After all the processing and legal mambo jumbo, June took her belongings furiously from the tan plastic tray. This was stupid. Dumb as hell. Protect and serve her ass, this was extortion. What she did failed to even approach 20 grand in fees and tickets. No way around it.

But she did look at Howard somewhat sheepishly as she stepped into the common area. It had almost been her own twenty grand out of her pocket. They both knew she couldn’t afford it. A little bit of humility was a fair price for such a large sum.

Even if some of her paychecks had been much larger.

“Thanks again, I guess,” she said. “Can we get the fuck out of here now? I think I’ll throw up if I have to stay any longer.”

He better not ask what happened. Just lead the way, open the car door for her, and let the drive back to her place be quiet.

"Blame the League, though. No way in hell what happened was worth twenty-grand."

---

howard slayte

"One sec." The admin sighed as he lost his game due to the twinge of distraction. "Let's go."

This was definitely a waste of time. The trip to Slateport was, as Grigori noted, a long one. June had eaten a hole in his wallet, and it wasn't a particularly small one. Minute for Rocket standards, very noticeable on an account ledger. He'd have to pull the money from the ether to ensure there was no trail.

Sometimes having no money was a blessing.

"It wasn't a bad drive, though. Fuck Slateport's traffic. I don't know how you do it." He peered at her, then at the DA office behind them. "Though I guess you don't, if you're getting pulled over."

20,000 PD. Arceus.

"Am I gonna need to do this again?"

---

june sleigh

“I’ll have you know this is only the… seventh? Time? I’ve been pulled over in Slateport,” June crossed her arms and followed behind Howard. “I’ve been driving through the city for like, ten years. That’s a pretty good record. The second time I’ve been arrested, too.”

Gone was the shame, as if it had never existed. But in her defense, her competency as a driver had been called into question. It demanded a stalwart defense of the highest caliber. This was a one-time fluke, little more.

“And no, probably not,” June said. It was characteristically warm outside, but when wasn’t it? “I don’t plan on… utilizing, my same strategy again. It didn’t work well.”

Even if he were her superior, he’d get a kick in the nuts if he asked her to tell him what it was.

“What, you’d leave me to rot next time or something? I thought you hired me to be your errand girl– can’t do that if I can’t drive,” she said. Then, she snapped her fingers, “Oh, speaking of, we gotta go to the impound lot. They put my ride in there.”

If there was so much as a single blemish on it, she’d get more than arrested after she beat the cop's ass.

---

howard slayte

"Nah, I'll just cut your pay. I'm not a monster." It's a halfhearted threat, but June chased wealth in the same way that Howard did. Debt was a powerful motivator, especially when they were both used to destitution. "Prove to you that crime doesn't... y'know."

Instead, Howard was paying. Again. He'd likely be paying his hospital bills if he continued to blab at someone capable of kicking his ass in a thousand different ways.

He still had no idea how her funky powers worked.

"We'll drive over. Hop in. If I see Violet chained up with a padlock, I'll lock you in a cell and throw away the key." Howard slid into the driver's seat and adjusted the Aerodactyl that dangled on the rearview mirror. The only thing more embarrassing than June's attempt to avoid prison was the fact that she had to drive in Howard's car.

A fate worse than death.

"Wait, what was the first arrest?" He frowned and looked up in interest. "How bad was it?"

---

june sleigh

June slugged his arm. Hard. “Fuck you. Have you forgotten–”

She looked around. Right, maybe don’t yell that they did highly illegal shit in their free time to the afternoon crowd that hustled and bustled home or to bars. Instead, she waited until they got inside his shitty car and the doors slammed shut.

“That crime literally pays? For both of us?”

The paychecks were much fatter than her dingy drug deals. Much, much fatter. It was unfair to make her pay for something entirely out of her hands. Who knew non-straight cops were such fucking pricks when it came to bribing with a little eye candy?

“First was an assault. Beat the shit out of some shitty manager at The Game Corner,” she spit out. “Fucker had it coming.”

If only she could’ve gotten her hands on the owner. As it was, she was extremely lucky to get off with a minor assault on her record and a similar situation as now. How much the situation would’ve changed if it was just a different person she came across.

“It wasn't that exciting, trust me," she said as her chair sank backwards, until she was nearly parallel with the road. "Pretty one sided. Got stopped before it got too bloody. And I'm banned from The Game Corner and all its subsidiaries-- which is funny. As I'd ever want to fuck with their predatory bullshit."

Arceus, now she was all riled up for no reason. An angry sigh escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes and jammed her hands behind her head. Her elbow jammed into Howard's side. "Don't forget the one way roads. Need to u-turn immediately."

Maybe being a backsteat driver would get out some of the steam.

---

howard slayte

June telling him how to drive was hilarious, given she was the one who had been dragged out on bail. He wondered how often she got hit by road rage.

