So what are the threads she has to pull on here? Just reminding him of the bad shit and blaming him for getting himself into that situation, needing to be rescued?

Honestly it seems like the strongest thing she’s got is how he feels about Taylor, and those seem to be fairly out in the open.

I clenched my fists.  Lisa raised a hand, telling me to stop.

“You’re running low on time, Cherie,” Alec said.

Yeah, not gonna get through even half of them at this rate.

“I’m happy for the chance to talk.  Bonesaw’s alive, you know.  She has hands, borrowed from Mannequin.

Ah, I see, she got his help to get back in action.

Honestly, though, I legitimately do think she could sew on new hands while holding the needle in her mouth. I’m thinking stolen from some civilian or other.

She’s plotting what she’s going to do to Grue.  Think about that.  She’s going to take him apart, and it’ll hurt worse the second time around, because she makes that sort of thing a matter of personal pride.

Hoo boy.

Honestly, though? I’m not sure I believe that. Bonesaw never seemed like one for revenge or for deliberately making something hurt more. She’s just interested in her art and her science. But I suppose we haven’t seen her with something to want revenge for before.

She’s thinking about it, daydreaming on the subject, and she’s a smart enough cookie that she’ll figure it out.”

That part I believe, though. I just think it’s got more to do with figuring out where his powers come from and especially how his new power works, than with revenge.

Brian turned his back on the phone, staring out the window.  I wanted to reach out to him, to help ease the weight that idea must have set on his shoulders, somehow.

But of course, the point here isn’t whether it’s true or not. It’s how it makes them feel. Cherish is good at emotional manipulation even without using her power.

“Keeping in mind that I was hanging out with you and the dirty old man and our brothers and sisters.  Nature and nurture, I was kind of fucked on both fronts.  It was a matter of self-preservation to keep you guys entertained, and that was the sort of thing you liked.  Sorry, like, present tense.”

Right. I don’t think that self-preservation accounts for everything, but the nurture really has a lot to say here.

“Maybe, maybe.  And the drugs?  When daddy had you practicing your powers, you ‘hijacked’ a few people at a time, used their bodies to get high with no consequences for you, you threw orgies for yourself…”

“Again.  I was a kid.”

I feel like “kids will be kids” is a weird excuse for anything involving drugs and orgies.

“Teens will be teens” on the other hand…

“How much does that excuse?”

There was a pause.  I looked at Alec, and he rolled his eyes at me.

“Ughh, just like she’s always been.”

Was he like Brian?  His emotions buried deep inside?  Or were they simply not there?

I think it’s closer to the latter, but I do think he has some emotions locked deep inside too, with the lack of emotion being partially Heartbreaker and partially a coping mechanism.

“What about darkness-boy?  Want to talk about what happened yesterday?”

“Not really.”

The Travelers made their exit, Shatterbird came inside to stand guard by the door, and the rest of us settled down.

This casual mention of Shatterbird coming inside caught me off-guard. :p

Lisa dialed and put her cell on speaker phone.  It rang twice before Cherish answered.

Let’s do this thing.

“Finally,” her voice came through the line.

“Your two minutes start now,” Lisa spoke.

Tick, tock!

“I should get four, since I’m dealing with only one group.”

Ehh. I see the logic, that because she’s allowed them to haggle it down, she should be allowed to haggle it up. Four might be a bit much, maybe?

“One minute, fifty-five seconds,” Lisa replied.

Heh, nice.

Cherish, you should probably have haggled that before the time started.

“Where should I start?  Hey, little brother.  Want me to tell them the sort of things you really did when you were back home?”

“Eh, why not.”

“It’s sort of tedious,” Alec replied.

Hehe.

Oops, I forgot Aisha in that last sentence.

I think she would be down with it, too.

Nobody spoke.

“We could do another blind vote,” she suggested, “In case anyone wants to say they’re not cool with these new terms.”

Makes sense.

“Speaking as the person who took two-twenty-two, I really don’t care all that much,” Alec said.

I suppose he didn’t let his nonchalance weigh in all that much.

“I picked a higher number because I thought it would bother those guys.  I figure my team knows enough.”

Ah, that’s fair.

“Exactly as I said before,” Lisa said.  “Anyone else have any major objections?”

I shook my head.  I could deal with the team knowing about my plan.  If things went south, they’d find out anyways.

Half of them already do, I doubt Alec would care much, and Rachel… is Rachel.

There was a pause.

“Good.”  Lisa put her hand over the mouthpiece.

Alright, I suppose we’re doing this without the Travelers present.

“Does that really work?”  Trickster asked.  “What if we wanted to keep stuff from you?  She could tell you while we’re out of the room.”

Yes, thank you for pointing this out.

I think Lisa already knows a lot of the secrets, so she’s better equipped than most to make judgment calls on this, but still.

“Do you want to keep anything particular from us?”

He shook his head.  “But how do you know your teammates didn’t pick the high numbers?”

…hasn’t anyone filled Trickster in on Lisa’s power yet? 😛

“I don’t,” Lisa flipped through the pages.  “But just going by what I know about our groups, I think our team is going to be more concerned about what outsiders think.

…wait, really?

You guys are going to be more concerned about what your teammates think.  Am I wrong?”

Alright, fair enough. I did kind of suggest that myself, just with less emphasis on how much they care about what outsiders think.

It took another minute for the rest to decide.

“So, in order… twenty-six, one-twenty-two, one-forty, one-forty-one, one-fifty-five, one-sixty, one-seventy-five, two hundred twenty-two, and three-twenty-five.”

This is one of those lines where I feel like writing out the numbers in letters just makes it look like a (crumpled?) mess, so lets make this digital: 26, 122, 140, 141, 155, 160, 175, 222, 325.

Total: 1466. Average: ~163.

The average ain’t too bad, but that 325 sounds nasty. I’m guessing that’s either Trickster or Tattletale. Regent might be somewhere in the middle (having nasty backstory but being fairly nonchalant about it), and Imp is probably the 26 (having not really been a cape long enough to build up much baggage and not seeming to be much for secrets).

Three-twenty-five?

“That’s a no, then?” Brian asked.

The 325 really points towards no, yeah.

“Something like that,” Lisa replied.  She picked up the phone and dialed.

“What are you doing?”  Trickster asked.  “You said we wouldn’t go ahead if we didn’t all agree.”

Ah, yeah, jumping the gun a bit, Lisa.

“You’re right.  But I’m going to try to haggle with her,” Lisa replied.

Oh. Alright.

“Hello?  Yeah, you already know the answer.  No-go.  Uh-huh.  Sure.  What if I asked for the Travelers to leave?  You could address the rest of us.

I’m not at all surprised to see the Travelers being implied to be the source of the highest numbers, but… Lisa. Surely you see the flaw with your idea here? Cherish can still reveal details about the Travelers without them being present, which would only delay the murderous rage or whatever reaction people might have to the higher secrets.

…well, it’d be only the reaction the Undersiders might have. Maybe Lisa has figured out that the big secrets are specifically internal secrets, that it wouldn’t matter if the Undersiders heard them but the other Travelers shouldn’t?

You and I both know you’re doing this to sate your boredom than for any grander purpose.”

I’m than a little sure Wildbow or Lisa accidentally a word there.

Also, boredom is a powerful thing.