'for the glory of team rocket!'

half-drunk from sleep deprivation and only partway cognizant of his surroundings, nagi's first hazy thought is: "should i give the knight order a new catchphrase?" — and then, oh. maybe not this catchphrase.

jolted to wakefulness, he stops in his tracks. where had the call come from? just up ahead, as far as he could tell, maybe from the alleyway to his left — but the echo made it hard to be certain.

he should leave. leave, and get help. find an officer. but where? he didn't know the area enough — and by the time he picked his way to the pokemon center and back, they'd have gone. end of story, no reprints. but, he couldn't confront them. he had no misapprehensions about his battling ability. it would be a cakewalk: him, a unidentifiable smear on the pavement.

he should leave. leave and find someone else. call for help. leave.

nagi stands still where he stopped. the setting sun at his back casts a long, long shadow over the mouth of the alleyway, clear as day.

THEO BECKETT

☉

the shadow stretches and stretches, and finally draws attention. theo is the first to turn, locking eyes with an unfamiliar face. the rocket grunt beside him points their weapon but is soon pacified.

"don't."

slowly, theo steps away, approaching the young figure as he ventures through the long shadow on the ground.

"what's your name?"

nagi miwa
mission!

☉

the shine of glasses, as the man turns, and behind him, the glint of a raised weapon as it catches the sunlight. nagi flinches.

even as the man waves the weapon down, nagi's heart races. it picks up speed as the man approaches him, step by deliberate step — a jackhammer beat that seems to drain his extremities of blood, rather than circulate blood through them. he folds his arms in front of himself, tucking his clammy, shaking fingers close to his sides, rooted in place by his traitorous feet.

"nathan maxwell," nagi answers after a short pause, in a careful monotone. “...and you are?” he adds, not able, this time, to force the tremor out of voice as it rises on the final are. his eyes dart between the man, and others behind him, cataloguing as quickly and surreptitiously as he can manage. how many people are there? what do they look like? where are their weapons?

THEO BECKETT

☉

"theo beckett."

finally, he stops. with no weapons on him, he simply slides his hands into his pockets as his eyes narrow in scrutiny of the young man before him.

nathan has heard too much, seen too much, and by all accounts should be killed right there and then. but the fear theo see is familiar, understood, and perhaps that's what prolongs the inevitable.

"what do you know of team rocket, nathan?"

nagi miwa
mission!

☉

nagi knows enough about team rocket to know this: no weapons doesn't mean no danger. theo's composure in itself is a weapon potent enough; the man in front of nagi is one who is of aware of the threat he inherently possesses.

if i run, they shoot me in the back. if i stay, they shoot me in the face. it would be so easy for nagi to be just another corpse in an alleyway. just another body. forgotten. 

as theo scrutinises nagi, nagi— can't. with a hot flash of shame, he feels himself quailing under the weight of theo's steady gaze. his back hunches; he takes an involuntary step back. he fights the urge to look away, eyes dropping once to his shoes before he drags them back up again — committed, at least, to taking in whatever happens next with his eyes wide open. committing theo’s face to memory. his fingernails dig rivets into the soft flesh of his sides through his shirt.

"i-i know—” about kanto. that you're dangerous. that i should have run the other way the moment i heard the word rocket. "—only whatever's been on the news... mr beckett."

his voice, to his own ears, is a hoarse, wavering thing. pathetic. 

THEO BECKETT

☉

"i find that the news can often be skewed, nathan."

between them, a small flame lights, illuminating the space around them for the briefest of moments.

he exhales a cloud of smoke that lingers between them.

"what do you think of us?"

nagi miwa
mission!

☉

I THINK YOU ARE SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME, is his first shrill thought, but the only sound that escapes him is a high-pitched squeak — the beginnings of an incredulous laugh, choked off at the last second.

the smoke from theo’s cigarettes suffuses the air between them; the odor of nicotine stings nagi’s nose as he takes a shaky inhale. his eyes are drawn to the wavering glow of the cigarette tip, a bright spot in the darkening alley as the sun sets behind them.

what is this, a cat playing with its prey?

“i think — i’d think i’d like to know if you’re going to shoot me or not,” he says.

if he was someone else, someone different, the words might have sounded defiant — brave, even. but he’s nagi, scared shitless, so they tumble out of his mouth like spilled marbles, staccato and stumbling.

THEO BECKETT

☉

ash scatters, flowing with the weight of the wind that passes through the alleyway.

"no."

poor, poor nathan.

"i'm not going to shoot you."

after another drag, he exhales, continuing.

"i have no reason to. because, you see, nathan, team rocket is not as cruel as people make us out to be. in fact..."

he steps to the side, turning at the shoulder to point at the body on the ground behind them.

"see him? his name's jack. he runs one of the gangs here in lilycove."

nagi miwa
mission!

☉

i'm not going to shoot you, he says, there’s no relief to be found in those words.

nagi’s mouth opens, but all he manages to say is “ah”; a sharp, short inhale, a gasp of air through parted teeth. acid rises from his gut, burning a trail up his throat. he forces himself to swallow. gulps spit and bile convulsively, as the silence in the alleyway grows taut and thin.

in the shadows of the alleyway, the body on the ground is more oblong, dark shape than man. but nagi can’t stop looking. staring, until his eyes adjust to the low light, as smudged shapes give way to contours give way to edges, until he can make out a hand, a mouth, a face. a person — or what was one.

his name was jack.

the spring air blowing into the valley, scattering the smoke and ash of theo's cigarette, feels ice-cold. it bites through nagi's shirt. he starts to shiver. when he finds his voice at last, his stare is still transfixed on the corpse.

“why?”

why did you kill him? why are you showing me this? he’s not sure of what he’s asking theo, himself.

THEO BECKETT

☉

"why?"

he echoes, following it with a calculated moment of silence. after a hum of thought, he continues, words flowing like a wisp of smoke.

"why was he allowed to roam free? to take advantage of people? to spread terror to those in lilycove?"

another pause.

"you tell me, nathan."

because the league failed you.

nagi miwa
mission!

☉

because—

nagi has read about vigilantes. written them. fallen in love again and again with stories of tragic anti-heroes wresting justice into their own hands where the system and society had failed them, and setting things right. but he has never seen them; not like this: a pair of gaping eyes, an unbreathing mouth. justice is a stranger's body cooling in an alleyway that smells of nicotine and stagnant water.

this is a good thing to have happened to a bad man.

is it?

his gaze wavers, and drops at last, falling from the corpse, to theo, to the tips of his shoes. he curls his toes, digging them into the insole of his sneakers.

"i… don't know." his answer is almost inaudible, even in the dead quiet of the alley. small and subdued. "what now?"

THEO BECKETT

☉

it is.

or at least that's what theo wants nathan to believe. what he wants the rest of hoenn and the world to believe — that rocket are here to cleanse, protect, and help.

"now you leave."

the light between them extinguishes as he drops his cigarette.

"go home. tell people what rocket did for the betterment of the region."

nagi miwa
mission!

☉

shake your head. nod. say something. do something.

but what nagi does is go home.

he untethers his leaden feet from the ground, mute and mechanical; shame burns hot through him as he takes one step backwards, and then another. he tears his gaze from his shoes, looking up a final time when he reaches the mouth of the alleyway. he can't see the corpse from here — just theo's murky silhouette, standing at the cusp between the shadows of the alley and the shaft of evening light from the alley's mouth.

nagi turns away.

THEO BECKETT

☉