8

It was that time again. Adrian sighed as he trudged down the second floor hall to Mr. Gladly's classroom. He'd been nailed for detention again-- this time, after school. A couple of asian kids had taken a potshot at him in the hallway… God only knew what THEIR beef was with him… And Gladly (the tosser) had spotted them scuffling and pinned the blame on him for "agitating the situation." Adrian had snapped at him for his bias, pointing out that they had jumped HIM. Gladly had swelled up like a balloon and started huffing about respect for your elders, etc. and dropped the boom: after school detention.

On top of his IN school detention he was only halfway through serving.

So now he was getting to spend a couple hours AFTER the school closed sitting with Gladly in an empty classroom, to inflate the popularity-schmoozing loser's flaccid ego.

Adrian growled to himself. He was getting herded away from Taylor's side more and more often, and he had a good suspicion it wasn't accidental. Several of the teachers had taken to ordering him to sit on the opposite side of the classroom. Blackwell had unilaterally changed his schedule so that they shared fewer classes. Even in his off periods, when he'd normally sit in the bleachers and watch Taylor during her gym class, the gym coach had taken to running him off, dropping hints about "improper behavior"…. Not quite accusing him of being a perv, but getting as close as she dared.

It wasn't long after he'd snagged Madison trying to dump pencil shavings on Taylor's back that it started. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened. Someone had dropped the hint that he and Taylor were "troublemakers" when they got together. Probably with a few bambi-eyed stories about him "threatening" them, and maybe some little hints from another of the bimbettes about her lawyer Daddy, and how rough it could get if they didn't stop this mean old boy from picking on his precious little girl.

He had to wonder what kind of leverage the Ward of the trio was shifting. Claiming she was investigating him as a possible drug dealer or supervillain flunky, maybe?

Once the staff had started driving him off, they'd taken on targeting Taylor again. He'd spotted her in the hallway going the other way one day; head down, it looked like water or soda had been poured over her head and down her back. He was seething, but at that precise moment what could he do?

He grunted and yawned. Between the drama here at Waste Of Youth High, running his little side business (At least it was officially winter now and he could roll up the pushcart till spring… the online business was still ticking though) and all the projects he had been working on in the Lost Workshop for the Wards, almost since the day of his arrival, had been keeping him up. That and harrying the Merchants whenever and wherever, dropping the boom on the occasional Nazi or ABB gangbanger on the way… When was the last full night of sleep he'd had? Two, three days ago? If that?

He slumped into the room and closed the door behind him. Surprise surprise, he wasn't alone today. There were three other kids there: one asian kid in the corner seat, ignoring everybody; A black girl sitting off to the left, feet propped up on the back of the next chair, rocking her chair on two legs and looking bored. The asian guy, he was sporting ABB colors as casually as you please. The girl, she was wearing a strapless crop top, mesh tights cutoff jeans that were halfway up her butt, a purple streak in her hair and an insolent look on her face. And on the right…

"Hey, Faux Hawk," Adrian said, amused. "Imagine seeing you here."

"Yeah, imagine that, a neonazi wannabe in detention," the girl muttered.

Hawk (he'd adopted the stupid name as his own after he'd heard Adrian say it, but dropped the "faux") grinned at him. "Hey, pal," he said in his best sleazy voice. "Wanna be a NAAAAAAZI?"

Adrian grinned. This had become a running joke between them ever since that first day at lunch. He gave the expected response. "Oy, have you got the wrong meshugeneh," he said. The asian kid actually smothered a laugh; the black girl looked at them both like she couldn't decide whether to be offended or confused.

"Mister Smith!" Mr. Gladly said. Ah, there he was, behind the desk where an educator normally sat. Pity there wasn't one available.

"--Present."

He started, stopped in annoyance and started again. "Mr. Smith, I do not want to hear that sort of humor in here again."

Adrian stared at him for a second. Really? "Okay, how about this one: Two Jews walk into a bar--"

"NO!"

Adrian gave him his best "Achmed the Dead Terrorist". "What? You would not let Jews into your BAR? You racist bastard!"

"MISter SMITH!" Gladly barked, fuming. Wow, where was all this spine when Gladly was dealing with the juvie hall candidates in his regular class? The other three students spluttered and snickered. "Find a seat, sit down and stop causing trouble."

Adrian shrugged, and slid into the first seat handy. Gladly picked up his clipboard and looked it over.

"Aisha Laborn."

"Present," the black girl said, rolling her eyes and looking even more bored.

