"I've been busy."

It was not a lie, but it was uttered with the intention to distract and distort. Howard had been busy, as had his fellow admin. While Rocket Beasts existed for the sole purpose of slaughter and Head Scientists existed to push Rocket's knowledge, the four admins existed to ensure that everything functioned properly.

Howard, Jayden, Barnaby, and Fern were always busy. It made Howard wonder what the underbosses even did, besides die to his hand.

Yet Jayden was right. Howard was avoiding him, and he had finally been cornered. Ever since their first meeting, Jayden had excelled at that.

"You'll have to forgive me for not using your company's insurance plan." Even with their headquarters in Rustboro, Howard could never afford insurance. He offered a withered hand carved from ice and stone. Thin red lines of Dynergy formed a latticework under the skin. "What do you want, Jayden?"

Their eyes met. He wondered if this was the person Walsh had sent to kill him.

---

jayden cross

There existed a world in which nothing changed. Where it was simply a pristine piece on a canvas, filled to the brim with idyllic moments that could never be marred, for they could never truly end. A world where nothing changed felt like paradise, but it was impossible for the admin to create.

Thus, Ana's painting spoke to him. His words aren't compliments, they're simply true.

"I think you did. Sky Pillar's island is a sacred site, special to those who hold it dear. It's one of our region's most important places, a testament to what we can accomplish." In truth, he's shocked that Ana wasn't kicked out by one of the keepers there, or by a random member of Team Rocket. With Sootopolis so close by, it was a dangerous place. "Hoenn's... dangerous, these days."

He tries to avoid sugarcoating it, but he'd rather not dampen the mood. Dewford's sheriff is better at that than Howard is.

"But we accept everyone equally. No matter where you go here, know that Hoenn always has a place for you. You're welcome here, anytime."

Shirley threatens to growl at Old Whiskers, but a glare from Howard silences her. He scratched the Espeon's fluffy ears for a moment, before turning to the artist. A discount? It's almost impossible to keep him from seeing dollar signs everywhere. Yet that moment is met with guilt.

"I won't accept that. You worked hard on it. You told me its story, and what inspired its creation."" He smiled slightly. "You've given me more than enough, miss...?"

---

Anastasia Harmon

The admin's soul flickered between red and magenta, before sinking back into its body. Carved limbs twitched as the spark life life was returned to its mechanical vessel. For a single moment, the admin's body pulsed with red energy as Dynergy thrummed through it.

⠗⠕⠥⠎⠑ ⠽⠕⠥⠗⠎⠑⠇⠋

⠇⠑⠎⠞ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠉⠗⠥⠍⠃⠇⠑ ⠍⠽ ⠍⠁⠉⠓⠊⠝⠑

Creaking joints returned to life as Howard's body revived itself.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck... What the hell was that? Awful feeling, like I died." The admin cocked his head. "Twice."

It took him a moment to adjust. His shadow flickered under him, as if clawing to reach the body it had once lost. Even if Howard Slayte's original form was gone, the shadow remembered its memory and sensation. If it could take it back, then maybe he could return to his original form.

"Yo, Adrian. Guide the way with the light and I'll follow you." Howard peered at the Adrian wisp, as if expecting it to talk back with vocal cords made from smoke and words cast from fire. When it didn't, he huffed and peered at the torch. "Can you hear me?"

---

Adrian Malcolm

He wasn't prepared for this. He hadn't swung by in order to offer emotional support, but Arceus-knows Parker needed it. Everyone in this region needed consolation with the fact that they were terrible people, even as Shadow moonwalks across the screen and the game ends.

This music was fucking annoying. Howard missed the fuck-you truck. Why hadn't it shown up? Maybe this world was the bad ending, where the cool truck never existed.

"You can't pull them anymore, Parker. We moved past that point when we fucked up Mossdeep and barely kept Sootopolis through some divine act of providence. We didn't deserve to keep that city, but we did. All those deaths? Automatically justified because according to some metric, we won."

He fiddled with the controller for a moment, closing out of the annoying ass song and the annoying ass hedgehog. After a moment of fumbling, he made it to the menu he desired. The Chao Garden. Fuck those little blue bastards, but it felt good to let them waddle about.

"But we're going to make this right. The Sootopolis and Petalburg we build will be one worth living in." He butted her shoulder, his expression haunted as he put the controller down again. "Because it's either that or accept that we ruined lives for nothing."

The fat egg guy fed a Chao a fruit. "YOSH!!!"

"Can't accept that. I won't. Until then..." He turned and gave her a hug. A sign that the world is too heavy and that people need to bond in order to shoulder the weight of their sins. "Hugs."

He blinked once.

