Gravity didn't charge money to descend straight down.

"If I were to offer Regirock and Regice for labor, would that help?" He chewed his lip thoughtfully, submitting to the engineer for advice. "You could move a mountain with a Dynamaxed Regice. You would know."

His ee glimmered with amusement.

"Did you enjoy your ride on it, by the way?"

---

Yuan Wright

A bolder man would've flicked at the gun before striking at Montgomery directly. A smarter man would've reasoned with him. A stronger man would've won in both prior scenarios. Howard was none of those things. He was a dreg. If every human being was born with talent, Howard was born with none that helped him here.

"You could..." Howard's eye flicked to Shirley. She'd kill him if he tried it. "...but I'm not a criminal. I'm just down on my luck."

He threatened to grind his teeth down into nubs as he stared at the gangster and his sharp teeth masquerading as fangs. It felt like a bad joke, as if the world was mocking him for being incapable of dealing with this man. If he tried, he'd fail. Why try at all?

"I'm gonna get a real job with a museum someday. I'll be a curator." He refused to meet Montgomery's eyes as he pushed the gun away, slowly, an inch at a time. "But for a brief stint..."

Howard Slayte was not a criminal.

"...I'm willing to follow."

---

Montgomery James

The God General (Zev Harcourt ) spoke of other worlds. More facets of Ultra Space that could be mined for valuable materials. With each world that opened, a new war emerged, and a new shiny Tapu revealed itself.

They were outdated remnants of old worlds, but if Rocket could take them, they should. If fern delaney kept them from trashing his office, Howard wouldn't complain. Their coloration concerned him, but the Tapus of this world were lazy and unreliable. He suspected that the others were the same, regardless of what strange worlds they were found in.

"The Distortion World is still opening those little portals in Area Zero, right? Let's march on Oldale, take it, and then let the Head Scientists and Neon poke around in the crater. There's nothing feasibly stopping us from doing it now by taking the Tera Tunnel in Petalburg to Area Zero, but it would behoove us to take Oldale as well. It's an irrelevant town, regardless of the strength of its Gym Leader. Land is land, though."

Hideo Kino was young, but youth meant little in a Pokémon battle, where the strength of one's partners could make up the difference, unless Hideo's legs were blown off my a mortar. The admin thought of Eris Halla and his eye twitched. If they took Area Zero, Howard could use the nexus of caves for his own projects. He had not forgotten the desert.

With a lazy drag of the cigarette, he nodded to Tempest Quinn .

"Let's march on both Rustboro and Oldale, then. Pull the same trick we did in Mossdeep and Petalburg, except actually win both of them." The admin shrugged, leaning on an elbow. A steel ring on his finger shined in the light. "I'll provide a giant to Dynamax to both campaigns, if that is the wish of those dictating the war. I'd like them back, though."

His eye flicked to Elisabeth Fiorelli , Cillian Quinn , THEO BECKETT and the God General as he spoke. He lingered on Theo for several moments, recalling the conversation he had witnessed alongside Lulu Flint at Area Zero. The Distortion World was not a new prize, yet it was slowly leaking into Hoenn. Regirock had escaped from there, unbeknownst to him.

He gave mint frost 's tablet a look, looking at Zamazenta. Zaria's brother was back, then? Lucky him. Another person to oppose Dynamax. Bad for this fraudulent war, good for the true one against Eternatus.

"Throw Regirock and Regice at a theater each and divvy up the Elite Four. Split the sword and shield. They're more dangerous together, anyway." He looked at declan walsh with a glimmer in his magenta eye. Give me the leave you gave in Area Zero, Walsh. They seemed to say. "Or keep Zar- those dogs together and we can hamstring one city."

Howard leaned back, shrugging as he adjusted his hat. His mouth felt like ash from all this talk of annihilation. Rustboro was his home, and he was going to feed it to the war machine?

"I am not enlightened in war, though. I am no Warrior." He kept his face impassive in the face of his jest. "I'm just an accountant."

He had only helped seize Petalburg, after all.

