Chapter Five: Stoneheart

Eve cracked her neck slightly, overseeing her group as they entered the Pewter City Rocket Base. It was their last stop before they would finally reach Viridian City, so they were going to take a few hours that morning to have a break before they set off again.

She herself was relaxing for once, allowing the others to drag her with them as they found somewhere in the base to grab some grub. They'd actually settled down with their food at a table in the food court, when she froze at the sight of an unwanted company heading towards her.

Reluctantly, she stood up to greet Archer Bellafonte, the only other person that was above her in the Team (in truth), aside from Giovanni himself.

"I see you've finally made it," Archer noted dissonantly.

"There were complications," Eve replied quietly.

Archer waved a hand dismissively at her. "It doesn't matter. You're here now and it would just be inefficient to drag it on into a lecture."

Eve didn't say anything else and assumed that was all he was going to say.

"How has your pokémon training been?" he asked suddenly, catching her off guard.

"Well enough," she said simply.

"Then let's have a pokémon battle right now," Archer said dispassionately, and Eve almost stared at him strangely before remembering herself and keeping her expression schooled.

She nodded numbly, watching as he took to standing a few feet away and smoothly taking out a pokéball, waiting on her. She walked away from her table, her group all gaping and catching onto what was happening. Soon enough, everyone in the surrounding area had caught on and whispering as they all watched eagerly, anticipating the battle between the top Executive and the Black Widow.

She took a deep breath and then called out her first pokémon.

And afterwards, there was a tense silence that gripped the audience, while Eve stared blankly across to an indifferent Archer. Then, to her surprise, he started to slowly clap.

"Come with me," Archer ordered and turned on his heel. As he didn't acknowledge those around him, even as they exploded into loud talk, she didn't either and followed after him at a sedate pace.

At some place away from where they had battled, Archer spoke.

"Your current strength is adequate, but I see you've been making progress," Archer told her. "Giovanni will be pleased."

That was Archer-talk for "Good job. You've been proceeding well."

Getting compliments in any form from him was like pulling teeth, and so she could only inwardly roll her eyes at his usual coldness. She was surprised she got anything positive at all from him.

Archer gestured towards a door behind her and she quickly got the idea, slipping into the room quietly. Archer entered behind her.

"Report," Archer ordered her then, and Eve thought back to when she had set out and informed him of everything that happened.

Archer's eyes sharpened then. "Orm is trustworthy?"

"Yes," Eve said firmly. "I have no doubts."

"You do have a good sense of people," he reluctantly admitted. His lips pursed. "Sird is a liability, but I agree she's not disloyal. But Carr…"

She saw the muscles around his jaw clench. It was clear he wasn't pleased with having not seen this.

"We will have to subtly look into this," Archer told her. "Weed it out from within, find out what's going on and take care of it thoroughly. There is no room for error and we cannot miss a thing."

"Understood," Eve agreed.

"Have you spoken to Giovanni?"

Eve couldn't hide the grimace from her face, causing Archer to frown.

"Not recently," she said uncomfortably. "The last time was in Celadon City."

"You worry him," he said sharply.

"I tried to tell him I'm fine. He worried regardless." Her uncomfortableness grew, especially since she knew he wasn't just talking specifically about that time and more in general.

Archer's stare bored into her harshly and she couldn't look straight at him.

"Remember your duty," Archer settled on. "If he needs reassuring, fine –do whatever you must, have to, to settle him down. The Team is always your center, especially Giovanni. Do not fail him. Now come follow me."

"He crosses lines I don't want to cross," she blurted out.

He faced her with no expression. "Then don't," he said uncaringly. "You don't have to cross lines to give him what he wants." He gave her a knowing look. "Don't let your emotions and feelings get involved, and you won't cross those lines. Don't forget that he saved you and you owe your life to him."

She nodded in a strained manner and he continued on from before her outburst.

"As I was saying, I want you to follow me."

"Where to?" She allowed a hint of curiosity to show.

"We will be heading to the Pewter City Museum," Archer answered her succinctly. "The Team has an important mission concerning there in upcoming days."

