Little Hunter
It was a simple game.
Nanku loosened her hold and Dusk and Dawn tried to catch her.
Emphasis on tried.
Nanku bounded over the rooftop, ducking under hanging lines and slipping between air conditioners. She jumped to an alley below. Her legs curled on landing, the shock jolting her bones and muscles. She endured. Her body could handle the strain.
She collapsed forward, rolled to her feet, and lunged aside.
Dusk flew over her head, claws swinging down in an attempt to tap her.
Nanku shot back to her feet but Dusk's chortle was a tip off even if she weren't watching with her power. Jumping, she stepped off a dumpster and threw herself over Dawn. The larger of the Twins tried to whip around and catch her, but Nanku grabbed the lip of a window and held herself up long enough that Dawn had to crash or fly on.
She chose to fly on, zipping up with Dusk and looping around to ready another swing down from the sky.
Nanku raced down the alleyway as they positioned and jumped onto the wall. She scaled it quickly. The brick was easier to work with than the concrete and glass of newer buildings.
Scrambling up the side and over the lip, Nanku threw herself up and low. Dawn whipped through her hair and Nanku rolled to the side before Dusk could catch her.
They swung back hard, wings beating as they twisted their bodies about. It was a hard maneuver. One that strained their wings compounded with their weight. Nanku felt it from them, but didn't stop the maneuver.
The Twins had their own will.
They wanted to win.
Ducking low, Nanku grabbed the corner of the roof then flipped herself over the edge. Dusk's dive missed. Dawn dove down, aiming for where she thought Nanku would be after dodging her brother. She was close.
Kicking her foot into the brick, Nanku let her body twist down and slide toward the ground. Dawn slid over the wall, claws raking at the bricks. She tried to turn but her body wasn't really built to hover.
She was forced to drop and fly before hitting the ground.
Nanku pushed against the wall and threw herself away from the wall. With a hand she caught the lip and hauled herself up.
"What are you doing?"
Nanku scowled and looked over her shoulder.
The girl with the skull mask crouched by a door and watched.
She appeared and disappeared. Not with a cloak. Her power was more annoying. Whenever she was around and using it, Nanku didn't think about her. Couldn't.
It was like she forgot Imp was there unless Imp wanted to be remembered.
Nanku took some satisfaction in the irony that her instinct seemed to trump the girl's power.
Her presence rattled about like a nagging feeling of being watched. It wasn't something she'd had the chance to notice among the Yautja. No parahumans. On Earth, she was finding the ability useful.
It let her know Tattletale was prying, for one.
"Bug-monster got your tongue?" Imp asked.
"Playing," Nanku answered.
"Aren't you a little old for that?"
Nanku scoffed.
She turned her eyes toward the sky. The visor swept, altering vision modes as Dusk and Dawn flew above their positions. The mask calibrated as she watched, adjusting itself after all the shaking and rattling she'd done to it.
Dusk and Dawn were always good aids in calibrating her biomask.
They were still determined to catch her.
The Twins swept out, flying to either side to narrow her routes of escape and pincer. Dawn flew in first, angling as Nanku leaned one way. At the last moment, Nanku faked the other way and drew Dawn and Dusk that way. With a kick off the stone, she threw herself back and the Twins barely avoided a collision.
Dawn flipped over in the air and landed hard on the ground.
Dusk slid, claws scrapping a scar into the gravel to stop himself.
Nanku would wonder why a roof had gravel on it, but there wasn't time.
She raised both hands. With her thumbs, she drew her fingers back and flicked them both in the jaw.
"I win," she declared. "But close."
Dawn chortled and Dusk clapped his mandibles in annoyance. Nanku reached out with her power and enforced that the game was over. They'd all get hurt if it carried on too long or too hard.
That wouldn't do.
She might have to make her own way at any moment if the Undersiders and her mother kept trying to string her along.
Nanku soothed her frustration by scratching the Twins. She had time, but only so much. A little rest was good for her anyway.
But too much rest dulled the senses. She couldn't have that.
"Going back now?" Imp asked.
Nanku gave no answer.
She sent Dusk and Dawn into the air and stepped off the roof. Rolling as soon as she hit the ground, Nanku tapped her computer and let the cloak envelop her.
The device made an odd whining sound to her ear, and the shroud jolted. It held, but looking at her arm revealed the obvious imperfections. Patches of exposed skin or armor. Better but still in need of tweaking.
Annoying.
That dog hit her hard.
"You have any idea how many stairs I have to run down to get here?" Imp kicked the door shut and followed Nanku. "A lot. It's a lot of stairs."
