Rachel Lindt

"Rachel!" Greg called to her.

She ignored him. Not because she hated him - Greg had been helping her walk her dogs recently, and being strong enough to hold a dozen leashes at once without strain or hurting the animals had done a lot to put him in her good books.

No, Rachel Lindt, better known as Bitch to anyone she fought, was ignoring him because he was asking annoying questions again.

"Rachel, that isn't a dog." He insisted as she trailed lazily behind her newest animal. It had taken to her training with great speed - achieving the same level of obedience that Brutus, Judas, and Angelica had within mere days of having found the poor animal.

To her, that made Fou a more desirable ally. To everyone else it had been 'creepy'.

"Fou!" Fou barked at her tall teammate in rebuke. She nodded sagely along with the statement, keeping her eyes trained on the chihuahua sized ball of messy white fur as it bobbed along four feet in front of her.

Today she was working on commands without a leash. She hadn't used her power on Fou yet - though she expected she could from the feel of it - but despite how the others obviously thought she was stupid, she didn't think for one second a normal dog - no matter its intelligence - would be able to handle that after mere weeks of training.

And she had learned long ago that the training had to be perfect if she wanted to avoid complications.

"It- you're hearing it right? You can see that it's talking right?!" Greg demanded of her. She turned an unimpressed look on him.

"Fou, sit." She called gruffly, and was immediately rewarded when the dog followed the command, pausing to turn towards her and sitting obediently.

"Fou!" It barked at her.

"Dog." She stated simply, gesturing at it.

"It. Is. Saying. Its name." Greg growled at her.

"Not all dogs sound the same." She countered, whistling once and turning to continue walking with Fou while Greg managed the other twelve dogs they had brought with them from the shelter their new boss had helped provide for her. It wasn't in her name - because she was still a wanted criminal - but everyone who worked there knew it was hers, and she was happy with that.

As long as everyone involved knew their place, there would be no problems.

"I- it- you know what? We've got ghosts, murder trees, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It's probably just a magic dog." Greg grumbled to himself, rushing to catch up with her at a pace that allowed the dogs he was leading to keep up without strangling them.

She approved, and also, she took a moment to appreciate looking at the man as all the belts and ties hanging off of him drew his clothing tightly against his body.

She wasn't interested in being with Greg for a number of reasons. He was annoying. He didn't always do what she said. She was pretty sure he was Lisa's even though neither of them ever acted like it.

But that didn't mean he wasn't okay to look at sometimes.

"Probably." She agreed.

"So you can admit that it's not a normal dog." Greg snapped at her, pointing accusingly in her direction.

"Its inner ears are purple. Not normal." She grunted at him. It was a small wonder he hung around Lisa so much. Greg seriously needed the added intelligence she provided.

"And this doesn't bother you?" Greg asked in exasperation.

"No." She responded bluntly.

"Sup boss! What's up in the Reichlands?" Tattletale prodded the minute they had all finished filtering into the meeting room where they regularly interacted with their new employer.

"P-please… Please don't." Theo Anders asked tiredly, breathing hard on the bench in the miniature gym he'd had built for himself at the edge of what was once Empire territory.

"Aw come on, you've still got Justin the wonder nazi on payroll. You can be a little sentimental about-"

"Tattletale. I am not having this conversation with you. You know why I keep him around, because you are the person I call to vet him. Please. I'm tired, half my board of directors are obvious Gesellschaft plants, and Aster kept me up all night." Theo stated bluntly.

The boy - who had been little more than a chubby pampered child when he had hired them - had lost some weight, and gained some definition to his frame. Not enough to really say that he was no longer chubby, but enough to say that he didn't look that bad anymore either.

"I'm just saying-" Tattletale began to tease.

"Tats. Please." G man grunted before their leader Grue could do the same.

Which was for the best anyway. Tattletale was more likely to listen to Greg than Brian nowadays.

"Fine." Tattletale grumbled, shifted uncomfortably on the spot for a second before noticing Greg watching her and straightening up as though nothing had happened.

"What's the job?" Grue asked when he was sure no more interruptions would occur. Theo nodded at him in thanks, then leaned over to withdraw a manilla folder from within the backpack that was slumped against the bench next to him.

"David Meyer. You said to look into him and this is everything I could get. He's not a very public person." Theo stated, handing the envelope off to Grue who passed it to Tattletale without bothering to open it.

She quickly flipped through its contents, humming and muttering to herself as she did so, before passing it back to Grue who held on to it.

"Yeah he's definitely a plant. Don't think he's here for you though." She confirmed with a nod. Theo frowned at her.

"Then why did he buy a quarter of all my stock from other investors and move here." Their boss asked pointedly.

"They're using you as a safe backdoor into the city to avoid Nexus. Which makes sense, because I'm seeing a lot of private purchases here consistent with blast mining and uprooting trees. Even some tinker stuff in there if you look closely enough at it." Tattletale noted excitedly.

Because of course Tattletale would be excited that someone was going to annoy Nexus. For as much as Rachel wanted to make sure that everyone around her knew their place in the pecking order, so as to ensure the smooth running of the group, she felt like Lisa must have a screw loose for even bothering to look in Nexus' general direction.

Rachel had figured that messing with that particular feral animal would be a great way to get dead real fast - but the team Thinker just wasn't getting that message.