---

Waxes on the Shiny Tapus, writes them off as unreliable like Hoenn's Tapus.
Yaps about the Distortion World and how Rocket should seize Oldale to breach it via Area/Zero. Lets Rocket be productive while Howard/Shred go bowl hunting. Give Lulu/Nomi/Mint a few pointy sticks and let them poke around. Makes a note of the huge ass tunnel that Regirock made next to Petalburg.
Quickly amends to add Rustboro to the campaign. Proposes the splitting forces trick again. Offers Regirock and Regice to a warfront so each can Dynamax if needed. Notes that he wants them back because they're HIS and not Rocket's.
Thinks of the Area Zero meeting with Lulu/Walsh/Theo where the order to focus on the Distortion World was given. Challenges Walsh to give him the same leave he was given when chasing Regirock.
Proposes either splitting Greyson Connors and Navy to avoid dealing with both sword and shield simultaneously, or keeping them together to steamroll a city. Two giants versus two DOGGIES can be rectified with more of one or the other.
Needs another smoke

She'd hate him when this was over. It had been easy to tell Ameena that risking his darkest secrets for elucidation was easy in the heat of the moment, but now yesterday was piling up. It was a sacrilege to keep it hidden. Howard had always valued the truth. Even if June's sacrilege had been necessary, it had turned his mouth to ash.

She deserved to know, but now that she was asking... As June grew closer, he tried to compact himself into a smaller space, as if she wouldn't see him with eyes that cut through the darkness. Violet was a cruel patron. Howard wondered if she had gotten that power specifically for a moment like this.

Don't look at me.

"There are plans in place." He said softly. "From the moment you forgot, I've asked around to figure out how to restore your memory."

A horrible thought bloomed in his head. If she knew the truth, she'd possibly break off from Team Rocket and return to the League. She'd be miserable, but she'd be free from the same curse that had ruined his life a year ago and Grigori's decades before.

He could break this cycle.

"It's safe." He lied. Safe for her, dangerous for him. His dreamscape, his mind, his experiences. Her reactions. "They're here in Mauville, too. I've worked with them before, and they're remarkably intelligent."

It'd be so easy to end everything. He heard another drip of blood against stone and turned his head towards her by a few fractions of a degree.

"You fucked your hands up." A statement, not an observation. Just looking at them made his missing eye tingle. "Can I see?"

---

june sleigh

He put an arm around Cillian Quinn's shoulder, meandering with a drunken swagger as he grinned from beneath his paper bag. Combined with leaning on the older man and his direct superior, it was the guise of a drunk. He snatched a full bottle of wine from a passing Dusclops and raised it to NIKOLA SAMSA and Makoto Kurumi.

"Cheers! Me and the bossman have things to discuss! Like your salaries." Howard waggled a finger and steered Cillian away from the crowd and into a separate hall. "You all better be dancing when we get back! That's an order!"

As their footsteps echoed through the hall, the admin returned to his normal gait, separating from Cillian with remarkable lucidity. His eye flickered with alertness as he regarded the hall, full of paintings of myths and legends. Many were inaccurate, with details now easily verifiable in this age of gods and men.

How quickly, the century turned.

"Chu-e, I swear to Arceus..." He rubbed a hand against his temple through the bag.

Howard latched onto the topic of the Keystone like a man possessed.

"No, but it is a nice piece. I'd like to find it if possible." Howard's voice was conversational and clear. "I don't trust this masquerade, man. You've heard the rumors of portals to other worlds?"

He would've killed for a cigarette right now. He considered snatching one off Cillian, but bottled the intent.

"Every rumor is sprouted from a seed of nonfiction." The bag turned to face the underboss. "I don't trust this masquerade."

---

Pretends to be drunk to worm off with Cillian to yap about fossils and whatnot, quickly sobers up as they end up 'alone' and starts yapping about the party
Wandering the halls with Cillian, open for other hall lurkers to listen in or bump into the dynamic duo

Who hadn't? Team Rocket was the source of so many crimes that it'd be easier to determine which ones they weren't responsible for. They were bandits and thieves, monsters and demons, and their scuffles in Kanto were notorious. Yet that was all they were, gangsters.

They'd never be anything more.

Ever.

"I've heard of them. They steal Pokémon and sell them on the black market." His eye grew wide. "You're one of them. All your connections and secrets and underground deals! Shit, Monty."

He sat back, groaning.

"This is so fucked. I'm so fucked. What, are you going to kill me now that I know the secret?"

