His…

“Fiancée?” The words left her dry mouth in a whisper. Pieces started to click together, and none of the assumptions or realizations were kind. Three of them right now, three in the past. Howard, a scholar, and a love interest. One that didn’t work out.

“Did… was she an archeologist too? Or just… here?” She looked to the side. Somehow, she found the confusing walls, with their strange carvings and incomprehensible meanings, infinitely more interesting than either of the living souls present.

“How far did you all get in here?”

---

howard slayte ameena abadi

That reaction was apt. Every time he thought about it, the admin wanted to throw himself off a cliff. Fiancée. Fiancée. Fiancée.

"She focused on architecture. Smartest woman I've ever met, actually. She needed inspiration for a building project, and I needed a third person to keep watch at night to make sure we weren't attacked by Cacturnes. I was gonna propose to her when we graduated to make it a special moment, but she found the ring."

Only then did he actually laugh. The sound of someone who had genuinely enjoyed a moment and ruminating on it, but knew that it would never be replicated again. The moment had passed, and it had been saved in the mausoleum of Howard's memory.

"But she was never just here. I'd never describe her as 'just'. She helped make it to the end, actually. Found a hidden lever behind one of these bricks..." He nodded at the large door at the end of the chamber. He started poking around the wall. "Hey!"

He looked at her, suddenly interested.

"What about you? You have a secret engagement?"

---

june sleigh ameena abadi

When was the last time Howard had genuinely laughed? June couldn’t remember. When was the last time she actually cared about him, before now? That, she couldn’t NOT remember. Her face heated up and turned red as beets. Stop it. He shot her out of the sky. Matchstick could’ve died. Just hate his guts and be done with it.

“Oh, n-no…” she stammered out. “Dated a couple of people, here and there. Nothing ever crazy serious. Was always…”

Why was she telling him this? It didn’t matter. It was wrong. He’d just revealed his secret pining for her. Arceus, this was awful. She was literally in his mindscape. Just let him gut himself on his feelings and pray it never came up after this.

“Shut up. It’s not important. Not relevant. W-what does your... fiancee, have to do with any of this? Did...”

Did something happen? But even she, for all her flaws, quick thoughts, and quicker words, knew better than to ask. Especially since it was obvious something happened. He wasn't in a relationship. Do not give off mixed signals.

---

howard slayte

She reddened. He reddened and looked away. Somewhere in the distance, Ameena was watching a trainwreck unfold in slow motion. She hadn't spoken up since this had begun, but that didn't seem to bother him much. That was odd. Why wasn't he concerned about it?

June was distracting him. Her question stripped the smile from his face and made him remember her. Memories of hunting for Pokemon echoed in the admin's mind, where she had gotten scared of an Excadrill. He had painted a horrible picture of death in his mind, and it had turned out to be a misunderstanding.

With retrospect, he didn't feel so sure. An Excadrill hadn't killed her father.

"No, she and I just fell apart. I couldn't find any prospects. I broke it off so she could be happy with someone who could make her happy." Rather than risk an uncertain future, Howard threw it away so that she could find one that would guarantee her joy. Even if that meant turning his own prospects to ash. "Never saw her again."

He looked away, the brim of his hat obscuring his face.

"You're not the only person to let money ruin your life."

---

june sleigh

Where had she heard this one before?

“But it sounds like you’re the only one to let your perverse sense of justice get in the way of any meaningful relationships.”

Déjà vu washed over her before any sense of regret. But she killed that fast; why did the man dedicated to history seemed hell-bent on repeating it?

---

howard slayte

His face twitched as she spoke. Guilty. Even worse than guilty, he was a repeat offender.

"That's not true. It wasn't fair for her to get married to such a fuck up. Eventually, she would've looked at me and realized I brought her nothing. It's not just, she just deserved to be happy."

He paused.

"Everyone does. You. Annalise. All of my colleagues. Especially them. You're all entitled to a better tomorrow." He smiled wanly. "Guess I never learned to look ahead."

---

june sleigh

June hadn’t stopped looking down to look forward. Tomorrow was just a thing that’d be here with or without her.

“Heavy is the burden of a self-fulfilling prophecy, for its owner will carry it silently, without realizing they tread upon their own back,” June said quietly. She blinked twice. “I think Grigori told me something like that one time. Don’t remember when.”

Probably during the dark days.

“Regardless, there’s some fuckin’ irony to your response. You agreed with me in the most obtuse way possible. Don’t you remember the… the…”

The dream? The one they’d just witnessed? The one where he confessed his still burning love for her? Forget. Him. He was just a leech. A hero. Wanted to save the day his own way, yet his own way involved so much self-sabotage he got lost in the forest.

“What did I say in it? Something about your self-immolation not being very self-focused, or something?” She stood at the gateway to the temple. Why should she step in? It’s not like he cared about her. Not enough. “You gut yourself on your own pride, and when people want to help you off, you drag them on it with you.”

---

howard slayte

"Well maybe I don't deserve to be happy! Maybe Grigori is right!" He spat. When the words left his mouth, the admin wanted to kick himself. Regardless, he kept going. "Ever thought about that!?"

His hands shook. Not his hands, truth be told. Someone else's. Scarred, hideous, yet too perfectly pristine to belong to any true human being. Where were the scars from working with the earth? Where was the dirt and unchipped fingernails? There was a beauty to porcelain, but that beauty lacked warmth.

