“Now who’s trying something?” Tattletale asked.  “She’s trying to manipulate you.”

Interesting that Cherish would do that via words. Can Jack tell if she’s using the power on him on any significant scale?

I suppose that guy Cherish commandeered to be her driver did resist the changes.

Jack frowned and yanked out the hairs of his beard he was holding.  He flicked them away, “I know she’s trying to manipulate me.”

“Okay, except I just noticed something else, as I finished that last sentence.  Do you know she’s playing a long con?  She’s setting you guys up, using her power to pull your strings and make you attached to her.

But yeah, this is why I said “significant scale”. She does this on a lower scale which is further evidence that if she does it on a bigger scale, they’ll notice.

Half a year to a year, she’ll probably have you wrapped around her little finger,” a slow smile spread across Tattletale’s face.

At least that’s what she’s planning.

“I even brought back Hatchet Face for Crawler’s test again!” Bonesaw grinned.  “No surprise attack that time.  That was one of the three tests she failed in round two, I was so proud of him!”

Huh. So she was able to bring Hatchet Face back on his own, and then added Oni Lee later to create Hack Job. (We know all of this happened before the Nine came to Brockton Bay, and only then did Oni Lee get involved.)

Seeing Cherish’s shoulders draw together, her expression darken as memories came to mind, the ugly tattoos that guaranteed she would never be able to leave this behind and get a completely fresh start, never have a boy look at her body and just be hungry for her… I had to look away.

(Or a girl, for that matter.)

I knew she was the worst sort of person, I just didn’t know how much of that came before the tests.

Well, I guess Alec’s the one to ask about that.

“Well, sis,” Regent said, “I thought you were running headlong into a fate worse than death.  I stand corrected.  You’re already there, and you did it to yourself.”

She really did. It’s not even like six out of the seven nominees here in Brockton Bay, who just got nominated against their will. Hell, not even like the seventh, who also got nominated against her will, but accepted it. No, Cherish actively made herself a nominee, and this is the result.

“What was your test, Jack?” Regent asked.  I couldn’t tell if he was glad to know his sister suffered or sad for her.

Who knows if he’s even feeling anything about it. But yeah, I suspect it’s closer to the former.

Also, it’s beginning to sink in how casual this conversation is, for who’s in it. Imagine Trickster, downstairs, not knowing this is happening.

After the whole thing is over, the rest of the Undertravelers go back down, and they’re like “Oh yeah, we were just talking to some Slaughterhouse members upstairs. So what did Genesis have to say about the villain meeting?”

“Oh, I knew it would be almost impossible to top Mannequin’s test.  He caught her at the exact right moment, struck the right nerve, and pushed her to her very limits.  Still, I think I managed to top it.  Turn around, Cherish.”

Oh boy, more bodily harm?

Like an automaton, she did.  More tattoos and scars covered her chest, just as expansive, just as unpleasant to look at.  Two nude women, their entwined limbs like the broken legs of a squashed bug, neither attractive in the slightest.  One was emaciated, the other morbidly obese, and both were old.  More tattoos of rotting and torn flesh framed the scene, and the words forming the border of the tattoos on the front were the opposite of the others, almost worse in their irony and desperation: ‘Take Me’.  ‘Please Desire Me’.  ‘Want Me’, and more vulgar variations of the same.

So this is just more of Mannequin’s, right? I don’t imagine Jack would copy his test, let alone do so and then say he “topped it”.

“I made her do the other six tests all over again.”

Oh.

Oh damn.

Yeah, he topped it alright.

I wonder if Amy has the power to remove tattoos. Manipulate the biology of someone with one to squeeze the ink out, or something.

“She told the artists to make it so ugly she’d want to kill them.  If she didn’t, she promised to kill their loved ones and then kill them.  Took six artists in total.  Inspired.”

“If you don’t make me want to kill you, I’m gonna kill you. And your little dog too.”

Well, I suppose she decided to make it hard on her vanity.

Cherish looked over one tattooed shoulder to fix Jack with a stare.  It was then that I noticed two things.  The first became clear as her skin stretched.  There was depth to the tattoos that you didn’t get with a two-dimensional image.

Ooh.

Her skin had been scarred and flensed to raise edges and give the images and words a permanence that simple ink wouldn’t have.

…oh. They actually have been carved into her.

The second thing I noticed was her eyes.  It was like a light had gone out inside her, just standing there with that tattoo exposed.

Aw. Cheer up, buddy…

“That was the hard one for you, wasn’t it?” Jack smiled.  “Even as tired, scared, hurt and desperate as you were after the other five tests, it was when you willingly defaced that young, unblemished body of yours that a little something inside of you broke, and you began thinking of yourself as one of us.  Liminality.”

Fitting that it should happen with the most permanent physical mark of the tests.

I feel like Alec’s going to be mocking her tattoo. If not now, then at some point. Off-screen if Wildbow didn’t write it.

