The thud of the brick impacting the rough stone of the alley was answered - by a caw. All but immediately, a Murkrow dislodged itself from a nearby fire-escape it had sat itself upon and flapped towards where the brick had hit, evidently interested but paying the courier no heed for the time being. That was its role, after all. Investigate and alert. Hence, it did just that. The little crow was already well-trained in that regard, given that its owner had much more use for it this way, rather than as a fighter.

Though then again, one might have expected her to carry at least one ball with a fighter. After all, the girl coming up behind the one bringing her cargo definitely did not look like the kind that should be in a place like that at a time like this. But she was.
At the very least though, the one coming up to June was properly dressed, a warm red coat covering most of her features, a black scarf an beret adorning raven-hair with oddly red shades. Evidently, the girl was not really uncomfortable with anything, though she did not prance. Rather, she walked with casual determination, the kind of someone who knew where they were going and why, but did not seem to be in any rush.

“Good evening miss. I don’t often see anyone coming by these parts this late. Are you a thief?”

She did have to ascertain this one’s identity first, after all. This was her meeting place and idea, but she had not exactly been given a file on who was going to deliver to her.


june sleigh

Of all the kinds of people for June to expect, it wasn’t someone of such… short stature. At least they were dressed up properly for the strange weather that plagued Hoenn. June wore much lighter clothing. Yet again, it was probably cumbersome to have all those layers. Jealously only stayed with her for a few moments.

The Murkrow felt rather out of place given the appearance of the trainer, though. That was just facts.

“Thieves don’t walk around intending to give stuff out for cash, now do they?” June said. She reached for the bag that hung by her side and fished out a discrete package. No address, no identification marks, just a whole lot of tape and a caution sticker or three. Whatever it was, she probably didn’t want to mess with it too much.

Instincts had almost taken over several times on the way over. She desperately wanted to slide the edge of her box cutter into the package and see what came out, but held herself back each time. And based on the warnings on the box, word getting out of her lack of impulse control would be the least of her worries.

“It’s June,” she stepped a little closer. “Got your stuff– whatever it is. As long as you got the cash, we got a trade. You wanna double-check the shit, make sure everything’s in order?”

---

Lasciel Elis

“What an odd thing to say. That is exactly what they do whenever they are not actively stealing, now is it? Hawking is definitely part of the job, after all,” she replied with a light shrug. Despite her apparent age, she very much spoke from experience in this particular regard. Poaching Pokemon was one part of the job, often the most exciting. But one always had to work hard and find buyers, too. It was one of the reasons why she had cultivated a level of relations with Rocket. Those guys were always in the market, after all. Plus, they often outsourced custom jobs.

Well, they had to her at least. Back when she had a frame that made others think she could do it, at least. However, once the other so readily wanted to hand the package to her, she could not help but tilt her head, quizzically. “Are you really just going to offer it to me like that? No trying to make sure that I am actually your client? Not even trying to make me guess what you might have to trade, so that I have to offer up a modicum of knowledge about it? I have to say, that seems a bit sloppy to me, Miss June.” Not that she was going to reject the package offered and went to get the cash from her bag. But she was still a bit disappointed in this lady.


june sleigh

“...What?”

Could she not read? June knew for a fact that the words ‘No questions asked’ were written on her ads. Either the ones intended for low-lives or public figures, both had that little line of text there. A guarantee that they could order a lot of different things without judgment or legal scrutiny. Of course she didn’t know what was in there.

And in all honesty, she didn’t. Unless, of course–

BANG!

… Fuck, she couldn’t possibly have a repeat like that again. “Alright then, fair enough. I want you to open this to make sure that everything in here is in order. Need to make sure I didn’t break it, and that you haven’t tried to sneak anything past me.”

Besides, not too many were out this late at night in a specific alleyway knowing almost exactly what was going to happen inside it. Her identity was almost a guarantee. Once again, though, this could be one very lucky person who played their cards perfectly into June. She’d blame that on the lack of sleep and move on with her life. Client's problem, not hers.

“And don’t try to pull anything funny on me,” June said as she stepped forward. “You aren’t the first person to do this.”

She held out the package, one hand still on the hidden box cutter. Maybe should’ve been on the one specific Poke Ball on her belt, but that wasn’t necessary. THAT particular Pokémon didn't need to be released: it’d come out if someone even glanced at her wrong. For better or worse.

---

Lasciel Elis

Now, this was funny. So, she laughed. The simple, childish laugh that had been expected of one such as herself, of course. It could not be helped. Not like it would be easy to produce anything else. Plus, looking like this, she usually did not have to hold back anyway. Sure, she held herself to a higher standard, but it was tiresome at times. To always be considered one way, come across creepy when acting another and having to try extra hard to be taken seriously.

Well, at least this girl was kind of taking her seriously. So there definitely was that, at least. “You sure are overcorrecting hard on this. But that’s fair, I guess,” she replied, simply taking the package and carefully working the packaging. The veiled threat in the air did not impact her too much, really. Her eyes naturally glanced at where the other put the hand not busy with handing things over, but she couldn’t see anything there. Figured the girl was still ready to pull something, if something was pulled on her, though.

