#thread.txt

What an annoying start to the day.

Though Cian had long made a habit of rising early, it took quite a while for him to be considered properly awake. Preferring to lounge around while the shroud of sleepiness was slowly shrugged away, the Evolution admin was rarely seen doing anything productive before noon, if at all around the team base.

So when he’d caught word that the boss wanted to speak to him as soon as possible, he was certainly reluctant to get up from the chair he’d settled in to drink his coffee.

Eiris at his side as always, after taking his own sweet time to reach the leader’s office where he assumed the other man would be located, with a half empty mug in one hand Cian pushed the door open with the other, stepping inside without even bothering to announce his presence before letting himself in.

As brutish as Eiris could be, she did have some innocent kitten-like qualities, deep down.

Infamous amongst those residing at Team Evolution’s headquarters, Cian’s Purugly was notoriously cruel, considered to be even worse than the admin himself. While he at least had the ‘decency’ to cover up such a nasty personality with a layer of deceptive friendliness and charisma, the oversized feline was much more openly barbaric.

Not something one would easily guess from the scene currently playing out before him.

Yellow eyes focused on the long string-like appendages of a stranger’s Drifloon, the Purugly’s nose twitched as the ghost-type hovered nearby. Padding towards it as it floated down near the ground, Eiris lifted a paw, swiping at one of the strings as if it were a toy, yet not quite grasping it in her extended claws.

Whether it was an act of lazy hunting or gentle play, Cian couldn’t quite tell. Sipping idly from a store bought cup of coffee as he watched the duo, knowing the Purugly’s true persona, he’d be willing to place a bet on the former.

“Ah, what a shame. I almost didn’t want you to find out like this, you know?”

It was funny how he’d been able to keep Draze in the dark about a lot of things over the years. Cian’s affiliation with Team Evolution, and how deeply it ran, was one thing that the elite had yet to learn. But as he stood there dressed in Evolution’s colours -- the outfit of an administrator, no less -- it looked like the cat was out of the bag.

Eiris sat at her master’s side as she idly licked at a grubby paw, eyeing the familiar redhead with indifference. Behind the two were a handful of grunts, each of them confused by the friendly tone the admin addressed Draze with, though Cian paid them no mind.

“And what exactly are you doing out here?”

The admin’s voice was curious as he called out to the other man, yet still strikingly similar to the mildly authoritative tone he used while speaking to grunts -- with an added dash of jovial friendliness that he didn’t often use without ulterior motive.

The brutish Purugly at Cian’s feet served as his excuse to be wandering outside Evolution’s main headquarters in the middle of the night; the damn thing yowling like a common housecat until she got her own way. Being the only member of his team who he held even a slight amount of honest respect for, the least he could do was let her explore when she wanted. But the fellow admin standing only a few feet away with a pipe to his lips seemed to have no such reasoning. At least, nothing that he knew of.

Cian never was one to back down in a battle. Troublesome as they were, he didn’t like the taste of losing, and avoided it at any cost -- which was usually at the well being of his own team.

Pushed to the point of exhaustion, physically unable to take another step after his last brush with an irritatingly stubborn trainer, the majority of his pokémon were in need of some medical attention before he was able to regroup with the rest of his peers. They wouldn’t be of any use to him in a state such as this, on the trip back to Evolution’s base, after all. How annoying.

Finding himself at the nearest pokécenter, the admin couldn’t help but raise a brow at how empty the building seemed to be. It wasn’t an unreasonable time, but it was beginning to grow dark out, and Phyllite was a rather small town. Shrugging his shoulders, Cian brushed it off. It would only mean he’d get seen to quicker -- if he managed to find someone around here present in order to do their damn job.

“Wow. It almost looks like you’re happy to see me.”

That’d be a fucking first.

[             Even seeing somebody like this puts Kokonoe on edge. Whatever the reasoning be, she’s put on edge. A flick of the fails, a twitch of the ears, and unflinching eye contact. She’s standing her ground, but that lollipop in her mouth keeps her from going too overboard. ]

              Oh, right, it’s...you again. Tao, right? The hell do you want?

[             Kokonoe, trying to prevent herself from gritting her teeth, has to remind herself that she isn’t in any position to fire people outside of Sector Seven for being shitty people, as nice as that would be. She sighs, quickly pulling out another silvervine lollipop and sticking it between her teeth.