Clad in a pristine lab coat rather than his ordinarily formal garb, Gavin does not look out of place in the small lab that's been cleared out for them. He looks comfortable, even, expression sharp with focus as he swabs the drying mucus from beneath the expired Delcatty's nose. The sample is deposited into a vial, and Gavin sets it to the side before turning to regard Chu-e Choi as he speaks.

"If he does, and there's no change, you can try again." He turns away again, now retrieving an empty syringe. "If they survive the initial process, there appears to be no further danger to the subject."

Having already taken measurements of their living specimen, Gavin now draws its blood. A few vials are taken; if it dies, there will be no way to obtain additional samples from this particular subject. He swabs the patch of shaved fur on its shoulder to clear away a bead of bright red blood when he's done.

"Wanna get blood samples if he does? I have another Lopunny for clean ones." Glancing up from his papers, he watched Cillian Quinn work with a kind of clinical eye. Some part of him told him he should maybe feel a little bad that the Delcatty had died, and the one on the table very well could die, too. At the same time, he found he didn't care that much, which made him feel worse than the actual death. But, he had come to terms a long time ago that he wasn't exactly rational with his thoughts and feelings.

"So this process... you slide them in that machine, it injects them with some shit, and then they live or die. If they die, so sad. If they live, you can keep trying till this 'shadow' process happens." If the reports he had read, and what Gavin had said, were understood correctly, that seemed to be the case. "But, no one knows exactly what happens... and the people who did are MIA for one reason or another... hmmm... there are also natural means to do it, too, though..." The last bit had devolved more into him muttering to himself.

"You've already got blood and stuff from all your shadow mons, too, right? Who else has some? Think we could juice them, too?"

Gavin turns his head to look at Chu-e Choi, a gleam in his gaze that's perhaps too eager.

"Yes," he says, without hesitation. "From the clean one, as well."

There's an energy to the underboss as he moves around to the other side of the metal table, now drawing samples of the deceased Delcatty's blood. With an electric razor, he shaves some of its singed fur and deposits it into a little baggie. The fur carries a foul stench that makes him wrinkle his nose. He strips off his gloves when he's done handling the contaminated samples, washing his hands before pulling on a clean pair.

"Mhm," he confirms, over the sound of running water. "And yes, I've taken samples from my own, but those are at my personal lab. Eva had samples from Lugia, but they're no longer accessible. We can take more."

He makes a mental note to ask Lulu Flint if she's interested in acquiring a bigger laboratory off-site. Big enough to house a potentially hostile legendary bird, perhaps.

"I know of others in Rocket who have them, both artificial or otherwise. Emma Wolfe. Valerio Dachev. oscar clayton. Katherine Fairburne. We can get in contact."

Humming, Chu-e takes both a full and empty set of Love Balls out and places on the table; his preferred type of pokeball to use, since he had to keep up his whole aesthetic. "One is for the Delcatty, other has the Lopunny. Do what you need to do." At the confirmation that he had all the information straight in his head, Chu-e just scribbled something on one of his papers, nodding to himself as he did.

"Last time, you said some were made through natural means, right? Your Aerodactyl and Lugia itself. Any idea what happened there?" Chu-e still hadn't gotten to the files and reports regarding the blackout of Slateport or any of the details of the War. It was hard to play catch-up after spending so long out of the loop. "Was it a... stone, like what probably happened with my Aerodactyl? You mentioned a.. Ni-something? What's that? Can we get one?"

Standing, Chu-e placed his papers down for the moment. "Ah, and pokemon they consent to let us take samples from, we should see if we can get unaffected pokemon... I can focus on that. As fun as it is watching you work, I'm little help here. Be right back." Slipping from the room, Chu-e would leave on the note for a few minutes. It would allow Gavin a bit of time to himself to do what he needed.

When he came back, he was pushing a metal table with the Lopunny on it. The pokemon was curled up, unconscious but not sedated, that mucus dripping from his mouth and nose, looking sickly- but still breathing. "Well, hot dog! He's alive!"

