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(Lux/Shadow)
The first can that Lasi had managed to find had been a carelessly emptied and discarded one; he was very shocked when what he thought to be a cylinder full of delicious sugary liquid crumpled so easily and emptily in his jaws. Bah, that was not a pleasant surprise whatsoever. It certainly wouldn't do for the nice humans who were helping him with his full can...
It hadn't even occurred to him that he could have waited to have the can and then not gotten Lux one. Why would it? That would be awful; then he would have failed his challenge! Not to mention he'd have felt bad that Lux didn't get her drink... It wouldn't be nice to do that to someone who was nice to him 'off-duty' anyway; when he and Tambrey were on-duty things like this wouldn't count- that was just work. Off-duty made it different.
Right. He'd found another full can; time to get back to the human couple.
He landed a little away at first, studying them. Clearly he'd stumbled on some sort of human courting ritual.
And he was helping! Wonderful!
He understood, from the lack of any such thing on Tambrey's part for quite a while, that human courting must be a complicated and difficult process... Perhaps moreso than the challenges of finding a mate among pokemon...
He had seen enough films to gain some idea of how he could 'help', however and he was sure Tambrey would be delighted, if she knew, that he'd been able to put all those films she watched to such a good use!
Quickly he fluttered back to the pair, deposited the soda can and fluttered off again without even waiting to receive his own, opened can.
New mission!
The bat fluttered straight into the room where he remembered the costumes and props were... Where was it, where was it?
He had to dig a little, and a small bit of mess was caused, with consternation to the staff, but soon...
Ahah!
After a few moments the pink Golbat was cheerfully fluttering back toward Lux' and Shadow's table... A candle (gaudy in Halloween orange and decorated with a black zubat of all things) was clutched, gently, between his teeth, to set right in the center, just like those nice, informative films!

(Presea)
Tambrey had watched Lasi flutter about a couple of times. She had a general idea of where he was and he really did seem to be enjoying himself... It wouldn't hurt to stay a little longer, she supposed, as it would be a shame to disrupt whatever fun he was having now. Besides, her present could wait until morning if it had to; once it was open, it was open and that was part of looking forward to it, then after that she'd get to read it and the sooner she started reading it, then the sooner it would be over and no longer a new read.,, Yes, some delay was good, even if she wasn't sure what to do with herself here.
How much easier it must be for pokemon... She didn't have much time to think through the thought any much more as she suddenly found, with a little bit of surprise and some anxiety, that a robotic doll had sat herself down in one of the other seats. Ah.. So that she could fasten her laces...
Oh, wait. She should offer a gree- Ah, no, the doll was greeting her. That made things a little, tiny bit less awkward.
"Hello," she replied, twitching her mouth upward in a smile at the shorter woman. Her eyes took in the costume, noting first how she sat and tracing the reason to the key in the back of the costume... That was really neat.
"I like your costume!" The grunt offered suddenly. She really did like the costume and she knew that wasn't too weird a thing to compliment at this sort of a party; she just hoped she hadn't said it too oddly. It was a bit enthusiastic. "The key's a really nice idea..."

(Izaya, Frost)

"I don't think he's following us Iza." Xander said as he was pulled along. He didn't mind being tugged off but at the same time he was starting to think back to his date. What if Frost stopped talking to Izumi and didn't have a distraction? What if DITH found Frost and recognized him? The blond started to look back to keep an eye on Frost.

~*~*~

(Luke, Rosie, Asch)

Natalia looked to the side then back at Luke. "No, you wouldn't lie. I just find it hard to believe..." She frowned slightly when he changed what he was going to say. "Stole what?" She asked then paused. "You know what, I'm not sure I want to know just yet." The night had been one roller coaster of a ride already, she didn't want to know what the man who made he heart race stole. "It's late and I have things to think about, I will see you later Luke." The young woman gave him a kiss on the cheek then nodded at Rosie. "Pleasure meeting you, perhaps next time I will be better company." With that aid she turned around and started to walk towards the dressing rooms to change.

~*~*~

(Izaya)

Target spotted. The Flea better watch out....

