Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 ***January 28, 2011Brockton BayTaylor had spent a lot of time thinking about being a hero.
During her recovery in the hospital, it was all she could think about, turning over what she would do, what she would say, and how she was supposed to act.
Unfortunately… she was starting to realize she should’ve spent less time figuring out how to act like a hero and a lot more time learning how to fight like one.
Another crack of gunfire tore through the street, and two more clones dissipated into white ash.
She did her best to keep up, but every reaction she made was already a step behind Alucard’s.
Even with the “blessing” sharpening her reflexes, she could barely track what was happening, and she wasn’t dumb enough to step away from his side while Oni Lee kept throwing out suicide bombers.There was a moment of quiet as seemingly no clones appeared around them
But she didn’t trust it. It was the most obvious bait ever.
While she trusted Alucard to deal with any bombers, her eyes kept darting across the street and up toward the rooftops, searching for the next flicker of movement.
“Can’t catch him?” she asked.
“He’s keeping his distance like a bitch.” Alucard shrugged.
Taylor grimaced.
“Summon help.”
“Oh?”
“But only the necessities,” she hurriedly added. “No zombie army.”
“Stakes?” He perked up.
“No stakes!”
“Party pooper.” Alucard raised both hands.
She could see the pentagrams on his gloves begin to glow. The air seemed to freeze around them.
Taylor shivered as a single red eye opened in the dark behind him.
Several Oni Lee clones appeared and lunged at Alucard.
“Release restraint level one.”
Something vast and black exploded out from behind him.
Its body was made of writhing shadow and red eyes, a monstrous hound surging from Alucard’s back like living darkness given teeth.
Its massive jaws snapped shut around the charging clones in one brutal bite, swallowing them whole before their bodies could even detonate. Black fur bled into smoke at the edges, its shape never quite stable, stretching farther than it should have as if the night itself had decided to grow fangs.
Alucard threw his head back and laughed.
“WHO’S YOUR DADDY NOW, NARUTO!?”—Alec thought the Undersiders were a pretty sweet gig.
A monthly allowance to mostly sit on his ass and do whatever he wanted? That was a hard deal to beat.
It was definitely better than a lot of the other team-ups he had drifted through while wandering around.
Of course, nothing was perfect.
Having to do random jobs for their mysterious boss was annoying, but it was still less annoying than constantly moving from place to place, so Alec put up with it. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun, though.
“Did you know there are various ways dolphins show they’re interested in sex? Males, for example—”
“Regent, I swear to God, if you finish that sentence, I’m going to kick your ass.” Tattletale shot him a glare before looking back down at the street.
Alec considered ignoring that warning. Then he noticed her hand hovering just a little too close to the pepper spray on her belt.
“Fineeee, but how much longer do we have to stay on this roof?” Alec dragged the words out as he slouched deeper against the ledge. “We’ve been here for over an hour.”
“The boss wanted me to get some info. The Empire and the ABB should be clashing around here before long, so just wait.” Tattletale kept scanning the street below. “Then you can go back to cursing out children online.”
“I’ll have you know my cursing is an art fo—”
A blur of black thundered down the street.
A gigantic black hound was sprinting down the road. Its body looked more like living shadow than flesh, and perched on top of the thing was a man in a red coat, with someone in a sweater clinging to his back.
The man was laughing like a lunatic while firing handguns at a teleporting Oni Lee.
“Somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me!” the giant hound bellowed down the street, its voice thunderous and wildly off-key. “I ain’t the sharpest tool in the sheeeed!”
…Wasn’t that the song from Shrek?
Gunshots cracked between the lyrics as the man on its back kept firing at Oni Lee.
Clones left behind leaped from the rooftops at the giant beast, only to get devoured as more mouths seemingly extended from its body.
Despite all that, it kept singing without missing a beat.
“She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb!” it howled, bounding over a parked car as if that were a reasonable thing for any creature to do. “In the shape of an ‘L’ on her forehead!”
Tattletale blinked. “...What the hell?”
She leaned farther over the roof’s edge, staring after the madness racing through the street.
Alec, meanwhile, started laughing.
Oni Lee teleported again, and the shadow hound snapped at empty air before snarling, “Run all you want, bitch, but I can smell your balls from miles away!”
Alec snorted and braced a hand against the rooftop.
He glanced at Lisa. She was too busy watching the chase to pay him any attention.
