[PRP] All Work, No Play

[LexThetaSigma]

Rory slowly made his way down to the lowest floor of the base. He had finished his time in the lab for the day, had gone back to train with his Charmeleon, Ditto, and Growlithe, all before he had chanced a trip by Gwen's room to see if she'd finally come up out of the lab yet to see if she wanted to join him for dinner.

When he knocked and received no answer, he sighed and made his way back down.

Walking back into the lab, Rory nodded to the few grunts that were still down there as well before he began his search for the familiar brunette in a lab coat.  

[Gwennythe]

Her leg still gave her pain, and her side wasn't as comfortable as could be at all, but the benefits of working with an organization like Team Rocket was access to quite a unique, usually ethically questionable, array of technology, equipment, and scientific data.

Tambrey was not above using herself as a subject, and, thankfully, with the science tested beforehand in various ways on various others over time, she had cut down her recovery from wheelchair, to crutches, to stick in a much shortened timescale to conventional treatments.
It wasn't -entirely- fast enough for her, and she didn't like that her leg, especially, still hurt, but painkilling medication, and signal-blockers were another piece of 'battlefield tech' that Rocket could refine through the labs.

Rory would find the agent, in one of the secure labs as suspected, currently injecting her forearm with a booster shot cocktail of the various pain medication and repair agents that the team had experimented with over time.

Nearby, a machine churned out various pieces of analytical data for an assortment of samples currently inside it; the display cycled through various 3D simulations of the double helix structures found in a certain, recently acquired, equine.

Beyond that, another machine hummed with the noise of a large fan; surprisingly, for those familiar with the female agent, the machine also occasionally crackled with the sounds of static electricity (though, perhaps that she was far enough away currently was the reason it wasn't bothering Tambrey, that or she was too focused on what she was doing); peering within would show a setup, not unlike an electrified hamster cage, with a very happy looking shiny Joltik 'sucking' energy from the bars.  

[LexThetaSigma]

Eventually Rory found her tucked away, the injection in hand and fought the urge to shake his head as he first forced his attention to the machine. It didn't take him too long to recognize the structure of the 3D simulations as the machine churned out what it was learning from the samples.

The Keldeo.

Though he admired her determination and her need to learn more about the new equine they had brought in, he was worried about her. More so since the announcement about the next mission the Elites would be sending another team out to investigate.

Glancing quickly over at the large fan where he thought he could see sparks going into the body of a spider, Rory turned his attention back to Tambrey as he approached her.

"Feeling better?"  

[Gwennythe]

"Huh? Oh!" Tambrey smiled as she disposed of the sharp, seeing Rory after he announced himself.
"Uh... Yes. Well. Starting to. Things still hurt," she explained, but then stood and placed the stick she'd been using against a work surface to show that she could stand unaided and, feeling confident, twirled too- unfortunately that still hurt and she had to sit down afterward "but... as you can see, getting better. Gotta be better."
She thought she could feel the concoction moving through her veins, energizing cells as they went, and, just perhaps, a tingling when they reached damaged areas; it was like some mental suggestion more than actuality, but still, it felt 'good'; like -something- was going well.
"How are you?" She cast a worried eye, looking for signs of Rory's wounds bothering him- something that she did each time she saw him, since they'd been laying in the infirmary and they'd talked of stitches.

The Joltik's enclosure went quiet and the glow subsided as the bug type within decided she'd fed enough for the moment.  

[LexThetaSigma]

Rory relaxed at her smile though more so when she managed to stand up without the aid of the stick. The concoction she had been using had been working to help speed up the healing process on the injuries she had suffered during the last raid they had been on.

"That's good, but you know you don't have to be better right away," he reminded gently as he stepped closer, noticing the worrying look she cast his way. As much as he worried about her, she returned it for him. It was sort of nice.

"Getting better but still a bit sore and things itch," he admitted, "also wondering if maybe you'd come upstairs and join me for dinner?"  

[Gwennythe]

"I... I think I do." Tambrey countered, without entirely sounding convinced. "You know what they found? Where they're going to send people? I need to be better, for that. /Need/ to be."

The agent explained and then seemed to relax, herself, as he spoke about his own healing. Carefully, she wiped her arm off, and applied a small sticking plaster (band-aid) to her new hole in her skin.
"Oh?! D-dinner? Is it /that/ late already?" The woman seemed surprised and glanced at the machines hesitantly.  

[LexThetaSigma]

"I know," Rory had heard about what they had found and memories of crawling through another ship with her former roommate leading the way, bashing his head on every pipe, echoed. Memories of finding the group of captured Rockets and a giant, flaming moth.

"If you're not ready, you're not ready," he offered as he moved to brush his thumb over the small plaster she'd placed on her arm.

The agent gave her a small smile, "Yeah. I thought maybe we could grab something from the cafeteria and head back to one of the rooms? A quiet night in?" He caught the glance towards the machines and brushed his thumb over her arm, "It'll still be there after dinner."  

[Gwennythe]

"But I am... or. I will be. I need to go. I can be fit for missions within the week." Tambrey protested, though allowed him to stroke the plaster on her arm.
"Look! I can show you something." She promised, and, taking up the stick again, just so it was close-at-hand, she made her way toward the small Joltik cage.

