He looked away and huffed, annoyed at her grin. Lulu smiling invoked feelings of wanting to run away and hide under a rock. Presumably a large, sapient rock capable of smashing its opponents into paste.

"You're not wrong. First, we observe. Then, we repair." He scratched the back of his neck as he sorted through his thoughts. "I just want this world to survive, same as you. Comprehending entirely other universes? That's beyond the scope of the average human."

He met Lulu's gaze.

"This one? Definitely possible."

He took a deep breath, before coughing into his fist in surprise. He took a deep breath to compose himself, thoughtful. He tried to gauge what Lulu's aim was.

"...seriously?" He frowned. "To what purpose?"

---

Lulu Flint

There would be a fourth encounter. There was always another encounter with the divine around the corner in this region.

Though, if Nikola were to ask Howard on his opinion, he would not call Regirock or Regice gods. They were just machines built with the purpose of felling an evil dragon. They were saviors of humanity, built from statues and desperately prayed to. One might call them gods, but what sort of god was built?

No. There was a far more apt term to describe the duo: heroes.

"One bonk. Don't tell anyone that you did, though. Chain of command and all that." He accepted their hand and left Togekiss's fluffy embrace. "Thank you."

Regice disappeared into a red glow as it disappeared within its Pokeball. Regirock simply punched a hole in the cliff and lumbered into the tunnels that spanned Area Zero. Somehow, someway, it would return back to Petalburg to defend the town and return to its sentence of labor.

"Yeah, let's go." He brushed himself off and gave Nikola a look. "Don't mention this to anyone, by the way. Ever. Can't let people think they're out of control."

---

NIKOLA SAMSA

"No. Other worlds are irrelevant in the context of our own. Can you even comprehend the scope of an entirely separate universe? Should you? Should we care about people in entirely separate multiverses when we have our own to deal with?"

His eye flickered with a thrum of magenta. He extended a hand and let a small flickering iota of energy touch his hand and dissipate. When it vanished, he looked at his hand, thoughtful.

What was that?

"That didn't stop us when we snapped Meteno away to another world. That doesn't stop us from waging war with the DRK Triad. They want our universe to collapse so theirs can survive. Should we kill our world to allow countless others to survive?"

He met her gaze through the haze of magenta. For a moment, it reminded Howard of Dynergy. He shelved the thought to focus at the matter at hand.

"If the scenario you describe is true, and they are incompatible, we shouldn't use them. If they are compatible, we should. It is morally correct from our perspective."

---

Lulu Flint

Derek's soul flickered in the wind.

"Because this is the end." Hoenn was a nexus of anomalies. The dead could be roused, and the dead could be allowed to rest. Yet in this world, it was up to the living to dictate the fate of the dead. It wasn't fair. It wasn't just. Yet Derek Hoffman's death hadn't been just, had it? "The end and the beginning."

It was a paradox, but paradoxes were common now, weren't they? He raised an eyebrow at Adrian, their gaze meeting over the spiritual wisp.

"He's here because he died, but..." Howard's voice was a whisper. He was apathetic to treason. His colleagues danced around the war, avoiding responsibility for their actions. How had Derek died? Why did the League insist upon turning him into a martyr? Howard hadn't even seen him at Petalburg.

What dubious circumstances.

"...what if he wasn't?"

---

Adrian Malcolm

"I haven't bought clothes in years."

He admitted it, slightly embarrassed as Chu-e dug through a clothing rack. As someone who did most of the shopping, Howard had let him pick the store, let him walk in, and let him pick a random place to start digging for clothes. The former underboss had lost much of his attire when Sootopolis flooded, after all.

He was getting really tired of Chu-e borrowing his sweaters, as well. It was utterly ridiculous.

"Look at these prices. Ridiculous." Howard crossed his arms and sighed, before shaking his head. "You sure this is a good place?"

While Chu-e poked around, Howard's eye scanned the store, as if preparing to duck and hide if anyone he recognized appeared.

---

Chu-e Choi

"I will." He watched her leave, before audibly sighing and running an artificial hand through his hair. "Arceus above..."

He took a seat at his desk, watching as Regirock turned away to lumber through Petalburg. She had called them games. He had called them games. Yet for him, it felt more like he did all the work while everyone else played games of power. They were like children, dancing around chairs to see which one would get the honor of inviting Hoenn's next disaster.

One that he would have to temper, as was his purpose.

"...what a bitch." He looked at all the files on his desk. There were schematics for rebuilt Petalburg and ledgers and financials and supply charts from Kanto. All in all, a lot of work. "...I'm not poor."

He sniffed. Yes he was. He controlled more wealth than much of Hoenn's elite. He was in charge of smuggling networks from Orre to Unova, and the amount of money that he oversaw ensured that Team Rocket was always loaded.

Yet Howard Slayte himself was poor. Especially since had bought a few statues recently.

He shuffled through the files on his desk, before eventually coming to one from Beast Inoue regarding Lunala. He chuckled and tossed it onto his desk, bemused.

"He's bold. I'll give him that." That would be for later. "I'll ask him about it later."

---

Giselle Moreau

Regirock is, eventually, returned to its Pokeball. In a world that is evidently decaying, Regirock's inability to move quickly or with subtlety is a hassle. It had been called to incapacitate Adrian, and it would later be called to wage war with Yveltal. For now, it had no purpose.