“You can relax a little, though. Not sure what others did to you, but I am probably the most harmless kind that asks questions. Your ad only promises that you won’t ask any, after all.” That being said, she swiftly revealed what was inside. A tool of business for any poacher, a collar that could be used to control a Pokemon to an extent without actually catching and training it. That was not her job, after all. For that, she had this. Well, she’d had another, but that one had not survived her last distortion excursion. Turns out those were sometimes bad for anything remotely electronic. “Don’t worry, it’s not to be used on you,” she added with a chuckle. “Seems to be in order, though.”

june sleigh

“Yea, that’s the point,” June said. Arceus, she needed to eat something after this. The cold, the nerves, and now her mood were collaborating to sabotage her. Should’ve treated this more seriously from the get go, but she also figured this wouldn’t be someone that questioned her techniques. Maybe a granola bar would fix that.

Whatever. The package changed hands, and June shoved hers into her pocket. She asked questions if necessary. Last thing she wanted was the cops on her ass because something she delivered got traced back to her. They’d throw her into jail without a second thought.

But… this wasn’t a weapon. Just some collar thing. So this twerp was probably a poacher of some kind then. Nothing else crossed her mind, rather, and this was the easiest explanation. The other was Underground-Pokémon-Fighting-Trainer-Person-Thing. Either way, at least this wasn’t some attempt at a prank or something.

“Thanks. I was real worried,” sarcasm bled through her voice. So long as no one said anything about her being here right now, then she’d probably be safe from legal scrutiny. Her hand came back out of her pocket and right into Lash’s personal space, “Just give me the money, I'll count it, and we can likely go on our merry ways.”

---

Lasciel Elis

“You should be. These streets can be quite dangerous,” she replied, casually, before simply storing the collar into her beg, carelessly discarding the packaging. It was nondescript and would not make a difference as to the level of disarray this alley was in, anyway.

Though when the other reached right into her personal space, she reacted in the only way that made sense to her. As in, she reached out herself and simply shook the hand that was offered to her. “You did well delivering this at least. And I trust that you will keep this quiet, especially since you don’t even know what is going on anyway,” Lash further noted, sounding awfully friendly for the moment.
All the while, she rummaged in her bag for the stack of bills she had prepared. It was pre-counted, of course. Anything else would have just been rude.

Hence, she would offer it to the girl, obviously delivering the exact amount demanded. “Don’t worry. I am not trying to cheat you out of anything. We are probably in similar circumstances after all, would be kind of pointless to be rude in such a situation. After all, if either of us had other choices for this, neither would be here.”


june sleigh

“I’ll be the judge of that,” June snatched the money from the poacher’s hand. She quickly started to count the bills at a breakneck pace, practiced fingers peeling back each one until the stack was fully dissected. Sure enough, there weren’t any tricks for the amount of money itself. Exact amount. Good.

Unless these were fake bills, then this transaction was concluded. Quite the strange one, but yet again, when wasn’t it strange? Not every day she met in a back alley way to deliver a poaching collar to someone who looked to be better off in middle school. An almost aggressively nice one at that. Too nice. 

“I’ll be frank,” she shoved the money into her backpack, “I’ve heard something among those lines a couple dozen times. Half the time, they did end up trying to fuck me over in the end. Just makes me more paranoid than if you said nothing.”

Whatever. Not like she needed to be in the good graces of every single criminal she interacted with. This girl was more than welcome to order through someone else next time. Not like June could stop her. The cold crept past the fabric of her jacket, and she shivered unexpectedly. “So, anything else you wanna talk about here? Questions, comments, concerns?”

---

Lasciel Elis

“The good thing about dealing with paranoid people is that nothing really matters. You’ll just get all scared no matter what,” she replied, shrugging. Honestly, this courier was probably just being properly cautious about matters. Lash did know how that was. She’d been a woman, on her own, dealing with shady people all over the place. Back when she had still looked like an adult, though admittedly, she had started doing so before, too. Just not quite as young as she looked today.

Hence, she was able to empathise at least somewhat with the other. But not too much. Not like people had helped her, after all. She was under no obligation to do anything like that herself. That being said, though, she was done with hiding her personality from anyone. “Though I guess I have nothing else to talk about with regards to business. And this is not exactly the place for anything else. If you want to chat about anything else, I would reckon some kind of coffee shop or the like, if there are even some left open at this hour. Wouldn’t want to keep you in dangerous territory like this any longer than necessary.”
Nothing was said about concern for herself, of course. She had prepared this area thoroughly, with some of her collection being on watch. It always took a lot of care to appear as careless as she did.

"No thanks," June turned on a dime, straight for the exit of the alley. "There aren't. Trust me, I've tried."

The crack of a can filled the space, and she held a frigid can of Sugar-Free Tauros-Energy in her hand. "Got a stockpile of these and a bus to catch. See you later. Pleasure doing business."

Looked like she had some decency in her after all. The girl was right: last thing June wanted to do was stand around in the freezing cold with a poacher discussing business prospects. Neither side would've said much of interest either. Deliveries didn't get very exciting, and the idea of a poacher going into detail about their hauls sounded downright sad. 

That, and she might fall asleep at any second. She took a swig from the can and hopped off the curb, out of sight from Lash. A yawn escaped her lips as she casually tossed out the Poke Ball that held Knight. The metal bird gave her a curious look as she mounted his back. "Don't ask. Just get me to the bus stop."

She'd either get another order, or she'd fall asleep. Either way, this shady part of town would be far, far away.

---

Lasciel Elis