Monster
- Thread starter Ghoul King
- Start date
- Location
- Christchurch, NZ
Apparently, thank you for the update!
Crawler is legitimately my favorite cape despite the small amount of air time he had. There is something about the 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' power that speaks a to me about who he might have been prior to his trigger and being apparently entirely subsumed by his shard. I'm projecting upon a character with little to no actual information about him, but I digress. The amazing interpretations in a great deal of fics he appears in has a lot to do with it of course.
- Location
- Wherever
She's still alive, Crawler just got her to use her trump card and was happy enough with the consequences that when circumstances changed so that running her down would be going significantly out of his way he shrugged and moved on.
Her power remains deliberately a mystery. Viewpoint characters don't always get all the answers.
Dumped Into Canon: Part 3
- Location
- Wherever
Monster, Pride, and the Undersiders were all pretty unlikely to matter against Crawler, so that detail had been left to the PRT. There'd been meetings, plans, backup plans, and more backup plans, but in the end chance favored the heroes: the PRT had already transferred a large number of Bakuda's unused munitions to destroy Noelle, having captured and interrogated most of Coil's men. (The Travelers had not been found, for reasons unclear at the time) When Pride and Cherish working together ascertained where Crawler was intending to go -there was only one conspicuous underground space that deep with anyone inside of it in Brockton Bay, it wasn't difficult- and shared it with the PRT, all that changed was that the timing of when to detonate the munitions was delayed by a few hours... and that some cameras were added in to confirm the kill. The cameras didn't catch exactly what happened to Crawler and Noelle, but once the flurry of power effects had passed... large parts of them were gone. What was left was a mish-mash of transmogrified flesh, glass and melting ice and some kind of concrete and something that crumbled into ash a few minutes afterward.
If anyone other than Piggot and a few PRT desk jockeys had been watching, it would've felt very anticlimactic. As was, they were juggling multiple balls, so it was more a relief than anything else.
"Oh god why did you pick Jack Slash, T- Anne. He's so boring."
Anne did her best to not frown, then remembered for the millionth time it was pointless with... Jane... and allowed herself an annoyed sigh. "If we're being completely, brutally honest, I don't actually trust anyone else to kill him. He's slippery enough to have survived for however long it's actually been, so something about how the Protectorate operates is giving him openings, and something about, I dunno, collective villain culture, means they haven't been able to do it either."
Jane ("Call me Jane-Luc, it's cooler," she'd said, and been summarily ignored) hmmed and asked, "What about Rogues?"
Anne stood very still for a good twenty seconds before twisting her head to give Jane her best are you kidding me? look. "Rogues are capes who make balloons for kids or cakes for birthdays or otherwise try to make money off their powers without fighting. They run when the Nine come knocking."
Jane allowed that with a nod and then began humming to herself. A minute later she idly asked, "Hey, but what if things are different here? Like, I dunno, somebody else went around murderlating deserving supervillains, targeted Jack Slash, and got totally trounced."
Anne shrugged. "Then we think on our feet and hope we're cannier or better-equipped than America's longest-lived supervillain who doesn't have a power keeping him alive."
Jane mulled that over for a moment. "That's a terrible plan."
Anne shrugged again and didn't bother to respond, remaining focused on the street below. Which was a bit pointless, really, since she didn't think she'd be able to pick out Jack Slash from a crowd and was actually waiting for Jane to point him out, but she wasn't thinking of a better use of her time so she stuck it out.
The lull in conversation didn't last long, of course. Anne was having it vaguely occur to her that if Jane's home life was as crammed full of people as she'd indicated, silence might genuinely be alien to the other girl, and then shrugged it off as not important at the moment. Which was when Jane interjected anew. "So are we gonna turn his whole talk-at-you-a-lot gimmick on him, or is this going to be a surprise blendering?"
Anne hesitated. "You know... back home I'd been planning on giving him a chance, but... with some of what you've mentioned about what Cherish has gone through..." She'd actually asked Jane to stop giving examples. It hadn't exactly been hard to convince her; Jane had been looking a bit grey under her obviously forced cheer while nattering on about her 'soul sister'. "... and just being directly confronted with..." Anne gestured vaguely at Brockton Bay as whole. "... how he delights in making already-bad situations worse, and learning he's picked out a mother and intends to kill her kids in front of her..." There was a pause that between other people might've been a pregnant one, but with Anne and Jane was just silence and Jane starting to grin a little. "... I'm not really someone who believes in, like, evil like in a story, where the hero exterminates another living being and this is presented as... not just net good, but pure good? Where the story says 'there's no stain because they were evil anyway'? If you get what I mean?"
Jane nodded dutifully along, cheerfully declaring, "Yeah, you want it all murky and Batman-y."
Anne ignored this recurring comparison as not worthy of acknowledgment. "But I'm... okay, let me try again." Jane nodded patiently, mostly to hide her eyeroll. "The... other one... it was all clinical and distant and I felt like yeah he needed something done about him and if he wasn't going to stop death was the only solution I really had available, but I didn't feel like it was... deserved? Death wasn't a solution because it was merited by how terrible he was, it was just what I had to work with. This one, though... I think..." There was another long pause, where Jane increasingly leaned into Anne's personal space. Initially out of actual curiosity, then because she noticed Anne wasn't reacting and wondered how far she could push it and also Cherish was urging her to fucking do it! Which ended up fortunate from Jane's perspective, because Anne continued talking so quietly she probably didn't actually intend for Jane to hear it, had possibly forgotten she was there entirely. "... I think even if he swore up and down he was going to change and I somehow knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was completely earnest and true and he'd go on to make the world a million times better..."
Another pause, followed by even softer speech, so soft Jane was struggling to get close enough to hear it without actually bumping into Anne. Which she was trying to not do so Anne wouldn't notice and cut herself off or something lame like that. "... I think I'd want him dead anyway..."
That said, Anne stared off at nothing in particular with the kind of thousand-yard stare Jane was pretty sure you were only supposed to see on war veterans who had Seen Some Shit. (And was promptly reminded by her Soul Sister that said soul sister was now such a one and could we not?) Jane very carefully backed out of Anne's personal space, having this sneaking suspicion Anne would get hostile and defensive if Jane let on that she totally heard Anne admit to remorseless murder-feelings.
Which was disappointing because Jane actually kinda wanted to bond over this shit instead of teasing Anne over it. Like okay admittedly Jane hadn't thought of her father in quite these terms, but it was in the same general vicinity and it was vaguely frustrating how Anne seemed to keep expecting Jane to, you know, mourn the sonofabitch. Being able to draw the comparison and have Anne get it would be a huge relief.
Maybe later, after she's all murdered out on Jack.
Buoyed by that cheerful thought, Jane resumed watchfully waiting for Jack Slash to get his slow ass into gear already gooood.
Seriously, how long was he going to wait on that one damn street corner? Was he waiting for pure-girl or whatever her name was again to show up before infiltrating her apartment? A quick back-and-forth with her mirrorverse self not actually rocking a 'stache established that, uh, sure it was possible he might make a decision, but it wasn't really in character with what she'd seen of the man. Too much of a showman, too eager to be in the thick of things even when it was unnecessary. Which made this behavior worryingly suspicious. Which was really, really weird, because he shouldn't have noticed anything? He was basically a baseline human but, you know, cut-at-range, and she and Anne were out of sight on the roof and being quiet, and while post-Leviathan Brockton Bay wasn't a hopping place it wasn't so dead that the noise they were making should stand out at all, let alone at that distance.
Nonetheless, he waited there, his emotional spectrum shit doing stuff that didn't make a heck of a lot of sense from where Jane or Cherish stood, and...
... turned and what the fuck was he doing leaving!
Jane grabbed Anne's arm. "Change of plans, he's bolting!"
Anne startled, made a noise that almost resembled a snarl if one was generous, and then gestured incoherently for Jane to get on her back, and in short order off they went.
Around the same time...
Miss Militia was coincidentally visiting Armsmaster. Out of her costume. In fact, dressed as a PRT Trooper preventing him from escaping... by facing out into the hall, clearly on alert for intruders, eyes darting from one end of the hall to the other behind her faceplate.
Yeah, Mannequin wasn't an idiot. Technically blind, definitely, but not an idiot.
Oh, be fair Alan. It's not like anyone knows your gear can detect certain power emissions. You've been very careful to kill anyone who found out, after all.
Regardless, he wasn't walking into this blatantly obvious trap. What he was doing was thinking quite hard, and realizing with some frustration that Jack was right again. He really should have installed internet in his rig. As was, he'd focused on his own work while Jack was sharing the fruits of his research, and was paying the price now; uncertainty. Loathsome, loathsome uncertainty. Why the high alert and accompanying subterfuge? The worst-case scenario seemed absurd; even if the PRT had worked out that the Nine were in town already -mayhap by finding that garish monument to Jack's philosophies- they shouldn't have been so swift and certain in deducing his intended target of the moment was Armsmaster. He wasn't that predictable.
