Rachel Lindt, also known as Bitch by her allies and Hellhound by her enemies, is a member of the Undersiders.
Appearance
Rachel has a squarish, blunt-featured face with thick eyebrows, auburn hair, and a muscular build being naturally inclined to fitness, with constant activity needed to force around her dogs when they are grown to monstrous size. She wears heavy jackets with thick fur collars and/or hoods, heavy boots, and a dollar store Rottweiler mask. Taylor was of the opinion that Rachel was rather butch. Later, she began to wear a mask Skitter made for her that resembled one of her enhanced dogs, Brutus.
In the years since she relocated to Earth Gimel she has put on more muscle mass, height, a tan, toughened feet, and had let her hair grow out longer.
During Golden Morning, she was wearing a black jacket, tank top and pants, with a white fur ruff on her hood.[2]
Personality
Rachel's personality is obfuscated by several factors. One is her lack of education that has left her largely illiterate and forced her to adapt to the world in other ways, such as developing a talent for memorization.[3] Another is her relationship with her dogs. Possibly as a consequence of having triggered at a young age,[4] her already weak social skills and empathy were overridden refocusing on her power's target: Canines.
As such the baring of teeth and direct eye contact commonly used in normal human interaction seemed threatening to her.[5] While frequently and erroneously labeled a sociopath due to this adaptation, Rachel has gained an unparalleled grasp of dog handling for her age. She can easily distinguish individual dogs of the same breed.[6] Rachel continues to struggle to communicate with others but makes an effort nevertheless. She does feel guilt and more for her failed interactions and those she accidentally killed when she first triggered.[7]
Another large factor is the fact that she never learned how to interact with people. Rachel grew up in an apartment where her mother was almost never around and was labelled as a 'borderline feral child,' by child protective agencies. She went through three foster homes, including one where she was 'given a lesson on violence of every kind.' In the last foster home, the mother was a strict disciplinarian who punished her for the smallest things. Every punishment made Rachel fight back even more.[8]
She approaches many of her relationships as a struggle for dominance, though she holds on to her relationships with those who she actually trusts with every fiber of her being. The personality she presents as Rachel and as Bitch are almost indistinguishable. This likely stems from her homeless years where her identity was known to the public and was actively hunted by Protectorate teams.
Rachel was heterosexual,[9] and, as an adult, was in a casual sexual relationship with Biter. She was happy that he didn't "make it more than it should be".[10]
Relationships
Taylor Hebert
Rachel tried to hurt Taylor in her first meeting in an attempt to keep an "outsider" from joining her group. Rachel gained respect for Taylor after she retaliated for this assault.
Following the Undersiders falling out with their employer, and proving that Skitter had not actually betrayed her, for what Rachel thought was the second time, she held Taylors hand was they went to the hospital to check their injuries.She likely referenced Taylor when she said that she could stand one or two of the Undersiders.[11]
A notable shift in their relationship occurs when Taylor starts referring to Bitch as Rachel in her inner monologue.
They ended worm as close friends. With Bitch having a private memorial to her on earth gimel.[10]
Lisa Wilbourn
Though Lisa can get along with Rachel it is Taylor that makes the connection that rachels power has changed her mind into focusing on dogs.
Brian Laborn
Rachel respected Brian as the leader, and Grue as leader of the Undersiders. but she did not have much connection with him simply following his orders
Abilities and Powers
Illustration by sandara on deviantart
Rachel has the ability to empower dogs to vastly increased size - in the order of three thousand or more pounds - enhanced strength, durability, agility, and an asymmetrical covering of bony plates, spikes, exposed muscles, and calcified flesh.[1] Her power has affected her ability to socialize with humans, having hardwired it to better understand canines. She was capable of using her power at range, and on multiple dogs at once.[5]
Rachel cannot, however, automatically control the dogs that she empowers. She has gotten around this drawback by training her dogs to respond to whistles and specific commands. She has also shown some skill with her power, as she participated in more fights her dogs steadily gained more durability, to the point of being able to take lightning bolts from Behemoth.[12] Though able to create additional mass from seemingly no where the animals Rachel empowers are still bound by conventional physics.[13] Any strength a canine gains from her empowerment is given a disproportionate amount of mass which can end up restricting their movements. As such Rachel needs to be careful how much additional mass she feeds to dogs as they lose agility and other benefits the larger they get.[10]
Her power also affects other canines, such as wolves. In fact, her power seems to work far more effectively on wolves than domestic dogs; the transformations of her wolf were sleeker, stronger, more symmetrical, caused less strain to herself and the wolf even when she worked the transformation faster. It is not shown how her power would affect other canines, like coyotes or dingoes. The downside of that, however, is that the wild canines take far more effort to train, not having been domesticated over generations. Rachel kept Bastard, her wolf, with her constantly for the first few years, and even then the training might not have been effective if she hadn't raised it from a puppy.
