A funeral he had stood outside of. A funeral he had argued with a child over. Howard thought of himself as one of the most humane Rockets. He fought for the world, not for them. He fought for people who had nowhere else to go. Yet if that was the case, he wouldn't have spat on clover matamata at the funeral.

He would've at least tried to console Tempest's husband. Instead, the admin had offered exclusively vitriol for the simple reason that Howard hated Tempest Quinn.

And yet...

"You're not him." Howard said simply. "He died."

His eye began to water.

"H-he died... you're not him. You're n-not..." Yet it was. "H-he's dead..."

---

Tempest Quinn

"I just know." He suspected that wouldn't be enough for Cillian, so he continued. "Lugia would be an affront to Yveltal. I can't see it allowing you to parade it around the Border without its interference."

His knowledge of Yveltal was lacking. A god of death that ruled this corner of a phantasmal world was not meant to be understood by humans. Despite that, Howard persisted.

"It should kill you on sight. Yet it hasn't."

There were too many people in this world that wanted Cillian dead. Too many people that he wanted dead. Howard was a stranger in a stranger's home, but this was second nature to the underboss.

"The only logical answer is that it's not here to kill you or me. The gates to hell are open and rattling in the wind." Howard's voice was soft. "Please come home."

---

Cillian Quinn

Petalburg Sunny Acres was an apartment complex that had narrowly dodged destruction during the battle against seemingly impossible odds. Despite Regirock's Max Stonefall, the building had avoided being crushed by two massive mountain ranges as well as the shockwaves that followed.

That was good, because the building had also been requisitioned by the League in the early stages of the battle to take the city as a makeshift headquarters. Mountains of files were housed in the basement: names, locations, supplies, and so on.

"We've been starving them out for several weeks, but this makeshift siege of ours has to end. They're sick. Likely dying. I suspect they figured that the League would liberate the city by now." Howard said from behind a makeshift fence. He leaned against a parked van painted with a red R. "The League isn't coming for them."

His words were soft and regrettable, but this was the way of war. Normally, Jayden or one of the Rocket Beasts would liberate the building, but Howard wanted infrastructure, not corpses. A crater did little.

"I'm thinking that if we offer to treat their wounds and bring them into the fold, they'll give up and fold." Only then did his eye flick to Rose. "That's where you come in."

From his pocket, the admin produced a cigarette and placed it in his mouth.

---

Rose Soleil

"If I attack you, you'll win. I'm nothing more than a spark compared to your black sun."

Regirock and Regice were strong Pokémon, but without a Power Spot to unleash their full power with, they were nothing more than walking targets. They could likely keep Lugia busy for a spell, but Howard did not relish the thought of fighting the Harbinger. His strength was awe-inspiring.

Team Rocket's strongest trainer, to be sure.

"Does it matter if I'm here on orders or not?" He leaned against a petrified Pokémon, hat askew in the howling storm of this world between life and death. "If Walsh told you to abandon this search for Tempest, you wouldn't stop. You'd come back, sure, but you'd be here again soon enough."

Tempest would've killed the messenger. After their conversation in his hospital room, Howard believed that Tempest loved Cillian more than even himself. They were fortunate that Cillian had lived, because if Tempest had survived...

...everyone would die.

"I just knew you would be here, even though Yveltal is not."

---

Cillian Quinn

Who the hell was this?

Why was he eating chicken off of Howard's plate?

What was the deal with the odd red tattoos? They were eerily similar to Howard's scars.

Where the hell was Cillian Quinn?

"I'm sorry, I don't know you." Howard frowned in annoyance, though he remained courteous. Getting kicked out of Johto King for causing a ruckus wasn't on the archaeologist's bingo card. "I'm actually waiting for a friend, so if you could leave I'd appreciate it."

Was he being played? The admin's eye wandered across the restaurant, as if expecting to find someone with a camera recording him.

"Like, now."

---

Tempest Quinn

"Cut off his chain. Mutts die the same as any other Pokémon." Howard growled, before yelping and backing up as the dog approached. Trees to the left and the right. If he jumped at the right time, the dog wouldn't be able to adjust without striking a tree. "It might come back, but we'll simply kill it again."

He didn't know how Cillian Quinn and Tempest Quinn would react to being called Blondie and Brownie. That was an ice cream flavor, if the admin recalled.

"Unless there's some hidden trick, it should fall with ease." As the poison sprays about, Shirley avoids all but the faintest drops of splatter, which peppered her wings and caused her to flap violently.
But whatever we do, we do it now."

Using his Sygna Suit, the admin picked a rock off of the ground and threw it with all of his Strength. Shirley flew down, serrated teeth shining.

"Now!"

---

Hitoshi Inoue

"You're so... ugh! You're just like Grigori!" He kicked a rock in frustration, ancient stone crumbling as he did so. "You both always have something to say. At least he's polite about it."

Howard didn't even know if it was a compliment or an insult. Grigori had always been harsh in his fairness, but he was also the man who had brought June to this point. In that sense, they were both in the same boat. Whatever happened, they had been in Rocket together.

Yet when the same remarks came from her, it was worse. It hurt more. June had gotten her word in.

And if she was how everyone else thought, then it'd stop him from moving forward.

