He could have been conserving ammunition. What was that term for ‘the simplest answer is often the correct one’? It didn’t matter.
Occam’s razor.
I’m not sure how well it applies here, though.
It was possible.
I moved my bugs closer to Mannequin, to test his presence for gas. Only a few perished.
Seems like an improvement.
There wasn’t much, if any. His mouth was closed. He was catching up to Grue. Grue must have noticed, because he directed Sirius up into an alley and towards a roof.
Hmm. Now he might be conserving ammunition – he probably has a limited amount of the gas.
Mannequin stopped and raised one arm, then fired. My bugs felt the concussion of the shot, but no reaction from Grue and Sirius.
There was a pause, then another shot. Again, no reaction. Two misses.
…huh. I guess maybe he wants to get rid of the interlopers first so he can really focus on Skitter when the time comes.
I headed the opposite way.
Think, Taylor, think! Mannequin was a smart guy. Everything he did would be calculated to achieve some specific goal.
Sounds about right. Right now, the overall goal is revenge, but his more specific way of going about that seems to go deeper than just plain killing Taylor. I think he wants to get her on her own so he can make her suffer first.
Why was he here? He wanted to hurt me. He wanted to hit me where it hurt, and he’d done it. He’d killed no less than ten of my followers. Charlotte and Sierra could easily be among them.
I certainly hope not. They both have great potential and I’d like to see their characters expanded on further in the future.
He had let us find him because he wanted to bait us into a trap. It had worked against Bitch, for the most part. She wasn’t dead, I hoped, but she was out of action.
Yeah, I don’t think Bitch is going to get taken out permanently just like that. She’s at risk due to her involvement in the nomination plot, but that involvement also seems to give her plot armor. If it kills her, it’s too early.
Besides, it would be an anticlimactic way to go for such an important character, though that didn’t protect Kaiser.
What about the small stuff? The little things? After he’d caught Bitch, he hadn’t shot her, and he hadn’t shot Bastard when the puppy was making its rescue attempt.
I think this makes sense, since I think it would be a faux pas to deliberately kill her before she failed his test.
“Priority one is surviving until we think of one,” I replied.
Yes, exactly.
“Genesis will be back in action in a few minutes.”
That ought to be good. In this sense, her power is really good, since if she’s taken out, she can “respawn”, at least until she’s worn out from using her power.
“A few minutes is a long time.”
“I know,” I looked at Mannequin again.
But yeah, that’s true. It’s about how long several chapters worth of Parasite took.
He’d closed his mouth and was standing still. I pointed. “You go that way, I go this way. Keep an eye on the sky. If there’s trouble, we signal each other.”
I wonder if the mouth is completely cosmetic or if that’s how he releases the gas. I suppose it would make sense for him to have built this new ability into his new/repaired head.
I was taken aback for half a second. Then anger set in. I barked, “Enough!” and I snatched up the chain.
Well, I suppose there is that whole firmness thing.
He growled again, and I hauled on it. The way it was rigged, it looped around his snout so it would tighten around the end of his nose when the chain was pulled.
…huh. I guess that’s one way to make up for the fact that the doggos can easily overpower Bitch.
It was like a choke collar, but focused more on the sensitive snout than on the throat. He recoiled and tried to pull away, and I tugged again.
I’m not gonna lie, though, it doesn’t sound particularly nice.
This time, he went still, resisting less.
“You’re with me, puppy,” I said, pulling on the chain as I backed away from Mannequin. “Grue, take Bitch and get to cover. I can’t see inside your darkness so long as that gas is wiping out my bugs, and he isn’t bothered by it, so remove it as fast as you apply it, but try to push the gas away or displace it or whatever.”
And on that day, darkness quite literally swept across the neighborhood. Repeatedly.
“We need a plan to win this,” he said.
Right now, she’s at least doing what she can to help you all survive this.
Huh. I forgot how early in the Wheel of Time series the Gray Men / Soulless were introduced. I’m listening to the audio version of the third book in the series and the concept of them was just introduced, only a few days after I read Aisha’s Interlude.
The downside to getting up early, even though I fell asleep at a reasonable time last night, is that I’ve been a bit sleepy all day. Let’s do this thing tomorrow instead.
The puppy ran back to us. There was nothing we could do for Bentley.
😦
I hopped down and grabbed Bitch as Bastard came back to us. He growled as I approached, but he didn’t protest as I took Bitch into my arms and dragged her back toward Grue and Sirius.
I suppose Mannequin wouldn’t want to actually kill Bitch before the deadline of his trial. Killing a candidate who hasn’t failed your test seems like a faux pas.
Grue didn’t dismount, but I doubted he would have managed well if he had, given his injured leg. I tried to ignore Mannequin’s steady approach as I propped Bitch’s limp form up against Sirius’ side long enough to lift her arms up to Grue’s waiting hands.
Grue hasn’t said anything in this chapter yet. I suppose he hasn’t really needed to, but still.
Together, we hauled her up so she was lying astride Sirius’ shoulders, just in front of Grue.
“Gas,” I muttered. “There’s a cloud of gas around him.”
Looks like it might be about to change, with Taylor talking to him.
“Fuck me,” Grue said. “I’d hoped we could at least hit him.”
Yeeah. He’s protected himself against the only things you had that could damage him, with this.
I looked at Bastard. Too small to ride. He was the size of a pony, but he wasn’t built for riding in the same way, and the spikes and bony plates that covered him were too densely packed for me to find any sort of flat patch to sit on.
A pony, you say?
…by the way, in my surprisingly difficult search for a good size comparison between an actual pony and a human, I found this:
Judging by a different image showing the difference between a horse and a pony, that dog actually looks like it’s an appropriate size for Bastard.
I reached for the chain that trailed from his muzzle.
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