One down. One to go.

And the one left stood in defiance, beautiful and glorious. Grigori was trying to hinder her? She always seemed in control, confident, unwilling to compromise in anything as she marched forward to seize her destiny. But he had seen her frail and fragile, unconscious on a war-torn beach. He had seen her cower before an Excadrill.

She could not shoulder the burden of fighting a titan. Only he could.

This had been his battle long before hers.

"June." Howard continued to follow her, his armor creaking as he did so. His cape flapped in the Blizzard, its maelstrom growing in intensity as the Trick Room broke them from the shackles of the world. Yet those shackles were beginning to return, the legacy of June's Magearna beginning to end.

When they returned, the Regieleki suspended in the air would fight with all its power.

He had to stop her. Subdue it. Capture it. Save her.

"June." The Regieleki was struck by the Xurkitree's strike. Howard reached out his hand as the Blizzard reached its apex. He saw something familiar in her hand. His eye widened.

A Pokeball.

No.

She did not deserve this fate.

"JUNE!" He lunged towards her, aiming to tackle her to the ground before she could throw the Pokeball. But as his hand reached her, the ball left her grasp.

---

june sleigh annalise henderson

In the end, it was not the desire to move on that drove June to pull back her hand, armed with a Hisuian ball steeped in bad memories and despairing events. Even if she moved on, the echoes of her past would forever ring on. One can not outrun lightning, and the same goes for the past. It’d cling to her shadow until she drew her final breath in this fucked up world.

Nor was it the desire for power. Control. So much had been taken from her. Homes, family, friends, stability, freedom, comfort, trust, safety. With the might of this Regieleki, she could have ensured that it ended there. Break the cycle. But power could not rebuild bridges. Defy death. Those things were gone, never to come back.

And it wasn’t anger, either. Howard had caused her misery. Grief. So too had the League, and Rocket as well. Revenge could be hers, in the form of a golem imbued with limitless electricity. With a flick of her wrist, she could turn it all to cinders and ash. Yet how many bastards would that create? They would not remember the tragedies of their ancestors, but the sins by her hand. Misery begets misery.

Lighting pulsed from the dozens of hearts in the sky, veins that gave power to the heart that was the Power Plant. From the afterglow of a railgun, as reality returned to as it once was and Howard closed the distance, June did not aim for the Regieleki to fulfill the promise she once made.

It was never June's, after all. It belonged to no one.

She threw the ball because of fear.

Fear that if she didn’t, then the moment would be lost forevermore, never to return. Of a truth so ingrained in reality, so carved into her fate, that death proved more comfortable than its cold, sickening embrace. To capture this behemoth, this ever-illusive creation would be to prove that she could keep running.

Fear that she’d have to live.


“I’M NOT AFRAID!”



Hypocrisy followed the ball as it aimed to swallow the heart and kill the senses.

---

Capture Attempt on Regieleki with a Hisuian Poke Ball.

ULTRA PLANT: JAH

RIDE THE LIGHTNING

[player]https://file.garden/ZXZrnWMYuz15frfJ/HOENN%20MUSIC/kalos%20power%20plant.mp3[/player]

"you've been preparing for this forever, june. you even have a whole, like, strategy playbook, don't you? just don't miss your throw with that fancy ball when the time comes."[break][break]

- annalise henderson

ALL OF JUNE'S FEARS ARE PLACED INTO THAT HISUIAN POKEBALL. Her dreams. Her hopes. Break the cycle. Defy death.

She could do it now—if luck is on her side.

It soars past ice and lightning, away from June's falling hand, toward the REGIELEKI seemingly indifferent to her plight.

Fate is a fickle thing.

In one timeline, there is no annalise henderson. In spite of howard slayte's warnings, june sleigh is roped in. Killed in action.

In another timeline, howard slayte tackles june sleigh before she can throw an Ultra Ball.

In another timeline, june sleigh's Beast Ball lands—but it fails to capture the electric titan.

In another timeline, they wear shorts.

But the anomalies of Universe 820 have assembled as the perfect reactants for this fated chemical reaction. The HISUIAN POKEBALL. The REGICE. annalise henderson and her sincere hopes for a dear friend.

