Bethany- no, no. Julia. Julia sits in her ragged orange tent she stole from her Father that random man she continues to give weekly beatings. A series of silvery spheres lay hap hazardously around the tent as Julia just.. stares at them. Her thoughts racing and sluggish like mayonnaise in the same moment. A broken pair of her someone's random glasses lay in the corner of the tent.

The tent itself lays in a small clearing she had found the raccoons in. It was by a small stream, and nice enough that she had though to settle here for a few days.

Mechakoloss was getting a feel for her costume, the heavy wig and the chain belt felt cumbersome but not restrictive. Certainly something she'd have to get used to. It hadn't stopped her from hiking through the woods in near ninety degree heat. Though she was wishing she'd brought a second canteen as the first neared the quarter full mark. The area was technically her property, so she wasn't worried about running into anyone.

Though of course she should have been. Spotting the splash of neon orange through the trees. Her lenses glinting as she watched it. There wasn't much sound other than the creek flowing nearby.

[Threat assessment. Inconclusive.]

"Yes, thank you B.E.A.R." Mechakoloss thought to the neutral voice that had spoken into her head. Slowly she would approach, not trying to be stealthy. Wouldn't do to catch a bullet from some hopped up squatter if she didn't have to. When she was close enough she'd clear her throat and call out.

"Excuse me. You're trespassing on private property."

The tent flaps open as Julia's head pokes out and glances out at Mechakoloss, and blanches for a moment, unsure. "I'm sorry?"

If Mechakoloss had been looking at the news in the past weeks she'd probably recognize Julia (Bethany's) face as a local parahuman who had been commanding a missing policeman to assault other policemen.

Mechakoloss would adjust her posture. Trying not to appear threatening, hands in her pockets, shoulders relaxed. Not meaning this stressed out young woman any harm.

[Trespasser identified as wanted criminal. Human master. Kidnapping, assault, unlawful use of Parahuman ability. Threat Assessment. Highly dangerous.]

The woman's eyes would go wide behind her round, bear like mask. But she did her best to keep the sudden shock of fear out of her body language.

"No need to be sorry, the woman who owns the property spotted you and wanted to make sure you weren't going to cause any trouble. May I ask why you're here?"

Her eyes dart back and forth, and she looks back at Mechakoloss. "I'm- I'm sorry. I'll pack up and go." She zips up the tent closed and seems to shuffle around inside it doing something.

[Recommended course of action. Summon the Himalaya and apprehend the fugitive.]

'B.E.A.R she's scared. I don't want to just attack her out of the blue. Besides, we're so close to the house that it might risk giving away our position. We handle this one gently, okay?'

There was a short pause then a quiet, [Understood]. Though back in the base systems were warming up, just in case.

"You don't have to run, young lady. Are you alright in there? I've got some water on me if you need it."

Julia would zip open the tent and gingerly step out, a purse at her side clearly filled with several things, bulky. "N- no I'm fine sorry. I can drink from the river." She glances down at the tent, and begins to try to pack it away, but it was clearly put up poorly, making the endeavor difficult.

"That doesn't sound very healthy. There's a water pump not too far that should be cleaner."

Mechakoloss would carefully approach, ready to stop if she needed to. B.E.A.R. constantly calibrating and recalibrating her position as she moved.

"Do you want any help with that?"

Julia spots Mechakoloss approaching and her eyes go wide as she backs away, her posture very wary. Her hand shakes a little. "No- no I'm fine this. No thank you. I- I deserve this."

Mechakoloss would stop and withdraw her hands from her pockets slowly. Putting the palms out so the girl could see that she wasn't carrying anything. Not that it mattered when she was clearly a cape but it.. was a symbolic gesture?

[Pilot, elevated heartbeat detected. Possible confrontation likely. Permission to deploy-] 'No B.E.A.R. We're not fighting her right now. She's terrified!'

"You... Deserve this? Why?"

She flinches, "Uh.. n-nevermind. You can keep the tent." She tugs the strap of her purse tighter and begins to back away, still facing Mechakoloss.

She would stop and step back a few paces.

"No no, it's okay. I'm not going to take your tent. I really don't want it." "This isn't a holdup. You're perfectly safe here."

[This is incorrect.] 'Well technically, but we don't want to hurt her.'

Julia Bethany stays where she is, glancing between Mechakoloss and the partially collapsed tent. She just stays that way, looking silently between them. Thoughts visibly race through her head, a million different things to say, before settling on. "I- I'm sorry I didn't know this area was. I didn't know someone owned it. I- I know I'm dangerous, I'll leave it." Her voice quivers.

Mechakoloss would just chuckle quietly under her mask.

"Anyone can be dangerous kid. But I'm not getting the feeling you want to prove me right. At least not right now. How about this. You tell me where that cop is, let me get them home, and I'll help you hide your camp and tell the property owner you cleared out."

