Amateur Artist in Practice

by TrisVen

Summary:

Someone who can’t remember anything of who they were, wakes up as a certain Artist in the world of worm as the chained heart of some of the most infamous villains around. Let’s hope that she can survive with her new power, a power that no one seems to like very much.

Notes:

Hello! Welcome to Amateur Artist, my first ever fanfic!

Actually, this is my first ever writing project ever really, so this will probably not be very good, but I’m trying!

I like Bonesaw and think she’s pretty cool, but there aren’t a lot of fanfics with Bonesaw as the protagonist, so I decided to try to contribute myself.

P.S. I know next to nothing in the medical field and am looking it up as I go so… look out for that.

I hope you all enjoy this, because I had some fun making it!

Chapter 1: Wake up, good doctor

The man with the odd smile is standing over me again. Waiting for me to finish and move on, again. Just so he can ruin her. Again. I hate him.

 

I’m so tired, they haven’t let me rest in so long. They won’t leave, won’t stop hurting them, waiting for me to give up on them. Why won’t they leave?

 

The man with the odd smile is the worst out of all of them. He never stops looking at me, he’s always too close, he’s the most frequent, he knows more than he should. I hate him.

 

I hate him most of all because of his voice.

 

I can’t block him out, he won’t shut up and when he does, I’m on edge and want him to continue. I hate him.

 

I wish he’d just go away. I wish he’d just leave us alone. I wish he didn’t exist. I hate him.

 

I’m almost done with mom, I have to reconnect her stomach to… her or else the sugary stuff in her blood, which I have to substitute later, will drop and kill her. I’ll have to leave her barely surviving, but I can fix her later. Yes, I can fix her later.

 

Later. After they leave us alone. After he leaves us alone.

 

They will leave, right?

 

Right?

 

…

 

I finish with mom, and leave to fix Drew. The man with the odd smile doesn’t even wait for me to leave the room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I awake with a massive headache, and decide that I can afford to lay in bed a bit longer.

 

I don’t think I’ll do whatever it is I did last night for a long time after this.

 

I can’t stay like this forever though, gotta get up soon so I can… what do I have to do today?

 

I have to… huh, last night must’ve really messed me up. What do I do for a living? Well, I’m… who am I again.

 

Maybe this is a little more serious than I thought it was? Should I be concerned?

 

Why do I feel that I know the answer is no?

 

I sit up in my bed, dropping the blanket, try not to disturb the other person in the bed, and rub my hands against my eyes to calm the riot being held in my brain.

 

Wait, other person?

 

I open my eyes, adapting to the lighting in the room pretty fast, and look over to my left to see one of the strangest people I’ve ever seen.

 

She’s a large woman, dwarfing me in size, with what seems to be a full body tattoo of tiger stripes. She’s weirdly pale, actually she’s just straight up the color white along with her black tiger stripes and long white hair. She’s also wearing nothing, not even a blanket, and I’m not even sure if she’s breathing.

 

Wait, she’s naked, why am I in bed with a strange naked woman who seems to be at least two times my own height. Actually, now that I’m looking, why is everything in this room so big, what am I wearing?

 

I’m wearing a… blue dress and socks? To bed? New question, was I always this short? Where am I anyway?

 

I’m in a, frankly, trashed bedroom. The dressing table across the room looks like it was crushed and then someone tried to put it back together without much care or effort. The large square mirror connected is no longer a square and is utterly shattered. The walls have dents and are punched in places. There’s random debris scattered across the floor, presumably from the walls and broken furniture. There are also pieces of what I can only call a shelf mixed within the debri.

 

The only untouched furniture in the room is the, now that I’m looking, a full sized bed and two bedside tables

 

On the table on my side are two blue ribbons, an apron, and a pair of nice looking Mary Jane’s for children.

 

The only source of light in the room is a shattered window on the strange lady’s side. Said light illuminating the room.

 

And how the apron, my dress, and some of the room is covered in blood.

 

Surprisingly, the blood doesn’t provoke any response in me whatsoever. Which is weird because I should be screaming at my situation right now.

 

I go to get up off the bed and am stopped and picked up by the strange woman. 

 

The woman’s yellow eyes look at me, then my bedside table, then back to me and tilts her head, like she’s asking a question.

 

Still surprised by the woman, I blankly nodded, and she plopped me in her lap, brushed my hair, my blonde hair which curled into ringlets, tied the two ribbons into my hair, and put both the apron and Mary Jane’s on me. She stood up and gestured for me to follow.

 

It took me a solid ten seconds to get the message and hurriedly stood up and walked up to the strange woman.

