NO PLUMBERS ALLOWED: Shroom 3-6

Elysian Courts, Tennis Club

While Brockton Bay was by no means at its height anymore, it was still a functional city. There might be rampant street gangs, both parahuman and not, there might be entire swathes of the city that were straight up abandoned, and there might be a minor unemployment crisis, but Brockton itself was in no danger of dying. It mostly survived off of tourism, but it was also known for its excellent hospitals (Panacea was a godsend, but even without her the doctors of Brockton General had had no shortage of practice), a number of famous restaurants, and it was a healthy distribution center. Nothing was made in the Bay anymore, but trucks came through loading and unloading products frequently.

Brockton Bay was not a prosperous town nor a safe one, but there were still a handful of places where you could be and fully expect to not get mugged.

Arcadia High was a bright and shining diamond amongst the squalor of Brockton. In the school’s front courtyard, one could stand and look in any direction and see no signs of economic downfall at all. Even the famous Boardwalk could not make the same claim, still having a view of the Boat Graveyard. Surrounding the school were some of the city’s most reputable businesses, each and every one completely free of any signs of gang influence.

Elysian Courts was one such business. As Arcadia was in the city center it had limited space for its various extracurriculars, and had to share a football stadium with Immaculata. Elysian had situated itself as close to Arcadia as possible and made a deal; Arcadia would help them advertise for free, and in exchange the tennis teams would get to use the courts at their leisure, for free, from the end of school to six o’clock, and all other students would get a hefty discount.

It had ended up a surprisingly popular place for Arcadia students to hang out, enough so that the Courts had been able to purchase a smaller business next door and merge it into a small cafe for its patrons to use between matches. Teenagers comprised more than 70% of the Courts’ clientele.

So used to the teens from Arcadia were they, that the attendant on duty didn’t even bother to ask if Taylor was a student when she and her dad came in, and just charged her as though she was.

They were on their third game now.

Taylor grinned, tossing the ball from hand to hand. “What do you say, best three out of five?”

Danny gave a huff and mock-glared at her over his glasses. “You sure you’ve never done this before?” he asked.

She just laughed and threw the ball into the air, slamming it across the court as it came back down.

Danny bounced to his left to return, sending Taylor to jerk to the other side of her court to hit it back.

There was a small group of Arcadia students watching them. Danny stared intently at a couple of young men who seemed to be focusing on Taylor a bit too much, but he couldn’t glare at them and play effectively, so he had to divert his attention to the ball.

After a few exchanges, Taylor overextended and Danny managed to get his fourth point of the day.

He took the much-needed break and backed up to lean on the fence, wiping his brow. “Taylor, I’m glad you’re having fun, but can I ask you to go easy on this old man? I’m not really built for darting back and forth like this.”

“Maybe if we both wore our shoes--”

“Mm!” Danny grunted, attempting to motion to their audience without actually doing so. Taylor wasn’t even looking up. “Hey, what are you doing?”

She looked up, revealing the small screwdriver in her hand that she was using to put the finishing touches on something.

“Taylor,” he groaned. “We’re renting this stuff. No.”

“I’ll put it back before we leave,” she promised.

She served again, and Danny had to dive out of the way before the tennis ball took his head off. The chainlink fence rattled as the ball went straight into the gap and stuck exactly halfway through. A girl who had been standing behind the fence backed up, eyes wide, as the ball would have hit her between the eyes if the barrier wasn’t there.

Taylor blinked. “I’ll put it back now, bad idea.”

“Geez, Taylor, you really need to watch your strength!” Danny said loudly. “Are you alright, miss?” he asked the startled teen more quietly.

When she nodded, he walked over to Taylor and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “You need to be more careful, kiddo.”

“Yeah, I nearly--oh wait, you mean about the identity thing,” she said. She grimaced. “Right, sorry. I guess I’ve got it in my head that--I’ll try to focus more.”

Danny nodded. Raising his voice again, he said, “I’m getting bushed already, so I’m going to get us a drink from the cafe. Maybe you can play with one of these kids, huh?”

