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Aulus for one was not counting all his eggs in one basket. Wait. That was wrong. Anyway, he wasn't relaxing yet and now that a solution to their weight conundrum was sorted he turned more focus back onto his immediate surroundings. Until they were back in the jet, no, until they were back on base he wouldn't be entirely happy.

It was obvious that Vahy'n wasn't exactly approving of what was going on. But there was nothing to be done about that. He had a job to do, and failure wasn't a option.

Once the bottle was filled, he screwed the lid back on and next released Saber. The Zoroark stood tall and glanced around before looking down at his master, who now stood. The bottle was handed off to the dark Pokemon before Asch turned his attention towards the sky plate.

"Replace that with the plate. Be careful and make it appear as if it's still there."

The Zoroark glanced between the exhibit and his master before nodding in understanding. In the next moment, the Zoroark appeared to shimmer out of existence, going completely invisible. There was hardly a sound as the Pokemon approached the exhibit.

Saber had done things like this in the past, thus he was no stranger to such a tactic. Thus as the Rockets waited, nothing seemed to happen at all. That is until the Zoroark reappeared at Asch's side and handed him the sky plate.

It was a flawless swap. Nobody watching the exhibit's camera feed would realize anything had happened, and by the time the illusion faded the group would already be making a break for it.

Lore beamed, eyes on the shimmering plate now clutched in Asch's hands, "Excellent work."

The celebration was short lived.

The Rockets were allowed to enjoy their success for only a moment before the room grew dark. A long ominous shadow crept across the domed glass ceiling, blotting out the moon and stars. Something large was hovering over the building. With a loud shunk that echoed all around the room, thick metal doors dropped over the exits. Glass shattered overhead as the hovering shape punched through the domed ceiling. It was a giant metal Dusknoir, which could, of course, mean only one thing.

"Team Rocket!" A familiar voice erupted from the hovering machine. A purple-haired man leaned into view from the giant pokémon's eye cavity. "Fancy meeting you here." Deimos smirked. "A well-executed heist, I must say. Tethys and I were most impressed. Weren't we, Tethys?"

His second-in-command's jaded monotone echoed from somewhere inside the glowing red eye. "I noted considerably less bungling this time, sir."

"You should be proud. Tethys doesn't just give away compliments." Deimos nodded reasonably.

Team Galactic's arrival had clearly caught Lore off guard. His expression betrayed a moment of surprise before he started scanning the room for possible exits. Of course the heist had been too easy. They should have seen this coming. "Don't let them get the plate." He instructed his fellow Rockets.

Deimos was grinning down at Lore, "Not in the mood for conversation? Very well. Keep them busy."

Half a dozen galactics repelled from the Dusknoir, releasing pokémon on their way down. The team seemed well organized, wielding a group of houndoom and lucario that wasted no time in charging the Rockets.

With a loud "SCOR!" Deimos' Gliscor shot from the eye of the Dusknoir and circled the hovering ship.

"With all due respect, sir, this is somewhat inefficient." Tethys appeared at Deimos' side and lofted two Pokeballs that broke open in midair. A large Starmie streaked around in a wide arc to knock Aulus off his feet. At the same time a moth the size of a man rose silently toward the broken ceiling, wings crackling with flame.

"Efficiency isn't always the point, Tethys." A cold chill crept into the little Galactic leader's voice. He turned his eye to Phillip as the Gliscor passed, "Stone Edge!"

"Scor!" With no actual stones handy, Phillip snatched a clawful of glass shards from the ruined ceiling, then hurled them down at the group.

- - -


[And that's where we're leaving it for tonight! You can all get your first post of the fight in between now and when we pick things up again tomorrow at 1pm EST. Please make a damage roll and include an injury appropriate to the damage you've rolled at some point before the end of this fight.]

Roll One d20:

13-20: No injuries!
8-12: Some bumps and bruises, superficial wounds.
3-7: Moderate wounds, broken arm, deep gashes, etc.
1-2: Your character is seriously injured.

Rank Modifiers:
Agent: +2, Elite: +3

Shadow blinked up at the thing blocking out their last bit of natural light. At least before it smashed into the glass, raining shards down upon them all and causing the boy to lift his sleeved arms above his head to protect himself.

Of course it had to take the shape of a ghost. Why not? Ghosts seemed to be the main theme for the evening. This was just not the grunt's night. Now he was starting to get why Tambrey had warned him about missions. Even if things seemed to go according to plan, unexpected situations could present themselves at any time. It was a good thing Shadow was used to thinking on his feet.

