[FIN] I'm Sorry I Have To Do This

[Blood_Goddess]

After the Rockets who had been taken prisoner had been returned, The recovery team had taken them to one of the bunkers, where they were then put through a questioning in the attempt to find the Rocket who had leaked information to the League.
Faleen was not a part of that team, questioning people was not her forte, and instead she was returned to Ambergris.

It was a long week, Faleen had requested she be kept informed when it involved her partner, as she had some semblance of a right to that.
During that time she had heard nothing, no new news, and no result, not until she got a notice that the Rockets were being released back into base. Izaya included.

Faleen stood at ground level, where the vehicles were kept. the dusty warehouse sill looking as abandoned as ever to keep up appearances, though if only they knew what was happening feet below.
She had been told to expect the assigned team to return to the outpost at this time, her partner included, and as promiced the doors opened and a vehicle drove in carrying a number of Rockets.

Unfolding her hands from behind her back Faleen took a couple of steps toward the vehicles as she waited for the occupants to disembark, looking for one in particular.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Izaya was not the first one out. When he emerged, he seemed to be in a thoughtful state and not at all expecting his partner to be there waiting. He didn't appear much less fatigued than he had at the exchange with the League, but he seemed to have at least put on a little more weight closer to what he'd been before his initial capture. The bags under his eyes still remained.

When he finally noticed her, he was a mere yard away. He looked up and it took a moment longer than usual for his gaze to focus on Faleen, his mind obviously coming back from somewhere far away. Perhaps to the moment when a previous traitor to Team Rocket had been shot. His familiar emotion-concealing smile sprung to his lips.

"Hello, Faleen-chan. Long time no see."  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Izaya." Faleen acknowledged with a curt nod as she strode easily over to him. "That it has, good to see you are back on active duty."

Faleen was usually one for the professionalism, as was the case as she remained as to the point with the return of her partner.
There was something more distant about the way she addressing him this time, within herself a hesitance as she had thing to tell him, yet was still working out the details of how to properly approach this.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"As sentimental as ever, I see," he chuckled, though the sound was mirthless and he didn't meet her eye. "Thanks for coming to meet me." After how he'd left her at the PokéCon, he wouldn't have been surprised if she chose to never talk to him again. Surely she hadn't forgotten that.

And yet...he'd underestimated her before in terms of concealing her emotions. Perhaps she really was still furious with him deep down and simply didn't voice or show it because it wasn't professional. Who could say, really? Maybe she was more like Frost than he'd originally thought, and more than just because of their love of working with mechanical, non-human devices, robots, tools, and technology.

The slightly more distant aspect of her demeanor didn't go unnoticed. The grunt's smile slowly reverted to a neutral line. "To what do I owe the honor of having an agent here to greet me?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

a typical comment from Izaya, showing he was still his usual self, of at least attempting to be. there was a look to him that seemed much different from how he usually carried himself.
The first comment went unresponded, while the second caused her to arch her eyebrows lightly.
"I am your partner" She pointed out "certainly its not that surprising." though as she shifted a boot to the side and places her hands behind her back once more.
"that's not to say we have things to discuss, though I imagine you could use something to eat." She couldn't imagine he was mistreated during the Rocket's questioning, but it was probably a very tedious experience.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"So you still are, are you?" he said, cocking his head slightly. "I might have thought you would've asked to be reassigned by now. Or did you do that already and get denied?"

Raising a hand as she mentioned him eating, he shook his head. "Not hungry. Let's get right to the chase, shall we?" Bowing slightly at the waist, he gestured outward with his arm and an empty half-smile. "After you."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen paused for a moment, shifting her stance once again to fully face him
"I'm glad you seem to have some inkling of what your actions might have resulted in. but as you can see, obviously I have not."

At his gesture she nodded and took the lead, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he was following.
"I'm going to assume you have had time to reflect while you were away?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"It's not enough to know what 'might have resulted' if I don't know what did or didn't and why," he answered, indirectly asking an explanation. Perhaps she would give him one once they got to wherever they were going, so he followed her without question.

"Oh, no, I was just up most nights counting the cracks on the walls and trying to figure out what pokemon certain shadows look like," he answered cheekily, "Because really, those are the things my life depend on."  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Resulting in me asking you to be removed as my partner." She explained for what the result would be, as she didn't make it very clear.

