One minute? Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

"Not enough time." Howard took a deep breath and snapped his fingers at Crumble. The Claydol's eyes glowed, and it used its psychic power to twist the mechanism inside of the door into an unrecognizable husk of steel, completely unsalvageable to the average person.

Good. That meant it'd be impossible to open until they started kicking the door down.

"Yeah, someone's coming. Once the drive is done, prepare to teleport out with Claydol. No muss, no fuss."

Suddenly, Crumble visibly slouched, its expression dejected.

"Imprison." Howard groaned again. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Grab the drive when it's done."

---

AISLING O'CONNOR

Hoenn had lost their Peacekeeper to the call of duty. When had that woman died? When she dawned the cloak of divinity? When she marched to face the weight of the world alone with everyone denying her purpose as meaningless drivel? When the dust had settled, she had been tucked aside after shouldering the legacy of the Draconids.

The weight of divinity was not meant for mortals. Their power came from elsewhere.

Eva Morales had not failed Rayquaza. Rayquaza had failed Eva Morales.

"Aw, that's too bad." He seemed genuinely disappointed for a moment as he regarded her compendium. His eye flicked up to the councilwoman and caught the ghost of anguish before it slipped away. "Then I accept them! Please give her mine."

Yet Howard could not help but suspect that something was amiss with the one who shouldered the weight of Hoenn's draconic decree.

Now there was no Peacemaker. There was only one who kept the peace through slaughter.

"And I offer you mine as well, of course." Howard flipped through the compendium before coming to the page on Applins. "It looks like you need them."

---

freya morningstar

He let go.

"Perhaps, should we get through this upcoming battle. You will be the sword that cuts our enemies, the shield that blocks every blow, and the healer..."

Another exhale. Bryan's potential had reached its zenith, but he could still be used. He had been a Rocket Beast without his blessing, and he would continue to serve until the end. They were cogs in a greater machine, and the Lifebringer's roots could not stop its incessant grind forever.

"Stand over Sootopolis's walls and herald our victory. Stand over Mossdeep and proclaim our success." His eye met the Rocket Beast's and he smiled. "Then I'll give you what you want."

Assuming he recovered.

"A reason to live."

---

bryan delarosa

"Even a scar can fully fade, if it doesn't mark flesh." The clinking of dishes and the admin's distinctive tapping on the table added a smidge of background noise to the conversation. There was a coolness to his gaze, although his face was pained. "There is nothing we can do to this city over a single generation that cannot be rebuilt in millennia."

In an eon, they would both be dead and their descendants would mark their burial sites with great stone effigies and speeches to their greatness. It would not matter to Ceres nor to Howard, but it was a small comfort to know that this was all for something.

Even if that something was childish. Delusional.

"There is no good reason for the taking of this city. We are simply seizing it to annoy the League and split their forces. It is tactically irrelevant, strategically meaningless. We are simply here to fulfill the desires of fallible men."

What a meaningless battle. What a pointless war. Petalburg would offer them nothing. While Mossdeep burned under Rocket's banner, Petalburg was a mediocre after course.

"We will rebuild it. I have no plans beyond it. And yet..." He leaned forward, thoughtful. His eye sparkled with bemusement as he deflected her question. "I feel like you do. Tell me what you would do with Petalburg when it is ours."

---

ceres

Isaac Merlo and Eris Halla approached him. The Liberator's first Pokémon fell before the frozen advance, and the range from Regirock's Max Stonefall was dusted with ice and snow that Isaac did not form into a makeshift bulwark.

"You-" The admin wasn't prepared for the two-pronged assault that followed. Flashing chains took the stone giant to its knees, its pattern flashing violently as it raged against Mesprit's shackles. "ERIS! ISAAC!"

The wind whispered in his ear, murmuring of treason and betrayal.

"Come on, Isaac! Do what you should've done at the Island Cave! At Oldale! At Dewford! Now, we're here! Look around you! It's time to fulfill your obligations to the League and STEP OVER MY CORPSE!"

Naomi Sato and Aurelie Lefevre would despise this senseless conflict, and yet it had to occur. In the flickering magenta of the storm, he saw Isaac's little sister, Chu-e's reason for living. Lenore's daughter. The League's childish, foolish innocence.

"AND YOU."

Dynergy swirled around Regirock as it raged against Mesprit's feeble chain. Links of crystal and divine metal began to fray and crack like glass. Howard knew Eris better than most. He knew how she felt. On the battlefield where Pokemon reigned supreme, a child could match an adult with ease.

But Eris Halla was not meant for the battlefield.

