It could also the grasp of villainy that tangles our dear Skitter even more, until nothing remains but a struggling bug in a web so… SO much larger than herself. Or it’s Taylor finally trusting Lisa’s tips about haircare. Her dark curly mane IS Taylor’s pride, after all…

Hehe. Taylor’s gonna be a quite formidable villain one day… possibly with dreadfully tangled hair.

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Faultline and crew are not villains, they’re mercenaries. If most of the Protectorate actually gave a damn about protecting people instead of keeping afloat the status quo, they could calmly talk to Faultline and discuss a price for her intervention on the right side of the law.

Hm, yeah, that’s a good point. And it’s not like the Protectorate aren’t being paid for their work in the first place, so it wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary, either.

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Re: Faultline and PRT: to be fair to the PRT, Faultline’s crew are criminals who have fought against some of Protectorate’s top capes, kidnapped a dangerous and unstable cape from an asylum, and more. Hiring them would raise a lot of problems for PRT as soon as the crew commits another crime, now with better equipment. The last thing PRT wants is concerns about it funding supervillains.

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Oh god, not that tired old “They’re mercenaries, not villains!” line. No, they’re villains. They’ve committed numerous crimes, both directly and indirectly. Them doing so because they got hired does not change that.

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The reason the Protectorate doesn’t hire Faultline’s Crew probably has less to do with maintaining the status quo, and more to do with how a normal government can’t hire wanted criminals. You can say that they’re technically mercenaries and not villains, but I doubt breaking into a high security asylum and taking an inmate is legal, and that’s ignoring anything else they’ve done.

You all have excellent points.

I do think the PRT could hire them, but it’d probably have to be after they served time for all the things they’ve already been doing… which might land them in the Birdcage, I don’t know.

Also, the Protectorate would have reason to not trust them to stay loyal if some villain came along with a higher bid. Boom, suddenly Faultline and her crew are attacking the Protectorate from within.

And that’s all before you consider that – as at least two of you are implicitly pointing out – they’ve done crimes that don’t fall under the mercenary work.