Hm. Unless a power was involved, of course. Mannequin had grim experience in dealing with precogs; it remained a long-term goal of his to find some way to cloak himself from their damnable interference. And then slit the Simurgh's throat.
Not literally, of course. But the image was so satisfying.
Alright then, assume the worst after all; the PRT is on to you, Mannequin, and probably has more aware security than a woman whose only power is to kill things really well. They shouldn't have called in outside support, not after the Nine punished such cheating a good decade ago, which means... what? That kid with the refusal to die popping out his eyes so he'll see through his skin? Hah! As if. No, no, more realistic is that Armsmaster's quiet house arrest has been lax. Extra cameras, extra microphones, radar or something like it, all tinkered to hell and back to hide it from a tinker who the world doesn't quite know how he sees.
Hm. Maybe Miss Militia was legitimately guarding against his escape too. That would be properly paranoid. A nod to... probably Director Piggot... was merited, then.
Mannequin put his not-actually-a-telescope away with a flourish that was almost habitual (But not quite), and sat himself crosslegged on the roof three blocks away from where Armsmaster was being held. He mulled over that thought for a moment, but while normally he'd wonder if Armsmaster had been moved Cherish had assured him of the man's position not thirty minutes ago. She was a scheming betrayer, of course, but her all-too-obvious plan called for the Nine to remain about for conditioning. It would require something drastic for her to abort that plan, and while he could've modified his shell to block her power he hadn't bothered. Nothing else had happened that might merit such a serious change.
As such, Mannequin was fully confident that Armsmaster was in the building in question, and it was just a matter of...
... cycling...
... through...
... his...
... option- ah, there. Yes, that was a network of surreptitious electronics placed about as a perimeter. No suspiciously-convenient gaps in it, either. Possibly some of them were armed, though Mannequin didn't have the right equipment to ascertain that for certain on him. Inconvenient; he could move quickly, but his stash was more than fifteen minutes out one way. Circumnavigating the field without being found or tripping any weapons systems would involve a little bit of blind guessing. Oh odious uncertainty. How Mannequin hates thee.
Then there was the issue of the parahuman defenses. Mannequin hadn't spotted any other blatant parahumans among the bunch, but some emissions was not all emissions. For all he knew, Assault was hanging out in the basement in full costume while singing to the whole world that he was the parahuman known as Assault while utterly failing to register to his equipment. If this was indeed the worst case scenario, the PRT would not stop at giving Armsmaster a little freedom and one not-that-effective bodyguard.
On the other hand, if this was merely a general increase in paranoia and the PRT had simply decided to guard their Tinkers because signs were the Nine were in the area... hm. Bore thinking.
Not too much thinking, though. There was a time limit here, and Mannequin refused to slink back to the others as the only one who failed at his self-assigned mission. It would be embarrassing in the extreme.
After some more deep thinking, Mannequin decided that sometimes low-tech solutions were indeed superior to high-tech ones.
He grabbed a corner of concrete that had, somehow or another, been knocked loose from some part of the rooftop, and winged it at one of the windows. A larger one; Mannequin had a good throwing arm and good aim, but he wasn't someone who could bean you in the head at three blocks. Not reliably and deliberately, anyway.
Mannequin was perversely pleased with himself when Assault did indeed pop out from somewhere inside the building, in full costume and not radiating any easily-detected emission. Hypotheticals becoming actuals had always pleased him on a deep level. It was unsurprising that he'd become a Tinker, really.
He was less pleased when a blur that could only be Velocity came dashing... not quite directly toward his position, but close enough for a man with superspeed. Particularly as it turned out the man also did not produce readily-detected emissions. That struck Mannequin as incorrect, but he filed it away for later, uncoiling himself over a side away from Velocity to launch himself through a ruined window into the next building, effortlessly clearing it without touching any of the glass. He couldn't help making some noise on impact, but it was considerably less than an object of his apparent size let alone actual mass would be expected to make. He wasn't concerned about being heard.
He continued his near-silent run through the building, mentally tossing back and forth the question of whether to go for Armsmaster anyway. Not doing so would be quite embarrassing, and inconveniently nobody else had indicated plans to target a Protectorate 'hero'. So he wasn't going to be able to split the difference with someone else. He'd probably be told it was his own fault for picking a target he couldn't follow through on. Particularly frustrating was that he had consulted with Cherish on this topic, and so didn't have plausible deniability; picking a new target would be known to be a new target. Not a problem he'd had to deal with before; he didn't usually bother to say anything to his fellow purveyors of painful truth. Having gotten rid of his vocal chords eons ago and not built a replacement, it was easy to keep to himself.
Mannequin paused momentarily to pop out multitools from a couple of fingers so he could get out the screws crudely holding boards over the next window, catching and moving all the parts in near-total silence before leaping through to the next rooftop.
Alright then, that pretty well clinched that he should stick to his usual routine. Communication was always suffering, and he really should have known better by now. Hells bells, he'd been taken in by another inhuman girl with access to his mind. Really, Alan? She happens to remind you of your daughter, and you forget everything that has come and gone in the years since she died? Damnation, he wasn't one to work on his brain directly, but clearly he needed to revisit that particular conviction given his brain insisted on being so defective.
As he leaped from the roof through the next window, head twisted backward to watch Velocity blur through the streets and buildings, the ugly thought crossed his mind that the obvious thing to do was consult with Bonesaw, which would mean once again allowing an inhuman girl access to his mind. Right, no way in hell that was happening.
He was going to need some other brains to test his ideas on before he cut into his own, though. Preferably tinker brains, to minimize divergence. Armsmaster's would surely do. It wasn't like he was likely to make it through the tests on merit, was it? It wasn't like Mannequin had ever nominated someone on the idea that they'd actually join the Nine. The others wouldn't mind. And if they did... well, Mannequin was perfectly confident in his ability to hoe his own road.
That resolution set, Mannequin shifted his path from curving around Armsmaster's domicile to something a bit more direct, distraction ideas percolating in his mind...
In an overlapping time period...
Brian wasn't entirely sure how Tattletale had talked him into ambushing Bonesaw on her way to Panacea. It had made perfectly logical sense at the time, but now that he was lurking with Trickster and Genesis, the fact that this was an insanely bad idea was the primary thought looming in his head. Admittedly, this wasn't an entirely abnormal feeling when dealing with Lisa, but it generally wasn't this stark. Had Tattletale just bamboozled him particularly hard, particularly bluntly, so it was really obvious now that he'd had a bit of time to think about it? Or was it just a completely reasonable fear of America's Deadliest Child pressing all logical thought out of his skull?
He'd rather it was the second, but he'd kind of resigned himself to the fact that it was probably the first and he was going to have to go through the whole dominance rigmarole with Tattletale. Ugh. He hated doing it with Bitch, he hated that she made him do it, and he was pretty sure he was going to hate doing it to Tattletale. Especially because she'd probably take it like she'd known it was coming the whole time, and then change not one whit.
It was times like these that he was particularly aware of the fact that Coil was the one who had foisted her onto him. Normally that awareness was tempered by the knowledge that he was being paid a good chunk of change and being given legal support with Aisha and so kind of had to put up with her anyway.
Right now, though, Coil was dead, and the more Brian lingered on that thought the more he questioned the fact that he was going along with this at all. It'd been dropped on him so casually and abruptly, overshadowed by the accompanying information that the Nine were here but somehow Tattletale knew where they were going, when, that he hadn't had time to chew on it, but... what was his motivation here?
Unfortunately, as it was dawning on him he had no stake in this, Trickster whispered, "You're on," and abruptly the child-sized mannequin in his arms was a child-sized monster and oh shit oh shit.
As per the plan, Grue immediately began pouring his power out before thrusting the disconcertingly adorable-yet-bloodstained thing in his arms at Genesis, who had taken on the form of some kind of... he wasn't really sure how to describe it, but it made him think of an alarmingly large snake with the foulest breath he'd ever been exposed to. (It had taken effort to not puke when he caught a whiff of it when first meeting up with the two Travelers) Also, three eyes whose blinks went clockwise, which gave him the heebie-jeebies.
The important part was that Genesis had a very large, very secure stomach, the ability to fly (Somehow), and was packed with explosives that the Travelers had very conveniently had.
Grue was kind of trying to not wonder why they'd had as many explosives as they apparently did. There was being a villain, and then there was being a Villain.
Genesis promptly snapped up Bonesaw, coiled up like a spring, and launched herself a full block in maybe a second before flapping... some kind of triangular chunks of skin that rippled weirdly, somehow generating enough lift for Genesis to keep gaining height. Absently, not really expecting an answer, Grue asked, "You're really sure Genesis will be fine?"
