I suppose there is a chance Night survives – she doesn’t seem to be quite dead yet (corpses don’t silently writhe, usually), but she’s getting close. But that’s a slim chance, and if she survives, that’s not likely to be thanks to Tattle, and so the characters will probably treat Tattle accordingly.
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The villainess lay there, silently writhing, hands behind her back. Blood welled from holes in her lower back and the space where her buttock met her thigh. I glanced at Tattletale, who had her gun raised, looking slightly surprised and disturbed by what she’d just had to do.
Well, it was between her or Grue. And really, Tattle makes a lot more sense textually, given that she opened the paragraph the gunshots were in. I just kinda forgot Tattle had a gun at first.
So, Taylor. That makes three murderers on your team, but this one was doing it to save you. What do you think?
Any sense of relief I felt at Night being taken out of action was short lived.
Too bright to look at, Purity hurtled down from the sky to land just beside Night and me.
…
Good job, you successfully got her attention.
Jeez, and here I thought one supervillain upset by this development was gonna be enough trouble for the rest of this chapter. At least Purity might be more willing to listen to Tattle, though the fact that the latter just shot one of her subordinates probably doesn’t help on that front.
More than ever, it is imperative that you follow the other Doctor’s advice and don’t turn your back on the body.
“Hey!” Tattletale spoke, “Pay attention!”
Night drew a knife from a hip sheath. She bent down over me.
Ah, dammit, are we doing the hostage thing? We’re doing the hostage thing aren’t we.
I dropped her cloak and struggled to reach behind my back for my own knife, but she was faster. The blade pressed against my throat. My hand caught her wrist, stopping her from going any further.
By the way? I like that Tattletale is completely open about the fact that she was looking for a way to “fuck with” the pair, even though that immediately reduces her credibility and can cause hostage taking of the “okay I’m listening but if I think you’re fucking with me, she dies” kind.
I was pretty sure my costume could take a cut from a knife, but if she found the gap where my mask was separate from the body portion of my costume that extended around the lower part of my neck, she could slide the blade through with no difficulty.
Ah, right, the one spot where this suit allows skin access.
“Damn you!” Tattletale shouted. I was only aware of Night’s unwavering, unblinking gaze, the feel of her wrist in my grip. Then the gunshots.
Grue?
Night didn’t even scream. She dropped partway on top of me, falling onto her side, her weight on my legs.
Rest in pepperonis.
Fog isn’t gonna like this, is he.
Night stood closer to me than the others. I could see how she had various pieces of equipment strapped to her hips, forearms, and back. Grenades, canisters, knives, something that looked like spray paint.
Told ya she had more.
She swatted at the bugs that were crawling around her face and eyes, but her attention was on Tattletale. I could have stood, maybe, but I didn’t want to draw her attention.
When your one of your power’s main uses requires you to talk to the enemy, it certainly doesn’t hurt to know how to make people listen.
“So I was at a loss to figure out how to fuck with you. You’re two dimensional.
Hehehe. Did she come to the conclusion that this is how to fuck with them, or did she eventually Know the one juicy thing about them?
Until I remembered that you left the Empire when Purity did. And when she came back? So did you.”
Ooooh this is probably even better. Through some extraknowlation, Tattle can figure out that these two don’t actually want to be here for Kaiser or even Purity, and work from there.
Night cocked her head a little to one side, listening. Again, she slapped at the bugs on one side of her face.
I can just imagine this as a shot in a cartoon. She cocks her head, the shot lingers on her for a couple seconds and then suddenly her arm comes up very quickly and slaps her cheek on the side she’s leaning away from.
Her face didn’t feel swollen, from what my swarm was conveying. Her eyes were open, blinking closed when a bug touched her eyelash. I suspected she healed back to perfect condition whenever she entered her other form, which would include cleansing herself of any toxins or allergens.
Huh, kinda like the dogs. Interesting. And also very inconvenient for anyone trying to defeat her through violent means.
Night looked down at me. Pale blue eyes.
How fitting that Night would have eyes like the moonlight.
…I’m not hitting on her.
“I saw your info. Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt.
…
I’m not the only one thinking of this, right?
First located in Hesse, Germany, moved to London, then Brockton Bay, Boston, then Brockton Bay again. No kids. Cat. Nothing interesting about you, besides the obvious.
I’m sure she’ll be supplementing some of the info from the e-mail with her own Knowledge. Although some of the info in the e-mail is already from her Knowledge.
I’m thinking you even have your dinners on rotation. Chicken and rice on Mondays, Steak and potatoes on Tuesdays? Something like that?”
Like this. It doesn’t seem like something Coil would include. 😛
Also, “No kids.” means I my guess about Rune was wrong. Oh well.
I pulled the cloak free and held it in my hands. I saw Tattletale on the other end of the alley. Fog had advanced quite a bit, but Regent and Bitch had apparently gotten Grue up on Brutus’ back, and both Brutus and Judas were with them, Brutus moving painfully slowly, while Judas was apparently blind or nearly blind from the damage to his face.
