“Bit of a scuffle.”  I replied.  I’d had a chance to see myself in the mirror.  The bruise on my cheekbone had been a nice mottled yellow-green.  I asked, “Any trouble?”

He shook his head.  He wasn’t smothered in darkness, so his voice was normal as he said, “Quiet.  Was your errand successful, at least?”

Good to hear.

“Successful enough.  This is Charlotte, one of my new… employees.” What was I supposed to call them?  Henchmen, employees, minions?

Drones.

“Already recruiting?” he whistled, low.

It just kinda happened, y’know?

…but yes, Taylor is officially recruiting right now, even besides Charlotte and Sierra. She basically put out a recruitment ad in her speech this morning.

“Two new hires.  The other girl’s going to be on her way in a while.”

“You’ve gotta slow down.  I only heard what you’d done to take control here after I’d arrived.  I was worried you’d provoked a war and left me to handle things, until Lisa told me the major threats were occupied elsewhere.”

Hah, good point! She did kind of do that!

“Sorry.”

“Seriously, you’re moving fast on this.  Imp and I have only just started rooting out the gangs and other criminals in our territory.  We haven’t even talked about who we’re going to recruit or how.”

I guess Taylor’s just eager to get to making this a better place.

“I’ll explain later?”

Hehe, I like the questioning tone here.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t call the Merchants as we’ve seen them in this Arc a “team”. They are far too disorganized for that moniker.

■

“Grue?” I hollered into my lair, as Charlotte and I stepped inside.  “Mask on!  Got a guest here!”

Ah, good call.

Time for Charlotte to meet Brian, I guess!

Despite Lisa’s relatively cavalier attitude on the subject and my own concessions, there was no point in spoiling his secret identity, too.

True, especially without giving him the chance to make that call.

“Right!” he called down from upstairs.  In a moment, he came down the stairs, his helmet on.  He stopped as he saw me, “What happened?”

Oh, just your average free-for-all deadly brawl for free superpowers the price ceremony of which got interrupted by your average supervillain team attack on the villainous group hosting the brawl.

No biggie.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Because really, you can leave the city.”

She shook her head, “My grandfather needs to stay.  He’s spent the latter half of his life in his home, and I think it would kill him to leave.”

…fair enough.

Good to have you on board. 🙂

“If you’re sure,” I told her.  She nodded.

I shook her hand.

Welcome to team Skitter!

Hm. It makes sense that the bug queen Skitter’s subordinates would be called her “drones”, right? Although that might cause confusion with Skitter sending out actual bug drones to do her bidding.

Then again, I’m the guy who decided to call Skitter’s hideout the Hive, despite there being an Arc titled that in a way that was clearly referring to a particular location.

I nodded.  “Thank you.  For the help finding Bryce, for making this work, here.”

She grinned and waved a hand at me, “No problem, no problem.”

😀

I gave Lisa a quick hug before heading over to Charlotte.

😀 

Hugs are good.

Oh, cool, we are checking on Charlotte first. Nice.

There was no negotiation.  She was close enough to have heard some of our conversation, and she’d seen the bit with Sierra, besides.

In narration form, apparently. 

I’m glad Charlotte did hear what was said over there. A lot of it pertains to her too.

Whatever it was, it seemed to have grounded her.  She didn’t look as uncertain as before, and she had one hand extended for me to shake.

Hah, nice.

“Okay,” Sierra said to me.  “But I can leave any time.”

Of course.

Until then, though, I’m happy to have you onboard!

“You can,” I replied.

“And I will, the moment you break our deal, or the moment Bryce gets hurt.”

Seems reasonable, though that does put Lisa in a place of responsibility to keep one of Taylor’s subordinates from leaving. Although she already put herself in a place of responsibility to Sierra in the first place.

“I believe you.”

She stuck out her hand to me and I shook it.

Nice. 🙂

Now for Charlotte, I guess. I think she too is going to be accepting Taylor’s offer and joining the cause, but I wouldn’t be quite as disappointed to hear otherwise as I would with Sierra. I like Sierra. Charlotte I’m kind of lukewarm on.

“Now go,” Lisa said, “I’ll send Sierra your way with one of my boys, when she’s done visiting Bryce and seeing that he’s settled in.  I know you’re itching to check on your territory.”

Oh, alright. Not going to check on Charlotte first? Also, I would’ve liked to see Charlotte and Sierra talk to each other, but I guess that might not be happening.

