It was rare for Archer to spend an entire day in his office. Oftentimes, he found the grunts and admins had this perception of him where they seemed to believe he slept in a coffin under his desk and only woke to fill in reports with sacrificial mareeps' blood, spending long hours with a pen in hand, after which climbing back into the coffin until he hungered for the flesh of those neglecting their work. In reality, he was a very restless man. He always hated being idle, and grew bored easily. His best talents laid in the field—but now, functioning as an extension of Master Giovanni's reach, he rarely got out of headquarters, and so he spent his days wandering the base, finding nooks and crannies to seat himself in as he worked, but ultimately keeping far, far away from his office unless absolutely necessary.

And today was absolutely necessary.

For that reason, Archer sat at his desk, his focus trained intensely on his desktop monitors as his fingers flew across keys. In one window, he had a direct line to his lieutenant, Yousuke, and the two messaged each other back and forth in a carefully cultivated shorthand of abbreviations and special characters. In another window, he had an open line from a combination of Silver Squad members out in the field and hackers he kept cooped up in their cubicles a floor or two below him. He kept a careful eye as they coordinated efforts between them to find only the most important piece of information Archer desired, that day: the location of Jurou Kanda's apartment.

Since Proton brought him that singular name, Kanda had been nothing but a headache. It was difficult to find information about him besides a few snippets of newspaper articles decades ago—only difficult, not impossible. Lead to dead end and back to lead, with Proton's help, Archer had been able to narrow and refine his search radius from Kanto to Celadon, and now to Celadon's western ward. The trick was then to find which apartment it was Kanda was renting, and unfortunately, the man was smart. Too smart. The trail had been built on hearsay, not on paper, and although Archer's team was powerful and dedicated, there was only so much city they could comb through at a time. So Archer worked, and he worked hard, hidden away in his office where he fidgeted in his seat, filled with energy and having no sufficient outlet to release it into. When all of this was over, he promised himself, he was going to take his houndoom on a really, really long hike and not show his face for an entire week. It was League season. Master Giovanni would understand.

The reality was, he knew he would be sitting in one of the elevators working on business strategies for their new shell company by that time, but the thought of taking Coyote out into the mountains to run to their hearts' content was the only thing that kept him sane, these days. One of his messengers chimed, and he scanned a new text from Yousuke before passing orders to his Silver Squad members. Every hour drew them closer to achieving their goal.

The door opened, and Archer glanced up briefly to see Ariana letting herself in. She looked as tired as he felt, with dark bags under her eyes and her usually carefully styled hair disheveled. For some reason, this quarter was putting them all through the wringer. Archer assumed it had something to do with Petrel being abroad, but they had made do with less than three Executives, before. Maybe they were just starting to get old, he realized.

"You didn't knock," he told her pointedly as he returned to his work, and Ariana leveled him with the driest look he had seen from anyone in months. He threw up one hand defensively. "Alright, alright. It's not like I'm doing anything unsavory, I suppose."

"I'm at my wit's end," Ariana replied as she took a seat across from him. She slumped down into it, a moment of vulnerability that she would show to no one else, and leaned her head onto three fingers. "Normally I dump all of this on Petrel, but he's not back."

"You shouldn't," Archer chastised, "you don't know what he'll do with any of it. He might be storing it all for a rainy day."

"I don't trust him because I think he's a good man," Ariana told him, "he's anything but. I trust him because he understands the pecking order. The instant he double-crosses me, I'll have his head on a pike, all with Giovanni's blessing, and nothing he can do will ever change that. Proton on the other hand? You've been getting too close to him. He could snap at any moment."

"He has nothing to pay for, so he can't be bribed," Archer pointed out, "and he is neither strong nor skilled enough to remove me from the board." Then, scornfully, "he is also much better at holding a conversation where I don't end up wanting to hang him from the roof of the building afterwards."

"Whatever," Ariana ground out, rubbing her temples, "I don't have the patience for this conversation again."

"Rough day?"

"Silver bit his tutor."

"Well, it could be—"

"Twice."

"Because...?"

"He refused to say."

