A Hell of a Time

"You're not actually a parahuman, at least in the biological sense." Said the blonde girl, Tattletale. "And neither is your... second cousin."

After Sicily's power testing, The Director, Miss Militia, three PRT Agents including Smith, Sicily, and I were loaded up into a PRT transport and driven to Snake-Face's lair with Armsmaster following on his motor cycle. We arrived to find a table in Coil's parking garage, with enough chairs for everyone, and three teenagers sitting at it-a long haired blonde with a domino mask and a purple and grey outfit, a muscular looking young man in biker leathers and a skull faced helmet, and a foppish looking boy wearing a renascence style outfit and a Venetian mask with silver cornet. Off in the far corner of the garage was what I think was a girl wearing a plastic dog-mask, playing with a trio of dogs and in general ignoring everything going on around her. As soon as we talked in, the blonde stood up, introduced herself as Tattletale, and then took a good look at me a Sicily and started up her best Sherlock Holmes impression.

"You're... A demon," the Blonde continued, "you don't look like a demon, you are a demon. Or half demon, on your... mother's side, to be more accurate. Your cousin is some kind of half-demon half-angel, I'm not sure how that happens but I'm sure it's a long and sad story, possibly involving reincarnation." The blonde walked around us in a circle. "Despite looking to be no more than nine, you," Tattletale pointed to Sicily, "are the oldest person in the city by a number of centuries. You're an orphan, having never known either your mother-who I'm guessing died in childbirth or otherwise around the time you were born-or your father, who is her," she pointed to me, "mother's first cousin. You spent most of your life being raised by a non-relative, but are now living with your... brother, who you'd previously been estranged from." The girl began rubbing her temples like a TV psychic. "You're from money... No, you'e Royalty. A Princess even, meaning that your brother is... Wow, a King." Tattletale began stroking her chin. "You've got magic spells you can cast, and servants you can summon almost literally from thin air... You're obviously not from Earth Bet, you live in the... demon world. How'd I do."

I stared at the blonde, slack-jawed, and turned to Sicily who looked surprised by the information that the purple clad girl knew. So I turned back to Tattletale and asked, "How did you know all of that?"

Tattletale gave a wide, toothy, smart-assed smile. "I'm psychic."

"That's a lie," Armsmaster interrupted.

Tattletale turned to the blue armored hero. "For all intents and purposed," she said slowly, "I'm psychic."

"Also a lie."

"...You resent and envy people with powers that make them stronger with little to no effort on their part, because they can easily preform great deeds and earn acclaim while you have to train hard to stay in top shape and spend late nights Tinkering to stay on top of your game." Armsmaster didn't respond to Tattletale's accusation.

"While that was very interesting and... enlightening," Director Piggot began in a tone that made it clear that she didn't think it was either, "but this is not why we're here, so if we could get down to business?" She took her seat at the table.

Every one soon joined her, other than the girl with the dogs who stayed in her corner and, on a whim I pulled up the stat screen to get a look at my potential future minions-teammates. "Tattletale. Class: Phony Psychic. Titles: Reluctant Criminal, Charitable Heart, Former Hobo." Read the blonde, "Grue: Class: Tenebremancer. Titles: Gang Leader, Reluctant Criminal, All is for my sister," read biker, and "Regent. Class: Body Snatcher. Titles: Spoilers*shoosh*" was pretty boy's information... Spoilers was probably something important that I should look up later. I looked into the corner, to the dog girl, and got "Bitch. Class: Canine Commander, Titles: All I care about are the dogs. Former Hobo. Fuck you." I blinked. That, that was... Okay then.

Sicily was offering some cookies she made to everyone, but only Regent took one. The boy turned around, shifted his mask around, and ate it. "Guys," I heard him say, "these are the best fucking cookies."

Regent turned around, mask back in place, to find me glaring at him. "Language," I said gesturing to Sicily.

"I've heard worse," my cousin said when she realized I was referring to her. Seeing that no one else was going to take one of her cookies, she got up from the table and went to the corner where Bitch was.

"Umm," I began, "is she-"

"Bitch isn't good with people," the phony psychic interrupted. "She's also not exactly happy about this... thing we're doing here, for understandable reasons."

"And she's one of the last few important details we need to iron out," Director Piggot interrupted, bringing us back on topic. "Now your... Request was most unusual." Director Piggot made meaningful glances to Regent, and the to corner where Bitch was sitting-now with her mask off, revealing a somewhat brutish redhead who was, apparently, eating one of Sicily's cookies. "However, with the information that you've so generously provided, and because of several other factors, we're willing to grant your request... assuming that you abide by the agreement and deal with a few lingering concerns."

