[FIN] Stuck In

[Gwennythe]

Another day, another day in the infirmary... Stuck in the bed... At least she had books to read now.
And a few of her pokémon with her.
She'd rather impressed herself; despite her aversion to the typing, she'd become incredibly fond of her Joltik...

Jubilee was tiny, and allowed out most of all her pokémon in the infirmary, thus the tiny shiny bug was sat on her shoulder while Tambrey read; current title- The Island of Doctor Moreau... She knew it was a little bit of a ridiculously obvious title for her to enjoy, but enjoy it she did... Another favourite, Frankenstein, lay nearby too.

Her wheelchair was folded up, set not far from her bed... She couldn't really get in and out of it without a bit of aid, yet, her foot still pinned to heal, so... trapped in the bed, reading aloud to the yellow bug, she would be found.  

[caffeinecraving]

Kailee seemed to be on the wrong schedule to speak with Tambrey all that often. She would stop in and wave. Talk a little if Tam was awake and so on but today she had a good feeling. She had waved to the others but made a B line to Tambrey's area.

"Ok soooo ive been thinking more about this contest." She smiled from the doorway seeing Tambrey awake and reading. She gave her a look over."How are you feeling?" She seemed to not be intruding to much so she came in with her stack of fashion magazines and a large planner book that looked like it had clip outs and fabric Swatches in it. "Are you up for some planning? We will have it all ready so when you get out of here we can just do it all."

She moved to her side and set the stack on the side of her bed with a grin.

 

[Gwennythe]

Huh, what?
Speaking, someone was speaking.
A bright voice, and talking about a contest... Oh! Her eyes squinted for a moment, adapting from words on the page, through her glasses, to Kailee who'd just entered.

"Uh..." How /was/ she feeling? A glance would tell that she was still pale, even for her, her leg was awkwardly pinned, she'd lost some weight while she hadn't been able to eat... though she didn't look -incredibly- tired, the other factors still left a little bit of bagging beneath her eyes.
She used a small, Ekans-themed, book-mark to mark the current page she'd reached, then offered a soft smile.

"I have definitely been worse... That looks like a lot of magazines; when did you manage to get all those?" She was rather aware of the baking... and of course, the workload that Kailee had to be under, taking on extra projects... The planner book was eyed with rather impressed interest.
"Uh. I feel like I should be asking if you're feeling okay? Have you... slept... like at all? But, sure, I am -definitely- up for planning; that sounds fun." She offered, honestly; there was only so long that even she could re-read books for; the contest stuff would be a very welcome distraction from a few things.  

[caffeinecraving]

Kailee smiled. "Well that means youre better!" Even if it was an incredibly tiny margin. She waved her off. "Oh these are my personal collection." She held up one. "I found one that has interesting and had an article on Rory..." She smiled and flipped it open to the page that said a few things on rory and his pokemon.

She looked through them all a moment. "Oh... me? Im fine... We are working on the Shaymin fur... You will be happy to know that while we havent found any yet... im sure that we have enough that we could almost reconstruct a genome... But we are still looking so that we dont have to do that." She shrugged. "Sleep is for the weak." She grinned. "Yeah... i um... sometimes..." She saw dead bodies while she slept... so in the end she got very disturbed sleep.

She pushed the book toward the woman. "Here... this is what I have so far... Im thinking we can reserve one of the training rooms... And we can set up a contest area. I know some people will want to just watch so we could do chairs around the area..." There was a diagram drawn out. A contest area with a judges box and the seating all around.

"And i think that if the contestants need something to wear we can either let them raid my outfits... or maybe help make them?" She flipped to swatches... "If nothing else they can just wear uniforms... but all pokemon should be dressed in cute outfits... which i have tons... and these are all the types of fabrics that are used..." She nodded. "So what do you think... should we do all the types... Cool beauty... tough...etc? Or just one big contest?"

 

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey leaned forward, instantly regretted it, and settled back with a wince; making do with adjusting her glasses to glance over what the magazine said about Rory with a small smile.
"Back it was just him and Pinkie... Very sweet." She smiled, fondly; Rory and his pink pony were always nice to see, back in pre-Rocket pictures, though she couldn't really wish they'd never found their way to Rocket, because then she and he would never have met...

