Rain fell from the dark, overbearing grey sky.

”…Shoulda brought a fuckin’ coat…”

Orochalcus muttered to himself. Admittedly, he should’ve seen this coming, it was always raining in England, the fact that there were clouds in the sky at all, let alone grey ones should’ve told him to expect a torrential downpour later on in the day.

A coat probably would’ve looked stupid, anyways, he told himself. Sure, he didn’t exactly like having his hair getting drenched, it was his favourite part about himself, after all, so it getting soaked and ruined was never on the list of things he wanted to happen, but even so, he wasn’t particularly carrying anything else with him, nothing of value, anyways. He had to always keep what he was bringing to these meetings to a minimum, after all, lest things go sour, which they had a surprising tendency to do so.

He clutched his blazer in front of him, trying to protect his shirt from being hit by the rain as he speedwalked forwards, an effort he was only somewhat successful in. Of all times, why did the world have to choose now to start raining? Right when he needed to be out for probably at least a few hours, it decided it wanted to punish anyone and everyone who wasn’t inside. How cruel, existence can be, even with the most minor of inconveniences.

”Yo, Orochi!”

Someone called out to him. Orochi, yes, it was one of the people he needed to meet, only they called him that. It was just a simple nickname, a shortening of his first name, Orochalcus, a name which he admittedly wasn’t particularly fond of. It was too long, it sounded pretentious and eccentric, it made him sound stupid, but there was no use in changing it, Orochi was good enough for him, so it would stay like this for the time being.

Orochalcus glanced over to where he had heard his name from, it seemed to be a small alley, a gap between two rather unremarkable apartment buildings. There were a lot of these buildings around here, even if it was one of the lesser populated areas of newcastles, there were still a lot of people living there, well, a lot by his standards, anyways. He could see a couple of people in the alley, most of whom were looking back at him. They all were slightly concealed by the shadows cast by the tall buildings, but he didn’t need to see them to know who they were. They weren’t a gang, no, they weren’t large or organised enough to be called that, a better term might just be delinquents, though they often felt a lot more like fully fledged criminals.

Orochalcus was with them, not fully by choice, or that’s what he told himself, at least, just out of necessity. His mother was a piece of shit, always nice to him when his father was around, but considering he had died of cancer when Orochalcus was six, that had been ‘never’ for eleven years now. Orochalcus had always been neglected, it was clear she wanted him out as soon as he turned eighteen, which he had admittedly seen coming for a while, but even while he was in, she did less than the bare minimum. He had always had to resort to trying to find other ways of feeding him and his brother. These delinquents were nothing more than an extension to that rule, just a way for him to feed himself and his family, his real family, the people who loved him, which right now consisted of a grand total of one person. They had formed a deal where Orochalcus was basically doing most of their fighting for them, in exchange for a cut from all of the robberies they carried out. It was only a minute amount, getting a small cut of the already small amount they managed to steal, but it was more or less enough to keep them alive, and that was good enough for Orochalcus, which was fortunate, considering it was undoubtedly all he was going to get.

“Get over ‘ere, man! You gotta check this out!”

Continued the same voice, the specific figure who he could assume it to be coming from seeming to beckon him closer, as if inviting him into the group. He intended to, anyways, they had all agreed to meet up, right there, right then, to plan their next heist, or crime, or anything else that hey wanted to do, and as Orochalcus was essentially their muscle, they needed him there, something he was acutely aware of. Nodding, he walked over to the alley, joining the rest of the group. They weren’t particularly menacing, he didn’t feel like he was in much danger. He was by a decent amount the tallest in the group, standing at a little over six foot, and considerably more muscular than the rest of them too, primarily due to him doing essentially all the physical work.

