Pup 1.3

Yes, Goat-ee was a horrible person. Yes, Goat-ee was a horrible Nazi person. No, I would not use the above as an excuse to turn a blind eye to mutilation in cold blood.

I jumped.

Three hastily materialized plates below, staggered to provide an easy way down. My reservoir's whining was preferable to broken legs. I heard the last one crack as I catapulted myself into Shadow Stalker's personal space.

I ducked under her guard, rising fast enough fire a pang accross my shoulder on impact with her arm. With a backwards glance and a tail flick, a cube of pseudomass formed around Goat-ee to prevent his escape. Protection from a free lobotomy was a side benefit.

She didn't drop the bow as I'd hoped, but no one would be hurt if she pulled the trigger in that instant. Well, save for an unlucky bird. Instead, she maintained control of it by transitioning to a two-handed grasp. The shift clanged our masks together.

I pushed with all of my meager body weight. One step. Two. Shadow Stalker widened her stance and would yield no further ground. At least there was some margin of safety between the pointy thing and its would-be flesh sheath. I also managed to end up with my head clasped in an approximation of a forward chokehold. My ears were already bent to fit inside the gas mask, having pressure on one of them was a far from pleasant experience.

My world devolved into a mess of pain, yowling and a semi-incomprehensible string of words that should not be used in polite conversation. Shadow Stalker burst into vapors.

It wasn't like I went through her. Rather, the fumes that made up her breaker-state billowed around me. It was an inky mixture of black, brown and silver that felt more solid than it should have running through my fingers. I imagine that the sensation wasn't unlike brushing against a million jellyfish tentacles. I staggered forward, nearly colliding with the concrete sidewall before I could regain my balance. I turned. Shadow Stalker was facing me, hands on her hips.

"Would you drop your force field pretty please?" She said with faux sweetness. "I promise you can get the next one yourself."

"No." I said. My tails curled outwards to either side, their tips alight with sheaths of pseudomass. I pushed a little more energy than necessary into them, brightening my implied threat. This was wrong to the the nth degree. Shadow Stalker was a hero, heros do not threaten immobilized, obviously defeated criminals.

"For Christ's sake! I was only gonna shoot him if he tried to run, killjoy!" Shadow Stalker stomped her foot. I had to tighten the muscles in my tails to keep them steady.

Was she seriously pouting about not being allowed to threaten the life and limbs of a human being? Briefly, I wondered if she was one of the kids who had a fixation with drowning ant hills and lighting moths on fire during primary school.

"You can't do that..."

The girl in front of me was scary, plain and simple. I would not be afraid to admit it in public. Whatever I did wrong with the full face concealment thing, she did terribly right. Had it been her in the warehouse with the three dunderheads, there wouldn't be a fight. There may have been some virtue to her disposition.

Goat-ee, eternally calm, shifted into a cross-legged position. He had the ordacity to throw a hook-nosed leer at us. Perhaps a lobotomy would improve his sense of self preservation.

"Yup," he said, voice distorted by his prison. "Using one of those lawn darts is likely to get you a trip up the river, girly."

Much more gently than expected, Shadow Stalker patted the top of my mask as if to say 'See? He's asking for it.'' Kneeling so that she could speak to Goat-ee on eye level, she pressed a hand against the encasement. "You're right, I can't, without giving some paper pusher a stroke. But if a victim were to break a dog's nose in self defense, maybe give it a few bruises..." She looked up to the hispanic man, who had, until that moment, contented himself with watching from a corner.

He looked at each of us in turn, one hand against his chin. Between Shadow Stalker's beat down invitation, or the man's consideration of it, I was uncertain about which damaged my general regard for humanity the most. I was no native of Brockton Bay, or at least I think I wasn't, but the place was far from an island within the greater sea of a continental United States. Localized social mores shouldn't diverge enough to actively encourage eye-for-an-eye mentality, cape culture or no. The notion was just wrong on a fundamental level: objectionable behavior was a mutation of the norm reserved for the morally crooked. Otherwise, parahumans would never be classified under such polarized brackets as "hero" or "villain".

Right?

"I think I'll turn down your offer," The man finally said.

Right. An intangible weight dissolved around my shoulders. Goat-ee's look of utter contempt for everyone within sight went unchanged. Fine, be unthankful for your continued ability to make ugly faces.

My stomach churned. The thug initiate was struggling against his bonds. I reinforced it until my reservoir started to burn and then cut my connection to it. My tails lashed to and fro. "Stop squirming, it'll cut your wrists off!"

He made an "O" with his mouth and decided to sit, well, hang, very still. It was a lie, but it kept him from draining his cuff's energy until they dematerialized.

"-o, no. If I stay and wait I'll be late for work and this is a bad part of town. I'msorrybye!" Shadow Stalker held a sleek touchscreen phone that was now in the place of her holstered killamathing. She held it in both hands so that on forearm cradled the other while she the tilted her head towards the receiver. She undid her cutesy posture and tapped at the device, earning a soft blip. She placed it in one of her pouches without looking.

Sirens blared in the distance. Either the situation was bad enough to warrant a heavy police presence every block or two, or fate was feeling a little generous.

"Alright, let's bounce." Again, her voice transitioned from the sweet, melt-in-your-mouth tone to the grumbly, harsh one.

"That's right, run. Bitch." Goat-ee muttered.

Shadow Stalker's hand twitched, coming dangerously close to her lethal bow. She shook her head and tore herself away from the scene. With a grunt of effort, she ascended to the rooftops by catapulting from sidewall to sidewall, shifting between her normal and breaker state with every jump.

I sent a half-hearted wave to the would-be-victim and followed the young lady's trail. She actually waited for me this time. She regarded me with a nod, turned, and began a circuit through a slightly less developed series of establishments. Skyscrapers gave way to two and three story apartment complexes interposed with the occasional restaurant or family business. The jumps became a bit further in between but Shadow Stalker didn't seem to have a problem with lengthening her strides. She only used my platforms to avoid touching the less stable-looking roofs.

"That's it?"

"What's it?"

"We're not going to file any reports or call your bosses so they can keep track of your work?"

"You want me to take credit for a parahuman arrest that I was given explicit orders not to conduct without another ward to babysit me? After I spent so much time badgering the cops to not complain when I dump ganger-meat on a silver platter in front of them?"

"Sorry."

Shadow Stalker humphed mid-jump.