Rachel Lindt

, known as Bitch by her allies and Hellhound to her enemies, is a member of the Undersiders.

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. Another is her relationship with her dogs. Possibly as a consequence of having triggered at a young age, 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; normal human interaction, comes across threatening to her. While frequently and erroneously labeled a sociopath or even a psychopath due to this adaptation, Rachel also gained an unparalleled grasp of dog handling for her age. She can easily distinguish individual dogs of the same breed. 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. Traits not seen with sociopathy or psychopathy.

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 she 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.' Her last foster home had a strict disciplinarian mother who punished Rachel for the smallest transgression, Rachel escalated her resistance every time she was published. This gave her a skewed perception of what it meant to be in a family.

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. Also, possibly because of her years on the streets, she is able to sleep in stressful environments.

Rachel is heterosexual, and, as an adult, was in a casual sexual relationship with Biter.

Taylor Hebert
Rachel tried to hurt Taylor in her first meeting in an attempt to keep an "outsider" from joining the group. Rachel gained respect for Taylor after she retaliated for this assault. Taylor made an effort to get along with her that Rachel truly appreciated.

Thus she felt deeply betrayed when Taylor's reasons for joining the Undersiders were revealed. She voted against Taylor rejoining the Undersiders and tried to get her captured though she felt regret over this. They eventually repaired their relationship.

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 Taylor's hand as 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.

A notable shift in their relationship occurs when Taylor starts referring to Bitch as Rachel in her inner monologue. Rachel began to trust Taylor explicitly and was shocked at both of her betrayals, not believing them to have happened.

In the end, they were close friends. After Taylor's disappearance after Gold Morning, Bitch constructed a private memorial to her on Earth Gimel.

Lisa Wilbourn
Though Lisa can get along with Rachel, it is Taylor that makes the connection that Rachel's power has fundamentally changed her mindset.

Tattletale acted as an interpreter for Bitch before and after Taylor's time with the Undersiders, and made sure Bitch's group had everything it needed when it moved to Gimel.

Brian Laborn
Rachel respected Brian as a person and as the leader of the Undersiders, but she did not have much connection with him, simply following his orders.

Biter
She was happy that he didn't make their sexual relationship "more than it should be."

Missy Biron
Rachel and Missy struck up a friendship after Gold Morning.

Two years later they continued to be friends.

They understand each other as only good friends can.

Kenzie Martin
Her relationship to Kenzie is a study for how Rachel has matured since her years in Brockton bay. While originally furious that kenzie 'stole' a puppy, she was able to forgive the girl a short time later with only one near death experience participating this change.

Reputation
Was a recognized threat by the authorities. Her habit of attacking dog fighting rings and those who came into her territory made people conclude she was a menace.

This attitude persisted well past Gold Morning, even with the Amnesty.

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 disposable dollar store dog masks that she uses interchangeably with slight modifications. Taylor described her as being rather butch. Later, she began to wear a mask Skitter made for her that resembled one of her enhanced dogs, Brutus, as well as a long coat and shirt. Due to her psychology, she frequently takes on a glowering expression.

In the years since she relocated to Earth Gimel, she put on more muscle mass, height, a tan, toughened feet, and had let her hair grow out longer.

During Gold Morning, she was wearing a black jacket, tank top, and pants, with a white fur ruff added onto her hood.

Abilities and Powers
Rachel's most noticeable ability is to empower dogs to vastly increased size - on the order of three thousand or more pounds - enhanced strength, durability, agility, and an asymmetrical covering of bony plates, spikes, exposed muscles, calcified flesh, and prehensile tails. Her power has affected her ability to socialize with humans, having hardwired it to better understand canines. This wiring may have also given her some resilience to certain Master effects. Bitch herself is rated as a Master, given that she is effectively creating enhanced minions.

Rachel is capable of using her power at range, and on multiple dogs at once. She 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 is quite adept at a variety of whistles that uses to command her dogs. 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. The animals maintain some sensation but are largely resistant to pain. Though able to create additional mass from seemingly nowhere the animals Rachel empowers are still bound by conventional physics. 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.

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. The downside of that, however, is that 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. It is not shown how her power would affect other canines, like coyotes or dingoes.

Rachel feels her power as an internal vibration radiating outward, reverberating in her dogs. Its use tires Rachel out, and the faster she uses it, the faster she tires. Therefore, she prefers having time to slowly increase her dogs' sizes, rather than having to rush the job.

