Tag: Worm

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There seems to be a theme among at least some of the Nine of great potential wasted on evil.

I mean, you’ve got

  • Mannequin, who used to be Sphere, making major progress towards space colonization and helping society in great ways;
  • Siberian, who could quite possibly take out an Endbringer if they tried;
  • Bonesaw, who could save so many lives and improve the bodies of so many good people if she just understood the concepts of consent and bodily integrity, not to mention provide massive insights into the study of powers and create incredibly useful medical technology;
  • Crawler, who is nearly invulnerable and nearly unkillable by anything that does hurt him, and could do so much good by using that huge body of his to protect people;
  • Shatterbird, another real powerhouse;
  • Pinkie Pie, who could bring smiles to so many faces with normal cupcakes;
  • Cherish, who could be used to find missing people and probably to cure certain mental illnesses;
  • Burnscar, who could (…save people from burning buildings by teleporting?) probably have become great too if her power’s intoxicating effect and the Nine hadn’t fucked her over;
  • and, uh, Jack Slash. I don’t know about him. He’s clever, though, so there’s that.
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End of Prey 14.2

This was quite solid! Siberian was kept at bay for the most part, but the sense that she was a big threat was nicely kept up throughout the chapter. 🙂

I was bamboozled, but I’m not complaining. I’m all for more Amy (to a much larger extent than more Colin), and while she didn’t get the chance to do much besides run and hide, the third thing she ended up doing could lead to some excellent developments: She had to trust Skitter and let herself be saved by other villains. I wonder how that’s going to make her feel when it comes to her hangups about heroism and villainy, but first and foremost I’m hoping it’ll lead to more amycable relations between Amy and the Undersiders and, through that, more Amy.

Next chapter, we need to keep Siberian from fucking up the other half of the Undertravelers. I’m interested in how this will be presented. We’re definitely not just going to make a phone call and wait to hear how things went, so we’re probably looking at either a) the group we’ve been following arriving at the scene at the beginning of the chapter with Siberian already making a mess of their plans (especially anything that targets Bonesaw), or b) an Interlude from the perspective of someone on that scene before and after Siberian’s arrival. Probably a Traveler if that’s the case, though it is worth noting that Trickster and Sundancer are out of the running since they’re in the wrong group. Genesis, perhaps? Ballistic would be nice too, but Genesis’ power would be more interesting to get a first-person description of.

Of course, there’s also the rest of the Nine to watch out for.

So yeah, that ought to be fun. See you next time!

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krixwell-liveblogs:

Wrap-up post tomorrow. We just had a death scare for Mozart (my cat), and while we just now determined (to our massive relief) that the hairs we thought had fallen off him in droves during a fight were actually dog hairs, probably brushed off, we still don’t know where he is. I haven’t quite recovered from the scare yet, and probably won’t until I actually see him.

So yeah, I’m not exactly in a blog-wrapping mood. See you tomorrow for wrap-up and asks.

(Between chapters) (Prey 14.2, part 1, part 2, part 3)

HE’S HERE

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Wrap-up post tomorrow. We just had a death scare for Mozart (my cat), and while we just now determined (to our massive relief) that the hairs we thought had fallen off him in droves during a fight were actually dog hairs, probably brushed off, we still don’t know where he is. I haven’t quite recovered from the scare yet, and probably won’t until I actually see him.

So yeah, I’m not exactly in a blog-wrapping mood. See you tomorrow for wrap-up and asks.

(Between chapters) (Prey 14.2, part 1, part 2, part 3)

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Siberian flickered and disappeared.  Tattletale’s jaw dropped.

Close enough. She’d have run instead if they hadn’t let on that they already knew her secret.

So was the entire point of this to reroute Siberian’s focus so this part of the team can escape with Amy?

“Shit,” Trickster cursed, “She-”

“Just get a phone!  Warn them!”

Or did you not expect her to go to her teammates’ (Bonesaw’s) aid?

I mean, at first it seemed they didn’t expect her to go that quickly, but it sounds like they didn’t have their immediate response to her going planned out.

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“Reason number two, we’re aiming to kill you.  See, we know about your… other self.”

So, why are you letting her know that you know?

There wasn’t the slightest reaction from Siberian.

I wonder if she would have reacted if Taylor had indeed found her real self with the bugs earlier.

“And the third reason, I think you should know, is sort of tied into the first.  We’re making you waste time.  Longer you take to kill Panacea, here, the better off we are.

Ah, yeah, I suppose that’s true.

Awfully arrogant of you to leave your team and go off to pick off candidates like Amy.  The rest of your team?  Crawler, Jack, Mannequin and Bonesaw?  Right this second, they’re getting a surprise visit from the rest of our team.  What do you think-”

Ohhh. Well that answers that lingering question!

So is she getting cut off because Siberian lunged? Or ran towards “home”?

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“I think you should know,” Tattletale smiled, “We’re here for three reasons.”

Three…

  1. save Amy
  2. stop Siberian
  3. ???
  4. profit

I suppose “help Cherish” might count, but that’s more like a coincidence and tool than a goal.

So what do you have in mind, Tattle?

Siberian’s eyes narrowed.

“Reason number one, we’re trying to save that girl.  I mean, if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t know if I would have risked it, but we do have some more compassionate people on our team.”  She glanced at me.  “For better or worse.”

Bit of both, yeah, depending on your point of view.

I could see Siberian flex her fingers.  Her nails were long, and they were sharp.

Usually it takes a couple more personal lines before people start physically showing a desire to strangle Tattletale.

There wasn’t anything special about them, on an aesthetic level, but they did have the benefit of her power.  If she raked those across a surface, they would leave gouges.

Yeah, absolutely.

Didn’t matter how hard or dense the material was.

The Mohs scale crumbles at her touch!

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And there was Siberian.  Faintly glowing eyes, black and white striped skin, straight hair in similar variations of black and white, trailing to her tailbone.

Why did you dismiss the darkness, Grue? Did you think it made it too difficult for everyone to get their bearings before Siberian found them anyway?

“Thank you, Grue,” Tattletale said.  Had she asked him to cancel out his power?  It wasn’t like he was borrowing any power that would work on Siberian, and as for the concealment effects, they wouldn’t do much.

I still suspect Siberian’s own power might work against her, but she’d be way more powerful in that mirror match.

And, as it turned out, she wanted to talk.

Right. Let’s Tattletale this bitch.

Better hope she’s more willing to listen than Jack was.

She pulled herself up to a standing position and raised one hand, palm facing Siberian.  “Hold on.”

“Hey, infamously unstoppable monster, could you stop for a sec?”

Siberian stopped.

Turns out the key to stopping her was simply asking nicely.

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It took her a few seconds to realize we weren’t Siberian.  She might have calmed down at that realization, but she didn’t get a chance.

I hope at no point during pulling her up did you touch her skin. That might’ve ended badly, before she could complete the thought “I can sense their biology, so they’re not Siberian”.

Siberian closed the gap in a single bound, crashing into Bentley, Lisa, Trickster and Sundancer and shoving them forward into the rest of us.

shit

We sprawled, and I felt my leg bend painfully as Sirius rolled over it.

Yeah that’d do it alright. Most legs don’t deal well with being rolled over by cars. Or car-sized dogs.

Fortunately there’s a healer around, if you can keep her and yourselves alive.

Grue banished his darkness.  I could see the six of us and the two dogs, lying on the road. Nobody dead.

Wait, you didn’t banish it entirely, did you? Even if Siberian’s found you, you don’t want her to see you more than absolutely necessary to get your own bearings.