Gavin.

Not Merlino. He notices, squinting slightly as he processes the shift, but doesn't call attention to it. He's never been one to demand the formality of surnames from his subordinates, appreciates but doesn't expect to be called 'sir', and so he's ready to dismiss it as nothing. He still looks, of course, the furrow of his brow easily dismissed as mere curiousity.

Ashley clears up any misconceptions of his own with his words, holding out a hand. Gavin pockets Zarude's pokeball and takes it with a brief, firm shake.

Apology accepted is conveyed without words.

"Not all of them are shit," he clarifies instead. "Some have adapted better than I have. Others need a bit more time." He licks blood from his lips and swallows the tang of iron. "Some of them'll always be shit, though. Not much we can do."

A weighted pause, then,

"Glad you came back."

There's a deeper meaning behind it, one he trusts Ashley will understand. I'm glad I didn't have to kill you.

Blood pools around the dead man from a single, efficient gunshot wound. They'd shared a mentor; Ashley knew that Gavin understood how to make a man suffer. That he'd been trained with his own body as a teaching tool, beaten and poisoned and conditioned.

He understands, meeting the sheepish look with a long, calculating one of his own.

"I can buy," he offers, for he is a rather wealthy man, "unless you insist?"

They step outside into the glaring Hoennian sunshine. Onlookers gather curiously around the shop, drawn by the noise, but Gavin dismisses most of them with only a look. He beckons a few he recognizes as Rocket.

"Send for a clean-up crew. One dead."

Gavin lights up a cigarette and wordlessly offers one to Ashley, too. "Do you have a place in mind?"