[FIN] "The Week"

[Blood_Goddess]

Jerome was content with a calm lifestyle, though he rarely got that in the line of work he did as a Rocket Grunt, he could get by with enough time off, or with the mundane tasks he did to be able to go about his day in a calm and uneventful manner.
He couldn't say he particularly enjoyed it, but it was a nice break from the constant struggles he had endured for most of his life. At least for the time being.
But Jerome had not expected, at all, to be called into the office of an Elite Agent, and not only granted a promotion to Agent status, but he was also assigned what the Elite described as a Legendary clone, whoever know what the ******** that meant.
On top of that, he had also been informed that he would be assigned a job for Rocket, assisting in the transportation of good to and from the base, that was all well enough, he supposed this had something to do with his experience in his old gang, being one of the Enforcers.

The training for this new position, as well as running the first couple of jobs had taken Jerome away from HQ for a week, by the time he had returned, he had learned that now only had his former room mate been arrested with a number of other trainers, but he had been informed by one of the other Agents in charge of training the rookies that his "recruit" had already been causing trouble...

Gray boots thudded lightly down the hall as the dark skinned rocket, now dressed in a white Rockets uniform, arms crossed over his chest, made his way toward the floor where the Trainees were located.
Twitchy would be the only one he could consider his recruit, he had wondered how the kid would be adapting, and was now wondering what kind of trouble the kid could be getting in.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Zacharie had always been a solitary creature. He didn't need friends and he didn't need someone constantly looking out for him....or so he had told Jerome and anyone who asked. He had anticipated the eyeroll the ex-gangster had given him, he'd even expected the light slap to the shoulder...what he hadn't expected was for the older man to suddenly disappear. Was it because of what he said? He had thought that they were friends of sorts!

That is what started what he was now referring to as 'The Week'. Yes, it deserved capitalization.

He'd been woken from his new room in the trainee dorms by a loud agent whom he did not know. Needless to say that that had earned the unknown woman a few choice words....which he had returned in kind as he was promptly thrown from the room in his pajamas. After practically being forced into his new uniform, a horribly smothering, red thing, he was ushered along to his first day of 'training'. He did not sign up to become some random corporation's cleaning boy. His protests had gone ignored though and he'd found himself begrudgingly scrubbing toilets and sinks. <******** this bullshit?
He'd never scrubbed a toilet in his life! Which is what he told the agent but she just shut the door behind her with a shrug of her shoulders and left him to his own devices.
...Which was really her first mistake.

It hadn't taken him long to grow bored of the tediousness of the task assigned so he figured that he'd be done for the day and try to find a library or even better yet a lab.
It took him fifteen minutes to get lost.
It took him another ten minutes for him to call Jabari out to scope around the area.
It took Jabari five minutes to enrage some random grunt that he had come across.
All in all...it took thirty minutes for him to wide up back in the bathroom with an agent scolding him.

The next few days had passed in such a manner, though he got much better at sneaking around undetected before being swept back off to clean more stupid bathrooms. It was the fifth day that all hell broke loose.

It had been an accident and he was sticking to his story. Which was the truth!

While cleaning the bathroom he had thought to himself...'Hey....why not make this quicker and more efficient?' So slipping out of the bathroom with the required cleaning supplies he had returned to his room to begin mixing a solution that would quickly clean the bathroom and help keep it clean longer so he could ******** stop cleaning the goddamn bathrooms. It only took an hour and a half for him to return to his post with the solution and a gas mask he carried around in his bag.

He hadn't taken previous cleaning supply build up in the toilets and sinks into account. He had taken a second to be glad that he'd put the gas mask on as a thick, faint, blue gas slowly started filling the bathroom and he promptly fled the area.

"Oops."

And that was how he had come to be banned from cleaning the bathrooms. Which he thought would be a good thing but no. Now he was stuck scrubbing floors with nothing but bleach and a little scrubby brush.

This ******** sucked.  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Man, this sure as ******** brings back memories."
A hand moved to the back of his head, the boots carrying the ex-gangster stopping just outside the wet spot that Zacharie was currently working through.

It had not been terribly difficult to locate the familiar purple haired Trainee. Though he had passed a restroom on the way down the hall that had been plastered to hell with caution tape and toxic warning sighs. The ******** was that all about?
He guessed toilet cleaning duty was put on hold for the time being, but the floors... yeah just as ********' boring.

