She climbed onto Bentley’s back, then whistled twice.  Come.

The good ol’ double whistle. 🙂

A jerk of the chain collar around Bentley’s neck and a kick to his sides spurred him into action.  The others followed, some yipping or barking with excitement.

Gallop! Gallop, I say!

…what do you mean “they’re not horses”?

Did other people experience anything close to this?  Did Taylor, Brian, Lisa or Alec?  She felt like she was one with Bentley as she caught quick breaths between his jarring footfalls.

Terminology jokes aside, I am legitimately reminded of my limited experiences with horse riding.

Water splashed onto her skin and his.  Her legs pressed against his body, and she could feel the expansion and contraction as he huffed out breaths.  She trusted him, and he trusted her absolutely in return.

😀

Out of context this would totally sound like a sex scene.

It varied from one dog to the next, but the same was true with the others that were following in Bentley’s wake.  They believed in her, and if they didn’t love her yet, she knew it would come in time, with her patience and continued care of them. What did Lisa have that compared to that rush, this security?  What did the others have?

You know, I really appreciate that now that we finally get an Interlude from Rachel’s perspective, we’re following her as she’s in a state we haven’t really seen her in before: joy. She’s having a good time, enjoying herself, and it’s very refreshing to see this side of her right now.

She whistled for them to come back, long and loud, and her dogs came tearing back through the building.

So, what’d you find in there?

She checked, and she couldn’t make out any blood that didn’t belong to the dogs.  Good.  Better to terrorize and inflict light wounds than to maim or murder.

Is this her way of establishing her control of the territory? Through sending her dogs into random civilian homes?

If the people in that building stayed in her territory, she would be surprised.

Not just establishing… clearing out.

She wants this place all to herself and her dogs.

A whole neighborhood all for the doggos.

Another howl sounded, far away, startling her.  If her dogs were here with her… oh.  Only one dog would be elsewhere.

Hm?

She listened as the howl came again.  Yes.  Angelica’s howl reflected her size and the degree to which Bitch had used her power on her.

Ah, there she is!

More than Bentley, Sirius and Lucy.

And of course she’s big.

Bentley seems pretty good and Magic has a great name, but Angelica remains my favorite surviving doggo. I guess it’s a bias towards the “classics”, so to speak.

Once a dog had those commands down, it opened the door to other orders.  A dog that would stay put while she demonstrated with another would be that much more inclined to follow suit.

Ah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

If only humans were as reliable, as easy to train.

Hehe. Yeah, we’re a rowdy bunch, aren’t we.

“Dogs, attack.”  The word was quiet, but every dog present was waiting for it.  Bentley and Sirius stayed at their positions, but the rest of the dogs surged into the building, the larger ones leaping through the boarded up windows, the smaller ones surging in the front door.

Yeah, this ain’t home. Figured as much, really.

Growls and barks that were twisted by the unnatural shapes of their throats overlapped into a single noise.

I can’t help but imagine their throats being, like… corkscrewed, or something now.

She waited outside the building, one hand on Bentley’s neck.  He wanted to go, she knew it from the tension, but he was obedient.  Good.  This was a test for him.

Gotta stay here, bro.

“Stay…” she ordered, drawing out the word.  She could see the group of dogs freeze.

I wonder if the drawing out of the word actually has an effect on the doggos’ understanding of it.

She had a routine with her dogs.  The first priority was making sure they were healthy.  That meant grooming and possibly shaving them, getting their records and shots updated if they hadn’t come from the shelter, cleaning their ears, and ensuring they were kept away from the other dogs so she could check the color and consistency of their shit and track any changes.

Sounds quite professional. But hey, that’s to be expected. It’s the one thing she really cares about and she’s been doing it for a long time.

Shit revealed a lot about the dog it came from, from the obvious of diet to general health to mood.  An unhappy dog had unhealthy shit.

Many unhappy humans also have a lot of unhealthy shit to deal with.

…in a less literal sense, perhaps.

The second step was training, and every dog got some dedicated attention.  ‘Sit’ was the first command they learned, followed closely by ‘stay’, ‘off’, ‘fetch’ and ‘come’.

Very useful ones, good place to start.

Depending on the dog, it could take a couple of days before they had it down solid.  These commands were absolutes.  If a dog didn’t listen to each of those, it wasn’t allowed to go out, and it didn’t get any use of her power.

Yeah, makes sense. Can’t bring along a dog you can’t call off.

Bentley and the rest of her pack drew towards the source of the howling.  Sirius stood outside an apartment block, filling the evening with that mournful, haunting sound that carried through the air.

Heya!

She hopped down from Bentley’s back, and used the back of her hand to wipe away some of the sweat, mucus and blood that had transferred from his back to her inner thigh.  “Sirius!  Good boy!”

Yes, a very good boy. :Å)

He wagged his tail, and the tip of it made trails in the water.

There is seriously no getting away from water in Brockton Bay these days.

“Sirius, guard!” she pointed toward the front door of the building.  “Bentley!  Guard!” She pointed at the little emergency exit at the side.

Hm. So is this her target, then? Or is it home?

The two dogs moved to their respective positions.

Good doggos.

“Sit!”  Her dogs all sat.  She noted Magic was a little slower than the rest to obey.  Would Magic have listened if the other dogs hadn’t been here?

Hm, who knows.

If she hadn’t been following along with the others?  Bitch made a mental note.

I thought she already did. I guess “noted” was just meant as “noticed”, then, fair enough.

But this was her territory.  Her space.  Finally a place where she could do what she wanted.  Here, she was free, and that meant she could be dirty.

Be dirty, and play dirty?

Also, without the direct influence of the remaining Undersiders, it’s possible we’ll be getting some brutal behavior even without following the Slaughterhouse.

She could go where she wanted, hurt anyone who got in her face.

Case in point.

She could roam free with her dogs and try her power on them without worrying about people getting hurt.

Excellent.

Which wasn’t to say that people wouldn’t get hurt, of course.  Just that it was her territory, and she was allowed to make the call.

…oh.

Anyone who hadn’t gotten the message already deserved what they got.

Basically, stay indoors or you might get maimed by Bitch’s dogs.

If she did it really well, they would all leave.

Hehe, sure seems like it.

Then she could be alone for a while, alone with her dogs.  Nobody would be able to nag her about the fact that she hadn’t given the henchman thing a try.  Fuck it.

Gotta admit, I like the line of thinking here.

She already had all of the assistance she needed.  The best, most loyal kind.

The doggo kind.

Lucy appeared from a nearby street, making her excitement known with a noise that was half bark and half something else.

She ran alongside Bentley.

Yo, Lucy!

Hang on, I’m going to go tell a friend named Lucy that she just showed up in Worm.

If they didn’t complain by the time they were through checking and taking care of all of her dogs, maybe they would start when the next batch arrived from the shelters, and they were told they had to do all of those dogs on top of starting afresh with all the ones they had done before.

Mwahaha.

The moment someone did complain?  Or if they let one tick, one rash or one ear infection slip?  She could make an example of them.  Humiliate them, scare them, insult them.

Ahh, so that’s what she’s waiting for. The chance to put the fear of dog into them.

Specifically the dog named Rachel “Bitch” Lindt.

If she did it well enough, they’d leave.

…well, at least they’d still act as an example for the rest.

So does Rachel just want an excuse to get rid of the humans so she can do things on her own?