Welcome to Gaia! ::

A ragged sigh left her barely parted rouged lips as she eyed the albino misdreavus angrily. Often times the pranks the pokemon pulled were amusing. Sometimes harmless. Occasionally useful; Ani would never run out of pens again. This time it was only irritating. Endlessly irritating.

Ani had needed fresh air that day and decided she would go on a walk. A walk which she invited Pho on. The misdreavus had refused so Ani had gone on her way like she had dozens of times before. She drove to the nearby forest, a place she went to clear her mind. Ani had been unable to sleep the night before so a few hours of relaxation were exactly what she needed. The walk through the forest proved to be exactly what she needed and even her drive back to the base had been wonderfully relaxing. The day was perfect. Charming weather, a quiet walk, and a pleasant drive. She should have known it was too good to be true.

The Grunt had come back to an empty room. Giselle must have been busy which was fine with Ani. That chikorita of hers was too distracting and she wanted to keep her mind quiet.

So she sat down on her bed and slipped out of her boots. She used her feet to push them under her bed as she had a million times before but this time something was different. Instead of her boots sliding under the bed with ease, there was a squishy push back.

Ani blinked, curious, and bent down to peer under the bed, but her dark hair fell into her face. All she could see through the strands of hair was Pho's shocked face blinking back into hers before the pokemon darted from under the bed and through the door, something white in her "hands".

That was the start of her misdreavus' nonsense which, while it lead her to meet Callista, ruined her relaxing day. It was also the nonsense which lead her to where she was now. Marching down the Trainee hallway, knocking on doors and forcing Pho to apologize every time someone answered the door sockless. The misdreavus still cling to a pair of socks she refused to give up and Ani had a duffle bag over her shoulder filled to the point it would not zip with socks.

Green eyes flicked to the pokemon again and Ani growled a little before speaking.

"You're going to give those to the right person, right?"

Pho simply nodded, a resentful look on her face before stopping in front of the next door. Ani cursed under her breath before raising a gloved fist and knocking.

"Trainee sock delivery."

Her tone was flat. She had stopped counting how many times she had said that.

The thump was all it took for her to realize this would not be a pleasant conversation. The Grunt squared herself up and prepared for whatever had was going to happen. Throughout his torrent of something she liked to call verbal vomit, her eyes locked onto his, her expression not changing.

Teen goth wig? Oh, come on, it was a better dye job than that.

It was that thought exactly that made her start laughing. It was the kind of tired, almost hysterical laughter that showed exhaustion more than anything else. Not because what he had said was funny, but because it was exactly what she should have expected. It was too much to ask for a relaxing day at TRHQ. It was either go dramatic or go broke. As he came to a stop she dropped the duffel bag on the ground, a mere inch away from his foot and she briefly wished it were full of bricks rather than soft, fluffy socks.

"You know. I just don't know,", she started, a wry, mildly amused smile on her face. "Maybe I thought it would be funny. Maybe I...Collect them. Or maybe, just maybe I didn't do it." With that she cocked her head to the side, indicating to the floating misdreavus who was clutching, unbeknown to Ani, a pair of Aulus' socks.

Ani crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one side, a subconscious expression of her attitude.

"Maybe what I am doing is going door to door trying to make Pho's little prank better. Maybe I'm not here to rub it in the face of one stereotypically scarred, overly bulky anime character of a man."

Okay...It wasn't the best insult in the world, but neither was his. Besides, she was far too exhausted to think extensively on how she could insult him...She still had several more rooms to go before Pho's treasure trove of socks was emptied.

Did he really just...Grade her? And compare her to toilets? Of all the possible reactions she could have expected, being compared to a toilet...A clogged toilet at that, was not exactly at the top of the list. She smiled a bit, genuinely amused for the first time that day since she had found Pho hoarding socks under the bed.

"...Good to know I'm about as clever as a clogged toilet." She responded with a little shake of her head. As far as she could tell he wasn't trying be insulting...And it sounded like he'd had a worse day than she had...So she would be less difficult.
"And I deserve at least higher than a C-. Look at all the trouble I'm going to."

With the faint traces of a tired, amused smile on her face, Ani uncrossed her arms and knelt down to the duffel bag. It was full of socks of various sizes and colors. Some were matched and some didn't even have matches. There was one particular red dress sock that Ani was convinced Pho had stolen it's matching partner but couldn't prove it. Green eyes glanced up at the man and she called Pho over to help. The pokemon listened but refused to let go of the socks in her clutches.

