It was the dead of night, the moons were full and it was eerily quiet. Circus was creeped out. She was here with a colleague, investigating a murder. Somebody called it in when they found a body in a dumpster. They hadn't touched it yet, but the lid was opened. This city was normally safe, and murders were not common, but this was the second one this week.
There were rumors of a falling out in the criminal underworld, and these killings were simple liquidations. But still, Circus couldn't help but feel spooked by the whole situation. Even after all the things she'd been through at the hands of Dark Jenny, there was something about the mystery here that creeped her out.
She was closing off the area with police tape while her colleague took pictures of the body in the dumpster and the surroundings. This was another alleyway near the city center, and there were two exits. Their patrol car was parked at the end of one of them, still flashing its blue and red lights.
"No blood…" Circus' colleague murmured as she leaned into the dumpster to take pictures up close.
Isn't that obvious? Circus thought, looking back at her colleague.
Everything always took forever for this woman. Her senior, again. Another one she wasn't too fond of. Maybe she was wrong to expect anything to change after coming back from her adventure. In her eyes, she saved the world, but nobody else seemed to share that conclusion. She didn't like this work so much anymore and would rather save the world again with Jenny and the others. That way, she would be able to do ten times the amount of good compared to… this…
"Quit horsing around," her colleague calmly told her off because she was staring into the distance.
Circus made a grumpy face and turned around to finish closing off the second exit with her tape. She closed her eyes when she did, having to suppress her desire to tell the woman what she really thought about her. She had a gut feeling that if she did, she'd be called out for being immature.
When she felt warm breath on her face, she opened her eyes wide and saw the upside-down face of another girl, close enough that their noses almost touched.
"You're full of openings," the other girl spoke.
Circus shrieked and fell to the ground. The boogeyman was hanging upside down by the wall. On further inspection, it was a familiar face. Blond hair, two braids on either side, one at the back. Black cape. All draped down.
Tatters flipped herself around and landed on her feet, then undid the wire that connected her to the rooftop, leaving it dangling behind her. No more cast on her arm either. She looked like she was able to use both just fine.
Then, behind them, a clicking sound. Tatters' eyes went past Circus and to her colleague, and her face went to that typical angry look she always had. Circus turned around to look at her colleague, who already had her gun pointed at Tatters. Safety off, ready to shoot.
"Don't move!" the woman yelled.
Circus looked back at Tatters. She didn't respond, but her cape and right eye took on a pink glow. Pink… She was preparing to take a bullet.
Circus jumped to her feet and stood in between the two, raising her hand at her colleague who promptly pointed the gun away when her junior entered her visor.
"It's okay! She's a friend!" Circus said nervously.
The other officer looked surprised to hear the world "friend", then tilted her head to the side to look past Circus at Tatters' face.
"You're the one from the news…" she said.
"Hmph!" Tatters grunted dismissively and looked away.
Indeed, everything that happened made all the news.
On a positive note, Jenny's name was more than cleared. Less positively, the others were now famous too. Tatters, especially. She was already something of a microcelebrity before, enough for Circus to have heard of her before they met. Now, though, the rest of the world knew about her too. Including her controversial history.
Then, Tatters walked past Circus, out of the cover of her friend and towards the dumpster. The other officer looked intimidated and did not raise her gun again. She looked at Circus, then back at Tatters, full of hesitation. Making it clear she wasn't going to pull the trigger either way.
Maybe Tatters could tell, because she rudely brushed the older officer aside with her shoulder, avoiding eye contact the whole time.
Instead of getting mad, the woman turned to Circus again.
"She's a cold-blooded murderer! And you're friends with her?" she asked in accusing way.
Circus had no acceptable answer to that. She looked at Tatters, who'd climbed into the dumpster now, and was clenching her teeth upon hearing that comment about her.
"You missed something!" she said as she ripped off the victim's shirt.
Something sparked inside of Circus. A new clue! Excitedly, she ran over to join her at the dumpster.
Her colleague wasn't that excited.
"Don't touch that!" she said as her junior joined the murderous criminal.
"Hey!" she yelled after being completely ignored.
