[FIN] Glamorous Assignments

[TawnyAngel]

When you were a grunt and you were told to jump the only questions you asked were 'how high', 'where to', and 'anything else sir?'. Metaphorically speaking that was, so far in his illustrious career in Team Rocket KO had only been told to jump in the setting of Trainee drills and the answers to the questions had been answered by the context in that case.

Today however there was no jumping, only filing. Apparently something had happened to the filing cabinets holding some old sales records, non-sensative and not important enough to make scans of the whole lot but required for reference now and then and so not disposed of. Anyway KO wasn't pointing fingers but if he were he would point them at a grunt called Quickstrike who worked in clerical and owned a poorly controlled Haunter. KO didn't know Quickstrike but he knew people who knew people who did, and while the facts might get a bit distorted he trusted the vines of the grapevine the gossip had come down enough to trust that this was more or less the case.

Anyway whatever had caused the mess of papers on the floor in the small archive room it was apparently his job, along with another grunt, to clean it up. KO opened the door to the room with a martyred sigh and inspected the mess. Well he supposed he might as well make a start while he waited for the other grunt to appear, the sooner he started the sooner this would be over with. Sighing again KO headed over to the bank of filing cabinets and peered at the drop files inside to work out where he ought to start.  

[wasluxy]

"Stupid files and stupid Grunts and stupid paperwork and stupid Grunts and stupid stupid stupid..." Luxury was used to Grunt work by now, but that wasn't to say she enjoyed it one little bit, so when she found out she now had to clean up another -presumably- Grunt's mess she had a few choice words to mumble under her breath. Mostly, those choice words were just the one word 'stupid' repeated over and over as she made her way to the room where her and yet another Grunt were to sort and file and do all sorts of fun paperworky stuff.

One of these days, she was going to be an Agent, and would have enough access to enough coffee to deal with all the stupid. In the meantime, she could only hope that the Grunt she had to work with was female.

"Oh please Arceus let them be female..."

It was a fairly well known fact that Luxury did not get along with males. Ever since she joined Team Rocket four years ago she made it clear that any male she worked along side would be no more than that: a male she worked along side. Not a friend, not a partner, not even a teammate unless she was required to call him that. Personally? She called them all dogs until she obtained her Arcanine, who was such a majestic beast that she had to start calling men 'Bidoof' instead. Seemed more fitting. So, the question on her mind the entire way to the office room was, 'Am I working with a Grunt, or Bidoof?'

Taking a deep breath, Luxury opened the door and stepped into what looked like a bombed filing room.. And sighed as quietly as she could.

"Bidoof."  

[TawnyAngel]

KO turned around with a quirked smile and a raised brow. "Gesundheit."

Yes, Luxury would find herself face with a 'Bidoof' who stood with his weight on one hip and his head slightly tilted to the side as he looked her up and down. Like any grunt he was dressed in an off-black uniform with standard grey boots but unlike most his uniform fit him; it wasn't just the right basic size, it was obviously actually tailored to his frame. And he was still smiling at her.

"So, who might you be?" he enquired after a moment of appraising silence. "My codename's KO but you can call me Kirk if you prefer, I don't really mind."

There were a lot of grunts on base so it was impossible to remember everyone but this girl was quite distinctive.... Yes, wasn't she one of the ones with a funny name? He'd wait for her to confirm it but KO was pretty sure she was that gothic girl who hated men, not somebody he'd ever worked with himself but, well, KO listened to a lot of vines and had a good memory for the tidbits they fed to him.  

[wasluxy]

Don't talk to me don't talk to me don't... s**t.

For a moment, Luxury just stood kind of paralyzed, feeling her gut tighten as she knew he had to be sizing her up. Of course, wasn't she doing the same? Her own uniform was totally standard, though tight in places she didn't quite like, but his... His fit him perfectly. Too perfectly. Was it tailored? And 'gesundheit'? Was he /trying/ to sound fancy, or was he a rich boy that didn't realize he sounded like a rich boy? The girl then realized he'd heard her mumble, and almost blushed until he introduced himself.

KO.

She knew that name. Why didn't she recognize the wild red hair? This was the Grunt that caught legendaries. This was the one who 'died' on the last mission. This was the one Tambrey became a mess over, though her sister knew more about that than she did. She'd never really interacted with him before, or if she did she certainly didn't remember, but she was quite sure he thought himself to be a total hotshot. And now... now she had to work with him in this stupid filing room with stupid files and... She really needed to find a more grown-up word to repeat over and over in her head.

While her mind was running a mile a minute, she mulled over how to interact with this male. This... Kirk. No, KO. She wasn't about to start with anything that might be considered casual. Besides, if he thought for a second her guard was down... Well, she had survived this long around males and she wasn't in any rush to find out how well the system worked in cases of assault. So what was the best approach? She could sharpen her tongue, present herself as a snake not to be messed with... She could try to keep as reserved as possible, though that might make her look like prey... After what was only a couple seconds despite it feeling like forever, Luxury let a short breath out of her nose and squatted down to scoop up a pile of papers on the floor, her tone a mix of bored and mildly assertive when she spoke.

