The Arcadia lunchroom was crowded, and for once, nobody was talking about local issues.
"We're observing from the top of the building—" The reporters voice was breathless. "The Teeth are engaging the local Protectorate forces!" Jim could see explosions and a flood of strange looking minions charging towards the police. The Protectorate team was mostly working to shield citizens, backing off as the Teeth looted an armored car and then retreated.
"Letting the Teeth win again," Vicky said, disgustedly.
"Would you prefer we lose a hero to the Butcher?" Dean asked. "We have it easy here—at least our bad guys don't have a suicide-possession bomb."
"I wonder if there's a way you could block him off," Claire muttered. "What do you think, Amy?"
Victoria's sister made an indistinct mumble as she focused on her food.
"Amy's grumpy today," Vicky said.
Amy's grumpy most days, Jim thought. She wasn't impolite, but just seemed…
Yeah. Grumpy.
"So, how is your…" Vicky made quote fingers, "Magic—" then she squawked as Dean flicked a crumpled up napkin at her.
"Bad Victoria," he said.
Jim chuckled. When Vicky was in a good mood, the entire table just got brighter…
He wasn't certain if it was her power or just the fact that Hurricane Vicky was like Mary—if Mary could fly and have superpowers.
"What? I'm being honest in asking about how her powers are working."
"And the finger quotes?"
"I'm being honest."
Claire rolled her eyes. "I am working on encapsulating spells within…" She pulled her shirt sleeve up to reveal a bracelet with several glowing gems dangling from it. "Attuned gems."
"Wait, you're storing your power in there?" Vicky stared. "That—you're a Tinker in addition to a Trump?"
"Sort of… I can't figure out how to encode them into my staff. But I will…" Claire clenched her fist and raised it up in mock defiance. "I will complete your course plan, Merlin! I will throw all your snarky comments back in your face! I—"
Then Claire squawked as Vicky threw some crumpled up napkins at her.
"No villain monologuing at the lunch table," she said. "I would be forced to bring you in." Then she paused. "But that's… crazy. What do your power testing people say?"
"I… Haven't had a chance to show it to them."
Next to Vicky, Dean stiffened. "I've heard that they can get really angry at people using untested tinkertech," he said.
Claire looked up at him, then nodded. "Understood. None of them are lethal, though."
Jim looked at the others. "You know, that doesn't look like it really comforted anyone."
"After some of the stories about Merlin I've heard from, um, some people?" Vicky shook her head. "Not at all."
After school was over, Jim and Claire, being off duty, headed for Felipes. A few people wanted pictures, not many, since Jim was wearing his civilian clothes. Claire had found him a sweater with the picture of a rocket embedded into a barn, with the words: GREAT TINKER FAILURES OF HISTORY! in all caps under it. Beneath that was a smaller line of text:
"4/12/2010: Bessie, we will remember you."
Jim figured it was a sign that he was becoming a fact of life that most people wanted him to show off the sweater when he was getting photographed.
Jim had already called ahead so their food was ready. He'd offered to pay more because of the need for separate food handling, but Mr. Sykes told him that he'd never dream of charging a brave Ward more for his dietary needs… and then winked and said that the fact that two Wards ate at his restaurant had upped his income by 10 percent.
Jim didn't care, the food (complete with chromium seasoning and properly aged cheese) was good. The fact that the place they sat had a breeze that carried the smell away from everyone else was better. Even Claire, for all she loved him, still had a human sense of smell, and not all of his best tasting food was something that most humans enjoyed smelling.
"So," Claire said. "AllSeeingEye."
"She likes to troll people," Jim said. "But not stupid trolling."
"And she's usually right, or at least close to it," Claire replied, scrolling down her phone as she held a forkful of spaghetti in the other hand. "Calling her wrong or stupid tends to set her off."
"Yeah," Claire said. "Did you see what she did to Void? The other posters said that he'd never left the boards for so long other than when he was banned."
"Yeah…" Jim frowned. "I don't like it. I mean, he was stupid, yeah, but she was… really bullying him there at the end."
"Well, we know that she likes to be right."
"Trollhunter?"
Jim looked up—well actually at the waitress, since he was as tall as the woman was, even sitting down, and shook his head. "Jim, Ms. Struthers."
"Of course," the middle-aged waitress said. She handed them a slip of paper. "A young lady said that you would be waiting for um, AllSeeingEye? She arrived a few minutes ago, but said that she was going to be detained, so if you could call her?"
Jim glanced at Claire and she shrugged. He held up his private phone, dialed the number, looked around to make certain nobody was close enough to hear, put it to speaker and waited.
A few moments later, a female voice popped up. "So, Director Piggot doesn't care about dogs, does she? Typical."
"She has a lot to do," Jim said. "Why couldn't you meet us?"
"Oh, well, I wanted to talk to you first, to you know, get a read. No sense in losing time if this isn't going to go anywhere. Also, you're Wards and I'm…"
"Nervous?" Jim asked.
"Maybe, but what do you know about the Endbringer Truce?"
"It's a policy where anyone who shows up to fight the Endbringers is treated equally, and any criminals, even if they have a kill order, get 24 hours time after the fight or their release from the hospital to leave." Claire shook her head. "I don't see any End—"
"Up, don't complete that sentence, bad luck." The voice sounded serious. "Well, that's not the only truce out there. Sometimes, people with minor crimes can team up with heroes for the greater good."