"You're not authorized to be here!"
When Circus approached Tatters, the dark hero looked her in the eyes, and her expression changed from angry to just stoic. It made Circus feel oddly special.
Tatters stepped away from the victim, showing strange spiral marks on his stomach.
"Someone mangled his organs," Tatters said.
"You're meddling with evidence!" the senior officer said.
She joined the two and looked at the markings for a second, before continuing to reprimand Tatters some more.
"You… are not authorized to be here!" she repeated.
Tatters turned to look at the woman one more time, pulling the same angry face as before. She inspected her for a second, then looked back at Circus.
"There's more up there," she said as she walked back to the spot she left her wire dangling.
Tatters attached the wire to her belt again, then pulled herself back up to the rooftop. Circus looked at the spectacle with wide eyes. Was she telling her to follow? How? She didn't have a grappling hook. Even if she did, using it meant damaging property!
The building did, however, have a fire escape that looked like it ran all the way up to the roof. Circus looked back at her colleague with a questioning look.
"Don't even think about it!" the woman said angrily.
Circus looked at the victim's stomach with the mangled organs one more time, swallowed, and broke into a sprint towards the fire escape. No audible words from her colleague anymore. No doubt, she'd get into a ton of trouble for this…
♦
A panting Circus made it up to the rooftop to find Tatters leaning with her back against a gargoyle statue. She had her arms crossed and one knee lifted to rest her foot against the statue. From this vantage point, they had a clear view of the rest of the city. Tatters moved her head to look at Circus as lightning struck in the background. She didn't reprimand her for being slow but instead moved her gaze down to another corpse that was up here.
Circus had already noticed it and examined it as she caught her breath.
"She's not a thug," Tatters said, referring to the victim.
Circus approached the body and leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees. She lifted the victim's clothes to reveal her stomach. This one had similar markings to the other victim, but with some additional dark spots. None of the murder victims this past week had any flesh wounds on them either.
"They're not liquidations," Tatters said, referring to what she said before.
Circus gave her a questioning look.
"How do you know? Because she's a girl?" Circus asked.
Tatters looked her in the eyes, blinked, then looked away into the distance.
"She worked at the mall," she said.
Circus was kneeling next to the body now.
"Still…"
But something caught her eye. A red piece of cloth next to the body. It had a graphic on it that Circus recognized, and she recklessly grabbed the item, even though it was evidence. She stood up with the item and walked over to the gargoyle statue. Tatters grew a curious expression.
"Do you recognize it?" she asked.
"Yeah…" Circus said as she walked over, staring at the item.
It was like a scarf, but shorter. The material felt high-quality, and in the center was some premium stitching. A big number two, covering a familiar logo.
"The Adventurer's Guild"
Tatters didn't react much when she heard that.
"Could be a calling card. You think they're behind this?" Circus asked.
Tatters looked confused.
"Not familiar with them," she said.
Circus looked up at Tatters and handed the piece of cloth to her.
"How do you know it doesn't just belong to her?" Tatters asked, eyeing the victim.
"Same reason you think she's not a thug," Circus replied.
Tatters looked at the piece of cloth, still leaning against the gargoyle. She wrapped one end around her hand until the moonlight clearly illuminated the logo in the center. Circus watched Tatters and tried to guess what was going on in her mind. Way too difficult with this girl. Especially compared to Jenny, who always had her thoughts written on her forehead. Tatters had a kind of resting bitch face that sat in between angry and just serious. Lightning struck again in the background as she stared at the piece of stitching like she was trying to intimidate it.
Circus remembered what her colleague said before. A cold-blooded murderer. She wasn't wrong. According to the stories about the black cape, none of which were backed up by evidence, Tatters was notorious for killing gangsters where she was from. Circus wasn't present for most of Jenny and the others' interactions with her back in the north, but she was there at the bunker. That's when she saw her for the first time, and she was about to stab someone in the neck. It was Plural's reaction that prompted her to reconsider and knock the guy out instead.
Despite that, Tatters didn't act like a murderer. They even played games together. Now she was here, in this city. Circus already saw that her distinct knives were missing from her belt, and the crossbow was replaced by… an umbrella…
"So, do you still kill people?" she asked with big curious eyes and her head slightly tilted.
