It was only a few minutes later that I realized a chase was futile. Trainwreck's path wasn't particularly hard to follow even in the dark thanks to the number of toppled fences and smashed-down barricades he left in his wake, but I was on foot while Trainwreck was effectively in a vehicle. I might as well try to chase a car.

I slowed to a walk as I continued after him. I could see a few people approaching the path Trainwreck had left, no doubt squatters and scavengers who had been alerted by his passage and were coming to check it out. I ignored them as I kept walking, my three beetleings scuttling around me. Maybe not the smartest move to broadcast that I was a cape, but it beat getting jumped by some thugs who would see a lone girl at night as an easy target.

It had the desired effect, as some of the approaching people visibly shied back when they noticed my minions. Some of the people broke off into murmured discussion, others watched me cautiously. I couldn't help but feel a little excited by that. Sure, it wasn't awe or admiration, but it was still a level of respect being paid to me, or at least to the potential danger my power posed, that I wasn't used to receiving. And all I was doing was walking.

I thought as I walked, trying not to let the attention distract me. I wasn't going to be able to beat Trainwreck's speed, so I needed another angle. The first plan that came to mind was to return to his camp and set up an ambush for when he returned, but I saw holes in it as soon as I thought of it. If he did return he'd be on guard for just such a situation, or he might just write the camp off as a loss and set up somewhere else. More pressingly, I had a time constraint. He apparently lived out here, whereas I needed to get back home before Dad woke up in the morning. Lying in wait wouldn't work so well if I had to leave just a few hours in.

So an ambush was off the table. Plan B was to try and cut him off at his end destination. That was almost as bad, but for different reasons. For starters, if his destination was just in a straight line away from his camp, I ran into the same problem as trying to chase him. When or if I ever caught up to him, he could just keep moving and start this whole thing all over again. And again, I ran into the time problem. If the chase dragged on too long I'd just have to abandon it and go home.

I turned my mind to the connections to my savages. They had pulled ahead of me and the beetleings in the chase, still following the order to pursue Trainwreck. I tried to use the connections to get a sense of their location relative to me, but it didn't help much. I could tell they were a ways in front of me, but it didn't help me figure out whether or not Trainwreck's path was curving towards some destination I could beeline towards. From what I could see of his path the savages were still directly ahead of me though, which indicated a more-or-less straight route.

I slowed to a stop as my mind churned in frustration. Chasing wouldn't work, and ambush wouldn't work, cutting him off at his destination was apparently the same think as a chase, or else something I didn't have the time to figure out. I tried to work out the timing in my head. I'd left home at about midnight, then spent the greater part of an hour getting to the Trainyard. I'd have to account for at least that much time to get back home, probably more because I was tiring myself. Six o'clock was what I estimated my deadline to be. Dad slept in on weekends, but daily routines were hard to break, and if he was like me he'd still wake up at the usual time of his alarm clock. He might not actually get up, but he'd be awake enough to notice if he heard me coming in. I could maybe excuse it as an early run, but only if he didn't actually poke his head out of his room and see me, and I didn't want to rely on luck. With the time I'd spent hunting down Trainwreck in the first place and then the time the fight had taken, I gave myself a window of about two hours to find him again, subdue him, and call the Protectorate to collect him.

Instead of groaning, I channeled my frustration by having one of my beetlings kick a can. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. No scavengers around anymore, at least none that I could see. Trainwreck's path had strayed closer to the border of the Trainyard and I could see an actual street a few fences away. The idea of calling it a night was tempting. I could just hop those fences, go home, and come back to hunt down Trainwreck another day. But as enticing as it was, the idea still felt sour. I wanted to do this clean, get it done in one night. And I'd come close, so close that it would have been over if he hadn't had the escape suit to fall back on. Leaving it like this, even if I came back another night, even if I came back tomorrow, it would feel like running from the Merchants all over again. Another failed outing, another failed attempt to be a hero.

Plus there was the logistical problem. I'd been able to find him this time because I knew where to start. If I left and gave him time to recover, I'd have to search the whole Trainyard to find him again. And on top of that, he was a Tinker. He'd have time to rebuild, shore up the weaknesses I'd used this time and prepare to fight against me.

No, leaving tonight without capturing him wasn't an option, at least not one I was willing to accept right now. But I still didn't have any feasible way to catch up to him. Calling the Protectorate without capturing Trainwreck first would defeat the purpose, but maybe if I tried to recruit some of the scavengers…

"Nice night for a walk." A voice cut off my train of thought. "You mind if I join you?"

