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Though he'd tried to tell himself to remain alert, the grunt's mind had obviously been elsewhere when Nyx appeared right behind him. His brows shot up and he started at her voice, flinching slightly at the friendly slap on the back before taking a second to register who it was.

Whirling around to face her, Grunt Shadow's arms fell flat to his sides and his back stiffened as he bowed. "Elite Agent Nyx, ma'm," he acknowledged without looking up. The teen made sure to keep his sepia eyes trained on the ground below, even as he held out his stolen prize. The pink pokeball rested in his palm.

Shawn knew better than to take the elite's comment about being the first one back as a compliment. As he reminded himself, his triumph had mostly been achieved by sheer luck. And at what cost? The grunt seemed distracted a moment before reporting his results and straightening back up with a serious expression.

"A Togepi by the nickname of Deedee, ma'm. Her previous owner had been a young girl of perhaps around 9 or 10, so procuring it was not so much of an issue. I regret that I could not have retrieved a more impressive pokemon, but due to a lack of my own, I had to compromise." He dropped his gaze once more to the ground, not wanting to seem out of line.

Besides not bringing back 'a more impressive pokemon', Shadow regretted making the little girl cry, but there was no way he was going to voice that to a superior. It was just something he was going to have to get used to. Perhaps that was one part of what this training was all about - hardening their hearts as criminals for the greater good of Team Rocket. As for going out into the field without a pokemon...would he be punished for his recklessness? Maybe. Still, it was better to explain the truth than attempt to cover it up with a lie.

He would have been out helping the other recruits by now, but considering the sort of task they each had been sent out here to complete, he guessed that help from fellow Rockets would have probably defeated the purpose. Besides, there wasn't much he felt he could do without a pokemon to bring to their aid.

Alright, not so bad.
They weren't too high and that was a good thing, but hopefully the fall was still somewhat disorientating... She looked down to see where the trainer had landed.
That seemed to have- Gah! What the frak was it doing?! Oh. Astonish.
Great, Tambrey noted that the attack was, at least, pretty effective on -her-, luckily, despite a bit of a jolting, Pygi didn't seem to have flinched too much. The grunt imagined that she probably wasn't very fond of the suddenly tightened grip Tambrey had taken at the ghost types attack though and loosened her hold a little.
The other trainer was on the ground... therefore, so would the balloon's pokeball be.
"Plan.. plan," She muttered, realising that this was probably the best chance of obtaining the other ball, and that it wouldn't last long. "Pygi, use Gust again on this balloon, then swoop down toward the trainer when I say..."
Treestar was not a Chikorita that knew vine whip- that would have been so useful... This meant she was left with...
"Neph!" Why. Why did the pokemon she -needed- for this plan have to be -this- pokemon. The spider came out of her ball, perched on Tambrey's shoulder and so the grunt's first command had to be "Don't bite me!"
Thankfully, perhaps due to being so far from the ground, the spider obeyed, though temptation gleamed in her eye and it looked as though she might have been about to.
"I -need- you to, when Pygi swoops to string shot the pokeball of this balloon, okay?" It didn't occur to her, apparently, that Neph -didn't know- which pokeball belonged to the Driflblim. It did occur to her that Neph might ignore her entirely.
However, Neph didn't.

How /dare/ other pokemon be allowed to remain suffering under just one human? /She'd/ been taken from the wild -and then- /stolen/; she'd had to put up with a few humans now, or two, whatever the number didn't matter. She -would- grab that pokeball and create herself a companion in misery- an ally, perhaps.
With a chitter of derision she turned to look down at where she was supposed to be aiming. Oh, she'd try to grab /a/ pokeball all right, the spider decided, but she wasn't aiming for a specific one anyway, nor was this something she was doing because Human-Face told her to.

Tambrey had no idea what the chittering noise meant.
"...Okay, good. Thank you." She told the spider anyway, hoping for the best.
"Pygi! Swoop!"

Valentine started chewing on a thumb nail. Didn't this guy ever give up? Okay....options. Option 1: She kept running and hoped he finally gave up. Option 2: She trust Lavan not to burn all the trees down in hope of a distraction. Option 3: She stop running and fight her pursuer. Option 4: Toss the stolen Pokeball behind her.

....

