“Whatever,” Shadow Stalker replied without looking back, “If you want to be like that.  I’m only on the team because I have to be, so you’re doing me a favor.  Prefer to fly solo.”

Yeeah.

At least if you were with her, Flechette, you could keep an eye on her. I get it if you don’t want to, though.

Three strikes, Flechette thought, as she strode away.  Nearly being shot for saying hello, the way Shadow Stalker had delayed helping the woman, and now this.

Yeah, those strikes went by quickly.

She’d give the other girl the benefit of a doubt.  Maybe Shadow Stalker had some unresolved issues, maybe it had been a rough week.  But for now, she needed to calm down and wait long enough to think more objectively about what had happened.  Then she’d decide whether to deal or to tell her new team leader.

Oh, Weld absolutely needs to know, if he doesn’t already.

But yes, this seems reasonable enough.

Fuck.  She felt profoundly disappointed.  She wanted to like the other heroine, but this was too much.

Taylor: “Tell me about it.”

A thought I forgot to voice in the last post: It’s entirely possible that part of the Harpies’ bullying of Taylor comes from Sophia (maybe) having a disdain for mundanes like she thinks Taylor is. That, and perhaps a desire to put Taylor down in Emma’s eyes. Reinforce to Emma, one of the few exceptions, that Taylor is a loser and she should hang out with Sophia instead of going back to her old mundane friend.

“Thanks for the backup,” Flechette spat the words to Shadow Stalker.

“Told you, I don’t do the backup thing,”

…true.

Shadow Stalker bent over the unconscious man, turning his head to investigate his injuries.  “He’ll live.  Him and his buddies deserve what they got.”

Perhaps.

“That’s not your call to make.”

But yeah, Flechette has a point.

“Sure it is,” Shadow Stalker retrieved another restraint device and quickly strung the man up beneath a metal frame meant for an air conditioning unit.  “Times like this, we’re cop, judge, jury and if it really comes down to it, executioner.  We’re the ones with the power.”

“No.  That’s wrong.”

Imagine if Taylor had heard this. She’d have a thing or two to think about it.

Also, remember those hypothetical parahuman supremacist organizations I’ve said I’m certain exist some places in the Wormverse? With this line, I could see Sophia potentially joining one of those at some point.

“Suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree,” Shadow Stalker turned her back, preparing another restraint device.

Flechette huffed, angry.  She didn’t want to get into a shouting match, wasn’t sure what to say to convince the girl.  “You can finish your patrol alone.”

I think that’s what Sophia wants anyway.

But yeah, sorry, Flechette. This one’s no good. You really are better off befriending Vista.

The woman didn’t have a response, beyond continued struggles.  Though Flechette kept to an exercise regimen, spent four nights a week in the gym, she was still only seventeen, and the woman had a good fifty or more pounds of weight advantage.  The woman pulled free and staggered back, gave her an angry look.

If not for that blasted Manton effect, Flechette could’ve caused gravity to temporarily stop working on the woman, causing her to lose her footing and most of the weight advantage.

When the lady stepped forward, toward the fallen, bloodied man, Flechette stepped in her way.  The woman didn’t back off, so Flechette raised her arbalest a fraction.

What are you going to do? As far as I know, you don’t have tranq needles.

That was apparently enough.  The woman scowled further, then turned and fled the scene, half-running, half-limping.

Fair enough.

“No, this isn’t right.” Flechette pulled her arm free of Shadow Stalker’s grasp, then grabbed the woman’s wrist, stopping her as the lid was brought back behind her head.  Not entirely to the woman, she spoke, “You’re better than this.  You have to be.”

Flechette is learning who Shadow Stalker is.

The woman resisted, tried to pull free to make another swing.  When Flechette maintained her grip, the woman used her free hand to throw the lid down on top of the man.

“Stop,” Flechette spoke.  As the woman struggled, she turned to bark a command to Shadow Stalker, “Help!”

Stalker’s made her position on this clear, do you think she’s actually going to help?

“I’m on her side, to be honest,” Shadow Stalker didn’t move.

Yeah, exactly.

“So am I,” Flechette grunted as the woman shifted her weight towards her, knocking her off balance.  “Which means stopping her from doing anything she’ll regret!”

Sensible, though I don’t think Stalker sees this as something to regret.

“Let me go!” the woman shouted at her, “Fuckers like this hurt my daughter!”

Hm. More history, huh?