Trickster gave a tired smile, staring up at his teammate. "Absolutely. We've done this once before." (Wait, what?) Then the clearly-forced smile slipped off his face. "Listen, man, I gotta... I got someone important to-"
Grue shifted uncomfortably and cut him off. "I get it." He couldn't quite bring himself to explicitly say he was fine with Trickster leaving early, but he couldn't imagine himself being held back from... from...
... what was he thinking about again?
Elsewhere...
Shatterbird was minding her own business, humming happily to herself as she contemplated the possibilities presented by Brockton Bay's cape population, when a knife sprouted in her right eye.
For most people, this would've been the end of their story, or close enough to not really matter. For a beneficiary of Bonesaw's dubious attentions, it was undesirable, but considerably less so. There was pain, of course, but much less than was supposed to happen under such circumstances. There was also a distinct lack of brain damage, as Bonesaw had done something arcane Shatterbird hadn't paid attention to the explanation for that meant her eye sockets were about as armored as her skull with only tiny entry points for the optic nerve replacements.
As a member of the Nine that had been around the block a few times, Shatterbird was quick to respond; she abandoned stealth, her hum entering the ultrasonic to pull all the glass about her as fast as possible, and rose up into the air while whirling about, glaring with her remaining eye while her mind combed through what Jack's research had turned up.
Unfortunately, the only idea that came to mind that fit at all to what had just happened was the notion that Clockblocker had managed to tag her and then the knife had been precisely timed to enter her eye as the stop ended, which was a stretch.
Inconvenient. A new trigger, perhaps, or a non-obvious application of an existing power. Miss Militia was the obvious one, but when Shatterbird pulled the knife out with a squelching sound and the brief scratch of steel on steel, it didn't melt into green energy and flee so that was unlikely. Possible, if she'd been faking for a very, very long time, but that wasn't typical of the Protectorate, especially not of the goody-goody ones. Miss Militia was squarely one of those, with the flag and yadda yadda yech.
In any event, Shatterbird's lip curled, she set glass to scouring the area -in the sense one scours with a sanding tool- and she considered her words. Intimidate? Provoke? The ideal was to project confidence, a certainty she knew what was going on and could destroy her opponent, which was completely accurate but the image would falter if she said things her unseen attacker knew were untrue. Silence was almost as bad, though. Better to go on the offense than to look uncertain, weak.
Shatterbird hated not knowing her foe's face like this.
This thought was very shortly followed by a crack of the sound barrier being breached.
Also a half dozen cracks that were the sound of reinforced bones being pushed beyond their limits.
Shatterbird whited out from the pain, modified nerves overloading in response to having a semi slam into her at ludicrous speed.
She would've been fighting-fit in maybe five minutes if that was all, but she never got the chance to regain consciousness. A parade of high-mass, high-velocity objects smeared even her toughened form across the pavement.
Normally Ballistic would've felt guilty as all hell, but Tattletale had made a point of regaling him with the things Shatterbird had personally done... before she joined the Nine. It was pretty difficult to muster sympathy for someone who had done... those things.
God, he was going to have nightmares tonight. Worse than usual.
He did wish he knew how his signal had ended up being a knife growing from Shatterbird's left eye and her ceasing to walk the streets like a civilian, though. All Tattletale had said was 'you'll know it when you see it'.
Back before.
Before Grue could recall what he'd been trying to think of, Genesis exploded, showering the area in brown-and-yellow... flesh? Maybe? It didn't look like flesh, but it did look like scattered bits of what Genesis had been.
By the time Grue's ears were registering sounds other than the ringing in them and he could bear to open his eyes without too much nausea, Trickster was long gone and Amy Dallon was leaning over a scorched, vaguely humanoid form and before conscious thought had registered that Grue was already lurching out of his hiding spot and shouting, "Don't touch it, that's Bonesaw!"
Amy Dallon, surprisingly, recoiled as if burned, before collecting herself and reaching out to touch the still-twitching form sonofa- how is she still moving?!?
Amy -Panacea- was monologuing in a practiced way that made Grue think this was just what she did when using her power. He couldn't make out all of it, ears still ringing and all, but what he could make out sounded like Panacea wasn't healing the body. Instead, she seemed to be commenting with some amount of horror on the changes Bonesaw had made to herself, plus muttering about the things she was doing to deal with... whatever the hell Bonesaw had set up to go off if she were killed, if Grue was hearing those bits correctly.
Now unable to think of anything to do and keenly aware he was a villain who had already made a public claim of territory-grabbing, it crossed Grue's mind he really, really ought to just go away. Go back to his- to- uh.
Train of thought lost, Grue continued standing in place, morbidly watching Panacea ensure Bonesaw's death was painless... for the rest of the world.
It was very awkward for all involved parties.
Yet another place...
It was a good day to be one ex-Cauldron doctor who had the best damn power in the world.
Up until a chitinous swarm of biting, stinging monsters stealthily came pouring into his camper and injected him with enough venom to kill an elephant or two.
Maybe even three, depending on which species and gender of elephant we're talking here.
Now, as a doctor, one who had in fact earned his medical degree, Doctor Manton had the advantage over the average citizen of having a fairly precise understanding of what would happen to his body. Surely he would use this sophisticated knowledge and his bullshit power to-
Oops, never mind. He's foaming at the mouth and the Siberian is just sort of flickering ineffectually around him.
Aaaand now he's dead.
Huh.
You'd think that would be harder. Sundancer hadn't even done anything! (To her guilty relief, it must be noted) Bitch had been all raring to go, but nah, nothing to be done.
Admittedly, Taylor is feeling very guilty right about now, but don't worry, I'm sure she'll find a way to frame this as a necessary sacrifice and largely suppress it in short order. Then it'll be almost as if she never felt guilty in the first place!
Oh, yep, there we go, it's happening. Yep. Yeeeep. Aaaand, done.
Not much point to lingering here, is there?
One final location...
Regent was wondering if he was supposed to resent being chosen for his innate immunity to his sister's manipulations. This wasn't the kind of situation that showed up in Nickoleodon's shitty sitcom reruns, so his main guidepost didn't really apply.
After some more thought, he decided he would resent the part where he'd been sent totally alone. That was appropriate to resent, he was pretty sure. Mostly sure. Sure enough.
Admittedly, with just the Travelers and Undersiders on board with this, there was only so much power to go around, but it wasn't like resentment was a completely logical process anyway. At least, that was the consensus among people who would actually know.
He probably should've pressed harder on why Tattletale was convinced Cherie was betraying the Nine, but that would've been such a pain and it was, what? 20/80 odds she'd actually spill? Though, huh, maybe he should rethink that now that their boss was apparently dead. There'd been so much secrecy there that Tattletale had been part of it was hard to say how much was Tattletale being Tattletale and how much was Tattletale being coy because Coil demanded it.
Oh well, too late now.
Absently, Regent wondered why Burnscar would be after Labyrinth of all people. Labyrinth didn't really strike him as a Nine sort of person. Her power wasn't suited to the hobo lifestyle, she'd be a bit of a ball and chain. The whole thing with her personality or whatever wasn't exactly a great fit, either. Regent had been a few sadists before, so he knew it really wasn't satisfying when you weren't getting a reaction. So not a great target for the other Nine to have fun with. He also couldn't imagine Labyrinth getting into the Nine groove. Not that he knew her or anything, but he'd heard enough about her limitations...
It just seemed weird that she was a nomination.
Oh well.
It was around there he felt Cherie in his range. He was tempted to grab control, but Cherie had never been stupid. Well. Not that particular kind of stupid. She probably had some overly-complicated setup to ensure that if he tried to control her it would end badly for him. Actually, with her having been running with Bonesaw for however long it had been, it could be something straightforward and bullshit, like frying his brain for trying or something. Tinkers were bullshit like that.
So he shrugged to himself and decided to wait. The plan was to meet with Cherie and then somehow turn this into knocking out Burnscar. Or maybe killing her. Tattletale had been a bit vague on this part. The Nine did have Kill Orders on them, so hey, it wouldn't even put him more on the PRT Shitlist.
Cherie turned the corner, grinned, and waved to him. He waved back with considerably less energy, eyeing the accessory hanging from her neck. He wasn't sure what it was on sight, but it clashed with her outfit. Mind, her outfit kinda clashed with itself, but it did that in a Cherie way. The definitely-not-a-necklace clashed in a totally different way. Cherie blew bubblegum, popped it, went to chewing, and after a long period where the two stared at each other in a way that on TV would've been very dramatic but in real life was just kind of boring, casually informed him, "Yeah, you keep on not controlling me and neither of us ends up going kaboom, capiche?" There was vague hand-waving at the clunky apparently-a-bomb around Cherie's neck accompanying this statement, but Cherie was already blowing past him, apparently focused on the whole 'mission objective' thing.
