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Once upon a time, Tambrey might have balked at the idea of eating cheese, or chicken, or even prawns, but while she had kept her change of eating habits from her family to preserve her cover, within the team now, she had discovered that her experiences had led her to question a lot of choices.
Why hadn't she been eating meat and other things? It had been remnant behaviour from a life before Team Rocket; there was no being fussy on any long mission and what was available was what was available while she was on the base...
So it was with an interested, if thoughtful expression, that she glanced at what was being prepared.

"Hm. I... think I can try eating it with some chicken. I have to admit, 's not usually something I'd choose to eat, but it's getting hard to be fussy around here. If you'd try to get me to eat this a year ago, you might have had a problem..." It was better to admit stuff like this than pretend and have to explain why she was eating slowly, or why she might suddenly not like something she'd agreed to eat.
"Um. I still actually haven't had shrimp... well, since... since I can remember." She wasn't sure if that would mean Selene would then want her to try them or not, but after what she'd just revealed it would be hard to decline trying at least one.
Wine? Hm, that seemed familiar somehow.
She supposed they were off-duty now, but Tambrey did have duty again in the late afternoon and evening; some experiments went on all day and the results, or figures of the ongoing ones, would need to be put into tables and datasheets, plus she always found herself with equipment to wash and store ready for the next day.
"Erm. I guess I could have, maybe, one glass..." If Selene was going to be drinking some, it might get a bit rude to not have any and she really wasn't going to get drunk on one glass after all. "Back on duty later, aft' all. I suppose the same for you or d'd you get a rest day?"

She blinked at the nudge she felt around her ankles and looked down with a smile, listening as Selene pointed out the PokeFood; ah right, of course, that was what the little steel type was after.
A few seconds later Ella and then Lasi appeared with a little flash of red light; those were the pokemon that Laerdan had met, plus they'd been the ones training today, so it was right they got to eat first. Besides, sending the pokemon out two at a time made them easier to control; the others she had would get some food in a little while.
Ella gave a happy little wave as she appeared, while the large pink bat made an excited grunt, fluttered once around the room and then landed back down near the two little steel types.

"Has Laerdan had his or should I put some down for him too?"

Tambrey set about putting two bowls down while her two pokemon exchanged greetings with Laerdan.
Lasi, over-excited and happy as ever, while Ella remained polite though very clearly pleased to see her new friend again.
The female Aron sat next to her bowl and ate fairly elegantly, with small mouthfuls, using her little claws to pick out each piece of food. Lasi, of course, just grabbed his bowl in his overly large mouth and tipped the food back onto his tongue; it was gone in seconds.
Food good! The bat /always/ had that opinion now; when he evolved, he seemed to have turned into an eating machine. He looked from Ella to the humans and then to Laerdan.
"Guh buh?" /Still hungry?/ He asked- he knew -he- still was, so he hoped the little Aron would be too. His plan would likely get called 'naughty' or 'cheeky' by the humans; it would be more easily done with an accomplice and Ella... was no sort of an accomplice.
"Ron." The ladybug Aron let them know she was watching, right on cue.

Tambrey didn't realise, though perhaps she should have known from experience, that Lasi had already finished his meal; she was currently washing her hands, then giving the chicken a skeptical (almost challenging) eye. It seemed like she intended to try it at least.
"Thanks. It does look good." The dark haired grunt smiled, settling onto a chair. "Hm. Rest day; 's good. Ah... Well. M' background's science and research... Some of that's in the field. Not a lot, mind you. 'S mostly spent in the labs. Grunt work for a grunt; cleaning beakers, compiling charts... Most of it's that sort of thing." She paused, ate a mouthful while she considered her point, then continued. "Like I was saying, my background is science; came here from university. Perhaps you should talk to whoever's in charge of what you're interested in?"

Ella chewed thoughtfully, little mouthfuls, on the nugget of food currently held between her claws.
She watched the pair for now, but made no move to stop them, or to tell on them. At least yet.

Lasi waddled after Laerdan and looked at the claw Laerdan was using to point with before he realised that the Aron was in fact.. pointing him at the cupboard.
"Guh!" He nodded and his eyes matched his permanent grin.
The bat then 'frowned' at the closed cupboard...
Smashing it would be noisy and alert the humans... He looked back at the Aron.
"Gub buh?" Any ideas? Otherwise he was going to try and 'bite' it open.


"Well... Not really.. In fact. No, not at all." Tambrey paused in her eating. The labs were really, perhaps, the most secure of the departments.
"But if y've a background in it, you can apply to the department... It's restricted access... There's a lot that I can't access yet, f' instance, but access opens up as y' move up the ranks... Lot of beaker washing so far..." She only half-joked.

The Golbat would likely have... ended up eating the cupboard door or something had he tried what the Aron was doing. He was suitably impressed though and, lacking thumbs to give a thumbs up, 'grinned' happily at his little accomplice...
Now there was nothing between them!
... Until Ella toddled over to them and tapped the door so it swung back shut.
"Ron." She scolded, then wandered back toward her own food bowl where she still had some left to eat.
The bat was aghast!
They- well Laerdan- had just opened that! He stared after her and then looked back at the door. And then at Laerdan.
Well... They'd have to open it again then!