"Um," I said while raising a hand, "What exactly is this agreement?"

The director turned to me and looked at me with a blank stare. "You... Were never informed? Never received an e-mail?" I shook my head in response, prompting the director to face palm and mumble something about "Wallace" being fired.

"Alright," the Director began, "for the sake of everyone being on the same page, I'll attempt a brief recap." The director cleared her throat, "The Undersiders contacted both the PRT and Akuma with an unusual request. Having previously worked for Coil under... less than ideal circumstances in some cases, find themselves without protection after angering Empire Eighty-Eight." Tattletale turned and looked meaningfully at bitch. She seemed confused for a minute at the sight the redhead chatting amicably with my cousin, who was now petting one of Bitch's dogs.

"Akuma," the blonde asked while still staring. "Does your cousin have super human charisma?"

"I honestly don't know."

"They want to join you," the Director interrupted with no small hint of annoyance. "Normally we'd have just told them to surrender and try to make a plea deal for Probationary Wardship but-"

"But, we have a history with Shadow Stalker that makes such a thing incredibly awkward," Tattletale interrupted in turn.

"Yes," the director said. "There's a lot of that going around these days." One of the Agents who's escorted us looked at me.

"Now since we're on the topic," Regent chose to interject, "who do we send an invoice to for ruined property? Shadow Stalker stuck Grue like a pig a while back and he bled all over my favorite couch."

"Regent," Grue said in a voice full of authority, "Not the time."

"Bullshit," Regent replied, "we're talking to her boss right now. Besides, I loved that couch more than I loved my entire family. That couch was more a dad to me that my father ever was," the Body Jacker said with exaggerated drama and seriousness, "I was born on that couch, I was raised on that couch, and I wanted to die on that couch. Our new couch is shit!"

"Well check in on these allegations and get back to you," The director cut in, her voice dripping with annoyance and regret. "To make a long story short, after reviewing some information that Tattletale provided us with and consulting the Chief-Director, and assuming that you, Akuma, are willing to take them, we're willing to grant the request on the condition that they prove a few things. Armsmaster?"

"My Helmet is equipped with a lie detector," the blue-clad hero explained, "while it is not admissible in court and is still early in development, the Director and I agree that it is more than sufficient for our purposes today. The Undersiders have previously agreed to answer questions with my lie detector active, and if it's all right I'd like to begin."

The three Undersiders at the table nodded. In the background, I could see a flash of bright light flash into existence and then fade around one of Bitch's dogs. I guess one was hurt or something, and Sicily was healing it.

Ignoring the flash of light, Armsmaster turned to face Tattletale. "Tattletale, do you swear that all of the information that you have provided the PRT with is accurate and truthful to the best of your knowledge?"

The blonde nodded, "I swear."

"And do you swear that the information you've provided about your own trigger event, information that contradicts our previous model on these events, is true and that our previous information was false?"

Tattletale was somewhat stilted in her answer. "I swear."

"And you are not using any tricks of semantics to spoof my lie detector?"

"No."

"She's telling the truth, Director."

"Very good," the woman replied, "now the question of whether Hellhound-"

"She prefers Bitch," all three of the Undersiders at the table said in unison.

"The question of whether Hellhound," the Director continued with particular emphasis on Bitch's canine name, "can be trusted to reign in her violent tendencies, and of whether or not we should be giving this chance to a serial killer."

I blinked. "Serial killer?"

"The PRT thinks that Bitch, or Rachel since she doesn't really have a secret identity," Tattletale began, "is a serial killer because they've got some details wrong." The blonde cleared her throat. "For one, they think that she controls her dogs directly. She doesn't, they're trained. So, when she first triggered and instictivly used her powers, and the dog she used them on attacked her asshole foster mother, they thought she did it on purpose." Tattletale smiled at me. "Honestly, if Rachel got a good lawyer and a fair trial, she'd get found guilty of manslaughter at the absolute worst. It's more likely, taking her mental state and upbringing into account, that she'd walk on every charge. Self defense and all that."

I blinked and called out. "Hey, Sicily!?"

"What?"

"What's she like!?" I shouted back to her, gesturing to Rachel.

"She's nice!" Sicily answered.

"Well," I said to the people gathered at the table, "that's good enough for me."

"Fair enough," the director answered to both myself and Tattletale, "and that just leaves Regent as the last loose thread."

"I'm gonna cut you off there, Ms. Director," began the masked boy. "If you had any conclusive evidence that I was who you think I am, you'd have had me arrested as soon as you walked in."

