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[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

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[insidegalra]

"If we're going to be laying things out on the table, theories is coy, isn't it?" Thace begins softly, "Given that you have had more than enough information to put two and two together since nearly Christmas."

[fingersandteeth]

Steven will wait until Claude takes a seat before he slides into the booth next to Thace. He sighs heavily. "Honestly, I'd rather just get it all over with anyway. Thace knew about stealing Christmas, because I told him that Team Rocket was going to go after... well, every single major shopping location in the two regions that night, honestly, but in particular the Goldenrod Christmas Market, because if we made a big show of attacking that one, we'd more easily get away with stealing more from all the others. And I knew that because I'm a ranking member of Team Rocket.

"I was press-ganged," he adds, spreading his hands out in front of him on the table. "As far as I know, all the otherworlders on the Team were. Instead of waking up with Fake Mom, we wake up in the Rocket dormitories and they put us through a week-long larceny boot camp before releasing us into the wilds of Goldenrod City. We have a biweekly quota we have to fill of stolen pokemon. In return we get room, board, medical care, all mission expenses paid, and a weekly stipend that increases with rank. And if we do extra missions, we get rewarded accordingly.

"And given that by the time they release us, we've already stolen pokemon in our training exercises? I think you can see why none of us bother to turn ourselves in to the Jennies."

[vrdantwind]

Claude glances at Thace, then chuckles. "Well, that's definitely not inaccurate," he agrees, reaching into a pocket. What he pulls out is a card, which he slides over the table. "But I think you actually underestimate just how much I know."

It's immediately recognizable as a secret from the Indeedees from not so long ago. The text, however, is new.

I never wanted to kill you. That knife to the throat gesture was just grandstanding. Hell, I wasn't even really going to break your wrist. That was just screwing with you too. I actually like you as a person, even if you were a pain in our ass at the Christmas Market.

There's a slight smile on Claude's lips. "Not only do I know you're a Rocket, but I know you're the Rocket who threatened me during the Christmas heist. I know who the other Rocket who attacked me at the Christmas heist was. I knew that Rocket otherworlders are pressganged into service even before you told me. I know where the headquarters are." His grin broadens a little. "I'm no slouch at information-gathering, you know."

He leans back in his seat. "That said, you've got nothing to fear from me. As you've seen, what I know doesn't necessarily translate into me acting on what I know. And I've got no interest in punishing people forced into awkward situations. I would like to get at the people calling the shots behind Team Rocket - to say that I don't agree with what they do is an understatement - but I don't plan on moving on anything I know until I can be sure innocent, or mostly innocent, people aren't going to get caught in the crossfire. I don't believe in doing harm on the path to doing good; any plan that requires that isn't a good enough plan. So I'll find one that is."

He cocks an amused eyebrow at Steven. "I wasn't even really planning on confronting you about what I knew about you - and I think you can gauge by that secret just how certain I've been, and for how long - until you slipped up the way you did. I couldn't resist cornering you on that one. And at the end of the day, I don't think that the three of us knowing exactly where we stand with each other is really a bad thing. You've got nothing to fear from me, I hope I have nothing to fear from you, and those are things worth knowing for sure instead of just optimistically hoping."

[insidegalra]

Thace appreciates a fellow information-gatherer who does solid homework, so he just nods at first.

Finally he speaks. "Steven does so like to talk about me."

A kiss on Steven's cheek after he says it, but then he's more serious. "The changes I would like to see regarding Rocket's existence or operation may not be possible, but I would be interested in at least hearing about what you would do with that information if you acquired it."

[fingersandteeth]

Steven's face heats up. "Yeah, I've been told I talk too much about my boyfriends when I have them. And-- my exes, even when they're long gone. I'm trying to work on being less obnoxious about it."

He sighs and shoves a hand back through his hair, a nervous, impatient gesture. "He's told me about what he'd like to see from the Team and I really don't think the Admins would buy it, unfortunately--much less the Boss, who is basically incommunicado with most of us and probably actually missing. And even if I manage to squeeze one final promotion out, they don't let people like us be Admins. Alpha's the highest we can shoot for and we don't even have one of those anymore now that--" He catches himself, then shakes his head.

"It doesn't matter now. The point is, I'm one of the three highest ranked Rockets in our little community and there's not a lot I can do to alter how the Team works on a macro level. There's only so much I can do when it comes to my fellow press-ganged."

[vrdantwind]

Claude can't help smiling when Thace kisses Steven. It's just...genuinely nice to see the two of them so affectionate with each other. And now that he's had it confirmed exactly who Thace was being so protective of when he and Thace first met, well...it all certainly adds up perfectly.

It's also good to see Steven with someone who clearly loves him so much, after how much Steven's relationship with Jack hurt him. Claude only has Steven's word to go on in regards to his and Thace's relationship - Claude, personally, hasn't witnessed much of it - but this seems vastly healthier for Steven, and he's glad the man has that. A partner who's deeply invested in him, as opposed to being deeply invested in Steven's investment in him as some weird egotistical thing...

"It's not obnoxious, really," Claude says aloud. "It's more that it tends to spring up in times and conversations where it doesn't have any place, like mushrooms popping up in your basement. There's nothing wrong with mushrooms in their proper place, but you shouldn't let them bud out of control wherever they like or you'll have them growing out of your ears soon enough." He grins. "But we'll both avoid digressing into more of that talk for now."

He props his chin on one hand. "To answer your question, Thace, what I'd do with more information would probably vary based on just what that information was. If you're asking me if I have some ultimate goal for Team Rocket or how I'd deal with it? I think I'd start by finding a way to identify the Rocket otherworlders in the ranks so I could extend a hand to them. Even people who might be genuine troublemakers in their own right probably don't appreciate being forced to be pawns for some two-bit gang of thieves. But, obviously, Team Rocket's got a broad reach, and a lot of coordination, and they could cause no end of trouble for anyone they've forced into service if they go rogue. Not killing trouble, since that's apparently off the table here, but there's a whole range of options for the creative and vengeful bastard that they could employ, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to test them."

He drums the fingers of the other hand on the table. "So the first order of business would be to find a way to protect any Rocket otherworlders who want to leave. A way to protect them and hide them from Team Rocket, ensure their safety. If we could line up enough Duckletts in a row, and rather than stealing their pieces one by one could clear the board of all their pressganged agents at once in one mass exodus...it could be potentially devastating for them, and swing the balance of power significantly in our favor. Suddenly they have a lot fewer agents and pokémon, and all those people have a grudge and lots of inside information to put towards a decisive strike on Team Rocket - ideally made while they're still in chaos. And with the otherworlders who didn't have a choice in joining out of the line of fire, you'd have nothing left but people who looked at a peaceful world where money all but rains from the sky and went 'actually, I want to cause problems on purpose'. The Jennies can have all of them, for all I care."

He shrugs and smiles. "It all sounds nice on paper, of course. In practice, providing that protection to ex-Rockets in the first place would be tough. And frankly, I don't know how many pressganged Rockets are that interested in leaving, or cooperating with anyone. I can think of one I know who is the definition of difficult, if only because I'm not convinced he knows it's possible to be anything but. There's another one that hates me because I may have sprayed a Potion in his eyes when my cover was about to be blown at Christmas..." His grin turns a bit wry. "So there's definite complications. It'd take a hell of a lot of work and coordination, way more than I could do on my own. But that would be my first step - extracting the pressganged Rockets from the ones there by choice. Separating the wheat from the chaff."