Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.
A/N: Here we go. Once more around the sun, friends. Pretty dialogue-heavy, this one.
Blood In, Blood Out
Chapter 8
"Among Friends"
J's promised reprisal didn't come for two months after their discussion at The Cut but when it came, it came hard, fast and from an unexpected source, to be honest.
Miyamoto had been sitting in the car with Pierce, when it had happened. Just the two of them, quiet and listening as they always were. They were only supposed to be waiting on J, to pick her up from a meet with two small-time producers, looking to sell goods in Viridian. She supposed that was why it had taken her by surprise. The mundanity of it, really. She remembered Pierce saying something, very quietly and very slowly. It had been a clear, concise query. In the fog of her mind, she struggled to recall what it was.
"Hey," he'd said, ashing out his cigarette in the pull-down tray, before looking at her. "What would you do if I knocked you the fuck out, right now?"
She remembered smiling, struck first by the humor of just such an outcome, before he'd removed all sense of comedy from the notion at all, by doing just that. The pistol grip in his hand connected with her face in a sharp backwards arc, from nowhere. The first one had only stunned her of course, but the second one? She was still feeling that one. A sharp line of pain across the top of her head told her that there had been a few more to follow it, just to ensure she would stay down.
The car had moved, to an old bridge to the north of where they'd been in the industrial sector, even though she was right where the blows to the head had left her, slumped and unconscious against the glass. She woke up hot and angry, and turned to flash out, but Pierce was no longer there.
He was still in the car, she found out a moment later, when the sound of an automatic clicking out of the safe position hit her ears. She looked up in the mirror. He was seated behind her, reclined well out of grabbing range. A new cigarette billowed into the evening air through a span of open window. She felt the barrel nudge her lower back through the seat-padding.
She didn't bother to try the door. He would've already locked it. She knew that well enough.
Petrel was the charismatic one. Tyson was the muscle. Archer had the head for business, and J was the one who got shit done...but Pierce?
Pierce was the opportunist. She recognized that about him, moreso now than she ever had. Pierce had this all planned out and she knew it, so she just sat back into her seat, and tried to clear her vision, while she waited for him to speak.
"Let me tell you something about the Regulars, Miyamoto."
He turned one hand over in the mirror. "Well, about the Regulars, and about why you shouldn't have done what you did."
"I'm listening."
"That's good. The second you decide to do anything but listen is when I blow your fucking guts into the glove compartment." He said, his voice patient, even, and practiced. "So, look, this should be obvious to you, but, we're all a team, here, Miyamoto. Not just the Team team, but us, the Regulars. We're the home chapter. The first chapter. The mother chapter. Madame Boss' best and brightest, right?"
"I understand that."
"Really?" Pierce countered. "Because I'm not sure you appreciate it the same way we do."
"The beef is over, between us, Peirce. J and I are partners, now. This isn't necessary."
"There never should have been any beef." Pierce said, and though he didn't change his tone, Miyamoto could see his eyes narrow, ever so slightly. "And if there was, it shouldn't have been carried out in secret. We can settle our shit out in the open. I don't care so much that it came to blows. We're Rockets. Hell, that's normal for us..."
Miyamoto felt emboldened by the fact that the reflection of Pierce in the mirror had condensed from many rotating images, to just a few, so she went to speak, but Pierce stabbed the gun harder into the seat, and spoke before she could. "If you open your mouth before I am finished again, I'm going to blow holes in you until this is empty. I promise you that you're not going to walk away from this car, unless I end our conversation under the strong impression that you heard me. So far you're not doing a great job."
She sat back again, and shut her mouth, unwilling to test his resolve.
"Now, look. You need to get one thing very clear: What you tried to do, after Justice got out? Taking her out to The Cut, and beating on her like you did? You could have done that to anybody else in the Regulars, and probably got off scot-free. If it was me you wanted, well, you could have had me on a platter. None of the boys are especially tight with me, and Justice, well, you could have probably talked her into helping you out, just like you did Archer.