"Nightmares?" Tambrey took a stab in the dark; her nightmares were fairly frequent, but she was beginning to accept that the cocktail of med's, as well as the psychological effects of everything were -both- working to create them. She did remember her first missions though... Nightmares seemed a very safe guess for a 'sometimes' schedule of sleeping... "That is good to hear; that was a really good catch, by the way... Having Shaymin clones is a goal we've had here, for quite some time; 's kind of person for the team itself..." She didn't feel like she'd have to explain more; Kailee could probably figure it out well enough.
"Oh, um, as you've been getting into the legendary area a bit, have you had a chance to learn any about the Keldeo projects? Rory's very keen on that one; equines..." She grinned, using the single word for an explanation.

She looked over the diagram as it was passed across, raising her eyebrows, impressed again.
"Are you sure you even sometimes sleep?" She teased, softly, but looking over the diagram and listening with interest.
"I like this. It makes sense to do that; makes it look like a real contest area... I, uh, I don't really sew -much-..." She explained, after a moment "Not for stuff like clothing anyway, but it does sound fun... I'm not sure if all categories would be good or not... We do have a rather limited contestant pool, but we could try it and see what happens. It's all informal, after all, so we could always drop categories as required, or rather, not, in this case?"  

[caffeinecraving]

She smiled. "You can keep that if you like... Its got some other articles you may like to read... If you want i can leave all these here with you... I have most of them memorized." She moved some around. "This is my favorite... It has tips to the perfect pokemon costumes." Her eyes glittered. "Oh... and Poffin recipes."

She flushed. "Yeah... I know... i should be over it by now... but... I just... all the bodies..." She frowned her eyes going far away a moment as she remembered them. She shook herself.

She smiled. "I only found a couple... Aulus found the more under the bed...He doesnt think he helped much... but he drastically raised our chances you know?" She chewed her lip and shrugged. "But yeah its pretty cool... I have been keeping tract and i there is still enough that there may be something... Its too good a chance that im remaining hopeful." She nodded about the shaymin and then frowned. "I spoke to Rory a bit... but not really... Im kinda... restricted. They made a huge exception for me since i found it... but they try to keep things from me... I think one of the others may have found something close to viable but didnt share... They all seemed excited for a bit... but they went back to looking so i think we are still searching." She lifted a corner of her mouth. She smiled too at the one word. It was good to have preferences.

Kailee smiled as she looked impressed. "I work on this when i cant sleep.... but this is fun... " She smiled and nodded. "Dont worry... as i said before i have TONS of clothes and costumes... if they need something else i can try... ive sown stuff before... But they will have to really need something i dont have." She nodded. "I thought about that... With the limited pool... I think to types... Tough and Beauty... Tough will draw in guys... and Beauty will draw in the girls. You know... stereotypically. "She grinned and then settled into a chair next to her.

"Oh! Did i tell you i figured out how to make onyx cells glow!" She had told Aulus because she had run into him right after. "I used your method of the leech seed function... by infusing a syringe with the grass property... you can get right into the nucleus... but you have to be quick... know what you are doing... or it kills the cell..." She frowned thinking about it..."But i have a batch that is just waiting on approval to be set into motion for a clone."

 

[Gwennythe]

"Oh, um, thank you! That actually would be appreciated... I have my books, and I've managed to get to the training room once in that thing," She waved a hand at the folded wheelchair "with Aulus, but mostly I'm just... stuck here."

Hrm. That had been a lot of bodies.
She was still puzzling over it; something still wasn't sitting right with her about it all.
"Who says you should be over it? Those were dead people... Rival team, sure, but," she sighed a little- rival team who had captured and tortured her, and Aulus, and Hayes, and Jerome, and Xander, and Shaun, and Lore... "But /people/ all the same. People and pokémon... Not being 'over it' is, to be honest, to be expected..." She smiled a little.
"Honestly? I still have nightmares about my first mission- giant mecha ariados thing... No bodies, really; lots of injuries though. You should try and rest as much as you can, though; face the nightmares if you must... Hard, but... Gets easier, honest." Or, it had, she thought, for her, at least.