So… Alec got a funny idea.
He waved his hand just as Oni Lee appeared on the edge of a roof. It wasn’t much, just a slight trip in his sense of balance, but maybe because of the constant teleporting momentum, Oni Lee failed to get his footing and fell backward off the roof.
“GOTCHU NOW, BITCH!”
The gigantic hound’s maw swallowed Oni Lee whole, much to Alec’s amusement.
Lisa’s head whipped toward him.
“Regent!” she snapped. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What?” Alec whistled innocently. “I’m just watching.”
“Just watching my ass…!” Tattletale hissed as she slapped his arm. “Why’d you even help that cape?”
Alec put a hand to his chin, making sure to look as if he were thinking very hard. “Cuz it was funny?”
“Arghh… useless…” She rubbed her brow. “Come on, let’s book it before crazy Dogman notices us.”
“You’re overthinking it. It’s the middle of the night, and we’re a block away.” Alec rolled his eyes. “We’re fineee—”
A gloved hand landed on Alec’s shoulder.
Tattletale paled as they both went very still.
Alec looked back and had to tilt his head up as the cape towered over the two of them.
“Sup, bitches.” The red-coated cape grinned at him with far too many teeth.
A familiar feeling crawled up Alec’s spine.
Huh… it had been a while. He hadn’t felt it this much since he left home.
Fear.
Something Alec was unfortunately very familiar with, thanks to dear old Dad.
This was different, though. Dad had basically made him a pro at sensing when he was being Mastered. This wasn’t an enforced emotion. This was the good old human classic fight-or-flight response.
His body was telling him to get the hell away from this guy.
Instinctively, Alec tried to activate his power, but for the first time ever, something went wrong.
He could feel a bead of sweat slide down his face as he tried to parse what the hell he was sensing. There were nerves there, somewhere in whatever the hell this cape was made of, but they were… wrong.
How could a nervous system be so wrong? Alec didn’t know, but that was what his brain was screaming at him.
It was weird. Despite the primal fear crawling through his body, he couldn’t look away. He needed to see more.
What was this guy made—
“Pervert!” A grip like iron tightened around Alec’s shoulder, snapping him out of his fugue. “Looking at my insides on the first date?”
Alec tried to open his mouth, but red eyes stared back at him.
Hungrily.
“Hmmm. Try that again, and I’ll fuck you up faster than the Americans jump on oil.” The red eyes leaned closer until they were inches from his face. “Got it?”
Alec nodded rapidly.
Glancing over, he could see Tattletale had gone completely pale.
The hands left their shoulders, but neither of them dared to move.
“Now!” The monster clapped his hands. “You two are gonna help me.”
Tattletale was still frozen, so Alec, unfortunately, opened his mouth.
“...Help… you?”
“Yep! You see, my friend here is a real do-gooder, you know? But she’s also like a crazy, lonely cat mom, so you’re gonna help me by being her friend. Maybe if she’s not emotionally jerking her wad twenty-four-seven, she’ll learn to live a little and get me my goddamn TV!”
…Uhhh. Was he supposed to understand that?
He didn’t know how to reply to that.
“Or are you refusing to help…?”
Alec paled as he felt something in that ever-shifting mass change. He didn’t know why, but it felt like it was looking at him.
“We’ll help!” Alec nodded quickly. “Whatever you need!”
Tattletale shot him a desperate look, but Alec wasn’t stupid.
“Perfect!”
The terrifying sensation vanished as the monstrous cape turned away.
Alec could only stare as the giant dog landed on the edge of the roof. A girl in a sweatshirt and a poorly made domino mask stared back at him.
“...Alucard, who are they?” she asked.
“I got you, friends!” The monstrous cape planted two hands on his hips. “These are your two nifty little heroic jerkbuddies! And you said I couldn’t do a job right!”
He threw his arms out, patting Alec and Tattletale on the shoulders.
“Say hi!”
Tattletale took one look at the monstrous cape, bent over, and puked.
“Rude.” The red-coated cape stepped back.
The clearly noob cape hurried over to Tattletale and started awkwardly rubbing her back.
Alec eyed the rooftop ledge and briefly debated jumping off it, but a shiver went down his spine as one red eye stared back at him.
He should’ve pawned this job off on Grue….***Muse Struck me so heres a small little Substory Chp. Goon is still coming tonight.