[X] My Assistant

[Kamaitachi]

Flowers at the Fun Fair:

Agent Jordan Pontius sat at his desk, running a hand through his thick black hair. His cold blue eyes stared down at the paper in front of him, before rising to meet the equally icy grey eyes of Doctor Regan Chamuel.

"Doc."

He kept his eyes trained on her, even as she absently held the adorable Cleffa in her lap. The little puffball trilled happily as the Doctor absently pet her on the head. It wasn't making it easy on the Rebellion Officer.

"Doc, once again-"

"I know what you're going to say." Regan sighed. The noise of her exhale alone caused Pontius to clench his fists in a mixture that felt suspiciously like despair. He hated giving orders to Doctor Chamuel, if only because she had such a disapproving look, it made him second guess his every action. "You've run dangerously short on operatives, and you're going to need to send me and the young Miss Taisa on a dangerous mission well above our skill level, but failure is not an option. I understand. No pressure."

"Well, it's not that bad." Pontius folded his hands on the table, trying his best to at least appear professional. "You will be joined by one more agent-"

"Ms. Jiang Li?"
"No, Lady Grey is running an ambush on a Magma Convoy."
"Aya Ghalib?"
"Doomsday's on the same ambush."
"Nikolai Makalov?"
"Claymore? Same ambush. Get the point?"
"Olivia Prewitt, surely-"
"Shiva's out on assignment as well."


"So you couldn't wait for this ambush to end, then come get us?"

"No, the brass wants this base investigated while most of the Magma troops are occupied. Between looking for their boss, and the major operation underway, they're spread thin. You, Miss Taisa and Richie Palmer will be infiltrating a base hidden under Uncle Maxie's Fun Fair. The entrance to the base is in the house of mirrors. Locate Richie Palmer in the fair. Here's his dossier. He, with any luck, will have ascertained a password. You're the senior officer here, and make sure the two rookies have callsigns. The boss is oddly adamant about this."

"I understand, Mr. Pontius."

Still not quite having figured out how the kids managed to text with one hand, Regan placed her Cleffa on her shoulder for the moment, flipping out her Pokenav and sending a message to Sera Taisa.

We've received a mission. Kindly meet me in my Clinic and I'll debrief you before we depart.

Also, our boss wants you to pick a callsign or a codename. Find something suitable so that I can include it in our report today.

There was a dull thud as the Doctor accidentally stubbed her foot against the doorframe to Pontius' office. Glaring at the offending bit of architecture, she rounded the corner. While she couldn't exactly call it a newfound sense of respect, she had to wonder how all the young agents could text with one hand while not running into things. She had been an accomplished Internal Medicine Doctor, why could she not walk and operate a Pokenav simultaneously?

[colourcodedchaos]

Vi read the one-word response and couldn't help grinning a little before she snapped her Gear shut. The other Rebel woman was radiating hostility like an angry space heater, and it was backed up by her words. Clearly she was getting into character and letting out her emotions that way. Vi wholeheartedly approved. It was time for her to reaffirm her own characteristics in the eyes of the Grunts (the real ones, that is).

"Your responsibility, are they? These," she cast a discerning look over the other agents while pretending to look for a word, "delightful young scamps have obviously upset my subordinates here, and while it can most likely be blamed on youthful high spirits, I must make absolutely sure that they are not possessed of any, ahem, undesirable affiliations. The innocent have nothing to fear from Team Magma, I assure you. However, should their loyalties be found wanting, well..." And that was when Violette gave Regan her best High-Ranking Magma Sadist Grin, which she'd perfected over the previous month in front of a mirror and some errant children, who had screamed and run off at quite a pace.

"They're your responsibility."

On cue, Gripper growled and cracked his knuckles, the sound oddly quiet for someone so burly. On an entirely different cue, Bypass the Abra Teleported to behind a souvenir shop, filched a cheap disposable camera from the stockroom, and Teleported again, this to a vantage point in the rafters of the House of Mirrors from which she could look down on all the mirrors in the tent and watch for any humans in uniforms wandering in or out of one.

Vi returned to her PokeGear, snapping off a brief message to her superiors about current progress in her part of the mission. It was all hidden in the most boring series of conversations imaginable, the kind of idle chatter common to members of society's upper echelons that could make any codebreaker want to tear their own eyes out before decrypting it. In amidst the wittering about who had been seen with whom and at whose parties, and how deliciously scandalous it all was, oh, what dreadful gossips we are, tee and indeed hee, was an update that informed Violette's handler (once it'd been decoded by Rebellion staff) that she'd completed her rendezvous with her fellow agents and that this mission was looking a bit tenuous. She elected not to include a topic about a "curious and interesting boy" (i.e. a Pokémon battle with a Magma grunt), because having her first proper mission abort under such circumstances would be frightfully embarrassing.

The woman also elected to ignore the appraising glances from one of the Interchangeable Lout Brigade that was making the mission's course run less than smoothly, on the grounds that making an issue of it might cause him to look more closely and establish (even with his obviously limited powers of deduction) that she was no more a Magma officer than she was a banana. Mirage, or rather Gripper, had no such compunctions, and snarled at him with considerable venom.

Her missive to HQ complete, Vi sent out another message to Regan, not bothering with a code because she knew that Magma hadn't cracked this line yet.

I was a little hesitant about it, but I trust your judgement. Don't worry about the goon squad, either; friend Gripper wouldn't hurt a fly on account of not technically existing in a tangible way, but the other member of my team has no issue whatsoever with teleporting above someone's head with a breezeblock and letting gravity do the work. You're right about needing to clear this up quickly, too; I'll have them report back to base and my other team member can tail them. Speak soon, darling! -- V xx