Using her power tires Rachel out, and the faster she uses it, the faster she tires.[14] Therefore, she prefers having time to slowly increase her dogs' sizes, rather than having to rush the job. The size increase does not last forever, and when her dogs decrease in size again they shed the extra muscle and bone like an outer coat, meaning the dogs have to be extracted from the mound of flesh. She feels her power as an internal vibration radiating outward, reverberating off her dogs.[5]
Her ability also has a restorative effect on it's subject, while it cannot correct old injuries that have already healed. It can deal with cancers, parasites, poisons and other damage and disease, it's use generally increases the overall health of the subject, and will usually heal any damage the dogs take when they are in monstrous form.[15]
At the beginning of Worm, Bitch has three dogs that are trained to obey her while under the effects of her power: Brutus, Judas and Angelica. This number increased exponentially as she gained the resources to rescue, care and train more dogs.
History
Background
Rachel lived with her mother, who was gone so often that Rachel stole money to get food. When all the food was gone and her mother wasn't around, Rachel tried to make rice (she was small enough that she needed to stand on a chair to reach the stove). She tipped the pot and burned herself, screaming so loudly that the neighbors called 911. Child protective agencies labelled Rachel as a borderline feral child. Rachel was sent to three foster homes. In the first, the parents were kind, but didn't know how to deal with her. Her foster sister stole or broke everything. Rachel didn't know how to respond, and so used violence. In the second home, she was got 'An education in violence of every kind.' She was there for three years. In the third home, she had only a mother, who would punish her five foster children for every tiny mistake. Holding a fork wrong would result in dinner being taken away. Rachel, begin stubborn, would rebel even more when punished. Rachel was sent to school, with after-school classes and piano, too. She was not suited to the environment, had never learned how to deal with it, or with people in general. One day, she found a stray puppy she named Rollo. Over time, she gained his trust with scraps of food. She took him home in secret, and tied him to a tree in the backyard. Lunch money went to food for Rollo and dinner went down the drain, for not being perfect. On top of that, Rachel got up at four in the morning to play with Rollo. As a result, she could never focus in school. The dog wasn't happy begin tied up most of the time, and eventually, Rachel tried to take it for a walk. Rollo got free. He fell into the pool. Rachel couldn't swim, and the dog was too scared to let her get close enough to help him get out from the side of the pool. The foster mother, now awake, closed the pool cover over Rollo. That was when Rachel triggered. [16]
When she was fourteen, her abusive stepmother tried to drown a puppy Rachel had found to punish her and she triggered.[5] The puppy wasn't actually a dog.[17] The empowered puppy then killed her stepmother, maimed her foster siblings and destroyed the house.[4][18]
Rather than go to a parahuman detention center and be institutionalized, Rachel ran. Not knowing how to read, interact with people, or having any other skills, she survived by resorting to crime and being the meanest thing around to protect herself and her new family. She survived on her own as a homeless person despite pursuit by the authorities for close to two years.[4][19]
Quickly gaining a reputation as a super-villain she was christened Hellhound by the media, though she preferred Bitch. she eventually came to rest in Brockton Bay and volunteered at near by animal shelters to get the chance to work with dogs.[15] Rachel was eventually approached by a proxy for a Backer that said if they joined a team they were setting up she would be provided with protection for herself and her dogs.[11] Joining the Undersiders, Rachel worked with them for a few months engaging in robberies and similar crimes. Rachel would later chase off Spitfire, and try to keep the Undersiders from expanding.[20]
Story Start
She would fail to do this effectively when they recruited Taylor. She tried to size her up as her own test for the new member.
