Reality Intrudes
7
Taylor came home from school and put her stained top in the wash. She changed and went outside again. She found Rachel in the back yard looking at her ruined books. "Someone did this?"
Taylor sighed "Yes."
Rachel nodded "They won't stop unless you make them." Taylor laughed and held out a skinny arm. Rachel frowned "You can change that. I can show you how."
That was how Taylor found herself working out, training to fight, and running with the taciturn, hard bodied, blond. She also started spending time with Rachel outside of all that. Taking care of what seemed like hundreds of dogs. "So, this is a shelter?" Taylor asked as they were in one of the buildings in the freight terminal.
Rachel shook her head but said "Maybe? They are strays. I find them, fix them up, train them, and place them. Have to train the owners or handlers too."
Taylor looked around inside the freight terminal. "You drive, how come you got a truck?"
"Handy. Jim has one. Saw how handy it was. I was living on the street. If I have to do it again I can live in the truck. Not old enough to drive a semi. Jim lived in his truck for a long time before he got the semi. Plus, got a one ton with a fifth wheel hitch so I could run hotshot freight with it."
Taylor kept scooping food into bowls and putting them down. "Those are expensive."
"We came into some money. Jim's lawyers sued the state for me and got me some. Plus, we make money from this place. Jim makes the dealers cry too. Their sales months end in the middle of the month and he goes looking in the middle of the week. They need the sales so they will drop the price."
Later in the week Taylor's eyes got huge suddenly "You're Hellhound!"
Rachel laughed "Bitch. Hellhound is what the PRT called me. The lawyers sued them too." She looked at the frozen Taylor.
"Jim is Paladin. Alice is Bakuda!" Taylor exclaimed.
"Is this going to be a problem for you Taylor? You should be careful about telling capes you know who they are. Some don't like it. Us, it doesn't matter so much because, well, because."
Taylor nodded slowly, then shook her head "No, it doesn't matter to me. You are cape bounty hunters and they hate you already." Taylor covered her mouth with both hands.
Rachel chuckled "Yep. Speaking of hate. The three bitches still on your case?"
Taylor nodded "You hit the Empire dogfighting ring and the ABB brothels. You guys took down three capes."
Rachel nodded "And a bunch of skips and dudes for crime stoppers rewards. It's how we make our money. This is all cover for that. Brockton Bay is the happy hunting ground Jim says. Five or six hundred million dollars on the hoof he thinks. The freight depot and the trucks are coming on though. Alice gets the train thing working and we would be able to quit hunting maybe."
Taylor blinked "Lung should be worth that alone? Then there is the Empire and the Merchants."
"Jim figures dead bounties. If he can't do anything else, or Alice's stuff doesn't work, that's all we will get after he kills them." Taylor looked puzzled "Alice is a tinker. Materials tinker she says. Bomb tinker is how it works in the real world, at least in her case, but some of her bombs do funny things. Funny like freezing people in time. Back to the bitches?"
Taylor huffed and blew at a strand of hair that was working around to her face "Still got their group. Now all the people they pick on hang around me."
Rachel nodded "Jim said they would. Bring them over. We will train them. It's going to come to a fight sooner or later. 'Some people only understand the ruthless application of overwhelming force'."
"That sounds like Jim. I tripped Sophia down the stairs after she shoulder checked me." Rachel grinned at her. Taylor blushed.
Reality Intrudes
Danny looked at the hole in the ground. Jim handed him a beer as he walked up "Alice wanted a secure work space. I didn't know she was going to design and build an Endbringer shelter. Something about chemicals from the dirt as well. Girl is nuts. Hot, but nuts."
Danny laughed "Well the grill is lit. Likely the last good weekend before it gets wet and cold. Got any steaks?"
Jim nodded "Yep. Hey, want to hook your basement to the thing? It has a gym and everything."
Danny looked in the hole. It was thirty feet to the top of the ten foot thick, heavily reinforced, roof section they were finishing up. Brockton Bay had turned into a bad place. He had a daughter. "Yeah I do actually. I can pay for the work. I might want it dug rather than Alice doing that crazy explosives thing. Never saw explosives move dirt that precisely before. Or quietly. We do have to have somewhere to live. Well I do. Taylor moved in with Rachel."
