Giant paws pounded on the wet pavement as we raced for our destination.

Let’s see how just-in-time they can get there.

How the hell were we supposed to fight him?  If we could even find him?

He’d have some countermeasure for my bugs and my cocoon strategy.

And he seems to be fairly competent against the doggos too.

There was no way he’d let himself get caught up in the same trap twice.  Grue’s power didn’t affect him.  Bitch’s dogs did affect him, but they weren’t bulletproof.

Grue’s power doesn’t affect him? More evidence that it’s not quite vision he’s using. I do suppose that speaks against my temperature idea too, though, at least somewhat, since the darkness stops more kinds of radiation than just visible light.

I suppose we had an indication that Grue’s power doesn’t affect him in that he was still able to target Bentley while he and Bitch were covered in darkness.

By the way, every chapter of Snare so far except 13.2 has used the word “trap” at some point. I feel fairly confident in my interpretation of the Arc title, and I’m beginning to suspect the repeated use of “trap” is deliberate and meant to set off subtle or not-so-subtle warning bells in the reader, especially combined with the title.

I don’t think Wildbow intends to really surprise the reader with whatever trap is up ahead. I think he’s setting us up so most of us see it coming when the characters are about to fall into it.

“He’s out of my range!” I shouted.

Nobody responded.  I had to double-check that Bitch hadn’t fallen from Bentley’s back.  She didn’t look any better than she had a moment ago, and she looked out of breath.

Hmm. I’m beginning to suspect that hit to her stomach got her good.

I expected the pain of her injuries was taking its toll.  As for Grue, I couldn’t really see anything but the back of his head and his shoulders while I clung to his waist.  I didn’t get the sense that he was about to pass out, either.

At least you’ll notice it fairly quickly if he does.

No use in responding when you couldn’t spare the breath and everyone knew what the answers would be.  We’d search for him at the last place we’d seen him.  My territory.

Oh wait, they’ve already chased him out of the territory? I suppose that explains the mention of him avoiding the tripwebs.

Whatever it was, I suspected this use of her power was drawing on reserves she didn’t have.

Which says a lot about how motivated she is right now. Normally, I’m not sure she would’ve done anything to answer Taylor’s request for more speed without a direct order, and even then she might argue.

Mannequin disappeared into the penthouse floor of an apartment building, and I positioned bugs at the very periphery of my range to prepare lines of thread and to gather so they could land on him as he emerged.

If he carries bugs out of her range, do they still stick to him? I suspect they will.

Somehow, I couldn’t say how, he emerged from a lower floor, mere seconds after he’d entered the building.

I guess he spotted the bugs and busted through the floor?

He brushed past a small handful of insects, and then he was out of reach of my swarm.

Target lost.

“He’s veering left!” I shouted to my teammates, “Faster, Sirius!  He’s getting away!”

Of course, the other option here, other than that he’s leading them back to Taylor’s territory, is that he’s leading them all into a trap. A Snare.

I could feel a tremor in Sirius’ body, like the momentary tremor of a twitching muscle, but in every muscle.  My legs spread a fraction further apart as he grew larger, his ribs expanding further in either direction.

Nice work, Bitch.

The increase in his speed was small but noticeable.

I cast a glance over my shoulder at Bitch.  Her mask had fallen off at some point when we’d been retrieving Lucy or during our ride.  She looked drawn, the lines of her mouth and the bones of her face that much more prominent.

She’s really taking it hard.

There’s no time I feel for Bitch as much as when one of the doggos die. The result is Bitch at her most sympathetic.

Had I failed to notice she was like that before, was it pain from her injuries that did it, or was it anger?

I’m guessing a mix of anger and grief.

It wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t find him or catch up to him.

See, this is why I think it’s important. First during the first Mannequin fight, and now with this, Taylor’s been musing about his senses and then dismissing the issue as a low-priority thing. I do agree that she’s had more immediately important things to think about in both situations, but the fact that it’s being repeatedly discussed in spite of being dismissed like this leads me to believe that the tides will turn against Mannequin when Taylor finally realizes how his senses actually work.

Once I did, I wasn’t sure I’d catch him again.  He could apparently see my bugs and since our last confrontation he’d gained the ability to see the spider silk I was placing on him or in his vicinity.

I suspect the details of how exactly Mannequin’s senses work is going to be important to his eventual defeat, if it happens.

It was remarkably high-resolution vision for someone who hadn’t been able to notice that I didn’t have a pool of blood spreading out beneath me during our last fight.

Or someone with no apparent eyes, for that matter. He does have a way, or ways, to sense things like the letters on Scrabble pieces, but I don’t think it’s vision per se.

Or was his inability to see that because he was calibrated to see the small things?

Can’t see the forest for the trees? I guess that’s not unreasonable, though you’d think he’d see the movements of breath, then.

She wanted to press on, and I wasn’t about to try and change her mind.  I wouldn’t be able to stop her, for one thing, and I did want to help my people.

For once, Bitch’s unstoppable rage and Skitter’s desire to protect are working in the same direction.

Mannequin moved in a straight line, onto rooftops, down to the ground, or halfway down and through windows that had been stripped of glass, emerging from the far side.

That can’t be the most effective route, even with his mobility.

My bugs swarmed him where I could get them to, trying to snag him with lines and threads of silk and hamper his movements, but I could only get him with a small few at a time.

Yeeah, that doesn’t sound particularly effective.

He was approaching the edge of my effect’s reach, and I knew I’d lose track of him shortly.

Well. At least you have a decent idea of where he’s going?

It might be seen as a waste of precious time in a crucial moment, but I doubted we would have had Bitch in our corner otherwise, and without her, we wouldn’t have a ride, so to speak.

That is a fair point. Besides, their ride is also their strongest offense against Mannequin in terms of raw power. If anything they have can crack his casing, it’s the hellhounds. Although Genesis might be able to come up with something.

I’d consoled myself with the fact that we had a pair of massive, muscular steeds that could outpace any car you’d see on the street, and Mannequin was limited to his two legs.

Yeah, but those are some incredibly long legs aided by Mannequin’s body being able to contort and move in ways a regular human body shouldn’t.

The thing was, somewhere around the point where he stopped trying to evade my tripwires and my bugs and picked up speed, when he really started moving, I realized he was actually faster than the dogs.

This is still impressive, though.

Mannequin covered a lot of ground with his long legs and seemingly endless energy, and he didn’t have any injuries.  The dogs, Bitch and Grue did.

Ah, yeah, that would slow them down a bit.

Mannequin had been aiming at the animals more than he’d aimed at Grue or Bitch, so the damage to my teammates was more or less limited to a few flecks embedded in the legs, buttock and feet.

And he may have done that on purpose, leaving them slowed down so he could get to Taylor’s territory before them but still let them catch up in time for Taylor to see him at work turning her gang into a pile of corpses.

The injuries were small, but one in Bitch’s stomach worried me.  There were way too many vitals that could be hit with that location, and it was bleeding worse than any of the others.

Ouch. And there’s no way she’s going to admit to any massive pain in it if you ask.