Imp appeared as she ducked out of the way of one, while Regent avoided the other.  Tattletale was still on the ground, one hand to her shoulder, and the shots passed well over her.

Nice dodging.

So do the pears help seek out heat signatures and such too?

Also is one of Imp’s other powers invisibility? Some of this doesn’t sound like remembering that she’s there so much as her not visibly being there.

It might be conditional invisibility, though, because there’s no good reason for Imp to drop out of her invisible state when she needs to do something. Maybe she can only be functionally invisible while she’s not making quick movements?

I suppose it could also be a result of people constantly noticing that there’s someone standing in a spot and then immediately forgetting it, but that still doesn’t quite explain why she shows up when she does something. Hm… Maybe it’s that she’s more memorable while actually doing something other than just standing there or walking around, and that makes it take a little longer to erase the memory, which allows people to process that she’s there before they forget it?

I didn’t get a chance to work it out, because Imp was gone from behind me a moment later, and we were faced with the issue of dealing with Flechette and Kid Win and the fact that our movements were getting more and more limited by the growing piles of adhesive, nigh-indestructible foam.

Ah, right, the foam’s still going.

Wait, who’s gone?

Kid Win had pulled himself together enough to draw a small blue pistol from his waist.  I tensed, bending my knees and shifting my weight to the balls of my feet so I could move the instant he aimed at me.

I wonder if he could remember… hm… for long enough to aim and shoot at whoever it is.

He didn’t fire it, though.  Instead, he slapped his chest, and the armor there opened up, revealing a circular depression.  He slammed the little blue gun there, where the weapon stuck like it was glued in, or maybe because of a magnet.  The chest portion of his armor closed up.

Hm. Is this the thing he was working on in 9.5? Are the floaty orbs going to replicate the projectiles this gun would’ve fired?

He staggered to his feet, swatted at his face, then looked like he immediately regretted doing that, judging by his pained grunt and gritted teeth.  His costume started to light up, glowing with a silvery light where it had been gold, before.  Two pear-shaped pieces of metal that had been attached to the armor on his shoulders raised into the air, floating.

Sorry, floaty pears, not orbs.

Abruptly the pieces of metal jerked so the smaller ends pointed at us, and they each belched out blue sparks the size of softballs.

Niiice.

I wonder how it’s controlled. Does something in Kid’s helmet detect brain signals and control the pears accordingly, is it automatic, or…?

“Help Skitter!” Tattletale ordered, sounding urgent as she turned her attention to the remaining Wards that stood between us and the elevator.  Who was she talking to?

I wonder if her power keeps telling her about Imp every time she forgets. Or maybe the power of knowledge makes her immune to forgetting.

Not that I remember why that matters right now.

Then I felt hands at my back.  I flinched, but they held firm.  A second later I felt my cuffs come undone.  Imp.  Right.

Nice.

I was getting the distinct impression that it was easier to recall her and react as if she were present if I hadn’t been actively trying to pay attention to her.

Huh. Sounds like the power detects people actively trying to remember her and doubles down on the effect when it comes to those people.

It was almost as if actively trying to commit her presence to memory had the opposite effect.

Yeah, or you could put it like that, sure.

Except how was I supposed to put that knowledge into practice, if acting on that knowledge counted as recognizing her presence?

Heh, yeah, that could get tricky.

Maybe it was more general than that.  Not a fear of paralysis, specifically, but of helplessness.

Hm, yeah, checks out.

It’s very much worth noting that Taylor’s trigger event involved her being helpless in the locker. Also, that was the main issue she was faced with in Extermination, besides survival.

The dogs started fighting with Weld, and it didn’t seem to be a fight they would win.  They were faster, they had the advantages of numbers, I even suspected they were stronger.  Despite that, when it came down to it, Weld was a walking, talking statue.

Huh.

They could hit him hard enough to knock him down, but they couldn’t set their teeth into his flesh or deal any lasting damage.  When Weld hit them, by contrast, the hits were most definitely felt.

Ah, I suppose that makes sense.

I mean, the dogs didn’t really have much trouble with an armored Lung, but I guess it’s different when there’s no squishy flesh underneath the metal.

Still, their intervention did allow us to turn our focus to the others.  Vista was out of action, as was Clockblocker.

Which leaves Flechette and Kid Win. Flechette’s weapon is broken, so she’s down to her darts, and I think Kid was last heard from when he was in pain from pepper spray stings.

“Shadow Stalker is conscious in there!?” Weld shouted, his back to us, attention on the three advancing dogs.  None of the dogs were as big as they could get, Bitch couldn’t manage them if they were too large, but it was still the equivalent of three rather agile bears or three unnecessarily burly jungle cats joining the fight, each with some added natural protection in the horned growths of bone and calcified muscle.

Yeah, apparently she is.

And yeah, keeping your attention on the dogs is probably a good call. If there’s anyone here who can put a bulk in your armor, it’s the dogs.

“Since a little while ago,” Regent answered.

Ah, so she only woke up with the backfire or shortly before it.

That was disturbing.  I didn’t have a better way of putting it.  I’d almost been paralyzed by Leviathan in the Endbringer attack, but even before that, the idea of being left conscious but unable to move of my own volition had always spooked me.

It’s a pretty disturbing idea, yeah. Isn’t it fairly common to have nightmares about that, too?

