ACL: 43. Words, Words, Words

Chapter 43: Words, Words, Words

Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Friday, February 11, 2011
Type: Dragon

The Redmond Welding Factory was as Lisa described it, a brick and mortar building in the docks that had clearly been abandoned for many years. The sign was falling apart, with some of the letters hanging from a single, loose screw and others missing altogether. The only reason the sign was still legible was because of the absence of dirt where the letters used to be.

The front doors had been locked shut, with heavy chains wrapped around the door handles. I ignored them altogether; they were just there to act as security theater. Locks and chains deterred casual burglars, and no one who knew what they were doing thought Redmond Welding had anything worth taking.

Instead, I made for the side entrance in the alley adjacent to the building. This door wasn’t locked, though it did look just as beat up as the rest of the place. Despite appearances, it opened silently on well-oiled hinges.

The interior was an absolute mess. The factory floor was riddled with holes where machinery had once been bolted to the floor. Dust, cobwebs, and broken crates littered the space. Once again, it reinforced the notion that absolutely nothing of worth could be found here.

In the corner of the ground floor was a spiral staircase made of rusted metal that led up to the loft. I didn’t bother hiding my steps. This wasn’t a social call, but it wasn’t like I was raiding their base, either.

The second floor loft was much better put together. The expansive space had been partitioned into multiple rooms. It even had a kitchen, two bathrooms, and a living room with a large TV. According to Lisa, the space had been converted into a communal dormitory of sorts through Coil’s construction company.

Alec and Brian sat on the sofa and were looking at a laptop together. They seemed pretty distracted by the screen and didn’t notice me right away. Rachel was with her three dogs, tugging on a length of rawhide rope for them.

The dogs were the first to notice me. They growled softly, before letting out a short series of barks that drew the humans’ attention. Not quite a threat, but wary. Maybe I’d left an impression on them the last time we met.

“Who are-Menagerie!” Brian shouted. He practically leapt off the couch. The laptop he’d been looking at clattered to the floor. Its screen cracked.

Rachel likewise snapped to her feet. Her three dogs began to grow. “Hurt!”

I couldn’t have that. Not only was I dead tired, Lisa made it clear that talking some sense into her former teammates would become all but impossible if I hurt Rachel’s dogs.

I dug deep and found what spec of aura I had left. I first met the Undersiders a month ago, back when they cornered me after I’d made a bunch of community gardens as meganium. They’d made their recruitment pitch and I’d briefly tapped into my aura to intimidate Rachel’s three dogs.

I did the same here. It wasn’t any singular thing, nor was it something as brutal as psychic pressure. Everything I’d learned about canines from Luca, I put into practice here. Dangerous, but not hostile.

“Enough,” I growled. But as tired as I was, I wasn’t quite enough. The rottweiler, I was pretty sure he was called Brutus, leapt for my hand. He hadn’t developed the monstrous form Rachel was known for so his bite did nothing to my armorred wrist. I palmed his head and turned him around before picking him up. “Can we not do this? I’m tired after kicking Lung’s ass, but not so much that you’ve got a shot.”

The dogs began to grow, but Brian stopped them. He put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, physically pulling her back from rushing me. “No, Rachel. Back.”

Rachel looked at me, then at her dogs. The others, Angelica and Judas, began to ripple with muscle. Their auras were nervous, but willing to fight for their mistress. “Let go of Brutus.”

I complied. She growled something and the rottweiler trotted over to her as if the past three seconds hadn’t happened. Seeing that we weren’t about to fight, Alec took a seat again, though I saw him roll his taser-scepter out from under the couch with his toe.

Having calmed his team, Brian stood tall. He was easily as tall as me even with my armor and helmet giving me a few spare inches. Wisps of black smoke whipped around him, probably an attempt to intimidate me.

“What do you want, Menagerie?” he asked. His voice was surprisingly steady, though not entirely.

“To talk. Really, I’m not here to bust heads. I’m here on behalf of Lisa,” I began. I gestured to the couch. “Can we sit? There are few ideas I’d like to run by you three.”

“You’re breaking the unwritten rules.”