Her eyes snap to Mechakoloss, panic building. "Y-you know. I can't. She wouldn't let me. She won't let me." Her posture becomes defensive. "I- I need to get away from the city. Far away so she- no, so I can't hurt people."

"I was not aware that it was an impossibility. This person that you're worried about preventing you from returning them. If you tell me who it is I might be able to protect you from them..."

Mechakoloss offered, though she could see that panic building. They were going to bolt if she kept pushing but... They looked absolutely haggard. Like she hadn't had a proper meal or a good night's sleep in weeks. She had to at least extend a hand, or she'd regret it for ages.

Her lips quiver as tears build in her eyes. "No- no you don't get it. She's me. Whatever I turn into. I- I'm afraid if I try she's going to try to hurt you."

Bethany zips open her bag and several baseball-sized silvery spheres fall out, clattering to the ground. "These are.. them. Killing them releases them, or she can let them go. I'm.. I'm not sure what I make is them, it feels almost like I'm making something that looks and talks like them, but the real them is still stuck in the ball."

"You don't have to be scared for me of all people. I might not look it but I can be pretty damn scrappy when I want to be. If you, or her, try to hurt me then we just keep you at a distance."

"Are the people and animals in the balls.. are they whole? Would releasing them cause them harm?"

"Just unconscious. I think they may have broken bones but it's not life-threatening." Bethany says carefully. "It's.. just animals, an oven, and the policeman and.. my father. And the policeman's dog."

Mechakoloss would look to the metal spheres and her hands hooked into the chain at her belt using her thumbs. Multiple people, at least two of them. That was going to be an issue.

"Just the policeman for now, okay? I imagine you have a good reason your father is in one of those things... And the animals I don't mind you keeping to make sure you're safe."

"Roll them over here?"

"She.. whenever he heals she takes him- or, uh, his minion self, and she has the other minions beat him until he's unconscious. My father, that is."

She squats down and picks up a silvery sphere that looks exactly the same as the others. "This is the officer, uhm, I'll roll him over now." As you see she begins to try to roll it over, it's almost like a switch flipping, something in her microexpressions showing that.. it's no longer Bethany on the wheel. Her grip tightens on the sphere. "No. I won't be doing that."

Bethany Julia glances at Mechakoloss, her expression confident, a smirk crossing her face. "I guess you'll just have to take Officer Harold from me."

The woman let out a slow sigh and took a couple of steps back. Though it seemed more as a way to ready herself than to run.

"B.E.A.R, were getting this girl's help. Bring me the mountain."

[Affirmative Pilot, ETA 45 seconds.]

"Are you sure that you want to risk this? I doubt you know who I am, and I know what you're capable of. This isn't a match you can win in your current state."

Julia sets the ball holding Officer Howard on her hip, where it somehow stays attaches as she holds out a hand, one of the silvery balls on the ground zipping to her hand on its own, before she rears back and throws it, landing in front of Meechakoloss, before unfolding into... a Raccoon. The Raccoon looks up at her, then back at Julia. Julia points to Mechakoloss and says, "Bite!"

The raccoon turns back to Mechakoloss and lunges for her with an open mouth, aiming to bite her.

The woman in the bear mask would grit her teeth, raising one arm to block the bite. Feeling the pressure on the sleeve of her thick leather jacket but not much more. Road leathers were designed to survive a highway going sixty, a trash panda was going to have some difficulties getting through it.

"You really don't have to do this."

[The mountain is imminent, stand by for drop.]

The air above the small clearing crackled, like static was building. A sudden gust of air sweeping the branches of the trees in a mini gale. A shadow formed above the woman, like a rip to the atmosphere opening, through it fell a massive twenty foot metal machine. It looked like a mix between a humanoid and a bear. Shaking the ground heavily as it landed and letting out an earsplitting electronic roar as it moved to crouch over the pilot.

"Last chance to stand down." Mechakoloss warned the kid, hugging the squirming racoon to her jacket so it couldn't be recalled.

Julia stumbles back, staring mouth agape at the mech, before gritting her teeth and staring back at Mechakoloss, she shouts to the Raccoon, "Keep going! don't let go!." She glares at Mechakoloss hatefully. "You won't be stealing what's mine."

The raccoon continues to fervently bite into her sleeve, not making any progress but keeping latched on with all its might.

The woman would respond to the struggling animal by shrugging her shoulder out of her other sleeve, then using the jacket like a blanket to wrap it up. Once the racoon was little more than a struggling ball of fur in a leather jacket she'd step back onto the hand of the waiting Himalaya mech. It lifted her with ease, and deposited the Pilot into the open cockpit.

Once inside Mechakoloss would stuff the squirming beast into a storage compartment and lock it, she'd deal with that later. For now she activated the exterior speakers and buttoned up the mech.

"Well I just took one of your pets. Didn't really want to do that. Now just stand still okay?"