Participated in numerous activities of the undersiders. Including the Battle at the Bank, but she did not join in later socialization activities that her teammates did to celebrate, partially because of her identity see being known to the public. She decided to go and check on the money to see if it was there and she was ambushed by Uber and Leet under contract from Bakuda. After her teammates escaped Grue came back for Rachel, finding her with her arms chained to the ceiling having been used as a punching bag by the ABB.[21]
She later carried out a raid singled handidly with Brutus against a Dog fighting ring controled by the E88, specifically Hookwolf. Afterwards she was with the undersiders when they went to the truce meeting discussing what to do with the ABB. There Hookwolf brought up the issue of her raiding his dog fighting ring. The matter was concsidered shelved until after the battle with E88. Grue and Tattletale later had a heated discussion with her over the virtues of team communication.
Was with Skitter when they headed out with elements of the E88, Travalers and Faultline’s Crew to deal with a major ABB drug operation.
Participated in the Battle at the Gallery, and had confidence in Skitter being able to get the undersiders out. Meeting the Undersiders backer in person afterward the promises that originally got her on the team were reiterated with the aditional caveat that her efforts to provide shelter for all of the dogs would be expanded upon with hires and similar.[22]
When the Endbringer came to Brockton Bay Rachel initially did not participate. Towards the end she came to Skitters rescue, sacrificing many of her cherished companions to do so.
Post-Leviathan
Rachel allowed Taylor to rejoin the Undersiders despite her betrayal of the group. Later, during the assault on the PRT Headquarters to steal information, Bitch intentionally sabotaged Skitter in hopes of getting her arrested. She failed and after a confrontation allowed skitter back into the group.
Post-Slaughterhouse Nine
Rachel and her group, were attacked by one of the Dragon suits.
Post-Echidna
Rachel had her newest minion send a letter to Weaver, she expresses thanks for all that taylor did for her while saying that while she did not know when she will she her again they should both try to remain alive until they can see each other again.
New Delhi
Meeting Weaver for the first time in Largely part of search and rescue efforts she was
Rachel uses her dogs to carry one end of a chain imbued by Foil's power, cutting through Behemoth's lower leg. She goes back for a second run, only making partway through the leg before the power runs out.
Post-Timeskip
She spent much of her time in the unoccupied earth before coming to see Taylor on her birthday. She would later assist in the collective action against the Slaughterhouse 9000.
Golden Morning
Bitch assisted during the conflict of the Golden Morning; Scion severely injured several of her dogs. Bastard was severely mutated when the heroes tried to save him using a Lab Rat formula while he was under the effects of her power.
Quotes
- "Words" ~ Rachel in response to most platitudes
- "Everyone likes the manipulative assholes after they’ve had a chance to do their manipulating." ~ Rachel to Satyrical
Trivia
- There are inconsistent sources on the age Rachel was when she triggered, twelve or fourteen. It should be pointed out that Rachel herself did not really keep track of her age.
- Had the protectorate successfully captured Rachel following her trigger event she would have been given therapy and placed into the wards. Like Flechette, as an orphan Rachel would have been able to be passed around departments that needed help to handle crises, like when the ABB started their insurgency.[23] She may have been saddled with a cape name 'Canis Major' or 'Kennel Kid'[24]
- the character who would be Rachel first appeared in Circus and the Elite, in this conception she was not part of the Undersiders, who were conceptualized.[25]
Fanart Gallery
.JPG "Bitch-Solo (from Undersiders Fanart by drunkfu).JPG (32 KB)")
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Wildbow's Parahuman List
- ↑ Venom 29.3
- ↑ “Biting people is more satisfying,” Rachel responded.
“No, look… uh… Tecton. You gotta give me something really smart and scientific sounding. Like, say what Taylor said, but in smart-guy words.”
“Critical mistake here: you’re implying Tecton is smart,” Romp said.
Tecton sat up straighter. “Hey. Just because I’m not your team leader anymore-”
“-You’re totally not the one who gets to order me around,” Romp replied. “Deal with it.”
[...]
“Maybe if I come with?” Tecton offered. “I’ll distract whoever Dr. baby-talk is, and you can talk to Miss Militia about dosing your dogs.”
