The only occupant that was awake (most of the time) was the blue-plumed Braviary, curled up in a corner snoozing off. All the staff coming in and out of this particular room were familiar with this avian at this point.

The door creaked open, and the lightly-sleeping Pokémon looked up, ready to hit whatever or whoever this was with his wing feathers—however he stopped for a few moments.

He could smell Terra’s scent all over the man that came in.

Ah.

So this was who the Aerodactyl had sought out.

Looking over to where Alexei lay, the Braviary squawked, before getting up and shuffling over to where the brown-haired man was headed. He also smelled of… the troublemaker.

Safe enough.

Alexei, on the other hand, was a little strung out on medication, however he was lucid—mostly.

“Hey, Tom,” he croaked out as he raised his left hand in greeting. Ugh, it still hurt to speak.

As Thomas approached the door, he would find a group of doctors and nurses who clearly looked fearful. As he knocked on the door, some of them would immediately try to find some sort of cover. Thomas immediately knew why, as he saw the Braviary in his room. For a moment, it looked ready to attack, until it stood down. Thomas closed the door behind him, and made his way to Alexei's bedside.

"Shit, man, what happened?", he immediately asked, pulling up the nearest chair.

---

tags: Alexei Ivanov
notes: tl;dr

“Stuff,” was the only thing he could mention at the inquiry posed.

“Lots—of shit,” he added. He could see the blue-plumed Braviary scuttling about out of the corner of his eye, before eventually settling down again like some overly-agitated watch—well, he wasn’t a watch hound, rather a watch bird… same thing, though.

“Can you—read sign language?” he asked the other man, waiting for the answer before going into as much explanation as he could. He didn’t want to strain his voice too much afterward, the inside of his throat had never felt so dry.

‘Someone—attacked me. Somewhere in the city,’ he began, gesturing out towards the window before seeing what he thought was an Emolga taking off, only to be replaced by one the several Oricorios he recognized by the differing plumage.

‘Got—shanked, lack of a better term for it,’ and with that he slowly raised his right hand, covered in bandages. Another shuffling around, and he managed to raise his left hand towards his neck and pulled down the bandages that had been wrapped there slightly.

‘Almost died. Was bleeding out in an alleyway.’

In hindsight, having that one staff member at the Sanctuary who was hard of hearing was a good idea after all, he knew a little more than the usual sign language gestures they would communicate in.

At least he could ‘talk’ to Thomas without straining himself too much.

Thomas gave a nod to Alexei to tell him he knew sign language. Among the many things his mentor had taught him, communicating without speaking was up on the list.

Thomas watched as Alexei communicated what happened to him. The trainer clenched his hand into a fist as he processed it. Someone just attacked his friend? Left him to die in an alleyway? If he found this individual, there would be hell to pay, for sure.

"Any idea why you got attacked?", Thomas would ask.

---

tags: Alexei Ivanov
notes: tl;dr

‘I wish I knew,’ were the first words he managed to form.

There was—a bit of a white lie there though.

Alexei knew exactly why he’d been set upon, but to reveal the reason just like that? He was pretty sure the other would berate him for being stupid and doing something that dumb.

‘I have no idea if this has something to do… with those people though,’ he remarked. Surely the other would know who ‘those’ people he was mentioning.

It wasn’t too long after that HNN article came out exposing that there were, indeed, people from Team Rocket again. In this region. Hadn’t they been driven out once before? Why return like tenacious cockroaches, then?

‘But I think it may be someone in their—ranks,’ he continued, struggling for a bit. It was hard signing one-handed, after all. His right hand felt absolutely useless.

‘I thought—I thought I was going to die.’

Thomas' eye narrowed, as if he could tell something was off. Nevertheless, he wasn't going to press his friend about it, not just yet. But when Alexei mentioned 'those people', he quickly caught on. He had to wonder if this was an assassination attempt, or just Alexei being unlucky.

"You're safe now.", he'd reassure Alexei.

"If you'd like, I can send a sketch artist over, when you're able to more easily communicate. I'll make whoever did this to you pay.", he'd tell Alexei, hand clenched into a fist.

---

tags: Alexei Ivanov
notes: tl;dr

The Braviary in the corner looked up in silent wonder, as there was mostly talking coming from the other human that had entered the room but not from his own human companion; which made him ruffle his feathers out of concern.

At least the other human wasn’t hurting him.

‘You think, it’s because they’ve been recently outed by the news, they’re starting to take down the weaker Gym Leaders? Leave a power vacuum of some sort?’ he continued signing one-handed; even if it was slow. Ugh, how he hated not having both hands available to fully communicate.

‘Please. I don’t want to make this a public matter, considering how… well, you know, considering how… inept they can be at handling things especially when it comes to shit like this.’

Oh, ow. Now his own arm was starting to hurt from all that one-handed signing.

"Dunno. Seems that they're trying to play the optics game, at this point. Which means making us look bad, and convincing the people to let them run their lives.", he'd respond. "Outright murdering Gym Leaders might get in the way of that. But it wouldn't surprise me, as we all know what they really want. They've done it before, after all.", he'd continue.

When told that he wanted to keep the matter private, Thomas nodded.

"Of course. If you still want me to bring the sketch artist, I'll make sure it's kept between us.", he'd tell Alexei. "If you'd like, I can stay behind, help keep you safe.", he'd offer. He knew the Braviary was there, but extra security, should his assailant try to finish him off, never hurt.

---

tags: Alexei Ivanov
notes: tl;dr

‘Since when did they not do anything else other than making the League look bad?’ he said with his best attempt at a joke, but knew that it was going to fall flat on its face. Only the fact that his shoulders were shaking slightly was the sign he was laughing—albeit quietly.

Shaking his head, he sighed.

‘This is them, of course. I may not know what the hell happened in Kanto much, since I came here straight from Unova, however should the stories really be that gruesome, well… it’d be safe to say they’re not above doing everything dirty to get their hands on what they want.’

Of course, he had no idea that something similar to this was going to happen in a few months’ time.

‘I mean—if you’re busy, I couldn’t keep you for too long… however, thanks for the offer.’

In the same corner, the Braviary let out a singular squawk; having made up his mind: this other human was one of the trustworthy ones. Well, asides from a certain missing rockheaded idiot and the drag son…