[PRP] Partner Counseling

[Suudonym]

"If I could segue for a second," Lucas said when Izaya had finished speaking, "I'd like you to give me the name of the Rocket that sold you your Mega Stone after we're done here. If they didn't give you a key stone, they're obviously ripping people off, and I'm sure our little organization here wouldn't appreciate individuals pocketing cash that should be going to the bank.

"Anyway," he folded his arms loosely in a gesture of careful thought, "I think I can imagine how Faleen could have taken your explanation as an excuse. It sounds to me like she wanted you to explore your options using trial and error so she would know that you were willing to make an effort. So when you dug in your heels and said 'I don't know what to do,' she wound up interpreting it as 'I don't want to try anything.' I can perfectly understanding not wanting to risk doing something that you don't know about when you might screw it up and end up feeling stupid, but Faleen asked you to try without worrying about failure, y'know? Just so she could see that you cared and were really, genuinely willing to give it a shot."

He turned to Faleen, "I don't mean to put words in your mouth, though. Would you have helped Izaya figure it out once you thought he'd given it a good, honest effort? Or were you wanting him to go at it indefinitely until he successfully got his pokemon to mega evolve?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen managed to stifle a sigh, though the gesture didn’t go without reaction as Izaya explained his side, one she had already heard before and was still bothered her.
Still, she made no comment during his own interpretation, and only moved to speak when Lucas turned his attention to her and asked her about her intentions.
“He would not have succeeded.” She replied with and air of complete certainly, “Even when he found the proper way to use the megastone, his relationship with his pokemon is non-existent. There is no reason someone cannot learn how a mega stone works, had he failed that… and he did, it would be failing a basic critical thinking function that is a bare minimum requirement in all our Trainees.”
She dipped her head a little though “Once he learned the beginnings, then I had every intention of assisting him in training, gladly so, in the hopes that he would be able to start taking more of a persona initiative.”  

[Suudonym]

Lucas nodded his understanding of the situation as it was presented to him. "Okay, so the way I'm seeing it," he said, "both of you could have done things a little differently. Izaya, Faleen asked you to try without worrying about failure, so naturally, giving up didn't make a good impression with her about how hard you're willing to work. Faleen, Izaya might have been a little more cooperative if you'd told him at the beginning that there wasn't any way for him to succeed and you just wanted to evaluate how he went about searching for a solution. However, Izaya-" He raised a finger pointedly in emphasis. "You know the situation you're in right now. Even if you feel like you're being set up for failure or being treated unfairly or whatever else, you're not really in a position to argue and fight with your supervising agent. I mean, I don't wanna be like 'shut up and follow orders' or anything, but you do realize that your life is on the line, right? And that the person who decides whether you live or die is," he gestured a hand to Faleen, "this person right here?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Nodding silently at Lucas' request for the Rocket's name who sold him the Absolite, he wondered absently if said Rocket had cheated him or simply assumed he'd already had his own Key Stone. Either way, they probably should have at least asked.

"I'm afraid there were a couple of things that prevented me from performing as hoped this time around," he answered. "The first was that I didn't get the impression that Agent Faleen was 'asking me to try without worrying about failure'. I believe the closest she said to that affect was 'mistakes will not be frowned upon, but not even trying will'. That didn't sound to me like a guarantee that I had full reign to do as I pleased. All I felt was a whole lot of pressure to do something, though I had no clue what. I didn't want to do the wrong thing by accident.

"'Feeling stupid' wasn't the fear that hindered me. It was the fact that you mentioned I was already treading water, so how could I assume acts of trial and error would be safe to try?" He shook his head. "I know she asked me to try, and I did, but I'm still not sure to what extent she expected me to fool around, especially knowing I wouldn't be able to do as she asked. That's why I was afraid to do too much."

"Regarding trying, I honestly had no clue what to do. I thought it was supposed to work like stone evolutions where you just have the stone near the pokemon. When that didn't work, I thought maybe Faleen's gadget had something to do with it. Denied that, though, and convinced the device was a critical requirement in the process I was asked to figure out, what more could I have done? Obviously I was missing my own device thing and I didn't have one, so what should I have done? Please, I'd really like to know."