"Mhm. Grunt work and all that, but you did make the initial discovery- it was a good find, and you've got talent in that field; 's a sensible exception." She didn't seem too surprised to hear about the Keldeo stuff. "And... yeah, they were probably a bit cagey. There's stuff even above Agent level, but one of the perks of this rank is that general legendary work isn't one of those things; won't be too long, I'd guess, before you get there really..." She grinned "Took me two years or so... A little more, actually... But someone, I remember," She frowned slightly- another dead person- "managed to rise up in months. Field agent though..." Another nightmare mission...

"Hm. Well, as long as it's fun, I guess..." the agent mused, with a small frown; she slightly worried to hear Kailee wasn't sleeping well, but she supposed that was for the Grunt to deal with in the best way she could find for herself... Nightmares, she supposed, were rather a rite of passage for the team...

She nodded.
"That... does seem sensible. Though, they might not feel they fit in either category? Stereotypically, I mean..." Tambrey adjusted her glasses.
"Maybe add 'Cool' back in as a 'throwaway'? It seems like it's sort of between 'Tough' and 'Beauty', and it still keeps the number down to just the three..."

She blinked, then grinned, to hear that the idea had worked.
"Oh, very cool! I haven't really gotten to think much about that for a while; that's awesome to hear though. Glowing Onyx should be a rather fun sight... Should pave the way for some other processes too, with more rock types."

Jubilee chirped.
She didn't know who this strange person was, exactly, but she was very talkative, and now there were paper-things everywhere... and was that Rory in that book thing?! How was Rory trapped in a book thing?! And Pinkie?! Why was Tam' not more alarmed?
Jubilee did not have a good understand of photographs yet, and she scuttled down from Tambrey's shoulder to investigate the strange, flattened, Rory and Pinkie, who were trapped in a strange book...  

[caffeinecraving]

She smiled. It was no problem at all. She had read them tons... and she didnt mind loaning them out... "I think i would go out of my mind... Especially without my magazines."

She gave a thankful smile. She had been worrying about the fact that she hadnt just bounced right back. She thought for sure that made her less of a rocket. "People and pokemon... Yeah... " Sh smiled. "Well im glad to hear it gets better. Im kinda glad that im still in a room unassigned to another... They wouldnt get much sleep either... but No worries... im getting things done and thats what matters."

She grinned wider. "Yeah... I am hoping to impress them well enough to be able to move up pretty quick... I mean... aside from breaking things like slides and beakers... I havent screwed up too much." She nodded. It was fun and it kept her mind busy.

She frowned thinking. "Yeah that would be good... I like that... And people can compete in just one... not all three... One pokemon each?" She nodded glad to hear she wasnt mad she used her idea.

She looked to Jubilee. "Oh... isnt she cute... I think... I can be the judge... that way you and rory can both participate... Im almost thinking we should have two tears... beginner and advanced... for people who have done it before and those that havent."

 

[Gwennythe]

"Hm. Well, I do have my books... And I can use the 'dex and stuff; I talk to Aulus and that sometimes with it..." She grinned, then, as rooms were brought up.
"How much have you heard about a grunt called 'Star'? He was my room mate for, well, until the old base exploded; absolutely impossible to get a good night's sleep around him- he was an engineer and something was always on fire, or popping, or a pokémon was attacking him, or he'd be having a monologue with himself... And in the mornings, he'd jump out of the window we had... Every morning..." She shook her head. "Enjoy the absence of a room mate while you can; as soon as they need to, they'll force one on you..."

Tambrey considered the lab work, the mission work, and prospect of impressing the higher ups in the same thought process... She tapped a finger slightly, watching while Jubilee chirped at Kailee, and then started poking at the magazine, still somewhat concerned.
"Well... You did well on the mission- that was an... um... an interesting one. A pretty bad one actually... But you did well, and you're good in the lab so you've got a flexibility. They tend to like that, I think; the more someone 'can do for them' and all that..." She wasn't sure about the contest work being seen in the same light, but she was more an optimist than a pessimist, and it was a nice idea to link the topics, she thought...
"Plus, with all that work, you're still getting work done on stuff like this; the ideas are pretty sensible- I'd agree about the two tiers for fairness, though some people might want to choose to go in the advanced even without having done it before..." She grinned sheepishly "Egos pop up around this sort of thing occasionally."  