Thus, it returned to its Pokeball in order to rest. Unbeknownst to Howard, Regirock had once belonged to another. Had she kept it in a Pokeball? Had it even needed to be held in one, or had it simply existed to heed its trainer's call? No matter. Howard was not that person.

His Regirock was more complete.

"I think so? It's certainly... transient enough. It feels like it was carved from steel and silver. Hoenn's best silversmiths could never recreate this. And what're these pools?" He wasn't stupid enough to touch one, but he still glanced at them. Their silvery sheen reminded the admin of Registeel's outer shell. He quickly turned to the source of Adrian's shock. "What the...?"

He squinted, his eye attempting to process this strange spiritual wisp. He didn't recognize the man's voice, for he had never met Derek Hoffman in the flesh. Yet as peered at the spectral orb, he saw the flash of a face that seemed vaguely familiar.

"Adrian." Howard nudged him slightly. "You don't think... this is the guy that the League is holding all those memorials for? The one they turned into a martyr?"

---

Adrian Malcolm

"Councilwoman Livy."

He wanted to reach across the table, grab this woman by the throat, and squeeze until a Hyper Beam can turn her into ash. The inhuman urge to get revenge for someone he now hated was a powerful sensation. Every cell in his body cried out for Penelope Livy's annihilation. He could do it, too. Elisabeth had died easily enough, so why not this one as well?

What were the chances that this one could also have the power to return from the dead? Though the closer he looked, the more of Elisabeth Fiorelli that he saw in this woman's face.

Howard's dislike only grew.

"It's been a long time since the prison. Did prison labor humble you?" A gauntleted hand clasped over another. A helmet reflected the councilwoman's face back across the ramshackle table. Grunts stood behind him, lined up in front of Regirock's massive form. "Hard work has always been good for the soul."

He clasped his hands together.

"Oldale." The helmet flashed as he pointed past Penelope towards a distant Oldale Town. "Team Rocket wants it. You don't. Let's do what human beings have done since the dawn of time: negotiate."

Beneath the helmet, he smiled. "What can Team Rocket offer the League for it?"

---

PENELOPE LIVY
ARMOR/DISGUISE
+10 (post)
+50 (recall a thread)

If he could risk Adrian's soul by pushing it into a weird soul incinerator, then Howard could risk his own occasionally. Adrian could catch him if he fell. Howard gaze the man a side-glance. Hopefully, at least. It took a moment, but Howard realized that he actually trusted Adrian Malcolm.

Curious. Hopefully it stayed that way and Adrian didn't garner any world-ending ambitions like half of the people in Team Rocket, these days. Power had a tendency to corrupt, and most of Team Rocket's upper command consisted of avatars or those in control of deities. Howard, meanwhile, felt like the only normal one.

He wondered how often the others thought that, too.

"Yeah yeah, I'll go." Howard rolled his eye and took a step onto the bridge. "I owe you that much."

He made a point to refrain from letting Regirock cross immediatley. Regardless of the spooky scenarios going on, Regirock weighed a ton, or roughly ten to twenty Adrian Malcolms. Best to let it cross last.

"This is nerve-wracking..." He muttered as he shimmied across.

---

Adrian Malcolm

Did timelines have their own will? He had never thought about it. They seemed more like a fundamental mechanic of the multiverse, rather than something that could actively seek its own annihilation, even unintentionally.

Then again, that was why Lulu specialized in the anomalous. Howard simply dug up rocks. He cared about the land, the earth, and the people that lived here. Timelines? Distortions? Alternate worlds? All were anomalous, and if Howard was the king of the world, they would all be scrubbed away.

Hoenn would simply be as it had been when this war began six years ago.

"Do you think that, if what you're describing is true, that we could use facets of alternate timelines and worlds to rectify our own? I don't mean by producing entities from other worlds, but by taking things that are wrong in our Hoenn and patching them with things that are right in other Hoenns?"

Howard slumped, sighing.

"Lulu, this shit's complicated."

---

Lulu Flint

He arrived at the hall before any of his colleagues with his newspaper, ready to play the part of the innocent, mocking jester. BARNABY FINCH was not here. He would've understood what this rose met, for the Infernal was a fire that seared roses to ash. The action would've amused him heavily.

THEO BECKETT was not here. By the time he arrived, the rose would be shredded and turned into scraps. Their conversation of Howard's ascension long since forgotten by the eaves of a shallow grave.

declan walsh was here. When he lifted the rose, it cast a shadow on the table. A reminder that there was no truly private thought in this mockery of an organization. A reminder that Howard Slayte would never be free, and that this was a delusion. Everything he did meant nothing.

For that reason, the mere act of human struggle meant everything.

"Is that so, Elisabeth?" Her handwriting had always been impeccable. The note crumpled in his fist. The sound of bones crunching filled his ears as he did so. "Then rouse from your shallow grave, Scorned. I am perfectly willing to provide you with another."

He took a seat at the table and crushed the rose in his palm.

"The earth is not yours. It is mine." He chuckled to himself to hide his unease as he unfurled his newspaper. "We will see if ruin reigns."

He flicked a page as the first of his colleagues arrived. The mask slipped on.

"And if the earth favors you or I."

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli