“As for me,” Jack said, “I tend to go last, when all the others have offered their tests and only one or two are left.  I like to mix things up, and unlike our dear Bonesaw, I have no interest in playing fair.”

With one or two left, he can put more effort into messing with them.

“And if we fail?” Regent asked, “We die?”

Probably.

“No, no,” Jack smiled.  “Nobody passes every test, and the punishment for failing a test is up to the individual who assigned it.

Ahh. That’s good. Gives them a fighting chance, even if it’s a faint one.

I… doubt you’ll want to fail Bonesaw’s test.

Sometimes death, yes.  Sometimes something different.  But it’s always worse.”

…I’m not sure it’s good anymore.

I felt a chill.  All at once, Bitch’s presence behind me felt ominous.  She’d been picked by the Nine, and even when asked, she hadn’t said a thing about it.  Why?  And who had picked her?  The members of the Nine we hadn’t been able to nail down candidates for were Jack, Bonesaw and Siberian.

And Burnscar, though you’ve figured out which team she visited.

As for why she hadn’t said anything… she’s Bitch. Seriously, I’d suspect she might stay quiet about it even if she hadn’t been the only willing nominee.

Siberian, I saw, was staring at Bitch.  When I turned to look at Bitch out of the corner of my eye, I saw her staring right back at Siberian, unflinching, holding the sleeping puppy in her arms.

It comes together.

“If I don’t make it fair then it’s like I’m picking one over the other and I don’t want to do that,” Bonesaw said.

Ahh, that makes sense. Even if there wasn’t just one slot to fill, she’d have reason to keep it fair.

“You’re a smart girl.  You’ll work it out.”  Jack turned to our group, where we waited in tense silence.  “A lot going on tonight.  All these meetings, and we didn’t get an invitation.  Almost enough to hurt our feelings.”

Hehe. Sorry about that, pal.

“How admirable,” Jack said.

“And it has to be fair.  What I have in mind isn’t fair, and I’m worried it’s too similar to the test I gave Burnscar.  I need this to be fair.”

Burnscar is the best.

“Why does it have to be fair?” Cherish asked, “Unfair world, unfair test.”

“Because I like them both!  What better way to add to our family than to have two real siblings on the team?  They would fight all the time but they’d really love each other deep down.”

I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the relationship between Cherish and Regent, dear.

But that’s just the reason she likes the idea of Regent joining. Is she going to elaborate on Bitch too?

“Ha,” Regent made it more of a word than an actual laugh, “You really don’t know the Vasil family, munchkin.”

Pfft.

Looks like Alec and I are in tune right now. Different words, but the same meaning and structure, right down to the use of a term of endearment at the end. :p

“And the dog girl!  I love dogs!  I’ve seen the pictures of them and they’re beautiful.”

Aaand there we go. Realization among the Undertravelers in 3… 2… 1…

Recruits?  Plural?  Was he including Noelle?  No.  He would know she wasn’t anywhere near here, thanks to Cherish.

Yep. And I think Crawler would be here if they thought she was.

Bonesaw piped up, “I wanted to say hi and meet the people who might be joining the family.  Jack said that if I’m ready, I can tell you what my test is.  Except I haven’t decided.”

…

That’s adorable.

“Oh?” Jack looked at her, “I didn’t know you had any ideas yet.”

“I haven’t decided,” she told him, sounding annoyed at having to repeat herself.  “The test might be about challenging them, but I’m challenging myself too.  I don’t want to be boring, so I’m making myself come up with something original each time.”

Well, this confirms there’s more to it than fighting. And I really like Bonesaw’s attitude towards it. 🙂

Bad plan anyways.  If we did try to escape under the cover of darkness, Siberian would probably reach us and cut at least some of us down before we got anywhere, even attacking indiscriminately.

True. More so with Cherish pointing out their locations in the darkness.

The darkness blocks a fair few things, but I doubt it blocks emotions. Even if Cherish’s brain does process the emotions as “sound”.

“The same goes for the rest of you, but I’m sure you know that.  One or two of you could kill me right now, I’m sure, but you’d die horribly for your trouble, and I doubt any of you are that suicidal.”

Well.

If anyone else had said this, they’d be almost certainly right. I do think Jack is right, but what I don’t think he knows yet is that whoever did it would be a martyr postponing the apocalypse by a somewhat significant number of years.

Did he know about the role he was going to play in the end of the world?  It might change his stance and self-assuredness.

He might be less sure about this particular statement, but I’m pretty sure he’d love it if he found out.