I spun towards the sound of the voice, commanding my beetleings to move between me and them. The speaker was a girl about my age, maybe a bit older. Her dark blonde hair fell loose around her shoulders and she wore an unzipped jacket that gave me a good look at the costume she was wearing underneath. It looked like a skintight bodysuit, mostly black with some parts in dark blue or purple, the lack of light making it hard to discern the specific colors or designs. The look was capped off with a domino mask and a wide grin, and she held what looked like a shopping bag in one hand, and she definitely hadn't been there a few seconds earlier when I was looking around.

I didn't recognize her from my research, either as a hero, a villain, or a rogue, which meant she was either as new to this as I was or she'd moved into Brockton from somewhere else. And with a costume as put-together as the one she was wearing, even with the addition of a winter coat over it to disrupt the look, I doubted she was new.

"Who are you?" I asked warily. Without giving any outside indication I seized on my connections to my savages, preparing to dismiss them and form a new set next to me at a moment's notice. I looked around again, but no one else had mysteriously appeared with her.

"I'm Tattletale," she introduced herself cheerily, "And this is normally the point where I'd show off by knowing your name already, but you kind of threw a wrench in that by not having a name for yourself yet. You should really get on that soon, otherwise the PRT will pick something for you."

That made me bristle a bit, less at the idea of someone else picking my cape name and more at the fact that she knew I didn't have a name for myself. Though I supposed this was only my second time out and I was hardly doing anything to announce myself, it wasn't a hard conclusion to draw. Still, something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

"And before you can ask," she continued, "I'm here because, well, I'm interested in you."

That definitely got my attention. Between tonight and my first night out, I hadn't really done much to warrant interest, much less effectively find me. But if she not only knew about me, but managed to track me down…

"Are you a hero or a villain?" I asked bluntly. No point in dancing around the subject.

Tattletale grinned a bit wider at the question. "Who's to say? Give me a few minutes on a computer, and I can find you a dozen different definitions for both of those words, ranging from dictionary to philosophical."

"You're a villain, then." I said dryly.

She gave a mock gasp of offense and put a hand to her chest, but she was still smiling. "A villain? Me? Whyever would you say that?"

"Only a villain would answer that question like that." I said.

Tattletale laughed and inclined her head. "Well, you're not wrong. Guilty as charged."

That was enough for me. If she took the time to track me down on only my second night out, whatever interest she had in me definitely wasn't good for me. My savages were getting near the edge of my range, so I dismissed them and prepared to summon new ones.

Tattletale held up a hand before I could. "But before you go all gung-ho 'beat up the villain with extreme prejudice' like a certain other vigilante I could name, I'm not here to fight. I actually come bearing gifts."

She held up the bag with her other hand and shook it in my direction. I didn't approach to take it. "You're a villain." I said. "Why should I trust anything you offer me? For that matter, why shouldn't I just take you down now and hand you over to the Protectorate?"

Tattletale laughed and waggled a finger at me. "To answer the second question first, because you're not stupid. You don't know who I am, you don't know what my powers are, and you don't know if I'm alone."

I looked around again. I'd been certain no one else was here with her, but I'd been certain no one was around before she showed up. Still no sign of anyone else, but that didn't make me feel any better.

Tattletale kept talking without acknowledging my reaction to her words. "You could try and attack me, but then you'd be running the risk of starting a fight with someone who has a death touch or a high-tier Brute package. Sure you can make assumptions about my power based on my name, but that's not enough for you to be certain, and you're a cautious person. This is only your second outing and you've had your powers for, what, half a month? Less?"

If her comment about my lack of a name had rubbed me the wrong way, that one definitely put me on edge. Her guess about how long I had my powers was uncomfortably accurate. Between that and knowing I didn't have a name for myself, as well as the implication that if I did have a name she would have known it, plus her name, it gave me the impression of some sort of Thinker power. Either that or…

"Have you been spying on me?" I asked tersely. I drew on my energy and summoned a savage, the sound of its appearance and the sudden presence of a vicious-looking figure at my back lending weight to the question.

Tattletale's smile didn't falter as she waved a hand. "No, nothing like that. Spying on you would risk becoming a major breach of the unwritten rules, not to mention beneath me. I'm just good at figuring things out, and you're not that hard to get a read on. Which is why I know you're not confident enough in your power to attack someone you don't really know anything about."

I almost wanted to attack her just to prove her wrong. Problem was, she was right. Taking on Trainwreck was already a risk, but that was a fight I felt compelled to seek out and thought I'd planned enough for to be worth the risk. Attacking a villain with unknown powers was more of a risk than I was willing to take.