Oh crap. Grue's baby sister. Grue, aka Brian Laborn, was the erstwhile leader of the Undersiders; a gang of small time villains who were (except for their thinker Tattletale) unknowingly working for Coil. Apparently Aisha hadn't triggered yet, otherwise she wouldn't even be here. In the main timeline her powers as Imp had made people forget she even existed the moment they looked away-- sort of like those aliens with the suits and bulging heads on Dr. Who. And in the main timeline she had been anything but bashful about using that power at every opportunity. Detention? When she could walk right out of the classroom whenever she wanted and the teacher wouldn't even remember she existed? Not a chance. In the original timeline she had naturally gone straight from Juvenile Delinquent to Career Villain without so much as a pause. She, and the Undersiders, were on Adrian's ever-expanding list of people he either had to stop or to save, and possibly both. And that on top of preventing the end of the world.

But hey. No pressure. Right?

"John Muller."

"Here," Faux Hawk said, holding up his hand.

"Adrian Smith."

"Well I dunno," Adrian said with a small smirk. "It HAS been almost thirty whole seconds and--"

Gladly sighed. "Just say present, Mr. Smith."

"Well you're no fun..."

"Mister Smith do I have to--"

"Fine, fine, Present."

"Tommy Wong."

"Here," the asian kid muttered.

"Good." Gladly signed the attendance sheet with a flourish and threw it on the desk. "You four are here for the next four hours. If you give me any trouble, you'll be back here again next week. And the next. And then every DAY of the week, until we get that little discipline problem you all have under control.

"Now I'm going down to the office to do some computer work and run off some print copies for tomorrow's class. You are to stay in here, be quiet, and cause no trouble. Anything other than that, I will do my level best to make your lives miserable. Understood?" Everyone mumbled. "I said-"

"Understood," everyone droned. Adrian could hear that he wasn't the only one gritting his teeth.

"Good." Gladly left, folders under his arm and back stiff, closing the door behind him.

"What a tool," Hawk said.

"Are you kidding? His middle name should be 'Craftsman,'" Adrian said, his humor coming back. The others snickered. "Kinda sad. If he had some spine in his class, he wouldn't be spending his afternoons here doing this."

"Oh hey. Heard about Spike in the locker room, tryin' to jump you," Hawk said. "Sorry about that. He's a tard." He paused. "Did you really…?"

"Snap him in the nards with a rat tail? Yup." Adrian pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

Aisha went round eyed. "You what??"

"You heard him," Hawk said, suddenly getting sullen as he realized a non-white was talking in his direction. Adrian intercepted before any slurs could be sparked off.

"Yeah, guy came over and started squealing about how he thought I was gay. Probably says that about everyone that wears deodorant."

Hawk had to laugh at that one. "Yeah, Spike's kind of a jackass."

"That's putting it lightly," Adrian snarked. "He's so homophobic he can only eat a banana sideways."

"HAH!" Aisha said. "Good one."

Tommy Wong spoke up. "I can't believe you two," he said.

"What about us?"

Tommy looked back at them and sneered. "You two sitting there cracking jokes with a Nazi," he said.

"So whaddya want me to do? Walk in and start a fight with him? A cage match maybe?"

"She's black! And you're a Jew!"

"He's not a Jew," Hawk said dismissively.

"I might be," Adrian corrected him. He held up his VicAlert tag. "Amnesia victim. Supervillain with memory gas."

"Wow, that sucks," Aisha said. "So what makes you think you might be a Jew…?"

"Think about it," Adrian said, resting his chin in his hand and giving her a lazy smile. "What's one thing ALL male Jews have in common?"

"I don't... Awh man, you nasty," she said as he made several meaningful glances downward and she realized what he was implying. Hawk laughed so hard he nearly fell backwards out of his chair. "Oh shut up!" she snapped.

"--Potato pancakes," Adrian said seriously. "Can't live without 'em. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, gotta have 'em."

"Har dee har..." she went "fch" at him and sat back, arms crossed. "That all you do? Tell racist jokes?"

"Sure. Everyone's racist. White people got racism. Black people got reverse racism. Chinese people got sideways racism. Jews got backwards racism--" He stopped for a second and got sober. "You fight with people, all you see is enemies. You laugh with 'em, it's hard not to see just another person with problems like your own. Maybe if we all laughed a little more and got mad a little less, we wouldn't be having all these problems." Some of them thought that over for a minute.

"Yeah, well if Gladly hears you telling jokes like that he'll get his tighty whities in a knot like you wouldn't believe," Tommy said.

"Yeah, the big hypocrite," Aisha said. At their confused looks she pointed around. "A neonazi, a chinese guy, a black chick and a jew, all thrown together in detention. Like he was picking us out for a color combo sampler platter. All he has to do is have us walk into a bar together." She rolled her lip. "This has gotta be the most racist detention in the history of public school."

