"Armsmaster's fighting Lung," Tattletale reported, binoculars to her face to watch the action. The Undersiders had parked themselves atop a roof a safe distance away, trying to decide on their next move.
"Guess we're done here, then," Regent replied. "Lee's gone, Rakshasa and Lung are busy. Time to go home?"
"Not until we know if Lung's going on a rampage," Grue interjected. "If he decides to destroy half the Docks, I'd rather not be at the hideout."
Meanwhile, down below, Armsmaster ducked under a stream of fire and stuck Lung with the tip of his halberd. The Brute fell over in an instant, apparently unconscious.
It was strangely anticlimactic.
"Lung's down," Tattletale relayed to the group. Armsmaster spoke a few words into his helmet, calling for reinforcements, while securing the downed Lung with ropes that appeared from seemingly-nowhere.
"As I said, we're done," Regent quipped.
With nothing else keeping them from going home, the Undersiders mounted up on the dogs, and away they went.
But as they leaped across the rooftops back towards the base, a shape down below caught Lisa's eye.
"Wait," she said. "Stop."
With a whistle, Bitch called the dogs to a halt. "What?"
Tattletale shimmied down from the back of the dog, approaching the unconscious man in the alley.
He couldn't have been much older than them, maybe twenty-two at most.
He was laying face-up on the ground, unconscious, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants with his chest bare. It was hard to tell without more light, but he might have been Hispanic. His chest and arms were littered with scars - some recent, others older, two distinct sets of trauma, incurred over a long period of time - while in the center of his chest was a tattoo, the same omega that she'd seen on the non-human members of Faultline's Crew.
His most striking feature, the one that had first drawn her eye, was his left arm. It was much bulkier than his right, and on closer inspection seemed to be encased in some sort of rock. His fingers were sharpened to claws, and the dangerous ridges and uneven planes across the rest of it made her restrain the urge to touch the rock. She had better ways of investigating it, anyway.
Material completely composes arm; no flesh underneath. Crystalline molecular structure, harder than diamond. Nigh-invulnerable to cutting, heat, electricity, compression...
He was definitely a cape. No, more than a cape: a Case 53.
No memories. No attachments. No family, no past. Nothing that Coil could exploit to gain his loyalty.
This was too good an opportunity to pass up.
"Why'd we stop for a passed-out druggie?" Grue asked, joining Tattletale on the ground.
"He's not just a druggie, though - see that tattoo? The omega? He's a monster cape."
Her teammate peered down at the man. "Doesn't look too monstrous to me."
"No, look at his arm," Regent interjected. "Looks like it's made out of rock or something. I can't affect it at all."
"Are you gonna stare at him all night, or are we gonna go home?" Bitch stood impatiently by the dogs, not bothering to join them.
"Yeah, you're right." Tattletale turned to Grue. "Help me load him onto the dogs?"
That was not the right thing to say. "No way. We're not gonna bring some unknown monster cape back to the base."
Tattletale scrambled for a good explanation without defaulting to 'he's interesting and I wanna figure him out'. "Monster capes always draw attention, right? So when he's up and about he'll probably start causing trouble with the ABB, and then the Protectorate will try to scoop him up. The last thing we want is the PRT swarming around this close to the base. We can take him in for the night, and if he doesn't want to join the team we can dump him somewhere that won't cause us trouble."
"And how do you know he's not going to wake up and attack us while we're bringing him home?"
A quick dip into her power gave the answer to that question. "He's drugged up to his ears, there's no way he's waking up within the next few hours."
"That doesn't solve the problem of a potentially-hostile cape in the middle of our hideout."
"I'll keep an eye on him. No hostile capes wandering around the base alone, alright?
Brian considered it for a moment, then finally relented. "Fine, but you're paying to replace anything he breaks."
Lisa nodded her agreement, then together they hoisted the Case 53 onto the back of Brutus. Rachel didn't seem too pleased with their new addition, but she didn't kick up a fuss about it, either.
Back at the hideout, it once again took their combined efforts to relocate the man to the couch, and from there the Undersiders dispersed into their various rooms while Lisa took watch in the living room. A beanbag chair was no bed, but she figured it'd give her enough of a good night's sleep while keeping her close at hand if anything happened tonight.
Once again dressed in civilian clothes, Brian paused in the living room, glancing between the monster cape and the door.
"Don't worry about it," Lisa called. "You can go home."
"But what if he-"
"He's completely out," she reassured him. "And if he's not, I'll be here the whole time to see it."
Brian nodded, but hesitated one last time at the door.
"If he does start going crazy… well, the TV is replaceable," he said, and she couldn't help but smile at his unspoken affection. What a mother hen.
Lisa slept on a chair in the living room, more to honor her agreement with Brian than out of any fear that the man on the couch would wake up in the middle of the night.
By morning, the Case 53 was still out, and she took advantage of the morning quiet to take another look at him.
In the dark of the alleyway she'd missed the shock of white in the middle of his dark hair, but now it was incredibly eye-catching. Some capes had minor appearance changes that came with their powers - Canary was the first example that came to mind - but she wasn't sure how to reconcile that with his apparent status as a Case 53. He didn't have any major deformities. Sure, the arm would make it hard for him to keep a civilian identity, assuming it was stuck like that, but that was nothing compared to Newter or Gregor the Snail.
Now, it would be another thing entirely if his whole body was made out of the same rock as his arm. In the light, the stone looked like some sort of volcanic rock, basalt or obsidian, threaded through with veins of molten orange that seemed to radiate heat. It bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Behemoth.