I was probably going to regret asking, but I had to. "Who do they think you are?"

"Have you ever heard of Heartbreaker?" I nodded. "Nasty piece of work. Man messes with people's uses it to make women his loyal sex slaves. He had kids, and the PRT thinks I'm one of them-ever heard of Hijack?" I shook my head and Regent stood up from the table and started walking around. "I did my homework. I have body control powers, Hijack has body control powers, and apparently similar powers is enough to say that two guts are the same person." He laughed. "If that's the case, then Alexandria must buy cloning vats in bulk. Anyway, from what I've put together Hijack kid a guy, used his powers to rape a bunch of people, then ran away from his dad and disappeared around the time he turned twelve." A kid younger than twelve raped a bunch of people? I mean, I guess if Bonesaw can be a serial killer at such a young age a young serial rapist isn't that out of the question but still. "Hijack hasn't been seen or heard from sense, as far as I can tell. You wanna know what I think happened?" Regent asked, coming back around the table and looking me right in the eyes. I nodded. "I think he realized that what he did, that what his father was doing, that it was all wrong. I think he regrets it. I think he thinks that it was wasteful, to do that to those people for something as petty as his own pleasure. I think that he's screwed up in the head, that he knows he's screwed up, and that he wishes he was capable of feeling bad about what he did." Regent sounded deathly serious, as if he was talking about things he knew for sure and... Oh shit. His title on the stat screen changed from "Spoilers" to "Repentant Sociopath," "Former Hobo," and "I Am not my Father." I then realized that he'd never actually said that he wasn't Hijack. "I think he ran away from home because he didn't want to be like Heartbreaker, wanted to get out from under Heartbreaker's thumb, to rise above him. That's what I think."

The Director and Armsmaster looked to each other and then excused themselves from the table, one of the Agents helping the director up. The Agent and his companions stood up, to stretch their legs, and Regent went off to the corner with Bitch and Sicily. I saw him bend down and address Sicily, who gave him another cookie. This left me sitting alone with Grue, Tattletale, and Miss Militia.

I turned and addressed the patriotic heroine. "So, what do you think of all of this?"

"I have my reservations about this entire situation," the fatigued and star-spangled hero answered. "I have a perfect memory of every time a situation like this has gone wrong. However, as my superiors are willing to accept the extended olive branch, I'll withhold my criticisms." Miss Militia did something or other with her eyes that gave me the impression that she was smiling. "I hope that, should you accept this situation, that you prove to be a good influence on the Undersides and that the four of them prove my criticisms wrong."

"Apologize for shooting me in the tit last month and you have a deal," Tattletale said with a sarcastic grin. "Seriously, that hurt like hell."

"I refuse to apologize for shooting a bean bag at a super villain robbing a jewelry store," Miss Militia replied. "Prove me wrong, and we'll talk."

"We're not bad people," the blonde said.

"I'm sure you're not," Miss Militia said in response. "I'm sure you all have justifying circumstances and tragic backstories for why you chose to become criminals, but that doesn't change the fact that you became criminals. After all,"Miss Militia began in a matter of fact tone, "as a child I was used as a living mine detector. Yet I never became a criminal."

Tattletale blinked behind her mask. "You don't play fair."

"Playing fair in this line of work ends with innocent people dead," the heroine answered. "Had this never happened, and you remained a villain, and it came down to a choice between splattering your brains on the wall and an innocent's life, I'd have killed you in a heartbeat." Ouch, harsh.

Tattletale's grin was a bit more forced than it had been before. "Well, good thing that's never going to happen then, isn't it?" She laughed a bit nervously. Around that time, everyone-Bitch and Sicily included, returned to the table. Bitch had apparently never replaced her mask after eating the cookie.

"After discussing it," the Director began, "Armsmaster and I have decided that we will allow this... most unusual situation to come to pass as a highly experimental exercise in villain rehabilitation if Akuma is willing to take you all."

I shrugged. "What's the worst that can happen."

"In that case, we will also be granting Akuma's prior request to claim ownership of Coil's base of operations... though there is still an investigation going on, so it will take time before that's official."

Words flashed into my vision. "The Undersiders became your vassals minions teammates and joined your party."

At that moment the director's phone began to ring. She answered but did not speak. After a few moments, she put her phone down. "I feel the need to inform you all that Coil has, somehow, escaped PRT custody."

Grue, Tattletale, and Regent all threw their arms up. "I swear," Tattletale began, "that we had nothing to do with that."