She gave me a stern look, pointed at me, and said, “No tongue.”

Ahaha

This scene is delightful.

I rolled my eyes, scattered the bugs, pulled my mask down and leaned over to give her a quick peck on the lips.

“Now fill me in.  I’ll fill in the blanks as you explain, and hopefully it’ll work fast enough that I can catch up.”

Sounds like a good plan.

Seriously, though, it’d be fun to see how the shippers reacted to this chapter when it first came out. :p

If we add 7.5, Taylor has now kissed three out of five other Undersiders. She’s making good progress towards that harem ending.

“Jack and Bonesaw tricked me and Coil to figure out where both Cherish and Amy were.  I gave chase, and Jack left before he accomplished anything more than head games.”

Pretty decent summary.

“State she’s in, head games are pretty serious.”

True. If there’s anyone here who knows a thing or two about how head games can affect people, it’s Lisa.

“Maybe.  But at least she didn’t cave on his demands.”

“Sure.”

At least for now.

“The bad thing is… Jack knows about Dinah’s prophecy.”

Tattletale looked as though I’d slapped her.  “Shit.”

Yeah… I think Taylor has been underestimating how bad that is.

Granted, I also think everyone’s overestimating it, but I think she’s underestimating it in the context of that overestimation.

…does that make any sense whatsoever?

“Good,” I said.  The last swirls of red disappeared from around my feet, and the water around me began to change back to normal.  With increasing speed, the water around us began to transition back to normal at nearly the speed the effect had spread in the first place.

Success! Woo!

It extended out in every direction, promising to revert most or all of the affected bodies of water.

“You couldn’t have waited until after you’d cured me before you put the bugs on your face?”  Tattletale asked.

Ahaha!

This is exactly what I was just joking about with the puckered lips – Lisa wants some hot mind-healing action too.

Though to be fair, Taylor didn’t make it entirely clear that she doesn’t need to go around kissing everyone in the city to heal them.

She was smiling as she asked it.  “Unless you want me to drink that water.”

This too was part of why I made that joke.

“Sorry.  No, I’ll help you out.”

This situation is starting to sound like the blurb for a harem anime. “When all the water in the city turns red and dangerous miasma threatens the citizens of Tokyo, one school girl discovers that her passionate kisses are the only cure.”

It worked.

“Glad you didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be broken?”

Why had I done it?  I’d tried to explain it to her so many times.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it again.

“Doesn’t matter.”

I mean, if the question is “why did you bother to heal me”, there’s plenty more explanations to that beyond “because you’re my friend whether you like it or not”.

Such as “you were going to have Bentley break me”.

Tattletale pointed down at the water just behind me.  I turned around and looked.  Where I’d landed on my back, the water was changing from red to a relatively clear state.  ‘Relatively’ only because the water hadn’t been that clear to begin with.  “Guess it’s working.”

Nice!

When Taylor turns back to Lisa, she sees her standing there with her lips puckered.

I should probably take a look at what Taylor’s narration has to say about this. And Rachel’s reaction.

But does Taylor mean anything deeper by it?

Like, she’s long been much more set on befriending Rachel than I think Rachel has deserved, even with Rachel’s special limitations in mind. Does this seemingly impulsive course of action speak to any deeper reason for that?

If nothing else, it ought to leave Rachel too confused to act for a moment?

Well that’s certainly a thing Taylor just did.