Onyx stepped into the cool evening air, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. Above, Ziadem cast a long shadow as she patrolled, ever-watchful; she always took everything to the one-hundred and tenth degree, even if his mission was just to rough up some old-bloods who had issues with the way the new Rocket was going.

To be honest, Onyx couldn’t care less, given that he was, himself, the pinnacle of the ‘old Rocket’ mentality: beat people bloody and they can do little besides die, or submit. But he wasn’t even really wrapped up in the Rocket preachings, new or old; he was just really good at punching the daylights out of people.

Following slightly behind Zia’s leading shadow, Onyx ducked into the alley where he was supposed to meet his second on this mission-- another superfluous detail, he though, but one he had been assigned nonetheless.

“Sup?” He asked the other guy, made clear by his alleyway lurkings that he was the one Onyx was meant to meet. “You see ‘em yet?”

Gerald Kaiser

☉

The other man eyed him up and down with a bored expression. Onyx returned the observation, face blank, hands in pockets.

He made a non-committal noise and leaned back against the brick of a building, fishing a cigarette out of his pocket. “You’d be amazed,” he said, voice muffled around his smoke as he flicked open his lighter and lit up.

He exhaled the cloud of smoke to the side, away from Gerald. Ever the gentleman.

“The closer,” he said, when prompted for his identity. He tipped his head back towards the crowds of passers-by. “Keep watchin’.”

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Onyx could tell Gerald wasn’t impressed by his (frankly, very badass) remark to his identity. It was written in the slope of his brow, the slight darkening in his eyes. It didn’t matter. Onyx wasn’t here to make friends, either-- he was here to do a job, and one that he definitely felt he could’ve handled alone.

Distantly he wondered if the assignment had anything to do with his brief slip-up concerning the honey-smeared trees; maybe if he’d put andres buenaventura in the ground, then, he wouldn’t have been delegated to glorified babysitting duty. The thought made him angry and he dashed his smoke on the brick wall behind him to avoid hitting anyone.

He didn’t want to think about Andres. Now or ever again.

He was pulled from his thoughts when Gerald signaled he’d seen their mark; Onyx’s well-trained eyes also zeroed in on the sneak in the crowd. Almost as if on cue, Ziadem’s roving shadow swept over the man as he tried to bob and weave to safety. She couldn’t divebomb him-- that would result in too much collateral damage, and Onyx was still dealing with the remnants of that from his last mission. But now that the target was in her sights, she wouldn’t lose him.

“Great,” Onyx said, voice flat. “Now we just follow the rat to his bolthole.”

He zipped up the pocket that held his smokes and brushed past Gerald into the throng of people.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Zia and Onyx had been partners for almost fourteen years now. She’d been a savagely wild Rookidee and he the little boy dreaming of his own Pokemon and becoming the Galar League Champ. Over the decade-plus, they’d developed their own language, an unspoken thing wherein Onyx read the slope of her wings, the tilt of her head, and the sweep of her shadow. The little rat man bobbed, wove, and darted down an alley, and Onyx stepped back to fall in stride next to Gerald.

“He went down that way,” he said, gesturing with a jerk of his head. “I’m going to go down here and cut him off on the other side. We’ll pin him between us.”

Without waiting for an answer, he ducked sharply left, and stepped down an alley. Down the other side-- it got so narrow he had to turn side-face to skeech between buildings-- he came round the corner to the lane their target had gone down.

Above came the call of a Pidgey-- a normal bird to find in these streets, but Onyx recognized the extra rasp at the edge of the voice. Ravens were wonderful tricksters, almost as good as mockingbirds. It was Ziadem’s way of signaling they had their mark trapped.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Onyx would’ve loved to just deck the guy and knock him out flat, wham-bam-thank you-ma’am. But this was, for the most part, Gerald’s show. At least, that must’ve been how the brass intended it, seeing as how he’d apparently been brought in as a secondary. Which sucked.

Still, it was nice to bask in the obvious nerves of their quarry-- the heavy sweatstains, the trembling knees, the whale-whites of his eyes flashing in the darkened alley. Faith of the uppercrust or no, Onyx was still damn good at his job-- scaring the bejeesus out of shitheads like this.

“What we want,” he drawled, an innocent skew to his voice, “will depend on how much you’ve run your mouth.” He tipped his head towards Gerald, indicating he should lead the interrogation, and Onyx would take his second. Now that the rat was trapped, there was little left for the cats to do besides play with their food.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Onyx was a pretty nice mixture of things, if he did say so himself. Tall-ish, thick-ish, strong-ish… he was definitely broad, and while he wasn’t cut from stone, he sure looked like he spent some days in the gym. That, coupled with the dull gold of his eyes and just the general air of… grunginess and desperation? Yeah, let’s go with that-- with that air about him, it was enough for him to intimidate anyone, even people he wasn’t directly staring down.

This unfortunate guy not only had him to deal with, but Gerald, who was no slouch himself.

Their mark’s head swiveled back and forth between the encroaching toughs as the air of sweat and fear grew thicker. Like a draining abscess, it grew and it grew until it popped with a firm jab from Gerald that knocked the guy down.

Onyx looked on, bored.

He was to perform the act of the proverbial hard place, and Gerald was the rock-- until the man’s eyes flashed up and inquired as to if he thought the guy was keeping any more secrets.

“You might give us specifics,” Onyx drawled, fishing his lighter out of his pocket and flicking it open and closed. “And if we believe you, we let you keep all your bits. If we think you’re lying… well, I tend to start with the fingernails first, and go on from there.”

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Onyx watched with half-lidded eyes as the sharp curve of Gerald’s blade toyed with the man’s hand. He thanked whatever powers that were watching that whomever their boy’d ratted out had been wise enough to use a false name-- so, besides from a little fearful gossip-mongering, there was really no harm done.

“Lucky for you,” Onyx said, fishing his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, started tapping them in his hand. “Lucky for you, she knew how to do her job. Because if she didn’t, we’d have to kill you. Which I’m still not adverse to doing, by the by.”

He flipped the pack open and slid out a smoke, twirling it in his fingers as he slipped the bundle back into his jacket.

“I think old boy here is wise enough to keep his mouth shut for the future. I think he’s very aware of how quickly we could find him again should he decide to make himself a problem.” He sparked his lighter, twirled it, and sparked it again.

“Your call,” he said to Gerald, not totally adverse to murdering the guy, but also not really looking forward to the clean-up aspect of it all.

Gerald Kaiser

☉