Just before she could raise her fist to punch the thing black and blue, a voice rang out from the entrance of the alleyway. June whipped her head around, only to see a pink-haired girl with… another living alphabetical letter. What the fuck? “Who the hell are you?”

“And what does it look like?” She looked back to the letter, which hadn’t moved an inch from its place on the wall. It did look a little relieved at the save, but that quickly disappeared when it noticed June had returned her attention to it. “I’m gonna show that bastard Father Winter what happens when you fuck with me.”

Some shred of reason crept into her mind, like the chill of late winter. Maybe she should explain this a little bit, to the person that had another letter Pokemon in their arsenal. She couldn’t afford the jail time for Pokémon Abuse-- unwarranted Pokémon Abuse. This one deserved everything it got.

“Y’know, that one guy. He sent out all those flyers in November? He… did something. And he had this thing with him when he did it,” she called over her shoulder. It’d been all over the forums she frequented for the happenings in Hoenn. June hadn’t been the only one fucked over by that guy.

“I’m about to get us a lead on that bastard, one way or another.” She narrowed her eyes at the letter, which looked past the very angry woman to the one with a kindred spirit. If looks could talk, this one begged for help.

---

Naomi Sato

“What… what do you mean? I know what I saw!” June yelled as she helplessly watched the Unown take the lifeline provided by the strange woman. How it cowered behind her. Her already bone-white knuckles clenched harder until nails painfully dug into her skin.

“That fucker,” she jabbed a finger at the terrified Unown-D, “was there! It was there when that asshole sent me back in time, or whatever!”

Who cared if she had another Unown behind her, this one blue? And why the hell did she say ‘not all Unown’? Nothing made sense. This scenario was almost perfectly orchestrated, down to the way she tried to defuse the situation. She racked her brain for any sort of explanation.

… Oh. June laughed darkly. “Oh, you fucking bitch. I see what’s going on here.”

“You’re working with that guy, aren’t you?” Of course, that was how she knew where to go. Why ‘not all Unown belong to him’. The rest of them belonged to her, evidenced by the one in her possession. These stupid things of fate, or legend, or whatever the hell was about them– she was in cahoots with that Father Winter Fucker!

“I don’t need to tell you my name, you should know it by now,” she slammed one fist into another, her eyes narrowing onto Naomi’s with ferocious intensity. “He sent you here to laugh in my face, didn’t he? Came to kick me back down in the dirt, yea?! You've got another thing comin' if you think I'm just gonna let you make a laughingstock out of me again!”

---

Naomi Sato

June’s mind raced as she struggled to remember the term for these kinds of people. The kind that had these fucky powers, and often-times used them to absolutely destroy random schmucks on either side of the conflict. She knew it happened because she heard about it all the time. They were terrifying, and awful.

Started with an A. Or, maybe, the better term was–

“Y-you’re one of them ava-freaks.”

Despite all the attempts to convince June from one false narrative into a more sensible, truer one, it instead shot a jolt of fear through her nerves. Father Winter, his ‘peer’, the ‘DRK Triad’-- all felt less important, suddenly. Inconsequential. Instead, she recoiled from the eyes of red and hand offered to her in ‘alliance’.

It looked a lot more scary than that Father Winter guy ever did. However, as the seconds dragged on, it became clear that this girl wasn’t going to attack her immediately. Maybe she waited for her to make the first move, so she could push her down and obliterate her. Or maybe she wasn’t going to at all.

June’s eyes narrowed, and she returned to half of her original posture. Still wary, with her body ready to flip around and run in a moment’s notice. “Who the hell are you?”

“S-sorry I said you were with him, or whatever, okay? Sorry I was gonna hurt that stupid living letter,” she pointed to the still hiding D. “But… you show up out of nowhere, speak cryptically, and then get fucking scary on me. You and your own letter.”

“And tell me I’m up shit creek without a paddle,” she spit out. “So what do I have to do with any of this? I just want to beat the shit out of him, not, y’know, fight Arceus or figure out the secrets of reality-- I don't even know what the fuck a Dark Triad is!”

What stake does she have in this weird struggle? She's just a delivery girl. A nobody.

---

Naomi Sato

There was enough whiplash in the last two minutes to put an entire room of car crash victims to shame. From cryptic, to angry, and now to nice, it left June entirely confused as to what the hell was going on from the avatar. Did power from a living alphabet also take away some of the screws in your head? Was Nomi bipolar now? Multiple Personalities?