One of the teens perked up and started walked around to enter the court, and Taylor smirked. “It might be nice to have a challenge.”

“Hey now,” Danny grinned. He ruffled her hair and turned, passing the young man at the gate.

Taylor greeted the new challenger happily, and they began.

It was too bad that none of her minions could come. They could have thrown a little tournament. Not to mention the past few days had been crazy with the harvest starting, the Toads probably would have enjoyed the break.

----------------------------------

The Docks, Toad’s Garden Building

It had been three days, and by the end of the week the harvest would be done and the PRT’s first order finished. Tess T. was still upset at what had come of it, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret her actions because the idea of doing this herself was giving her a headache.

“Here, Chief,” Fly said, passing her a bottle of water. “You look like you might pass out, and that’s not cool.”

Tess accepted the drink, and half the bottle later her headache partially subsided. “Hey, quit juggling the merchandise, you clown!”

Guy set the shrooms aside hurriedly and got back to work. Tess was sure that the instant she looked away he’d be back at it.

“Oh boy! Chief, this one’s green!” Cheers exclaimed.

“Lime green or spring green?”

“Lime!”

“Ultra Shroom, put it in the basket,” Tess concluded.

“That makes 34 basic shrooms, 18 super shrooms, and 7 ultras,” Fleur T. said, marking a tally on her clipboard. “We also have the first few Fire Flowers blooming, Gloom has 5 already and it looks like a couple might be ice instead.”

Tess side-eyed her. “While that’s helpful, I don’t remember telling you to play record keeper,” she said.

Fleur tossed her mush-tails over her shoulder. “And play in the dirt? Hard pass.”

Tess scowled. “And where the heck is Nass?”

“Here I am!” the red-and-black Toad said, popping up from behind her. “I was, uh, guarding the perimeter!”

Officer Joshua coughed pointedly.

Nass waved him away dismissively. “Whatever. Anyway, we have a visitor.”

Tess groaned. “Who and why.”

The door thudded open and Rachel stepped in. She took in the bustling Toads for a moment before looking around blankly.

“...Well, what do you want?” Tess snapped, tapping her foot. “We’re kind of busy here, so--”

“Where’s Tay--” she began, then noticed the PRT Trooper on guard. “Where is she? I need to borrow Cici.”

“Bah.” Tess turned back to the farm and plucked a black shroom from the soil, hissing when it zapped her. “The Princess is enjoying time off with her pops. She’s not here.”

Rachel growled and stomped off.

Joshua frowned after her. “...She looked familiar.”

“She’s Toymaker’s dog walker,” Tess said shortly. “Now if you’re going to just stand there instead of helping, at least be quiet about it.”

Joshua hesitated, then shrugged and stepped forward, to Tess’s surprise. He took the Volt Shroom and tossed it in a basket. “I’ll keep an eye out for the ones that don’t look red, blue, or green.”

Tess grunted an affirmative and got back to work.

-------------------------------

Rachel paced restlessly in front of Toymaker’s workshop, waiting impatiently.

“ARF ARF!” Cici bounced in place impatiently.

Rachel growled back. “I know! You’re the one who wants permission!”

“ARF.” The Chomp rolled over onto her back, panting.

Angelica whined, and Rachel kicked a bucket over.

“You know, I could… call the Boss,” Nobel offered, standing in the door. “There’s a phone in here, and she and Danny have cells now.” He tilted his head, which meant he leaned to the side. “What is it you want again?”

“I want Cici to help me kill Hookwolf,” Rachel said.

Just like the first time she said it, her conversation partner blinked. Nobel’s key froze, spinning the wrong way for a beat before resuming. “Okay, maybe don’t call the Boss, she’s in public and she’ll freak out if you say that to her.”

“I’m still kind of freaking out about it myself.”

Rachel turned, teeth bared, but forced herself to calm down since it was only that guy from before.

“Hey,” Nobel said. “Brian, right? Boss isn’t here right now.”

Brian made a face and sighed. “What about Mr. Heb--”

“Out. Father-daughter time.”

