Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lilith was honestly very glad that she had no need to share a room with another Agent. She wasn't exactly the most social of people, and she generally preferred solitude. The short time in which she did have a roommate wasn't necessarily unpleasant, by any means. Faleen was polite and seemed like a generally kind person for the short time that Lilith knew her. Her largest flaw as far as Lilith was concerned, though, was her prying questions, particularly into the matter of her abandoned religion.

Oh yes, Lilith was still terribly bitter. The scars of her shock and pain had still not been healed, and it had taken her long enough to even be comfortable enough to step out of her own door. The small shrine had long since been broken, and all that Lilith knew had long since been shattered. There was no doubt of her recovery, despite how slow the progress was. She had finally gained enough confidence and enough mind to go out to pursue her own destiny and hopefully create her own niche within the confines of that which bound her to Team Rocket. It wasn't like she had any other choice.

This day found the young woman wandering the halls of the headquarters, lost in thought. At her side was Nerezza, as the Ghost insisted that she accompany. Nerezza was restless after not being out for such a long time, and she would miss no opportunity to get away from the idiocy of the two bird-brain brothers, Donovan and Dresdan. They didn't really have anything interesting to say anyway.

As they explored together, Nerezza took silent note of the fact that they appeared to be on the tech level where the machinery and junk was made. She did not say anything to Lilith about this, though [as if Lilith would actually understand]. Instead, Nerezza idly looked on as Lilith went on her oblivious, merry way. As they passed an opened door, the Gastly cast a curious glance inward before she widened her eyes in surprise. There were two humans in there: two humans that were completely identical. ["What the hell,"] Nerezza asked quietly to herself.

To alert her human of this oddity, Nerezza reached out a gaseous tendril of her own body and tugged on Lilith's long brown hair. As Lilith was walking forward during this action, her hair was as a result sharply pulled backwards, eliciting from her a small yelp of pain. She whirled around to face the Ghost, anger in her eyes. "Nerezza! What did you do that for?" In response, Nerezza simply gestured to the odd pair. Lilith's gaze finally rested upon the two identical people and was surprised to see... two Faleens.

Well. That was... off.

"Faleen? Is that you?" She called out to the Agent, confusion prevalent in her expression.

The varying expressions on the two Faleens only proved to confuse Lilith further, but one of them was surprisingly friendly and, thankfully, remembered her. Lilith's green eyes looked down at Faleen's outstretched hand in bewilderment for a heartbeat, then she took the Agent's hand with her own. She gave Faleen a polite smile in return, but it held no more emotion than an accepted camaraderie.

"Ah... Yes, it has been a while, now that you mention it. It's nice to see you as well. You seem to be doing... fairly all right for yourself." As she spoke these words, Lilith's eyes moved past Faleen and she looked all around the tech room curiously. There seemed to be a lot of mechanical and technical trinkets lying around... What were they all for, she wondered silently. As her eyes wandered, she caught sight of the Faleen doppelganger a short ways away.

"What's, uh...? What's with the clone," Lilith asked, raising an eyebrow at the strange double of the Agent before her.

Nerezza, unlike her human assistant, did not recognize this odd woman now speaking to Lilith. She didn't look terrible - for a human, of course - but the Gastly was always wary. And that second human was creeping her out, too. It was unlikely that they would be twins in the same organization: the odds of that were close to none. So what was up with her?

As Faleen released her grip on Lilith's hand, Lilith folded her arms behind her back politely. She felt slightly uncomfortable with being plunged into a social situation such as this, but she persevered. There was no need to make a mountain out of a molehill, after all.

"Oh, your Zoroark?" Lilith glanced back to the mirror image of Faleen and blinked as the smirking creature transformed back into a fox-like Pokemon. How interesting: a Pokemon that could copy humans? That had the potential to be diabolical, but Lilith did not voice this.

In response to Faleen's query about her own endeavors, Lilith shrugged awkwardly. "Well, I've been... all right, I suppose. Been through some very rough times lately, but I'm a bit better now." Lilith grimaced. Faleen appeared to have made so much of herself in the time that Lilith had not seen her, and what had she accomplished? A broken heart and a shattered reality. Impressive. Real impressive.

