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For a second Hayes was quiet, and then his mouth twitched in an approximation of a smile. "Great. Thanks." He lifted his hand in a wave and sat back down.

The agent sipped his soda. O-kay. One of five. The odds were better than they'd been a minute ago - one of four, actually, since wasn't there something about taking some grunt along for muscle? Still, that-

Break. He was here for a break. Maybe it was worth firing up the X-Box.

The blond looked up as Nyx popped her head into the room. "Sort of." But Lucas was asking questions - the ones everyone probably wanted to hear, so he didn't follow up on that statement. He leaned over to retrieve his cards instead, glasses slipping low on his nose.

One signal, belonging to an agent, was recovered from the mission. Nyx was an agent. Nyx was returning from the mission. Lucas simultaneously didn't want to drink anymore and wanted to drink all of the alcohol forever.

"Oh. Uh, well. Dunno. I'll check the fridge." Standing rather abruptly, Lucas proceeded to gracelessly stumble into the arm of the couch. He set an arm against the couch's back, thinking about anything and everything but the implications of Nyx's presence.

"Whoa, wait-" Hayes adjusted his glasses, leaning forward to get a better look at Nyx than the cursory glance he'd given her when she walked in. "You were on the- what- ..happened?" There were all sorts of crazy rumors to dispel, and if she didn't, that scruffy guy was probably going to get alcohol poisoning. It was just a feeling.

"Hoo. Wow. Yeah, I'm great," Lucas said, shaking his head briefly - it was either an effort to dispel Alba's worry or a subconscious negation of his own words. He listened absently as Nyx summarized the mission. "So great," he muttered, passing a hand over his face as he moved to find the requested food things. So great that he was going revoke his offer to share and down that damnable bottle if it killed him. And it certainly had the potential to do so - the stuff was strong, so much so that it was not intended to be consumed straight in any quantity.

He would return after a few brief moments and set any number of edible things on the table, among them little plastic bags of cheese crackers or miniature cookies, hot chocolate packages, and a stalk of celery. Auto-pilot functions disregarded such trivial details as standard snacking preferences. "Guess it is a party, huh?" he mused idly, reaching forward to seize the bottle with one hand and deal a hand from the deck with the other. "Best party in the world."

"I don't know where everyone went." Nyx commented absently as she passed on the delicious celery in favor of cheese filled crackers. "Thas because they all esploded." She didn't even stop chewing the crackers to announce that little detail. "Are we going to talk all night, or are we going to play poker?"

She was being way too casual, and Lucas was beginning to reevaluate his impression of the small agent. He knew her as friendly, at least mildly interested in weapons, and borderline obsessed with baking. Now he couldn't help but think she was a some kind of malcontent with no regard whatsoever for human life. He was ready to either dismiss her words as a sick, cruel joke or take a deep breath and remind himself that it was a criminal organization and sometimes one had to cut one's losses and move on - but the mental images Nyx's diction inspired were enough to keep much too close to the edge of breakdown to think about anything so rational.

"Talking and cards, sure," he assented, picking up the hand he had earlier dealt himself and sparing no pains to maintain a calm outward appearance. The color of his face was outside of his control, though, and the increasingly pallid expression betrayed only the very tip of the massive well of anxiety and grief taking root in the pit of his stomach. It didn't help at all that Frost's was another dangerous question that he very distinctly did not want to hear the answer to, but a morbid curiosity kept him listening.

Nyx took a deep breath and sighed, it seemed like no cards were going to happen until she talked. It was understandable, if she heard that Miss Nadja, or Mau were on a raid and they'd gone missing, she'd be worried too... "I'm sorry, I didn't know you hadn't already heard. I assumed since I had time to get back, get checked over, take a shower, and change that news would have already circulated." No wonder that man was drinking himself into a stupor. "No one died. No one even really got seriously injured, except for Stephan." The scientist leaned back in her chair,"It was Elite TRP, myself, Faleen, Claire, Aila, and... Aulus?"

Suddenly a question she'd put to the side during the mission came snapping back into the front of her mind. "Since when is he in Team Rocket?"

Said muscular kid and said Absol chose that moment to make their entrance along with a Charmeleon, a crate of beer, and two large pizzas. Said muscular young man also happened to be shirtless (a small dressing covered some wound or other on the left side of his torso), making the deep diagonal scar that ran down his body (and his muscles) extremely visible. He wasn't wearing shoes either, in fact all he was wearing was a pair of white martial arts trousers held up by a black belt with three red bands on, it and a grin. Depending on an observer's priorities his shirtlessness might have been of either more or less interest than the crate of beer that rested on one of his shoulders. The aforementioned pair of pizzas were on large plates, which in turn were balanced carefully on the Charmeleon's hands.

Aulus spent a few moments surveying the occupants of the room... Well, actually he scanned the room quickly and then spent a few moments fixing Lucas with a red-eyed glare. "Evening Alba," he said eventually with a nod to the trainee, a bit of his smile returning, "evening EmmaNyx didn't know you were in Team Rocket, evening people I don't know, evening arsehole. Damn it's been a long day, anyone want pizza or beer? I'm in an uncharacteristically good mood having not died today, so make the most of it."

He'd been sullen on the mountain, sullen on the way back, and sullen as his superficial burn had been disinfected and dressed. He'd also been annoyed when he got back to his dorm to discover he seriously needed to do laundry, but as he'd been putting on his only clean trousers Char had appeared with the pizzas he must have crept down to cook as soon as they touched down and all had been right with the world. Well, it had been once he'd retrieved the beer from its secret hiding place anyway... Now it wasn't again. Lucas. Bloody Lucas just had to be here, didn't he? Well, he'd just have to ignore him. b*****d.

*****

...Well. Frost raised his eyebrows as the powerfully build brunette sauntered in. Much though the view was nice, he didn't find the lack of shirt very civilized. He didn't fancy pizza that might have had anything at all done to it either, nor did he fancy beer. "Hello young man I do not know," he greeted in return, "I think I shall pass on the victuals. Thank you all the same... Mmh, well it is good to hear that everybody lived, although the loss of the helicopter is an inconvenience."