“Oh well.” He shrugged and leaned against the wall of the workshop. “Well, I figure I can do something useful with my time at least. I’m still considering joining up, but I want to know what kind of thing I’m dealing with here. She’s a Tinker, so what can I expect?”

For some reason she didn’t understand, he was looking at Rachel when he asked that, but Nobel answered anyway, pulling his attention back.

“Oh, well, all the dockworkers have boots and hammers by now,” the bomb said. “And Boss is working on outfitting everyone with armored clothing now. If you want something specific you’re probably better off waiting to talk to her.”

“Tinker armor?” Brian asked, sounding interested. “That could be pretty cool.”

Taking that as a request, Nobel turned and ventured into the building, leaving the three of them alone for now.

Brian stared at her. Rachel stared back. He smiled at her, and her stare became a glare as she drew herself up, daring him to try something. Angelica’s ears folded back, responding to her hostility. She wasn’t growling yet, but she was ready

“So, uh, what do you do around here?” he asked awkwardly.

“I walk the dogs,” she said gruffly, patting Cici on the head.

“...Okay, and how did you and Toyma--Taylor, I guess, meet?”

“I walk her dog.” She hated conversation.

“ARF ARF!”

Rachel’s frown turned into something she would never have called a pout. It really wasn’t fair that the metal ball that acted like a dog could read people better than she could.

She didn’t like Brian. He didn’t smell like anything at all. Not that Rachel could tell; despite her best efforts she was still human, with the sense of smell that implied, but Angelica seemed antsy, and her body language suggested she kept trying to smell something that wasn’t there. He made the dogs nervous, and so she didn’t like him.

“Found it!” Nobel called, and Brian sagged in relief. The little bomb came waddling out with a pair of black overalls draped over himself, one eye peeking out from between the legs. “Boss made ten sets the past couple days. Three haven’t been claimed yet, and I thought you’d prefer these!”

Brian lifted up the item and inspected it dubiously. “Overalls,” he said. “This is armor?”

“That one’s special actually,” Nobel said. “Boss made it by accident, along with a pair of gloves.”

Brian looked skeptical. “Special how?”

“Rigel called it Payback Wear,” he explained. “If you get hit, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the attack will get reflected. So someone punches you, they feel like they just punched themself too.”

He looked them over with greater interest. “Really? How does that work?”

“Magic probably,” Nobel said flippantly. “The gloves I mentioned make heavy things appear and fall on people you punch.” He turned to Rachel, who had been watching disinterestedly. “Do you want a set? No special effects on the other two, but a little protection still goes a long way.”

“No.” This was getting her nowhere, she realized. Cici agreed with her that Hookwolf had to go, but she wouldn’t do anything without Taylor saying so, since it was cape stuff. Rachel didn’t care about cape stuff, she just wanted to rescue the dogs, and if Cici wasn’t convinced then she’d do it without her.

She probably wouldn’t be able to kill Hookwolf without her. Rachel knew that he turned into a bunch of sharp metal, and her dogs couldn’t do much against that even at their biggest, so she’d have to just make a big mess and rescue the dogs she could. It wouldn’t solve the problem forever, but it would be better than nothing.

And if she wasn’t getting anything from being here, she might as well go out and get started on her stakeout.

She turned to go, but stopped when she noticed Angelica perking up and followed her gaze. “Oh, hi.”

Lacey smiled as she approached, making sure not to show her teeth. “Hey, Rachel, Nobel, Cici, fourth person.”

He waved. “I’m Brian.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. “Rachel, are you busy?”

Yes. But she couldn’t say that, she knew. “No.”

“Great!” Lacey said happily. “I was thinking, and I thought, since Danny’s taken the day off and I’m not on a job, you and me and Kurt could walk the dogs together today. This is about the time you normally take them, right?”

Rachel blinked, then thought furiously. She wanted to say no, but Lacey seemed excited and she liked Lacey. She didn’t want to disappoint her. Plus what if she asked why? Rachel couldn’t just say what she was going to be doing instead. What could she say? I’m taking my dogs to a dangerous part of town. No, that was bad. Lacey wouldn’t let her do that, would she?