Everyone would watch as the ball disappears into the grand luminescence of this walking, electrical charge. For a second, june sleigh's heart would drop, for there is no sign of impact. However, encapsulating the energy of a DYNAMAXED REGIELEKI takes time. And after a few thunderous arcs lash out into the hostile environment of this alienscape, the REGIELEKI begins to shrink. It is vacuumed into june sleigh's HISUIAN POKEBALL...

And from the sky, it falls. Lands on a long jutting slope of wire. As it rolls, the ball shakes. Jumps. And in a puzzling contradiction of old and new, a Baghdad Battery of titanic proportions, expels a triumphant spout of steam.

GOTCHA! REGIELEKI WAS CAUGHT!

june sleigh may place REGIELEKI into her PERSONAL COMPUTER and choose its moveset like a GACHAPON POKEMON.

Although REGIELEKI has been caught, its energies have defused into the circuitry of this plane. A SHARD OF REGIELEKI will forever remain here, unable to leave as a perpetual echo of its displacement here.

Furthermore, the REGIELEKI appears to be able to DYNAMAX without a band, for a portion of the POWER SPOT in NEW MAUVILLE is housed within its insular cage...

For now, june sleigh and annalise henderson must rush toward the HISUIAN POKEBALL, so hot with capture, before howard slayte can. After all, there is an engine to be charged in the near future.

PLEASE NOTE:
Capturing a Legendary Pokemon in this manner will likely not happen again.

june sleigh annalise henderson howard slayte
ART CREDIT

No.

The ball twitched once as the admin crashed into June.

NO.

The ball twitched twice as he looked up to see the Hisuian Pokeball tremble. The ancient mechanism clicked and whirred as steam was forced through the system. In the background, annalise henderson and her loyal knight were buried in an avalanche of ice and snow. Regice sat at the pinnacle of the battlefield for the brief moment that Regieleki was contained in the prehistoric capsule.

NO.

The ball twitched thrice. It was too far away. He couldn't break the Pokeball. He couldn't untie the noose that June was tying, nor could he stop her from interweaving her fate with his.

NO!

Regieleki was built by humanity, for humanity. There was a purity to its endless war with Eternatus. There was a graciousness to its wandering of this irradiated world.

As long as mankind answered the call, its purity would go unmarred forevermore.

Click.

REGIELEKI WAS CAUGHT.

"No! I forbid it! I won't let you do this!" If she picked up that Pokeball, she would be fighting humanity's battles forever. Until Eternatus was dead, June's life would be at risk. Team Rocket would never let her go now. She was a person of note.

He had failed.

I'm sorry, Grigori. I failed.

I failed her.

I don't know where the girl I went to the carnival with went.

But if she picks up that Pokeball, I know her death is sealed.

Eternatus will kill her.

He saw her corpse on a field of ash under a violet sky. Her father hadn't wanted this. Grigori hadn't wanted this. Howard hadn't wanted this. Her dream would kill her. He had to crush it now.

"REGICE!" Howard let out a roar as the construct turned to face the duo. With a massive flash, the golem's Blizzard extended, causing the ground to freeze and cover in ice. As Howard lunged for the Hisuian Pokeball, he found his foot caught in the freeze.

June, meanwhile, was unencumbered.

Howard turned towards the golem, face twisted with rage.

"WHY!?"

A pattern flashed back.

⠙⠑⠋⠑⠝⠙ ⠓⠕⠍⠑

---

june sleigh annalise henderson

Nothing happened. June fell, and nothing happened. Regieleki consumed the ball, another piece of material to be disintegrated and discarded. Nothing happened. It did not care. How could it? They were not threats to Hoenn. They were not in Hoenn. For once, the weight that threatened to crush her bones and suffocate her felt like freshly fallen snow, light and ignorable.

Then something changed. The heart struggled against the capture, yet all Pokémon are subjected to the design of the Poke Ball. Even those as ancient as Regieleki, as electronically charged as Regieleki, and as full of dyna-energy as Regieleki. After all the Earthquakes and the terrifying display of power in a Zap Cannon, it couldn’t hope to fight back.