"So... because."

"Exactly."

Archer chuckled, ignoring the scowl Ariana shot him.

"You're the reason he's like this," she accused, "you think it's hilarious when he acts up."

"Of course I think it's hilarious," Archer replied, "am I supposed to take my nephew seriously?" He tapped a few more messages out as his sister groaned her annoyance and sunk further into her seat. His mouth drew a small smile; same old Aisling. Both of them put up fronts in their daily lives, because not doing so in Team Rocket was like hanging a neon sign over your head asking everyone to stab you in the pancreas. It was comforting to know that, despite that, despite all the years they'd spent there, in the end not much had changed. Both impatient in their own ways, and willing to kick up a fuss when it mattered and even when it didn't. These moments meant a lot to him, when it was just the two of them hidden from prying eyes. Bitching about work to the one person he knew would never sell him out was cathartic.

"What are you working on?" Ariana finally asked, and Archer reached to hand her one of his write-ups.

"Tracking down our lead on the Silph Scope," he answered, "I've got Proton waiting in Celadon, but the man's apartment is impossible to find." Ariana studied his notes with disinterest; it had nothing to do with her work, Archer knew. He was just as disinterested in hers as she was in his, so beyond the casual pleasantries they exchanged, it wasn't a topic they spent a lot of time on. But as he explained himself, she stiffened in her seat, her expression hardening.

"Bastard," she accused, "he's supposed to be meeting me for Cinnabar! Is that why he hasn't texted me, yet? You've got him barking up an entirely different tree?!"

"You mean the one your husband threatened me over?" Archer replied pointedly, "yes, in fact, I think it's a much better idea to have Proton working on that than defying Giovanni. My shoulder still pops from the last time he reprimanded me, and that was three years ago." Ariana fumed in her seat, crossing her arms petulantly across her chest. He was doing her a favor, too. He wished she could understand that. Neither of them were immune to Giovanni's wrath, only... slightly more protected. Like wearing a helmet when you threw yourself off a cliff.

"It's going to bite us in the ass," she spat, "this entire damn project is going to bite us in the ass. It was a mistake to include the simulacrum, I don't care what Petrel says."

"You turned on him rather quick."

"Just because he's fun to toy with doesn't mean I think he has good ideas."

"Master Giovanni seems to disagree. They had another meeting before Petrel left."

"What do they talk about?"

Archer wasn't sure, but he had a pretty good hunch. Again, why it was absolutely necessary to watch his words around Petrel. Without any solid evidence, however, he could only shrug, and Ariana let out a great hiss of air in a sorry attempt at calming herself down. Scowling, she leaned to shuffle through more papers on Archer's desk, and deciding that it was fine as long as it kept her out of trouble, he didn't bother her about it. His messenger chimed again. He tapped out a few new replies.

"Huh." Ariana frowned down at one of the papers in question, staring hard at a printout of one of the old newspaper articles Proton had managed to find online. Archer raised an eyebrow at her.

"Something interesting?" he poked. It was meant as a jab, and nothing more, but both brows raised in honest surprise as his sister nodded.

"I've seen his face, before," she answered. "Yeah. Definitely." Archer reached for the paper, and she handed it back.

"Well?" he prompted her, "I don't have all day, spit it out."

"As soon as Proton's recovered him," she bartered, "he goes to Cinnabar."

And as much as Archer appreciated that Ariana would never sell him out, he also knew she would always one hundred percent extort him. There was a catch. There had to be. When he squinted at her, she only smiled.

"Or?"

"I have it on good authority the great and mighty Executive Archer has recently paid a great sum to be disciplined behind closed doors. I'm sure your admins would love to see the evidence."

"Well," he said evenly back, "that's going to be a very difficult sell, considering you and I both know no such thing happened."

"No," Ariana agreed, "but I have a pet who can change his face and who would love to earn a fresh package of hyper potions when he returns. I also know where to find a camera."

The catty bitch.

