Work Text:
Jimmy grabbed the coffees he ordered from the counter, groaning when he realized he would be late to meeting Tango—the entire morning had been full of mishaps and weird slowdowns that had pushed his schedule back nearly thirty mintues.
Whatever; Jimmy was fine! A smile spread across his face thinking about his fellow rancher—Tango rarely got angry at him for anything, really. It was so nice to have a genuinely supportive coworker for once. He stepped onto the sidewalk, bright yellow wings twitching from the proximity of everyone else nearby, though it didn’t bother him much.
It wasn’t like he could fly, so damage to his wings was…less important, he supposed.
The walk towards The Ranch was fairly close, so there wasn’t much point in catching a cab, and Jimmy didn’t feel like squishing into a car today either way. He crossed the road, two coffee cups in hand, humming to himself. The city was bright and full of noise; cars whizzing by, busy pedestrians shoving past each other, the sun peeking out of hazy pollution. A fine day, by all means.
Jimmy very decidedly did not feel anything akin to dread, not regarding his lateness, nothing about the uneasy idea of someone watching him in the back of his mind, and certainly nothing about supposed canary curse! He hurried by a shadowed alleyway, wings curling closer in unease as the disquiet only grew as he briskly walked by—
The sharp crack of the brick behind him was the only warning Jimmy got before an arrow shattered it, ceramic shards flying through the air and cutting into his skin. He dropped the coffees—oh c’mon, why him? —and yelped, instinct driving him to duck behind the closest dumpster before turning invisible, his power shimmering lightly over his skin, its embrace cold.
He was shaking; nearly frozen with fear as adrenaline rushed through his system and kept him pinned to the floor. Jimmy gasped for another breath—he was too loud, what was he doing?! Clasping his hands over his mouth, he shifted backwards until his back hit the trash can behind him, wings tightly pressed against his back.
What was happening? What had he even done to even deserve this??
Other than his curse— his only punishment, he said— he hadn’t done anything offensive to any powerful people, had he? This couldn’t be happening to Jimmy, a perfectly normal and law abiding citizen! Gathering his courage, he peeked around the dumpster, staring at red and white boots and then up, a distinctively red cloak over his attempted assassin’s pure white shirt, yellow and green goggles placed firmly upon her head. And next to her?
A white wolf, slinking close to her legs as it sniffed the air.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she sang, axe glinting in the dull light, her face shadowed by her hood. “There’s really no need to hide,” she laughed.
Jimmy was done for. He was so done for; he might as well accept his fate right then and there. But no. He still had to make it to Tango; get his last few words in, confess that he had somehow messed something up so badly that someone sent the Scarlet Moon after him. She was going to kill him. He gulped, eyeing the open street behind him—if he could get past her undetected, if she didn’t chase him down, maybe—
All of a sudden, she sighed, fingers tapping impatiently on her axe.
“Did you…wrong intel?” she mumbled to herself, annoyance written over her features. “I’m never trusting… seriously?”
She looked down at her watch, rolling her eyes and waving her wolf off, and Jimmy watched in disbelief as it happily bounded away, weaving between signposts before disappearing from sight. And then: the Scarlet Moon, prominent hybrid hunter— hilarious, because Jimmy wasn’t even a hybrid, not with his curse— took her cloak off and spread her wings, jumping from the dumpster he was hiding behind and into the air. Nearly immediately, she shot into the sky and disappeared, leaving Jimmy alone.
Immediately, he pushed himself up, stumbling in blind terror as he ran, still invisible and mind absolutely blank. Time seemed to blur, people growing into indistinct figures, every sound a threat.
What had just happened to him??
There was gray concrete, an open building, cars parked, places to hide —he curled up behind something, staring blankly at his hands.
—🪷—
“—never said he could turn invisible!” Pearl whined, her voice indistinct coming through the phone.
Gem groaned as she paced back-and-forth, head threw up and staring at the ceiling in frustration. “Well, I don’t know! I get my intel, I give it to you; how was I supposed to know your target had two abilities?”
Lizzie raised an eyebrow at their conversation, sitting atop one of Joel’s cars and watching them talk. “Isn’t that extremely rare? Like, a one in a hundred-thousand chance?”
“Exactly! And this guy isn’t exactly good at hiding—everything about him just screams overconfidence; there’s no way he could hide something like this.” Gem threw her hands up in defeat, glaring at the phone as if she could convey the feeling towards Pearl.
“I can’t believe I lost the guy,” Pearl complained, “he was such an easy target too. My reputation! Nobody’s gonna hire me after this.”
“Aaw, don’t say that,” Gem comforted, although it mostly sounded like she was consoling a crying child who had just dropped their candy on the floor to Lizzie. “You can just get the guy next time.”
Lizzie pursed her lips, chin on her hands as she thought. It was fairly strange that Pearl’s target would have two abilities and that they didn’t know, considering what they knew about his personality—not to mention how rare it was.
“What if you got the wrong guy? The man you chased down wasn’t even acting like your target, and had an entirely different power.” she proposed, prompting Gem’s head to turn towards her, then accusingly at the phone.
“...Pearl,” Gem said, very slowly. And accusingly.
There was a long pause, and then Pearl’s voice filtered through the phone again.
“Oops? I mean…come on, what’s more likely, that I got my target wrong, or that this guy had two powers?” There was another pause. “Okay; maybe that could’ve been the reason why Tilly couldn’t catch the guy after he went invisible.”