Thus, the golem was swallowed whole, and her senses died in the aftermath.

Howard rose, and so did she. The Cold threatened to finish the deal– except it didn’t. It had no intention. For Regice, even as cold and unfeeling as it was, it understood what this meant. In a way, it was the only one that could. For better or worse.

But desire drove her forward. Fear. Shaky legs hobbled her body across the distance, and not from the cold. The promise was fulfilled. She’d caught the fastest thing alive. That meant she could be free now, right? Live her life. Dad would be happy. Content. The grief was gone, and life was better.

There it was. Freedom. The ladder to leave the pit. Even as Howard struggled to save her from a fate she’d hate with every fiber of her being, her legs bent. She collapsed. But the Hisuian Ball was in her hands.

And then, light exploded onto the scene. From the ball, inadvertently clicked open, emerged The Regieleki. Her Regieleki. It beeped its impossibly obtuse language, back to the small form she and Annalise saw a month prior. It radiated electricity, and all her frozen-stiff hairs rose to attention. It bounced, unable to sit still, and awaited her command.

“... Why?”

A question a machine could never hope to answer. So it didn’t.

“Why does it still hurt?”

No response. She was still alone. Stuck in the pit. Where was the relief? Slowly, her head craned to Annalise in the distance. Right. Her companion. Her friend. She was here too. The only reason she accomplished her goals, and the only one she could trust to know what it felt like.

“A-Annalise?” The only one who would know what it felt like to have the rug pulled from underneath. “I-I need… help…”

Finally. A command it could answer. One as simple as electricity itself. Regieleki beeped incessantly, and its energy surged. The veins were still subjected to its whims, and they carried the lifeblood of the Power Plant downard. Thunderbolts that threatened to drown Howard and Regice in thunder.

“Why?”

---

annalise henderson howard slayte

Lightning struck down, vindictive and wrathful.

No, that wasn't right. It was neither of those things, because the golem standing across from him did not feel. None of them did. There was a beauty to the Legendary Giants, a kind of purity that few Pokémon possessed. Many were wrathful, vindictive, willing to meddle in the affair of humans for no reason at all.

Regieleki was different. Regice was different. They were built to serve the whims of man.

There was a purity to them that meant that they fought completely without malice. A machine did its best to fulfill its duties, regardless of the emotions directed towards it. Even when one was damaged beyond repair, they continued to fulfill their duty without complaint.

It was unfair. Their existence only became meaningless once mankind rejected that purity.

Hoenn had rejected Regieleki, yet it still fought on and rained down thunder on Regice and its master. It fought just as gracefully as it had when it was first sent here, presumably at the conclusion of the Three Days War.

"ACK— The admin screamed as lightning crashed down, causing rubble to explode and spray everywhere, with a large chunk striking the admin in the visor, causing it to shatter. Regice could not compete with its sibling. It was weary from battle, critically wounded, and lacking in raw power.

Regieleki could charge Galar if it wished. Regice's heart had been missing since the League had pulled the Power Spot from its corpse. The latter was vastly outclassed. It frustrated it so.

The thick cloud of dust around Howard and Regice began to dissipate. The frozen construct lay limb, its pattern dead and blank. The admin next to it stared forward at June and Annalise, an eye peering out from behind the shattered mess of the visor.

"June." The static that scrambled his voice was broken. "Don't do this. Please."

The man behind the mask was broken as well.

"If you take Regieleki and leave this place with it, you'll wage war for the sake of humanity, against a dragon that will swallow this world. It's not glorious. It's misery. An entrapment of fate that will ensnare you both."

His cape flapped in the wind.

"June Sleigh. Annalise Henderson." Ice crept up the admin's armored boots as he looked at them both, defiant yet spent. They were broken, yet Regieleki was mighty enough to carry them both to victory against him. "If you take this Pokemon, made by our ancestors..."

"...you will be fighting their battles forever."

---

june sleigh annalise henderson

Even with the support of Annalise, the world spun on its head. She’d done it. She caught the Regieleki. Everything should be better now. Mentally, anyway. Except it wasn’t. Seeds of regret bloomed in her chest, and doubts crept into her mind. Much more than before this whole experience began.