She was taking a long time to respond, and Lacey’s smile was fading!

“Uh.” Rachel turned to Brian, hoping he’d make himself useful.

He waved. “Hey, don’t worry about me,” he said, not being useful to Rachel at all. “I’m going to be busy looking at this stuff.” He picked up a badge Nobel offered him, and blinked as his outfit turned yellow and purple. “Oh, I don’t like that, those don’t go together.”

Damnit. Rachel looked back at Lacey. She couldn’t say no for a variety of reasons, so she had to say yes.

“Okay.”

Lacey beamed at her, and Rachel relaxed. “Great! Kurt’s getting us lunch at Zaxby’s, so let’s go meet him by the offices and then we can go, huh?” She patted Cici and Angelica and put an arm around Rachel’s shoulder.

She allowed herself to be led away. If she had to wait until night to attack the hideout, then she would.

--------------------------------

Southernmost Area of the Docks, Former Merchant Territory

Lacey was old enough to remember when Brockton was alive. She grew up in a city that was dangerous, yes, but only the same way any big city is dangerous. The way a contact sport is dangerous. Businesses were booming, there was a steady flow of traffic going in and out of the city--admittedly, mostly people coming through the Bay on the way to Boston.

They used to have more tourist attractions. The old ferry that Danny used to love provided some of the best views of an absolutely gorgeous view of the Atlantic at sunrise and of Brockton itself at sunset. There was a retired battleship that had been parked permanently in the Bay as a museum ship, plus a scuttled tanker that also gave tours on the subject of maritime construction. The dry docks hadn’t seen actual use since before Lacey was born, but one in particular had been turned into a boating goods shop.

You used to be able to rent a dinghy and go out onto the bay and fish. Big spenders could rent a tour on a glass-bottom boat, though that only lasted two summers. It’s not like they had a reef or anything.

Even away from the water, there’d always been Fugly Bob’s. There used to be a Hard Rock Café, and a Varsity, and an underrated museum dedicated to the Japanese theatre of WWII that Lacey had always found extremely odd since they were on the East Coast.

Then the parahumans came. Allfather’s thugs burned the museum down, some gimmick villain robbed the Hard Rock blind and then turned up dead two months later, all the signed guitars sold off and lost. Marquis seized the Docks as his own, and while Danny swore up and down that it wasn’t a bad place to live as long as you kept your head down, it drove away tourists. The old battleship was made shipshape again long enough to move to a new harbor in Virginia, while the tanker sank with the rest during the riots that created the Boat Graveyard.

They could probably bring back the glass-bottom boat, Lacey thought sardonically. There was something to actually look at now.

They still had the Boardwalk, which had structured itself around the PRT Rig, and a few thrillseekers came to the Bay for the cape scene. Fugly Bob had escaped the passage of time unscathed. But after the Teeth and the Nine and Marquis’ capture and Allfather’s death and Lung’s arrival and this and that and all the other crap the city had gone through, sometimes Lacey thought of Brockton as a ghost town that hadn’t finished dying. A zombie town, maybe.

And yet, walking past the empty streets that had once been what the Boardwalk was now, Lacey found herself feeling nostalgic without the usual melancholy. A little company went a long way it seemed.

“Oh Kurt, look!” she said, pointing out an old restaurant. “It’s the old Chinese place we went out to once!”

“And the old theater,” Kurt added, nodding across the street. “The stage play kind, Rachel, not the movie kind,” he clarified, drawing the teen’s attention. “You know Lou, right? His wife used to act there when they were younger. She wasn’t half bad either. Her Juliet had Lacey bawling.”

Lacey slapped his chest lightly. “With laughter, you mean. She was so over the top I couldn’t help but bust a gut during the death scene. Jeannie was so mad at me!”

Kurt chuckled while Lacey cackled. Rachel’s lip twitched, which they took as a win.

Cici bounced ahead, nearly pulling Kurt off his feet. “ARF ARF!”

“Hold on, girl, what’s wrong?” he asked, stumbling.

