“Regent-” I started.

“Don’t distract me,” he said, rushing through the words, “I can barely dodge all this shit they’re throwing at me.”

Yeeah, they’ve got a lot of ranged firepower and it’s currently all focused on him and Genesis. That’s gotta be like a bullet hell.

I followed his line of sight to Shatterbird.  Purity opened fire, and Shatterbird used a cone of glass to block the worst of the kinetic energy and refract the light.  Or something.

Hard to tell how stuff works with super-light, huh?

It didn’t work that well.  Shatterbird was knocked to the ground.  She managed to take flight just in time to avoid Newter, trapped the boy in a cage of glass shards, and then flung a barrage of tiny glass shards at Purity and her group.

Don’t hurt Newter, please, if you don’t have to.

I could see the glints of the shards catching the light as it flew through the air. 

Meanwhile, the actual Shatterbird is just shaking her head internally (since she doesn’t have control of it externally), nitpicking the details of how Regent is using her power. “If you’re going to take control of me, at least do things properly.” Elitist to the end.

I found another cluster of people on the top floor.  Three adult women and two children that ranged from toddler age to five feet or so of height.  Damn it, why did there always have to be kids?

Kids are everywhere!

“I can’t find Grue.”

“He’s in there,” Tattletale said.

“How sure are you?”

“Pretty darn sure.”

Good to know.

“Then how long before we can move on to the next phase?” I asked.  “I found some people, which solves one problem.”

Hm? How so?

“As soon as the Nine act,” Trickster said.  “Tattletale?”

“They’re not wanting to move.  Something about the hostages.”

Are they perhaps already in hiding, from Parian??

Or maybe they need the hostages for something? I suppose there’s a reason they’re still alive.

“Hookwolf doesn’t care about hostages,” I told her.

“I know!  But the Nine are still holding back.”

I suppose it would be possible for them to be holding back because they think the hostages will prevent the attack, but why did they take the hostages in the first place?

There were still way too many people in the room with Crawler.  And I still had no idea where Grue was.  Slowly and carefully, I navigated my bugs through the rooms of the building the Nine had occupied: A makeshift dining hall with a kitchen, a room solely for storing garbage, then a small open shower with three stalls.

Hm. This doesn’t really sound like a library or a hardware store.

It had been some sort of office building with no computers, desks or cubicles. 

Huh.

Something big, firm and formed of cloth… one of Parian’s stuffed animals?

Oh hey. That sounds… potentially bad. Was this her hideout?

It lay prone on the ground, on the other end of the building from where the Nine were poised, so large and fat that it wouldn’t be able to fit through any of the doors.

Hmm.

This would be a balancing act.  Unless the Nine didn’t plan on defending themselves or running, there would be something of a sweet spot.  A point where the enemy forces got close enough that the Nine were forced to act, yet not so close that anyone else was endangered.

This is a strange plan. So much that could go wrong here, sheesh.

Now that I knew where the Nine were, I could focus on the civilians.  I drew out messages for everyone who was hiding in their homes, along with arrows pointing them away from the Nine and Hookwolf’s army.  If someone decided they didn’t want to move, I nipped them with a biting insect or two to prod them.

Nothing like a mosquito bite to say “hey! listen!”.

Dozens of people made their way to safety, following my instructions and running for their lives as they headed out back doors or out of windows to avoid being seen.

Good job, Taylor!

I shook my head.

“Damn.”

I could see Menja leap from Rune’s floating rock and grow as she fell.  She was nearly thirty feet tall when she landed, the road cracking under her weight.

I wonder whether she grows upwards and downwards or just upwards.

Like, while she’s growing, do her feet approach the ground faster than her center does?

Rune leaped off the rock and landed on the husk of a building that hadn’t survived Leviathan’s attack.  A few seconds later, a large section broke off and lifted into the air.

Looks like the theme of the paragraph is the band of capes on the rock, a rock band if you will, breaking up.

She didn’t stay on top of it for long, choosing instead to gather more ammunition, moving on to other ruined walls and sections of building.

And the same goes for buildings, apparently.

On the other side of the building, four people were gathered at one window.  A grown man, two grown women, one of whom was nude, and a child.

Hello, there.

We still need one more, and it appears to be Mannequin.

A man clad in hard armor crouched in one corner, working with tools.

…who the… Colin, is that you?

There were enough cool bodies around them that I would’ve known who they were even if the body types hadn’t fit.

I mean, it could be Mannequin, but I wouldn’t have described him quite that way.

“Found them,” I said, pointing, “They’re watching.”

“They’re not stepping outside?”  Trickster asked.

Not yet, apparently.

So if they’re watching, surely they’ve seen that Jack, Bonesaw, Crawler and Shatterbird appear to be the targets of the enemy fire, despite two of them being in the same room?

So much hinged on how the next few moments played out.

“The Nine are distracted.  I’m going to help the people run.”

Oh boy, good luck.

The lack of response was as damning as anything they could have said.

Yeeah. “Your choice, none of our business as long as it doesn’t fuck up the plan.”

I waited until Purity fired again, then used the rumble as an excuse to stir various bugs into action.  I did a body count, placing bugs on people’s right feet, trying to calculate how many there were and how they were distributed.

There was a crowd inside the building with the Nine.  People huddled in a room with Crawler, who lay on the ground with his chin resting on his forelimbs, facing them.

That’s probably not the most comforting roommate to have.

I couldn’t find Grue.  Was he in that group?  No.

How would you even recognize him without putting bugs all over? Are the bugs individually sensing some sort of identifying characteristic?

Coil had informed Hookwolf’s contingent about the general location of the Nine.  Sure enough, they’d gathered, girded themselves for battle and marched on, hoping to overwhelm through sheer firepower and force of numbers.  Odds were good that it wouldn’t work.  It hadn’t in the past.

Alright, so they were indeed part of the plan.

But… why the ruse?

But, we were hoping, it would put the Nine in a position where they had to decide whether to hold their position or respond to the immediate proximity of this many enemies.

Ah, I see. Them arriving at all is meant to pull the Nine out into the open.

Shatterbird and Genesis were tasked with distracting Hookwolf’s forces and preventing them from mounting a direct attack on the Nine’s real position.  We couldn’t save Grue if Purity leveled the building.

Ohh. Yeah, that makes sense.

Shatterbird took flight, calling up a storm of glass shards to accompany her.  She flew low to the ground, relying on the surrounding buildings and ruins to keep out of sight.

Genesis had finished pulling herself together.  Her form resembled Crawler, but with some additions.

Hm. Are they going to pass this off as Crawler having managed to reclaim Shatterbird but taken some damage in the process? Better hope Crawler isn’t with the rest of the Nine if that’s what they’re going for.

Growths on her back resembled Bonesaw and Jack.  She tested her limbs, then looked at us.

…and apparently they’re going to pretend they have Bonesaw and Jack with them too.

That makes at least three members of the Nine who can totally call their bluff.

At me?  I couldn’t tell.  She had too many eyes to tell.

Hah.