Tatters looked away from the piece of cloth, clearly having understood the question, but she didn't look Circus in the eyes. She took some time to think of her answer.
"If there's no other choice," she said, still looking away.
"Hopefully never again…"
In a sudden move, Tatters cocked her head in Circus' direction and looked freaked out, looking just past her. Circus turned around to see what it was but found nothing noteworthy, just a dark corner. She turned back to look at Tatters, who held her hand against her head and had an exhausted face.
"It's nothing…" Tatters said.
Circus looked up at the head of the gargoyle statue and walked towards the base that Tatters was still leaning against.
"Okay…"
She put one foot on the base and grabbed onto the statue, starting her climb. Tatters looked to the side with a curious expression, then up to watch Circus struggle.
"The police don't like you one bit!" Circus said as she climbed.
"The stories online and everything… But there's no proof, so they can't arrest you!"
Tatters looked in front of her again, then at the city.
"What about you?" she asked.
Circus managed to grab one of the statue's wings and tried her hardest to pull herself onto its head.
"Me? I don't care about any of that…" Circus replied.
"You're a superhero like Jenny!"
Tatters closed her eyes and smiled, trying her best to hide it.
"Superhero…" she muttered to herself.
At this point, Circus had successfully made it to the gargoyle's head. Which, including its neck, was long enough for her to lie down on in a prone position, with her feet in the air.
"I've changed my mind. Joining the police is a stupid idea," she said with her head poking out beyond the gargoyle's head.
Tatters looked straight up and made eye contact with Circus.
"If anything, I should apply to be your sidekick!" Circus said with a big smile.
Tatters' eyes widened in surprise.
"I offer many a thing… access to police records… ongoing investigations…" Circus proudly proclaimed.
"Like a mole…" Tatters commented.
Circus didn't deny it. Instead, she wrapped her arms and legs around the gargoyle's neck. Then she slowly started to veer to her left to pivot around the neck until she was clinging to it upside down. Tatters looked up to behold the circus act. Her body language suggested she wasn't scared the girl was going to fall on top of her.
"I haven't got around to offering Jenny the same thing, but I think she'd refuse anything illegal," Circus said as she carefully released her arms and lowered her torso until she hung from the gargoyle upside down, like Tatters did when she first showed up downstairs.
"But Jenny doesn't really interfere with police business…" she said as she stretched her arms to the side, like she was balancing on a beam.
Tatters didn't respond to that and looked back at the ground again. Then, Circus offered her a fist bump, prompting her to look up again at her fist. Tatters looked Circus in the eyes, like she wanted to know what it was for.
"Sidekick?" Circus asked with an excited look.
Tatters' eyes went down to her own hands, to the one that wasn't holding the red cloth. For a moment, she stared at her empty hand. As if she saw something in it, even though she wore black gloves. Then she looked back at Circus, who excitedly raised her eyebrows in anticipation.
Then, finally, she raised her own fist and bumped her back.
"Okay…" she said hesitantly.
"Sidekick."
♦
"What if you use your blue power on your own body?" Circus asked.
"I can't" Tatters replied.
"Oh…" Circus responded.
The pair walked the city streets. Circus much preferred patrolling with the superhero than with her lame colleague. Although she knew perfectly well that she was going to be in trouble for pretty much abandoning her duties.
She felt bad for leaving her colleague by herself in the middle of the night, but going with Tatters felt like the right thing to do. Ever since she met Jenny and the others, she'd started following her heart more, and it felt much better than she'd ever felt before.
"Can your blue knife pierce your pink cape?"
"No."
"Oh…"
Tatters didn't look at her as she responded. One would be forgiven for thinking she was annoyed at the barrage of questions, but her face didn't look any different from usual. Circus kind of circled around Tatters as they walked.
"Can you uh… Can you… Can you…" Circus mumbled with her finger to her lip, trying to think of her next question.
She couldn't think of a good question to finish her sentence before she circled around to Tatters' other side.
"Hey! Are you and Plural a thing?"