"Archer? Well, the only reason he went along with you, is because he's young, and stupid, and he didn't know any better, otherwise, I'd have his stupid ass in here right alongside you. Petrel would've rolled over on him in a heartbeat, if he was the one you wanted.
"Ty? Maybe you'd have had a harder time with him, but he's not exactly bright, is he? That one, you could have had on your own, and if you cowed him, so what? He's a pushover anyhow.
"Petrel? Well, just about any of us would have set Petrel up for you, wouldn't we? Except maybe you, of course, but then, that's your sickness, sister. Not ours.
"But when you went after Justice, that was a mistake." Pierce held up a finger and wagged it. "We don't fuck with Justice."
Pierce and her met eyes, and for a moment, she could see a brief flash of the anger that Pierce had so far concealed. "I can tell you're thinking that's because we're scared of her." He chuckled. "Just like we ought to be. Just like we ought to be of you, right?"
"It's true really," Pierce explained. "You and her are two of a kind. Killers, dyed in the wool. Like there was never anything more for you in life. You two were practically born with blood on your hands, weren't you?
"And oh the Madame Boss loves you for it, doesn't she? She should. She's a lady with a lot of ugly problems that can only be solved by you and her, you know. She found Justice, and she was a fucking godsend. Right when the team needed her most, she was there, in the thick of it. And then, here the Madame Boss just so happens to stumble across you, right as Justice gets pinned down on some one-eight-seven shit. Must've seemed like providence. Hell, now, with the two of you out in the world? She's finally got her left glove to match the right.
"But that's not the truth, is it? It's not so convenient as that. Or maybe it is, for you, and that's why we're sitting here, now. Maybe for you, this is all you know, and all you ever want to know. Maybe you really were born with blood on your hands. Maybe you're really just one of the old Warriors, fallen from time. But I don't think you are.
"Because the truth is that you're both damaged. Something inside you got fucked up real bad, a long time ago, and you never got right again. You came back to balance maybe, you started to function again, but you're still fucking dead inside. That part of you ain't ever gonna get well again. And for you, maybe, that part is gone to rot. It's spoiled, and eventually everything else inside you is gonna go that same way, too, right along with it. One day you're gonna wake up, and that's all that's gonna be left of you.
"That's the day you just get up and walk outside, and nothing else matters. You just lose it. You just fucking go insane, and you kill everything you can get your hands on," he held up his fingers to his temple, clicking his thumb. "Till you're on the eleven-o'clock news, Jennies are icing your crazy ass in front of a convenience store, and they're counting your death-toll for the record books." He made a little bang sound, as he pulled the finger-gun away.
"Justice isn't like that." Pierce shook his head. "Different life. Different circumstances. Same result, but for Justice, this is what's keeping her together. I heard from Justice every week she was in the VCMP. You know what she talked about, every, single, time? The Team. The Regulars. Us. Justice is fucked up, and we all know it, but she's still ours.
"You see, Justice came to us from a seriously messed up place. Just like you did. Not the same kind of place, but when things are fucked up that bad, it stops mattering so much. Once you've stacked shit that fucking high, what's the point in counting anymore? Bad is bad. You and her have seen shit that any normal person would never understand, so it doesn't fucking matter. The thing is, Justice stuck her neck out for us, and the Regulars don't answer that sort of shit with indifference. Justice may strike you as the most ruthless of all of us, and that may be true, but she is also the most beloved one.
"Tyson would fight you over one unkind word about Justice.
"Archer hardly knew her before, and now he and her have been thick as thieves since the second you and her were done scrapping with each other.
"Petrel still has the fucking hots for her, even if he involuntarily holds his junk when she walks past.
"And me? Well, I'm about to kill you over it, if things don't go the right way, aren't I?
"She's family. She's blood. She's a Regular.
"Now, here's the thing: It's you and her, now. Madame Boss wants you together, so that's that. And if what you say is true, everything is hunky-dory between you two, so that's good, too, in it's way. But where I grow concerned is when it comes to the matter we just discussed: you and her both being completely certifiable.
"I don't think Justice is going to end up on the news. You, however, that's another story. And with you in the mix, her stability is looking a whole lot more questionable, as well."
