While Howard had his archeological-slash-historical fantasies played out in real-time, June followed along much more begrudgingly and without even a fraction of the enthusiasm. Her arms were crossed, and despite them being out of site, her motorcycle helmet painted the view a darker shade of black.

Never too safe. Violet followed behind, hidden until just now. Should she help him with the fuses?

“No, the League would love him. Letting cities get destroyed is kind of their thing, I guess,” she grumbled. It’s like he didn’t even listen to her in the car. Wait– don’t think about the car. What car? Better.

“I’m not buying your shitty excuse– could’ve just taken it out of my pay,” her eyes rolled into the back of her head. An exaggerated sigh filled the air as she stepped forward. Fingers dug into his sides as she shoved him to the side. She bent down, pressed her palm onto the device and–

The doors groaned as they slid open. Dust escaped from the creases as long-forgotten surged to life beneath her hands. At least she didn’t have to pretend how she fixed it. “But don’t do that either. Please.”

Feigned guilt. Much easier to do than expected, ever since her and annalise henderson …

“Ladies first,” she motioned into the hallway. Before either of them could move, Regieleki dashed in first, clearly ‘excited’ to investigate its previous home proper. “You know, you can just say you don’t have a lick of knowledge on electric shit and I do. Your pride isn't cute.”

---

howard slayte

 

"Bitch, it's adorable."

Yet that didn't stop him from sulking when June got the mechanism working with nothing more than a snap of her fingers. How was she so good at that when he could barely get his toaster to work? It had to be one of her powers. He'd have to make a list, because they seemed to exist exclusively to torture him.

That, and to dig into his sides and make him wince. At least she hadn't tazed him this time. He glared at Violet, who seemed perfectly willing to let this humiliation continue. Stupid motorcycle.

"It was like looking into a mirror, actually. Didn't stop me and Regirock from turning Petalburg into a glass crater. We're still filling in the tunnels." The admin frowned in thought as they meandered through old, dusty tunnels that hadn't worked in years. A testament to urbanization and its failings. "Every time he said something, I wanted to kick that guy's ass."

Regirock and Regice surrounded their sibling, beeping in unknown tones.

"Realized pretty quickly that he was just me all along. Fuck Jules, man."

He was in a bad mood today. June always made him want to kick a wall and stub his toe. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was the overwork, or maybe it was the car. The car that didn't exist, with the police officer who never pulled them over.

"Yo, Regieleki! Any of this feel familiar to you? Feeling homesick?" The admin shouted over at the golems. "Regirock, Regice! You can talk to each other later. We've got a job to do!"

Damn golems.

---

june sleigh

It was definitely because of June.

But she didn’t know that, Howard wasn’t sure of it, and Violet wasn’t about to kiss and tell. Regieleki seemed thrilled with them, though. It sped through the halls, best measured by how many blinks in between its progress. It ran circles around them, beeping to its kin all the while.

“I’m afraid I don’t speak… braille? Whatever that is– but it’s made more noise now than it has the entire time I’ve had it, so,” June shrugged. “Probably happy to be ‘home’. Like a Yamper with zoomies or something.”

The further they went in, the more her skin crawled. The dirt and cobwebs weren’t the fear– it was the weight she metaphorically tracked above their heads. If it was anything like Howard with his one meeting, then she felt his pain.

“At least it sounded like everyone was trying to stop the Regirock,” June posited. She scratched her sleeves and finally took off her helmet. “A lot of people were content to let Kyogre just run around.”

She heard that freya morningstar was one of the few actually trying to stand in the way. Which made it all the more damning– wasn’t she in charge of a bunch of shit? Did no one listen to her? Was the League just that bloodthirsty? Things she'd never know. 

“Probably just trying to get under your skin,” she said. Violet murmured agreeance, but otherwise kept its distance from the conversation. It stole side glances towards the Regis all the while, aware of its paradoxical existence being a sin in their many eyes. “Cause it did its damage before you ever captured it.”

Arceus above, these tunnels were stuffy. Note to self: install a few A/C units down here.

---

howard slayte


 

Before he spoke, Howard knew that the words he planned to utter would do more damage than they would help. Yet Howard loathed lying, especially after being strung up and mocked by his colleagues during their meeting.

"The League tried to stop me, actually." He was conversational as they followed Regieleki through tunnels that hadn't been inspected in decades. It reminded Howard of his experience with Josh, where they had found nothing of note in the tunnels while searching for proof of a ruin's existence.

Yet now, they had the key.

"I climbed it, y'know. Dynamaxed and all. All I felt was fear the whole time. Fear of falling. Fear of dying. Fear of failure." The last one is spoken of with utter reverence. A reminder that, no matter what Howard did, he'd always be too slow. "I got to the top, and one of the League's avatars just pushed me off and watched me fall."

