[RAID] Tricksters in the Dark

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus relaxed just a shade at the announcement that the machine had been there a while, but not enough to clip his staff back to his belt. "Funny," he looked away at the others. He had to pause to clear his throat then but after a moment he went on; "Galactic clearly have resources but you don't keep having resources by abandoning them all over the countryside. They must have had a good reason to leave this here... and I doubt that reason is good news for us if it's still here."

Tam was the one of the group he had spent most time with recently and he found himself drifting over to her for reassurance. If asked later he could say it was chivalry/alpha male condescention to a small woman/concern for his personal arse kicking pupil that had driven him over to her rather than a need for a friendly presence to stabilize him. "What do you reckon?" he asked, looking first down at Tam but then glancing around at the rest of the group too. "Something to do with Mesprit?... Or has it not been in the area long enough for that?" Galactic must be desperate to get it and the other legendaries they had lost back so that they could rebuild their Machine. It made sense, if the timings were right... but that meant Mesprit had done something to the Galactics.

Good for Mesprit.  

[Natsuko-neko]

Xander caught Aulus stepping back out of the corner of his eye and moved closer to put a hand on his shoulder. He attempted to give a reassuring look but it didn't look very reassuring from his own apprehension. "Agreed." He said with a nod then looked over at Harvard when she spoke.

He didn't relax when she said it looked abandoned. It could still be a trap after all. "Alright, someone should make sure if that thing works and the rest should check the area for the target and any hazards." Xander said before shooting Harvard a question look to see if she had anything to add.  

[TRHQ Harvard]

Harvard half smiled. "Good thinking. Sounds like a plan," she confirmed. She turned back to the team, stepping away at the same time and making mental notes of who was sticking close to whom. "You all heard him. Check this thing out and keep the area secured." Harvard moved a few paces more down the tunnel, holding her flashlight to gun once more and scanning the dark.

It was large for a tunnel. More like a wide hallway between chambers. They could all stand side-by-side next to the drill, and still have some room leftover. And assuming none of them were claustrophobic in their rooms back at base, they wouldn't have any issues with the ceiling height, either.  

[Gwennythe]

Well there was Rory. Good, her mind thought somewhere between the random panicked flicker of 'Oh frak, they're down here.'
"I really hope so..." She muttered, loud enough for Rory to hear her reply to his thoughts on it possibly being abandoned.

Tambrey watched, and listened, as Harvard investigated the machine and deemed it 'abandoned'. It helped a little, but she was still wary; it meant that Galactic had been here and whether they were here now or not, they might have left something unpleasant.
She agreed with Aulus' comments; whyever it was here, whether due to Mesprit or because they'd left it for some other reason, it was unlikely, just due to Sod's Law, if anything, to be a good thing for them.

"Um. " She was pretty glad for the training they'd been doing now, though still hoping she'd not have a need to use it. "The... target did just try to kill us. It was captured by Galactic before. I don't think it unlikely, maybe, that it could have... eliminated something it saw as a threat? Like we are now..." She was unsure of the timescale though; had it been here before they'd spotted it, just unseen to Team Rocket until now? "Perhaps it came from another underground area... and was pushed here by the drilling?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"I wouldn't know how to work it, I'm just the muscle." Aulus, with his clear cut British accent, took refuge in snark and snap. He hated that Xander had noticed his weakness and couldn't yet bring himself to look at the young man he considered a friend. He was tough. He should be alright with this. His whole image was based on being as tough as or tougher than anyone else but it was full of cracks now and at least one person here knew it was a lie, knew he was weak where it really mattered.

Aulus flexed his shoulders and handed his flashlight up to Paul before pressing the button that extended his staff and spinning it casually over his hand a few times. Look at him! Look! He still had value, he could do things they couldn't so even if he was weak they would want him around, they would need him around so they couldn't reject him and leave him here ********, he really was pathetic.

"I'll take a look behind it," he went on, with consonants that could cut steel because that twang in his voice made him feel safer too. He set off with Tortie beside him, staff in hand and Paul gripping the flashlight. Whatever was back there couldn't possibly be worse than letting his comrades thing he was too afraid to strike out alone.  

[LexThetaSigma]

"It's going to be alright," Rory muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Tambrey to hear him. Harvard had said the thing had been abandoned, and if the target was as bent on hurting them, he could only imagine what it had done to its previous captors if it saw them.

Rory took a step back after giving her shoulder a soft squeeze and turning his attention to the agents. "Maybe I could try to take a look? At least figure out if it still runs? There's got to be an on-switch or something to see if its still got some juice."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Seeing the Galactic drill had the same kind of feeling that he was used to when ever he used to see rival gang's tags on the wall. feeling the tightness in his chest that put him on the defensive.
It was their good fortune though that so far there were not Galactis in sight, and the vehicle looked abandoned.

He hung back behind the others as they checked it out, keeping an eye around the cave to make sure that nothing could be sneaking up on them, when it came down to helping with the tech, or scouting the aria, well. he knew what he would be doing.

With the two pokemon he had out, he made his way around the check out the aria.  