[caffeinecraving]

She grinned. "Well... a good book is sometimes the best kind of company." She shrugged shaking her head. "I havent...." She smiled though and laughed a bit. "Oh wow... sounds like he has the same curse i do..." Catching on fire and what not. "But he is braver then me... I avoid technology for the sole reason of things popping or catching on fire." She blinked though. "The question... why?... comes to mind." She nodded. "Well i am. Its nice to be able to let all my pokemon out."

Kailee smiled to the bug. "Isnt that a nice picture of Rory?"

She flushed. "Thank you... " She was a coward and ran away from things when they just started to look dicey. She nodded about flexibility. The contest was for fun. She could use it... and what not. So of course it was selfish.

She smiled. "Awesome.. Well thank you... " So back to planning. "Good point... I think then maybe just one tier... because i dont want there to be only like one person to sign into the beginner. Oh! and I kinda want to try beauty so if i judge the other two we need someone to do that one so i can play too..."

 

[Gwennythe]

Now that, Tambrey could certainly agree with; if only she had more time to bring more of her collection out of storage... There was certainly more room for them, now she was in an Agent quarters.
After so long having 'half a room', she had rather noticed that her larger room always felt on the empty side of tidy, rather than the cosy now... Despite the soft toys that had migrated to the new bed, and the random things that Palu liked to leave around the floor.

She bit her lip, amused, as Kailee described 'Star' as 'braver than her'...
"You know, this is goin' to sound a bit awful, but I think you might be the only person in history to bestow that kind of a compliment on him..." As far as she could tell, even the more dangerous stuff that Star did had had very very little to do with bravery... Mostly she'd thought he might be slightly the opposite a lot of the time...
"He likes to fly." She responded, answering the question of why with a non-physical kind of shrug. "Has a Pidgeot called... uh... Scream. Very close to each other. He'd jump out, Scream'd be there, off they'd fly... Talented flier; that's something positive I can definitely say about him..."
To be honest, Tambrey'd somewhat grown to like Star a little, weird and frustrating as he'd been... but she was glad to no longer share a room with him.
"I do miss being able to let Ella out properly... She's not /huge/ but she's a little heavy and noisy these days... Lasi and Pygi are a little big to have out in my room all the time too... Palu, and some of the others, including Jub', here, hang out with me sometimes... Though," Tambrey considered for a moment "You might have seen Jubilee in the lab before, or her tank, at least; I had a little kind of... feeding tank sort of thing set up for her. 'S basically just a hamster cage running an electric current, but she seems to like it."

Something that Jubilee was -not- sure she liked, however, was the voodoo of 'pictures'. What was this? How had it happened? And why were these two so... /pleased/ and commenting how /nice/ it was? Was this a form of human-pokéball or something? If so, how was -Pinkie- in there too?!
She fixed Kailee with a very concerned, bewildered expression as the grunt commented on how nice the picture was, and jabbed her little leg at the image again. Yes! Of course they were nice! Now let them out!

Tambrey watched the flush and semi-waved off the thank you; feedback, especially positive, was important- she remembered doing better when she'd been told she'd done something well.
She knew Team Rocket believed, a lot, in 'the stick', but she also noted, and rather was encouraged, that 'the carrot' side of things was often quite attractive too... She hoped positive feedback was, at least, a good, if tiny, tip of that kind of thing.
"One tier sounds like a good idea, especially if it's casual," She agreed "then, any beginner who really wants to show off, and any more experienced people who aren't feeling so confident wouldn't really feel, uh, pigeon-holed? I think that's the right word..." She smiled sheepishly "Med's; brain's all fracked up a bit still... Hum. Well. I really don't know that I could compete in Beauty, so I could try there though I've never really... judged much of anything before... There are few real fashionista types about, but they may want to compete rather than judge..." She was aware that would leave Cool or Tough, and supposed she could fit into one of those... Maybe Octavia could have gone into Beauty, the agent supposed, but she also thought the pony was rather 'Cool'...  

[caffeinecraving]

Kailee laughed softly. "Oh? Well maybe i should get to know about him more before i give anymore complements like that. "

She opened her mouth in an 'o' shape. "That makes sense... Well at least he had good reason for it right?" Rationalize and make excuses for people. See the best in everyone. Thats what Kailee was all about.

