I think that’s where I’m going to end it for tonight. Let’s pick this back up tomorrow. See you then!
Tag: 12.3p1
“It’s a thought,” Grue agreed, “Risky, but we don’t have many options. Trickster, where does Bonesaw fit into your analogy?”
Trickster shook his head, “She doesn’t. She’s relatively weak in terms of raw power, but her presence on the field threatens to change the rules.
Aaand the analogy breaks.
She’s definitely a knight in terms of personality, at least.
She’s a medical tinker. The medical tinker. So long as she’s in play, we can’t be certain of our enemy’s attack power, we can’t know that any enemy we clear from the field will stay gone, and there could be harsh penalties if they catch or kill one of us. It sucks to think about, but if Bonesaw got her hands on, say, Sundancer, I’d be a hell of a lot more worried than if Hookwolf or Skidmark did.”
Yeeeeeeah.
Sundancer muttered something to Ballistic, but I couldn’t make it out.
“What about our side?” Noelle asked.
“Lots of playing pieces, not all cooperating, and we have one debatable advantage,” Trickster said, “We know in advance, pretty much for a fact, that if any of us, Undersider or Traveler, try to fight these bastards, we’re going to lose, and we’ll lose hard.”
At least if you fight separately. Probably still if you fight together, but we don’t know the numbers on that.
“I could use puppets to go after her,” Regent said, “But she can paralyze them with the kind of uncontrolled physical reactions I can’t cover with my power. I am immune to her, for all the good that does.”
That does mean we’ve got one person who can go after her, confronting her up close with a gun or something.
“How far does her offensive range extend?” I asked.
“No clue. I’d guess she can sense emotions across the entire city, which is how she’s finding people, but in terms of attack? I don’t have any basis to make a guess. Farther than my dad, Heartbreaker, but not city-wide, no.”
Not quite at Shatterbird levels, but still terrifying.
“The ability to track us by our emotions is a good enough reason to take her out of action ASAP,” Trickster said. “So long as she’s active, it’ll be that much harder to catch the others off guard.”
Yeah, that’s a good point.
“Maybe…” I started, then I hesitated. Feeling the pressure of everyone’s attention on me, I said, “…Maybe my power will outrange hers? Not in terms of what we see and sense, but in terms of who can do more damage from further away?”
Hm, could be the case! She did say she was just across the street when she took out Hatchet Face, didn’t she, and getting as close as she could without her power turning off?
“Which leaves Cherish and Bonesaw,” Grue said. “We’ll have to trust Regent to give us the details on Cherish.”
Regent nodded and tapped his finger against his chin, “My sister. I don’t know if you could call her a third bishop or a knight. Long range on her power, gets stronger as she gets closer. Affects your emotions and as far as I’m aware, there’s no way to defend against it or to take cover.
I mean, a bishop and a rook aren’t all that different, really, though a rook has more access to the board and is usually better defensively.
If she decides she wants to hurt you or make you hurt yourself, she can find you and she’ll make it happen.”
Yeeah, she’s pretty scary.
“But she has no special defences,” Grue cut in. “She’s vulnerable to pretty much any knife, gun or power we can hit her with.”
That’s the one part where the idea of putting her as a rook falls apart, but the rook isn’t all that much more defended than the bishop, really. The idea that rooks are tough defensively is just fluff.
“Can we gang up on her?” Sundancer asked.
“She can affect multiple people at once,” Regent said. “So it’s not that easy.”
Trouble, that.
“That means we have to beat her at her own game,” Trickster mused, “Track her, beat her in long-range warfare.”
CARGO CONTAINER SNIPE
“I’m wondering how far you can stretch this chess analogy, Trickster,” Ballistic commented.
And I’m wondering what came first, the chicken or the chess analogy.
Trickster ignored him. “Shatterbird and Burnscar are like bishops. They’ve got mobility, reach, and they can bury you damn fast if you don’t have the right kind of cover.”
Yeah, that’s pretty much my logic too, though I put Shatterbird as the queen because of her incredible versatility and range even beyond what Burnscar can do. Mannequin was more uncertain, but if he’s not here and Siberian isn’t a rook, I guess he can be one of those instead, alongside Crawler.
“What about Mannequin? Another rook?” I asked.
“I’d peg him a knight. He’s more close range, but he’ll catch you from an oblique angle, maybe slip past whatever defences you think you have.”
Alright, fair enough. That means either Bonesaw or Cherish is the other rook. I’d put Cherish there, then, but it seems like Trickster is using slightly more practical criteria than I am.
But while I think either of them would fit the description he’s giving for a knight here, it does seem to me that Bonesaw fits slightly better, whereas Cherish is a heavy hitter like Crawler – though mentally rather than physically.
“Jack Slash,” Noelle said.
“Right. Siberian’s like the queen. She’s fast, mobile, one of the strongest physically, and the bitch of the matter is, she can’t be taken off the board, and she can’t be contained. A special queen, if you will. Physically she’s an unstoppable force and an immovable object any time she wants to be.”
Siberian as the queen, huh? Interesting.
To my right, Bitch picked up the puppy and settled it in her lap. It curled up and nestled against the cupped circle of her arms and hands.
Heh. Memories come to mind, Rachel?
“Then there’s Crawler, who visited us the other night. Maybe not as fast or agile as Siberian, and he can be contained, but he can’t be taken off the board. A special rook.”
Honestly, the “can’t be contained” thing reminds me more of a knight, though by the sound of it, it’s because Siberian just barrels through whatever’s in her way. Unstoppable force. Fluff-wise, that’s more the style of a queen, bishop or rook.
Crawler is similar, but more defensive.
“A distraction would be nice,” Noelle smiled for the first time.