"Then jump."
"Not all of us are brutes."
That word again. Nanku had heard it several times like it meant something specific. She didn't care to ask.
Nanku didn't bother checking as she crossed the street. There was no one around to see. The whole block of office spaces save two were abandoned and those were on the opposite side of the block. A few vagrants lingered in the other buildings but they were sleeping or on drugs.
No one to concern herself with.
Most of Captain's hill was abandoned like that. The one part of Brockton Bay that was still as run down as her memories of the city said it should be. A few bad bloods ran around, but not the Nazis. Petty crooks and thieves.
Nanku wouldn't bother with them even if she hadn't promised her mother she'd stay quiet for a few days.
She approached the kennel from behind. Dusk and Dawn dropped onto the roof and scuttled through an open window. Since Hell—Bitch, reoccupied the property the lights had come back on. Nanku's cloak was damaged but it worked well enough from a distance. It didn't work at all for the Twins.
"Bitch?" Cassie leaned around a corner and frowned. "Oh. It's you."
Nanku ignored her.
Imp followed behind with a wave.
Cassie gawked. "You're supposed to be—"
"And it's boring. This is way more interesting."
"Do you ever grow up?"
"God, I hope not. Reggie here?"
"Eating all our food? Yes."
Nanku found the boy on a couch watching the big screen. The damned fool had monopolized it for most of the past day. Mostly watching vapid 'reality tv' shows. It was all garbage. The kind of trash that was so trashy, Nanku found it hard to believe there was anything 'reality' about it.
Honey Boo Boo was almost worth breaking all codes of honor over. It was awful.
"Bitch back?" Imp asked.
"She's getting the last of the dogs."
"Uh-huh. Because she's still pretending this wasn't part of some plan to go off on her own."
"Of course not."
"Right."
"And you're not here spying on Rachel as much as you are on Nanku?"
"Pft. Please. I'm the last person Tats would ask to stop Rachel from doing anything. I'd fucking help her. Fuck the Nazis."
This clan was fucking weird.
Probably not right thinking of them that way, though Nanku found other words hard. They weren't just bad bloods—though they were which made it weirder.
They acted like family.
A weird family that argued. A lot.
In the kennel, a dozen dogs raised their heads. The animals gave her distance and none seemed shocked when Dusk and Dawn dropped from the ceiling. They gave the canines a cursory look of hunger but Nanku reigned them in.
That wouldn't be very polite.
She grabbed one of the bags of dog food stacked in a side room and carried it with her.
"Is she allowed to do that?" Aisha called.
"Do what?" Cassie called back.
"Feed her giant bug monsters with dog food."
"I think it's weirder they eat it."
Nanku was surprised too but for the moment it solved the food problem. It was a shame Alabaster's power cleaned up after itself. She could have just used the Nazi as a source of infinite food. Made him useful for something.
The bag was dropped onto the floor of a side room Nanku claimed for herself.
It was an office space at some point. The desk was still inside, tucked into a corner. There was a bathroom without a shower but that worked for her regular needs. Two bowls—Cassie had scrawled 'Dusk' and 'Dawn' onto them—sat by the wall.
The Twins clambered into the room in anticipation. They preferred to hunt—any sane creature would—but they were also hungry and practical about it. Nanku opened the bag on one end and poured the kibble out into the bowls.
Dusk and Dawn ate, and Nanku threw the door shut while she was certain Imp was outside. Then she kicked the desk in the way to keep her out. The girl was sneaky but she wasn't that strong.
Secure, Nanku sat and removed a small cylinder from her pack.
The cloak needed a few more adjustments after the hit it took. The things were always a bit temperamental. Struck or shaken just right and they fell out of alignment. Stopped working.
It was an easy fix, but it took time.
She pushed the outer casing up to expose the circuits underneath. With her knife, Nanku pushed two of the circuits slightly and then locked them back into position. Yautja technology had a certain simplicity to it. Most parts were mere plugs. Slotted in, secured, and they worked. And the parts were individually nigh indestructible.
Even Nanku could repair most damage by shaking things about a bit.
Until she made her way to an engineer for serious repairs, at least. She'd have to be more careful about damage. An engineer was still nearly a year away.
Any serious damage was beyond her ability to mend.
She tested the device after her adjustments and found the results more than adequate. The cloak might be better than before. The jiggling put everything back into the right place and better.
With that done, she quickly did similar basic repairs to other parts of her gear.
Mask. Shuriken. Sticks. Wristblades. The only thing she couldn't really fiddle with was the onboard computer, but that was an exceptionally reliable device. It would be outright destroyed before it stopped working.