She smiled. "Brimstone has to ride in his ball alot of the time... and so with no roomate he can be out... but as soon as that bed fills up ill have to keep him in more... he is pretty big..." Not huge... just... bigger then the rest of her pokemon.

She shrugged and grinned. "I may have and just not noticed. Sorry~"

She frowned at the bug. Ok.. she looked kinda upset... "Um.. I dont have another picture of them... Want me to flip the page?" she reached out to move the magazine to change the picture.

Kailee just wasnt confident enough to accept that praise. She would be beating herself up over the fact that she got off scott free and others had lost so much. She shrugged. "Judging is easy... you like it.. they get points... you dont they get less points." She nodded though. Ok three groups... Cool Tough and Beauty... "Cool! So lets see... We will need to figure out what forms of contests we are doing... Are we gonna do the different stages... like... costume... showing off moves... and then battle? Or skip the battle part Or... pick and chose?"

 

[Gwennythe]

"Hm. He did," Tambrey agreed- practice was clearly a lot of why Star was so good at that activity in particular- "but I still wish he'd been less... Well, I don't remember ever receiving a warning that he was about to do it. Um, and he once had an argument with the higher ups and got brought back... Tranq-gunned... That was an interesting day..."

She brought Brimstone to mind, recollecting an Emboar. Ah, yes... There were rather grand to have out and about all the time; she supposed, not too dissimilar to Char...
"Probably keeps the room rather... toasty too?"

Tambrey smiled and shook her head.
"Maybe; it's not like a big cage or anything, especially compared to everything else in there... and I tend to move her around to keep an eye on her..." She blinked as Jubilee tapped the page and then the bug and Kailee seemed to be having some kind of an exchange.
"Hm. You know... I don't think she's ever seen a magazine before... Or books with pictures..." The agent mused, watching as the bug scuttled back when Kailee offered to flip the page.

Flip the page? What? Like a book? Would that help? Would that let Rory and Pinkie out of the hum-a-ball book? Jubilee chirped hopefully at the blond woman. It was nice of her to bring Pinkie and Rory to them, but she did wish she'd let them out of the book...

"That doesn't sound too bad... I think I could do that well 'nough... Um. Hm. Well, simpler's probably better? So, um, that first idea with the three- costume, moves, battle? That seems pretty simple and self-explanatory... Picking and choosing might, uh, get kind of complicated, maybe?"  

[caffeinecraving]

She smiled and then raised an eyebrow. "Tranqed?! Wow."

She grinned. "Yes... he is a nice little heater. But thats what AC is for right?" She nodded a bit.

Kailee glanced up. "Oh!" She smiled to the bug. "Look... "She pulled her dex and showed the bug a picture of herself. "See its a picture... Not the real thing..." She left the picture of her up on her dex and set the dex down looking to Tam

"Ok so thats good then... we will have to see how many people sign up... And then we can make it work... I think we will have a costume parade... Like everyone out on stage... Give them a moment in the spot light... we can score them 1-5. Then call them back out one at a time to show off their moves. And then we will work the battle out... 5 points to the winner... And then the person with the most points at the end can win their class!"

She nodded thinking this was a good idea. "What should we do in the case of a tie?"

 

[Gwennythe]

"Good in winter." Tam grinned; well, she supposed Octavia was too... Just not quite as effective as an Emboar would be.

Jubilee watched the curly-haired woman suspiciously as she pulled out a 'dex... Okay, well, Tambrey used one of those sometimes, so it should be okay... And then she looked from the picture on the 'dex to Kailee; what the...
What happened?! How was this? She really needed this explained... This didn't make sense.
How could she be both inside the small box and outside the small box? Humans clearly had some strange magic that neither Tam', nor -Paul-, had told her about yet...
Paul... Yes, she would ask Paul about this weird voodoo...

"Ooh. I do like that. Costume parade; kinda like a cosplay comp' at a con', right? I think I've seen a couple of older contests do that too... That sounds like a good system." Tambrey nodded, though, she too, was unsure regarding the tie.
"Hm. Well, in general, around here, I kinda think people might just want another battle but I also think that's without thinking of something better... which we could probably do...."