Her laughter put him on edge, but he still chuckled along with her. His eye never left Elisabeth, as if looking away would invite an attack. It was a rare enough sight to see the Viper laugh, and to not join in on a rare festivity would be a poor opportunity indeed.

This was strange. It was wrong.

"How romantic." He said as he thought of Isaac Merlo in the rebuilt floristry. He had taken a site of misery and had attempted to rebuild into a place that fostered some semblance of family. An ironic thought. It was something that Elisabeth would never have. "I don't pretend to understand the hidden meanings of flowers, but they'll enhance the taste of victory."

Or intensify the taste of defeat. Yet how could one make the taste of ash do more than scald the tongue?

"We will be making contact soon. I should check on Regice to ensure that it can fulfill your little cycle. Rot everything, and then I'll freeze it."

He turned away.

"Only then will we see what spring offers."

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"It can be both." He inclined his head in agreement. "A tactically brilliant move and a moral failure. Dewford will send no ships to staunch the wound that Petalburg will suffer."

If he had known Elisabeth's tale of woe, he would've cited her marriage as her greatest success and her greatest failure. Yet history would never hear that story. Not from him.

Not from her, either.

There had been no reason to utter that failing. Howard kicked himself for it. Dewford was his crown jewel as Admin Fox. It was his biggest failure as Howard Slayte. Why hadn't he accepted Navy's offer? Why hadn't he simply taken Regice and run to the League?

"We will, indeed." He closed his eye in thought. "What I write down will become truth, after all. Should I leave the floristry to you, then, and let history cycle anew?"

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

As the ogre from a faraway land leapt through the emerald foliage, all the bear could do was sit on his rump and wait for Pon to accumulate a large pile of honeycomb. As she smashed it and red honey dripped into the basket, Doug rumbled in approval.

Pon was far better at it than him. When he tried her technique, he often got mud mixed in with the honey, often ruining the taste.

"Excellent." Doug nodded in approval. "Bring the basket and follow me. It will not be a long journey."

Pressing on, Doug and Pon would bear witness to parting trees and forgotten trails almost too small for the bear to comfortably fit inside. Yet they pressed on, and eventually they would reach another clearing. There, Pon would see something frighteningly familiar.

"It cannot be!" Doug let out a ferocious roar that shook the forest. Tracks belonging to a mutt, a bird, and a monkey were layered atop each other, as if their owners had been scrambling. "How is this possible!?"

---

Andrea Vaneau
BINGO: EMERALD

"It will certainly try."

It was foolish to expect otherwise. It was an event that had been ordained by those with a greater knowledge of the cosmic stage than Howard or Theo, but the admin loathed the idea of fate, even if it was an inescapable truth. He had told Elisabeth Fiorelli that fate was a lie, and yet...

...what was the rise and fall of empire if not a predetermined cycle?

"But I will certainly delay it as much as possible." Once he put PENELOPE LIVY in her grave. As for jayden cross... "We need dissent, but not what she brought to the table. We need something more... productive."

---

THEO BECKETT

"Aslan." He immediately said, before silently kicking himself at the correction. The name meant nothing, unless one was an avid fan of Josh's Pyroar. If he had been trying to hide his identity, he would've just spilled the beans in front of Elaine. It would've been embarrassing if it was a secret worth keeping.

Howard had to tighten his lips in the future. In spite of his position within Team Rocket, he had a tendency to blab. All it did was sow misery. He loved digging himself into deeper trouble with a shovel. It was a tool any archaeologist had in spades.

"Of course. Call me what you like. Aslan does have a layer of mystery to it, wouldn't you say? I don't hate the name, even if I strung it together at the last minute." Elaine's brilliance had gotten Maki through her eleventh hour with the Megalopolan, though the alien had timed his attack poorly.

Two detectives in one room? He had been doomed from the start.

"I'm surprised Mauville's Gym Leader didn't call me out on it." The admin took another bite of his sandwich as he peered at Elaine. "Is that a secret? Josh has always had a flair for theatrics."

His attire had been... remarkably obvious.

---

Elaine Highland
BINGO: BRILLIANCE

"Humans break easier than you or me, Pon. When you break a person, they cannot be fixed."

It was a line that he often heard howard slayte utter in his moments of melancholy, when he was alone with the Ursaluna and nobody was looking at him. There was no need to be upbeat in the face of despair, and it occasionally leeched into the archaeologist's mood. It was similar to the Survey Corps member Doug had once partnered with.

In order to save something, one must first embrace the weight of loss.

"We will have to use what the humans call Max Honey. There is a hive up ahead that was once run by a Vespiquen, though I suspect that the recent shaking of the earth has rattled her. It is likely that she has fled." The grove opened up, displaying a golden hive cracked apart like an egg. Reddish-gold honey leaked to the ground.

What a waste.