The mech would stride forward and take a swipe with its hand the size of a public mailbox. Meaning to grab the girl and pin her arms to her sides.

Julia seems almost comically stunned as she awkwardly tries to dodge back to no avail, the mech easily catches her in its grip and pins her arms to the side in the same swoop. She begins to struggle in its grip to no clear avail, the mech likely easily overpowering the struggles of the young girl. "Let me go!"

The Raccoon in the compartment, heedless of other commands, continues to maul Meechakoloss' jacket. When she retrieves it it is going to be mangled to hell and back.

She really liked that jacket. Oh the things she sacrificed to do good.

"I'm going to let you go right to the authorities." [Shall I inform the police you have apprehended a wanted suspect?] "Go ahead, but we're going to start walking to meet them. I don't want them bothering miss Nesti about the intruder." [Understood Pilot.]

A phone call is made to the police as the Himalaya begins to tromp heavily through the woods. Doing its best not to do too much damage to the forest but inevitably leaving behind a trail of snapped branches and torn up earth. Once she made it out onto the road though, things became much smoother. All the while Mechakoloss' other hand shielded the girl from the whipping foliage as the first held her in an almost literal iron grip. Tight, but not painful or restricting her breath.

"I'm sorry we couldn't talk this out. I feel kind of bad about this one."

Julia squirms in the mech's grip futilely, giving a vicious glare to the mech. "Fuck you. I bet you get your kicks out of this, huh? Capturing me like this?"

"No, it doesn't. Is that something you've had to deal with in the past?" The distorted electronic voice would ask as they moved to settle into a crouch at a crosswalk. Phoenix opening the cockpit soon after so she could converse more directly with the captured... villain felt wrong to say, even if it fit.

"I was being honest when I said I'd leave you be if you gave me the officer." "But then you sicced your pet on me and I don't appreciate that, not remotely."

"Now we're going to wait for the police, if you don't want to tell me about what happened I'll see about getting my sodoku on. I've got a half finished one in here somewhere I think."

Julia's silent for a bit, and looks up at mecha, sneering. "She was going to give him to you too.". "Pathetic" She spits. "She shouldn't be giving away what's mine, any more than your friend would give away your robot."

She glares up at Meechakoloss. "I hope you rot in hell."

"She was going to do the right thing, which gives me faith in your recovery. People aren't property, and it's quite illegal to kidnap them in general... So I'm feeling pretty confident I'm making the right call here."

"And what will they do to me in there, keep me locked up for years, experiment on me, then send me to rot in a cell forever because human masters are reviled."

"You don't have much faith in the system do you?" The woman asked as she settled herself sideways in her seat. Getting a better look at the girl and frowning.

"I imagine if your dad is locked up in one of these orbs and you keep having his ass beat he couldn't have been all that great to you. Which... sadly isn't a story I'm unfamiliar with. Most of the time the best way to fix the situation is to get the child out of that environment. But the important part is moving them to a safer one."

"I'm sure once you realize that no one is out to get you. And you stop attacking and kidnapping people... Then you'll be fine. Heck, I'll come and visit. Make sure that there's no twisted mad science going on and whatnot."

"You're a tinker, right? Who's to say you won't be the one doing it yourself?" She sneers at you. "That pig is not my father. Never call him that.". She smirks. "In fact, let's put him out of his misery."

The ball she had managed to secretly snag from Mecha's grasp with her telekinetic pull sails away from Mecha with only the smallest hint of a throw, heading exactly where Julia was aiming for, somehow, despite being in the opposite direction she'd gestured in. To the side of Mecha as she was walking, an older man in his late 50s, heavyset in a wifebeater and sports shorts and sandals appears, looking confused. Julia's grin widens as she shouts to the man, clearly her father, "Kill yourself!"

"Shit! B.E.A.R! Grab him!" The machine's other hand would lunge forward, trying to pin the man down and restrain him. Mechakoloss simultaneously leaping forward to shove her hand in his mouth. She waited for the bite to come and tensed her hand into as much of a fist as she could. Fighting to make sure he couldn't swallow his tongue or try and bite it out while the metal digits pinned his arms.

B.E.A.R and Mecha manage to get him just in time. You can feel he bites down hard on your first, as hard as he can, struggling desperately against the grip as he attempts as hard as he can to follow Julia's command.

Julia just cackles as he struggles and Mechakoloss has her fist shoved in his mouth, laughing for all she's worth.

"Frick, frick frick!!!" Mechakoloss strained as she felt the skin on her hand split and the pressure build. As the man tried to bite through her hand Mecha's other was reaching around, scrabbling at her pockets and trying to find something she desperately hoped wasn't in her coat. Thankfully she was able to pull out a leather wallet and began to try and pry the man's mouth open with both of her hands. Once she had it open enough she'd forcefully shove the wallet into his mouth, hoping it was bulky enough to keep him from swallowing his tongue.