Tatters stopped in her tracks and finally looked Circus angrily in the eyes.
"No. Why?"
"Oh…" Circus mumbled as she walked ahead of Tatters.
Tatters looked somewhere between annoyed and confused. She started walking again to catch up to Circus. She wasn't done with the topic yet.
"Why?" she asked Circus who didn't look back at her, like the roles were suddenly reversed.
"No reason…" Circus answered.
Tatters had a defeated look in her eyes as she slowed her walking pace to fall behind Circus. Apparently, both girls were equally difficult for each other to understand sometimes.
They walked some more in silence.
"Have you really never heard of The Adventurer's Guild?" Circus asked as she walked with her arms behind her head.
"Just the name…" Tatters replied. Still behind her.
Circus slowed down until she walked beside Tatters to explain.
"Their history goes all the way back to a time when guilds ruled the world, and they were the biggest one," Circus said.
"That time is long gone now, but they're the only guild that never really disbanded."
"And they go around killing people?" Tatters asked.
"Well, nowadays they only attract freaks and misfits. They go around causing all kinds of trouble for their own selfish gains."
Tatters listened with great interest.
"I think they left that calling card there because it wasn't easy to find," Circus continued.
"So, they're in this city right now…" Tatters said.
"At least one of them, anyway. They're not that organized," Circus replied.
Circus was scrolling through the pictures she took of the victim and the cloth piece.
"Kind of thrilling, huh?" Circus said with a nervous smile.
"I'm not worried," Tatters said.
Circus closed her eyes and took a deep exhale.
"Naturally!" Circus said.
♦
All of this went on until early morning, and the sun was about to come up.
These days, Tatters slept easier with a bit of light, so there were no dark spots in her room where that eerie face could appear. Plural should've been fast asleep, so she took off her shoes before entering the house. Everything had to happen delicately. Opening the door with her key, walking up the stairs, closing her bedroom door. It felt strange to have to sneak around like this, but it's not like she was keeping these nightly outings a secret from anyone.
Tatters almost never got the recommended amount of sleep, and typically woke up at noon, even when going to bed this late. She would spend time with Plural and the others during the weekends, but when the time came for everybody to go to sleep, she stayed up. All because of that damned apparition.
It was the worst at night, when there was lots of darkness. Lots of spots where her eyes could play tricks on her. Whenever there was darkness nearby, she could feel its presence, making it impossible to sleep.
Tatters had no clue why this was suddenly happening to her. Maybe she was still getting used to her new life here. Maybe she had PTSD from the Dark Jenny incident, or from growing up in that shithole. Maybe she was going insane for no good reason, or maybe whatever she was seeing was really there. Like a ghost that followed her here…
And she could never really get a proper look at it, either, because it always disappeared when looking straight at it. Its first appearance was in the changing room when she went clothes shopping with Plural, one of her fondest memories of her time here so far. Maybe it came here to ruin that for her.
Maybe she wasn't allowed to enjoy good things in this life…
♦
It was noon the next morning when Plural was starting to wonder when her housemate was going to wake up. She'd already been up a couple of hours herself, and Tatters usually came downstairs around this time.
Plural was bored, watching TV but not paying attention.
She looked to her left, to the coat rack by the door. The tattered black cape was on it, just like any other regular coat. The most iconic piece of her costume, just like that. If someone rang the doorbell right now and Plural opened the door, anyone could see it hanging there.
There was just something so humbling about being her friend. Tatters was the kind of person you'd think was raised by wolves or something. Plural was curious about what her childhood was like, but she didn't have the guts to ask yet.
Jenny was special too. Even more special, if anything, but that was different. Jenny was in a different league entirely, whereas Tatters was a human being with no shortage of flaws, just like herself. And despite all that, she did combat with Dark Jenny. The same creature that caused Plural to freeze up just by being in the same room.
"Baddie…" Plural mumbled to herself with a dreamy face.
She grabbed her phone and opened her photo gallery. She had exactly one photo featuring the baddie in question. A selfie she took of herself and Tatters. In it, she'd pulled Tatters close and their cheeks were smushed together. Plural winked at the camera like normal, but Tatters was blushing, looking at Plural instead.
