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Marquis chuckled.  “You could say that.  The most precious treasure in the world.”

No, seriously, this response is even more perfect if Amy was an “illegitimate child”.

“Somehow I missed the news report where you stole that,” Lady Photon replied.

I like the dramatic irony in this scene. We the readers know what Marquis was protecting, and it makes him seem a lot more human here than he does to the Brigade.

It also allows for lines like this one.

“Stole?  No.  It would be better to say a devoted fan and follower gave her to me.”

Ahaha, nice.

“Her?”  Brandish asked.  But Lady Photon was already reaching for the door, pulling it open.

A girl.  A child, not much younger than Vicky.  The girl was brown hair, freckle-faced, and clutched a silk pillow to her chest.  She wore a silk nightgown with lace at the collar and sleeves.

Aww, little babby Amy.

It looked expensive for something a child would wear.

Nothing less for Marquis’ precious little.

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She let him fall, and then pressed the sword to his throat.  If he gave her an excuse, she would finish him.

Take a deep breath.

She stared down at him.  That long hair, it was such a minor thing, but there was something else about him that stirred that distant, dark memory of the lightless room and the failed attempt at ransom.

Ah, fuck. Whether he actually was involved back then or he just happens to remind her of it, this isn’t good. For him.

Her skin crawled, and she felt anger boiling in her gut.

It took some time for the others to recover, getting their bearings and ensuring their wounds weren’t too serious.

“What were you so intent on protecting?” Manpower asked.  “This where you stash your illegitimate gains?”

…maybe. Was he married to Amy’s mother?

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Marquis surrounded himself in plates of bone that resembled the petals of a flower blooming in reverse, and sank into the ground.

Here he goes again. And he’s got style when he does it, too!

Any other day, Brandish would have followed him into the room below.  A wine cellar, it seemed.

So what’s different this time?

Instead, she turned and charged for the closet, creating a sword out of the crackling energy her power provided, slashing through the plates of bone that had surrounded it, then drawing the blade back to thrust through the wooden door-

Oh, she’s checking out what he was defending.

Or rather, whom.

Marquis emerged between her and the closet door.  She plunged the sword into his shoulder without hesitation.

Oh, hi there. Yeah, he really doesn’t want her going in there. And certainly not thrusting her blade in there.

She could smell his flesh burn, the wound cauterized by the same energy that formed the blade.

“Damnation,” Marquis muttered the word, sagging.

Pfft. That’s certainly a way to swear.

So the truth here is that Marquis was defeated not because he wouldn’t hurt women, but because he was protecting Amy at the cost of having to break from his usual tactics.

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And Flashbang can’t shoot because Marquis will just armor himself before the sphere detonates.  Lightstar is injured, Fleur needs her hands free to strike, and Lady Photon’s incapacitated.

It’s not looking great for you guys.

This certainly doesn’t sound like the sort of easy victory what we knew of Marquis’ arrest made it sound like, along with the whole “all-female” thing.

So is this not when he was arrested? Except all signs point to this being when they find Amy. So was finding out about Amy and arresting Marquis two separate events, meant to build a moral dilemma about whether they should’ve done what they did to get Amy away from him? Or did someone get misinformed about how he was arrested?

“Brandish!”  Manpower shouted.  “Same plan, just the two of us!”

Right.  Their battle plan wasn’t useless, now.  Just harder to pull off.

Well, at least they’ve got something.

This would take some courage.

She charged forward, manifesting energy in the shape of a lance, driving it toward Marquis.

Is this a distraction for Manpower to attack when Marquis changes his target to ward off the lance?

He cast a glance her way and stuck one foot out in her direction.  His toes mutated into a jagged, uneven ripple of bone that stretched out beneath her.

Stop stepping on his toes like that.

Unable to maintain her footing, she had to cancel out the lance, using her hands to brace her fall.

Spikes of bone poked out of the ground in a circle around her, rising to form a cage.

Whoops.

She created twin knives out of energy, slashing out to cut through the bars.

The hardest part would be what came next.  Brandish threw herself in the way of the scythe’s swing.

Hm. Freeing Manpower from the pin by sticking herself into it? Except I’m pretty sure Brandish is more vulnerable than Manpower when she’s not in the morph ball form, so that really does sound a lot harder.

Marquis’ weapon virtually exploded into its component pieces, blade, join and shaft flying past her.

Oh! It’s not a pin switch, it’s basically parrying the weapon with her body.

But the scythe was made of bone, right? We’ve already discovered how much of an issue shattered bone can be in this fight.

“Careful now,” Marquis chided her.  “Don’t want to get decapitated now, do we?”

Sometimes, when the situation has gone completely fucking pear-shaped, there’s no other way out of it.

No longer on the defensive, Manpower charged the villain.

It wasn’t a pin switch, but it had the same end result – well, actually, a better one considering Brandish isn’t pinned in Manpower’s place.

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Okay so here’s the situation: That nap yesterday? It didn’t help much. It just made it so that I fell asleep late, and woke up once halfway through the four hours I had, so overall I didn’t really get that much rest. Add a day of brain-heavy work and I’m way too tired to liveblog.

Hopefully the fact that tomorrow is Saturday and I won’t have to get up early will help me catch up a bit so we’ll be good to go.

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Damn it. Guess who has two thumbs and managed to fall back asleep after the scheduled waking from his nap.

A session tonight would end up being way too short for my liking. I didn’t want to do this, but I guess we’re postponing one more day.

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I kinda accidentally just turned my brain to mush by cramming into it a bit more of the basics of Welsh than I or DuoLingo intended to put in there at once. Any blogging session I were to start right now would be short and, well, brain mushy, so we should probably try this tomorrow instead. See you then!

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In the seconds it had taken her to deal with the blindfold, Marquis had trapped Lady Photon, binding her in a column of dense bone that had likely sprung around her from the floor or ceiling.

Once he gets a good amount of bone going, this power is really strong.

From the glow that was emanating through the barrier, she was apparently trying to use lasers to cut her way out.  She was strong enough to do it in one shot, but she couldn’t do that without risking shooting a teammate if the shot continued through.

Ahh, right.

That left Marquis to duel with Manpower, striking the hero over and over with a massive scythe of bone that extended out from his wrist.

Bones and scythes? Classic combination.

Not usually like this, though.

Manpower was strong, and he was durable thanks to his electromagnetic shield – sparks flew as the scythe hit home over and over.  Even so, the hero didn’t try to fight back.

Why? To avoid punching Marquis through a wall? Or maybe to avoid shattering more of the bones?

It took her only a moment to realize why.  Each swing of the scythe was calculated so that if the movement followed through, it would strike either the crippled Flashbang or Lightstar.

Oh! Devious.