She was experienced in this sort of thing, and would be an experienced tracker.  The water that layered the street was something of a blessing, I suspected.  Even as it slowed Amy down, it meant there weren’t tracks of mud or anything for Siberian to follow.

For once it’s helpful!

At worst, there would be clouds of muck stirred up by Amy’s footfalls, and there was little enough sunlight that I wasn’t sure how much of it Siberian would be able to see.

I mean, if the tiger aesthetic is actually something their powerset is going for rather than something they made up to explain the stripes, low-light vision is not far-fetched.

I waited, tense, as Amy ran.  I felt the darkness roll over the bugs I’d gathered on and around her, and crossed my fingers that Siberian didn’t have any tricks up her sleeve.

Of course, even low-light vision won’t help against Grue’s darkness.

Needed a way to communicate with her.  Shifting a small group of bugs onto Amy’s right hand, I felt her shake them off.

Oh yeah, given Amy’s acute life-senses, spelling things out on her skin might work.

I tried again, and she left them there.  I moved them gradually, until they were gathered on the tips of her ring and pinky fingers.  She moved her hand to the right, and I shifted the bugs to her middle and index fingers.

So you’re making them act like a sort of compass towards where you need Amy to go? Neat.

In other news, we’re back in business!

“My power’s not detecting him either,” Grue replied, “But my coverage is bad.  Give me a second and I’ll let you know the second my darkness connects with him.”

Ohh, I see, that’s why he did that.

Also, the slowing of the darkness’ generation is rearing its head as a weakness. Though apparently it spreads faster, doesn’t it, so that’s something.

Siberian had noticed the darkness, and I could see her contemplating coming after us, striking at the source of the darkness.

Uh oh.

I guess that’s part of why he was reluctant to use it.

Instead, she turned and began making her way toward Amy.  The darkness continued to flow, low to the ground, tendrils rising to bind together and fill in gaps, and my view of Siberian was soon blocked.

Well, at least you’ve got bugs, but somehow I feel like they’d have a hard time hanging on to her.

There was another explosion as Trickster deployed another grenade, but it wouldn’t serve as anything but a split-second distraction.

A bit higher up than the darkness, I’d imagine.

“Please.”

“Right.”  His darkness began to flow from his hands.  I climbed up onto Sirius’s back, and Grue was a step behind, taking a seat in front of me.

“Any luck?” Tattletale asked.  She’d seated herself on Bentley, her hands on the chain around his neck, and both Trickster and Sundancer were behind her.

So where are they riding off to now? Direct confrontation is the last thing they want.

I suppose they might have to move around a bit to find Siberian’s real body, depending on Siberian’s range.

My bugs were still searching for the real Siberian.  Or her creator, depending on how one wanted to look at it.  I was reaching the edges of my range and I hadn’t found anyone suitable.  I did find two adult men that were together.  Could she have made a friend in her real identity?

Entirely possible, I suppose.

Also, while I’m willing to go along with the flesh and meat being their real body, I’m not willing to assume their real body has their “real identity”.

Just to be safe, I set my bugs on the pair of them.  I didn’t use anything deadly, but I had bugs biting and stinging without flexing their abdomens to inject the accompanying venom.  Siberian didn’t react to my assault of the men.

Well, sucks for the two of them, then.

I put each of them down as a ‘maybe’, planting bugs in the folds of their clothes to mark them.

“Can’t find her maker,” I said.

Keep in mind that by using this terminology, you’re signing away any right to use one-liners about “meeting your maker” to Monochrome Siberian while killing them.

“Really need a distraction,” I said.

“Are you still looking for the real Siberian?”  Tattletale asked.

“Of course I am!”  I snapped.  I might have gone on to point out how we were also here to save her.

And finding the real body is probably the best way to do that, but you gotta keep Amy alive long enough to find it.

To save Amy Dallon.  I kept my mouth shut: pointless to waste my breath or dedicate any focus to arguing when I could be trying to deal with Siberian.

This is a two-front battle, and Taylor is largely fighting both sides alone, with a slight bit of aid from the rest of the team.

Trickster was looking through his binoculars, holding one grenade.  I saw him pull the pin a second before the grenade in his hand was replaced by a fragment of building.

Ohh. That way he can cause rubble to fall down and mess things up for Siberian.

Briefly.

An explosion erupted a matter of feet from Siberian.  The smoke cleared quickly enough, and I saw her turning her head, looking for the unseen attacker.  I ducked my head low to get more cover from the ruined wall we all lurked behind.

And distract her, right.

“Grue?” I asked.

He hesitated.

Oh damn, do you intend to make this a monochrome-on-monochrome fight?

I mean, yes, Siberian is way stronger that Grue’s monochrome, but that’d still be awesome. Might even get past Monochrome Siberian’s invulnerability like Siberian did with Alexandria. And if it doesn’t, Siberian might not be able to get past Grue’s monochrome’s probably somewhat weaker invulnerability.

I’d known that using the decoys would provoke Siberian.  She wanted to drive home that inevitability of her target’s fate, and that meant she would stop playing around the second she thought Amy might really escape.

Ah, yeah, wouldn’t want the target to get any funny ideas about having a chance of Siberian attacking a decoy instead.

That was the bad.

The way you say that makes it sound like there’s “a good”? Maybe even an ugly?

I suppose the ugly would be Siberian’s real body.

The good side of things caught me by surprise.  As though a switch was flicked, my power suddenly surged back to its normal strength.  Amy was killing the bugs she’d fucked up, so they weren’t scrambling my power anymore.  She’d realized I was trying to help.

Nice!

Now let’s see if we can’t find the ugly and put an end to this.

“Should I attack?”  Sundancer asked.

“No,” Grue almost barked the word.  “You’ll give away our location.”

Yeah, I suppose it’d be hard to miss where the literal miniature sun came soaring from.

Sundancer is going to prove useful by the end of this, somehow.

“Let me,” Trickster said.

While Trickster unclipped grenades from the belt of his costume, I focused on Amy.  She was standing, slowly, masked by a swarm.

What are the grenades supposed to accomplish, exactly? Or the sun, for that matter?

Distractions? Making the ground a little less runnable?

If I sent a decoy running in one direction, I was almost positive it would get Amy killed.  She couldn’t run faster than Siberian, and however much I scattered the decoys, Siberian could dispatch them all and get her hands on the real Amy in a matter of seconds.

Bad idea.

If I moved a decoy too fast, it would be a dead giveaway as a fake.

Because the real Amy would not be able to run fast enough for Siberian to not catch her immediately.