I tried to ignore the fact that she hadn't attacked me. Even if she wasn't hostile to me, she was still a villain and a criminal. The bare minimum of decency was not attacking people without cause, I didn't want to think about that like it was some good deed she'd done.

I fought the urge to cross my arms and glare at her. Tattletale was being way too smug about this for my tastes. The way she was acting like she was untouchable, almost gloating about how I wouldn't do anything… I forced down the part of my mind that started drawing comparisons. Even if it was just in my head, I didn't want to start linking my cape and my civilian life.

Maybe she noticed I wasn't too happy with her because Tattletale dropped the grin. "And as for question one," she said, "That comes back around to my interest in you. And no, it's not the 'supervillain looking to crush the up-and-coming hero' type of interest."

She was already back up to a smirk. I didn't have much faith that she'd be able to keep the grin down for much longer as she kept talking. "Right now you're a parahuman without an allegiance, and that makes you the most valuable commodity in the Bay. So I'm doing what any smart person would do: trying to make a good first impression."

She gestured at the bag again. I still didn't move to take it. "You're awfully confident I'm on my own." I retorted. "How do you know I'm not working with anyone?" It was mainly just stubbornness that was driving me to argue with her, but I really didn't want her to steamroll over me without any objection.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Look, honey, I'm not stupid." She started counting off on her fingers. "You're not Asian, so the ABB's right off the table. The Empire's not too strict about its hiring policy, so if you wanted to join them you'd already be goose-stepping around in their colors. You're not drunk or high, so you're not a Merchant, you're not dressed like a video game character, so you're not working with the geek squad, and Coil doesn't hire capes."

I counted off in my head, trying to remember any other groups in the city. "I could still be a Ward, or part of Faultine's crew."

Tattletale shook her head, grin back in full force. "Nope. Ward's haven't done a press release about any new members, plus we're way outside of their usual patrol area. And I pulled some strings and called in favors just to make sure I got to meet you before Faultline could, so I know you're not with her."

There was an emphasis on Faultline's name that made me think there wasn't much love lost between the two of them. Still, it wasn't enough to distract me from how Tattletale was grating on me the longer this conversation went on. She wasn't even trying to be mean, but her sheer smugness was abrasive.

She sighed and forced the grin down again. "Look, you don't trust me, I get it. Villain shows up out of nowhere offering gifts, I'd be more surprised if you accepted it with open arms." She winced a bit. "And I've been showing off more than reassuring, which probably isn't helping. Look…"

Apparently having decided I wasn't going to take the bag she reached into it and started pulling things out to lay down on the ground. The first thing out was a jacket, the heavy kind made for people who want to be outdoorsy in the winter.

"Winter coat. Figured you might want something to keep you warmer than what you have now. It's waterproof, so dying it might be tricky, but I'm sure you can get it to match the rest of your getup."

I didn't move closer but I gestured to one of my beetleings to move forward and bring it to be. I grabbed the coat out of its hands and examined it. It was definitely nice, certainly warmer than what I had on now. The running I'd been doing and the layers I was wearing had mostly kept me warm, but I'd been standing still long enough that now the cold was starting to creep back in. And it did seem like a nice jacket, plenty of pockets to carry things in and tougher fabric than my hoodie.

As I was turning it over, something caught my eye. The price tag was still attached to the collar. I read the figure and my eyes widened a bit. Even if I hadn't spent any of my savings on dye, goggles, and other tools, I wouldn't have been able to afford this. And she was just giving it to me?

She pulled a phone out of the bag, then a folded piece of paper before tossing the now empty bag to the side and placing the items on the ground, weighing down the paper with the phone. "Phone. Figured you didn't have one of your own, or at least didn't want to risk it getting linked to your cape work. I'd recommend burner phones, but I don't exactly have a dozen SIM cards to spare right now, so you'll have to settle for some encryption. It'll hide the number on calls and interfere with tracing, but I still wouldn't recommend calling the same number too often.

"The paper has numbers. Protectorate, PRT, even New Wave. They're saved to the phone already, but in case you want them for another phone. Plus there's a number for a taxi service." Her smile seemed knowing now. "Walking to places is fine and all, but sometimes a ride is better. I speak from experience when I say that if you take off the mask and zip up a coat over the costume, no driver's going to look closely at the rest of your outfit, whether it's camo jeans or…" she gestured wordlessly to her own costume.