Adrian started to chuckle. It was a deep sound, surprising even from a fellow his size, and it threatened to break into a full blown belly laugh. "Hey," he said, lifting his sunglasses and giving the others the side-eye. "You ever hear the story of the world's most RACIST field trip?"

The others looked curious. "Racist field trip?" Hawk said.

"Yeah..." Adrians' gaze drifted, he smiled almost wistfully. "I dunno if I knew the guy, or just saw a video of the guy, or heck, maybe I WAS the guy (screw amnesia, really) but I remember it was a true story..." he sat up, eagerly grinning, his hands moving as he told the story. "Okay, so this guy-- a black guy, of course-- is talking about when he was in third grade, in Montgomery Alabama, and his teacher got it in her little wooden head to take all 30 kids in her class on a field trip. All 30 little black kids. On a field trip.

"To a cotton farm."

Even the Chinese kid said it. "Oh, no way."

Adrian nodded, grinning madly. "So they get there, and the teacher hands all these kids plastic bags, with a little cotton puff person on the side, and told them they could pick as much cotton as they wanted..."

Gladly stapled his last stack of papers, gathered them up and headed back to the classroom. He was halfway down the hall when he heard Adrian Smith, the wannabe class clown, talking. And the others… laughing? He opened the door and looked in.

Adrian was apparently in full swing, reciting some crude story or joke of his. The other three students were laughing their backsides off. The nazi kid was hooting and pounding on his desktop with his fist, while the asian boy had his head resting on his arms on the desk and was laughing so hard he shook. Aisha was leaning back in her chair till it was balanced on two legs, head laid back and laughing at the ceiling.

"And so his mama finds the cotton in his pants pocket in the laundry the next day, gets the story out of him, and in case you didn't guess, that's when something broke off." The others hooted. "She goes down to the school, corners the teacher in her classroom and just RAILS on her. "You jive-ass mutha.. How DARE you take my boy, and all these other ashy li'l negroes, out to a COTTON PLANT to PICK COTTON for a field trip? You SOULLESS--"

"MISTER SMITH!" Gladly shrilled. Adrian stopped in mid-word; everyone stopped laughing and looked back at Gladly in the doorway. He huffed and fumed, the picture of limp-wristed, metrosexual progressive outrage. "Never have I heard such offensive, racist-- " he sputtered to a halt and raised his chin. "I'm going to drop these off in the projector room. When I get back I'm writing up a report for your permanent record-- and I'm sending an email to Principal Blackwood about your offensive stories and language and behavior!"

"Hey, lay off him," Aisha said. "It wasn't racist. It was just a story!"

Gladly suddenly turned earnest. "Miss Laborne, you have to understand," he said, as if talking to a little child. "We have to crack down on this sort of racially insensitive behavior. We do it for the sake of those like yourself--"

That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Adrian had to choke back a laugh; he all but saw Satan flash across her face before she even spoke. She got to her feet, hands on hips, and swelled up. She even started doing the side-to-side head bob thing. "And who told you, you jive ass turkey, that I needed YOU to take care of my poor little delicate feelings?" She rared up. "And what do you MEAN, "people like me?" You patronizing RACIST CRACKER-- Am I gonna have to give a report to Principal Blackwell about how this detention-givin'-out BIGOT told me, a BLACK GIRL, that I couldn't--"

Gladly got so agitated it looked like he was going to pee himself like a distressed poodle."All right, all right, all right!" he said in a panic. "I'll let it go this time..." He tried to back out of the room without making it too obvious his tail was between his legs. "W-we'll sort this out when I get back," he said-- and bolted.

Clap…. Clap…. Clap. Aisha turned around. Hawk had his arms stretched out full length and was slowly applauding. Adrian mimed holding up a statuette in his hands. In a cheesy "breathy awards actress" voice he said. "And now, for the category of 'Best Performance as a Sassy Young Black Woman with a Short Fuse,' the award goes tooo… Aisha Laborne! Yaaaay!" Tommy joined in on the applause.

Adrian held out the imaginary statue; Aisha pretended to take it and did a little curtsey. "You like me, you really like me!" She said, bouncing up and down in place. She sat down to Tommy and Hawk's laugh and Adrian's slow booming chuckle. "Okay, what was all that about? He's got two gang members and a juvenile delinquent in the room, and he comes in and zooms on you? What's his problem?"

"Uh, he's a doink?" Adrian suggested.

Aisha gave him a Look™. "Come on, spill."

