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She shook her head.  It was more the kind of head shake that accompanied an eye roll.

Hehe. An appropriate response.

Skidmark went on, “You’re mercenaries.  Don’t tell me you don’t have the cash.  I’ll only ask for five mil.  One for each vial you took.”

…you know, I can actually believe that that is a good deal for those vials. But Faultline and co. have approximately no reason to make a deal in the first place.

Fautline didn’t answer him.  Instead she looked at Hookwolf and asked him, “Did we really need to invite him?  Does he contribute anything to this discussion?”

Oof.

…but it’s true, he’s not among those with ties to people targeted by the Nine. I’m sure his people would get caught in crossfire if Shatterbird went big, but how much would he himself care?

The only real reason he’s here is that he’s made himself a bigshot in Brockton Bay.

“Hey, Faultline,” Skidmark’s smirk dropped off his face as he realized who else was present.  “What the motherfuck were you doing, fucking with my party!?”

Oh yeah, that’s right, he wouldn’t know why they attacked. From his perspective, it came out of nowhere.

“You had something we needed.”  Faultline’s response was as measured and calm as Skidmark’s question wasn’t. 

At least one of them seems to respect the truce and the idea that they’re not here to argue about past grievances.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little hard on Skidmark. It’s not like he just attacked Faultline over it, and it’s honestly no wonder he’s pissed.

“Who hired you, bitch?  Tell me and my Merchants won’t come after you in revenge.  All you’ll have to do is return that shit you stole or pay me back for it.  Maybe you can spit-polish my knob for a little goodwill.”

Oh yeah, of course. It kinda slipped my mind that Faultline’s crew primarily act outwardly as mercenaries and as such the others would assume someone paid them to attack.

Faultline could lie here and subject someone else to the Merchants’ revenge, but I don’t think that’s her style.

“Not going to happen.”

Especially the last part, I would assume.

“Then forget sucking my cock.  Pay me back and tell me who hired you and we’ll call it even.”

Apart from that particular unreasonable demand, he’s actually being fairly civil about this.

I mean, for Skidmark.

“Hey!” Hookwolf growled, “What part of keep a low profile don’t you fucking understand?”

And within moments of Skidmark arriving we already have the first verbal conflict of the meeting.

Skidmark smirked, raising his chin to give it an arrogant tilt, “We did.  My Squealer built a box that cancels out light and noise at a certain distance.  Nice and in your face up close, almost invisible and silent when far away.  Isn’t that right, baby?”

…okay, I’ll give you that one, that’s kinda neat.

Squealer just smiled.  It probably wasn’t as sexy or cute as she thought it was.  Aisha, when left to her own devices, was a pretty girl who dressed trashy.  Squealer, I felt, was more of a trashy woman who dressed trashy.

One thing you do with trash is burn it. Taylor’s thoughts are already making good progress on that front.

Squealer had apparently never grasped the concept of elegance in design.  From what I’d read and heard, she went for size, augmentations and additions when she built her vehicles.

A bit pragmatic, huh? Well, that means this vehicle is probably packed to the brim with utilities and weaponry. Might come in handy if the Slaughterhouse were to attack here after all.

She was kind of the polar opposite of Armsmaster in that regard.

To be fair, Armmaster’s power lends itself well to making tons of additions without damaging the aesthetics. But yes, he was absolutely concerned with looking good.

The hull of their boat scraped against the edge of the building, nearly running over the boat that Grue and Bitch had come in on.

Classy as always.

All of the lights shut off, and the Merchants descended onto the roof.  Skidmark, Squealer, Mush, Scrub, Trainwreck, the telekinetic whirlwind lady with the long hair and one other.

Oh hey, I was right about Trainwreck being on the boat. :p

Telekinetic whirlwind… did we see that in action in Infestation?

Another reason for this meeting place had been subtlety, keeping out of sight and off the radar.  The Merchants apparently hadn’t gotten the message.

Ahaha, or they just didn’t care.

All at once, an incoming boat made its presence known.  As though a switch was flipped, there was the sound of something that sounded like the combined noise of radio static coming from a bank of speakers, an eighteen wheeler with the muffler off and an onrushing train.

Woah.

It wasn’t just noise – the vehicle flickered with flashes of electricity and lights that people could probably see from anywhere downtown.

Surprise! It’s the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000!

Anyway, could this be Trainwreck? Or are we looking at the introduction of one or more new characters here?

It would seem odd for Trainwreck to be given this much attention unless he’s more important than ever before in this chapter.

Seeing it approach, I had no doubt it was a tinker contraption.  It was the size of a small yacht,

Well at least the word “yacht” did make it into the chapter! It’s the little victories…

but it looked outfitted for war, with what looked like tesla coils crossed with old school tv antennae fueling its forward momentum and sending arcs of electricity dancing over the waves in its wake, as though it was riding on a current of lightning.

Huh. Maybe I wasn’t too far off in jokingly comparing it to the weird-looking mechanical vehicle/contraption that is the SSCS 6k. Does this thing make apple cider?

Also, is this Chariot, risking his (already compromised, unbeknownst to him) cover by hanging out with the villains?

That doesn’t seem quite right. I think my money’s on a new character for now.

Various guns had been placed haphazardly around the upper deck, each manned by a Merchant.  Skidmark stood at the highest deck with Squealer, the driver.

Ahh.

Of course they’d have a vehicle tinker.

I saw a flash of light above us, and spotted Purity in the air high above the rooftop, using her power to create a flare of light, extinguish it, then create it again.

