“She told the artists to make it so ugly she’d want to kill them.  If she didn’t, she promised to kill their loved ones and then kill them.  Took six artists in total.  Inspired.”

“If you don’t make me want to kill you, I’m gonna kill you. And your little dog too.”

Well, I suppose she decided to make it hard on her vanity.

Cherish looked over one tattooed shoulder to fix Jack with a stare.  It was then that I noticed two things.  The first became clear as her skin stretched.  There was depth to the tattoos that you didn’t get with a two-dimensional image.

Ooh.

Her skin had been scarred and flensed to raise edges and give the images and words a permanence that simple ink wouldn’t have.

…oh. They actually have been carved into her.

The second thing I noticed was her eyes.  It was like a light had gone out inside her, just standing there with that tattoo exposed.

Aw. Cheer up, buddy…

“That was the hard one for you, wasn’t it?” Jack smiled.  “Even as tired, scared, hurt and desperate as you were after the other five tests, it was when you willingly defaced that young, unblemished body of yours that a little something inside of you broke, and you began thinking of yourself as one of us.  Liminality.”

Fitting that it should happen with the most permanent physical mark of the tests.

I feel like Alec’s going to be mocking her tattoo. If not now, then at some point. Off-screen if Wildbow didn’t write it.

“Shatterbird likes the psychological tests, and she was in a hell of a mood after Cherish nominated herself for the team.  Our Cherie didn’t have five minutes to rest before Shatterbird drove her into a room and sealed her in.  No food, no light, barely any water.  The room was empty, but for one glass shard.  Always edging towards her, ready to prick, cut, slice and stab the second she stopped, the moment she tried to rest.”

Damn. Extended solitude and boredom on its own is heavy on the psyche, but with that constantly theatening glass shard on top of it? That’d be harsh even if it didn’t actively prevent her from even stopping her movement, let alone sleeping. How long was she in there?

I shivered.  Jack hadn’t said how long that lasted, but after three days and three nights without sleep, even a few hours like that would have been nightmarish.

Fuck yes it would.

There was a clue there, too.  Credit to Regent for getting Jack to let it slip. Shatterbird had more offensive range than Cherish, if she was able to trap the girl and use the shard without getting affected in retaliation.

Oh yeah!

Though that’s not saying much considering Shatterbird’s range apparently extends to just about the entire city of Brockton Bay.

It wasn’t much, but it was a tidbit of information, a piece for the puzzle.

“Burnscar’s test, she failed.  Afraid I’m not spoiling that one.  Doesn’t have the same impact if you know it’s coming.

I have a hunch: it involves fire.

Possibly having the building you’re in set fire to, though I’m not sure why or how Cherish would fail that. Maybe something that involves you being on fire?

That left only two tests for her to pass.  Go on.  Show them.”

Jack and Mannequin… Mannequin’s got the bodily sacrifice thing. What did she do?

Cherish glared at Jack.

“Show them,” he said.  There weren’t any hints of a threat or any anger in his tone, but she obeyed anyways.  She turned her back to us, grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it off.

hot

“Mannequin demands that a candidate changes themselves, and that it be hard.  Having just faced the punishment Burnscar gave for failing her test, Cherish wasn’t about to pay his.”

The tattoo stretched from beneath the waist of her low-rise jeans and up the length of her back.

Ahh, nice. It counts as a change and it’s not easy to endure (especially at this size, where it would’ve taken a long time), but it doesn’t make a major biological difference or take things out of her afterwards, and it might even look cool. Good choice, Cherish.

The centerpiece was a large festering heart, done as realistically as any tattoo I’d ever seen.  It was all in shades of green, covered with ulcers, sores, patches of rot and live maggots.  The surrounding tattoos gave the appearance of torn skin revealing the bone and organs beneath, rats and roaches lurking behind ribs and atop her kidneys.  Framing the entire thing were words, not done in any elaborate script, but in scrawled letters that looked like they’d been carved into a surface with knives: epithets and invectives.

…I guess she didn’t choose the design herself.

“Because it’s not fair that Hatchet Face didn’t get to give his test.  And I wanted to break her out of her rut, so I made it so the parasite’s effects would be permanent if she didn’t drink lots of blood.”

Oh jeez.

And holy fuck, she could make it permanent too, which just makes my point from the previous post even stronger. If she could make this parasite viral and prevent it from infecting the Slaughterhouse Nine, Bonesaw could permanently take away almost all powered opposition they might find in a city, or even a larger area.

“Of course,” Jack tapped the heel of his hand against his forehead, “That was an interesting little twist.  Of course, you didn’t tell her how much she needed to drink, or if a certain species counted…  Well.  It broke her stride, didn’t it?  Siberian went after her, starting on day two of Bonesaw’s parasitic infection.  Three days and three nights of cat and mouse.

Sounds intense even before Siberian got involved.

To her credit, she did very well.  It came down to a hair.  Another ten minutes and Siberian might have caught her a third time.”

