"Hm..." Vanilla frowned, hiding behind the same outcropping that Josh was hiding behind while the both of them observed the situation from afar. Their current assignment would require them to sneak into a cavern under disguise, said disguises being first in the line to accomplish. Josh's briefing did fill her with hesitation about killing, especially against Rocket. It was her first real outing in a real world situation like this. If Thomas or Navy knew what she was doing here, they'd freak and yell at her to go back home. But she had come too far now to back out.

"Right. I'll try and find some." Vanilla scurried off towards the area around the cavern for some grunt wearing a uniform her size. It was easier said than done, considering that most of them were adults and very clearly not going to fit in any way. The teenager kept hidden and waited for the perfect chance to jump out at a female grunt. It did take some waiting, but eventually, one would begin to wander by as she'd call out a Munna and take aim. "Now, Dream! Yawn!" The Pokemon would let out a high pitched yawn, firing into the other woman as she'd begin to go drowsy and stumble around. Vanilla caught her and quickly dragged her into a hidden area before then beginning to disrobe her.

When Vanilla reported back to Josh, she was wearing a proper Team Rocket uniform, maybe a size or two too much. Around her waist was a belt and her top meant to exposed some of her stomach thankfully hid all of it. "I'm ready to go whenever you are, Josh." she said in agreement. "I can't help but get nervous though. What if something happens in there and we can't get out? Rocket's not going to just let us go, are they?"

Josh Devlin

Josh's approach was a bit more direct, and perhaps scary for Vanilla to see. Squinting, he sworn he could have seen something moving at the top of a tall but narrow building. "That guard tower... I'm going up it. Stay back, Vanilla." Fire Eyes advanced toward the side of the building, making her own entrance with VENOSHOCK. Josh leaned in as low as he could without touching the poison-type's corrosive skin, the two crawling through the hole in the wall in almost complete silence.

Switching to another stealthy ride Pokémon, the Gym Leader called on his Kantonian Ninetales, her lithe footsteps up the stairwell barely audible. Once they had reached the top, Josh whispered into the Ninetales ears, "EXTRASENSORY." The resulting psychic attack mentally brutalized the tall Rocket, causing him to drop his MIRROR SHOT rifle. While he was changing clothes, Vanilla may have heard the clack of the firearm hitting the ground. Unbeknownst to Josh, she may have been able to see another Rocket walking over to investigate.

The Gym Leader rejoined Vanilla on foot, knowing a ride Pokémon as unusual as a Ninetales would give his identity away. "That's not going to happen, Vanilla. Not on my watch. I won't let them capture you... even if it means they get me. Now let's go." Their expedience was important; Rocket was growing increasingly suspicious of an intruder on the property...

"Got it!" Vanilla nodded at Josh's order, following the order given as she'd hang back and try and get her uniform set up. This was a lot harder than it looked given the slight size difference, but by the time Josh had finished and returned to her, Vanilla was keeping her head down and out of trouble. But then another shadow came as she'd recall Dream and toss out Kicker in a hurry. "Pyro Ball, aim for that guy!" she whispered as the Cinderace came out and quickly kicked an orb sized ball of flames directly at the other grunt to investigate. One it was done, she quickly went over with her Pokemon and would drag him away out of sight.

Now back with Josh, Vanilla perked up at the promise that Josh had made. Maybe it was just a flimsy one, the kind one made to put them at ease, but it reassured her things would turn out fine. "Thanks, Josh. The coast should be clear now. I think this is our only chance." Their journey down the tunnel brought them to several clusters of crystals in the process of being observed. The two continued on as they came to two Rocket guards in front of a gate. As they approached, the door opened to show a red haired man in a captain's uniform. The sight of which made Vanilla immediately tense up. He looked at the two with eyes of discontent. "You two." his voice boomed, sending fear through the girl's heart. "What are you two doing? I thought I ordered all you grunts to get back to work! We're short handed as is. Be lucky I have better things to do than punish you lot out of my division. Now go." He pushed pass the two, bumping shoulders with Josh on his way out.