“There’s a fire hydrant ahead,” Rachel said tonelessly. Brutus and Judas’ ears perked forward at the word hydrant, but they stayed by her side obediently.

Lacey made a face of disgust, then bafflement. “Wait, does she even?--Wait, no, don’t answer that, I don’t care to know.”

Rachel just shrugged, keeping her eyes fixed forward, but Lacey could see the way her shoulder slackened just slightly.

Rachel wasn’t a girl who emoted much, that was one of the first things they’d noticed. She didn’t emote, didn’t talk much more than she needed to, and always tried to keep herself at arm’s reach. For the first couple weeks, Lacey and Kurt talked about her and what they thought was wrong, until she walked in on Rachel watching a movie in their living room.

It was a depressing movie about a woman trying to rehabilitate a dog that had been trained through abuse to attack black people on sight, and ultimately failing, forcing them to put the dog down. Lacey wouldn’t have thought it would be something that obvious dog-lover Rachel would enjoy, and she was right. Rachel had worn a look of rage and sadness the entire time, yet she never changed the channel.

In fact her reactions to the poor dog in the movie had been written all over her, in her posture, like a… well, like a dog that had been backed into a corner and was trying to make itself look big. That by itself hadn’t been enough to clue her in, but after Lacey decided to try and clear the air (ah-ha) by putting in Air Bud, it had clicked. After Rachel started to relax, she muttered under her breath about what the dog actor was really thinking, and Lacey realized that Rachel understood dogs better than people, to the point of acting more like them in certain ways.

It was so obvious after the fact that she was almost embarrassed that she didn’t figure it out sooner. And once she realized that, Rachel became substantially easier to read.

For Kurt, anyway, because he had four dogs in his house growing up while Lacey only had her grandmother’s dachshund to draw back on. Anyway, once she told Kurt, he said that, looking at her from that perspective, she was acting like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

What did all of that mean? She hadn’t gotten that far yet, but she had her suspicions. But Rachel had her dogs to help her, and then she had Cici who was kind of a dog and kind of a person, and Lacey was cautiously optimistic about how things had been going.

“So, Rachel, who was that young man you were talking to?” Lacey asked.

Rachel paused and turned, confused. “Who?”

“Who was talking to Nobel?”

Rachel blinked. Then understanding dawned. “Oh, the bomb. And… Brian. I don’t know who he is.”

“Oh is that Brian?” Lacey said. “Danny told me about him, I think he’s trying to convince him to join up.”

Rachel grunted, shrugging. Lacey decided not to push her to talk.

Lacey wondered if Taylor had a way to give someone a tail. She vaguely remembered hearing something about a leaf? If Rachel had a tail to wag maybe she’d be easier to read. Was that weird? That was probably weird, nix that thought.

They came to a stop near a tree. Once it had been confined to a small plant embedded in the sidewalk, but time and neglect had led it to grow out of control, roots tearing the concrete up. In fact, Lacey thought she could see the roots in a storm drain nearby. The dogs stopped to sniff at the tree and mark it, leaving them waiting while they took their turns.

Thankfully Cici didn’t seem interested. She just bounced around, inspecting random trash and lampposts.

Since they were walking Cici with the other dogs, Kurt and Lacey hadn’t seen much point in trying to hide their connection to Toymaker, so they’d gone out in “uniform.” Overalls, the distinctive boots, plus Lacey’s FLUDD. The water pack was kind of like a person itself, and Lacey felt weird leaving it in a closet, even if the machine itself claimed it didn’t mind.

Lacey swung FLUDD off her back and set it against the wall, taking a chance to stretch without that weight on her back. The machine was silent, but sat up, propping itself on its handles as it looked around.

“Rachel,” Kurt began. “I hope we didn’t overstep with this. You can tell us if you wanted to do this alone.”

“Not alone,” she said, not looking at him. “Got the dogs.”

“It’s okay if you prefer to walk the dogs by yourself,” Lacey said. “We don’t have to do this again.”