Regent shrugged, said, "Sure," and followed with a slouch. The two of them casually walked where other people were not, a familiar routine from times past that neither was exactly fond of, a silence sitting upon them that wasn't comfortable but wasn't uncomfortable either. Eventually Regent added, "So do you actually have a plan or is Tattletale just messing with me?"
He couldn't see her doing it, but he knew she was rolling her eyes. It was in her voice. "Both, duh."
Yeah, okay, that was probably accurate to Tattletale. Regent nodded in an acknowledging way, not really caring that Cherie wouldn't see it. He was immune to her manipulations, not to her reading. Seen or not, same basic result.
There was more walking in silence, Cherie not divulging her plan Regent was sure she would insist was brilliant and deserving of praise. She was probably either hoping he'd crack and ask first (He wasn't going to crack, she should know better), or she just wanted to enjoy the process of explaining her plan in detail. She had a streak there. It had inured him to Tattletale before he ever met her, now that he thought about it. Though with Tattletale it was a little different. Not much, but a little.
He was mildly surprised when they came out into a relatively open area and Cherie pointed one carefully-manicured nail at a girl who, from behind, was completely nondescript, and said, "Yeah, go poke her with your stupid penis-replacement."
Regent raised an eyebrow at that descriptor, then shrugged and did as told, applying the taser-staff to the base of Burnscar's skull.
The girl who was ideally actually Burnscar twitched violently, one arm apparently attempting to clutch at the back of her head, and after a couple of seconds hit the ground in a boneless heap. Regent poked her with his foot; usually one taser poke didn't actually down people. Then again, he didn't usually get the opportunity to go for the skull-poke. It was usually an arm, leg, or occasionally chest-poke.
She didn't move, or even moan when poked. Regent idly wondered if her heart had stopped or something, but no, he could make out her breathing. Huh.
You know, usually he'd think this was kind of a neat result, but Cherie's comment had kinda taken it in a different direction and it lost a bit of its luster.
Mostly because Cherie had basically preempted all his jokes.
He shrugged it off, though. "Now what?"
Cherie smiled sweetly at him, which was how he knew she was about to say something he wouldn't like. "Now you, brother dearest, get to drag her useless carcass to the PRT and make up some great story about how you won a thrilling battle against one of the Nine entirely by yourself, have them not believe one word of it, and then nobody really cares what happens from there."
Regent raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. "Yeah, I'm calling Tattletale."
Turned out that was the actual plan. Made-up epic battle and everything.
Regent eyed Burnscar's body with misgivings. This seemed like a lot of effort.
Then again, Tattletale had pointed out that the Nine had bounties on them, and Coil wasn't around to fund his preferred lifestyle.
Regent procrastinated for a good ten minutes, but eventually he pulled Burnscar onto his back and got walking, Cherie having long since left with a, "Toodles!"
Back with one Alan Gramme...
Really? Really?
Mannequin clearly needed to reassess everything he'd been thinking in the past day at least, because he'd successfully avoided Velocity, gone undetected by Assault, bypassed Miss Militia, and gotten himself in position to perform the actual nomination...
... but Armsmaster wasn't there.
Where the everliving hell was he, if not where Cherish had said he was? What could he possibly have missed? Even if she wanted to throw him to the wolves earlier than he'd imagined, this didn't make any sense. She could gather a lot of information, certainly, but this whole thing reeked of her coordinating with the Protectorate, and that was just impossible. Even if she had been hiding some ace-in-the-hole ability that would let her contact the Protectorate without any of the Nine noticing her, they wouldn't have listened to her. This was standard and justifiable policy when it came to the Nine: assume any offer of peace or cooperation is a trap, because it is.
This knot of enraging confusion was so great that it barely rated mention how offended he was that the 'Armsmaster' sitting in a chair in front of a computer was a crude construction of cloth and stuffing, a literal children's toy. He wasn't sure what had led to that decision, but in his current mood he was inclined to assume it was deliberate mockery.
Okay, fine. New plan: back off, slit Cherish's throat, intensely study his newly-reinforced plans to surgically remove whatever hellishly stubborn stupidity was deeply rooted in his brain, and if the other Nine didn't make anything of it start from square one. And if they did make anything of it... he had escape plans. He was cannier than the rest of them, bar maybe Jack, and Jack couldn't keep up with Mannequin's body so he didn't really matter.
Fortunately, the Protectorate's defensive plans had been designed chiefly to keep someone out, not to catch someone leaving. There were a few moments where Mannequin wondered if Velocity or Assault would happen to face the right away at the right time to notice him, but no, in this regard luck was with him, a rarity worth savoring.
As such, Mannequin made it to his stash without issue.
It was time to swap in the shells that would keep out Cherish.
And lastly, back with Monster, Pride, and Jack Slash...
"Uh. Did... did Jack Slash just go down by getting hit in the face with a shovel by someone with no powers at all?"
Anne stared confusedly downward, failing to respond to Jane's question because really that was exactly her question too.
Sure, it was kind of her fault Jack hadn't been paying attention to what was ahead of him, as she'd been doing her best to harry him with hit-and-run raids from the shadows, and he'd cottoned on almost immediately to the fact that his gaze would prevent her from lunging out from wherever he was looking, so much of his time had been spent looking backward, but still.
Then Jack began stirring and disbelief was thrown out the window in favor of Anne hurling herself at Jack, and then there was no time for thinking, only tearing until the blood and steel stopped moving.
(The owner of the shovel, meanwhile, had lost her nerve the second Jack had shown signs of life. Some people -not naming names, CHERIE- might've been tempted by the ability to claim to have been involved in killing Jack Slash. This lady just wanted to not be dead, thanks)
Elsewhere.
One minute, one Cherie Vasil was actually feeling pretty good about life. Okay, sure, fine, Mannequin had gotten away, but whatever, she was free of these utter assholes. She'd still need to figure out how to get Daddy off her back, but hey, Jean-Paul had managed it, she could too! Especially with 'Jane' around to bounce ideas off of. This'd be easy.
The next minute, Mannequin had gone straight from smugly vengeful to where the fuck was he how had he blipped out of existence.
Having a few weeks experience with tracking her depressing and depressed blank-faced compatriot, Cherish was agonizingly aware of how he could be alarmingly fast and had a weird knack for tracking. Probably something to do with being a Tinker, Tinkers were bullshit, just look at Bonesaw, jeez. She was also agonizingly aware that he had a paranoid streak and did not take betrayal lightly; to be honest, if Jack had survived the experience Cherie was kinda thinking he'd have shrugged and gotten on with his life instead of seeking revenge on the possibility that this was somehow her fault, but she was pretty sure that Mannequin would pursue her out of paranoid spite.
Plus, if she were wrong about his character, at this point she and Burnscar were the only other survivors, and Burnscar was in the middle of being carted off to... probably the PRT HQ? Yeah, Cherie double-checked with other Cherie, it was PRT HQ.
Right, so, that meant she would definitely end up on his target list in the very near future.
That had seemed funny when she could track his every move and feeling and could in fact now do so in shifts because the Cherie Twins were now a thing apparently. Easy-peasy, lure him into a trap or tell some other people where he was to kill him, whatevs.
Now? Now that seemed like, oh, I dunno, MORTAL FUCKING TERROR.
("Cherie Vasil," asked Other Cherie. "Why so serious??" The answer, This Cherie carefully explained, was that This Cherie had personal experience with exactly what he could do when he got creative, and that was when she'd been a prospective recruit instead of a target. Did Other Cherie really want to hear the fucking details? Again? Yeah, that's what This Cherie thought)
Cherie was most certainly not hyperventilating into a disgusting paper bag that had been discarded and was now growing things because the city's sewer system had been wrecked by Leviathan and smelled appropriately thanks to the literal sewage getting into most everything. Fuck, stop thinking about it Cherie.
No, what she was doing was running like hell to meet up with Other Cherie and The Girl Privately Known As Murderboner.
(This Cherie was really looking forward to that story. You know, when Mannequin wasn't TRYING TO KILL HER)
A thought struck Cherie, and she very carefully stopped, opened her stolen cell phone, sent the code to make it safe to remove the bomb around her neck, and then abandoned it with little care for what fate people in the area might suffer while she resumed legging it. Other Cherie remarked this was the kind of behavior that tended to get on Murderboner's bad side (Specifically: risking killing people without specifically deciding ahead of time to kill them), but both Cheries agreed it was pretty unlikely to come out at a later date, so whatever.
Then she resumed running.
If anyone other than Piggot and a few PRT desk jockeys had been watching, it would've felt very anticlimactic. As was, they were juggling multiple balls, so it was more a relief than anything else.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oh god why did you pick Jack Slash, T- Anne. He's so boring."