Plural liked this photo a lot. And she found herself looking at it quite often when she was bored, like now. She looked at the clock to her right. 1PM exactly. She was going to come downstairs any minute now. Plural wanted to make pancakes, so she stood up from the couch. Maybe the smell would lure her in…
But when she turned around to head to the kitchen, she gasped and almost lost her balance. Tatters was standing behind the couch, directly behind the spot where she'd been sitting. She always had a habit of making no sound when moving around the house.
"H-How long have you been there?" Plural asked.
Tatters' eyes went to the clock on the wall.
"Three minutes," she said.
Plural panicked. Did she catch her staring at that photo? Saying "Baddie" out loud? Tatters didn't look weirded out though, so maybe she was distracted by the TV…
Plural regained her stance and cleared her throat.
"I was just about to make pancakes!" she said.
Tatters gave her a questioning look.
"What are pancakes?" she asked.
Typical. Whatever concepts of the world she did and didn't know about might as well have been decided by dice roll.
"I will…" Plural said as she raised her finger at her housemate.
"…show you!"
Then she hopped to the kitchen, in a good mood.
Plural's kitchen centered around a large kitchen island that contained the stove. She put a stainless-steel pan on and lit the fire to preheat it. Tatters joined her on the other side to watch without saying anything. She simply watched while Plural prepared the pancake mix. Maybe she wasn't a morning person, so Plural resumed the conversation.
"Anything exciting happen last night?" she asked.
It was hard to find the right words to ask about her midnight outings without sounding like a nagging mom. Tatters put on a thinking face, then answered.
"I met Circus. We're solving the murders," she said.
The murders were all over the local news. Last night, two additional bodies were found, making three total in a week. It surprised Plural to hear Tatters was now involved in the investigation.
"You're working with the police?" she asked.
"No," Tatters responded immediately.
"They don't want anything to do with me."
Plural couldn't really tell how Tatters felt about that fact. Her face showed no clues.
"What about Circus?" Plural asked as she poured the first load of pancake mix into the pan.
"I don't know what she's telling her coworkers, but she's my… sidekick… now," Tatters replied.
That last part irked Plural.
"W-What does that mean?" she asked, unable to hide her insecurities.
Tatters gave her a frown.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing…" Plural said, taking her attention back to the pan.
Tatters kept up her frown.
"It means she'll help me solve the case. I'm going again tonight."
This was all oddly upsetting for Plural. It was almost as if Tatters was spending more time with Circus than with her now. At the very least, she'd found purpose again in this city, and she was sharing it with someone else. Plural was jealous. What exactly did she herself have to offer? Pancakes? Shopping? In fact, did they even share any interests at all?
By this point, Plural was zoning out and burning the first pancake. When she snapped back to reality, Tatters was next to her, holding her hands after having moved the pan away from the stove.
"What's going on?" she asked with a worried face.
Plural met Tatters' gaze. She had dark spots beneath her eyes, which suggested she might be sleep deprived, but those dark spots had been there ever since they first met. One would think she applied them on purpose with makeup. Plural always thought they made her look kind of cute.
"I-"
Plural didn't really know what to say. She just got upset over the dumbest thing. This was probably just another one of those days.
"Nothing…" she said again.
Plural dropped her head down, disappointed with herself for dodging the subject. She saw Tatters' hands holding hers, just like she did in the hot springs. Plural looked up again to see Tatters still looking at her with the same worried face and gave her a nervous look.
"Y-You're still my familiar, right?" Plural asked softly.
Tatters looked like the puzzle pieces came together in her head.
"Of course!" she responded immediately.
"And if someone breaks into the house, you'll save me?"
Tatters tightened her grip.
"I'll break every bone in their body!" she said with her most reassuring look.
Plural thought that demeanor was kind of cute and smiled.
"Oki!" she said as she turned her focus to the pan and flipped the pancake around to see if it wasn't too badly burned. Tatters implicitly let go of her hands.
"Let's go do something today!" Plural said cheerfully.
Tatters nodded enthusiastically.