Petalburg was a graveyard masquerading as a city. Massive mountain ranges lined the city where a Max Stonefall had landed, crushing hundreds of houses under thousands of tons of stone and soil. An entire necropolis was buried in that mountain range, and shifting it was impossible without a Power Spot.

Misery was in the air as sand and upturned earth and the clamor of reconstruction.

Inside the warehouse, darkness enveloped the Boundless like a warm blanket. Light flickered through windows. For a moment, a mechanical tail flicked past one like an irritated cat, yet it seemed like June was alone for a few moments. A moment later, seven dots lit up.

⠁⠝⠕⠞⠓⠑⠗

Stones rumbled and crashed in the distant end of the warehouse as lights flickered on. Boulders cracked as the inactive Regirock flickered to life. Before it was a man with a very familiar set of armor.

"June." A voice from an island a million miles away rang in June's ears. A voice from Ultra Plant, somehow even further away. "You came."

The figure was beaten, their armor dusty and cracked in several places, and the Regirock behind them was the same. Even still, he was recognizable, barring the man behind the mask. That was a complete mystery, purged from the mausoleum of June's mind.

"Long time, no see."

---

june sleigh

Though the eye lights would’ve let her see the massive rock creature before it scared the daylights out of her. June jumped backward and instinctively reached for a poke ball. Kin could fight one another, buy her time to get the hell away. It worked one time. Could work again.

But it did little more than rumble the earth and surprise her. What was more surprising was–

“You,” she spat out. Hatred seethed beneath the surface. But as soon as the fires erupted, so too did they fade into something else. Confusion. Mixed feelings. Desire, but repressed beyond belief. Something tugged in her brain, but remained desperately out of reach. Painfully so. She forgot something important.

What was it?

“One of these days, I’ll figure out how the hell you know so much about me,” she crossed her arms. They looked like shit. On second glance, so did the Regirock. Maybe she could put them into the dirt. “And why we keep meeting up.”

Wait. Meet up. That’s why she was here– to meet someone. A ‘recruiter’. She groaned and threw her head straight back. “And why you’re fucking here. I knew you were Rocket, but fuck. You’re telling me I gotta kiss your sorry ass?”

Maybe she should leave now and just beg Grigori for the money. He’d give it to her on a silver platter. Just at the cost of her pride and dignity. The only thing she had left.

---

howard slayte

There was a paradox at work here. An usurpation of values that the admin held dear by a person he held even dearer. There was something afoot, though the violet serpent that coiled on the roof and the pillar of stone that carried the weight of a civilization do not take notice.

Perhaps they were incapable of noticing it. This was a meeting written into being long before either being saw fit to ruin their owner's life.

"I, erm, what?" The mechanism within the helmet clicked as the armor unsealed. This should be familiar. It's a sound June has heard before, performed by someone she knew. Yet the associated face is blurred from existence. "Because you know me? We've been through this before."

The man beneath the helmet is a complete stranger. Hair fell to his shoulders, with a streak of white disrupting the monotony. Yet the eyepatch is similar. Intimately so. The way his voice carried tone and inflexion was identical to another. Even in the body of a puppet, the quirks that make Howard Slayte who he was could not be scrubbed away.

Yet...

Yet Howard Slayte wasn't here. He had hardly answered her calls or texts or asked for any deliveries. Yet before she could blink, the admin bowed his head and presented his helmet.

"I'm sorry."

---

june sleigh

June’s breath caught in her throat. Just like that, she’d learn who had confused and tormented her. First on the island, and then in the Power Plant. She knew this person on an instinctual level, but their face was distorted beyond recognition. A hole burned in her skull as anticipation decimated her expectations.

The helmet clicked off, and a full head of brown hair revealed itself. A white lick split the sea of brown and an eye patch capped the display. This stranger she knew, her mind determined. One way or another, this was a known quantity. A friend, maybe?

A potential love, in a dream she desperately tried to remember.

“Sorry for the Power Plant?” She rubbed her arm and looked awkwardly away. That day had been so charged, so emotional, yet… the reason eluded her. “It makes sense, I guess. Rocket wants things, you were there. Annalise complicated things, I think.”

She often did, when the mere hint of purple or red paraphernalia displayed itself. Most of the time, it was justified. Sometimes, just for the sake of it. But what position was she to judge? Not like she was in any better of a place.

