Editing Rachel Lindt (section)

===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.<ref>[[Interlude 11a]]</ref>

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 open 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. 

13-year-old Rachel was faced with her abusive stepmother trying to drown her cherished [[Rollo|puppy]] to punish her. That was when Rachel triggered.<ref>[[Interlude 11a]]</ref> She instinctively reached out and empowered the poor animal,<ref name="11ae4">She’d woken to her power in that moment of panic.  Fed by her power, Rollo had grown enough to tear through the cover.  He’d then torn through her foster mother.  The shrill screaming of her foster siblings indoors had drawn his attention, and he went after them too, pouncing on them like any excitable dog might do with a mouse or rabbit.  He’d torn through door frames and walls, and an entire section of the house and collapsed in on her foster family.  In one fell swoop, she lost the closest things she had to a home and family.  It hadn’t been perfect, it had been nightmarish at times, but she’d had so little for so long, she found herself clinging to the scraps she did have.  She ran, then, and she kept running for a long time after that. - [http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/06/16 Excerpt] from [[Interlude 11a]]</ref> which wasn't actually a dog.<ref name="WoG1">Not quite, but you're on the right track. Rollo wasn't a dog. - [https://redd.it/44apge Comment] by [[Wildbow]] on Reddit</ref> The empowered puppy then killed her stepmother, tore through her foster siblings as if playing with them, and destroyed the house before fleeing.<ref name="2.2">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.<br /><br />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 - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/07/09 Excerpt] from [[Insinuation 2.2]]</ref><ref name="4.1"> “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 [[Rollo|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.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/09/24 Excerpt] from [[Shell 4.1]]</ref><ref name="7.2e1">“What’s going on?”<br /><br />“I’m using my power on him.  And he’s not trained.”<br /><br />“Wait.  Didn’t a dog kill some people, back when you first had your powers?”<br /><br />“Yup.”<br /><br />I felt my heartbeat speed up a notch.  “So this is really dangerous.”<br /><br />“Yup.”  She tugged on the chain at his neck. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/01/21 Excerpt] from [[Buzz 7.2]]</ref>

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.<ref name="2.2" /><ref name="13.5 e1" /><ref name="Cast2">'''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.<br /><br />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. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/cast-spoiler-free/cast/ Cast (in depth)]</ref> 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.<ref name="7.3">[[Buzz 7.3]]</ref> Rachel was eventually approached by a proxy for [[Coil|a Backer]] that said if she joined a team they were setting up she would be provided with protection for herself and her dogs.<ref name="16.13">“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.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/monarch-16-13/ Excerpt] from [[Monarch 16.13]]</ref> 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.<ref name="2.6">[[Insinuation 2.6]]</ref>

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