The first time, Chu-e hadn't noticed her at all.

The second time, Chu-e had been aware of a tail, you didn't get to live as long as he had without being aware of things, but in the end proceeded to ignore it.

Now, he was busy leaning over and looking into a pit that looked straight down into the Maw of Death Itself, fully aware of whatever stupid nonsense he was about to do. For most people, you didn't get to live as long as he had by taking risks. He hadn't been able to stay alive unless he took them. This kind of thing was just.. well, maybe he was kind of fucked up in his own ways.

"Hmm?" Chu-e turned to face the sudden person with a flat kind of interest. Like one would give for the weather or a neat factoid about giraffes. He certainly didn't look like the type to be wandering on his own at all, skinny and sickly and pale, let alone in a dangerous cave. Strange happenings.

"I'll be fine." He waved her off and turned to look back into the pit, thinking about the best way to get to the bottom. There was sure to be something cool down there. In both the literal and figurative sense, given where they were at. Squinting into the darkness, Chu-e hummed to himself. "Think I'll die if I jump?" The question was meant for the girl at his side. Or maybe a hypothetical. It was kind of hard to tell.

"Oh. Shit."

At least the guy seemed a bit startled, if blandly so, at the sudden attack and fracturing of ice. His hands out his pokeballs and they were flung to the bottom of the pit to release whatever was inside. He tumbled downwards, half noticing what the girl was doing, feeling his body jolt as he was caught by psychic energy and lowered down at a more languid pace.

He ended up being dipped sat on the shore, a Slowking paddling around the water and a Gardevoir standing next to him. The Gardevoir fretted over him, but he seemed more interested in something else the avalanche had disturbed; the rump of a small and scaly pokemon was sticking out from under the drift of snow. Seeing chance, he hummed and tossed a ball at the thing.

"You alright up there?" He called out to the girl, only shivering a little in the cold air. How his part, he didn't seem too bothered by this turn of events. If anything, he just kind of wandered off after his basic check, peering into a passage of shivering caverns that had been uncovered by the shifting snow and ice. He called his Gardevoir back into his ball but whistled for the Slowking to follow.

catching gible

"You are? That's sweet. I promise I'll be fine." He did give a kind of lopsided grin in her direction. "Ah, can't really Teleport too much... doctor doesn't advise it." Which, he wasn't too worried about potentially being lost in an icy cavern. In the end, if push came to shove, he really would do it and suffer the consequences later. He fished his phone out of his pocket and flipped on the flashlight, shining it down the tunnel. He did, at least, jump when a pokemon shot out and attacked, not him, but the woman.

"Huh, you're kinda unlucky with these wilds." That being said, a donkey pokemon ran out and looked clearly startled. The cave in must have disturbed a lot of the local wildlife, so they would probably be dealing with quite a lot of pokemon wandering their way. Aloe, the Slowking, didn't risk it; he simply shot the pokemon with a Water Pulse and sent it flying back against the wall. Feeling bad for it, and also mildly excited because he had been looking for a pokemon like this, he tossed a ball it's way.

Since it was a bit calmer for the moment, he shined the light back into the tunnel. It looked like it slanted upwards, at least. "I think we can get back up top this way." With that, he set forward. "Ji-Hoon Ki! Call me Ki. Easier for everybody." And he laughed some at that. "You seem sort of nervous, Mcflurry. Not too keen on spelunking?"

Catching Mudbray

Chu-e did at least give a sympathetic nod. He could understand shitty working conditions and coworkers. The previous Rocket leader had tried to have him sleeping with the fishes, after all. Little did the two of them know, they had more in common in that way than expected.

"I can't image what hell it must have been like to be here when the damned invasion was happening. I was trapped in a hospital bed in Kalos while that was going down. It was all every station played for a while." And it had looked like hell. Maybe even worse than when Kanto had been taken over, which was his only experience with direct war.

"No job is worth getting shit on, though. Not in a position to quit?" He understood for more common folks that sometimes quitting a shitty job wasn't an option if you needed the money that badly. That's what led to a lot of shitty working conditions to start with; bosses who thought they could do whatever they wanted with you knowing you couldn't afford to move on. Chu-e felt bad for Mcflurry if that was the case.

"Don't mean to intrude on the cave, by the way. My husband and I, he's not around anymore, we used to come out to this cave on a lot of dates once upon a time. I guess I'm just nostalgic." A weird blockhead penguin pokemon creeped from around the corner. Aloe did not even chance an attack, grabbing the pokemon with a Psychic and slamming it against the ceiling of the cavern. Chu-e sighed and tossed a pokeball. He would need to go over 'appropriate attacks around strangers' later.

catching ice penguin

Chu-e eyed a Drilbur farther in the cavern, just lite ways off. It looked scared beyond belief at what had just happened, slowly backing up before darting deeper into the cavern and away from them.

Now, if Mcflurry had just said the 'they'd kill me' thing without any of the other stuff, Chu-e would have figured she was just being dramatic. But then that weird mime had gotten the hell beat out of it. Then the most damning bit about a 'her boss, Gavin' was mentioned. He had the pieces. He had connected them.

"Oh, you're Rocket." And he said it kind of like it was nothing and not some secret to be kept hush hush. "Yeah, you're right. Only way to get out is kick the big one."

Reaching into his bag, into one of the hidden pockets he had inside, it took a few moments before he pulled out an ID- his real ID. The one printed for 'Chu-e Choi' with the outdated, hidden mark for one of the Beasts. For old Rocket, the ones who overturned Kanto.

If she knew of him, it had been a long time without activity on his part, it would be stories of massacres under his thumb or maybe rumors of his supposed death. Even if he wasn't currently in an acting position didn't mean he hadn't done horrid shit to earn the title before.

"So, you want out? How far you willing to go for freedom, Mcflurry?"

Passing!