He held out his arms in exasperation. "Thrown the Absolite at my pokemon? Had him eat it? Thrown it at Faleen? Tried to get my pokemon to get that device off her? Surely that would have been 'frowned upon'. What if she'd gotten hurt? What if I'd gotten hurt? I've taken enough initiative and chances during my time here to show I make bad decisions on my own, haven't I? I'd much rather be told what to do while in hot water. At least then I'd know what I shouldn't be doing."

Izaya looked at Faleen. "You said failing to learn how a mega stone works would be failing a critical thinking function that is a bare minimum requirement in all our trainees. As the only Rocket I'm aware of who had to go through the trainee program twice, I can tell you mega stones were not a part of that regimen, nor was being told to figure out how they worked without a single clue. In my experience, that's not critical thinking; that's expecting a miracle.

"You don't give a hammer to a child known to cause destruction and tell them to figure out how to use it to repair a fence without giving them a nail, do you? It just doesn't make sense. And if you tell them to just 'try', isn't it natural to expect they're likely to cause some harm? Without a nail to hit, isn't it likely they'd turn to damaging the fence instead, or themselves or other people, and just get into deeper trouble?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

"With all due respect." Faleen said, though directed to Lucas "I was very clear what I expected, it was nothing more then is asked of any of us when we are out on a training mission, when we're training our Pokemon or ourselves on our own. I'm confused as to why wording is being picked apart when it meant the same thing to begin with."

She looked over to Izaya "After three years, you should know my training methods better then that. I've spent extended time training a pokemon who's only intent was to eat me whenever I was in proximity, do you honestly think that after years of nonjudgmental treatment and patience toward you I would bat an eye when during a training situation something went wrong? That's one of the parts of training, to learn from mistakes and improve on them in an environment where it is safe to do so."
She frowned at Izaya "This again goes to show how little you cared about this partnership, if you still don't know how anything about me. Again leading me to the conclusion that I was the only one who actually tried to make any of this work."

"When I started out with robotics I didn't even have a hammer, I had to read the manual." She added with a mild bitterness in her level tone "As an informant that was the least I expected for you to be able to do."

Faleen let out a silent breath, the movement of her shoulders being the only give away that she had just sighed, bringing one hand up to open her fingers. "It is becoming a waist of my time to try and argue with Grunt Izaya over this every time I ask him to do something that is fundamentally basic."  

[Suudonym]

Lucas regarded the pair, silent and pensive as they both spoke, and raised a hand idly to adjust his glasses on his face. "What it sounds like to me," he said, "is that your ways of thinking are incompatible and irreconcilable. And from the way this discussion has gone, I'm not seeing that your continuing to work together is going to do anything but produce more and more frustration. At this point, my recommendation would be that you sever your partnership, but that's not my decision - it's yours, Faleen." He nodded slightly to the agent to address her individually. "What do you feel is best right now? Do you feel confident that things will improve in the near future?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen remained silent for a long time after the question was presented to her. It was a moment that she had to give careful consideration, becasue this was a response that had consequences. Not so much to her, but to someone else, someone else life, their future or lack of.

After a while she glanced once at Izaya, then looked back to Lucas. "Speaking for the good of the organization, I am officially reporting that I believe Izaya to be a liability in many ways, not just to the Team, but to himself, his Pokemon and those he works with, There is nothing more I can do with this partnership, and request a resignation from this assignment, I can have a full report to you by this evening if you so wish sir."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Izaya seethed and fumed silently, but he knew it was pointless to argue further. Lucas was right - their ways of thinking were just too different. He had no idea what she was talking about and he was pretty sure she wasn't picking up on his own meanings.

She still hadn't, for example, told him what he should have done, despite his repetition of the question, so how could he understand what she would have done in his situation? He believed his fear of death had, in no way, signaled an indifference of their partnership, so clearly she didn't understand him. With no proper giving or taking of accurate communication, naturally it was bound to fail.

There is no environment where it's safe, he thought bitterly at her comment. Not if you're a Rocket, evidently. She trained pokemon, not him after all. He didn't know why she expected him to know her training methods, especially when he had little knowledge in such things. It wasn't as if he studied the tone with which she spoke each command or gestured to her pokemon.

As for her, what did she mean it meant the same thing? To someone who used his tongue to make a living and continue living, of course it didn't mean the same thing! Wording was everything. Wording could mean the difference between healing a person or breaking them. But after three years, why would he expect her to realize that? How silly of him.

