“No,” Brian said.  “Some of them, maybe, but others are as vulnerable as you or me.  Thing is, Dinah told us that our odds against these bastards aren’t good.

That they are not. Even for the Travelers, who had better odds.

Though I wonder what she’d say about the Undersiders and Travelers working together against them.

Our chances of winning are pretty low, and it’s pretty damn likely we’ll get killed if we confront them head on.”

Hell, Cherish alone could easily fuck them all over.

No, probably need a sneakier tactic here.

“So we don’t confront them head on,” Trickster said.

Feeling conspicuous as the only one with a mask on, I pulled mine off.  It took me a second to adjust to the blue tint that everything had after I’d spent over an hour looking through the pale yellow lenses of my mask.

Ah, there she goes.

I realized Trickster was setting up a laptop.  He placed it at one corner of the table, facing the rest of us.

This feels oddly familiar.

Ballistic pulled off his mask and tossed it onto the bed that sat in one corner.  He cleared a few dirty dishes from the table in the middle of the area and invited us to sit while he fetched some extra seats.

Huh. Guess he’s comfortable being unmasked around the Undersiders.

There’s been a fair bit of offscreen Undersider-Traveler interaction, so I suppose it makes sense they might be past that hurdle by now.

He had a bit of a heavy brow and a snub nose, and his short brown hair, damp with sweat, made me think of the jocks that always seemed to gravitate towards Sophia.

I wonder if this prompted any Ballistalker shipping.

I do think Ballistic seems like an okay guy, though, from what little we’ve seen of him. One who wouldn’t go for Sophia.

Still, he wasn’t a bad looking guy.  If a guy like him had asked me out in some alternate universe where Emma had never stopped being my friend and I’d never been bullied?  Just going by his looks, I might have said yes.

Okay now this I’m sure prompted some shipping.

Trickster unmasked as well.  He definitely didn’t remind me of one of the jocks.  His hair was longer than many girls wore theirs, he had light brown skin and an unfortunate hook nose.  Combined with his intense stare, he gave me the impression of a hawk or some other bird of prey.

Craws! Craws!

That’s probably not quite how you pronounce his name. :p

Grue, Tattletale and Regent all unmasked as well while they got themselves seated.  Trickster offered each of them a cigarette, then offered one to me.  I turned him down, as did the others.

Is Taylor also willing to unmask?

“So what are we discussing here?” Sundancer asked from behind me.  I turned and saw a rather attractive blonde girl with a long neck and delicate features.  Her hair was expertly pinned up behind her head.

I’m not sure how clear I’ve made it, but Sundancer is by far my favorite Traveler.

“I was under the impression that the Slaughterhouse Nine were pretty much unbeatable.”

They’ve got some really good powers on their team, but honestly? Some of them are less powerful than I expected. They’re beatable, but it’s gonna be very difficult.

Clever, clever.  Out of sight from any vantage point on the level above, short walls had been set around the fallen ramp.  They ensured that the flooding and the wreckage were all contained to one area to sell the illusion, and kept everything else on the lowest level of the basement dry.  Cars had been removed, clearing the area for use as an underground base.

“dry”?

Hang on, I gotta look this word up.

1. having or characterized by little or no rain: a dry climate; the dry season.
2. not yielding milk: a dry cow.
3. free from tears: dry eyes. 

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thanks to the walls, this basement level doesn’t produce milk.

Ballistic led us into a parking garage.  We walked between rows of cars that had been pummelled by the floodwater.  Panels had been dented, windows shattered, and some of the cars had been lifted and pushed into one another.

Are there any that look like they’ve been launched?

Sundancer formed a tiny ‘sun’ and held it up for light, while Regent turned on the flashlight he’d brought.

I like the juxtaposition here.

“A flashlight? Bitch, please. …Uh, not you, Bitch.”

We descended into the bowels of the garage,

garage vore

and stopped at the ramp between the second level down and the third.  It had collapsed, and both rubble and two or three cars sat in the water that flooded the floor below. 

I wonder whose cars these are, in the garage as a whole. Like, did the owners try to retrieve them? Were they not around to do so? Did they just figure there wasn’t much chance of getting their car back in one piece? Is someone still casually using this garage for their intact car?

“This way,” Ballistic said.  He grabbed a length of pipe that stuck out where the ramp had collapsed and climbed down.  Trickster gestured and we moved to follow.

Just don’t accidentally activate your power and send the pipe flying!

“In any case, that leaves the people who Jack, Siberian and Bonesaw nominated.  Any ideas?”

Bitch, internally: “Shit.”

I glanced across our groups.  Nobody moved to reply.

“Maybe they’re not done?” Sundancer spoke up, “Or maybe some of them aren’t picking new members?”

Well, that was the case with Burnscar, apparently, according to askers. Not so with any of these three, though.

“Maybe they’re not done,” Tattletale spoke, “But I think they are.  From what I’ve read on them, and from what my power is giving me, I have the distinct impression they all would have made some kind of move by now.  They either hit all at once, shock and awe, or they draw it out.  This is the former.”

Yeeah. Bonesaw and Siberian hit at the same time, the rest over the course of just a few days. Coil had no sooner gotten the news about Shatterbird’s attack before Crawler was on his way.

Also, do the Travelers know about Tattle’s true power by now?

“But are they all picking new members?”

Tattletale shrugged.  “No clue.  We know of four, at least.”

That’s something.

Not sure how useful it’s going to be, but hey, knowledge is power.

