[FIN] A Case of Mistaken Identity

[BlackFireKitsune]

This place was huuuuge! It always amazed her just how much bigger it was compared to the outpost she'd started in back in Hoenn, though really she supposed it was to be expected. This was the headquarters, after all, so of course it would be this enormous. Still,, she couldn't help but be amazed by it at least a couple times a day. Eventually she'd become accustomed to it, but that time had yet to arrive, and so Candice strolled down the hallway after her shift had ended, her hair down and wearing her grunt uniform, admiring the various aspects of the base as she went. Of course, it would be nice if it were another color besides just plain steely metallic colors - something brighter would be nice. Like blue! Not that she was biased or anything, nope.  

[TawnyAngel]

Fresh from a training session with his team against another Agent, Aulus was heading up from training rooms to Floor B3 in search of something to eat. With Tortie padding along beside him he was somewhat lost in thought, planning the rest of the day and trying to remember which grunts he had volunteered to do some sessions with tomorrow. So it was that when he rounded the corner his mind wasn't exactly on the present, and thus when he saw a tumble of pale blue hair his logic centers didn't exactly get a look in.

With a sharp intake of breath he slipped back around the corner and pressed his back against the wall, heart suddenly racing with a jolt of adrenaline. Was he seeing things now? No, he could hear the woman's footsteps but how could she be here? Had it been-? It couldn't have been, right? She couldn't just have walked in here, couldn't have got past their security. Licking suddenly dry lips Aulus tried to persuade himself to look around the corner again; one way or another staying here wasn't going to do him any good at all.

Tortie, who had not dived back around the corner, came to a thoroughly confused halt. She had been aware of the female human since they'd come up the stairs; her footsteps were clear to hear in the echoing halls and her unfamiliar scent was fresh in the air. What had got into her trainer? Was this supposed to be a test or something? Not quite sure what else to do, Tortie decided to do nothing.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Candice paused mid-step at the gasp, but when she whipped around to see from whence it came, all she could see was... a pokemon. A pretty big one, at that. She frowned and raised a brow, not for a moment thinking the pokemon had gasped. Was someone else there? Huh... That was... really weird. Bemused frown still in place, the woman turned on her heel and began heading towards the pokemon - or, to be more precise, towards the person she knew had to be there.  

[TawnyAngel]

The footsteps were coming towards him and-

And Tortie was standing there perfectly relaxed. Aulus frowned, his own tension starting to ebb as logic cleared its throat and tapped him on the shoulder; Tortie wouldn't be relaxed if there was a threat nearby which meant.... Which meant he'd just made a complete tit of himself. Okay. Great. Right. s**t. How the hell was he going to get out of this one? Think fast!

Aulus fumbled his dex out of his pocket, flicked it open and pulled up his emails. Heart still racing he stepped around the corner and looked up as though he had just heard the footsteps approaching.

The woman was too short, her skin not pale enough and possessing freckles. Her eyes were not two cold black holes into oblivion, in fact they were a pleasant shade of pink. Her hair.... It made him uncomfortable to look at it which was ridiculous but it did. It wasn't anywhere near long or straight enough but the colour was close, unsettlingly close.

Tortie glanced from her trainer over to the unfamiliar woman and then back again. What had just happened there?  

[BlackFireKitsune]

As expected, there was indeed a person there, and as he rounded the corner she stopped and put her hands on her hips. Checking his dex - what had made him gasp like that though? If it had been him - but, there wasn't anyone else around, and the pokemon didn't count, so it had to have been him. He didn't look like he had much to gasp about though, given his overall appearance - scarred in a bunch of places, red eyes, spiky hair - actually his whole countenance spoke of spikiness, it seemed. "Everything okay there?" She asked with a brow raised still, looking at the man expectantly.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus contrived to put on one of his usual 'Well hello person I do not know, how lovely to meet you, yes I am obviously the most friendly person ever' scowls. "Fine," he replied sharply, not liking that raise of her brow at all because it meant she'd noticed his intake of breath. He shut his dex with a snap, adding; "Just a message." Let her make of that whatever she would... but please let her make something not too embarrassing of it. First impressions counted, he knew that well, and if he didn't make a good enough one then how was he ever going to get her to take him seriously? To respect him? On the other hand maybe he was being ridiculously paranoid, he usually was wasn't he? Seemed that way.

"Are you new? I haven't seen you around here before I don't think." Aulus added, knowing full well that he most certainly had not unless she'd dyed her hair because he would definitely have remembered. As he spoke he put his dex away and slid it back into his pocket so that he could reach down to scratch Tortie between the shoulder-blades; running his fingers through her thick mane was reassuring.

Tortie was still completely confused and strongly doubted that she was about to get an explanation so she accepted the scratch and looked up at the female human with faint suspicion.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Ohh, yep - he definitely did not look friendly at all, nope, not even a bit. Not even remotely. Huh. She couldn't help but wonder why he felt the need to be so unfriendly. She couldn't help but wonder what sort of message that had been. "Kay," she replied amicably, despite her curiosity and slight suspicion.

