Amy was pinned.  She tried to use her power on Hack Job through the contact he was making with her chest and neck, only to find it wasn’t available.

His specialty, though it “doesn’t work as well”. And if he doesn’t have the ability to pick and choose targets, that’s fine for Bonesaw unless she needs the abilities of the other amalgamates, because she doesn’t have much need for her tinker abilities at the moment.

She couldn’t sense his body, the blood flowing in his veins, or any of that.  Even her own skin felt quiet, where she normally felt the pinprick sensations of innumerable, microscopic airborne lifeforms touching her.

Huh. I suppose it makes sense that with a touch-range power that allows her to sense and modify the biology of a target, all the lifeforms on and in her would count as touching her and therefore be available to her power. Even if she might not be as effective at modifying their ability when they aren’t human, it makes sense that she’d still sense them.

She’d barely even realized that was happening until it stopped.

Makes sense. It’s like turning off a noisy fan you didn’t realize was on.

It’s neat how calmly Amy is talking at this point.

“Oh.  Oh!”  Bonesaw smiled.  “That’s okay.  We can work through that.”

Judging by the number of people nominated with moral compasses that don’t at all fit into the Slaughterhouse Nine, I believe her.

“I- I don’t think we really can.”

“No, really,” Bonesaw said.  Then she snapped her fingers.

Uh. Should I be worried about what that snap means?

Hack Job flickered into existence just in front of Amy, and there was little she could do to escape.  She cried out as the man’s massive hand smashed her down onto her back, a few feet from Mark.

Ouch. Yeeah, looks like Bonesaw just decided that “Oh, she’s not coming with me of her own free will due to her morals. Guess I’ll just have to do this the hard way.”

Mark struggled to stand, but Murder Rat darted across the room to light atop the back of the couch and press one of her three-foot long claws against his throat.

Sorry, Mark. There’s not much you can do about this.

Also, jeez, those claws are longer than I thought.

Amy looked at the onetime heroine, tried to picture it.  It wasn’t any better.  Worse, if anything.

Eh, fair.

“That’s only the beginning.  Can you even imagine the things we could make?  There’s no upper limit.”

The sky’s the limit, they say, but the sky isn’t a physical thing. It doesn’t stand in the way of going far beyond. (The ground, on the other hand, is clingy and tries to pull you down.)

There was a beep from the answering machine.  It began playing a message.  “Amy, pick up!  We’re looking at dealing with Hellhound, and there’s injured.  Call Aunt Sarah or Uncle Neil over to look after dad and get over to the-”

Hm, were there mentions in 11a of Amy not showing up or answering, or something like that?

Also, I thought Neil was dead. Was he not Manpower after all?

The message cut off, and there was the sound of a clatter, a distant barking sound.

Sounds about right.

I don’t remember, did we hear this message in 11a before Bitch cut Glory Girl off?

“I don’t think I have it in me to do stuff like that,” Amy said.  If nothing else, I can’t disappoint Victoria any further.

Oh yeah, I don’t think she’d approve, exactly.

Amy blinked.  Sister.  She thought of Victoria.  “I make a pretty shitty sister.”

Aww. Don’t sell yourself short, Amy.

“Language!”  Bonesaw admonished, with surprising fierceness.

Ahaha!

And this from a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine! I can just imagine what it’s like when they’re all together and Bonesaw insists on keeping the language clean.

I really love the balance of immaturity, brutality and technological ability we see in Bonesaw. It’s ridiculous, disturbing and kind of adorable all at once.

There’s a good chance she’ll be at the top of my Slaughterhouse ranking in the Arc Thoughts.

“I’m sorry.  I- I’m not a very good sister, I don’t think.”

“You could learn.”

This is quite the conversation to have with one of the most feared individuals in the country, in front of three affronts to nature and your recently disabled adoptive dad.

“I’ve tried, but… I’ve only gotten worse at it as time passed.”

And Amy is just so caught off guard by Bonesaw wanting her to be her sister that she starts opening up quite a bit.

Bonesaw pouted a little.  “But think of the stuff we could do together.  I do the kludge, the big stuff, you smooth it over.  Imagine how Murder Rat would look without the scars and staples.”

True, that would probably help with the aesthetics, unless you’re going for the Frankenstein’s monster aesthetic.

…just as Amy was thinking about leaving one adopted family because she believes they do not want her, she gets approached by someone who actually wants her to be her big sister.

I kinda love that. This is gonna be interesting.

“I don’t know.”

“So you’re bad at names too?” Bonesaw grinned.  “I’m thinking something like shrine, temple… but one with multiple floors.  Um.”

I think you’re veering more into Asian religion and architecture with that. I do appreciate the connection to having the upper and lower portions of the body, that’s kind of clever.

I still prefer my own suggestion, though.

“Pagoda?”

Ah, right, that’s the word.

“Pagoda!  Yes!”  Bonesaw skipped over to her creation, wrapped her arms around one of his, “Pagoda!  That’s your name, now!”

It’s not all that bad, I suppose, as a name.

Amy swallowed, looking at the woman.

“The other, I’m trying to figure out a name.  The one on the bottom was Carnal.  Healer, tough, and healed more by bathing himself in blood.

…something tells me he wasn’t a hero.

Thought he had a place on our team, failed the tests.

Ah, yeah, figures.

The one on the top was Prophet.  Convinced he was Jesus reborn.

Huh. And here I was just recently talking about Christian end times and how Scion was the only one we knew of so far with a Jesus/divine aesthetic. I’m fairly sure there was something about false prophets in said end times.

What do you call a mix of people like that?  I’ve got a name in mind, but I can’t quite figure it out.”

Hmm…

Communion. That’s what you call them. This is Jesus’ body. This is Jesus’ blood.

“Murder Rat used to be a heroine, called herself the Mouse Protector.

Huh. Power to control mice and rats, perhaps? Or at least communicate with them?

In a similar vein to Taylor and the spiderbots, I’m imagining Mouse Protector using a computer without moving her hands other than to type, controlling the computer mouse with her mind.

Anyway, Mouse Protector is a somewhat silly name, but if you treat “mouse” as a metaphor for the small and helpless, then it becomes kind of evocative.

One of those capes who plays up the cheese, no pun intended.  Camped it up, acted dorky, used bad puns, so her enemies would be embarrassed to lose to her.

Pfft, like Spiderman. This is something I’ve previously commented on Worm not really doing, so it’s nice to know that there are capes in this world that actually are like this.

Ravager decided she’d had enough, asked the Nine to take Mouse Protector down.  So we took the job.  Beat Mouse Protector, and I took her to the operating table.

I’m beginning to understand why getting caught by the Nine is sometimes considered a fate worse than death.

The other Nine tracked down Ravager and collected her, too.  Just to make it clear that we don’t take orders.

…of course.

We aren’t errand boys or errand girls either.  Now Ravager gets to spend the rest of her life with the woman she hated, making up.”

Oddly poetic for talking about an inhuman Frankensteinian monstrosity.