Though he was of a slightly different opinion, Shadow nodded in understanding. He could see how Luxury might believe that...he just didn't agree with it. At least it wasn't that way for him. It was said that wishing only wounded the heart. Sometimes it was best to just accept life as it was and make the best of it. The past was more or less irrelevant, anyway. It was the present that mattered.

"Hey, that was fast," the robot complimented the Golbat as Lasi returned. With another can of soda in his mouth, too. So he really had understood. Amazing how understanding and kind pokemon could be. Why had Shadow felt he'd never realized this before...? Hadn't he always known about pokemon? When he tried to think about his former experiences with them, though, it was mostly just a blur.

"Huh? Where're you going? You forgot your own!" he called back to the flying and poison type as it flew off once more. Maybe he'd spoken too soon about pokemon being understanding. He watched it for some time, wondering where it was headed.

As Luxury was addressing him again, he quickly turned his attention back to the devil girl. "Sorry? Oh, uh..." Well...what he could remember he wasn't sure he was at liberty to say. White halls, a secret base in the middle of the desert, a criminal organization called Team Rocket he'd joined just recently...though the actual memories of his joining weren't clear.

"Not much, I guess. Maybe I just hit my head coming in and suffered some minor head trauma," he told the girl, not wanting to concern her. "I'm sure I'll be fine in a little while. It's probably nothing serious. Temporary memory-loss is pretty common, isn't it?"

Though with the difficulty with which Shadow was forming comprehensible thoughts, he was starting to wonder if it was something a lot more devastating. He had the ominous feeling it was a permanent condition - that his memory would never quite fully recover.

Something had happened to him. Something concerning Team Rocket. But what? Maybe he'd fallen and hurt his head during training, or maybe he'd been out on some mission and gotten hit by a pokemon attack. Who knew. It didn't seem to matter much at the moment, though, and his head didn't hurt like before. He could always wonder about it later. Right now he just wanted to relax and enjoy the party with Luxury. It was cool learning more about her as she seemed to open up to him.

"There you are. What'cha got there, fella?" Shadow asked, seeing the Halloween-themed candle in the bat's mouth. He raised a brow. What was that for? Their lighting seemed adequate enough. "Um...thanks," he told Lasi. "Don't forget your reward this time. Nice of you to bring something extra." He looked quizzically to Luxury. "Did you, uh...ask for a candle?"

(Shadow/Lux)

Ooh! Ooh! The sugar drink was open!
The pink bat hopped a little excitedly, though thankfully without knocking anything over. That was something to be grateful for; the bat still wasn't entirely used to this larger body and did often find his wing span to be something of a concern around objects that weren't fastened to anything.
He accepted the can from Luxury gently, the entire thing going into his mouth though as he drained the delicious soda from it.
It only took the pokemon mere seconds really for the entire can to be drained and then the empty container was spat out and discarded upon the floor. Well, he certainly wasn't going to spit it up on the table and ruin the human's courtship ritual!
Hm. The male seemed confused about the candle. Maybe he had done it wrong?
Well, he certainly didn't know how to light the thing, so one of them would have to figure that out...
No wonder humans seemed to have so complex and awkward a courtship process if a lot of them didn't even know their own rituals! This certainly explained the instructional romance films.
Poor humans, not even possessing proper instincts.
Hm. A lit candle would /surely/ make things clearer for the male.
He needed a fire type! Unless they figured it out themselves, of course.

Luxury frowned. She had gotten a concussion before, and suffered no memory loss, so she knew a blow that took his memory had to be bad...

But right now, the main concern was the candle. "Nope, sure didn't!" the grunt laughed again. "I think... I think he thinks we're dating!" She guessed Shadow didn't go out much, or read books much. A lot of date-dinners involved candles. Turning to the Golbat, she reached out to pat him gently on top of his head. "You're really sweet, but we're just friends," The girl pointed out, feeling a bit bad for knocking his fun.

Turning her attention back to Shadow, she sighed. "I've had concussions before. They suck. Mine have never been serious enough for memory loss. So, have you been having severe headaches lately? Ones that never seem to go away? Slurred speech? Tunnel vision? Dizziness, faintness, disorientation? If you hit your head that bad... You need to get to the hospital. If... If..." Wait. Could a pokemon wipe out memory?

