[FIN] Sunshine, Sand, and Salty Water

[TawnyAngel]

Humm, Tam looked pretty good in that bikini.... Annnnd moving on from that thank you brain; it was not a good idea to check out your partner even if the colour of the bikini suited her, and... Nope, just no.

As Tambery looked around Aulus met her eyes with a grin. "Hehe, na they're not magic Franklin," he said with a shake of his head. "Fox just made me invisible so I could get changed.

"Can't remember the last time I went in the sea," Aulus continued as he set off towards the water. He then laughed at himself briefly and shook his head. "Last time I came to the beach I guess! Whenever that was."  

[Gwennythe]

Equally, Tambrey wasn't focusing on the fact that Aulus was now only wearing trunks, which meant that, if one were to really focus, there wasn't much left to the imagination.

"They, uh, looked like they were floating." She supposed the explanation was probably unnecessary, that Aulus had probably gotten it, but then realized that the implication was basically that even if they couldn't see him, they'd actually known more or less exactly when he was naked. Which was a little weird.
Better to focus back on the ocean they were currently walking toward.

"Hmm. I, um, think that's the same for me. I know it was over a year ago and I'm not even sure if it was the year before..." She frowned thoughtfully at the waves. "Actually, I'm not even sure if I went into the sea the last time I came to a beach..."

Franklin seemed to accept the explanation happily enough, and was now attempting to add a wall between two sand towers she'd created.

Octavia stopped to regard the humans with suspicion as they walked to the water; humans were crazy, really...

Ella rumbled happily and decided to lay on her stomach, causing a bit of a thud, and some sand to puff up as she settled to relax.
She kept an eye on the sea though; the metal type knew Aulus and Tambrey probably needed no protection just... swimming in the sea, but as relaxed as she felt, the Aggron considered it a duty to keep watch.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Oh, they did?" Aulus replied, having apparently not got it. "I thought you meant they made me reappear. I suppose Fox didn't invisible them just when I picked them up then." Only when he'd put them on... oh, good, well done Aulus, you just told everyone precisely when you were naked. He hoped Tam didn't make the connection but as it was Tam - who was good at connections - she probably would. Moving on!

Last time he'd been to the beach then.... Had it been that date he'd been on with Claire? That had been a long time ago, it had been for New Year's in... well it had to be twenty twelve right? Wow. "I think it's been more than three years since I have, I- Oh! Wait, no, there was that festival in Mako last year right? I went to that." It hadn't been very long after he'd lost his arm and he hadn't enjoyed the trip at all, he'd totally failed to catch anything at all and he remembered people staring at him, probably laughing at him. That was a year ago now though and now he had two arms again; Aulus flexed the metal fingers and let go of the remembered flare of frustration and humiliation.

"I didn't go in the water then though, or the time before that, so it's been a longass time since I was in the sea to say the least," he concluded with a smile over to Tam.

Tortie, who had been padding along beside Aulus, gave a huff and nipped lightly at his fingers. <> she informed him before starting to lope towards the water.  

[Gwennythe]

Unfortunately, making that particular connection had been exactly why Tambrey had averted her gaze when she had... But she wasn't going to tell Aulus that, of course.

She watched Tortie overtake them, and thought about Asgard and Thanatos, all heading for the sea... Ella would sink, Pakhet and Octavia were fire types, Pygi was, well, a Pidgeot and not all that fond of the ocean, Linnaeus, as an Eevee, might have had some interest in paddling, but he was quite a shy little thing, and didn't seem to enjoy wet fur... and finally Franklin. The little psychic type might join them in a bit but she was far more interested in her sandcastle for now, and she wasn't really a strong swimmer (Tambrey had taken her to a pool training room out of interest)... Of the pokémon back at base, none were really water types or all that fond of water either; unless she evolved Linnaeus into a Vaporeon, and given his dislike of wet fur she supposed not, she was conspicuously lacking a useful type.
The sight of the ocean reminded her to look into that, properly this time, when they got back to base.

"Hm." She paused as her bare feet hit the surf, and the waves rose up, sliding past her calves. "Oh! Cold! Nice though... I, uh, never went to that... I considered going in the submarine, when the egg appeared but my place tends to, um, be more useful in the labs when something like that happens... And I guess they didn't technically go -in- the sea after all..." Only within the submarine, rather than getting a swim...  

