"That steampunk cunt is good, I'll give her that. She didn't notice the backup beacon though, that one's transmitting over a subspace carrier signal." Spike could easily hear Squealer's muttering and cursing in the backseat of her helicopter. It cruised through the air with astonishing silence, the whisper quiet rotary blades effortlessly keeping the unaerodynamic looking contraption afloat. Squealer had said something about passive stealth when he'd commented on its ungainly appearance, so he assumed they were protected from radar too.
"Tax Man is cross, but doesn't like us to see. He just can't quite clean up all the mess." Spike moved to steady Miss Edith as she squirmed awake in his lap. Spike and Squealer had been the only Merchant capes still conscious when their hot pursuit of the Scooby Gang (seriously, the Scooby Gang, what a fucking name) began minutes ago. Mush had been unceremoniously thrown into the cargo compartment, and there had been no time to collect Skidmark's body or even extract Trainwreck from his ruined suit; those left behind would have to fend for themselves.
"The tax man came and took his due, but Ms. Piggy is still chasing after Gonzo so the Sun and the Moon will be ever so confused." She was talking crazier than usual, which probably either meant she'd been having more visions while unconscious or that she'd been hit harder on the head than he'd thought. The dried blood on her face was a concern, but his girl was tough, and he was hoping she'd get back to her approximation of functional soon.
"Pet, did you see something in the blood again? This ambush you were so keen on doesn't seem to have turned out so well," Spike hedged.
"The blood was flowing ever so nicely, in a great river! But then I looked at the source and it was just a tiny piddling stream," Edith pouted, leaning into Spike's chest to dry her tears. Silly and useless as she was being at the moment, she was still cute as a button, and Spike thanked his lucky star to be her dark knight.
He rubbed her back gently. "Hush those tears now, none of us here like cheating Trumps and their dirty tricks. You feel up for a round two if we manage to track them down? Maybe we can make her spurt on command." Spike judged she was just having one of her loopier moments, and would be ready to go again should things turn out that way tonight.
Squealer interrupted his consolations with another round of inventive cursing, "Little flat-chested, goggle eyed whore! How could you even GET to that beacon while the spider is running? It's buried in the internal gyroscope, that doesn't even make sense!" Spike was starting to think this chase was not going to end with a fight. "Well you still didn't get the tertiary tracker, did you! I'll fucking strap you down and rape away your virginity with my Spider!"
Edith hadn't just suggested the failed ambush (in rhymes and riddles of course, as she always suggested everything.) She'd led them to Brockton Bay after the thing in Jacksonville. She'd even been the one who wanted to join up with this shaggy 'Merchants' crew. He supposed the drugs had been good, and Edith had been having her fun playing in the sky with Lucy for the past week or so.
Edith's field of focus was a little narrow at times, but since someone had died at the ambush it stood to reason she'd seen it clearly, and she'd probably expected this as a possible result. Had it really 'failed' at all? Spike thought about the ordeal through this new lens, and decided his path of action was certain. For now, he remained as quiet as the chopper itself, idly comforting Edith with his hands and doing up her hair back the right way with a pair of his blood whips.
A few minutes later, his earlier suspicions about the outcome of the chase came to pass. He felt the helicopter come to a slow halt in the sky, and this time from the intercom nothing could be heard at all. Miss Edith narrated what was already clear, "Miss Piggy has lost the scent, and her Kermit will not be in to scold her when she returns."
"Skidmark's really dead. And those fuckers got away with my stuff. Everyone we left at the garage is probably arrested by now. I -" Squealer cut herself off, choking down tears. "I didn't even get revenge."
"Educated prats everywhere say revenge is a dish best served cold," Spike responded.
"You're one to talk!" Squealer managed to stifle her sniffles, anger rising again. "It was your nutcase Miss Edith's stupid idea to do all this! Your fucking precious Thinker got my boyfriend killed!"
Spike held back a growl at her insulting his Edith; that wouldn't serve right now. Instead, he replied reasonably, "Now, now, there was more than one failure of intelligence here. Seems to me there were six Scoobies, not just the four you described. And one of the new ones was outside what Miss Edith can see, we both saw her get blindsided back there."
"So? What use are you then? You couldn't help me beat them. We can't even find them now." Squealer played right into his hands. She really wasn't at her best here.
"What use am I? The question you oughta be asking is what use are you, I think," Spike continued. "Aside from me and Edith, the only cape you got left is Mush, down in the cargo compartment. Trainwreck's probably brought in by now, just as you said, and let's be honest; he wasn't worth much anyway."
"You could tell us to get gone; and me and Edith, we'd roll out of this town quick as we rolled in, thanks for the hospitality. But you think you'll somehow be leader of the Merchants after? Do you think there'll even be a Merchants after?" Spike waited for Squealer now, it wouldn't do to lead the pig to water and then shove her face under.
Squealer was quiet, unsure. She'd learned intimidation from Skidmark, but not control. Eventually, she said, "Do you have any more plans then? How to keep the Merchants going, how to stay on top of them, how to kill the fucking Scooby gang?"
"Well, Miss Edith and I, we've sort of perfected the hit and run strategy over the years. Seems like you'd be suited to it with all your planes, trains, and automobiles lying about," Spike offered.
"Yeah… Skidmark was always so attached to territory. It'll be tricky to keep customers if we have to move around a lot though."
"Not as tricky as you might think. Addicts not getting high, they'll find you if they need to." He paused before adding, "And if you know what I mean, most of your customers can't exactly go to the ABB or E88 for a fix. Wearing the wrong team colors, you might say."