Eyy, progress! But also, hurt doggos 😦
They all stood not far behind Tattletale, masked by traces of the smoke from the smoke bomb.
I feel like this would look kinda cool. 🙂
She tackled me, keeping the fabric between us, and my baton slipped from my grasp as her weight slammed into the trunk of my body.
BUNP
The cloth of her cloak caught on my right hand and face. An angular arm with too many joints seized my right leg, another two latched onto my right arm and neck, respectively.
I wonder which arm will disappear if someone looks at her.
Her grip and proximity to me held the cloth in place, kept her obscured. I was hefted high into the air with a speed that dizzied me.
Well, this ain’t good.
She dropped me, making me grunt as I landed. Above me, my bugs touched her very human body.
Looks like someone’s looking again. Or did the cloak stop obscuring her?
I struggled to pull the cloth free, but it caught. After a few seconds of ineffectually trying to remove the cloak from myself and see what was happening, I was almost frantic. I brought my own bugs down on top of myself to get a better sense of what was happening.
Not the latter, at least.
What’s the benefit of putting her bugs on top of herself? Is she going to look through them?
Hooks. The black fabric of the cloak was woven with black-painted hooks at regular intervals. She’d worn that layer facing the outside.
Damn. The cloak isn’t just something she wears so she can hide herself like she just did, it’s specifically made to be hard and harmful to take off when she does that to you.
“You’re boring people, you know,” I heard Tattletale’s voice, and felt a fractional relief. I focused on pulling the hooks free.
Ooh, go Tattle!
Not that many were caught on the fabric, but there were some caught on the textured exterior of my armor, others on the straps that held my armor in place, a couple in my hair.
Good thing the armor covers all skin.
I scrambled to my feet, not taking my eyes off her, and rapidly backed up. A piece of the armor on my back dangled from where she’d cleaved through it, swinging against my backside in time with my steps.
Hrm. Better fix that before going up against Purity. Not that armor is likely to help much against her vaporizing rays.
I held the smoke grenade low, to minimize how much it obscured my vision. When I’d backed up enough that there was an alley to my right, I threw the smoke grenade away.
Nice. Though surely Night has more.
Night stopped following me, then swept her cloak up to shield against the bugs that still swarmed her. I couldn’t go as all-out as I normally might with my swarm, without risking that I’d obscure my own vision of her and give her another opportunity to transform.
Ah, yeah, that’d be a problem.
Second try, then. Baton in hand, I charged her.
She was thrashing beneath her cloak, six or so paces away. The bugs were nipping and stinging flesh. Good. One or two more good hits with the baton, she’d be disabled.
Disabled in her human form. Who knows, maybe she’ll still be able to get up in monster form.
Night bent low, and I thought maybe she was down for the count.
Then she swept her cloak off and threw it up into the air. It opened wide and momentarily filled my field of vision.
This woman has a fair few tricks up her sleeve.
I heard her footsteps, two normal ones, heels clicking rapidly as she ran, then the noise of claws scraping against hard ground.
That’s rarely a good sound to hear, unless they’re dog claws.
Night staggered from the blow, and I drove my shoulder into her. It wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped, but I did get her far enough away from the canister that I could duck down and scoop it up in one hand.
Nice work! Now what? Are you gonna throw it out of the battlefield or something?
I dashed away, past her, and she struck me from behind. I knew from the magnitude of the impact that she wasn’t in her human shape as she hit me, and for one paralyzing moment, I suspected I’d made a terminal error.
Ah, shit. No one was looking, huh?
The blow was enough to knock me to the ground and make me roll a half-dozen times before I could stop myself. I cast a glance over my shoulder as I stopped. Night was there, and the residual smoke from the canister that surrounded her had apparently been sufficient to block my teammates’ view.
Damn.
Stupid of me to turn my back. I was lucky that she hadn’t had more than a second or two in her transformed state to act.
The Doctor warned you against turning your back on her, Taylor.
“Don’t blink. Don’t even. Blind and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t. blink. Good luck.”
She pulled the pin free, and black smoke began billowing from the upper end of the canister.
Hm, I guess she’s got some variety in her blinding arsenal.
It was suicidal, perhaps one of the dumbest things I’d done yet: I charged her.
Oh jeez. What are you thinking, Taylor?
She was already standing, holding the canister out in front of her to ensure the plumes of colored smoke obscured her quickly. I struck at her hand with my baton, knocking the smoke grenade to the ground. I stooped for it, but she stepped forward, blocking it with her body, seizing my shoulders.
Would getting a hold of it even help much?
She wrestled me to one side of the alley, perhaps to try and push me away and buy time for the smoke to build up, maybe for another angle. I wouldn’t find out, because I brought my baton against the side of her face.
Nice!
I got a sense from the feeling of the hit that she didn’t wear any armor or protective wear beneath the cowl and mask.
Ooh, bad move, Night. Maybe it’s your turn to be concussed.