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.

Equipment
Rachel typically uses chains and similar leads to control her dogs.

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 labeled 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, all she got was  '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, being 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 being 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.

A newly gifted fourteen year old Rachel was faced with her abusive stepmother trying to drown her cherished puppy to punish her. Rachel instinctively reached out and empowered the poor animal, which wasn't actually a dog. The empowered puppy then killed her stepmother, maimed her foster siblings and destroyed the house.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

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. Surviving homeless, on her own, and despite pursuit by the authorities, for close to two years. She may have volunteered at homeless shelters at this time.

Quickly gaining a reputation as a super-villain Rachel was christened Hellhound by the media, though she preferred Bitch. she eventually came to rest in Brockton Bay and volunteered at nearby animal shelters to get the chance to work with dogs. Rachel was eventually approached by a proxy for a Backer that said if she joined a team they were setting up she would be provided with protection for herself and her dogs. Joining the Undersiders, Rachel worked with them for a few months; engaging in robberies and similar crimes. She would later chase off Spitfire, trying to keep the Undersiders from expanding.

She and Regent fought the new hero Browbeat at one point and were able to escape.

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.

She later carried out a raid singled handily with Brutus against a Dog fighting ring controlled by E88's Hookwolf, rescuing several abused dogs. 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 dogfighting ring. The matter was considered 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, Travelers, and Faultline’s Crew to deal with a major ABB drug operation. Together they dealt with Oni Lee and eventually Lung. Coming back to base with money taken from the operation, she accepted Skitter's share of it after she answered some personal questions.

Participated in the Battle at the Gallery, and expressed 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 additional caveat that her efforts to provide shelter for all of the dogs would be expanded upon with hires and similar.

When the Endbringer came to Brockton Bay Rachel initially did not participate. Towards the end she came to Skitter's rescue, sacrificing many of her cherished companions to do so.

Post-Leviathan
Having sacrificed her dogs to keep Leviathan occupied Rachel was left only with the chronically weak Angelica to keep her other dogs in line.

Rachel did not support Taylor rejoining the Undersiders because of her betrayal of the group. Later, during the assault on the Protectorate ENE 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.

After the successful raid Coil gifted Rachel with two super-powered henchmen and a new headquarters with her dogs.

She came to an understanding with Taylor after helping to repel Mannequin from the girl's territory. Was kept from blundering into the Nine's past during the Miasma mist by Tattletale. She was saved by Skitter giving her a kiss.

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine
Rachel and her group were attacked by one of the Dragon suits. She was assisted by Skitter in escaping, having already knocked down the offending suit several times.

Was instrumental in keeping Echidna down enough to trap her. She used her dogs in the fight but did not have them try to kill her enemies as she did not trust her dogs level of training.

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 see her again they should both try to remain alive until they can see each other again.

She attended the fight at New Delhi along with the rest of the Undersiders. Meeting Weaver for the first time in months. While largely part of search and rescue efforts she was instrumental in later actions.

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 Gimel, the unoccupied earth, and participated in numerous Endbringer fights.

She came back home to see Taylor on when her friend was visiting for her eighteenth birthday. Rachel would later assist in the collective action against the Slaughterhouse 9000.

Gold 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.

Post-Gold Morning
Rachel's camp on Gimel had turned into a village.

Early-Ward
Deployed at the Mathers compound along with everyone else. Her quick thinking saved the attackers several times.

Post-Fallen fall
Was at the meeting between The Undersiders and the still unnamed hero team.

The Ice Breaks
Rachel was alongside The Undersiders and Breakthrough during the oversight duty of Titan Oberon and Eve. During the battle of titans, she delivered Foil-enchanted chain-hook with some help from Sveta and Antares. It was able to seriously wound the titan.

Rachel participated in the initial engagement with The Simurgh alongside Foil, unlike the majority of Undersiders, who remained in the Wardens' HQ. She later re-joined the team in attempt to protect Dinah Alcott from the Simurgh.

Rachel, presumably, had not infected herself with the parahuman plague.

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 connected with Rachel following her trigger event she would have been given therapy and placed into the Boston 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. She could have been saddled with names like 'Canis Major' or 'Kennel Kid'.
 * A prototype of Rachel first appeared in Circus and the Elite, where she was independent rather than attached to the Undersiders, who were conceptualized.

Fanart Gallery
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