"Deal," Archer grumbled, and quickly held up a finger to silence her as she opened her mouth to heckle him again. "But! You will allow time for Proton to sufficiently question him." She considered it for a second, calculating, he assumed, what time the research lab may have had left. Archer was certain it would be fine. Ariana seemed to come to the same conclusion, as she came to his side and pointed to the map on his screen.

"He's never used the name 'Kanda,' but he's a regular at one of the clubs in the red light district," she explained, "this one, here... Always the same girl, the same room, same day of the week."

"Weekly?" Archer whistled facetiously, "Kanda, you absolute madlad." He looked up to her. "Do you think you can arrange something?" Again, she thought, then pulled his gear out of her pocket to begin firing off texts to her girls.

"Get Proton on the phone," she ordered, "I have an idea."

Twisting. Turning. Something was wrong. Hands on his ankles. Hands on his throat. She found him again. He ran into the camper van and locked the door. Blood everywhere. Hers? His? He thrashed and turned and felt claws ripping into the delicate flesh of his neck and he choked and gasped. The seething, dark mass in front of him, red-eyed and hateful, dragged his broken body out of the van. Along the asphalt. Down the street. His body felt like it was on fire.

Hot. Burning. Searing kisses. Warm skin. Relief washed over him at the end of the alley. No demon. No pain. Only pleasure. Electric sparks down his spine as suddenly there were no wounds. No fear. Yes. Of course. Focus on that. Focus on him. It wasn't a dark mass, but two intense, black eyes that saw through him at every turn and beckoned him in with a tempting, seductive glint.

Hands on his wrists.

Lips and teeth at his neck.

Friction against his straining erection.

"Proton," his husky voice growled in his ear, and for some reason it just made him melt. Putty to be shaped and played with in his hands, and as he arched and moaned and rolled his hips, it was the only thing he could think about. The only thing he wanted.

He jumped at the sound of his gear buzzing harshly against the bedstand, and groggily, Proton pushed himself half-up. He was horny and tired and confused, certain he wasn't in his room at the dorm, but unsure of where exactly that was. Everything was fuzzy in the fading dream, the only thing he was absolutely certain of was that he desperately needed a cold shower, but the gear buzzed again, and he blindly threw out his hand to grope for it.

"You got—I—I dunno," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes with one hand, "what time is it...?"

"Well, well," Petrel's voice drawled across the line, "don't you sound tired? Not enough sleep?" Proton sneered halfheartedly as the smugness in his voice. He very well knew how late he'd kept him up.

Instead of berating Petrel and rising to the bait, however, Proton simply rolled over onto his stomach and pulled the sheets more tightly around himself. "I had that dream again."

"Good morning to you, too. Which one? The one with the vampire mareep? Because you know, watching those films before you go to bed isn't—"

"No," he cut him off, "the one where I'm in Goldenrod, and something's hunting me." Petrel hummed on the other side of the line. Proton had confided in him often since the nightmares first began; he was a doctor, after all, so certainly he must have had some experience dealing with this kind of thing? He would make recommendations: drink more water, go to bed earlier, hell, once he'd even suggested leaving a light on, and that was how Proton went down the buneary burrow of mapping out a star chart on the ceiling of his room with glow-in-the-dark star stickers. But in the end, nothing worked for long. The dreams always returned to find him, one way or another.

"Maybe cut down on the coffee again," his friend finally suggested, "have you been eating regularly?"

Proton was about to make something up about regular, well-balanced meals when his gear buzzed again, cutting him off. He pulled it away from his ear to quickly skim through his messages, his eyes landing on the newest text from Archer.

"I've gotta run," he said quickly, and he heard Petrel's huff of indignation across the line.

"You can't keep avoiding this conversation forever," the older man snapped, "there's only so much I can do if you don't tell me everything."

"Sorry," Proton said, lifting himself out of the bunk to begin pulling on his uniform, "next time. It's important."

He ended the call right in the middle of Petrel's next protest.