Jim waved him off as he was texting "Rachel's therapist is amazed at the progress she has made and her level of socialization, whatever the fuck that is. Taylor is good for her. Its right across the back yard. Soon enough they won't even have to go outside if they don't want to. Alice can freeze your place in time and work around it. Won't even slosh the water in a glass. Keeps her busy, doing stuff like that. Probably want to pack a weeks' worth of clothes and you can use our showers, washer and dryer, kitchen, the girls will bring the meat."
Danny knew the non-cape parts of Rachel's story already. "I can at least get you a discount. A lot of your workers are members of my union."
Jim laughed "I thought the lawyers already got a good deal."
Danny nodded "Pretty good. Who the fuck are those people? They gave our contract lawyers fits. They loved it."
Jim nodded "A law firm Quin Calle, the cape lawyer, recommended. Speaking of lawyers. What's up with that Barnes pinhead?"
Danny sighed "No idea. We were friends. I don't know what happened to that."
Alice walked up with Taylor, Rachel, and several bowls and platters. "She got a girlfriend, Emma I mean, Taylor never turned a hair and moved on. Pissed her off. So, I can do your property too?" Danny smiled and nodded. Alice put what she was carrying down and rubbed her hands together as she cackled.
Taylor shook her head "Emma is not gay. Boy crazy maybe, depending on how she can use them, but not gay." She rolled her eyes at the cackling.
"Why is she so jealous then?" Alice asked with an arched brow.
The fine afternoon just after Halloween proceeded. Danny got the description of Alice's 'bunker' as Jim called it and they talked about many things. Including the old steel mill and refinery.
Later that night the Merchants got hit hard, mostly by accident. Squealer appeared with a tank and Rachel grew her dogs, Brutus, Angelica and Judas, they destroyed her hillbilly tank, Mush, four warehouses and a hundred Merchants. Squealer had targeted Jim. While that was going on Alice had added to the mayhem with about a hundred of her bombs. For the same reason. Jim had to go into his registered bounty hunter drill with the local cops and PRT. While the lawyers worked on buying all the derelict property in the area. It was cheaper than fixing it.
Reality Intrudes
Emily Piggot looked at the report after she got to the PRT headquarters. "Paladin, the cape killer. Going after Merchants. What the actual fuck?"
The conference room full of PRT senior officers and the local Protectorate leader and his second blinked, then a few of them chuckled. Stacy Green, the intelligence officer, sighed "Someone put twenty million dollars on Skidmark. Alive. No dead bounty, but recently Paladin has turned over a new leaf and got a partner, he has started going nonlethal."
Armsmaster, the local Protectorate leader corrected "Two partners. That was Hellhound. The other one is a tinker."
Emily winced "A tinker who builds bombs."
Ms. Militia, the second in command of the protectorate nodded "Bakuda. The one who killed Nilbog and sterilized Ellsberg. Single use devices she calls them, not bombs. She did say she could build some bombs if we paid enough."
Stacy nodded "The bounty came from Chicago so they will have moved on. Hopefully he will go back to hunting the Nine."
Emily grunted "The Nine are the four or five. Every bounty hunter in the country is following them around. The money is too good and he took the Siberian and Shatterbird. Their best defensive assets. And Bonesaw, their doctor. If Bonesaw's tinker tech needs maintenance, like a regular tinker, that may kill the rest of them, or at least reduce their capability. One of those bounty hunters may hit the lottery."
"Paladin will wait until it isn't a free fire zone near them before he tries them again. Right now, he would have to fight his way out with a capture or kill. It's like the opening day of deer season. He took off Bonesaw, that was his lottery win. Well, Manton and Shatterbird as well. That's why we got that warning and stepped up intelligence gathering and increased our patrols around Panacea. Jack will be after a healer, why not get the best."
Henry Glass, Alpha Strike team commander, whistled "Good luck getting here Jack. Last report has the Nine down to him and Crawler. The others fled and are being pursued. Somebody hit Mannequin with a Hellfire missile. He hasn't been seen since. That bounty is in escrow and paying that hunters legal bills. He is fighting off the Army as they accused him of stealing it. He says he used demilled parts."
"Bounty Hunters are coming out of the woodwork the world over. As it turns out crime does pay, the bounty hunters anyway." The others around the table chuckled ruefully. The Bounty hunters, at least the new ones, were becoming a problem, more of a problem.
