Even compared to being in Bonesaw’s clutches, I felt more helpless as ever. 

This is a good ending line, but I’m quite distracted by the use of “as” instead of “than”.

Darkness boiled out of his skin, a thin layer.  It moved slower than it had before, thicker, more like tendrils sliding against one another than smoke.  Just like the arm he had across his chest, gripping his elbow for stability, it was a kind of barrier, armor or a wall erected against the world.  He walked slowly.

Hey, don’t make yourself a cocoon, you already went through one metamorphosis today. If not a literal one.

Nobody complained, despite the proximity of our enemies and the fact that the darkness he’d spread out had to have alerted Hookwolf’s contingent about our existence.

What, and the giant swarms of bugs heading towards this place wouldn’t?

Were there just not that many bugs here?

I watched Brian as I walked behind him.  I’d just been paralyzed, about to receive involuntary brain surgery.  Now, in a much different way and for different reasons than before, I was again unable to offer him a hand.  I couldn’t even talk to him without being afraid I’d say the wrong thing.

Probably best to let him be for a bit.

I stopped.  He was on all fours, his head hung, his cheeks wet with tears.

I reached out for him, but a hand seized my wrist.  Tattletale.  She shook her head at me.

Hm. What knowest thou, oh oracle?

While I backed off, Tattletale reached for Imp, whispered something in her ear.

Imp bent down and took off her mask.  In a voice far gentler than any I’d heard from her before, she said, “Hey.  Big brother?  Let’s get out of here.”

I guess he needs to hear her to get out of the trigger event mindset?

Brian nodded, mute.

Aisha could approach him, but I couldn’t?

I’m sure Lisa has her reasons.

He stood, refusing Imp’s offer for help in standing.  He clutched one elbow with one hand, the arm dangling; it wasn’t an injury, I was pretty sure.

Maybe a side effect of what just happened?

He’d healed the worst of it.  It was something else, some kind of security in the posture or something like that.

Oh, right, that posture.

It’s super commonly used to show nervousness, but I suppose it makes sense for it to provide a sense of security in general.

“Come on,” he said, his voice hoarse, “Don’t have long.  I-  Damn it!”

What do you mean you don’t have long? Is this a temporary power boost?

His darkness flowed out from his skin, heavier than I’d ever seen it, slow to expand, but it seemed to generate itself.  It slithered through me yet again.  Slithered through my bugs.

I wonder, if Taylor were to be outside the darkness but the bugs were in it, would it interfere with her control of those bugs?

It was minutes before the darkness dissipated.  When it did, Tattletale was standing.  Parian was standing on the other side of the room, eyes wide.

Huh, now he’s healing through the darkness?

The three Travellers were huddled together.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.  “Brian, hey-”

You okay, Brian?

Let’s hope this didn’t burn out what life he had left, right after it spent a lot of his energy pulling him together.

I clenched my fist, struggled into a standing position.  Brian hurried to Aisha’s side, grabbing her.

I guess he’s going in the order of who was closest to him, but I still feel like the shippers might’ve latched onto the fact that he healed Taylor before Aisha.

Four new powers?

Apparently so!

I hadn’t heard about anything like this.

Yeah, sheesh. We knew double trigger events might be a thing that could happen, but the most we’d heard of it potentially accomplishing was getting rid of the Manton effect. It’s dangerously close to being a deus ex machina (if it hasn’t already crossed that line), especially with it solving every problem the Undertravelers had in this situation. I could see this being controversial when it originally came out.

I still like it, though. It feels more like the introduction of an interesting new concept than a hack job of a solution after Wildbow wrote his characters into a corner.

It took a long time.  Five minutes, maybe ten.  But his skin crept back, tearing where it had been pinned to the wall, joining back together, then healing.  Even the scratches that had criss-crossed his chest since he’d fought Cricket began to mend.

So this double trigger event, or whatever it actually was, seems to have given Grue at least two new powers: Monochrome avatars and regeneration. The latter doesn’t relate much to the power he already had, but they both relate heavily to his needs in this particular situation. A way to fight back and a way to pull himself together.

The healing stopped before it was entirely finished.  I saw the figure appear again.  The monochrome, half-formed Brian.

I guess he can’t do both at once?

Mercilessly, it tore out the metal studs that had impaled Brian’s limbs to the wall.  It caught Brian, then laid him carefully on the ground.

