“Don’t have line of sight to Jack!” Trickster reported.

Well, that’s a problem. Can’t teleport him without line of sight.

“Hit the others,” I told Sundancer.

“You mean kill them,” her voice was quiet, her fists clenched at her sides.

Yes. Can you do it?

“Kill them, then.”  I could see the sun growing as it flew.  It was maybe eighteen feet in diameter now.

Oh fuck, that’s way bigger than we’ve seen it before, or at least way bigger than I imagined it before. The idea that it could get bigger than maybe a single foot or so in diameter never occurred to me.

“Just… just tell me there aren’t any civilians there, no bystanders.”

Tattletale?

I suppose Skitter could use her bugs, but I’m not sure the target zone is quite within range? It should be around the edge, unless they’ve gotten closer.

I looked through my binoculars.  The remainder of the Nine were making a break for it.  Mannequin and Siberian stood still, watching Grue and Ballistic, Crawler was barreling towards them, and Shatterbird had taken to the air.

Not so fun when you’re the targets, is it, guys?

It looks like big trouble’s heading towards Grue and Ballistic.

Heh, Big Trouble sounds like a nickname for Crawler.

Jack and Bonesaw were taking cover around a corner to stay out of Grue and Ballistic’s line of fire.

It seems like the Nine haven’t taken notice of the other two squads, including Trickster. They’ve heard the gunshot, but they don’t know where it came from, so they focus on the enemies they’ve spotted.

Sundancer sent her sun soaring around to the Nine, taking the long route so it could cut them off.

Here we fucking go.

Hey, Nine, did you remember to wear sunscreen today?

In that same moment, Trickster pointed a sniper rifle at a corpse on the street and swapped Cherish’s position with it.

That’s a really good use of the power. It can be used to put Cherish in a position that is easier to hit with the sniper rifle while at the same time surprising and disorienting her so she won’t have time to get out of the way.

Now it’s just a matter of whether a sniper rifle can actually incapacitate or kill her with Bonesaw’s protections in place.

Part two of the plan, after finding them and getting into our positions, was to remove Cherish as fast as humanly possible.  If we accomplished nothing else, our goal was to do that and then make a run for it.  It would pave the way for future attacks and it would slow them down.

Solid tactic. When she’s actually working towards the Nine’s best interests, she’s super important both as a scout/radar and as a defense against close attackers. She’s got one of the most dangerous powers on the team.

We’d left that task to Ballistic, with the idea that Trickster would take care of Jack.  Ballistic decided he didn’t have it in him at the worst possible moment, forcing us to shift roles.

Ahh, I see.

Damn him.

I mean, yes, it was poorly timed, but are you sure you wouldn’t have similar qualms when it came down to it?

Cherish was struck by Trickster’s shot, blood spattering the pavement.  Her teammates left her behind.

That’s probably because they’re running ahead to get out of the ambush, but from just this bit on its own, it kind of sounds like they’re completely oblivious/uncaring about the fact that right in the middle of their group, one of them was suddenly replaced by a random corpse right before a gunshot could (probably) be heard. 😛