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 Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 10:41 am
When one moved to a new location, it was important to get back to basics. Tread some tiles, investigate out of the way corridors, so long as they were not restricted corridors of course. He had already paced out the communal areas of all the surface floors to which he had access, and had just finished investigating the first and second basement floors. This left him on base floor three, surrounded by equipment that wouldn't have looked out of place in the detention facilities. The treadmills, rowing machines, and cross trainers looked civilized enough, but a good number of the weight machines did not. Weight lifting was not his game, and he tended not to get along well with those who did enjoy beefing up, thus giving the equipment negative connotations from two different angles.
Feeling that he'd seen enough of weights and pulleys, the newcomer moved through into the pool area. This was more like it; decent sized, and currently totally empty. Had he been dressed for it, he would probably have dived in. As he was not, he merely walked to the edge and looked down at his reflection. Black on black clothing, the only deviation from monochrome the brilliant red R emblazoned across the front of his jacket. A grunt. The term had always annoyed him, but he was hardly in a position to change it. At least it was better than trainee; sounded worse but at least you got a shred of respect. In theory. Respect right off the bat was not something he was accustomed to in any walk of life, but perhaps at least trainees would show him some now. Perhaps if he didn't, he would see to it that they regretted their actions in short order. That would be entertaining.
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Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 3:24 pm
There was at least one trainee in the base with whom respect would be no issue, granted she was shown respect in return. Aila made her way to the pool briskly, a darkly-colored swimsuit concealed beneath her casual variation of the trainee uniform. Black hair let loose upon her back and shoulders swayed in time with the soft cotton towel on her arm as she walked, her usual pair of pokeballs absent from her hip for the time being. On noting the sheer mass of people in the cafeteria at the moment, the girl felt it would be an ideal time to have a quiet moment at the pool - it felt as though it had been ages since she had last swam. However, it was evidently not to be so, for she arrived at the water to find another studying its lucid surface.
"Ah." The sound was automatic and somewhat akin to disappointment, though she felt there was hope yet. The stranger did not seem to be dressed for swimming. Perhaps if she waited he would be on his way soon enough...
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 4:31 am
...Ah. Frost turned slowly and looked the girl up and down... Well, down and further down anyway; she didn't even make five feet tall. Humm. Trainee. At least that meant she couldn't try to shoo him off as a superior could, or try to bully him into leaving as a peer might. He did dislike it when people tried to push him around, especially when they tried to do it with muscle; it was so... crass. If, of course, she decided to be rude there was that option he had considered just a moment ago. She didn't look like trouble though, she looked... Frost frowned slightly as he tried to process her expression. She looked... err... Not happy, but not aggressive. A bit put out, perhaps. Certainly not happy to see him here.
He had been just standing there looking at her for a while now. He should say something. "Good evening." Well, that was a start he supposed. Not a very good one admittedly, but what else should he have said?
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:51 am
Aila's expression became the slightest bit more hostile. She was not so strange as to warrant so much staring, was she? Even if she were, was unwarranted staring not widely accepted as one of the rudest social practices? The little thief could understand a wish - a need, even - to scrutinize environment and peers, but it was possible to do so unobtrusively--
The sudden and unexpectedly polite greeting drew the girl out of her unvoiced lecture, and she responded in kind, "And good evening to you, sir." An instinctive curtsy accompanied her words, and she frowned inwardly. She really needed to get into the habit of saluting instead...
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:50 pm
A curtsey? What did she think she was, a schoolgirl? Humm, well, looking at her she might well have been one not so long ago. So young, so many of these Rockets, perhaps having joined up to be rebellious and cool, or because of family problems. Perhaps children were just easier for Team Rocket to sway, to mould into perfect little soldiers. Still, whatever the reason, he felt like he was walking around in a secondary school some of the time here. There were cliques just like at a school, nerds, bullies, jocks... but that was true everywhere in the world not just in this particular syndicate of criminals. As ever, here he was the weird loner who nobody wanted to sit next to. Fine by him, they were all idiots anyway...
He should probably say something else now.
"What's your name, trainee?" Name. A good follow up to 'good evening', or good enough by his standards. He should have brought Skiron along with him, then at least maybe they could have talked about his pokémon, and any pokémon she had... Not that they needed to talk. He had no need for conversation, or company, and Skiron was so worn out from their move that making him leave the comfort (relative comfort) of their dorm room wouldn't have been fair.
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 1:48 pm
Had she the choice, Aila would certainly be older. It was difficult enough to be taken seriously due to her height and rank, and being under 18 certainly did nothing to ease the assumptions made about her person.
"Aila," she replied, rosy gaze unfaltering, nearly unblinking. "May I ask your own?" She would have rather been swimming than chatting, but the girl was nothing if not patient. Personality, however, was not a part of that patience, and she could not help - did not, in fact, even notice - her cool, almost disaffected demeanor.
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:21 am
Fortunately Frost was not in the habit of noticing such subtleties, and his cool but civil manner just about matched the younger Rocket's. Had he noticed, he would probably have been secretly pleased to find someone a little like himself, but far too introverted to show it. "You may," he nodded, "my name is Frost, recent transfer Johto... This base is certainly well equipped, although is does lack a library. Do you know where the nearest decent one is?"
One had to have one's priorities straight; once he knew his way around here, he would move onto investigating important landmarks and services elsewhere on the island. Right at the top of his 'to find' list was a good library; computers were all well and good, wonderful and useful and all such good things, but there was nothing quite like the feel and smell of a physical book.
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:05 am
Johto, was it? Another from some faraway place. Aila continually found her curiosity piqued by the idea of exploring a new land, but even within Kodo there was still much for her to discover.