Oh yeah, I suppose healing while those were still there might be a bad idea.

He couldn’t walk, so he dragged himself towards us.

Better than what he could do when they got here, at least.

He had another trigger event.  Two new powers?  Three, if I counted the way his power was diminishing my own?

Oh yeah, I guess that might be worth counting too, though it feels more like an upgrade to his existing power.

(The monochrome avatar also ties in with his existing power to some extent, but it can be used separately.)

He touched my hand, held it between his own.  I could feel something thrumming through me, willing me to take hold of it.

Can he heal others too? Get rid of their paralysis?

It took me a minute to figure out how.  The exposed bone of my forehead itched, then sang in an exquisite agony as it mended.  My skin was next.  My seized up muscles were last.  My power was last to mend, and I regained my control, though the diminished effect continued.

He can! That’s awesome. The Undertravelers have their own healer now!

Monochrome Brian lunged after them, but the floor of the freezer shattered beneath one foot.  He lost his orientation, then flickered out of existence once more.

Damn, between this and pulverizing Burnscar’s head, he’s clearly super strong. He doesn’t have the same protection of the surface under him that Siberian does, though.

I could see Brian from where I lay, as I struggled to breathe with the one-hundred and whatever pounds that were piled on top of me.  He hung there, haggard, glaring at nothing in particular.

I suspect he’s been seeing through the eyes of his monochrome avatar.

The man didn’t reappear, but the stream of incongruent events continued; I could see one of Brian’s ribs twitch like the limb of a dying insect.

That doesn’t sound like a good thing, unless it turns out Brian works like the hellhounds now and there’s a baby Brian cradled in his chest.

With a glacial slowness, his body parts began retracting back into place.  The metal frames holding his intestines and organs into place bent, then gave way in the face of the inexorable pull.

Niice.

I still don’t fully know how this happened, though I suspect it has to do with the idea of double triggers, but I’m all for Brian coming out of this in one piece and stronger for it.

Almost casually, he reached out and seized Bonesaw’s hands, which gripped the drive.  He raised her off of the ground, her feet kicking, and she grunted as his grip tightened.

I’ll be sad to see her exit the story, but she absolutely should die.

“The things I put up with,” Jack said, seemingly unconcerned.  He whipped out his knife, slashing at the pseudo-Brian.  There was no effect.  “Hm.”

Can’t slash through darkness and light, pal.

Slashing through the actual Grue might work better. Maybe.

Grabbing a meat cleaver from the kitchen counter, he hacked at Bonesaw instead.  It took three swings to sever her arms at the wrists.

“She’ll be fine, she can fix that with her mouth.”

She hit the ground running,

Didn’t make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb

her stumps jammed into her armpits.  They disappeared over the counter of the dining hall, Jack helping Bonesaw up. 

It does look like Bonesaw might get out of this alive, actually.

“Which you’ll have to leave behind.  We’ll retreat.”

“I just need the hard drive!  I’ve been trying to get data like this for ages, and it’s a new system!”

Just let her grab it real quick, man. Save yourself the arguing.

Bonesaw started to head for the walk-in fridge where Brian was, but Jack grabbed her by the back of the neck.  “No.”

Does he think Brian would be able to kill her too if she went in there, maybe? Hell, I suppose that might be true.

“It’s ‘kay!  Two seconds!  I’ll be right back!”  She slipped out of his grip, running into the freezer, opening one of the cases that looked Mannequin-made.

Well, let’s see how this goes.

The darkness continued to dissipate around Brian, and I was aware as a masculine figure flickered into existence in the midst of the cloud, in one corner of the walk-in freezer.

There he is!

It was Brian, but it wasn’t.  It was colored in monochrome, with one eye open, the other half-formed.

Markings in white covered his flesh, spiraling out from one pectoral, covering his chest and stomach.  His hands were white to the elbow, and he was sexless.  A ken doll with only more white patterns between his legs.

“Are you a boy or a girl?”
“I’m a villain.”
“No, I mean, what’s between your legs?”
“White patterns.”

Memes aside, he looks awesome. I wonder if the white markings and monochrome rather than black means this power upgrade gave Grue some light to balance his darkness?

Or maybe he was white and the markings were in black?

And here I thought Siberian was the zebra of the cast.