June’s eyes instead shoot right past Annalise, straight into her overwhelmingly girly office. An assault on her retinas, with all the bright light colors. Her eyes squinted hard beneath the wave of overwhelming visual sweetness. Were people allowed to decorate their work spaces so freely, and with such a disgusting color scheme?

If someone painted a motorcycle this kind of color, you were going to be laughed off the road!

But she couldn’t say anything mean. That’d bode poorly for any business they did. Instead, she conjured up the largest, entirely fake smile possible, and nodded along. “Thanks. It’s… good– great, to be back. Just, you know, great.”

It felt painful to enter, and even worse as she beelined straight for the only chair available. Despite the comfort, it felt anything but while she sank into the squishy foam. She better resembled an ink stain on the chair instead of a person sitting on it. “What a… chair, you have. As well.”

“But the offer, yes, that thing I talked to you about almost a month ago,” June pulled herself from the depths of the chair and balanced herself on the very edge. “Well, what can I say?”

… Fuck, what was she going to say again? She thought of it on the ride over, and Matchstick thought it was very stupid. That usually meant it was a good idea, but it danced on the tip of her tongue. She clicked it against the roof of her mouth several times before it bounced back inside her head. “Right, that’s it. It’s like that cast I had, you know? A good investment when necessary. Beneficial for all parties involved.”

“But unlike a cast, my thoughts about it matter, y’know? Doctor says I need a cast, I gotta get the cast. In business like this, both parties need to be on the same page. And I think we’re there, for the most part,” she said. In hindsight, maybe she should’ve listened to Matchstick on this one.

“Just wanted to ask a couple questions. First: how often do you have the need for services like mine? Are you like those big delivery companies that are constantly moving parts around, or more like a cast, where you… don’t really move much?”

---

annalise henderson

Oh. “Oh.”

Fuck, she didn’t notice that part in the e-mail. Or, maybe it wasn’t there at all? June quickly pulled out her phone and started furiously typing and scrolling through the electronic document. “Sorry, uh…”

“Sure, okay, yeah, we can work with that,” she quickly switched to the Notes app. ‘2-3 days’. That was… not what she imagined. In her mind, she was expecting to hear something like ‘a couple of times a day’ or something like that. Less committal than days. But hey, that’s what this meeting was for.

Discussion of conditions. And this first condition was… extremely reasonable. Several counters started in her head, yet all of them died to so much as a single ounce of reasoning.

“I guess the next thing I want to discuss,” she straightened her back, “was the stuff you want to be delivered. Since you’re in the center of the region, kinda, I assume it’s like… a middleman thing? Easier to drop stuff off here and get someone else to finish the trip. But what kind of stuff would that be?”

“We talking big,” she held up her hands as far as they could go, “small,” she then brought her hands back, centimeters apart, “somewhere in the middle,” her hands met somewhere in the middle, “on average? And the actual contents of delivery– should I expect frequent trips to the Poke Center? Or is it more ‘stuff’ than ‘beings’.”

---

annalise henderson

“Alright… ‘medium-sized-equipment, potions, and poke balls, nothing alive’,” June bit her tongue as she typed out the next line of information. No life-or-death scenarios, no problems. The last thing she wanted on her mind was any guilt or regrets because she didn’t get a dying Skitty to the Poke Center on time.

Once again, another reasonable thing to expect. Arceus, this was actually starting to look good. She was entirely expecting some comedically stupid shit, like six-day weeks with twelve-hour shifts as the minimum. At the rate this was going, this whole partnership might be a legit, real thing.

Oh, wait, nope, never mind. The next thing on her mental list would surely cause problems. And it wasn’t even her idea! “Okay, so, uh… how do I put this.”

“So my Pokémon,-- and please don’t laugh– formed what you’d might call a, a union,” she held up her palms to the head ranger, “and I know how that sounds. Let’s just say that December was a little rough, and they weren’t exactly happy with the work conditions.”

It was, by far, the weirdest exchange she’d ever had. June had to consult several Alakazam and a Pokémon research team to figure out what they were trying to say. It was Knight’s idea, apparently, and the rest dog-piled onto it the second they heard. Messy as hell. At least they didn’t ask for pay.