“Am I? But Lisa works for me now. Let’s not pretend you have any secrets.”

“You–”

I sat down anyway. The couch felt nice after the day I’d had. “No, that wasn’t a threat, Brian. I just prefer to call things the way they are. I know a great deal about you, but that’s a good thing.”

“How is that a good thing? The rules exist for a reason, Menagerie. Not even you can’t just break them on a whim.”

“Because I know enough about you to know that you’ve been dealt a shit hand, all of you. I want to at least make an attempt to reach out. That, and one of Lisa’s conditions for her joining me was that I put forth an honest effort to make life easier for you three.”

“We don’t need her pity.”

I wanted to laugh in his face. This was the same guy who thought working for a supervillain would get him the legitimacy he required. Clearly, he needed a lot of pity. They all did, truth be told.

Still, throwing their mistakes in their faces wasn’t the way to go; Lisa said as much. Brian saw himself as an honorable warrior type. Except, in lieu of a sword, he was a boxer. He placed a great deal of emphasis on the “rules” and fair play and took a lot of pride in being a man of action.

He had complicated feelings towards his father, but they were more alike than different. If nothing else, I did respect his sense of responsibility, both towards his younger sister and his teammates.

“Then don’t think of it as pity. Call it an apology,” I told them. “As I understand it, Lisa didn’t tell you a lot of things about your boss.”

“‘A lot?’ Try ‘everything,’” Alec scoffed. “We didn’t even know he was Coil until after you bagged him. Thanks for that, by the way; we’re basically out in the cold now.”

“And she had her own circumstances behind that. She wasn’t exactly recruited willingly; telling you would have likely meant getting shot. Even so, there’s no questioning that she kinda fucked you guys by witholding information, so think of this as an apology if you want.”

Brian finally took a seat next to Alec, as did Rachel. Lisa was right. Wording it like this made Brian more receptive, and Rachel took cues from the “alpha.” Their emotions were… not friendly, but not hostile, either.

I wondered how much of this insight came from her time as their teammate and how much came from her power. Or maybe, she wouldn’t really be able to tell me because she herself made no such distinctions. Either way, Lisa was a scary person, in ways that weren’t immediately obvious.

“Fine, let’s hear it, then, Menagerie,” Brian said. He conspicuously didn’t demand that I unmask to him. That was good. I didn’t mind some people knowing my name, but I’d prefer it to be revealed out of trust, not because of a transactional adherence to the “rules.”

“First off, the sole reason you turned to villainy was because you wanted to provide for your sister. Aisha, right?”

“Yeah? What about it? Just so you know, money alone isn’t going to cut it.”

“I figured. I don’t have much money anyway at the moment.” That’d change soon, whenever Dragon got back to me, but for the moment, I was mostly broke after giving my liquid cash to Emily. I had a couple hundred left, hardly enough to sway a custody hearing. “But what if I could find you legitimate employment? I mean, it won’t be luxurious or anything, but it’s honest work.”

“Lisa tried that,” he grunted. He gestured to another laptop on the counter. “She left behind a resume and a list of companies I’d have a shot with. Thing is, I don’t actually know anything about electrical work so anyone who interviews me is going to think I’m a fucking moron.”

“No, but you do know a lot about security. Or, at least, how to break into places.”

“What? Some kind of security tester? Is that a thing?”

“Not that I know of. I think they do that for computer networks, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing that for physical buildings outside of specific government facilities or banks,” I replied.

I only said the last part because back when I was touring the Kanto region, as his first act as a newly minted Elite Four, Koga personally stress-tested the Indigo League’s security protocols. Lance found a dictionary-sized document listing all of the plateau’s many vulnerabilities on his desk a week later.

It wasn’t like Indigo’s security was poor or anything. Funny thing was, most of those “vulnerabilities” weren’t exploitable by most people. Koga looked a little confused when he was told that. The guy was just that much better than the average thief or black-hat.

“Then what? Because it’s easy to say ‘Go get a job,’ but damn hard to find one that pays well enough to compete for custody of my sister.”

