Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.

A/N: So, after some thought and encouragement from a highly respected peer, I decided to go ahead and kick this off. As mentioned in the summary, this is set in the same universe as my other fic, but you don't really have to read it to follow along with this story. It's notably a shorter format than PKMN2K10, so it's possible that this might be updated a bit more frequently. We'll just have to see how that goes.

Blood In, Blood Out

Chapter 1

"How Little You Know"

Miyamoto sat as demurely as one could in a cheap vinyl bench-seat. The seedy place Ariana had asked to meet with her was not at all in line with the simple elegance that both women typically tried to exude, but for some conversations, dive bars were just more appropriate.

Nobody inside the pub looked more than once at their flash or their colors. It was easy to spot them for what they were, and that was all the more that anyone needed to know in Viridian City. When you were a Rocket, people did not ask questions, no matter how out of place you might've seemed. It was just an assumed thing. A VIP pass to anywhere one might've chosen to go in this town. They were a sort of reviled royalty, in that way.

Still, it was an unusual thing for a Rocket to drink here. Most of them usually took their pleasure in the same place where they did most of their business. The old dance-club on the northeast side that had been called several equally flashy and contrite names before it had gone out of business, and fallen well out of fashion. Now they just called it the HQ, though there were many more colorful references made to it by those other than themselves, she was sure.

Still, it served their pleasures well enough. Nobody there begrudged them a little off-duty R&R. There was always plenty of booze on hand, in variety and volume, certainly, and if what you were coming out for were some of the more illicit things you could find for yourself in a place like this, there were plenty of those things to be had too, if you asked around amongst the right brothers and sisters. Hell, most of the fully fledged rockets practically lived there. Some actually did, in fact.

For all but the most sociable and outgoing Rockets, a fuck or a bump was easier had amongst one's own. A drink, certainly so. To have asked her out here, meant this conversation was not for general consumption. They were here so the Admin could speak her mind without anyone overhearing.

But It wasn't just the location of this conversation that was so troublesome, to Miyamoto. It also had to do with the fact that Ariana was already sighing over the remnants of her sixth sherry, which foretold of a type of drunkenness that the Agent had never seen Ariana reduced to before.

For her own part, Miyamoto nursed absently at a pale draught beer, biding her time beneath the muted red incandescent light until she could be permitted to leave. This was a type of trouble she did not need. Shit getting stirred up amongst Admins was a whole level of power-play that she could not afford at the moment, with her reputation on the mend.

There had been a time when the only thing separating her from such a position was the lack of available positions. Now, after a close brush with the deeper intrigues, she was well contented to be her own sort of big fish in a small pond. She was eager to put this conversation behind her, regardless of it's actual content. Of course, you couldn't just come right out and say such a thing to a person who was essentially the Boss' right hand. She would just have to bide.

Still, as if sensing her invited guest's dismay, Ariana pointed two fingers that kicked up turbulence in the thick strata cigarette smoke that layered the air. She didn't slur, but there was a somewhat loping quality to her voice that was nearly as good by comparison. When someone like Ariana displayed even the most remote lack of discretion, it was a marked occasion. The Admin was normally so stiff she could make a corpse with rigor mortis look like he was having a relaxing evening.

"Cut the shit, alright? I know you're not thrilled to be here, but there's some things you gotta hear about the person you're going to meet tomorrow," Ariana practically spat, her eyes flashing a fair amount of freshly unbridled contempt. It was no real secret that Ariana didn't care for those of them that did the really dirty jobs. She sat up in the rarefied air, so that was to be expected, after all. "And you should be prepared for what meeting that person is going to mean for you."

