PRT building
Alucard narrowed his eyes.
Apocalypse Meow stared back.
"Umm nice kitty?" Assault tried to placate, looking up at the cat seated on the landing at the top of the stairs they were cleaning in the lower floors of the building. Aside from his mask Assault was dressed as a janitor in a jump suit, as was Alucard though he only had his hat. Mouse was supposedly a floor or two below them cleaning up pudding.
Alucard narrowed his eyes further.
Apocalypse Meow seemed to smile batting an object with her paw.
"Don't you do it!" Alucard growled pointing the mop he held at the cat.
"Please don't." Assault whined as the pudding filled mop bucket was inched closer to the edge of the stairs by the large green cat. A set of stairs they had just finished cleaning.
Alucard glared.
Apocalypse Meow met his glare and offered one swift slap to the bucket, sending it rolling off the top stair and crashing down the steps sending watery pudding every where over the clean steps. Alucard and Assault both swore as the bucket hit the wall on the landing they stood on before bouncing down the stairs further emptying it's contents along with a flood of dirty pudding water. The floor below had another sharp swear from Mouse Protector as the bucket crashed down to where she was cleaning.
"That's it you fucking cat, I'm gonna fill your litter box with pop rocks for this!" Alucard snarled.
"Po.. Apocalypse Meow get up here." Druid called from a floor above. The large cat's ears perked up, let off a small snort of amusement and seemed to smile at Alucard before bounding up the steps to where Druid had called from.
"I'm gonna skin that damn cat one of these days." Alucard huffed.
Assault looked at the mess and tried not to cry.
[BB Docks by the train yards, Happy Tuna Cannery]
"This the place?" the PRT officer asked leaning out of the window of the van looking up at the building.
"It's what the big guy at the union HQ said Mitch. " The driver offered pulling into a weed cracked parking space in front of the old building. "They don't come out this way often but he said this was an old cannery and one of the few places left standing that did any fish processing.
"Alright lets take a look Carl, I don't like this, we're way too close to ABB territory, but the director wants us to have a look and see if we can find this 'dog shelter' Hellhound has. "The first trooper, Mitch offered.
"I'm less worried about the ABB and more worried that Hellhound's been in lock up for three weeks. That's a long time to not have any dog food." officer Carl shrugged as the pair approached the front of the building.
A quick check of the door rattled it in the frame but it held fast. The noise however seemed to start a great deal of barking from inside.
"Well that sounds good. Front door's locked though, let's head around to the side." Officer Carl suggested.
"Right calling it in that we probably found the place. "Officer Mitch nodded reaching up to tap his earpiece. "Console this is unit 15 we are onsite at the docks at Happy Tuna Cannery, thirteen twenty three, west Lumina. Barking is confirmed on site, moving to investigate further."
"Understood 15. 17 and 4 are en route to assist. Will relay the information to Armsmaster."
"Understood Console, 15 out."
Moving around the side of the building found a few locked fire exits until they got to the back and stopped looking up at one of the loading bays. The door to it was crumpled and shoved open and crunched against the top of the bay.
"Well that's not ominous." Mitch muttered over the sound of barking dogs. He unclipped his side arm and both double checked their gear before climbing up onto the stone loading dock , one of them tapping his coms again.
"Console this is Unit 15 we've found signs of a forced entry in the back of the building, damage not consistent with that reported to be done by Hellhound, the bay roller door looks like it was lifted up and crushed into the ceiling. That's about 20 feet off the ground."
"Understood Unit 15 proceed with caution, I'm redirecting Battery and Miss Militia to your location as well."
A loud thud snapped both men's attention to the dark inside the building. There was a whine of metal on metal and a few more thuds that sounded as if they were approaching. Both men dropped back off the dock platform using it for cover as they peered over the edge of the raised stone floor into the building.
"Console we have contact unknown parahuman." the Mitch sent out.
"Confirmed, Armsmaster ETA ten minutes, ETA Miss Militia and Battery six.
The stomping grew louder and a large humanoid shape walked up out of the shadows gushing steam. The construct looked like it was hastily welded together in a humanoid shape with old car parts and junk torn out of a scrapyard. Behind the figure, a much smaller human stood behind one of the support pillars, a cheap dog mask covering her face, the girl seemed to be a teenager though she was holding back and letting the massive suit of metal approach the PRT.