Read the manual?! He groaned inwardly. More proof that none of this was translating well from Izaya meaning to Faleen meaning. There isn't any manual in hammering! And this is a metaphor, not literal! You can't parallel it with your robotics that way. Besides, I didn't even have a manual to work with; just a rock and a pokemon...

Mental voice screaming with the injustice of it all, Izaya took a deep breath and calmed himself. Why had he ever expected them to be just? Team Rocket was comprised of his beloved humans, yes, but they were also a criminal organization. Wasn't that part of what made them so interesting?

"You wanted me to try. I tried," he said softly, head down and staring at the ground with his fists at his side. It was unclear if he was referring to Faleen's expectations of him regarding the mega evolution or redeeming himself as her partner after he'd been given another chance. "I did my best. If that's not enough for you, then I'm sorry. There's nothing more I can do."

Somehow, despite his resolve not to be attached to anyone, Izaya couldn't help but feel a bit abandoned deep down inside. He'd thought he'd gotten over that sensation after that whole thing with Jerome, but it seemed it had returned. If you're the one who's trying to make this work, why are you giving up on me? a small voice whispered.

A larger, more dominant part of him answered, This was bound to happen. Sooner or later, everyone gets fed up with me. Isn't that how I've always arranged it? Isn't that how I've survived this long without emotional pain or heartache?

Well, good luck surviving now, emotional pain or no, his conscious self said, silencing both other voices. None of it matters anymore.

Head still down, the grunt continued to stare at the floor of the office in silence, awaiting his fate.  

[Suudonym]

Lucas's eyes lingered on some papers on his desk for a while, though whether it was because he was studying their contents or because it was a convenient excuse not to look either of the Rockets in the eye was anyone's guess. At length, he exhaled slowly and silently, and when he spoke, it was with a heavy tone, "Understood, Faleen, thank you. Izaya," he addressed the grunt no less solemnly, "following HR's review of Faleen's report, you can expect to be relieved of your status of a member of Team Rocket, along with all guarantee the organization offers on your life." He took his pokedex into hand and tapped away at the screen, inputting a message. "Security will be here shortly to escort you to detainment where you'll stay at least until the final verdict on your situation. Faleen, ordinarily this is where I would dismiss you, but as long as you're here, would you mind sticking around to go over the details on an upcoming project? If you were in the middle of something, I can just email you instead."  

[Blood_Goddess]

'thank you' It was a passing comment given after her final verdict, she understood the context it was used, but she couldn't help but feel strange hearing it.
Thank you? Thank you for condemning your partner, thank you for failing, for being unable to hold out patience and skill to help someone.
Logically she knew there wasn't anything more she could do, she knew that nothing would change even if she did keep trying, and that was something she wouldn't deny in herself, or to others. That didn't mean it didn't leave a bad taste in her mouth, but duty always outweigh desire. It did with Lance, it did with Umbreon, and it did with Izaya. She trusted him for a time not to turn out like the others... and in the end he still did.

As Lucas spoke to her again, hazel eyes lifted up from the ground to the Elite, her posture strengthening back up from where her shoulders had been steadily drooping. "Not at all, Sir." There was a slight incline of her head of interest and curiosity as to what kind of project he was talking about  

[Suudonym]

"'Preciate it," Lucas replied with a nod.

Rather than brazenly begin discussing the details of a high-profile engineering assignment in front of someone who had just been declared a danger to the organization, the elite waited the few moments it took for someone from security to respond to his summons. The person who arrived, a young man in grunt attire, nodded curtly and respectfully to Faleen and Lucas before turning to Izaya and gesturing to the door, "Izaya Orihara, 5481-1288. Please step this way." Though voiced as a request, his words were not spoken in way that would lead one to believe that they presented an option.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

In the time it took for security to reach Lucas' office, Izaya had recomposed himself and his expression into a mask of impassiveness. He did as he was told and exited the room calmly without a glance back.  

[Suudonym]

Since Lucas had already explained the status of the situation, the security grunt didn't waste words going over it again and silently led Izaya to the Rocket detention facilities. The projectile-type taser clearly visible at his waist strongly discouraged any daring antics.