Adrian sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Couple things. Called him on his bull a couple of times, for one thing. But that's tied in to bigger stuff. You know Sophia Hess and her two side-bimbos, Madison and Emma, right?"

"You mean thunderbitch and the slags?" Tommy sneered.

Aisha raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, those three." there were entire categories of dismissal in her tone. "What about 'em?"

"When I first got here, they were running a total hate campaign on this one girl named Taylor," Adrian went on.

"Wait, Taylor? You mean the girl with the hoodie? That girl everyone says is a headcase?" Aisha said.

Adrian growled to himself and started to retort, but it was Tommy who spoke. "You mean everyone, or just the popular girls?" he said pointedly.

Aisha looked thoughtful, like she was recalling all the times she'd heard stuff… and who'd been around saying it. "Oh. Yeah." she grimaced.

"They were just… utterly trying to destroy her life," Adrian said. "Trashing her stuff, starting gossip about her, hate mail, tripping her, punching her-- everything you could think of and worse." He could feel himself seething. "When I met her, she was almost a shell… she..." he stopped.

"Well, I stepped in and got in their way," he said. "Started looking out for her. Made friends with her. And Daddy's Little Princesses didn't like that." His lips were thin and pressed tight. "And all of a sudden Blackwell, and the teachers, and the staff are all hearing from somewhere that I'm a troublemaker, and that I'm turning Taylor into a troublemaker. And the skinheads are hearing that I'm a gay, and the black kids and the asian kids are hearing I'm E88, and even the potheads are hearing that I'm a narc, of all things… and the staff is going out of its way to give me detention, or get me suspended, and especially to keep me away from poor little easily corrupted Taylor. Changing our seating, changing our schedules...

"And now I'm out of the way the three of them are laying into her again. And there's stuff coming up, I can't say more, but I'm gonna be out of the picture even more. And I just--" Adrian buried his head in his arms, exhausted.

"Dang," Aisha said solemnly.

Hawk kicked back. "Y'know, I could ask some of the brothers to look in on her, if you want," he said casually. "You know, being a white sister and all--"

"Uh, Hawk, don't take this the wrong way, but that would be extraordinarily bad," Adrian said awkwardly. "Nazi teens picking a fight with the school's black star athlete… I wanna keep Taylor safe, not start a race war." And Shadow Stalker would rip through your friends like a baloney slicer on high, he thought to himself. "But it's cool you're willing to step up."

Hawk shrugged and looked away. "Hey, whatever. Thought I'd offer," he said.

If what Hawk said surprised him, what Aisha said next took Adrian completely off guard. After a long pause, she said, "You maybe would be better off with a soul sister keeping an eye on her for ya? I can do that."

Adrian looked at her, his eyebrows raised. "Are you offering? Why, you don't even know either of us."

Aisha snorted. "No, but I know the Bitches Three," she said with a shrug. "I'm more 'n happy to pee in their cornflakes anyway, might as well do it for a noble cause or somethin'. At least I can give you a heads up if your girl's in trouble." She smirked. "Sides, I like the idea of the toughest guy in school owing me a favor."

Adrian nodded; that sounded a little more like the Aisha he knew about. And he'd been in Winslow long enough to know that favor-cutting was a thing there, even between members of rival gangs. More than one nasty fight had been averted because one guy owed the other a solid. "I wouldn't mind that," he said.

Tommy held up his hands. "Hey, don't look at me," he said, amused. "I'm leaving the white-knighting to you crazy gaijin."

Adrian couldn't resist. He lifted up his sunglasses and gave Tommy puppy-dog eyes. "It's because I'm black, isn't it," he pouted.

Tommy looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You're white," he said.

"Really?" Adrian whipped his sunglasses off and looked at his hand. "Huh. DARN that amnesia--"

Hawk nearly choked laughing.

It was the first of several detentions they all served together. By the end of the last one, Adrian would be wishing sincerely that he knew what to do for Tommy.. or Aisha… or Hawk. They were messed up kids, but they were still kids… just doing what they thought they had to do to survive. But how could anyone sort out that mess without bringing the whole Jenga tower down?

The alarm chimed in his ear. Groaning, he opened one eye. He cursed when he saw the time; he'd gotten less than three hour's sleep. Again. The skylight was dark; it had snowed again, blotting out the light from the outside. It was certainly cold enough-- he'd kept fires going in both his forges to cut the chill.

He stretched and yawned and ran his claws through his fur. No matter what form he took, he always woke up as a worgen. That worried him sometimes. If he fell asleep someplace other than his lair it could cost him his secret identity. Still, you couldn't beat having your own fur coat in the winter.

