I crossed my fingers, watching intently.

I think Genesis is about to return and cut them off with some awesome form.

Two ways this could go for the final phase of our plan.

Well, three ways.  But I was hoping the third possibility -my team getting caught and slaughtered- wouldn’t happen.

Yeah, let’s try to avoid that one. So is one way that Genesis returns in time, and the other that they’re forced to run?

The first way this could play out was that Shatterbird’s flight over the buildings would make her faster than Crawler or Siberian, who had to climb or circumvent the obstacles.

That sounds unfortunate.

When I’d brought this up during the meeting, assuming it would happen, it had been Tattletale who pointed out that I was maybe underestimating how fast Crawler and Siberian could be.  She was right.  Despite her ability to fly, Shatterbird was falling behind.

Yeah, Siberian’s pretty quick and can burst through the obstacles, and Crawler’s no slouch for his size.

Which meant we went with plan B.

Maybe the B stands for Badass?

We’ll see.

Grue used his darkness to form a dozen false-images of shadow-shrouded silhouettes on nearby rooftops.  I did the same with my bugs, but mine were animated, moving.

Grue could do that too, but probably not as precisely or multitasking…ly.

We’d have to run pretty damn soon.  There were seven of us, but only two dogs.  It was less than ideal.

Seriously, Genesis, where are you? Why’d you go and dissolve?

I’d tried to get Bitch to bring another dog, but she didn’t feel any of the others were trained well enough to bear riders.

That’s fair.

The remaining members of the Nine charged, Shatterbird rising from her position to fly straight for us, barriers of glass surrounding her.  Siberian carried Jack and Bonesaw with leaping bounds, while Crawler headed for us.

Well, that’s terrifying.

Jack wasn’t folded over her shoulder anymore.  He was standing, holding her hand, a wide smile spread across his face.

That is probably very bad.

He said something, some exclamation, without dropping his grin for a second.

And Shatterbird?  I looked through the rubble that had been cast over the street around the building.  She was lying on the ground, struggling to her feet.  The glints of glass shards sparkled for a hundred feet around her.  I quickly tossed my binoculars aside.  They’d be a liability if she attacked us, now.

Oh yeah, don’t want parts of them entering your regular oculars.

Here was the gamble.  We’d hurt them, injured their pride, we’d maybe killed Mannequin and we’d incapacitated Cherish.  If Ballistic had been on the ball, he would have blown Cherish to smithereens.

Hmm. You know who hasn’t done much in this battle? Hack Job. With his teleports, he could’ve been a major threat, though I’m aware his range is probably significantly smaller than line of sight.

As it was, a stray bullet wouldn’t cut it.  Bonesaw’s known talents included the ability to raise the dead.

I know, right? She’s so talented! ❤

It wouldn’t stop them, of course.  The only ones that explosion might have hurt were Shatterbird and maybe Mannequin, if he’d survived Ballistic’s attack and slipped around through some other angle.

Yeeah.

Ideal world, it would also slow down Siberian.  More realistically, I was hoping that they’d get pissed, and they’d get sloppy.

“slow down Siberian” is a hard phrase to process, much like “dry spot in Brockton Bay”.

I chanced a quick look through the binoculars.  Crawler was stampeding towards the site of the explosion, Cherish was still prone on the ground, bleeding out from Trickster’s sniper fire, and I couldn’t make out the others.

Hm. Lost/blurry visuals. That’s bad.

Wait, no.  I could see rubble shifting as Siberian shrugged it aside.  It was enough debris that Crawler would have been hampered, but even with her hands tied up in holding her teammates, she cast the chunks of concrete and brick aside with the same sort of ease that I might walk through a pile of balloons.

I don’t think walking through a pile of balloons is always as easy as it sounds, but fair.

She shook her head, and her hair fanned out behind her, draping partially over Bonesaw, who was riding her piggy-back.

This arrangement is still adorable.

Trickster rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck and adjusted his hat.

Heh. “Well, that was a nice morning workout.”

“Don’t waste time,” Grue growled.  “Do it.”

Oh boy, what next? Sounds like they’ve got a big finisher ready.

By the way, is Genesis on her way back in a more battle-ready form yet?

“Times like this call for a certain flourish,” Trickster said.  Trickster withdrew a small remote from his pocket and depressed the button. 

Boom?

The rooftops the other two teams had been situated on virtually shattered with the explosions.  The bazooka rounds had also carried a small collection of plastic explosives.

Boom.

Since Trickster’s team had only needed the sniper rifle, their case held a hell of a lot more.

Part five done.  Baiting the hook, reeling them in, then hitting them as hard as we could.

