She smirked and turned to leave, putting a touch of extra sway into her walk as she made her way out the door.

She had this.  A few weeks, one or two months at the most, she could be one of the most dangerous people in the world, barring the obvious exceptions like the Endbringers.

That’s a bold claim.

Also the personhood of the Endbringers is questionable. It would be even if it wasn’t revealed that Leviathan was (probably) never human.

What Alec didn’t know was that her power did have long-term effects.

…oh, really? Intriguing. What sort of seeds are you planting?

Subtle, but they were there.  Emotions were like drugs.  People formed dependencies and tendencies.  If she hit someone with a minute amount of dopamine every time they saw her, it would condition them until she didn’t even need to use her power to do it.

Ahhhh. That explains the name: Cherish, because her victims Cherish her.

Just a little while longer, she told herself, and I’ll have the Nine wrapped around my little finger.

I see. You’ll take over Jack’s role as de facto leader of the group and they’ll do whatever you want rather than spreading destruction and violence aimlessly.

One of the scariest things you could give the Slaughterhouse Nine is a goal-oriented brain at the head of the operation.

He sighed.  “Can’t really stop you or you’ll fuck with my team, right?”

“Right.  But first…”  She bent down and searched the woman who was sweating, panting, and twitching with the combination of Cherie’s emotional assault and Alec’s physical control.  She found the gun, and then found a cell phone.  She dialed the number to reset the timer on the bomb she wore.

Lucky Alec let her keep her phone, right?

Especially considering having a phone in your pocket is actively dangerous right now.

She felt a touch relieved as the call went through.  That could have been a pretty lethal mistake on her part.  She’d have to break her rule and buy a cell phone charger.

Yeah, seriously. And quickly, considering how frequently you apparently have to do this.

“Bye, baby brother.”

“Go die horribly, sis.”

What a pleasant sibling relationship. 🙂

She shrugged.  “Close enough.”

“No.  They’re going to kill you someday.  Probably sooner than later, when you’re no longer useful and they want the thrill of the hunt again.  You’ve probably seen what they can do.  Fates worse than death.  Just don’t ask for my help when you realize it’s happening.”

Yeeeah, that’s fair after what she’s just done to him.

“Whatever.”

“You just screwed me over, Cherie.  Don’t know why you did it, but I think you did a pretty fucking good job of it.  You trying to be like Jack?  Trying to act like them, pretend you have a place there?  Rest assured, you screwed yourself ten times as bad as you screwed me.”

How? But yes, she did do a really good job of it.

She scoffed at that.

“You’re way out of your depth.  As good as you think you are, they’re better.”

He’s probably right.

She smiled and shook her head, “We’ll see.  I’m gonna leave now.  You’re going to let me.  Cool?”

There’s not much else either of them can do at this point, really.

“What I find really interesting is that you’ve got some connections.  A girlfriend, maybe?  No.  Nothing romantic.  You have friends?  A team?”

Fuck.

He stayed silent.

“Come after me, I go after them.  You may be immune, but they aren’t.”

“Fine.”

I suppose as long as she keeps it as a bargaining chip, that’s better than her just going after them anyway just for the sake of a little more revenge.

“And remember, I can always tell Daddy where you are.  He’s pissed you left.  Pissed I left, but he’s too scared to come after me.  Not with the Nine having my back.”

Ahh, yeah, that makes sense.

“They don’t have your back, Cherie.”

That is a good point. She just admitted that.

But Heartbreaker doesn’t know that, does he now?

Which could change…

“Fuck,” Alec said, his eyes widening.

“Have fun with that,” she smiled, standing.  She had to leap back to avoid being stabbed with the gold-painted stick as she released his wrist.  “Now we’re even.”

I… have questions about your definition of “even”.

“Fuck you.  That’s not even at all!  I leave home, so you arrange to have me killed by some of the scariest fuckers on this side of Earth?”

“Hey, Alec, what does the word ‘disproportionate’ mean?”

“Yep,” she smiled, smug.  It was good to see she could provoke him, get a response out of him.  Was that because she’d done it well, or had he gotten more emotional as of late?

I suppose getting back into the habit of keeping people to feel emotions through could have helped.

He ran his fingers through his hair.  “Lunatic.”

She really does fit into the team quite well.

“Not interested.”

“Doesn’t matter.  You get nominated, you’re tested no matter what you want… and a few of the Nine don’t want to have two Vasils on the same team.  Shatterbird hates my guts, for some reason.  Crawler doesn’t respect me.  Jack thinks it would be boring.  So what I’m thinking is that this test?  The initiation?  It’s going to be a little harder for you.  They won’t be testing you to see if you’re mean enough, bloodthirsty enough, creative enough.  They’re just going to try to kill you.”

Damn.

Also, this spells bad news for all the other seemingly “failed” nominations we’ve seen.

Only two people we’ve seen have actual interest in participating – one of them only because he’s being forced into it – but apparently they’ll all be attacked by the remaining Fellowship members nonetheless.

That includes Labyrinth, the daydreamer. Way to go, Burnscar, I thought you liked her. Possibly even romantically.

And now the Undersiders have the Slaughterhouse coming after two of their members, and one of them is somewhat willing. Yeeeeeeah. This could get pretty intense for them.

Oh, and they’ll be trying to test Noelle too. That probably means more attacks on Coil’s base to get access to her.

Arc 12 is gonna be a wild ride, I think.

“Got you, little brother.  You still suck at fighting.”

Should’ve taken sparring with Grue a little more seriously, perhaps.

He stared up at her, panting for breath and looking half-bored at the same time.  He used his power, and she let go of his left hand to strike him across the face.  He stopped.

“Oh quit it, I won fair and square.”

She smiled, “Thought you should know that things got pretty shitty at home after you left.  Daddy got really overprotective, angry.  It sucked.

Ahh, got a bit of resentment for the consequences of Alec leaving, do we?

Sucked worse when we couldn’t find you.”

“Sorry,” he said, in what she judged as the least convincing tone he could manage.

Yeeah, he doesn’t care that much.

“My payback?  I’ve nominated you for the Nine.”

That’s a weird payba– oh.

The trials.

Welp.

His emotions were so muted.  Dim.  How much of that was Jean-Paul or Alec’s personality, and how much was his natural immunity, built up over years of exposure to Daddy?

Hmm. Are you sure “natural immunity” is what that is? Have you heard the same sort of dimness from other people who’s been exposed to Heartbreaker’s power, and assumed that Heartbreaker’s power caused a form of immunity to yours?

She couldn’t get a sense of what he was feeling, which was disappointing.

Is he feeling much at all?

However faint his feelings were, she could sense the slightest change.  A chime of attention.  He didn’t look at any of the puppets that he was struggling to control, but she could sense his attention flicker to the woman.  A thrum of confidence.

Oh? Did he successfully override the emotional control, even just a little?

They both dashed towards the woman at the same moment.  In their hurry to get to her, they collided, falling to the ground as a trio.

Pfft!