"IF YOU PLAN TO BETRAY ME, THEN PUT YOUR FUCKING BACK INTO IT!"

The chains snapped and shattered. Regirock rose, releasing a mechanical groan as it did so. Its pattern flashed as it Locked On to the Liberator. Yellow dots flashed red as Isaac crashed into Admin Fox. The two went sprawling, the admin falling to his back.

His communicator clicked to an open channel.

"I will give you until the count of three to retreat, Isaac." Howard blinked once, not knowing that Monroe had just issued the same ultimatum. His breathing rattled and his hand refused to close as poison pumped into his body. He seized slightly. "Otherwise, I will level everything here. I'll salt the earth and make sure nothing grows again. Your monuments will be stripped. Petalburg will become our kingdom."

A deep breath.

"I will keep my word." Part of his face flickered from behind the mask. Older. Wearier.

"One."

---

Regirock/Regice (Dynamaxed) are both out (Shiv approved)
Howard gets jumped by Isaac/Eris, Isaac gets to him
Regirock breaks the Red Chain, Eris lacks conviction LOL
Regirock is using LOCK ON on Isaac
Offers an ultimatum to the League on an OPEN CHANNEL

His body was collapsing.

Turning to rubble.

His blood wet ancient stone, the primordial bones of the world as he threw the effigy of a god that had long since abandoned the world to its eternal slumber. It was odd. He felt calm. Serene. Ting-Lu's fear didn't rot his mind, nor did his rage blind him to the complete contempt boiling in his soul.

Was this how june sleigh felt when she threw that Pokeball? Serene? It was so easy to imagine her perfectly posed for a moment like this. She had beaten him to her triumph, and he had finally caught up. His eye never left its carved surface, four of its five dots glowing with inner light. A marker for his triumph, a memory of a creator.

There would be no need for that, now.

"What was your expression? How did you feel?" He whispered as Dynergy swirled around him, leaking into his suit once again. "Did you feel, even for a moment, that you had succeeded?"

He disappeared into the red and purple storm as Regirock shrunk. His blood pumped through a new heart formed from the memory of the old. Yesterday would always be replicated today, and it would be replicated tomorrow.

Mesprit had guided his actions. A god had brought him to this moment. Human triumph had been soiled once again by a deity. Howard had not won. Mesprit had. Eris Halla had not allowed him to fail. If he knew that, Howard would have screamed in rage at the stripping of this vital moment.

Instead, he fell alongside Regirock in a thunderous crash, the stone giant protecting its blood brother in its embrace as it struck the earth. Howard was still dying. Poison pumped through his body. Dynergy still seared his flesh, but now...

⠗⠕⠽⠁⠇. The giant's pattern flashed red. ⠏⠗⠑⠎⠑⠗⠧⠑.

Bathing in Eternatus's blood could change reality. Time wavered and space failed to function. Pain and misery and rage soaked into the toxic sandstorm.

⠗⠕⠽⠁⠇. ⠃⠗⠕⠞⠓⠑⠗. In the distance, Regice's pattern flashed red. ⠏⠗⠑⠧⠑⠝⠞ ⠗⠥⠊⠝.

He could do those things. Necrozma. Eternatus. Tera Crystals. The DRK Triad. They would all disappear in the face of humanity's will. They would win, and the bones of fallen gods would become the foundation of paradise.

Tapu Lele and Tapu Fini were unreliable guardians. They would be killed and replaced with stone and ice and steel. He should have known to doubt them as soon as Elisabeth Fiorelli had been blessed with the power of a 'protector of the land'.

When John Sullivan showed his face...

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. As the sand cleared, he emerged from behind Regirock. He felt older. More weary. His arms bled red energy. For a moment, the sand cleared. Howard smiled from behind his mask as he found her. Monroe clattered into his communicator, but the admin did not respond immediately.

Slowly, he plucked at his radio. "Understood. Give me a minute."

His smile widened.

"Tsubaki." Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki and Isaac Merlo flickered through the storm, though he suspected that other members of the League were hiding behind violet sands. He coughed up a wad of reddish-purple blood, which splattered against the inside of his helmet. His hand trembled from the tendril impaled into it. "You tried to shatter my dream? You? No wonder you were the villain in Galar. Elisabeth. Jayden. Penelope."

He spoke the last name with a hiss.

"They were all secondary to you. Even deep down in his heart, Navy despises you just as much as I do."

"That's fine, though. You have my condolences." Regice looked down from its distant perch, seven suns blaring as it charged up a Max Snowfall. A nameless corpse was crushed as Regirock marched forward. "After all..."

