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September 14th 2010

The ancient computer 'dinged', announcing the arrival of a new IM and prompting Tambrey to scramble from the kitchen, over her bed (which she fell over on) and land, near face first, on the floor in front of the machine.
The girl was a little too excited by the noise, and her ungraceful actions caused her room mate to look up from the TV; Sal was better than Karen had been, at least- she'd yet to eat any of Tam's food and actually seemed happy enough to accept that Tambrey was not the sort who was going to come out for alcohol. She even read and didn't turn over when contests came on.
The blond's only reaction to the fall was to snort softly and raise her eyebrows, turning back to her film.

Tambrey, meanwhile, had scurried back up, at least onto her knees, and had made herself busy typing away in reply to whoever had been IM-ing her.
Her lips twitched slightly as she saw the name of the contact; 'hmph, subtle'.





“Interesting...” Tambrey muttered, then gave a panicked blink, looking to Sal.
Luckily her room mate remained engrossed in whatever film she happened to be watching.
The dark-haired girl highlighted the unusual link, copied it then pasted it into a browser window as told.
The site was simplistic, though clearly something had been done or installed to the computer without her knowledge during the short IM exchange; the black screen, eerily, had plain white text reading 'Welcome Tambrey Greene'.
As Tambrey hadn't at any point written or revealed her name, she was rather disconcerted by the greeting, feeling a cold chill go down her back.
She didn't have long to fret over this, however, for a moment later the screen changed to reveal a map of the town; a stylized 'R' appeared on one particular building, followed by another four digit code: 1623.
Tambrey scrambled to retrieve a pen from the top drawer of the desk and scrawled the numbers onto her hand just before the image faded to nothing but black. An error message then popped up to inform her that the window had become unresponsive and would be closing.
She sat there for a good few moments, not daring to believe that the flyer she'd taken on a whim, that she'd almost believed would be a scam, had turned out to, apparently, be exactly what the distributor had carefully hinted at.

'Travel the world, study rare pokemon, access to the most advanced science and scientific minds without the limits of convention... And get paid for it. It's like a rocket boost to the pursuit of one's ambitions...'

A million things went through her mind in a moment and then she committed herself to her decision.
There'd be no going back on it and why would she want to? The promises outweighed the stigma of being tied to some organization and besides, people feared, perhaps even respected the Rockets. They were powerful... And she'd be a part of it.

“... Going out!” Tambrey announced, simply, grabbing her coat and bag, then was gone through the door before Sal had a chance to reply.
The blond watched the door slam shut behind her odd room mate and was about to return to her film, when suddenly there was a loud pop.
“... Piece of old crap.” Sal muttered unhappily, looking toward the dead computer with its screen black and small ribbons of smoke emanating from its irreparable workings.

Christmas 2010

Months.
Months was the only way to describe how long that Tambrey had, now, been a part of Team Rocket. Over two, in fact, and that was enough time to get her past basic training and earn herself a promotion to Grunt rank.
She noticed, immediately, after the nightmare of Trainee rank, just what improved with this small step up upon the ladder; she only had to share a room with one other person, she had been assigned to the labs, and she wasn't treated to quite as much disdain that seemed to have been directed at the reddish uniform.
Not that the work got much easier, basic training passed or not.
Team Rocket's way of doing things involved owning its 'employees', as far as she could work out and, as such, as there was no life (quite literally) if you tried to leaved the team, basic employee rights weren't exactly something to be expected. Hours were long, there were expectations to meet and pay wasn't exactly anything to be talked about. Still, she could, she thought, with her limited time off base (another 'perk' that she hadn't seen as a trainee) start to send some money home; it wasn't like she /really/ needed much of it herself anyway as every basic thing required to 'live' was provided.
Her mindset had gone from the despair of weeks and slipped to numb acceptance after the first month; she still cried sometimes and still dreamed, occasionally, that she hadn't made this choice and wasn't really here, but the disappointment of waking up was gradually, grudgingly, ebbing away.
Her mind was torn and argumentative with itself below the numb forefront of her thoughts, arguing in the place between wake and sleep that this, what she had, to be part of something, was what she had wanted, while the other, instinctive, part resisted the claim more and more quietly.
She had met people though, after putting up a careful front at first.
One named Panther, teaching his ghosts (she had found she quite liked his ghosts, though Palu certainly hadn't) about explosive attacks- she had been drawn, of course, to the fact that he'd had a book; apparently, even when she was trying to 'fit in' with some put-up disguise, parts of her old self resisted the idea entirely.
The other, Nyx, was in charge of her assigned department- the science labs- and what she remembered had been such a deciding factor in making such a choice to join Team Rocket. As a grunt, she was still limited (very limited in fact right now, as a brand new grunt) in what she was allowed to do and allowed to work on, but even with limits, assigned work (simplistic equipment and resource care, filing, transfer of material and other 'grunt work') was rather heavy in load, on top of general duties.

