Far, far away, a helmeted June rode on the back of her beloved bird and yawned. She considered cracking her can of shitty aluminum coffee open, but decided against it. Better saved for a more useful time. That, and her stomach churned at the mere thought. Throwing up with cargo was the last thing she wanted.

Her thoughts were not of the dead, nor of the stakes present. Even with her numerous powerful Pokémon at her belt, she kept her head down and ignored the conflicts in the distance. Or not so distant. “Just get to the bunker, drop off the shit, and–”

The air grew cold. Too cold. Unnaturally cold. Not too many things could make that happen. By the time she looked up, it was almost too late. Her eyes widened, and she pulled on Matchsticks reigns.

“Dodge, dodge!” The bird relented, and they barely avoided the brunt of the icicles. Branches cracked, and trees groaned beneath the barrage. Higher they flew, until the green and bright blue were the size of her balled up fist. It gripped the leather tight while she whipped her head around.

“What the fuck are you doing, Howard…”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” June forced Matchstick down, back to the trees. A green serpent appeared from the clouds, and flames engulfed the icy golem. Things were bad. Really bad. Freya was there?

She couldn’t risk it. As soon as her feet hit the ground, her poke ball touched the ember feathers. “Sorry, girl.”

She disappeared in a haze of red. Then, another ball emerged from the same belt. It felt heavy in her hands, imagined responsibility. She could just run. It’d be easier. So much so. This wasn’t her fight. She was just a delivery girl. Her helmet hid her identity. No one would know.

But she would.

The ball clicked open, and out from it emerged a familiar purple-yellow living motorcycle. Violet raised an eyebrow as she mounted. “Go. Just… go. We’ll figure out what to do on the way.”

“Mirai!”

With a roar of a paradoxical engine, lighting streaks blazed through the forest. They raced fast and hard past the world around them. Howard, her boss. Freya, one of the few to try and help the people of Sootopolis. Her argument with annalise henderson sang its ugly song in her mind. Who demanded her respect more?

Which one would she have to help? Which would SHOULD she help?

---

howard slayte freya morningstar



10 MP for Post

“Yea, well– ah, you already know,” June sighed. How many times would they have this conversation? A million dollars didn’t disappear overnight, and she wasn’t about to ask for handouts. Thus, she worked. Besides, sitting at home made her think. And thinking brought bad times.

The less she thought, the better.

But the more the dream played out, the harder it was to do such a thing. Suddenly, Howard was talking to some strange girl. She thought there was a flash of bright light, but it was impossible to know. And maybe, just maybe, that was… no. Probably just her imagination.

“Different look, same guy,” she waved her hand. “Besides, you look close enough. Don’t stress it out too much– you heard the lady, right? Don’t fuck up the vision, or however it works.”

Ah, so this this where things went south. She– herself– looked pissed now.

“I shouldn’t have made that threat.”

“Then why do it?”

June raised an eyebrow. That felt important. While her copy droned on, she glanced towards the archeologist. “So you threatened me? That was it? What, you said you’d close my business or some shit? I can’t imagine anything that would…”

Oh. Oh no. Even current her, without a single clue as to the original event, felt her blood boil and heart pick up the pace further. A scowl, then a deep, deep breath. The encroaching TV static faded away. Damn dream technology.

“You threatened Matchstick, didn’t you?”

---

howard slayte ameena abadi

Her eyes widened. A frown grew on her lips, and her heart started to race. Beat by beat, second by second. She’d never meant to include Annalise in her rant. She was one of the good ones, even if it never felt like it. An exception she’d be willing to accept. Look past.

But now? After all that? A tear peeked from the corner of her eye. It tumbled down her cheek, and her eyes copied her friend's bitter, angry expression. Friend?

“You go down there, and look at every single fucking corpse, every single damn name on those fucking tombstones– and you tell me which ones were responsible for your kidnapping, Anna! Because I’ll bet you a million-fucking-dollars that it was NONE of them!”

“So you get off your fucking high horse and pull your head out of your ass, you fucking hypocrite. You don’t get to come at me about my problems, because we have the exact same problems!”

“But my problems aren’t getting people fucking killed!”

---

annalise henderson

June considered the widow's words. Were they really that similar? Broken?

“That’s as far as it goes,” June disagreed. “My Dad was a good man, and he didn’t deserve anything that happened to him.”

