[Fin] Welcome Back Koulson!

[TawnyAngel]

He was glad to wave bye bye to Jim and settle down in the car. He didn't even mind that he wasn't driving it, or that he was wearing other people's clothes.

KO watched the world go by through the window and tried to piece together what the hell had just happened.

So.

He'd woken up in a strange, creepy white room of an infirmary. It wasn't like he'd recovered consciousness, he'd just... just woken up. And that didn't happen, he'd seen enough people come out of comas to know that.

Then there was the creepy place itself, the Kalos base. Ugh. There was nothing really off about that other than how quiet the infirmary had been but he hadn't liked it at all.

Also weird was the way he and Jim had been completely ignored both at the base and by the Rockets who'd come with them on the boat. He hadn't noticed so much at the base, he'd been occupied, but it had been impossible to miss as they'd disembarked and thinking back he didn't remember any of them so much as glancing at him.

Then there'd been Jim. He was pretty sure Jim had drugged him, or at least known he was going to be drugged when he got onto the boat. He hadn't mentioned it of course - 'must still have been recovering!' 'I suppose I got some extra beauty sleep, not that I need it' - because mentioning it, it seemed to KO, might have been bad for his health.

What really bothered him wasn't that he had been drugged but that he didn't know why he had been drugged.

Then there was the scar on his chest, which while not confusing was unpleasant and disturbing. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, wasn't even as bad as he'd expected but it was still ugly, a knot of purplish scar tissue nearly over his heart. He'd nearly died. He probably should have died but he had more lives than a Meowth and the devil's own luck, how else could he have caught two legendaries in the space of a month and then taken a horn to the chest and lived?

When they drew close to base KO made an effort to shake off his disquiet and focus on what he wanted to do once he'd been cleared by the medics, which was a) make sure he was still on the project and say hello to Tam, b) catch up on gossip with Lex, c) have a proper shower, shave, and go through all his other little routines that had been neglected for a month, d) get some kind of a mission grade card.

Well, one thing at a time then. KO fetched out his 'dex and tapped out a text to Tam. //Well hello there stranger, I'm back, did you miss me? I've had an idea or two about our little project, hope you haven't replaced me! ;D//  

[Gwennythe]

"Protein is 101aa, showing a charge of 4.0. Entirely expected range. No abnormality in early sequence. Shows up out of sequence at 1782. No major predicted side effect from new position, however physiological differences /could/ present at a later stage of development."
Tambrey tapped the screen on her dex to finish and submit the recording; she'd seen the message icon mid-note, but it was always best to record her notes, even unpolished and short, in one go before she forgot the wording she wanted to use so she was clear with herself later on.

Upon seeing the ID of the message sender, the scientist frowned with puzzlement and suspicion; a prank? a malfunction? They didn't reassign ID numbers or something did they and just forget to scrub a name? It didn't seem as likely as a prank...
Cautiously, almost as though she were afraid of 'breaking' the dex by reading the message, Tambrey clicked to open... and stared.
And stared some more.
It was a good 30 seconds before she breathed out a "What the frak?!" and turned her dex over as if looking for cracks, or damage, or checking it was real...
Then she read the message again.
Well.
There was only one thing to do then; she locked the dex inside a sample cupboard immediately and back away, eyeing the secure containment box suspiciously as though the dex might try to break out.

It was 7 minutes of pacing, eyeing the container, and worrying at her lip, before she reopened the container to retrieve the dex and reread the message.
Had to be a prank... A really horrible prank...
'//--Who is this?!--//'  

[TawnyAngel]

KO hadn't expected an immediate reply - she was probably working - and so he didn't worry when one didn't come. He had plenty of other things to worry about anyway. He was just heading to the infirmary when she did reply, but said reply was not what he'd expected.

//It's me, KO? You know, devilishly handsome captor of Articuno and Xerneas? Just got back to Kodo from the Kalos base, how're you doing?// As he sent the reply KO frowned and stepped out of the elevator, heading into the infirmary. Why would she ask him who it was? Even if somehow her 'dex had got corrupted and lost his ID he was sure she would get who he was from the context.

When he looked up from the screen of his dex he saw a small group of assembled medics. He knew all of them, and several of them looked like they'd seen a ghost.

"See, told you!" said one who did not. "He's way too slippery; c'mon over here, we're meant to check you over."

KO opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, and frowned deeper. "Ooookaaaaay?" What?  