…shit, what if this is Dinah’s mom? Although if that were the case, she’d probably say “took” rather than “hurt”.

“Is she here?  Your daughter?”  Flechette asked.

“She’s home, it- it happened last week!  Let me at him!  Fuckers!”

Okay, definitely not Dinah.

“Stop attacking him and I will!”

“Let me attack him!”

“Stop attacking him and I’ll let you attack him!”

The woman kicked the man in the ribs, hard, then struck him with the flat of the metal lid.

“You fuckers!” the woman screamed.

That is indeed the technical term for them.

Stunned, Flechette spoke to Shadow Stalker, “The hell?  He’s not in a position to defend himself!”

“Doesn’t deserve to.”

…

I…

can’t argue.

“She’s going to kill him!”

“Better that we give her another few swings than render her powerless for the second time tonight,” Shadow Stalker spoke.  “Or she won’t get over it for a long time.  We’ll stop her before she goes too far.”

This is actually sounding more reasonable by the line, what the hell.

As she hauled him to his feet, a collision made her stagger back.  It hadn’t been directed at her.  No, it was the man she held that slumped, almost insensate.  He hung his head, a trail of blood dribbling from his lip.

…Shadow Stalker?

Seeing a movement just outside her blind spot, opposite the man, Flechette pushed her captive down and away.  She had to evade the weapon as it swung towards her head.

Alright, not Shadow Stalker.

Hm. Who are you and what are you doing? Assuming it wasn’t a miss, this mysterious attacker just took out one party and then attacked the other, so is this a third party?

Maybe this is someone from a rival gang? The Pure, for example, if my guess that the people we’ve been fighting were from Fenrir’s Chosen was correct?

It was the middle-aged woman that the men had been attacking.  She held a metal trash can lid in two hands.  Oblivious to Flechette, she swung the lid down at the man’s head.

Ahh, I see. She wasn’t trying to attack Flechette with that second strike, she just got in the way.

Ma’am, let the heroes handle this.

“Hey!” Flechette shouted, “Stop!”

She reached out to grab for the lid, but a hand on her wrist stopped her.

“Let her,” Shadow Stalker spoke.

…

I suppose Sophia is no stranger to taking out her aggressions through violence.

She tossed the restraint device over the bolt she’d embedded in the wall, a metal thread trailing behind it.  She caught it as it fell, then connected it back to the cord, forming a loose loop that encircled the bolt in the wall.  She pressed the button, and the cord retracted, pulled tight around the pole, then continued retracting.

Ohh, nice.

The two thugs were pulled off the ground, so that each hung from the wall by one ankle.

Excellent.

The device would signal nearby police and PRT officers and direct them here.  They’d use their own equipment to make the restraint device lower the men so the thugs could be brought into custody.  The cord was difficult to cut with conventional knives and saws, and those caught wouldn’t want to cut it either, given how they faced a long drop face first onto pavement.

Any buddies of theirs would have a hell of a time getting to them and cutting them free, as well.

This sounds pretty handy, at least against mundanes.

She walked over to the man she’d clotheslined, who still hadn’t finished gasping, nor had he collected himself enough to run.  She grabbed his wrist and forced it behind his back.

“C’mere, dude.”

Flechette caught the device Shadow Stalker threw to her.  Investigation revealed it to be a small, thin, round device with a single button on top.  “Haven’t seen one of these since training.”

Hm, now what’s this?

“Times like this call for ’em.  City wants us on patrol, not sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for the cops to cart these fuckers off,” Shadow Stalker kicked one man in the side, so he flopped over onto his back, no longer face down in the water.  He grunted.

Ah, so it’s a button that calls in a retrieval team to the current location, then.

Flechette winced.  That girl is a little too comfortable with violence for my tastes.

I’m glad you agree.

While Shadow Stalker ensured that the man with the cuts on his neck wasn’t bleeding out,

I can’t help but think of Victoria in Interlude 2, because I’m pretty sure the main reason Stalker is bothering to do this is that it would look bad and get her in trouble if she killed someone unnecessarily.

Flechette  loaded another bolt into her arbalest and fired it into a spot on the wall, two floors up.

Shouldn’t one of you check on the victim before going? Or did she run off in a sentence I didn’t focus enough on?

She walked briskly to the two men that had just been darted.  She bent down and used her left hand to wind the coil of the restraint device around his left foot, then did the same for the next man’s right foot.

Oh, she wasn’t getting ready to leave, never mind.

That, uh, was only supposed to be one sentence when I started writing it.