[attr="class","rubyw"]

Ruby knew from Adrian's first words that he was going to reject their offer. When he pointed at Johanna, Ruby gave her fellow Rocket a side glare. You couldn't even act tough? she wanted to say. She shifted her weight to her other hip, already preparing a retort to Adrian, but then he pulled out a Poké Ball and addressed Johanna.

[break][break]This time, Ruby fully turned her face to her comrade. She wanted to tell the blue-haired Rocket to stand up for herself, to say something, dammit... but she stopped. For a moment, Johanna was someone else, someone much more important to Ruby. Someone she didn't want to see in Team Rocket no matter what. Yet here she was, clearly afraid now that these punks were on the offense.

[break][break]Oh, Arceus dammit.

[break][break]"I'm not going anywhere," she said, reaching for her Poké Ball belt. "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us."

[break][break]She looked at Johanna again, face stern yet with all traces of anger erased. Fight. Stand up for yourself. Don't let these punks win. She tried to convey all that through her eyes alone. But she was no psychic, so all she could do was hope her point got across.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

It seemed Noah had no idea just how relevant his desire to protect Pokémon was right now. Ruby wasn't here to steal soap. She was here to steal a Pokémon egg being kept here for some reason. Maybe the steam was supposed to help it hatch faster? She didn't know, and thinking about it would only distract her from her mission. And right now, she had a roadblock to that mission to tear down.

[break][break]She clenched her teeth and fists at Noah's words. "You're the one hurting them, you bastard! And now, we're gonna hurt you!" Noah's attempts at pacifying her simply crashed into the wall she'd built up over the years. She didn't care that she'd started the fight. She didn't care that by all accounts, she was in the wrong here. Instead, she honed in on the fact that Noah was trying to blame her for Cerberus's injuries when he was the one who'd given the order to attack.

[break][break]In her own way, Ruby did care about her Pokémon. If she didn't, she wouldn't bother making sure they were healthy and cared for or praise them on jobs well done. But she also knew two very important things. One, Pokémon were tough creatures that were practically built for fighting. They could withstand lightning strikes and counter with localized earthquakes from their own bodies. Even when they did get hurt, they just needed a bit of TLC to get back on their feet again. In her experience, it was rare for a Pokémon to sustain an injury it couldn't recover from, and that usually only happened when its trainer was being a reckless idiot.

[break][break]Two, you couldn't talk yourself out of every situation. Hell, Ruby had found that violence worked more often than words in her life. Sometimes, words did work, but those words were usually threats of violence or other consequences. So really, it was the same thing.

[break][break]There wouldn't be much room for Arachne to dodge in here. A Thunder Fang was definitely bad news, but Ruby was confident that Arachne could take it, especially with Lunge factored in. And she had a few other tricks up her sleeve, too. So instead of giving the order to dodge, Ruby gave a different command.

[break][break]"Leech Life!"

[break][break]It seemed Ruby, unlike Noah, was more than happy to let this fight continue. Arachne let out a pained screech as the Thunder Fang bit into her, but like Ruby had predicted, she held on. While her foe was still close, she aimed to dig her fangs into another gap in its rocky hide to drain its blood for her own nourishment.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

"I told you it was blood!" In any other situation, Ruby might have made fun of Isaac's choice of words, but she was still too tense for that kind of teasing. The blood itself wasn't enough to freak her out, even if seeing it all separated like this was weird as hell. If anything, it just confused her. Why did someone need to spin blood like that? Science was weird.

[break][break]Isaac's mention of this all being a prank made Ruby clench her free hand into a fist. She didn't care if it got her in trouble; someone was getting hurt for pulling all this crap.

[break][break]She looked around with increasing agitation at the sound of laughter. "Like that?" she asked. Was it getting closer? Yeah, it was definitely getting closer. She stepped away from one shaking shelf, only to bump right into another one. When had that gotten so close?! And whatever happened to this room being ridiculously big? Now it felt like the walls were about to snap shut on her!