"The sword?" Theo asked with some alarm.

"Yup. And also something else that I'm not getting fully. I'll do some digging." Tattletale said with malicious glee.

Greg… well, Greg stiffened appreciably at the mention of the weapon safely ensconced in the confines of the Oathbound compound. The one he claimed would call to him when he wasn't focusing on anything else.

As though a sword could call for anything.

"Suggestions?" Theo asked, turning to Grue.

"Smash and grab? If we get any evidence, we can pass it to you so you can give it to Nexus. She'll handle the rest." He put forth.

"He still owns part of my company. I don't want her to make that connection if he's a Gesellschaft plant." Theo rebutted.

"Why don't we just break all his shit." Rachel suggested, earning sharp looks from everyone around her.

"I thought we weren't going for anything flashy on account of the hate boner the queen of murdertown has for us." Alec spoke up for the first time, a touch of apprehension in his voice.

"If she shows up, just tell her it's Nazis. No one likes Nazis." She explained her reasoning. It was very simple reasoning, but honestly, she didn't see the problem.

"Fou!" Fou agreed with her from where it was lazily lying across Brutus' back.

Greg turned his masked face to stare at the two animals for a moment, before sending a hard stare in her direction - which she ignored.

Fou was just feeling lazy. He'd be fine when they went out.

"It… could work. I mean Nexus doesn't tend to get involved in things unless it happens right in front of her and I think she might not even be in the city right now, so…" Tattletale said.

"She's not here right now? Wouldn't that make now the perfect time to steal that thing?" Theo asked urgently.

Rachel didn't bother waiting for him to respond before she started slowly extending her power to Brutus, Judas, and Angelica - causing them to slowly grow in size. She didn't listen overmuch to the conversation after that. She already knew where this was going and was eager to get on with it.

Once her power had fully suffused her dogs, she quickly climbed on top of Brutus with Fou - who was now standing precariously atop the larger dogs head - and waited for everyone else to get with the program.

She did kind of miss this.

Greg Vader

When they got to the building, that weird dog rabbit thing Rachel brought everywhere with her hopped off Brutus and disappeared around a corner.

No one else seemed to notice it leave except Bitch, but Bitch seemed so apathetic to anything weird that thing did that Greg was beginning to suspect it must have a Stranger power that he was just immune to. No one else ever commented on how clearly not like a dog it looked, or how it seemed way smarter than any animal should be.

…Greg supposed that could also be because of the sapient pigeons though. It felt like his understanding of 'normal' was subtly shifting to be askew with the rest of the worlds the longer he stayed in the Cape game.

"Greg. How many people inside?" Lisa demanded of him quickly, snapping him back to reality. He frowned. His power gave him a general idea of the people around him so he could use his power on them, and while it wasn't the most accurate it did give him a decent idea of at least how many people were nearby - provided he wasn't standing in an obvious crowd.

"Twe- None. It was twelve and now it's none." He said with some alarm.

"What do you mean none? Like, they all walked out of range at once or what? Is this more magic bullshit? You know I hate magic bullshit." Alec complained.

"I uh… dunno?" He offered lamely. It wasn't like he was actually a Thinker or something. They were abusing a quirk of his power here - how was he supposed to know the details?

"Greg, scout it. You're the most durable of us. If something happens we'll cover your retreat. Come back and give us the all clear if you can't find anything." Grue ordered rapidly.

Greg nodded at him.

He was familiar enough with the trinity of rpg classes to understand that he was the Tank. At least, if one discounted Bitch's dogs - which he did.

They were better at doing damage than him anyway.

Putting action to the orders he was given, Greg crouched down and leapt, using the strength granted to him by the engine he had replaced his heart with to fling himself across the street and through a second story window as easily as he might walk up a flight of steps.

He landed in a roll, muscle memory allowing him to kip-up without thought into a ready position, only to find… nothing.

Well. Not nothing - there was definitely equipment all over the small warehouse they had hit that was consistent with some idiot trying to steal his - trying to steal Gram.

What was weird was that… there was no one here to guard it. And furthermore, that there was nowhere for anyone who had previously been here to guard it to leave without being noticed from outside.

So where did they all go?

Carefully he crept forward, aware that the noise of his entry probably negated any element of surprise he might have had but equally aware that giving away his current position would be stupid either way.

At length, he prowled the entire upper level of the warehouse - finding nothing - and moved out into the central part of the first floor to look at the equipment.

Only to find the dog thing patiently sitting in the middle of the warehouse.

It stared at him with intent that could only come from a fully sapient being, and he stared back at it, unsure of what to do.

And then it made a noise.

"Bark." It said to him. It didn't actually bark. It just said the word bark.

"What the actual fuck Rachel." Greg muttered to himself as the thing lazily meandered over to the front door of the warehouse like it was waiting for him to open it.

Which it obviously didn't need if it could get in in the first place - but if Greg was being truly honest?

If it wanted to pretend to be a dog, he wasn't going to argue with it anymore.

It had made it's point.

A/N: Hello everyone! 2/3 Sidestories in, one more to go! As with my previous Authors note, I will kindly suggest you all go read Haven Quest, which has moved to the second part of Chargen and where - somehow - the voters have accidentally made themselves Emiya.