[TawnyAngel]

"Heh, yeah, I would have gone if I'd had two hands. I wonder if it was a yellow submarine... probably not." Aulus waded gingerly deeper into the water, giving a small yelp of surprise as as small wave washed up his thighs. "Cold!" he agreed.

Tortie didn't seem bothered by the temperature, she was already up to her neck and paddling around with every sign of enjoyment. Thanatos and Asgard were already lost to view but an occasional unnatural swell further out to sea indicated where the giant 'fish-bird' - as Tortie called him - might be.

"I guess I should just get it over with, it's much better after you do," Aulus observed. He then hesitated briefly before ducking completely under the surface, only to reappear moments later spluttering. "Cold!" he repeated with a grin, swiping water from his face. "Better now though."  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey let out a laugh and shook her head.

"Yellow submarine on a stealth mission. That /would/ be an impressive mission if, uh, it was successful..." She continue to smile at thought, and then watched as Aulus properly submerged himself in the water.

That /was/ the best way to get used to the temperature... but long hair tended to some very unglamorous things when it got particularly wet. Still, she'd undone her ponytail to make it slightly easier to handle (undoing a wet ponytail wasn't very fun, after all) before retying it more loosely. A pair of goggles sat upon her forehead. She could, even without her glasses, see Aulus well enough for now.

When she mimicked Aulus, throwing herself down and under to get used to to the water temperature, the strands that were free tried floating about, and tried to cling around her face, but she remembered what it would do, and pushed it back as she surfaced...
She suspected she didn't look quite as glamorous as a Bond girl walking out of the water, pushing their wet hair back, but at least she equally hadn't surfaced looking like the ghost from 'The Ring'.

"Refreshing!" She amended, surfacing. With the summer sun, despite it being unpleasant, or awkwardly, cold before submerging, once used to it, she did find it rather refreshing.
Her goggles were then carefully pulled down over her eyes, and the world became a little clearer.  

[TawnyAngel]

It might not have been a movie star reappearance but it earned a smile from Aulus but then a lot of things Tambery did got a smile from Aulus; he nodded. "Refreshing. Hehe, maybe we should have brought a couple of... wassnames, you know, floaty pool bed thing," he waved his metal hand vaguely; more and more he was starting to use it without thinking about it for gestures like that as much as he did deliberately for specific tasks. "But I guess if we fancy floating around on something we might be able to persuade Asgard," he added with a shrug, wading a bit deeper until the water was up around his stomach.  

[Gwennythe]

"Oh, uh, lilos?" Tambrey queried; that was the name that her family had given the inflatable floating 'beds'. She'd never looked it up to see if that was the actual name everyone else called them, but she kind of suspected it was; she'd seen a shop sell them as 'lilos' at least once.

"As long as he, uh, didn't forget and suddenly decided to take a tour of the bottom..." Tambrey thought aloud, imagining how deep the large legendary might truly be able to go....

Tambrey was quite a bit shorter than Aulus, and thus, it was rather higher for her than for Aulus the deeper they went; she didn't seem to be concerned though, actually choosing to stay swimming shoulder deep most of the time even in places she could walk.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Lilos!" Aulus snapped his fingers - the metal ones, it made a slightly peculiar sound - and nodded. "That's the buggers. Heh, yes, that'd be a nasty surprise. He'll probably head off deep sooner or later.... I might have to leave Fox behind when we head home if he doesn't come back, that way he can fly back to the lake invisible and stay there until I can come back up and get him.

"Oh, and so how did your spa day and evening out go?" He'd seen Tambery since of course but the subject hadn't come to mind while he'd been in her company until now; he was interested but they both had a lot going on, it was kind of impossible to remember everything all the time.  

[Gwennythe]

The hand, the arm, was fascinating... So it was operable in the ocean and Aulus was using it just as he might use a limb he'd been born with. It was heartening to see, but equally it wasn't something Tambrey was going to comment on aloud unless Aulus did; she felt, rather, that -not- having to remark on it would be as much a sign of how well it functioned as remarking on it- after all, you didn't remark on how people moved their arms usually, and this was, basically, Aulus' actual arm now. Even if it was made of metal.

"Oh, that is useful though..." She remarked, thinking of an invisible Lugia flying back to the lake. " Cloaking. It's still, uh, kind of awesome to think of... Even if it's just, you know, entirely possible... Normal, even, for them..."

She kicked herself forward, reaching down with her toes an finding that, nope, she wasn't quite out of her standing depth yet, but any moment was bound to be.