"Yep, I'm new - just transferred in just a couple weeks ago," she informed him cheerily, leaning back with a broad grin on her face. "I assume you're not new, then?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Okay? Okay. Right. So far so not as terrible as he had expected, she was letting it go. "No," he replied, relaxing just a fraction, "I've been here since the base opened and I've been on the island for coming up on four years now, sort of an old hand I suppose."

Old hand. Oh Gods. If he were around somebody he knew (knew and got on with) he would groan at that and either fill in another hand-related pun or wait for them to do so. He suspected it was all wearing a bit thin on them by now but the situation itself was wearing thin on him, so they could put up with it for a couple more months... or however long it ended up being.

"You're a transfer then?" Aulus continued rhetorically, mentally changing the subject that he hadn't actually voice to avoid going over old mopey territory again. "How long have you been with the Team?" Now that he actually focused on her again rather than what was going on inside his head, or on relief that she wasn't picking at his flimsy excuse, he noticed that she was grinning. Friendly then? Friendly was okay, he was getting a bit better at taking it at face value these days... a bit. Still, didn't mean he had to let his guard down or anything.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Old hand, huh? You like hand puns?" She asked, brightening a tad - that would be pretty cool if he did, given his lack of most of one arm. Self-deprecating humor was always A-OK in her book - to hear, that was, since she wasn't really into doing it herself.

His question received a single, firm nod in response as she put her hands back on her hips. "Yup! I joined up in Hoenn and transferred here when I got promoted, which was just a couple weeks ago," she elaborated since he seemed curious enough to ask, though it helped that she liked hearing herself talk, too. She might've asked if he'd transferred in too, but he'd already said he had been present for this base opening, so that seemed like kind of a silly question.  

[TawnyAngel]

Okay, so this was the bit where he usually got angry and shouted at people because he assumed he was being mocked. Aulus was mildly pleased with himself for recognizing it, and for taking a couple of moments to actually weigh the situation before reacting with more than a token scowl. Eventually he shrugged. "Seems like I can't get away from them, that one wasn't intended though." Hey! Wow! Had he just behaved like a sane human being? It was practically a sodding miracle, especially given he had just hidden around a corner from a hair colour. "I suppose you could say they seem to come hand over fist." There, it was okay because he'd said it right? Right? If he did it first then nobody else could use it against him.

"Hoenn though, never been to the base there. Different?" Wow! Smalltalk! Somebody give that man a coconut! It did feel a bit weird standing around in the hallway but oh well, he felt as though he was doing well here and he still wanted to make up some 'normal person' ground after that raised eyebrow she'd given him.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

She was about to comment about it possibly being second-nature by then, but then he made another hand-pun and she found herself chuckling over it. "That was a good one," she said once she'd finished. Oh yes indeed, that was a good one. She couldn't help but have a certain level of respect for someone with such an obvious disability, but had the ability to laugh about it instead of be depressed or angsty over it.

"Oh yeah, very different," Candice affirmed with a firm nod, her hands moving to her hips. "It's a hell of a lot smaller than here," she added as she glanced around them, not that there was much to see in the middle of a hallway of course, before focusing on him again, "though it's about as boring - though that could be because I just got here and haven't done anything more exciting than filling out paperwork or moving boxes yet."  

[TawnyAngel]

Hu, okay, that was a good tack to take then or at least it had been with her; Aulus relaxed a little more, but only a little.

"Mmh," Aulus shrugged, "it'll pick up soon I expect. What's your department?" He sometimes tried to guess by looking at people but he couldn't really put a finger on what the grunt 'looked like'. Some people were easy, Alex for instance positively screamed nerd even on first glance, but others were more tricky. Of course it was quite possible that she didn't have a specialty yet, she could still be deciding or going through training in something or other.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Don't have one yet," she answered readily, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet with her hands clasped behind her back. "And I damn well hope it picks up soon, otherwise I'll die of boredom. I didn't join so I could just sit around doing paperwork or being someone's errand girl," the young woman said with a slight huff. She joined for adventure and excitement - so far she hadn't seen any evidence of either those things, and she certainly hoped that changed soon.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Hu." Aulus looked the young woman up and down again. "Well what sort of thing are you good at, and what do you like doing? Any background in science, engineering?" A background wasn't essential of course but it sure as hell made life easier, least he assumed it did. Having a headstart on something surely gave you a better chance of promotion sooner, you couldn't pick up years of training in anything in just a few months. "If you're not info paperwork though I think we can rule out clerical though, and probably legal," he observed as an afterthought.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

The once-over didn't bother her in the slightest, and she made no motions to straighten her posture or otherwise try to make herself look better; she had absolutely no reason to, after all. Candice was nothing if not fully confident in herself. The question gave her pause though, and her mouth turned down in a thoughtful frown. "Well," she started with a little wry amusement, "I can run a fruits and vegetables stall at a market. That's horribly boring though," the blue-haired young woman said with a dismissive wave of her hand, as if waving the notion away. "I grew up near the ocean, so pretty much any ocean- or water-related sport that exists, I've done it or can do it -- though that obviously isn't any kind of skill in a place like this," she added as an afterthought. Hum, what sort of skills did she have to put to use in a specific department? "I don't really know, actually. No background in science or engineering or anything like that. Too complicated for me," Candice admitted easily with a shrug.