Nice work! Now did that actually work?

Not someone who couldn’t heal.

Oh, yeah, that also excludes Lung.

I could see her thrashing, trying to stay aloft even as her concentration faltered.  The brown recluses were insurance of a sort.  If we happened to take out Bonesaw, it could mean Shatterbird was out of the equation as well.

Maybe!

The darkness Grue had generated around the rooftop disappeared all at once.  Grue and Ballistic crouched at the far corner.  Canceling the darkness was a signal.

It doesn’t sound like a good one. Retreat?

The mannequins hanging from the first rack disappeared, replaced by the two boys.

Ohh.

That’s their use! And canceling the darkness makes it so Trickster can have line of sight to them.

Grue and Ballistic disentangled themselves from the metal frames and hurried to our side. 

Trickster and Regent appeared soon after the other frame was up.  I could see Siberian on the rooftop. 

Did Trickster just use his power on himself? I guess that’s a thing he can do.

They’d escaped just in time to avoid being caught in a melee with her.

Yikes, that would be unpleasant.

Even if they wouldn’t be cut to shreds, I wasn’t sure they would survive if Shatterbird detonated that case of rocket launcher rounds with a shard in the right place or a large enough impact.

Eesh.

“Bitch,” I spoke.  “The boxes!”

Bitch was sliding off of Bentley’s back, opening the first metal box and stretching out the contents.

Oh right, I suppose it wouldn’t make sense for them all to have explosives given how it turned out they wanted to use them.

So, whatcha got?

The case was a piece of camping gear I’d noticed ages ago, when I’d first been buying things for my costume.  A watertight case for luggage with a metal frame inside that campers could stretch out to use as a drying rack for clothes and towels.

…nice. How does it help here?

We didn’t have luggage inside.  No, the box held parts of the mannequins I’d been using for costume design.

My question still stands.

Strung together with silk, two mannequins dangled from the frame.

Bitch adjusted the way one mannequin hung and headed over to set up the other case.

The one use I can think of is as decoys, but we’ve already got the bug decoys and the shadow decoys, neither of which needs a skeleton.

My bugs had reached Shatterbird and started attacking her.  Brown recluses, capsaicin, wasps, hornets and bees.  I’d never attacked someone like this.

Even Lung didn’t have to feel the capsaicin on his dick.

She was protecting them, which we hadn’t anticipated, but she couldn’t do that and come after us.

I wonder if she’d do the same if Bonesaw hadn’t been one of them.

Or maybe she can.  I saw Siberian virtually toss Bonesaw in the air, the girl wrapping her arms around the woman’s neck as she landed.

Dammit, I just decided against adding “also, are you sure?” to that last section.

Holding her two teammates, Siberian sprinted for Trickster and Regent.  She was fast, but it was a speed borne of her peculiar powers, more enhanced strength than augmented acceleration.  Not so different from Battery on that count.

I guess? I had assumed it was that she’s ignoring air resistance and any other effects that would slow her down.

Air resistance and inertia didn’t hamper her in the same ways.  More than that, whatever it was that made her invincible and untouchable to any outside force, she had the ability to snap it out to affect any surface she touched.

Ohh, that makes sense. She’s essentially hardening the surface under her feet.

Her strength was virtually limitless, and the pavement didn’t shatter with her footfalls because she made it as untouchable as she was.

I suppose the “unstoppable force” part of her power description is actually a thing, not just an extension of the “immovable object” part.

So Siberian’s feet are applying an unstoppable force onto the pavement, which she’s turned into an immovable object. The reaction to that force, which is going to be equally unstoppable, drives her forward. She too is an immovable object, but she’s letting that reaction force move her.

No wonder she’s fast.

Tattletale said something, but I missed it over the roar of noise that came with Sundancer using her power.  She was forming another orb.  Everyone else was busy with their own things.

Better ask her to repeat that, it might’ve been important.

Siberian was protecting Jack and Bonesaw.  That was both good and bad.  We’d planned this strategy under the assumption that Siberian would come for us and we’d use the dogs, Grue’s Darkness, my bug-decoys and Trickster’s teleportation to keep our distance from her until we decided we needed to make a run for it.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, at least with the Unspoken Plan Guarantee apparently not being in play. Wildbow went for the other option I mentioned in the intro post, continually explaining what was supposed to happen.

All of that was in line with part four of the plan, maintaining our distance and avoiding a toe to toe fight.  In the meantime, we’d intended to use our ranged abilities to take out Jack, Cherish, Bonesaw and Burnscar.

So Siberian isn’t acting the way you planned for and she’s protecting two of your main targets. What’s the good side of this? That she’s not chasing you down?