First Month In Brockton Bay

Leet and Uber skipped around Light as though he were a christmas tree. They wrapped pearl necklaces and golden chains around him until he was so bright he could reflect street lamps if he walked outside. It was relatively dark inside, but they could still see each other with the dimmed ceiling lamp at the center of the room.

"You guys are weird," Rush told them, while carefully staring at the display cases full of diamond rings.

Uber retorted, "says the girl dressed up like a furry."

Rush was dressed up as Ahri, a cat-human creature from League of Legends. Light was supposedly Malzahar, his scarves were in an Ottoman warrior like fashion, but the golden colors made him proclaim himself as 'mr. sandyman.' Leet had bandages around his body. He wore a bald cap with a large tube-like backpack to reflect a character known as 'Singed'. Uber wore a gender swapped cosplay of a sword wielder. The gender swap costume wasn't at all feminine, which was a compromise from what Rush had proposed.

She hissed at them, "oiy, it's a perfectly common fetish!"

"Uber," Leet said, "don't complain about the cat ears. Never complain about the cat ears."

"See?" Rush said. "I'm fetish friendly!"

"Light," Uber questioned, "it astounds me how you can tolerate the things coming out of her mouth."

Light shrugged, "I've trained myself to shut away some of her words. She goes mute every once in awhile, and I'll have no idea what she just said."

This was only the team's second heist. Their attempt of amassing funds was underway, and they wanted to run a few practice robberies before they began posting videos online. Leet, in particular, needed more time and money to complete some of the project ideas they all had in mind.

XXX

"This is kind of fun to watch," Regent said watching from the security room monitors. The Undersiders watched the newly formed team prance around the jewelry shop that they had initially planned to rob.

"They're stealing our gig," Tattletale commented.

"Boss isn't gonna like this," Grue mentioned.

"I can get rid of them," Bitch said, offering her own solution.

Grue replied, "the mission was the make the Protectorate look bad. Fighting a bunch of amateurs wouldn't exactly help us."

"Yeah," Tattletale said, "but are we seriously gonna leave without anything to show for it?"

She had a point. They couldn't retreat before the robbery even started. They're plan to gain rep from outrunning the Protectorate fell flat the moment the newer team deactivated the building alarms. A flat out fight with them also wouldn't have garnered any reputation benefits.

Grue looked at Bitch, maybe she could intimidate them to leave? Then they could at least gain a profit without wasting their time fighting. Grue ordered, "Tattletale, stay here, the rest of us will handle these guys."

XXX

There was a low growling from the distance. When the team looked over to see, they saw the Undersiders with three hyena sized monsters growled lowly at them. Rush instinctively hid behind Uber.

Regent mentioned, "you do know you're not actually a cat, right?"

She whimpered, "but do they know that?"

BItch's dogs eyed directly at her. Bitch grumbled, "I fucking hate cats."

Rush shrunk even further. "This cosplay backfired, terribly."

"Hey," Uber said, "what's the big idea? We called dibs here first."

"Yeah," Light yelled, "what happened to honor among thieves!" Light lit up his arms, he was more than happy to pick a fight with strangers.

Grue crossed his arms, wondering if they'd be willing to concede to his commands, "we've been planning a heist here for days, and we aren't leaving empty handed."

"Days?" Leet raised an eyebrow, "seriously? We rolled dice before deciding to rob this place. All that planning sounds really wasteful."

"And stressful," Rush mumbled. Bitch growled at her again, to which she winced.

"So what do you guys call yourselves?" Regent asked.

The four of them looked at each other for a moment. Together they answered, "we're working on it."

"Enough talk," Bitch said. "Get out, or we'll make you get out."

Light couldn't help but smile at Bitch's hostility. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love the name Bitch? Anytime I hear a woman call herself 'Bitch', I think of a strong, independent, open minded feminist."

"I dunno," Uber said, "I like the name hellbound better."

Regent and Grue immediately took a step back. Uber just pressed a button they knew shouldn't ever be pressed. WIthout thinking, Bitch blew into her dog whistle and pointed directly at Rush and Uber.

Rush eeped, but managed to fire an invisible shockwave into the Undersider's direction. Regent slid across the floor but managed to pick himself back up and hide behind a display case. Grue smashed against a wooden case, causing the case to tip over and hit him on the ground. The dogs got back up quickly and sprinted towards her, Rush redirected her powers to pick up metal display cases and smash them into their bodies. She raised the heavy cases and pressed them against the wall, pinning the dogs into place, unable to escape from her power's weight.

Light took cover behind the register counter. He launched bright lights to the other side while Uber dashed towards Bitch to trap her into a grappling hook. He pinned her to the ground while Leet stepped to his side to nit-pick around his utility belt.

"Light," Tattletale said over the store intercom. She watched the fight unfold from the safety of the security monitor room. "You know, the only reason you go by that name is because you wanted to be a hero once. But your sister dragged you out of that. In other words, you're the opposite of what you've always wanted to become because you cling onto a person you feel forced to follow."

Tattletale grinned from where she was sitting, she picked up more and more bits and pieces of each of them as she scanned through the monitors and audio she had access to. Surprised they had an extra member accessing the intercoms, Light said to his sister, "it's true, I wanted to wear skin tight suits, be famous, and have bitches on all of my sides. You ruined that for me."