She paused at a door in the hall, having gone down a couple of stories. resting a gloved hand on the door handle she yanked the door hard, as it seemed to be heavy and from lack of use grow quite stuck to its frame at times.
"Well, then maybe our discussion will give you something to reflect on then," she said and made a gesture into the room. "Come in, and please sit down. We have some things to discuss."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"Well yes, but I still don't know the 'why' part. And another result is that I'm not dead, because if that had happened, you'd have had to disown me as your partner."

He examined their surroundings curiously as they went, observing as she pulled open the heavy, seldom-used door. "Maybe," he agreed, giving her and the room a somewhat skeptical look before doing as he was told.  

[Blood_Goddess]

The room didn't look nearly as intimidating as it could have been, if anything it just looked like a little work station, equip with a table, some chairs and even a coffee maker and mini fridge sitting on one side of the room by the counters.
The random trinkets and half built devices would lead to believe that it might be one of the tech's rooms.

"Well then we can acknowledge that you are not dead and you are not disowned as my partner. Please take a seat, or not if you like."

She too made her way into the room, closing the door behind them and walking over to stand by the table.
"First, I think we need to have a conversation about the convention mission, and the results. Though I'm going to start with this; Would you care to explain why you wandered off, while I told you to stay with me?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

With a small sigh, the grunt sat in a chair and faced the agent. "Not really," he murmured, suddenly seeming very interested in one of the devices in progress as he focused his gaze on it instead of Faleen. "But I have to say something, I guess it might as well be this: I had many reasons for purposefully getting arrested. One was that I was sick of being couped up at the base and I wasn't about to go back there when it'd been confirmed that we were recognized because that would have secured my confinement. After just having been released from the term I'd spent being grounded, if I was going to be imprisoned, I figured it might as well be some place new."

"Another was that I thought I could learn more about what they knew of us. I did find something interesting, actually, but it was more of an observation than anything else." He thought of the the woman who'd interrogated him. Dora Harrison. "And, surprisingly, I even acquired a few unexpected visitors - one of whom happened to be your very own sister. Though I think she was just as surprised to see me as I was her," he admitted with a half-hearted chuckle.

"In addition to those, there's the fact that I guessed something like this would happen since last year at that party. I tried to tell the higher-ups, but no one would heed a mere grunt. Why should they? Even if they did have something up their sleeve, they didn't bother to tell me, which would have been nice to know while I began to question if my life was in danger. And unlike most of you, I'm not comfortable with blindly putting my faith a criminal organization that would dispose of people as soon as they would a used tissue." His voice and gaze hardened slightly then, but he seemed to realize this as he slowly calmed himself.

"Why should I have owed them anything? If they weren't going to bother addressing a member's legitimate concerns - grunt or not - I didn't see any benefit to staying. I agreed to joining Team Rocket partly because I believed in their ability to keep a low profile and remain under the law's radar. All that changed when the League showed up. The big red 'R' could no longer guarantee the saftey I required."

"I mean, turned out the League couldn't either, could they?" he continued, finally meeting her hazel eyes. "But that's not the point. The point is that I'm not about to stand by and let those higher up the ladder do whatever they like while I'm down below in the dark." Izaya poked at the table top with a finger as he spoke, emphasizing his point. "I'm an informant. It's my job to know things and I don't like it when information is kept from me."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen remained very silent for a long time after Izaya explained his reasoning for being arrested, her expression just as still though her face was starting to flush a little.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” She admitted after a while “Admittedly… I am, though it’s my own fault for giving you more credit than that.”

Faleen walked over to stand across the table from him “You felt the need to not only disobey orders, and put our fellow Rockets in jeopardy, and not include your own partner into this plan, because you were bored? Am I understanding this correctly?”
She didn’t give him time to answer “We lost most of the team to the League, when if you would have stuck with me, we could have gotten more out, and maybe, just maybe if my partner had had my back, maybe I would not have had months of recovery time setting back my work.”
Again she cut him off if he tried to speak, with a firm, but level voice, not sounding the least bit impressed with his concerns and reasoning.

