Taylor walked into the Wards area, having taken a PRT short hop transport from the PRT building over to The Rig. Sitting around the common area were all the usual suspects: Chris, Missy, Takara and Dennis. No Dinah, though. She was on leave because of her house guest, but was still answering questions via her secure Wards phone.
"Welcome back, Taylor," Dennis said in greeting. "Enjoy your day off?"
"Kinda-sorta," Taylor admitted. "Do we have any of those encounter forms around?"
"Should be over near the computers," Chris answered. "We've been filling out more than a few lately. Whatcha run into?"
"A trio of brownies, looking for a household or business to help. Classic fairy tale stuff." She walked over and picked up a form. "They were actually hoping to help out around my house…"
"But you've already got staff around the place," Dennis interrupted. "Tucker's crew is mean, but the couple I've met down on Lord's Street were nice enough. A little skittish around strangers, but once their escort said who I was, they became a little friendlier."
"I hate to be the one to say this," Chris said, "but I'm waiting for even some minor eldritch horror to spring up out of the bay and try to ruin someone's day. I mean, the location of Innsmouth is a few miles down the road."
"Some of the nastier critters have made their way to Earth Bet," Missy said. "Miss Militia dealt with something that looked like a cross between a barred owl and a bear. Despite trying to capture it, she wound up having to shoot it multiple times. It was getting too close to people, and had been killing pets. I heard the corpse was taken for study."
"And then there was the Orcish biker gang," Chris added. "Despite looking like something from the Lord of the Rings on motorcycles, they were actually quite polite. One even remembered Missy from somewhere. However, they didn't hold back when someone started giving 'em trouble. Nice enough to the cops, though."
"I've only heard of a couple of new kitsune around my house," Takara added. "I've seen a glimpse of a younger one, and there's definitely an older one around. But no other yokai. Just big black birds croaking 'Nevermore!' before flying away."
"New kitsune implies there's existing ones," Dennis added.
"Only Tamamo-obaasama, and Tattletale," Takara answered. "Or Lisa. She's nowhere near as good as she thinks keeping her tails a secret."
Taylor rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "It's Tattletails, and what have we told you about the Rules?"
"The Rules are what keep everyone's families safe," Takara recited, "so we don't deliberately try to figure out another Cape's identity." She giggled a little bit. "Not trying, and not talking, same as everyone else. My friends at school had most of you figured out within a couple of weeks."
"I thought you were homeschooled?" Missy asked.
"Mom decided that me getting to know other kids my age was more important than keeping my father's secrets," she explained. "It's been fun and interesting. Also, we needed to save some money, so homeschooling stopped. Also, the Youth Guard sucks."
"Them interfering," Dennis stated, "that I can see. Though Mrs. Freeman is usually pretty chill about things."
"Not Mrs. Freeman," Takara muttered. "Someone from the national office. Something something villain's daughter something properly socialized something something words I'm not supposed to know or say."
Her scowl was almost as fearsome as her father's as her teammates broke down laughing at her tirade about the offending person from the national office of the Youth Guard. "I knew that my father was Lung ever since I was five," she continued, "and that he did bad things. It was kinda funny, seeing what he and Mom got up to trying to keep me from finding out what was going on. I mean, I might've been six, but I wasn't stupid."
"That, I knew," Taylor added. "Li Xiao told me as much in one of my first meetings with him. That and your assistance in figuring out who was doing what in your father's organization."
"Yours now," Takara interrupted. "Dad's told me and Mom that it's all yours now."
"Don't remind me," Taylor groused.
"Anyway," Dennis cut in, "we should probably all change into our costumes. We've got two patrols this afternoon and evening, and I'm taking console duty."
"Rather, I've been assigned console duty as they try and figure out why my last project welded the circuit breakers shut despite it being powered by batteries," Chris admitted. "But neither do they want me in the building while they do that, so I'm taking Dennis' place on patrol."
= = = = = = = = = =
Sabah looked over the work that Tomas and Richard had performed for her as a test of their skills as tailors. "Hmm. Excellent stitching, nice tying off of the seams, and very clean cuts in the fabric. Buttons, zippers, and other fasteners are neatly done. And done nearly as fast as I could using my Power."
She then turned towards Harald. "Several of my shears have been sharpened to better than new condition, my old treadle powered sewing machine is easier to use, the shop has been cleaned up, and even the daily accounting is balanced. Gentlemen, I'm impressed."
The three brownies literally glowed with pride. "We find nothing more satisfying than a job that's been done right and done well," Harald stated, his compatriots nodding.
"So now we come to the hard part," Sabah continued. "What do you want for compensation for your work? I'm assuming the classic bowl of milk is right out?"
Harald gave a hearty laugh. "It's gotten a little more complicated than that these days," he admitted. "Karl and Ingrid have given us room and board, but a little coin of the realm to offset their expenses and perhaps pay some rent would be good."
"Hmm." Sabah was quiet for a moment, thinking of a good offer. "I can't offer you full time employment, but I think you wouldn't like that. Also, I feel your skills are worth more than the minimum wage."