"Any particular style? Kind? Size?"

Ani watched as he dug for his socks with minimal interest. She'd seen many people do it already and she would see more still. It had occurred to her that people weren't really gonna get their socks back, but she didn't really care too much. So long as they all had something. She became more interested, however, when the charmeleon was released.

Pokemon had always been something of a soft spot for her. No matter what type or what they looked like, she always, always, always found something to love about them and there seemed to be much to love about this charmeleon in coloration alone. Of course, she had seen many differently colored pokemon. It was to be expected in the area and especially in Team Rocket, but she never got tired of seeing what the pokemon she had grown up with could become.

A smile slipped upon her lips as she stood up, watching the pokemon do as it was asked. It was pretty cute for something so vicious looking to be putting away socks.

"Ani. And yeah, that's Phobos, but I call her Pho."

At the mention of her name, the little pokemon floated her way closer to Aulus, inspecting him curiously for a moment, her head tilted to the side. Bright red eyes locked with his briefly before she extended a hair like tendril out to shake his hand, a confident "Drea" following her introduction, causing Ani to smile a bit more before her expression returned to it's typical apathetic state.

"And I take it this is char?"

At that, she extended a hand towards the charmeleon, moving slowly with and open hand so as not to startle him. Some pokemon reacted strangely and she didn't want this to turn into a bad mistake.

"I'll take that gold star now, by the way."

The pokemon smirked at his comment, cackling a little at the knowledge that she was in fact still holding onto his possession and was quite content to keep it that way. Still, she was rather pleased that he had shaken her "hand". Not many humans seemed to catch on what it meant or what she was doing. That was when she got bored with them.

Ani shook hands with the charmeleon, pleasantly surprised at it's show of manners. She smiled at the pokemon, thoroughly impressed.

With the introductions over, she followed him into the room, leaving the duffel bag of socks sitting open in the hallway. If someone took some, they took some. Would probably NEED them, anyways, and it made her job easier.

Green eyes wandered around the room and a scowl crossed her face. Trainee dorms brought back infuriating memories of her own days in a room like this with five other....People. Who never shut up, never cleaned up, and never owned up to their own mistakes. She was amazed she had made it through without getting arrested for manslaughter. Pho had been her only solace as the pokemon rose to her defense instantly and would often times screech at the other trainees until they themselves shut up or left.

This thought made Ani temporarily forget her anger at the misdreavus and as they walked in she reached up and gently ran her fingers through the pokemon's tendrils of "hair". Pho closed her eyes, obviously enjoying the affection.

When Aulus spoke, she was pulled from her memories and looked up to find him holding a sticker card. The woman chuckled a little and crossed her arms, looking up as if in deep thought on the subject.

"Well, a pink heart would be a sign of femininity," the woman snorted a little at that before continuing, "while the silver moon shows more...sophistication..."

The more she spoke the more sarcastic her voice became.

"Whereas a gold star simply shows success and achievement...After careful deliberation....I'll have to go with the star."

Pho hovered her way over to the sticker card, curious of all the bright colors and squealed when she saw them all, thouroghly delighted. Bright red eyes turned upwards towards Aulus and she asked for a sticker of her own with puppy dog eyes.

Ani snickered before taking the sticker and applying it to her cheek, rolling her eyes as she did so. She hadn't quite intended to actually get a sticker, but the trainee had them and she wasn't going to back down. Take stickers where stickers are due and all that.

Pho made her smile as the ghost pokemon happily claimed the sticker card, plucking up three stickers at once, each with a different little tendril and placing them in various places, being especially careful as she placed a sparkly heart shaped sticker right in the middle of her forehead. Ani tried to hold in a laugh and failed.

Pho glanced up at her and cocked her head to the side, not sure of what was so funny. Nonetheless she took the sticker card, and began to hover around the room in thought before making her way next to the charmeleon and offering him a sparkly flame sticker.

Ani shook her head with a smile and returned her attention to Aulus.

"Recent transfer," Ani began, not looking him directly in the eye as she said so but instead focusing on Pho, "I haven't been here for very long. Got shipped over after my trainee phase which leaves me in my pretentious teen-goth phase. How about you? How long have you been the equivalent of spit in the dirt?"