Eyeing the floor for a second before his gaze drifted up toward the red uniformed Rocket.
"Heard y'gettin' in t'trouble Twitch. Ya'll right?"

As usual Bro would usually be located dozing off or sneaking around in Jerome's shadow, Though with Bro out of sight, Jerome was still accompanied by a pokemon, this one looking severely out of place next to the heavily tattooed man.
with a head and flowing ribbons out of its back that held the appearance and consistency of crystals, wide blue eyes and a tiny body hovered a Jirachi, just over Jerome's shoulder.
Peering down at the boy scrubbing the floors with curiosity.  

[insidiousEnigma]

"Idiots, all of them are idiots." Zacharie muttered harshly under his breath as he scrubbed the floor. It probably looked a bit odd, such an angry scrubbing had probably never been seen before. How long was he expected to crawl around on the floor? Oh right, "Until the bathroom is safe to inhabit, you'll be cleaning the floors." That's what the agent had told him when the bathroom had been brought to their attention. "This is ******** stupid." He was grousing when he heard heavy footsteps coming up from behind. With an indignant fury he tossed the little scrubby brush down and climbed to his feet. "If you think you're going to walk all over the floor I just cleaned-" He was cut off by the question in a familiar, deep voice.

....

"Where have you been?!" Turning sharply on his heel, he gave Jerome the equivalent of a 'kicked puppy' look. More like the look your puppy would give you if you kicked it and then left it alone to its own devices for a week without telling them you were leaving. "They made me clean toilets, Jerome. Toilets!" He exclaimed, flailing an arm in the direction of the sealed off bathroom. "They said I was a hazard to everyone's health and I've been forced to clean floors with watered down bleach!"  

[Blood_Goddess]

There was a moment of stillness in the new Agent when Twitchy was suddenly on his feet and giving Jerome what the gangster considered to be an effective look that actually made Jerome swallow and frown ******** Stupid!" the Jirachi called out, opening its mouth wide "Stupid!"

Jerome paused, glancing over his shoulder to the small legendary for a couple of seconds.

"'aight 'aight Twitch, calm down. I know, man it ********' sucks." He said letting out a sigh and holding a hand up, before letting out a heavy sigh and moving his hand to run over the shaved side of his head.
"The ******** happened to the bathroom ny''way?"  

[insidiousEnigma]

The talking pokemon certainly derailed his anger. "...What?" He said dumbly, giving the, rather cute, pokemon an awe struck look. The pokemon...was talking...English? He didn't have much time to think on that, though he was definitely going to talk to Jerome about it later, as the taller male tried to placate him. "I am completely calm." He said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving the agent an irritated look from behind his bangs. The look was quickly diverted to the bathroom though, "...I may or may not have filled the bathroom with a noxious gas." He muttered, having the decency to look a bit embarrassed. He really hadn't meant to do it, he was just trying to help in his own weird way.  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Ya got a funny way f'showing calm kid." Jerome pointed out, having certainly not misread the cursing and flailing. Either way he just shrugged and held his hands up to show he was backing down.

"... y'what?" May... or may not have filled the room with noxious gas...

"Nosshus gas!"

How the hell was he supposed to actually respond to THAT!?  

[insidiousEnigma]

"Noxious." The teen corrected absentmindedly with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I mixed some chemicals to make a compound that would clean faster and keep the bathroom clean longer but I didn't take the various cleaner buildup in the toilets into account so the chemicals reacted negatively." He explained, shrugging as if to say 'Who knew?'. "The effect was...undesirable but if they would just get someone to drain the water from the bowl the fumes would go away eventually." Zacharie huffed, his shoulders slumping just slightly. "I didn't mean for it to happen." He muttered, his head lowering a bit as he averted his gaze to the floor.  

[Blood_Goddess]

The Jirachi frowned when it was corrected, opening and closing its mouth a couple of times as if to attempt to try the new word.
"Stupid gas!' it went with instead

Jerome placed a hand onto of the legendary's head, causing it to chirp in surprise, but otherwise silenced the pokemon while Zacharie explained what the heck he had done.

Something like that would have never even crossed Jerome's mind as something to do, that this kid had thought about mixing chemicals. He really was a nerd
chewing lightly on the inside of his lip piercing a crease slowly formed in Jerome's brow.
A grin eventually spread over his lips and the man let out a chuckle. "******** man, that's ********' bitchin', why couldn't ya have been round when i was a trainee."  

