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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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 Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:18 pm
A new assignment, hmm?
She was used to new assignments - do this paperwork, go out and gather information about this, that sort of thing - but not new pokemon assignments. The only one she'd had had been Azdeif, and as wonderful as she was, Claire had a feeling the new ball in her hand didn't hold anything quite as adorable, small and sweet. No, it couldn't be. The ball she'd been given on the grounds of 'you've been in Team Rocket long enough and since you don't have one yet, here you go' was being turned over in her hands as she studied its dark surface, the thick two-toned lines weaving around it in a deceptively lovely design. The pokemon inside would more than likely be a bigger handful than Jasmine, at best.
He hadn't even told her what kind of pokemon it was, for Arceus's sake! Ugh, oh well.
She'd just have to find out for herself - which is what led her down to the halls of training rooms. After descending the steps and emerging from the stairwell, she clipped the ball to her waist as she glanced either way out of habit - and spotted a familiar head of hair entering one of the closer rooms. With a suppressed grin she jogged over and held her hand up, palm out to prevent the door from being closed on her as she stood in the doorway. "Fancy meeting you here, hm?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:28 pm
Another day, another attempted to get obedience out of Discord. He was starting to wonder if the Serperior would ever be suitable for use in the field, but he had at least made a little progress in as much as the grass type didn’t mow him down anymore. He was, however, slightly suspicious of this change and half wondered if the unruly thing was just waiting to flatten him publically at the most embarrassing moment possible.
Shaking his head slightly Aulus pushed open the door to a training room and stepped inside.
He tensed automatically when he heard footsteps hurrying up behind him, feeling as though he was being chased, but he prevented himself from hitting the approaching person in the face with his staff. This turned out to be fortunate, as the person turned out to be Claire.
Aulus turned around with a grin, scratching the bottom end of the scar on his face to get rid of a minor itch as he did so. "Well hello to you too, oh living embodiment of lovlieness." Hey, there was nobody else around, so why not? "You down here to train today too, or on your way somewhere else?"
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:42 pm
She beamed at his words and giggled (and blushed a bit too; it was still such a new thing, whatever this was that they were), leaning close to wrap her arms around his waist in a quick hug as she leaned up to plant a kiss on his chin. The question drew a small frown from her however, and she removed one arm. "Ah, yeah, training. Because..." She pulled the new dark ball from her belt and held it up. "...I got this. New assignment; I don't know what it is or anything besides what it is--" a dark pokemon, "-- so I figured I'd come down here and see what pokemon it is. And hopefully gauge how royally they've screwed me over with it."
Violet eyes turned up to him again, and a coy smile lit up her face. "What about you? Training?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:53 pm
"...Uh. Yeah. Training."
The grin that had widened when she kissed him briefly faded when he took in the pokeball she held. A dark ball. It was always a nasty slap in the face when he encountered things like that, things Team Rocket would do to pokemon just to make them stronger. This was the organization he had thrown his lot in with, the organization he would have to remain with until he died. Day to day he could pretend life was almost normal, but it wasn’t. Team Rocket was ruthless, harsh, remorseless. Team Rocket was evil, and he had willingly joined up on the promise of adventure.
If not for Alex and Claire he would probably worry about it all the time, hate that he'd come here and hate himself for doing it, but as it was... as it was it was only really when things like this came up that he did. Oh yes, he did hate himself for it. His was an awful, unforgivable person. His reasons for joining had been stupid, selfish, childish, and short-sighted. How could he claim to love pokemon, take the high ground on never eating anything that could even possibly contain their flesh, and yet work for people that did this? They stole, and that hurt and even killed innocent people, and he worked for them and most of the time he allowed himself to be happy. The most criminal thing he'd done before he'd come here was underage drinking, and whatever it was people classed getting into fights as. Assault, that was it, maybe affray too.
He was still looking at the pokeball.
"Well uh... best see what it is then. I'll give you a hand if you like."
It wasn't her fault they'd assigned it to her.
Aulus stepped out of the way to let Claire inside, trying to find his smile again but the expression was wan and his eyes kept flicking back onto the pokeball. What was he doing here?
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:05 pm
Her grin faded as well, but not from the dark ball - more at his reaction to it. Her eyes flitted to the ball in her hand before focusing on him again, one brow raising a bit. All the same, she stepped inside and shut the door behind her with a frown. She didn't feel as warm now that he'd pulled away. "What is it?" It wasn't something she'd said, was it? No, he looked fine until she pulled out the ball, so it must be that.