“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about it, I’ll keep any problems strictly on my end,” she pulled out a poke ball and released a creature inside the office. In a flash of bright light, a tall, proud Corviknight emerged. It took up a lot of room in the office and had a resting bitch face. It cocked its head to one side as it examined Annalise.

“Anyway, here’s Knight. You might’ve seen him in early December,” she said. “But for him specifically, he wants to know what–”

“SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“Arceus, shut up! He wants to know about the delivery routes with regard to the ‘rougher’ parts of Hoenn. Mount Pyre, the desert, that cave in the desert, the open sea. That sort of thing.”

---

annalise henderson

“'Go around them if necessary, might need to deliver to the rifts…’”

June’s fingers came to a half as soon as she finished typing that word. Rift. Rift. Sounded incredibly familiar. Like she’d been told about them before. Something extremely important to her. From a friend.

Wait, Grigori Sokolov. That guy went into a rift once! And he found something incredible, something massive, something she’d been looking for. A creature of old, who towered well above the abandoned buildings and caused untold devastation wherever it went. He’d only told her because he felt the need, but advised an abundance of caution.

Regieleki.

June blew air and quickly considered her options. The odds of one of those ‘rifts’ being the same place that housed the creature wasn’t one-hundred-percent. Furthermore, she didn’t know the exact places they were– just a general landmark. Not to mention the amount of league personnel around the damn things. She needed more info, but Annalise might catch on if she was too obvious.

But she couldn’t afford to let this slip from her fingers.

“Right, right,” she set her phone in her lap and clapped her hands together. “So. Speaking of these ‘rifts’. It sounds like I might have to make a stop there every once and a while. Does that mean actually entering them, or is it just to their general location generally speaking.”

“My Pokémon might not like the idea of such a dangerous place. I’ve heard one of them is just full of electricity and shit, and that might not go well for my birds,” she said. "Not that I personally mind."

The Corviknight stared, waiting for an answer.

---

annalise henderson

Like taking candy from a baby. Except the baby is a grown woman, and the candy is information on the whereabouts of a highly volatile, dangerous being that was bigger than the building they were in. June gobbled it up as she tried to hide the excited mood that built up in her head.

“Okay, okay, no going inside the rifts. Sounds like a plan,” she nodded her head vigorously. “And do I just drop off any packages at the front desk, or can I just walk in freely, or do I need a pass? When would I get said theoretical pass? How many people do you usually keep there, so I know if repeat faces are the norm?”

A tall ask of the delivery-girl. But the Corviknight understood what was going on. It shuffled in place and gently tapped June on the head with its heavy wing. Perhaps a reminder to ease it on the words.

June went flying from the chair and landed on the floor. “Ow, hey! Knight, what the hell?”

“Corv.”

“Fine, fine! You win! Annalise, sorry, just… need to cover my bases. Yea. That,” she climbed back onto the chair and rubbed the sore spot on her skull. That’d leave a bruise for sure. “Because… I think I’m gonna take you up on that offer. So long as Knight here is also cool with it.”

The Stoic bird nodded, and a flash of purple-ish pink shined in its eyes. “See, he’s down. And don’t worry about that light-thing– he’s been doing that for a couple of weeks now.”

---

annalise henderson

Just like that, June was made into an honorary Ranger. Not very high up the ladder– hell she probably wasn’t even on the ladder. But the people at the rift wouldn’t give her a second glance as she waltzed in and went straight for the rift. This couldn’t have gone better if she tried.

The throb in her skull faded into the background. June snatched the medallion from Annalise’s fingers and gave it one quick glance as she shoved it deep in her pocket. “Perfect, great, yea, that sounds like a plan.”

There wasn’t any time to waste. Her schedule for today would need to wait– research needed to be done, supplies secured, plans planned. This was top priority. She’d finally be able to fulfill that promise she made years ago. Back when things were simpler.

“Anyway, if that’s all, just send the important stuff in an email and I can go from there,” June quickly recalled Knight as she started to back up while facing Annalise. “Thanks for this opportunity, I won’t let you down, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine, anywaythanksforhavingmebye!”

Just like that June left the glitterbomb of an office and speed-walked down the hall. There wasn’t any time to waste. But how would she get in the rift? How well did they watch the entrance? Would they even care if she just said it was okay?

Eh, fuck it. She’d wing it when the time came.

---

annalise henderson