All of the above were things that weighed beneath her new hat as she sat in the room assigned to her. She was thankful that her roommate wasn't in right now, giving her some rather needed solitude where she could attempt to sort out her thoughts and feelings and try to find some balance between the numb acceptance and depressed panic battling it out within her.
Palu slept nearby, on Tambrey's pillow, feathers fluffing up and down as the grunt sat on her bed, staring ahead at nothing at all.
They stayed that way for a long time, before, slowly, a pale hand reached up to remove the black hat from her head.
She looked down at it, held between her hands, turning it on her fingers like she was trying to examine every inch of it. With her thoughts elsewhere, two slender fingers plucked a rogue strand of dark hair from the hat, then promptly lost track of it.
Something seemed to give way as Tambrey realised the hair had already vanished, floating off to join dust under the bed no doubt, and she bit at the inside of her lip.
A flood of feelings cracked the numb shell but there was no urge to cry; she felt a glint of something new within.
It was Christmas and, at home, her mother and Ratta would be settling down for dinner before they finally opened gifts at the end of the day- she had made her excuses upon her first chance to go off base and had, in fact, managed to send home a gift and the first of her money. M'ma had been disappointed that she wouldn't be coming home, but had mentioned sending something to Tambrey's pokécenter account; she remembered being both slightly struck with guilt and warm with appreciation at the memory she still had one of those.

"Okay, M'ma; I'll check it whenever I can, but... I don't know how often I can get into town; we have a lot of work to do right out in the wild and it can take days to get around."
"You make sure you check, dear, I don't want to be sendin' things off an' finding out y've left them in there for months at a time, okay? And you take care; don't ya going getting hurt out there on your trips!"
"I'm careful, I promise; Palu's with me. Please, don't worry," Tambrey had held the receiver a little tight while she lied, desperate to tell her parent everything "um, it's safe. There are other people on the, uh, research team and y'know, experienced watchers and researchers. And I promise I'll try and check in more often. I promise."
Her mother, on the fuzzy screen, had seemed to frown a little, but was smiling again after a moment.
"All right. I'm proud 'f you, dear, and don't y' worry about sending money home anymore, but I'll save it if y' do, okay? I'll let you get back to it and stop using up your credit."
"Um. Okay. Thanks, M'm." She'd felt a surge of relief at the phone call ending, mixed with an expected sadness.
"Love you."
"Love you too, M'ma." She managed, before the screen blacked out and a click ended the audio.

That phone call had been the day before and the memory of it proved to be the catalyst to this initial change in her thoughts; she had wanted to be 'a part of something' and now she was, she had never been good at making friends, or at least keeping them, but now she had a chance to, maybe, share in something that could lead to it; camaraderie and companionship. She couldn't be the only person who had joined in this sort of a situation. She'd be accepting of her team mates and try to understand them. She'd try to talk to them more and befriend them if she could.
Tambrey stood up, realising it was probably time she got out of her uniform and washed the day's work away with a shower; she placed her hat on a helpful door peg.
It was time she tried to use the situation for herself after all, instead of giving in to becoming nothing but some Rocket drone for the rest of her life.

The sky was beautiful; full of glitter shining in the glow of various forms of light.
The blanket of white snow, below, added its own special, ghostly luminescence to the scene.
But she should have been seeing feathers.
Tambrey knew, somewhere in her mind, that something was very wrong.
She couldn't hear a thing, she felt weightless, and she was seeing glitter, snow, and random glimpses of sky; that wasn't right.
What she should have been seeing were Pygi's feathers, close by to her.