For now though the anti-Merchant campaign had to continue. Those parasites had to GO. Too much depended on it. He took a quick cold shower, trying to get his blood pumping, and scarfed down a breakfast of cold tinned… well, whatever. He wasn't reading labels. Meat product of some sort. In less than thirty minutes he was out in the night, pawprints trailing behind him in the rooftop snow.

Something had to break soon. He was getting out on the ragged edge; he felt tired and worn all the time now. If it weren't for his powers he'd be an exhausted mess. That could cost him--

His ears pricked. Somewhere in the distance, he heard gunfire.

Instantly he was aloft, racing in the direction of the gunshots on silent wings. When he got there, he perched on a telephone pole and tried to figure out what he was seeing. It was a gang fight, that much was a no brainer. But he saw a dozen or so wearing E88 colors, getting pressed by over twenty Merchants. Bayleaf reviewed his mental map; this was several blocks into E88 territory. What were these stoner idiots doing here?

From the look of it the Merchants had gotten a toxic dose of Stupid and tried to set up shop in E88 turf. He could see one Merchant scrambling in the slush, trying to gather up spilled baggies and stuff them in his ratty coat. The Skinheads had apparently objected, shown up with baseball bats, knives and chains to beat some better manners into the stoners. But they'd been quickly outnumbered, and had apparently dropped their melee weapons in the snow and pulled out pistols and shotguns. There were Merchants and Aryans bleeding in the streets.

Adrian found himself struggling to pull together a mental strategy. The noise and chaos was growing. The Merchants for all their screaming weren't breaking and running, instead taking cover behind parked cars and dumpsters and overturned trash cans and actually making a stand of it. Adrian could see a pickup truck coming down the road-- more E88, probably, the bed of the truck full of people wielding bats, boards, and chains and worse. Bullets were flying wild; he heard a window shatter and a distant scream.

Plan or no, he had to intervene before some poor innocent at home got killed by a stray bullet. He transformed back into his worgen form, crouched atop the telephone pole, and quickly gestured. A beam of light fell seemingly out of the sky, illuminating the largest group of E88, disorienting and blinding them. A second gesture, and the biggest cluster of Merchants was likewise illuminated.

Then a third gesture and the street in between the groups was illumated by yet another Solar Beam. Time to hit the spotlight. Bayleaf leapt down into the street, landing in a crouch in the center of the light. He wrapped his cloak around himself in a cocoon, cast BarkSkin on himself for good measure, and held still.

It worked, for a given measure of work. Everyone stopped firing blindly into the night and instead concentrated their fire on him. Bullets pummeled against him from all sides, making the thick gnarled coating he had grown splinter and crack. It was (at the moment) all small-arms fire, so his cloak was tough enough to handle it, and BarkSkin added an extra layer of defense-- but were it not for his healing powers, noone would envy him the spattering of bruises he'd have the next day.

The gunfire lulled for a moment, whether from everyone needing to reload or simple confusion at their failure to perforate him, he couldn't say. He heard the pickup roaring down the street. He flicked aside his robe and cast a Solar Wrath straight into the engine. There was an almighty bang and the truck began spewing smoke; it veered to a halt and neonazi punks poured out of the truckbed. All save one; he was struggling to bring something mounted on the roof to bear, but the swivel mount was apparently jammed.

Holy crap, they've got a Ma Deuce, Bayleaf realized.

He was probably wrong; he was not exactly informed on the make, caliber, or design of all the possible roof-mounted heavy machine guns out there. But he wasn't sweating the details. It was big, heavy, rapid fire and in a minute it was going to be pointed his way.

He took a deep breath, cast Displacer Beast, and teleported the fifty feet to the truck.

The would-be gunner suddenly found himself having a very bad day. He had just gotten the gun mount unstuck and drawn a bead on the Cape crouching in the street twenty yards away when his target had disappeared-- and reappeared as a roaring, angry grizzly bear all but standing on his chest. The swat of a single paw sent the nazi gunman flying, and Bayleaf immediately turned and tackled the weapon. This thing could shoot through entire buildings; he was NOT leaving it in play.

He had just wrenched it free of its mount and had begun bending the barrel double when something enormous hit him and the truck he was standing on. The truck went flying one way, Bayleaf went flying another. He tumbled to a halt in the middle of the street and got to his hands and knees, shaking the fuzzies out of his head.

"Skidmark says hi, dog boy," someone said.

Bayleaf looked up. The guy that struck him was standing there in the street, a greasy haired, balding man with a three day growth of stubble on his chin and a yellow-toothed smirk on his face. He was dressed, if that was the word, in a steam and soot-belching mecha that looked like it was bashed together out of rusting car parts.

