Menagerie of Steel 3 (Patreon)

Sophia and I went on several more dates over the next month, never progressing further than hugs and quick kisses. Don't get me wrong, I was crazy attracted to her, and had more than one awkward dream about her, but we were still figuring out just what we were and where this was going. To say nothing of the fact that her mother had spoiled her view on sex early in the relationship and it being an unspoken fact that my old man was Empire.

Silver lining, Father O’Connor liked her. His exact words were: "So this is th' lass that ya been head ov'r fookin' heels over f'r th' last year? Ah can see why, she's got the look o' a fighter."

"Show me a gym and you'll find out, old man," was Sophia's response.

I'd taken her to the church after a date in late October and told her that if she thought something might have happened to me, he'd probably be able to tell her more. Which was fortunate, because two days after that was when I found myself picked up after-school by my old man, with a pissed off look on his face.

“Get in,” he snarled.

I glanced back at the front of Winslow, and felt something in me clench when my gaze met Sophia’s. I tried to tell her with my face that I was sorry, moments before my old man lost his patience and dragged me to his car by the back of my jacket. All but throwing me into the passenger’s seat, I barely had time to buckle my seatbelt before he gunned it and took off.

“I know you’re not stupid, Erik,” he growled, taking a hard turn. “You knew that sooner or later it would get out what you were doing.”

“Like you give a damn about who I date,” I snapped, only to feel the seatbelt go tight across my chest as he pulled to the side of the road in a sharp jerk.

Putting the car into park, he turned to face me, eyes blazing and tiny lines of metal gleaming across his face, “The next time you talk like that, and a spanked ass will be the least of your concerns. Did you even think about the consequences of asking that girl out? Or were you just wanting to get your dick wet and piss me off at the same time?”

I opened my mouth to answer, only to be cut off as he put the car into drive and pulled back into traffic. At the same time, he continued, “Don’t answer. You fucked up bad enough that Kaiser’s heard about it. Far as the school’s concerned, I’m taking you on a family vacation for a week. When you get back, you’re going to dump the girl, and start dating Tabitha Herren at Immaculata…”

“No,” I interrupted him, while mentally bracing myself for the shitstorm to come.

He was silent for a moment, before saying, his voice low and with a warning tone, “You best watch yourself, keep this up and I won’t…”

“Let me guess, ‘won’t be responsible for what happens next’ or some bullshit like that? Gimme a fucking break, you don’t…”

“I WON’T BE ABLE TO PROTECT YOU, DAMMIT!”

The shouting wasn’t what shocked me. He’d shouted in the past, for fuck’s sake when he got going that was practically his default volume. It wasn’t even the words he said, though him admitting to trying to protect me did surprise me. It was the emotion in the words. I’d heard him angry, that was his normal emotional state, I’d heard him laughing with someone he hated was in the news suffering. I’d never heard him sound afraid. Yet just now, when he admitted to not being able to protect me, he sounded terrified.

[hr][/hr]

Sophia turned into smoke as she leapt off a roof and reformed as she reached the next, keeping an eye on the car that Erik had been dragged into. After passing her backpack off to Emma for her to pick up later, Sophia raced off to trail the car. She’d nearly lost it as she leapt, climbed, and went smoke up to the rooftops, but quickly found them again.

They were heading into Empire territory, but Sophia wasn’t going to let that stop her. She’d gone on patrols in these parts before she was pressed into the Wards, she knew the buildings and rooftops to avoid. A glance ahead of the car let Sophia spot where they were heading: one of the warehouses that she knew Hookwolf used for training recruits. She’d originally thought it was a drug storage spot, but upon seeing Hookwolf there she’d avoided it. But there was an old cache she’d tucked away nearby…

“Hang on, Erik…” Sophia muttered before breaking off and racing as fast as she could to the cache. All the while, her mind raced, trying to piece together something that was bugging her.

Something about how Erik’s father held himself looked familiar. She could see the family resemblance in their faces, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen him before. He was bigger and more broad shouldered than most of the gangbangers she’d dealt with, and the denim jacket with what looked like snake skin over the shoulders was unique enough she’d recognize it on sight. Maybe he was one of Hookwolf’s lieutenants?

Quickly reaching the cache, Sophia threw off her school clothes and slipped into her costume as fast as she could. Grabbing her crossbows, she barely took the time to cinch her quivers to her hips before racing off to the warehouse. Turning into smoke, she flowed through one of the upper windows and landed in the rafters. Minding her step, she made her way through to the pseudo-arena in the center of the warehouse, and her eyes went wide at what she saw. Or rather, who.

Cricket, Alabaster, and Rune were all circling around Erik, who had his left arm up in a guard position, his right hanging limply. His left eye was swollen shut, there was a massive bruise on his side, and he was putting most of his weight on his right leg. To the side, Erik’s father was leaning against one of the pallets that had been repurposed to make the walls of the arena. His jacket was off, showing the tattoos on his arms, the ones that…

“Erik’s father is Hookwolf?!” Sophia whispered in shock. In Sophia’s shock, she didn’t react as Cricket rushed in, her kama slicing across the back of Erik’s legs, making him drop to the ground.