“I meant as a security guard and bouncer. You could do that, right? Look for vulnerabilities, identify potentially problematic people out of a crowd, that sort of thing.”

“I can… You know a place?”

“Yup. The Palanquin. Faultline owes me a favor and said she’d put in a good word with the club’s owner. The pay probably won’t be as much as whatever Coil gave you, but it’ll be completely above-board.”

“Can’t,” Brian groaned. He leaned back into the sofa with a sigh. “Look, it’s not a bad idea, but this isn’t for me, remember? It’s for Aisha. I can’t leave the city with Faultline. Even if I’m legitimately employed on paper, her caseworker will never accept an absentee guardian.”

“Who says you’re going to be joining her team?” I shot back. “I was serious about being club security. You’re not joining her crew.”

“I’m not? It’s not a front to get me on her team?”

“For real. She’ll pay you enough for you and your sister to live comfortably. She’ll even vouch for you to any caseworker who comes asking around. All you have to do is watch over her club whenever she’s out of town.”

“That’s… not a bad deal…” he admitted. “How’s this going to work though? Got an application I need to fill out?”

“Someone will contact you in a day or two. I just want you to hear them out, yeah?”

“I can do that, but what about them?” he gestured to his teammates.

“Yeah, what about us?” Alec said. “You got a fancy plan for us, too?”

“Well…” I trailed off sheepishly.

“You don’t have a plan for me,” he deadpanned. He looked like he didn’t care, but I could sense a pang of frustration.

“Yes and no. My problem is that I don’t really know what you want. Brian cares about his sister. Rachel cares about her dogs,”  I explained myself. “They’re both concrete motivations, you know? You, though… I understand that you want to be kept away from your father, but beyond that, have you given any thought to what you want to do with your life?”

“You’re starting to sound like one of those school career counselors.”

“Heh, I guess I am. But the question stands, Alec. I want to get you to stop committing crimes. Lisa says I should be able to do that without arresting you. So, I’m willing to give it a shot.”

He studied me with a confused expression. Maybe this was the first time someone had proposed the idea of a legitimate life for him. “You know… I don’t know. I’m really not sure what I want.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all?”

“Nope. I want to not be bored,” he laughed ruefully. “I guess that’s not much to go off, is it?”

“It’s not… Well, what do you do for fun then?”

“I play video games, shittalk people on PHO, and eat pizza. Hmm… Any chance I can follow Brian and join Faultline’s crew?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. On one hand, I firmly believed people shouldn’t be held back by their pasts, or their parents, in his case. That said, Melanie held a dim view of Heartbreaker’s children, especially after my precognition regarding his siblings. It was unfortunate, but she likely wouldn’t want Alec near Elle, simply by association.

Even if she took him in, would this make Alec happy? Maybe for a little while… He might even get along with Newter, what with him producing a drug with no side effects.

Still, according to Lisa, he was a hedonist, through and through. A nightclub didn’t seem like the right kind of environment for him.

“A club bouncer needs to look ominous,” I pointed out. “Brian can pull it off, but you’re not exactly physically imposing.”

“I’m big and black. You can say it,” Brian said, eyes rolling.

“You also very obviously work out and can box. You’re not reliant on a glorified cattle prod. And most importantly, you’re not obviously underage. If anything, people are going to be checking his ID.”

“Heh, true. I’ve done security work before as Grue. It’s mostly just standing around, looking scary. You’d be bored to tears, Alec.”

Alec shrugged. “I mean, yeah, but what if I joined Faultline’s crew? You know, go on missions with them and stuff. Like you said, I don’t have anyone I care about in the city so there’s no reason for me to stick around.”

I looked at Brian. The older boy hummed in thought. “For what it’s worth, he does follow orders. He’s a little shit and doesn’t know when to shut up, but he’s not stupid. If it matters, I taught him some basic boxing.”

I looked him over. Alec was as far from Brian as a man could get in terms of physique. He looked like a pretty boy who’d never thrown a punch in his life. “And is he any good?”

“Well…”

“Yeah, let’s not mention that. Anyway, if you want a job with Faultline, you’ll have to take that up with her. It’s one thing to join her civilian business, a different thing entirely to bring you on missions.”

