The large green dragon cat stared at Moon Dog.

Moon Dog stared at the large green dragon cat.

Apocalypse Meow suddenly whirled on Druid with a glare that made Druid roll her eyes.

"Don't get mad at me. I didn't make him." Druid huffed.

"Uhhh. " Vista shifted her gaze between the blue feline man and the green lizard cat that came with Druid. She had been guiding the pair around the PRT base and they had run across Moon Dog coming out of one of the gyms on site. The Protectorate was really supposed to use the rig, but it was far easier to use the PRT offices and no one really seemed to have issue with it. Except the janitors who usually bitched when Moon Dog's fur clogged up a drain, but those guys were always griping about something.

"Don't worry about it, Apocalypse Meow is just confused as this is her first time seeing a cat as big as she is." Druid offered.

The blue cat tapped on the bracer on his arm the voice coming out slightly robotic sounding."Well it's fine that she is curious, though i certainly hope she does not have any amorous intent. I get enough of that from Mouse Protector and a number of other people i work with."

"Don't worry she's fixed. It was a governmental requirement." Druid offered.

"So no kittens?" Vista pouted.

Apocalypse Meow growled lightly.

Protectorate ENE HQ (The Rig)

Director Emily Piggot was fairly impressed. She had seen quite a number of Protectorate bases in her time, as well as PRT buildings, but this one was perhaps the fanciest she had seen. The force field bridge, the dome shielding, countless tinker tech security features, addons, and a defense system that looked to have parts from a battleship after the US Navy became a Armed Forces service in name only thanks to Leviathan. There were not many countries that bothered to keep a Navy or even much of an air force anymore thanks to the End Bringers.

The interior was less spartan than she expected as well. There was a proper, if some what odd garage, a large number of offices, lounges, and staging areas, and as she was finding out now, a fairly large holding area for para-human criminals.

At the moment Armsmaster, and two PRT doctors were standing with her outside of a sealed cell looking at a barren room with a bed and a tiny curtained off toilet and sink. Some of the cells didn't even have that.

Seated in the room was a rather butch looking girl dressed in what looked like an old PRT jumpsuit of some sort that had been torn in a few places and the sleeves ripped off. She was rather blunt featured with thick eyebrows and brownish hair. She was currently glowering at them from her side of the safety glass as if squaring up which of them she could rip apart.

Emily kept her stare directed at the girl, and they both of their gazes locked as the doctors and Armsmaster spoke .

"So what is going on with her?" Emily asked her focus remaining on the girl.

"Rachel Lindt, aka Hellhound, aka Bitch. Currently 16. She is wanted for the murder of her caretaker when she was ten..." Armsmaster began. "She has also attempted to escape quite a few times from custody."

"Yes, I've seen the file on that, and while I'm no lawyer there were a number of issues with that that stood out to me. Such as the rather large collection of complaints of mistreatment by all the other children the dead woman took care of, as well as clear signs of abuse and inhuman treatment that CPS seemed to miss or ignored. Then there were even a few signs she belonged to the church of the goddess, but I digress." Emily sighed." There's so much cover up and buck passing and blaming for everything we may never know what happened for sure, given everyone involved is more than happy to say Lindt is the issue."

Armsmaster considered. "It would not be the first time people blamed all they could on a parahuman However even if she is not guilty of murder, her powers make her a very dangerous parahuman and her mindset is borderline feral. Not to mention injuries sustained on her escape attempts."

"Not quite feral from what little I have been able to gather from her." The first of the doctors stated. "She is certainly not friendly, but we believe she falls somewhere on the autistic spectrum, though whether that is from her power or not I cannot say. She follows quite a few canine like mannerisms. She has also been rather insistent she be let out, when she does talk at all."

"There is unfortunately a rather large collection of files about parahumans mindsets being changed by their powers." the second doctor offered.

All of them looked at Armsmaster who frowned.

"I am well aware of my issues and I have been instructed to try and work on them by Dragon." Armsmaster reported.

"Any tests with dogs?" Emily asked changing the subject.

