What would I do in his shoes, with his power?

Hmm.

No offense, Taylor, but I don’t think you’d be the type to do things on quite the same scale as Sphere.

I wouldn’t leave any vital openings uncovered.  That was a given.

Oh, right, she meant nowadays, when he’s Mannequin.

Another good question might be “what would I not be able to do?”

My focus -Mannequin’s focus- would be on designing way to make himself a completely closed system.  It wasn’t just sensible, it was the whole point of his transformation.  He’d have perfect recycling of all waste, dissipation of excess energy by diverting it to mechanical movement, intake of energy by absorption of heat.

Absorption of heat, you say? That’s the one thing here that’s not closed – maybe it’d be possible to somehow take advantage of that?

I’m not sure how, though. Locking him in a freezer until he passes out isn’t really an option here.

Could that be a clue as to how he sensed the world around him?  Heat?  Or was it something completely different?  Radiation?  Radio waves?  Electromagnetics?

It might be all of the above. We do know he uses electromagnetics to keep a couple parts of his body attached, though.

It’s worth noting that sensing the world via radio waves would technically count as a form of sight, probably.

If I was going to attack, I needed to find a weak point.  But he was smart.  Before the disaster that had turned him into this, he had been on the brink of solving many of the world’s crises.  Overpopulation, renewable energy, effective recycling, world hunger.

Once again, this man… it’s such a shame what he became.

Even with tinker abilities offering the means, it took someone special to manage that and actually make progress.

Yes, exactly! He wasn’t just greatly powered, he was a great man in terms of ambition and ideas and drive to actually follow through on his big plans. The powers just made that possible.

It was a given that he wouldn’t have any blatant weaknesses.  Any measure he didn’t think of himself, he would have shored up by now, by virtue of being a longstanding member of the Nine.  He’d fought heroes and villains better than me, and he’d learned and improved in the process.

Yeah… this ain’t gonna be easy.

In that respect, perhaps, he and I weren’t so different.  I’d developed in much the same ways.  The difference was that he had years more experience.  That, and he was batshit insane.

Hehe. Just give it time, honey, I’m sure you can become both experienced and batshit insane one day. 🙂

Did he use radar, like Cricket?  It would be my first assumption, except my bugs hadn’t heard anything of the sort.

Nope.

No.  This line of thinking wasn’t accomplishing anything.

I heard him sharpening his blades against one another with the sound of steel on steel.

At least it’s not steel on flesh yet.

I could sense the movement, from the bugs that were drifting down onto him.  A man in the crowd whimpered, and Mannequin turned towards him.

…yet.

The metal singing in the pauses between the scrapes of blade on blade.  Mannequin was standing still, observing.

…hmm? What is he observing, exactly? He’s turned towards the crowd…

I had to come up with a plan of attack, or others would pay the price.  My deadline was the point, I suspected, that someone lost their nerve and tried to run.

That seems likely.

He could sense me somehow.  How?  It had been reckless of me to assume that he used sight to get by, especially when he didn’t have eyeholes in his mask.

…ooh, that’s a good point. If you can figure out what sense he uses, that might help you block it.

Maybe it has to do with temperature and heat signatures? Monitoring temperature and other environmental factors is very important for biospheres, so maybe he’s turned those sensors outward to replace his normal senses?

The fact that he hadn’t noticed I was faking meant he wasn’t relying on sight, or his sight was limited enough that he couldn’t make out the lack of blood through the cloud of bugs around us.

Right. I suppose getting your throat slit through the armor is a hard sell if the attacker can see it.

If he wasn’t hearing my breathing, I doubted he had super hearing either.

Taylor’s had enough of that one after her first encounter with Lung.

I just needed a second to think.  Mannequin could press an assault indefinitely, until he succeeded in cutting my throat open or delivering that mortal wound.

Taylor does definitely have weak spots he could hit (such as the back of her head), and her costume seems to be stronger against slashing damage than bludgeoning and piercing, both of which Mannequin can turn against her. She is by no means unkillable to Mannequin.

