Cricket stood from her seat in the corner and limped forward.  She’d refused the same help that Othala had granted Stormtiger, both for the injury to her leg and the damage she’d taken to her vocal chords when she’d had her throat slashed, in a time before he’d met her.

Oh, huh.

Does that make her sound like a cricket?

It would have taken a few days at most to restore her to peak condition, but she valued her battle scars too highly.

Yeah, some people do. That’s entirely fair.

“Up for this, Leah?” Hookwolf smiled.  Cricket’s injury to her leg slowed her down some, but the young woman was anything but a pushover.

True. She was quite the threat back in Buzz, and I could see her not letting the leg injury change that too much.

Bradley nodded and stood at attention.

Hookwolf turned to the blond girl. “Leah, was it?”

I won’t blame him if it’s wrong. I had trouble with the names of some people after spending nearly every day of the week with them for three years, and Hookwolf’s dealing with 34 people who have been her for three days.

She looked surprised to be picked, but she nodded.

“Menja likes you.  I don’t.  You get one chance to prove me wrong.  Menja?  Who would you set her against?”

Hey, at least he’s honest.

There weren’t many options.  Stormtiger couldn’t walk, Menja wouldn’t nominate herself, and it wouldn’t just be a hassle to go get Rune, Othala or Victor, but each of the three were either too powerful in a brawl or effectively powerless.  That left Hookwolf himself and-

“Cricket,” Menja said.  “Same reasoning.  Leah’s quick, Cricket’s quicker.”

Hm, makes sense, I suppose.

Also, I’m guessing Othala is on the “effectively powerless” side of that. That would make sense if her power is to give others powers.

Do I know Victor’s power? I don’t think I do.

It wouldn’t do to let the man defeat Menja, and it was looking increasingly possible that he might.

Oh, nice. That sounds like a success.

It would hurt her pride and weaken the position of his powered lieutenants in comparison to the unpowered ones.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Besides the whole Nazi thing,

Hookwolf seems to be much more competent and reasonable as a leader than I was expecting. Certainly a much healthier one for his subordinates than Kaiser ever was.

“Good man,” he said from behind his mask.  He offered the man a hand, and Bradley took it.  “Well done.  Welcome to the Chosen’s elite.”

Good job, you piece of shit.

I mean, just because he was the underdog in that fight doesn’t mean he’s not still a Nazi. There’s a reason he’s here in the first place. I doubt we’ll be meeting any decent people in this chapter.

Hookwolf watched with approval as the two squared off.  It was clear from the start that Bradley was thrown off guard by how strong Menja was, and doubly apparent that he wasn’t used to fighting someone with better reach or more power behind their hits.

Yeah, to be fair, most opponents aren’t like Menja.

Many opponents in this world aren’t like anyone.

But he was trained, and he was familiar in how to use his body, and he adapted quickly.

Which makes knowing how to adapt one of the most critical skills in a battle, even more so than it already is in our world.

Bradley shifted to the defensive, and Menja struck with sharp kicks to his side and lunging steps forward to jab at his face.  He timed a grab and quickly shifted to an arm lock, forcing Menja to bend over.

Not bad!

For just a moment, it seemed like he had control of the situation, but Menja snapped back to her normal size, slipping her arm free, then struck at him, simultaneously growing.  He was shoved to the ground.

Whoop.

“Enough,” Hookwolf said.

So, how’d he do? Was that good enough to not be embarrassing?

Menja smiled, then she grew a foot and a half.  Bradley stood at a height of just over six feet, but she still loomed head and shoulders above him.

Can Menja talk? At this point it’s starting to feel like she can’t. We’ve never had any dialogue from either of the giant sisters.

She unstrapped her armor and threw it aside.

hot uh, I mean

Of course, the natural armor that comes with the power doesn’t count.

Bradley looked at Hookwolf, a flicker of concern crossing his features.

This is unfair, but it makes tons of sense for it to be. In this world, if you do go on to fight for Hookwolf, chances are you will from time to time be up against enemies like this.

So if Menja’s pick fights her… does Ralph have to fight Hookwolf?

“Part of the reason for this is that I want to see how you do against someone bigger than you,” Hookwolf said.  “You’re tired.  You’ve been training and sparring all day, Menja hasn’t.  Tough.  If you’re going to represent the Chosen as one of our elite, you’re going to be expected to go up against capes.  Things will be just as one-sided or worse.”

Yeah, pretty much.

Hookwolf is a garbage human fighting for awful things, but his training methods, so far, seem reasonable to me.

“Some of you have earned special attention.  You’ve fought harder, meaner or better than the others.  Bradley, come here.”

He’s framing it as an honor that is given because the people picked are better, not because the other people are worse, if that makes any sense.

The bald man approached.

“Menja.”

Menja stepped through the gathered recruits to stand beside Bradley.

This is very reminiscent of what the Slaughterhouse Nine are doing.

“You two are going to fight.  No weapons, no armor.  Menja?  You can use your powers, just a little.”

Oh wow.

I suppose it makes sense that the mundane mooks need to be trained in dealing with enemies that can use powers, too.

He could see a few of them stand a little taller at that.  Hookwolf had been a fighter before he’d been a fighter with powers.

Oh yeah, he was part of an underground fighting ring or something, wasn’t he? I think we learned about this in 5.1 or 5.2.

He had spent a great deal of time around athletes, knew all too well that just a little recognition and a little motivation could make a world of difference.

Between this and apparently being able to memorize nearly 34 names over the course of three days of interacting with the entire group?

Hookwolf might want to consider becoming a teacher.

Of course, the whole wanted Nazi serial murderer thing might get a teensy bit in the way, but he might want to consider it, at least.

“Stop!” he ordered.

As one, his recruits pulled away from their fights and sheathed their blunted swords.  Not all of them were able to stand straight.  More than a few had bloody noses or black eyes.

That seems like it’s to be expected, with how they were wailing on each other.

“You’re three days into our week of training.  If you’re still here, you’re doing us proud.”

Okay yeah, I don’t think Bonesaw is hiding among them. Probably not any of the others either, but almost certainly not Bonesaw. She sounded way too impulsive to keep up a ruse like this for three days.

Hookwolf looked at Menja, and she raised one hand, two fingers extended.  Signalling, she pointed to two of his thirty-four recruits.

Found some with the killer instinct?

Also, what if today’s Slaughterhouse member has snuck in among the recruits?

I’m sure they’d have the killer instinct.

A bald man in peak physical condition and a twenty something girl with the ends of her hair in thin bleached blond braids.  A little too much like cornrows for his liking.

Wildbow is sometimes disturbingly good at writing the perspective of awful human beings.

So, could the girl be Bonesaw? By the sound of it, she might be a little too crazy to go for the sort of infiltration tactic I’m halfway suspecting, though. Or maybe she’s Shatterbird, or the newbie, or Crawler (I don’t know Crawler’s gender). Or she’s none of them, and maybe the guy is one. Or maybe I’m just spouting a load of nonsense and it’s neither of them.

Maybe it was supposed to be ironic.

I suppose.

He liked her first pick, though.  He’d noticed the bald man.  He’d committed their names to memory on first meeting them, but he’d forgotten some.  He knew the man was Bradley, the girl was Leah or Laura or something like that.

Seem like alright names. Bradley – or rather, Brad – does have connotations to jock-hood, I think, but considering “peak physical condition”, that might be appropriate.

His own pick was a lean scrapper in his early thirties, Ralph.

He wrecks things for a living.