"Dinner... Yes, that sounds good... And, you're right, all this still will be here, just... there's so much I want to get done before anything happens." She explained, then stopped right beside the cage.
She deactivated what looked like a small generator, then opened the cage.
"Anyway, look!" She reached in and, cautiously, and not -entirely- comfortably, removed a tiny, shiny Joltik from the cage.
"I've been working to handle Jubilee; she's an electric type. She seems to like me, so she hasn't really tried to shock me, but she still could if she wanted... but I'm holding her. See?" She lifted the tiny bug pokémon slightly, who just looked rather confused, but happy enough.  

[LexThetaSigma]

"But what if you get hurt again?" Rory asked; she was still recovering from the last mission and the only reason she was near mission ready was because of the concoction she'd created. He wouldn't admit it but the idea of her going back out on any mission, let alone one taking her into one of their ships, worried him.

He watched as she reclaimed her stick and moved towards the cage, "I know but you gotta eat sometime."

The focus was moved as she turned off the small sort of generator and opened the door to the cage to reach inside. Rory had to admit; it was definitely progress that she could hold the shiny Joltik in her hand, after all he remembered her first reaction to Thor.

"Tam, that's great. But are you sure you're ready?"  

[Gwennythe]

Well, not so much created herself as bothered different departments for advice and suggestions. She'd mixed it, she supposed, but she couldn't call herself the creator of almost any of the components within.

But what if you get hurt again?
That was probably a little more 'telling' than Rory had intended, and it did make Tambrey pause for a moment, but she responded with a careful smile.
"Then I'll... get better again, and you'll be there to make sure I do, so things will work out. Besides, I'll be really careful. I just... need to go. I spent a month on that thing, a prisoner, and now it's down, it's wreckage... I have to see it. I know I'm ready."

She was also reasonably sure that, having spent so much time there, she, and the others who'd been held, might actually be considered as useful for the mission.
She didn't want to let any injury stop her from going.

Jubilee decided this was kind of boring, and she wasn't quite done with her electric meal- she pointed a little foreleg back at the 'hamster cage' (or the magic food box, as far as she was concerned) and squeaked a demand to be placed back, at least for a short while.
Perhaps out of desire -not- to be shocked, as much as wanting to let the little bug have more of a treat, Tambrey rather quickly granted the wish, and then flicked the device back on.

"We should have dinner, and talk." Tambrey agreed then; she considered if their roles were reversed and decided that she understood just why he was worried.
"I believe I'm ready, and I can promise you I'll be so careful, but, um, let's go and have dinner and we can talk about it and stuff..."  

[LexThetaSigma]

Her response to his question made sense; if something went wrong and she got hurt again, she would get better all over again. But it didn't stop him from worrying over what would happen if something happened to her and that time she didn't get better. With the danger and risk that came with their jobs, especially considering their missions, there was a high possibility that one day one of them wouldn't come back. It was something he had been thinking about when they were both down in the infirmary the last time.

Rory ran his hand through his hair to keep from reaching out to her. "You know I will and I know you will but..." he shook his head as if that alone would get rid of the worry. Slowly, he nodded. "Okay."

Once she'd returned the little, squeaking Joltik back to the small cage, he did reach out his hand to her. "Let's go then and maybe after dinner we can come back and look at the Keldeo samples."  

[Gwennythe]

"But you're worried," Tambrey decided to finish his sentence, with a soft smile "I know. I worry about you too, but... We can't avoid missions, and we can't quit this. All we can do is promise each other that we'll be extra careful."
She hoped it was more reassuring than it sounded to her, as she reached out, and allowed herself to lean on Rory, comfortably, as much as he'd allow.

"Oh! Yes! After we eat, I've got to show you the sequence in comparison to a ponyta sequence; it's incredible! You can see a lot of similarities but it's -so different- and not just because of typing and such, either; it's really neat."  

[LexThetaSigma]

"Yeah," Rory's head ducked down, his eyes shyly meeting hers, as she finished his sentence, "and I know, I know we can't," he relaxed as she leaned into him, "If all else fails, we'll just have to rescue each other."

Her excitement over the samples caused him to grin. "Really? It didn't hit me until after we saw it that I should have taken Pinkie with me. I wonder how hard it would be to tame one if the Rangers managed it so easily."  

[Gwennythe]

"Deal."

She grinned then.
"Well, it didn't seem -overly- aggressive naturally. What we saw was it responding to a chaotic, stressful sequence of events, but I suspect it's a little more difficult to get along with than the average Ponyta... I'm sure you could manage it though? It honestly doesn't see extremely different, cosmetically, or even in some of it's behaviour; I would venture a preference toward smaller groups than large herds in the wild- well, you know the legends- which actually means, I guess, long term, it might perform -better- on a team than an average Ponyta..." It was all speculation, of course, until they truly got to see one on a team.
Tambrey seemed happy to talk and walk, to exit the labs toward dinner; a thought happened to strike her as she followed the process of thinking of equine pokémon, and Pinkie in particular.
"Oh! Um, by the way. There's a grunt- Kailee- who's suggested the idea of having an informal pokémon contest among the team... Something you could help with, maybe?"  

[LexThetaSigma]

"Yeah, I don't think it would be as easy to get along with as a Ponyta but it wouldn't be as difficult as say a Mew or Mewtwo." Rory wrapped his arm around her as they walked out of the lab, the tips of his ears turning a bit pink at her words. The idea was appealing; to be able to work properly with the legend and see how well it would work as part of a team, particularly one that had a central team member that was roughly similar to itself in composition.

His ears turned redder at the mention of a contest. "It would be a nice break, I suppose, from the lab work. It's been years but I still remember how they went." He cast a glance down at her, "Would you compete?"