[break][break]Without even waiting for an order, Cerberus leaped into the air with a snarl and lunged at something unseen. Yet he never connected with anything. Instead, he let out a confused whine at the apex of his jump and tumbled back down to the floor. Isaac, too, swung his pan at seemingly nothing and completely whiffed.

[break][break]"What are you two doing?! There's nothing there!" Right, yeah, there was nothing there. If there had been, then at least Cerberus would have hit it; Dark-types beat Ghost-types, right?

[break][break]"Missed me."

[break][break]Ruby spun around at the voice right in her ear and reeled her fist back. Luckily for her hand bones, she stopped when she realized she was still right up against a shelf. "What the—?!" She turned back around to see that the room was back to being way too big for just a storage closet in a submarine. Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt dizzy from the sudden change. She gripped the shelf behind her and took a deep breath that was a lot shakier than she wanted it to be.

[break][break]"All right, assholes, it's not funny anymore!" she shouted. "Now cut it out so I can punch your nerd asses in the face!"

[break][break]The laughter began to die down. For a moment, Ruby began to relax, thinking that the jig was finally up. But then, another noise began to drift up from the darkness. Was that... crying...?

[break][break]"Sis... how could you...?"

[break][break]Ruby's blood froze in her veins, draining the color from her skin. Slowly, she turned toward the source of the all-too-familiar voice. A pale, blonde girl floated in the air, arms and legs limp and head hanging down as if she were suspended by a string in her back. Slowly, she lifted her face until her clouded green eyes met Ruby's wide, shocked brown ones. Something squeezed the inside of Ruby's chest. She barely had the breath to whisper out a single word:

[break][break]"Jade...?"

[attr="class","rubyw"]

"Shut up, that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Ruby's words tumbled in a panic out of her mouth, but dammit, complaining about Isaac's bullshit was the only way she was going to feel better about any of this.

[break][break]She let go of Isaac's wrist and focused back on the room itself. Ah, dammit, was her flashlight dying again? It seemed even darker than before. She growled in frustration and smacked it a couple of times to no avail. Great.

[break][break]"What the hell is that?" Ruby asked, mostly to distract herself from her own shudders. It was some kind of... whirring? Coming from deeper inside the room? How big was this storage room, anyway? "Did some dumbass scientist leave it on?"

[break][break]"Yeah, someone's ass is definitely getting kicked." Ruby made her way further in, passing shelf after shelf after shelf after—okay, seriously, there was no way one storage closet was this big. How much crap did the scientists need, anyway? Finally, the whirring was close enough to feel like it was drilling its way into Ruby's ears, which was just another annoyance to add to the list.

[break][break]"Again, what the hell is that?" Ruby had never seen a centrifuge in her life, apparently. She shuddered a bit at the sight of the shadows spilling around the light; she blamed the headache she was quickly developing. When it came to a stop, Ruby saw the single test tube with the strange liquid inside. She squinted her eyes, trying to figure out what it was. "Is that... blood?"

[break][break]Cerberus stiffened up and began to growl at the shelf. Ruby turned to follow his gaze to the still-moving shadows. "It's fine, Cerb, it's just the... shadows..." She trailed off. Hadn't the shadows been moving because of the centrifuge? But... the centrifuge had stopped. She glanced around frantically for anything else that might be moving.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

Ruby wasn't sure why she felt a little swell of pride in her chest. Maybe it was something about the way the other woman was watching her team work? Either way, it made her grin.

[break][break]The stranger's admission that she didn't think it'd work, either, startled a quick laugh out of Ruby. "I woulda been pissed if it hadn't," she said good-naturedly. Honestly, she could appreciate the woman's determination to make her plan work, especially since it had worked. And if it weren't for the way she winced, her way of dispatching her catch would have been pretty badass, too.

[break][break]But Ruby had her own work to focus on. The Silicobra shot a puff of sand at its attackers from its neck pouch, but it was already too weak to do much damage. "All right, let's make this quick." She nodded at Grimm, who raised one of her scythe arms. It glinted in the hot desert sun before slashing down and through the Silicobra's neck. It barely had the chance to weakly cry out before being silenced with a spurt of blood.