"Stop that. I'm not your punching bag, and I'm concentrating." He shoved her elbow out of the way as he made a morally questionable left turn. "You always fight first and ask questions later. I think this is the first time you've actually used your words."

And she had immediately gotten arrested. If there was a Pokeathalon medal for trouble with law enforcement, June had to have the bronze medal. Maybe the silver one, if she was lucky.

Or if she punched another cop.

"The Game Corner? Seriously? That place is a front. We launder a lot of our funds through it." It was partially how Rocket paid for Howard's salary. He decided not to mention that June was getting paid with Game Corner blood money. "Did you lose a bunch of money?"

A million in debt, and there were a lot of ways to funnel money down the drain.

---

june sleigh

“Dad lost everything.”

Her tone shifted downward, and she looked noticeably more tired. As if even the mere mention of her debt troubles, their specific origins, had run their course on her psyche. It was a tale as old as time, to be fair.

“House, shop, business, his savings, my savings– only thing he didn’t pawn off was the bike…” she trailed off as she stared at the glowing orange lights that blocked out the stars. There was an irony to this that she didn’t know well. But it was there. And it hurt. “Don’t know why this feels so surprising.”

In a way, she had stepped back into the Game Corner to pay off her debts. The house always won, after all. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. “Take a right here. It’ll save you a minute.”

If she’d fought the owner, she would’ve died just like Dad. That would bother most people, but not her. What else could they take? They already had it all.

“Guess… didn’t expect the terrorist organization to do something as trivially evil as prey on vulnerable people,” she muttered. It sounded even stupider once it left her mouth. Should’ve just stayed silent.

June reached forward and twisted the various knobs. “Which is worse– Rocket for doing it, or League for not doing anything about it?”

---

howard slayte

Silence, then a right turn.

"I'm sorry." Every time he uttered the word, he expected June to hit him. Apologies brought back memories of Matchstick. Matchstick brought back the fact that she wanted him dead. They were associates. She worked for him, and he did for her what nobody had done for him.

When he had joined Rocket, they had bought him and turned him into a slave. His future was closed to anything but Team Rocket. June didn't deserve that. He suspected it would kill her.

What was the Boundless if they were wrapped in chains?

"You know the answer to that." They both knew it, but as soon as the words were uttered into existence, they were given meaning. It was the same reason that he hated thinking of himself as Team Rocket. Every day, he woke up and realized that this was his existence. Every day, he wanted to die a little more.

He had told someone that he wanted to live, once. Who was that?

"Rocket is the one that did that to you. Remember that. Blame the hand that cast you down, not the absence of the hand that should've been there to help you up." He sighed and gave June a side-eye, before quickly focusing back on the road.

"When I signed up for Rocket, I needed money. They offered it, and I signed my future away. Remember the Excadrill? The coffee shop? The Funtasia? I was so close to leaving Rocket. Then they pulled me up and said I was special. If I leave, they'll kill me." His eye stared off into infinity. "Is that worse than the League being a moderately inept government?"

"Or are we just complete fuck-ups?"

---

june sleigh

June did not hit him this time. It was well into the ‘how could you ever know’ category. It was a tidbit buried until someone close to her poked in just the right place. He was the third– annalise henderson the second. Grigori first. Matchstick was a travesty, a close call. This was buried history. The kind he excelled at unearthing.

It was going to come up eventually. She knew it instinctively. Instead, June sighed. “Not your fault.”

This time.

But not the next. She still didn’t strike him. Physically, that was. “Bystanders are no better than the people doing it, Howard. If you were being beaten up, and people just watched, you’d be pretty pissed at them. I'd know, trust me.”

It was part of what drove her to act. Do things. Help. Cause she’d been there, and she wanted to scream at everyone involved until they ran away or agreed. Nobody had done the second part yet. Maybe someday soon.

“I’m not insane enough to argue that Rocket is good– but it takes a pretty corageous government to let Kyogre murder… how many innocent people again? A few thousand? Ten thousand?”

Once more, the conversation with Annalise came to mind. Was Kyogre the one to ask them how many saved was good enough? People weren’t horseshoes or hand grenades. Good enough wasn’t good enough.

“Fiasco with the Pokémon limit, too,” she added. “And, y'know, the fucking PUBLIC FORUM that Rocket BLATANTLY said that THEY DID NOT ATTACK. What a nice, caring, and present hand the League government had.”

When she'd heard that... it was almost comedic. People were hurt, scared, injured-- all for fucking publicity? Sure, Rocket was not exactly truthful when it came to their actions, but when was the League? The afformentioned Pokemon Limit came to mind. Blatant publicity stunt that backfired horrifically. It was all too fitting for this to backfire as well. It was incredible, how amazingly the League managed to fumble public trust. If it were a game, they'd be neck and neck with a fucking terrorist organization. Incredible.

“So, Howard, what is the answer? Dying to know-- but from my perspective, sounds a little grey to me. Unless Rocket lied about the attack. In which case, fair enough. Still doesn't explain the rest of it though.”

