I could count a number of people, young and old.  The mosquitoes in my swarm could scent blood.

Probably from Bonesaw operation on them, I’m guessing.

Incidentally, that’s the second time this chapter Wildbow/Taylor has used the verb “scent”, in place of “smell”. I mention that because it throws me off each time. It’s a legitimate use of the word, but it just sounds weird to me.

Twenty or so people were inside the shelter, standing there.  There was metal on their bodies, like backpacks or prosthetic body parts, but they didn’t seem to be hurt.

Oh jeez, what did she do this time?

If Mannequin wasn’t back in the blast zone, I’d suspect him of having helped… actually, I suppose she wouldn’t have done this right now anyway, so yeah. He probably helped with this.

Whatever “this” is. Some sort of cyborg-like thing, by the sound of it, but I’m guessing Bonesaw’s and probably Mannequin’s art is more creative than just that.

There were three more inside, but I wasn’t feeling so generous as to call them ‘people’.

Heh. 🔥

They stood apart: two men and a preadolescent girl.

I would’ve liked to see the scene of Siberian’s real body arriving at the shelter and revealing himself to Jack.

It was them.  The Nine.

It’s kind of hilarious to me how we’ve never seen the name “the Nine” actually be the right number. The closest we’ve gotten is Hatchet Face being around as part of Hack Job after Cherish took his spot, and since then it’s only gone downhill.

Right here, we have three out of five Nine.

I flinched and nearly lost my seat on Atlas, but found it wasn’t much hotter than steaming tap water, and it only lasted two or three seconds before cutting out.

Hm. Maybe creating lots of beams like this reduces the potency of each, allowing him to strike with tons of weaker hits for an increased shot at actually hitting the target.

Siberian had approached close enough to demand Legend’s attention, and he’d terminated whatever it was he’d been doing.

Well, I guess we didn’t kill Siberian’s real body with that. I don’t really expect Legend to get any of the kills anyway. He’s too minor of a character, despite his power.

That doesn’t mean he can’t help out, though.

I turned my mind away from whatever the beams had been intended to do and toward my own contributions to this fight.   Had to strike before they got their bearings.  I took advantage of the pause to send bugs flowing into the shelter.

Yeah, I suppose there’s a gaping hole in the roof now, huh.

Legend turned my way and flew towards the library.  I hurried out of the way, directing Atlas to higher altitude, just in case Legend decided to level the place.

It wouldn’t be the first time he let the Nine drag victims with them in Protectorate assaults, but at least he did seem to care about it, find it a necessary evil. More than I can say for some others.

The leader of the Protectorate had arrived on the scene, and I could sense Siberian on the ground, hot on his heels.  He raised one hand, and a laser beam shot forth, splitting into eight smaller beams that bent in the air.  They hit the outside edge of the vault door with precision, evenly spaced out, then drifted in a clockwise direction.

Awesome. 😀

The door toppled free.

Legend spread his arms, and hundreds of individual beams radiated out from his body.

Holy fuck and I just thought eight beams being used as a box opener was awesome

Three quarters of them turned in sync to spear towards the library, stabbing through the architecture.  Other beams split off to strike through doorways and windows and across rooftops.

Hey! Dude! You’re not the big name hero who should be associated with destroyed libraries!

No less than three struck me.

Ouch.

Yeeah, he’s just going all out here with no regard for control and safety, huh.

Maybe that’s his flaw. He’s been such a good guy so far, a straight up saint by this story’s standards, so it was only really a matter of time before a darker side showed up – I’ve been quietly expecting it. It seems like his big flaw might be a massive disregard for collateral damage when he cares a lot about defeating someone.

Siberian dashed forward.  I could feel her cutting a swath through the swarm as she ran, the truck in one hand, one corner of it dragging on the ground, cutting a line into the pavement.  She leaped into the air, out of the reach of my swarm-sense.  I felt something massive collide with the bugs that were in the air around Legend, felt more die as he shot a laser and caught them in the area.

Is this “something massive” the truck? I was just wondering, halfway through this quote, why she still held onto the truck if she saw Skitter’s first message to Legend and had reason to believe he was acting with that in mind.

Hm, maybe that’s why he didn’t act like he’d even seen it.

She’d thrown the truck, and he’d obliterated it.

BOOM.

And that’s the sound of Siberian giving up the bluff in order to stop the assault on the shelter.

Legend shifted into high gear, flying out of reach of Siberian as she lunged for him.  He dove, hard, and I could imagine her leaping off the side of a second building, trying to get her hands on him.

Yeah, now she’s going for the kill.

I looked down at the library.  “Vault door, how do I open it?”

*knock knock* “Open, sesame.”

“Can’t say until I see the control panel myself.  The shelters are supposed to open with a command from the PHQ-”

Well, that’s fucked then, unless they’ve put effort into rewiring this stuff to the new PHQ. Or maybe it can be done from any Protectorate data system,

probably

meaning Dragon’s in charge.