Anne did her best to not frown, then remembered for the millionth time it was pointless with... Jane... and allowed herself an annoyed sigh. "If we're being completely, brutally honest, I don't actually trust anyone else to kill him. He's slippery enough to have survived for however long it's actually been, so something about how the Protectorate operates is giving him openings, and something about, I dunno, collective villain culture, means they haven't been able to do it either."
Jane ("Call me Jane-Luc, it's cooler," she'd said, and been summarily ignored) hmmed and asked, "What about Rogues?"
Anne stood very still for a good twenty seconds before twisting her head to give Jane her best are you kidding me? look. "Rogues are capes who make balloons for kids or cakes for birthdays or otherwise try to make money off their powers without fighting. They run when the Nine come knocking."
Jane allowed that with a nod and then began humming to herself. A minute later she idly asked, "Hey, but what if things are different here? Like, I dunno, somebody else went around murderlating deserving supervillains, targeted Jack Slash, and got totally trounced."
Anne shrugged. "Then we think on our feet and hope we're cannier or better-equipped than America's longest-lived supervillain who doesn't have a power keeping him alive."
Jane mulled that over for a moment. "That's a terrible plan."
Anne shrugged again and didn't bother to respond, remaining focused on the street below. Which was a bit pointless, really, since she didn't think she'd be able to pick out Jack Slash from a crowd and was actually waiting for Jane to point him out, but she wasn't thinking of a better use of her time so she stuck it out.
The lull in conversation didn't last long, of course. Anne was having it vaguely occur to her that if Jane's home life was as crammed full of people as she'd indicated, silence might genuinely be alien to the other girl, and then shrugged it off as not important at the moment. Which was when Jane interjected anew. "So are we gonna turn his whole talk-at-you-a-lot gimmick on him, or is this going to be a surprise blendering?"
Anne hesitated. "You know... back home I'd been planning on giving him a chance, but... with some of what you've mentioned about what Cherish has gone through..." She'd actually asked Jane to stop giving examples. It hadn't exactly been hard to convince her; Jane had been looking a bit grey under her obviously forced cheer while nattering on about her 'soul sister'. "... and just being directly confronted with..." Anne gestured vaguely at Brockton Bay as whole. "... how he delights in making already-bad situations worse, and learning he's picked out a mother and intends to kill her kids in front of her..." There was a pause that between other people might've been a pregnant one, but with Anne and Jane was just silence and Jane starting to grin a little. "... I'm not really someone who believes in, like, evil like in a story, where the hero exterminates another living being and this is presented as... not just net good, but pure good? Where the story says 'there's no stain because they were evil anyway'? If you get what I mean?"
Jane nodded dutifully along, cheerfully declaring, "Yeah, you want it all murky and Batman-y."
Anne ignored this recurring comparison as not worthy of acknowledgment. "But I'm... okay, let me try again." Jane nodded patiently, mostly to hide her eyeroll. "The... other one... it was all clinical and distant and I felt like yeah he needed something done about him and if he wasn't going to stop death was the only solution I really had available, but I didn't feel like it was... deserved? Death wasn't a solution because it was merited by how terrible he was, it was just what I had to work with. This one, though... I think..." There was another long pause, where Jane increasingly leaned into Anne's personal space. Initially out of actual curiosity, then because she noticed Anne wasn't reacting and wondered how far she could push it and also Cherish was urging her to fucking do it! Which ended up fortunate from Jane's perspective, because Anne continued talking so quietly she probably didn't actually intend for Jane to hear it, had possibly forgotten she was there entirely. "... I think even if he swore up and down he was going to change and I somehow knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was completely earnest and true and he'd go on to make the world a million times better..."
Another pause, followed by even softer speech, so soft Jane was struggling to get close enough to hear it without actually bumping into Anne. Which she was trying to not do so Anne wouldn't notice and cut herself off or something lame like that. "... I think I'd want him dead anyway..."
That said, Anne stared off at nothing in particular with the kind of thousand-yard stare Jane was pretty sure you were only supposed to see on war veterans who had Seen Some Shit. (And was promptly reminded by her Soul Sister that said soul sister was now such a one and could we not?) Jane very carefully backed out of Anne's personal space, having this sneaking suspicion Anne would get hostile and defensive if Jane let on that she totally heard Anne admit to remorseless murder-feelings.
Which was disappointing because Jane actually kinda wanted to bond over this shit instead of teasing Anne over it. Like okay admittedly Jane hadn't thought of her father in quite these terms, but it was in the same general vicinity and it was vaguely frustrating how Anne seemed to keep expecting Jane to, you know, mourn the sonofabitch. Being able to draw the comparison and have Anne get it would be a huge relief.
Maybe later, after she's all murdered out on Jack.
Buoyed by that cheerful thought, Jane resumed watchfully waiting for Jack Slash to get his slow ass into gear already gooood.
Seriously, how long was he going to wait on that one damn street corner? Was he waiting for pure-girl or whatever her name was again to show up before infiltrating her apartment? A quick back-and-forth with her mirrorverse self not actually rocking a 'stache established that, uh, sure it was possible he might make a decision, but it wasn't really in character with what she'd seen of the man. Too much of a showman, too eager to be in the thick of things even when it was unnecessary. Which made this behavior worryingly suspicious. Which was really, really weird, because he shouldn't have noticed anything? He was basically a baseline human but, you know, cut-at-range, and she and Anne were out of sight on the roof and being quiet, and while post-Leviathan Brockton Bay wasn't a hopping place it wasn't so dead that the noise they were making should stand out at all, let alone at that distance.
Nonetheless, he waited there, his emotional spectrum shit doing stuff that didn't make a heck of a lot of sense from where Jane or Cherish stood, and...
... turned and what the fuck was he doing leaving!
Jane grabbed Anne's arm. "Change of plans, he's bolting!"
Anne startled, made a noise that almost resembled a snarl if one was generous, and then gestured incoherently for Jane to get on her back, and in short order off they went.
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Around the same time...
Miss Militia was coincidentally visiting Armsmaster. Out of her costume. In fact, dressed as a PRT Trooper preventing him from escaping... by facing out into the hall, clearly on alert for intruders, eyes darting from one end of the hall to the other behind her faceplate.
Yeah, Mannequin wasn't an idiot. Technically blind, definitely, but not an idiot.
Oh, be fair Alan. It's not like anyone knows your gear can detect certain power emissions. You've been very careful to kill anyone who found out, after all.
Regardless, he wasn't walking into this blatantly obvious trap. What he was doing was thinking quite hard, and realizing with some frustration that Jack was right again. He really should have installed internet in his rig. As was, he'd focused on his own work while Jack was sharing the fruits of his research, and was paying the price now; uncertainty. Loathsome, loathsome uncertainty. Why the high alert and accompanying subterfuge? The worst-case scenario seemed absurd; even if the PRT had worked out that the Nine were in town already -mayhap by finding that garish monument to Jack's philosophies- they shouldn't have been so swift and certain in deducing his intended target of the moment was Armsmaster. He wasn't that predictable.
Hm. Unless a power was involved, of course. Mannequin had grim experience in dealing with precogs; it remained a long-term goal of his to find some way to cloak himself from their damnable interference. And then slit the Simurgh's throat.
Not literally, of course. But the image was so satisfying.
Alright then, assume the worst after all; the PRT is on to you, Mannequin, and probably has more aware security than a woman whose only power is to kill things really well. They shouldn't have called in outside support, not after the Nine punished such cheating a good decade ago, which means... what? That kid with the refusal to die popping out his eyes so he'll see through his skin? Hah! As if. No, no, more realistic is that Armsmaster's quiet house arrest has been lax. Extra cameras, extra microphones, radar or something like it, all tinkered to hell and back to hide it from a tinker who the world doesn't quite know how he sees.
Hm. Maybe Miss Militia was legitimately guarding against his escape too. That would be properly paranoid. A nod to... probably Director Piggot... was merited, then.
Mannequin put his not-actually-a-telescope away with a flourish that was almost habitual (But not quite), and sat himself crosslegged on the roof three blocks away from where Armsmaster was being held. He mulled over that thought for a moment, but while normally he'd wonder if Armsmaster had been moved Cherish had assured him of the man's position not thirty minutes ago. She was a scheming betrayer, of course, but her all-too-obvious plan called for the Nine to remain about for conditioning. It would require something drastic for her to abort that plan, and while he could've modified his shell to block her power he hadn't bothered. Nothing else had happened that might merit such a serious change.
As such, Mannequin was fully confident that Armsmaster was in the building in question, and it was just a matter of...
... cycling...
... through...
... his...
... option- ah, there. Yes, that was a network of surreptitious electronics placed about as a perimeter. No suspiciously-convenient gaps in it, either. Possibly some of them were armed, though Mannequin didn't have the right equipment to ascertain that for certain on him. Inconvenient; he could move quickly, but his stash was more than fifteen minutes out one way. Circumnavigating the field without being found or tripping any weapons systems would involve a little bit of blind guessing. Oh odious uncertainty. How Mannequin hates thee.