"I am working on some technology, Bakuda used a device to put people in stasis in Boston. She also deployed a gray boy type effect. That was apparently an attempt to understand the gray boy effect areas. Fortunately for Boston she used it on the Teeth. There are sixty three of them including four capes trapped in the effect. The Butcher is in suspended animation that can be reversed. She used it again last night. Several injured merchants are in time bubbles. It is probably all that is saving them. The thinkers believe she was originally trying to understand the bubbles, trying to break them for the reward. The device I am working on with Dragon should do the same as her stasis device, the one she used on the Butcher. It should contain Crawler." Armsmaster supplied.
Stacy sighed "That's why Paladin is here. She's cracked it. Now they need a healer to start taking people out of the bubbles. I bet they are in negotiations with New Wave and this Merchant thing was just something to do while that went on."
"From our interviews it was all going well and heading for a nonlethal takedown of Mush and Skidmark until Squealer showed up and engaged Paladin. Hellhound then went off on her and Bakuda joined in, taking down every Merchant in the area. She apparently even time stopped those Squealer had injured while Hellhound's minions demolished Squealers tank and carried her off. "
Emily nodded then frowned and asked "No kills? Also, what happened to Squealer?"
Ms. Militia nodded "Some pretty severe wounds. Squealer will need Panacea. Those beasts took an arm and a leg, but Bakuda put her in stasis with what appears to be a paintball marker shooting one of her devices."
Henry chuckled "Right in the ass. Then those monsters ran away with her."
Ms. Militia nodded "Vindictive. The others she put in stasis were shot in the fleshy part of the bicep. The rounds did not go through. They apparently dissolve as or when they do their thing. The weapon is a sixty eight caliber paintball marker, tinked somehow. It has many times the range it should and apparently adjustable velocity. It is fully automatic with a rate of about four hundred rpm.
Stacy nodded "More data points, but it backs up what we thought. Bakuda and Paladin are romantically involved and Hellhound views him as her Alpha."
Emily nodded "Possibly. Alternatively, they are just shacking up together. Bakuda is using him as a shield. She is a tinker, he is not a parahuman, enhanced but still normal. If you encounter them be professional. Also, everyone needs to brush up on the laws regarding bounty hunters and bond agents. They are different than the laws regarding capes or normal citizens. Paladin is probably who took down Hookwolf, Storm Tiger, and Cricket, along with Oni Lee. Now that he has taken out the Merchants, expect him to go after Lung next. That is the largest remaining bounty in the area."
The meeting broke up and Ms. Militia stayed at the subtle sign Director Piggot gave her. Once everyone else had left Emily asked "How is Armsmaster really taking it?"
Ms. Militia snorted "He and Dragon are in his lab all the time. Her by telepresence. This stasis and gray boy effect has them fascinated. Like all the other tinkers. Gray boy zones have always fascinated them, and the rewards are in the billions for the one that breaks them."
"They took Squealer."
Ms. Militia nodded "And Mush. Oddly Squealer doesn't have anything other than property damage on her record yet. I suspect his tinker is going to try to rehabilitate her like they did Hellhound."
Emily arched a brow "I wouldn't call ripping someone limb from limb with your minions rehabilitated."
Ms. Militia shrugged "Bakuda was talking about watching Panacea heal her so she could duplicate the effect. She is like Armsmaster somewhat. Tinker arrogance perhaps? If she actually breaks, or has broken, the gray boy zones, I'm not sure it is all arrogance."
Emily pinched the bridge of her nose "Tinkers." Ms. Militia chuckled. "So now I have a superpower hitter making Brockton Bay home."
Ms. Militia shrugged "He will clean up the others?"
Emily laughed bitterly "He will attract idiots if anyone figures out he has finally gone to ground here. He has been doing this since I was in the basic course, he never had a home before."
"It was laughable when he started. Something crazy people did and they didn't last long. They normally had partners as well. He worked alone, built his intelligence and networks for years then started killing the ones with kill orders and picking up the bounties. Two years ago he started on S class threats. Now he has destroyed the Nine, the Teeth and Nilbog. And he is in my area."
"The laws governing bounty hunters are unassailable and have been tested all the way to the Supreme Court on multiple occasions. Capes laugh at them right up until they are a corpse being packaged for turn in. Villainous Capes anyway. I suspect that is about to change. I hope Paladin can live up to his name. All I don't need is him dying on my front steps."
Ms. Militia nodded. Emily dismissed her with a wave.
