That vibrating mouth of Mannequin’s was going again, puffing gas into the air, maybe to buy himself some breathing room from the dog.

Hey, Taylor, I’d actually be fine with you stuffing a bunch of insects into this mouth. Maybe if you stick enough in there, the corpses will clog the system?

I doubt he has a spitting functionality or a gag reflex, so he’d probably have to double over forwards in order to get them out.

“Bastard, stay,” I said.  What commands had I heard Bitch give her dogs?  “Off!”

Yes, good, speak the language he understands.

Couldn’t say whether Bastard obeyed or if he just didn’t want to attack anyways.

Heh, that’s fair.

I had to check twice to see that there wasn’t anything burning in Mannequin’s immediate vicinity.  No stray garbage to ignite the gas, sadly enough.

Do you still have the matches?

I looked behind me, and saw that the flames were raging.  Even the water’s surface was on fire.  How?  Had there been some chemical nearby, or something in the gas that transferred to the water’s surface?

Ooh…

Our avenue of retreat was shrinking.

Yes, but maybe it could be useful somehow?

I don’t know. I’m not the one making the awesome plans here.

Mannequin turned the tables in a second.  Between one of Bastard’s shakes and the next, the villain stopped flopping around.  I realized he’d ejected the knives from his toes and staked them in Bastard’s neck and snout for leverage.

Well that sounds just delightful for Bastard.

His one free hand dangled at his side.

Moving was agony, but I was lurching towards them in a half-run before I fully realized why.  Mannequin raised his free hand and pointed it at Bastard’s left eye.

Wha– oh, going for the brain, are you.

I’m… not sure that actually works with the hellhounds? Judging by Lucy, it seems like that’s not really how their anatomy functions.

I caught his arm and hauled it back in the same moment he fired.  Bastard repaid my kindness by whipping Mannequin to one side, striking me.

This is getting into intense melee. Not quite as good as the first Mannequin fight (notably, Mannequin is making less use of the more interesting parts, combat-wise, of his design), but I like it.

Both Mannequin and I fell sprawling to the ground.

No sooner had I fallen than Grue was there to help me up.  He was slower than I was with that granular buckshot in his leg, so he’d only just caught up.

Teamwork!

Mannequin on the ground, Bastard off to one side, largely untrained with no master and nobody holding his chain, Grue and I both helping one another stand.

This is looking… kind of like a victory in the making? ‘,:?

I was about to voice an agreement when I saw Bastard lurch to his feet.  The chain leading to his muzzle wasn’t in my hand.

Ooh, now what’s he going to do?

Remember what I said about thinking Bastard would be important? I think that’s about to come true, somehow.

Bastard pounced on Mannequin, taking one of the villain’s arms in his jaws.  Clenching, he began whipping Mannequin around like a rag doll.

Whoo, go Bastard!

Twice, Mannequin’s lower body was bludgeoned against the nearby wall.

I’d get on Taylor’s case about attacks to certain lower parts again, but a) Mannequin probably doesn’t have those parts, and b) this ain’t Taylor’s doing, Bastard is doing this on his own initiative.

Yeah, didn’t expect us to be that tough, did you?

Hehe. They really are a lot tougher than they look.

I looked for our opponent, and I saw Mannequin virtually unscathed, lying in the shallow water.

…of course. That can’t be regular ceramic he’s using.

The blast had knocked him sprawling, but he’d disconnected his parts so only lengths of chain attached each.

I suppose it makes sense. Less resistance to the movement might reduce the damage.

An application, perhaps, of that martial arts principle.  How did it go?

“When two great forces collide, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield.”
– Lao Tzu

An oak is broken by the hurricane’s winds, but the supple willow only bends?  He was already pulling himself together.

Yeah, that sounds like a good one too.

There was barely a mark on him.

“Run,” Grue said.

Good plan, but can she run after the gunshot?

“You gotta stand, T-  Skitter.  Stand up.”

Hm. Sounds like there might be someone else around besides Grue and Bitch – otherwise he might not have caught himself like this, rule of using cape names while they’re in costume or no.

More through Grue’s efforts than my own, I was helped to my feet.  Every movement exacerbated the pain in my chest.

Except it also sounds like next to no time has passed, and Grue seems to be acting like Mannequin’s not there anymore…

I gingerly touched the site of the gunshot.  Flecks of what looked like glass fell as I ran my hand over the cloth.  Still couldn’t breathe.

Glass…?

Hm.

So here’s a thought that started forming in the back of my head a couple quotes back: What if the bullet was special in some way? Mannequin’s a tinker, he could absolutely come up with special ammunition, especially if it’s some sort of biocapsule.

The explosion had ignited every piece of rubbish at this end of the road that stood taller than the inch-high water level.  Grue and I weren’t, thankfully, blazing.  My hair hadn’t been ignited either, and perhaps most importantly, we hadn’t been pulverized by the shockwave.

Considering how close you were to the source, you’re probably quite lucky. Although I can’t imagine Grue’s darkness doesn’t have something to do with it.

…in fact I could see the darkness completely countering the shockwave, because it works similarly to sound. In a sense, the shockwave is sound.

It hadn’t been a huge explosion, but it had been substantial enough.

Yeah, seems that way.

“Bastard, back,” I said, tugging him to one side.  I wasn’t about to let a dog take a bullet for me.

Bitch so wouldn’t approve of that.

Besides, a part of me suspected that Mannequin was going to let me live so he could make me watch while he killed my friends and followers.

A part of me thinks that is absolutely correct.

I stared at his blank, featureless face, praying my instincts were telling me the truth.

The first rule of making yourself a human shield when you’re not actually that defensively tough (Skitter’s armor is tough, but we still don’t know if it’s bulletproof): There’s gotta be something keeping the attacker from just killing you first.