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Claire accepted the invitation as well and sat down, listening politely while eating her lunch. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't amazing either. Overall, it was exactly the quality you could expect from cheap, mass-produced food in cafeterias for the lower ranks. She longed to have access to the same lounges that Lore did, so the fact he preferred to be here - at least for today - baffled her.

Mention of the botched outpost mission and resulting cave-in brought all the memories to the surface again, garnering a small, bitter frown from the agent before she pushed the thoughts away with the rest of her lunch. Lore certainly did have excellent skills - lockpicking, from the hints he gave - but how often did he get to utilize them?

"Glaaa?" Alexina churred again, a little more loudly this time, pausing half-under Frost's chair and peering up at him with an expectant and hopeful expression.

"Thanks!" Lore nodded at Frost's compliment. "It's gotten me out of a few scrapes."

At Faleen's question he shook his head, "Not much of one. It's a nice place. You should visit." He folded his arms behind his head, "Don't get me wrong, though. Kodo's cozy too. I'm getting pretty comfortable here. Loving the friendly atmosphere." He blinked, something at the door drawing his attention, "..for the most part."

Standing out far more than Lore in their pristine white uniforms, two Executive Agents were lingering in the cafeteria entrance. They didn't look very happy. One nodded at the other before they approached Lore's busy table.

Lore sighed, "And here come the fuzz.."

"Sir.. if you'll come with us."

Lore glanced at the Rockets seated around him and shrugged, "Nah, I'm good. You should join us. The turkey sub isn't bad today."

The speaking exec's eyebrow twitched. "..mister Smith, you know we can't do that. You need to return to quarters."

Lore shrugged, "I'm just having some food and catching up on gossip. If the Big Man really has a problem with that he can come down here."

The standing execs tensed at Lore's challenge. You didn't have to be an executive to know that kind of defiance was breaking protocol. They both glared daggers at the seated man, who smiled back, passive as ever.

A long moment passed before the closer exec made a clicking noise with is tongue, turned on his heel and walked out. The other exec shook his head and followed after.

"Bye!" Lore waved. Still smiling, he turned his attention back to the gathered Rockets, "Do they have french fries here? I could mow through some fries."

when Asch mentioned not seeing Lore in Unova, Faleen gave her fellow Agent a glance.
She didn't know a whole lot about asch's history in Team Rocket, or much details about the jobs he's assigned to do, though she did know that he was required to go to all kinds of different places because of his work, so she wasn't to surprised that he's been to Unova.
After all, the only two pokemon he had were native to that region.

She had never had any immediate desire to visit the new region herself, though, she did hear that there were some interesting species of Dark types living there, aside from the one she already had on her team... one from Lore actually now that she thought about it.
That might be something she could be interested in checking out.

Faleen was about to speak again, but barely had enough time to open her mouth when she was stopped very suddenly at the sight of two other Executives walking over to the table Lore was sitting at. this prompted her to shut her mouth very quickly, and swallow whatever it was she was going to say as they started speaking to lore.

how out of place executives looked in a place to common and low ranking as the cafeteria,
Even though there was already an executive sitting at a table filled with Agents and Grunts, the way he carried himself, and even the way he wore his uniform was drastically different fro the two that were not speaking to Lore. This was certainly what one thought when they thought of the high ranking executives.

the blond Agent kept her head bowed softly, and her mouth shut the entire time they were there, though passively watching the exchange that... even made her a little puzzled.

Like any other at her rank, she didn't have much dealing or knowledge of the executives, save for interacting with Seth fairly regularly, who was recently just promoted. She knew THAT was only because he was the head of the department she worked for.
It was very clear to her that a situation like that was very unusual.

But to have an executive actually mingling.... well, she supposed now they were getting some insight on how frowned upon that act must be.
It was clear though that these two were not here by choice, since they continued by trying to tell Lore to return with them.

