I crawled backward a few feet, trying to maintain distance between us.  Stormtiger reached down and blocked my retreat with one blade-covered hand.

“Stay, Skitter. Good bug girl.”

I looked up at Stormtiger and spoke, “We split up earlier today.  One of our members had a source, we heard about the email that went out when the news stations and papers did.  Decided it’d be better to back off, just in case.”  No harm done by admitting that much.

Not only does admitting this much do no harm, other than confirming that the other Undersiders aren’t hiding nearby, but if they believe it, it can be helpful, by letting them know that the Undersiders are not responsible for the leak.

“Don’t believe you,” he snarled.  “Doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“That’s because-”

Eh, fair enough. I didn’t think they’d make it out of this without some kind of fight, anyway.

I stopped as the two of them turned away.  The ‘paramedic’ a few feet from Stormtiger had bolted, and was drawing a gun as she ran toward the closest patch of darkness.

Nice! Stay alive, please!

As she got close to her destination, still running, she turned on the spot and raised her gun to fire at Stormtiger and Hookwolf.

So far, I like Coil’s mundane soldiers.

Hookwolf barely reacted as the bullets punched into his chest, and even that was just the inevitable force of being shot.

Hm, yeah, not surprising. I was going to mention it when he made the claw, but forgot: Given that Taylor calls it ferrokinetic shapeshifting, I think Hookwolf’s whole body might be, in a sense, made of iron, even in his human form.

His apparent invulnerability to bullets seems to support that. Though it’s a little unclear if the bullets bounced off (or, equivalently, stopped and got stuck in his clothing) or if he just didn’t react to getting holes shot in him.

Stormtiger raised one arm as if to protect himself, but the bullets were already veering off before they could hit him, leaving a trio of hazy trails in the air where they had turned.

Damn, that takes some pretty strong wind.

Stormtiger raised one hand in the direction he’d come and created a blast of wind to clear a path through Grue’s darkness and reveal Hookwolf and Cricket.

Looks like we’re going up against all at once. At least Grue can somewhat slow down these two, for about as long as they can keep Stormtiger from blowing it all away.

That’ll change if Stormtiger can create a full-fledged local storm that he doesn’t have to keep actively controlling, though.

“Fancy this,” Hookwolf chuckled, looking down at me, “We decide to attack the blockades and avoid being hemmed in like the ABB was, and we happen upon you?”

“Not looking for a fight,” I told him.

Well, they kind of are. Just not this fight.

“Stormtiger, find the others of her group.” Hookwolf snarled, apparently not considering my words worth responding to.

It seems like Hookwolf is assuming they’re nearby and forgetting that Stormtiger’s presence is the only thing keeping Grue from just covering everything in darkness again.

“Can’t,” Stormtiger spoke, from where he stood above me.  “Not smelling them.”

“You smelled her.”

That’s because she’s actually, y’know, here.

“And I smelled the two uniforms from the ambulance.  Other one’s bleeding, sitting near the ambulance somewhere over there.  Darkness boy isn’t around anymore or I’d be able to smell him.”

Are you sure about that? After all, he’s the Scentless Man, as we’ve covered extensively.

…or is he?

(yes he is)