As Minor plowed his way through the crowd, Lisa lunged forward.  She caught the wrist of an older man, and I saw that she’d just stopped him from turning a knife on Minor.

Nice work!

I moved to back her up, kicking the guy in the side of the knee.  He dropped the knife and it skittered along the floor to the boundary of the crowd.

Heh. Skittered. 😛

I fell on top of it, covering it with my body to prevent anyone else from taking it, then grabbed it for myself at the first opportunity.  

Sweet, she’s got a weapon she’s used to wielding now.

Senegal helped clear the crowd out of the way so Minor had an exit route, and I stood, pointing the knife at anyone who looked like they might make a move for us.

…I mean, you’re probably the second least intimidating person in your group right now, knife or no knife, but anything that helps, I guess.

The size and muscle of our bodyguards posed too much risk for the Merchants here, with the potential rewards of getting the girl from them being far too scarce compared to the immediate rewards that were in arm’s reach.

Ah yes. Follow the path of least resistance, folks.

The crowd let them be and continued to scrabble for the bills and pills.

Bills ‘n’ pills :p

I like when Wildbow decides to indulge in a little bit of wordplay. See also Judge Peter Regan lapsing into alliteration for a moment in Interlude 6, for instance, though I’m not quite sure whether that was intentional.

Lisa pulled on Minor’s arm, and he bent down so she could speak in his ear.

Minor straightened, and with one fist clenched, he made his way through the crowd, pushing people to either side, and then stepped onto the stage.

Oh boy.

Time for Minor to show what he’s good for against the crowd, while… the girls pull the teenager out of there during the racket?

The insults hurled his way were impossible to make out over the noise of the music and the larger crowd.  He ignored them as he stepped behind the girl, caught her around the waist, and then threw her over one shoulder.  She screamed.

…that works too, I guess. I suppose the crowd isn’t quite as eager to attack a guy like Minor?

“I’m buying this one!” he hollered, “Whoever brought her, here’s your fucking money!”

Huh. Well, I suppose that might work.

He revealed what was in his clenched fist – money and pills.  The sugar pills Lisa had brought?  He cast them into the crowd, and in that instant, the exhibition was over.

Huh. The “whoever brought her” might not be happy, but this should have the added effect of pleasing the crowd as they scramble for the scattered money and “drugs”.

The crowd tore into one another, fighting over what had fallen onto their heads and shoulders, or drifted past them onto the ground.  The other women backed into the clothing store.

Just look how pleased this crowd is!

“You’ve got a little superhero showing through, there,” she whispered right into my ear.

Hehe, yeah.

Hm. Is this the first time we’ve seen someone use the word “superhero” in this story? We see “hero” all the time, but I’m not sure we’ve ever seen the super- prefix.

*blog search*

Okay, no, not by a long shot. It’s shown up on occasion, starting in 1.1, but it’s happened more rarely than one might expect from a story like this one. Blog search returns only three pages of results for “superhero”, compared to eight pages for just “hero”, though it’s worth noting that that includes cases of me using those words in my commentary and I’m more likely to use the shorter version.

“I am going to help her, with or without you,” I hissed, “Even if that means using my powers and throwing subtlety to the winds.”

Oh wow, Taylor’s really fired up all of a sudden.

Yeah, I was expecting a conflict like this to pop up sooner or later. Taylor isn’t one for pure recon in places with lots of people who need help.

But are you sure about this, Taylor? Keep in mind you’re uncostumed. You’d have to act like you were affected by the bugs like everyone else, at the same time you were directing them.

“Okay, okay.  Probably don’t have to go that far.  Hold on.”

Whatcha got in mind?

Someone climbed up onto the platform, grabbing at one of the women.  He wasn’t up there for two seconds before the crowd dragged him down and threw him to the ground.

…well, at least there’s some form of protection for the women.

The people around him stomped and kicked him for his temerity.

Ooh, “temerity”. That’s a cool word I haven’t heard before.

That was social cooperation on a really twisted level.  From my interpretation, they weren’t doing it for the women, but for themselves.

Oh, absolutely. “Don’t interrupt the show!”

“Don’t fuck this up for us!” “Don’t hog the goods!” 

They all wanted the women, but if someone stepped up to take one for himself, they’d collectively beat him, for trying to take what they’d silently agreed to share by way of watching.

Sounds about right.