“I can’t agree with that.”

“Then make your call.  If you’re absolutely certain you’re not going to fuck us over and give away the plan, if you’re positive that the lives you might save are worth risking our lives and Grue’s, you can go ahead.  You don’t have anyone’s support here, and it’s all on you if you fail.”

At least he gives her the choice, even if he’s heavily indicating she shouldn’t try.

Tattletale spoke, “If you’re going to do something, you better do it fast.”

She pointed, and every pair of eyes in our group turned to look.

Purity streaked across the sky, followed by Crusader and a floating rock carrying a whole contingent of their group.

Oh shit! Have they too come to attack the Nine (perhaps inspired into action by the Undertravelers?), or did they just happen to be in the area?

The rest would be moving along the ground.

“Shatterbird, Genesis, go!”

Up to communicate?

…if that’s the goal, sending Shatterbird might be a bad idea.

Regent nodded in agreement.

I looked at the others for help.  Tattletale remained quiet, and Sundancer, the one other person I’d hoped would be sympathetic, looked away.

This feels familiar. It reminds me of when Taylor found out about Dinah.

“Those are people,” I said.  “Real people.”

“So’s Grue, and so are we.  We look out for ourselves first.  If we can take out members of the Nine, we’ll save more people in the long run.”

It’s a hard choice, but I think he’s right.

“The ends justify the means?  You realize that when this all goes down, they’re going to die?  Almost guaranteed?”  I’d directed Sundancer to attack a group of people who included bystanders, but they’d been goners already, dead for all intents and purposes.  This was something else.

Fuck, sounds like what they’re planning is quite destructive.

“Thirty people for the sake of hundreds.  It balances out,” Trickster said.

Numbers.

Of course, Taylor has never really managed to think like that, for better or worse.

“If we stick to the plan and if we’re successful.”

“Don’t fuck around or their deaths will be in vain.”

I asked, “Tattletale, do you know where the Nine are, specifically?”

She shook her head.

That would probably have been helpful, especially with Ballistic on the team. Boom, bunch of rubble over them.

“There’re people here.  I’m counting thirty or so, but there could be twice that many.  I haven’t even taken a serious look at the building the Nine are in, because I don’t want to alert them.”

Anyone who’s in that building is probably fucked already.

“Ignore them,” Trickster said.  “This is risky enough without splitting our focus.”

That’s asking a hell of a lot out of miss “four out of maybe thirty didn’t make it so it wasn’t a victory” over here.

“If I know where the Nine are, I can tell these people where to run, give them a chance.”

“It’s not worth the risk,” Trickster stressed.

Trickster is to some extent taking over Grue’s role in Grue’s absence.

He glanced at his teammates, “There’s still five or six of the enemy in the area.  If they see what you’re up to and get any advance warning we’re here, this all goes balls-up, and we suffer for it.  Grue dies for it.”

I suppose so.

Waiting.  The last thing I wanted to do.

Look, I get it, but consider this: Refusing to wait is what got Grue into this mess in the first place.

Using my bugs, I tried to scope out the area.  Please don’t let there be people here.

There’s gonna be people here, isn’t there.

There were.

Yep.

I had to be subtle, not giving the Nine any reason to suspect I was around, but even if I counted only the people who had bugs on them already, there were far too many people in and around Dolltown.

Maybe they took the fighting as “they’ve dealt with the threat, they’re not coming back anytime soon”.

“Regent, can you stop Shatterbird from listening in?”  I asked.

*shapes glass into earplugs*

“Sure,” he said.  Shatterbird shut her eyes and covered her ears with her hands.

“LALALALALA”

The final two members of our group arrived a moment later.  Shatterbird landed, stumbling, and Genesis began to materialize in a massive form.

Ahh, so Regent didn’t bring himself along in the car, he was flying along.

Which he’s clearly not used to being able to do. 😛

We were close to the site of our last fight.  The Nine had been on their way to Dolltown, and we’d ambushed them, divided them, and then provoked them into extending out of position.  Having done that, we’d kidnapped Shatterbird as she lagged behind and then looped around to capture the wounded Cherish.