Rachel fidgeted. “I--” She struggled, having a hard time putting her words together. “--don’t… hate the company,” she managed.

Lacey smiled softly. “Maybe we can do it again sometime? Not every time, but maybe we can take the dogs to play in the park? Next week?”

Rachel nodded stiffly. Her face didn’t give much away, but if they had to guess Lacey would think she was embarrassed.

It was progress. Hell, maybe Taylor’s business would take off and they could afford to get her some therapy, Lacey hoped.

Abruptly, Cici stopped and swiveled in place, searching for something. Then the dogs perked up and started growling.

FLUDD sounded an alarm. “Warning! Lacey--”

The Archer’s Bridge Merchants no longer had parahumans, and while what few sober members remained were attempting to salvage the remains to limited success, the Merchants had ceased to matter in the larger picture of Brockton Bay. The remaining gangs had made no moves on their former territory up to now, expecting Skidmark to return like the cockroach he was, but the borders of that territory had never been static to begin with, and as more days passed with the Merchants continuing to have an even more total lack of presence than normal, those borders were being tested.

The area they were currently in was right at the border between ABB territory and what was generally agreed to be the Protectorate’s area of influence, but Hookwolf considered himself the enterprising sort of scum, getting his foot in the door and establish a presence in former Merchant turf and hopefully flanking the ABB in the event of a future street war. So when he came across three people accompanied by what was clearly a Tinker creation of some kind, he didn’t hesitate to make himself known.

All that is to say that Kurt, Lacey, Rachel and the dogs were suddenly and with very little warning accosted by a giant wolf made of steel barbs.

He didn’t waste time with words, and Lacey wasn’t certain if he could even talk in his current state. Kurt fell over backwards with a startled shout, bringing Lacey down with him in time to keep a hooked wire from beheading her.

“ARF ARF!” Cici declared. “BOOF.”

The Chomp dived into the mass of swirling razors and the area was filled with the sound of metal scraping against metal.

Kurt staggered to his feet, Lacey following suit, and they made to back off across the street.

“Rachel,” Lacey breathed. “Where did she--?!” She spotted the girl, surrounded protectively by her dogs, and Lacey shuddered.

Rachel was smiling widely. Or at least, her teeth were showing.

Lacey could barely hear over the two metal dogs’ brawl, but she almost thought she heard Rachel say something like, “Well, I guess it all works out.”

Rachel whistled, and her dogs stood at attention. Cici did as well, unfortunately, pausing in her attack long enough for Hookwolf to find purchase against her smooth surface and fling her off of him.

He was bent out of shape, and visibly dented in places, but as they watched he started pulling himself back into shape, and Lacey blanched. She ran over to Rachel and grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Rachel, we have to get out of here! Now, while we have a chance!”

Rachel shook her head. “No! He’s right here! Cici!”

“ARF!” The Chomp was a little wobbly from her landing, but she recovered and bounced over, putting herself between them and the villain.

“I know he’s right here,” Lacey said, incredulous. “Of course he is, I can see him. That’s the problem!”

Rachel’s dogs growled, and the girl looked conflicted for just a moment. Then she pulled away and whistled once more.

Cici bounded forward, and Hookwolf had only just regrown his wolf-head in time to look and see her coming in for round 2. He wasn’t caught by surprise this time, and caught her mid-leap, snarling something that almost sounded like an expletive if it were being pronounced by a sword scraping against a grindstone. Cici rolled in his grip, slapping him across the snout with her chain.

Meanwhile, Rachel’s dogs took up a defensive formation around her, with Angelica taking point. Rachel glanced at them one more time, then the dogs changed.

“The hell?” Kurt murmured, absently reaching for where his hammer hung. The dogs, at first glance, appeared to burst out of their skin, grotesque muscle overtaking their fur as they expanded in all directions at once. The muscle was covered by armored bone and wiry, spiked fur that had more in common with stone than hair, until they looked like something out of a nightmare.

A whistle from Rachel, and Brutus and Judas leapt forward, Angelica staying behind to guard them.