Left to speak with Faleen privately, Lucas, wearing a facade professional enough that few would suspect he had just stripped a man of his right to live, shifted his computer mouse to wake the monitor and pulled up an email that he had read earlier. "So this project," he began, "intelligence had this sort of vague idea for another way to get information without having to plant Rockets or infiltrate buildings. It builds on your brain chip work but is simultaneously less advanced and more involved. The higher-ups have already puzzled out most of the general idea of how it should work, but naturally they're leaving engineering with the heavy lifting of actually putting it together and making it work."

He turned the screen to show Faleen a rough schematic outlining the technology, "What makes this different from the brain chip is that it leaves the subject's free will, emotions, and overall personality completely intact, but it also prevents them from doing things that we don't like. There are two main components to the physical tech," he gestured to them respectively, "the artificial eye fitted with a camera - much like what you're familiar with from the pokemon security tech - and the sort of control hub, for lack of better word, that sits beside the heart. The main function of the hub is to react to disobedience, and it has two ways of doing so: sending a signal through the nervous system that immediately renders the subject unconscious and delivering a fatal injection straight into the heart to kill the subject just about instantly.

"More importantly," the elite continued, "they want this hub loaded up with a Porygon programmed in a very specific way. The Porygon is supposed to take information from the subject's body and from the camera in the eye and send it to a Metagross that stays at the base. The Metagross interprets the data it receives and compares it to what it knows about what the subject is supposed to be doing - for example, if we fit a... I dunno, a police officer with this thing and gave them the directive that they were to free an arrested Rocket, the Metagross would know that. And so the Metagross monitors the information the Porygon sends it about the officer, and if the officer is about to do something that will endanger their assignment, the Metagross tells the Porygon what to do. Say the officer can't live with himself and tries to commit suicide; the Metagross tells the Porygon to use the device's 'disable' command, and the Porygon triggers the device to knock the officer unconscious. Or, say the officer is writing a note to a coworker to let them know what's going on; the Porygon sends the Metagross data from the camera and the Metagross recognizes it as an act of treason and issues the 'dispatch' command, telling the Porygon to administer the lethal injection. And, ideally, it's all instantaneous, so the device and its system can react to a situation in realtime.

"The idea behind integrating pokemon into this system is that Metagross's organic intelligence will allow it to react appropriately to a wider array of situations than a programmed intelligence might. Like, if a certain subject's directive involves not going to Sagestone and there's a certain set of coordinates that if a subject goes into them, they're in a kill zone. But, maybe something outside of their control happens and they have no choice but to enter that kill zone. The Metagross would be able to understand that it's an extenuating circumstance and allow it."

He gestured lightly with his palms, "Naturally, we'd manufacture a Metagross specifically for this responsibility and put it through strict training, and during the testing period it would be monitored closely by people and programs to make sure it's functioning within expectations. But that's the basic idea of it. Because the device is sort of building on your work with the brain chip, I thought it'd be the perfect project for your team, if you're interested."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen remained silent as some guards came in, nodding her head politely in greeting as she was greeted, but otherwise not moving or saying anything as Izaya, who wasn't putting up a fight left with them.
As soon as he left she took a light breath, though managed to somehow look more tired then she had when she entered.

The Elite's topic change was not ignored though, not in the least. He had mentioned a project, and of course that would spark her interest.
Stepping forward to take a look at the plans that Lucas had pulled up, the blond left her eyes glued on the screen, studying it as he explained its purpose. Already she could see ideas and feel inspiration sparking.

"Interesting... and doable of course." She said. "Though I do have a question. In the event the subject is terminated, what would the higher ups intend to happen to the chip, if it falls in the hands of someone other then Rocket in case of an autopsy or scan, I also imagine they would want to implement a connection to allow to Porygon to upload himself back to the base in case of a termination?"  

[Suudonym]

Lucas nodded, "Yes, that would be one contingency plan. Maybe we also set up the Porygon to destroy all of the device's programming following a subject's termination. That way if we fail to retrieve the body before it's investigated, there won't be much for other organizations to find except that the person had had some kind of machine surgically implanted - just a shell with none of the stuff that makes it work. Naturally I'm sure they'd want to connect it to Team Rocket anyway, but even so they wouldn't have any evidence supporting the connection, and they wouldn't really be able to do anything about it."