Chapter Text
She listened for the familiar sound of the quiet screeching noise the trains made on the tracks, waiting on the now empty overpass for her target. She checked the nicely glowing watch that she had received as a birthday gift three years ago, 01:42am, she sighed. She understood why her boss was really fed up with the owls, they couldn't even be on schedule. Why did he want her to be out here anyway? Couldn't the others do something as easy as getting rid of a traitor?
Finally she heard the train approach, it was time to start the mission. She waited for the train to pass under the platform and jumped on without even a hint of fear. Now all the brunette had to do was go to the roof of the caboose and open the hatch. She sped up a bit after remembering that there was a tunnel up ahead, she had to make it before then, or she would be in trouble. The wind whizzed by her, blowing her side-bangs across her face which made it a bit hard for her to find the device and type in the code for the lock on the latch. What was it again? Hattie tapped her chin in thought. He changed the password every week, he had told her two days ago what it was, but she hadn't paid much attention, because he had been on one of his tangents before. Oh yeah, 9630! After jumping into the wagon, she cringed a little at the fact that just a moment later the scenery behind the windows turned dark, close shave!
There were no passengers in the caboose, as it was tightly locked. Crates of varying sizes were piled on top of each other. She face palmed after seeing the sign on one crate read “This side up”...it was turned upside down, and putting a crate labeled “Fragile” on the bottom of a stack of four crates was just asking for the items inside to get crushed. Sometimes she really questioned the intellect of the Metro Owls. On one hand they were competent enough when it got serious, on the other hand...this. She put down the crates that were on top of the fragile one and flipped the upside down box to face the correct way. One angry shouting session avoided.
She had the keys to the locks, being one of the select few he trusted, so getting into the next compartment was easy enough. The passengers' eyes were fixated on her, as she closed and locked the door behind her again.
“What are you looking at, peck necks?! Never seen a girl close door before?!” Immediately their eyes drifted back to looking out the window, or reading the newspapers they had been reading before she had entered. As she walked by, some of the passengers ducked in fear, others simply tried to ignore her presence. The two Metro Owls in the wagon nodded after seeing her, she nodded back with a stern expression.
One of them whispered to her as she walked by, “Out on a mission, Hattie?” She slowed down a bit, but didn't look at them.
“Have you seen Oscar by chance?” She mumbled, the other owl fidgeted around a bit before giving an answer.
“I've seen him somewhere near the front a couple of minutes ago. Is something wrong?” He got a one word answer to his question.
“Business.” They froze, the intonation giving away the dire situation their comrade had found himself in, he must have angered the boss.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the two owls had cast their eyes to the ground, they knew the implication of her answer. She truly hated to do this, the Metro Owls were her family, some of which she had known all her life, however she would do anything to protect that family, that included taking action against those that wronged the Leowles.
Most passengers on the train were tense as she walked by, knowing to which gang she belonged. Her black varsity jacket with neon red hem and sleeve cuffs of the same color, and the red headband with two long yellow feathers made it quite obvious. Hattie ignored them and only focused on finding Oscar, scanning wagon after wagon. It wasn't unusual for the commuters to find members of the Leowle gang, every single metro train and the shops near the stations were under the command of the leader of the Leowles, the Conductor.
In the second to last train near the front she finally spotted the elusive owl, who recoiled in fear after seeing her approach. Thanks to him, quite a few owls lost their lives, after he lured them into an ambush initiated by the Penguiads. She had only heard about it from Enrique, who was the only one that escaped. Their rival gang had assaulted them somewhere around the central plaza of the metro. Of course the Conductor had been furious and had sent her to track him down and show him what happened to those that betrayed him.
The traitorous owl scrambled to the door to the front of the train, tripping and slamming the door behind him, while Hattie slowly approached. The owl leaned against the door, panting heavily, until he heard three loud knocks on the door.
“Knock knock!” Suddenly the door simply swung open, crushing Oscar behind the door and the wall. “Well, I warned you, you should have moved.” The inhumane strength of girl sent shivers across the commuters, who only watched as the girl grabbed the now unconscious owl by the collar and dragged him to the door. As the vehicle stopped, she could see birds in uniforms on the other side. Most of the police force of the metro were pretty much blackmailed or bribed into cooperation, however one particular new corps was giving them trouble lately, and to her dismay, those officers belonged to that corps.
