The Weed Garden

Blurb: (Worm - Taylor Alt-Power) Taylor's trigger forced a major physical transformation. Not wanting to endanger her dad with her obvious parahumanity, she runs away. After some time on the streets, she hears about Faultline's Crew and eventually joins them. Can she find a new life among the outcasts and abominations?

"Some see weeds. I see wildflowers."
– Melanie Fitts

Chapter 1

"Are you sure you want me here?" I asked nervously as the van parked. Looking out I saw the street was unremarkable, home to a row small, nondescript businesses. Like most places in Brockton Bay everything was at least run down.

Melanie – Faultline I remined myself to think while we were in costume – leaned around from her place in the front passenger seat and looked at me. Her welder's mask prevented me from reading anything in her expression. She simply replied, "You are part of the team."

Part of the team, Faultline's Crew. I really wondered if I was.

"Come on," Newter said, draping his arm around my shoulder from the seat behind me. "Almost every powered villain in Brockton Bay is gathered together under one roof. What could possibly go wrong? Throw us into the mix and it gets even more interesting."

"I am happy that you remembered we do not number ourselves among the villains, friend." Gregor said from the driver's seat. His voice was slightly accented, the words and sounds managed very carefully, as though he were not fully comfortable with English.

"And yet we're here," I pointed out. I was not certain about the idea of mercenary capes. How were they – we – different from villains? Faultline had told me she – we – followed a strict set of guidelines for the sorts of jobs we would accept. No murder, no kids, stuff like that. I thought she had said not taking jobs in Brockton Bay was one of those rules. But I got the feeling we were about to break that.

"Time, people." I do not know if it was the mask or just her being in character, but Faultine's voice was much flatter, colder than Melanie's. "We cannot be late."

When I stepped out of the van, the frame rocked. My stone shell was much heavier than a human body of the same size. My bare foot made a grinding sound when it rubbed against the pavement.

As we approached our destination, I saw the sign – Somer's Rock. There were iron bars on the windows and the curtains were drawn, but it would have been more unusual if that was not the case. It was that kind of area. The paint on the outside was peeling, and the rust from the bars had bled onto the gray-white paint below the windows.

A thin man in black tights entered before us as we approached the door. His dark SUV pulled past us as we got closer.

When we stepped inside, it became clear that Somer's Rock did not inspire confidence or comfort. It was dim, dingy and depressing. The wood floor was stained the same dark gray as the counter of the bar, the curtains and tablecloths were dark green, and the only real color or brightness, if you could call it that, was the yellow light cast by ancient, burnt lightbulbs.

There was quite the crowd by the time we arrived. I recognized some of them from the news or my research on the net, mostly those in the Empire. I had even met one of them before.

Hookwolf.

It was my third week on the streets when I saw the woman being dragged into the alley. It was not the first crime I had witnessed, not by far. Most of what I had seen were the mundane drug deals and prostitutes plying their trade. I had seen the violence of the trainyard war but could not discern a true victim in that conflict.

This was different. This was the first time I has come across an innocent person being hurt. Three muscular men in denim jackets were assaulting a small blond woman who was screaming hoarsely as she struggled to escape.

I was in a concrete shell with a plastic tarp wrapped around me in a vain attempt to hide my inhumanity. I had been huddling between a dumpster and a wall, with a second tarp taped overhead to form a temporary shelter. The thugs had stopped right in my line of sight.

I almost let it go. It really was not my business.

Instead, I threw off the tarp and ran towards the attackers, roaring and waving my arms like a charging bear. The three men stopped immediately and turned to face me. I stopped just out of arms reach and raised my clenched fist over my head, expecting them to run or attack. They took a step back then stood there looking at me. The woman pulled a metal cage from somewhere and slipped it over her face.

"It's not as easy as it looks, is it?" came a deep, bass voice from behind me. I turned to see a large, blond man, shirtless but wearing small metal wolf mask that left most of his face visible. This let me see his lopsided grin. "If they strike first, you can justify smashing them. But if they just stand there, you have to commit to initiating the violence. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, but most newbies do."

I almost freaked when I recognized him as Hookwolf. The woman, Cricket I assumed, was standing silently, looking at me. The three men, probably E88 gangbangers I assumed, were slowly backing away.

"You've been making quite a splash the last few weeks," Hookwolf continued. His hands were in the pockets of his faded jeans. I thought he was trying hard not to appear too aggressive. "You've been tearing up the streets and sidewalks all over town. The mayor is pissed cause you're blowing his fucking budget cleaning up after you. He's been bitching to the PRT to do something. Probably wants to throw you in jail or some shit just because you're just doing you."

"What!" I yelped. My voice was still barely understandable. They wanted to arrest me?

"I figured they would have caught up to you already," the neo-nazi said in a friendly tone. "I mean you aren't all that hard to find, what with the trail of statues you've been leaving behind where ever you go."

Fuck! I thought.

"You really need someone to protect you and show you how to avoid being so fucking obvious." This time the man's voice held a hint of menace. "The Empire's ready to help."