Jack looked at Cherish and she gave him a small nod.  He turned a winning smile towards us.  “How are our potential recruits doing?”

Plural. The truth is coming out.

“Poetic,” Jack said.  “I take it Skitter is this clever worm?”

“Yup.”

Naturally.

“Skitter.” Jack looked at me.  “You do anything and Siberian attacks.  I’ll attack as well.  Whatever it is you’re thinking of trying, I’m betting the two of us can cut you down before it works.”

Way to cut that potential issue off at the root.

Does “cut you down” count as a pun, coming from Jack? I mean, Jack would literally cut her down, but that doesn’t seem to be Siberian’s M.O., and he’s including her in the statement.

Honestly, I’d love it if he kept making subtle blade/edge puns.

I swallowed, then took a small breath to clear my throat and ensure I wouldn’t stammer or come out sounding even slightly unclear.  “Alright.”

So it seems like the Slaughterhouse members aren’t immediately looking for a fight. At least not with the non-nominees.

Cherish smiled and stared at me, “The little worm found a nugget of self-worth, she just doesn’t want to look too closely at what that nugget is made of.

This does sounds about right, honestly.

If she’s lucky, she’s one of the worms without eyes.  They might be keenly aware of their environment, but they’re happier blind.”

Are there worms with eyes?

I mean, actual worms, not snakes.

Anyway, I quite like this whole analogy. It seems to provide another reason why this story is called Worm, one that reaches way deeper than just “the final boss is a worm monster”.

Of course, being the Worm means Skitter should really watch out for Shatterbird and the Simurgh.

Could we escape under a cover of my bugs and Grue’s darkness?  I didn’t think Siberian would be able to see us, and if we surprised them, ran back the way we came-

Wouldn’t work, Cherish would track you.

“What’s this?” Cherish asked, cutting off my train of thought. “Someone thinks she’s had a clever idea.  A bit of hope and inspiration there.”

Heh, wow.

“Who?” Jack asked.

“When I looked at her with my power, before, I called her the Worm.

Relatable. :p

She spent some time being as low on the food chain as you can get while still being able to move under her own power.  As low as someone can get while still having an identity of their own.

…that’s not really fair, is it?

Hm. Alright, she’s not super high up, but she’s still got people lower than her in the villain power structure. Both literal subordinates and people who are just worse villains, like Über and Leet.

But she’s realized she’s poisonous, dangerous in her own unique way.  She’s useful, like a silkworm we harvest or an earthworm who works our gardens.  She’s even realized she’s not alone, so long as she looks for friends among other dirty… contemptible creatures.

I wonder what Cherish would think if she’d read everything we have. For one thing, the friends are a big part of what brought her into this.

…

Or maybe that’s what she’s saying. Maybe this analogy stretches back a bit further, to when she first became a villain, realizing she had the power to do things and that she was not as lonely when among the villains.

Speaking of which, I forgot to say hi, little brother.”

“Fuck you, Cherie.”

Are we sure Burnscar is the one with the fire powers? Because Cherish is inflicting burns left and right.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.  What options did we have?  Running?  Siberian was bound to be faster than the dogs, and none of them were big.  We’d be dead before Bitch got them to grow.

Yeah, and you’d have to convince Bitch to run.

That was even without considering Jack’s ability to cut us down from where he stood.

That’s oddly comforting, honestly. If he wanted to, he could’ve killed them all already, with the way they’re standing mostly at the same height. At least as long as his blade could cut through their costumes, which might be a problem for him re: Skitter. But there’s a difference between cutting a costume with a knife and slicing at it with what is effectively a greatsword (or even way bigger – it’s not clear to me exactly how far away Jack is right now).

By the way, did any of the Undertravelers put their masks back on before going up here? I don’t remember that being mentioned.

Fight?  Again, Siberian was the biggest problem.  She could take all of us on and win.  I suspected the only people who could really go toe to toe with her would be Scion, Eidolon and the Endbringers, and even then, I wasn’t sure if they would really be able to stop her.

Jeez, her power is so wasted. Imagine the good she could do in an Endbringer situation, but here she is, instead showing up after an Endbringer situation just to make things worse.

Seriously, I’d peg her as more likely to actually be able to kill an Endbringer than even Scion, and even if she couldn’t, she’d make a massive difference.

At best, Scion and Eidolon would survive and keep her from killing any civilians.  The Endbringers would hold their own, but civilians obviously wouldn’t be a concern.

Yeeah, Leviathan versus evil!Siberian would be a mess, and the other two Endbringers probably wouldn’t make things better.