“That’s not-”

“It’s not perfect, no.  But Skitter’s probably going to let you head into my territory to see Bryce any time you want-”

“Definitely,” I interjected.

‘Course.

Hm. I wonder if part of why Lisa is so set on Sierra joining Skitter instead of herself is that keeping Sierra at arm’s length from, but not away from, Bryce might help him feel the way they intended to make him feel, through him not having Sierra watching over him all the time.

“-and not to put too fine a point on it, but the guilt over betraying you, coupled with resentment, and the fact that he’s in this rebel-against-your-parents phase and you’re the closest thing he has to a parent right now? It’s maybe best if you give him his space.”

…yes, exactly. I guess I couldn’t have picked a better time to think about it that way.

I saw the faintest change in Sierra’s facial expression, saw her look over at Bryce, her eyebrows drawing together.  Lisa’s words had hurt her.

Aww.

They’d been true, no doubt, but I had to find a way of gently suggesting that Lisa take a gentler approach.

Yeeah, she got a little blunt there.

Lisa is good with words, but at this point, she’s used to hurting strangers with the truth. She may not be aware of it, and it’s not a super prominent thing, but she might have some trouble adjusting to situations like this one, where she intends to reassure and reason instead.

“You’re trying to fix things?”

“Some of us.  Most of us.  Some of us want to help, like Skitter there, and others are doing it because we know that when things are up and running again, we’re going to be a part of the status quo.”  Lisa grinned.

At least she’s upfront about it.

I spoke up, “That’s the basic idea of what we’re doing.  You heard what I said to the people in my territory.  I’m trying to get people fed, I want them safe, and I wanted to help you and your brother.  If you’re working for me, that’s the sort of thing you’re going to be helping me with.”

Taylor is really tiptoeing the line between hero and villain, when you stop to think about what she’s actually doing and why.

Sierra shook her head, “I only said I’d join because I wanted to keep an eye on my brother.”

Yeah, that’s fair.

Lisa shrugged, “Then I’ll make you a deal.  You join Skitter’s group, and I’ll give you a contact number.  Whoever is babysitting Bryce will have the answering phone, to give you an update on your brother, anytime, anywhere.

Or put you on the phone with him, if that’s what you want.”

This sounds good to me!

“I’d love to take on another recruit,” Lisa smiled.  She turned to me, “But she saw you first.”

Hah! Whaddaya say, Taylor?

I guess Taylor is going to be okay with Sierra’s wishes, though.

Sierra looked between the two of us, then asked Lisa, “You don’t work for Skitter?”

Not quite.

“Partners, believe it or not,” Lisa replied.  “We’re controlling different territories.”

Even though she clearly meant it in a different sense, I’m sure the shippers like the word “partners” here. 😉

“Oh.  Two territories.”

“Nine,” Lisa corrected her.  “Nine villains, nine territories.

Nine, you say? Are you just inflating the number, or are you counting outside the Undersiders?

Hm. Are the Travelers going through the same thing as the Undersiders, with a Trickster territory, a Sundancer territory, a Genesis territory and a Ballistic territory?

Oh, yeah: “Our group had discussed this, after talking to Coil the other night, and we’d hammered out more details yesterday, passing on the details to the Travelers.  Our methods would vary wildly, but we were all making our bids for territory this morning.” (11.2)

The city isn’t getting better and the people in charge aren’t up to the task, so we’re taking over.”

A pretty neat way to put it that helps to make it sound like you’re the good guys. Though it’s true, at least in Skitter’s case.

I had my doubts, but I didn’t want to shoot Lisa’s idea down.  So I looked to Sierra and asked, “Thoughts?”

She frowned.  “Can it be temporary?  I don’t want him to be locked into anything even after schools get going again and we’re trying to get things normal again.”

Of course. I don’t think Lisa’s the type to go “no he’s mine now mwahaha”.

“It can be temporary,” Lisa assured her.

“He doesn’t get hurt.”

“He’ll have one of those guys with him ninety percent of the time,” Lisa said, pointing to Minor, Jaw and Fish.

Sounds good to me.

I saw Sierra look at me, noting my injuries, and I knew exactly what she was thinking.  Still, she kept her mouth shut on that particular topic.

Ah, yeah. Point taken. It’s dangerous work even with the bodyguards.

“Okay.  But I join too, so I can keep an eye on him.”

Fair enough.

I guess Sierra and Bryce are going to be staying at the shelter instead of the Hive… though there wasn’t much space left there, right?

Well, at least we’ve got Charlotte as a potential Hive-mate.