[break][break]"Good work," Ruby said, patting Grimm's shoulder. Skorpios chittered and waved his claws for attention until Ruby knelt down to give him a scratch, as well. "Keep an eye out while I skin this."

[break][break]She glanced over to see how the other woman was doing while her Pokémon took up watch duty. She still looked uncomfortable with what she was doing, but she'd pulled out a second knife for the actual skinning part. It looked way better than Ruby's little pocket knife.

[break][break]"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled in response to the other woman's remark on it. "You've got some fancy knives for someone who looks like they've never done this before."

[break][break]She began cutting through the skin in the center of the belly, eyes narrowed in concentration. She'd dealt with snakes back in Orre before, but her tools weren't nearly as specialized as the other woman's. Man, now she wanted a cool knife...

[break][break]"Heh, even if we're not on the same side, can't exactly rat each other out." She flashed the woman a grin. "You got a name? Or should I just call you Knife Girl?"

[attr="class","rubyw"]

At this point, the latching was mutual, a cycle of faking it 'til they made it... or at least convinced the other that they had. That was still faking it, though, wasn't it? Oh, who cared? As long as Ruby wasn't literally shaking in her boots, she was fine with it.

[break][break]Her muscles tensed when she realized they were, indeed, catching up to the noise. Out of a desire to fight, of course, not because she was afraid! "Right!" she said, probably too enthusiastically. Whatever this thing was that was messing with them was in for a world of hurt.

[break][break]Yet when Isaac paused by the door, so did Ruby. Normally, she would have just kicked the door down and started kicking ass alongside her Pokémon. So why wasn't she? She glanced at Isaac again. Right, maybe he was coming up with some kind of strategy. Ruby didn't usually care about strategies, but when facing an unknown threat, maybe having one would be a good idea for once. Yeah. That was it.

[break][break]She narrowed her eyes at Isaac's "strategy" of just sitting and waiting for it to jump out at them. "Hell no! If this thing's a Ghost-type, it can go through walls. I'm not gonna just sit here while it gets away." If she couldn't sustain the cycle of leeching off each other's courage, then she'd just have to feed off Isaac's poorly hidden fear to make herself feel better. That was totally the healthiest option right now!

[break][break]Without even waiting for an answer, she threw the door in front of her open. She took a half-step before she realized that she didn't fully trust Isaac not to just stay out there and leave her facing a gh—enemy alone. She reached back and grabbed him by the wrist, then stepped inside.

[break][break]"All right, you little shit!" she called into the room, flashlight darting around. Cerberus, fur still standing on end, barked in solidarity. The room looked like some kind of storage space for fancy science equipment, but that thought was a distant second to checking every nook and cranny for a sign of this "ghost." "Come out and fight m—!"

[break][break][break]SLAM!

[break][break]Her grip on Isaac's wrist tightened painfully as she turned her head to the door that had been slammed shut behind them. A cold sweat broke out over her body. Even Cerberus jumped away from the sound with a startled whine.

[break][break]Fuck.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

Even if it had been a bog-standard snake tong, Ruby still wouldn't have recognized it; it wasn't like she knew anything about herpetology. Hell, if someone had said the word "herpetologist" to her, her first assumption would have been that they studied something very different. The only way she knew how to catch snakes involved Pokémon and, if she wanted to keep them, Poké Balls. But she wouldn't be using the latter today.

[break][break]The stranger's explanation definitely reminded Ruby of her own mission. The way she said "suspect" had Ruby think she'd been found out, but then the stranger stopped short and looked past Ruby. At the same time, Skorpios hissed in agitation. Ruby turned around to see him snapping his pincers at the birds as they flew in close.