"I've little information on Lugia's corruption beyond Nihilego being responsible. Aerodactyl, though..."

There's something far away in Gavin's gaze as the stuff of nightmares is brought back to mind. His fingers tighten their grip around Lopunny's love ball, the only visible sign that the underboss is troubled by these distant thoughts.

He sighs. Chu-e Choi was underboss, now; he could access Gavin's reports on Necrozma if he wished. There was no use beating around the bush.

"The Blackout of Slateport," he begins, already returning to the monotony of taking samples. He starts with an injection of sedative on the healthy Lopunny, not eager to be kicked by an unhappy subject. "I'm sure you've heard of it. I was there. I fought the thing that caused it, and it's the reason Aerodactyl is... the way it is. Shadowed, I think, but I don't know how different the Blackout's corruption is from Nihilego's. That's one of the things I'd like to find out."

From the shadow Pokemon corrupted by the Light Devourer, Gavin would also need to take samples of the strange crystals they all seemed to be adorned with.

"No stones, far as I'm aware, but I did get this thing from Blackout." He pulls an ODD FRAGMENT from the pocket of his lab coat and holds it up to the light. "Looking to study it with Lulu Flint's help, once she's settled into the promotion."

He nods at the suggestion of unaffected Pokemon; they'll be needed for a proper understanding of genetic shift. "I've got a Corviknight we can use," he supplies. "I'll ask Emma Wolfe if I can borrow her Sandslash for a few tests."

By the time Chu-e returns, the other Lopunny has fallen asleep. Gavin has a vial of its blood in his hand, and he looks up as the table is wheeled in.

"Excellent," he breathes, and immediately approaches with a fresh syringe. He hesitates at the last second. "May I?"

Chu-e doesn't miss the small motions that betray's Cillian Quinn's distress over talking about the blackout. He made to ignore it, pretend he didn't notice, to allow the other man to save a bit of face. Not that Chu-e particularly cared or would look down on Gavin for something like that, he was only human after all, but some people could be surprisingly touchy if they thought they were being pitied.

He simply listened as Gavin spoke, nodding along at needed points. When the Odd Fragment was pulled out, Chu-e made to try and poke it with his bare finger. It would be up to Gavin to allow him to do so or not.

"You can take samples from any of my pokemon." A small pause. "Almost any." He thought of his service pokemon as well as the one or two kittens that mostly lingered around his house.

"But this one, well, I didn't haul his ass up here just to look at! Go ahead and do whatever you gotta do." As if to empathize this, Chu-e gave a weak slap on the Lopunny's thigh, like how a used car salesman might slap the roof of a car they were trying to sell. The Lopunny twitched in his sleep at the contact, as if trying to pull away, curling up on himself.

Having picked up the ODD FRAGMENT with his bare hands, Gavin sees no harm in allowing others to touch its surface. He has been unable to identify its material composition as of yet, but it resembles the Light Devourer in a way that makes his skin crawl if he thinks too hard on it.

"Most of my tests will be non-invasive," Gavin insists, to placate any worries Chu-e Choi might have for his Pokemon's safety. "Anything further would be performed only with your full consent."

Being given said consent for the Lopunny, Gavin immediately sets about to taking swabs of the mucus beneath its nose. Interesting. Both those that survived the process and those that did not display a similar symptom. He'll need to compare the substance.

Blood samples are drawn by a careful hand. "You mentioned acquiring uncorrupted subjects. I sincerely doubt we'll be able to acquire a Lugia," and he smiles drily, "but in addition to those you've seen, I have in my possession shadowed formes of Cryogonal, Eelektross, and Tyranitar. I have no clean subjects with which to compare them, nor the Aerodactyl."

"You think it would kill me if I licked it?" Wasn't that something geologists did? Lick rocks to test what they were? Chu-e is mostly joking, but the flat tone of voice as he hands the Odd Fragment back to Cillian Quinn shows a spark of real curiosity there. In the name of science, licking rocks was fun and cool.