A Dynamax Cannon fired towards Dewford's Gym Leader. The ground quickly covered in a viscous hoarfrost.

"...you died during the battle."

---

Exchange with Regirock/Regice as he falls. Still dying.
oooooo dynergy shift ooo
Regirock/Regice are both out (SHIV SPECIAL PERM SMILE)
Finds Tsubaki to kick her ass, other leaguers can intervene if they wish. Sees Isaac in the fog
Regirock uses Dynamax Cannon, Regice uses Max Snowfall
V|I43tRi

His words were soft.

"I spent three months thinking that I had ended the world. I loved Galar, but it would have driven me mad. Waking up every day, knowing that I might've just killed you and everyone in Rocket and Dewford and this entire region. Three months, hoping that time had stopped so that I could solve the crisis that I created."

There was a world where the weapons forged for Calyrex were used for annihilation. In that scenario, he wondered if Aurelie would've cracked under the strain.

"The question on how was I going to pull that Wishing Star from Regice's core rung in my head. It has given Regice great power, and it controls that power with great authority, but in the moment? Who knew what it would do." He rolled up his sleeve to his shoulder, where red scars formed a latticework that reached his shoulder and beyond. "In exchange for erasing three months of doubt, to save innocent lives? I'll touch it again."

He held up a finger.

"And again."

Another.

"And again."

Another.

"And again. Even if my body breaks down, I'll keep doing it. Because otherwise, someone else will have to. Safety... is not a necessity. Still, though." It was hypocritical to demand Aurelie's safety while denying his own, but in the eleventh hour, Howard suspected that he would break and flee. "I really don't want to die."

"I actually want to keep on living."

Even if it put him at odds with the League, with his colleagues, with everyone around him. The words were spoken casually, as if they were an expensive bottle of wine that the admin could not afford while shopping. It felt guilty to ask for even that.

Nomi had demanded he live. For her dream. For his. Yet if the time came, he would throw his life away to fulfill his dream, if it needed to be done.

"A knife would be nice, though." A pessimistic laugh followed. "Especially if you forged it."

---

Aurelie Lefevre

"Ah. Hahahahahahahahaha...!"

A laugh rumbled from the admin's chest, before erupting out. It was not malicious, but it filled Howard with pure amusement, knowing that Rocket was as defective as he suspected. Every single one was lacking, and every single one was struggling to fill a void that they could not comprehend.

Yet for some, the void had been filled long ago, and they were trying to fill something else.

"Oscar." A hand scarred with numerous red marks reached out towards the ceiling. "You're blind. You're describing heartbreak, because you love that machine."

It's almost lamentable. The fact that he could care about cold and uncaring metal made the admin want to chuckle. Oscar would have used Regice far better. Walsh should have given it to him.

"Love is the death of duty, but it's also the driving factor that moves us to do great things. It's why me and Shirley... click. She improves me. I improve her. We are both defective in the same way, and we both lack depth perception."

A deep breath.

"If everyone in the world rejects my beliefs, I know that she won't. She completes me."

---

oscar clayton

In his heart, he doubted it. Truth was absolute, but it was ultimately a human concept facing off against a fundamental aspect of the universe. Without space, there was no reality. No physical being. Howard and Hitoshi would just vanish.

It was unfair that such a power had been bestowed onto a human, even if that human had an obligation to save the world.

"Maybe." He finally said, not wanting to infringe upon Hitoshi's truth with his own. "Maybe."

Without saying a word, he turned and walked out of the room, pulling his phone out of his pocket to make a call. The antiquated flip phone was about as old as Reshiram.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

---

Hitoshi Inoue

With an eye roll, Howard blew a plume of smoke at her. "Get bent."

He didn't get a particularly close look before turning back to the door, but he suspected that Aisling had a shit-eating grin on her face as she mocked with with pretty words and false sympathies. Between her and ceres , Rocket's newest batch of trainers made the admin want to scream and throw himself off a cliff.

Still, it didn't stop him from defending his point. He was not honorable. He simply respected those who chased their beliefs until their bodies broke down and collapsed into dust.

There was a purity to following one's passion.

"Yes, you'll do your job. Aisling, if you don't help people to their feet when they bow to you, nobody will ever accept you as their superior. Unconditional surrenders and forceful occupations rarely end well. We must have the support of the authorities."

He peered out the window again and cursed. He saw an officer coming down the hall, likely to do a routine check or to figure out why a camera had disconnected.

"Shit. What's the download at?"

---

AISLING O'CONNOR