"We would normally work after hours," Richard said. "Preferring to not be seen and all that. Given your volume of business and your backlog of work, perhaps four hours a night for the three of us, five nights a week? And revise once the backlog is caught up?"
Sabah nodded. "That sounds like a plan. I'll start all three of you off at eleven dollars an hour, and to avoid unnecessary governmental entanglements, I'll pay you in cash. Agreed?"
The three brownies huddled together for a moment, discussing amongst themselves what Sabah had offered.
"An honest amount, and honest reasoning behind it," Harald announced. "We accept your generous offer, working for four hours after nightfall. We'll keep a log of our hours, so you know what to pay us. We'll start tonight, after you and your friend call it a night."
With that, they shook on the deal.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Kid Win and Mizuchi had been paired up for a street level patrol.
"I'm bored," Mizuchi griped. "Bored bored bored bored bored!"
Kid Win sighed and shook his head. "You shouldn't have done that, Mizuchi."
"Done what… Oh, poop," she said, realizing what she'd just done.
"Hopefully, Murphy won't be too offended, and we'll get off lightly…" Kid Win started. Something was making an unholy racket nearby, along with people screaming. "I think that's the fastest response I've seen from tempting the Fates."
They came around a corner, and the source of the noise, which sounded like a dozen different voices and five animals all making random noises, was revealed. The creature doing so appeared to be a mass of flesh with random sized mouths and eyes, slowly moving towards people who, not being stupid, were mostly running away from the eldritch looking abomination.
"Console, this is Kid Win. We've got a creature trying to attack people at Goodwin Park. Appears to be a mass of flesh with a dozen mismatched mouths and a half dozen eyes, and is making an awful racket…"
There was bang and a flash of light as the creature had spit something at someone who'd gotten a little too close.
"…And it can spit flash-bangs at people who get too close to it."
Takara tugged at his arm, and pointed to some people now doing seemingly random things.
"And it appears to have some kind of Master ability, perhaps confusing people," he finished.
"We're dispatching a team to your location, ETA five minutes," Console responded. "Do what you can to keep people away from it, but do not engage."
"Wards Patrol Two copies," Kid Win acknowledged. "Let's see what we can do to keep people away from that thing, Mizuchi."
"Hai!" With that, Mizuchi assumed her smaller oriental dragon form and began undulating through the air, gaining a bit of altitude. Suddenly, water from the nearby river arced through the air and formed a watery barrier between the creature and the people, some of whom were now walking towards it.
Taking action to prevent them from walking through the barrier and being in close proximity with the creature, Kid Win pulled out his pistols, made doubly sure they were set to stun, and hit the person closest to the watery wall. Fortunately they were not so close as to fall through the watery barrier.
Which was good, because Mizuchi used her other Power to draw the heat from the water, freezing it solid and lowering the temperature near the barrier. The creature also began screaming instead of gibbering, as if the cold were causing it pain. Or maybe it was just frustrated at being blocked from its prey. Taking no chances, she brought in more water and encircled the creature with ice.
Kid Win took the opportunity to remove the person he'd stunned before they could get too close to the creature under the assumption it could, if it tried, breach the barrier. By this time, the PRT van had arrived, as had a special consultant.
"Lina-sensei!" Mizuchi enthused from her position in the air.
"Armsmaster asked me to see what you guys found," she said as she approached the icy barrier. "Nice Wall of Ice."
"Improvised with Parahuman powers, not a spell," replied Mizuchi.
Kid Win pulled out his Wards phone which he'd already sent a photo of the creature to. "It looks like this," he said, showing her the image.
"Huh, haven't seen a gibbering mouther for a while," Lina stated. "The things are dangerous to most normal people and animals. They're unintelligent abominations that exist to only eat and breed. If it were up to me, I'd kill it, and burn the body until it was ash."
"Console to Wards Patrol Two. Director Renick agrees with the suggested course of action, and asks that you not crater the park while doing so."
"Mizuchi," Lina shouted to the small circling dragon, "concentrate on keeping your barrier from melting!"
"On it!"
With that, Lina levitated herself up to look over the top of the icy barrier. "Yeah, gibbering mouther." A ball of orange-red energy formed in her hand and she tossed it into the center of the enclosure. With a thump, the ball detonated, filling the circle with fire and the screams of the creature, which faded quickly as the flames consumed it.
"And that is that," Lina stated.
"Not quite," Kid Wind politely admonished the former Endbringer.
"Oh, gods, I forgot," Lina said, suddenly horrified. "Paperwork."
"We all have paperwork to fill out," Kid Win stated. "You'll probably have the least amount of it. I'll have to fill out the paperwork for a non-combat use of my pistols, assist Mizuchi with hers, and fill out the required forms for the Youth Guard.
"You? You just get to fill out the 'I damaged city property' form, and possibly add to my patrol report about the creature."
"Letting my ice melt now," Mizuchi warned.
"Thing's dead, so it shouldn't matter if the remains get wet," Lina said. "The sooner we get started on that paperwork, the sooner we're done."
