Paxton felt his eyes grow red and bleary, pulling away after trying almost every which way of combinations and search strings. Nothing. The most abundant, prolific databases and no one had seen nor heard of this guy. And that couldn't be true. Not really. He'd been too experienced. This operation had been executed too well. Surely any one of the rocket's there that day would've been identified. The few that had sketches, nothing. And the rest of the bodies? Gone.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes as he heard Gunner come back. He sipped his cup gratefully, slow to open his eyes and look at his companion. "I've expanded to our search and nothing. I even sent out requests to INTERPOL in case they'd seen something. No emails back yet." he said with a drawn out sigh. He blew on his cup as he closed his eyes again. "I've branched out into other gangs that may have been absorbed by Rocket and nothing neither." His frustration is obvious. They'd been at this for hours.

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Gunner Graves

"That too. Who was covering the people we captured? The bodies we gathered-" he stuttered to a pause, a thought bubbling up as gunner continued speaking. The issue with PENELOPE LIVY was easy to dismiss, albeit annoying. But the woman wanted answers and, considering her best employees efforts, shouldn't she have answers by now?

"She's just trying to get something for an update. No news is good news and all that." The terrorist attack had been quelled, for the most part but. He remembered the bodies. Hopper had definitely killed one of them. And he had definitely tried to move another victim. As he goes over the day in his mind he swerves back to a memory he'd almost forgotten.

"Gunner that day- I did see something strange. Do you have the personnel file on-" he snaps his fingers, and begins pawing at the laptops and switching tabs before going a list, looking for faces. He finds his suspect. "This guy. Eduardo Hisakawa . He was with me when I was about to move some bodies- he said he's take care of- of this baby girl and a Rocket-" Chain of custody ended there. "He didn't say anything weird to you?"

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Gunner Graves

Paxton frowned as Gunner gave a description of the man in question. Once more, he wished they had the light of Reshiram to help discern truths quickly. But that woudl be too easy. He shouldn't rely on a short cut like that. "A Zoroark then, impersonating Eduardo Hisakawa ." There's another pause. "It's plausible...but it's also a gamble. I'd never made CONTACT with him before, but I could've easily been interfacing with him for years." Then again, perhaps the chaos of the day was cover enough.

"It doesn't make any sense. Why would the bodies be miss-...who were the dead grunts?" he said. "Without a body, we can't ID them, but that's never been something Rocket does before right...?" Hell, half their strongest had wanted posters all over HBIC and HQ. Posters in pokemarts and running hourly on HNN and HBC.

"I trust your judgement on this Gunner. But can we trust him?" If he vouched for that man, Paxton would let it drop. "I just....somebody was doing body recovery in real time. There could've possible been...two groups. One for attack ,and one for recovery." More people than they had originally thought, just waiting but... why?

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Gunner Graves | 6th anni prompt - contact

Paxton huffed through his nose. "Copy pasted with a pokemon seems more plausible then. No bodies, no way to trace them back to...wherever they came form. No fingerprints or dental." That would for sure identify them if a face didn't work.

"I'm sorry. If you need me to help carry those out I'll make time." he said, familiar with the unpleasant work. But it was work all the same. He'd heard every kind of response by the time he'd finished tracking down families and trying to give them something to console them. It was never enough. But he thought it better they had closure than to always wonder why.

"But again, it wasn't just Rocket's missing. The civilian child I found, she disappeared as well. That other Eduardo said he'd take care of her." He said, voice slowing down as he reviewed the memory in real time. "But I'd been about to check her...because something had struck me as odd." he said, remembering the unnatural way bones bent and skin split. But...why had it been strange? "Penny needs more prodding for tasks considering how busy her schedule is. Maybe it's some sort of Council only intelligence?" he offered with a frown. Something higher than both their clearances that only the Council and dahlia goode knew.

"We'll do what we can with what we know. I can remind PENELOPE LIVY since I'm...more likely to see her. I guess. Her office is next to mine anyway." he said, remembering he'd seen the redhead less and less.

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Gunner Graves | 6th anni prompt - contact

"I think it would be appropriate to prime those who haven't found their loved ones in the ERs yet." he said after a moment of consideration. He sighs through his nose. As usual, Rocket was responsible for another domestic attack and people still wanted to claim they could change them. How delusional.

"This is hard on all of us." he said, trying to both comfort and allow PENELOPE LIVY some slack even if she wasn't here. But that had been her event. She'd organized it, hadn't she? He threw back the last of his coffee, drinking quickly still warm brew.

"Yeah, I get it. Let me know if there's anything I can do to lighten the load. I'll be online. I'm just covering for Penny for the next 3 ish hours." he said, pointing to the laptop on the table before giving him a small cheers gesture with his empty cup. "Sometimes intelligence takes time. We'll figure it out." he said with a small smile to his friend before tossing the cup away. "See you. Don't forget our sparring sesh on Thursday." he said as he left, leaving no room to argue. Now, even more than ever, they had a reason to stay training.

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Gunner Graves