The only ambiguous advantage we had over him was that he was working with a time limit.  He needed to test Bitch and get revenge on me, in addition to dealing with all of the other candidates, and he had less than forty-eight hours to do it.

Gonna have a busy couple days ahead of him.

I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.  It was beginning to dawn on me what we were in for.  Forty eight hours of being on the edge of our seats, unable to sleep deeply, constantly watching for attack from Mannequin or from Hookwolf’s contingent.

No, no, you’ve got that wrong.

552 hours, watching for attacks from each Slaughterhouse member in succession. Maybe more, considering there are time limit bonuses available. Maybe less, if Bitch gets taken out or someone suffers a time limit penalty.

I guess Siberian’s turn might give them a bit of a break in there, but not much.

Also not all the tests involve attacking, but if they’re hiding Bitch, it might happen nonetheless. It’s also worth noting that Bitch may sabotage things from the inside because she actually wants to take the tests.

I frowned.

Mannequin was on guard for a trap, enough that he’d probably noticed the tripwire and decided to retreat.

Yeah, makes sense. He’d know that Skitter would be aware of his imminent arrival this time.

Besides, I doubt he likes spiderwebs after last time.

Mannequin and I had an estimation of one another, now.  Neither of us wanted a direct confrontation.  Both of us would be wary of traps or trickery.

Traps or trickery.

Did I not predict the involvement of a trap the moment I saw the title Snare?

He was a tinker, he would have prepared something to ward against the tactic I had employed last time.

Hm. Notably, he’s a biosphere tinker. Biospheres keep things contained. That’s perfect for designing a trap if he’s willing to turn his expertise outward again.

Topping it off, amassing people to please Coil had the unfortunate side effect of making me more vulnerable to Mannequin’s attacks.  He could hurt me without even getting close to me, the second I let my guard down and gave him an avenue for attack.

I suppose so.

I didn’t expect to find him in the span of a minute.  A figure on a nearby rooftop was striding through the webs and avoiding the bugs.

Oh!

Well, that was quick.

I stopped.  “Mannequin.”

Everyone else froze.  Even the dogs seemed to mime their master’s stillness.

Hah.

But he was already leaving, moving with surprising swiftness as he pushed through another few lines of webbing at the edge of the roof furthest from us.

Leaving? I guess he was just scouting, then?

A second later he was on the ground, moving through an alleyway.

Ah, never mind. Just leaving the rooftop.

“We could go after him,” Grue asked.

“We couldn’t catch him, I don’t think,” I said, “And he may be trying to bait us into a trap.  Or maybe he wants to loop around while we give chase and kill my people.

And even if you do go after him, there’s the issue of fighting him. Admittedly you do have much more firepower right now than Skitter did when she fought him solo and won.

Shit, I didn’t think he’d come so quickly.”

“We weren’t exactly inconspicuous.”

That’s fair.

I had enough bugs nearby to start setting up my early warning system.  With the assistance of a horde of flying insects, I began guiding spiders through various points of my territory.  

Spiders, huh. Is she going to do something similar to Parian’s strings, perhaps?

They drew out lines of silk across alleyways and doors, windows and rooftops.  I couldn’t spare the spiders, so I placed ants on each line.  They would feel it if there was a vibration, not as well as the spiders, but well enough.

Yep, that’s the same basic concept. I like this.

Ten thousand tripwires for Mannequin to navigate past.

To be fair, if anyone in the Slaughterhouse Nine can do that, it’s probably him, but it’s still quite a large amount to get past. Especially while also dodging the airborne insects.

My expectation was for the lines to maybe give me an early warning of Mannequin’s approach, sometime in the coming hours, maybe in the dead of night.

Let’s hope it works. And doesn’t raise too many false alarms.

Genesis whistled, looking around.  There were some looks of confusion as she strode forward into the crowd.  I suppose it was unusual for a teenage girl to be in the company of three known supervillains and a mass of monstrous dogs.

I mean, considering some of the supervillains aren’t any older, it’s more a matter of being seemingly out of costume among them.

“Sierra,” I said.  “Status?”

“We’re nearly done with the second building.  There isn’t a lot of elbow room, so we’ve been cleaning up the road.”

Sounds good!

“Good.  No trouble?”

“Not that I know of.”

I pulled the bag from over my shoulder and handed it to her.  “Distribute these to the people in charge of the various groups.  Work it out so you can pass on messages quickly, and get any necessary information to me asap.”

What’s this? The satellite phones Coil talked about?

“Okay.”  She grunted as she took the bag.

