[X] My Assistant

[Tymid]

Raine averted her gaze sheepishly as the powder snow attack hit, but as one of her blue eyes opened to see the damage, a soft whimper escaped the pout on her lips. Omicron was frozen, his face still in the expression it had been in when the attack had hit, a sort of knowing grimace. Without any hesitation, Raine recalled the poke'mon, leaving her standing there looking at Violet and Richie. Her gaze went to her impromptu battle companion, then back to the two, who were looking at each other as though trying to discover what to do next.

Raine cleared her throat, and with a shaking, cracking and petite voice, she pointed a finger at them warily, like a mother scolding a five year old. "You're both under arrest for attempting to free a Magma captive!" Richie and Violet looked at each other warily, and as if the whole thing had been coordinated ahead of time, Wilson and Violet went sprinting by the open doorway, shouting "GO, GO, GO!", with Thomas and a very angry looking Garchomp in tow. The two in front of Raine looked at each other once again, and as Richie waved a small goodbye towards her, Raine barely had the time to take a step toward them before they bolted out the door. "W-Wait! You're under arrest!" the tiny girl called after them, reaching a hand out, as though that would do anything.

"...Please?" she whispered softly, and she slowly reached up and lowered her hood, her thick black mane cascading around her face. They had gotten away. She didn't cry, but a soft pout rested on her pink lips. This just wasn't fair...nothing had happened to the lazy guard before her, and here she comes in, prepared to do a great and simple job, and everything goes to heck. Helplessly, she turned to look at the smoldering remains of her desk, and then up to Abraham. "Thank you." she whispered softly, barely loud enough to hear, before she slowly turned, and sat cross-legged on the dirt ground, in front of where desk had been.

Her head rested in her palms, and her elbows on her knees. She stared blankly ahead of her. Soon, the executives would be here, and she would be interviewed, and her job quickly terminated. Hopefully it would be short and sweet, and she wouldn't be reprimanded too harshly. However, as she looked at Abraham, she found herself contemplating what she would have done without his aid. Maybe, she could do one good thing today...and see if she could get him out of there.

Soon enough, two big men in expensive suits followed by a shorter woman entered the small area. Thomas stood behind them, looking tired and sweaty but generally in good health. "Grunt Raine Vega?" the bigger of the two men said gruffly, taking off his sunglasses and surveying the damage. Raine slowly clamored to her feet, her muscles stiff. She offered a weak salute, and dipped her head. "Yes, sir." her tiny voice rang out, her eyes pointed towards the ground.

The man looked around and shook his head, a look of dismay on his face. "Looks like you've had...quite a day, Miss Vega." Raine's head fell lower submissively, and she began to nibble on her lower lip, her hands behind her back. She nodded, her face red with embarrassment and a tingling feeling beginning to arise in her tear ducts. She nodded very slowly, not daring to look up at the chewing out she was about to receive.

Meandering over to the cell, the other of the two men looked inside, his eyes falling to Ramirez, still quaking on the floor. "What happened to him?" he said gruffly, and Raine winced. His voice was harsher than the other man's. "Paralyze..." she said so quietly that it could be barely be heard.

"What was that?" the man asked, turning towards Raine, and she winced again, almost chewing a hole through her lip. A single tear cascaded down her face, and in a slightly louder voice, she said "I-I paralyzed him, sir. With my Mareep's Static ability. So he wouldn't go anywhere else, sir." The man looked at her for a moment, and then back to his partner, who seemed to have a look of sympathy on his face for the small girl. "That's smart." the huskier of the two admitted with a shrug, and the other nodded. Raine looked up at the two, and with her tiny hand, wiped the tear away.

"Thomas here tells me you discovered an attempt to escape and through deductive reasoning, predicted somewhat the manner of the break-in. Is this correct?" the softer voiced man asked, and Raine dipped her head again. After mumbling something else unintelligible, the gruff-voiced man asked a rough "What?", and Raine ducked her head. She almost wished she had her hood back up.

"It...it was logic, sir. Only a dullard would have missed those signals, sir. It was nothing special...just logic, sir." she said quaveringly, digging her toe into the dirt.

The two men looked at her incredulously, and there was an awkward silence. However, the silence was broken as she heard a soft chuckle. The chuckle grew into laughter, and Raine lifted her head to find both men laughing heartily, and even the woman behind her (Raine assumed she was a secretary, since she had been taking notes the whole time) was chuckling. The huskier man clapped his associate on the shoulder and motioned towards Raine. Her head fell again, and her bottom lip began to quiver. They were making fun of her. She deserved it. She had done miserably on her first day.

The laughter subsided, and the softer voiced man cleared his throat. "Well, Raine...hey, wait a minute. Why are you crying?" his voice switched from jovial to slight concern in a snap. Raine lifted her tiny paw to her eyes, and with a soft whimper, said "...Because you're making fun of me. I know I did badly, but you don't have to jest at my failure."

The man blinked at her. "We weren't making fun of you. This is...a near impossible situation for you to overcome. You're, what, 5-foot-nothing, and managed to keep two prisoners in a cell, while staying calm and making decisions that makes us glad to have you around, kid. It's just...you're so little!" he said with a chuckle, motioning at her. "I mean, look at you."

Raine blushed, and reached up a hand, twirling a lock of raven hair around her finger. "But, those Rebellion members...they got away." she murmured, looking at the two men out of the corner of her eye, still not wanting to tilt her head that far back to look them in the eye. "And...I broke protocol."