Well damn....Any of those options could backfire on her. She could get caught, which she was told not to be. She could fail this mission if she threw the Pokebal away. After all, would she actually get another chance to steal another Pokemon? Not with the heat this guy was giving her probably. So what would happen if she failed?

The Rocket would have to chance it. Snatching a Pokeball from her belt, Valentine called out the Tepig. "Lavan! I need smoke. Use Ember!" "Tepig!" Valentine waved her arms. "Not too much though! We do have to get out of here you know."

Lavan huffed. What did his trainer think he was, a pyro? Okay...maybe a little, but he wasn't stupid. Spying a pile of leaves, the pig like Pokemon took a deep breath and let out a stream of small flames before running after his idiot of an owner.

Shawn
"Lack of... Why don't you have a pokemon?" Nyx had no idea that one of the rockets on the mission had come unarmed, but... he got the job done regardless, so it was probably some of the scribbling she did on her clipboard was to give him points for that.

Jerome
The girl went silent, save for barely stiffled wimpers. She almost yelped when Jerome told her jolteon that he'd snap her neck. "Sparky... stop..." She said in a voice barely above a squeak; The jolteon froze, covered in toxic goo, and growled furiously at the pair. "...Wh-what do you want?"

Tambrey
The trainer was still recovering from the fall when Tambrey's plan was launched into action. She didn't even have time to react before all of the three pokeballs on her belt were ripped off and out of her reach. The drifblim, meanwhile, was still very much a balloon, and was very much blown out of the way by the gust of wind.

Alba
The girl, and raichu, seemed completely surprised by the sudden bouts of sand and debris that were being blown around them. The pokemon's cheeks sparked irritably while the trainer covered her face with her arm and waited for the sand attack to die down. "What the heck?!"

Valentine
By the time the pursuing male reached the pile of leaves the tiny pig had used ember on, they'd turned into quite an impressive little blaze--after all, it hadn't rained for a while, and the cold air had been quite dry. "Woah!" He stopped and looked between the fleeing rocket and the fire... it would be worse for a rampaging forest fire to break out than it would be for one of his friends to lose one of her pokemon...

Inigo
Nyx looked over when another person approached the van and smiled, acknowledging that he was there, and that he had his own prizes.

Oh, s**t! Where did that Raichu come from?!

Alba kicked himself for assuming that the mouse was still in its Pokeball. Had it been sneaking around earlier, too, or had the girl let it out more recently? And how did his own team miss it? Didn't matter much, now, of course. Whatever the situation, it was obviously out of the ball currently, and he and his team would just have to improvise.

Spook hurried closer, staying close to the ground and out of sight. She studied the girl from that distance while Twitch kept up the distraction, looking for any extra Pokeballs the Chingling could possibly still grab.

Success!
Tambrey couldn't believe it ha- "GEEOH!"
Oh, right. Poor Pygi... She wasn't exactly a comfortable size, nor very experienced with 'Fly'. It was time to land before she crashed.
At least they were already pretty low down.
"Come on back balloon!" Tambrey called, gleefully, hoping it would be close enough to try and recall it- she was sure the Drifblim would be trying to head back. She'd reached and taken the String-Shot covered pokeballs from Neph and, as the spider went back to hers by her own whim, Tambrey was holding up what she hoped was the balloon pokemon's ball. "Gust it toward us if you have to, Lasi!" She really should recall him soon, too. The pink bat had been very focused so far, but that wouldn't last much longer, she suspected.
She made sure to instruct Pygi though, especially after that protest.
"Shoot for the woodland and set us down at the edge of the trees, Pygi. Good job so far!"
Praise was important- it would let the bird know that Tambrey was appreciating the work and, hopefully, get her to put that one last little bit of effort into getting them to the treeline.
Three pokeballs were beyond what she'd been hoping; she'd make her way through the trees and work her way around toward the meeting spot.
If everything went to plan that was. Once Tambrey was on the ground, if recalling the balloon went to plan, she'd have to keep an eye out for a pursuing trainer, she realised, so her route back to where Nyx and the others were would have to be a little convoluted.

Inigo watched his fellow grunt speak with the elite, but when Shadow finished and before he himself could say anything, a girl possibly around their age arrived, and Nyx seemed to focus on her for now. That was fine by him, he could wait. That in mind, he twirled the two stolen pokeballs in one hand with the other hand in his pocket as he waited his turn.