"You can call me Luxury. Or L, or goth girl, or 'hey you' for all I care. Don't suppose you know the category of the tornado that hit this room?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Ahhhhh, he had been right. So the million dollar question was - if it was actually her name which rumour said it was - had her parents a) hated her or b) been completely delusional and pretentious? Another good question was why she hadn't changed it.

"L then," KO replied affably, unruffled by the girl's dismissive attitude, "and from what I've heard we can thank a grunt named Quickstrike who can't control their Haunter for the mess. They've been given an even worse job than clearing up this lot, I gather. Humm." KO turned back to the filing cabinets he had been inspecting and tapped a label one the first on with short manicured nails. "According to this there are papers here going back to the old regime. I think we might be best off making piles in year order first, we can sort them further from there."  

[wasluxy]

Quickstrike? Sounded like a male's codename, which meant she was cleaning up a mess made by a male. Just how she wanted to spend her day.

Then again, company aside, there were worse jobs than sorting and filing paperwork... Even if it was stupid.

"Remind me to kick their a** if I ever see them off base, then." She didn't say it to sound tough, or use foul language for that reason or any other, that was just her first thought on the matter. If someone had a job and screwed up that job so royally, they deserved to have their a** kicked.

Luxury didn't say anything about the way to sort the papers, but agreed in her head it was probably the best way to go about it and started gathering up, checking, and sorting the papers as such. She really didn't plan on saying much at all... But she happened to be a highly curious person and one thing was really pressing on her mind. She was pretty certain he'd had to talk about it a ton since coming back, but hey, if her asking annoyed him maybe he'd just ignore her. Win-win.

"What... exactly happened after the last mission? Word tends to travel, but not always very well."  

[TawnyAngel]

KO gave a soft chuckle and nodded; "Noted."

His start on making vaguely orderly piles was briefly disrupted by Luxury's question. "Oh, you heard about that?" he asked rhetorically, pausing to look over at the other grunt for a moment before turning back to the mess on the floor. "Well when we were all racing to get back to the jet after I secured Xerneas, I had the misfortune of being thrown from my Arcanine in the stampede of angry pokemon. Took a Tauros' horn to the chest," he gestured at himself with some papers, "and nearly died on the jet. I woke up in Kalos a month later and discovered that the rockets there had neglected to let HQ know I was alive. Somebody needs a kicking over that one too, to say the least. Tambery thought I was a ghost, or a robot or something for the first few minutes."

And the mystery still wasn't solved to his satisfaction, to say the least. He had died. He was almost sure now that he had died and... and he tried not to think about that because he had no idea how to deal with it. Existential crises were such a drag, not his style at all.  

[wasluxy]

At his rhetorical question, Luxury shot him a side glance with eyes that said 'really dude?' and was satisfied that he looked at her too and probably caught said glance. Oh, but of course he mentioned the capture of his latest legendary to start the tale, and Luxury was becoming more solid in her thinking that KO thought himself to be a hotshot. She had to admit to herself, though, riding her own Arcanine she herself felt like a hotshot, so hearing he was thrown off his and nearly died as a result shook her a bit. Arcanine were so big and majestic... She made a mental note to work on handling as many opponents possible during her next training session with Nioshii. A horn to the chest did not sound fun at all, and she was sure her smaller frame wouldn't be able to survive it like KO had.

"Must have left quite the scar. And yeah, Tam was a mess. Not that she showed it... My sister and her are friends, 's how I knew." One thing Luxury liked about being a Rocket was she was around other females who were strong when times were tough. It helped her to stand up straighter, to know she wasn't alone. But it wasn't something she'd admit in a million years. Not even Calico knew how much she'd been through, or how it had affected her.

. . . "Seriously?" Luxury sighed and flopped in the nearest chair, mumbling and flipping though individual papers now instead of stacks. Some moron had just thrown what seemed to be five different years, and not even consecutive years, of papers together. Because of course.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Oh don't look at me like that!" KO drawled with a smile and a shake of his head. "It could have been any of us you know.... For both things I could be referring to. Mmh." The smile faded then and KO shook his head again with a faint frown. "They should have sent word." He wasn't the sort of person that made real connections easily but Tambery.... He was angry that they'd done that to her, she was a trusted Agent so why couldn't they have sent confidential word to her that they were... were... doing whatever they'd done.

KO blinked and then focused on the papers he'd been sorting, he'd completely lost his place. He was alive and well, other than the ugly scar that had so kindly been mentioned, so he should just be glad of that and forget about things he clearly wasn't meant to know about. Yet he couldn't.

Oh, right, there he was; pile for 2012. "Tambery's a tough cookie," he said as he worked, "it's nice to hear from an outside source that I matter to her, but on the other hand I'm sorry my apparent demise affected her." That was the thing, wasn't it? If you didn't allow your heart to be touched you were safe, free to take shallow enjoyment in shallow pleasures and relationships without needing to fear for the people you met because they were replaceable. But then you met people who weren't and things got complicated. He might have sworn off romance but apparently he couldn't quite quit the occasional friendship that actually mattered to him.  