He had no idea who the guy was, but by the looks of things, it seemed they knew Team Rocket pretty well. Shadow could only assume they were the rival team, Team Galactic, that he'd only heard a little about from others at the base. Hardly anything, really. But the purple-haired guy seemed to like to talk a lot.

Don't let them get the plate? THAT's our current top priority? the grunt wondered, astounded at Lore's instructions. Still, orders were orders. And this was an emergency. They needed all the help they could get.

Grabbing the two remaining pokeballs in his pockets, Shadow tossed them into the air. "Girls! Get those pokemon!" he called, pointing at the houndoom and lucario that descended upon them. "Celty, you too! Give 'em all you got! Scratch, Pursuit, and Shadow Sneak!"

The female pokemon, one by one, launched themselves into the fray. The purrloin were considerably more eager to obey than they had been under Izaya's command. This time they were doing all they could for the sake of Team Rocket and not for Izaya's selfish ends.

Jerome just watched while the Rockets below worked of getting the plate out from the display, at the same time he made sure he couldn't see any guard coming from the distance that the others couldn't see, what he didn't expect, was from something to come from above.

Jerome was mostly out of the way of the falling glass, But he was startled backwards when the force and the noise suddenly broke their silence.

"The ********?" He said, looking up at a large, strange pokemon machine of some kind, He was starting to wonder what the hell it was doing there when someone spoke from it, and he could start seeing people.

He didn't know their faces, but if he had to take a guess, this was Team Galactic.
Jerome's hands tightened on the railing, so this was the other team that they were at war with, the ones that managed to kill one of their younger Agents.

Man, it would have just been so nice to get this job done, and get back on home, but it looked like they were in for a fight after all.
Kicking himself over onto the other side of the railing, Jerome watched as some Galactic decided down onto the main group.
"Hirss, A'ight girl lets show these ******** not to mess with our gang."
A pokeball was flicked up, the spray of light dropping a Fraligatr that towered up behind Jerome, The mutant of Science letting out a low rumble of a growl before she let out a furious roar. claws slamming on the railing beside Jerome as she leaned over it, tail thrashing violently behind her, and her wide jaw dropping down to shoot a heavy stream of steaming water, using Scald of the first Houndoom she could see.

Bro in the mean time had come back into sight, and was blinking at the group of Galactics and their pokemon.
Seemed it was time to get busy, teach these punks a lesson.
"Gar!" frowning, Bro' had to swoop away, breathing out a lungful of smoke as he went, unable to attack at first since he had to get out of the onslaught of bodies, some of them dark types. great.

[They hatin']

Alba had been on edge from the moment they found that fleck of dust sensor. Then things had looked up. Then things had literally starting crashing down. Then the half dozen Galactics appeared and sent out an arsenal of Pokemon. Forget niceties; Alba's mind was thinking a long string of swear words right then.

"Tricks!" He moved to stand next to Asch and pulled out two more pokeballs. The Shuppet dropped down to just above eye-level with Alba, who looked directly at her. "Have at." It was all that needed saying for Trick to get the meaning. Her eyes lit up at what she had just been given. Oh, all the wonderful bad feelings those intruders must have in their heads! Wasting no time, she bypassed the attacking pokemon, and went straight for the nearest Galactic.

While Trick had her moment of rejoice, Alba had released Spook and Twitch as well, with orders to keep guard. Lucario or Houndoom, whatever came near Asch and that plate first would be faced by a tag team of Confusion and Gust.

"Ah.. s**t." That was Hayes' official executive summary of the situation, delivered in a heartfelt groan.

Then everything exploded.

Hayes stepped back, instinctively shielding his head as the ceiling came down. As the short sharp shower of shards subsided he raised his head, now sporting several shallow cuts on his arms from the falling glass, and looked around as Galactics began rappeling down from the.. giant ghost blimp, which after several encounters with Galactic surprised him far less than it should.

"Get a ghost through the walls - see if you can find a release mechanism." Short of bashing a hole in the floor - not that he was opposed to such property damage for the sake of the mission, but in this marble-and-stone building it might be difficult - the doors were probably the best option.

"You okay?" Hayes asked as he found himself being shielded by Aulus. He released his own Pokemon - Switch, Darwin and Nemerle - with the sinking realization that as type advantages went, a Pikachu, Pidgeot and Glaceon weren't the best options. Unfortunately, he didn't have many others.

Suddenly all those times he'd passed up training in favor of working on code seemed a lot more important.