[Gwennythe]

... What? What was going on? This was... far for a prank. And who would /know/ about his capture of both legendary pokémon /and/ get the tone right? Lex... was not the type to mess around like this, she thought... Aulus definitely wouldn't and not to her... That other red head seemed to lack tact but he didn't seem smart enough to pull off a prank like this and... How the frak would -any- of them have been able to get their hands on a deceased operative's 'dex? It wasn't like people could just... 'fool' the security, as far as she knew. Even extremely talented hackers would, she assumed, find it practically impossible to mimic a sender ID...
Which meant someone had KO's dex.
And was impersonating the... dead... grunt...

'-- I know that's whose equipment you are using and though I do not know how you have gotten your hands on it, it is not a funny prank to impersonate a deceased person to their friends. This will be reported.--' And, she assumed, traced, if she reported it... Who to report it to though? Security? The people who had, she supposed, lost the dex in the first place? Wait. Wasn't KO's dex -in- Kalos? Did that mean someone in -Kalos- was impersonating KO? Was that even possible? The range surely wouldn't cover such a distance.
She'd hardly sent the previous message before she tapped out another one frantically.
'-- Is this a test?--'

"Frak... Frak! How could... I don't understand this..." Tambrey muttered and paced again, then looked toward Jubilee's 'hamster cage' as thought contemplating asking the electric bug her thoughts on the matter... Oh! But she /could/ ask a pokémon!
Except... that pokémon was Franklin... And she definitely wouldn't have any helpful answers.
The scientist anxiously waited for a reply, other tasks forgotten for the moment.  

[TawnyAngel]

KO read the message. He read it again.

"What?"

He sat down on a bed and let his colleagues poke at him, take his vitals and so on. He was pretty sure he even answered a few questions but most of his attention was occupied with reading Tam's messages over and over again. His blood ran cold, and his skin prickled. Why would they let people think he was dead? Why had he been drugged? What was happening?

//Deceased? Who told you I was dead?// He paused only for a moment before sending another message. //What kind of test would this be anyway? I'm in the infirmary, just getting a checkup. It's me, really, ask me anything.//  

[Gwennythe]

... and waiting...
and waiting...
MESSAGE!

She scrambled to press the button to read it, the screen having gone into power-saving mode while she waited for the message to come.
She cursed as a slip of a shaking finger brought up her appointment shortcut by mistake, then backtracked quickly to read through the message.
It cleared -nothing- up.

Who told her he was dead? She thought back to the jet... the mission.
How to explain that... Wait, why would she explain that?! To the prankster... or... Maybe she was going insane? She didn't -feel- insane, but did insane people /know/ they were insane?
She did a quick mental exercise, recalling genetic base pairs, as if that would prove anything; she didn't really feel better or -less- insane, but at least it was a little calming...
'-- Are you a ghost?--' That -might- be an insane question, but then, she might be insane anyway, so it was probably fine.  

[TawnyAngel]

Apparently he was free to go, not to do anything strenuous for a week and then to come back for another check and presumably clearance for normal duties. He was also given a memo informing him that he'd been moved to a new room. He read the memo again, and then Tam's next text a few times.

//No, living and breathing! Let's meet to talk? Where are you?// Something was going on, and he was currently painfully aware that all of their communications were monitored. He thought about sending Tam a message that told her to stop messaging him in some kind of code but he knew that whatever he sent would be worked out pretty quickly. So far as anyone reading his messages was concerned he hadn't noticed anything weird about anything, at all, ever. If they'd wanted him to know he would have been told, and he knew all too well how unhealthy it was to know things you weren't meant to know.

'-- Are you a ghost?--'  

[Gwennythe]

... Living. Breathing... MEET TO TALK?!
If this was a prank that was -very- bold... If this was a ghost, why would he need to meet somewhere to talk if he'd just... possessed the dex anyway?
... Of course, if she'd gone insane, this was the perfect excuse to manifest a hallucination and deepen the delusion, which would probably mean very bad things for her mental state...
Of course. He could just be.. not dead. Everything could be as the messages said but... No. On the jet... KO was /definitely/ dead. Wasn't he? Yes. Definitely. It had been a very sure thing.
And there had been -nothing- to suggest otherwise before this point; before these messages...
"... I guess if he's breathing he's not a zombie..." She breathed, to a very confused looking Jubilee. The electric type was happy enough to shrug off the weirdness and go back to enjoying her electricity supply, though.

'-- Labs. Where are you? --' She wasn't sure if she wanted to meet a possibly undead, possibly hallucinatory, possibly incorporeal (ghosts could lie, right?) grunt in a lab where others might be working...  

[TawnyAngel]

//Infirmary. Can meet you anywhere though?//

This was all much, much too weird. Were there cameras in their rooms? Probably. Lots of things were wrong, just slightly off, and he didn't like it. What had happened? Why had he been drugged? Why had he just woken up like that? Why had they let Tambery, and seemingly others, think he was dead? Why had the Kalos Rockets ignored him so completely?

