Team Lockdown
Relic Graveyard Safehaven

Magnum had been urged to attend Yuko's meeting after Crownless told him about the message he had gotten. There was mention of a "golden opportunity," but the rest of the details were vague. In any case, they were serving as additional protection for Crownless. When it came to Team Lockdown, only one member respected it. The others were in contempt that no agenda or details were made. What was even worse was the delay.

"This is a damn waste of time," Zilch thought to herself.

The brutal Zoroark assassin didn't see escort detail for Crownless as a mission. To her, an escort mission wasn't a mission; it was a painful, useless errand. She felt Crownless was perfectly capable of handling himself, so she felt it was pointless for her to be here. Not to mention she didn't understand why Yuko couldn't just come out with it and explain what the meeting was for in the first place. It was definitely not the way she would have handled things if she had been in charge. She would have kept it short and to the point, and she certainly wouldn't have waited for the laggards to show up.

In the meantime, Magnum was only there because Crownless told him what was going on, and felt he and his team was high enough on the food chain to attend and that chances were good they might be affected. But while Crownless was patient, Magnum wasn't and the Typhlosion didn't show the same kind of respect for Cloudview that Crownless showed. Zilch certainly didn't respect them the same way either. Apex the Emolga was muttering impatient remarks to himself, while Sledge the Aggron simply kept to himself out of respect for authority. It seemed it was only the Aggron that observed the value of being cordial in the presence of his superiors.

Zilch was made even more irate when she had overheard one of the groups was running late, and the suggestion to start without them being denied by Yuko herself grated her nerves. What was even worse was how they were simply discussing Cloudview Cliffs tardiness and didn't drop details about what the meeting was supposed to be about. Zilch simply counted all the things she could have been doing instead and she was coming extremely close to becoming vocal about it in front of everyone and not just her teammates. And yet, it was Crownless who suggested waiting for Cloudview Cliffs to arrive if the meeting was that important. The fact her own Safehaven Leader suggested that was extremely frustrating to her.

"Why the hell are they taking so damn long?" Zilch muttered to Apex with a scowl. "For god's sake, I'm not getting any younger here."

"I wish we'd just start without them," Apex the Emolga sighed. "If they're late and don't get the details, that's their own damn fault. They were stupid for not being ready and not compensating for delays."

Meanwhile, Magnum kept looking up, thinking about all the things his team could have been accomplishing during this delay. It bothered him a lot, because to him, time was a resource and here they were, wasting it on something they weren't even sure would be useful information to them. He couldn't help but shoot a look toward Yuko, wondering exactly why she didn't at least give everyone some kind of heads up or agenda about what was to be discussed so they would all know what to expect. Instead, it was completely out of the blue, and Magnum preferred to go in prepared rather than improvise if it was possible.

"There has to be some kind of consequence for being this late," Magnum muttered to Crownless. "Otherwise no one is going to be taking these meetings seriously."

"It may be beyond their control," Sledge compassionately told Magnum after overhearing his comment to the Nidoking. "At least give them the benefit of the doubt, although I would like to know the reason for this delay so it doesn't happen a second time."

"They're goddamn farmers, Sledge," Magnum spat back at him, keeping the discussion quiet amongst themselves. "They're by far the least important Safehaven in existence, and I bet this is over something stupid. Anything they could do, Persevering Spirit probably already does better. And I already have my doubts whatever this meeting is about even involves them."

Sledge was silent. He knew Magnum's anger would pass over in time, but for the moment, it was best to let the team's commander simply voice his contempt quietly among his peers rather than keep it bottled up only to explode into something worse that the whole assembly would overhear. But as they waited longer and longer, Sledge was becoming more concerned about what was keeping Cloudview so long. He could understand his commander's frustrations. Being kept in the dark about the meeting's details and forcing Team Lockdown to sit idly for so long was disastrous to a team that was largely focused on preparation and communication. Sledge knew Magnum already had a lot on his mind and took pride in his work, and this occurrence undermined everything Team Lockdown was about.

"They're gonna owe me a lot of favors for this crap," Zilch growled to her teammates. "You waste my time, that's your debt to me and it will be paid in full plus interest or they'd better not even dream of asking for my help with anything. And the rest of you don't have a backbone if you disagree."

"Trust me, I wouldn't disagree with that one bit," Apex sighed. "I'm losing respect for Cloudview by the second. Thanks to them, this lost time is going to need to be cut out of our and everyone else's plans."

With a hard sigh, Magnum took a glance toward the door. If it was going to take too much longer, he was going to request a dismissal from Crownless himself, because he knew he couldn't afford to have his entire team miss their patrol watch for this long, among all the other things his team needed to address. He figured he could simply request a meeting summary after the fact if that's what it came down to...