[Natsuko-neko]

Xander just shrugged off the snap in Aulus' words and offered a small apologetic smile even if he wasn't looking. He wasn't completely sure what he did wrong but it was clear he didn't help the other man. He looked around at the group again, remembering what fields they were in and held back a sigh. "That's alright Rory, I'll take a look at the drill." He said with a slight strained note to his tone. He really didn't want to mess with something made by Galactic's but it would be better if Rory stuck with Tambrey.

"Come on Conrad." The agent then walked over to the drill and climbed up to get to the controls. He took a seat on the dusty chair after checking it over and studied the controls.  

[Rocket Agent Tambrey]

In the flashlit gloom, Tambrey flashed a smile, nervous, but attempting to seem reassured and reassuring herself to Rory as she heard him and felt his hand on her shoulder.
"It... It will." She agreed. If Galactic wasn't actually here, then all they had to worry about was that little pink and grey streak. They should be ready for such a task.
"Um. We should help check out the surroundings too... Um, okay. So. Au-Uh. Agent Aulus has over there covered... We should walk about a few paces that way..." She watched Xander go, the former part, with a flashlight point directed some paces from the machine, for Rory, before she paused and frowned a bit.
Dealing with a rogue pokémon...
"How's your shoulder?" Worry, yes, but after dashing from falling spike-rocks, getting a few minor scratches that she could feel, she felt it was justified.

Meanwhile, Treestar had understood 'secure the area' and was doing his best impression of a guard's march just a little way away, up and down, up and down, where the flashlight had been pointed, while he waited for the humans.  

[LexThetaSigma]

Rory caught the look in Xander's eyes and gave him a brief nod in acknowledgement before motioning to Jace to come back to his side.

"We should," he agreed with Tambrey and pulled the small flashlight from his pocket. "Jace, help Treestar out but don't get too far away. We don't know what's out there."

With the instructions given, the grunt turned back to Tambrey as he started walking in the direction she suggested. "My shoulder's fine," he answered as he focused on shining the light ahead of them. "You okay?"

Jace walked over to the area that the tiny Chikorita was pacing in and cocked his head to the side curiously. With a shrug he fell in step with Treestar, however walking in the opposite direction.  

[TRHQ Harvard]

Only a pile of rocky debris was located behind the machine. It looked like it had been more or less parked there along the side of the tunnel, only by someone with very poor parallel parking skills.

"Those other tunnels back in the cavern. Some of those looked a little too rounded to be natural," Harvard responded to Tambrey. With her back to the group, she didn't see Xander climbing the machine. "We'll send in other teams to investigate those later. For this mission, we'll stick to our objectives and keep moving down this one after the target."

She finished speaking about the same time as Xander sat in front of the disappointingly normal looking controls. As pressure was applied to the seat, something clicked below the cushions. A series of high pitched beeps could be heard by all for a few brief seconds, too short a time for anyone to react, and something whirred to life. With the way the acoustics of the tunnel worked, the noise could be coming from anywhere or everywhere.

Overhead, lights strung along the ceiling began to light up in a wave, leading deeper down into the tunnel. Harvard spun to train her gun sights on one that burst in a shower of sparks. She lowered the weapon when the lack of a threat from a burned bulb was confirmed, and looked around and down the tunnel. Huh. Looked like they just had their lighting problem solved.  

[TawnyAngel]

When the machine sprang to life Aulus' thoughts were not so much thoughts as a string of exclamation points and disembodied cusses. Once it became clear that he was not under attack and that there was nothing in the area he had gone to poke at he strode back over to the main group. "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed. "What was that about?... Hu, looks like somebody go it working?" And a string of lights going off down a tunnel too.

"While I'm going to assume we're heading on, I do have a thought?" he drawled, retracting his staff now and putting it back on his belt. "Galactic was here, and they bothered putting up lights. Either Mesprit is here and they were hunting it too, or they were looking for something else and had to abandon the operation. It's worth keeping our eyes peeled for something other than our target if you ask me, it could be valuable, deadly or both."  

[Natsuko-neko]

Xander froze when the beeping started, not even daring to breathe, face paling. He only relaxed and started breathing again when it was clear the lights just turned on. "Everyone alright?" He asked and Conrad pressed against his leg as he calmed down. He was very hesitant to touch anything else just yet.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Jerome, Boss and Bro both looked up when the lights came on, giving Jerome and Boss more to see. While Bro' well, it never made a difference to him, dark- light, whatever.

Crouching down near a pile of rockets, and staring down the makeshift tunnel, Jerome turned his attention to Aulus when he voiced a very good point.
"Sounds legit t'me." He grunted in agreement,
This mission went from being pretty straight forward to pretty complicated. who knew what they would run into now.  

[Rocket Agent Tambrey]

"I'm fi- frak!" That word was getting a lot of use tonight, even Tambrey was beginning to notice. The lights that flickered on following the beeping revealed a rather paled, wide-eyed grunt, tensed and clearly expecting something like an explosion.
That none came was a relief but her body remained on edge. Her hand had, momentarily, tried to seek out Rory's.

Treestar gave Jace a salute with his leaf as his 'comrade' joined him, before resuming his march, only to stop mid-step as the beeping noise brought lights with it. Well, now he needed direction. He turned a concerned, confused face toward his trainer, but received nothing helpful yet.

"The lights... That is a really good point..." Tambrey muttered, agreeing with Aulus as well. "There was something... worth putting a whole lighting system in down here for... They expected to be tunneling for a while..."