It all ended without her registering; a gradual descent into a thick, dull, sludge of swimming images, disjointed sounds and fleeting sensations of contact, pain and others she couldn't identify.

She felt like she was drifting, rocking, in an ocean.
When had she come to sea? She didn't recall, but she didn't question it; a glance around and her boat was no boat at all, rather, it was an island, the small kind she'd seen on illustrations of 'castaway' story images; sand, and a leafy backdrop of trees.
Was it moving? Sinking? Why did she still feel like this was a boat?
Tambrey reached down to pluck some of the sand from the beach, feeling puzzled, and yet accepting of the fact, when the 'sand' came up in her hands, as though it was made of rope.

She gave the rope a tug, and felt it tug back on one of her arms.
A snatch of sound escaped from beneath the sand, perhaps on the other side of the rope; voices, that she couldn't quite make out but for snatches, or rather, 'impressions', of words; "blood", "don't make", and perhaps the was 'bone' or 'broken', but she didn't seem to be able to muster up enough inquisitiveness to care. She just wanted to follow the rope.

A step, and her leg sank into the sand, her hands still tracing the sand-rope, as it led her downward.
More steps; it was like wading into porridge, but warm and dry, and seeming as natural as breathing; yes, she was supposed to walk through, and down, into the sand...

Her mother was with her, and Tambrey sensed, rather than vocalised, herself telling her all about how she was a Rocket now.
It wasn't right, she felt something that wasn't quite nausea, and, again, sensed, rather than listened, as her mother told her how proud she was, but she needed to go back to cooking the dinner, and not to make too much of a mess with rocket experiments in the house...
Was that right? Was that how such things were supposed to go?
When did her mother's house become full of sand?
There wasn't more time to wander as, with a lurching shift, which seemed to make Tambrey's back feel very warm, she fell out of the dark sand, into a cavernous void.
It wasn't much of a fall; her bare feet (and she felt, for a moment, confused- did she lose her boots? Would she have to pay for those?) meeting cool, dusty stone... Well, that's what she should have felt, she was sure.

The cave, or whatever the place she'd fallen into was, glistened with the reflection of water, though she could see no sign of any. It glowed with a sickly, pale light, as though lit entirely by flashlights with failing batteries.
Occasionally there was a flicker.
"Always alone!"
The voice emanated in a raspy whisper from a figure, whose back was to Tambrey, stood upon what seemed to be a slight rise in the rock floor.
A silhouette, lit from somewhere ahead of them both, of a woman with long hair.
The agent felt nausea, and the rocking, boat-like, feeling grip her again; she knew who this was, even with a different voice and no features...

Suddenly, it was easier to see, though still dim.
The cave was no rocky hollow at all, but a chasm made entirely of bodies; parts of people everywhere, forming the floor, the ceiling she'd come through, the walls... and stood upon the back of one of the bodies, was a pale, sickly-looking version of Tethys.

The figure turned, hollow spaces where the eyes should have been, and yet still full of malice and the clear feeling of a predator watching prey.
'We win.' There was no voice this time; just a feeling of the words, bouncing around in her head.
The bodies all around became more recognizable as various team mates, friends, even pokémon, though they lacked their individual colour, becoming pale in the same tone as the skin on the bodies...
She felt like sobbing, like shouting 'no', like she wanted to attack the Tethys creature, all at the same time as she felt absolutely paralyzed with fear, and nauseated by the scene around.
Her head swam; all this wrong, and yet she felt herself accepting it as the way things were...

"You told us everything..." It was almost like listening to the hissing of a snake, like a feeling something slither through her brain, though everything was suddenly shattered by the maniacal laugh that bubbled from Tethys' body; not emanating from her mouth, but every part of her, and then the mass of bodies...
The voice was somewhat familiar; not Tethys, and yet, she was satisfied with attributing it to the skeletal woman before her...

