It was Mannequin.  Of all of them, he was the hardest to make out as he moved close to the ground, slipping between cars and through the flames to disappear from Weld’s sight.

I realized at the end of the last post that she was looking at the fight using her eyes rather than her bugs, thus invalidating the stated half of my reasoning for why it’d be Mannequin (the other half being that he’d been remarkably unseen thus far), but I’m still going to call this a win.

Oh, and a third half I didn’t consider: Bonesaw and Jack can’t do shit to Weld directly (or at least, Jack would need a lot of range) with their specialties, and Weld wouldn’t be defending the time-stopped heroes in quite the same way against their attacks.

He had four arms, one set longer than the other, which combined with his jerky movements to give him an almost bug-like demeanor.

Quick, Taylor, control him! :p

I watched as he paused at the rear of one car, crouching with his two sets of arms at the bumper, then unfolded explosively, steam or vapor billowing around him as he launched the car through the air.

Mannequin and Lung have a thing in common: From a writing perspective, they’re both good for repeat encounters thanks to bodily changes.

Lung had several stages, allowing for very different fights depending on which stage he starts in (even as Lung has pretty thoroughly lost relevance, I’m still not entirely convinced we won’t see him fully draconic some day).

Meanwhile, Mannequin adapts, changing his body after each loss and adding new features that change the game next time.

These features make these two more interesting to read about when the same characters go up against them again.

It wasn’t much distance, only ten or so feet, but the car rolled and slammed into Weld, knocking the junior hero into his frozen teammates and pinning him there.

Weld, looking down at the car stuck to his chest: “Shit. This is gonna take a while to get rid of.”

So few bugs were alive down there.  Some had retreated beneath the pavement, or into the lowermost parts of nearby buildings, but the heat and the hot air was killing them.

I like the contrast between the situation before and after the bombs hit, regarding how many bugs are available. Before, she had way more bugs than usual, and now she has… pretty much just a handful or five.

Some died quickly, others slow.  I was careful about how close I got, devoting extra attention to ensuring that the beetle didn’t perish or find himself unable to fly as the heat damaged his wings.

Yeah, try not to go upside down Icarus on us.

Wait, would that involve “falling” up into the sea of the stars when the wings break?

Amy had made him durable, but there was a limit to how far I wanted to push my luck when there was two hundred feet of open air between me and the ground, and a sea of fire waiting for any scenario where I managed to survive the impact.

Yeah, that’s quite reasonable.

It was a bit of a task, to focus on flying -there was no autopilot like there was with my other bugs- and to track the remaining bugs on the ground.  The sewers and storm drains were hot, but hospitable.  Navigation would be difficult for Jack and Bonesaw underground.  Between Leviathan’s active destruction of the storm drains and the more passive deterioration as they got clogged with rubble and debris and flooded, there were few spaces underground where the villains would be able to navigate.

So if they went down there, they probably wouldn’t get out anywhere useful.

Had they died?  It was possible, and I was swiftly eliminating areas where there was both a population of bugs and space for the Nine to hide.

I don’t think any of them are dead, but if one of them is, it’s Mannequin or Bonesaw. More likely Mannequin out of those two, because he’s been fairly irrelevant ever since his second defeat by Taylor.

Also worth noting: We don’t know what fresh hell Bonesaw was up to this time with the civilians she “recruited”. I have a feeling we’ll find out somehow.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Scout.  See if there’s any clues about the opposition’s movements.  If you can’t figure anything out on that front, track Crawler from above.

Keep in mind that the “opposition” currently also includes the Protectorate.

They’ll have some agreed-upon place to meet, and he could lead us to the other four… you haven’t seen Legend?”

He was last seen chasing Siberian, right?

“No.”

“Then I’d bet he’s still chasing Siberian.  Or minimizing the damage she can do, anyways. He can’t hurt her, but she’s at a disadvantage as long as she has to carry that truck and protect the occupant.  Legend will know how to use that.”

Excellent. If we can keep her out of this fray, that would be great.

“Right.”

“So Crawler will maybe lead us to the other three.”

Sounds reasonable.

Though it’s worth noting that we still haven’t sensed Mannequin here in any way. He’s able to avoid Taylor’s bugs, but he’s not one for staying out of sight (then again, neither is Jack). I’m wondering if he’s even here at all.

“On it.”  I hung up.

I’d dealt with it against Lung, I’d dealt with it against Burnscar.  Fire was something of a problem when it came to using my power.

Yeeah. Major type advantage. At least in this case nobody’s actively controlling the fire.

Unless Bonesaw went back for Burnscar’s corpse.

“Places to look, anyways.”