Well, the best way to figure this out was to get rid of the focus in the first place, so she pocketed the ball and looked at Aulus again. "What's wrong?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:12 pm
"It's...." He trailed off as he watched the dark ball go away, and remained silent for some moments. Eventually he looked away from Claire and shrugged awkwardly. "I just don't like those things. I don't like what they do to pokemon. It's not right... I know none of what we do here is right but... but things like that make me remember it."
A decent, smart person would have run a mile if somebody approached them with the offer Claire had made to him. He was no better than the worst of them here, no point trying to claim otherwise. He might hate the things they did, but he wasn't a good or brave enough person to make a stand about it. He had been tortured for these people. Maybe he should have taken Tethys’ offer after all. Maybe he could have got himself and Claire and Alex far away from all of this and.... No. Alex loved his work, Claire seemed to find satisfaction in hers and he.... Yes, he did love the thrill of missions. He was a complete b*****d.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:58 am
She looked down to her side where the ball was - she didn't take it back out - but she still frowned in its general direction before she moved closer to wrap her arms around him and lay her head on his shoulder. "Mmh, I know. I don't like them either - that's why I never use them. But apparently they thought I should have one, so... I just have to deal with it." She frowned at the side of his neck a few moments before leaning up to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Best we can do is just not use them personally."
And steal pokemon from trainers who looked too rich to care - although she didn't say that part. No need to bring that up right now; later perhaps. "Anyway," she went on, her expression brightening hopefully a little, trying to steer the conversation away, "what're you planning on training?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 3:56 am
Aulus sighed and wrapped his arms around Claire, resting his cheek on the top of her head. "Yes, you're right," he agreed after a moment, kissing her hair and stepping back with a slightly better smile.
"I was going to train this thing," he said, taking a pokeball from his belt and holding it out for viewing; 'Discord' was embossed onto it. "Trying to get it to listen to a damn work I say, and stop cackling," he muttered with a scowl.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 5:14 pm
When he returned the hug and kissed her head, she couldn't help but smile and kiss his cheek again before he moved away.
The smile faded somewhat when he presented the embossed pokeball, and one brow rose in a silent question. She'd never really seen embossed pokeballs before, but he probably didn't ask for it to be done. "Discord..? I don't think you've told me about that yet; what is it?" Whatever it was, it sounded distinctly annoying and obnoxious.
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 5:21 pm
"...Oh. Have I not?" He hadn't. "Ugh. Heh. Well." He looked down at the pokeball, more than a bit embarrassed. "It was just before... you know, the museum mission. I'd had a bad day and bashed into Executive Nadja in the corridor. I called her an unethical commie b***h. She summoned me to her office, gave me toilet cleaning duties and... this. It's a Serperior, a lab experiment, mutated pretty badly... it kind of trashed the Executive floor and hauled me through their dessert trolley. Things haven’t improved a whole lot from there to be honest."
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:28 pm
"...oh. Yes." She remembered hearing about some of the details but not all of the details, and treated him to a rather Disapproving Look. It was a while ago though, so she couldn't really do or say much about it now. It was obvious that he had (or she certainly hoped he had) learned his lesson, so she dropped it before even starting on it. "Sounds like he'll be quite the handful for a while yet; I hope you can reign him in at least a little bit. I'm still having problems with that Vaporeon I got ages ago." The stubborn, spoiled little...
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:21 pm
Claire's apparent disapproval made him feel much worse than anything Nadja had done to him. He wanted to justify himself, list all the awful things that had happened that day before he ran into the executive... but she probably didn't want to hear it. "Yes. I hope so," he said, looking faintly awkward, "Char's been useful for keeping him in line; he's not fond of fire. Funny thing.... So! Shall we see what's in that ball of yours then? Maybe we can pit it against Discord; he won't listen to me but maybe I can see what he's capable of if left to his own devices."
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:45 pm
Claire snorted. "I should think not - Serperior are grass-types, after all." It'd be odd if he did like fire, though. "Anyway.. I suppose so. That's what I came down here for anyway, so I guess I should let it out sooner or later."
