Trickster’s notably upbeat here at the end. He’s clearly doing his best to cheer up Skitter, and I appreciate that.

My head snapped in Trickster’s direction.

“Come on.  We should hurry,” he said.

Dammit!

“That didn’t work,” Trickster said.

“No.  And we just wasted a lot of time.”

It was worth a shot.

“We’ll have Shatterbird working with us, thanks to Regent, and we’ve got Imp as our man on the inside, maybe.

Oh yeah, Regent’s control of Shatterbird ought to help a lot even without a hostage exchange. There’s a lot of firepower there.

We’re going to outnumber the remaining five or six of them, right?  It’s not hopeless.”

Yeah. Difficult but not impossible!

“They’ll be ready for us.  They’re entrenched, they have a hostage, and we’re totally unable to fight two of them.  How long is it going to take to extricate Grue from whatever cage they have him in?”

Fuck, she’s right though.

“It’s not hopeless,” he repeated.  “Whatever they’re doing to keep Grue prisoner, if I can see him, I can free him.”

…which means they’ll have taken measures to keep him out of line of sight, if they’ve figured out Trickster’s power.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Would it reassure you to know that your conversation with the local heroes gave me an idea of my own?”

Ooh, whatcha got?

There was no way I could put myself in their hands without knowing what they thought about me, and frankly, I wasn’t sure how to think about myself.

Who are you, Skitter?

How the hell were they supposed to make a call?

“So.  You in?”  I tried, instead.

I could see him look back at Miss Militia, who shook her head.  “Miss Militia runs the local team, so it’s ultimately her call, but… we’ve talked about it, and I agree with her.  No.

That’s a shame. 😦

Although I suppose there is one more option – right, Coil?

The risks outweigh the potential benefits.”

My heart sank.  “Then one final tip.  You should know that Bonesaw’s done some surgery on all of her people.  Implanted protection for the more vulnerable parts of their bodies.  They’re tougher than they look.“

Good to be aware of that.

“Thank you,” Legend said.  “You might not believe me, but I wish you the best of luck.”

I believe him. He may not be willing to take the risks involved in helping out, but he can relate to the desire to get rid of the Nine and rescue a teammate.

I snarled as I shut the laptop and turned away from the scene, calling my swarm back to me.

Looks like Taylor didn’t believe him, though. Or thought it hypocritical.

Also this has to look pretty cool on the other end, with the swarm dissolving from its humanoid form and flying out.

Oh, and I’m sure Clockblocker still has nightmares about insects.

Fuck.  Not only was that one more uncertainty stacked onto everything, but Armsmaster was the closest thing I had to a nemesis. 

He might not be as open to conversation as Amy was. Hell, as far as Taylor knows, he might be out for revenge, though I’m not sure he’d do that. (I believe Taylor has a distorted image of Colin’s personality.)

Having him running around the city was not a good thing.

At least it provides a reason for him to have stuck around as a part of the story while he was in his house arrest. This way, we’ve been keeping up with him, and his return into the main stomping ground of the cast is less jarring.

For a brief moment, I contemplated having Trickster teleport me to ground level, so it was me talking to the local heroes, and not just my swarm.

Would he even be able to replace her with the swarm? I would imagine the bugs would count separately. I suppose he could replace her with something else, though.

I could tell them that I was putting my well-being in their hands, risking them arresting me, as a gesture of good faith.

Could work, but likely to backfire.

Except I couldn’t help but see myself from their perspective.  Warlord of the Boardwalk.  I’d rotted off Lung’s manhood and carved out his eyes.  I’d played an undefined role in Armsmaster’s downward slide.  I’d robbed a bank, terrorized hostages with poisonous spiders, attacked their headquarters and used insects dipped in capsaicin to cripple their junior heroes with incapacitating pain.  All the while, I’d acted with a seemingly ambiguous morality.  

…yeah I can see how she’d be notorious.

Was I a good guy doing all the wrong things?  Or did they see me as dangerous and unhinged?

Maybe a bit of both?

“Can’t.  He’s gone.”

Ah yes, he’s fleeing the Nine, right. If he’s made it out of town, does that mean Cherish was keeping shut about that too?

I paused.  Did the Nine get him?  “Dead?“

“Escaped from his hospital room.  With our attention on the Nine, we don’t have the resources to track him down.”

Does he know about the rules?

“Does he know about the Nine’s threat to hit the city with a plague if he leaves?“

Thank you, Taylor.

“I hope so.”

That’s less than reassuring.

At least the Undertravelers have captured their main way of finding out if he did. And hey, they might be able to use her to find him, too.

Or Tattletale could do her thing, that might work.

“There can be.  You could do what’s right.”

That’s… pretty much what she’s been trying to do for most of the story. The only difference is she decided to do it via the villainous path because she wanted friends.

I was getting an inkling of what Bitch referred to as ‘words’.  Prattle that meant so very little in the face of what was happening in the present.  Was this the kind of irritation, impatience and anger she felt with so many social interactions?

“You talk too much.”

I clenched my fist.  “Speak for yourself.  You want to hide here while my group and Hookwolf deal with the brunt of the Nine’s attention.  Just like you did with the ABB.“

And when the threat is defeated, Piggot swoops in and twists it into the PRT’s credit.

“That happened under Armsmaster’s leadership.  You can’t blame us for being intelligent about how we go about this.”

Pfft! “You can’t blame us for the actions of a douche we put in charge!”

I was disappointed my swarm couldn’t convey my anger.  “I can blame you for being cowards.  I’m going.  If you want to talk about morality, start by talking to Armsmaster.”

Touché.

“My teammate is in the hands of the Nine, they could be murdering more people right this second, and you’re talking about me, of all people?”

To be fair, figuring out your personality and motivations is relevant to whether they should take your word on any of this.

“If we’re going to offer you help, we should know who we’re interacting with,” he said.

Exactly.

I glanced at Trickster, then back at the image on the screen.  “What do you want to know?“

“We’ve talked with the people in your territory.  Between what they say and what came out at the hospital, I can’t help but wonder at your motives.”

It all comes back to protecting people from bullies, even if she puts certain people (Dinah) above others.

“There’s someone specific I want to help.  If I can improve the lives of others at the same time, then all the better.“

“So where do you stand, then?  Where do you see yourself in terms of the sliding scale of good and evil, heroes and villains?”

Damn, Legend’s getting into the deep stuff.

I’d say Taylor’s a good villain. It’s not one sliding scale.

I almost laughed, and some of my humor must have translated in a mental direction to my bugs, because they started making a noise that wasn’t speech.  I stopped them.

I’m not sure I like the idea of hearing a swarm of bugs trying to emulate human laughter.

It wouldn’t have sounded much like laughter anyways.  “All of the above?  None of the above?  Does it matter?  Some of us wear the villain label with pride, because they want to rebel against the norms, because it’s a harder, more rewarding road to travel, or because being a ‘hero’ often means so very little.

Chaotic…

But few people really want to see themselves as being bad or evil, whatever label they wear.

Some people do embrace that – Jack being one of them, I would think – but yeah, many of the best villains (best in the fictional character sense) are among those who think what they’re doing is right.

I’ve done things I regret, I’ve done things I’m proud of, and I’ve walked the roads in between.  The sliding scale is a fantasy.  There’s no simple answers.“

It’s honestly about time Taylor got the chance to actually put this into words to say to someone else.

Also, why is Trickster here, narratively speaking? Is his presence as Taylor says this relevant?

Also apparently Legend has been floating this whole time without it being mentioned, heh.