She didn’t even know what she’d do if her father’s killer ever came to light. It was not a thought that graced her often. So many things stood in her way as was, each of them more debilitating than the last. Revenge got lost beneath the mountain of debt, a feeling to consider afterwords. She’d ignored Rocket’s call for a long time.

Yet Absinthe had consumed the idea and made it her life’s goal. She’d do anything for it– even join a terrorist organization. Willingly.

“Our cracks are different, or something like that,” she said. Their shared understanding felt tainted, somehow, but she couldn’t put the idea to words. “It’s all we have in common.”

For some, that would be good enough to form a relationship. For June?

“If you need anything else delivered, let me know. I'll make it work however I can.”

“But at least give me a heads-up if looking at the stuff funny would kill me?”

She needed a little more than one shared tragedy. Especially after the rest of what occurred here.

---

Absinthe Blackwood

Fire? That wasn’t good. The forest could go up in flames if they just walked away from it. June pulled herself out of Aurelie’s grasp and walked quickly over to the flames. Her ramblings were mostly ignored, and a poke ball rose. She held the ball straight out and let the creature, a Vaporeon, materialize from red static.

“Sweety, put out those flames.”

“Vap!” She opened her mouth and released a torrent of water. Sparks and red licks sizzled beneath the drowning waters, until all that remained was black grass and several new puddles. June wiped her brow and recalled the blue quadruped.

“Wait, what’d you say?” June turned her attention back to the island. “You say something about a box cutter?”

Mostly ignored.

“Wait, you’re the bitch who stole my fucking box cutter?!” June stomped across the clearing and straight to the one-eyed girl, and she raised a hand. It grabbed the collar of her shirt tight and pulled her closer. Straight into the girl with fire in her eyes and slanted brows. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Of course, they both knew the answer, but it was lost in the heat of the moment. June tried to shake Aurelie violently, “You better give that back, or you’ll have more to worry about than some stupid forest fire!”

Maybe she should release Matchstick instead. Get a rematch in, one entirely in her favor.

---

Aurelie Lefevre

10 MP for post
50 MP for Regrettable decision (getting physical with Aurelie, static electricity, etc.)
50 MP for recalling a past thread

“I think they didn’t care enough to.”

There surely existed better solutions. No way there weren’t. Kyogre had been entirely out of left field, completely unconsidered by both sides that day. Scarlet and Violet had emerged from nowhere, implanted themselves on Shred and herself, and then the god rose from the waves.

To claim it was a planned attack was a lie. And if something was not going to harm you, but hurt your enemy… then why bother to change anything?

But unfortunately for Annalise, she struck a nerve. Entirely unintentional, and no way she could’ve known. But for her Rocket, June League. She dug her palms into her thighs and let her finish talking. Arceus knew the ranger needed it.

“Then why didn’t they?”

Suddenly, she was scrambling upward. Her eyes narrowed, her voice suddenly shaky against the slight breeze. Shaky as Annalise’s bullshit.

“Thousands dead, and maybe three fucking people step up? Try to help, if that?”

freya morningstar came to mind, but the list stopped there.

“Because there were plenty of fucking ‘Rocket Sympathizers’ in that city. People you call guilty. They’re pretty mis-under-fucking-stood– and all I see is them being fucking buried not a dozen meters away.”

A finger motioned to the fresh brown earth. She pressed onward, forward into the minefield, straight into Annalise. “So, no, I don’t have any faith in them. Cause when Dad was murdered, and I needed you all the most? You threw me to the fucking curb. Just like you did them.”

She still remembered it, clear as day. When they told her they wouldn’t bother to try to find her father’s killer. When they forced her into a courtroom chair and described all the nitty-gritty law details that damned her to hell.

“What good guys you are, to staple a condition to the term– guess it's easier to say when it’s just a statistic, isn’t it? Easier to swallow one pill than thousands. Only thing you guys are good at is getting out of responsibility.”

---

annalise henderson

HARVESTING

be sure to visit the pretty petal flower shop near rustboro!

TOTAL

do come again!

“Oh, my bad,” June muttered as dream mist filled the room. “How come I didn’t think of that? I’ll just ignore the weight above my head is all.”

