The moment Bain left Amber's room, he slumped, releasing a heavy breath. Stitches patted his shoulder sympathetically. "I only heard the end of that. Are you okay?"

Bain almost nodded, then shook his head, and then turned it into a shrug. "Not really. I don't think so, at least. I... don't really want to talk about it right now, if that's okay."

Stitches smiled tiredly. "Of course that's fine. You don' need to tell me about it at all, if you don't want to."

They stood outside Amber's door for a moment, processing. There was a long silence, where neither of them felt any need to say anything, comfortable to simply stay there for a few scant seconds. Finally, Stitches asked, "Do you want to go to the territory now?"

Bain perked up slightly. Regardless of the sadness he felt from his conversation with Amber, he was still more than excited to go look at the new territory. "Definitely. Where is it?"

Holding up a small piece of paper, Stitches grinned. "It's the biggest territory in the whole city. Has been for years. I just can't believe no one was managing it. It's at 100th and Washington."

Bain's expression dropped like an anvil off a cliff. "Hundredth and... Washington?"

Stitches blinked. He hadn't expected Bain's mood to plummet as quickly as it did. "That's what I said, yeah. What's wrong with it? Do you have bad memories there or something?"

Bain scratched his stump nervously. "Well..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Stitches stared in disbelief. They were just outside the territory's border, an intimidating chain link fence with barbed wire at the top. It didn't help that it was now somewhat overcast, heavy clouds seeded with rain moving in from the west. The buildings in view were decrepit, peeling paint on every surface to reveal blunt gray cement underneath. The overwhelming majority of the windows in view were broken, jagged shards of glass jutting out from behind the boards nailed to the window frames. The road in front of them, blocked off by a hefty mesh sliding gate, was cracked and peeling, shards of aged asphalt choking out the stubborn weeds poking from the ground.

In other words, it was a dump.

"Did you know it looked like this?" Stitches pointed upwards and yanked himself into the air with his power, lightly jumping over the fence and rolling to a standing position. Bain simply hopped over it - it wasn't much taller than he was, after all.

Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, Bain nodded in confirmation. "I've visited here once or twice. There's a lot - and I mean a lot - of Nahma's centipedes hanging around here, and I found a few dozen Arithmetwins comics in the dumpsters out here. I tried to stop the crime sprees at first, but the Tower found out and asked me to stop. I thought they'd fix it up a bit, but..."

Stitches yanked the piece of paper out of his pocket and glared at it. "They rigged me! I mean us. They rigged us! They knew this territory was a dump and handed it off to me - I mean us - with a smile! Why would they do that? I'm a senior hero, for crying out loud!"

Bain was getting more entertainment than he thought he would out of Stitches' response. In all seriousness, he didn't mind the weather or the ill-maintained area. If anything, he was almost at home in the dark alleys and looming, rusting buildings. It reminded him of home.

The problem with that was that Bain lived underground, in near-absolute darkness, surrounded by bugs at all times. It wasn't exactly an environment that engendered the thought of heroism.

Stitches was still grumbling his annoyance to the sky when Bain caught a movement in a nearby alley, darkened from the two buildings above it. One of them had partially collapsed, leaning against the other and casting shadows in unusual places.

Bain nudged his mentor, then pointed quietly at the alley. Stitches looked at him, and then at the alley, before realizing what he was trying to tell him. His eyes narrowed, and while his hands formed into sharp wedges at his sides, he casually sauntered over to the entrance. "Well, Bain, I gotta say. It's pretty impressive that we got our own territory. I mean, we get the run of the place all to ourselves. We can do just about anything we want to here. Such as-"

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He lunged forward, grabbing at a small figure. A moment later, he yelped in pain and jumped away, shoving his hand in his mouth and shouting unintelligible gibberish into his fist. Bain launched himself forward, blurring past Stitches and extending his claws. Leaping over the unknown assailant's head, he slammed into the wall feet first and jumped further into the alley, spinning around and skidding on the concrete. Eyes glowing, he focused on the opponent, unconsciously snarling as he did.