Then there was the issue of the parahuman defenses. Mannequin hadn't spotted any other blatant parahumans among the bunch, but some emissions was not all emissions. For all he knew, Assault was hanging out in the basement in full costume while singing to the whole world that he was the parahuman known as Assault while utterly failing to register to his equipment. If this was indeed the worst case scenario, the PRT would not stop at giving Armsmaster a little freedom and one not-that-effective bodyguard.
On the other hand, if this was merely a general increase in paranoia and the PRT had simply decided to guard their Tinkers because signs were the Nine were in the area... hm. Bore thinking.
Not too much thinking, though. There was a time limit here, and Mannequin refused to slink back to the others as the only one who failed at his self-assigned mission. It would be embarrassing in the extreme.
After some more deep thinking, Mannequin decided that sometimes low-tech solutions were indeed superior to high-tech ones.
He grabbed a corner of concrete that had, somehow or another, been knocked loose from some part of the rooftop, and winged it at one of the windows. A larger one; Mannequin had a good throwing arm and good aim, but he wasn't someone who could bean you in the head at three blocks. Not reliably and deliberately, anyway.
Mannequin was perversely pleased with himself when Assault did indeed pop out from somewhere inside the building, in full costume and not radiating any easily-detected emission. Hypotheticals becoming actuals had always pleased him on a deep level. It was unsurprising that he'd become a Tinker, really.
He was less pleased when a blur that could only be Velocity came dashing... not quite directly toward his position, but close enough for a man with superspeed. Particularly as it turned out the man also did not produce readily-detected emissions. That struck Mannequin as incorrect, but he filed it away for later, uncoiling himself over a side away from Velocity to launch himself through a ruined window into the next building, effortlessly clearing it without touching any of the glass. He couldn't help making some noise on impact, but it was considerably less than an object of his apparent size let alone actual mass would be expected to make. He wasn't concerned about being heard.
He continued his near-silent run through the building, mentally tossing back and forth the question of whether to go for Armsmaster anyway. Not doing so would be quite embarrassing, and inconveniently nobody else had indicated plans to target a Protectorate 'hero'. So he wasn't going to be able to split the difference with someone else. He'd probably be told it was his own fault for picking a target he couldn't follow through on. Particularly frustrating was that he had consulted with Cherish on this topic, and so didn't have plausible deniability; picking a new target would be known to be a new target. Not a problem he'd had to deal with before; he didn't usually bother to say anything to his fellow purveyors of painful truth. Having gotten rid of his vocal chords eons ago and not built a replacement, it was easy to keep to himself.
Mannequin paused momentarily to pop out multitools from a couple of fingers so he could get out the screws crudely holding boards over the next window, catching and moving all the parts in near-total silence before leaping through to the next rooftop.
Alright then, that pretty well clinched that he should stick to his usual routine. Communication was always suffering, and he really should have known better by now. Hells bells, he'd been taken in by another inhuman girl with access to his mind. Really, Alan? She happens to remind you of your daughter, and you forget everything that has come and gone in the years since she died? Damnation, he wasn't one to work on his brain directly, but clearly he needed to revisit that particular conviction given his brain insisted on being so defective.
As he leaped from the roof through the next window, head twisted backward to watch Velocity blur through the streets and buildings, the ugly thought crossed his mind that the obvious thing to do was consult with Bonesaw, which would mean once again allowing an inhuman girl access to his mind. Right, no way in hell that was happening.
He was going to need some other brains to test his ideas on before he cut into his own, though. Preferably tinker brains, to minimize divergence. Armsmaster's would surely do. It wasn't like he was likely to make it through the tests on merit, was it? It wasn't like Mannequin had ever nominated someone on the idea that they'd actually join the Nine. The others wouldn't mind. And if they did... well, Mannequin was perfectly confident in his ability to hoe his own road.
That resolution set, Mannequin shifted his path from curving around Armsmaster's domicile to something a bit more direct, distraction ideas percolating in his mind...
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In an overlapping time period...
Brian wasn't entirely sure how Tattletale had talked him into ambushing Bonesaw on her way to Panacea. It had made perfectly logical sense at the time, but now that he was lurking with Trickster and Genesis, the fact that this was an insanely bad idea was the primary thought looming in his head. Admittedly, this wasn't an entirely abnormal feeling when dealing with Lisa, but it generally wasn't this stark. Had Tattletale just bamboozled him particularly hard, particularly bluntly, so it was really obvious now that he'd had a bit of time to think about it? Or was it just a completely reasonable fear of America's Deadliest Child pressing all logical thought out of his skull?
He'd rather it was the second, but he'd kind of resigned himself to the fact that it was probably the first and he was going to have to go through the whole dominance rigmarole with Tattletale. Ugh. He hated doing it with Bitch, he hated that she made him do it, and he was pretty sure he was going to hate doing it to Tattletale. Especially because she'd probably take it like she'd known it was coming the whole time, and then change not one whit.
It was times like these that he was particularly aware of the fact that Coil was the one who had foisted her onto him. Normally that awareness was tempered by the knowledge that he was being paid a good chunk of change and being given legal support with Aisha and so kind of had to put up with her anyway.
Right now, though, Coil was dead, and the more Brian lingered on that thought the more he questioned the fact that he was going along with this at all. It'd been dropped on him so casually and abruptly, overshadowed by the accompanying information that the Nine were here but somehow Tattletale knew where they were going, when, that he hadn't had time to chew on it, but... what was his motivation here?
Unfortunately, as it was dawning on him he had no stake in this, Trickster whispered, "You're on," and abruptly the child-sized mannequin in his arms was a child-sized monster and oh shit oh shit.
As per the plan, Grue immediately began pouring his power out before thrusting the disconcertingly adorable-yet-bloodstained thing in his arms at Genesis, who had taken on the form of some kind of... he wasn't really sure how to describe it, but it made him think of an alarmingly large snake with the foulest breath he'd ever been exposed to. (It had taken effort to not puke when he caught a whiff of it when first meeting up with the two Travelers) Also, three eyes whose blinks went clockwise, which gave him the heebie-jeebies.
The important part was that Genesis had a very large, very secure stomach, the ability to fly (Somehow), and was packed with explosives that the Travelers had very conveniently had.
Grue was kind of trying to not wonder why they'd had as many explosives as they apparently did. There was being a villain, and then there was being a Villain.
Genesis promptly snapped up Bonesaw, coiled up like a spring, and launched herself a full block in maybe a second before flapping... some kind of triangular chunks of skin that rippled weirdly, somehow generating enough lift for Genesis to keep gaining height. Absently, not really expecting an answer, Grue asked, "You're really sure Genesis will be fine?"
Trickster gave a tired smile, staring up at his teammate. "Absolutely. We've done this once before." (Wait, what?) Then the clearly-forced smile slipped off his face. "Listen, man, I gotta... I got someone important to-"
Grue shifted uncomfortably and cut him off. "I get it." He couldn't quite bring himself to explicitly say he was fine with Trickster leaving early, but he couldn't imagine himself being held back from... from...
... what was he thinking about again?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elsewhere...
Shatterbird was minding her own business, humming happily to herself as she contemplated the possibilities presented by Brockton Bay's cape population, when a knife sprouted in her right eye.
For most people, this would've been the end of their story, or close enough to not really matter. For a beneficiary of Bonesaw's dubious attentions, it was undesirable, but considerably less so. There was pain, of course, but much less than was supposed to happen under such circumstances. There was also a distinct lack of brain damage, as Bonesaw had done something arcane Shatterbird hadn't paid attention to the explanation for that meant her eye sockets were about as armored as her skull with only tiny entry points for the optic nerve replacements.
As a member of the Nine that had been around the block a few times, Shatterbird was quick to respond; she abandoned stealth, her hum entering the ultrasonic to pull all the glass about her as fast as possible, and rose up into the air while whirling about, glaring with her remaining eye while her mind combed through what Jack's research had turned up.
Unfortunately, the only idea that came to mind that fit at all to what had just happened was the notion that Clockblocker had managed to tag her and then the knife had been precisely timed to enter her eye as the stop ended, which was a stretch.
Inconvenient. A new trigger, perhaps, or a non-obvious application of an existing power. Miss Militia was the obvious one, but when Shatterbird pulled the knife out with a squelching sound and the brief scratch of steel on steel, it didn't melt into green energy and flee so that was unlikely. Possible, if she'd been faking for a very, very long time, but that wasn't typical of the Protectorate, especially not of the goody-goody ones. Miss Militia was squarely one of those, with the flag and yadda yadda yech.
