Welcome to Gaia! ::

Star peered nervously into the hall, tense and hunched, as though he expected to find Tethys standing on the other side. Fortunately, the hall was still empty.

Wringing his gauntleted hands together he hurried several doors down, leading the trio of Rockets to a locked storage closet. He chewed his lip as he fumbled with the keys and unlocked it.

Lore accepted Lucy's poké ball from TRP, "Thanks." Smirking, he reached down to pat Espresso and Cappuccino, "Missed you guys too."

Faleen kept an eye out along the halls while Star moved to unlock the closet glancing over at him as he fumbled and struggled at first.
"Calm down." she whispered.

He was going to be a liability if he kept freaking himself out and making mistakes, they couldn't afford to fall behind now, they needed to get the pokemon and go, quickly and efficiently.

He got the doors open though, and Faleen helped gather the remaining pokeballs in there.

Arcadie nodded and quickly made her way to the nearest of the injured - the brown-haired man with the light-colored eyes. She didn't really know any names, she came to realize. Awkward. The woman was promptly joined by a spider that took in their surroundings hesitantly, fearfully. There were lots of hurt people around, and it seemed to be one of those scary mission things. Mise remembered missions, and he hated them. It didn't seem that he would be escaping, though.

"Hello, there," Arcadie greeted vaguely, keeping a brightness to her words and expression. From her miniature first-aid kit she applied salves that would reduce infection and friction and gestured to the Spinarak, beginning to wrap wounds with the threads he produced. "Lovely day out, but don't take my word for it. You can see for yourself in no time flat." There wasn't really time to linger and make small-talk, though, before she had to move on to treat other injuries. This was what she came along for, after all. If nothing else, she was a decent medic.

Faleen got points for bringing Alex his glasses. Major points. A cold wet nose on his hand abruptly distracted Aulus from looking at his partner, and as he looked down instead he smiled weakly. "Hello you." Tortie. He'd missed her when he'd thought about it but mostly... mostly there had been other concerns. It was good to see her now though and he ruffled the fur of her mane, then turning to give the same worn forced expression to Char as the fire type handed him his pokeballs. All accounted for. Good.

With his pokemon greeted he turned back to Alex again and opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't know what to say. As it turned out there was another distraction in the form of Alba and so he didn't have to figure it out for now. "I'm...." Aulus trailed off and his eyes went distant and unfocused. What was there to say? He couldn't even begin to explain. "I'm fine. I'll be able to keep up." He hoped; he hadn't actually tried to run or move fast at all since his encounter with the Machoke.



Hayes just stared.

His brain was swimming in fog. Everything was sound and light surrounding him with sudden activity, and in the middle of it all, if he could just focus, if she was just real..

"..yeah," he managed, as a smooth, curved object was pressed into his palms. He looked down at it, then back up, then tore into it and fumbled the frames onto his face. The Rocket winced as everything was thrown into disorienting clarity, but he could see, and as his eyes readjusted he stared after the white figure walking away.

She was real.

So was all of this.

Hayes suddenly looked more alive than he had in weeks. "We'll make it," he told Alba, taking his Pokeballs back from Char. One, two.. had some been taken, or had he lost them at the museum? The museum, the raid, all of this.. s**t. He looked at Aulus, and the sight of his broken nose made him almost wish he hadn't, so he released - this one was Nemerle, this one was Darwin, and this one was..

"Pikapi!" Switch flung himself at Hayes' leg and latched on, prompting a dried-out laugh from the blond. It was a full two seconds before Switch blinked, jerked back, and scampered up to Hayes' shoulder where he entered into a brief fur-groom that tried to be completely indifferent and failed completely. "Let's get out of here."

Switch was shifty-eyed a moment, then licked Hayes' cheek and made an immediate 'bleaugh' face.



Aulus nodded wordless agreement and gave his partner's shoulder another gentle squeeze. There was so much he wanted to say, but he just couldn't think of the words and probably wouldn't have the courage to say what he wanted to even if he could.

Alba nodded, greatly relieved to see that both were fit enough to stay upright and that Hayes was coming back to his senses. "I like that plan," he agreed. "Don't worry. We rounded up all of the Pokemon left behind at the museum. Everyone should be accounted for as soon as the others return from the other room."

Looking to Aulus, he added, "Claire will be very happy to see you." Oh yeah. Alba knew, or at least had his suspicions about Claire and Aulus being "friends." And he was very poorly biting back a grin at the half tease as he started leading them out of the cell space.

Up in Deimos' studio, where the Galactic leader was in the middle of calibrating a sensitive machine that looked like a questionable mix between a food processor and a mining drill, a radio crackled to life.

"Rockets!! L Deck! Star is with-"

The transmission fell silent.

Deimos lifted his head, blinking. Normally he tuned out other noises in the room, but this was unusual enough to capture his attention. "Did he say Rockets?"

Something white and blue went past. "I'll handle this, sir. Stay here."

Tethys paused at the door. "Andre." She looked back while she took the safety off her guns.

Deimos was already on his feet, "They said Rockets. And Star. I'm coming with you."

Andre looked between Tethys and Deimos from his perch on the smaller Galactic's shoulder.

"My job is to protect you." It was almost a snap, punctuated by her slotting one gun in its holster to take out the other. "You're the head of the team. Stay where it's safe."

Deimos bristled, wearing a stubborn expression. "It's my team! That's why I should help!"

"You can help by staying alive!" Tethys let out a frustrated breath. "I don't have time to argue this - Julian, please. Stay here."

She wrenched the door open and headed out.

"But!" Deimos watched the door slam shut behind his second in command. He stood alone in the studio, frowning, hand still raised in protest.

Moments passed. The silence of the room was thick and uncomfortable. Stay here.

No.

Brow furrowing, he closed his hands into small fists and marched toward the door.

Andre's beady eyes widened in alarm, "Shay shay!!"

"No, she's wrong. It's my team."

"Shaymin!" Andre took a mouthful of his master's shirt and tugged on it uselessly as Deimos continued to and out the door, cape billowing behind him.

Faleen was not even closed to be convinced, but now wasn't the time to argue.
They had all the Pokeballs and were about to head back when the sight of a Galactic froze them in their tracks.
the Pokemon were quick to handle him, Poor fool.
but Faleen didn't miss that he was able to get a message out.

She jerked back when the alarm sounded, and Star suddenly made a bolt for the brig again, leaving the bag of Pokeballs behind.
Frost grabbed the bag, and the three rockets tore off after Star.

This was not good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jerome felt great being out of the cell, Bro was floating by him, making sure Jerome could stand on his feet.
He had Boss out again, the Pignite pumped to see Jerome again, and looked quite ready to bash in some Galactic's heads.
For now Jerome kept Hirss in her ball. since there was limited room in the brig.

The alarm suddenly kicking in, and the tall man Jerome could have sworn he had seen before was suddenly screeching at them that they needed to get out of there.

"No objections here." He said.
Looking back at the group, Jerome reached a fist out to Shadow. "Kid, yer Pokemon. you'll need it looks like."

Alarms were going of now. Xander's face paled as Star came back in a panic to tell them they had to leave. He didn't even have time to dwell on what the man was doing with Team Rocket as TRP ordered everyone to get in gear to leave. He gave Frost a nervous look when the man got back then shook his head. "I doubt it but I'll manage if I have to." He said and held up Zack's pokeball in explanation. It would probably be hard to ride an Arcanine through the halls but better then nothing.

Conrad moved to stand by the door at the ready in case anyone not a Rocket tried to come in.