As Elaine suffered a mental breakdown over the umpteenth mention of bread, Howard looked up from his sandwich. His eye was wide and innocent, even as his cowboy hat was slightly askew on his head. He took another bite, chewed deliberately, before swallowing.

"It's good bread." He said simply. This was the person who had won Aurelie Lefevre's little cooking contest? It was almost too much to bear. It was a Herculean effort to not feel shame at losing to a man whose attire bordered on costume who also got extremely excited over bread of all things. "You'll see when your sandwich comes in. Trust me."

He went back to utterly demolishing his sandwich. If the authorities learned that this man was one of the region's most wanted criminals, it was likely that much of Hoenn's law enforcement would retire overnight out of shame.

More work for Elaine, in that case.

"Wait." He swallowed again. "The only person I've thrown bread at recently..."

His expression quickly turned pale.

"Were you at a masquerade a few months ago, by any chance?"

---

Elaine Highland

The man that sat across from Ameena was not Howard Slayte. It was someone else. It had to be.

Because otherwise the man that she had met in the dream had changed yet again, and more of his initial form had been shed by whatever this new form represented. A different body, a different guise, a different perspective, even. Yet if he had fully changed, then any hope that Ameena would ever have of discerning where his loyalties lie would be lost to history.

So as time stretched on, and his red eye inspected her face, it seemed that she would finally face punishment for her little experiment.

"I should tell everyone in Team Rocket about your little experiment." Ultimately, it was his voice that proved that this was still Admin Fox. His inflection was the same, and the way he spoke had not changed. "The hearts of people are not your toys, Ameena."

He thought of june sleigh as he spoke.

"Why can't the person I shared a dream with remember a single thing about the exchange? Why is her memory shot to hell?"

---

ameena abadi

"Beside the meds? Nah. I can't smoke without a nurse swiping it. Just keep doing what you're doing." The admin nodded thoughtfully to himself. "Which is good work."

Team Rocket would need many more Genesects by the time the war was in full swing. Artillery was a cornerstone of battle, after all. Even if Howard didn't excel in combat, he recognized the ability of Rocket's mobile artillery platforms. Even if they were blasphemous to the field that Howard worked in.

His eye twitched.

"Just pick a Pokémon you love, Oscar." Howard snickered as he slumped into the bed and closed his eye. "It's not rocket science."

For Oscar Clayton, it may as well have beem.

---

oscar clayton

Hoenn's exports were anomalies, misery, and death. That, the admin could not deny.

"Fair enough." He chuckled to the professor. "Fair enough."

It certainly was an interesting fairy, to be sure. An infinite supply of energy was a dangerous thing, but if Team Rocket could alter the course of the war with it, Howard suspected that they would've done so long ago, instead of scurrying for scraps whenever the opportunity presented itself.

An infinite well... was there anything that they could sway to their side with such a treat?

"If anything, it seems to like the farm. You both can stay here for as long as you like." It might be the safest place in Petalburg, admittedly. Kantoan forces are not allowed here, lest they raze and loot. "Though if it can help grow more crops, I'd appreciate if you would put it to work. We could use the boost."

He swirled his glass thoughtfully.

"What will you use the excess energy for?"

---

Alba Evovae
BINGO: Professor

"It is our obligation, Cillian. An obligation! The longer that he is allowed to run unfettered, the further his roots sink and the harder it will be to pull him out."

There are moments where the admin wonders if declan walsh is blind. They are rare and fleeting, and evaporate within mere seconds of being born. The idea that the man who sits in every shadow being incapable of sight is a laughable one, yet there exists moments where it genuinely feels true.

It seemed impossible, yet Howard had grumbled silently in the dark to minimal complaint. Walsh had not raised a hand to strike him down as much as Cillian had.

This was the man who had shot him in the back when he had tried to flee from Eternatus's bowels; a commissar that prevented his soldiers from running.

"You-" Cillian's game comes clearly. The admin is politically blind often, he is foolish even more so, but Howard Slayte was not an idiot. "Cillian. No."

Fear flickered like a dying ember.

"I can't do it."

---

Cillian Quinn

There's an eerily long moment where the admin considered Maki's plan. His expression was thoughtful and contemplative as he weighed it on both ends. In truth, he was simply determining if the recipe could be recreated. Likely not, with the chef out of commission.

What a terrible loss for Rocket. Howard swallowed.

"It'll do. Worst case scenario, I'll have to call in a few favors and knock a few heads. I'd rather not. Senseless violence is beneath us, and killing is wrong, after all." It's hard to tell if he's joking. As his Pokeballs are brought to him, the admin regarded them. His eye lingered on Regice's Pokeball.

Too much firepower. Still, he had best take it.

Instead, his hand selected his Claydol.

"Make the distraction audible. I'll wait about... six seconds before I slip in." He clapped Maki on the shoulder. "Let's boogie."

---

MAKI YUKIMURA
BINGO: SIX

"Our friends and family return to the mud eventually, their lives written in blood and in iron." Doug continued trekking through the woods, Pon by his side. They are words uttered with purpose, a reminder of what the Ursaluna had lost. "Remember your friend and they will never leave you."

Sometimes, he thought that he could see his old partner in the mists and between the slits of trees. Far enough to be vague, yet close enough that Doug could occasionally taste his scent on the wind.

So close, yet so far. Those remembered in the past never seemed to stay there.

"The monkey is short, slim, and disrespectful. He skirts my authority, and he is a general nuisance." Doug huffed as he led the ogre into a grove. "He is also quite blue, yes."