This really seemed too good to be true. She mentioned pulling strings to meet me before Faultline could, which at least explained how she'd found me, but that still didn't explain the why. Making a good first impression only worked as an excuse so far, and it didn't cover seeking someone out after their first and previously only outing involved mauling someone. She had an angle, I just had to figure out what it was.

"Is this supposed to be a bribe?" I asked, "Something to make me turn a blind eye to you in the future, or to make me owe you one?"

"Not really." Tattletale shrugged, still not dropping the grin. "I don't expect it'll count that much in my favor, but I can't deny I'd be happy if it gave you cause to go easy on me or at least give me a chance to surrender first if you come after me. But what it's supposed to be is part one."

I wasn't proud of how much that piqued my interest. The stuff here was already rather enticing, and the idea of more was intriguing. I almost had to scold myself. Gifts from supervillains was right up there with candy from strangers and drugs on the list of things not to take, but I was already certain I was going to keep these. Accepting more from her probably wouldn't be better, but if I was going to accept her gifts I might as well take everything she was willing to give me.

"Part two is this." Tattletale said as she turned and pointed into the Trainyard in a direction parallel to the road. "You can find Trainwreck by heading about seven minutes that way until you're by where Manson Street meets Hayden Avenue, then head deeper into the Trainyard for about two minutes."

I stared in the direction she was pointing, then back at her. "How do you-"

"Trainwreck headed straight away from you for a while to shake you off," Tattletale interrupted, "He keeps a cache of spare parts in that area, so once he was safely away he doubled back to try and repair his armor."

Either she was lying about being above spying or she definitely had a Thinker power. Or both, which wasn't a great possibility. Whichever one, I didn't like the idea that she could potentially turn that focus on me.

"I still don't get what you get out of this." I said, trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice.

Tattletale shrugged again. "Like I said, good first impression. I brought presents, offered you help for your goal, pretty much hit all the points of a neighborly greeting for capes."

It all came back to the gifts. Was she trying to use me to get rid of her competition? No, she could have tried to direct me towards him without risking herself in a conversation. Was she trying to support me as an independent hero? That seemed even less likely, but I could see the reasoning to it. One independent would be easier to deal with than another Ward who could call for backup. But that hit the same flaw, she could have given me the gifts without revealing herself. They probably would have been better received if I thought they were coming from an anonymous benefactor, but instead she wanted me to know she was giving them to me. She wanted to be associated with the gifts and the information.

It clicked. "You want me to like you."

She laughed. "Well, yeah. That's sort of what good first impressions are for."

I shook my head. "No. The gifts, the help, it's to make a good impression, but that's a means rather than an end. You want me to like you because you want me to join you."

There was a moment of crucial silence where she didn't deny it.

Tattletale sighed. "Look, there's not a lot of ways this conversation can go from here. You protest you won't be corrupted and how my evil schemes won't work, I say that's not what I'm trying to do or I argue back or whatever, so I'm just going to duck out now before this becomes an argument. It was nice meeting you though."

She turned her back on me and started to walk away. Again I had the impulse to set my savage on her, just to prove her wrong and show that her smug certainly was unfounded. But again, common sense prevailed. I could still have said something to her, tried to get her to stay and answer to the accusation, but she was right. Again. That conversation couldn't go anywhere except an argument.

So instead I watched her go until she was out of sight, slipping past the last fence onto the proper road and walking away without looking back. No one else stepped out of hiding to reveal her secret backup, leaving me alone with my minions. I had my beetleing find the can again and kick it repeatedly. I was more than a little angry. One night out, one mistake, and already I was being headhunted by local villains. I had to admit, at least to myself, that it would be sensible to try and recruit any new capes that popped up, but that didn't make it any less insulting that she thought I'd join her and be a villain.

Worse, I could see why I could make a good villain. My savages and beetleings looked pretty monstrous, and neither sabotage nor mauling people with claws and fangs were very heroic. Still, I couldn't let that stop me. I knew from the start that I'd be facing problems with a power so poorly suited for the typical flashy heroics, and after my first outing I knew I'd be facing some trouble overcoming the reputation I'd surely earned after mauling Aegis. This was just one more obstacle I'd have to get past to be a hero.

I bent down to grab the phone and paper, only for something else to fall out from under it. It was a couple of bills totaling about twenty dollars. I had a nagging suspicion that if I used the taxi service she mentioned I'd find it to be the perfect amount to take me to the general area of my house. I hadn't even seen her slip it under the paper.

