As they got close, I took a firmer hold over them and moved them directly to us.  The papers crumpled as my hands closed around them.  Four or five pages.

I couldn’t be sure two might have been stuck together.

Not too much, but far better than nothing.

“We need an exit,” I said, as I hopped down from the wall.  I handed Lisa the papers.

Yeah, before Faultline comes after you. I highly doubt she wasn’t paying close attention to where the papers were headed.

Lisa nodded, “I’ve been thinking on that.  Look.”

She pointed at one corner of the mall.  It looked like any other section, heavily altered by Labyrinth’s powers.  The shops had been almost entirely consumed by Labyrinth’s powers, and were further shrouded by the floor-to-ceiling statues of human figures that stuck out of the walls.

So did you find a hole in the Matrix?

In the corner Lisa was pointing at, there were male and female figures, expressions solemn, hands reaching, moving so slowly I might have thought it was my imagination.  The shop below was nearly gone, the entrance nearly covered up.

Hm. But not completely… is that the ticket out?

“Not seeing it,” I said.

“Look at how they’re standing.  The male figure is sticking out of the left wall, reaching with his right hand, the female figure is doing the opposite.  

Seems riddle-y… Is it a requirement of Labyrinth’s power that she provides some way out? Or maybe it’s for Faultline and anyone else on Labyrinth’s side who need to get out but are under the power’s effect.

Look past them, at the corner.”

I did.  Between the figures was the point where the two exterior walls of the shopping center joined… nothing jumped out at me.  The walls were bare.

Hm. Maybe that’s the point.

“I don’t see it,” I repeated, as she tugged on my arm and started running forward.  As a group we started moving toward the corner.  “What am I looking for?”

Maybe it’s more what isn’t there, namely wall decorations.

“Nothing!  There’s nothing there because her power isn’t extending to that corner.  She’s too far away, on the roof at the other side of the mall. Which means the interior of that shop isn’t affected by her power!”

Nice! I got the pieces right, just didn’t think to put them together.

So are you gambling on the shop having a back door or emergency exit?

To be fair, Lisa is very good at gambling.

His power streaked from his hand to the ground where the canisters and metal case sat.

Ah shit.

Where’s he sending them? Into the labyrinth?

I could see Faultline’s expression change behind her mask, saw her set her feet and start sprinting for the case before Skidmark’s power even took hold.

If the vials smash, that’s probably bad for Faultline’s Crew.

Not as bad as some vengeful Merchants getting them, but still bad.

The metal box and canisters launched out over the edge of the platform and into the air above the crowd.  Only a few papers escaped the case at first, but his power had saturated the insides of the box.

Papers? Possibly with information the Crew wanted, I’d imagine.

So he’s saturated the insides of the box? That’s bad for the health of the glass vials.

Just after reaching the apex of its flight, his power seized the contents and the case expelled everything from within.  Papers slid off one another and into the air, forming a small cloud.

R.I.P.

Oh wait, so there’s a box and canisters, and the vials are inside the canisters, not the box. The vials are possibly fine, but the papers – which are probably more important to Faultline’s Crew than the vials – are getting scattered to the winds.

“Taylor!” Lisa shouted.

What is it? Time to go?

I knew what she wanted.  I drew clouds of my bugs from the ceiling, catching the papers that weren’t saturated with Skidmark’s power, collecting my bugs on them.

Oh. Using bugs to catch the papers was actually my first thought, but I was like “nah, why would Lisa care”. But I do suppose she’s interested in the information on those papers too.

(This kind of thing is why I have a policy of writing down just about every thought, but sometimes I fail to. Sorry.)

I could have maybe carried them directly to me with enough bugs, but I found it easier and more discreet to use the bugs and nudge the papers into floating on the air currents, like paper airplanes without the ‘airplane’ aspect of things.

Hm. Looks like the Undersiders, at least Lisa, are going to learn a thing or two. And if the Crew finds out the Undersiders got the papers, that’s setting us up for some interesting future interactions between the two groups.

It had to suck for Skidmark, losing like this.  He’d risen to power based on a streak of good luck and momentum rather than any talent, deed or ability.  Now it was falling apart.  He’d lost, he’d had his ass kicked in front of the bulk of his followers, and he would likely never regain what he’d had.

Of course it sucks for him.

And I’m very glad it does.

Not that I felt bad for him.  There was a kind of justice to it.

Yes. Thank you, Taylor. He deserves every bit of this.

He didn’t even have a power that would let him go down in a blaze of glory.  No, his final act here would be one of petty spite.

Hm? What’s he about to pull?

Well, maybe he can’t go down in a blaze of glory, but at least he could blow the crowd away.

Brooks and I hauled Minor over, and I waited while he climbed down, since I was already fairly secure where I was.

Oh, okay, we’re getting everyone over this time. Fair enough!

Skidmark was losing.  It was obvious from where I sat, and I could see his changing expression as he saw Mush collapse beneath Gregor’s sludge and realized he had no friends left.

Good. I want to see the Merchants lose.

Hey, maybe you could’ve gotten somewhere if you hadn’t had a large portion of your mundane muscle beat and/or kill each other right before this!

Gregor, Labyrinth, Faultline and the red-haired woman were all in action, and Skidmark was pretty much alone at this point.

Excellent.

I hadn’t seen Newter or Spitfire, and I couldn’t be sure if he was okay or not.