Not that far underground. Even earthquake-safe. That had to mean something, right? Yea. Right. Totally. It wouldn’t collapse on top of them, even if an Exc–

“Then make it happen faster, lugnut,” she said suddenly. Her fingers dug into her cold arms. If her normal phobia would cause problems, that one would ruin everything. It couldn’t. Not when she was so close to whatever had made Howard so…

Himself, recently. Different. Whatever it was.

“Is… is that it?” June pointed forward, into the middle of the pink space. From the threads of mere discolored air came a scene. Blurry, full of static, but a scene nonetheless. She squinted at the start of something, desperate to make out any details at all. There was a lot of white, some blue, and two figures.

“That’s… us, right? And… that looks like a hospital room,” she rose slightly from her reclined state. Curiosity and desperation drove her now.

“What part is this?”

---

howard slayte ameena abadi

Teleportation felt weird. Wrong. Doubly so when she went from somewhere open to somewhere not. She could feel it from the pressure in the room, and how stuffy it was. Instincts shot up, but she took a deep breath. The blinding light was actually helpful right now. A shocker, in all honesty.

“Oh, like the holiday slog,” she said nervously. It was a state she knew perfectly well, even if undesired. Her wired muscles shook as she sunk into the comfortable couch. “We’re not that far underground right?”

New Mauville sprang to mind. Awful, awful place. Howard would have to pry Regieleki from her cold, dead hands before she stepped foot in there. Screw the safety of the experiment– it didn’t mean nothing if a collapsed support beam trapped her in again. Underneath tons of stone and debris.

Her already shot heart rate jumped a few more beats-per-minute.

“I’m ready, though. Send us in.”

One answer of many, perhaps even the least important of them all– but it was a start. Time to find out what actually happened. What made Howard go insane, and what made her unable to sleep well ever since. 

---

ameena abadi howard slayte

A cop. It’s not pity that jolted her system, but the dangerously fulfilling sense of satisfaction. Good, she almost said. Rot in hell. Cops hadn’t treated her well since her own thing, and they weren’t about to start. The less of them, the better.

But three years ago? That was before Dad. Even if he was bad, it wasn’t relevant to June. There were bigger fish to fry.

“My Dad was murdered two and a half ago,” she said. Her voice returned, alongside her sense of time. “Cops and investigators were content to rule it a freak accident. Didn’t even try.”

Regardless of circumstance, it was yellow that told the both of them to kick rocks and piss off. Not each other.

“Sorry. I kinda deserved that.”

---

Absinthe Blackwood

June looked down at the miserable mess of a man. How he refused to look her way. Was it the guilt from the island that continued to haunt him, or some other thing made his seek shelter so? He looked as miserable as Matchstick had with her cast. The cast he caused. Pity flooded her senses and mixed with the fear and anger.

It felt awful in her brain. Thank Arceus she couldn’t taste it on her tongue.

“Then… make it happen.”

After a moment, June bent down. Now they were mere feet apart. A red hard reached forward, but not to his good eye. Past his face and to his shoulder. It hurt like hell, so she looked to Violet. “C’mon. Need to get him out of here.”

It nodded. Stone shifted beneath futuristic metal as it prodded over and down into the hole. It was warmly cold. A paradox of physics pressed against the archeologist. It wouldn’t let him remain buried in the past. The future was now, and it was only getting brighter.

“You can look at my hands when a doctor is looking at your leg,” she said. No room for arguments existed. Not when space was a premium. “Or when we talk to your friend. I can still walk out of here– so unless you can do a continuous handstand for who knows how long…”

“Stop hiding and hurry up.”

---

howard slayte

PURCHASING/REDEEMING

welcome to the poké mart!

-500X PD from finishing Bingo (-500 PD)
1x Premium Gacha (From bingo, Electric)

TOTAL

do come again!

-500 PD (Please give me 500 dollars)

"Violet, I'm not a professor or anything, but I don't think we're gonna find... whatever the fuck you're looking for here," June called to the living motorcycle. It was either oblivious to her doubts or unwilling to humor them. Either way, it did not acknowledge the trainer and instead kept its nose firmly on the forest floor. Leaves shifted beneath its massive frame as it trudged along. If someone saw them here? 

She was fucked. She'd have to kill them. Maybe. Hopefully not. Rocket got funny ideas in her head nowadays.

Except Violet did find something. Its head perked up, and it drove straight through a large bush. June ran forward, desperate to stop the thing before it caused problems for her. Both of them. Whatever. "Woah woah woah! What do you think you're... doing..."