"Trainwreck." Bayleaf snarled.

Trainwreck snorted. "Listen to you. Like we're mortal enemies on some old movie serial. Is "so we meet again" your next line?" He swung one massive metal fist in a sweeping arc. Bayleaf kipped backward, barely dodging. He felt the wind of the fist sweeping past him; it would have been like-- well like getting hit by a train.

Behind him he heard the gunfire starting up again. He snarled and dropped to all fours, slapping a glowing hand to the ground. One of the interrelations of his powers, the same power that enabled him to create the entangling vines he used so much also enabled him to create crude duplicates of his tree-man form. They weren't truly sapient, having only crude simple subroutines cut and pasted into their vegetable brains-- go here, do this, attack that-- and they didn't last very long, but they were certainly a hell of a handful for most adversaries. He created three, then three more in rapid succession, and sent them scurrying towards the sounds of conflict to attack and subdue anyone who was fighting. That would be enough to keep the mooks busy while he dealt with the Merchant cape in front of him.

"Ooh, you're just a big bag full of tricks, aintcha?" Trainwreck mocked. His fists came down in an overhead hammerblow, shattering the pavement just behind the dodging worgen. Bayleaf was starting to seriously regret not loading out with his more mechanically inclined toys tonight…

The universal remote! He whipped it out of his haversack, aimed it at the attacking cape and pressed the button. For a split second Trainwreck's suit halted and shuddered. Then there was a sound like a cuckoo clock coming apart at the hinges, and the remote burst into sparks and smoke. Pieces flew in every direction. Bayleaf growled in exasperation and threw the smoking remnants away. Whatever physics-bending energies Trainwreck's Shard was using to hold that pile of junk together, they were too strong to be tweaked by a simple piece of gnomish tech.

Trainwreck laughed. "Even I build 'em better than that!" He pointed one fist at Bayleaf. A valve in his arm opened and a jet of boiling steam shot out, engulfing the worgen and filling the street with billowing clouds. Bayleaf barely cast a Heal in time; the curative aura just barely mending his skin as fast as the punishing steam parboiled it. Through the blinding pain he had one thought: he was going to have to open up all the way if he wanted to survive this.

Claws and fangs grew, muscle swelled and his scream of pain became a feral bellow as he opened up to the most powerful form he had. He didn't like using it: it drained him deeply to activate it, and guzzled power to maintain it. But if he was going toe to toe with a brute like Trainwreck it was the only option. When the steam parted what emerged was not a worgen, but a twelve-foot-tall werebear. It roared like the wrath of Nature itself and lunged at him. They went tumbling, rusting iron fists and claws flying.

Trainwreck soon was starting to regret his life decisions. Grizzlies aren't just strong, they're deceptively, terrifyingly fast, and one with the advantages of a werebeast even more so. Werebear-mode Skinwalker was all over him like white on rice, ripping chunks out of his battlemech with his jaws and massive clawed fists wherever he could get a grip. And Trainwreck was too thick-limbed and clumsy to either land a blow on him or get him in his grasp.

Bayleaf had climbed up on Trainwreck's back and was in the process of peeling away the plating there to get at the boiler when the sky suddenly lit up like day. Startled, everyone looked up, just in time to see a spiral beam of light fall out of the sky and sever Trainwreck's robot arm at the shoulder. The junkie Tinker screamed and cursed, staggering from the imbalance as his arm, large as a compact car, crashed to the ground.

Bayleaf was knocked free and went flying, landing on the pavement and dwindling to his baseline worgen form as he rolled. He got to all fours, crouched and ready to move. Inside he was really panicking. Purity. It was Purity. Oh crap oh crap oh crap.

Purity, aka Kayden Anders, wife… or ex-wife… of Max Anders, CEO of Medhall Corporation and the leader of the Empire Eighty Eight. She was (or had been) second-in-command of E88, and was also one of the world's most powerful Blasters. She was more or less completely out of Bayleaf or Trainwreck's weight class. She pounded Trainwreck, severing another arm and then one leg at the knee; the tinker cape finally had enough and jettisoned his remaining limbs, his mecha's torso turning into a crude three-wheeled motorcar. It belched black smoke and raced off down the street, swerving left and disappearing down an alley.

Bayleaf thought frantically. How much trouble he was in depended entirely where on the timeline he was. At this point, was she still married to Kaiser? Or had she already left and was in the phase where she was trying to redeem herself as a rogue hero?

