Scout would be the first to admit he wasn't the most literarily gifted. There were plenty of good reasons why he had decided to join the rangers after graduating high school — and their strict diploma requirements, perhaps, could be credited for why he was allowed to walk at all. But really who could say.

To be clear: he was literate, in the loosest definition of the word.

A calligrapher, however, he was not.

So he figures that's all Mx. Adele wants to talk to him about when he gets the email asking for his prompt appearance at their desk in the internal affairs wing. Regarding the wild Pokémon rehabilitation and release candidacy report submitted this morning, the email had said. Please bring the original paperwork for review.

It's understandable. Though in his defense, Scout thinks it's also understandable to be in a bit of a rush going through all the describe condition of candidate Pokémon's coat, if applicable, including texture, luster, and thickness and describe candidate Pokémon's appetite and meal schedule in the past 48 hour cycle and describe candidate Pokémon's human or inter-species aggression and territorial behavior, if any and blah blah blah blah. It's crazy, how up to their ears in bureaucracy the Rangers are sometimes.

At the very least they're not... whatever the hell this department is, though. Scout doesn't envy the life of the 9-to-5 salaryman, with their desks all pushed together only separated by the flimsiest of plastic dividers like pet shop Pawmis. He keeps his head down.

Scout stops in front of Mx. Adele and gently taps on their cubicle wall adjacent to a neighboring empty desk. His arms are piled high with a Torterra tree's worth of paperwork.

"Ranger Wilder," he says, and waits politely to be asked to sit, or to go elsewhere, or to be acknowledged, or something.


adele veronesi