He'd never forget the Jinxed's expression as he fell to his death, how apathetic and uncaring it was before Oscar had grabbed him and saved his life.

"I don't think he even cared. I tried, I fell, and all he thought was 'good riddance'. Rocket helped me catch it, and when I did, everyone decided that I needed to die for daring to succeed."

The League watched him fail. They had cheered when he fell, and then booed when Team Rocket had saved him and ensured that Regirock had joined their side. Then, when it was caught, Elisabeth attacked him and Kouji betrayed him. Fuck. He was getting mad again. Why had he even bothered opening his mouth?

"Nevermind." Howard muttered to himself. "It's stupid."

---

june sleigh

“It’s not stupid.”

June said as much casually. Less of an assertion and more of a simple statement of fact. Neither did she look particularly emotional by the statement, nor his admittance of self-doubt. The fear of failure was one of them genetic things, based on how many people had it.

“They’re just pissed that you wanted it more, or tried harder, or whatever words you wanna use,” she watched the Regis lumber around with vague interest. What thoughts even went through their minds? If they even had them. “League going against you– yea, sorry, par for the course in a war. But your own people?”

“They can go fuck themselves. Simple as. Get mad over it, cause they want you to forget it ever happened. Don’t let them– oh, speaking of, fuck you for the island.”

If Howard looked back, June unapologetically shrugged. She had to practice what she preached.

“Oh, hey, looks like Eleki found something,” she pointed forward. Sure enough, the big yellow ball hopped in space in front of a particular wall. It lit up like a holiday tree, and a rapid series of beeps invaded June’s ears.

The wall looked different from the rest, and the structure of it was slightly different. More fragile, and ready to fall given a push. It was impossible to describe, but the golem looked like it knew that this was the path. Who was she to disagree, a stranger inside another’s home?

---

howard slayte

 

He looked back, and she shrugged. In response, Howard raised an eyebrow.

"Don't make me bring up the car." He turned back to face the wall. There was a high chance she'd throw something at him. Hopefully it wasn't anything fatal, like a chunk of concrete. Most people would've struggled to lift something like that, but June was powered by rage and adrenaline. "Because I will bring up the car."

He knocked on the wall, thoughtfully. Being near Regieleki caused his hair to frizz slightly, as if static electricity was warping it. This much power was... inspiring. It could probably power a city.

It'd certainly cut Rocket's electrical grid cost down to zero.

"I'll knock it down. Shouldn't be too hard." He coughed into his fist and reached for the lexicon that only giants could understand. Braille was a written language, and one that Howard had learned when he was younger. Yet for some reason, his body knew how to speak the language of royalty. "⠏⠗⠑⠏⠁⠗⠑ ⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠵ ⠍⠕⠧⠑."

Regirock turned to Howard and began slowly lumbering forward.

"What do you think of Regieleki?" Howard asked June as he fished in his pocket for a Z-Crystal he had pilfered from Shred a few months back. "Regirock and Regice are a lot more... chill. Slower."

Regieleki zipped around, as it tended to do.

---

june sleigh

June glanced down at the chunk of concrete as Howard, once again, won the conversation with the equivalent of scorched earth. Man seriously needed less destructive ways to win an argument. Ultimately, he’d live another day– but by her graciousness alone.

“How the…” she stared him down from beneath the dim lights. It made him look all the more possessed as he spoke a physical language. “On second thought, I don’t wanna know.”

He was crazy. Psychotic. Maybe she should be nicer to him, before it was her who got the concrete to the skull.

“Well, Eleki is certainly the opposite of those two things,” she said as it zipped up and down the hall with reckless abandon. Miraidon shoved itself into the closest nook to avoid its warpath. “Not a wildcard, though. Does what I tell it to, and doesn’t voice any complaints. Or anything, really. What is that, a five? ‘Bout a five.”

Sure, she treated it like any other Pokémon. But ultimately it was an abstract treatment. It was a thing of biological code and inanimate material. She had to project a personality onto it, like its current animated state. Right now, it was ‘excited’.

“Certainly a lot better than in that alien place, though,” she finger-gunned toward Howard, “Not as violent. Maybe it’s cause it's back in Hoenn. Or maybe it’ll be as violent as I tell it to be.”

It’d gotten real violent against Shred . She didn’t bring up how much it bothered her, liability-wise. A bomb waiting to blow up in her face.

---

howard slayte

 

He nodded. Everything June had said seemed to track with his experiences. Regirock and Regice were normal, until they weren't. For the most part, they were perfectly subservient machines. Regirock was violent, but from his prior appearances, that seemed to track with its personality.

