Krixwell Liveblogs

I used clouds of bugs to get the attention of my teammates, then waved for them to come my way when they stopped and looked my way.

Imagine if school teachers did this to call students in from recess.

“I’m not the best person to talk to Panacea.  She kind of hates me.  Remember the thing at the hospital?  The bank robbery?”

Yeah, and she hates Tattletale even more. But it’s true, almost anyone else on the team would be a better pick (just not Bitch).

This is a more entertaining pick, though.

I wonder if Skitter’s heroic intent being revealed to the witnesses at the hospital changed Panacea’s opinions about her at all? I’m not sure if she actually saw/heard that, though.

“But you have talked to her before.  She was there to hear Armsmaster talking about you being a wannabe hero, betraying us.

Heh, well that answers that! 😛

If nothing else, maybe the idea of getting answers about that will get her listening so you can move on to a real conversation.”

It might work. I get the feeling she’ll have other things on her mind, though.

“I’m not entirely sure I follow.”

“All of New Wave live southwest of the Towers, the nice part of downtown.  Neither of their houses were hit by the worst of the waves, and none of the Chosen or Merchants are stupid enough to attack them, and they wouldn’t succeed if they were.  You following me, now?”

Tattletale: “They weren’t forcibly evicted by Leviathan or the villains, so why…”

Power, maybe: “Nominee.”

“Sort of.  You’re wondering why she’s there.  She could just be there giving medical help to the injured.”

I wouldn’t be too surprised if she’s doing that too, although I could see her not wanting to use her power for some time after what happened with Glory Girl.

“My scouts say she’s keeping to herself, trying to avoid attracting attention.”

And if she’s a) avoiding being asked to use her power and/or b) avoiding the Nine, this would make sense. Especially since her identity is public and anyone might recognize her out of costume.

“Curious.”

“Exactly.  Want to go pay a visit?”

Hell yes.

So, who was the caller? I’m guessing Coil or Tattletale. Maybe Genesis.

Or perhaps Sierra or Charlotte.

It started vibrating again.

“Yes?” I answered.

“You guys busy?” Lisa asked.

Hiya!

Kind of, how so? Slaughterhouse sighting to take care of?

“Just patrolling our territories to make sure that the Chosen aren’t up to anything,” I said.  A droplet of water fell on the lens of my mask.  I looked up at the overcast sky.  Rain?

Rain rarely means anything good in this story.

“Listen, you know that I’ve got some people working for me, passing on info, right?”

Yes?

“Sure.  Bryce is one of them, right?”

“Right.  Well, I’ve got all of them keeping an eye out for capes and known faces.”

How about unknown faces?

That’d probably be a bit impractical. :p

“Known faces?  Like the members of Empire Eighty-Eight who were outed?”

“Like them.  Or Jack, or Bonesaw.  But that’s not what this is about.  Senegal just dropped by Coil’s base, and he’s passing on information from one of my scouts.  They saw Panacea at one of the shelters in Ballistic’s territory.”

Ooh! I like where this seems to be going.

Lucy and Sirius wanted to follow, so it thankfully didn’t take much effort to get them moving.  Bitch wasn’t riding as fast as she could, so it was clear enough that she wasn’t trying to escape.  She wanted space, and she was angry.

That’s fair. I don’t get angry easily, but when I do, my first instinct is usually to get away from it and cool down.

It’s certainly somewhat healthier than some of Bitch’s previous anger responses, at least.

I glanced over my shoulder at Grue.  How the hell were we supposed to handle this situation?

Maybe you should’ve given that a little more thought before you started it.

Unless by “this situation” you mean the broader “Bitch is bottling up something, keeps quiet and gets mad if you ask her what’s up”.

My phone vibrated at my back, and in my effort to avoid falling off Lucy, I wasn’t able to get at it.  I fought to make her obey me and stop by pulling on the chains and wrenching her right, then left.

I was a little confused until I remembered the satellite phones.

Don’t talk and ride hellhounds!

…

I was joking, but that really does seem like something Taylor would be concerned about, what with her mom. Though I doubt the accident that took Annette Rose Hebert’s life involved her riding a hellhound.

She finally halted, and I took the opportunity to grab my phone.  I’d missed my window.

Better that than running your hellhound into a tree or oncoming traffic.

“But?” I added.

“What?”

“You’re not thinking about joining them, but…?” I let the question hang for a second.  “Something is eating you up.”

Yeah, I think Taylor’s right here. It’s probably something to do with Siberian and the dog vs wolf thing, though.

“Did you not hear what I said about my thoughts being my business?”

“Bitch,” Grue warned.

“What?”  She clenched her fist, and I think the dogs could see something in her body language, because they tensed too.  She said, “Fuck it.  Pisses me off when you get on my case.  Leave me alone.”

“that’s my case, don’t get on it”

She kicked Bentley lightly in the sides, and the dog began walking.  She kicked him again, and he started running. 

Two chapters, two Undersiders running off ahead of their peers (after a confrontation with Grue and Skitter).

“Bitch,” Grue spoke.

“What?”  She snapped her head around to face him.  Her eyes flicked over to me and narrowed slightly before they returned to him.

Well that’s certainly not an ominous response when you’re about to confront someone about something, no sirree.

“This whole thing with you not talking?  It’s not working.”