I’d never had a relative in the hospital suffering from anything like that, and I couldn’t remember seeing any movies or shows on television that might have put the idea in my head at an impressionable age.  Still, it was one of the first places my mind went when I thought about worst case scenarios and horrific fates.

I have a mouth and I still can’t scream.

It had been in my thoughts more over the past two or three years, and the idea had been showcased in more than one nightmare over the past two weeks.

That last part would presumably be because of the run-in with paralysis during Extermination, but is there a particular reason she’s been thinking about it more over the last few years?

A series of crashes and the sound of breaking glass showering onto tile announced the arrival of Bitch’s dogs.

Hey, doggos! 😀

They had barreled their way through the bulletproof glass that led into the lobby.

Just goes to show that bulletproof doesn’t equal hellhound-proof.

Weld spun to face them, and Shadow Stalker abandoned her fight with him, using the opportunity to finish reloading her crossbows and fire one at Vista, who was hunkered down on the floor, my swarm all over her.

It’s not even the first time Shadow Stalker attacks Vista today…

At least the girl wouldn’t be in further pain from what my bugs had done.  I could inflict pain if it meant getting a job done properly.  That didn’t mean I liked doing it.

That’s probably a good balance. When someone likes inflicting pain, you get people like Shadow Stalker.

Shadow Stalker moved to load her crossbows, but her movements were jittery and jerky to an even greater extent than they had been a second ago.

Hm… it seems like she doesn’t quite have full control back yet.

She stopped midway through the motion, her head turning as she looked from one hand to the other, and then looked up at Weld, who was in close proximity to her.

And if she’s not in full control yet, Regent might be able to take it back.

“H-h-help.”  She stuttered.

A fraction of a second later, Regent was in control again, and Shadow Stalker was attempting to repeat her maneuver from earlier, driving an arrowhead into Weld’s other eye, moving quickly and with as much grace as ever.

Aaand there we go.

He swatted her hand aside, and she entered her shadow state to avoid his follow-up swing with his club.

If nothing else, I guess this event might act as motivation for Weld. Though maybe he should be trying to attack Regent rather than “Shadow Stalker”.

She’d been fighting with Weld, and Weld almost fell over when he swung and she didn’t enter her shadow state.

If she did just regain control of her body, that would be because she wasn’t expecting to have (the ability) to do it herself. If she was even aware of what was happening while she was controlled. If she wasn’t she just essentially woke up to Weld attacking her and total chaos around her.

He couldn’t stop all of his momentum, but he stepped close and let his upper arm hit her instead.  They stumbled together, Shadow Stalker continuing to scream like she was trying to empty her lungs of every last trace of oxygen.

Probably not so much a scream of anger as a lingering scream of pain from the torture, I suppose.

She raised her crossbow in my general direction, then moved, almost staggered, one step to the side.  From her new vantage point, she targeted Regent; her movements weren’t fluid, and her shot flew past him.

Yeah, this is her alright.

Well on the positive side, at least she found someone to hate more than Skitter and Grue.

…is that a positive?

Probably not.

It hit Tattletale instead with a glancing blow, raking across her collarbone to penetrate her shoulder at a shallow angle.  Tattletale was spun off-balance and fell.

Ouch.

Wait, “penetrated”? That was real, deadly ammo, wasn’t it. The tranq bolts are designed to not penetrate too much.

Flechette threw a dart into the foam canister, and both Imp and Tattletale backed away as foam began spilling out of the hole, rapidly expanding to partially cover the uniformed officer.

Good thinking, Flechette.

After a moment’s pause, she threw a spike of metal into every other canister on the other fallen guards.  One even erupted into a pressurized spray, jetting up at an angle to hit the wall, creating a growing barrier a few feet in front of me, partially blocking me from reaching the rest of the combatants.

I wonder if the Wards or PRT officers called for backup in some way. Imagine the awkwardness of everyone, including the Wards, getting stuck in one huge blob of foam until someone arrives to find them there.

Before Flechette could turn her darts on us, Regent reached out, causing her to fumble and drop it.  A second later, he grunted and fell to all fours.  Nothing I could see had touched him.

…what’s up now?

A backfire?  So easily?

Oh yeah, I think that possibility was mentioned at some point… Is it because controlling Sophia and trying to use the impulse power on someone else at the same time is overexerting his power?

I was already turning to check when a primal scream tore its way from Shadow Stalker’s throat.

…shit. If she just got freed from Regent’s control, she ain’t gonna be happy.

“Hey!” A girl shouted.  I looked and saw a horned girl crouched by one of the fallen PRT officers, holding the foam sprayer.  Imp.  Right, it was Imp.

Hah, nice, Taylor already forgot about… uh… again. And then immediately remembered her, which I think suggests that either she just turned off the power, or she has the ability to make specific people remember her again for a moment despite the initial forgetting being universal or AoE.

She looked at Tattletale, “It won’t fire!”

Ah, yeah, if she actually needs to communicate with the others, it makes a lot of sense to turn off the power for a moment.

Tattletale hurried over, grabbed the fallen officer’s arm, and lifted it over to the handle of the gun.  She put his finger on the trigger and aimed the gun at Clockblocker, unloading spray on top of his upper body just as he managed to heave the fallen officer off of himself.

Fingerprint trigger lock. Nice… I guess they learned from their experiences at the gallery.