But disregarding his irregular features, and underneath the scars, he was surprisingly handsome. He had the look of a guy who worked out regularly, and while she wasn't actually interested in much more than looking, there was nothing wrong with appreciating some good eye candy from time to time.
Lisa caught herself there. She couldn't remember the last time she'd ogled a cute guy without her power feeding her 'helpful' information like whether he picked his nose or the weird things he'd done in bed with his last girlfriend. This man was a blank slate, and as much as Lisa enjoyed unraveling secrets, it was almost refreshing how little was there.
Refreshing, but also concerning. He might be her best shot for an ally against Coil, but she couldn't predict him.
That was a mystery for another time, though. He'd started stirring, shifting around a little in his sleep, and a stray movement of his armored claws dug a set of large gouges in the carpet.
Keeping one eye on the Case 53, Lisa dug out her cell phone and hit a number on speed dial. "Hey, Brian? Yeah, it looks like he'll be waking up soon. If you could be here, that'd be great."
Brian arrived within 15 minutes, just as her power told her that the drugs were more or less flushed out of their guest's system. After passing around this warning, the whole group gathered in the living room to wait for him. Lisa was closest to the couch, looking reasonably unthreatening, as the one who would provide the inevitable reassurances to his confusion.
Brian and Rachel were positioned farther back, to keep from crowding him, but close enough that they could back her up easily if he was hostile.
Alec had perched himself on the kitchen counter with a bag of chips, out of the immediate line of fire but with an easy line of sight to disrupt his movements. How much Alec could really help, she didn't know, considering he couldn't affect the Behemoth arm, but tripping worked well enough.
The Case 53 woke up slowly, sitting up and stretching, before realizing his surroundings were unfamiliar. He jumped to his feet, and Lisa was there to greet him.
"Hey," she said gently. "We're not gonna hurt you. I'm Lisa, those are Brian, Rachel, and Alec." She motioned to each one as she recited their names. "We found you on the street last night, and brought you here. Do you remember anything?"
His eyes were an unnervingly-bright shade of amber that couldn't have been natural. When she tried to read his expression, she found that her own eyes were inevitably drawn to his. He took a long look around the room, and Lisa immediately turned on her power to gauge his mood.
Is uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings. Registers only Brian and Rachel as potential threats. Is reassured by lack of weapons. Thinks he can fight his way out easily if needed. Thinks you're normal teenagers - has not considered powers. Will not hurt you unless attacked first.
After a moment, he replied, "Nothing." She didn't need her power to read the tension in his shoulders and voice. "You said you found me on the street?"
"Yeah, not far from here. It looked like someone drugged you and dumped you."
He sat back down, digesting the information.
Is inclined to believe you. Needs more information to be certain. Does not trust your motives in bringing him here.
"Where's here, exactly?" he asked.
"Brockton Bay."
His brow furrowed.
"Brockton Bay, New Hampshire? United States of America? Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica?" There was no spark of recognition on his face. "None of those ring a bell, then. How about this?"
She pulled up a map of the world on her phone, holding it up to show him. The Case 53 made a motion to grab it with his left arm, and Lisa withdrew it quickly. "Nope. No claws on breakable technology. People hands only."
He stared down at his left arm, as though he was seeing it for the first time, but took the phone gingerly with his right hand, instead.
Recognizes nothing. Does not want pity. Does not want to talk. Needs time to organize thoughts, gather information. Does not know name. Does not know location. Does not remember past. Does not know how to deal with this.
Okay. Not good. The last thing she wanted was a breakdown in her living room.
The idea came to her suddenly, and she took the phone back from him, creating a fresh tab in the web browser and pulling up the keyboard.
"This is Google," she explained. "You type in any questions you have, and it'll bring up answers."
A way to give him a bit more control in this situation by allowing him to get information without going through one of them.
With the phone resting on the coffee table, the Case 53 slowly typed out one letter at a time with his good hand, hunting and pecking for keys like an old man. His confusion at the whole thing would've been funny if it wasn't so sad.
Alec evidently agreed. Abandoning his perch on the kitchen counter, he flopped down on the couch next to the monster cape, snatching the phone away. "That's honestly painful to watch. Just tell me what you wanna know and I'll look stuff up for you. We're gonna need something to call you, by the way. How about Behemoth Boy?"
The joke flew right over his head, and Alec glanced at their resident amnesiac, then over to Lisa. "He doesn't know what Behemoth is, does he?"
"Nope," she answered cheerfully.
"That's too much of a mouthful, anyways. I'm just gonna call you Rocky, alright?"
The newly-christened Rocky shrugged, and that was taken as acceptance enough.
Siccing Alec on him wasn't the approach Lisa would've chosen, but it seemed to be working well enough. The fact that Alec wasn't treating him with kiddie gloves had helped to diffuse some of the tension in the room, even though he'd probably get bored of playing typewriter soon.
While the Case 53 was occupied by Alec showing him the wonders of technology, Brian grabbed Lisa's arm and pulled her aside. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
She nodded, and followed him away from the living room. When they were out of earshot, Brian spoke. "I think we should take him to Faultline. We're not equipped to deal with him, and frankly, I'm not sure he's worth the effort."
"You might be right," Lisa admitted. "I-"
She was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. Pulling it from her pocket, Lisa glanced down at the Caller ID, then made a face. "Sorry, Brian. I gotta take this."
It was the last person she wanted to talk to.
Coil.
A/N: Special thanks to my friend Arete, for helping me get this chapter finished while I was sick. I'm thinking I'll use Raven's PoV for the next Undersiders chapter, because damn was Lisa hard to write.
