Spoils of war she did not fight for – hardly would have cared to claim, even if she had. Slateport had been a droll city before Team Rocket had ever set their ugly foot in it, incapable of capturing her interest or even a second glance, but her superior's word was to be taken as law (it's safer this way, spoken from lips who knew from experience, don't follow me this time), and it was their command that she keep tabs on their freshly claimed territory... even if it was in shambles. Especially if it was in shambles.

Patrolling the area and keeping eyes peeled for any suspicious activity was a task to be carried out by all, but often forgone by the unhappy youth drunk on the idea of action and tired of the idea of the aftermath of it. At the very least, no one seemed to be scrambling from their precious little hidey-holes at the sight of light toward the sea-soaked outskirts of town, nor did anyone seem to wonder what its source may be when the power plant had been unceremoniously put out of commission. It couldn't have been electrical, Lorelei figured; the only natural conclusion was that it was from a Pokemon. More specifically, a trainer that was either playing in poor taste – or a threat who was trying to send a signal.

(Perhaps the youth weren't the only ones drunk on the idea of action, after all.)

Sure enough, the museum was awash with light. Tragically, a single step inside proved that the cause was not a Pokemon that needed to be beat into submission. “Color me impressed. I wouldn't have thought a backup generator would still be running so late after the fireworks.”

The building, however, was not entirely without a culprit – further in the back, almost obscured by toppled boat models and stands coated in fresh graffiti stood a dark-haired figure blowing bubbles with his gum and carving his mark in a place that may never be liberated. If a tree fell in a forest with no one to hear, did it fall at all? If a boy carves images into wood whose owner never return to see, did he ever ruin it at all? Lorelei levels him with a flat stare, the look of a disgruntled parent who has scolded their child ten times too many in a single afternoon, and regrets her call the moment it falls from her lips: “Haven't you got anything better to do?”


Chu-e Choi

They must have been some sight, the pair of them: one supposedly caught red handed, but both looking rather dull, if anything. The childish antics of some of the other Rockets were ignored with far more grace when she was a younger member, though they've come to grow more tiresome as the years have passed, even if her unchanging outward expression would never betray the change in thought. She takes her job very seriously. Appalling how many people don't seem to feel the same, beyond a baseline need to avoid having their head removed from their shoulders. Some days, she's tempted to do something similar, regardless of whether or not they're stepping out of their neatly crafted lines; anything to satiate the boredom, the irritation, the feeling that she's been left behind -

“You got anything better to do than stick your nose in my business?”

“No.” Immediate. Unashamed. If she did, she certainly wouldn't be entertaining him now. At their very core, her orders had been to “shut up and wait”, albeit in a very particular location. What she did in her time, aside from ensuring that control over the waste did not slip out of the organization's fingers was very much up in the air. Lorelei never knew what to do with her free time. She wasn't use to having it at all.

He sat. He spoke: of dolls, of coupon clippings, of their supposedly nasty company. Had she been a green, bright-eyed novice stepping out on her adventure for the very first time, unmarked by Rocket's vile emblem, perhaps she would have been moved by his words and the harsh imagery they evoked. Instead, she scoffs. “You bark loudly for a dog that bares no fangs.” Assuming he had any to bare at all. From here, he looks like the sort of boy to be snapped in two by a wind too harsh – by hands like hers, unforgiving and immovable. (At the same time, though, she's seen larger mountains toppled by smaller men; she doesn't place herself above him for risk that he may pull the rug from beneath her feet.) “The lot of you look hard pressed to tear a slip of paper in two, much less 'the hair from my head', as you so boldly claim. Has your victory over the city made you complacent?”


Chu-e Choi

That he had chosen to spend his time committing petty destruction of property had not been a surprise. That his reaction to her comment on its worthlessness had been to make a threat had not been a surprise, either. When he laughs, though, head thrown back and generator-lighted museum echoing emptily at the sound of it, she's admittedly caught a bit off guard. It's likely at her expense – a grown woman admitting to having nothing better to do with her day than poke her nose where it doesn't belong – but she's not so much bothered by it as she's wrong-footed. It's rare she feels much of anything, but even rarer that she admits to feeling caught off guard. “You're really superior, you know that?” he says, stark contrast to the mirth that usually accompanies a hearty chuckle. “But you're just another animal on a leash like me.”

A nail struck dead center on its head. He would probably say that to anyone standing in her shoes, Lorelei supposes, but the chord it strikes with her situation in particular sets a certain grimace in the line of her mouth. “Perhaps,” she concedes. “I see no reason, however, why a caged animal should discard its pride. All things break loose eventually.”

Her leash isn't held by who he thinks it is; maybe she'd be wise to not prod the topic any longer than she has to.

Fortunately, he's quick to leap the gap between topics without much prompting. For a man quick to toss out vile stories of tearing weaker women to shreds, he seems even quicker to switch his game from intimidation to being companionable; a tap of his hand against the table he's claimed as his thrown and an offer of caramels he's “pretty sure haven't been poisoned”, and he genuinely expects her to comply. (Fortunately for him, she's a woman with nothing better to do – unfortunately, she's also a woman who likes to hear herself speak.)

“A tempting offer – although, why should I take a seat when there are coupons in such desperate need of clipping? You'll have to do better than a bad of Schrodinger's poisoned caramels.”


Chu-e Choi