The body cave began to disintegrate around her, while Skeleton Tethys became more skeletal, and watched with an expression that Tambrey -felt- might have been glee, despite the lack of identifying features for the emotion...
She was falling again, then, watching the monster grow smaller above her, as she tumbled through another sky.
Another sky full of glitter, but this one red, mixed with globs of blood and bone, as the voice had said a lifetime ago, on the beach of the island, before she'd found that rope...

The falling feeling, however, felt more 'real' this time, more of a threat, and her brain reacted in a panic.
Machines beeped, voices, steady but urgent, became more tangible...

Tambrey awoke with a heavy, air-seeking, gasp, emerging into the world of the Rocket infirmary.
She didn't even have the energy to listen to what the voices around her were saying, let alone sob like she wanted to.

October 31st 2014

Years.
She'd been part of Team Rocket for years and had birthdays spent within the organization. Today was one more.
Tambrey, nostalgically, marveled at just how 'okay' she was with that fact; her mind drifted back over the years as she got ready for her day- 10 years ago, 5 years ago... She'd been arrogant, aloof, and caught up in her own self importance... And she'd been lonely.
She glanced at herself in the mirror, admiring the white uniform before sitting to pull on her boots; the uniform of an agent- a rank with responsibilities and trust.
It was an identification that she -belonged to- Team Rocket, but more than that, to her personally, she found herself realising just how much she really felt, in a good sense, that she belonged with, and in, and as part of, Team Rocket.

Palu cooed in her sleep from over near the bed, while Jubilee and Pili clung to Pakhet's head like little hairclips on the Growlithe; the three of them sitting close by to Tambrey. They watched their trainer curiously; she'd been quieter than usual since waking.

It wasn't likely to change for a little while; Tambrey was in a reflective mood.
She gathered and brushed her hair into a ponytail, fastening it with a Spinarak-themed hair tie (it was Hallowe'en after all), then adjusted her glasses, looking again in the mirror.
Her rank, her outlook... what else had changed? Anything she could see in her face? Did she look older?
Tambrey wondered at that and frowned a little; more drastically than simple aging, she remembered the scars, hidden by her uniform, but very much there.

She could walk unaided now, though it could still be tiring. She kept her stick nearby during long hours in the labs, and she'd carry it to training today, but more and more she found herself just not needing it.

Battlewounds; that sounded cool and her nerdiness appreciated the idea, but personally she still felt a twinge of, maybe, resentment at them.
Especially the faded zigzag scarring of her legs, and the fear of electricity they'd come with for so long.
Was she making progress there? Sure, she supposed so. A glance at Jubilee; the little bug had certainly been a help.
The nightmares remained though.
Skulls, flashes, a brilliantly lit star and cold eyes... Sometimes there was twisting metal, clouds... Wings of fire...
Still, her mind wandered to Aulus, her partner; to lose a limb as well as what he'd been through before...
She shuddered, then shook herself out of such thoughts, forcing herself to meet her own gaze in the mirror once more.

"... I guess I have." She muttered, returning to a question she'd just asked herself.
She had changed, for the better, and so had her life despite the role in a criminal organization.
Friends, interesting, fulfilling work in the cloning and genetics labs, love, respect, a paycheck...
She decided the danger, the angry legendaries, maybe even being held and tortured, had all, and were all, worth it for the situation she currently found herself in.

It was Hallowe'en... and her birthday. On a whim, Tambrey crossed to open a draw and pull out a necklace- a gift from the year before, though it was simply a novelty- with black pearls', and a little Zubat pendant.
Spider in her hair, bat around her neck; yep, she gave a little nod of satisfaction- it was appropriate enough even with the uniform. A lot more subtle than a costume, but then, who wanted to train, or to work, in a costume? She would be in a lab coat soon enough anyway.

"Come on, then. You, too, Palu."
The Pidgeotto grumbled as she got up.
The Agent checked herself in the mirror one last time and then walked to the door, calling the four pokémon to follow.
"We've got some training to do before work."

Life was good, for now.
Even if she was working on her birthday.

Not long after 'Super Mega Awsome'...


Mega - adjective - 'Very large or impressive'.

Evolution - noun - 'The gradual development of something'.