Yes, I remember. My memory’s shitty sometimes, but that was just two chapters ago. 😛

Now the Nine were inside Dolltown.

Well, that’s probably not good. I hope Parian’s still alive.

I could only hope the noise and fighting of our last encounter would have given most of the residents the time and the motivation to run.

Let’s hope they didn’t go “eh, Parian will protect us if they do show up here”. I mean, sure, trust in your protector and don’t panic, but there’s a limit to what she can do.

“We should stop here,” Tattletale said.

Yes, good, please distract Taylor.

That was apparently order enough, because the driver pulled over.  The long seconds of stillness after the truck had stopped said volumes.  We didn’t want to get out of the car, we didn’t want to face the Nine, deal with their traps as we tried to catch them in our own.

Snare.

Two or three seconds passed with tension thrumming in the air, every one of our nerves on edge, ready to act, react, even now.

It’s go time.

The sound of a slamming door from one of the other trucks was the little push we needed to move.  We climbed out of the truck and joined the others.  Bitch had been the first one out.  She had Sirius, Bastard and Bentley with her.

Ah, yeah, she would be the first one out. No dawdling for this gal.

We ventured over to a fallen section of wall, peering over it to get a better glimpse of what would be the battlefield.

This so far feels a lot less structured than the previous ambush.

So, what, did they invite the Nine to a brawl or something? …probably not.

I thought over my arsenal and the options I had with my power.  I’d developed enough techniques that I was starting to have trouble keeping track of them all.  Should I name them?  It seemed like something out of a kid’s show, shouting out the names of the abilities as I used them.  ‘Firebug attack, go!’  ‘Silkwrap Strike!’

Ahahaha!

“Go, Skitter, use Rodrotter!”

I shook my head a little.  I was tired.  My mind was wandering.

It’s wandering into fun places, though! You should be tired more often.

Well, probably not, that’d get you killed, but still.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had more than five hours of sleep, and I’d barely slept at all last night.  Fear and adrenaline usually clarified things, so it probably said something that I was feeling a little dazed despite what we were going into.

Is it still the same day as the first ambush?

Some of that was the constant aggression.  Since the Nine had made their presence known, I’d barely been able to relax and let my guard down.  After Mannequin had started killing people in my territory, taking even a moment to myself made me feel like I was insulting their memories, that I was failing the next batch of people who would become victims of my enemies.

Ouch.

That’s the thing, though. They’re not just your enemies, they’re enemies of the whole city. Whole country, even.

Yes, I will admit, you being there was probably the main reason Mannequin came to your territory, but you are not responsible for his actions. Hell, if he didn’t kill people there, he would’ve killed people somewhere else, somewhere you weren’t around to stop him at all.

The last time we’d all been in a car with Trickster, he’d noted that there were two major problems that Coil was helping them with.

Oh right, he did, didn’t he. Well, one of them is clearly Noelle, but the other one… Well, I’ve already theorized about them being on the run from Cauldron (or some other threat), and this nugget that I’d forgotten about strikes me as further evidence for that.

Noelle was obviously one.  A part of me could buy that there was something serious going on with her, something that necessitated the help of someone like Coil.  Another nagging part of me was thinking that there were still too many unanswered questions.

You’re telling me? 😛

This really feels like the setup for a chapter where we’ll be getting some answers.

That or a huge troll, and unlike certain other authors I’m familiar with, Wildbow doesn’t seem like the trolly type.

What was holding them together as a group?  How fragile was that tie?

Apparently there’s some kind of promise they made to each other? That’s pretty much all I solidly know. I do have my theory that it’s a common threat they’re running from, but I don’t know if that’s accurate or how the promise would fit into that.

Was this really what I needed to be dwelling on?

I mean, it could be relevant if their bond happens to be strained in this particular fight, which may be how we end up learning about it, but in-universe there’s not much reason to think that’s likely to happen. For Taylor, at least.