“Genesis,” I spoke.  “You said you were doing some rebuilding?”

She slapped her stomach, “Made some mortar, just a matter of sticking stuff back where it’s supposed to be, if it’s obvious enough.”

I…

I guess that’s a thing she can do.

So is her power basically that she can create things and optionally take control of them?

“Want to see what you can do, before your body gets here?”

She nodded and headed off.  My minions rapidly backed away from her as she began dissolving.

Or is it that she made a form that naturally produces mortar??

Like I said, her power still confuses me.

My people met us as we entered the neighborhoods where my lair and the barracks we’d set up were.  Sierra and Charlotte were in the lead, the three ex-ABB members behind them.  The O’Daly clan stood at more of a distance, all either members of the family, friends or romantic partners.

Would that be the family of the other group of people that showed up in 12.8?

Other, smaller families filled in the gaps.  My ‘gang’ numbered nearly fifty people in total.

Damn, got some real growth here! Skitter’s crew is bigger than the Altruistic Borderline Bimbos were at the start of the story now.

“Holy crap,” Genesis said.

“It’s why we wanted to set up base here,”  Grue said.  “Skitter’s the most established of us.”

Makes sense to me!

“I’ve been focusing on structural repairs and building when I’m not helping my teammates,” Genesis said.  “I don’t have many threats to get rid of, and it was the best way for me to be productive.  And meanwhile you’re further than I expected to get in half a year.”

Wow.

And yeah, she’s been getting busy, alright.

A bit too busy, maybe, but I’m not going to deny that she’s done some good work here.

I couldn’t bring myself to feel proud.  “I guess I’m motivated.”

Oh come on, Taylor.

“Everything good?” Grue asked her.

“Good enough.  I’m going to keep this shape until Coil’s people can deliver my real body.  Then I’ll need to recuperate some.”

Hm, interesting. Does that mean she wouldn’t have been able to go with them on doggyback? Or was it just not worth the risk of being attacked?

“Sure.”

Bitch scowled at me.  Bastard, her puppy, stood beside her.  He had received the brunt of her power, and looked roughly as large as an adult great dane.

Not so little anymore, huh?

The features were different from her usual dogs.  The spikes had more symmetry to their arrangement, and the muscles looked less like tangles.

I suppose if her power is actually designed for use on wolves rather than dogs, it only makes sense that the results would be neater.

It tugged briefly on the chain that led from her hand to its collar, and she pulled back sharply.  It didn’t pull again, though it was easily powerful enough to knock her over.

No pulling on the leash while going for walkies!

Bitch made Bentley slow to a walk as she reached my territory.  It still took us a good thirty seconds to catch up.

Using my power, I signalled Sierra and Charlotte.  Grue, Bitch and I climbed down from our dogs and then led them forward.

Are they all going to be staying at the Hive until the nominations are over?

“Mannequin slipped by you once,” Grue said.  “You going to be able to keep an eye out?”

Quite a lot of eyes, perhaps.

“I had some ideas, but I’m running low on resources,” I said.  “Let me see what I can do.”

Ideas? Color me intrigued.

Genesis began to appear a short distance away, near Bitch.  A blurry, beige and yellow, vaguely human-shaped figure coalesced into being.  

Hi there!

So is her body still at Coil’s base, like with the Lake Heroic meeting?

The shape then sharpened into features and alter in hue until there was the figure of a teenage girl, vaguely cartoonish.  By the time we reached her, she looked indistinguishable from a regular girl.  

I like this visual.

She had auburn hair, freckles, and thick glasses.  A small smile touched her face as she stretched her arms and legs.

She sounds cute!

Bitch was well in the lead, and there was a kind of aggression to how she rode.  She pulled ahead, evading cars by only a couple of inches, forcing them to swerve, and she goaded Bentley faster with kicks and shouts.

What’s the rush?

We hadn’t raised the topic of Bitch and her nomination for the Nine.  I think the others hadn’t wanted to add tension and the possibility of argument or violence to the already complicated situation.

Huh. I think I’m going to count that as a bit of development for Grue, because I’m pretty sure a couple Arcs ago he would’ve been very quick to confront Bitch about the fact that she didn’t tell the rest about her nomination.

I know I hadn’t.  My last real interaction with Bitch was when we’d parted ways after the fight with Dragon.

Not exactly a positive one, no.

I’d told her we were even, but there had been some anger and hurt feelings on both sides.  I was the last person she wanted to have grilling her.

Especially since a part of why she’s acting like this is that anger and those hurt feelings.