Faleen had to admit that this was even a little strange, her eyebrows drawing up a little in something of a thoughtful confusion.
'back to quarters'
They made it sound like he was a child that was grounded. instead of a colleague.

Was it really that much of a taboo?

Faleen continued to remain silent as Lore handled the situation casually, and by the look on his face, like he couldn't care less about what they wanted. not intimidated, or bothered by the other two executives.
It wasn't long before the two left again, letting Lore remain, though not happy about it.

Faleen lifted her head once they were walking away, tilting her head slightly as she watched them walk, before her hazel gaze slid back over to Lore.
"I suspect its more of an oddity for someone of your rank to be here, than you make it seem to be."
she noted,

"Uh... I'm certain they do, I though i saw some french fries there earlier."
She answered the question.

Movement from by where Asch was sitting caused Faleen to look over, spotting the familiar fluff of Zorua tail from under Asch's hair.
"Hello tyke" She greeted the hidden dark type.

Humm. Well that was different. Frost regarded the two unfamiliar executives with curiosity, and as they turned to leave again he mulled their words over. Why did they want Lore to go back to his quarters? Was he in trouble for some reason, was that why he hadn’t been seen for a long time? Never having been one for subtlety in social matters Frost turned to Lore and asked; “Why do they want you to return to your quarters, and why can they not join us? Are they, unlike you, invested in keeping executives separated from lower ranking rockets?” It didn’t occur to him for a moment that asking these questions outright could be seen as rude, his tones had been perfectly polite after all and they were only questions. What was wrong with wanting to know things?

Before any more questions could occur to him however he noticed Claire’s glaceon. What did she what from him?... Oh, right, of course. “Hello,” Frost nodded to her, “I’ll let him out now.” So saying Frost removed the luxury ball from his belt and pressed the button to release its occupant.

Once the red light had faded away and he had got his bearings Skrion gave a happy chirp and padded over to Alexina, nuzzling the other ice-type fondly as he sat down beside her. It was a great shame he didn’t get to spend more time with her, it really was. Perhaps he ought to try again to communicate to Frost that he really would like to get a bit of free time in which he could socialise with other pokemon.

Lore sipped his soda, yellow eyes shifting to Asch when the red-head spoke. "Oh you were in Unova too?" He smiled, "Didn't figure anyone else here'd be from my stomping ground, that's great! You must've been in the little base thingie they've got set up, huh? Never actually saw that place. I did a lot of roaming while I was there. Kind of a mobile assignment." He nodded.

When both Faleen and Frost inquired about the odd exchange with the Executives Lore chuckled, "Whoa hey, that's a lot of questions." He smirked good-naturedly at Frost, "Have you considered a field in interrogations, man? Cause you'd be super good at it. Don't worry about those guys." He gave a dismissive gesture, "They've just got too much time on their hands and not enough people to bother. They probably don't like the way I styled my hair today or the color of my shoelaces or something. It's no big deal."

Lore smirked through Frost's calm accusation. He didn't seem bothered or offended. He set one elbow on the table and rested a cheek on his palm, "Alright, you've got me. It's not my hair or my shoes. And you're right, I shouldn't expect any of you to fall for that. If it'll brighten your day, I didn't think you would." He maintained his smirk, "One thing I can promise you is that it's not a big deal."

Much like the arrival of the Executives a minute earlier, something at the doorway caught Lore's eye. In fact, it was catching a lot of people's eyes. The entire Cafeteria had gone silent.

Lucere was standing in the Cafeteria entrance, flanked by the two Executives who'd just left.

Lore arched an eyebrow. "...I actually did not see that coming."

Lucere didn't enter the room. He just fixed Lore with a stare and folded his arms.

That seemed to be enough. "Welp. That's my cue. You guys can finish my fries." He climbed to his feet, maneuvered past the gathered Rockets and gestured at his Whimsicotts, who followed obediently. With a retreating wave, Lore followed the Boss into the hall and was escorted, in silence, to the elevator.