“I mean, I guess I know you in a sense,” she said. “From that one island in September.”

Oh, maybe that was it? “Hey, since you’re here, something’s burning me on this: why did you do… whatever the fuck it was you did on that island anyway? It’s confused me for a while…”

“What’s your name again? Sorry, I think I forgot it. You're very familiar.”

Above their heads, Violet perked its head and cast its cyan gaze down below. Through a roof window it pondered just how this interaction would go. It could only be interesting. Nothing less from its chosen soul. 

Being paradoxical was a requisite. Not a bonus.

---

howard slayte

"Because I fucked up. It was a mistake." The island flashed in his mind. Matchstick falling down to earth and crashing into the sand, her wing bent at impossible angles as bones shattered and cracked against the uncaring ground. "It's just a series of unfortunate circumstances that brought us to this point. Blame Rocket. Blame the League.

Blame me. Yet those words went unsaid. A mountain of apologies could not change what had happened, especially within the circumstances of the dream.

Ameena's meddling had, unbeknownst to him, made this far more difficult. Yet at the end of the day, he knew what to say. The dream scientist had essentially laid out the dialogue options ahead of time, and June had given him the road forward.

"But that doesn't matter. It's-" The admin trailed off again in confusion. "Wait, you forgot?"

That fucking dream.

He was going to kill ameena abadi.

And Regieleki.

And Annalise.

And himself.

"I hate this face. Fuck." He clenched it with annoyance, before taking a deep breath. It had been constructed specifically to infuriate him. It had been carved from stone and ice to deride him, and to overcomplicate an already complicated matter. "Okay, fine. Fine."

He took a deep breath. He opened his eye.

"It's Howard." He put a hand on his hip. "And you're the only person I know who has more debt than me."

---

june sleigh

This was Howard?

He was the strange one from the island, and the Power Plant?

More importantly…

“You’re in Team Rocket?”

“That’s… I don’t know why I’m acting so surprised,” she crossed her arms. She’d guessed the man was into some shady shit based on his extensive order history. Internet searches told her most of his shit was from different countries. Ones that didn’t like to export their artifacts. That and a surprising amount of missing funeral urns in the world.

He might have half the ones that existed. Period.

“Wait,” she stopped herself. Don’t get distracted. Don’t let that slide. “How do you know how much debt I have? I never told you.”

Howard never stopped complaining about his debt. She bottled it up and kept it hidden from most. A few more people knew now than at the start of the year, but Howard was very much not on that list. Looked like she’d forgotten something really important. It frustrated her to no end.

Why couldn’t she remember? Did someone steal her memories? “Sounds like you know more about me and I do right now.”

---

howard slayte

"You told me." He closed the distance, peering at her for a moment, before scratching his chin in confusion. "You seriously don't remember?"

How was that possible? How did she not know? It was like a chapter of history had been purged from the records of her life. A monument to yesterday was stripped down in testament for tomorrow. Yet that made no sense. How far had Ameena's dream reached? How much had Rocket's scientist erased?

How much had June stripped away?

"You don't." He'd have to get her in a room with Ameena so she could fix this. Then he'd need to punt her off a cliff for overcomplicating this matter. It would've been easier to send her back to the top of Sky Pillar for more rocks. "You were pissed at me for shooting you out of the sky, and we stopped talking. I said a lot of stupid shit."

He paused.

"Really stupid shit."

He paused again.

"And we met in a dream and said a lot of stupid shit. You told me everything." He met her gaze. "Why didn't you tell me? I could've helped you."

---

june sleigh

Shooting her out of the sky? On the island? That was him?

Howard? Shot her out of the sky? Howard?

Howard?

Her fists balled up, and she shook silently in place as he droned on. None of his words made it to the recesses of her brain. They got stuck at the front door as she processed the information he said so casually. Like she knew it but had a momentary lapse in judgement. Except she didn’t know it.

There was no way she could remember, but this had happened before. And it would happen again, except in a different way than Howard had once chosen. This was where their relationship diverged from the previous timeline.

