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He clenched his hands into tight fists, keeping his head against the wall. "This is some kind of sick joke, right?" He knew he was a criminal, and he knew his actions had probably indirectly harmed, if not killed, a number of people over the years but the vivid memories of men, women, even children staring up at him from beyond the gun barrel, tears in their eyes and fear on their faces - it was completely different. "I never wanted to hurt anyone..." He instinctively lowered his head and raised his shoulders, his entire body tensing to contain the seething hatred that was growing against himself.

No, it was a joke all right - a joke that Arceus himself was playing at Lucas's expense. He just needed to laugh it off. Trouble was that he didn't feel much like laughing at the moment. With another quiet sigh, he turned away from the wall, leaning his back against it and maintaining his gaze on some distant spot on the floor. Liselle, perturbed by her human's strange behavior, hopped down from his shoulder and rounded the wall into the next booth, peeking out from around the corner with her ears flat against her head. The little 'vee wasn't used to seeing these emotions, and it was beginning to frighten her.

"...Yeah, I guess that wasn't the best idea," Lucas admitted, rubbing at his sore hand. It was significantly more painful once he actually put attention on it, but it scarcely changed the fact that punching walls a good, immediate way to address frustration. He ran a hand through his hair idly. "Have to say, this has not been the best week of my life. I'd kind of like if I could just... give all these stupid memories back." At this point he didn't even care if that meant losing the ones he was glad to have recalled. Hell, at this point he was ready to give up everything he had ever known and start blank.

Well, that was a plus, at least. What an embarrassing way to break a hand that would be... Granted, breaking one's hand at all was less of a badge of honor than other things could be, but obtaining such an injury through a momentary lapse of regard for the self was quite possibly at the bottom of the list.

"I'd give much more than just what I've remembered." His response was automatic, delivered in a firm voice that betrayed no lack of resolve. "...But that's not possible, I guess. Though I have to say, I really don't know what there is for me to learn from this." Nothing to learn, nothing to improve, not even a means of atonement. Such was the life of a criminal. "Damn it. This isn't fair. I didn't even make this choice myself," he said through teeth gritted bitterly. He couldn't help but imagine a world in which he had fled Galactic earlier in his life, in which he was able to live a normal life with a normal job and a normal family. Though it was likely that even that much wasn't plausible; had he attempted to escape, even if he had gotten away, it was incredibly likely to have found himself with a hole in his head sooner or later.

He instinctively thought back to his own first pokemon, the Piplup he had been given when his parents encouraged him to start a trainer journey. He hadn't particularly wanted a pokemon, though, and his trainer journey had been very short with a very bad ending. He had been equally unreceptive to his second pokemon, working with Merry for years before finally accepting her as a partner, so that was out altogether. Family life seemed that it had potential to hold something worth holding onto, but his memories of his childhood remained clouded and confused. Lovers-- No, not at all, really. Even his closest friends had disappeared without a trace. He'd had the occasional good run, sometimes even for years at a time, but it seemed that everything always ended in tragedy.

Lucas could only laugh at this realization, a forced laugh laced with an immense grief. "No, I guess I don't have anything like that. That's pretty sad, huh?" Starting over was sounding more and more appealing, despite that it was no more plausible.

Through all his thoughts, the one that persisted above the others was the want to start anew. Atonement was accomplished through a life devoted to the betterment of the lives of others, and bettering the lives of others was not generally one of Team Rocket's goals. Lucas could very much feel the world closing around him, pushing him further into the shadows of the corner in which he suddenly found himself.

"There's no redemption here." His words were quiet, murmured, but they broke a silence that had persisted since Isadora spoke. The expression he wore was one of a man deeply defeated, and something within him became acutely aware of the pair of handguns that had been so casually discarded on the stall's counter. Moving autonomously and driven by the overpowering wish to have his new beginning, he seized the nearer of the weapons into his palm. The safety was unceremoniously released, the barrel slightly raised.

He turned to Isadora with every nuance of a child whose mother had just discovered him reaching his hand into the cookie jar before dinner. The pull of his own thoughts created a barrier between his conscious mind and the understanding of the woman's words, angry as they were, and he stared dumbfounded, the gun remaining firmly grasped in his hand.

"What?" His response was more breath than voice, uttered largely because he felt compelled to give some reply. The finger wrapped around the trigger kept him anchored to his stupor in spite of all attempts at comprehension.

He recoiled half a step when she suddenly approached, still quite unsure of what exactly was going on. He glanced down at the gun as it was dissuaded from its target, returning confused blue eyes to Isadora when she spoke again. "No," he shook his head slightly, "I don't... can't understand. What are you saying?" All at once he regained control over his words, emotions surfacing where before there was a startled emptiness. And first and foremost was indignation.

"What am I supposed to do then?!" Though the barrel was pointed safely down and away, his finger in the proper parallel position, his grip on the weapon tightened. "How long do you think this has been going on?!" He threw up his unoccupied hand in frustration. "Thirty years! Thirty years I've been killing people, training to kill people, training others to kill people--" He bit his lip, containing his expression to a grimace. A slight trembling reemerged in his extremities, a desperation clinging to his tone. "How do you live with yourself knowing that?"

"Don't say 'innocent' when it was this hand," he raised the mentioned appendage slightly, "that pulled the trigger." He didn't feel particularly inclined to train that bullet on himself at the moment, though, and he dropped the weapon back to the counter with a shuddering sigh. "...What do you suggest, then? How do I... How can't I hate myself?" His tone was half challenge and half genuine entreaty. What he had done went against every moral fiber of his being; simply accepting and living with that was beyond him.