“Or you can tell me what you were going to write down and I memorize it,” Rachel said.
A few people in the group exchanged glances.
“Really simple solution,” Rachel said. Except now she was talking to us like we were the idiots.
“I’m not sure I could memorize it,” Tecton confessed.
“The kid that’s running the lap said you weren’t that smart,” Rachel answered. “Try me.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.1 - ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 I searched for Bitch, next. No results. I did another search for her more official title, Hellhound, and got a wealth of information. Rachel Lindt had never made any real attempt to hide her identity. She had apparently been homeless through most of her criminal career, just living on the streets and moving on whenever police or a cape came after her. The sightings and encounters with the homeless girl ended around a year ago – I figured that was when she joined forces with Grue, Tattletale and Regent. The picture in the sidebar was taken from surveillance camera footage – an unmasked, dark haired girl who I wouldn’t have called pretty. She had a squarish, blunt-featured face with thick eyebrows. She was riding atop one of her monstrous ‘dogs’ like a jockey rides a horse, down the middle lane of a street.
According to the wiki entry, her powers manifested when she was fourteen, followed almost immediately by her demolishing the foster home she had been living in, injuring her foster mother and two other foster children in the process. This was followed by a two year series of skirmishes and retreats across Maine as various heroes and teams tried to apprehend her, and she either defeated them or successfully evaded capture. She had no powers that would have made her any stronger or faster than the average Jane, but she was apparently able to turn ordinary dogs into the creatures I had seen on the rooftop. Monsters the size of a car, all muscle, bone, fang and claw. A red box near the bottom of the page read, “Rachel Lindt has a public identity, but is known to be particularly hostile, antisocial and violent. If recognized, do not approach or provoke. Leave the area and notify authorities as to her last known location.” At the very bottom of the page was a list of links that were related to her: two fansites and a news article relating to her early activities. A search of the message boards turned up too many results, leaving me unable to sift through the crap, the arguments, the speculation and the villain worship to find any genuine morsels of information. If nothing else, she was notorious. I sighed and moved on, making a mental note to do more investigation when I had the time. find the official timeline - [Excerpt] from Insinuation 2.2 - ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Interlude 11a
- ↑ Cockroaches 28.6
- ↑ And now the others had forgiven her? So easily? She could see them fawning over the little traitor. And there was nothing she could do about it. They liked Taylor more. They would keep Taylor on the team and make Bitch leave if it came down to it. She knew it in her gut.
So she’d done something stupid. She’d tried to get rid of her teammate, and she’d done it in a way that haunted her. More than anything, more than all of the people she’d hurt, the people she’d accidentally killed, or the days she’d scrounged in the trash for food when she’d been homeless, wandering the cities on her own, she hated herself for what she’d done to Taylor. She had acted like the people who haunted her memories, using what should have been a position of trust to try to hurt someone. - Excerpt from Interlude 11a - ↑ Interlude 11a
- ↑ Bitch is straight. - [1]
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Teneral e.4
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 “You promised me safety, security, so long as I joined this team. I’ve never been less safe, less secure. Everybody lies through their teeth. Maybe there’s a couple of them I can stand anyways, but they’re still liars, they’ve made me a liar, and you’re the worst liar of them all. It’s fitting you wear a snake on your costume.” - Excerpt from Monarch 16.13
- ↑ One dog, a person in its mouth, was struck by a bolt of lightning. It fell, sprawling, then slowly climbed to its feet.--Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
- ↑ The dogs don’t get strength at a fast enough rate to compensate for the square cubed law of mass. Get too big, they can’t support their own weight. Bitch uses her power on Angelica like at one point, pushing Angelica further than normal when Angelica was still wounded from Fog’s attentions, knowing that Angelica can’t move that well anyways. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 22.y
- ↑ Well, it’s mentioned in passing, as they get ready for the bank robbery, that it tires her out to some degree, especially if she does it fast. So there’s a couple of factors. How fast is she pumping them up? How tired or hurt is she? It could be that she could do more, but it wouldn’t last nearly as long, or it would leave her too fatigued to do anything. - Comment by Wildbow on Hive 5.2
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Buzz 7.3
- ↑ Interlude 11a
- ↑ Comment on Reddit
- ↑ “If the courts actually gave her a fair trial, if she had a good lawyer, I think she’d get manslaughter at worst, maybe reckless endangerment. At least for the events that happened then.” Lisa said, her voice pitched low enough that nobody else in the crowd would pick it up, “It happened just after her powers manifested. She didn’t know how to use her abilities, or what to expect of them, so the dog that she had with her grew into the sort of creature you’ve seen the others become, and because it wasn’t trained, because it had been abused, it went out of control. Cue the bloodbath. In the time since then? Maybe. I know she’s seriously hurt a lot of people. But nobody’s died at her hands since we’ve been with her.” - [Excerpt] from Shell 4.1
- ↑ Bitch, Rachel Lindt (Also Hellhound) – Controls the fringes of Brockton Bay, and the yet-to-be-repaired areas. Bitch can empower dogs with vastly increased size (in the order of three thousand or more pounds), enhanced strength, durability and agility and an asymmetrical covering of bony plates and spikes, exposed muscle, and calcified flesh. Aggressive and antisocial, she favors the company of her dogs over people. With no secret identity, the line between Rachel and Bitch is blurry. In either case, she retains holdovers of her early adolescence as a homeless person.