Jim wasn't liking where this was going. "And you're a…"
"Oh, we're the minorist of the minor, small fry who just can't stand the idea of those little doggies getting mauled, and we want to do something about it."
"Where are you?" Jim asked. "I think we should talk in person."
"So you can bring us in?"
"Wards aren't supposed to engage non-hostile parahumans while off duty," Claire said. "Unless it's in self defense."
"Well, there won't be any of that." The smirk in the girl's voice was almost palpable. "If you want, you can meet us at Seventh and Memorial. There's an abandoned gas station there. We'll be waiting for the next twenty minutes. Ta!"
The phone went dead. Jim looked at Claire.
"I really hate the idea of what they're doing to those dogs," Jim said.
"We can just talk to them…" Claire nodded. "But let's get there fast." With that, they paid their bill, Claire raising her hands and calling a portal to the amazed sounds of the out of town tourists.
Claire didn't have an emotional link to the target, or anything near it, but line of sight was a different matter. She portaled herself and Jim to the top of a building, followed the line of the street, then portaled to the intersection. One last portal and they were down at the abandoned gas station.
"See, Grue, I told you they would be here early," a familiar voice said.
Grue? Claire whipped around, the staff coming to her hand, as Jim moved up to her side, not yet calling his armor, but ready.
"Whoah!" a girl, Tattletale dressed in that entirely too-tight costume said, raising up her hands between the skull-helmeted man and Claire. "Peace, we're here to talk, just talk!"
Claire looked at Jim, put her staff down. "Sorry, but you know, meet us at the abandoned gas station…"
"In broad daylight," Tattletale said. "Doublecrosses always occur at night."
Never let the thinker talk… Claire thought. On the other hand, they were here to talk.
"If this is a plan to get us to help you with a robbery…" Jim started.
"Nope. I know, one-hundred percent, that you wouldn't go for it, and you two are heavy hitters. We're here for a couple of reasons. First of all, Bitch wants to beat the shit out of you, Trollhunter."
"Why?"
"You fucked with her dogs," Grue said.
"Hellhound?" Claire asked.
"No. Bitch. That's her name and calling her Hellhound gets her really pissed."
"That would be the dog trying to eat me?" Jim asked. "The girl with a murder warrant?"
"Yeah." Tattletale lost her smile. "Bitch isn't… Okay, she's not well adjusted. She sees dogs the way most of us see people and she is super pissed that the PRT and BBPD put down most of the dogs they recovered."
"Weren't most of them unrecoverable?" Claire asked.
"Not to Bitch," Grue said.
Claire noticed how he was standing on a raised part of the broken concrete…
Wow. Insecure much? He was trying not to give Jim the height advantage.
"But, if someone who is sort of affiliated with the PRT, even if they can't take public credit for it, helps Bitch recover a bunch of dogs, that means she's less likely to really fly off the handle…"
"So you need us to control your person," Claire said.
"Yeah. But it also gets a bunch of dogs saved and a thumb in Hookwolf's eye."
"Not Kaiser's?" Jim asked.
"Nope. The dog rings are Hookwolf's thing. I mean, I bet Kaiser gets a cut, but I also know some of the E88 bring up how Hitler was for animal rights. It's just that nobody brings that up to Hookwolf." She shrugged. "As long as we keep it focused on the dog-ring, Kaiser won't care, especially now."
Claire filed that one for future consideration. "And what happens when everyone sees a Ward going after the E88?"
"They won't. That's why we need the Ward who can make portals…" Tattletale's smile widened. "The E88 loses their bait dogs, we make Bitch's day, and a lot of kids get their puppies and kitties back, courtesy of the Undersiders."
"Which makes you look like the heroes since we can't claim credit," Jim said.
"But you get the pleasure of knowing you did the right thing—" Suddenly Tattletale's mouth snapped shut.
Grue looked at her, then back to Jim, who had gone still.
"You're right," Jim finally said. "But it's not just the right thing to do. It's the lawful thing. I read the law, and the E88 stole those animals, and we're assisting in recovering them." He shrugged. "I'll do it." he stared at Tattletale. "But, remember that we're working with you because this is the lawful thing, the right thing. The PRT can't help, the BBPD won't help, and so it's up to us. But I'm not doing this to help your rep, I'm doing it so that a bunch of animals don't get killed and a bunch of kids don't wonder what happened to them. If you think this is the start of any kind of 'relationship' where we help you, or don't try to bring you in the next time we run into each other, think again."
"Right," Tattletale finally said. Then she was back to her cheerful self. "So, since you're free tonight, how about we do it tonight? I know the place, and we've driven by a couple of times, so no time like the present?"
Claire thought. We're not on the roster tonight… She glanced at Jim and he nodded.
Then Claire looked back at Tattletale who had that infuriating smirk on her face. "Just remember," she said sweetly. "If you try to doublecross us…" she hefted her staff, purplish light flickering around it. I'll portal you so high you can talk to the Simurgh.
Tattletale's grin became a little fixed. "Don't worry," she said. "No double-cross here. I'll call you all at six. The Empire isn't going to know what hit them."