Two definitions according to the Oxford dictionary... Of course, there was an expanded definition in referring to pokémon when it came to 'evolution'...
Evolution in such context was barely ever gradual.

'Mega Evolution, then,' thought Tambrey 'would mean 'Very large or impressive development'...'
That, she thought, was certainly an apt description.

She hit a punching bag.

Ella's mega evolution had been an emotional and energetic experience.
Tambrey almost felt, somehow, spiritually cleansed after the bonding experience with her Aggron.

She hit it again.

That her partner, no, in fact, probably her best friend now if she thought about it, had been there to help guide her through it and experience it had simply made it better. More special. Certainly not less.
In any case, she knew she couldn't have done it without Aulus, or Char, and she was sure Ella felt the same.
In fact... She was -super- sure that Ella felt the same. It was a weird feeling, but not unpleasant, to have such a bond validated; proof that you were in sync with your pokémon partner...
It was a weird, and -even more- pleasant feeling that that bond was an sharing of power between trainer and pokémon; something that Ella could -use- beyond training... A direct link to something that Tambrey could truly give her.

One more punch. She was done. Time to move on.

After days... No.. It must have been weeks already... After such time spent mourning the loss of a friend and feeling so helpless and guilty, forging the true bond between herself and her Aggron friend had been quite a healing experience.
She knew there were pieces of those feelings buried down, never to be extracted, never to go away, but it was what she choose to do with them that was important rather than their presence.
If she didn't allow them to become a negative overwhelming hindrance, than they would not become so once more; it took effort, of course, but the outcome was beneficial to the team, to those around her, to her friends... A helpless, useless, guilt-ridden Tambrey sulking away and locked in mourning would be no good to anyone; she owed them all more than that.

She winced as she stretched as taught and muscles complained, then checked her wounds; her midriff looked better, though still it was sore from time to time after the burn she'd suffered.

Thus, she supposed, Ella's Mega Evolution had become her own...
Ella grew harder, stronger, more powerful when Tambrey needed her to do so... and Tambrey, in turn, found she could focus, work harder, channel her feelings into productivity when she thought about loss, about friends that were gone, and about how Ella had bonded with her, them both needing each other.

What's next?

The agent checked her schedule on a tablet; she'd put the schedule together herself and packed as much work as she possibly could into every scrap of time that still allowed her training time and sleep. An occasional day was left clear. Days off could be productive too.
Not one section on her schedule, beyond that allotted for sleeping, showed time for rest...

'Swimming' - She'd have to shower and change but a training pool room, with what she needed, was just across the corridor from the room she was in. She was planning efficiently.

For, Tambrey had decided, she could 'rest' while she worked... There was too much to do to spend time doing 'nothing' after all...

Set sometime between 'Something Strange' and 'Sunshine, Sand, and Salty Water'...

Aside from Palu, snoozing and resembling avian furniture as she often did, Tambrey's room was occupied by herself and her psychic types today.
One was Franklin, her Jirachi, and the other was her Chingling, Tarana.

Tambrey's experiences and experiments thus far had proven beyond doubt that she could talk to psychic types, however though she had two, only one of which might benefit from her new ability; Jirachi, of course, could simply communicate with humans telepathically.

Unfortunately, Tarana didn't seem to be a very talkative little pokémon at all, and Tambrey had tried engaging him in conversation several times, only to have him find a way to answer with vocalizing anything.
In fact, when he did make a sound, it was simply the tinkling or chiming of his bell, which didn't sound like words to Tambrey, and thus, she concluded, he wasn't talking when he did it.

She'd hit upon the idea of playing a word game with Franklin, to see if a wish to participate might coerce the little bell into talking.

So far, it wasn't having the desired affect.

"Pahket." Tambrey responded to Tarana's stubby arm jabbing toward the Fire Stone on her desk that she'd yet to put away; it was no secret among the pokémon who that was for, but they knew she wanted Pahket to have a few more training sessions first. The game was word association, though, and right now Tambrey associated the stone with the Growlithe.

<> Exclaimed Franklin excitedly; the game may not have been for her benefit, but she was certainly enjoying it rather a lot.