If that's what she was concerned about, then this conversation would be much shorter than Miyamoto had expected, , the Agent sat back, and laid folded gloved hands over crossed legs. "I have no reason to be worried."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Ariana cautioned, some of the civility returning to her voice. "She's getting out of prison tomorrow. She did years of hard time for the Team, no complaints." Here she flicked her fingers again, tone once more growing accusatory. "You on the other hand, you're coming off a major setback. The Pallet expansion was supposed to oversee all our trafficking from Cinnabar, collect shipments off the coast under cover of darkness and distribute to rural suppliers. Now that's all just a pipe-dream because nobody can budge a fucking inch in Pallet anymore and the Team is eating the loss on your behalf."

Miyamoto frowned, but only slightly. The sting of the issue was months gone. She was now just more annoyed at hearing the story retold and again having to explain it. It made her feel like a floor-boss having to explain why a certain course of action was actually positive, when all upper-management could see was a downturn on a line graph that they knew little to nothing practical about. "It's wasn't a loss. We rooted out a traitor to the team and finished her for good. As far as I'm concerned, the whole venture going up in smoke ten times over is worth that."

Ariana nodded gravely, and sipped the last dregs of her drink, before waving it in the air impatiently, until she'd caught the barkeeps attention from across the room. "And more or less that's how the Boss sees it too, so that's fine. But how does it look from her perspective?"

There never seemed to be any proper names spent at their subject's expense, where Ariana was concerned. Some old beef? Miyamoto could only wonder.

"Doesn't matter." The Agent protested, concealing her bemusement. "I don't intend to start an opinion poll. She'll fall in step with me one way or another." Miyamoto sat one hand on the table and expanded the fingers before clenching it tightly, knuckles down against the scarred wood. There was an audible sound of muscle and bone even past that of creaking leather. "If I have to flex a little to get her there, it doesn't concern me."

Ariana sighed. She knew that Miyamoto was cut from a different stock. Unlike Ariana, who had been a young lieutenant close to the Boss before she'd inherited the gang from her father, Miyamoto had not always lived a life in the upper crusts of criminal luxury and fraternity.

She'd fended for herself most of her life, and cut a living in the gutters where kids her age had been dying of starvation and sickness, long before she'd worn the colors. Now well-naturalized, Miyamoto had been born a child of distant Castelia, where half a generation had fallen into poverty and homelessness after the global economic crisis of the previous decade.

It was from that mire that the Boss had elevated her, putting to use a vast array of unsavory talents, not the least of which was a considerable disregard for human life. Miyamoto was a hard woman, and her path through life had made her that way.

But hard women were difficult to reason with, at times for much the same reasons.. Ariana had risen high within the hierarchy of the team by showing her value to a girl that had outgrown her friendship and become a powerful leader, but the Admin had never been afraid to bow out to her betters when faced with the sorts of problems that Miyamoto was typically brought in to solve.

So far as Ariana was concerned, there were two types of strength at it's most basic level: that which you could apply to a given problem on your own, and that which you could convince others to apply at your behest. She was far more invested in the latter, not to mention more confident in her ability to levy it.

"Miyamoto," Ariana began, waving the violent gesture away without the slightest hint of interest. "That woman is not the type you want to become closely involved with. In any capacity."

"What do you mean?" Miyamoto asked, her hands returning to her lap where she left them folded plainly. "Everyone says she was the best before..."

The Rocket Agent did not chortle, keeping her mouth closed respectfully. Her eyes however, lit with a macabre satisfaction. "Before they put her on the inside."

"Before you came around, you mean," Ariana countered, with a scolding tone in her voice. A good sense of professional snottiness was not a foreign concept to the Admin, however. Rockets were the type that put notches in their belts, after all, even her.

Miyamoto shrugged in a way that was certainly meant to seem noncommittal to the casual observer, but was as good as acquiescence in truth. "I mean to say that she was well-respected and close to the Boss, by every account I've heard."

Ariana nodded, as a new drink was set in front of her. "That much is true, though in just what way, is a matter of perspective."

Miyamoto exhaled over the top of her beer, but humored the Rocket Admin, nonetheless. "Oh?"

"Utility of a sort does not make something utilitarian in general," Ariana said blithely. "You understand?"