Lacey watched in fascinated shock as the two went to opposite sides of the nazi villain, each grabbing a length of barbed wired in their jaws and pulling in different direction. Hookwolf shouted, startled, as he was briefly pulled taut, allowing Cici to bounce on top and roll over him like she was trying to flatten him for bedding.

Rachel grinned again, and it was just as unsettling as before.

“Rachel, what--” Lacey stopped, then tried again. “Please tell me this is something Taylor… made for you?”

Rachel’s smile faded, but didn’t disappear as she looked away, keeping one eye on the battle. “If it helps you sleep at night.”

She was afraid of that. “We’re going to talk about this,” she said, not really able to put any firmness in her voice.

Hookwolf suddenly snapped--literally, letting the two lengths being pulled on snap off, growing two new bladed limbs in place to take a more humanoid shape. He seized Cici by the chain and started swinging, knocking Brutus--Judas?-- away before swinging back around to hit Judas--Brutus?--who ran back to avoid it. Once both dogs were out of reach, he slammed Cici into the ground again and again, leaving a crater in the ground where she struck. After ten of these impacts, Cici went “URF…” and he let go, letting her roll listlessly away, dazed.

Then he thought better of it, laughed, and grew out a length of chain that hooked up to the end of Cici’s and started spinning her over his head like a flail.

A hammer impacted his head, producing a sound like a cymbal crash, and he turned.

Kurt, eyes wide, stared back at him. “...That was a mistake.”

“Yeah,” Hookwolf said gleefully, voice carrying a metallic twang. “I respect the attempt old timer. Tell you what, leave the bitch to me and you two can--” He swung Cici down. “--DIE!”

Kurt threw himself out of the way, his Boots carrying him farther than he expected. Angelica got between them and growled.

Hookwolf just growled back.

Rachel clapped her hands, loudly, and Brutus and Judas regrouped, even larger now. They pounced on the villain from behind and knocked him to the ground, and the impact jerked Cici awake.

“ARF ARF ARF!”

Cici didn’t take kindly to being woken up so roughly, and she especially didn’t like finding the metal blade-man so close, so she tried to get away. Hookwolf was still attached to her, and so he got pulled along for the ride.

Kurt, Lacey and Rachel watched, bewildered, as Cici dragged a cursing Hookwolf down the road too fast for him to find his footing, the two monster dogs getting dislodged from his back in the process. Two streets down, Cici turned right, sending him crashing into a lamppost that folded in half around him before they both vanished from sight around the corner.

“...” Lacey rounded on Rachel, finger raised. “...!” she said. She had no idea what she had planned on saying, so all that came out was a sort of strangled squeak.

Rachel stared back stoically. At most she looked annoyed that Hookwolf was gone.

“Rachel,” Kurt said, when it became clear his wife wasn’t getting anywhere. “What, excuse my French, the fuck?”

“Ergh! Fsak! Ludgha!” Lacey babbled, gesturing agreement. FLUDD scooted itself over to her as best it could, and she swung it back onto her back. “Rk.”

Rachel folded her arms. “...he hurts dogs,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Kurt just stared at her. He was pretty sure he was in shock, and Lacey definitely was.

They didn’t have time to breathe though, because then Cici came back, stampeding out of a different street, barking like mad, and Hookwolf swearing just loud enough to be heard over the clashing of steel. She made a beeline for them, so Rachel stepped forward, stuck one hand out and two fingers in her mouth, and let out a piercing whistle.

Cici stopped cold less than a foot from Rachel’s outstretched arm.

Hookwolf did not, and collided with Cici’s back, rolled over her top, and was about to land on them in a heap of mangled iron when Lacey reacted. She squeezed FLUDD’s triggers, and a jet of water six inches across hit the nazi in his center of mass, propelling him further into the air and over their heads. The chain connecting them snapped finally, and he rolled and came to a stop against the tree, leaves shaking from the impact.

Hookwolf lay there, groaning, and a branch dropped onto the approximate area of his face.

The Dockworkers stood, tense, waiting to see if he’d get up again. Kurt retrieved his hammer, and the dogs took positions around the downed villain.

