“I… I don’t want to strike a nerve, or say the wrong thing.  I’m not very good at picking the right thing to say.  But I forgive you.  I know you were tired.  You were overworked.  You had no reason to like me or to do me any favors.  And you healed me anyways.”

For someone who claims to not be good at picking the right thing to say, she’s absolutely on a streak of picking the right thing to say.

I think she’s gotten better at it, honestly.

I could see her tense.  Would she storm off?  Lash out at me like Bitch would?

Hmm, I don’t think so. I think she might actually appreciate that Taylor acknowledges this. Especially since one of her long-standing problems has been that few others did.

Not gonna lie, I’m beginning to see this as a potential ship on the redrom (love) side rather than just blackrom (romantic hatred) like before.

She just fell silent, avoiding eye contact with me.

“I don’t think you’re a monster,” I said.

Damn, Taylor. I’m this close to just straight up revoking your right to say you’re not good at picking the right thing to say.

I think this is exactly what Amy needed to hear from someone, anyone, right now, and Taylor just backed it up with reasons that show that she’s not just saying it, she actually understands.

“Heroes,” Amy muttered.  “Right.”

Called it! …kinda.

“Are you a candidate?”

She fidgeted again.  “Bonesaw nominated me.”

“Do you know why?”

Bitterly, she said, “Why do you think?  She thought I’d be a good fit.  And because my powers complement hers.”

I wonder if someone

in-universe is going to put the pieces together re: each Slaughterhouse member picking someone who had something notably in common with themselves.

A good fit?  “Just based on my interactions with you, I wouldn’t have thought.”

I mean, she does have a spiteful streak, or used to at least. But not so much that it makes her fit into the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Maybe this is how Taylor learns about Amy’s relation to Marquis, which is the main thing that could cause Amy to wonder whether she would fit in.

“No?” she asked, sarcasm in her tone, “Why wouldn’t you have thought?  You heard what Tattletale said.  I’m the daughter of a villain.

Oh yeah, I suppose she did hear that much before.

I haven’t been nice, I haven’t been merciful, or forgiving, or considerate.  Instead of giving you a second chance, I was spiteful, I toyed with your feelings, and things spiraled out of control.  You know how much trouble that caused for my family?

Wait, “toyed with your feelings”? Is she talking about the hospital encounter, or… is she not actually talking to Taylor anymore?

The director of the PRT and Legend and Miss Militia were all at my house, lecturing all of us about how serious these events were and how sensitive relations between the various factions were.”

Okay, yeah, sounds like the hospital encounter. I should probably reread that sometime soon.

“A non-cape.  I don’t know the details, but she’s in a secure location.”

That’s a pretty decent way to put it.

Amy fidgeted.  “I’m getting out of here.”

Aaand this is where she needs to be told about rule 8.

“Where?”

“Away.  I don’t want to be a part of any of this.”

“You can’t leave.”

“Why not?  I can find a place to hole up and hide until it blows over.”

It needs to be in Brockton Bay, though.

“So long as you’re in Brockton Bay, they’ve got someone who can watch you.  Can watch any of us.  She reads emotions, and apparently uses them to find us from half a city away.  It’s probably how they found the candidates in the first place.”

Yep, and you can’t go out of Brockton Bay, or they’ll consider the game won for them.

“Then I’ll leave the city.  I was going to anyways.”

“Fuck, I wish I still had the list.” I muttered.  At a normal speaking volume, I said, “No, you can’t leave town, either, because Bonesaw prepared a plague or something.  If you are a candidate and you leave the city, they’ll use it.  They explicitly said they were using it as an incentive for the two heroes that they picked as candidates.”

Oh right, now I remember! It was mentioned in the encounter with them by Ballistic’s base last Arc.

Wait, shit, that would be one of the main reasons why that Arc was called Plague, wouldn’t it.

I could have pressed for more details there, but I suspected she’d keep to the conversation better if I gave her the info instead of demanding it.

Probably true, yeah. I like how Taylor is handling this so far.

“They’ve set themselves a time limit to test and eliminate the six candidates.  Their goal is to test the candidates and kill the ones who fail, until there’s only one.  Our goal is to save them.  So when Tattletale figures out you’re here instead of with your family, and when we know that the sixth candidate is apparently a hero, it gets our attention.”

Honest and to the point. That’s good.

I give it a 78% chance that Panacea is about to deny being a hero.

“Who- who are the other candidates?”

“Regent, Bitch, Hookwolf, Armsmaster-”

Alright, not immediately at least.

Also I guess she’s about as surprised to hear Armmaster listed as Sierra? Although she was there for him being confronted about his actions in Extermination, so who knows.

Alternatively, Taylor might be stopping because she’s unsure how to mention Noelle.

“Armsmaster?”