Alec sighed and leaned back into his sofa. He kicked his feet on the coffee table as if it didn’t bother him. “Hey, no prob. At least it’s something to do. We’re kinda running out of money anyway.”

“Fair warning, she knows who your father is.”

“Of course she does. Lisa told her? And you?”

“No, actually. I made a snowdrift and stopped traffic outside the city yesterday. Did that come up on PHO at all?”

“It did. What’s that about?”

“Your brothers, Guillaume and Nicholas, came to the city chasing Cherie. I have some thinker powers and decided I didn’t want them here.”

“So you ambushed them and dropped them off in LA in a snow globe,” Alec snorted. “God, I’m never going to let them live that down. Couldn’t even make it two steps into the city before getting busted.”

“Pretty much.”

“Then what about me? And Cherie? You said she’s here? About fucking time she walked away from that place.”

“She is. She’s… assisting in an orphanage.”

“Pft! Hahahaha! Her?” Alec cracked up. This was the first, true laugh I’d heard from him. He laughed so hard that he almost fell off the couch. “You’re fucking with me. Cherie Motherfucking Vasil, my raging bitch of a sister, working in an orphanage.”

“I’m not joking. Long story short, she tried to master me. It didn’t work and now, she’s… under observation…”

“In an orphanage. You really thought sticking my sociopathic sister with children was a good idea? Man, you’re kind of an idiot, huh?”

I ignored the insult. Lisa did say he’d be a caustic little shit. “There are some checks in place to keep her honest. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“Fine, fine, whatever. I don’t care,” he said with a final giggle. “Okay, so how am I different from my siblings?”

“Your brothers planned to murder and rape their way through my city in their search for you and Cherie. They bought into your father’s shit and happily killed people and acquired new women for him.”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

“That’s not acceptable to me. Cherie, I decided that if she was willing to walk away from her father, she at least had the potential to change.”

“Then you’re an idiot. Cherie’s as much of a sociopath as Nicholas and Guillaume. She’s just better at hiding it. Let me guess, she batted her lashes and played victim?”

“She did, but that’s not why I’m giving her a chance. For that matter, I’m giving you the same. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to believe that you two are more than Heartbreaker’s children. I get that you and Cherie can’t be put in the same place, you apparently bring out the worst in each other, but I do want you both to change.”

“Why? What’s in it for you?”

“Nothing. But it’s not about what’s in it for me. If that was all I cared about, I wouldn’t be a hero,” I told him sincerely. I wouldn’t be as strong, either. My team, Victini, everyone I’d met, I became as powerful as I was because I understood that things weren’t always about me. “There is nothing greater than the power of bonds. And sometimes, all we need is someone else to reach out. That’s all.”

“You… You really believe that,” Alec said in disbelief. “You’re an idiot. A real, fucking idiot.”

“I’ve been told that before, yes.”

“Okay, fine. Faultline. I can… maybe work with that. If that doesn’t work out, where are you going to put me?”

I paused. It was a long shot, but… “How would you feel about the Wards?”

“You’re kidding,” he scoffed. I felt his emotions flare with sheer disbelief. “You’re not kidding. Seriously? Why the hell would I join the Wards?”

“Hear me out,” I said. I pointed to Rachel. Now that she knew I wasn’t here to fight them, she’d been quietly observant. She never fully dropped her guard, but seemed content to let us finish our conversation, not unlike a faithful watchdog. “Rachel, your priority is the dog shelter you run, right? You don’t really mind anything so long as you can keep caring for your dogs.”

“Yeah,” she grunted. Lisa said she had “human hardware, canine software,” but that paradoxically made her easy to understand in my opinion.

“Okay, and wasn’t it always a little risky being a villain? I’m sure the money’s nice, but if you get caught, it’s over, both for you and your dogs. And worse, you can’t always be sure that you’ll have jobs available to you in the first place.”

“So what?”

“So be a hero. Be a Ward. You have an incredible gift, Rachel. Most people can’t understand dogs like you can. You can easily make money training dogs for special tasks.”