“Doncha worry, boy,” Alabaster said with a chuckle, as Erik used his left arm to try to pull himself back and away from the pasty cape. “We got Othala ready to make sure you don’t die. But we’re gonna have a bit more fun with this first.”

“Go suck Skidmark’s cock, you albino shitheel,” Erik snapped, his hand grabbing onto a shovel and pointing the end at the Empire cape.

Sophia didn’t wait to hear Alabaster’s answer, she aimed her crossbow at the ashen cape and pulled the trigger. The bolt pierced his neck, and Sophia turned into smoke as she raced down to the arena. She shifted back to her physical form just in time to land a kick to the side of Rune’s head, knocking her off the floating platform she’d been standing on, and coming into a roll. Lifting her second crossbow, she fired her last prepped bolt at Cricket, while jamming the string of her already spent crossbow against the hook on her belt she’d set up for this scenario, before bringing it up against the specially made quiver. A bolt slipped out of the quiver, and she fired the now loaded crossbow at Hookwolf. Cricket dodged the bolt, while the metal that was pushing its way out of Hookwolf’s skin deflected the one she’d sent at him.

“Well, well. What do we have here? Isn’t it past your bedtime, little Ward?” Hookwolf asked, his voice becoming distorted as he shifted into his metal lupine form. There was the sound of static, and Sophia shifted into smoke, just as Alabaster swung a fireman’s ax where her chest had been. “Don’t kill her, we don’t need the heat of a dead Ward. Otherwise, go wild.”

Sophia’s mind raced, trying to figure out a way out of this with both her and Erik. She didn’t have her Ward phone on her, a stupid mistake, meaning she couldn’t send out an alert. Her power wasn’t suited to taking on multiple opponents, it was suited for ambush tactics, and she just didn’t have the ability to put out enough damage to take down Hookwolf, even ignoring the other three. The smart thing would be to retreat, call for backup, and tail them when they left.

“So…phia?” she heard Erik weakly whisper behind her, and she swallowed, even as her resolve hardened. Screw the smart move, there was no fucking way she was leaving Erik to their non-existent mercies.

[hr][/hr]

My left eye was swollen to the point of uselessness, my right eye wasn’t much better, and I was light headed from both the multiple blows to my head and the amount of blood I’d lost. I couldn’t move my legs or my dominant arm, breathing hurt, and I was pretty sure I was feeling bubbling with each breath. But seeing that dark form move between me and them, like an avenging angel… the way they stood, their stance… it had to be Sophia…

I couldn’t make out the entire fight, my vision swirling and my mind in a fog, but what I could see… she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen…

I lifted my head (when did it fall?), so heavy, so hard to focus, and Father’s words pierced through the veil, “Not bad, girlie. But it’s all over now.”

What? No. No! No, no, nononononononono!

[DESTINATION]

[AGREEMENT]

[TRAJECTORY]

[AGREEMENT]

I vaguely saw something slam into Father’s wolf form, and something else attacked Alabaster, before my vision went black.

[hr][/hr]

Father O’Connor was more used to being woken up by pounding on the door to the church than he’d like, but he put on his robe without complaint and made his way over to the door. Opening it, he barely blinked at seeing a giant metal rhino with a shovel for a horn and a metal ostrich with an ax head for a beak. His focus was on a black clad girl wearing a hockey mask with the pale form of young Erik half slung over her shoulders.

“Come, lass, get him in here,” he told her, years of seeing every kind of accident imaginable on a fishing boat letting him mentally assess and triage the young man’s injuries. “Help me get his clothes off, I need to get a better look at the injuries.”

The girl didn’t speak, simply doing as he said, and he mentally cataloged the injuries as they went. Broken rib, dislocated shoulder, broken cheekbone, massive bruising, cut hamstrings, and those were just to start with. Sending her to get the first aid kit, he pressed his ear to Erik’s chest, listening for both his pulse and a possible punctured lung.

The girl arrived, and he set about dressing Erik’s wounds as best he could. After an hour, Father O’Connor let out a sigh, “That’s the best I can do for him, but he needs a hospital.”

“No,” the girl, Sophia Hess from her voice, said in a rush. “His… Hookwolf was one of the ones who did this to him, if you take him to a hospital, they’ll find him in no time. He’s a cape now, they won’t kill him, but they won’t give him a choice in whether or not he joins.”

“I assume he’s responsible for the beasties outside?” Father O’Connor asked, mostly to give himself time to think.

“He has to be, just out of nowhere they appeared and attacked Hookwolf and Alabaster before the bird put Erik on the rhino’s back and then put me behind him.”

“You guided them here?”

“No, it was all I could do to keep him from falling off. Not important, look, can I use a phone? I can call the Protectorate, tell them I have a potential Ward, and he needs medical treatment, they’ll send…”

“Take it from someone with ears in unusual places, the local Protectorate’s got more holes in it than my Gram’s crochet knitting. I know a couple docs, I’ll see if one of them’ll come for an off the books house call. We’ll figure something out after.”