That said, she moved away from him a few steps and pulled out the dark ball again. Violet eyes slid to it slowly before a small, thoughtful frown formed on her face. It was dark, whatever it was, and she hadn't handled dark pokemon before, but their reputation preceded them. Common sense dictated she should at least have one pokemon out, in case it proved to be more than a handful. Expression clearing, Claire pulled a regular pokeball off her belt with her other hand and released Odette, who squawked importantly before preening a bit. This was the training room though, so they wouldn't be here without a set purpose - which, she could plainly see with her sharp gray eyes, was the new dark-colored ball in her trainer's hand.
That done, Claire replaced Odette's ball before looking at the dark ball again. "Well, here goes nothing, I suppose," she said off-handedly with a shrug - not without some hesitance, however - before she held it out and pressed the button.
The beam of white light that shot out from the dark ball morphed into a distinctly Charizard-shaped pokemon. A Charizard that was a darker shade of orange than normal, with a bright red flame on its tail. It stood with its back to them for a moment or two, and Claire could easily see its black belly the moment its head snapped to one side, and fixed them - no, her; she had its ball - with a very displeased, very angry look in its fierce red eyes.
He stayed like that for just a moment before, with a thunderous roar that echoed in the spacious training room, he turned fully and aimed his open jaws right at Claire - either her head or the arm with his ball, he didn't give a s**t which - but she inhaled sharply and flung her other arm up defensively as she took a step back. That was all she had time for before his fangs sank into her left arm; wasn't what he was aiming for, but a limb was a limb. He'd get the rest soon enough.
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Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 4:20 am
Aulus watched the Charizard appear with some trepidation; he’d only had limited contact with Dark pokemon – he had avoided contact where he could – and he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with this one. It wasn’t its fault this had been done to it, but that didn’t change anything in the end. When it snapped its head around to look at them his stomach knotted and his heart rate picked up. Those eyes! As the Charizard’s roar echoed around the room he tightened his grip on his staff; this was definitely going to be-
The Charizard lunged, and his train of thought was cut off as if by a guillotine.
Everything seemed to happen very slowly, it was like watching it happen to somebody else.
It was the teeth he noticed, the teeth and the eyes.
Teeth sinking into flesh.
Claire.
“Claire!”
The sensible thing to do would have been to send out his pokemon, but the sensible bits of Aulus’ brain were currently being overwhelmed by panic and anger and so instead of sending out his pokemon he tried to strike the Charizard in the eye with his staff.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:08 pm
Claire gave no indication whatsoever that she heard - or didn't hear - Aulus calling her name; she was too preoccupied with the (very) sharp fangs currently latched onto her arm. It was sort of funny, really; seeing blood didn't bother her unless it was hers.
The moment his fangs cut into her flesh she dropped the dark ball onto the floor, where it bounced once or twice before rolling away from all of them. With that hand (unintentionally) freed - and the sensible bits of her brain similarly overwhelmed - she reached up to grab onto his headknob and yank it to one side.
While her pull wasn't strong, it was enough to twist his head very slightly - in time to prevent him from being stabbed in the eye with a staff, but instead it ended up stabbing him in the cheek. The blow was much more powerful than the human girl's pathetic yanking, so with a deep, rumbling growl he turned and flung her away by the arm and immediately snaked his head back to try to bite the staff that had hurt him. Flames licked around his sharp, now bloody fangs as he tried to bite down on the wood - all the while fixing Aulus with his fierce, beady eyes.
Claire landed with a gasp and shut her eyes tightly, holding her injured arm with her other hand briefly before forcing herself to come to her senses. Odette seemed to come out of her temporary shock and moved immediately to her trainer's side, leaning over her and cooing worriedly. The agent pushed her away with a bloody hand before hoisting herself up. The last place she wanted to be was on the floor with a rampaging dark Charizard on the loose. The Pidgeot was displeased - both with the blood on her feathers but mostly at her owner's situation - but immediately turned that displeasure to rage as she fluttered over to land on the fire-type's back with a shriek of rage, and tried to dig into his back with her sharp talons while staying upright with well-timed flaps of her wings.
With some sensibility returned, Claire pulled out a pokeball and released Zeus - he took a moment or two to assess the situation before racing to help Odette - then she reached for Alexina's--no, she wasn't here; she was hiding in her room somewhere.. Artemis! A flash of white revealed the bewildered puppy pokemon. "Artemis," Claire said breathlessly, and pointed with her uninjured arm at the dark ball, "fetch!"
While the Growlithe didn't look too sure about the situation, she wasn't about to disobey a command in such a situation, so she turned and raced towards the ball - and reached it in time to get smacked away with a yelp when the Charizard lashed his tail.
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