“I won’t give my dogs to bad owners,” she said with steel in her voice.

“Then don’t. Truthfully? If you join the Wards, there’s a good chance they’ll ship you off to somewhere more rural and get you set up with a training facility. You’d have to answer to the local PRT director, but that shouldn’t be too hard since you won’t be in a combat position anymore.”

She hummed as her fingers ran through Angelica’s fur. She seemed to be considering it. “My dogs will have more room to run. And there will be more food.”

“Yup. The government will provide you funds so long as you keep them supplied with police dogs, seeing eye dogs, and whatever else. Service dogs like that are valuable so they won’t be abused. And, you can use the money the government gives you to provide for dogs that aren’t suited for service.”

“That’s all well and good, but Rachel’s got a murder charge over her head,” Brian pointed out. “What’s Lisa’s plan for that?”

“She deserved it,” Rachel grunted. “She hurt my dog.”

“It happened during a trigger event,” I recalled. If someone tried to drown a growlithe like that in my old world… Well, things like that sometimes happened, but they were problems that solved themselves. “Our plan is to connect Rachel with a good lawyer and then let things play out. Trigger events are considered extenuating circumstances. A good lawyer would have the case laughed out of court.”

Brian looked at Rachel, then at me. “Momentary insanity, or something like it. I’ve heard of that before but I’m not sure how much I’d trust it. It’s up to you in the end, Rachel.”

“It… doesn’t sound bad,” she said finally. She looked at me with a frown. “You don’t smell like a liar.”

That would have sounded completely ridiculous coming from anyone else. Then again, this was Rachel. Maybe her dogs noticed something about me that she couldn’t put to words in any other way.

I simply nodded and went with it. “I don’t, because I’m not lying to you. I promise I will do my best to get you a new life.”

“Then I’m in.”

“Which means we’re back to me again,” Alec mused. “So, Wards, huh? What? Did you want me to follow Rachel? You know they’re not going to keep two villains together right? They don’t usually do that.”

“They don’t. Again, I’m not entirely sure what to do with you,” I admitted. “Truthfully, I don’t think it’s right for me to just decide for you, either. But I figured that if your main goal is to avoid your father and mostly stay safe while amusing yourself, the Wards wouldn’t be an awful place to be.”

“You’re not wrong about that. I mean, it’s not like being a villain was glamorous or anything. But you do realize that I’m just as fucked up as my sister, right?”

“You’re not fucked up.”

“What happened to calling it like it is?” he shrugged. “I don’t care. That’s kidna the point.”

“You’re largely ambivalent, but I don’t think it’s because you are incapable of caring,” I told him quietly. I knew he had emotions because I’d been reading them all along. “Rather, I think you haven’t been given a reason to care.”

“Yeah? And you think being a hero will magically do that?”

“No, of course not. But at the very least, your overall circumstances will improve. If you’re as apathetic as you claim, then it shouldn’t matter which side of the law you’re on.”

“Heh, you’re not wrong there. School would be a drag though.”

“So don’t bother. Just get your GED and walk away. Or find a way to use your power in a way that makes you valuable, your actual power.”

“Heh. Lisa told you that, too?”

“Yeah. I won’t lie, getting people to trust you is going to be hard, but I think it’s worth the effort.”

“I…” His expression didn’t change much, but I could feel his emotions swirling in a complicated mess. “I’ll think about it…”

“That’s all I ask.” I stood. “Brian, wait for the call from the Palanquin. Rachel, I’ll get a lawyer to reach out. Or maybe have Lisa do it. Alec…”

“I hear ya. I’ll… figure out what I want.”

This wasn’t closure, not yet, but I felt like today had been a good step in that direction, both for the city and the Undersiders.

Author’s Note

Remember when this used to be a quest and Blake had an Animal Handling skill? I vaguely recall you guys nat20’d the interaction with the Undersiders the first time and intimidated the dogs into letting you walk away.

Animal Fact: Animals often take dust baths to remove parasites and clean themselves. It’s most common in animals with dense fur or feathers like chinchillas and chickens. The goal is to use the dirt to remove excess oils and dislodge parasites.