Field commander. She used to be the leader of their group? I wondered if I could dig up any information about her if I hunted far enough back.
Hm, maybe. I’m not sure whether the previously nomadic nature of the Travelers would make that more or less likely, but it probably makes a difference.
I could see Brian fidget under the table. He wasn’t liking the constant distractions from the subject at hand.
“Eight enemies,” Trickster said. “Now, I’m not a serious player of the game, I’m sorry to any of you Undersiders who are irritated by the way I’m about to butcher it, but the way I see it, their leader is like the king in chess. More raw power than a pawn, but in the end, he’s simultaneously the second weakest piece in the game and the one everything hinges on.
He’s talking about Jack, right? Sounds about right. His power is the weakest of all of them, I think, with only the mundanes (pawns) below him.
Is Trickster going to compare all of them to chess pieces? Let’s take a stab at it before he can.
- Queen: Shatterbird. Very powerful, quite mobile, incredible range.
- Bishops: Burnscar, Mannequin. Effective on the offensive, might attack from unexpected angles.
- Knights: Bonesaw, Cherish, Pinkie Pie. Hard to predict.
- Rooks: Siberian, Crawler. Tough on the defensive, can barrel right through on the offensive.
I find myself switching Mannequin, Cherish and Crawler around a bit, but the rest I’m sure of.
We take him down without getting massacred in the process, I think we win.”
Maybe. He does play an essential role in keeping the team together, but what happens if you take out the head and dismantle the team? You’ll have seven individual Slaughterhouse members working separately in Brockton Bay.
Also, Jack’s not dying unless it’s too late.
”Noelle, “ Trickster said, “You’ve asked to be included more. I thought you’d be okay with this?”
She nodded.
“Left to right, we have Grue, Regent, Skitter, Bitch and Tattletale.”
Hello!
By the way, are the doggos in here too? I would think so.
There wasn’t a flicker of a smile or any interest on her face until she heard that last name. “Tattletale?”
Ah, yes. The one who was supposed to be contacted to help her, of course she recognizes that name.
“Noelle,” Tattletale spoke, “It’s nice to finally meet you. Listen, I’m working on your situation. Coil’s filled me in on the basics and I’m chasing down some leads, but something’s come up with the Slaughterhouse Nine, and everything’s on hold until we can be sure they won’t try to kill us in the meantime.”
I don’t know why I ever thought Tattle was the type to not lie, just spin the truth. She’s a damn good liar when she goes in for it.
I could see Trickster tense. Was Noelle so high strung or desperate that she’d throw a tantrum over being asked to wait?
…honestly, I could believe that.
“Coil was telling the truth,” Noelle said, in a small voice, “You can help?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. But I’m a fucking genius when it comes to getting answers, and Coil’s got all the resources in the world. If there’s help to be had, we’ll give it to you.”
She’s not lying anymore.
“How soon before you know?”
“No idea. I don’t think it’ll be as fast as you want, but it’s doable, and it won’t take so long that you should give up.”
That’s a good thing to say. 🙂
“Okay.”
“In the meantime,” Trickster cut in, giving Tattletale a thumbs-up gesture from a position outside of the laptop’s field of view, “We need our old field commander’s brain on the Slaughterhouse Nine sitch.”
Ah, so she did have the sort of role Tattletale originally wanted before this started happening. Whatever this is. Makes sense.
So what’s Oliver’s role? New field commander?
“She’s the one Crawler visited?” I asked.
Trickster nodded once.
“Hello?’ A girl’s voice came from the computer. Trickster hit a key, which I assumed was to take himself off mute.
No video for either Oliver or Noelle… of course. Still keeping Noelle as the monster in the dark.
He hit another combination of keys and a webcam feed snapped up to cover the screen.
…or maybe not! Let’s see what this transformation looks like.
Heh, maybe there is no visible transformation after all, that’d be quite the twist. The ferocity, the strength, the hunger… and she looks completely normal.
Noelle had long brown hair and she wore a red sweatshirt. She looked like someone who was ill. She was horribly pale, she had dark circles under her sunken eyes, and her lips were chapped.
…nice. Not completely normal, but not a monster either. Right now, anyway – there might be a transformation when she loses control and goes feral.
I was reminded of drug addicts in an early stage of addiction, where they were deteriorating because the drugs took a higher priority than taking care of themselves. Was Coil drugging her too?
Not q– actually, I don’t know. He might be. It’s not the main cause of this, though.
“Oliver?”
“I’m here, Trickster,” a male voice came from the computer.
Ohhh.
Oliver is not Ballistic.
Got it.
“Feel like patching in Noelle?”
“Sure. She’s in an okay mood. A little drowsy. I’ll be right back.”
Time to get everyone on board!
Trickster pressed a button on the keyboard and then turned to us, “Tattletale. I’ll be as quick as I can. Coil promised he’d get you to help us, but he’s taken his time introducing you to our group. The cynic in me suspects there’s a reason, and the pessimist in me says that reason is that he’s already figured out what you’re going to tell us, and it isn’t going to be pretty.”
Oof.
Let’s hope she has something good to say. But hey, at least we’ll probably find out more about what the hell is going on with Noelle now, unless she’s somehow immune to Tattle’s power. And hey, not even Imp is, and her power is all about people not knowing things about her, right down to her existence.
“Okay.” Tattletale was all business.
“Noelle’s going to ask you for help. Lie to her. Tell her you’re already on it. Roll with it if she gets angry, or if she gets impatient. She’s sensitive.
Ahh, yeah, I suppose she wouldn’t take it well if she found out Coil hasn’t gotten Tattle on it yet.
I don’t know how your power works, really, but if you realize whatever it is that Coil doesn’t want us to know, don’t tell Noelle.”
Keep it to herself until after the call. Sounds doable.
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