When he finally found time to let his pokemon out he had no idea what he was going to tell them.  

[Gwennythe]

Of course he was in the infirmary... Because that just... made sense didn't it? If people were going to be dead and then suddenly be alive, they'd definitely be in the infirmary...
Which a prankster would probably say too...
A ghost wouldn't need the infirmary...
A hallucination might... Especially one building itself from scraps of logic...

Ghosts and psychics, Tambrey's brain dragged out eventually, were types containing individuals that were sometimes known for cruel tricks... What if... somehow, a pokemon was doing this?
Bug. Psychic. Dark... Well, scratch dark, she didn't have a dark type...
She had types that /could/ counter ghosts and psychics though...
"Frak... I can't believe I'm..." Playing along? Actually humouring a prankster? Going to see a dead person? She left her own sentence to herself unfinished as she mentally picked out the team she'd take along before she'd even sent a message back.
She had, for now, decided not to contact security; curiosity was winning out slightly ahead of the other emotions.
//-- I can see 3 training rooms currently unoccupied and room 7 is unscheduled until 2 hours from now. I can meet you there?--//
Tambrey thought it was a logical choice; she'd have space for her pokémon if she needed them, the room /could/ provide some privacy (in case she was crazy and was talking to herself as far as other people could see) though she wasn't considering cameras like KO was, and it was a room she was quite familiar with.  

[TawnyAngel]

//Sure, meet you there.//

KO got in the elevator, pressed the button and tried to work out what he was going to say when he met up with Tam. It probably depended on what she said in part but.... But the medical fact of his 'coming around' didn't add up, and the base had been weird and he knew - as good as knew - he'd been drugged.

If he said too much he would be in trouble, and she might be too and that... that actually bothered him a whole lot.

KO squeezed his eyes shut and lent against the wall of the elevator, his stomach twisting in a sick knot. He'd tried for only superficial relationships after he- He'd really tried, but dammit now he cared. He couldn't do anything that might land either of them in trouble. He had to be careful of what he said. Could he even speak freely to her off base? Was he worrying too much? No. He'd been lied to about what had happened to him, he simply could not just have woken from a coma.... But did his superiors know he knew that? He'd said he had no skill or knowledge of ongoing care when he joined and that was true but he'd picked other things up, like knowing how people came out of comas. Well, best he never mentioned that ever again perhaps.

KO stepped out of the elevator and headed down to training room seven. It was unlocked and so he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, trying very hard to work out what to say to Tambery. He'd been full of slick lines for the Champion even when he'd been sure it was futile, where were they all now?  

[Gwennythe]

Okay... Good.
Now what?
Well... Jubilee was coming along, that was for sure. The electric bug gave a small amount of protest at having to leave the 'cage' but was soon in her ball.
Tambrey then checked for Ella and Franklin's pokéballs; one was mostly for her own piece of mind- she felt safer with her Aggron present, while Franklin was an 'in case of ghosts' choice, and an 'in case of pokémon prankster' translation choice...
She assigned three more balls to her belt from station present in the labs, before going through the procedure of cleaning up, securing what needed securing, and actually leaving.
Her walk to the training rooms was lengthened deliberately as she thought arguments through with herself and fretted on what she was about to find.

Indeed, she stopped outside the room rather than go in, choosing to try and subtly peak inside before entering, trying to see who or what might be there to meet her before she went in herself...  

[TawnyAngel]

The door opened, but nobody came in.

KO waited a few moments, aware that he was out of sight, before pacing forward to look around it.

There indeed was Tambery. KO offered a slightly strained smile. "Hello there, your hair looks good today. Have you used a new product?"  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey's reaction was definitely going to be a source of embarrassment later on...
When KO popped into view, she found herself shrieking, and ducking back from, and around, the door, against the wall, with wide eyes.

That was /definitely/ KO!
Unless it was a Zoroark? What were the illusion conditions with them again?
Or it could be a ghost...
Or a hallucination.

... Wait. He'd complimented her hair... -Not- a Zoroark then. And a psychic type if any kind of pokémon... Hallucination seemed very likely suddenly.

"... Y-you're n-not something I, uh, need to have an MRI for are you..?" She asked, hesitantly poking her head back around the door to make sure KO was still there.  

[TawnyAngel]

She really thought he was dead, and must have done for a month or so. That hurt when you cared about somebody, and she had called him a friend.

KO smiled and took a few steps towards Tambery, holding out a hand towards her. "No, just me. How to?- Oh, so I was thinking about our project? Do we have any presence of RhNUDX1 or a similar compound in our samples of Sweet Scent?"