A bit more general than I expected, but it does cover not talking about the nomination.

“So?”

“So cut it out.  Or at least explain what’s going through your head.”

“What I think is my business.”

“No,” I cut in.  I couldn’t help it.  “You’re a member of the team, and if you’re thinking about joining the Nine, then that matters.”

Taylor’s got her number. I don’t think Bitch is going to like that Taylor’s caught onto that.

Or that she’s getting involved at all, but still.

And yeah, there are a lot of cases where what Bitch thinks can be important to the team. Hell, a few Arcs ago, her thoughts on Taylor almost lost them a team member.

“I’m not!”  She snapped.

Right.

To be fair, she may really not be thinking about joining them so much as letting the tests happen, but it amounts to just about the same thing in practice.

He shrugged again.  He didn’t get it?

Sorry, Taylor, I’m with Grue. What was that supposed to mean? Knock her out??

Drawing from the bugs I had stored in my costume, I drew out words in the air with the bugs flying in tightly controlled formations.  ‘Confront her’.

Ohh.

Right.

This could be seen as pawning it off on Grue, but he is the de facto leader of the team, and Taylor being the one to confront Bitch about anything is a bad idea right now.

He hesitated.

Really can’t blame ya, pal.

‘Be leader,’ I wrote.  Then I changed the words of ‘leader’ to ‘honest’.

“Be leader. Be honest.”

Sounds like an Engrish slogan for something. I don’t know what for, but definitely a slogan.

“Right.  Good.”  Grue looked at Bitch, “We’ll finish checking out my territory, stop in yours to help you with whatever you need to do for your dogs, then we’ll pass through Tattletale’s area on the way back to Skitter’s.”

…wait.

Am I getting the geography wrong here? I thought Skitter’s territory was somewhere in-between Tattletale’s and Bitch’s. The way I’ve been picturing it, this would take them way north, quite a bit south, and then a bit north again.

“I don’t really care,” Bitch said, looking off into the distance.  I was pretty sure she was deliberately looking away from me.

I believe her. She’s probably not particularly invested in keeping herself away from the testers, after all. Though she would probably object to her dogs getting seriously hurt.

It was as though she wanted to pretend I didn’t exist.

Seems accurate enough.

Grue looked at me and shrugged.

This wasn’t going to work.  She was too distant, and that was dangerous.  Not that it wasn’t risky to try to address the problem.  It still needed to be done.

…uh-oh, what are you about to try?

Making sure Bitch wasn’t looking, I tapped two fists together and then pointed at her.

Is that supposed to be a signal to Grue?

“Did you give her a job before you left for Coil’s this morning?” I suggested.

He shook his head, “No.  I make notes, and I make her take notes too.  Keeping track of that girl is a nightmare.”

Heh, I can imagine.

So this means that once her power has erased the memory of her, the most recent stuff doesn’t come back by itself, even after some time of the power being inactive (we already knew it didn’t immediately come back, from Taylor’s experiences in Parasite). Nobody except Imp (and maybe Tattletale) remembers the spat Imp and Grue had at the meeting, and Grue doesn’t even seem to remember that she was even with them to the meeting.

“Tattletale’s working on her idea,” I said.  It felt ineffectual as reassurances went.  In the hopes of elaborating on the thought, I added, “Maybe she’ll be able to keep track of Imp and stay in touch with us, to keep us informed.”

That does sound good, yeah.

Y’know, I wonder how Coil feels about Imp. How does he feel about having a major piece on the board that he sometimes can’t remember even exists?

“Maybe.  You done a sweep of the area?”

I shook my head.  “Need another minute.  I’m trying to be thorough in how I check each area for enemies, and Mannequin can see my bugs, so I have to use silk lines to try to catch him.

Right. Can’t have him dodging them again.

It’s slow, and I definitely don’t want to miss him.  Also, it would be nice to grab some bugs to build up and replenish my stock.”  I let bugs gather on Lucy’s back, depositing spiders and large beetles.  The dog didn’t seem to mind.

“Just as long as they’re not fleas, small human.”

“Aisha’s not here,” Grue informed us.

Who’s Aisha?

Jokes aside, I feel like this being focused on right out of the gate is a good sign for the continued relevance of Imp and Grue’s conflict in this Arc. I stand by my suggestion that Imp is going to go against his wishes and try to spy on the Nine anyway.

Hell, maybe she’ll end up as bait leading the Northern Undertravelers right into the trap I think the title refers to.

He locked the door to his headquarters and climbed on top of Sirius.  Bitch and I were astride Bentley and Lucy, respectively, and Bastard was on the end of a chain that Bitch held.

Oh hey, it’s the base tour.

Also, it seems like the difficulty in noticing Imp only works if you’re not actively looking for her – for instance, Taylor, once reminded of Imp’s existence and alerted to the fact that she’s somewhere in the room, usually finds her quickly. So since Grue would be actively looking for her, he’d probably see her if she was there. And then he’d promptly forget her entirely if she didn’t want to be found, probably.

Although if it worked that easily all the time, there wouldn’t be a risk of the Slaughterhouse Nine doing something to Imp – “oh, you’ve noticed me? just forget that”. Maybe it’s based on “out of sight, out of mind”? I didn’t see anything about Aisha leaving the room before her power took effect last chapter, but Taylor may just have forgotten that before she even had the chance to narrate it.