She dreamt about a lot of things, lately—no longer just the typical killing spree, or lonely wandering in faceless crowds, feeling detached even in her own subconscious mind. There were people inside her head. Specific people. Rinc. Natalia. It didn’t stop there, though.

Lulu found that her dream world had evolved in contexts and themes, as much as her waking personality had metamorphosed. Faces like Sénon Game , Sabine Calcifet , and skyler dross began appearing to her, in flashes of flesh, in between perplexingly violent struggles with FERNANDO SILPH that did not match memory, but still left her breathless. She felt closer to her body, in many ways, than she ever had before. Trauma had injected strange, eternal energy into her muscles. It had also mutilated her heart in a way she would not immediately be aware of.

The cold wall that had allowed Lulu to run from lovers and friends and remain safe had been heavily fractured during an infiltration of her utmost powerful mental defenses. Like water through the fissures of a cracking dam, the true feeling of insatiable loneliness, pulled out of its compartment and thrown at her like a thousand files, would threaten to drown her. However, just as strong as there would be a desire to suddenly connect, she would be bound to lash out with explosive volatility.

She was operating on competing polar extremes. Lulu had been broken, for lack of a better word, and it was only so long before she started doing the breaking herself.

In the meantime, it was business as usual.

Her time being close with Silph, at least how she remembered it, had been nice. Primal, even. Enough to stir things she didn’t understand. Inexplicably, it all blended into blind rage and hatred out of nowhere. Driven by an unknown force, her mission to unravel the dangerous man had taken on a feverish, personal edge. For whatever reason, she had to bring him down. She felt it in her heart, and saw it in her dreams at night.

So, it was only natural for her to perk at the name when it was uttered within earshot by chance. Lulu had summoned for peggie vela at once. For a moment, this took a front seat to space travel.

She remained in her chair when the knocking came. “Come in, Vela.” The door would open by the assistance of her Houndoom, catching the knob on one of its horns.

Her sleepless, soulless eyes stared up at the young woman. She would waste no time when the door shut behind her. “I hear you have at least one Porygon from Silph Co.”

The Houndoom moved around Peggie, and back to sit like a gargoyle by the side of the head scientist’s desk.

Lulu followed the girl’s eyes to her hound, and thought for a moment to dismiss her visible nerves but decided against it. She’d use it to her advantage.

At the slip, the head scientist’s eyebrows raised beneath her bangs. She was silent for a moment, the corners of her lips turning down the smallest hair. “Smooth.”

A hand held her own chin, as though thinking a moment before she reached into a drawer and retrieved a pokéball. Pressing the button on the capsule, a Solrock was released. It hovered over the woman’s shoulders with eery red eyes which bore into the young peggie vela . “Are you sure?”

She rested her elbows on the desk to lean in towards the young grunt with an equally commanding stare. Nothing would stand in her way, especially not some garbling, green-horned idiot. How old was this kid, anyways?

Lulu squinted at the teen. Ran up on some rocks? Her head shook a little, the look in her face refusing to be fed Plank’s riveting tale, true or not. She didn’t care about the story. And, by the looks of it, it was just that.

Her weight was shifted on her elbows some. “You look like a kid, Vela.” Fingers stitched together as she looked at the girl with wild eyes. “That won’t stop me.”

Silence passed through the room and her green-filtered eyes were vicious and cutting. “Someone really ought to teach you how to lie better if they expect you to last around here.”

The Solrock, as bonded to its trainer as it was, sensed her tone and loomed closer to the girl in the chair, staring hard all the while. Pink, psychic energy began to swirl around it some as it did so. Lulu’s shoulders rolled and softened after a moment, and the energy faded. She was getting ahead of herself.

“Look.” She would level with her. “I’m not going to take it away from you. I just want to see it. Take a peek at its software.” She crossed her arms, leaning back some. She was off the record, right? “Quite frankly, I don’t give a fuck what you do.”

The woman’s head tilted to the side, the space between her brows wrinkling visibly as her bangs fell away for a moment. “Please. You’re the greenest damn thing I’ve seen on this sub, yet. It’s a wonder how young they’ll pluck you off the streets, but to be honest with you Vela, I don't give a shit.”

She needed answers. She needed a reason to attack Silph Co. These feelings that she harbored for FERNANDO SILPH were things to turn away from, surely. They were weakness. A warning sign. She would fight it off, tooth and nail. Until she saw him, again, of course. Felt his skin…

This was why she needed him gone.

Her eyes flashed to the girl’s hands as they became more buried. “Get your hands out of your bloody pockets, Vela. Don’t be stupid. Surely you don’t want to die this young.” Her tone was razor-sharp.

She raised from her desk, going to sit on it closer to the girl and look her in the eyes more severely. It would then be clear that the Solrock loomed only as a bluff; meant for intimidation. Lulu, even now, was not quite bold enough to fry a grunt’s brain without permission—not this soon after her promotion, anyways. She still needed to feel out the extent of her power.

There was a long moment of silence. She crossed her arms, her jaw setting in annoyance as she begrudgingly accepted defeat to a child. She eyed down her nose at her. Plank would surely be unable to see all of the similarities they shared; Lulu in her younger days, before all of this, that is. Amidst her anger, Lulu failed to note the impressiveness of the girl's resolve. Was she, perhaps, telling the truth after all? It was a possibility that nerves in the face of a superior were merely making her appear suspicious. 

“Unfortunately, I can’t force you to tell me.” She sighed disdainfully and then pushed back off the desk, walking back around it once more to retrieve a cigarette and lighting it unabashedly. She blew smoke, still visibly irritated. “But, if you should change your mind and decide to quit lying, you know where to find me. Your contribution would not go unrewarded.”

Maybe. It probably would, though, in all honesty. Lulu was not above playing dirty, nor lying through her teeth to achieve a goal. She was a Rocket, after all.

The way the girl’s body drew in on itself instinctively was a movement Lulu recognized. She could pick it out when others perhaps wouldn’t notice. A lack of empathy did not erase her own experiences. It was little more than noted, however; a meaningless detail tucked away. It wouldn’t save the girl in any minor stretch.

The scientist took a drag from her cigarette and blew it out the side of her mouth, glaring. A long moment of silence passed between them. Lulu neither believed this kid, nor had she any intentions of rewarding her at this point. For anything.

After a long breath, she cleared her throat. “Get the hell out of my office.” A finger tapped the ash off her cigarette into a tray, hidden inside a pulled-out drawer. She raised her brows at Plank expectantly.