(1) Sinless Days

--- Mercer ---

“This the place?” The girl -Scarlet as her sister introduced- asked.

“Yep.” He nodded, giving the old boarding house a once over.

The building was four storeys tall, with probably four rooms on each floor past the first which held a communal space in the front, a kitchen in the back, and a small laundry room. And while boarding houses weren’t all that common anymore, this one had been built almost forty-fifty years prior back before people had renamed the district Sinner’s Way.

“Looks like a shit hole.” Scarlet told him, earning a look from her sister, Bellatrix or Bell as she introduced herself.

“Yep.” He agreed, spotting several broken windows and tags on the building. “Did not realize how worn down this place was.”

“Then why’d you want to move here?”

He pointed to the overpass above them. “When they built that bridge over the way, they created a high point that makes my grappling significantly easier. What’s more there’s roof access roughly level with the nearby buildings making it easier to come and go too without having to walk on the streets. All very important when you’re a mobile mask, or deviant.” (The fact that the overpass was also one of my favorite places to sit at night as a kid is just an added plus.)

Opening the front door they were greeted with the building’s lobby where a couple of torn and stained couches laid to their left and what looked like a bar counter stood in front of an old mirror with just enough space between the two that one of them probably had a cabinet for liquor underneath. Not that he was expecting to find any given the broken glass and empty bottles littering the floor.

“Really should’ve checked this place out before now.” He sighed, making his way around the glass and to where he was pretty sure there were some light switches for the first floor.

“Yeah, your last apartment was much better looking.” Scarlet agreed, looking around the place.

“It’s still better than the labs though.” Bellatrix argued, attempting to defend the place.

(Which, fair, but) “Not the highest bar to set, kid.” He told her as he managed to get the lights on, or rather the ones that hadn’t gone out. (Cannot wait to see what the rest of this place looks like.)

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Scarlet grinned as she flopped onto one of the couches, likely enjoying her newfound freedom and semi-safety. “So we crashing on these couches or what?”

“Unfortunately, outside of what I gave Mathias and Betty for helping us, most of my cash was in the old apartment so I’m going to have to do something about money before I can order us some mattresses.” He explained before shrugging at the problem. “But I’m sure one or two of the gangs would be willing to make a… charitable donation to our housing situation.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Well that’s nice of them.” Bell smiled, likely too innocent to understand that he was going to find them, beat them up, and steal their shit. (Which is likely how they got their own shit in the first place.)

Scarlet watched him for a moment, her couple of weeks on the streets of Sinner’s Way likely making her much less naive of the situation. “Are you going to need help?”

He considered it for a moment, his mind shifting through the possibilities once he got over how fast she offered to help him beat some random strangers up. (Going to have to keep an eye on that.)

On the one hand, even unarmed he could still deal with a few punks to get the few hundred to buy a couple of mattresses, and if he happened to find enough of his gear still intact he could hit an actual gang house and get enough to fully furnish them a couple of rooms. Both numbers that he could probably up if he invited Scarlet, who would likely kill anyone she fought and bring even more heat into the area than their little misadventure the night before.

On the other hand, the fact that she still didn’t quite grasp the fact that he was dangerous in his own way, meant she was likely to follow him just like he would’ve -(had when)- if their roles were reversed. (Though if she saw me fight that might settle my issue with her underestimating me in a fight.)

And in both of those cases she’d likely end up leaving Bell behind given her clear protective streak towards her sister. (Who I still don’t have enough of a grasp to know what she’d do, or how she’d do it.)

Or he could bring up this point in the hopes of making her stay behind, because while he didn’t know Bell well enough to know what she’d do, he did know that she was innocent enough to not knowingly walk into a fight if her sister wasn’t, and that Scarlet was protective enough to not walk into a fight if her sister was following her.

He frowned, considering it for a moment before telling her, “No, you and Bell should lie low while we settle in.”

---

"Well, this is lovely…" He sighed, having taken a detour to shift through the half torched ruins of his apartment in the hopes of finding something at least semi useful.

The first thing he’d checked was his money safe, (Which has had the lock melted off, and needs me to break it open to get the cash and deeds within. Something I can’t do with my bare hands.)

He briefly contemplated seeing if Scarlet could open the safe, before deciding to leave that for another day since this gang had been getting a little too comfortable in the Way, and the only reason he hadn’t thrown them out already was because he got distracted after finding a wayward Malcontent in his neighborhood.

Moving onto the safe with the things he found important, he found the metal box largely intact and having done its job of protecting his photos of his family as well as a number of trinkets he’d collected from his various friends and family both living and dead. Including a beat up communicator, a pair of theater tickets, and his mom’s favorite book. (He actively ignored the red Vigil insignia in the back.)

Figuring that he could come back for those and whatever else survived the fire later, he made his way to the caved-in false wall of his former living room. Or more descriptively the false wall where he kept his backup gear in case the equipment he kept on him was ever trashed in a particularly bad fight.

Prying the metal off with a bit of rebar, he began shifting through the half melted slag in the hopes of finding something at least semi-useful.

(Let’s see, turrets? Trashed. Ammo? Shot. Drone? Not flying anytime soon. Auto-Hackers? Cracked. Come on, there’s got to be something… Ah, ha! Jackpot)

Shoving the destroyed remnants of most of his gear away, he found a damaged but still working backup of his grapplers. And while the stronger motors were shot, the basic ones were still in one piece, meaning even if he wasn’t zipping around he was no longer limited to just what he could do on foot.

"Yeah, I can make this work."