Or was she just fucking with her because she was an avatar and held all the power in the conversation– the situation? Hard to say, harder to know, and hardest to keep the frustration in June’s chest down.

So, what, her choices were to kiss ass or eat shit? Join a battle against some group she’d only heard rumors of and cared for even less, all for a chance to get back at the guy who fucked her over? Showed her a life she’d never have? Rubbed it in her face. What a joke. But why did she feel like she was the punchline for the umpteenth time this month?

Even if it wasn’t Nomi’s intention, she’d shown June just how out of reach her petty revenge was. How stupid she looked right now, in the face of someone who actually knew the circumstances. The thoughts invaded her mind, in those few seconds. As they dragged on, it multiplied upon itself exponentially, until–

“GRRAAAAA!”

She turned around and sent her foot into the nearest silver trash can. Unfortunately for her, someone must’ve thrown away construction-grade bricks, as it didn’t budge underneath her force. Pain shot up her foot like a lance, and she immediately clutched it with gritted teeth. “Fuck, ow!”

Her back hit the wall, and her head followed much gently after. “I don’t want to play a stupid part. Or start over. Or hurt some dark triad. I just want to fight this one guy– but I guess I didn't realize I was trying to get involved in some power struggle fuckery.”

"So sorry for wanting to not be stepped on. Next time I'll play my part perfectly, and let all you fuckers step all over me while you fight for control of the universe, or whatever," she said. Her foot throbbed alongside her heart. June had learned her place in the pond power struggle that was Hoenn during the war on the island. And when howard slayte decided to be an asshole to her. And with Father Winter. And with annalise henderson after the alient world. "Just fuck me, right?"

---

Naomi Sato

Catastrophic? Cata-fucking-strophic?! June scoffed. “What, you think I’m stupid or something? I’ve lived here my whole life– we’re in a fucking winter. In Hoenn. Shouldn’t be below fifteen degrees, and yet here I am freezing my ass off. Of course shit's going to hell.”

And why did it feel like this stranger was trying to get her to join a cult? It felt like a Rocket sales pitch, but instead of the ‘catastrophic’ being about the incompetency of the League, it was about how there was a shadow organization secretly controlling the region. The message belonged on a conspiracy theory channel.

But…

“It’s not like I don’t want things to be better,” she said. Why was she even humoring this? Everything about this whole scenario screamed insanity. A horrible dream she’d yet to awake from. “But what do you expect me to do? I’m not joining Rocket, certainly not joining the League, and I’m not about to join some third, more mysterious war that I still know jack about!”

If the stranger wanted to keep her secrets about whatever the hell a dark triad was about, then fine. But she wasn’t about to sign a contract without even a glance at the terms. One of them had to budge on information, and she had none to give.

“Just–” she let her foot fall, and she crossed her arms, “anything. At all. I've heard used car salesmen be more up front than you, and they'll try to pitch you blinker fluid with a straight face. How dangerous we talking, how big is the dark triad, and, hell, why do they also have the same letter Pokémon you have, yet you're on the good side?"

She finger-gunned to the D that hovered behind Nomi's shoulder. It yelped, then quickly floated back down to the safety of cover. It shivered into her back, still unthrilled by the mere existence of the delivery girl.

---

Naomi Sato

“...Makes sense.”

It didn’t make any sense. It was entirely on her to expect a single thing that made any sort of sense at all. This was nuts. Crazy. Insane. If she were in a better place in any sense of the word, she’d either run off or call the cops on her and be done with it. Let them take care of the nutter.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t. Furthermore, this girl was one of them avatar people– which meant she might have some (NO MORE, NO LESS) idea of what she was talking about. But… apocalypse? Destroying worlds? Arceus, for… Arceus’ sake? Still nuts. Incomprehensible. Hell, that meteor threat had been weird enough.

Yet it wasn’t like what she asked of June was too out there. Just be nice to this little letter? Not every day she got asked to babysit one-twenty-sixth of the alphabet. She looked at it cautiously, unsure of what to do next.

“Well. I guess. I could, y’know, make sure it doesn’t attack anyone. Or something,” she said. “Though odds are, it’ll be following me up as I beat the shit out of someone.”

Not that she wanted to, but she knew better than to pretend she’d be violence-free in this hell-hole that was Hoenn. “I’m gonna call you…”

“Dee. I’m June.”

The Unown arched its only ‘eyebrow’. “What? You’re a D, and if you say it out loud, it’s Dee.”

‘Dee’ looked to Nomi hesitantly.

---

Naomi Sato