"Where I am from, large Vespiquen could produce it. Yet my homeland is different from here. It will suffice."

---

Andrea Vaneau

There was a momentary pause before he responded.

"I want to kill a god." He said finally, his voice speaking in sync with the stone colossus whose pattern flashed in alien sequence. "And I want to save this world."

The words felt ridiculous as they fell from his lips, yet they were as true and absolute as anything he would ever say. Even if they were uttered casually, with the frivolity of someone going to buy groceries at the market, they would be accomplished some day. Even if the admin died and fell on the battlefield, someone would pick up the battle cry of human triumph.

That could be Aisling, if she found a purpose in life.

Such a lack of direction annoyed him. She claimed to have no ambition, but it had to exist. There had to be a purpose to her being here. If there wasn't, then her struggles meant nothing. She was simply walking down an aimless path.

Aisling had a right to reach for her dream.

"It's a childish want, admittedly. Yet I genuinely believe that it is possible. That we can defeat the enemies that matter and ensure that our offspring live in comfort. We will triumph."

He clenched a fist.

"That is your purpose. If that doesn't fit you, then find one."

---

AISLING O'CONNOR

A long silence followed. Then, a sigh of relief. A hint that the man inside this mechanical form is still the same person that had been raised to the rank of Rocket Admin almost a year ago.

"But it's not up to you." The hierarchy was an ironclad thing, and it was ultimately up to declan walsh and Ulysseys Monroe to decide the fate of Admin Fox. If they decided that he would die, then Theo's words meant little. The admin would swing, and it would not be from the steps of Ever Grande. "We will simply see what happens."

One last stab from Elisabeth from beyond the grave, meant to destroy her assailant as his star crashed against the earth.

"On the contrary, I believe that it has been stalled." He admitted with a shrug. By killing her, I have stopped something. Ruination, ideally. Regirock did not agree with her."

The fight with Ting-lu was a mystery to them both.

---

THEO BECKETT

"Twice, actually."

He does not tell this man about the dream. Explaining it would be impossible. Explaining that he had killed Elisabeth twice now would make him seem mad, and madness was a perfectly justifiable reason to lop off Howard's head. They were all replaceable, after all.

"She was a traitor who thought herself above the reckoning of those above her. She thought herself a queen, but she was a simple witch sitting in a glass tower." Both knew what happened to those who sat in buildings forged from nothing but translucent glass:

They had stones thrown at them.

"You've read the report, I presume. Do you think her death was justified?" He turned to the older man. "Or is my execution imminent?"

---

THEO BECKETT

"I've been told." The admin inclined his head, his eye not leaving the thorn-covered mausoleum that mourns that Scorned's passing from this world. "It's still me, though."

How many times had Theo Beckett heard those words? After battles? After Kanto? After each of his colleagues ascends to divinity, one by one, leaving Team Rocket in the hand of gods instead of men.

There are so few mortals left. Only Howard, Lulu, and Theo remain unaffected. Yet Lulu reeked of Darkrai's influence and Howard commanded giants.

Theo Beckett is alone.

"I disagree. I think that she'd be glad that someone cared for her when the end arrived. It is the only consolation that we can offer to a replaceable gear."

---

THEO BECKETT

The Cursed asked for much. Too much, even.

When Jayden asked for it, it felt almost reasonable. It turned from an unscaleable cliff into a gently sloping hill, even if Howard knew that his capacity for strength was never going to reach or surpass the man that offered his hand. Still, Howard grasped it.

There was an undeniable fact to this world: every human being was blessed with some measure of natural talent in certain fields. Jayden held a special capacity for instilling order through slaughter, and that extended to the battlefields he often commanded. Rocket Beasts could become admins, but admins could never become Rocket Beasts.

Howard was proof of that.

Still. He could make an attempt. An attempt to bridge the gap of raw skill with hard work. Even if it was easier for him to build than destroy.

"First..." Howard grunted as he rose. "I think I'll need a shovel."

To dig a grave for himself, when the man known as Howard Slayte no longer carried that name.

---

jayden cross

The city was too small to run in forever. Unlike Sootopolis's many alleys and rooftops, there were no crevices to hide from the Cursed for long. All Petalburg had to its name was rubble and the dilapidated husks of buildings that would take months to rebuild.

It was much harder to raise than it was to raze.

But Petalburg's city hall survived, and with it, the administrative heart of this small corner of an empire that would one day stretch from Ever Grande to Rustboro still managed to beat. It was there where Howard did his job of reconstruction, and it was there where he went to recuperate.

To be seen in a hospital would be to kill morale.

"You're persistent." The admin looked up from his IV drip, where magenta blood was filtered and purified. A red eye found Jayden. "How characteristic of you. You didn't bring the source of your curse, I hope?"

His eye scanned behind the admin in an attempt to locate Chien-pao.

---

jayden cross