“Shatterbird likes the psychological tests, and she was in a hell of a mood after Cherish nominated herself for the team.  Our Cherie didn’t have five minutes to rest before Shatterbird drove her into a room and sealed her in.  No food, no light, barely any water.  The room was empty, but for one glass shard.  Always edging towards her, ready to prick, cut, slice and stab the second she stopped, the moment she tried to rest.”

Damn. Extended solitude and boredom on its own is heavy on the psyche, but with that constantly theatening glass shard on top of it? That’d be harsh even if it didn’t actively prevent her from even stopping her movement, let alone sleeping. How long was she in there?

I shivered.  Jack hadn’t said how long that lasted, but after three days and three nights without sleep, even a few hours like that would have been nightmarish.

Fuck yes it would.

There was a clue there, too.  Credit to Regent for getting Jack to let it slip. Shatterbird had more offensive range than Cherish, if she was able to trap the girl and use the shard without getting affected in retaliation.

Oh yeah!

Though that’s not saying much considering Shatterbird’s range apparently extends to just about the entire city of Brockton Bay.

It wasn’t much, but it was a tidbit of information, a piece for the puzzle.

“Burnscar’s test, she failed.  Afraid I’m not spoiling that one.  Doesn’t have the same impact if you know it’s coming.

I have a hunch: it involves fire.

Possibly having the building you’re in set fire to, though I’m not sure why or how Cherish would fail that. Maybe something that involves you being on fire?

That left only two tests for her to pass.  Go on.  Show them.”

Jack and Mannequin… Mannequin’s got the bodily sacrifice thing. What did she do?

Cherish glared at Jack.

“Show them,” he said.  There weren’t any hints of a threat or any anger in his tone, but she obeyed anyways.  She turned her back to us, grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it off.

hot

“Mannequin demands that a candidate changes themselves, and that it be hard.  Having just faced the punishment Burnscar gave for failing her test, Cherish wasn’t about to pay his.”

The tattoo stretched from beneath the waist of her low-rise jeans and up the length of her back.

Ahh, nice. It counts as a change and it’s not easy to endure (especially at this size, where it would’ve taken a long time), but it doesn’t make a major biological difference or take things out of her afterwards, and it might even look cool. Good choice, Cherish.

The centerpiece was a large festering heart, done as realistically as any tattoo I’d ever seen.  It was all in shades of green, covered with ulcers, sores, patches of rot and live maggots.  The surrounding tattoos gave the appearance of torn skin revealing the bone and organs beneath, rats and roaches lurking behind ribs and atop her kidneys.  Framing the entire thing were words, not done in any elaborate script, but in scrawled letters that looked like they’d been carved into a surface with knives: epithets and invectives.

…I guess she didn’t choose the design herself.

“Because it’s not fair that Hatchet Face didn’t get to give his test.  And I wanted to break her out of her rut, so I made it so the parasite’s effects would be permanent if she didn’t drink lots of blood.”

Oh jeez.

And holy fuck, she could make it permanent too, which just makes my point from the previous post even stronger. If she could make this parasite viral and prevent it from infecting the Slaughterhouse Nine, Bonesaw could permanently take away almost all powered opposition they might find in a city, or even a larger area.

“Of course,” Jack tapped the heel of his hand against his forehead, “That was an interesting little twist.  Of course, you didn’t tell her how much she needed to drink, or if a certain species counted…  Well.  It broke her stride, didn’t it?  Siberian went after her, starting on day two of Bonesaw’s parasitic infection.  Three days and three nights of cat and mouse.

Sounds intense even before Siberian got involved.

To her credit, she did very well.  It came down to a hair.  Another ten minutes and Siberian might have caught her a third time.”

A third time? So there’s like a three-strike system in place, to make it even remotely fair?

Or did she fail that test?

A dark look passed over Cherish’s face.

Yeeah, the first two times were probably not pleasant, and then there’s Bonesaw’s comment about no remaining meat.

“What did my sister do for her tests?” Regent asked.

Ooh, good question. If they answer, it might give some insight both into the nature of the tests and into Cherish.

“Hey!” Bonesaw raised her voice, stabbing a finger in his direction, “No cheating!”

Fair enough.

Bonesaw wasn’t the only one he’d irritated.  Cherish glared at him.

“Not cheating,” Regent said.  “Call it idle curiosity.  My sister got me in this mess, I figure it would be nice to hear what she had to go through.  You don’t even have to spoil the answers, I can agree not to copy anything she did.”

I am curious about this too.

Jack laughed, “Ah, adding to the challenge?  Fair.  She killed Hatchet Face.  Crawler took that as his test completed in advance, didn’t think of her as worth his time.

I guess his test might be something like killing a strong parahuman.

Little Bonesaw, for her test, designed a parasite that would stay in her system for forty-eight hours and strip her of her powers for as long as it remained.”

Hm. That’s… actually quite a dangerous thing. If she can make this parasite reproduce, she can introduce it into a city’s ecosystem, and before anyone knows what’s happening the city will need to call in help from outside if they want to fight back against the Slaughterhouse using powers.