"Huh?" The dumbstruck Rocket stared at the candle in confusion. Then at Lasi. Then at Luxury. "Dating?" And then it clicked. His eyes went wide and his complexion darkened considerably, making him glad once again that his helmet concealed all this from view.

By the time he had finally recovered from his shock, Luxury had already finished explaining to the bat pokemon that they were just friends. Shadow exhaled a big sigh of relief. At least it seemed that the pink Golbat was the only one with that impression. "What, I can't be a nice to a girl without wanting to date her?" the teen laughed at Lasi, gesturing to the devil. "You sly romantic, you. Well, at least you seem to know how to make girls happy. Shouldn't be too hard for you to find a girlfriend...if you don't already have one."

As Luxury addressed him again on more important manners, the robot refocused his attention on her. "Really?" He asked, startled. "How many have you had? You must be in some dangerous work. Er, the doctor told me confusion, disorientation, and memory loss were common with minor ones," he explained. "Maybe we just had different types, or something. And uh..." He paused, frowning.

"I really don't remember. I guess it was kinda slurred when I came in to talk to you, but...mmm, not much of the others. Not that I couldn't attribute to this costume, anyway." Tunnel vision might have been due to the helmet and its limited visor view. Dizziness and disorientation could have been due to his clumsiness in the suit. Really, it was hard to tell what had been the costume's fault and what had been his own symptoms. Strange. Before that, there were only snippets of memories. People telling him he had gotten a concussion...saying he would be okay in a few days...nothing much. Just medical staffe from the infirmary of Team Rocket.

"I'm fine, really," he said, not wanting to concern Luxury anymore. Besides, a hospital could mean bad news. What if they found out about Team Rocket? "Please, don't worry about it. Uh...did you come to this party alone? No one's looking for you, are they?" He wouldn't have wanted to keep her from anyone, or have them think he'd kidnapped her or was hitting on her or worse.

Faleen had expected a few different responses from the kitten pokemon when they were addressed, it was in a dark types nature, especially one of his breed to be tricky and manipulative, Heck, Faleen expected dark types to be downright dangerous, as they had the disturbing capacity for at times.

But what the two Purrloin did instead drew a soft perplexed frown from Faleen,
Up until a certain point when the two suddenly had their ears back, and both of their attention was drawn away to the crowd.
then, without warning the two retreated back into the Repeat Balls without Faleen even prompting them to.

"What was that..." Faleen said to Umbreon, who, like the Purrloin had much better hearing in a crowd then his human master did.
Umbreon was on his feet, scanning the masses of people around before he found what the twins might have been reacting to.
"Umbre- Breon" He announced, ears fanning forward with his head held high.

And she saw them shortly after, her partner, with antoehr Rocket, Xander she recognized, and the man the Purrlion had attached to before.
The one Izaya had claimed to be Shizou.
Brow furrowed, and her mouth closed, The Agent remained where she was standing, one small sized screwdriver twirling absently between her fingers.
She wasn't blind to the fact that the two were not speaking on present terms with one another, but an explosion that Izaya had predicted had not happened yet.

What exactly was going through the engineers mind was had to tell, but she stood, and watched.
Perhaps, even, her eye narrowed... ever so slightly.

(Inigo, punch bowl)

"Yeah, I could use something to drink, too," Alba answered. Looking around the room, he followed after Inigo. Even if he wasn't actively participating in the celebrations, and Arceus be darned if he recognized anyone yet, Alba was still enjoying himself. The right noise, the partying people, the festive decorations and costumes, the (mostly) friendly atmosphere; it was a much needed reprieve from the stark muteness and harsh lighting of the tower HQ. Without even noticing, he may have started to walk by several faces he would normally recognize in passing at work. His attention at the moment was focused on finding something to drink.

As the table came into view, a worrying thought came to mind: had he fed Spook enough dinner to keep the Chingling in her Pokeball and behaving for the duration of this event?