He paused, and Miyamoto got the hint that she was supposed to say something. She weighed out her choices, and then went with the least damaging option. "You want me to tell you that I won't break her." Miyamoto guessed, but that was plainly ludicrous. "Look, Pierce, I don't think you really appreciate the gravity of what you're saying. She ain't made of glass. J is every bit as tough as I am. Maybe tougher."
"You're damn right she is." Pierce permitted, with a chuckle. "I don't care what you might think about what went down in The Cut, but I'm telling you, in a fair fight, things would have gone different."
Miyamoto arched both brows. "I gave her a fair fight, and she took it."
Pierce flattened his. "No," he explained. "You goaded her into duking it out with you, a day after she came out of the pen. Not only that, but from what I hear, some Magma grunts gave her a real work-over before she left the joint, maybe even worse than just a work-over. Plus she and Pet got into it after the party and word is, Pet got some pretty good licks in, too, even though he's telling a much different story."
"She didn't tell me none of that."
"Why would she, dumbass?" Peirce hissed. "She has to look like a diamond in front of you. Doubly so now that you're working together. It's not like it takes a genius to figure that out. If you'd have taken Justice out there at one-hundred percent, she would have beaten your ass so bad, you'd have developed a speech-impediment. Don't sit there and think you're so fuckin-
Something hit the side of the car, heavily, then, and as Miyamoto wheeled around she saw that it wasn't a something, but rather, a someone. Pierce was a fairly large man, tall and lean, but still heavy, but the person on the outside of the car was making up for that, by taking both feet off the ground to rip him through the window.
J must have missed them at the pickup, but now she had found them.
Miya's partner put both boots to the door, and balanced herself with two handfuls of his flash. Then, rather than actively attempt to pull him through the window, she more made it impossible for him to not come through the window by straightening her body out like an arrow. Pierce was torn out of his seat, banged his head on the roof on his way over the door, and fell overtop of the woman who'd wrenched him there when gravity took over.
J shoved him off, and clambered over him, and drilled him in the stomach, the ribs, the neck, anything she could get a shot at, like a frenzied animal. He let go of the gun at some point, and she collected it as she came to her feet. She hurled it off the side of the bridge and into the drink.
Miyamoto didn't realize just how out of it she was until she swooned in her seat, and fell face-first into the window again, blackness swelling in from the rim of her vision until it was nearly all she could see. Apparently spinning around so fast had rattled something loose. Maybe she'd been hit harder than she thought. She heard J start yelling, but couldn't make it out.
They both stood and screamed for a while, and then J shoved Pierce until he fell on his ass again, and then kicked and stomped at him until he reluctantly but wisely left the scene.
When her partner opened the car door, it was all she could do and then some to keep from falling onto the pavement. To her surprise, J wedged herself under her arms, and heaved her back upright. "Fuck, Miya, you are bleeding all over the place."
She could feel it now, running down her neck, where she hadn't before. Her adrenaline was waning. She must've taken way more knocks to the head than she'd thought. Still, all she could think of to do was apologize.
J helped her get her feet on the ground. "What? What the hell are you sorry for?"
"Pierce," she said wobbly, trying to stand under her own steam and failing. "He was shitty for that crap I pulled, back when..." She balanced herself on the hood for a moment, to steady herself.
"Arceus, you fuck a guy a few times, he thinks he has to go White Knight you for the rest of his fucking life." J looked askance in the direction she'd driven Pierce off into. "I'm gonna cave his damn head in-"
"No, Pierce asked me... He wanted...to..." She tripped, but J was underneath her again. She couldn't get her head together. "He didn't want me to fuck you over. He knows about..."
J screamed in frustration. "What the fuck are you talking about?" She leaned heavily inward as Miyamoto bowed out, and eventually settled with easing her down into a kneeling position. "Why the fuck would he say some shit like that? We're partners, Miya!"
"Because, J..." Miyamoto said, suddenly feeling all too present in the moment. She looked at her partner, with half-dilated eyes.
"Pierce knows I killed my last partner."
A/N: Finally, some implication of backstory! Enjoy!