"A few ma'am. We had one of our team bring in a puppy she recently got for her daughter and we put Miss Lindt in an adjoining room to see the reaction. While the puppy was interested in her, he continued to do puppy things and get distracted by his own tail. At no point did she try to make the puppy into one of her monster dogs." the second doctor offered.

"She actually refused when we asked her to. She only stated he wouldn't listen and then went back to playing with the puppy. The puppy was checked over afterward and kept for a week under MS protocol. "The first doctor huffed. "Unless she commanded him to not be house broken yet, there was no master effect in play that we could see."

"So she's not a master?" Armsmaster questioned.

"I would say not, the three dogs of hers that we have are very well trained and the mixed breed dog with one eye she called Angelica seems to be in charge of the pack when Lindt is not present. Not in any way more than a normal dog would be leader of it's pack, but the others don't try and challenge her. At worst we think Lindt might be some sort of bio tinker."

"Lovely." Emily offered before pulling off her gun belt and handing it over to Armsmaster, along with a large boot knife, two hold out pistols, and a 'paperweight that was only designed to look like brass knuckles and really wasn't despite it being in her pocket she had put it there and just forgot and it totally wasn't illegal in this state to carry around a paperweight' item.

Armsmaster looked at her quizzically, well maybe he did it was hard to tell with his helmet.

"Director ma'am, what are you doing?" the first doctor asked.

"I'm going to have a word with her myself. I rather agree with former Director Meadows idea about a K-9 unit to help with drug search and seizures, with all the merchants and the E88 crap, drug dogs would be a great boon to our forces. Not to mention recovery efforts after End Bringer fights"

"Yes ma'am but this is a hostile parahuman..." the second doctor added.

"Why, is she a brute as well?" Emily asked taking the thick file from the doctor on Lindt and flipping through it.

"No ma'am, but one doesn't have to be a brute to be dangerous."

"Oh I know, buzz me in." Emily stated from the door to the cell waving at the man with the file she had.

PRT Ward's office

"Ahh so this is the fresh meat?" Clockblocker asked from where he leaned against the wall in the Wards room. He was dressed in some sort of white armor with a clock motif and a white face mask. It looked like a scaled down version of the PRT body armor, perhaps thinner and likely less effective, but at least it was armor. His mask was partially up over his face, leaving enough room for him to drink the soda he had in his hands and to show off the smirk on his lips.

"Yes and if you scare her off I'm going to make you run a few miles next time you need to go to the bathroom in a hurry." Vista snapped back.

Clockblocker clutched his chest with his free hand. "Ahh you wound me. You see what sort of slings and arrows you must endure to exist here? Such a harsh life we lead."

"You've been hanging around Moon Dog to much Clock." Aegis offered from across the room where he was seated in front of a computer with a stack of papers on the desk next to it. Like Clockblocker he had a modified suit of body armor that looked like it was even less effective than Clockblocker's . His rust red and silver colored suit had a large kite shield in the center of his chest and still showed off a rather well muscled form. His mask left his eyes and the bridge of his nose uncovered showing hazel eyes and a darker skin tone that likely pissed off the E88.

"Really that's a first, normally I only get complaints about hanging around Assault too much." Clockblocker chuckled tossing the empty soda can in the trash and pulling his mask back down.

"That too." Aegis muttered.

"Anyway, this is the team for the moment Druid. The mouth over there is Clockblocker, the over worked one who thinks he's leader is Aegis. Gallant's got some family thing today so he's out... where's Shadow Stalker?" Vista questioned.

"Late, as usual." Aegis snorted in annoyance.

"If there isn't violence she doesn't give a crap." Clockblocker snorted his tone changing from amusement to aggravated.

"Ehh whatever. Anyway , this is Druid. I'm showing her around today. And this is... Druid, where's Apocalypse Meow?" Vista questioned.

Druid blinked and looked back to the door then opened it to look out the hall.

"Druid?" Vista questioned.

"Hmm." Druid frowned under her mask.

"I thought we were only getting one new Ward. Who's Apocalypse Meow?" Aegis questioned.

"I really want to know as well, that name is hilarious." Clockblocker laughed.