That is when I realized this was not an attack. They were trying to recruit me.

Wanting no part of that, I dove into the pavement and surfaced in another alley two blocks away. Taking the nazi's advice I did not immediately dive into the street again. If they were tracking me by my discarded shells, I needed to break that trail.

I had chosen this spot because it was behind a charity store. They were known to throw out clothes too beat up for their racks. I started sorting through the pile of discards and quickly found a pair of ratty sweatpants and a stained hoody. Throwing a ripped raincoat over the ensemble I was ready to risk the streets.

I never noticed the orange-skinned guy watching me from a fourth-floor fire escape.

"Good to see you again, girl," the nazi strongman offered in a friendly tone. He glanced dismissively at the rest of the crew. "You know, it ain't too late to join the winners."

"Kaiser," Faultline said to the Empire leader. He was seated at the head of the room's central table, directly opposite the thin man in black I had spotted earlier. Kaiser wore steel armor head to toe, elaborately worked and topped with a crown of blades. "While I know he's wasting his time, I think having your man try to poach one of my team may violate the spirit of this meeting."

"Whatever," Hookwolf spat before his boss could say anything. He threw himself into a seat at a table next to one of the Valkyrie Twins.

Fautline led us the long way around the room, past a table with five teens sitting together – a blond girl in a purple bodysuit, an auburn haired girl in a store-bought bulldog mask, a boy in a renn-faire outfit, someone in a full suit of power armor, and a big guy in a black biker outfit. She seemed to stare just a little too long at the girl in purple before continuing. She indicated a table for us to sit at while she took a seat in the middle of the central table, equal distant from Kaiser and the man in black.

The big guy in the skull emblazoned motorcycle helmet got up from the table we had just passed and sat next to Faultline.

"Who are all these people?" I asked Gregor. If the crew were a family, he was the father figure, and less likely to feed me misinformation as a joke like Newter might. Spitfire was newer to the cape world than I was, though she had been on the team a few days longer. And Labyrinth was too out of it to have a good grasp of where we were or what was going on.

Gregor nodded to Kaiser and his people. "You know the Empire capes; Kaiser, Purity, Krieg, Hookwolf, Fenja and Menja, Night and Fog. The man in black with the snake motif is Coil. He is the local criminal mastermind with his own small military and unknown powers. The kids at that table are the Undersiders, thieves that are moving up in the scheme of things. Be careful of the girl in purple. She is Tattletale. She and Faultline are not friends, and the girl may work against us."

I looked over and saw the girls staring back at me. I knew I looked odd. I had tried to mold my shells to appear as human as I could, but the closest I could come still bore a strong resemblance to some of the impressionist sculptures my mother had taken me to see in Boston the year before she died. My shells conveyed more a suggestion of humanity than the reality. With enough heavy clothes covering, I could pass. But I was not wearing anything at the moment. It was thought I might need the flexibility to move around or create new shell.

I stared back at the girl, my eyes literally blank stone. Eventually she looked away.

Another group arrived, and it was like you could see a wave of distaste wash over the faces in the room. I had seen references on the net about these guys, but they were not the sort you took pictures of – Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush of the Archer's Bridge Merchants. Hardcore addicts and dealers who happened to have superpowers.

Skidmark, the Merchant's leader, moved to take the remaining chair at the main table. Before he could move it, Kaiser kicked the chair out of his reach. It toppled onto its side and slid across the floor.

"The fuck?" Skidmark snarled.

"You can sit in a booth," Kaiser spoke. Even though his voice was completely calm, like he was talking to a stranger about the weather, it felt threatening.

"This is because I'm black, hunh? That's what you're all about, yeah?"

Still calm, Kaiser replied, "You can sit in a booth because you and your team are pathetic, deranged losers that aren't worth talking to. The people at this table? I don't like them, but I'll listen to them. That isn't the case with you."

"Fuck you. What about this guy?" Skidmark pointed at the Undersiders' leader, "I don't even know his name, and he's sitting."

Faultline answered him, "His name is Grue. His team hit the Brockton Bay Central Bank a week ago. They've gone up against Lung several times in the past and they're still here, which is better than most. Not even counting the events of a week ago, he knows about the ABB and he can share that information with the rest of us." She gave the helmeted boy a look that made it clear that he did not have a choice if he wanted to sit at the table.

He dipped his head in the smallest of nods in response.

Skidmark protested some more, but it quickly became obvious the whole room, except for his companions, was against him. They climbed into a booth in the back.

"I'll be taking a chair, I think," someone spoke from the door. Most heads turned to check out a male figure in a black costume with a red mask and top hat. His teammates followed him into the room, all in matching costumes of red and black, differing only in design. There were four total in the group, including a creature so large it had to crawl on its hands and knees to get through the door. It was hard to describe, approximating something like a four-armed hairless gorilla with a vest, mask, and leggings in the red and black style its team was wearing, six-inch claws tipping each of its fingers and toes.