Miyamoto nodded, but shrugged, as if to say she understood conceptually, but didn't follow the line of logic. "I suppose so."

"Sharpedos have big mouths, but you wouldn't take a blowjob from one." Ariana said, eyebrows flattened as she hammered out her point in a blunt and rude way that she knew Miyamoto would understand.

Now it was Miyamoto who scowled. "You think she's a liability?"

"No, not so much that as..." Here, the Admin paused and changed her mind. It was best that she didn't say more than was prudent. "Let's just say..."

It was clear that Ariana was dancing around the subject, which made Miyamoto want to get up and leave all the more. She shifted slightly, prompting the Admin to get on with it.

"Well, take you for example. The Boss likes you because you're a mean little cuss with no qualms whatsoever about getting nasty business done right," Ariana explained. "You're smart and trustworthy, sure, and that's why she doesn't keep you on a tight leash but the main thing is that you're cold-blooded and the Boss knows she can count on you when she can't count on anyone else, person or Pokemon."

Miyamoto licked her teeth behind her lips, but didn't say anything. That sort of self-satisfied expression really pushed the Admin's buttons. "Don't try to look cute, bitch. You know I'm right."

Miyamoto finally betrayed a bit of a laugh, though she did not shift in her seat. She made a noise that was as much affirmation as Ariana was likely to get.

The Admin took another big gulp of her sherry, tamping down her resolve. "Well, she was like that too. She was the first person the Boss recruited who could be totally and completely counted on that way."

"So we're both willing to spill blood?"

"More like you're both a special sort of psychotic that the Boss finds tractable enough for her liking," Ariana cautioned. "Let's just say I have my doubts that this town is big enough for the both of you."

Miyamoto did not acknowledge the slight to her person with anything more than a smirk. She'd punched people's teeth into their throats for less disrespect than that, but she'd let it slide on principle. Ariana outranked her, even if she was a paper-pusher. Plus, she was flat-on-her-ass drunk. Miyamoto could excuse a bit of misjudgment. She swallowed the rebuke, and let fly the dismissal instead.

"Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Either way I think I'll be fine," The younger woman said, leaving her beer unfinished as she moved to stand.

Ariana snatched the Agent's arm with alarming quickness, overturning the half-full glass of sherry with the sharp motion and sparing it not a bit of concern. The Admin's grip was hard and urgent,and though it would have been nothing for Miyamoto to wrench free, the haunted look that the Admin favored her with held her in place.

"Before you decide that there's nothing to concern yourself with, let me tell you a story first," She began, voice quite grave. "I've wanted to get this off my chest for years now, and somebody needs to hear it. It may as well be you." It was an old story. A dark story. One that she was hoping to forget after tonight, if at all possible.

In the past fifteen years, there had been more killing and bloodshed than in the rest of the gangs history combined, and Ariana had been there to see it all. She was thirty-nine going on forty now, and she carried the memory of many monstrous things that had shaped the team into what it was today.

Before the Madame Boss had taken over, there had been a very long and bloodless regime, where much of the conduct that was commonplace today would've been unheard of. She was old enough to remember some of that too. It had been a simpler time back then, before the expansion and the extended, merciless battles over turf. She had never, and would never speak that sort of criticism aloud, though.

This was the Boss' Team, and it's course was hers to decide. The bloodletting was on its waning phase, Arceus-willing, and she hoped that in just a few years more they might be able to put this turbulent period behind them. From there, she could move the team into mostly-legitimized profits, but until then, she served whatever ends she was put to, compliantly.

Still, the point where this had all began a decade and a half ago, stuck with her so vividly that it still came to her in nightmares every so often. The way she saw it, seniority and good service had earned her this one small breach of confidence.

Miyamoto sat back down, and as the Admin blotted up the spilled contents of her glass with a handful of napkins from a nearby dispenser, she slowly told her story about the woman in question.

A/N: Chapter two will be along shortly. Thanks for reading.