[break][break]Then the sand parted, and out came two perfectly good targets. The birds' attention was drawn away from Skorpios and to the attacking snakes, only for one of them to be downed by a Silicobra's sand shot. Perfect! Ruby just had to get one good shot in while they were distracted, and then—

[break][break]And then the stranger let out what sounded like a battlecry, and Ruby watched, bewildered, as she charged at the Silicobra with her snake tongs. "What the hell are you—?!" Ruby was ready to yell out her frustrations again, to tell this woman who clearly didn't know how to deal with the desert that she'd just scared off even more snakes with her clumsy recklessness... but to everyone's surprise (including the stranger's, apparently), she managed to grab one without falling face-first into the sand.

[break][break]"... Doing. Holy shit, that actually worked."

[break][break]A simultaneous angered hiss and taunting squawk had Ruby turn her eyes to the other Silicobra, who was being lifted off the ground in the other bird's talons. "Oh, no, you don't!" Ruby pulled a Poké Ball from her belt and tossed it up. "Grimm, Quick Attack!"

[break][break]The Scyther was already beating her wings when she emerged from her Ball, and she used that momentum to slam into the bird at full speed. It let out a comically pained squawk as it was hit and dropped the Silicobra back to the ground. It wasn't a terribly long drop, but it was enough to disorient the snake Pokémon, and that gave Skorpios the chance to clamp down on its tail for real this time. The Silicobra hissed and tried to slither out, but Skorpios's grip held firm, and he curled his tail forward to inject the Silicobra with a Toxic poison. The snake's hisses grew louder in its pain for a moment, then began to die down along with its wriggling.

[break][break]"There we go," Ruby said with a satisfied grin. Grimm nodded, and Skorpios, still holding onto his catch just in case it caught a second wind, chittered excitedly.

[break][break]Luckily, the bird that Grimm had hit realized that it was fighting a losing battle and flew off, scattering feathers onto the sand in its panic.

[break][break]Ruby looked over to the other woman, curious to see how she'd take care of her own catch, and saw her reaching for one of the knives in her belt. That all but confirmed it. "Heh. Looks like we are here for the same thing." She set down her pack and reached into it to find her pocket knife. It wasn't anything fancy, but it'd probably get the gruesome job done.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

Ruby would have been more surprised at the duo's cohesiveness if she weren't still on edge. Without even thinking about it, she clicked on her flashlight and—wait, hadn't this thing been dead a second ago? She stared at it for a few seconds, waiting for it to go out again, but it shone onward, lighting the path forward.

[break][break]The batteries just got loose or something, she thought. Definitely nothing freaky going on here.

[break][break]But of course it was too late for the light to show what was making all that noise with the cabinets. Little bastard must have gotten away when they saw the light coming.

[break][break]Ruby wasn't ashamed to tense up at the dripping noise that followed. It didn't take a brain surgeon to realize that a leak in a submarine was bad news; anyone would get a little freaked out over that. But before she could mentally curse whoever was supposed to be doing maintenance on this thing, she realized that the sound was getting farther away with each drip. Okay, that wasn't how leaks worked. So then what was that? Some wet person or Pokémon trying to get away from them? There were Water/Ghost Pokémon, right? Yeah, that had to be it.

[break][break]"Tch. More like it's running away from us." Whether she really believed that or not, saying it out loud helped bolster her courage, which was absolutely not fleeting, no matter what the sweat droplets on her forehead said. "Let's catch this thing already and kick its ass."

[attr="class","rubyw"]

As someone with a resting bitch face herself, Ruby was unfazed by Onyx's glare. Actually, it was kind of relieving to see such a serious expression. It felt like she'd been stuck with a bunch of goofballs lately, so being paired up with someone who at least looked like he knew what he was doing put her at ease.

[break][break]She followed his gaze to the cabin below as he explained the situation. She faintly noticed the redness on his nose but didn't comment—it wasn't any of her business if he got a sunburn from sleeping out in the open like that. The bags under his eyes told her that it hadn't been a very restful nap, either.

