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The strategy was mine, but Grue was more comfortable than I was as a battlefield commander.  I was okay with him taking charge here.  Preferred it.

Yeah, that’s fair.

Taylor’s a tactician, a good leader of an army, but she’s not a commander.

I raised my binoculars.  Seven members of the Nine were strolling down the street.  Jack, Bonesaw and Siberian were at the head of the group, and Jack was using his knife to try to cut down anyone he saw who didn’t get under cover fast enough.

Just doing some casual roadside murder on their walk, no big deal.

It was almost an idle amusement, rather than some mission or task he’d undertaken.  Most escaped, and he didn’t go to any particular effort to chase them down, as though he were conserving his strength.

It’s probably like a car game for him. You know, the kind children play to alleviate boredom during long car rides, except instead of “punch buggy”, it’s “cut human”.

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“We set up and act the second they stop moving,” Grue’s voice sounded through the walkie-talkie.  “Be ready to move the instant Cherish alerts them.

Hm, looks like we’re getting a little bit of the early work, but already we might have a problem. They’re assuming Cherish will alert the other Nine, but that’s far from guaranteed right now.

We don’t actually know how things went for Imp after we left her yet, but it’s a little worrying that she seemingly didn’t show up to tell the others about Cherish’s deal yet. But she has her reasons to be avoiding Grue right now, and she is probably not aware of this plan of attack yet. Hell, for all I know, she might be in the midst of the Nine still.

We maintain unbroken line of sight over the Nine and between our squads.  Notify us and change position if you lose sight of ’em.  Everyone knows what they’re doing?”

Sounds good. These guys are slippery. The only issue is that it might make it easy for Jack to mow them down, if they leave the line of sight too unbroken.

Also worth noting here, they’re apparently divided into squads. I’m sure there’s a lot of thought put into who’s together in each squad, based on what they’re supposed to be doing in the larger plan.

Various assents could be heard through the walkie-talkies.

“Maybe I should ask if anyone’s unsure about what they’re doing?” he asked.

Yes, that might actually be much better.

There was no response.

“Good.  Hold positions.”

I guess Taylor explained her plan well.

Snare 13.6

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Howdy, everyworm! Krixwell here for another chapter!

So, what all happened last time? Ah yes, Taylor and Rachel had a remarkably open conversation that may have been a breakthrough in their relationship, we got some details on Genesis’ power and limitations, and Taylor pitched her plan for attacking the Nine.

Which I suppose is what we’ll be doing today! Taylor has a plan that we’re not being told (that’s good, it increases the likelihood of success on a meta-level), and by the way these things usually go, it’s time to execute that plan. This is “then I told them what we’d be trying to do” being shown instead of told, by way of seguing into them actually trying to do it.

So, how is this going to go?

In a word, “well”. I don’t really have a clue what Taylor’s plan is besides “attack, no holds barred” – though I hope it involves the shogi tactic, which I think was set up too well in the original planning chapter to be completely dropped – but since we as the audience don’t know what it is, either the plan needs to be successful, or it needs to be spelled out what went wrong and what was supposed to happen, and the former is usually better writing. Thus, the Unspoken Plan Guarantee. That said, complications will still likely arise by the end of the chapter, after most of the plan has worked out.

So yeah, without further ado, let’s tango!

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(I’m going to try for a short session tonight, meaning two or so hours. I might try to make that kind of session a regular thing in order to mix work and blogging better, too, doing more frequent sessions but with less time investment per session. We’ll see.)

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krixwell-liveblogs:

Sorry, no liveblog today. Too sleepy. Let’s try tomorrow instead.

I tried to take care of today’s post-work sleepiness by napping before the blog, but now I’ve run out of time. Whoops. Might still help me be less sleepy tomorrow?

If tomorrow doesn’t work out, Saturday should at least.

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Noelle is incredibly powerful, but “if Noelle used her power in this battle you’re talking about, everyone loses.” There have been numerous bits of information about Noelle but nothing really concrete. Do you have any specific speculation on what Noelle can do/what Noelle’s power(s) might be?

Hmm… I suspect we’re looking at a werewolf-like situation, though not tied to specific times.

It was repeatedly implied that Noelle was monstrous in form before we actually got a look at her, and I think a lot of those implications still need to be considered. It’s also indicated that she has a hunger, and can lose control, and that it doesn’t matter who you are to her when she uses the power.

Noelle’s power probably transforms her or makes things happen like she were transformed (like Jack’s pseudo-extended blades but with a monstrous body). While in the transformed state, she loses control of her mind and ferociously attacks anyone who’s too close. While she’s not transformed, the power wants to be used, which manifests as the “hunger” and is why she needs to be contained.

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When you were making your Slaughterhouse/Undertravelers similarity post i could really see most of them and understand where your coming from with them. But i gotta ask: Grue and Crawler? Trickster and Hack Job? what was your reasoning behind those?

I was expecting this question, especially the Grue and Crawler part.

Trickster and Hack Job is one of the weaker connections there, only really matching up through the fact that they both have powers involving teleportation.

As for Grue and Crawler, I gotta admit that was largely because of process of elimination. Neither of the two have a good match as far as I could see, and given the choice between Grue, Noelle and Oliver, I’d rather have Grue in the post because it feels more complete that way. I did come up with the extremely flimsy justification that they’ve both got a dark aesthetic, but even I don’t really buy that one.

Crawler and Noelle may be better, depending somewhat on what her power actually does. I suppose they do share the horror treatment in Dinah’s Interlude.