"So... What's your background?" The grunt asked between bites, rather interested now that the other had asked about the labs and... still unaware of what was happening near the cupboard.

Ella touched her little claws together in a mockery of how a trainer might cross her arms. In her view the other Aron was being very foolish. Now the cupboard was stuck open, for it would be very impolite to close it on him, but that meant that he and Lasi would probably eat the food that they weren't allowed to eat and tattling on them was also rather not a proper thing to do.
She had to find some way to alert the trainers without tattling.
Ah.
The little Aron turned her back to the cupboard... and faked a rather loud sneeze.
"Aa-Aa-RON!" She even made the effort to pretend to be rubbing at her little snout after she'd done it. There. Now hide what you're doing from the humans...

Lasi put his wings in the air, happy as Laerdan came up with a way to stop Ella from closing the cupboard on them again. It was /brilliant/ in the bat's view; be -in- the cupboard! Perfectly simple and /brilliant. Now they could get the f- Ah.
Ella had just 'sneezed'.
The bat spun to look at her, then look at the humans, with a guilty, horrified, wide-eyed expression. They'd be found out!

Hm. Tam' noticed the look, filed it away under 'familiar', and didn't comment.
She nodded a little as Selene spoke.
"Well, congrat's on graduating- what'd you study?"
Not dissimilar a story, she decided, except that she couldn't quite pick out the motivation for joining Team Rocket. Her expression, edging into the curious, might have given her away in that she planned to ask about such things next, however the 'sneeze' from the Aron called her attention toward the ladybug-styled steel type.
She didn't recall her having a cold, nor had the place seemed dusty...

Lasi blinked as Selene shut the cupboard... So. They weren't getting in trouble... Wait!
"Guh! Guh buh!" He protested suddenly. Laerdan was /in/ there! That wasn't fair at all! /He/ wanted to be shut in with all the food! Never mind that he was rather too big to be shut in the cupboard.

"Quieten down, Lasi!" Tambrey called from the table. She was watching Ella after Selene gave her a pat on the head.

The little steel type didn't look ill or like she was going to sneeze again. She hadn't protested the petting and seemed comfortable enough with it, though she had blinked up at the other trainer... There was something though.
She looked 'troubled' somehow; looking from the cupboard that had just been shut to the trainers like she was trying to work something out.

Tambrey wasn't really sure what that could be- Ella never ate all that much so she doubted she was still hungry. Well, if it were important, she was sure they'd know as soon as they needed to.

The grunt bit her lip as Selene said that maybe one day she'd go back... She didn't really imagine Team Rocket sponsoring any sort of scholarship or allowing their members to learn from any institute that wasn't affiliated, unless it proved to be extremely useful.
She just found it hard to imagine being able to go back.
"Well... I guess I understand that... I've not really had th' same thing, but trying everything 'd take a lot of time."

Tambrey had taken another couple of mouthfuls after her comment and thus, to her, as she chewed and swallowed, the shrug and the silence (indeed, the change in atmosphere at the change in Selene's mood) stretched out just enough to be noticeable.
Fork paused, hovering over her plate, she regarded the other grunt hesitantly.
"Hey, uh... 'S not supposed to be a put off, not really," Tambrey said quickly, mistaking the situation as reaction to her last comment "if y' get a chance to try 's much as you can, 's a good idea to take it." Well, there was that big 'if', but that wasn't important enough to vocalise, she decided.
"Sorry." She found herself apologizing and then dropping her fork with a clatter as Laerdan burst from the cupboard in some sort of 'food-explosion' attack.
"GAH!" She seemed about ready to dive under the table, at first, but her wide eyes found the pokemon and she settled for blinking, straightening her glasses and half-smiling/half-blanching. "Wha..."
The dark-haired grunt watched as Selene got up and nodded slightly.
"I'll, uh, help... Maybe after these guys go in their balls though." Her attention had shifted to her large pink bat and the spotted Aron who seemed to have ended up.. clinging to each other?
"We'll have words later." She frowned and promised them as she took the pokeballs from her belt; day or so stuck in the ball, perhaps, depending on what had happened? She wasn't sure what to do yet, really.

----

Lasi could hear the scratching on the other side of the door; his friend hadn't forgotten him! He was trying to let him in!
He turned and poked his tongue out at Ella (who was eyeing the cupboard with some trepidation- she knew what her species was good at...) and then turned back to the door just in time to see it explode in a glorious showering of food (and a less glorious, slightly hazardous, shower of wood).
Despite that she was a steel type, and a lot hardier than he was, Lasi felt a surge of protection for his younger team mate as the wood exploded. Some memory, vague, of an explosion and then wood and trees and flying through the air bit into his thoughts and he found himself flinging himself over the Aron and wrapping his wings above her.
Ella, on the other hand, was immediately first concerned that Laerdan was making a mess and found her concern for the bat a moment later as she found herself suddenly in a 'wing tent'; Silly Lasi, he was a lot 'squishier' than she was and, besides, it was only a cupboard door.

The two of them peeked, once the damage was done, at the pile of food and looked for the other Aron, concerned that he was alright (though Lasi could also barely contain his delight at the food liberation), but quickly found themselves looking up as their trainer approached.
They looked aghast at the dreaded words that always translated as 'you're in trouble'; We'll have words later...