There were parahumans who were fucked up before powers entered the picture, like Bitch, and there were parahumans who became monsters after they got their powers, like Bakuda.  Then there were the really dangerous ones, the people who had probably been monsters before powers were even on the table, and then they got worse.

Oh jeez, yeah.

Are you talking about all the Fellowship members now? (I didn’t count, did we make it through all nine?)

And if that wasn’t bad enough, you had Bonesaw, who was like some kind of artist, as psychopaths went.  The sort of person that drew other lunatics to her, just because they wanted to see what she would do next.

…and once the lunatics are together, they form a team.

Even that wouldn’t normally work as a dynamic, but as I understood it, Jack somehow managed to play them off one another and keep the group more or less intact.

So Bonesaw is the heart of the group, bringing them together in a fucked up way just by being herself. Jack is the head, scheming ways to keep things together.

He was familiar enough with the psychology of his group and just plain charismatic enough to keep them from killing one another.

Yeah… sometimes that’s necessary. When it is, that doesn’t bode well.

“Jack Slash.”  Jack looked like someone on the attractive side of average, his dark hair cut short and styled with gel.

“Jack” and “Slash” together make me think of Jacks using knives or swords, such as the ones in Homestuck… or more prominently, Jack the Ripper. As such, I’d expect this one to have a habit of mutilations (as expected from any Slaughterhouse member) such as “deep throat slashes, abdominal and genital-area mutilation, removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations”.

Hm, I guess that would be the corpse whose gender was unidentifiable.

His beard and moustache were immaculately trimmed so that each had a serrated edge, and his shirt was wrinkled, only half buttoned so his hairless upper chest showed.  He had kind of a Johnny Depp look to him, though he had more of a widow’s peak, a longer face and lighter eyes.

Even his facial hair is edgy.

Maybe he could get along with Hookwolf.

Good looking, if you looked past the fact that he was a mass murderer.  He held a small kitchen knife in the photo.

That’s probably only the beginning of his toolkit.

Also, headcanon that Johnny Depp used to be (and maybe still is) Taylor’s celebrity crush.

“Burnscar.” Younger, maybe an older teenager or a young-looking twenty-something.  She looked almost normal, with her dark hair badly cut, but then I saw the vertical row of cigarette burns marking each of her cheeks, and a faint glow to her eyes.

This would probably be the one responsible for the charred corpse. Fire powers, naturally, though I’m not sure the exact nature of hers.

“Hatchet Face.”  This was one I hadn’t even heard of.  The man didn’t wear a mask, and his head was shaved.

Hatchet Face is a beautiful name.

He looked like he had been beaten, burned and just plain abused so often that his face was as much scar tissue than flesh, and he didn’t look like he’d been handsome to begin with.

I wonder if he flips a coin. (That’s a joke, I don’t think Wildbow would do that.)

I’m guessing this one’s a Brute of some variety.

“The Siberian.”  A woman, naked from head to toe, her body painted in alternating stripes of jet black and snow white.

Sounds more like a zebra, honestly.

Also, judging by the colors, it seems we’re going for a Siberian husky rather than a Siberian cat.

…I wonder if Wildbow is a dog person.

She had gone up against the Triumvirate – Legend, Alexandria and Eidolon – on a dozen occasions, and she was still around to talk about it.  Or around, at least.

Daamn.

So is she mute, then?

From what I’d read, she didn’t talk.

Fair enough.

“Shatterbird.”  A dark-haired, brown-skinned woman with a helmet covering the upper half of her face, in a beak shape.  I was reminded of Iron Falcon, the boy I’d tried to help, who’d died in the Endbringer attack.

“Squawk!”

I saw a glimpse of the next line and it seems like Taylor is going to say what she knows about Shatterbird’s power, so I’m gonna take a moment to speculate:

Maybe her power is to shatter bones? Not sure what prompted the bird aesthetic if that’s the case, though. Shatter bones and fly?

From what I’d read, Shatterbird usually used her power as the Nine arrived in a city, to maximize panic and terror.

That sounds… familiar. It reminds me of the Simurgh, who is a presumably birdlike being who spreads panic and terror by virtue of what she is, and apparently leaves cities in a state that’s potentially even more destructive than the Simurgh herself.

I wonder if there’s going to be a watery Fellowship member. We already know there’s a firey one, due to the charred body.

Also, I guess I should speculate on Bonesaw too… I mean, what do you use a bonesaw for? To cut things up. I’m thinking her power might be kind of like Faultline’s, except it works on living beings. She might be the one behind the chain-limbed person.

I supposed they were flying under the radar for now.  Fuck, I’d have to do something about my costume, just in case.

Hm. Pray tell, what can you do about your costume that might help you against whatever Shatterbird does?

“Crawler.”  No portrait, this time.  It was a still from a surveillance camera, a misshapen silhouette, not even humanoid, in a shadowy area.

Hm, was Crawler mentioned back in Interlude 3, when the Wards were trying to come up with a name for Skitter that wasn’t taken?

*rereads*

Nah. The names that were suggested before Skitter were Maggot, Worm, Stinger and Pestilence. The latter two were taken.

Anyway, it sounds like Crawler is a Changer of some sort, maybe into some sort of giant spider or similar.

I doubt that would let Skitter control them, but that’s a fun idea to imagine.

I’d come across stories about him when I’d been researching possible superhero names for myself.  Not pretty.

Ah, heh. The Wards didn’t consider it, but Taylor did.

It was disturbingly intimate in a way I’d rather not think about.  No, not intimate.  That was the wrong word for the impression I was getting.  Possessive.  I looked away.

I know, right? Eaugh.

“Yes?” Dinah asked.

“Likelihood that one of my groups encounters the Slaughterhouse Nine?”

“Who?”

I guess she needs a bit more context… although I’m not sure if she’s asking for more info about the Slaughterhouse Nine, or asking Coil to specify a team.

He moved to take the laptop, and the middle-aged man stepped back to let him.  He typed for a few seconds, then turned it around so Dinah could see.  It was a gallery of images.

“Bonesaw.” he spoke.  The girl on the screen looked barely older than Dinah, maybe the same age as Aisha.  The image showed her wide-eyed, a spray of dried blood painted her face at a diagonal.

Well that’s… suitably crazed-looking.

Not gonna lie, I wasn’t expecting people around that age in the Fellowship of the Meat. Are they all youngsters? Or are they mostly grown-ups with like three hobbits children in their midst?

Seriously, the “pet” thing manages to bother me more than the “candy” thing.

Regent asked the question for me, “The Slaughterhouse Nine?”

“At least some of their members have been seen in town, preying on the locals, disrupting recovery efforts.  The recent chaos makes the city a playground for them,” Coil spoke.  “One of my teams is bound to run up against them soon.”

Hm. No mention of direct attacks on his people. Guess that’s not it. Maybe they were just random civilians?

Also it doesn’t elude me that the Undersiders fall under the umbrella of “one of my teams”. I have a feeling they’ll be up against the Fellowship within the next Arc or two. Maybe three, but that’s pushing it.

“How likely is it?” Tattletale asked.  She tilted her head in Dinah’s direction.  “Can you ask her?”

Hm, given that she’s already gotten her “candy”, I’m not sure how willing or capable she’s going to be to answer right now.

“I suppose.”  Coil put his hand on Dinah’s head, stroked her hair, then slid his hand down the side of her face until he could place his fingertips under her chin, raise her head to look at him, “Pet?”

Fuck you.