"Eh, it's nothing personal. Most of them are real young. Or I have multiple of the same pokemon." Like his Gardevoir, Prince. He had another Gardevoir, named Princess, who he would be totally fine with getting experimented on. Prince handled his medicine and could probably poison someone more effectively than Chu-e could on his own. You didn't tempt fate.

"Well, I can help with one of those. I got a Larvitar a bit back. Give me some time to pump it full of those Evo steroids from the store and we can see where that takes us." So, at least that took care of one of them. "I wouldn't mind going hunting, though. Could even pull in some of the newbies if we need."

Humming, Chu-e went back to his papers and scribbled some more information down. "Hmm... if that next Delcatty survives the process but isn't Shadow'd, we could get blood from her again. Then, since she won't die, blood after she finally succumbs and we'll have the full set to compare." If you took overdosed, clean, survived, then shadowed into account.

"I..." To Chu-e Choi's credit, he's rendered Gavin completely nonplussed. "I don't know. I've never tried."

Damn the scientific method, because now Gavin is curious as to what might happen. He frowns at the ODD FRAGMENT, squinting as if narrowing his gaze might answer Chu-e's question. It doesn't, of course. He holds it out to his colleague.

"I mean, if you want to try..." He laughs softly.

Gavin nods at the thought of hunting. It would serve two purposes: acquisition of subjects, and testing the mettle of their new blood. "We'll keep them in the dark as to what we're working on, of course. This project is considered classified and should be accessed only by ourselves, the head scientists, and of course, Walsh. Should he take an interest."

With samples taken from the Lopunny that had survived the Shadow Machine, Gavin now moves on to the clean subject slumbering on the table.

"Take samples from it as a Larvitar as well. Get one of the grunts to do it." His neat handwriting labels each of the vials: LP001, SLP001, etcetera. "Mine was a Larvitar before we went up against that thing. Came out evolved. Same with Eelektross. That's a new one, with shadows, by the way. Any of the basic forms we shadow come out the same form they went in."

When offered, Chu-e stares at the Fragment for a few moments. Then he shrugs, cause what's the worst that could happen? Taking it, he sticks out his tongue and preps it for landing....

Only to pull away when Cillian Quinn speaks up.

"Oh yeah, of course. I've been trying to covertly interact with some of the grunts and other folks before word about my promotion gets out. I want to see how the group at large feels about Rocket, where it's heading, what they expect, to see what areas really need hammered out. All for loyalty." Which made sense to him.

"I'll bring the Larvitar tomorrow for those samples, before I 'roid it up. Want to test on the Tyranitar yourself or can the lab boys do that one, too?" But, it might be interesting to have the two Tyranitar together at the same time to better see differences. He would need to remember to make a mental note of that.

Then Chu-e licked the fucking rock.

Gavin doesn't expect Chu-e Choi to actually do it. He's further convinced of the other's jest when their conversation continues as normal.

"I want to test the Tyranitar myself," he confirms, "alongside my own."

Gavin's grinning slightly from his amusement at the situation, still holding the ODD FRAGMENT, when Chu-e catches him off guard by actually licking the damn thing. He's torn between curiosity and worry — it was a fragment he found in a wormhole, who knew what alien shit was on it? It wasn't like Gavin had sterilized the thing!

There's several beats of silence as Gavin stares at his colleague. Then, with suppressed laughter in his tone, "Well? What's it taste like, then?"

Chu-e scrunches up his face, assessing. It wasn't bad, not really, but not good either.

"You ever licked really cold ice, where it's like... kind of smooth and kind of rough on your tongue?" It was the closest thing he could think to compare it to, other than the glass analogy above, but I wasn't about to just repeat that one in my post. Shaking his head, he shrugs it off; it won't be later till any symptoms develop from this little experiment anyway. May as well continue as normal.

"It just kind of tasted like your pocket, too. So, no gain, no loss. At least I didn't fall over and die." Chu-e was even a little bla'se about it, a grin picking up to match Cillian Quinn's humor. But he hadn't been here for the war, had only gotten time to skim the report on the Slateport Blackout. Like any man with hubris, he knew not what he had done.