"The Travelers, yes?" Coil spoke, his voice smooth, "You're not local."

"You could call us nomadic. What was happening here was too interesting to pass up, so I decided we'd stop by for a visit." The guy with the top hat pulled off the first formal bow I had ever seen in real life. "I go by Trickster."

"You know the rules, here?" Grue asked Trickster.

"We've been to similar places. I can guess. No fighting, no powers, no trying to bait others into causing trouble, or everyone else in the room puts aside all other grievances to put you down."

"Close enough," Faultline replied. "It's important to have neutral ground to meet and have civilized discussions."

"I won't argue that. Please, continue as if I wasn't here."

When Trickster took a chair and put his feet up on the table, nobody complained, though Skidmark looked like he wanted to kill someone. The rest of the Travelers settled in a booth between us and the Undersiders. The gorilla thing sat on the floor, and it was still large enough to be at eye level with its teammates.

I wondered if it was another Case 53 or just an unlucky cape like me. Once again reviewing all the known capes in Brockton Bay I confirmed that there were only three known inhuman capes in the city – Newter, Gregor, and me. It was possible Mush was another under his trash armor. One More such person coming to town was worth pondering. I wanted to know more, but this was not the time.

I realized I had missed some of the discussion while my thoughts had drifted.

"So," Coil let the word hang in the air as he cracked each of the knuckles on his right hand individually, "We're in accord? The ABB cannot be allowed to continue operating."

There were nods and murmurs of agreement from around the table, some from the various villains gathered around the room.

"Then I suggest we establish a truce. Not just everyone here, but between ourselves and the law. I would contact authorities and let them know that until this matter is cleared up, our groups will restrict our illegal activity to only what is absolutely essential to our business, and we will enforce the same for those doing business in our territories. That would let police forces and military focus entirely on the ABB. There would be no violence, infighting between our groups, grabs for territory, thefts or insults. We band together with those we can tolerate for guaranteed victory, and we ignore those we cannot cooperate with."

"Just saying my group won't be getting directly involved in this without a reason," Faultline spoke, "We won't be going after the ABB unless they get in our way, or someone pays my rates. It's the only workable policy when you're a cape for hire. And just so we're clear, if it's the ABB paying, my team's going to be on the other side of things."

I did not like the sound of that. I was not sure the ABB were inherently worse than the Empire. They both caused a lot of misery in the city. But if the ABB were the ones responsible for the bombings, I really did not want to be fighting on their side. I was not sure I would be willing to do so, even for Melanie.

"Unfortunate, but you and I can talk after this meeting is done," Coil said. "I'd prefer to keep matters simple. You're okay with the other terms?"

"Keeping on the down-low, not kicking up a fuss with other groups?" Faultline confirmed. "That's status quo with my crew anyways."

I was under the impression we were going to be part of this, so I wondered if Faultline and Coil had already struck a deal and were keeping it quiet to trick the others in the room. Was everyone already plotting to break the truce for their own advantage?

I realized I had tuned out again.

"Sure," Trickster said, "Not a problem. We're in."

Hands were shaken around the table.

I wondered how long this would last before blowing up in everyone's faces. The arguing that surfaced between the Empire and the Undersiders when Coil asked if there were any other issues almost wrecked the nascent peace literally before anyone got out the door.

Once we were back in the van Spitfire said, "I thought we were going to be involved in the fighting?"

"Yeah," Newter added. "Where we there just to say don't mess with us? I mean that's always a good message, but …"

"No," Faultline replied. "We're going to be getting paid by Coil to assist in taking down the ABB. I just wanted to remind everyone we are different from them. We're professionals, not criminals."

"Ok," Newter said, holding his hands up defensively. "Just seems like a lot of theater if we're gonna be part of the group anyway."

"A lot of cape stuff is theater, if you want to put it that way – flamboyant names, elaborate costumes, dramatic personae, and playing it up for the public." Faultline gestured around the van as she spoke. "Most of us could just as easily work in fatigues or regular clothes, but we choose to don the cape."

"Not all of us have that choice," I said. Newt and Gregor nodded.

"That's why I said most," Melanie acknowledged. We know she was sensitive to our issues. She proved it every day. But ultimately business came first.

"Capes and masks," Spitfire added, pointing to her gasmask. "Some of it is about the drama, but a lot of it is about keeping our real face and names secret. I don't figure Kaiser or Coil watch TV or play games wearing those outfits. I know I don't. Too stuffy for one thing."

"I think the two concepts may be related. By making the heroic, or villainous, persona so dramatic, it acts to further separate it from the real person behind the mask," Gregor said ponderously. "It makes it all the more difficulty for those, like New Wave that choose not to fully separate their two worlds and for us that have no choice but to mix the fantastic and the mundane at all times."

"Yeah," Newter replied cheerfully. "Living the life fantastic!"

"I don't think that's what he meant," I told the orange boy.

"Gregor got his own style and I got mine," was his smiling reply.

Not long after that we pulled into Palanquin's underground garage.

Back safely to my new home?

I wondered.