“We can’t get to them if they are there.”

I suppose not. Taylor may be able to descend and find them with her surviving bugs, but they’ll probably be long gone by the time anyone else could get there.

Also, going back in after the first round of bombings is a supremely bad idea. You have no idea how bad it is, but even without the knowledge that Bakuda bombs are coming soon, you should still be wary of the possibility of a second barrage. That’s just a good tactic for the PRT to do: Lull any of the Nine or Undertravelers who found cover into a false sense of security, then strike again.

“And they can’t get away, either.  Jack’s slippery, but he’s pinned down for the time being.  Just one second.”

Is that something your power is telling you about physical obstacles, or just a logical result of Jack being the kind of smart cookie who’d see the second strike coming?

Or both?

I could hear other voices in the background.

A few seconds later, Tattletale was back on the phone, “Genesis is already making a body that can withstand the fire.  Sundancer thinks she can clear away some of the blaze by flash-burning the oxygen from the area and drawing the heat and flame into her sun.  If she can, it might give us some elbow room.”

No, seriously, do not fucking go back in there

Well.

If they’re not gonna listen to me, I guess we know how the Bakuda bombs become relevant now.

“The fire will have undone the silk bindings,” I said.

Fuck, good point. Better make sure he can’t jump hundreds of feet.

“Can you do it again?”

“Not here, not anytime soon.”

Yeah, he’s currently a bit out of range.

“Okay.”

“What are the odds that Bonesaw and Jack survived?”

“Too high.”

Especially Jack, from a narrative perspective.

I stared down at the inferno.  The tallest fires had dwindled, but a carpet of fire covered everything for a five block radius.  Cars that had been mostly intact were charred hulks now, and the explosions had torn chunks out of buildings, or the flames hollowed out the interiors.

Hey, Piggot, I hope you have people ready to stop these fires from spreading too far.

“How would he survive this?”

“How would you survive this?” she asked.  “Or- if you didn’t know precisely what was happening, where would you find the most secure cover?”

In Bonesaw’s case, she might hide inside a body again. Or maybe make a pillow fort, except the pillows are people.

I thought back to the options I had considered.  “The sewer?  Or find a bank vault?  Not sure if the sewers or storm drains wouldn’t collapse, and the bank vault could easily become an oven.”

Though considering the bank vault becoming an oven kind of requires you to have an idea that high temperatures are involved. In any case, there are more drawbacks to that idea, such as breaking into the vault taking time if your name ain’t Crawler or Siberian.

“Leaf L,” I replied.  “We’re all okay?”

“All of us.  Amy’s here.”

Hell yes! That’s one thing I really don’t mind being wrong about.

“Any idea if that did anything to Jack and Bonesaw?  Or Crawler?”

Crawler, probably not.

Jack… maybe it hurt him, but I doubt he’s dead. His death is too plot critical for him to go out like this. If he dies, it’ll be at Undertraveler hands, I think.

Bonesaw – having had her big confrontation with the Undertravelers already – might be dead, in which case the PRT might look forward to a visit from Siberian if they learn of Piggot’s role.

“Crawler’s probably taken worse.  I can picture him crawling into an incinerator and sitting in there for long enough that he can take this.”

Pffft. That’s honestly a funny mental image, and given his current size… Well, the image of him crawling into a space that’s way too small for him and just sitting there for a while isn’t doing anything to dissuade me from the impression that he’s way more of a cat than Siberian.

The plane wasn’t as fast as I’d thought it would be.  It appeared from the clouds and crossed the skyline a distance away, at an altitude not much higher than me.

Wow, she’s going really high up now.

Either that or that’s a low-flying plane. I wonder if they’ve gotten the airport back up and running yet?

It left a muted roar in its wake, and the payload of bombs.

Oh. Right.

For some reason I was picturing a more… catapult-like bombing.

Black specks, smaller than I would have guessed, but more numerous.  Fifty?  A hundred?  I couldn’t tell from my vantage point, and I doubted I could have made an accurate estimate.

So these are the incendiary rounds, right?

The bombs were targeted at the parking lot where Jack and Bonesaw had been.  They detonated across the surrounding neighborhood, a carpet of explosions and flame that ripped through everything.  In a heartbeat, an area that had been drowning in stagnant water was lit up by fires that rose higher than the smallest buildings.

Fire and water together just keeps happening in this part of the story, huh.

Maybe the prevalence in this “book” (Arc 9-?) of fire going on top of the water Leviathan left could be considered foreshadowing that Behemoth is next. I’m fairly sure the Simurgh is next if they are all going to come here, but if it turns out I’m wrong, I’m probably going to count this as foreshadowing.