For starters, her fist flew forward and hit him square in the jaw. Her other hand attempted to shove the metal man down to the ground. “YOU FUCKING DUMBASS! YOU REALIZE HOW FUCKED UP MATCHSTICK WAS? YOU COULD’VE FUCKING KILLED HER!”

Since her hand couldn’t hope to do the job, she settled for her foot. It planted itself firmly into his chest and shoved.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, you fucking bastard? Why’d you wait nearly a damn year to spill your guts?!” she kept trying to push him down, yet it did not work. He was protected by a skin of metal. Impenetrable by conventional means.

Unknowingly, without intention, she latched onto his suit. Then, she utilized her newfound abilities to fry his circuitry. Hopefully it’d go to his skin and make his eyes sizzle and pop. “Fucking tell me!”


Above, Violet giggled to itself.

---

howard slayte

As if in warning, the stone colossus 'looked' upward at the paradox that hid above. Its expression did not change, nor did it make a sound beyond the shifting of boulders. Yet when faced with an entity that did not belong to this world, the golem could not help but draw interest to it.

Yet that was secondary to the opera happening under its ancient gaze.

When the strike flew, he took it with all the grace of a Wailmer doing ballet. June hit hard. Maybe it was rage. Maybe it was all the packages she carried all the time, or maybe it was the debt collectors she constantly ran from.

"I..." He spat out a globule of blood, which splattered against the concrete below. Distinctly red, distinctly bright, thrumming with power and the infusion of Eternatus. "Deserve thaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

Wafer-thin lines of metal within the suit simultaneously fried and bubbled under the electrical heat as Infinity Energy mixed with electricity fried the systems within. Another flaw in the suit, another thing to be fixed. As the suit smoked, it threatened to sear his flesh.

How was this possible? It was an anomaly. Where was her Sygna Suit to let this occur?

He saw nothing of the sort.

"Because I was afraid." Rather than focus on the horrible implications of this power, he answered the question. He spoke through sparking, jittering teeth. "Afraid that if I told you what happened, you'd hate me. That if I told you, you'd get involved in Team Rocket."

His laugh switched into a groan of pain with another electrical jerk. This was justice. It was fair.

"And when I told you, I fucked it up. It sent you down a path that you hated." The warehouse loomed around them, Regirock slowly getting to its feet as it decided if this constituted as mortal peril. "And I was right. Welcome to T̴̲̚é̸̥a̷̹̿m̴̼̋ ̶̲̒R̸̭͆o̴̖͌c̴͍̈k̷͓̓e̴̙͝t̴̠͆."

The cost of her journey was the culmination in a paradoxical nature. The Boundless of tomorrow bound by the acts of yesterday.

"Try to remember the hospital room!"

---

june sleigh

The Regirock was simply a spectator to the imminent demise of its owner. June paid it no mind as she finally let the smoking husk of a bastard go. It felt wrong, but he kept talking. Why couldn’t he just be silent? Accept his fate? It should’ve been him who nearly died, not her.

Not Matchstick. Never Matchstick.

Burn plastic and metal filled the air, alongside seared flesh. It reeked, yet it felt so… what was the word for it? Right? Justified? Whatever it was, it made her not as bothered as she should’ve been.

Not as much as his welcome to Team Rocket. She’d shown up, hadn’t she? Willing to give up morals for a bigger paycheck. What did it matter to Hoenn? It didn’t want her here anyway. Might as well milk it for all its worth and run away. Like her Dad did.

Like father, like unknowing daughter.

As Regirock stirred to life, June clutched her forehead. Not a headache physically, but mentally. “What fucking hospital room? Stop making shit up, there was no hospital room!”

When was the last time they’d been together? It’d been months. Half a year, maybe? He’d brushed her off for ‘work’ or whatever it was. There was the island. Then after the island, the holiday season. He’d ordered something. Brought up said island. She’d told him about Dad. And then she fell over. After that was–

Was… was…

“What hospital room?” She asked. Not out of anger or malice, but of genuine confusion. What happened after she fell? Why couldn’t she remember it?

Above, in response to the mountainous golem, a paradox smashed the window panes above. Glass rained down on the group as Violet plummeted to the ground. Yet it landed with grace and confidence, beside June, and stared at the pair with easy yet cautious eyes.

Ones that spoke of conflict if they dared attack. A conflict they would assuredly lose.

