Carrying the truck, Siberian headed for the storm drains anyways, tearing through the piles of debris.  Legend unloaded on the entire street, collapsing them around her.  Some of my bugs descended with the pieces of the shattered street, and they could feel the warmth of the outside air mingling with the cold, stagnant air of the storm drains.  He’d exposed her.

Nice work, dude.

I’d seen Legend go all out, and this wasn’t it.  Why was he holding back?

Civilians?

Granted, there was little point in hitting Siberian with everything he had, and it was easily possible that trying to drill a hole in the ground around her could theoretically give her the chance to escape, if she found some underground cavern or tunnel, but it could just as easily drown her.

I doubt the monochrome can drown, but the real body sure can.

So long as she had the truck, Siberian had to stay places where there was oxygen.  She couldn’t, I was assuming, dive beneath the water and make her escape from there.  Legend seemed to be going out of his way to keep her aboveground and exposed, attacking only when he had to.

Maybe it’s so she doesn’t burrow, but that too ought to be more difficult with the truck.

He was conserving his strength.  As much as both he and Siberian were powerhouses with more offensive capability than ninety-nine percent of people on the planet, this was a strategic battle.

Ahh… for what?

It was easily possible he was planning to keep this up for hours, harrying her, keeping her from getting her feet under her.

…now if that ain’t karmic, heh.

I chained relay bugs together so one connected to the next, then extended them well beyond the range of my power.  Their progress was relatively slow, but it did allow me to sweep over an entire region around the library.

Sweet.

Bugs stirred into action at my order, and they crawled or flew within a few feet of every horizontal surface that Jack or Bonesaw could be standing on.

No sign of them.  The vault door beneath the library was closed and sealed.

Yeeah, that might be a problem is they’re actually there. It might not have been at the other shelter.

I was about to return to the others when an explosion of dust and rock fragments ripped through a group of bugs a few blocks away from me.

…

Is that good? That’s probably not good.

Wait, so how far is she from the bomb zone? Is this the Bakuda barrage going off?

A woman, no clothes.

To the tune of Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”.

My bugs slid off her skin.

Are we sure it’s even really skin at this point?

Even the slightest abrasion on the surface of the skin served to tear through the legs and bodies of the bugs.  Had to be Siberian.

Well, yeah. I felt like that went without saying, honestly.

I guess this gives Taylor the opportunity to track her movement towards wherever the Nine actually are.

Also, is she still carrying the truck, or has she set her real body down to move separately again?

If the general shape of the large object she was holding was any indication, she still held the truck.

Alright. So that’s still invulnerable, presumably, but if Taylor can get her to drop the truck, she has another shot at killing the real Siberian.

“If you’re sure.”

“She’s not the only person who gets a say,” Grue said.

Yeeah, this is exactly the kind of plan he was calling her out on before.

“Name a better option, then?” I said.

“We all go to the library’s shelter, then we all go to the shelter Leviathan attacked,” he said.  “Safer, smarter.”

Of course he wants to do it the most cautious way. But then we’re back to Lisa’s worries about missing them.

(Incidentally, going to the library first is actually a good choice. If it wasn’t a narrative – i.e. if I were in-universe and had no clue about Wildbow – I would’ve called that as the most likely location from the start, due to the state of the shelter Leviathan attacked.)

“If you’re worried about me being defenseless,” I suggested, “Regent could come with me.”

Sounds like fun!

“There’s a reason we’re keeping that pair close to us,” Grue said.  “If he gets taken down, you’ll have to deal with Shatterbird on top of everything else.  We’re capable of handling her, I think.  I don’t know if you are.”

Fair point.

I frowned.

Tattletale looked back at the others, then back at me.  “Go.”

Yeah, I suppose you just gotta cut the rope here. If you stand around arguing all day they’re even more likely to get away.

I looked at Grue.

Tattletale pointed.  “Go!  Stay in contact!”

I turned and lifted off.

See ya later, when you catch up!

So I guess they are going to be at the library after all then. The point of the option Taylor wouldn’t want to go to was to make her split off from the others and have to deal with Jack, Bonesaw and maybe Siberian on her own until the others could catch up.

“But I have the ability to find him,” I pointed out.  “Before he finds me.  Amy gave me bugs that increase my range.  I’ll be taking on some risk, but it means we’re able to check both locations at the same time and keep an eye out for the Nine.  It’s the best way to strike the balance we need.”

I suppose she’s right.

“The balance,” Grue said.  He was clearly unimpressed.

“Minimal risk to maximum effect.  Your group will be safe because you’re all together and you’ll vastly outnumber them.  I’ll be safe because I’m airborne, and I’ll have the advantage of an early warning.  Offensively, you guys will have the Travelers and Bitch.  I’ll have my bugs.”

I really don’t think the bugs are equivalent to the Travelers and Bitch against Jack, Bonesaw and maybe Siberian.

“Bonesaw countered your bugs last time around,” Tattletale pointed out.

And Jack has similar biological armor.

I nodded.  “I have a few things in mind.”

…my interest is piqued.

“What if-” I started.  “No.”

What were you going to say?

“Keep talking,” Tattletale prodded me.

“What if I scouted the library, while you guys checked out the other site?  I can fly, it’s faster for me to get there.”

…

Alright, fine. I can live with that.

Though in-universe they have no reason to believe they need more people at the other site than at the library.

“And we’d be one mistake away from you being killed,” Grue said.  “If not worse.”

“Trust me, I know what worse is like.”

“Hear me out.  Their only real long-range attacker is Jack, right?  If I’m flying, the others won’t be able to touch me.”

Yes, but you’d be an easy target for Jack unless you flew pretty high up.

“You think.”

“I think.  But if Jack’s at the location, I’d be able to sense him before he got a bead on me.  If that’s the case… I can just attack without exposing myself, and I can alert you guys.”

I suppose she’d be able to use the relay bugs for that last part.

(They said the shelters were close by each other, but I doubt they’re both in normal range for a flying Taylor at the same time. Even if it made sense for shelters to be built that close to each other, that would render all of this moot.)

“Assuming he’s not two steps ahead of us and waiting at some vantage point somewhere nearby,” Grue said.

Good point.

“He functions like a sniper,” Tattletale said.  “Ignore the fact that he slashes and stabs, he’s a long-range combatant with a good sense of what the enemy is doing and how his teammates move on the battlefield.  He stays out of the way and makes surgical strikes, then relocates to another vantage point.  The only thing that keeps him from doing that all the time is how he has to stay involved with his team and keep them under control.

Interesting.

Can’t make it look like you’re in charge if you’re not there.  With less teammates to manage, he’s liable to go on the offensive.”

That makes sense, yeah.