Knuckles stared out at the city from the vantage point of his lower class hotel, he was currently processing the latest losses from their operations downtown. Every since the City’s flying pest problem returned, life has been rather lean for the small time boss.<em>’And on top of it all, the bat has tits…the hell is the world coming to?’</em>he thought before turning his full attention back on the messenger. The man, to his credit, stood tall, but he could still see the pleading in his eyes. It warmed him the way words never could.<br/><br/>He’d placed the gloved hand on the man’s shoulder, and let the weight of the thing lay heavily upon him. One gesture to mean two things to two men. A reminder that the man’s fate was in his hands to Knuckles, and the luck of the draw that he hadn’t reported the news on a<strong>really</strong>bad day for the messenger. He was shown out by two large men while another sat nearly undetected at the side of the room. When the messenger left, he stood and walked to the still standing Knuckles “It’s small time, Jason…Don’t sweat it” he said, knowing how close Knuckles was from blowing up.<br/><br/>“Everything we do it small-time, Fonzi…you know that. We don’t have the muscle to pull ourselves up to the grown-up table and demand a plate. We gotta sit at the kiddie table and watch the adults cut our fucking meat for us! We get the dope five to six times removed from pure. We get the heists no-one else wants, and we get hurt the most when some costumed freak decides to make Gotham their personal underworld buffet! So what do you want me to do, Alphonse? You want I should go to war with some broad I don’t have the manpower to find? To hire protection with money I ain’t got no more? Don’t fucking remind me what small time is…I’m living it!”<br/><br/>The man sighed before landing in a huff on his chair. He held his head in his hands and slowly shook it. “We need a play, Fonzi…we gotta unionize…get the guys like us together. If we got to sit at the kiddie table, then we’ll make the adults give us a better slice together.” Alphonse looked to Jason for a moment and chuckled darkly “A pipe dream kiddo, and you know it. It’ll take some schmuck a half a second to drop your ass from behind and get a pat on the head for doing it. He just made his slice a lot meatier, and didn’t have to share with the other kids. The just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”<br/><br/>Knuckles shook his head, knowing it was stupid to even think that such an idea could survive past the first mistrusting bullet “It was a fun idea while it lasted…all the same, we need a job. I gotta put food on my guys’ tables. Let’s see what we can do about that. “ Fonzi nodded “I’ll inform the usual channels to keep their eyes and ears open.” And with that, the clicking of the man’s shoes could be heard on their way out . He couldn’t sneak up on a deaf kid at a heavy metal concert with that walk…but he didn’t hire him to stay quiet. Chuckling to himself, he had to agree…staying quiet just was not in Fonzi’s “How To” book.<br/>