“What now?” Lacey asked.

“Searching,” FLUDD intoned. “Search complete. Results: Hookwolf is known to be highly resistant to damage, and is unlikely to be more than dazed. Once he awakens he will quickly return to full fighting capacity. It is recommended that we alert the authorities and vacate the area.”

Rachel snarled. “Or we could just put him down for good!”

“Rachel!” Lacey scolded. “You don’t even know if you can kill him! You don’t want to risk the dogs, do you?”

Kurt glanced at his wife. “...Also it would be wrong to kill him.”

“Well.”

“Lacey.”

“He’s a nazi, Kurt, screw him.”

“I don’t mean morally wrong, I just don’t want to get in trouble. Or get T-Toymaker in trouble, since as we are right now we’re sort of representing her.”

Rachel wasn’t sure she was following this conversation. Was it okay to kill him or not?

Hookwolf groaned, coming to, and Rachel made a decision. “Get him!”

Judas and Angelica pounced, but Hookwolf was on his feet before they could blink, knocking them back.

His face shifted to something halfway between man and wolf, with swords for teeth, and he gave them a dangerously sharp smile. “Alright, I’m done playing around. You little shits are purée.” He took a step forward, and then the side of his head exploded, knocking him aside.

Hookwolf whirled around scowling at whatever fresh nonsense was happening now, and stared down the barrel of a luminous green rocket launcher, courtesy of Miss Militia.

“...When did you get here?” he asked, a touch nervously.

Miss Militia fired again, and Hookwolf was thrown across the street, bits of metal flying everywhere. He crashed into an old empty storefront, but was back up quickly. He decided to cut his losses and ran, dodging a third missile and ducking into a side street back in the direction he originally came from.

Lacey’s shoulders slumped. “Oh thank God--”

Miss Militia swiveled, pointing the weapon at the nearest dog.

“--wait, no! Stop! The monsters are friendly!” Lacey gasped, arms waving. To Kurt’s immense frustration, she stepped between Militia and the dog she was pretty sure was Angelica.

Militia glared at her stonily. “Explain.”

“We were just walking the dogs, and Cici, when Hookwolf came out of nowhere!”

Miss Militia looked towards the dogs, then to Rachel, who stared defiantly back.

Lacey stepped to the side again, blocking her view of the teenager. “And, and I don’t know why, b-but our dogs just turned into monsters to try and protect us! Isn’t that crazy? Can animals trigger?” She smiled weakly. She was normally better at lying, but the past--lord, fifteen minutes? If that?--had frayed her nerves significantly. Miss Militia looked decidedly unimpressed. “...You aren’t buying that are you?”

The heroine looked from her, to Kurt, to Cici, then back to Rachel. “Hellhound.”

“It’s Bitch,” the girl snapped.

“Rachel!” Lacey gasped.

“Ms. Lindt,” Miss Militia compromised. “If you can undo your power, we can talk civilly.”

Rachel folded her arms, but looked at Lacey, who had just stepped in front of a weapon for her dogs. She pouted and turned her head, but then the dogs fell to the ground, limp, and Rachel went about extracting them from their armor.

Miss Militia responded by dropping her weapon. It flashed, and then the rocket launcher was gone and a green knife appeared on her belt. “Alright. Let’s talk.”

Kurt cleared his throat awkwardly. “Before that, I gotta know. How did you get here so fast?”

Militia chuckled. “Cici, was it? That thing has an impressive turn of speed for something with no limbs. I was patrolling three streets over when she tore past me and I decided to follow after.” More seriously, she said. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because you seemed like sensible people during Toymaker’s powertesting, and Toymaker herself has been nothing but cooperative, but I’m still going to need an explanation as to why you’re associating a known murderer.”

Lacey felt her jaw drop. “Hey, what the hell are you talking about?”

Militia looked between them. “You didn't know, then.”

Lacey looked at Rachel, who was preoccupied digging Judas out of the monster suit. Then she looked at Kurt helplessly, completely lost.

He stepped forward, sighing internally. “Okay, let’s slow down. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this…”