---

howard slayte

"We've made the League into what they are now. We've raised the stakes so far that they will struggle with the moral quandary that has stricken governments since we first discovered that people bleed when you stab them."

A realization that, paradoxically, every human failed to understand despite the fact that it had happened a thousand times before. Realizations such as this made the admin a pessimist, as optimistic as he tended to be about tomorrow.

"They're forced to ask if victory is worth sacrificing freedom. Seems they found their answer with Kyogre, no? They cracked Sootopolis open like an egg and now it's ours to repair. Money that I have to find, money built on the suffering of others."

His eye twitched. This had been so much easier when Howard's job was to simply sell artifacts and raid tombs. When was the last time he had practiced his craft? When had he last been an archaeologist instead of an admin? Even if that part of him never faded, it was certainly buried under a thousand miles of paperwork.

"War is good for business. If the League wanted to end Rocket, they could've crushed us. They did not. Thus the war continues, and I'm here doing this fucking job until they finally kill me."

A genuine moment of frustration. Then, a revelation.

"That attack wasn't us. Wasn't that councilwoman there? You really think we wouldn't send a few avatars to put her in the ground? I would've done it myself." He clenched the steering wheel with enough force that Howard feared it would snap. June could've broken it, but the archaeologist was not her.

That councilwoman had to die. He avoided June's question for a while longer.

"When I shot you down and let you pretend I was innocent, didn't that make me a bystander? You should be kicking my ass."

---

june sleigh

“Say the word and I fucking will,” June propped herself up on an elbow. She wasn’t going to bring it up because they both knew exactly that the Copperajah was, in fact, in the car with them. Now that it was brought up? It was fair game for all. One confirmation, and they’d swerve off the road and slam into a brick wall.

In many ways.

“All you’ve posed is excuses. Cop outs. Cause yea, sure, Rocket made things harder– but don’t pretend for a fucking second that the League has had to make every decision they did,” she turned to look back out the window.

“You didn’t have to stay silent for half a year. League didn’t have to attack their own conference. League didn’t have to let Kyogre drown a few thousand civvies.”

They did it because the right thing would make things harder. Water and cowards always took the path of least resistance. Water into the hole left by the sea god, and the bitches who didn’t fight for the innocent. Easier to watch them drown than to actively help them.

“But here we are. You got to be an Admin, League got joint custody of the problem child, and League got to keep their hands ‘clean’,” she motioned the air quotes, then crossed her arms. Howard could see the all-too familiar angry eyebrows in the reflection, eyes of violet and gold. A common sight these days.

“Rest of us get to play clean up and wonder what legendary both sides will let rampage through a city next. My bet's Mauville, knowing my luck, but Oldale is mighty defenseless and desctructable. And hey, haven't heard from Giratina for a hot minute.”

---

howard slayte

“Say the word and I fucking will.”

He almost said it, just to see if she could do what a dozen Wishing Stars, Eternatus, and Regirock could not. The intrusive thought quickly passes. His silence in response to her dare is the only answer June needs. The fact that he was actually considering it. Yet no word came.

"We will take Giratina, and we will crack the Distortion World like an egg in order to pull it out." He doesn't tell her of Katherine Fairburne , of Regirock's prior owner who had held both it and Giratina in her hand. Nor does he tell her of Walsh's plan to lay siege to the alternate world. "Oldale will fall with little resistance. We'll just Dynamax Regirock and Regice and throw them at the town. I won't allow a thing to happen to Mauville."

Mauville would come. It was needed. Navy and Josh Devlin could prepare as much as they wanted, but when the time was right, they would look at the earth and find it rotten, and New Mauville would cause them much despair.

"The League is not perfect. Their leadership..." He remembered Chi-yu's avatar and his eye twitched. "I'm gonna fucking kill them."

He sounded furious.

---

june sleigh

“See, even you agree now,” June said. Her flat voice was a nice complement to Howard’s unbridled rage. “But if you could wait until my debt’s paid off before you attack another city that’d be peachy.”

As if it was in his hands. Like he had any say in the matter. No wasn’t an option, and there wasn’t any debate to have. When he was given the order, all he could do is salute and ask when. She’d rather be dead than be in that spot.

And death wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

“Rocket bad, You bad,” she grumbled as she returned to the reclined chair. “Except Rocket doesn’t pretend it’s noble. We’re working for a terrorist organization, and the other side somehow makes that look not COMPLETELY miserable.”

“Not perfect is an understatement. They fail their people constantly. Cause shit for no reason. It’s a circus, except no one wants to be there, it’s not funny, and the ring leader is fighting the Pyroars in the stands.”

“Kill the leaders and we might give you a medal anyway. I would. Cause fuck 'em, they deserve it for all they've done-- and what they haven't too.”

June joined Howard in the angry voice department.

---

howard slayte