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In the back, Binary hunkered down as Faleen's arm passed over, watching it as if it was a cruising shark. Once the limb had passed she straightened up and looked much less downcast, mollified by Umbreon's words.

"No, no, s'not your fault." Hayes was quick to wave off the apology. "That shouldn't have set her off; she's heard you laugh before. And she shouldn't have a thing about girls." It had occurred to him that if he ever chose to date again, a possessive Pokemon would be a severe inconvenience. "I'll start working on it."

"Oh hey." A dark head had set itself carefully on the armrest between the two Rockets. Binary rolled a gold eye up at him, ears at a hesitant half set. "That's fine," the agent chuckled, scruffing her coarse fur for emphasis. "We're getting close."

At his words, the Umbreon permitted herself to look away from Faleen, who was behaving herself for the moment, and stare upward at the trees that had come into view. They'd been sparse at first, but now they were clustering together to form a green corridor as the van neared the forest. It was cooler here too, the sun not as bright; Hayes flipped the sun guard back up for a better view and grinned at the sight, seemingly as happy to be in greenery as he was to go hunting mech parts.

"Man. I've got to come back here more."

"Yeah, just this one." Hayes grinned down at the shiny dark type with some fond affection and gave her another scruff of the ears. "Personality-wise it seemed to fit." "Breon," Binary agreed, shifting her eyes back to Faleen while her ears wobbled from the scratching and the now-dirt road. Her trainer glanced over at the other agent and shrugged. "So far she's been worth all the trouble." The crooked grin he wore suggested he was joking.

It wasn't long after that that they arrived at their destination - a wide swath of jumbled ground bordered by broken trees, with a faint fuzz of new grass over it. Whatever had been here months ago had left its mark. Hayes leaned forward in his seat and adjusted his glasses, following the path of destruction into the forest. "Guess they cleared some trees away," he reflected, then shifted his grip on the wheel and hit the accelerator. "Let's go further in."

"Yeah," Hayes grinned, catching the change in Faleen's expression. "This thing's big."

If this had been his first time seeing the destructive trail left by Galactic's mech, Hayes would have been caught by surprise too. Even knowing what to expect, it was still an impressive sight. The machine had trampled its way into the forest without stopping, toppling sizable trunks on the way. Some had snapped in two; others had fallen whole, leaving their root systems exposed to the air. Enough of the ill-fated foliage had been dragged to the sides, leaving a rough path of open ground busily being colonized by new green shoots. Binary stared from the backseat, forgetting to be wary of the human on the other side of the headrest.

"M'kay.." The SUV's pace slowed considerably as it rolled over the uneven ground, keeping to the ersatz path until Hayes decided they'd gone far enough to avoid unwanted notice. He settled the vehicle behind a pile of broken trees as best he could, killed the engine, and undid his seatbelt. "Rest is gonna have to be on foot."

On the whole, he sounded rather happy about the idea.

The clunk of the childproof lock broke Binary out of her wonder-induced daze. The little Umbreon shook herself, then laid her ears back when she saw someone who wasn't Hayes poking their head into the back, feeling a certain invasion of space. "Breee," she trilled, and with a hop, scrabble and scramble was into the front seat and out of the car as Hayes opened the door.

"S'only about- oof-" Hayes cut off as an Umbreon bounced off his lap. "-only about an hour maybe. We can set up the tents once we get there and look around until it gets dark." Pocketing his Rocket Dex and the keys, he shut the door and picked up one of the backpacks Faleen had taken out. Binary circled his ankles, keeping a close eye on the female Rocket.

Hayes looked up as he clicked the straps of his pack in place, and found himself easily grinning back.

"Well okay," he chuckled after a pause that made Binary c**k her head, and locked the car doors. "Let's go."

He'd be the first to admit it wasn't an ideal landscape for hiking. Trees had fallen every which way, and whatever large machines used to drag pieces away had left the ground uneven and crumbled under a fuzz of new grass. The forest was starting to move back in, and Pokemon had made burrows and nests in the created crevices, adding additional places to trip or trap an ankle. The blond agent seemed to be able to move through it with relative ease, though, climbing over a fallen trunk here while Binary crawled underneath or finding a clear path through a stand of spindly, growing shoots, often gazing at the standing trees or the sky.

"My parents put me in scouts as a kid," Hayes volunteered as his boots crackled over the leaf litter, dried by exposure to the sun. In some places he seemed to be choosing a more challenging route for the fun of it, as when he chose to climb over a downed oak, shifting his feet automatically to balance while he negotiated the uneven surface. When he was on the other side, he swiped his bangs out of his eyes and looked back at Faleen with a little half-grin. "Something about too much time in front of a screen."

The agent's gaze flicked past her to a dark shape exploring the space under a fallen log several paces back. "Bines!" he whistled. "Bree!" Binary pulled her head out of the burrow she'd been investigating and shook the dirt off her ears, gold eyes wide.

"Came out here a lot in college too," Hayes added as the young Umbreon bounded over.

"Six years of my life, right over there." Hayes jerked a thumb toward the pale mountains in the distance - or more accurately, the thin, dark line of Sandalwood's roofs mostly obscured by the trees from where they were standing. "It was a great way to relax after finals - hey little girl. See something?" This last was to Binary, who had caught up - and stopped a foot away as if she'd run into a brick wall, ears back and eyes wide at Faleen. And Hayes. Just standing there. Talking.

Laughter was probably imminent.

Suddenly, the young Umbreon's mission was at the forefront of her mind.

"Breon," she barked, and wriggled under the dead fall to come out the other side somewhat smudged with dust and bark bits. The shiny dark type did a brief figure eight around Hayes' ankles, then trotted a few feet away and barked again. "Breon, breon."

Hayes just made a noise of amusement at his Pokemon and started moving again.

"Yeah." The blond paused atop another deadfall and took a swig of water from his canteen, then looked back as Faleen caught up with him. "I went there for the comp sci program. Ended up doing my thesis on neural networks after my undergrad."

Binary chose to round this pile of dead wood instead, then took off racing through the fallen leaves - partly so Hayes would be inclined to stop talking and follow her, and partly for the crackly sound they made. He did, but he waited until he could walk beside Faleen to do so, and nudged his glasses back into place. "How 'bout you? You go off the island?"