When the other human transformed back into a Zoroark, Nerezza was just as surprised as Lilith was. That was something else. She had heard about the infamous Zoruas and Zoroarks of Unova, but she never imagined that she would be able to meet one by happenstance. The Gastly kept one eye on the transforming creature as she hovered about the room, idly looking at the different machines and weird tools.

"She certainly looks impressive," Lilith remarked in regards to Faleen's Zoroark. Her coloration was particularly lovely, and Lilith assumed that she would be a terror in any battle. In the back of her mind, she made a mental note to take her own Pokemon down to the training rooms again sometime soon.

As the subject switched back to the mention of Lilith's hard times, her eyes grew more steely and she tried to avoid meeting Faleen's eyes. She obviously was unaware of what Lilith had went through - why would she? It wasn't like it was her concern, and Lilith had no right to press her own troubles onto the other Agent who was only trying to be polite and sympathetic. "Yeah, well... I'm working on it, at least."

"Oh, what brings me here?" Lilith brushed a piece of hair behind her ears as she glanced around the strange room again. "Honestly, I think I wandered down here by accident. Kind of out of sorts, you know." She grimaced as she shuffled nervously.

"Actually, though... I have been meaning to get into one of the departments or something. You know... Find what I'm good at." It felt strange to be saying all of this to Faleen, whom Lilith had only been in contact for a short time, but it might be worth a shot to talk with her, Lilith guessed. Who knew - perhaps Faleen would help her out.

As Nerezza heard someone calling for her, she spun around, lips pursed at whoever was impeding her exploration. She saw it to be that Zoroark who had copied the other human woman. ["All right, fine. Geez,"] she said in reply, shrugging a little. As she got a closer look, the Gastly noticed that the Zoroark was a Shiny color: a genuine one, at that, just like the pink puffball Ziazan. Guess they were more common than she had thought. Looking around at the strange, foreign objects again, Nerezza called back down to the Dark Pokemon. ["Hey! What's all this junk for, anyway?"]

As the word 'Legendaries' left Faleen's mouth, Lilith noticeably flinched and lowered her eyes, avoiding Faleen's gaze. Oh yes, she had forgotten: Faleen definitely knew about her previous devotion, and as Lilith recalled, the other woman wasn't entirely positive towards the idea of a Pokemon-worshiper in the steel-grip of the great crime organization that was Team Rocket. She had be right all along, Lilith was now realizing. Her faith had cost her dearly. But according to Faleen, now was the perfect chance for her to right her wrongs.

Could she even do that, though? Would she be strong enough to confront her rage and hatred and look it dead in the eye? Lilith herself was not sure of the answer.

"I... do have some knowledge of the Legendary Pokemon, yes," came her tentative reply to Faleen's question. Her brow creased as she spoke. "But only some of the stories and myths about them. Little things like their journeys and histories and some of their personalities and behaviors..." Lilith really wished that she had not spoken up about this. It was painful to wrench those memories back up from the deep abyss, and the many cuts and wounds still burned when agitated.

At Faleen's suggestion of how to put that information to use, Lilith's eyebrows shot up and her verdant green eyes lit up in shock and surprise as she looked up at the other Agent. "You mean, like... Like information for capturing them?! For using them as tools?!" The thought of it made Lilith's blood boil unexpectedly, and she quickly took a deep, calming breath to reset her fraying nerves. It only made sense, though. To Rockets, Legendaries were nothing more than normal Pokemon; they were just a little rarer and more powerful. And they were normal. Nothing special about those bastards. Her loyalty rested with Team Rocket, and nothing else. She had to remember that.

"I, well..." She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "...I suppose that that type of information would be... useful for our purposes, wouldn't it? But-!" Lilith balled her gloved hands into tight fists as her eyes gravitated back down to the floor. "What kind of use would that information be? They're nothing more than myths. Fairy tales. Sure the Legendaries exist, alright, but they're only Pokemon. A bit stronger, but just normal." Lilith spat this last word with nothing less than furious contempt. Keeping up the facade of well-being was tough work.