“Peck!” She cursed, as she quickly moved to the door on the other side and pressed the button on that door three times quickly. What were those idiots doing her at this hour? Good thing that the owls, who operated these trains were on the same pay roll as her, and that this signal was well known by the gang. Normally these doors wouldn't open, as the station platform was on the other side, but the operators knew that the code meant that there was trouble, and that a gang member needed to escape through the unused door.
The door leading away form the station opened just a few seconds before the other, allowing her to slide herself and the incapacitated bird into the narrow space between the wall and the vehicle. She bent down a bit and grabbed the bird by the collar of his jacket, shoving him forward in a mostly upright position, as the gap was only around half a meter(1,5 feet) wide. She had to get away from the station and down the hatch into the sewer tunnels. Good thing that that was where she needed to go to get rid of the owl anyway.
She carefully peeked around the corner toward the station, making sure that the annoying officers wouldn't spot her. After making sure that they hadn't seen her, she hid in the tunnel and walked further in, until she found another entrance to the sewer system. She literally dropped Oscar down the manhole after removing the cover, his limb body hitting the ground with a loud thud. A few broken bones wouldn't matter, soon he would meet an even grimmer fate. She was repulsed by what she had to do next, for a moment she wondered if she was supposed to hear him out, but decided that would, A; be a lot of effort, and B; Make it worse for him. Oscar had been in the gang for at least two years, he had always been quite unstable and she figured that it would only be a matter of time until he would inevitably crack under the pressure.
She put on the gloves that she had grabbed in their headquarters earlier, she hated wearing them, they numbed the feeling in her fingers too much, then she brandished the knife hidden in an extra big inner pocket in her jacket.
In her mind this had all been a lot easier, all she had to do was plunge the blade into his chest, remove it, and clean it with his clothes and then throw it away into the sewers or something. As long as no one could link it back to her, it would be fine. She knew that she had to do something like this eventually, but this was truly difficult. She turned and pointed the sharp object at different parts of his body, trying to find the right angle in futility. The girl let out a big sigh, lowering her knife. When she looked back at the owl, she noticed that he was beginning to stir. She turned to him, weapon raised.
“Where am-” He couldn't even finish his sentence before Hattie interrupted him.
“Why?! Why did you lead them into a trap, Oscar?!” The owl tried to move, but only winced in pain, after realizing that his spine hurt horribly. Hattie tightened her grip on the knife, pointing it at him, “Answer me!”
Seeing the knife the owl's eyes widened in fear.
“I-I didn't want to do it! They forced me into cooperating, t-they said they'd break all my bones if I didn't comply!”
“Lies! They'd have killed you on the spot, if you resisted! They bribed you, didn't they?!” The owl tried to get up again, bur only seemed to cause himself more pain that way.
“No, of course not I would never-” She pointed the blade directly at his throat, a mere five centimeters(2 inches) away.
“Why did they die, then?! You led them to their doom, Oscar!-” She blinked away a few tears, “-I know what happened!”
“They had to die so that I could live, okay! I would be out of this hell hole already if I could, and they offered me all that I needed to make my dream a reality!-” She couldn't believe her ears, so he had killed them just so that he could live, how cowardly. “-This is a cut-throat world, Hattie, sooner or later y-.” His words turned into unintelligible gurgling noises, Hattie had her eyes squinted shut, she had plunged the blade right into his throat. She took off the bloodied gloves and tossed them away into the water, not turning around to see her former comrade slowly go still.
She had done it, however she felt miserable. Now a cold chill overcame her and the world grew strangely distant, like she didn't register anything anymore, the world had become eerily silent, even though another loud train passed by on the surface. She climbed the ladder and came out at a back alley. Hattie apathetically made her way through the streets, as if she were on auto-pilot.
The distraught girl slowly pushed the door of the central station building open, on the inside and outside a normal building where passengers could wait for their train and buy tickets. It had a couple of extra floors up as well as down, the ones to the underground were hidden behind a panel in the back labeled maintenance, she, however pressed the button for the highest floor.
