By the way, Bitch might be immune to Cherish’s power.

Siberian is immune, according to Jack. That doesn’t seem to tie in with her power’s abilities (except maybe in the sense that you can’t force her to assume any pose she doesn’t want to assume, physically or mentally), but it does make some sense that it could tie in with its side effects. It’s heavily implied that Siberian has a similar condition to Bitch’s, making her mind feral. If this condition, this different brain functionality from mundanes, is what makes Siberian immune to Cherish’s power, that might apply to Bitch too.

“You know,” Cherish said, shell-shocked.

Apparently so!

This kind of behavior is part of what makes Jack dangerous. You might think he’ll turn on his teammate for plotting against him, but no, he’s aware of it and just waiting for an interesting payoff. You never know what to do because he doesn’t give a shit about whether you live or die or whether someone’s trying to betray him – he just wants entertainment, and good luck to you if you spoil that for him.

And good luck to you if you have no idea which of your actions might do that.

I hurried to wipe it from the lens of my mask.  Everything I saw was obscured by the streaks that remained, almost black in the light.

Ah. Right, masks.

Don’t you know, though, Taylor? Those lenses are sort of like glasses, and it’s a fact of life that glasses cannot be cleaned. A law of nature. You gotta be a Breaker to clean ‘em.

Tattletale lay on the ground a little in front of me, both Regent and Sundancer crouched at her side.

Alright, now don’t go dying on me, Tattle.

So much blood, covering her face and Regent and Sundancer’s hands.

Jack toyed with the knife in his hands, while Siberian stood between him and the rest of our group, her eyes primarily on Ballistic.

Makes sense to watch out for him in particular, being the only one with an offensive power who is still standing and not rubbing blood out of their face.

Jack paced back and forth, two or three steps at a time, gesticulating with his knife.  “I was looking forward to Cherish’s attempt.  Bonesaw and I even had a plan in mind.  I wanted to see what she did, how she worked around Siberian’s immunity to her power… then the safeguards Bonesaw implanted in us would have kicked in and released us from her thrall, and oh, the look on her face.  

“Spoiler warnings, Tattletale, ever heard of them? Come on.”

To have seen that would have been so very worth all the trouble.  And that girl just spoiled it all.”

Wait. Where’s Cherish now? Just standing where she was?

“You fucking bastard!” Grue shouted, his voice distorted by his power.

…oh. No sound, no vision. Then distorted sound (heard through bugs on top of the usual distortion). Of course that would be Grue’s darkness. But what about the wet metallic thing? Did someone just attack Taylor?

Probably not Jack – for all my jokes about nothing in this city being dry, I doubt the extended cutting edge of his blades can be “wet”, or have a taste.

It’s a bit too abrupt to be Cherish unless Cherish’s power made Taylor unaware of the moments it was actively messing with her emotions. In that case, the metallic thing could be Skitter’s knife. This would also imply that the darkness can shield against Cherish’s power.

Bonesaw?

Blood.

…oh. Right, forgot about the metallic taste of that.

So… did Jack swipe her face or something? Maybe even across her eyes, making her actually blind, considering she can hear Grue? (Normally the darkness would prevent that, which is why I suggested she was hearing him via bugs that were on him.)

If that’s the case, Taylor’s going to need to either find Amy and convince her to help, or learn to look through her swarm at all times. Either way, not particularly fun for her.

I could see Cherish’s expression change from anger and irritation to wide-eyed horror.

Welcome to Brockton Bay, Cherish. Your secrets are not safe here.

And now three of your intended victims have heard one of them.

Better play up their disbelief, if you can do that without them noticing.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, looking down, and I could just barely hear him mutter the word, “Disappointing.”

“Ugh… Seriously, that’s all you had?”

“It was probably her plan from the start,” Tattletale said.  “She-”

All at once, Tattletale stopped talking, and I was blind.

Uh

What’s happening

There’s no one in the immediate vicinity who could have just triggered, so it’s probably not another Dandelion vision.

Is it Trickster, coming up the stairs and teleporting Skitter to safety? Except that would be unsafe for everyone else if Trickster didn’t act very quickly.

