“What was your test, Jack?” Regent asked. I couldn’t tell if he was glad to know his sister suffered or sad for her.
Who knows if he’s even feeling anything about it. But yeah, I suspect it’s closer to the former.
Also, it’s beginning to sink in how casual this conversation is, for who’s in it. Imagine Trickster, downstairs, not knowing this is happening.
After the whole thing is over, the rest of the Undertravelers go back down, and they’re like “Oh yeah, we were just talking to some Slaughterhouse members upstairs. So what did Genesis have to say about the villain meeting?”
“Oh, I knew it would be almost impossible to top Mannequin’s test. He caught her at the exact right moment, struck the right nerve, and pushed her to her very limits. Still, I think I managed to top it. Turn around, Cherish.”
Oh boy, more bodily harm?
Like an automaton, she did. More tattoos and scars covered her chest, just as expansive, just as unpleasant to look at. Two nude women, their entwined limbs like the broken legs of a squashed bug, neither attractive in the slightest. One was emaciated, the other morbidly obese, and both were old. More tattoos of rotting and torn flesh framed the scene, and the words forming the border of the tattoos on the front were the opposite of the others, almost worse in their irony and desperation: ‘Take Me’. ‘Please Desire Me’. ‘Want Me’, and more vulgar variations of the same.
So this is just more of Mannequin’s, right? I don’t imagine Jack would copy his test, let alone do so and then say he “topped it”.
“I made her do the other six tests all over again.”
Oh.
Oh damn.
Yeah, he topped it alright.
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