Sixteen, she likes heavy jackets with thick fur collars or hoods, heavy boots and bargain bin clothing. She’s taken to wearing a dog mask made by Skitter, emulating the appearance of one of her enhanced dogs, but has been known to wear dollar store plastic dog masks in the past. - Cast (in depth) - ↑ Insinuation 2.6
- ↑ “I have a hard time believing that, to be honest. You were in pretty rough shape when I found you with Über and Leet’s henchmen, and those guys from the ABB.”
“I’m fine now,” Master tells him. She sounds angry. Brutus steps forward, ready to growl to add own voice to hers, but Master tugs on leash just a little and Brutus stays quiet.
“When I found you, one of them had you tied to the ceiling by your wrists and was using you as a punching bag.” - Excerpt from Interlude 4 - ↑ Coil broke the silence, “Bitch. I am aware of your collection of dogs. More than one isolated building containing strays and dogs due to be euthanized. Animals that you rescued, retrieved and gave shelter.”
[...]
“No. I would not interfere with your business. I respect your passion. But at the same time, I know it likely pains you, that you have only so much time to spare, to visit these locations, to feed these animals you have rescued and give them the individual attention and care they need.” - Excerpt from Tangle 6.8 - ↑ Or, simplifying it, Bitch gets caught earlier on, pre-Undersiders. She gets therapy, her problems are identified and handled, and she winds up on the side of light. A member of the Boston Wards. When the ABB start going nuts in Brockton Bay, she's among the heroes that volunteer to head into town (helped by the fact that she doesn't have guardians nailing her down in one place, as is the case with many Wards).
The Undersiders probably have another heavy hitter - and Trainwreck is one option for Coil to slot into the team. Über (with Leet joining as a matter of course) would be another.
Butterfly effect at work. Dog Shaped Butterfly? - What if 2 - ↑ Assembler
There's a fic [that I'm planning to write] expanding on your idea of Rachel joining the Wards and what that would mean for the Undersiders
[...]
~Wildbow
A Rachel focused fic could be neat.
Assembler
My story would have a Rachel interlude in a later arc, but she wouldn't be the focus of New Olds and Old News
[...]
Assembler
I have no idea what name the Boston Wards would give her, though
Bitch obviously wouldn't make the cut
Druza
Doggymcdogface
Assembler
Hellhound works fine for a villain, but I doubt it would be a name given to a Ward
[...]
~Wildbow
For hero names, Canis Major is one option. Houndmaster? Kennel Kid! She has the catchphrase "Pawsome". - ↑ Fun fact. Parian’s first real adventure was a Circus-centric story where ‘The Elite’, a villainous organized-crime enterprise including The Number Man, ‘Mother’ (Bonesaw), Contessa, Winter and one or two others. First story Bitch appeared in, as a side bit. These guys are taking over the Eastern seaboard with a ‘join or die’ approach and they hit town, forcing the local solo villains & rogues to band together. Not wanting to group too closely together, the local villains form into small groups, and Parian and Circus form a duo. - Comment by Wildbow on Monarch 16.8
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