Bitch glanced at Bastard.  He was growling, barely audible, low and steady, and his hackles were raised.  Were they still hackles if they were mostly fragments of calcified muscle and bone spikes?

Fuck if I know.

“Kill them,” Burnscar said.  She pointed at Grue and I.

Yeeeah.

As unsympathetic as she can be, she’s a lonely girl who needs her friends even if she won’t admit it. The Element of Loyalty, here being asked to kill the closest people she has to true friends, murdering her connections before someone can use them against her and facing the fear of not having them.

Bitch laughed, if you could call it that.  It was more of a snort, with zero humor to it.  “That’s supposed to be my biggest fear?  I don’t give two shits about them.”

I’m not sure how much of this is an unwillingness to admit it to herself and how much is an unwillingness to admit it to anyone else.

I doubt it’s Cherish being wrong. Unless of course this is Cherish attempting to sabotage the testing by lying.

“You do.  They’re the closest thing to a human connection you’ve had your entire life.  Maybe you haven’t thought it out loud to yourself, but you’re terrified at the idea of losing them.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s specifically Skitter and Grue that are here. Throughout the time we’ve known Bitch, she’s had much more to do with those two than with Tattletale and Regent.

Hell, I even suggested, early on, that Grue and Bitch had a moirallegiance, a kind of relationship where one party pacifies a more hot-tempered partner. In Homestuck, that’s considered downright romantic. I’ve since abandoned this idea because it turned out Grue was kind of bad at it, but they’ve still had a fair bit to do with each other.

You know as well as anyone else that this relationship with your team, it’s like winning the lottery for you.”

You do realize you’re pointing out that Bitch has reasons to not want to join the Nine, right? Unless you follow it up with the idea that the Nine could give her the same sense of human connection, but that’s more Bonesaw’s deal.

Lisa grinned.  “And I don’t like her.  But she’s not stupid, either.  She knows this is mutually beneficial.”

And hey, Faultline does generally seem willing to strike deals with people she doesn’t like.

Lisa drew a pen from her pocket and scribbled on the back of one page.  “My number, if you’re interested.”

He took the sheets, looked them over, then rolled them up and stuck them in his back pants pocket.

Lisa just gave Faultline her number. Let the kismesissitude bloom!

“We’ll be in touch one way or another,” he said.

Sounds good to me.

Then he was gone, around the side of the building and up to the roof in heartbeats.

See ya! 🙂

Newter frowned.

Before he could say anything, Lisa hurried to add, “I’m good at figuring stuff out.  I’m a fountain of knowledge.  I want to know more about this stuff, and I could help you guys in exchange for what you’ve already got.”

I think “fountain of knowledge” is the closest we’ve seen to Lisa actually telling someone outside the Undersiders what her power is.

But yeah, this seems like a really good deal for the Crew, though they might not realize how good.

“I’d have to ask Faultline.  She doesn’t like you.”

Oh, okay, he has figured out who Lisa is. To be fair, that’s not too hard given the information that Taylor is Skitter.

I do want to see some interactions between Faultline and Tattle. They sound like they’d have a fun dynamic.

♤

I bet Lisa wishes she were in costume now. Maybe she’d enjoy the chance to mess with her kismesis a bit.