Jurou Kanda was getting on in years, but saying it like that made him feel too old. He wasn't ancient. The big five-oh was still a few years down the road, but even so the grey hairs had already made themselves known and lines of age were beginning to show on his face. The increasingly rapid approach of his half-century mark was something that made his mind reel, because it felt like just yesterday he'd been putting his nose to the grindstone at Saffron U developing the capture theory that would later go on to become the foundation for the Ultra Ball. Now, he was starting to feel it in his neck and lumbar when he sat at his desk for too long. Time was certainly a cruel mistress.

Some things hadn't changed so much over the years: he was still a recluse. Hated people. Absolutely hated them. Hated to be bothered by them. He was hardly good at conversation or maintaining any kind of relationship, which was probably why his marriage went to shit and he lost most of the friends he'd ever had. Didn't even keep in touch with what family he had left. All Jurou wanted was to be left alone to work, either at his bench in his apartment, or in the labs at Silph Co, where everyone knew well enough to leave him the hell alone. The only friend he still had in his life was Taro, and even that was hanging on by a thread. Shiori didn't like that they still hung around each other, so they kept it to letters and the occasional after-work beer, most days.

Come to think of it, they were supposed to get a beer the day before, but Taro never showed. Weird. Either he forgot, or Shiori had brought the wrath of the gods down on him. Jurou wanted to say he blamed her, but to be fair, he honestly didn't. His marriage had been messy, his affair had been messier, and now he lived near his favorite strip club, none of which were things Taro ought to associate himself with. That was fine. Jurou was happy to go by himself, anyways.

That was one of those nights. He'd worked from home that day; it was almost time to send the Silph Scope out to conduct more field research. He believed currently the plan was to ship it to Hoenn. Devon Corp had some scientists who were looking to study ghost pokemon from Mt Pyre, and it was going to be the perfect opportunity to see how well the prototype worked beyond mere gastly. And now that his work was done for the day, Jurou intended to thoroughly enjoy himself. He certainly hated people, but at the very least, he enjoyed their forms. Their touch.

The club was called the Evening Star, and it was a little bit pricey. He'd even go so far as to call it classy, as classy as tits and ass jiggling in his face could be. But the construction was fine, very upscale, the booze was expensive, and the girls the most beautiful in Kanto. He spent a lot of nights there, and tipped well with his big Silph screw-you money. He paid the door fee like normal and as always headed straight for the bar, first, where he ordered his usual drink. Then he found his usual booth and sat to wait until one of his usual girls was available to perform for him, sipping away at his glass.

Today was Hoshiko. She was a petite woman with all the right curves that made Jurou's heart seize, and a smile that made him feel wanted. He settled back with a smile as she came to his booth. Normally they would chat, just briefly. She would ask what he wanted. Money changed hands. If he behaved, sometimes she would let him cop a feel. But today wasn't like any other day, it turned out. Today was different.

She was wearing latex, a crop top and a miniskirt just skirting the edge of decency, and as Hoshiko approached and Jurou tried to decide how much he was willing to spend that night, she didn't go through the usual motions.

"Mr. Kanda," she said sweetly, "I was wondering if I'd get to see you tonight."

"I was looking forward to seeing you," he tried to say smoothly, but tact was not his strong suit, and the words simply came out flat. She pretended to laugh, anyways.

"I'll bet you were." She held out her hand, and confused, he stared at it. "Come on. Our room's free. We can have some fun."

Sometimes when he tipped well (excruciatingly well, enough to put him in the red for a few weeks) she would take him back. It didn't normally happen straight away, though. He was about to ask her what the occasion was when her hand instead landed on the back of his neck, gently massaging the muscle, and the confusion washed away to be replaced by the bliss of a touch-starved man feeling warm skin on his own, a malleable ditto in her command.

"Don't you want to have fun with me?" she crooned, and that was all it took. Just like when his marriage and his family shattered around him. That's how easy it was.

"Yes," he ground out, "please." She beckoned him on with the sly crook of one finger, and he stumbled over himself to get to his feet and follow her. She led him past booths and tables to a door at the far back of the room, then down the familiar hallway, heavily perfumed to ward off the scent of sex.

"I didn't think you'd missed me, that much," he tried to joke, and again she pretended to laugh.

"I always miss my biggest patron," she teased, "come on. Don't make me wait."