This might be it... Tambrey held her breath, waiting to see if any 'English' sounding... sound.. came out of Tarana's mouth...

His answer was to jab a stubby arm toward Linnaeus' pokéball; he thought the Eevee was a 'puppy', and could simply use a gesture to say so.

Tambrey sighed, shook her head, and tried one more round.

"Fluffy."

<>

Well. That got a smirk from Tambrey as she pondered what Tortie herself might have made of such an answer... Again, she waited to see if this was it; the moment Tarana chose to -say- something...

He seemed to be having a moment of trouble; looking around, thinking, trying to find something to gesture at...
Maybe there wasn't anything... Maybe this was it...

He pointed upward at the lampshade, and more specifically, the bulb, the light source, within it.
Tambrey let out a sigh; of course; Tortie was a dark type and he associated dark and light together.

"I wish you'd talk..." She murmured out loud, without thinking.

Tarana stopped, stared at her, and then seemed to be very puzzled. He looked toward Franklin, then back at Tambrey, rubbing the side of his little round body (as though he was rubbing the side of his head) with a stubby little arm.

<>

The voice was new, and Tambrey had never heard it before. It was bass-y and somewhat deep, and rather at odds with the delicate seeming little creature it had come from.

It had come from Tarana; there was no doubt. He'd finally chosen to speak.
Tambrey wasn't sure /why/ her utterance had caused the question, and she pondered, in the back of her mind, whether she'd ever tried asking him directly like that before... Amazingly, she didn't think so... Could something so simple have been the key all along? Apparently so...

With wide eyes, and a delicate, surprised, smile on her face, as though she was afraid she'd scare him out of saying more, she replied.

"Well... Uh. Because... I can talk to your typing now, and I'd like to hear from you sometimes. I can understand, uh, your answers when you don't, but it's nice to hear a voice sometimes..."

<> He didn't disagree that it /was/ nice, and didn't seem to be puzzled by the fact; actually, it was almost as though he was asking why it was nice -in general-, for him too, to hear a voice...

"Well, when you have a friend, you like to hear from them for a lot of reasons; to make them happy if they're not, to help them with a problem, to give and receive advice... Even just the sound of a friend's voice, uh, can be... um... comforting..." She settled on that, with a thoughtful frown; that seemed right...

Franklin had gone very quiet, and seemed to be staring at the little bell pokémon intently, curiously, as though she was sensing something odd, beyond the fact he was talking...

<> This time the tone seemed pleased, as though Tarana had just received the best news ever; Tambrey knew he enjoyed her company, and liked it when he was allowed out, like today, in fact, but she'd never considered he might not understand just what Tambrey felt for her own pokémon.

Her eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Of course we are, I-" She halted, blinking, and scooting back a bit as white light suddenly flared around the little psychic type.

Franklin immediately shot behind her to peak over her shoulder.

Palu woke up, grumbled about the noise and light, opening one eye to see the evolving Chingling, then hummphed and turned around to get back to sleep.

It wasn't a long process, or even incredibly bright, especially compared to the bigger pokémon Tambrey'd seen evolve, and especially compared to Ella's mega evolution, but Tarana had changed in shape considerably when the light dissipated; a Chimecho balanced on his tail where a Chingling had stood moments before.

<>

"... Don't force yourself," Tambrey replied, with wide eyes but a smile "even when you're quiet, I, uh, I'll know what you mean... And I'll ask if I don't,"

A nod from the Chimecho, and then Franklin bobbed back around from behind the scientist, with a little frown on her face.

<>

A short while after her promotion to Elite Agent, January 2016...

Still transitioning in her role from Agent to Elite Agent, Tambrey was already finding that her workload had increased...
She hadn't even entirely settled in to her newly assigned quarters (a kitchenette was something she hadn't realized she'd wanted so badly, but the personal bathroom- not that she'd ever had any issues sharing one with Aulus- was definitely the best part; she could take as much time to bathe or shower as she wanted should she have the free time to do so!) but her workspace now had a desk and files on all sorts of work- much of which she recognized from having contributed to it as an Agent, though now she had a wider scope of information regarding such projects; more details revealed that she hadn't the clearance for before.

