“Jack Slash,” Noelle said.

“Right.  Siberian’s like the queen.  She’s fast, mobile, one of the strongest physically, and the bitch of the matter is, she can’t be taken off the board, and she can’t be contained.  A special queen, if you will.  Physically she’s an unstoppable force and an immovable object any time she wants to be.”

Siberian as the queen, huh? Interesting.

To my right, Bitch picked up the puppy and settled it in her lap.  It curled up and nestled against the cupped circle of her arms and hands.

Heh. Memories come to mind, Rachel?

“Then there’s Crawler, who visited us the other night.  Maybe not as fast or agile as Siberian, and he can be contained, but he can’t be taken off the board.  A special rook.” 

Honestly, the “can’t be contained” thing reminds me more of a knight, though by the sound of it, it’s because Siberian just barrels through whatever’s in her way. Unstoppable force. Fluff-wise, that’s more the style of a queen, bishop or rook.

Crawler is similar, but more defensive.

”Noelle, “ Trickster said, “You’ve asked to be included more.  I thought you’d be okay with this?”

She nodded.

“Left to right, we have Grue, Regent, Skitter, Bitch and Tattletale.”

Hello!

By the way, are the doggos in here too? I would think so.

There wasn’t a flicker of a smile or any interest on her face until she heard that last name.  “Tattletale?”

Ah, yes. The one who was supposed to be contacted to help her, of course she recognizes that name.

“Noelle,” Tattletale spoke, “It’s nice to finally meet you.  Listen, I’m working on your situation.  Coil’s filled me in on the basics and I’m chasing down some leads, but something’s come up with the Slaughterhouse Nine, and everything’s on hold until we can be sure they won’t try to kill us in the meantime.”

I don’t know why I ever thought Tattle was the type to not lie, just spin the truth. She’s a damn good liar when she goes in for it.

I could see Trickster tense.  Was Noelle so high strung or desperate that she’d throw a tantrum over being asked to wait?

…honestly, I could believe that.

“Coil was telling the truth,” Noelle said, in a small voice, “You can help?”

“Honestly?  I don’t know.  But I’m a fucking genius when it comes to getting answers, and Coil’s got all the resources in the world.  If there’s help to be had, we’ll give it to you.”

She’s not lying anymore.

“How soon before you know?”

“No idea.  I don’t think it’ll be as fast as you want, but it’s doable, and it won’t take so long that you should give up.”

That’s a good thing to say. 🙂

“Okay.”

“In the meantime,” Trickster cut in, giving Tattletale a thumbs-up gesture from a position outside of the laptop’s field of view, “We need our old field commander’s brain on the Slaughterhouse Nine sitch.”

Ah, so she did have the sort of role Tattletale originally wanted before this started happening. Whatever this is. Makes sense.

So what’s Oliver’s role? New field commander?

“Oliver?”

“I’m here, Trickster,” a male voice came from the computer.

Ohhh.

Oliver is not Ballistic.

Got it.

“Feel like patching in Noelle?”

“Sure.  She’s in an okay mood.  A little drowsy.  I’ll be right back.”

Time to get everyone on board!

Trickster pressed a button on the keyboard and then turned to us, “Tattletale.  I’ll be as quick as I can.  Coil promised he’d get you to help us, but he’s taken his time introducing you to our group.  The cynic in me suspects there’s a reason, and the pessimist in me says that reason is that he’s already figured out what you’re going to tell us, and it isn’t going to be pretty.”

Oof.

Let’s hope she has something good to say. But hey, at least we’ll probably find out more about what the hell is going on with Noelle now, unless she’s somehow immune to Tattle’s power. And hey, not even Imp is, and her power is all about people not knowing things about her, right down to her existence.

“Okay.”  Tattletale was all business.

“Noelle’s going to ask you for help.  Lie to her.  Tell her you’re already on it.  Roll with it if she gets angry, or if she gets impatient.  She’s sensitive.

Ahh, yeah, I suppose she wouldn’t take it well if she found out Coil hasn’t gotten Tattle on it yet.

I don’t know how your power works, really, but if you realize whatever it is that Coil doesn’t want us to know, don’t tell Noelle.”

Keep it to herself until after the call. Sounds doable.

“No,” Brian said.  “Some of them, maybe, but others are as vulnerable as you or me.  Thing is, Dinah told us that our odds against these bastards aren’t good.

That they are not. Even for the Travelers, who had better odds.

Though I wonder what she’d say about the Undersiders and Travelers working together against them.

Our chances of winning are pretty low, and it’s pretty damn likely we’ll get killed if we confront them head on.”

Hell, Cherish alone could easily fuck them all over.

No, probably need a sneakier tactic here.

“So we don’t confront them head on,” Trickster said.

Feeling conspicuous as the only one with a mask on, I pulled mine off.  It took me a second to adjust to the blue tint that everything had after I’d spent over an hour looking through the pale yellow lenses of my mask.

