Welcome to Gaia! ::

The man in that room had been using all of the free time at his disposal to ensure his various weaponry was in its top form. It had been some time since he had last cleaned them, and it seemed a time was approaching that they might be of use. The maintenance also served as an ideal means of procrastinating from the decision that needed to be made, a decision he dreaded making and wished nothing more than to pretend didn't exist.

The knock on his door was an even better distraction than his firearms, and he moved to open it, though he already had a good idea of who it might be. Cool blue eyes and a collected expression greeted the anxious woman standing on the other side.

"I take it you've heard the news?" His phrasing was nonchalant, but his tone was grim.

He closed the door behind her as she entered and turned to seat himself in a chair. "First of all, I think you should calm down," he said. "We can't afford to make mistakes, now more than ever. That said, I don't think we have as much to worry about as we might think." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "They appeared in Johto, which is a good ways away from here. Granted their appearance in Camphoreon was... a little close to home, but I don't believe they know where we are. Otherwise we likely would have faced some kind of invasion by now." His first task, obviously, was to talk Claire away from the ledge. Fortunately he had already thought points that would do so in order to keep himself level.

He breathed a short sigh and pulled his glasses from his eyes, working a smudge from the lens. "There's no need to be scared. No harm will come to you. I will make sure of it." His gaze was firm and assured, though his vision was terribly distorted without the aid of the corrective lenses. The assortment of weaponry, much of it modified by his own hands to pack the deadliest punch possible, served as a physical representation of that promise.

"They're not pursuing us," he reminded. "Their goals conflict with Rocket's, so the two are clashing. We just happen to be caught up in between. I doubt they even know we're in Kodo, let alone that we're members of Team Rocket."

The fact that Galactic had suddenly reappeared was a concern, but its repercussions were what most worried Luke. He was certain that Lucas, on learning the news, would respond every bit as dramatically as Claire. He had devised a possible way of preventing it, but... His expression became pensive, even bitter, as the thought persisted.

"Cross the bridge when we come to it." It was what he planned to do, anyway. "There's no guarantee that the two of us will specifically be asked to participate in these missions. And if we are..." he leaned back in the chair, "all we have to do is succeed. You grown since you left Galactic, haven't you? Have faith in your own abilities." He accented his words with a small nod of his head before replacing his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Hm?" Ah, he must have let his thoughts get the better of his features again. "Mm, nothing terribly important." Lie. "It's just that I'm not sure how to handle this matter that it would be best for Lucas." Also a lie. He had knew full well what the best path was. It was merely a question of his own resolve.

"No, he doesn't. I learned of Galactic's appearance though a meeting with an elite, so I've been maintaining dominance since then to keep him from hearing it on is own and panicking." Sort of like what seemed to have happened to Claire. He brought up a hand and rubbed his forehead, as though doing so would dislodge some genius idea. "...Honestly, I know how I need to proceed. But..." His hesitance was all the more proof that it needed to be done.

His hand found a resting place at his temple. "I know. It's not as though I want to hide it from him forever. That would be impossible. I just want him to be prepared for it." A slight shudder shook him, as though a particularly frigid draft had found its way to the back of his neck. "I need to vanish. I can't support Lucas anymore, not with things at the point they've reached. But..." There was that but again. He couldn't quite wrap his head about it, but, "I suppose I've gotten rather... attached. To this whole concept of existence."

He spared a glance at the hand that lay in his lap at her choice of words. 'Alive' was a thing he had always defined in the sense that it was opposite to 'dead' - in short, an overall positive state of being, but something to be attached to? Only in the sense of self-preservation, from Luke's own experience. Until he had been confronted with need to give it up, at least. "It's not the first time I've considered this option," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Early on, I did a bit of research. You know as well as I that the fact that I exist is abnormal. Dissociative identity disorder. It's considered a fairly serious mental illness, I believe." Though it was a bit strange to refer to himself as an illness. "It is not infrequently that I've considered vanishing, but the reason I've always chosen to stay is for Lucas's sake. They were decisions born from logical conclusions. I've never struggled against this... this reluctance." He wouldn't use the word 'frightening,' per se... Mostly because 'frightened' generally referred to the party at the other end of his gun.

"Necessary? Yes. I feel that the cause of this reluctance may be because I've become so much more... real, in a way. If things proceed in this direction, I'll lose all sense. I may even attempt to subdue Lucas entirely." It was only a hypothetical possibility, but the threat seemed very real to Luke.