[insidiousEnigma]

Zacharie...certainly hadn't expected Jerome to laugh. Though the older man had never actually been angry with him before so he didn't know why he had been expecting it this time. "Ah well, I suppose it was pretty...'bitchin'." He said slowly. Despite being mildly surprised, the purple haired boy couldn't help but grin and preen under Jerome's praise. "I could teach you how recreate it, if you wanted. It was very simple." He said excitedly as he rocked back on the heels of his boots. "But enough about that, when did you get a talking pokemon?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Me? Oh naw naw naw man, that ain't really m'thing." It was a nice offer, but Jerome would honestly have no idea what to do with something like that "Jus' leave that with you. s'fer Me? I climb buildin's n'punch people."

He could see how the agents would be too happy about the situation, a lot of them tended to be pretty stuffy when it came to the trainees, though to be fare, this was the roughest part. breaking the newbies in.

"S'guy?" Jerome asked, glancing over at the Jirachi. "Got em before I left, bout a week ago?" she considered this for a second then nodded, "Ain't really sure why, I hear s'm times Agents get pokemon like this."
He wasn't sure why, or how, and even what he's supposed to do. but it was his pokemon now... and it talked. that was pretty freakin' cool.  

[insidiousEnigma]

He still had so many questions that needed to be answered...but he figured he could figure them out in due time. "I see. Is it another experiment like Hirss? Have you given it a name?" He peered curiously through his bangs though he didn't get any closer to the Jirachi. Who knew if it was violent or not. Well...it probably wasn't otherwise he would have done something already. Or maybe not, who knew with pokemon. "You also didn't answer my question on where you've been. I've had to deal with so many idiots."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Jerome knew that the Rockets were up to all kind of stuff in the labs, he had a good example of the kind of things they made already in his water type. From what Jerome had noticed passively of Jirachi, it seemed that this, while being a clone of a legendary, still wasn't quite right.
"Yeah." He grunted in reply. "ain't got go clue how they do this s**t, but S'a legendary clone r'somethin' N'I guess s'my reward r'somethin'"
One would think they would reward him with something a little less tiny and adorable, but that didn't seem to be the case this time.
"Ain't really got a name for it yet, not sure what to call it."

With wide eyes, knowing that he was being talked about, the little Jirachi looked from Jerome, to Zachari, and back.
Blinking when Zachari leaned forward a little over Jerome's shoulder
"Hello?"

"Well man, I got promoted, they got me doin' a while new job n'i needed trainin' and s**t" he shrugged. "Got me with supply runs n's**t. supposed t'keep and eye on em."
He explained.  

[insidiousEnigma]

If they were rewarded with interesting pokemon...maaaybe he should start cooperating more. Yeah well, when they stopped making him clean stupid s**t maybe he'd be more inclined to listen.

"Hello." Zacharie greeted the Jirachi in turn with a small wave of his hand. He was horrible with interacting with people...but pokemon were easy enough to converse with. "That explains why you're suddenly wearing a different uniform." He muttered, eyeing the now very familiar agent uniform with vague distain. He'd certainly had enough of agents...thank you very much. "...Congratulations on the promotion." He offered, as it was custom to congratulate your friends when something of great importance happened to them....even though he didn't like the idea of Jerome leaving him to his own devices for too long. "Your training sounds like it was boring...though I don't think anything can be worse than cleaning this god forsaken building."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Letting out a little gasp when Zacharie replied the Jirachi placed his hands over his mouth and floated up high over Jerome's head, tumbling in the air as if he didn't quite have full control over his body and ended up on Jerome's other side.

Jerome half grinned at the small pokemon, it was certainly new to everything, this past week with the young Legendary as it discovered everything had been kind of fun to watch. Though it got tiring after so much in the day.

"Yea" Jerome glanced down at the Uniform, It felt different to wear, still stiff and not broken in, and like always just not as nice to move in as having a wife beater. From the sounds of it he was going to have to wear it more often than the grunt uniform.
Yeah he was going to really have to break it in.
"Ain't s'sure bout this purple belt" He admitted, gripping the bent in two hands and tugging lightly on it.

"aint s'much that s'borin' sure ain't really as straight forward as the streets man, but F'been doin' jobs like this all m'life, just ain't never done to this scale before."
He admited. "and yea, man ******** the ********' cleanin' not missin' that noise."