Chu-e comes in with a pink metal basket full of pokeballs. Some of them are covered in various stickers, faded and whitening.

They're sat on the table and he starts to sort them out, squinting at them to make sure he had what they needed.

"I think so! This everyone we need?" Not that Cillian Quinn would recognize his very detailed and intricate sticker-based labeling system.

Gavin starts to count, squinting, then frowns back at the racks.

The labels mirror one another, and it's clear after a moment that one rack — the full one — holds his shadow Pokemon. The other has only a few filled spots: Corviknight, Aerodactyl, Miltank.

"We need... Sandslash, Eelektross, Roserade, Cryogonal... Breloom's my newest, got her from Elijah, so I don't know if you've got one of those spare. I don't."

He reaches for one of the balls and realizes he doesn't know what they contain.

"Might need your help," he laughs.

An Elektross and Roserade are plucked up and dropped in their respective places.

A quick name card labeled "Delcatty" is made, two more balls dropped in one of the empty containers.

"Don't have either of the other two." A few of the other pokeballs and sorted through before he puts them away- doubles of what they already had, just in case.

Gavin crosses Tyranitar off the list, in spite of the empty space on the non-shadow rack. They'd run tests on one during Xanders' brief stint as head scientist, and Gavin had kept those results.

"I'll make sure and ask around."

An amber gaze sweeps over the racks before he lands on the Delcatty labels and grins a bit.

"Let's do Sparklefur first, shall we?"

Chu-e's been dying to show her off properly, but Gavin's only exposure to the shadow cat had been a rather unfortunate incident in an alleyway.

Chu-e makes note of the Tyranitar slot a f drops one in, even if Cillian Quinn doesn't need it anymore. It had been the same one that they ran tests on as a Larvitar.

But, eagerly, he reaches for Sparklefur's ball.

"Don't put your back to her." Is the only warning before she's called out.

The Delcatty is clearly... mutated on some way. The features sharp and strange but somehow still recognizable.

Her eyes light on the two humans, tip of her tail twitch. Assessing.

"What would she do?"

He sounds more curious than concerned; there's confidence to him that he'd lacked prior to becoming Lugia's avatar. His own shadow Pokemon seemed downright reverent of the corrupt legend, and Gavin by extension, but others' seemed to feel a lesser effect.

"Hello, Sparklefur."

Gavin extends a hand toward her, palm up, with miasma swirling around his fingers.

"Go for the throat."

The feline tilts her head, as if coy, eyes flicking down to the offered hand.

Chu-e gently places a hand on Gavin's arm, pulling it back. Sharp fangs sink into air, snapping the mist, a narrow miss.

"She's feisty." Her tail flicks but she doesn't move otherwise, just watching. Waiting. The white protrusions on her ears flickered, darkening from the previous white to a dark, reacting to the miasma in other ways.

"Mm. Lugia wouldn't like that."

He sounds more amused than anything.

He retracts his hand as Chu-e touches his arm, though it had seemed as if he intended to allow the strike otherwise.

"You are feisty, aren't you? I wouldn't try that with me."

He watches as the fur around her ears darkens.

"Fascinating. Has it ever done that before?"

"Please don't feed my cat to Lugia." But he grins, a huff of amusement in his tone.

"I usually have to keep other pokemon out to groom her. She also killed one of my Lopunny and ate it." Sparklefur preferred her food to be fresh now.

At the last question, Chu-e nodded.

"A few times. Not just black, but pink, blue, green... pretty much every color you could want. I have an idea why it happens but not what it does, if anything."

"I do wonder how she'd react to it."

Shame the lab wasn't big enough.

Gavin doesn't flinch at the thought of Sparklefur's violence; he'd chosen to study shadow Pokemon in spite of their aggression, because of it. They fascinated him. He lifts his shirt slightly to show claw marks along his ribs.

"Was my Sandslash that did that. They're little bastards."

He sounds strangely fond.

"What causes it, then?"

Gavin takes notes with one hand and extends the other toward the cat once more.

For science.

"You got fatter nuts than me, then." Was the verdict, brow raised at the marks. He could respect it.

"Terrains, weather, hell, pretty sure they turned purple when she got poisoned once. It always seems to go with what's happening. Like, it's raining it's blue, really sunny they get red."

Sparklefur chomps down, quicker this time, on the offered hand. She shakes her head, as if trying to snap a mouse's neck, raising her paws up to try and drag Gavin down.

She wants to eat him alive.

"Gotta explore the scientific method, or whatever."

He grins, then hisses a sharp breath through his teeth as Sparklefur sinks her fangs in deep. She shakes her head as if she's trying to break his hand, but Gavin doesn't move it. He'd learned how to deal with being bitten in the labs. If he tried to tear his hand from her jaws, he'd only cause more damage. His arm resists the pull of her paws.

"Hell of a bite, that."

Blood wells where her teeth have widened the marks, drips hot down his hand.

"All right, enough."

He stares her down as if daring her to do anything but let go.

"I think you're just a masochist."

Already, he's calling out one of his trio of Blissey, having the pokemon act on standby. It was the same girl who, what felt like ages ago now, held Chu-e's gun between her stubby arms. Cillian Quinn would need that healed up quick unless he wanted to bleed all over the place.

Sparklefur growls low in her throat. She can feel the overwhelming presence of his power and how it bares down on her, wills her to obey. Yet, she is fickle and does not have his loyalty. It is only on a razor's edge that even her Trainer can control her. Gavin would be able to feel flames flickering as she readied an attack.

She lets go with a yowl when Chu-e grabs her. One hand digs into the release points of her jaw while the other scruffs her. It's smooth, as if he's done it a hundred times before. Yet, he just clicks his tongue and drops her limp body back on the ground when Gavin is free. One couldn't fight certain biology, Shadow or not.

"I told you she was feisty." Even with the previous violence and the cat's lashing tail, Chu-e gives her a few pats on the head, petting down her back.