The man's smile wavered, and the gruff man stepped toward her. "Meaning...?" he asked dangerously, all good-will being sucked out of the room.

Raine teared up once again, and her head motioned to the prisoner whose name she did not know. "I...I couldn't defeat the two of them on my own. I gave this prisoner his poke'mon so he could aid me. It was...illogical. However, to keep myself safe and at least one prisoner intact, I had to give luck a chance. I would not have succeeded without his aid."

All eyes turned to the man in the cell who wasn't shaking violently, and then back to Raine. "How did you know he wouldn't turn on you?" the softer voiced executive asked curiously. Raine simply shrugged, averting her gaze to the hole in the dirt her toe had dug. "I didn't." she said simply, awaiting the worst. The silence filled the room once again, and Raine sighed inwardly. Here it came. The two men talked between themselves, and as the huskier looking man went to talk to the man who had helped her. She hoped he wasn't going to get in more trouble.

"We have decided..." he began, and Raine, for the first time, looked up at him. "...that despite the broken protocol, you have made appropriate decisions regarding your current job description. Your job description was to watch one prisoner for the day, and despite a worst-case scenario occurring, you fulfilled your job description and more. Therefore, you will be receiving a commendation for your efforts today. You did well."

Raine blanched, and her mouth fell open. She...wasn't in trouble? She was getting rewarded? She wasn't getting fired? This immense cluster of surprise and shock allowed her to stare quite dumbly at the large man. He smiled at her warmly, which was not how she expected a Magma executive to act in such a way. Maybe she reminded him of a child, or his daughter. He chuckled and saluted her. "Dismissed, Miss Vega. You deserve a break." Raine uttered a quiet thank you, and scampered out of the room without looking at the other man once, her face flushed and tears cascading down her face in joy.

The day was over. And she wasn't fired. It was a good day. Terrifying, but good. First stop...poke'center. Lucien and Omicron deserved a luxury meal this night.

And she needed a nap.

[Yzarc Drowsnam]

Abraham recalled Gaia back into her pokeball and watched disheartened as Raine hopelessly chased Richie and Violet. He let his fingers feel over the lump in his left pocket where the cell key was. As Raine burred her face in her hands, he quietly slipped his left hand inside the pocket. He let his index finger nudge its way inside the key ring and even went so far as to lift it up a little bit.

He sighed, though, when he looked back up at her. She look so sad. And so...Adorable? Yeah. Yeah, adorable. "Stop it," he said to himself in his head. "Stop looking at her. Just unlock the door and leave. What's she gonna do? Her pokemon are weak. Hell, one's frozen. Why are you letting go of the keys? Stop it. Stop doing that. You can leave. You can walk out of here right now and avoid whatever punishment these assholes had in store for you. Oh, so you're not gonna do that? You're just gonna take it? For her? She's using you. She's manipulating the hell out of you because she knows you have the keys. She used you to save her pokemon by offering you yours, and now she's using you to save her ass by playing the sympathy card. But you're above that. You're a man. Go. Leave."

He sighed again and pulled the keys out of his pocket. He looked at them for a few seconds and threw them out of the bars on the floor next to Raine. He nodded at her and sat back down in his usual spot against the wall, looking down to make sure his suit was still in working order. Then, the guys walked in and seemed to be bullying the poor girl. He wanted to say something, but figured that would make things worse, not only for him, but for her. When she had gone, without saying goodbye, I might add, one of the men leaned over and picked up the key. He unlocked the door and looked Abraham up and down as the prisoner stood to his feet, both his pokeballs held in his hands.

"I imagine you're going to want to confiscate these," he shrugged holding out both of his hands, each of which held a pokeball.

"Why'd you help her?" he asked.

"It was the right thing to do?" Abraham shrugged.

He shook his head. "Nope," the same man smiled. "That wasn't it at all, was it?"

"Do my motives matter?" Abraham asked. "Are you gonna beat me up harder if I say I wanted to get in her pants?"

"You play your cards right, West, and I won't have to beat you up at all," the man smiled. "You wanna join Magma?"

"What?"

"Well, here's the way I see it. If I beat the living hell out of you, ain't no money gonna come out. My buddy, Jake, he still won't get paid. But maybe I can get you to do some work for us. We'll take some of your pay and give it to Jake. Pays a little better than waiting anyway."

"I'm not a criminal,"

"Yes you are," the man laughed. "You stole money. That's why you're here. Besides, Team Magma is not a crime syndicate. We're above the law. We make our own laws. You won't be a criminal according to us, and that's all that really maters in Noverus."

"Well, I don't really like Noverus," Abraham said, but also realized that he had nowhere left to go. "But I'll join. Just until Jake's paid off."

"Good," the man nodded. "I think I'm gonna pair you up with Miss Vega for your first assignment. You seem to already have a rapport with her, and I think it'll do the poor kid some good to have someone like you around."

"Someone like me?"

"A piece of crap douchebag," the man grinned. "Someone who knows the world and how to succeed in it, how to talk to people. She's one of the smartest damn people in Magma, but she's never gonna make it if she can't talk to anyone."

"Right," Abraham nodded. "Can't wait to start my new kindergarten teaching job. I've always wanted to teach kids how to eat spaghetti."

"I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you she already knows how," the man smiled.

"I'm honestly a little doubtful,"

"Go home, West," the man nodded. "We'll contact you tomorrow."

He nodded and walked freely out of the warehouse. He honestly did not think the day would end as well as it did. He wondered if he had Raine to thank for it. He shrugged though. She was still a woman, and so could not be trusted.