“You honestly think that the Rockets don’t know? You honestly think that we don’t have a reach in whats going on and how to deal with it? Our job, is not to question what our organization knows or does not know based on what they do or do not tell you.
We do as we’re told, to retrieve the information that the higher ups need to form their job. The only reason I took you on that mission was because I though you would be good for it, instead, you helped make a mess of it, and now, we’re living in a rusty hold in the group because of what information the League got from one of us.
You don’t stop to consider that with the resources not just in money but in man power that we have that we don’t already know whats going on out there? You’re not the only informant that team Rocket has, and as of right now you’re nowhere near the most efficient, so don’t put yourself on a pedestal, you’re still just a grunt, and you’re still just a grunt for a reason."

Her hands were place gently and slowly onto the cool metal table as she leaned forward slightly, not once taking her level gaze off of Izaya.
"Maybe you should have done a little more research into what we actually are, instead of just assuming that you can use us as a hideout. That, is your mistake, but no one else but you got yourself into this situation, and what you're going to make of it, becasue I can honestly only help you so far Izaya."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The flushing of Faleen's face was unexpected and Izaya wasn't sure what to make of it, so he didn't comment on it. Was she trying to make him feel guilty? It was hard to tell.

He was about to answer her when she cut him off. Eventually he realized she didn't want to hear it. Sighing again, he shook his head as she continued. Don't ask me questions if you don't want to take the time to listen to the answers. Lost most of the team? He doubted the higher-ups cared. Gotten more out? Also doubtful. it sure seemed like an 'every man for himself' sort of situation in there when all hell broke lose.

What work? he questioned mentally, his crimson eyes narrowing at the table top. Lance, you mean? Oh, I'm sure. If I'd been executed, I'm sure it would have been just another set-back as well. Nothing a few more months of work couldn't fix...

The grunt remained silent until his higher-ranking partner was finished. It wasn't until she was leaning forward on the table and staring him straight in the face that he began to reply to all the questions she had previously asked. He didn't seem to care that they had likely been rhetorical; he had been asked them and he was determined to answer.

"It's not that the Rockets don't know," he said evenly. "It's that not all the Rockets know. You're a robotisist; think of it this way. How can we be a team and function as one if the head doesn't mind cutting off limbs to save itself?" Putting his hand to his temples, Izaya closed his eyes as he massaged them. It was a few minutes before he spoke again.

"...Aila Christelle de Valois was one of the few Rockets who believed in teamwork," he began. "Real teamwork - an agent who sacrificed herself for a mere grunt. Kunai didn't understand it and likely neither did Asch, but Aila actually tried to have us function as a team. Most other agents would have never put themselves at risk for the sake of an underling. It isn't even a matter of self-preservation because they likely would have changed their mind if it was some higher-up they had to save instead."

"Don't you see what's happened, Agent Faleen?" he asked. "Do you know why Team Rocket fell? Because we're weak. There's no trust. Not from me, not from the organization, not from anyone. It's really no wonder we fell apart. If the Rockets hadn't been given up this time, it was still bound to happen eventually. We can't work as a team if there isn't full communication between all the working parts. You're a smart young woman; you should know this. It's not a one-way street."

There was none of his usual humor in his voice nor playfulness in his demeanor. There wasn't even a smile on his face; emotionless or otherwise. "What you do, Agent, is you only deal with the situation as you have it and obey orders as given them. Maybe if you stopped to question things once in a while instead of just obediently doing whatever you're told, you could have kept disasters like this from ever happening in the first place. Forget saving one or two extra Rockets - we could have all gone free. The League would never have had any reason to even suspect us if communication and information weren't so restricted among our own team members."

"So no, to answer your question, I didn't disobey you just because I was bored," he clarified, dropping his hand from his temples and staring absently down at the table. "I felt trapped and I needed a way out. I did it because I had reason to question if my life was in danger and I needed some time to sort it out and think it through. Away from the very organization that I believe endangered it in the first place." He raised his gaze to her face. "But what would you know about fearing for your life? You'd probably throw it away in a second if it was for the sake of your precious Team Rocket."

He put his head in his hands, appearing exhausted as he ran his fingers through his unwashed, disheveled black hair. "You think I should have done more research? Obviously I would if I could have, but you should know better than most that it wasn't possible for me to find out about this place and how the organization worked until I joined and got inside information. All I knew was it was a very secretive criminal organization that was supposedly very successful in what they did. What I didn't realize was that the 'team' part of their name was a misnomer and a joke because among these people, there is no such thing."