Even more curious now, she stayed quiet and continued to follow after him, sticking to being a step behind him.

By the time they neared the museum, Eve and Archer had taken a step closer to each other (without missing a beat in their steps and pausing in their walk) and had carefully arranged themselves to look like a couple. She had wrapped her arms loosely around him, while he had laid an arm around her shoulder. She had even plastered a 'tender' smile on her face, which was matched by the slight smile on his.

To an ordinary bystander, they would have looked like a normal couple out on a date around the museum. And if the guards at the entrance thought so, then they were doubly pleased by their own performance.

So once through the metal detectors, they kept walking around until they reached a more secluded area.

"Why are we here?" She kept up her 'tender' smile towards her partner as she murmured that.

"Team Rocket has plans in place for the museum," he revealed, leaning in to better keep talking while having his voice low. It also mimicked a more intimate position that others surrounding them would think nothing of, concerning a couple. "There have been recent developments regarding the fossil revival machine."

She had heard about that. She tried not to look strange as she prodded about it.

"We have it on good authority that it's finally finished being built, and that it is fully functional and ready to be used. In a few days, we will be breaking into the museum to steal an appropriate amount of fossils, and to find either the plans or to where they're holding the fossil revival machine."

"Do you want me to stick around?" she asked, almost starting to frown at more delays to her return. However, she kept the tender smile on at last minute.

"No," Archer surprised her by saying. "We have a unit already in place to take care of the job. They will infiltrate the museum at night, when no one is around, and retrieve the items where a source told us they would be."

"Night's good," she murmured. "Good cover, less people around…but double the amount of guards, especially if what you say is true about the fossil revival machine. The cameras will also have full, better view of the unit. You also don't know for sure if your source is completely positive about location, or even if those things hadn't been moved in the meantime without your source's knowledge. On the other hand, if it's 100%, then that's perfect. It could be in and out of here, with almost no trouble."

Archer nodded. "That's true. We thought of the guards, just not about the doubled amount. No matter, if they succeed with the smoke bomb, they'll all be knocked out and the cameras will be blocked from sight. They'll just have to be quick in their timing, and scour the place if it turns out my source's information is wrong."

Eve hummed lowly. "If they fail, it'll be harder a second time around. They would have moved everything we wanted and have them secured, and this place would be even more fortified."

He didn't answer, gazing around with a sharp eye. Eve looked around as well.

"Why'd you bring me here and tell me all of that? It doesn't seem to concern me."

"You always have a good eye, and I wanted a second opinion of weakness and strengths about the plan and the area," he answered concisely. He then actually smiled slightly. "You also tend to be very useful."

He glanced at her meaningfully and she thought it was appropriate to smirk. She leaned into him again and discreetly handed the keycard she'd stolen off of one of the security guards on the way further inside of the museum.

"Good work," he quietly said and she was caught off guard by how oddly complimentary he'd been that day. It wasn't like him.

She couldn't help looking at him suspiciously and breaking role.

The two of them were quick to head back to the base. The tension was back and things were completely silent between them. Eve should've been used to it by now though. She was just shocked that Archer was still with her, even when she went to meet up with the others to get ready to leave.

She could tell by the looks on everyone's faces, as they looked hesitantly at Archer by her side, that they weren't sure what to make of the man who was watching them dispassionately.

"Um, ma'am?" Janette ventured.

"Yes?" Eve glanced at her.

"We're all ready," the other cautiously said.

"Good," Archer cut in severely. "We need to make good time."

"We?" Eve asked, not hiding her shock.

Archer gave her a cool look. "Yes. I'll be coming with you."

Eve didn't have to look at the others to see their shock, but she couldn't seem to look away from Archer and say something herself. But she forced herself to nod in the end.

"I…I see. Well, we're ready, it seems."

She hated this and she really did seem to hate him.

Started 8/24/16 – Completed 9/21/16

A/n: Hey guys! Hope people are still reading. Please remember to leave a review so I know people like it or what they didn't like. My friend was working on the pokémon battle between Eve and Archer, but it's not done, so I'll probably add it in later or something~ Again, reviews are very dear