Gavin huffs, the almost-laugh expelling smoke from his nostrils. Blond is, after all, his natural hair colour. He glances over his shoulder at peggie vela, then returns his now-amber gaze to the dingy parking lot below.

"A well-lit window may draw the eye, however unintentionally. I'm looking to avoid that."

Without turning to face her, he beckons her over to the window. The men below continue their illicit exchange, ignorant to the watchful gaze of the Rocket duo. Tension can be glimpsed from a distance, one of the silhouettes encroaching upon the personal space of another. Gavin may not be able to hear the spoken threat, but the thought that these low-life thugs had capitalized on Rocket's name — even if they weren't doing so now — made the underbosses blood boil.

"We're going to teach them a lesson." He springs it on her, because it is important that she be able to adapt to any situation. He has sunk his claws into this one, young as she was, and he would mold her to Rocket as they had once done for him. "You know what that means, I assume."

He can see her reflection in the window, the bounce to her step that suggests the girl is at ease. Something shifts when he speaks of the mission ahead, and Gavin does not miss it.

His father's voice echoes through his thoughts. You don't think; you obey.

But Gavin is not his father.

"Do you?" he challenges, his soft voice managing to sound loud in the quiet. He shifts away from the window to look peggie vela in the eye. "Walk me through it, then. How do you think Rocket deals with degenerates?"

She stutters, stammers, stumbles through her words, and throughout it all, Gavin regards her with eyes of cold amber that give no quarter. peggie vela is right to assume his limited patience, though he does not seem to mind when she fails to find the proper words.

"It doesn't have to be," he says, yet the but is present before he opens his mouth. "But these fools rarely learn a lesson from words of warning, and they've already been warned."

That had been grunt work that Gavin had no part in; they'd shot the messenger, quite literally, and now it was time to face the consequences of their rash decision.

He blinks, stares, expects. "Is that a problem?"

Old Rocket wouldn't have given the choice. Old Rocket had thrown their grunts into the fire and kept around those who avoided being burnt. Weak links were removed from the chain, often forcibly, and the dreaded machine churned onward.

Gavin is a delicate balance between tradition and change, years of conditioning yet to be fully overridden by a new directive. He asks, but he does not insist. Had peggie vela thought to be honest, perhaps she'd have avoided the trauma of such violence. She tells him it's not a problem, and what he hears is this: She will not admit weakness.

If no line was drawn, Rocket would take and take until there was nothing left. He considers her for a long moment.

"Let's go, then." He moves abruptly toward the door, adding, "Are your Pokémon trained to fight?"

She's hardly going to be capable of roughing them up herself, he thinks. Their footsteps echo in the empty stairwell of the building as they descend toward the street.

There's a shadowed contempt in the look he throws over his shoulder when they reach the bottom of the stairs, assessing the teen for any sign she was looking to back out.

It will not be too late until they've reached their quarry.

"Outside of Rocket, most won't use their Pokémon against humans." Such was their advantage. The League occasionally played dirty in response; war had brought out the worst in the well-intentioned. These thugs were neither. "They're likely armed, but so am I. If you're not prepared to defend yourself, then stay behind me."

He curls his fingers around a pokeball, releasing a Lucario into the dingy apartment hall and ignoring a pang of sorrow in his gut.

He drinks in elements of her past, committing them to memory. Her father continues to remind him of his own. The elder Quinn would have made an excellent Rocket.

"Ah, yes. An excellent choice," says Gavin of Golisopod, looking the hulking creature up and down. A distant tug of remorse in his gut. "Had one of my own, once."

He doesn't elaborate.

Gavin shoves open the door, which protests with its rusting hinges and scrapes against concrete. Lucario prowls out in front, every bit the guard dog it had been trained as. It lacked the innate connection with Gavin that his partner Lucario had, but its ability to sense aura remained useful.

They approach from behind, raised voices coming into clarity as they draw close. The thugs seem young, but still older than peggie vela. The man they were accosting is older than Gavin, dark hair threaded with gray — he shies away from the duo and mumbles something Gavin doesn't catch. Though Gavin appears at ease in his approach, he's astutely aware of the gun at his hip and the weight of a beast ball on the other.

Gavin signals Lucario, and the canine howls, long and low. Their quarry whirl about in alarm, and Gavin makes a sharp gesture with his chin to tell the older man to go; he doesn't need to be told twice.

"Fuck's your problem?" The older of the two demands, drawing himself up and puffing out his chest in an attempt at intimidation. "This is Rocket territory, now, so why don't you piss off?"

Gavin's laughter holds no joy nor humour. "So we've heard."