It was yet another reason to dislike the know-it-all. Still, I wasn't going to let pride trump practicality in this case. I pocketed the phone, paper, and money before making my way to follow her directions to Trainwreck.

The short walk gave me time to think. Could I trust her? Oddly enough my gut said yes, at least in this case. I was certain she wanted me to join her, which actually made her gifts more trustworthy. If she tried something like planting a bug or tracking my calls she'd run the risk of me finding out and souring that relationship, and she wasn't stupid. Plus her mention of the unwritten rules came with enough sincerity that I believed she'd at least avoid digging into my civilian life.

As for whether I could trust her beyond that… It was a problem to figure out later. The walk went by faster than I thought it would before I was where I needed to be. The shouting was the first hint I was in the right place.

I tried to crouch as I snuck closer, my minions doing the same. I could definitely hear more than one voice coming from up ahead. Had Trainwreck run across other scavengers when he came to retrieve his stuff? Had heroes been alerted to him and come to bring him in?

I peeked around the corner of an old brick shed. The area was larger than any of the others I'd been in here, the size of a full parking lot. It was scattered with rusty old cars in various states of dismantling, from almost fully intact to little more than the bare frame. I could see Trainwreck by one that had been tipped onto its side with a rectangular piece removed from the undercarriage. There was a bulkier attachment on one of the thin arms of the suit, with more parts scattered on the ground around him. And across the lot from him engaging him in a shouting match was…

My heart sank. This wasn't the worst-case scenario, but it was close. If it had been scavengers, they would have been easy to drive away. If it had been heroes, I would have been willing to take a loss if it meant Trainwreck was taken off the streets anyways. But instead it had to be another villain.

I recognized her too. Squealer, the Merchant's vehicle builder, getaway driver, and all-around pain for anyone trying to catch her. She was standing atop what I assumed was a vehicle of some kind. It was shaped like a ring lying flat on the ground, except the side facing down had various tires on elevated suspension that put its height somewhere around a normal car's roof. How the hell the thing could drive I had no idea, from what I could see all it could do was spin in place. Still, she was a Tinker and a vehicle expert, so I had to assume the thing could function.

Both of them were locked in a shouting match, so I was pretty sure neither of them had noticed me. I tried to listen to what they were saying, hoping to figure out the best way to approach this.

"Bullshit!" Trainwreck was saying. "This is my stuff, I've had it here for months. You can fuck right off!"

Squealer laughed. "But it's on Merchant turf, shit-for-brains! That's means it's ours, no ifs, ands, or asses!"

Trainwreck growled, drawing himself up to his full ten foot height. "I don't give a rat's moldy ass about your turf! It's mine and I'm taking it, end of story!"

Squealer grinned at him. She didn't do anything I could see, but suddenly the machine under her roared to life as multiple engines kicked on. "Oh yeah? And what if I stop you, you pimple-faced dickwad?"

"Oh, go fuck yourself!" Trainwreck sneered. "Shouldn't be hard, seeing as you're nothing but a giant cunt!"

Squealer laughed again. "Please, I shack up with Skidmark! That dirty talk ain't doing nothing but making me horny. You wanna learn to insult someone, listen up, because you can-"

I tuned her out as she started on a profanity ridden tirade. At least I thought it was profanity, I was pretty sure she made up half the words herself. On one hand, I was not prepared to fight two villains at once. And as a Tinker, Squealer was in that obnoxious category of being very hard to plan for. Just like Trainwreck and his backup suit, she could have any number of tricks packed into that wheel ring of hers.

On the other, this was pretty much as good as this situation could have gone. They were both Tinkers, so all I had to do was get my beetleings to break their stuff. In Squealer's case, I might even be able to bypass that and just have a savage take her down directly.

I considered my options. If I engaged them I could possibly bring down one or even both of them. That would be sure to make a good apology present for the Protectorate. But it also posed the risk of me getting attacked by two villains at once. My other option was retreat. Go home, call it a night, tell myself it'd go better next time.

I barely needed to think about it. Running now wasn't an option. On top of every argument I'd had earlier for why I needed to keep going after Trainwreck, now it was a turning point. If I bailed this time just because the situation was more than I'd been expecting, I could do it the next time things went poorly, or the time after that, or the time after that. I'd always have it looming over my head that if things were bad I could always just cut and run because I'd done it before. I could ignore it, but it'd always be there. And if that came during a situation where I couldn't afford to run, other people could pay for it.

No, if I wanted to be a hero, or even just respect myself down the road, I couldn't retreat now. I reached out to my beetleings and gave them their orders.