Ah, there she goes.

I realized Trickster was setting up a laptop.  He placed it at one corner of the table, facing the rest of us.

This feels oddly familiar.

Ballistic pulled off his mask and tossed it onto the bed that sat in one corner.  He cleared a few dirty dishes from the table in the middle of the area and invited us to sit while he fetched some extra seats.

Huh. Guess he’s comfortable being unmasked around the Undersiders.

There’s been a fair bit of offscreen Undersider-Traveler interaction, so I suppose it makes sense they might be past that hurdle by now.

He had a bit of a heavy brow and a snub nose, and his short brown hair, damp with sweat, made me think of the jocks that always seemed to gravitate towards Sophia.

I wonder if this prompted any Ballistalker shipping.

I do think Ballistic seems like an okay guy, though, from what little we’ve seen of him. One who wouldn’t go for Sophia.

Still, he wasn’t a bad looking guy.  If a guy like him had asked me out in some alternate universe where Emma had never stopped being my friend and I’d never been bullied?  Just going by his looks, I might have said yes.

Okay now this I’m sure prompted some shipping.

Trickster unmasked as well.  He definitely didn’t remind me of one of the jocks.  His hair was longer than many girls wore theirs, he had light brown skin and an unfortunate hook nose.  Combined with his intense stare, he gave me the impression of a hawk or some other bird of prey.

Craws! Craws!

That’s probably not quite how you pronounce his name. :p

Grue, Tattletale and Regent all unmasked as well while they got themselves seated.  Trickster offered each of them a cigarette, then offered one to me.  I turned him down, as did the others.

Is Taylor also willing to unmask?

“So what are we discussing here?” Sundancer asked from behind me.  I turned and saw a rather attractive blonde girl with a long neck and delicate features.  Her hair was expertly pinned up behind her head.

I’m not sure how clear I’ve made it, but Sundancer is by far my favorite Traveler.

“I was under the impression that the Slaughterhouse Nine were pretty much unbeatable.”

They’ve got some really good powers on their team, but honestly? Some of them are less powerful than I expected. They’re beatable, but it’s gonna be very difficult.

Clever, clever.  Out of sight from any vantage point on the level above, short walls had been set around the fallen ramp.  They ensured that the flooding and the wreckage were all contained to one area to sell the illusion, and kept everything else on the lowest level of the basement dry.  Cars had been removed, clearing the area for use as an underground base.

“dry”?

Hang on, I gotta look this word up.

1. having or characterized by little or no rain: a dry climate; the dry season.
2. not yielding milk: a dry cow.
3. free from tears: dry eyes. 

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thanks to the walls, this basement level doesn’t produce milk.

Ballistic led us into a parking garage.  We walked between rows of cars that had been pummelled by the floodwater.  Panels had been dented, windows shattered, and some of the cars had been lifted and pushed into one another.

Are there any that look like they’ve been launched?

Sundancer formed a tiny ‘sun’ and held it up for light, while Regent turned on the flashlight he’d brought.

I like the juxtaposition here.

“A flashlight? Bitch, please. …Uh, not you, Bitch.”

We descended into the bowels of the garage,

garage vore

and stopped at the ramp between the second level down and the third.  It had collapsed, and both rubble and two or three cars sat in the water that flooded the floor below. 

I wonder whose cars these are, in the garage as a whole. Like, did the owners try to retrieve them? Were they not around to do so? Did they just figure there wasn’t much chance of getting their car back in one piece? Is someone still casually using this garage for their intact car?

“This way,” Ballistic said.  He grabbed a length of pipe that stuck out where the ramp had collapsed and climbed down.  Trickster gestured and we moved to follow.

Just don’t accidentally activate your power and send the pipe flying!

“In any case, that leaves the people who Jack, Siberian and Bonesaw nominated.  Any ideas?”

Bitch, internally: “Shit.”

I glanced across our groups.  Nobody moved to reply.

“Maybe they’re not done?” Sundancer spoke up, “Or maybe some of them aren’t picking new members?”

Well, that was the case with Burnscar, apparently, according to askers. Not so with any of these three, though.

“Maybe they’re not done,” Tattletale spoke, “But I think they are.  From what I’ve read on them, and from what my power is giving me, I have the distinct impression they all would have made some kind of move by now.  They either hit all at once, shock and awe, or they draw it out.  This is the former.”

Yeeah. Bonesaw and Siberian hit at the same time, the rest over the course of just a few days. Coil had no sooner gotten the news about Shatterbird’s attack before Crawler was on his way.

Also, do the Travelers know about Tattle’s true power by now?

“But are they all picking new members?”

Tattletale shrugged.  “No clue.  We know of four, at least.”

That’s something.

Not sure how useful it’s going to be, but hey, knowledge is power.