In any event, Shatterbird's lip curled, she set glass to scouring the area -in the sense one scours with a sanding tool- and she considered her words. Intimidate? Provoke? The ideal was to project confidence, a certainty she knew what was going on and could destroy her opponent, which was completely accurate but the image would falter if she said things her unseen attacker knew were untrue. Silence was almost as bad, though. Better to go on the offense than to look uncertain, weak.
Shatterbird hated not knowing her foe's face like this.
This thought was very shortly followed by a crack of the sound barrier being breached.
Also a half dozen cracks that were the sound of reinforced bones being pushed beyond their limits.
Shatterbird whited out from the pain, modified nerves overloading in response to having a semi slam into her at ludicrous speed.
She would've been fighting-fit in maybe five minutes if that was all, but she never got the chance to regain consciousness. A parade of high-mass, high-velocity objects smeared even her toughened form across the pavement.
Normally Ballistic would've felt guilty as all hell, but Tattletale had made a point of regaling him with the things Shatterbird had personally done... before she joined the Nine. It was pretty difficult to muster sympathy for someone who had done... those things.
God, he was going to have nightmares tonight. Worse than usual.
He did wish he knew how his signal had ended up being a knife growing from Shatterbird's left eye and her ceasing to walk the streets like a civilian, though. All Tattletale had said was 'you'll know it when you see it'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back before.
Before Grue could recall what he'd been trying to think of, Genesis exploded, showering the area in brown-and-yellow... flesh? Maybe? It didn't look like flesh, but it did look like scattered bits of what Genesis had been.
By the time Grue's ears were registering sounds other than the ringing in them and he could bear to open his eyes without too much nausea, Trickster was long gone and Amy Dallon was leaning over a scorched, vaguely humanoid form and before conscious thought had registered that Grue was already lurching out of his hiding spot and shouting, "Don't touch it, that's Bonesaw!"
Amy Dallon, surprisingly, recoiled as if burned, before collecting herself and reaching out to touch the still-twitching form sonofa- how is she still moving?!?
Amy -Panacea- was monologuing in a practiced way that made Grue think this was just what she did when using her power. He couldn't make out all of it, ears still ringing and all, but what he could make out sounded like Panacea wasn't healing the body. Instead, she seemed to be commenting with some amount of horror on the changes Bonesaw had made to herself, plus muttering about the things she was doing to deal with... whatever the hell Bonesaw had set up to go off if she were killed, if Grue was hearing those bits correctly.
Now unable to think of anything to do and keenly aware he was a villain who had already made a public claim of territory-grabbing, it crossed Grue's mind he really, really ought to just go away. Go back to his- to- uh.
Train of thought lost, Grue continued standing in place, morbidly watching Panacea ensure Bonesaw's death was painless... for the rest of the world.
It was very awkward for all involved parties.
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Yet another place...
It was a good day to be one ex-Cauldron doctor who had the best damn power in the world.
Up until a chitinous swarm of biting, stinging monsters stealthily came pouring into his camper and injected him with enough venom to kill an elephant or two.
Maybe even three, depending on which species and gender of elephant we're talking here.
Now, as a doctor, one who had in fact earned his medical degree, Doctor Manton had the advantage over the average citizen of having a fairly precise understanding of what would happen to his body. Surely he would use this sophisticated knowledge and his bullshit power to-
Oops, never mind. He's foaming at the mouth and the Siberian is just sort of flickering ineffectually around him.
Aaaand now he's dead.
Huh.
You'd think that would be harder. Sundancer hadn't even done anything! (To her guilty relief, it must be noted) Bitch had been all raring to go, but nah, nothing to be done.
Admittedly, Taylor is feeling very guilty right about now, but don't worry, I'm sure she'll find a way to frame this as a necessary sacrifice and largely suppress it in short order. Then it'll be almost as if she never felt guilty in the first place!
Oh, yep, there we go, it's happening. Yep. Yeeeep. Aaaand, done.
Not much point to lingering here, is there?
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One final location...
Regent was wondering if he was supposed to resent being chosen for his innate immunity to his sister's manipulations. This wasn't the kind of situation that showed up in Nickoleodon's shitty sitcom reruns, so his main guidepost didn't really apply.
After some more thought, he decided he would resent the part where he'd been sent totally alone. That was appropriate to resent, he was pretty sure. Mostly sure. Sure enough.
Admittedly, with just the Travelers and Undersiders on board with this, there was only so much power to go around, but it wasn't like resentment was a completely logical process anyway. At least, that was the consensus among people who would actually know.
He probably should've pressed harder on why Tattletale was convinced Cherie was betraying the Nine, but that would've been such a pain and it was, what? 20/80 odds she'd actually spill? Though, huh, maybe he should rethink that now that their boss was apparently dead. There'd been so much secrecy there that Tattletale had been part of it was hard to say how much was Tattletale being Tattletale and how much was Tattletale being coy because Coil demanded it.
Oh well, too late now.
Absently, Regent wondered why Burnscar would be after Labyrinth of all people. Labyrinth didn't really strike him as a Nine sort of person. Her power wasn't suited to the hobo lifestyle, she'd be a bit of a ball and chain. The whole thing with her personality or whatever wasn't exactly a great fit, either. Regent had been a few sadists before, so he knew it really wasn't satisfying when you weren't getting a reaction. So not a great target for the other Nine to have fun with. He also couldn't imagine Labyrinth getting into the Nine groove. Not that he knew her or anything, but he'd heard enough about her limitations...
It just seemed weird that she was a nomination.
Oh well.
It was around there he felt Cherie in his range. He was tempted to grab control, but Cherie had never been stupid. Well. Not that particular kind of stupid. She probably had some overly-complicated setup to ensure that if he tried to control her it would end badly for him. Actually, with her having been running with Bonesaw for however long it had been, it could be something straightforward and bullshit, like frying his brain for trying or something. Tinkers were bullshit like that.
So he shrugged to himself and decided to wait. The plan was to meet with Cherie and then somehow turn this into knocking out Burnscar. Or maybe killing her. Tattletale had been a bit vague on this part. The Nine did have Kill Orders on them, so hey, it wouldn't even put him more on the PRT Shitlist.
Cherie turned the corner, grinned, and waved to him. He waved back with considerably less energy, eyeing the accessory hanging from her neck. He wasn't sure what it was on sight, but it clashed with her outfit. Mind, her outfit kinda clashed with itself, but it did that in a Cherie way. The definitely-not-a-necklace clashed in a totally different way. Cherie blew bubblegum, popped it, went to chewing, and after a long period where the two stared at each other in a way that on TV would've been very dramatic but in real life was just kind of boring, casually informed him, "Yeah, you keep on not controlling me and neither of us ends up going kaboom, capiche?" There was vague hand-waving at the clunky apparently-a-bomb around Cherie's neck accompanying this statement, but Cherie was already blowing past him, apparently focused on the whole 'mission objective' thing.
Regent shrugged, said, "Sure," and followed with a slouch. The two of them casually walked where other people were not, a familiar routine from times past that neither was exactly fond of, a silence sitting upon them that wasn't comfortable but wasn't uncomfortable either. Eventually Regent added, "So do you actually have a plan or is Tattletale just messing with me?"
He couldn't see her doing it, but he knew she was rolling her eyes. It was in her voice. "Both, duh."
Yeah, okay, that was probably accurate to Tattletale. Regent nodded in an acknowledging way, not really caring that Cherie wouldn't see it. He was immune to her manipulations, not to her reading. Seen or not, same basic result.
There was more walking in silence, Cherie not divulging her plan Regent was sure she would insist was brilliant and deserving of praise. She was probably either hoping he'd crack and ask first (He wasn't going to crack, she should know better), or she just wanted to enjoy the process of explaining her plan in detail. She had a streak there. It had inured him to Tattletale before he ever met her, now that he thought about it. Though with Tattletale it was a little different. Not much, but a little.
He was mildly surprised when they came out into a relatively open area and Cherie pointed one carefully-manicured nail at a girl who, from behind, was completely nondescript, and said, "Yeah, go poke her with your stupid penis-replacement."
Regent raised an eyebrow at that descriptor, then shrugged and did as told, applying the taser-staff to the base of Burnscar's skull.
The girl who was ideally actually Burnscar twitched violently, one arm apparently attempting to clutch at the back of her head, and after a couple of seconds hit the ground in a boneless heap. Regent poked her with his foot; usually one taser poke didn't actually down people. Then again, he didn't usually get the opportunity to go for the skull-poke. It was usually an arm, leg, or occasionally chest-poke.
She didn't move, or even moan when poked. Regent idly wondered if her heart had stopped or something, but no, he could make out her breathing. Huh.
You know, usually he'd think this was kind of a neat result, but Cherie's comment had kinda taken it in a different direction and it lost a bit of its luster.
Mostly because Cherie had basically preempted all his jokes.
He shrugged it off, though. "Now what?"