Once inside of the gate, Vanilla looked at the gym leader. "Who was that guy? And what did he mean "not his division?" Are there like multiple bosses around here?"

Josh Devlin

With their disguises donned, the Gym Leader and strong trainer walked to the cavern's main entrance, Josh calm in the Rockets' presence. "We're headed back into the mines," he explained. "There's a vein in Sector Kilo that looks promising."

The sentry replied with a scowl, but ultimately let them pass. "Go on. We could use more men down there."

Once they were beyond the gate and on the elevator to Sector Kilo, Josh answered Vanilla. "Don't recognize him anywhere. We probably won't have to deal with him anymore. While we don't know a lot about Rocket's internal structure, there are likely several bigwigs present perhaps not in the caverns themselves, but as part of the operation. Their boss, declan walsh , and some of his most loyal henchmen, Elisabeth Fiorelli and Cillian Quinn , are likely here. If we run into any of them, that's an immediate abort, got it?"

OBJECTIVE A: COMPLETED

Not long after their conversation ended, the elevator doors opened to a large red "K" painted on the purple cavern wall. "This looks like Sector Kilo. We don't have a lot of time before someone from surveillance comes to check on us. Let's get to work."

The two boarded the elevator and were afforded some amount of privacy as Josh mentioned about the three Rocket leaders whose involvement would result in them aborting as soon as possible. She did wonder if it was because the danger they presented to the mission, or if they would be able to recognize Josh based on his activity as a Ranger or doing anti Rocket things. Regardless of what the reason was, the message was clear. "Hopefully they have better things to do than to stay inside of the mines here..." she said, looking back to the elevator doors as they neared their stop. They took only a few steps outside until they'd stumble across many other Rocket grunts currently remaining busy mining veins and pushing metal carts around full of the precious terra crystals.

"I wasn't expecting the mines to be this huge." Vanilla said, peering all around the mineshafts as they traveled down each one while blending in. "Do you think we should split up and each seek out our own objectives in here? It might be a bit risky to be seen together a lot if we're going to play it safe."

Josh Devlin

"It's war," Josh reminded Vanilla. "Of course they're going to be here. I'd rather be doing stuff like this than fighting with mount and blade, anyway." With how fast his ride Pokémon were, it wouldn't take a blade too sharp to behead a person or Pokémon, and killing was something the Gym Leader did not take lightly. He was more than familiar with the permanence of death, having several of his Pokémon taken from him. Yagyu was one of the most impactful; Danjuro was just not the same as that Doublade. "That's why they're sending us down here. Think about how many Tera Orbs could be produced with a yield this large."

As the two proceeded deeper, Josh poked his head around nearby corners before clicking the Poké Ball containing his unusual but valuable Salazzle mount. With precise strikes from her FIRE LASH, she cut out a small Terastal Crystal from the wall. "I think this sample size will impress HQ," the Master of Faster remarked as he withdrew the saddled poison-type and stowed his find.

OBJECTIVE C: COMPLETED

"Splitting up is equally risky," the Gym Leader cautioned. "I'm not opposed to it, but keep your radio frequency open. If you ever lose signal, turn around and get back in range. There's no way a single agent should infiltrate such a large operation. Someone's gotta get the information and the goods to the League. If one of us gets captured, the other aborts. No ifs, ands, or buts."

"I guess we should be careful then..." Vanilla said to Josh, rubbing her elbow in worry as the girl would look around the mines. Josh had used his Salazzle to get a piece of the Terra Crystal from the walls. True to his word, that thing was huge, even for just a small sample size. Although they knew very little about their true properties yet, Vanilla would nod in agreement and then listen to her feedback for proposing they split up. Whatever could get them to their goal faster.

"Got it. if I run into trouble, I'll get back to you ASAP. Just be careful, alright? The League cares more about you than they do me." Vanilla flashed a smile at him and then hurried off deeper into the mines down a differing corridor from him. She'd keep Proxii's phone body on hand, just in the event that she'd need to bring him up for proof of anything.