There was a quiet noise, a slight shriek of terror, and then the figure ran out into the open. Stitches was waiting and grabbed it - no, her - by the shoulders, lifting her off the ground. Bain approached the two, an increasing feeling of surprise welling up in him.

The girl who'd bitten Stitches was a monster. There wasn't any doubt about that - the mess of green and purple tentacles hanging from the back of her head, writhing and forming strange mouths or eyes in place of suckers at random, were confirmation of that for sure. She was wearing a filthy gray pillowcase, and her thin legs were kicking wildly at the air. Her skin was a vibrant green, and her bare feet were scarred, presumably from the rough, unforgiving terrain. Her eyes were massive and golden, the round pupils dilated in fright at the strength of the person holding her, and her pointed teeth were bared. A faint hissing noise could be heard, although it was hard to tell whether it was her mouth or her tentacles making the sound. What was most shocking was her youth - she appeared to be less than ten years old. The youngest monster Bain had ever seen, barring the sheddings.

Bain tapped Stitches on the shoulder. "Stitches? I think you should put her down."

Stitches sighed. The young monster immediately tried to run back for the alley, only to release a small cry of pain as her foot caught a particularly jagged piece of road. She tripped, and Bain reached out an arm, stopping her midfall and easily righting her.

Kneeling, Bain put himself on her eye level. She was looking anywhere except at him, and he tried to move his head into her perspective. "Hi there. I'm a hero. Are you all right?"

He'd lost her at the word 'hero'. The moment he said it, her eyes widened to an incredible degree, and several of her thicker tentacles lashed forward. He hadn't been expecting much of a hit, so he was surprised when the unorthodox hair instead wrapped around his shoulder. The young monster promptly rotated around him, using the tentacles and her disproportionately powerful strength to essentially launch herself into the alley.

As he whirled around, he caught a glimpse of her coming to a halt, using the hair once again and digging into the walls to pause her momentum. She turned to take one last look at him, eyes glittering in the dark, and then punched through the wall on her left. A mess of tentacles reached out as she entered, lifting the fragments and forcing them back into place, a ramshackle blockade. Bain didn't follow.

Stitches ambled next to him, scratching his head. "I gotta say, I've never seen anything like that. I didn't know monsters could be kids, honestly."

Bain glared at him. "I was a kid once, you know. Nahma adopted me over eighteen years ago."

His mentor made a small 'huh' sound, staring at the alley. Shaking it off, he told Bain, "All right, let's get to the headquarters. We'll see what we can do from there."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Are you kidding me."

They were standing in front of the Tower outpost for the territory, which was supposed to be a heavily fortified cube with narrow windows, set in the dead center of the territory and reinforced against potential villain attacks. It was supposed to be the sort of place a hero could reliably fall back to in order to regroup.

Emphasis on 'supposed'. The building in front of them was all but collapsed, rubble crumbling down from the left corner and spilling onto the street. Graffiti coated most of the standing walls, sprayed on in indecipherable writing. The windows were long gone. Now they were hollow slits, only darkness waiting behind them. The second floor had fallen in at some point, rotting furniture visible from where they stood.

Stitches crawled up on top of it, swaying as he caught his balance. Stepping gingerly around the skewed second floor, he complained again, "Are you kidding me? I could get it if they wanted someone to fix this territory up, but we don't even get a good place to stay? The termites are livin' larger than we are right now!"

He was more than a little upset. He was used to the Tower and its comforts, with Tinker's drones coming out and fixing any problems that might have been caused. Any construction issues would have been repaired in mere minutes, the sheer dedication and efficacy of her bots having proven themselves again and again. He was used to the endless food served in its top-of-the-line cafeteria, and the delicacies ranked high on his list of why he enjoyed staying at the Tower so much.

Opening the door, Bain walked in. Because the ceiling was collapsed, he had to hunch, crawling on all five limbs in sinuous, smooth movements. Opening a sagging cabinet, he pulled out a sealed can of unidentifiable food. It was very, very spoiled. Shrugging, he put it back, and the cabinet fell off its hinges, crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust. Blinking it away, Bain considered the place.

Honestly, as far as he was concerned?

It wasn't that bad.