The color is added as an afterthought.

"Yet as for trapping him... it eludes me. He is far faster than me, and he climbs trees remarkably well."

---

Andrea Vaneau
BINGO: PAST

Howard Slayte did not have a single strong Pokemon. They were all caught for practicality, to help the young archaeologist when he was on digs. If he couldn't afford an assistant or three, he could certainly afford a few Pokeballs.

But there was one. One exception. His pride and joy that stood over all of his Pokémon.

His eye twitched. He didn't like fighting with her. She was a friend, not a force of nature. He hadn't sold his eye just to let her get hurt on some meaningless battlefield. Still, there was no way in hell he was dying here with a gangster. There was no way that he'd let her get taken and sold.

That was the straw. He threw the Pokeball. It clicked open.

▂▂▃▃▅▅ーーー！！ A roar rang through the warehouse as a massive Aerodactyl clawed its way over the cover that Monty and Howard were using. Her maw opened, drool and spittle stringing between teeth sharper than daggers.

"Say hello..." Howard swallowed, turning pale. "... to Shirley."

And Shirley's greeting was to tear off an arm belonging to their attackers.

---

Montgomery James
BINGO: PRIDE

"You need to attack it. The longer you leave something Dynamaxed, the more likely it is to level a city block and you along with it. Bring it down with speed and remarkable precision."

He didn't blink as the Walking Wake regarded him. It annoyed him, it frustrated him, it reminded him of when one had taken his Aerodactyl's eye and made her a mirror of him. Yet this was not that one. That one was long dead, crushed between a rock and a hard place.

Literally.

Still, he wanted to kick this Paradox Pokémon in the shins and run away.

"We'll use my Coalossal's own weight against it." He smirked, before scratching his chin. "Ready?"

---

Diana Cavendish

To move forward was a frustrating thing. It meant that there was more of yesterday to draw from, and more time to chronicle. If mankind could stay in today, then that would truly be paradise.

Yet it could not happen. Not yet. Freezing the clock now would leave this world in a constant cycle of suffering. They had to wait until the war was over before enforcing an eternal peace that would preserve the world forevermore. Such a perspective was hidden grom Grigori.

The man had suffered enough.

"If the material stays the same, then something within the human heart remains unchanging no matter how you try to force it. There is something that fundamentally cannot change in our species, but we can reshape the sphere into something more useful. A hexagon, perhaps."

Hexagons were remarkably useful, after all. As Grigori paled, the admin simply smirked and looked out the window at the road. They were almost to the bar.

"Your treason is safe with me, Grigori. What's your comment?"

---

Grigori Sokolov

Work. Walsh's peace. Politics. Kanto and Hoenn pulled on one another over authority within this necropolis of a city. Tsubame's blades would drink their fill and sup on the red wine of life. Sootopolis had been scoured clean with primordial rain. Petalburg had simply been razed, allowing for rats to hide in the nooks and crannies.

"The better question is what work don't I have for you." He finally said as they walked through the ruined city. What was once a verdant plain had been turned into a mountain range by the wrath of titans. "There are resistance fighters, discontent among the civilian population, and our Kantoan siblings can't keep their hands to themselves."

The discontent with Kanto was exponentially growing as both branches of Rocket mingled together. They were uncouth, hardly improved from their days as mere gang members slinging drugs on the streets of Celadon. No wonder their siege of Johto had failed.

"Plus," he added as an afterthought, "two of our Rocket Executives are dead."

---

Aoki Hana

The board was shifting beneath their feet, and they were mere bishops sliding across checkered tiles, capable of touching only one color or the other. Their motions had been dictated from the moment that 'Admin Bee' and 'Admin Fox' were conceived.

Though there had been a Fox far before Howard Slayte had slid into view. Perhaps his fate had been sealed from the moment that Remiel Calcifet had been crowned in his stead, and before a Kalosian l'oiseau had fluttered onto the board, knocking pawns aside to take his seat.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh..." A dull moan of pain slowly transitioned into a weary sigh of relief, causing Howard's eyelids to flutter. An instinctive reaction, for sight only graced one eye and left another unseeing. As beloved as stone was, a Key Stone could not replicate sight. "Thank you."

How the desire for death curdled and perished when pain was taken away.

Words fall, deliberate without the haze of pain, but before the deliberating effects of morphine could result in stifled mentality. He found the Infernal in the darkness.

"We..." He swallowed, throat dry. "We are all replaceable, Barnaby. Gears meant to be exchanged when we outlive our usefulness. Clerks are a dime a dozen. Even we who engage in theatrics will inevitably lose our audience."

He peered at Barnaby, disoriented. "Even we who command gods or raze cities."

---

BARNABY FINCH

"Nothing in particular, I'm simply being childish."

Nine months had passed. Nine months since Shred's body had been melted and replaced with a husk. Nine months since the admin had been able to look at the man without feeling a twinge of disgust and a mountain of self-loathing at the suffering that he had caused the older man.

It didn't matter if his attack had been seized. He had done it.

"Recently, a woman told me that people can change. I was obligated to believe in her." freya morningstar and her dragons, and her musings on the human condition. Yet could someone whose purpose within the League boiled down to slaughter truly understand the human heart? "I don't know if she's right. Instead, it seems to me that every human has uncompromising values. Our personality just shifts to indulge those values."

People who snapped did not become new people. It simply revealed what was already there, festering and rotting.

"We've both changed. Physically and mentally." A car whirred past as the admin gestured for Grigori to take a left. "Where, then, does that leave you?"

---

Grigori Sokolov