Her last day off before this one... Hm. How /had/ that gone?
She'd learned a lot regarding KO's situation, but she chose to answer with the usual, rather non-back-from-the-dead stuff first.

"The spa was, um, really nice. I was kind of surprised though; I, uh, even had a pedicure, and massage and such, and um, well, I didn't find it as... ticklish as I was kind of afraid it would be..." She'd been /slightly/ worried it might have been, and it would have been kind of embarrassing to laugh just because someone had touched her feet.
"The bar was good too. Um. Fancy. I, um... I didn't actually know places like it existed outside of, uh, you know, dramas and stuff... Cocktails. It was," She thought about it "kind of like the labs, if that makes sense? But, uh, comfortable and you could actually eat or, uh, drink the stuff..."

Okay, that was out of the way.
"And... we talked about Kirk's, uh, return." She wondered just how much she could, and then how much she would, be prepared to tell Aulus about that.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aware that he was getting a little deep on himself now, and that Tambery was shorter than he was, Aulus came to a halt. "Right?" he agreed with a nod. "It was a damn good day for Team Rocket when Zoroark came to our shores. Fox is best at invisibility at the moment but we're working hard on improving her other skills. She's good at making basic changes to people's appearances now, so handy if I ever want to blend in anywhere...."

That was still really strange and somehow faintly unsettling, somebody who you'd known was dead suddenly not being dead anymore. Aulus nodded. "Kind of shiny and sleek looking? Like sitting inside something Apple designed." He hadn't been to a place like that himself but he could imagine it from Tam's description. "And, yeah?" The query was clearly supposed to be leading, he couldn't help but be curious about what Tam had or had not learned.  

[Gwennythe]

At that, Tambrey couldn't help but have her eyes travel to glance at Aulus' arm...
That /was/ very very handy (oh, more puns!) a skill to have, tweaking appearances when your arm happened to be made of metal. It was something that people happened to remember after all, a man with a metal arm...

"Very useful... Uh, on /and/ outside of missions..." She voiced her thoughts aloud, and then gave a nod, confirming what Aulus asked of the bar.
"I, um... guess that's actually a really good way of putting it... Sleek. Lights... Simplistic stuff and um, very clean..."

And then, back to the most interesting subject.
She made a decision about what she /could/ let on to Aulus... She was confident he wouldn't tell anyone, of course, and she rather needed someone who wasn't 'involved' to mention /something/ to and hear feedback.

"It's, um. It's definitely weird. I don't really want to get into the specifics except to say that... I don't, um, think he was actually just treated with the usual, uh, chemical or biologically based experimental medicine. There's too much that simply doesn't add up."  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus caught the direction of Tambery's gaze and nodded agreement. "Very much so." He'd always stood out - facial scarring would do that for you - but a metal arm was a whole new level of distinctive.

Much as he wanted to know the specifics that Tam didn't want to get into Aulus understood that she might not want to spread around too much of somebody else's business.... But he really wanted to know! The little she did say was tantalizing. "What sort of thing?" he asked. "And if not the usual methods, even the usual experimental ones...." What could that mean? "You've got a hunch, right?"  

[Gwennythe]

Perhaps it was familiarity- actually, it probably was- or the fact that she now knew a few 'distinctive' people around Team Rocket, but Tambrey had somewhat forgotten that Aulus' scars made him 'stand out'...

But they were on another subject altogether...
Well, Aulus was asking, and as much as it was unscientific.

"The mission was to capture Xerneas. Which, uh, we did. Actually, Kirk did specifically..." She tested the depth again and found herself treading water where she'd gotten to. "I was, um, on the jet. I'm... I'm confident he didn't survive." And yet, KO was, right now, probably walking around somewhere, doing some duty as far as she knew... So... He didn't survive. But he was alive.  

[TawnyAngel]

Seen as he seemed to have walked Tam out of her depth Aulus moved a little closer to her. Wasn't like he thought she was going to sink or anything but... well if she got a cramp or something he was close by to grab onto.

....Oh. Aulus frowned, wonder if he'd understood properly. He was sure he had but it didn't make any sense. "So... you're saying he died but he's not dead anymore." And.... "And we got Xerneas." Okay, anyone who knew anything about the pokemon of Kalos knew the legend but everyone tended to assume it was, well, just a legend. It seemed like Tambery thought differently.