It is- just barely as you see him bite down, but then he begins to try to spit the wallet out. Julia cackles in the background. "Fucking DO IT old man. DO IT you fucking pig. End yourself. Kill yourself like you never had the confidence to do on your own!"

Adrenaline pumping through her body and her heart racing from the pain and surprise of the sudden escalation, Mechakoloss would ball up her bleeding fist and smash it into the man's temple while her good hand kept the wallet in his mouth. Brain damage wasn't the best course of action but she had to knock him out before he managed something she wasn't expecting. She punched him, again and again, as he struggled in the Himalaya's grip. "Stop it! Just stop!"

Her fist smashes into his head, silvery blood splattering as she smashes her fist into his head, again and again and again, until he finally falls unconscious, his face a broken mess of silvery blood weeping down, trickling across the mech's hand that holds him.

All the while Julia is laughing, watching with sadistic pleasure in her eyes as she watches Mechakoloss' pain. "Now you know a fraction of what he did to me. Of what he forced me to do. Fucking pathetic." She spits, landing a glob on him.

Would flick silver and crimson blood off her fist and grimace as she looked to the kid. "This isn't even him is it?"

She just shrugs. "I don't know for sure." coming off a chuckle. She looks into Mechakoloss' eyes, a smirk on her face. Then she glances back at her father, and with the small range of motion on her hand, she gestures it outwards, and he collapses into the small silvery ball, flying back into her grasp, but not before she quickly sends it flying again, the ball sailing off into the woods a good maybe 500 feet away. "You'd better fetch though, or he'll never see the light of day!" She cackles

"Better idea..." Mechakoloss muttered as she grabbed the bag of orbs that were still in the cockpit and made sure it was zipped up before stuffing it into the same compartment as the tangled raccoon.* "I'll go pick him up when you've been taken into custody."

Julia just smirks, and manages to snap her fingers. "Release. There he is, I've let him go, and he'll be stuck here in these woods, unconscious. 5 bucks says that ball ended up in a dangerous place like up in a tree, or in a river or creek, face down in the water if you don't get him reeeaaaal quick. Let me go and I'll get a little birdie to point you exactly in his direction."

"If you wanted to be more convincing you could have tried to make a specific hand gesture or something instead of just snapping your fingers."

Mechakoloss sounded frustrated, but seemed more focused on stopping her hand from bleeding then arguing with a child.

"The river is back the way we came. Besides, I'm sure you'd rather let him rot inside one of those spheres with the chance of maybe one day coming back to extend your revenge against the bastard than to actually let him go."

With this being her property, Mechakoloss was nearly certain that the worst thing in that direction was probably just some juniper bushes.

She shrugs in your grasp. "You got me. I didn't release him. However, I know we need to pass by the road to get to the station. If you don't let me go I'll throw his ball in the street and release him then."

Mechakoloss would frown beneath her mask, the arm that held Julia shifting to lift her and hold her straight out. With a surprising ease, the tinker would climb up and begin to walk down the machine's forearm. Silently she would crouch near its wrist and give her an appraising look through the dark lenses of her mask.

"You really don't want to do that. Or well... I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to, but you shouldn't. You don't want to prove them right about masters. You don't want to be locked away knowing that he stole away your entire life by being a useless piece of shit and just dying."

"Killing him isn't worth ruining your life."

She glares at Mechakoloss. "And? It won't be me. I bet they're going to take me to therapy, and I know I'm more than just me- that Bethany is the real one down there, and she hates what I do. But I don't care because I'll be dead, and it'll be just Bethany. I don't want to die. I don't want them to do that to me. To leave behind that disgusting weakling instead of me. So I'll do everything I can and more to escape"

"And if you can't escape?"

She asked simply. Her tone serious.

"Then I'm dead." She says, simply. "Dead, and Bethany is left in my place."

"Im sorry to hear that. But she deserves a chance to live her life without you throwing her in prison. I will do my best to keep you both out of too much trouble. But I'm just some random lady wandering the woods with a giant robot. But maybe that's enough."

She wouldn't have much more to say for the rest of the trip, glum in quiet contemplation

The trip wasn't much longer before Mechakoloss crossed paths with the officers that she had called. Filling them in about the dangers of the spheres and what the young woman was capable of with them. That it was best to keep her cuffed if at all possible. Then made sure that they had her secure inside the van before she gave the girl one last parting comment.

"Im not too hard to find. If you want to talk again I've given a number to one of the officers. And I'll give it to you now." She took a moment to rattle off the number then, with a nod stepped back.

"Stay out of trouble, okay?"

Julia doesn't say a word as she's brought into custody, she just stares at you. Hatefully. Maybe something else? It's hard to tell. When you tell her to stay out of trouble she just turns away, not bothering to say one more word.