---

howard slayte

"You collapsed in my apartment. I took you to the hospital, and..." An idea sparked in his head. She didn't remember anything from the dream, but the circumstances of it? The details that surrounded that void? They could justify the existence of something that wasn't there.

It was like archaeology. If a piece of a skeleton was missing, there was a reason for it.

"Call Grigori! When you collapsed, I brought you to Rustboro's hospital. Matchstick was there." He silently kicked himself for not paying for it himself, or getting a receipt, but how was he supposed to anticipate this scenario? "He paid for it, so he can back me up. Call him right no-"

CRASH! The window shattered into a million pieces of flashing glass. What descended alongside translucent pieces of window was something strange.

An anomaly.

Regirock's pattern flashed as a foreign threat entered the warehouse. Except it wasn't the warehouse that mattered, it was the fact that a mechanical serpent that had no right to exist bothered to be born at all. It was a stranger in a stranger's home, an automated piece of life that did not belong in this world.

It rose, but stopped when the admin raised a hand.

"I know you." The admin spoke in wonder, recalling a book that he, Naomi Sato, and BARNABY FINCH had once looked over. "I've seen you before."

---

june sleigh

June had to pierce through the cloud of frustration before she could realize not only what had occurred, with glass that caught the moon above and attention that did not focus on her. Not now. Why would that happen?

Only the knowledge of someone else knowing her deepest, darkest, newest secret could hope to throw her off the current problem. June looked over to see none other than Violet, proud and dangerous, right by her side. Out in the open. In front of Howard. Her new boss.

An important enough person for Rocket.

Her breath caught in her lungs, and her eyes were as wide as the moon. Thoughts attempted to process a verbal explanation, a lie, incoherent ramblings, anything– yet nothing came close. A strange stream of letters left her lips, which quickly turned to a whimper.

She was fucked. Rocket knew. They’d brag about them getting the owner of Miraidon on their side. annalise henderson would kill her. freya morningstar would break down her door and have her arrested on the spot. Naomi Sato would make her join her stupid war on the DRK Triad. Fuck, they likely wanted her dead now too, didn’t they?

All it had taken was one slight overstep. One lapse of judgment, and she was ruined before she even started.

Violet shoved its body into her leg, then motioned straight to Howard. Talk, it seemed to say.

But what?

‘Threats always work,’ a disembodied voice said. She looked around, only to see herself. A different version. She looked like a proper gangster, dressed in all black and with a mask on. It looked like she was talking to someone else, and she held out her revolver. ‘I got this, and it's loaded. You can either walk out of here without your shit, or you can die on the concrete without your shit. Seems like an easy choice to me.’

Threaten her boss? Was she stupid? That’s how she died herself. Fucker had two golems. She only had one.

Violet nudged her again. Oh. Right.

“You won't tell anyone about this, you hear?” She spoke suddenly, filled with a newfound confidence. “You'll regret it for the few hours you'll have left if you do.”

Why were those her words? They weren’t hers– this timelines, or universes, rather. They belonged to that vision. But the vision was gone, and in her place was a strange confidence and urge to act against Howard. If he played rank, he’d regret it.

Being the Boundless was growing to be more of a nuisance by the hour. “Where’d you see Violet anyway?”

---

howard slayte

He stared at her for an awkwardly long moment. Being threatened to keep a secret gave the admin a strange feeling of deja vu. It was a sensation that she couldn't understand, because June's memory was completely and utterly empty to the Matchstick-adjacent drama that had followed the hospital room.

"I'm not going to inform Rocket. It'd ruin everything if I did." It'd put eyes on her, and if the wrong people in Rocket knew of her power, then she'd be forced to play her hand. Rocket would force her to indulge in slaughter, and the League would hate her. "Promise."

He would not allow June to follow the path that he had. Not fully.

It was one that would leave her miserable. Just as miserable as he was now.

The serpent was named Violet? The admin's eye twitched as Howard regarded the Paradox Pokémon. If fate was real, then she was a cruel mistress. Evil and vindictive, mocking and proof of entropy.

"Because we have undeniable proof of its existence." Howard stood shakily, his limbs threatening to betray him even now. Damn, she was strong. Why had June been given powers? What was it for? "There's a document known as the Violet Book. It's on the cover."

---

june sleigh