In that same instant, something slapped against the fabric of my mask.  Wet.

Oh, alright, so she was wearing the mask. Good.

Wet, you say? Hmm…

That could be literally anything in Brockton Bay. :p

I could taste it against the fabric of my mask.  Salty-sweet, with a faint metallic taste.

That doesn’t sound very good.

Could Taylor have passed out or something, and is now getting slapped awake with a wet, metallic glove? I don’t know, this seems a bit too abrupt for that, both in passing out and in waking up.

“Now who’s trying something?” Tattletale asked.  “She’s trying to manipulate you.”

Interesting that Cherish would do that via words. Can Jack tell if she’s using the power on him on any significant scale?

I suppose that guy Cherish commandeered to be her driver did resist the changes.

Jack frowned and yanked out the hairs of his beard he was holding.  He flicked them away, “I know she’s trying to manipulate me.”

“Okay, except I just noticed something else, as I finished that last sentence.  Do you know she’s playing a long con?  She’s setting you guys up, using her power to pull your strings and make you attached to her.

But yeah, this is why I said “significant scale”. She does this on a lower scale which is further evidence that if she does it on a bigger scale, they’ll notice.

Half a year to a year, she’ll probably have you wrapped around her little finger,” a slow smile spread across Tattletale’s face.

At least that’s what she’s planning.

“I even brought back Hatchet Face for Crawler’s test again!” Bonesaw grinned.  “No surprise attack that time.  That was one of the three tests she failed in round two, I was so proud of him!”

Huh. So she was able to bring Hatchet Face back on his own, and then added Oni Lee later to create Hack Job. (We know all of this happened before the Nine came to Brockton Bay, and only then did Oni Lee get involved.)

Seeing Cherish’s shoulders draw together, her expression darken as memories came to mind, the ugly tattoos that guaranteed she would never be able to leave this behind and get a completely fresh start, never have a boy look at her body and just be hungry for her… I had to look away.

(Or a girl, for that matter.)

I knew she was the worst sort of person, I just didn’t know how much of that came before the tests.

Well, I guess Alec’s the one to ask about that.

“Well, sis,” Regent said, “I thought you were running headlong into a fate worse than death.  I stand corrected.  You’re already there, and you did it to yourself.”

She really did. It’s not even like six out of the seven nominees here in Brockton Bay, who just got nominated against their will. Hell, not even like the seventh, who also got nominated against her will, but accepted it. No, Cherish actively made herself a nominee, and this is the result.

“What was your test, Jack?” Regent asked.  I couldn’t tell if he was glad to know his sister suffered or sad for her.

Who knows if he’s even feeling anything about it. But yeah, I suspect it’s closer to the former.

Also, it’s beginning to sink in how casual this conversation is, for who’s in it. Imagine Trickster, downstairs, not knowing this is happening.

After the whole thing is over, the rest of the Undertravelers go back down, and they’re like “Oh yeah, we were just talking to some Slaughterhouse members upstairs. So what did Genesis have to say about the villain meeting?”

“Oh, I knew it would be almost impossible to top Mannequin’s test.  He caught her at the exact right moment, struck the right nerve, and pushed her to her very limits.  Still, I think I managed to top it.  Turn around, Cherish.”

Oh boy, more bodily harm?

Like an automaton, she did.  More tattoos and scars covered her chest, just as expansive, just as unpleasant to look at.  Two nude women, their entwined limbs like the broken legs of a squashed bug, neither attractive in the slightest.  One was emaciated, the other morbidly obese, and both were old.  More tattoos of rotting and torn flesh framed the scene, and the words forming the border of the tattoos on the front were the opposite of the others, almost worse in their irony and desperation: ‘Take Me’.  ‘Please Desire Me’.  ‘Want Me’, and more vulgar variations of the same.

So this is just more of Mannequin’s, right? I don’t imagine Jack would copy his test, let alone do so and then say he “topped it”.

“I made her do the other six tests all over again.”

Oh.

Oh damn.

Yeah, he topped it alright.

I wonder if Amy has the power to remove tattoos. Manipulate the biology of someone with one to squeeze the ink out, or something.