To judge by the cheering from the Nazi side of the battle as she set down lances of light at the Merchants, sending them running, the odds weren't good. But then she turned and blasted the remains of the E88's pickup truck and its Ma Deuce, blasting both to pieces in a ball of flame. The cheers from the Nazis stopped pretty much instantly.

"LEAVE," she said. Then helixed bands of light began lashing down indiscriminately, blowing craters out of the pavement and sending everyone running. After several seconds of this, both the Merchants and the E88 had clearly decided discretion was the part of valor and had fled.

Purity floated down, her light dimming until Bayleaf could discern the female form in the middle of the blot of light. She spotted him taking cover in the lee of an abandoned car, and drifted in his direction. When she spoke he was actually surprised to hear a normal female voice; he'd been expecting something more echoing and aetherial. "You're the Skinwalker?" she said. Bayleaf nodded, too exhausted to speak. "Tend to the wounded," she said. "I can't stay. The police and the EMTs are inbound but it will be at least another twenty to thirty minutes..."

"What's going on?" Bayleaf demanded. "What started this?"

Purity sounded vexed. "Skidmark has had another one of his sparks of brilliance, and decided to expand his territory into the territory controlled by the E88. His dealers just… showed up and started setting up shop, right on Empire streets. He couldn't have asked for a response from Kaiser more clearly than if he'd gone up and begged for him to start a street war. There are three more places where blowups like this are happeneing-- every Empire footsoldier and recruit is out, and it looks like every junkie in Brockton Bay is out too--" she actually sighed. "I have to go. I'll send help if I can--" she shot into the sky and zipped off to the next site of chaos, a glowing star trailing a streamer of light.

Bayleaf looked around. There wasn't much he could do besides what he said. He bound the unconscious or wounded gangbangers in vines and began pulling out his enhanced bandages. The gangsters cussed him and moaned about their injuries. He ignored them, and if the wounds were minor enough he threw rolls of bandage at them for them to bind themselves up.

There was a choking sound. He hastily followed it to its source; a teenage punk lying on his back in the street, a sawed-off baseball bat clutched in his hand and blood coating his chest. He was skinny, pimpled, wore a patched leather jacket and had his hair greased into a faux mohawk.

No. Bayleaf dove to the ground at Hawk's side. The boy's eyes rolled over to him; he started to panic when he saw the wolf-man crouched over him. "No, it's okay, it's okay," Bayleaf soothed. "I'm here to help." He planted one hand carefully on Hawk's shredded chest and began pouring Heal after Heal after Purify after Heal into him.

The heals weren't holding.

His hand fished in his pouch for more of his bandages. The Purify made the lead shotgun pellets squeeze out and trickle to the sidewalk. He wrapped bandages around Hawk's chest, trying to hold the blood back, to hold the life in. "What the hell are you doing out here, kid? What the hell are you doing out here?" he moaned to himself.

Hawk looked at him and coughed. Blood flecked his lips. "Ju… just wanted to earn my tats," he said, shaking in pain.

"Your tats?" Bayleaf said. That was it, keep him awake, keep him talking.

Hawk nodded, his eyes glossy. "Merchant pukes started setting up shop on our streets. Th-the recruiters came around, said a-anyone who stepped up a-and defended our turf.." he coughed again. "Would be made full members. Get our ink done." He smiled. "I had a sweet one picked out...eagles and shit."

Bayleaf tried to smile even as his hands worked, layering the bandages on, casting another heal, casting an Efflorescence nearby so the plant's healing aura overlapped them. "What, no naked chicks?" he teased.

Hawk tried to laugh and choked, his eyes rolling. "oh don't make me laugh..."

Bayleaf glanced down at his hand, at the double lightning bolt etched there on his middle finger. "Looks like you already got ink," he said.

Hawk actually looked embarrassed. "I, uh, did that myself," he said. "Drew it on. With a magic marker." he grinned with bloody teeth and laughed again. "Draw it there every morning."

Bayleaf couldn't help it; he chuckled. The instant Hawk heard that low, booming noise his eyes went round.

"...Adrian?"

There was no point in lying. "Yeah. It's me."

"Holy…" His smile of amazement was beautiful and ghastly. "Holy crap. Whaddya know."

"Yeah, whaddya know."

"Guess you were right," he said. He struggled for a breath. "They didn't fix a thing. All that pride, and that hate, and all those promises, and all they got me was shot in the gut by a junkie with a shotgun." The irony in his next words all but dripped off tongue. "A white, blonde haired blue eyed junkie, wouldja believe it?"

Bayleaf laughed, his heart racing as he cast another Efflorescence, and another. Why wasn't the Gift of Elune boosting everything enough? "Guess that's irony for you."

Hawk suddenly looked sad. "I shoulda listened to my Sunday School teacher," he said.