Her room was at the end of the hall, and Jurou was feeling light-headed. His step skipped a pace, and Hoshiko giggled next to him, catching him under the arm. He thought maybe she asked him something, and he waved her concerns away with one hand.

"I'm fine," he said, though he was starting to feel sluggish, "fine. Everything is fine."

He took another step, and the hallway moved a little under his feet. The door wasn't too far. He had a long day. This would be relaxing. He needed it. Another step, then another. Something was wrong. The hallway wobbled. Hoshiko held him up as they passed through the threshold and into the room. His legs were starting to feel leaden. His whole body. He stumbled again. She was practically dragging him now.

"S'mthing... S-s'mthin' in my drink," he mumbled frantically, but she hushed him and carried him until finally she dropped him on the floor in the middle of the room. His vision was swimming. His breathing slowed. His own breath was so loud in his ears, and he could hear his blood pumping.

"Fuck!" he heard her gasp as though he were hearing her through a still pool, "I think I threw something out hauling his ass in here!"

Another voice laughed. It was a man's voice, light and steel-edged in the same way a knife was. "You should be used to doin' the heavy liftin', doll. Good work. I'll make sure you get a good performance review this month."

He tried to roll himself over to get his arms under him, but the world was fading fast, and all Jurou could do was twitch as someone's shadow cast over him, blocking out the dim light from the ceiling.

"Go ahead. Take a nap. You look tired, man. Hey, have we met before?"

The last thing Jurou saw before darkness swallowed him were those dark, hateful eyes burning into him.

The Tiksi base was cold, as always. It sat in the frozen no-man's land of Siberia, old and having seen much better days, as a small compound, much smaller than HQ. Its divisions were minimal: research, field, maintenance, shipping. Agents came and went, using it as a centralized hub of the region to leave their hard-earned spoils or to restock on supplies before venturing further out.

For Petrel, the base was a little more than that: memories of his childhood came back with every turned corner. Some were good. Some were awful. He remembered the time he was joined at the hip to his brother, running together through the halls to lesson after lesson on some days, relaying papers or files on others. When they were a little older, going outside for survival trips or to train their pokemon. Neither of them had ever been great battlers, much to their father's disappointment. Better now. But not great.

Now that he was older and living in Kanto, Petrel enjoyed his trips back. He got to return once a year or so, usually in the winter (he liked the cold; he didn't expressly mind) and spent his time overseeing their productivity, gauging their cost-effectiveness, and brokering new deals for new clients in the region who needed the finer touch of an Executive. Then, when his work was finished, he would sit and wait to go home, occupying himself with whatever he could find lying around.

This time, he'd been prepared. He had pages and pages of print-outs and files, and he spent his time meticulously picking through them to try and decide how effective one of his more recent pet projects was going to be. Whether it would be useful. He had a feeling it would be. Master Giovanni, he mused, wouldn't be disappointed when it was time for his next progress report.

"What do you think?" he asked the screen before him. He shuffled through papers and finally looked up. His own face stared back at him, and in one hand he idly played with a pair of obscenely large and green sunglasses. Fashion, he called it. Petrel was more inclined to call it tacky. But his reflection stroked his bleached beard, skimming through print-outs of his own as he thought.

"Inconclusive," Faba drawled, "the fluctuation is certainly there, but the numbers aren't high enough. Even without applying Graham's, this shouldn't be enough to cause the side-effects you've described. Not to that extreme."

Petrel growled his frustration and leaned back in his seat, folding his hands behind his head as he considered that. It should have been enough. The measurements were tricky to figure out. People, first aid, and medicine were one thing, but the instant pokemon became involved the margin for error was massive unless you had a specialist, and as far as he knew, there were none in Rocket—or, at least none who could hold a candle to Faba.

He could see Faba's living room stretching out behind him, and the dark sky out through the sliding glass door leading out to his balcony. Even across the phone, Alola looked warm as all hell. How did he stand it?

"I need a more concentrated dosage," Petrel finally sighed, "or something more pure. I'm not sure if the synthetic stuff works as well."