Looking up the pair could see one of the object's massive arms was held across it's front with what looked like a Pomeranian mix sitting on the massive hand yapping angrily at the pair of PRT officers.
A human head sat nestled between the massive shoulders of the robotic thing, a pair of ratty welders goggles over it's eyes. The figure stared down at the two of them using the loading bay as cover and frowned as his other massive hand reached up to gently stroke the top of the dogs head.
"What the fuck do you two want?" the man in the suit demanded.
[ Later]
"So what do we have?" Emily demanded, the other end connected with Armsmaster.
"We found Hellhound's shelter. Thirty four dogs total, several of them feral, though most seemed to be domesticated and either abandoned or lost. We've contacted the local Humane Society to see if there are any missing dogs here that they might have files on." Armsmaster stated. "The animals are in very good shape and have been tended by a pair of parahumans. A young girl who admits to recently triggering and a older individual who is a tinker."
Emily took note of a slight excited tone in Armsmaster's voice at the word.
"The man calls himself Trainwreck and the BBPD has several complaints filed from the local junkyards about him. His attitude is rather harsh, but direct. I believe he is a case 53 of some sort as he claims to have no idea how he got here past waking up in the train yard." Armsmaster continued. "The pair of them both claim to have heard the barking at different times and came to investigate only to find the dogs, and both sought to tend to them. They claim to only have met each other last week when they both came by to tend the dogs at the same time, neither knows who the owner is . They both pointed out there was a large supply of food here and a pump water supply which Trainwreck upgraded. It is a very interesting design, a bit basic but the simplicity..."
"Focus."
"My apologies. The girl is listed as a run away but she was very adamant about refusing to go back. One of the BBPD officers that insisted on her coming in nearly had his eyebrows burned off when she spit fire at him. Thankfully she was clearly not aiming at him and simply trying to ward him away. Miss Militia intervened before the officer in question managed to do more than put his hand on his weapon."
"Tell Miss Militia to give her the soft sell, offer a place to crash and a shower and a meal at least while she considers it. What about Trainwreck?" Emily questioned.
"I asked and he is not interested in joining the PRT or coming in for power testing. Citing something about hating the rules but he wouldn't elaborate." Armsmaster offered.
"Tell him that Moon Dog will swing by tomorrow and talk to him, if he doesn't want to work with us I'll instruct Moon Dog to contact Faultline."
"Director I must protest..."
"Your protest is noted Armsmaster, but if he won't work with us I'd rather he join up with a group that doesn't crap in their own back yard rather than something like the Merchants or the Church. Particularly if that armored suit of his is as impressive as you say it is. That Faultline deals with quite a few Case 53's will likely help draw him her way. Keep in mind none of Faultline's crew, or Trainwreck are wanted for anything here."
"I understand Director."
"Alright does there look like a reason for Druid to head out there?"
"No Director no one is hurt and the dogs all look healthy."
"Alright, I'll have her stand down, wrap up, file the reports and I'll see if I can get some volunteers to tend the dogs until the Humane Society gets back to us. Thank you for rushing out there Armsmaster."
Armsmaster blinked under his visor in surprise. "You are... Welcome Director."
Director Emily Piggot leaned back in her chair, this could have gone badly if those dogs were dead, they got lucky this time, possibly got a new Ward as well, and maybe a favor from Faultline if Trainwreck worked out for her. She needed to make time to contact the mercenary to form her own opinion on the woman. Something to do later.
A buzz from her door alarm drew her attention and she tapped the button on her desk. "Come in."
Assistant Director Renick walked in with a rather nervous look on his face, probably recalling the door knocker remark she made.
"Oh hell, what happened?" Emily sighed looking at the man.
"Well I regret to inform you that Druid and Shadow Stalker had an altercation."
"What?"
"Shadow Stalker challenged Druid to a powerless fight in the training room and Druid accepted with Miss Militia chaperoning while Mouse Protector is on punishment detail. According to those present it escalated rather rapidly into a powered fight."
Emily stared at her assistant director, the man who actually was in charge of Druid for any disciplinary or other issues that arose, simply because Druid was the Director's daughter.
"Well?"
"Err, well what Director?"
"Did Druid win?"