“Yeah.  Though it might be like Cherish is doing to Regent, more to screw with him than for legit reasons.”

Nah, this one’s legit. It’s nice to see Taylor seemingly giving Colin some benefit of doubt now, though.

“Ok.”

“I can see it, though.  I’ve interacted with him.  He really did cross the line during the Endbringer attack.”

“And the fifth?”

I do wonder how much of this softness is Taylor wanting to avoid Panacea being put off by Taylor’s old antagonistic view of Army.

I hopped down from Lucy’s back.  “I just want to talk.”

“I can’t outrun those dogs, you’ve got me outnumbered and you’ve probably got more weapons than me.  I think you’re in a position to do whatever you want.”

Yeah, I suppose that’s true.

Panacea does seem a bit dejected. There’s less… spite in her voice. The Panacea we met at the bank robbery would likely try to do something rather than just accept defeat without a fight.

“Good,” I said, “Because like I said, I just want to talk.  I could get rid of my weapons if that would make you feel any better.”

“It wouldn’t, really.”

Even besides the sense of apathy here, the dogs are weapons enough regardless of how many smaller ones they throw to the sides.

I saw her step back a little, and I could tell she was ready to bolt.  We were in a position to catch her, for sure, but it would be more detrimental than anything.  If we chased her down, any dialogue I had with her afterward would be an interrogation, not a conversation.

Does she feel like she can run after all?

I suppose at least she could keep her distance from Taylor right now, now that she’s off Lucy, but otherwise bolting wouldn’t do much unless Panacea went somewhere the dogs couldn’t follow.

Panacea was waiting in an alley when we arrived, arms folded.  Her brown hair was tucked underneath an army green mosh cap, the brim pulled low.

Well, at least approaching her won’t be too hard, if she’s willing to just stand and wait. She doesn’t seem happy about her company, but she does seem to accept that they’re arriving without trying to run away or anything like that.

She looked exhausted, worn out.  She had that same devastated look in her eyes that I had seen in her cousin and aunt on the day of the Endbringer attack.

Makes sense. She’s practically lost her family, like they had that day. Even if in her case, it was a choice, she’s not going to be happy about it.

“I see you’ve got the two other horsemen of the apocalypse with you.  Where’s number four?”

Heh. Still got a bit of dry wit, good to hear.

I shook my head.  “Horsemen of the apocalypse?”

“Nevermind.”

Is Taylor not familiar with them, or did she just not expect to be likened to one?

Hm…

• Pestilence = Skitter
• War = Bitch
• Famine = ???
• Death = Grue

She scowled.  “Whatever.”

I took that for assent and turned Lucy around.  With a shout, I got her moving.  I kept the phone in one hand while I rode, waiting for Lisa’s response.

Yeah, as far as assent goes, that’s probably the best you’ll get.

Also, Taylor! Don’t use your phone while riding! It’s unsafe! Do something safer, like fighting some of the country’s deadliest superpowered psychopaths.

It didn’t matter.  She found me before I found her.  Or, to be more specific, she found my bugs before I found her.

Oh, hey. So did she deliberately step into a bug swarm to alert Taylor or something?

There were enough flies in the city that most people didn’t give a second thought to one landing on them, especially if it landed on their clothing.  I habitually used my bugs to check people nearby for weapons or masks, and when I checked the people in a building three blocks away, one of the bugs brushed against Panacea.

Oh – Panacea, not Lisa!

Well, then. If she pulls a similar trick as at the bank, I guess Taylor’s in for a headache.

She must have been able to tell it wasn’t an ordinary bug.  As she’d done at the bank robbery, she used her power to scramble them and force whatever mechanism my power activated in their systems into a feedback loop.

Feedback loops can be pretty nasty.

Before it could incapacitate me and my power, I swept up the bugs with larger dragonflies and flying beetles and promptly murdered them, feeding them to other bugs in the area and pulling them apart.

Brutal, but I suppose it had to be done, to stop the feedback loops.

Grue looked my way.  Should I capitulate and tell her that we could send Genesis, to give her what she wanted, or would it be better to get her to agree, and risk angering her?

The team should not play to the whims of Bitch for fear of her outbursts. They should consider the points she’s making – which are actually not that bad this time, though self-centered – fairly, absolutely, but just giving her the right of way because she’ll get angry otherwise is a bad habit to get into.

As odd as it might be, I gravitated toward the latter option.  Bitch responded better to firmness.

That too.

“She’s supposedly in Ballistic’s territory, which is close.  Five minutes there, up to five minutes to talk, five minutes to get back,” I said.

Oh yeah, that’s not too bad.

“Fifteen minutes out of our way,” Grue said.  “And anything we find out about the Nine or their candidates can potentially help you, Rachel.”

Nice one, Grue – turning it into a benefit for her specifically, to suit the self-centered nature of her own arguments.