It was fairly wonderful, in fact, to have that access despite the significantly heavier workload it brought with it... but it was a heavier workload, which meant eking out a better schedule to deal with such.

She was still experimenting with finding the best routine, but this one had worked out so far- she now had a good 2 hours for a training session; the first hour was to be spent training herself, keeping herself sharp in the arts that Aulus had trained her, while the second hour was to be assigned to her pokémon (Xun, Ashbel, and Suko needed to work on their 'Pledge attacks' in combination).

Her primary focus within that first hour, she'd decided, would be to maintain, and work on refining, her skills with a combat Bo staff.
The training room, designed to withstand and test pokémon moves, provided good targets to test her strikes, and more than enough room to test the various spins and other multi-step actions involved in the art.

Her mind wasn't quite as focused on the few Kata- mostly striking forms- that she wanted to practice as she might have liked, but after all the time- the years- spent training, her body, her muscle memory, certainly helped to make up for it, and despite her mind's wandering, she found herself hitting the mark, and lighting up the dome-shaped targets at a rater of at least 8/10.

Her mind, of course, was reeling, still, from the change; she was an Elite Agent now!
This meant new responsibilities, increased workload, outranking most of those she'd known through her years in the organization, and, of course, an end to the official partnership she'd had with Aulus.

The latter two worried her, she wasn't afraid to mentally admit it.
She'd always enjoyed that she had -friends- on the team, she liked seeking them out for company, for a chat, to train with, and she liked having their backs (and knowing they had hers) on missions. She was reasonably sure those things were unlikely to change, but still they worried her, and her dwelling on such a fact was punctuated by a somewhat more forceful strike than her form called for. In fact, it was enough to register 'defeat' for that particular dome-shaped opponent; it sank into the floor, glowing green for a moment, 'fainted', leaving a gap in her target row.

She chose to set it back up after she finished her current run through.

The second wasn't so worrying in the same regard, but rather how Aulus would think of her now, and whether what they had would suffer? They hadn't just spent time because they were partners had they? She'd never thought that, and she was sure that he hadn't... but again there was worry in her mind. They'd likely spend less time together now, not being assigned together to pursue a goal, or on missions... Not living in the same space... But surely that wouldn't matter?

Of course, there were also certain feelings, ones she hadn't entirely decided to acknowledge for various reasons, that protested at the idea of the pair of them having any less interaction, but she chose to leave these unacknowledged for the time being. To remain willfully ignorant of what they actually meant.

She blinked in surprise as she came to the end of her Kata and realized that, now, 3 of the targets had sunk into 'faint' mode.

There needed to be a resolution in her mind, to both issues (though perhaps not the latter part of the second for now). She couldn't afford to let such things steal her focus; if they did in training, what else might they affect if she didn't deal with them?

Of course she'd remain friends with her friends- it was possible, for sure. She just had to make sure she stayed true to that part of her; to ask how they were, to spend time with them when she could, and make sure they still knew she had their backs when they needed it.
This was surely possibly despite rank; that did quell some turmoil as she moved on to her next Kata.

Thus left Aulus; it was inevitable they'd spend less time together- they wouldn't be working together as partners anymore, and didn't live with a bathroom connecting their rooms. So then, she'd just have to make sure they didn't drift apart, make the effort for visiting, for sending messages, for training together, and suggesting they keep up their occasional off-base visits. It would depend, of course, on whether Aulus wanted to.
Tambrey hoped, though felt like she was sure, that he was of the same mind.

She let out a slow breath as her Kata came to an end.
She was more than half-way through the time she'd allotted for this, and made a decision that where her thoughts had reached would be the extent of her efforts spent there for the time being.

The scientist pushed what she could, with some mental effort, away from the main focus of her mind, replacing it with the forms she needed to practice. She needed only to run through these; nothing more until the alarm sounded to mark the end of her first hour.
Feet set, in a long front stance, hands on her staff in a wide hold, Tambrey took another breath, before throwing herself back into her training.

No more targets 'fainted' that session, and her strike rate improved... if only to 9/10.

She not chosen to deal with everything, after all...