Yeah, Spitfire hasn’t showed up at all. Maybe she has a stealthier task? Although I think my working hypothesis last session was that she’s the one staying behind with Labyrinth to make sure she sticks to the plan.

Sure, the Merchants could have hit him with weapons rather than their bare hands, but he was quick, he had his tail, and he only needed to touch someone to drug them out of their minds.

Not to mention his wall and roof crawling ability. Or the fact he can spit at those too far away for touching.

Yeah, Newter’s fairly capable of defending himself.

Spitfire might be the one babysitting Labyrinth somewhere out of the way.

Yeah.

In fact, Spitfire being the one to take care of Labyrinth is probably a standard thing for the Crew. They did share a room.

Hm, I wonder if Palanquin survived Leviathan.

A knotted bandage tied around Bryce’s good arm was thrown up to me, and I used it to draw his arm up while the others managed his lower body.  Once I had his wrist, I gripped it firmly in one hand, my upper body hugging the top of the wall to keep myself from being pulled off.

This seems like a solid way to do it.

Minor gave Brooks a boost and the medic straddled the wall facing me.  We worked together to raise the unconscious boy over the top of the wall and pass him down to where the others waited.

I do wonder how much remote awareness Labyrinth has of what happens inside the area she’s affecting. For instance, would she have seen the arrows Taylor made out of bugs and maybe recognized Skitter’s presence?

I glanced back towards the fight.  Faultline had emerged from beneath the platform and moved around to the side, and using her power to draw hand holds into the side of the platform.

One thing I love about Worm is how creative just about everyone gets with their powers.

The cape who’d been aiming at her with the gun stooped over the hole she’d dropped into and looked down to see if she was still down there.

“Anybody home?”

He was oblivious as she hauled herself over the edge of the platform and attacked him from behind, striking him with one elbow, then reversing the turn of her body to sweep his legs out from under him with one extended leg.

w h o o p

I guess this is why she went into the hole in the first place instead of just destroying the gun.

Then again, this was one of the capes… What’s his power?

The sweep of her foot had apparently coincided with a use of her power, because there was a cloud of stone dust as he collapsed onto broken, uneven ground.

Nice.

From my angle I couldn’t see for sure, but I thought maybe he’d fallen head first into the hole she’d first descended into.

Faultline: *scribbles a “2” onto her golf card*

Gregor was keeping up his steady pressure, alternating between blasting Trainwreck and blasting Mush with one hand and aiming at Skidmark with the other.

Damn, Gregor, taking on three at once!

Skidmark used his power to push away the worst of the slime, but it was clear he was losing.  His power wasn’t strong, it didn’t have much more push to it than a strong wind.

Unless layered, of course.

Any attempt to get it as effective as it had been at the edge of the arena took time and multiple layers of the effect.

Yeah.

In short, Gregor could make the slime more easily than Skidmark could get rid of it.

Good job, Gregor. 🙂

My bugs told me we were close to Lisa, Charlotte, Jaw and Senegal.  I caught Minor’s attention and pointed, and he put Bryce down long enough to give me a boost up to the top of the wall that stood between us.

Nice.

I straddled the wall and waited for Brooks and Minor to figure out how to get Bryce up to me so I could pass him down to the others.

Hm. Any particular reason you want to do this? Just so you can have only one or two people taking the long way around?

From my vantage point, I could see more of the battle unfolding on the far side of the mall.

One powered Merchant charged Faultline and collapsed through the ground she had strategically weakened.

Huh, that’s a neat use of her power.

She kicked him several times in the face before the next member of Skidmark’s group tried to take her on, drawing and pointing a gun.

The great equalizer… but Faultline can just cut it in half, can’t she?

Faultline drew her feet apart, and then dropped through the floor of the platform in a spray of splinters.

…alright. Won’t that just put her next to the first Merchant cape, though?

To her right, the red-headed woman was striding towards Scrub.  He aimed a shot and missed by a fraction, and she didn’t even flinch.

Badass.

Another try, another miss.  As she got close, he let his power go haywire, and a dozen flashes erupted in close vicinity to him.  None touched her.

This seems to be far more than just agility.

She had her gun drawn, but she didn’t shoot him.  Instead, she grabbed him by the collar, then wrenched him to one side so he tipped over the side of the platform and fell the twenty or so feet to the ground below.

See ya.

It wasn’t enough of a fall to guarantee that he was out of the fight, but she seemed confident enough to turn away and move on to the next target before he’d even finished falling.

Out of the fight or not, it’s going to take him a little bit of time to get back up, and his range seems to be relatively short. 15 feet, maybe?

It’s worth noting that he does seem to be getting better at controlling it now.

From what I could gather, he needed some kind of loose matter to form the body of his other self.

Oh… Less Weld, more dual self. It sounds like he can make a trash copy of himself and maybe control both bodies like a hivemind.

Dirt, compost, trash, maybe even sand.  Problem was, however fantastic his surroundings might have been for this five minutes ago, Labyrinth was screwing him over by cleaning things up, maybe inadvertently.

Neat!

One upper arm, his naked upper body and his nearly bald head were all exposed and vulnerable.

Sounds good to me.

Scrub had climbed up to one corner of the platform, and was keeping to the edge of the fight.  His intent was clearly to be close enough to Faultline’s group to possibly tag them, but not so close that one of his uncontrolled blasts would catch a fellow Merchant.

Yeah, Scrub is going to be incredibly dangerous to go up against when he gets control of his power, but for now he needs to move tactically to make sure he hits the right people.

Alright, let’s get back into it!