“Which was annihilated,” I said.

“Right.  Or the PRT headquarters, on the Director’s order.  There’s bound to be another code that can be used in case those places get knocked out of commission.”

Yeah, if they thought this through particularly well.

“How did they get in?”

“They have a tinker,” Tattletale said.  “She may work primarily with biology, but that’s not going to be the full extent of Bonesaw’s knowledge.  Look at those spiders.  Some basic hacking isn’t out of the question.

That’s fair. It’s called a specialty, not an “only thing you’re good at”ty.

Anyways, I can figure it out when I get there.  Unless you want to take the brute force route.”

The brute force route probably still means waiting for you to get here. Taylor’s bugs aren’t gonna take down this door.

Unless you mean brute force as in guessing codes without superpowered intuition.

“And we don’t know what?”

“No clue.  What else?”

“Minor, but if her other self is in the shelter, where are Jack and Bonesaw?  And if they’re in the shelter, where’s Siberian’s real body?”

Like, where in the shelter? Or are you suggesting that either Siberian is in the shelter or Jack and Bonesaw are in there?

“She’s spent years with them, they have a rapport, and they’re dependent on one another. Maybe he felt it was safe to approach them.”

…oh, right, duh. They didn’t know about the real body thing.

Or at least, Jack didn’t. Jury’s still out on whether Bonesaw did.

“Maybe.  Nothing more specific?”

“Don’t have much to work with.  What else is going on?”

“Legend’s holding back.  Conserving his strength.  I get that he’s trying to win a fight of attrition, but as far as I can tell, he hasn’t changed his tactics or the pacing of his attacks much since I informed him that the creator isn’t in the truck.”

Maybe he doesn’t believe you for some reason, or is blinded by his vendetta against Siberian?

Or maybe he didn’t catch the original message about “Siberian and her creator” and doesn’t know why the contents of the truck matter? Though he should still be able to figure out that they do.

“He’s buying time for something?  Someone?  Maybe Scion is headed this way?  No.  Don’t get that vibe.

Ooh, good question, would Scion be able to defeat the Monochrome?

I’m thinking he might be, if she’s actually a “hole in reality”. That strikes me as a thing that is cosmically “not right”, and Scion’s power theme seems to be something to the effect of “set things right” or “calm things down”. Or, less usefully in this context, “cancel waves”.

Hmm,” Tattletale mused.  “We just got inside.  They aren’t here.”

Library it is, I guess. Unless Lisa was wrong to begin with and they aren’t at either.

“Right.  A few more things that are bugging me.  Can I use your brain?”

“I don’t know, it’s kinda stuck in my head. Maybe you could borrow it if we got Bonesaw to help? …Sorry, that’s a touchy subject for you.”

“Go ahead.”

a-head

“Legend’s fighting Siberian here.  It feels wrong.  He’s working to pin her down, slow her movements as much as he can.  I know he’s probably buying time, trying to wear her other self out, but why not a place with flatter terrain?  Why not a place where there’ll be less cover for her and less collateral damage?  I know Siberian goes where she wants, and if her other self is in the shelter, that’s probably a big reason she came, but-”

There’s clearly some relevance to this, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how. It doesn’t help that my brain defaults to, well, “Siberian goes where she wants”. That’s reason enough for my head.

“Your gut is saying something’s off.”

“My gut is saying something’s off.”

“Okay.  I’d guess the Protectorate have more of a plan than the one firebombing.”

Ahh, so that’s how they figure this out, rather than through experience. So is Legend trying to get Siberian back into the blast zone, or just trying to stay out of it himself?

“They’re going to do it again?”

“No.  The first one, going by what you’ve said and what I’ve picked up, hasn’t done much for our side.  It’s going to be something else.”

It’s gonna be similar, but way more effective for dealing with things like Siberian. Maybe. Would a time stop work on what might be a tangible hole in reality?

The driver’s seat was empty.  I sent the bugs into the back.  Nothing.

What.

…

Did he die in there, from all the tossing around, without it causing the monochrome to disappear?

Hm, except it would take more time for the stench of death to set in enough to attract bugs, if it’s not just the stench of uncleanliness. Also, that doesn’t explain why the body’s gone.

It could be a decoy truck meant to draw the heroes away from the real body, but a) it’d require Siberian to find an identical truck in the crater or during a moment out of sight of Legend, b) Siberian is at a disadvantage because of holding onto the truck, and c) the real body could probably have slipped away by now if he’s not handicapped by injuries, so why would she still be carrying the truck?

Hmm. I suppose the first point could be circumvented if it’s a decoy but not a separate truck. What if the real body was still in the crater when she jumped out with the truck? That does sound like a huge risk to take, considering the major hero presence on site, including some who were specifically targeting the real body. Maybe she did have a moment out of sight of Legend on the way here and dropped the real body off then?

As for b), it’s not a huge disadvantage, especially if the truck is actually empty, and for c), her having reason to drop the truck sooner rather than later is very much dependent on point b).