Gem groaned again, dragging her hands down her face. “There’s no way. I take it back, you don’t deserve that reputation. I hope nobody ever hires you again,” she muttered spitefully into the phone, ignoring the noises of protest Pearl made in the background.
Lizzie laughed, hopping off the car to grab one of the boxes she had left in the car garage—Joel was returning from his trip to the hardware store for a couple of parts and had asked her to grab it and leave it in the garage-slash-storefront area before he left.
She hummed to herself as she headed down the hallway, opening the door to the car garage—and storage area, the door hidden further down. Except—there was someone else there, their breathing heavy and quietly echoing around the concrete walls. Slowly, she crept forward, darting around a concrete pillar and scanning the area, but there were too many cars blocking possible hiding spots.
Technically, the space was open for anyone to enter, though if anyone did, they would be entering The Family from the back, but the entrance was wide enough so cars could drive in and out. And Joel had left the garage door open when he left, unconcerned with all the…safety measures they had modified the cars with in case of thievery.
Lizzie’s eyes snapped towards a gas barrel as it wobbled and tipped over, a surprised noise coming from right next to it—an invisible source—
“...never said he could turn invisible!”
—and Shadow Play flickered to life in her chest, wrapping the man in blindness and covering the area with her shadows; a familiar, cool whisper to her senses. Lizzie summoned her sword, striking out at where her shadows curled around an obstruction and knocking the man to the ground.
She had found Pearl’s target. Or well, possibly mistaken target, but what were the chances? (One in one hundred-thousand, apparently.)
The invisibility disappeared and he cried out, scrambling back, jolting as his bright yellow wings flapped against the floor in alarm. Her shadows receded, and Lizzie stared at the blond man half-curled up against the wall, incredulous terror dotting his expression.
“Wait wait wait— I swear I’m not stealing anything!” he shrieked, “oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is the worst day of my life,” he mumbled to himself, his arms still up in a desperate bid to defend himself.
In Pearl’s defense, he did look somewhat similar to her target from a distance—blond hair, yellow wings—but that was about where the similarities ended, his nervous disposition a stark contrast to how the man in the tapes had acted.
“Oh!” Lizzie gasped, realizing that she had, perhaps, further traumatized a random man who had, most likely, not only been attacked by Pearl, but after seeking shelter in a seemingly empty and safe car garage, attacked once again.
“My apologies, I thought you were here to steal something,” she followed up smoothly, dissipating her sword back into her inventory but keeping it in the first slot in case he was actually hostile. “Are you alright? You look a little rattled.”
Which may have been somewhat of Lizzie’s fault, but she hadn’t exactly expected Pearl’s Invisible Man to show up in their home base. Either he truly had some terrible luck, or he had planned this out in some stroke of genius and respectable acting ability. He shakily stood up.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he rushed out, eyes darting towards the exit. “Sorry, I think I broke in; I thought it was a parking lot, you know?” His voice went higher. “I’m just going to leave now.”
Driven by some impulse, Lizzie reached out and grabbed his wrist, prompting him to jump.
“Wait—I’m sorry about attacking you when it seems you’ve just had a difficult day and needed a place to calm down,” she said soothingly, dropping his wrist, although she smiled when he didn’t immediately snatch his hand away.
He turned red in embarrassment, wings puffing up indignantly. “It wasn’t—I mean—ugh, it’s been a long day. I don’t usually break into random people’s car garages, I swear!”
Lizzie laughed, and the sound seemed to relax him, as his ruffled feathers smoothed and his wings fell back to a more natural position. “My name is Lizzie; it’s nice to meet you, Invisible Man.”
“It’s Jimmy!” the man protested, and all of the terror seemed to have drained out of his body, leaving a personable, outspoken civilian who should have never crossed their world.
“Anyways,” Jimmy continued, oblivious to what she was thinking, “thanks for being lenient to me…hiding here. I have to go—I think I missed an entire meeting with my coworker.”
Lizzie nodded sympathetically, brushing her skirt off of any dust to do something with her hands.
“Listen, let me treat you to something for attacking you out of the blue—here,” she grabbed The Family business card from her skirt pocket, pressing it into his hand, “just text me. I swear I don’t usually attack random people loitering in our car garage,” she joked.
“Ah…” he paused, looking uncertain, but finally nodded. “Thank you?”
She smiled at him, rocking back and forth on her heels. “No problem—it was kind of my fault for being so trigger-happy in the first place. Let me get your number so I can remind you?”
Lizzie opened her phone and had Jimmy type his number in, finally letting him go afterward. She waved a goodbye and watched as he hurriedly left, no doubt catching up to that coworker of his he had missed.
She tapped her fingers against her phone before opening her contacts, scrolling down to Joel and calling him, warmth spreading through her chest when he picked up nearly immediately.
“Lizzie? Any reason you called me?” Joel asked, the sound of his car rumbling in the background. “I’m still driving back but I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Lizzie tilted her head and laid her phone against her shoulder, walking towards the storage room as she began to recount the story—Pearl’s attempt, the mistaken identity, the man whose number she’d taken—as Joel hummed along, listening to her speak.
She unlocked the door, rummaging through the various car parts lying around, hoisting the cardboard box up victoriously when she found it.
“So you have a way to contact him, and an agreement to meet up later?” Joel asked, his expression most likely curious—Lizzie could see it in her mind’s eye.
“Mhm,” she confirmed, making her way back to the storefront with the box in hand. “You should come along with me; I think you’d like him.”