The shafts were filled to the brim with miners and Pokémon chucking away at the many veins of ore here. Carts loaded to the brim with Tera Crystals would travel along the cart tracks around the wide open rooms back and forth. She'd reach into her pocket and quickly flash a picture of the operations here, then move along.

"There's gotta be something in here in here." she murmured to herself.

Vanilla wandered around for a bit more while doing her best to blend in with the grunts here. It also helped her size made it easy to hide with things that she could fit under as well. Her traveled had been detailed to Josh every now and again, providing some ample feedback and updates and so on. But after a while of walking around with no real new updates, she groaned.

"I don't see anything else worth noting. I'm not sure if...Oh my-"

Vanilla swung a corner and found herself standing in the doorframe of a room where several people stood behind what looked like some kind of strange machine, akin to some kind of satellite dish. Arcs of lightning poured into a weird hole in the wall, where swirls of colors rushed as fast as the eye could comprehend. They were pulling out something big, judging by the chain dipping inside and with somebody barking orders inside.

"I think i found our anomaly."

Josh Devlin

OBJECTIVE B: COMPLETED

Careful was the most important part of the game plan for the Gym Leader and his friend. The deeper Josh went into the cavern, the more intense Rocket's presence was. While it would be be trivial to defeat any one or two of them in battle, if dozens of agents were to turn on him at the same time, there would be little hope for him.

Josh withdrew Fire Eyes, wanting to attract as little suspicion as possible. Any one of his Pokémon, with their size and the gear they wore, would have been easily identifiable as belonging to the undercover League official. The sound of BULLET SEED fire startled him, and would have been audible on Vanilla Kingsley 's comms.

A Rocket executive on duty prodded Josh to send out one of his Pokémon to help fight the Paradox Pokémon, the Iron Jugulis, that was flying around the large, cavernous hall. The situation grew more and more awkward as Josh stalled for time as much as he could before being forced to reveal one of his Pokémon: Rime, a giant, saddled Ninetales, who was quick to light up the metallic dragon's world with a DAZZLING GLEAM.

The sound of BULLET SEED fire in Vanilla's ears only got louder...

The dull sound of a BULLET SEED going off had not gone unnoticed to the Galarian's ears. She leaned back into the hallway and held her communicator back to her mouth in a hurry, ready to try and pull out if she could. "Josh? Is everything okay? Josh?" she asked before being interrupted by the sound in the other room.

Rocket had managed to capture one of the Pokémon currently being pulled out of the wormhole, that being a deadly looking Roaring Moon as it thrashed around to escape. The device pulling it in could launch a strange kind of pokeball at it, captured the Paradox Pokémon and contained it inside of the Pokeball. The scientists congratulated one another on another fine catch, as a small cart was filled with several would be pushed out of the room in front of her.

Thinking fast, Vanilla pocketed one of the balls containing the Paradox Pokémon and then shoved it into her uniform pocket before then starting to wander off in search of Josh. She continued down the mines in hopes that she could get some sort of signal with him.

"Josh! I've got a sample. Are you there? they're up to no good down here. Answer me!"

Josh Devlin

It would not take much searching for Vanilla to find Josh and Rime locking horns with an Iron Jugulis, fighting the paradox Pokémon alongside a trio of Rockets filling the dragon with clip after clip of BULLET SEED rounds. The metallic creature did not recover from a second DAZZLING GLEAM, the Gym Leader hurling a Poké Ball at it to make a catch of his own. He was originally going to hand it over to the League, but after hearing of Vanilla's work, he would keep the Hydreigon-like Pokémon for himself if it was all possible.

When Rime bolted away after Josh scooped up the Poké Ball, the Rockets turned their weapons on him, the Leader's cover blown. He hurled another Poké Ball toward Vanilla, Mystic the Kantonian Ninetales emerging from within. "Copy, Vanilla! Now hop on and let's get outta here!" he urgently cried, hissing as grass-type rounds pelted his back and sides.