Armsmaster winced at the crash inside the cell flinching a little despite himself.

The two Doctors stared in horror through the window.

"Why are you still standing there, shouldn't you go help her?" One of the doctors demanded of Armsmaster.

"Help who? The Director or Lindt?" the other doctor questioned.

Director Piggot had entered the room and stood near the door to speak with Rachel Lindt, the prisoner not offering any real conversation as the Director listed the issues and what was going on, explaining it in small terms as if speaking with a child. She then went into what they wanted of Rachel.

Everything was fine for a few moments until the Director stated who she was, that got a rather dismissive remark from Lindt, and in reaction the Director offered a smile.

Armsmaster was quite sure the expression was intentional as it was less a smile and more a baring of teeth, something Lindt clearly took offense too as she rushed the Director with a growl.

Lindt then found herself on the floor as the Director practically threw her over her shoulder into the wall.

Then the Director slapped her in the nose with the rolled up file.

"No. Bad."

This seemed to piss Lindt off further which lead to the attack continuing.

An attack the Director continued to no sell, sending Lindt to the floor every charge or swing. All of it followed by a swatting of the rolled up file and a very stern 'No'.

Lindt tried again lunging and side stepping the throw managing to connect with the Director and rock her head back with the blow.

The Director's reaction to Lindt finally connecting was to toss the paperwork aside and slam Lindt to the floor of her cell, pinning her in place with a hold Armsmaster didn't recognize from the PRT manual, but was clearly very effective.

"I am going to say this once Lindt, you are not the Alpha here, I AM, and as such you will follow my orders if you want to ever see your dogs, or anything but the inside of a prison cell again. You work with us, you'll be treated fair and can earn some freedom in what you do. You keep fighting like this and I'll just let the idiots who want to see you locked up have you." the Director snarled. "I could keep putting you down like this all day, but I have other business to attend to. You are going to cooperate with the doctors and anyone else I say, you'll answer their questions and if I like what they tell me I might let you work with your dogs and other dogs as well. You have skills I would like in my pack, but if you can't get along then I'm going to cut you lose and do without, do you understand?"

There was a moment of silence before Armsmaster could make out a slightly pained 'yes' coming from the pinned girl.

"Good." the Director stated, standing up to let Lindt free. She spared a glance at the girl before she gathered up the paperwork scattered about the room, Lindt pulled back to the far wall and watching the Director with an air of caution.

With all the paperwork gathered the Director pointed at the window and the two doctors on the other side as well as Armsmaster. "If they ask you something, you tell them to the best of your ability. If you don't want to answer, you tell them no, you do NOT attack any one unless I or Armsmaster tell you to, understand?"

Lindt nodded a bit.

"Good." the Director opened the file flipping the page around to read it. "Can you read?"

Lindt blinked. "Some."

The Director frowned, as did Armsmaster.

"We're going to have to fix that, I'll see about setting up a tutor once you are settled. I don't profess to know what your life has been like up to this point, but we are going to fix what we can."

"My dogs..."

"The three you have are being cared for. I'll have Druid look them and you over as soon as she's introduced.

"No... shelter."

"Shelter? You have more dogs?"

Lindt nodded.

"Armsmaster?"

"I have not found anything in the reports about any other dogs or any shelter." Armsmaster stated. "When we picked up Miss Lindt there were no other dogs aside from the three in the abandoned building."

"She has expressed concern that we might put them down, but I thought she meant the three she had with her." One of the doctors offered.

"By train yard. Old place. Smell like fish." Lindt flinched.

"How long has she been in here?"

"About three weeks." Armsmaster offered.

"Shit." Emily stated. "Send a couple of squads out there, look for a old cannery or something, talk to some of the DWU out there see if they know her or have heard any dogs barking. If you find the place bring Druid out as well to check everything over."

"Yes Director." Armsmaster offered.

"Fuck, if she had a lot of dogs caged that long, this is gonna be a PR shit show." the Director muttered as Armsmaster went off to make the call. "Youth Brigade is bad enough, this shit would bring in PETA and the ASPCA. I already hate this job."