"If I had known how ridiculously out of sync and unprofessional you all were with your various members, I'm not sure I'd still have joined. Still, Aila believed in Team Rocket and that was all I had needed to make my decision. She believed in me, too, and now she's dead because of it and everything else she believed in, including the idealistic notion that Team Rocket could function as a team. In fact, I'd say that's what killed her."

"I may just be a grunt and I may not take orders very well, but I am very, very good at surviving. That's all I've ever needed to be good at. That's why I've stayed alive this long - with the one exception of that one mission where we returned with one less living Rocket." He took a deep breath. "I didn't used to believe in teamwork. It used to be that I only had to rely on myself. It took Aila shielding me and enduring the impalement of lethal shrapnel to show me that relying on just myself isn't as practical in Team Rocket." I was then he allowed himself a faint, bitter, half-hearted smirk. "...What's the saying? 'There is no 'I' in team'?"

"It took her death to teach me that teamwork has to be mutual in order to function as it's supposed to. She had my back, but who had hers? If everyone just looks out for themselves, everyone will be equally vulnerable and paranoid. Instead of the person next to them watching their backs, they have to worry about them stabbing their backs instead. What kind of foundation is that for an organization to build on? Even a criminal one?" He exhaled slowly. "There has to be trust, Agent Faleen. Otherwise the robot will never get back on its feet again and work the same way again. Not after the huge setback we just had."

A smart organization would use that setback as an opportunity to strengthen their ties with their remaining loyal members and make their re-build their team greater than ever before. Without trust, though, Izaya doubted it'd be possible. But what was he? Certainly not the boss. Not even an agent. Simply a grunt whose opinions were no more valued than a trainee who'd just finished two months of training. Perhaps they were valued even less than that.  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Okay stop-" Faleen said after allowing him to continue on for a time "Are you listening to yourself? Izaya, please excuse my pointing out the obvious flaw in you're understanding, but since when are you qualified to give me a lecture about team work, and trust?"

Her hands remained on the table as she leaned forward slightly. "And for someone who makes it a point to study us." the women straightened up

"I am trusted to do my job; I do not expect the labs, or the field agents to understand or know what I'm doing, they trust me to fix things and keeping the machines working, I trust the security to keep the base safe and secure, I do not need to know how, or why, I trust field agents to be in fit condition, and to know how to respond in emergency missions and hold a certain prowess with their pokemon, I trust the transporters to keep us stocked and take our gear safely, I trust intell to get information we need, I trust the cooks to supply us with our meals, I trust the trainees potential, and I trust our boss to lead us to a financial growth and fund us. We trust each other to do our jobs and we respect the rank system. We trust the experience they have gained, and earned by serving the team to keep us alive on missions, we follow higher ranking orders becasue if we simply go do our own thing and ignore a commanding officer, the chances of failure are certain.
Disobeying and questioning can make a mission fall apart Izaya- "

Again her hands crossed behind her back "I do not need to question my ranking officers becasue I have never been let down by them, I am alive time and time again becasue they have prepared me to the best of their ability, I have watched them lead us through missions, through Volcanoes through enemy territories, facing the League and Legendary and each time their guidance along with the corporation of the team has seen us through to the best of our ability. The trust and value in the team is why you're sitting here right now and not in a cell in Camphoreon- think about that.
The system is not broken, and the trust in the team is never at question, what you should be questioning is you're own trust. Because where were you this last mission when you're partner needed you, the kind of trust that you should be worried about, where are you to question the expertise of another and judge them upon it, how are you able to sit there, and talk to me bout team work and trust when the only thing you've ever voiced having a concern about is your own skin"

Faleen's face formed a frown and she stepped forward "Aila was no different from any of us, she died for the team, and for the mission, she is respected as one of us and always will be. And if you're saying that Aila tough you team work, then you're not exactly showing a prime understanding of it."

With this Faleen moved to circle around the table, taking a seat and crossing her legs, looking over at Izaya. "You are as foolish as the League if you let them trick you into thinking we've fallen, if you think that a little setback like this is even remotely hampering to our progress."

She didn't agree with him in the slightest, and that much was very clear, she personally had no idea where he was getting these ideas, wondering instead if this was something that he got into his mind during his time locked up.

"Enough of this," She said, this following with a light frown "This isn't any I pulled you in here, and I would be happy to discuss this with you at a different time, but right now I have a duty to inform you that you've being placed on a final trial."