"Try reducing the gaps between application, first," Faba suggested flatly, "this body-to-mass ratio isn't thrilling me. You'll have a very small degree range between ineffective and death, otherwise. Has everything else appeared stable?"

Petrel snorted. "As stable as it can get," he said. "I'll keep you posted if there's any changes."

"Please do. For once, I'll actually be delighted to hear from you."

It was certainly a cold day in hell, and a grin twisted at Petrel's lips. Once in a while, he mused to himself, they could still get along.

"I bet you will, you sick bastard," he teased, "you just want to replicate it yourself, don't you? Steal my work for your post-doc?"

"Like I would embarrass myself publishing any stray thought that came from your smooth brain," Faba shot in reply. He hadn't looked up from the papers yet. That was fine. There was a lot to read over. Petrel even found himself feeling a hint of appreciation that his brother was willing to stay up so late to humor his questions. Suddenly though, Faba's face pulled into a deep frown, and he sat up slightly as his eyes bored into the math.

"Wait," he said, "wait a moment. Didn't you say you were testing this in another experiment, too?"

"Yeah," Petrel answered, "at the Cinnabar lab. You've been there, right? I thought Miss Lusamine was the one who helped install the equipment?"

Faba didn't answer right away. He flipped through more papers, his pace maddening as his eyes darted this way and that. Finally, gravely, he looked back up.

"Ter," he said quickly, "I think you've got a problem."

"The fuck do you mean I gotta leave?" Proton snarled.

He was on the videophone again. Archer sat before him on the screen, the office behind him dark and lit only by the glow of his monitors. He looked tired, but he always looked tired. When he didn't answer right away, Proton bristled.

"You told me," he spat, "that I would have time to do my work. You told me Ariana agreed, even. So why the fuck do I gotta leave?"

"The situation has changed," Archer told him quietly, "and you are urgently needed at the Cinnabar facility. I will have one of the admins question Kanda."

Bullshit. Fucking bullshit. Proton seethed in his seat. He didn't like being jerked around. It was beginning to grow tiresome. He wasn't some messenger boy, and he certainly wasn't some grunt. He wasn't about to leave now. Not when he knew what he knew.

"Send someone else," he fumed, "I've got work. Important fuckin' work, too. Work on Master Giovanni's orders. Weren't you the one tellin' us all to suck his cock? We do what Master Giovanni tells us, when he tells us, yeah?"

"Proton, this is not a game," Archer snapped in reply. It was a different anger from the one he expressed while Proton ate at the cafe. It wasn't born of exasperation, but desperation. Something in the back of Proton's mind told him that if Archer was concerned, he ought to be concerned—but something else inside of him, some great, snarling beast, was not ready to let Kanda slip through his fingertips. Not now. Not when he was so close.

"Archer. I can't." His own desperation broke his voice, and his fists curled on the cheap desk in front of him. "I can't leave. Not yet. I just need time. A little bit of time."

"We do not have the time."

Silence. Archer stared him down and Proton stared back. He was lucky he was half-way across the region, and Proton's fist twitched as he imagine the incredibly cathartic image of shoving Archer hard off the roof of HQ.

"Tell me," he said again, voice low, barely a whisper, "that you didn't know who he was."

Archer didn't answer. For a moment, his eyes lowered, sliding to the side. Fury lit anew in Proton's belly, and he smashed his fist hard against the desk.

"Then what the fucking hell?!" he demanded, "you bitch, of course you knew! Of-fucking-course! And you expect me to just leave? This interrogation is my goddamn right!"

"I don't have time for your petty grudges!" Archer finally shouted over him. He cursed and swore and dragged one hand across his face. "Fine. Fine. Do what you have to, but do it quickly. The instant you have what you need, you come to Cinnabar. Ariana and I shall meet you there."

The tension began to lift from Proton's shoulders, but his face remained in a disappointed scowl.

"You should have told me," he spat, "you bastard, if you knew, you should have told me."

"I couldn't have," came Archer's soft reply, "because you would be nothing more at that point than a liability."

And the worst part was, Proton thought as they hung up the call, Archer was absolutely right.