"There's a library near the recreational facilities," she said, scarcely skipping a beat. The library - now there was a place with which she was familiar. "There are mostly computers near the front, so it's easily mistaken for a computer lab. There are shelves and tables further towards the back, though."
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Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 5:14 am
"Oh?" Frost frowned. "I should have taken more than a cursory glance in there; I did assume it was just a computer lab. Mmh, still, I've only been poking my head into most places as yet, though as I say what I've seen has impressed me..." Mmh. Now what? He was sure there were other useful things he could ask the girl... Ah, yes, if he was to get to grips with the basics of this place there was more to it than just the building and facilities.
"Have you been here long?" Frost went on, looking Aila up and down thoughtfully once more. "Is there anything you feel a 'newbie' ought to know? At my old base there was a certain agent that all the trainees and grunts attempted to avoid, because she had a habit of assigning punishment duties on a whim; anything like that here?"
He had been glad to get away from that evil harpy; the number of times she'd insisted he was 'cheeking' her and made him clean toilets with a toothbrush... Twenty eight times, just for that particular punishment. He hadn't even been guilty of said 'cheeking'; he didn't do 'cheek'... Still, that was the point he had been trying to make; she had been wholly unreasonable... And he had just had that whole little discussion with himself. Ah well, no new news there.
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Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 7:56 am
"I've been here a while," she said. "I've nearly finished training." Which reminded her that she needed to start reviewing more thoroughly for the exam. She took a moment to consider the various agents and elites, but only two came to mind.
"Most here would go well out of their way to avoid Elite Agents Seth and Kunai. But both are skilled and respectable individuals who have much to offer should you wish to learn. Seth can be rather crass with his words, though, and Kunai may be a bit... excessive. I suppose it's important to remember that the merit of an elite isn't judged from their personality."
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:57 pm
"Really? Well... Congratulations. Good luck." One or both of those things was probably the correct thing to say to somebody preparing to become a full grunt. Grunt. That still grated on him. Why not just plain 'Rocket' or something? Perhaps it was intended to be annoying so that grunts worked harder to advance... Ah, but the girl was answering his questions.
"Seth and Kuani..." Frost trailed off, frowning as he tried to put names to faces; he had been given a basic familiarization with the people he would be expected to answer to, but no information about their personalities hence his question... But he was getting off subject. Seth and Kuani... "The very tall brown-haired man, mark you a lot of people around here seem to be insanely tall, and the short girl with pink hair?... Mmh, well, of course you are correct; if personality was pivotal I imagine I wouldn't ever have made it past trainee..."
So, what do you do for fun around here? Imbecillic question. Ask something more relevant, more intelligent... Ah. "What kind of pokemon do you train?" He might end up working with this girl one day, knowing her style and preferences in advance could only be a good thing.
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 7:29 pm
Aila gave an acknowledging nod of thanks, then nodded again at Frost's descriptions of the two elites to verify that they were correct. She considered the subject of personality a bit further, concluding, "If personality were a terribly important factor in a crime organization, I can't imagine many would get very far." Something of a wry smile emerged on her lips; a place such as Rocket certainly wasn't one that would expect to gather any shiningly pleasant individuals.
She tilted her head slightly at the question. What an odd thing to ask. Perhaps it was because she didn't have her pokeballs on display. "Any kind I can get," she replied honestly. "I gravitate a bit towards poison types, though. At the moment I am in possession of an Ivysaur and a Misdreavus."
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 8:32 am
That was true. You didn't get too many sweethearts signing up with Team Rocket, maybe the occasional deluded but basically decent kid who thought it would be 'cool' or that they could 'redeem' some of their fellows... He'd never actually run into such a misguided idiot, but he had a feeling that they must exist, albeit not for very long. They would either end up at the bottom of a river somewhere, or merely turn into as much of a cold-hearted cutthroat as the rest of the organisation...
Oh, yes, pokémon type. "Poison," Frost nodded slightly, "I appreciate the subtlety of the type, slowly weakening the opponent, and some trainers of course find the idea of their poor pokémon getting poisoned very distressing... I specialize in ice types myself, although at present I only have one pokémon; a glaceon." He wasn't actually doing too badly with this conversation... at least he didn't think he was. If he was doing badly, of course, it didn't matter; he did not need this girl to think well of him. He was only still talking to her because... Umm...
Well, perhaps it was a little bit because he wanted to be on speaking terms with somebody here. Not friends necessarily but... Well, it would be nice to have somebody around who might give him a nod of acknowledgement occasionally, and whom he could acknowledge in return.
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Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 10:58 am
She nodded, "Ice types are certainly formidable. Immobilizing targets is a good strategy." She could speak from experience on that front - it was an Ice Beam from Mau's Vaporeon that had by and large prevented Aila from achieving her goal on her last attempted heist. A different thought hit her as she considered the merits and disadvantages of ice types, and she found herself wondering which came first: the man's name or his specialization.
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Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 2:49 pm
"Yes... Although of course one always has to be careful to balance out against one's weaknesses." This was of course like saying the sky was blue, but it was something and he could follow on from it. "As I say, I only have one pokemon at the moment," he continued, playing for time more than anything else, "but as my team expands, I will have to look into water types and psychic types... A lapras appeals to me, as that is still ice secondarily, but I'm not certain where I would get one from; rare as they are, I imagine if any are taken in heists there will be people above me in, mm, the pecking order who want it."
That was another good reason to get himself promoted; dibs on top quality pokemon... Dibs on top quality pokemon, respect, and his own blasted room. Better sharing a room with one other person than being in a dorm by and large, and yet on the other hand being around just one other person put all the more focus on that one persons... habits. Like leaving their underwear strewn about, and chewing gum day in day out. Disgusting habit.
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