“We have two group members who don’t see any combat.  They spend most or all of their time at Coil’s headquarters.  I understand if that raises a lot of questions, but I –we– would really appreciate it if you guys could leave it at that for now.  I’m thinking we’ll introduce you to the others soon.”

I see… we’ve of course got Noelle, but I’m not sure we’ve heard of this fifth (from our perspective sixth, but let’s stick to Trickster’s numbering) member before. It seems likely that like Noelle, there’s more to it than them spending their time in the background like Tattletale wanted to, in part because they didn’t show up with the rest in 5.1.

“I’m okay with dropping it so long as you’re not withholding anything crucial,” Grue said.  “I’m happy to stay on topic as much as possible anyways.”

Yeah, things went off-topic enough last time.

Trickster tipped his hat.  “Appreciated.  Looked like Hookwolf got hit.  His entire group did.  Shatterbird?”

Judging by the scars, are we?

“Yeah,” Tattletale replied.  “Can confirm that one.”

“Shatterbird, Crawler, Mannequin and…” I trailed off, looking at Regent for help in placing the name.

“Cherish.”

“If the condition of Faultline’s crew was any indication,” Tattletale said, “We can make an educated guess that Burnscar paid them a visit.  Thing is, I can’t even begin to guess who she visited.  Spitfire’s too nice, and none of the others really have the, I dunno, edge?”

Hehe. But don’t you know, Tattletale? Edge is Jack’s domain!

Also I suppose the Spitfire misdirection in Interlude 11c benefited from the fact that we knew approximately jack shit about Spitfire’s personality, so we didn’t know that she was “too nice” yet.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Grue said.  “Thanks.”

Ballistic gestured toward a nearby street and we all started walking in that direction.

Grue started us off.  “Number one, we know that they were here to recruit.  Who were they recruiting?”

Well, you’re walking with two of them.

Though only one’s going to admit it.

“Me,” Regent said.  That drew a few looks of surprise from the Travelers.  He elaborated, “My sister is their newest member, replaced Hatchet Face.  She did it to fuck with me more than out of a genuine desire to have me join.”

I think this situation is less “fuck with me” and more “fuck me over”, but I guess Alec’s not in the best position to tell the difference.

“Armsmaster is another,” I pointed out.  “According to Miss Militia, Mannequin wanted him.”

The Travelers might be among those less surprised by this. They were there when Armmaster’s scheming was exposed.

“The, uh, sixth member of the Travelers is the next recruit, I guess,” Trickster admitted.  “Crawler hit Coil’s place.”

There’s been a bit of back and forth on how Noelle’s been described in relation to the other Travelers, but it seems like member is about right.

“Sixth?” I asked.  “If there’s four of you, then-“

Oh wait, that’s a good point. Who’s the fifth?

“It’s something you can work through,” she said.  “And now that you know to look for it, you should push yourself to use that part of your power so you can see when it’s stronger or weaker.”

Science Skitter!

I nodded, and willed myself to tear down all the mental barriers and safeguards that walled my brain off from the sights and sounds the bugs wanted to send my way.

Let’s take a look! Might be a good idea to start with only a few bugs rather than all of them, though?

It was every bit as grating and annoying as I recalled.  This would take some getting used to.

“Listen,” Trickster said.  “Ballistic’s HQ is close by.  Since my group is going to be waiting for Genesis, and you guys will want to hang around and pick up Imp when she’s done, maybe you want to come by and we can discuss strategy in the meantime?”

Sounds good to me!

“I stopped trying.  But now that I know it’s somehow possible, I dunno.  I can start looking for a way.”

The degree to which it would expand my capabilities, it was tempting.  That kind of expansion of my sensory abilities could be a matter of life and death at some point.

Definitely. And if she can do multiple bugs at once – hell, maybe even the whole swarm when she gets really good at this – she can have eyes and ears all over an area, and really see situations from a lot of perspectives at once.

I could theoretically listen in on most of the people in my territory.  Would I want to, though?  The invasiveness of that kind of creeped me out, and I had a pretty high creepiness tolerance.

Well, I mean, I already used “Big Skitter is Watching You” as the Tebble of Constants title of 11.2. And back then, it was just about her tracking them with the bugs, not actually looking through the bugs’ senses.

“It might be like your range boosts.  Tied to your mental state,” Tattletale said.

Possibly.

“Except my range boosts are probably linked to me feeling trapped, and I somehow doubt I felt that way when I was doped up and waking up in that hospital bed or ambulance or wherever.”

Hmmm. Yeah, I don’t remember that emotion in that scene, but she was absolutely feeling trapped in the situation that led up to it. Besides, how does feeling trapped, specifically, tie in with the first instance of the range boost, in Hive? Again, she wasn’t feeling trapped in the specific situation, but in the situation leading up to it.

Grue sighed, “Okay.”

“So this sensory part of your power, you stopped trying?” Tattletale asked.

The way she phrased that nettled me.  “In the three months between my getting my powers and first going out in costume, I saw zero improvement in that department.  None, zilch.  When I did start going out in costume, I was worried the useless sights and sounds might distract me at some crucial juncture.

Makes sense. Though we’ve seen improvement in other areas, so it’s not far-fetched that she’d eventually have some here too.

Between that and the fact that it was like hitting my head against a metaphorical brick wall…”

Yeah, no wonder.

“You gave up,” Regent said.  He was trying to get on my nerves, I knew it.

Getting on people’s nerves is kind of his thing, isn’t it? :p