"So we keep the Merchants running as a mobile operation. Like gypsies." Squealer was starting to get the faraway look in her eye of a Tinker thinking about tinkering.
"Exactly. You move stuff around, I'll keep the boys in line, Edith will drop us hints, and Mush will be a big pile of garbage. Before you know it, things in the city will turn and we'll have the chance to get our revenge."
"Fine. I'm still in charge though." Spike would let her think that. The helicopter pivoted and started gliding forward again, heading back to one of the Merchant's camouflaged hangars.
The stealth must've been good, because nobody flashy and blasty made any appearances on the way. Minutes later they pulled in for a landing and disembarked. Squealer didn't make conversation, instead opting to take a few hits and lose herself in her routine maintenance of the helicopter. She didn't open the cargo compartment for Mush, but Spike figured he would make enough noise to be heard in the unlikely case he woke up anytime soon.
Spike decided it'd be best to leave her be for a while. "I'm going to go back and scout out the damage on the garage." He glanced at Miss Edith, resting on the beanbag where he'd laid her down. She'd done a Lucy since they'd gotten back, but for her a single Lucy might as well just be headache medication. "Do you feel up to coming along, or do you want some more rest pet?"
"Miss Piggy should be left alone to drown her sorrows. We have an astronomy lesson to attend, and we shant be late, or our Professor will be most cross." Edith rose in her elegant, boneless fashion, and demurely climbed into Spike's arms for quicker travel. His blood whips emerged from his jacket, lifting them up quadrupedally, and they were off like a flash.
The Master had always called him the runt of the litter. There had been Darla, always the old bat's favorite. Changers always had it so easy. She was great in a fight, hard to kill, even had a bunch of fancy torture tricks like suffocation and worse. She'd had fun with that behind closed doors with that big oaf Twilight (Sparkles, as he'd started calling him in their later years.) Twilight was another cape with a gift of a set; he was totally invincible as far as they could ever tell, and with nasty weapons to boot. And his Edith had been a prize as well, loony as she was. She was a true long term precog, and a combat Thinker at that.
Spike? Well Spike had gotten four blood whips that weren't even all that strong. He'd needed his wits to get the most of them, using them as feet and hands and in between and going back and forth in the blink of an eye. He was fast though, truly fast and tireless. That'd saved him and his Edith from dying like the Master, from going in the birdcage like dear Darla.
"This one. We must do astronomy in the proper place," Edith said. The warehouse was still a couple blocks away, but it paid to listen to her about things like this. He effortlessly carried them up the five story tenement and oriented himself on the warehouse from the roof. It was actually a pretty good vantage point, with the intervening buildings and alleyways set up nicely for the view.
Even at this distance, he could see the PRT vans blocking the road and their troopers milling around, going inside and out. It was quite a ways away though, and just as he wondered if maybe he should try to sneak them a bit closer, Miss Edith perked up again.
"I've brought your glasses, to better see the board from our seats." Edith handed him a pair of binoculars she'd had concealed in the folds of her costume. "I know we usually get up to no good far from teacher's eyes, but do try to pay attention to the lecture today." She favored him with a smile, and then leapt out of his arms to roll into a prone position at the edge of the building, waiting excitedly.
Spike took the binoculars with a smile; this was much better. He assumed Miss Edith had palmed them out of the helicopter's backseat and supposed Skidmark wouldn't be needing them anymore. Looking through them, he realized they were a bit of tinkertech from Squealer, the image clear as daylight and moving in response to his eyes as much as his hands. Miss Edith herself needed no such augmentation, her eyes taking in frequencies he was sure all the Tinkers in the world couldn't understand.
Almost as soon as he had his bearings with the device, a radiant blonde hero in a jaunty lightning unitard strode out of the garage, followed by a big guy with a staff in a white feathered outfit. Potential and Angel, two of this town's fair heroes. Both were supposedly reasonable melee types, but according to his research neither had a fraction of his speed, so he wasn't very concerned.
"Look at our Daddy, Spike. He's become the Moon, all soft white light and craters." Spike could swear he sensed the color of his whips change slightly as he felt his blood chill. He should've known that forehead anywhere, behind a new mask or not.
Bloody Twilight. The best part of their new existence away from The Master and his court had been getting Miss Edith away from him, and here Sparkles was, a new blonde at his side and a new spring in his unbreathing body. It was fucking typical that he could stab his mates in the back and slide into a new life just as easy as his old.
Suddenly, the reasoning behind some of Miss Edith's goofier decisions of late was looking a lot more transparent. Dealing with this would require finesse. "Now Miss Edith, you remember Sparkles was very naughty when we saw him last don't you? He decided to go off and play with his new friends and leave us in the lurch."
Absorbed in the vision of her 'Daddy', Miss Edith didn't respond. He was about to lower his binoculars to engage her more effectively when Potential startled, and turned to look directly at him from blocks away. Maybe she'd seen a reflection off the glass? She shouted at the confused looking 'Angel', pointing at Spike's position, and started running up a building on her way in.
She was interesting, Potential, but with that old traitor right behind her and all those reinforcements in the area, now wasn't the time to get more hands on with her. The long conversation with Miss Edith to remind her of Sparkles' sins was waiting tonight too, and he didn't want her directly exposed to the ponce before he'd gotten her straightened out.
"Time to go, sweet thing. We wouldn't want to be caught fighting in class," Spike cajoled, grabbing her up and racing away.