"How do you mean?" Bayleaf said. Come ON, why isn't it HEALING FASTER--

Hawk smiled. His voice was breathy.

"Jesus loves the little children,

All the children of the world,

Red and Yellow, Black and White

they are precious in his sight

Jesus loves the little children

of the world..."

"Someone needs to tell Kaiser that," he mumbled.

"I'd have to agree to that, yeah."

"….Think He still loves me?" Hawk said, his eyes wet and his voice mumbling.

"What would your Sunday School teacher say?" Bayleaf said. He didn't look up from his hands, they were blazing with green light now.

Hawk smiled. "Oh yeah. Right." He started humming. It took a moment for Bayleaf to recognize the tune.

Yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, the bible…

The humming stopped. "No," Bayleaf said. "NO! Keep talking, keep singing, do something, do anything, DON'T GO TO SLEEP--" he started doing chest compressions. He poured on the heals and purifies till the light stopped coming, he took out more bandages and kept wrapping even as the body cooled. "No, dammit, no no, no you will NOT… you gotta go to school tomorrow, Hawk, you don't wanna get detention again right? Come on come on come on..." His words dissolved into a blur, into desperate animal whimpering as he pressed on the dead boy's chest with blood covered hands.

The squad cars screeched to a halt, forming a circle around the crouched inhuman form a half second ahead of the ambulance. Anderson climbed out, gun at the ready and took cover behind his car door as he took stock of the scene. What he saw would haunt him the rest of his life; an enormous, black furred wolfman in a cloak, kneeling in the street, cradling the dead body of some punk kid in his blood-covered arms, crying and whimpering like--- well, he hadn't heard anything make that sound since his father died and the family dog had found the body. The anguished noises the old hound had made, trying to wake his master, still haunted him at nights. The werewolf was making those exact same sounds.

He lowered his gun and sidled closer… but not too close. Those claws looked huge. "Okay, let the medics take him," he said in his calm-but-commanding voice. "There's nothing you can do anymore, let him go..." carefully, the EMTs lifted the boy's body-- jeez, he had to have a hundred yards of bandages wrapped around him-- and carried it off on a stretcher.

The wolfman reared back his head till his nose was pointed at the sky and HOWLED.

Halfway across the city a quartet of would be criminal masterminds halted on their trek across the snowclad rooftops. Hellhound's mutant dogs stopped in their tracks, whimpering in fear as a howl-- a howl from the mother of all wolves-- echoed in the winter sky. The dogs had been enlarged till they were the size of minivans, covered with muscle and bony spikes, but even at their most massive and powerful they knew an Alpha when they heard one.

Tattletale shivered and pulled her coat closer around her. (Screw supervillain style, it was freezing out and she'd bundled up.) That sound had gotten her Power's attention, but for a shocker all she was getting back from it was surprise and confusion.

Regent spoke for all of them. "What in all the kung fu hells was THAT?"

Grue looked over at Tattletale. "Got any info?"

Tattletale shook her head. Her Power had gotten over its discombobulation and was feeding her… a little info anyway. "It's that new cape, Skinwalker," she said. "Sounds like he's feeling Hungry like the Wolf."

Another howl echoed through the concrete valleys, if anything deeper, louder and longer than the first.

"Um, I have never heard anyone, or anything, make a sound like that," Regent stated in his all-too-calm voice. "And I would… really rather not know why, and I'd be in another state at the time I find out."

"He's suffering," Hellhound-- Rachel-- said suddenly. The others looked at her where she sat astride one of her dogs. She returned the stare. For once, she was not radiating hostility. "I made that sound once," she said, uncommonly soft, looking in the direction the howl came from. She patted her chest. "...Here. Inside. When my foster mother was killing my dog by drowning him in the swimming pool."

The others ruminated on that awful revelation, and on what it meant here. Another howl tore the night; vast, savage, feral. Tattletale spoke up. "He's not just suffering," she said with conviction. "He's enraged. More than enraged. He's going to find the thing that hurt him, and he's going to make it suffer like he did… and God help anything that happens to be in his way."

They all fell silent for several moments at that. "Well!" Regent said in radiant cheer. "That sounds like OUR cue to scrub this diamond heist, go back home, lock all the doors and hide under our beds with all the lights on till the angry vengeful werewolf superhero is all done with whatever he wants to do!"

There was something of a unanimous vocal agreement, and Hellhound's dogs all turned around and headed back for the Undersider's lair with all due speed.

BAYLEAF IS GONE.

THE SKINWALKER WAS JUST A NAME.

THE WARCRAFTER IS COMING.