To compensate was to sabotage. Thus, he sabotaged.

"I made one selfish decision in my life, and that was joining Team Rocket. The one time I placed myself over anyone else, and it brought me here. I hate it. I hate that I can't be friends with you and Grigori and everyone from Dewford that I betrayed. I hate that Petalburg was gone because I was too slow!"

There was too much in motion, now. Too many branches had grown from Howard's actions. He had pushed June to chase her father's memory in Ultra Plant. He pushed Montgomery on a path for revenge. He pushed Navy to become a warrior without compare.

For every person he pushed up, he got pushed down a little more.

"And I hate you for making me care about you, because I want to try and be better." Because he did remember. "Despite having every reason to hate me in that dream, you thought of a reason not to."

---

june sleigh

“Then maybe it’s good I forgot the reason then,” June whispered. White knuckles held onto her desert windbreaker, and it shook without the wind’s help. Selfless? Is that really what he called it?

“So what? It’s somehow my fault? Yea, my fucking bad, I guess I was a fucking idiot for seeing any redeemable qualities in your sorry ass,” she said. Louder, stronger. “One selfish decision– that’s all you’ve ever fucking done since I’ve met you!”

She finally entered the ruins, yet without any of the archeologists glimmering in the eyes. Nor the love of the one that followed him, or even the interest in prospects of a research topic finally within grasp. June came with the fiery wrath of the temple itself, angry at those who dare trespassed.

“Ditching your fiancée because ‘you’re not good enough’. Hiding the truth of the island. Whatever the fuck happened in that hospital room, your friends you supposedly can’t have, you wanna know what they all have in common?!”

“You’re afraid to fucking talk to people because then you’d have to learn what those people actually fucking thought about you. You’d have to be wrong. All your worthless assumptions would be wrong, and that’s too much for your ‘heroics’. If you cut them off first, then you get to be right in your self-told lies. You prove your shitty logic is correct before anyone else can try to get a word in. And if that isn't selfish then I don't know what the fuck is!”

---

howard slayte

"You're so... ugh! You're just like Grigori!" He kicked a rock in frustration, ancient stone crumbling as he did so. "You both always have something to say. At least he's polite about it."

Howard didn't even know if it was a compliment or an insult. Grigori had always been harsh in his fairness, but he was also the man who had brought June to this point. In that sense, they were both in the same boat. Whatever happened, they had been in Rocket together.

Yet when the same remarks came from her, it was worse. It hurt more. June had gotten her word in.

And if she was how everyone else thought, then it'd stop him from moving forward.

"If I listen to anyone on the other side, they'll sway my heart. If that happens, everything I've done over the past year will have been meaningless. Dewford. Petalburg. I've helped stack too many corpses to be regarded as anything other than a monster. If they believe anything else, then..."

He clenched his fist.

"...then..."

Fuck... Am I lying?

"...they're just wrong, June. They're just wrong. That doesn't matter, though. Even if everyone hates me, even if you hate me, I'm going to keep moving forward." Three months in Galar. Thousands of years in this region. One year in Rocket. "Because that's what heroes do."

"They fight for the people they love."

And Howard Slayte loved humanity.

"Now tell me that's a lie."

---

june sleigh

Grigori was polite because he had the same problem as Howard: they were hell-bent in their ways of guilt and self-doubt. It just showed in different ways. The grunt was too tired and old to stop others, and Howard was too stubborn and young to let anyone else stop him. That didn't make either of them right.

"It is a lie, Howard. Heroes aren't real. The people you love don't exist, because those people are an idea. An idea so big and grand that it can be whatever suits your twisted desires."

The humanity he loved was of his own image. He wanted to keep them the same as the day he first laid an eye upon them. And when they changed, they no longer fit his image. He would either have to mend his ideals for this fault, or figure out a way that allowed them to still fit the mold. And it was far, far easier to change the perception of himself than admit his faults.

It was easier to change the face he saw in the mirror to a monster than question if the mirror had warped from its prolonged existence. And Arceus help those who dared suggest otherwise.

"And you haven't moved forward. Not in three minutes, at least," June walked forward. Step by step, further into the dark abyss buried deep in the bowels of the earth. It unnerved her, sent chills down her spine. But she'd found the reason to enter.

"Let me show you how it's done."

---

howard slayte

"They do. Those people I've fought besides..." He insisted as she pushed past him to enter the final section of the temple. "Because you're not an idea. You're you. Even if the Iron Serpent gives you powers, you're still June. It doesn't matter if you change your name to August or July or September, you're you."

There were two Boundless, but only one June. It didn't matter who she delivered packages for, and it didn't matter what side she stood on, she was going to fly.

And, as if heeding her demands, the temple opened to her. Ancient doors creaked open and lights ignited in her presence, alternating between electric lights and antique torches, flames guttering and sputtering in the air.

"I have fought with and against wonderful people. I've stood shoulder to shoulder with criminals and I have fought against people who want to protect the innocent. I've done the opposite. I've seen heroes get knighted, and I've seen normal people fight for things they want to protect."

He ran before her and blocked her way. Behind him was a table with an ornate blade.

"We move forward for them. We..." He looked over her shoulder and paled. "Ameena?"

In her place was an ornate golden coffin, radiating a golden glow, as if something great and powerful powered its every movement. Nestled into the sarcophagus's head was the head of ameena abadi.

"June." It was happening again. "Run."

A tendril of shadow impaled him in the heart.

---

june sleigh