It was like sparring against Brian, but worse in every way.  Mannequin was stronger, faster, he had more reach, he didn’t get tired, he was good and he was out to kill me.

That’s the second time sparring with Brian’s been brought up. I guess it’s time to put a lot of what he taught her into practice.

He was versatile in a way no ordinary human could be.  He couldn’t be caught in an arm-lock – his limb would just come free or bend in some screwed up way.

Yeeah, that wouldn’t work at all.

He let go of my hair, and my mask clacked hard against the floor.  I heard a girl scream, heard noises and shouts from everyone else.

Seems it was convincing enough for the audience. For all they know, they just witnessed their one supposed protector getting her throat slit.

I swallowed, partially to check that my throat really hadn’t been cut.

That would be a problem.

My costume had saved me.  I wished the gathered onlookers hadn’t witnessed the scene.

I think this scene benefits from what we saw in 9.6. We saw back then that slitting her throat didn’t work with a knife, which was believable, and because we’ve seen this on that smaller scale already, it became more believable as a result. It came with a sense of consistency rather than “oh, okay, guess that works”.

This would’ve still made sense without the incident in Sentinel, because we’ve know her costume is quite tough from the start, but I don’t think it would work quite as well.

It would have been better if the bugs had blocked their line of sight, as their noises of fear and alarm were going to get his attention.

Ah, yeah, I thought about that too but forgot to mention it. I already expected his next priority to be further civilian slaughter, but it doesn’t help to immediately remind him of it.

As he’d done with the gray-haired doctor, he pulled the blade hard against my throat in one long, smooth motion, adjusting for the curvature of my neck.

Sounds like the armor is doing its job.

With the way the threats are ramping up for each Arc, it’s going to be good to have all the Undersiders (except Bitch, regardless of whether she stays or goes) in this kind of armor, assuming Taylor successfully completes that project without her customers dying or her progress being obliterated by the Simurgh or something first.

By the way, if Wreckedton Bay – or at least Taylor – is going to have to deal with the remaining two Endbringers as well, I’m about 80% sure we’ll see the Simurgh before Behemoth. Behemoth seems to be a stronger immediate threat, while the Simurgh apparently makes things bad after her visit more than during it, suggesting that we should ideally have more time to process the ramifications of the Simurgh’s visit (like we’ve been doing with Leviathan’s) and that Behemoth is more suited for a later boss.

(But of course, neither is going to be the final boss.)

I drew my bugs around me to conceal my movements as I rolled to one side, set my feet under me and sprinted to his left.

Yes, good, creative use of her power is exactly what Taylor needs here.

And also maybe some extra sets of eyes to watch the opponent’s moves through.

While still beneath the cover of my bugs, I was struck from behind and knocked face first to the ground.  The surprise was as bad as the pain.

That’s the problem with cover. It often also covers your perception of the enemy.

Through the swarm, I sensed him approach until he stood with one foot on either side of me.

Oh, hello there.

I felt him wind his fingers into my hair and pull my head up and back.  I struggled, trying to catch him in the knee with my baton, but he wrenched me to one side, and I felt a blade press against my throat.

This is far from ideal.

At least we know a simple knife has trouble slicing her throat, but this guy might have some better blades.

I didn’t have time to get out of the way, to bring my baton up to defend myself or even to do more than belatedly realize his near-collapse had been a feint.

Well, fuck.

Knights, am I right?

He caught me in the stomach with that same surprising strength as before, then slashed up toward my collarbone with enough force to lift my feet up off the ground.

That does not sound healthy. Spider silk, do your thing please.

I landed hard on my back, my armor absorbing the brunt of the impact.  The sides of my armor panels bit into the ribs of my back where they curved toward my body.

Oof.

Keeping the lessons I’d learned from sparring with Grue in mind, I tried to scramble back and away while Mannequin righted himself and put the forearm and hand he had connected to his foot in the right place. 

Feint or not, it really does seem like Mannequin’s weakness is having to take time to make sure all his body parts are where they should be.

Before I could get to my feet, he started striding toward me.

But of course, he’s had a lot of practice at that, so it’s not much time.