Regent commented, "that is pretty fucked up. Never cock block a man from his bitches."

Rush shrugged, "I tend to be good at making lives miserable."

Rush's strength didn't falter as she held the dogs pinned. They were powerhouses, and they all knew they couldn't survive if the dogs became freed. Regent tried getting Rush to release them, but Light was shooting at him so heavily that Regent was more focused on distorting Light's aim than anything else.

Grue stood up from the floor. He expanded his darkness at both Light and Rush, Leet tossed a flashbang in the air. They were all blinded for a mid second, but Rush didn't falter with her eyes closed. "Shit," Rush yelled, "watch out for the black guy! He's gonna corrupt you all with his blackness!"

Grue rubbed at his eyelids, "what the fuck did she just say?"

Light groaned, "crap, a liberal. You better not get offended, it's just a joke. And it's not like you're actually black underneath your mask."

Both teams fell silent for a long time. When realization finally dawned, the other team bursted out laughing.

"Tattletale," Grue said aloud, "shut these guys up."

Tattletale raised an eyebrow from where she sat. She spoke into the mic again. "Rush. I know the only reason you came to Brockton Bay was to escape from your past. And the only reason you crack jokes all the time is to hide the insecurities of how you've lived, and of how scared you really are towards the world around you."

"It's true," Rush said sighing. "That's why I draw dick pics everywhere we go. I fear of the Scion uprising someday."

"Enough talk," Bitch said as Uber twisted her arms to the ground, "let me kill these bastards."

"No!" Everyone from both teams yelled.

Bitch grunted. She hated holding back, being told to limit the strength of her dogs. She could easily have beaten all of them, if they had just let her!

Regent had long given up trying to take the fight seriously. "Hey Grue, is it alright that I start calling you the black guy of our group? If they're allowed to have a wise cracking gamer girl, we should follow our own stereotypes too."

"I like this guy," Rush said teasing, "cute, and funny. By any chance, are you single?"

"If the answer were no, I still wouldn't stop you."

"Awwww, that is so sweet."

Grue had regained his sight. Light pounced at him from the counter. Even though Grue had just barely regained his vision, he managed to grapple Light by the arms and pin him into the ground. "Fuck," Leet said. He left Uber's side to try and double team Grue.

"Uber," Tattletale said over the coms, "I know you only accepted these two because you were desperate to try something new. You knew you and Leet were pathetic together, so you were willing to take in two complete strangers because you thought you couldn't get any worse. In reality, you know you'd be better off as a solo cape than with Leet."

"I've never denied that," Uber said sticking his tongue out, "and to be fair, I'd be better soloing than with any of these other guys."

His teammates instantly shouted profanity at him, and even picked up some priceless jewels to throw into his direction. Uber grinned as Tattletale gritted her teeth.

Regent jumped out from cover and stopped Leet from reaching Grue's side. He caused his feet to collapse, allowing his head to hit onto one of the display cases. It hurt badly. There was even a light nausea as he tried picking himself back up. But as he tried, Regent used his powers to keep him from rising up, making him fall back onto the ground again and again in a pitiful fashion.

"Leet," she said in a final attempt to irritate them. "Long story short, you're a loser. You go out of your way to try and show the world that you're half the worth of a regular tinker, but you aren't, and you never will be. Your tinkering is programmed to blow up in your face, you'll never be good enough for anyone, and everyone you tinker for is bound to get dragged down by your lousy skills. At the end of the day, you're just better off not being around than dragging down everyone else with your personal failures."

Leet didn't say anything. He knew it was true enough to not argue, he couldn't even spin that into a positive light. The rest of his team waited for him to turn her words into a meaningless banter, but he remained silent. Before Tattletale could claim the small victory, Rush said, "you know, being a loser is better than being a nosey, stupid-ass bitch."

Leet chuckled a bit. Light added, "yeah, if Leet's a loser, I wanna be a loser too. We'll make a badass posse and call ourselves the losers while we kick other loser's asses."

"Yeah," Uber said, "I wanna be a loser too."

"Me too," Rush said.

Leet finally began laughing, laughing in a way that withered away any doubts he had about himself. "And I guess since I'm already a loser, the rest of you guys are losers for hanging out with me!"

"So it's settled," Rush said, sweating from the prolonged use of her powers. "As of this day, we are calling ourselves, the Losers!"

Tattletale shook her head, what have I done?

Rush clapped her hand. In an instance, everyone dropped upside down. The ceiling fall surprised Grue, allowing for Light to fight off his grip. He changed into his neon-like shape, and jumped onto Regent into the ceiling chandelier. Regent groaned in pain. Leet quickly stood up and threw another flashbang into the air.

When Rush inversed the gravity, the dogs were immediately released from her power's grasp. They tried to re-orient themselves to stand on the ceiling, but were quickly pained by Leet's flash bang.

"Losers," Rush yelled, "retreat!"

They each pocketed the jewels they could carry and ran. Some the loot was priceless, and they only picked up half of what they expected to collect. But by the time they entered the city streets and distanced themselves from the Undersiders, they stopped caring about why they were there.