Cherie smiled sweetly at him, which was how he knew she was about to say something he wouldn't like. "Now you, brother dearest, get to drag her useless carcass to the PRT and make up some great story about how you won a thrilling battle against one of the Nine entirely by yourself, have them not believe one word of it, and then nobody really cares what happens from there."
Regent raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. "Yeah, I'm calling Tattletale."
Turned out that was the actual plan. Made-up epic battle and everything.
Regent eyed Burnscar's body with misgivings. This seemed like a lot of effort.
Then again, Tattletale had pointed out that the Nine had bounties on them, and Coil wasn't around to fund his preferred lifestyle.
Regent procrastinated for a good ten minutes, but eventually he pulled Burnscar onto his back and got walking, Cherie having long since left with a, "Toodles!"
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Back with one Alan Gramme...
Really? Really?
Mannequin clearly needed to reassess everything he'd been thinking in the past day at least, because he'd successfully avoided Velocity, gone undetected by Assault, bypassed Miss Militia, and gotten himself in position to perform the actual nomination...
... but Armsmaster wasn't there.
Where the everliving hell was he, if not where Cherish had said he was? What could he possibly have missed? Even if she wanted to throw him to the wolves earlier than he'd imagined, this didn't make any sense. She could gather a lot of information, certainly, but this whole thing reeked of her coordinating with the Protectorate, and that was just impossible. Even if she had been hiding some ace-in-the-hole ability that would let her contact the Protectorate without any of the Nine noticing her, they wouldn't have listened to her. This was standard and justifiable policy when it came to the Nine: assume any offer of peace or cooperation is a trap, because it is.
This knot of enraging confusion was so great that it barely rated mention how offended he was that the 'Armsmaster' sitting in a chair in front of a computer was a crude construction of cloth and stuffing, a literal children's toy. He wasn't sure what had led to that decision, but in his current mood he was inclined to assume it was deliberate mockery.
Okay, fine. New plan: back off, slit Cherish's throat, intensely study his newly-reinforced plans to surgically remove whatever hellishly stubborn stupidity was deeply rooted in his brain, and if the other Nine didn't make anything of it start from square one. And if they did make anything of it... he had escape plans. He was cannier than the rest of them, bar maybe Jack, and Jack couldn't keep up with Mannequin's body so he didn't really matter.
Fortunately, the Protectorate's defensive plans had been designed chiefly to keep someone out, not to catch someone leaving. There were a few moments where Mannequin wondered if Velocity or Assault would happen to face the right away at the right time to notice him, but no, in this regard luck was with him, a rarity worth savoring.
As such, Mannequin made it to his stash without issue.
It was time to swap in the shells that would keep out Cherish.
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And lastly, back with Monster, Pride, and Jack Slash...
"Uh. Did... did Jack Slash just go down by getting hit in the face with a shovel by someone with no powers at all?"
Anne stared confusedly downward, failing to respond to Jane's question because really that was exactly her question too.
Sure, it was kind of her fault Jack hadn't been paying attention to what was ahead of him, as she'd been doing her best to harry him with hit-and-run raids from the shadows, and he'd cottoned on almost immediately to the fact that his gaze would prevent her from lunging out from wherever he was looking, so much of his time had been spent looking backward, but still.
Then Jack began stirring and disbelief was thrown out the window in favor of Anne hurling herself at Jack, and then there was no time for thinking, only tearing until the blood and steel stopped moving.
(The owner of the shovel, meanwhile, had lost her nerve the second Jack had shown signs of life. Some people -not naming names, CHERIE- might've been tempted by the ability to claim to have been involved in killing Jack Slash. This lady just wanted to not be dead, thanks)
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Elsewhere.
One minute, one Cherie Vasil was actually feeling pretty good about life. Okay, sure, fine, Mannequin had gotten away, but whatever, she was free of these utter assholes. She'd still need to figure out how to get Daddy off her back, but hey, Jean-Paul had managed it, she could too! Especially with 'Jane' around to bounce ideas off of. This'd be easy.
The next minute, Mannequin had gone straight from smugly vengeful to where the fuck was he how had he blipped out of existence.
Having a few weeks experience with tracking her depressing and depressed blank-faced compatriot, Cherish was agonizingly aware of how he could be alarmingly fast and had a weird knack for tracking. Probably something to do with being a Tinker, Tinkers were bullshit, just look at Bonesaw, jeez. She was also agonizingly aware that he had a paranoid streak and did not take betrayal lightly; to be honest, if Jack had survived the experience Cherie was kinda thinking he'd have shrugged and gotten on with his life instead of seeking revenge on the possibility that this was somehow her fault, but she was pretty sure that Mannequin would pursue her out of paranoid spite.
Plus, if she were wrong about his character, at this point she and Burnscar were the only other survivors, and Burnscar was in the middle of being carted off to... probably the PRT HQ? Yeah, Cherie double-checked with other Cherie, it was PRT HQ.
Right, so, that meant she would definitely end up on his target list in the very near future.
That had seemed funny when she could track his every move and feeling and could in fact now do so in shifts because the Cherie Twins were now a thing apparently. Easy-peasy, lure him into a trap or tell some other people where he was to kill him, whatevs.
Now? Now that seemed like, oh, I dunno, MORTAL FUCKING TERROR.
("Cherie Vasil," asked Other Cherie. "Why so serious??" The answer, This Cherie carefully explained, was that This Cherie had personal experience with exactly what he could do when he got creative, and that was when she'd been a prospective recruit instead of a target. Did Other Cherie really want to hear the fucking details? Again? Yeah, that's what This Cherie thought)
Cherie was most certainly not hyperventilating into a disgusting paper bag that had been discarded and was now growing things because the city's sewer system had been wrecked by Leviathan and smelled appropriately thanks to the literal sewage getting into most everything. Fuck, stop thinking about it Cherie.
No, what she was doing was running like hell to meet up with Other Cherie and The Girl Privately Known As Murderboner.
(This Cherie was really looking forward to that story. You know, when Mannequin wasn't TRYING TO KILL HER)
A thought struck Cherie, and she very carefully stopped, opened her stolen cell phone, sent the code to make it safe to remove the bomb around her neck, and then abandoned it with little care for what fate people in the area might suffer while she resumed legging it. Other Cherie remarked this was the kind of behavior that tended to get on Murderboner's bad side (Specifically: risking killing people without specifically deciding ahead of time to kill them), but both Cheries agreed it was pretty unlikely to come out at a later date, so whatever.
Then she resumed running.
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Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
One too many 'as was's, methinks.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
And then Mannequin literally stumbled across the bomb Cherish carelessly discarded. And that was that.
- Location
- Wherever
Corrected, thanks.
It was originally supposed to be a tense stake-out thing from Canon-Taylor's perspective.
Then I realized she wouldn't be interesting if she wasn't playing off the Monster immigrants, and without her being interesting it would just be an overly-long lead-up to 'lol Manton ded'. Which... is not a surprise from my writing, so it's not like it would be a Shocking Twist or something.
So, uh, yeah I kinda gave up and went 'here's a summary of a boring event, have some comedy to make it less perfunctory, let's move on'.
I kinda figured it would come off weird, but this whole omake arc thing was supposed to be done 5-6 months ago so I'm a bit impatient to get it done and it's not canon anyway so why the hell not.
WinterLantern
Smoked bird
- Location
- North England
Doesn't (evilish) cherish still those edgy tattoos?
- Location
- Canada
It's a non-cannon omake, which follows from a couple others a ways back. It's why it's filed under Apocrypha, rather than the main threadmarks.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Mannequin's a hard fellow to capture, since we never see inside his head in canon and he doesn't communicate much, but you've done a good job with him here.
I'd say gross rather than edgy. It's not like she was meant to like them. And yes, she does, but I'm not sure why that's relevant to anything.
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- Location
- Hungrary
You mean Taylor crosses the multi verse and Cherry collects her a harem of cherries, I think.
WinterLantern
Smoked bird
- Location
- North England
Mostly morbid curiosity, I was kind of joking a little bit by calling them edgy.
I'm honestly not sure if wildbow was aware if laser removal of a tattoo wasn't an option, she could've just gotten the tattoo's blacked out.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Well, neither one of them was an option while she was traveling with the Nine and that's not the kind of thing you survive leaving easily, so they effectively were lifelong for canon Cherish.
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- Location
- France
Well she can now, but using a Panacea is probably faster and less painful.
WinterLantern
Smoked bird
- Location
- North England
Blacked out tattoos can look pretty cool though....
- Location
- France
In her case they completely cover her chest and back. If she blacked them out, she could get away with not wearing a shirt.
I thought her tattoos were more permanent? Aren't raised tattoos just scars?
WinterLantern
Smoked bird
- Location
- North England
Nah you can get them blacked out, I know a few people who've had it done, and one who's had their whole upper body done. They ain't walking about shirtless, it's tattoos