The struggle of lacking fingers to interface with. He considered telling June his theory on Regirock, before silently shelving it. She'd probably just call it lame.

There were more important things to discuss. Things that he could now explain that had been impossible before, back when they had constantly been fighting each others. Now that they were on speaking terms, and June needed employment, he could tell her what she needed to know.

"Keep it safe, June." He looked at her, his eye barely visible from beneath his hair and cowboy hat. "When the time comes, and I do mean this: it will save the world."

The words sounded absurd as he uttered them. Silence followed, interrupted only by Regieleki's zipping around and Regirock's loud thuds as it lumbered forward. How had mankind produced such a stark contrast in their ancient machinery, Hoenn would never know. Hopefully whatever lie beneath New Mauville could answer that question.

Assuming it hadn't been rotted away by Tera Crystals and human hands.

"You're heir to something that was designed to save our region from ruin. Something that we as a species designed to destroy a genuine creator god. When you threw that Pokeball, you accepted a legacy far vaster than anything anyone else will ever experience."

He stared at her.

"Whether you like it or not, this is your fate. So..." He crossed his arms. "...are you willing to see where this goes?"

---

june sleigh

“Hmmmm, yea, don’t care,” June waved off his warnings of cosmic responsibility and fate as easily as she would a pamphlet for a newly opened restaurant. She’d tuned out when he said ‘when the’. Because it was absurd. The god was obviously gone– so these things had protected the region. Their jobs were done and now they could be used for whatever their new owners wanted.

What was there to even say?

“But my options are walk away and lose my job, or follow you… wherever this goes,” she listed them on her fingers, “sooooo… sure, yea, fate demands it I guess.”

That day was the second hardest in her life, only beaten out by the death of Dad. Regieleki, much like Rocket, was a means to an end. Get it, and maybe it’d help her move on. It didn’t. End of discussion. But she had to deal with the consequences, and she’d deal with them how she wanted to.

By simply not engaging with them. “Seriously, come talk to me when this so called ‘creator god’ wakes up. Speaking of, you sure your rock guy isn’t on sleep mode? Is that the fastest it goes?”

---

howard slayte

 

"June."

---

june sleigh

"What?"

"It's awake."

He lit a cigarette, feeling the rushing anxiety clawing back into his psyche. He missed when it was a lot easier to remain calm and feel that nothing could go wrong. "And it's moving."

He had felt it move when he had burned Dewford to the ground. The ground had rumbled slightly, and something had shifted. The portal that separated it from them had widened when Regice had clawed its way through.

It was rousing itself from the distant dream of the Ultra Deep Sea.

"It caused Dynamax. Do you think we invented that alone? No. I've seen it. I've fought it. I can show you it, when this is all over." He gave her a wary look, wishing that he had a Wishing Star on him to show her what he meant. Yet he didn't, and somewhere deep down, he feared that she didn't even care.

How mad, he must seem to her. Apathy interfaced with obsession in curious ways.

"But fine, whatever." She had a special talent, and that talent was pissing him off. He didn't know if she was dysfunctional, getting back at him, or simply uncaring. Maybe all three. "Let's see what this Power Plant is hiding. Hopefully Regieleki is right."

He crushed a Z-Crystal under his heel, and its energy flowed into Regirock. Was using a Z-Move to destroy a wall and floor overkill? Probably, but Howard wanted to be thorough. Rather than making a thousand holes, he'd simply make one.

ROYAL DECREE: EARTH-CRACKING FIST

Then Howard realized something.

"Wait, being this close is b-" The ground cracked and rumbled and shattered. "Ah."

Then he fell.

---

june sleigh

June rolled her eyes. Pissy Howard was annoying as hell, even more so than her sometimes. “Calm down. It died. Even if it came back to life, AND it was coming to Hoenn, we just kill it again. Can’t be hard.”

The alternative was they didn’t do anything and they died, or they lost and they died. It was not as complicated or as scary as he thought it was. There were many more present fears for the world right now: Rocket. League. Death. Taxes. For her specifically, the tightly enclosed space they were in.

But that wouldn’t be problematic, right? Howard’s thing would break down the wall with one punch, and they’d be–

“Hey, what’s that?” She looked at the energy that dissipated underneath his boot, gone beneath the crunch of a gem. Regirock got bigger, and the ground rumbled.

Miraidon grumbled. Regieleki now bounced up and down the ceiling. June braced herself against the wall as a dozen alarm bells lit up her mind. “Howard, what the–”

The ground removed itself. Miraidon managed to keep a hold of the wall, Regieleki immediately zipped to the very bottom, and June waved her arms helplessly as she fell alongside her boss. However, the darkness held some secrets ripe for the finding. 

"ffffuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--"

It was...

---

howard slayte