---

Montgomery James

Lightningrod. Annoying. He kicked himself for that error and filed it away for later. That mistake would not occur again. Supercharging that Marowak had been a mistake, but it was one that he could easily rectify until that Meloetta returned to the battlefield.

"That's unfortunate for you, then." Another barrier cracked as Regice reeled back, though the admin didn't seem upset. Dynamax was a reliable bulwark, capable of bridging the gap between Melody's years of training and natural talent and Howard's mediocrity. "Because I want him. But if I'm stuck with you, I'll take what I can get."

The music was loud and annoying, but he could not doubt its quality. If Melody excelled at anything, it was the art of song. She had been carved for the role from the moment she had been named 'Melody'.

Yet it was time for that song to end. The music had ended, the track was over, and it was time for the orchestra to leave the stage in a graceful bow.

"Alright, Regice." He snapped his fingers, and within the golem's Clear Body, a bright red orb grew in intensity as Dynergy accumulated in the golem's heart. A flash of a skeletal dragon appeared in the facets of the ice as the machine relied on divine power. "READY?"

Regice followed him because it knew of no other option. The two were related, after all.

"FIRE."

A Dynamax Cannon blasted forth, incinerating the route and turning it to glass as it rushed towards Melody and her Marowak.

---

Melody Miro

"She'll come." Howard stood and straightened his hat. "She's why I'm here, after all."

He does not elaborate on June's purpose in his grand war. He does not explain that June's fate is one of tragedy, now that she holds Regieleki. Violet is one thing, but that golem was more important than anything in this world. It dictated the whims of gods, and it was designed to kill one.

If she would listen, she could be a hero. Otherwise...

Well, Regieleki was his. She was simply keeping it warm.

"Just be ready. As for the five things, they're superweapons. Machines before Pokémon. They were not designed to be the latter, even if they ended up becoming them." He spoke nonsense, before sliding past Ameena and adjusting his hat in a similar way to a certain deputy. "Regirock. Regice. There are three others."

His hand clasped the door handle, before turning back to Ameena.

"Nebula's purpose is to find them." He blinked. "Our purpose is to save the world."

Even if Makoto Kurumi and Tempest Quinn didn't believe it, that was the truth. That was his direction for Amor's dream.

"Foot the bill for me, would you?" He slipped out of the bar, leaving Ameena alone.

---

ameena abadi

Eternatus was the only wart that mattered. It had been his long before it had been Amor's. Howard had given everything and would continue to give everything to fight Eternatus on every battlefield. If that required the construction of weapons of war, then he would raise them up and seize them all.

"Her." He repeated, before nodding. He knew nothing of Ameena's mother. It was not his story. "If you have a purpose, I can't fault you. That is what Rocket was designed for. There are things that you can't do alone, but Team Rocket can conceive."

He steepled his fingers.

"There is enough room in the sky for another star." Howard closed his eye thoughtfully, silently musing on his plans for New Mauville before tapping his finger against the countertop. He did not deride her for using other multiverses to supplement their own. He agreed with the premise. "Which is why there's room for you in Nebula."

There was no decorum to the proclamation. He simply willed it into existence, and it became true. That was the power he had been instilled with.

"You need one thing. I need five." Three now, actually. He did not elaborate beyond that. "Is your lab prepared for what I requested?"

The dream.

---

ameena abadi

"Nebula." Whose idea had it been to name Amor's little group that? He had forgotten. Compared to many of Rocket's oldest divisions, Nebula was new. It was more of a microscopic group direccted towards a single goal than an overarching directive.

If anything, their directives often danced alongside SPECTRA, but Howard hardly focused on that organization anymore. That was Admin Cross's territory. It was a military arm that did its best with the resources it was given, and Howard knew that there were plans in place.

There was more than one moon in the sky that Team Rocket had their gaze on.

"It's mine, now. Damn Amor for leaving me with the scraps of his dream, but I think he knew that I wouldn't let it die when he left us behind. Thus Nebula remains. It needs a new member. It needs another academic who understands the mechanics of this world." His eye flashed, whether in remembrance of Amor Rose or in annoyance at his departure, it didn't matter. "It needs you."

He steepled his fingers and put a hand on his chin as he regarded her answer.

"Arceus above, you're just like Lulu." He rubbed his temple. "Other worlds. I ask you this: why? What can other worlds offer to you that this one cannot?"

---

ameena abadi