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"What, you're really going to make me look for a chicken? Me? The great and powerful master thief Lupin?"

It was bright and early, and already, Lupin was kicking up a bit of a fuss. They were assigning tasks for the morning as a rescue team, and apparently the Zorua didn't much care for the one that had been given to him.

Joli had thought it was a good idea at the time--- something a little easier for the most junior of their members.

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He was always going on about how they didn't give him enough to do, how they didn't make use of his skills, things like that.

"I thought you would love it," said Joli, without a hint of irony. The way he looked, he meant it too. In the face of such an earnest look, even Lupin found himself balking slightly, and possibly reconsidering the harsh words he had lined up to say.

But that didn't stop him from actually saying them, of course. Nothing ever did.

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"How come I get the crappy job?" he said. "I mean, I've been here for way longer than--- than that long-eared guy! He just joined the other day!" Lupin gestured at the Scorbunny, who was off to one side, chatting animatedly with--- or at, really--- his much taller companion. The two of them had been assigned to a dungeon rescue mission that Nico had picked up off the board the other day.

The Scorbunny was new, and he wasn't all that big, but he'd given them a hard enough time recruiting him that Nico wasn't really worried about him.

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"He has more combat experience," said Nico. That was the nicer way to put things, at any rate.

Normally he might have tried to talk around the issue; it was true that direct confrontation wasn't usually his handling style either. But they had plenty of things to get through today, and to do that, they all had to get going. There was no time for any of this dawdling about, even if Lupin didn't care for the task that he had been given.

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"And the sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can graduate to more complicated missions like theirs!" Joli added cheerfully.

Nico gave him a sidelong glance as Joli spoke those words. Sometimes he wondered if Joli was at all familiar with the concept of sarcasm, and if he was just holding in a lot of repressed anger or something. If it were anyone else, this would be his operating assumption with them, really. But Joli... It was hard to tell.

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The frightening thing was, Nico felt as though he really didn't see the bite in his words, or any other way they might be taken by whoever was listening to him.

Well, if that was the case, Nico hardly wanted to be the one to tell him. Joli had enough on his plate already. Besides all the challenges that came with being the co-founder of a rescue team, there were his issues with his family, and the thought of having to do all that with a smile...

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It wasn't the life for Nico, that was for sure.

Lupin wasn't done pouting about it, however. "Ugh. Well, fine, if you really want to waste my time like this, then I want Acheron as my second in command!"

Nico was a little surprised at that particular turn of events. In the beginning, Lupin had mixed feelings about being watched by Acheron all the time. At least, he'd had mixed feelings once he had figured out that the two of them were using Acheron to keep an eye on him, anyway.

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In the beginning, he had been more on board with it. Excited about the prospect, even, not that he would have admitted it. Within the team, Acheron was quite possibly the only member of the group that Lupin actually had any respect for. Come to think of it, Acheron might have been the only Pokemon, period, that Lupin had any respect for, besides his parents.

Considering his parents were in jail, any role model had to be better than that. That was what Nico thought, anyway.

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And Acheron wasn't a bad sort at all, just a little... stoic. A little hard to get to know. Acheron took his job very seriously, which was a good thing, but Nico was pretty sure he had never seen the guy crack a joke either.

Speaking of people that made you wonder if they understood the concept of sarcasm. But in his case, Nico wondered more whether Acheron understood when sarcasm was being directed at him. Nothing Acheron ever said had ever left any ambiguity with Nico as to whether he was saying it ironically.

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Another time, Nico might have been happy to acquiesce, and even glad to see that the mentorship was working out well after all. They were worried, the two of them, as to how Lupin was going to turn out, considering his upbringing and the circumstances under which he had joined the team.

But lately they had been spread too thin, and an experienced member of the team like Acheron could hardly be spared for babysitting duty. He had been the first one to join after Nico and Joli themselves.

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They'd been through a lot together, the three of them. Back then, the scope of their missions had often been smaller, and the dungeons less perilous than the ones they went through now, but back then they had all been relatively green and not so familiar with the process. Acheron, with his steady temper and combat prowess, had been invaluable.

His ability to work well on his own was valuable too. In fact, they mostly went out in pairs or trios, but Acheron was the only one Nico felt comfortable sending off alone.

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So to that end, Nico shook his head. "No can do," he said. "Acheron is running a solo mission today. You'll be on your own. Hope you can handle it." Maybe reframing his task as more difficult would help in getting Lupin to take it. Nico somehow doubted it would actually work, but at this point anything was worth a try.

Managing children was so difficult. How had he ended up in this position anyway? If he could go back and choose again, maybe...

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No, he was pretty sure he would have ended up right back here. There were times when things were trying--- times like right now, in fact--- but on the whole, it was miles above what his old life had been like.

And as for Lupin in particular, well, that was a no brainer. The circumstances under which they'd met didn't say a great deal of good about Lupin's character, but they also didn't leave much room for doubt as to what the correct course of action was.

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You couldn't leave a little kid to rot in jail if you could help him out, right? At least, Nico couldn't imagine doing it, even if that kid did seem like he would bring you nothing but grief.

And even if Nico had had the heart to abandon Lupin to his fate, it wasn't as if Joli would have stood for it. Nico didn't know if he had ever met someone with such a bad case of Good Samaritan Syndrome as Joli.

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That was why he had wanted to become part of a rescue team in the first place, so in a sense, their entire team had Joli's soft-heartedness to thank for their existence, actually.

Lupin huffed. "Solo mission, huh? You're just trying to make this sound like a big deal! That's not going to work on me!"

Nico sighed. Well, it wasn't like he had been hoping for all that much anyway, right...

"You can keep the spoils from what you find," he said at last.