"And if you or Nomi need help, shout. I'll definitely come flying to you."

---

parker jones

Not again. He can't do this again so soon after Petalburg. He had just caught the damn thing, and it was already doing what it did best: annihilation with extreme predjucice.

For a horrible moment, Howard thought of Absinthe Blackwood and her claim that Regirock had no future beyond that of violence and despair. A natural reaction, given the destruction of Petalburg and the past that had left her cool and apathetic to a world that had abandoned her and people like her.

His thoughts return to Area Zero.

"Can't! I don't have its Pokeball!" A stupid mistake. He silently kicked himself for it, and vowed to never leave headquarters without it. "It's in Petalburg, in case it decides to rampage in the city."

That had happened, but not in Petalburg. Instead, it was a hundred miles away. Destroying Area Zero was prudent, but it'd also likely kill Howard and Nikola while sinking Oldale into the earth. Not ideal, so Howard unclipped a Pokeball from his belt as Regirock swung a fist.

"Gonna need your help with this, old one."

He threw it, and the world froze.

---

NIKOLA SAMSA

mint frost was right. This was a load of fucking nonsense. If anyone in Rocket actually swallowed the lies spewing from Elisabeth's mouth, they were blind and the League deserved to hang everyone in this room. Not for crimes against humanity, but for the sheer absurdity of what she was uttering.

Yet instead of elaborating on her claims, he simply refused to meet Naomi Sato or Cillian Quinn 's gaze. Howard closed his eye and nodded. "What she said is correct."

Yet what almost made him howl with derision was the exchange between the God General and his newest toy, of the 'advice' that he had supposedly offered. He did not like this fellowship. Of course two of the people he hated most had decided to form an unholy alliance. It was just his luck.

If only you had followed your own advice and taken Mossdeep, God General.

Gods could not die, but they could certainly lose. Gwyar Wledig must've felt particularly proud, knowing he had stalled annihilation with sheer human will, without the aid of some divine patron. The admin had a smidge of respect for the Gym Leader after the constant games of cat and mouse they partook in.

As Walsh demanded obedience, the admin simply nodded. "Yes sir."

As soon as this meeting was over, half of the people in this room would go tell their bedfellows in the League.

"The boss is right. The Pokemon League is a government, and is thus limited by its bureaucracy. Let them scuffle over conflicting reports and proclaim themselves wise, even as they blind themselves with a hot iron. Every step makes them stumble. Every loss weakens their resolve."

He stared at Shred as he spoke, voice thoughtful. If a single victory could turn a despot into... that, then the League would behave similarly. He buried the emotions of the beast's final words in his heart and threw away the key.

"Let them glut themselves on a false victory while we snatch Oldale and Rustboro from under their nose."

---

Rages over having to accept Elisa's bullshit. Sadge over Shred, makes a note to throttle him later. Unhappy with this Elisa/Zev alliance, literally the worst thing in the history of ever. Agrees with Walsh, but finds the claim impossible to enforce. Pledges himself to Walsh, despite that being a worthless vow. Words are wind, after all.

"But it was Regirock. It was here, and it level and city and killed thousands. Now it's loyal to me, and that sin is mine to bear. Not Rocket's. Mine. If I had been faster, if I had been better, the city would still stand and our victory would be as pristine as dawn.

"But I wasn't."

He looked at Makoto, at a person who had nobody left in this world but Team Rocket and those that they called friends. That friendship was the fuel that kept them moving, without breaking down into tears and finding this entire struggle meaningless.

For a moment, he wondered if they hated him. The thought quickly died.

"This will keep happening. Our war will shake the earth and the earth will spit out horrors until we learn to stop trodding on its flesh. Nothing more we can do but do our job until the war is done." He shrugged, too numb to keep working through the horrors that came with war. "How was Mossdeep?"

Defeat hung in the air.

---

Makoto Kurumi

He was going to kick June's ass when this was over. A silent note was made to swing by Lairon's and grab a set of rubber gloves and a mallet.

Maybe he could get her back in another way. His eye meandered to Miyako. Hm.

"Ugh. My car is fine. You'll find a speeding ticket from like a year ago from the former Top Champion, but I've kept all my shit up to date, unlike her." He prodded the sleeping dragon by pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the perpetrator. "I'm not the one you carted off to jail."

He rubbed his temple and brushed Miyako's hand away, annoyed. Another ticket? He didn't want to shell out more of Rocket's cash for something as trivial as a speeding ticket.

"I'm sorry for speeding, we had a chat and got distracted. My phone is fine, and if you did taze me, I forgive you." He did the best wink he could with one functioning eye. He could succeed where June had failed. "Accidents happen."