Hah! I see how it is. Who needs a flashlight for signalling when you’ve got Purity over here?

There was an answering series of flashes from across the water.  It was a different set of signals than the ones she’d set up with us.  It made sense for the light signals to be different from group to group, so Purity could keep track of who was coming and where from.

Yeah, sounds about right. And if someone uninvited observes from the shores and tries to use the same signal as someone they saw go through the process, Purity will know something’s up.

The main reason we’d agreed on this meeting place were the seclusion it offered, and the fact that it was just hard enough to access that the Nine wouldn’t be able to approach without us knowing.  Hopefully.

Shatterbird being the one exception. And her clothes are probably quite reflective, which in a bit of a problem for a stealthy arrival in the dark with someone who creates light on guard duty.

Theoretically, though? Shatterbird could probably take the entire group on top of a block of glass and fly them all across. The only thing stopping her would be a weight limit, and as far as we’ve seen, she doesn’t seem to have a particularly low one.

I almost missed it in the gloom, but when I did spot it, it was almost impossible to ignore.  On every patch of skin I could see in the Chosen’s group, scars and scratches had just barely healed over.

Ah yes. Shatterbird’s work… I wonder if Taylor will recognize that.

There were still faint indents and lines of pale skin that marked where the deep lacerations had been.  The little scars made patterns across their skin, some spraying out from a single point, others running parallel to one another, going in the same direction like a snapshot of rainfall imprinted on their skin.

I guess that’s not really too far from what it is. It’s just from a different material.

With that many scratches and scars, they must have been hit hard.

They were, but as far as we know, all of that except for like one scar on Cricket was from one attack.

Faultline’s group was gathered to one side.  Faultline, Newter, and the new member Shamrock wore more concealing costumes than their usual.

I guess that’s like with Taylor removing the glass from her costume – they’re trying to protect their bodies more from powers like Shatterbird’s or Burnscar’s (they might also be hiding their wounds from their previous encounter with her).

Faultline’s face was covered in a tinted visor, and her arms and legs were covered in opaque gloves and leggings.

I hope that visor isn’t made of glass. Faultline seems smart enough to avoid that, at least.

Labyrinth and Spitfire were fully decked out in their usual concealing robe and fire-retardant suits, respectively.  Only Gregor showed skin.

He kinda has to for his power’s sake, but fortunately he’s somewhat resistant to at least some of the effects they’re protecting themselves against.

The barnacle-like growths of spiral shells that covered his skin had multiplied on one side of his body, until there was more shell than skin.  The skin around it was crimson enough that it stood out in the gloom.  It looked tender.

Huh. Apparently he does have some additional defense.

Hookwolf and his Chosen had situated themselves at the corner of the roof that stood highest from the surrounding water.

Because of course they place themself highest, towering over the others.

But seriously, metaphors about their opinions on themselves aside, it does make sense to put Hookwolf, the one inviting to this meeting and presumably taking charge, up high where everyone can see him, especially since there doesn’t seem to be a central table this time (well that makes some of my speculations pointless in retrospect).

Hookwolf stood with his arms folded, densely covered in bristling spikes, barbs, blades and hooks, only his face untouched by the treatment, covered by his metal wolf mask instead.

He’s ready in case trouble comes, and as a bonus, makes himself look even more powerful.

Othala, Victor and Cricket were sitting on the raised edge of the roof behind him.  Stormtiger floated in the air just beside Cricket, and Rune had levitated three chunks of pavement into the air behind the group, each the size of a fire truck, like weapons poised at the ready.

I don’t think this is going to make people feel more secure that this is not a trap, though.

Last time, there was a no-powers rule in place. The hosts don’t seem to be holding to that this time.

She sat on the edge of one of the chunks, her feet dangling over Victor’s head.  Menja stood just behind Rune on the floating piece of shattered road, twelve feet tall, fully garbed in her valkyrie armor, a shield in one hand and a long spear in the other.

Seriously, even I’m half beginning to doubt whether this could be a trap at this point. Hopefully they’re just trying to make it clear that they’re in charge and won’t be taking kindly to shenanigans.

Any corpses they have to drop into the lake won’t be found for a while.

With that in mind, I surrendered myself of that responsibility for the present.  Much in that same way, I cast off all the other worries, great and small.

I really like this scene so far.

A light flashed ahead of us.  Three blinks, then two.

Morse code? Or just a general identification thing?

“Regent!” Tattletale called out.

Regent raised a flashlight and flashed it twice, paused, then flashed it twice again.

Seems like the latter.

There was one flash in response.

Grue slowed his boat as we reached our destination.  Our meeting place was in the center of the lake, one of the buildings that still partially stood above water, leaning to one side so a corner of the roof was submerged, the opposite corner peaking high.

Seems like a nice enough place for our villain picnic.

Heh, and here I was theorizing about a fancy yacht earlier 😛

Come to think of it, a yacht would probably be dangerous. Too much glass, making it vulnerable to the one Slaughterhouse member who flies.

Tattletale didn’t slow our boat like Grue had his, and instead steered the boat in a wide ‘u’ to ride it up onto the corner of the roof.

Heh, neat.

Regent and I hopped out to grab the front of the boat and help pull it up.  When Grue rode his boat aground as well, a little more carefully, we helped him too.  Bitch hopped out and spent a moment using gestures and tugs on the puppy’s leash to get her dogs arranged and settled.

And thus, the Undersiders have arrived. 🙂