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The boy who had just called him looked like little more than just that, a fairly short, rather skinny boy, no older than fifteen, with short, light blonde hair. Most of them didn’t look much different on the surface, really, all of them were just kids. The oldest among them was barely twenty, and the youngest fourteen. All of them were there for different reasons, for some it was much like the reason Orochalcus had, out of necessity, and the need to survive. He had more respect for those people, they tended to at least have limits on what they were willing to do. Some, however, weren’t in that position. For instance, the boy who had called him over had never had a real reason to join. His home life was stable, his parents seemed to love him, and didn’t outright hate him after finding out that he had joined this group of delinquents, he didn’t struggle, even though he had been kicked out, his mother still sent him more than enough money to get by, something which he gladly spent on everything he didn’t need. He had no reason to need to resort to crime, yet he did, it was almost as if he just enjoyed it.

Orochalcus hated people like that, or at least he wished he could. He knew, deep down, that even if his end were out of necessity, their means were both the same. He was no different, but that didn’t particularly matter to him, he could be working with Hitler and Mussolini for all he cared, if it mean he could keep himself and his brother alive, he would do it.

“Look at this shit, man!”

The boy pointed at what he was holding, a small, brownish key which he clutched tightly, as if he was paranoid anyone and everyone would try to steal it from him. Orochalcus just looked at him with a mildly unimpressed expression, a feeling which seemed to be fairly unanimous among the other boys there, who did the same.

”…Oh wow, a key, how amazing.”

Said the eldest one, who, despite being three years older, was still shorter than Orochalcus, and by a decent margin, too. Unimpressed Sarcasm dominated his tone, as he rolled his eyes slightly.

”Care to tell us what it’s for, fucktard?”

The boy holding the key stammered slightly, it seemed as though, even if he was certain that what he had was of indescribable use to the group, he was scared that the elder one would still be unimpressed, which was, admittedly, somewhat reasonable. He had something of a reputation for being hard to please, his standards were awfully high for a delinquent.

”W-well! It’s, uh… It’s for the back door to that one, uh, that pub a few streets down!”

The elder boy raised an eyebrow at that, seemingly taking a far greater interest in the object now. It made sense, of course, this was precisely the sort of thing that he would want to know about, him taking interest was perhaps the least surprising thing possible.

”…Ya mean the crown posada?”

The younger boy nodded in response.

”Hand it over.”

The older boy commanded, before half taking, half snatching the key out of the younger boys hand, and inspecting it sceptically, as if he would be able to tell if it was real or fake just by looking at it closely enough.

”…Interesting…”

The older boy slipped the key into one of his jacket pockets, before starting to walk off.

”We’re done here for now-“

One of the other boys, a fairly tall and broad boy with dark brown hair and a light stubble, interjected in this. He was one of the older ones there, and usually just acted as a second in command, making him the only person who was effectively able to challenge the oldest on anything.

”Don’t we have oth-“

”I SAID WE’RE DONE!”

The oldest boy barked back, turning around and glaring at the other boys.

“We’ll meet outside the place tomorrow night, and see if this shit’s real, alright? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date in ten minutes, you fucking cunts.”

The oldest boy disappeared around the corner, much to the apparent dismay of the other boy, who let out an exasperated sigh, before turning to the rest of them.

“…Well, I guess that’s that, then. You lot should head home, trust me, there’s no stopping that retard when he’s set on something”

Most of the boys mumbled to themselves slightly, before dispersing from the alley, and stepping back out into the rain, some seeming somewhat dejected. Orochalcus didn’t particularly care, if anything, it was better for him, he hated the majority of the boys there, him getting to quit for the day was a welcome change, though what was less welcome was the fact that he knew he’d now need to head back home, where his mother would probably still be. Normally, by the time he’d come back home, she’d already have headed out for something or another. She was never home, and when she wasn’t, she’d make damn sure Orochalcus and his brother weren’t. On the subject of his brother, he contributed to yet another positive of this early dispersal, Orochalcus would already be home for him when he got back home from school, which he was sure he would appreciate.

Orochalcus followed along with the rest of the boys in their dispersing, once again clutching his blazer over the front of himself to protect his shirt from the rain, which had only harshened further in the few minutes he had been in the alley for. As he walked home, he mumbled to himself slightly, if only to express his annoyance at the universe itself.

”Mom’s not gonna be too chuffed about this shit…”