Nanku raised her head as Bitch returned. The girl had a full pack of dogs with her, which she managed with the same skill she managed all her animals with. Most were on leashes but that was just prudent.
Also, there were apparently laws about it.
A bad blood obeying laws.
Earth was strange.
Nanku rose and left the room as the woman entered.
"You're still here?" Bitch asked.
"Is anyone going to answer my questions?" Nanku asked back.
"Don't care."
The exchange was almost tradition.
Nanku was growing tired of waiting. If they wouldn't make her mission easy, she'd just go back to doing things the hard way. More glory.
Her plan to sneak into the police station was solid. She'd had more time to think it through and any batch of Nazi corpses would do.
Nanku followed after Bitch and her dogs regardless, just to force her own acknowledgment.
Bitch did a marvelous job of ignoring her. She settled her dogs, called them by name and arranged for their feeding. Cassie came out and helped but mostly by gathering bags of food and setting bowls out.
The dogs gathered but they sat without being told. Each waited until all the bowls were arranged and filled. Only after Bitch finished and a small signal was given did they rush for the bowls begin. When two started snarling at one another over a third dog's bowl Bitch broke it up. Cassie took the chance to check all the dogs in the ears as they ate.
Dusk and Dawn finished their food in the other room and scurried out after Nanku.
She waited.
Mostly to be polite to another animal wrangler. Bitch knew dogs.
"How much longer?" she asked as the girl finished.
"Don't know."
"Find out."
"Not your mother."
Nanku scowled.
"Dear god, there's two of them," Imp declared from the doorway.
"Right?" Cassie looked back and forth. "What are the odds they'd both be raised by wolves?"
"Space wolves?"
"Still wolves."
The analogy was not wrong but Nanku didn't care. Fortunately for them they clearly thought the words something of a joke. Very fortunate for them.
She glared at Bitch—clearly the one the others deferred to—and waited for an acceptable answer.
Bitch ignored her, tending to her dogs and glancing warily at Imp whenever Imp was watching Nanku.
Bad bloods.
They didn't even trust each other.
A familiar car pulled onto the street outside.
Nanku turned and called the Twins to her. Dusk and Dawn fluttered their wings as one of the dogs—Sunny—raised its head.
"Careful," Imp teased. "Fuck up one of Rachel's dogs and she'll fuck you up."
"She'll try."
Bitch glanced over her shoulder. Nanku met the gaze and didn't flinch.
The car parked and the door opened.
Her mother entered quickly, freezing only for the breath needed to take in the scene in the kennel.
"Hey Weaver," Imp called.
"Imp."
"Your girl plays tag with bug monsters."
Her mother didn't reply to that. Nanku watched the woman and made sure her annoyance was on full display. Her mother wore plain clothes and was without her mask. She carried a bag in one hand, large enough for a great many things but lightly laden and half empty.
"Nanku," she greeted.
"I'm tired of waiting," Nanku warned.
Her mother might not lock the doors or windows, but keeping her waiting without any of the information she wanted was just another form of control.
Annette held her ground, her resolve set and unwavering despite Nanku's tone.
She held the bag out. "Here."
"What is it?"
"Some spare clothes. Mine, but my wardrobe will fit you fine."
"Why?"
"You wanted to know about your father." She continued holding the bag out, arm steady and showing that her mother was far more fit than she used to be. "You can't go in costume. We're going somewhere with people."
"Where?"
"The police station. Detective Murray is the man assigned to Da"—her expression twitched with emotion—"Danny's case. Has been for years. You want to know what there is to know? You have to talk to him."
Nanku turned her chin up, thinking.
She wouldn't leave her equipment lying around. It could be a ploy. Or a trap.
Nanku took the bag without a word.
Turning, Nanku returned to the room she'd been using and retrieved the backpack she'd used before. She undressed, setting each piece in the pack and putting her ill-fitting clothes on top. The bag went onto Dawn's arms and rested against her belly where it wouldn't be misplaced.
The clothes her mother provided were plain. Plain white underwear, socks, jeans, and top, and a sweater. Nanku didn't like the sweater. Too heavy and a bit restrictive around the waist.
No matter.
Her knife, a combi-stick, and a shuriken she kept on her person.
Annette spoke with Bitch and Imp outside. Soft tones. Clearly intended not to be overheard.
Most of the conversation was mundane. Nothing Nanku cared about. She didn't know what 'green apples' had to do with anything
Her mother turned, looking her over as Nanku approached. Dusk and Dawn followed, the backpack on Dawn drawing attention. Was it a trick?
Only one way to know.
"Let's go."