Parian reached the sink, cranked on the tap.  There was no water.  She threw herself to one side, feeling along the counter for something, anything to wash out her eyes.

Oh right, of course. Leviathan kinda fucked that whole option up.

“You’re lucky I’m so nice,” Bonesaw said.  She lifted up the tattered bottom of her dress to dab at her lip and tongue.  I could make out test tubes, equipment and pouches, all belted to her thighs and stomach.  “If I was a less forgiving person, I’d make you regret that.”

“Luckily I have a bunch of less forgiving friends who can do it for me!”

Parian sagged to her knees, hands still on the counter, heaving for breath.

She might already be regretting it.

“But instead, I’ll leave you alone to think about what you’ve done,” Bonesaw said.  She plucked some of the needles out of her skin.  “I’ll finish with these guys, and later, I can show you what I can do with a needle and thread.  It’ll be fun.  Common interests!”

Pfft! She’s kind of right, though.

“Making friends, Bonesaw?”

Oh cod, who’s this. Jack? Regent?

Bonesaw spat into Parian’s face.  Her own flesh burned as whatever chemical she had been holding in her mouth spilled down her lip.

I guess she’s reinforced the flesh in her mouth too, in order to be able to hold it.

Parian, for her part, dropped the scalpel, tore her mask off and staggered blindly in the general direction of the sink, her hands over her eyes.

Ah, yeah, I would imagine a chemical that burns flesh would be especially bad to get in the eyes.

No.

Of course, putting her back to Bonesaw was probably a bad idea.

What I wouldn’t give for the chance to change this, to act, to offer even one word of assistance.

I wonder if any capes with time powers had trigger events that caused them to think something like this.

Hm. One… word of assistance? It might be too complicated for her right now, but it could be possible to write something with the bugs, or reproduce speech like she did with the Protectorate.

Bonesaw turned her head and spat again, some residual chemical directed at the threads. When that didn’t achieve the desired result, she repeated the process.  The threads snapped and she dropped to the ground.

Here she comes.

“Burned mah tongue,” Bonesaw said, to nobody in particular.  Or to me?

Pfft, I guess she’s not going for stealth after all.

She stuck it out to demonstrate.  It was scalded, blistered and covered with dead white flesh in much the same way her lip was.  She spat again.

Eesh.

So where did she hide whatever custom gland secretes this chemical, exactly?

Broken tooth?  No.  When I’d kicked Cherish earlier, hadn’t she said that Bonesaw had reinforced her teeth?

…fuck, that’s a good point. Is Bonesaw intentionally enraging Parian further?

Surely the psycho would have done the same for herself.

She was lying.

And there was nothing I could do to alert Parian.

Are you sure? Maybe your subconscious can find a way, using the bugs.

Parian picked up one of the scalpels Bonesaw had placed near me.  Her hand was trembling even after she had it in a white-knuckled grip.  “I don’t want to do this.  I never wanted to fight.  But I can’t let you walk away.  That’s the most important thing.

Imp, internally: “Yeah, no, that won’t work.”

I guess this is why Bonesaw’s lying. She’s hiding her protections to catch Parian off-guard with them.

I’m willing to compromise what I believe in, compromise myself, to do that.”

Willing to kill?

Bonesaw rolled her eyes.

Wall!  Barrier!

What do you mean to accomplish? Get in Parian’s way so she doesn’t foolishly run into Bonesaw’s close melee range?

My bugs left Bonesaw’s presence to form a barrier between her and Parian, but they were too few.  Too many had died against Bonesaw’s bug killing smoke.  Parian ignored them.

I wonder what Parian thinks of the bugs. Is she aware of Skitter at all, besides as an unknown victim of Bonesaw lying around here?

In one motion, Parian stepped close and stabbed the scalpel into Bonesaw’s throat.  Then she did it again, and again, stabbing over and over, hysterical.

Well, this probably ain’t ending well.

It wasn’t enough blood.  I knew it, and Parian had to know it.

Yeeah, this isn’t working.

Parian flung one hand in Bonesaw’s direction.  I didn’t see what happened next, but the bugs that were still drifting in Bonesaw’s direction to attack her were telling me that there were threads stretching between the two of them.

Ooh, nice!

A bug settled on the point of a needle where it had impaled the side of Bonesaw’s neck.  Twenty or thirty needles with attached threads extending between them and Parian’s sleeve.

Get the point yet, Bonesaw?

Bonesaw crunched something in her mouth, “You’re playing so rough.  Ow.  I think you broke one of my teeth, with your dinosaur.”

Clearly she doesn’t. 😛

Parian ignored her.  A twist of her hands, and Bonesaw was lifted into the air, spread-eagled.  Bonesaw’s skin stretched where the needles pulled at it.  Parian advanced towards the villain.

Hey, Bonesaw? You fucked up.

*boops readers’ noses*

Let’s get back to it!

She wasn’t a fighter, I remembered.  She had held her own against Leviathan, but she didn’t have experience.  I wanted to scream at her, to make her stop talking, to do something to Bonesaw.

Sorry, Taylor, not everyone is as straight-to-the-point as you are.

(Although I suppose Parian isn’t exactly “straight” to anything.)

“If it makes you feel any better, some of them might still be alive.  We didn’t kill them all.”

That’s the closest she’s said to anything actually comforting, but that’s only until you remember what they did to the ones they didn’t kill.

Parian snapped her attention to Bonesaw, “What?”

“Some we left alive, so I could give them five-minute plastic surgery.  My spiders handled most of it.  Implants under the skin, some chemical dyes for hair…”

Of course, Bonesaw doesn’t realize that Parian ain’t gonna take that all that much better.

Also damn, she did that stuff in five minutes?

“Plastic surgery?”  Parian shook her head.  “What?  Why?”

“To make them look like us.  They’re all running around out there, drawing enemy fire and freaking out.  It’s funny.

“Oh your family might still be alive, thought they look like us now and they might get Purity’d sooner or later.”

And of course, it’ll take a dozen visits with doctors less talented than I to get something even resembling their old faces back.  Can you imagine how many people are going to double take when they look at them, before they’ve all been fixed?  Like, ‘Oh no, it’s Siberian!’, except it isn’t.”

You’re really not helping your case. 😛