Further fueled by him. His words… could they be true?

No. They couldn’t. Not because he lied, but because she would ensure they weren’t.

That’s why she ignored the clouds that hung above and threatened to kill them all. Ignored the fallen frigid golem, and the one that pulsed with enough power to make a generator blush, and any attempt for Annalise to steer them towards the exit. They were secondary, meaningless.

While Howard rambled, June reached for her side. Not for the Poke Balls, but for the iced-over steel on her hip. As soon as Howard finished his monologue, he was face-to-face with the one he sought to desperately protect. Dazed, confused, sad, and tired.

And, as he soon found out when a pinpoint blackness filled to the brim with mortal dread, desperate. Click.

“Shut up,” she choked out. The barrel hovered in front of and smacked into his visor. Her arm shook, and every breath threatened to topple her into a pile on the ground. “Shut up!”

“You’re fucking wrong. I’m not playing your games. I don’t have any ancestors. They’re all lost. Their battles aren’t mine. I ain’t bound by shit.”

“All this is was a ticket out. Freedom. What, do I have to wait a week? A month? A year, ten years?! How much longer until I get over it? You act smart, so tell me.”

“Fucking tell me!”

---

annalise henderson howard slayte

 

Silence. Nothing but the flapping of cloth, the crackle of lightning, and the slow crawl of ice filled the air as the admin closed his eye in response to Annalise's claims. When June screamed at him, Howard said nothing. He did nothing. He was as still as the golem he claimed.

"..."

He opened his eye.

"It's a chain. Just because it's made of lightning doesn't mean that you won't feel its caress. Do you feel free, June?" Howard's eye fell on the gun staring him in the face. For once, he didn't feel afraid. He only felt disappointment. "It doesn't get easier. It never does. Mountains will crumble, the oceans will evaporate, and life will fade."

No, June was not free. His killer would never be free for as long as she lived.

This was the legacy that Grigori Sokolov chose to protect.

The admin slowly reached for a Pokeball at his belt. The gun did not fire. She had every reason to kill him, but he knew that it was unlikely that the gun would fire. Maybe it'd be better if it did. A bullet was far less destructive than the blast from a Golurk, but somehow it would do more damage.

"This is not freedom. The only ticket that Regieleki has bought you is one of conflict. Rocket will chase you now. As will the League. You will never be free again." Howard blinked once, slowly. "Regice hasn't freed me. It's chained me."

"But you can fix that."

He was silent for a spell. He jerked his chin towards the gun.

"Do it."

---

june sleigh annalise henderson

The gun shook. June shook against Annalise. Her finger shook. The sky rumbled, the earth groaned, and the golems watched. Several long seconds passed, each one as agonizing as the one before. Even in the face of death, he could only look towards the bigger picture. Lost in the forest, never to see the trees.

The opposite side of the coin they shared.

Her heavy breaths were the only thing she heard. Howard the only thing she saw. The pitiful, pitiful man who would run away from responsibility, even into the land of death. He’d run and hide behind Death’s Door if necessary. He hid behind the mask. He ran from their relationship.

And, in the fraction of a second she had the courage, June nearly let him run from Regice.

But before her muscle twitched, and he was freed from his curse, she saw someone else in the cracked reflection. Annalise, still by her side. Still there, even if only a witness to an execution. Through it all.

Despite everything, she was still there.

June sniffed, and a tear streaked past the blood and ice that covered her face. Now, she looked at Annalise through the reflection in the mirror. “This was supposed to help me. But it’s not.”

“And this won’t either,” the barrel dropped. She turned to the ranger, her shoulders slumped and frame filled with defeat.

‘I don't know if I'll ever come back from what happened to me.’

‘The last thing I want is to be stuck in the past. It hurts– you know how it is.’

'If I was your dad, I'd be dead.'

”What will? Please, I–I… I need something. Anything. I did it. I made his promise. But he won’t leave me alone. I’ll do anything, say anything, find anything.”

“I still need him, Anna. Please. There’s gotta be something to b-bring him…”

The lost little Fletchling begged for an answer. Release. As she gripped tighter, it only got worse. But she didn’t want to let go.

---

annalise henderson howard slayte