[break][break]"You didn't see them leave or anything?" she asked. "Anyone else go in?" Ruby wasn't an expert on scouting by any means, but going dead quiet could mean a few things. One, they had been waiting for a chance to slip away unnoticed. Doing that in the daytime was risky, even with the watch asleep. Two, they were already gone, and "gone" had a few definitions itself. But Ruby wasn't here to play detective.

[break][break]"Wouldn't have brought this if I couldn't handle that." She shrugged her shoulder to emphasize her weapon. She'd expected to be the one doing the beating, but from the way Onyx spoke, she'd have to prepare to see the worst down there. That was just part of life. A fucked-up part, yeah, but a part nonetheless. "Let's go."

[attr="class","rubyw"]

You've gotta be kidding me, Ruby thought when told to speak up. She was usually naturally loud, too! And it got even worse when he completely misunderstood what she'd said! Could anything go right tonight?

[break][break]"Oh, Arceus, don't start lecturing me," Ruby said, raising her voice so she'd be easier to hear. "You're not the only one doing a job here. And right now, you're in my way." It was a weird job, to be sure, but it paid the bills and kept her sister safe and happy. Well, okay, she might not be so happy if she knew exactly what Ruby did for a living, but that was the whole point of keeping these kinds of operations a secret. Which was really hard with a huge Pokémon blocking the way.

[break][break]She let her command to attack speak for itself: This discussion was over. She grinned at Noah's perplexed response to Cerberus's Beat Up and his Swoobat's failure to dodge all but one of the attacks. Yet his jumping in to protect his Pokémon with his own body had Ruby's eyes widen in shock. Why would he do that? Humans weren't built to take attacks like that, were they?

[break][break]Not like that'd be a problem either way with his Tyranitar stepping in front of him. Between its size and type, Cerberus's attack all but bounced off of it, sending him skidding back. And then the Stone Edge came his way.

[break][break]Well, crap.

[break][break]Cerberus didn't stand a chance against an attack like that and fell to the ground, dazed. Ruby let out a "Tch" as she recalled him back into his Poké Ball. Yet the opportunity to taunt her opponent made her smirk. "Nice job protecting this place," she said, looking at freshly cracked ground. She took another Poké Ball from her belt and tossed it into the fray. "Arachne, Lunge!"

[break][break]The Araquanid emerged from her Ball with a hiss, surrounded by green Bug-type energy. She leapt at her opponent and aimed to jab her legs into the holes in its rocky hide.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

"Hey, gravity was just a bonus," she said, completely disregarding Isaac's first point.

[break][break]At least Isaac was arming himself in some way for this. Not like a little frying pan was going to do much to a ghost—a Ghost-type Pokémon, that is. But she could appreciate the hustle... if he hadn't immediately ruined it with his horrible attempt at a joke. She didn't know Totodile could boo, either. "I'm with the little guy," she said.

[break][break]At least she wasn't the only one feeling nervous, though Isaac seemed more open about showing it. Ruby clenched her fist and glanced around for any sign of danger. When it came to fight or flight, Ruby always chose fight. Which was why the idea of something she couldn't fight... Nope, she wasn't gonna think about that. It was just a Ghost-type Pokémon, and Cerberus could take care of that.

[break][break]"Okay, fine, it's not your Pokémon," Ruby said. "But it's not a ghost, either! It's probably just some Pokémon messing with us." Whether it was a wild Pokémon, another Rocket playing a prank, or even a saboteur didn't matter to Ruby. All that mattered was pulling the sheet off this "ghost" and punching the real problem in the face before it could complain about its plan being ruined by some darn kids.

[break][break]"For once, you have a good idea. Cerb, stay close and keep your ears open."

[break][break]With an affirmative ruff, Cerberus joined his trainer in facing toward the cabinets that had been making all that noise a moment ago. Not that it was guaranteed to come from that way, now that Ruby thought about it. A Ghost-type could just fly through the walls and sneak up from behind them... but that's what Isaac was for. Adrenaline filled her veins, causing her whole body to feel twitchy with the anticipation.