She still felt nothing as the elevator made his way upward, she only stared at the floor, hoping that this disgusting feeling would leave her soon. This was not how she imagined it would feel like, she wasn't feeling happy for avenging her fallen comrades, no great feeling of having delivered justice on those that hurt the family.
The yellow bird lit up his cigar, that he had in the pocket of his suit jacket, before he turned his gaze out the large window. Yet another thing he'd have to worry about, he already had enough on his plate with the Penguiads and that peckin' new special police corps, scrutinizing every thing around the stations closely, making it quite difficult for him to smuggle his wares in, especially that nasty surprise he had for his arch nemesis. He had to split up the pieces and had them shipped on different times to various locations, so even if they searched his shipment they wouldn't find anything.
A sinister smile crossed his beak. The moment this little 'present' was ready and could be deployed, he'd wish he had never crossed him. It would teach that penguin not to mess with him.
His smile vanished again and his expression hardened when he thought about this new threat that quickly became a pain in his backside. That new gang that appeared roughly two years ago was rising to power fast, they were persistently trying to gain control over his stores in the shopping district. So far they were annoying at best, but it was beginning to turn into a problem that had to be dealt with. The Penguiads were the real issue though, he had to deal with them first.
That bloody mess they caused last time was still boiling his blood, he knew that there would always be traitors, but for one of his owl to be so honorless and disloyal was frankly maddening. That small, worthless, brown owl had chosen death and he would oblige by having his wretched existence ended.
Hattie was always reliable, she had always done exactly what he ordered her. His deep frown turned into a small smile. He had raised her like one of his own, he honestly had no idea just how she ended up in a dirty back alley. Whoever left a little infant in a place like that was even worse than him. The people whose lives he had ruined or flat out ended might say differently, but he wasn't heartless.
His head snapped toward the door, and the girl in question entered his office, her head hung low. For a moment he wondered if she had failed, but that assumption was quickly disproven.
She looked at him and could tell from his demeanor that he wanted to know if she had been successful. “I...I killed the traitor.” The owl nodded and slowly walked over to the distraught child. He wondered if something was bothering her, the last time he had seen her like this is when she got informed of what happened to the owls that were with the dirty, little son of a peck neck.
“Good job, lassie, I knew that ye could do it.” She looked up at him, and he noticed that she had been crying, her eyes were red and puffy. If it would have been anyone else he would have yelled at them for showing such weakness, and to get over it, this line of work wasn't for crying hatchlings. The girl wasn't like them though, he knew that that the little lass had potential.
“Does it always feel so...horrible, when you have to kill someone, I mean?” She wiped her eyes waiting for an answer from. He placed a wing on her shoulder, that seemed to calm her down somewhat.
“This has been your first kill, hasn't it?-” His expression softened, “-I know that it's hard, lassie, and I know that it may sound cruel...-” He hesitated, “-But you'll grow numb to it eventually. Just remember that you do all that you do for the family, and that I appreciate your efforts.” She gave him a tired but genuine smile.
“Yeah, I did it for the family. I will protect all of us.-” She looked down at the ground, “-Do you think the owls that Oscar killed are happy now that I avenged them?”
He had forgotten for a moment that she was still a child, she normally acted so mature that he honestly forgot that fact sometimes. He didn't have the heart to tell her that they were dead, and that was all there was to it. He had sent her out to punish a despicable, filthy turn coat, nothing more nothing less. With time she would learn that lesson herself.
“Aye, I'm sure that they can rest easy now, knowing that ye got rid of that scumbag fer 'em.” He froze stiff and his feathers rose, Hattie had taken the opportunity to hug him. She was aware that he hated it, but was exceedingly happy that he decided to hug her back.
“Thank you, gramps!” A jolt ran through him, she knew it would fluster him.
“I ain't yer grandpa, lassie!” She let go off him, and smirked mischievously before turning around to go back to her room.
“To me you are!” He got up and watched her leave, shacking his head at her antics.
“That wee rascal.”He mumbled softly under his breath, good thing that she couldn't see that her words had actually cheered him up a bit.