"If I listen to anyone on the other side, they'll sway my heart. If that happens, everything I've done over the past year will have been meaningless. Dewford. Petalburg. I've helped stack too many corpses to be regarded as anything other than a monster. If they believe anything else, then..."

He clenched his fist.

"...then..."

Fuck... Am I lying?

"...they're just wrong, June. They're just wrong. That doesn't matter, though. Even if everyone hates me, even if you hate me, I'm going to keep moving forward." Three months in Galar. Thousands of years in this region. One year in Rocket. "Because that's what heroes do."

"They fight for the people they love."

And Howard Slayte loved humanity.

"Now tell me that's a lie."

---

june sleigh

"Well maybe I don't deserve to be happy! Maybe Grigori is right!" He spat. When the words left his mouth, the admin wanted to kick himself. Regardless, he kept going. "Ever thought about that!?"

His hands shook. Not his hands, truth be told. Someone else's. Scarred, hideous, yet too perfectly pristine to belong to any true human being. Where were the scars from working with the earth? Where was the dirt and unchipped fingernails? There was a beauty to porcelain, but that beauty lacked warmth.

To compensate was to sabotage. Thus, he sabotaged.

"I made one selfish decision in my life, and that was joining Team Rocket. The one time I placed myself over anyone else, and it brought me here. I hate it. I hate that I can't be friends with you and Grigori and everyone from Dewford that I betrayed. I hate that Petalburg was gone because I was too slow!"

There was too much in motion, now. Too many branches had grown from Howard's actions. He had pushed June to chase her father's memory in Ultra Plant. He pushed Montgomery on a path for revenge. He pushed Navy to become a warrior without compare.

For every person he pushed up, he got pushed down a little more.

"And I hate you for making me care about you, because I want to try and be better." Because he did remember. "Despite having every reason to hate me in that dream, you thought of a reason not to."

---

june sleigh

His face twitched as she spoke. Guilty. Even worse than guilty, he was a repeat offender.

"That's not true. It wasn't fair for her to get married to such a fuck up. Eventually, she would've looked at me and realized I brought her nothing. It's not just, she just deserved to be happy."

He paused.

"Everyone does. You. Annalise. All of my colleagues. Especially them. You're all entitled to a better tomorrow." He smiled wanly. "Guess I never learned to look ahead."

---

june sleigh

"We will."

His hand paused on the door as he spoke, his words contemplative as he pondered her words. In the world where Team Rocket won, they would need to reinforce the region they had destroyed with their own hands. What Howard destroyed, he would rebuild. That was the vow he had taken when being placed here.

"We destroyed your town. I destroyed it. To make up for that sin, I'll return it to how it once was. I can't bring back the lives that were lost, but given enough generations, history will smooth that wrinkle for me." A chuckle escaped his lips. "There will come a day when people and Pokémon can live under the same sky."

He banged on the door, and it creaked open.

"The rangers are preservers. Truthfully, they've done nothing wrong. It's just that we live in an era of change. They're also just a group. You don't need to be a ranger to help save the world." He stepped out. "We just need to be better."

---

Shalin Nariya

She reddened. He reddened and looked away. Somewhere in the distance, Ameena was watching a trainwreck unfold in slow motion. She hadn't spoken up since this had begun, but that didn't seem to bother him much. That was odd. Why wasn't he concerned about it?

June was distracting him. Her question stripped the smile from his face and made him remember her. Memories of hunting for Pokemon echoed in the admin's mind, where she had gotten scared of an Excadrill. He had painted a horrible picture of death in his mind, and it had turned out to be a misunderstanding.

With retrospect, he didn't feel so sure. An Excadrill hadn't killed her father.

"No, she and I just fell apart. I couldn't find any prospects. I broke it off so she could be happy with someone who could make her happy." Rather than risk an uncertain future, Howard threw it away so that she could find one that would guarantee her joy. Even if that meant turning his own prospects to ash. "Never saw her again."

He looked away, the brim of his hat obscuring his face.

"You're not the only person to let money ruin your life."

---

june sleigh

After everything, Theo Beckett was a man who learned little from history. His seizure of Kanto had taught him that all weapons were valid. If the prison hadn't shaken that belief in the Toxic Chain, then nothing would. Unfortunately, Howard had little authority to annul Theo's gifts to Raziel.

Invoking the underboss's wrath was not ideal.

"Yes." He met the grunt's eyes, and he was quickly verified as a Toxic Chained Pokémon attacked. "Dammit!"

Raziel acted first. His Pokémon were faster. Yet Doug lumbered behind while Shirley flew in the air, her eye scanning for other potential opponents. Eventually, she finds one. With a shrill shriek, she dove down towards the earth, causing Howard to look up.

"What th-" Howard muttered as he was hit in the side with a Focus Blast that sent him crashing through the brush. "It's that fucking monkey."

As the admin struggled to rise to his feet, Munkidori glared at the duo with snide eyes.

---

Raziel Beckett

And speaking of annalise henderson...

Mew. And from the Head Professors to Annalise. A dreg that the League had desperately deployed in an attempt to sway Sootopolis to their side, and ultimately they had done little. The Pokemon League had played much of what remained in deployment, but ultimately it had resulted in nothing but misery and failure.

Howard's enemies were well-equipped and well-trained, but that didn't mean that his ceaseless march would end. It just mean that the mountain had grown taller.

He'd simply continue the climb.

---

NwSp