A third time? So there’s like a three-strike system in place, to make it even remotely fair?

Or did she fail that test?

A dark look passed over Cherish’s face.

Yeeah, the first two times were probably not pleasant, and then there’s Bonesaw’s comment about no remaining meat.

“What did my sister do for her tests?” Regent asked.

Ooh, good question. If they answer, it might give some insight both into the nature of the tests and into Cherish.

“Hey!” Bonesaw raised her voice, stabbing a finger in his direction, “No cheating!”

Fair enough.

Bonesaw wasn’t the only one he’d irritated.  Cherish glared at him.

“Not cheating,” Regent said.  “Call it idle curiosity.  My sister got me in this mess, I figure it would be nice to hear what she had to go through.  You don’t even have to spoil the answers, I can agree not to copy anything she did.”

I am curious about this too.

Jack laughed, “Ah, adding to the challenge?  Fair.  She killed Hatchet Face.  Crawler took that as his test completed in advance, didn’t think of her as worth his time.

I guess his test might be something like killing a strong parahuman.

Little Bonesaw, for her test, designed a parasite that would stay in her system for forty-eight hours and strip her of her powers for as long as it remained.”

Hm. That’s… actually quite a dangerous thing. If she can make this parasite reproduce, she can introduce it into a city’s ecosystem, and before anyone knows what’s happening the city will need to call in help from outside if they want to fight back against the Slaughterhouse using powers.

“As for me,” Jack said, “I tend to go last, when all the others have offered their tests and only one or two are left.  I like to mix things up, and unlike our dear Bonesaw, I have no interest in playing fair.”

With one or two left, he can put more effort into messing with them.

“And if we fail?” Regent asked, “We die?”

Probably.

“No, no,” Jack smiled.  “Nobody passes every test, and the punishment for failing a test is up to the individual who assigned it.

Ahh. That’s good. Gives them a fighting chance, even if it’s a faint one.

I… doubt you’ll want to fail Bonesaw’s test.

Sometimes death, yes.  Sometimes something different.  But it’s always worse.”

…I’m not sure it’s good anymore.

I felt a chill.  All at once, Bitch’s presence behind me felt ominous.  She’d been picked by the Nine, and even when asked, she hadn’t said a thing about it.  Why?  And who had picked her?  The members of the Nine we hadn’t been able to nail down candidates for were Jack, Bonesaw and Siberian.

And Burnscar, though you’ve figured out which team she visited.

As for why she hadn’t said anything… she’s Bitch. Seriously, I’d suspect she might stay quiet about it even if she hadn’t been the only willing nominee.

Siberian, I saw, was staring at Bitch.  When I turned to look at Bitch out of the corner of my eye, I saw her staring right back at Siberian, unflinching, holding the sleeping puppy in her arms.

It comes together.

“If I don’t make it fair then it’s like I’m picking one over the other and I don’t want to do that,” Bonesaw said.

Ahh, that makes sense. Even if there wasn’t just one slot to fill, she’d have reason to keep it fair.

“You’re a smart girl.  You’ll work it out.”  Jack turned to our group, where we waited in tense silence.  “A lot going on tonight.  All these meetings, and we didn’t get an invitation.  Almost enough to hurt our feelings.”

Hehe. Sorry about that, pal.

“How admirable,” Jack said.

“And it has to be fair.  What I have in mind isn’t fair, and I’m worried it’s too similar to the test I gave Burnscar.  I need this to be fair.”

Burnscar is the best.

“Why does it have to be fair?” Cherish asked, “Unfair world, unfair test.”

“Because I like them both!  What better way to add to our family than to have two real siblings on the team?  They would fight all the time but they’d really love each other deep down.”

I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the relationship between Cherish and Regent, dear.

But that’s just the reason she likes the idea of Regent joining. Is she going to elaborate on Bitch too?

“Ha,” Regent made it more of a word than an actual laugh, “You really don’t know the Vasil family, munchkin.”

Pfft.

Looks like Alec and I are in tune right now. Different words, but the same meaning and structure, right down to the use of a term of endearment at the end. :p

“And the dog girl!  I love dogs!  I’ve seen the pictures of them and they’re beautiful.”

Aaand there we go. Realization among the Undertravelers in 3… 2… 1…

Recruits?  Plural?  Was he including Noelle?  No.  He would know she wasn’t anywhere near here, thanks to Cherish.

Yep. And I think Crawler would be here if they thought she was.

Bonesaw piped up, “I wanted to say hi and meet the people who might be joining the family.  Jack said that if I’m ready, I can tell you what my test is.  Except I haven’t decided.”

…

That’s adorable.

“Oh?” Jack looked at her, “I didn’t know you had any ideas yet.”

“I haven’t decided,” she told him, sounding annoyed at having to repeat herself.  “The test might be about challenging them, but I’m challenging myself too.  I don’t want to be boring, so I’m making myself come up with something original each time.”

Well, this confirms there’s more to it than fighting. And I really like Bonesaw’s attitude towards it. 🙂