He smiled pleasantly, twirling his hair as he pointedly ignored the fuming woman in the passenger seat.

"It's for that reason that I don't think I deserve the ticket." He said softly. "But I wouldn't mind if I got it from you."

---

june sleigh Miyako Noguchi

Ana hid her half-hearted pieces with all the grace of a Snorlax leaping off a cliff. Howard looked away as she did so, whistling innocently as he hid a shameless smirk. He looked up at the sky, not interrupting the artist's thoughts as she parsed his question.

It was a good day, with not a cloud in the sky. Even if they were in Petalburg or Sootopolis—cities ravaged by war—the sky would not change. It'd still be this shade of blue. Every person in the region shared it in solidarity, their one inherited gift that would persist centuries into the future.

That pristine nature... It was still the same sky, so perfectly clear.

"Sorry, I was thinking about stupid stuff." He turned back to face Ana.
"Long day, you know how it i-"

He stopped.

Wow.

There was a cathedral in Sinnoh that held an entire ceiling that had been painted with the intention of replicating the heavens. In a twisted sense, it was a landscape painting of the highest caliber. It replicated the heavens, something that mankind would never grasp.

How had Ana learned to replicate that sensation?

"This is incredible." It reminded the admin of Hoenn, of home. He had to repress reaching out and touching the piece, lest it be ruined by human hands. "You made this?"

Howard looked to her.

"How? Where did you make this? What's the inspiration?"

---

Anastasia Harmon

"Pon, I'm afraid that I don't know what that term means."

He was too old to understand what a misogynist was. Munkidori was a great evil, but this Thwackey was fiendish beyond comprehension. Maybe that was why Howard had simply kicked him out to roam the woods uncontested.

"But I agree." The duo stared down at the monkey, eyes gleaming. "Let's kill him."

The monkey gawked.

"WAITWAITWAITWAIT!"

---

Andrea Vaneau

Be that as it may, the Thwackey(?) was definitely off. Its coloration was similar to Munkidori, and it had an ominous aura surrounding it, indicating that it was a Shadow Pokémon. Rather than closing the door to its heart, however, this Shadow Pokémon was simply an obnoxious waste of oxygen.

Cillian Quinn had really screwed the pooch when designing this one.

"Yeah, yeah! Listen to the ogre! I ain't paying rent to that fuckin' peach! I ain't even seen him! I saw his posse, though! Dunno where they went, but I saw 'em! The monkey ain't as handsome as me, though! I stack paper and get bitches unlike that kissless loser!"

The monkey squirmed out from beneath Doug's paw and struck a pose.

"And that's 'cause I'm fuckin' incredible!"

---

Andrea Vaneau

The answer to Adrian's question was obvious, but it was a depressing answer. Sometimes that was even worse than a hopeless one.

"It's either that, or accept that you're complicit in the worst atrocities of a generation. That's how we shoulder shit like this. The underbosses revel in this war. The beasts do as well. If we don't get back the people we lose to the League, then what the hell are we even fighting for?"

Howard fought for nothing. He believed in something beyond the war. Something greater, something that would ensure that mankind lived for another thousand millennia. Who knew what they'd be capable of by the time the war was over?

Perhaps they would transcend gods.

"Maybe 'they' won't save you, but I will. If it happens enough, it'll be the new norm. We're cogs, but we shouldn't be wholly irreplaceable."

That hadn't stopped him from killing Elisabeth, though.

When the torch flame touched Adrian, the admin frowned in confusion, not comprehending. "Wait a sec-"

Mirroring Adrian, his body produced a wisp tainted red and magenta. Even his soul couldn't escape the stain of Dynergy. It had rotted his body, and it was tinging his soul. The wisp floated upwards, further into the spire.

What is this...?

---

Adrian Malcolm

Yet as Pon scurried around on the ground, attempting to find the tracks of the Loyal Three, she would quickly realize that they had been burned away in the fighting.

"Hm... I don't believe we can follow them any further, little ogre. My attack excised the tracks. I was careless." The ancient bear hung his head. "I am sorry. After all the help you've offered me, as well..."

As if on cue, a sparkle appeared in the sky, along with the shrill screaming of a monkey as it fell back down to earth. Doug grimaced slightly at the loud thud that followed, before putting a paw on the monkey before it could fully recover.

"Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

"WHERE'S MUNKIDORI, YOU HONEY-EATING FIEND!" Doug's roar shook the forest, before causing the monkey to shake his head and glare at the large bear.

"Eyyyyyyyyy fuck you, Douglas! You ain't got the cowboy hat, you can't tell me what to do!"

---

Andrea Vaneau