[wasluxy]

Luxury had rolled her eyes at his drawl and 'both things' comment, sure she was missing something but not caring enough to try to figure it out. He was right, though, they really should have sent word. Major p***k move on Kalos' part... Or everyone's part, really, because surely the higher ups of the Kodo base knew he was ok too.

"Welp, when I'm a big hotshot one day I'll remember to find the responsible parties and kick their asses too." She paused, then looked up at KO. "Not for you, for Tambrey." Stringing someone along was never ok, especially when it was a life or death matter which, in this case, it quite literally was. It didn't matter to her that she didn't know Tam that well, CJ knew Tam, and Tam knew KO, and apparently cared about him and his well being. That was enough to make Luxury quite agitated that such vital information was kept secret. "But yeah, it affected her. She cares about you, though I'm not sure why. Caring about someone just leaves ya open to getting hurt by them."

Did that just come out of her mouth?

"Do we have a stack for '04 somewhere?" Switching back to the task at hand probably a bit too quickly, Luxury held up a paper labeled '04' that had been in her mismatched stack of... well, make that six different years now. What the heck was that Haunter doing?  

[TawnyAngel]

"Not for me? Even given the deep connection we've obviously just formed? Well I'm very hurt," KO replied with a brief chuckle. Would she take the joke he offered or take offence? Either would be amusing so he didn't really mind. "And I would presume she cares about me because we have a few things in common, enjoy one another's company, and compliment one another's skills in the lab among other less easily definable things. You're certainly right though, caring is a dangerous business! '04 is just over there," KO gestured to a small stack, "not a lot on it yet."

So then, next million dollar question, who was it that little L with her tough spiky aura had got herself hurt by? She was very quick to talk about hurting people with her skinny little frame, and she was quick to make sure she'd meant nothing good to him with said talk too. It was a little mystery that he could enjoy wondering about and making theories about, that was for sure.  

[wasluxy]

Deep connection? Not in a million years. If things went boom and her and KO were the last of humanity, she'd be quite content to spend her last days on the opposite side of the world from him. His charm and humor may have worked on others, but she just ignored it. She was here to do grunt work, not make friends.

"Mm. Thanks." She hopped up, put the paper on the pile, frowned as she found and added another, then plopped back down and grabbed another stack. "Sounds safe enough to presume. Can't say I've found anyone who shares common interests outside of my sister, but then," Another '04? Sheesh. "I ain't exactly looking." Ok, that was a lie. Luxury had shared an interest in fast cars with Agent Panther, and a few interests with her sister of course, but she wasn't about to disclose that information. Especially about Panther. She did feel a little happy for Tam and her sister, though, and she was glad they made friends. Especially her sister... She often worried CJ might feel like she was in her shadow, or the baby, or anything of that sort, but she proved to be a lot more outgoing and that was a relief to Luxury. Friends and caring weren't good for her, but they were for others... Even if it was, as KO said, a dangerous business.  

[TawnyAngel]

"No?" KO set a few more papers in their proper places and looked up at L with a slight raise of his brows. "Are you not? What are you interested in? Come now, we'll be here a while so we may as well talk and any sister of a friend of Tambery's is at least somebody I feel I should take an interest in. I can start if you prefer, I have no secrets!" So far as anyone around here was concerned anyway.  

[wasluxy]

Luxury inwardly sighed. She'd already said too much in her boredom and had opened the gateway to conversation. A gateway that KO seemed more than happy to dance in. Oops.

Buuut... She could totally play with him. There was nothing that said she couldn't spin tales or exaggerate, nothing holding her to the truth... And as was pointed out, they were going to be there a while. Besides, if he was actually going to take an interest in her, the last thing she wanted was him to actually get to know her. Might as well have a little fun, right?

"Hmmm..." The Grunt laid out a couple more papers, leaned back in her chair to grab an entire box to move beside her, and started going through that. "Well, I suppose you're right. Wouldn't hurt to... kill time." She looked KO straight on for a second, then went back to the box. "I'm interested in... Skateboarding... Poetry... Dark Arts... Ya ever ate a Zubat head? They're quite tasty~" Skateboarding really was something she enjoyed, and the first thing she could think of before trailing off into bat country.  

[TawnyAngel]

KO looked briefly surprised at L's apparent culinary preferences; for some reason he'd pictured her as the kind of secret hippy who would object to eating pokemon on principle. He then frowned and tilted his head on one side as he actually thought about what she'd said a little more.

"Well I wouldn't have thought there'd be a lot of meat on a Zubat head," KO said with a shake of his own head. "Heads in general don't have a lot on them and Zubat are small, and mainly mouth. Plus not much of it's muscle, you'd have to cook it for a long time to make it tender...." Was she messing with him or did she actually eat them in some sort of attempt to be 'hardcore'? "It doesn't sound all that enjoyable to me," he concluded with a shake of his head, "I'd rather have one stuffed and roasted whole if I was going to have Zubat, but I suppose there's no accounting for culinary tastes."

Now the dark arts bit didn't surprise him at all. Perhaps she and Lex could get together for a fortune telling session or something. If Lex put on a dress it would probably be quite a while before she realised she was speaking to a man! Her reaction when she realised would be interesting to watch.