["Mm, looks kind of like junk to me,"] Nerezza called back to the Zoroark as she continued inspecting and poking around. ["Humans always mystify me with their odd inventions."] Despite her words, even the cynical Ghost had to admit that many human tools were more than useful. She couldn't count the times that she played around with her human's Pokedex just to see what things did. ["What kind of stuff do they make,"] the Gastly asked as she investigated another mysterious pile.

Lilith was contemplating silently as Faleen explained all of the logical and completely true facts that came along with the apprehending of the Legendaries. She listened quietly, taking moments of pause in Faleen's speech to nod numbly. Of course, she was right about how there were facts in every myth and every story. All that Lilith had to do was read in between the lines and she could unlock the mysteries of these so-called Legends. It would be so simple. She had the power to deal out punishment to that faith that she had revered for so many years... If she knew all about the Legendary Pokemon, she could have a chance to actually use that knowledge to her - and Team Rocket's - advantage.

The deliberate use of the title of 'Agent' along with her name made Lilith blink in surprise, though she kept her eyes locked firmly on the ground. That was another truth as well: she was an Agent. She was no mere Grunt or Trainee to be pushed around and stepped on. She was a solid piece of Team Rocket now, and she had a duty to uphold to her organization. Maybe using the knowledge at her disposal for the good of Team Rocket would be a positive thing after all.

"Yes, I suppose one could think that it's inevitable that we collect all of the Legendaries for our own devices," Lilith said finally, folding her arms protectively across her chest and smirking. "And it would be all the better if the final prizes were as undamaged as possible." In the dark corners of her heart, Lilith hoped that the Pokemon would suffer some pain for all that they gave to her, but then she reminded herself that they were just living creatures. It was the falseness about them that hurt her, not the beings themselves.

All in all, the odds were weighed heavily in favor of further investigation, and Lilith could not help but eventually concede. One small thing still snagged at her thoughts, however. "How on earth would I even go about doing such a thing, though? Just research?" The woman brought her eyes back up to Faleen, and there was a hint of bitterness traced in between the edges of her words. "I hardly think that just perusing the base library would be sufficient in that case."

["Robots? You kidding?"] Nerezza's voice was filled with surprise at this statement. She had no idea that they created robots and weird mechas like that. The Gastly's curiosity piqued, she let her gaze follow where the Illusion Pokemon pointed and set her eyes on the strange, half-finished contraption in the corner. She quickly floated over to it, peering into the bundle of wires and circuits. ["What are these robots for, then,"] she called back to Zoroark. What fun it would be to get into one of those, Nerezza mused. It'd probably be a little cramped, though.

A heavy sigh escaped Lilith's lips as she brushed a stray piece of long brunette hair over her shoulder. It was terribly unfortunate that Faleen could not help her on that particular conundrum, but, to be fair, she shouldn't be expected to hold all of the answers. Some things Lilith would just have to buckle down and figure out for herself, and that was the real challenge right there. How could she find the culprit if she had no clues to work from, metaphorically speaking?

As she pondered on that, a thought came to mind. Given the fact that Team Rocket had captured Legendaries [which, at this point, was by all extents and purposes indisputable], wouldn't they need some place to house and hold them for research and ...experiments? "Well..." Lilith started, her voice wavering slightly. "...We do have laboratories and stuff like that here, yeah? And, theoretically, they would have research and whatnot on the Legendaries there?" Silently Lilith felt silly to have ask all of these questions - she should already know this, for Pete's sake - but she did not voice this. "Do you think it might be possible for me to go there to maybe... observe some of the Legendaries or something? Just to give me a bit of a better idea of how to look into their behaviors more?"

Nerezza pursed her lips as she looked downward to regard the treads that the Zoroark had mentioned. It indeed looked to be quite an impressive piece of machinery, but hey, what did Nerezza know? It wasn't like mechanics were a pastime of hers or anything. If anything, machines and junk like that only proved to bore her. Now that she was here, though, she was starting to see how useful such buckets of bolts could be. ["Security, you say? Interesting..."] As she looked about, another piece of machine a short ways away caught her eye and she floated over towards it to investigate.