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Sleeping was something Aila had been doing a lot of, despite the awful dreams that consistently accompanied it. As an activity, it was something that usually kept her quite still. Though it was early in the evening, the room was dark, quiet, and distinctly devoid of the bird that watched over her waking hours, a silent pokeball taking his place on a nearby table. The girl flitted in and out of slumber, erring more towards the latter until her fluttering eyes noticed a shadow moving within the darkness, lowering itself from the ceiling. She blinked incredulously; her tired mind was surely playing tricks on her. A slight weight lighted on her stomach, and she instinctively focused more wholly on identifying what it was. A small thing, mostly round, with many... legs?

"Ah--"

"Na?"

A dismayed shout was what would follow the brief exchange, proceeded by Aila's immediate recoil and a displacing sweep with her arm comprising the majority of her autonomic response. She was unable to manage much of either of those, though. The sudden tensing of her body renewed all of the pain that had been subdued by days of perfect non-motion, and the previously serene recovery room was soon filled with both pained cries and indignant curses as the girl inadvertently set off a terrible chain reaction of motion that irritated each of her injuries.

Claire would catch a glimpse of red, yellow, and purple as the Thing darted away, startled by the sudden light that filled the room. It buried itself in the sheets, biding its time.

The unidentified Thing wasn't the only of the room's inhabitants that was dazed by the ceiling lights, and Aila drew up her useable arm to cover her eyes - but Arceus did it hurt to do so. It was scarcely a few seconds before that same arm flopped back to the mattress as if to mirror the other. She registered that there was someone in the room, but another matter took priority over a polite greeting.

"Thing!" she explained, fumbling with her words but very clearly pointing to the pile of sheets that had formed with all her thrashing. "Bug thing! Get rid of it, please!"

Aila watched the Pikachu expectantly as it approached with a running leap, picking its way past her and leaping into the sheets - only to have them emptily deflate under the pressure. The Thing had scuttled away somewhere.

"Ugh." She frowned at the offending sheets for failing to harbor the Thing. She didn't quite know what it was, but she knew she wanted it out, gone, dead. To the best of her ability, she arched her neck in search of it. Where could it have gone?

Zeus, on appearing beneath the bed, would find a String Shot aimed at his face. The Thing would skitter away after completing its task, seeking out a better hidey-hole.

The most painful part of it all was her intense and unfulfillable desire to peer over the edge of the bed and see what was down there for herself. Or-- No, the most painful part was definitely her hip. She moved her right arm to apply a slight pressure to it, hoping to massage away the burning sensation. All that thrashing around had really been a bad idea...

The Thing was nowhere in sight - no longer tangled in the sheets, no longer beneath the bed, no longer anywhere visible. It had taken the Pikachu's moment of blindness to escape and had done so with all speed and stealth. Only the most thorough, scouring search of the room would reveal its sanctuary, but for the moment it appeared the Thing had no intent to reemerge any time soon.

Aila watched with all anticipation as Claire moved to see under the bed. "Is it down there? Is it gone?" She craned her neck but was unable to improve her view. Forget the Ho-Oh; the bug-type would be what would do her in, if only through overwhelming anxiety.

Zeus's search of the machines and chairs would yield neither results nor hints. The Thing had effectively disappeared, leaving no trace in its wake besides the threads of the String Shot discarded under the bed. This was becoming less and less a point of concern to Aila, who was taking on the age old perspective of 'out of sight, out of mind.'

"Maybe it got out?" Well, but the door was closed, and the room was devoid of windows. There were always air vents, but wouldn't they have seen the Thing crawl up the walls if that was where it had headed...?

A faint frown pulled at her mouth in response to Claire's question of her condition. "I've been better," she said. "But I suppose I could also be worse, so I should be grateful..." She gave a curt nod, "Yes, at the volcano. I've heard that we didn't make off with Ho-Oh." Her understanding of the situation as it proceeded after the Sky Attack was limited to the knowledge that a battle had taken place and there had been a great deal of shouting. She wasn't sure how much more Claire would know considering the woman hadn't attended the raid, but it was at least worth asking.

"Ah, them again." Her frown became more distinct. "I've heard mention that they were at the PokeBall as well. They should face us directly if they have business with us." Disdain seeped into Aila's tone as she spoke. That they would ruin not one but two Rocket missions was altogether unforgivable.

"I remember the egg." Mention of it brought the memory back to the front of her thoughts. The egg had been their first immediately identifiable objective upon reaching the volcano's bowl. "It's good that we managed to recover it." Or else the fact that Galactic had taken the Ho-Oh would have been even more unacceptable, not that she didn't already have a death warrant on their necks as it was. Let them pilfer her hard work? Yeah, right.