 

She stood there looking at me, waiting for something. Waiting on me. She’s waiting on me.

 

Fuck, what do I do, what do I say?

 

“…Good morning!” I said, weirdly cheerfully, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, and I’m sure my voice didn’t sound like that yesterday.

 

She continued to stare at me, making me internally panic. Why isn’t she saying anything? Does she think something’s wrong? If it wasn’t for all the blood and the fact that she’s still naked, I wouldn’t be this nervous.

 

“Did you have a good sleep… mom?” She was asleep with me, now a child apparently, naked in bed and brushed my hair and dressed me. It was my best guess, sue me!

 

She continued to stare at me, but she finally nodded! Yes! Boom! One point to me!

 

“I had a good sleep too!” I started off, because I can converse like a normal person, “…do you not have any clothes?” 

 

She stares at me, and I get the feeling she’s… incredulous at me? Shit, gotta back track.

 

“Hah, just kidding ~! Love ya mom!” Please for the love of all that is holy buy that!

 

She stares at me, then she mimes a laugh then gestures me towards the door. Is she mute? Is that why she hasn’t said anything?

 

I walk to and open the door, the hallway outside the door is even worse off than the bedroom. It’s way more messy and destroyed, some sunlight is even peeking through the ceiling, and there’s even more gore around. Some sort of organ is hanging off th-

 

Can graft into the neck, further induce production quantity, allow for ranged spitting acid attack, can further guard the neck as a mesh, can be repaired by inducing regeneration in the tissue and providing proper nutrients.

 

-e jagged piece of wood. What was that? Why was that a thought? Would that even work? 

 

Yes

 

Yes, apparently. Ok, let’s focus on that later. Where am I? I might be able to figure this out soon, I can hear voices down the hallway.

 

I carefully start to navigate my way down the hallway, but the strange, still naked, woman who may or may not be my mother, picks me up and put me on her shoulders. I contentedly kick my legs, because heck yeah, king of the hill.

 

She walks down the hall, completely ignoring the debris, I notice. We enter into a living room with a kitchen connected. Inside are 4(?) people.

 

A robot of some kind seems to just be leaving, confusing me because what, robots? Am I in a sci-fi setting? The house is destroyed, so maybe less advanced society and more fallout apocalypse.

 

A teenage girl with a purple streak in her hair is talking amicably with a woman wearing floating stained glass (what?) and a… man with an odd smile, the man from my dream. Unlike the other two, he’s staring right at me, with that same damn smile, adding in an occasional comment to the conversation.

Notes:

Heyo, it’s me again, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter as I’m aiming to make this fic a long one.

That’s right, first fic, with no plan, trying for above at least 50k words, 100k if I’m feeling lucky. Go big or go home they say.

Anyway, I’ll be uploading infrequently probably, but I’ll try to upload at least once a week.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter 2: Hello to Your Family

Summary:

Still confused, our protagonist tries to figure out where and who she is while hopefully not setting anyone off.

Notes:

Heyo, it’s me again, sorry about the… hopefully inaccurate information on the story! That should be somewhat sorted out by this chapter.

I know this one is coming right after the first, but I just felt like posting this one.

Thank you again for reading!

The man with the odd smile is staring at me while the other two converse, waiting for something. I would almost say he seems confused, and that confuses me for some reason. Like, can Jack even be confused? Wait what, his name is Jack? I’m gonna push the connotations that holds until later as well.

 

The two sitting with him at the table are still conversing, and in an attempt to ignore Jack over there I try to tune in to their conversation.

 

“… telling you that Brockton is an excellent place to hit! There are plenty of strong parahumans there and it was recently hit by Leviathan!” Purple Streak tells Stained Glass. Apparently, they’re in an argument about hitting Brockton.

 

“And I’m telling you that the Slaughterhouse has already visited and that there are better spots to recruit right now.” Stained tells Streak. Slaughterhouse? Recruitment? Are these team members?

 

“There are plenty of strong parahumans over there you can recruit! And besides that, what spots are better than Brockton anyway?” Says Streak. Parahumans?

 

“I’ve looked around and there’s a powerful time-based parahuman named Dronning in Worcester. She’s like us, but local and a little… pathetic.” Stained strikes back.

 

“So? You’re the only one who wants to go somewhere else. Burnscar wants to visit her friend there, Mannequin wants to kill the local Protectorate leader, and Bonesaw wants to visit their healer.” Streak provides a hefty information dump. 

 

Burnscar, Mannequin, and Bonesaw, members of our team Slaughterhouse. I have the feeling that we aren’t particularly good people. Speaking of, I feel like I know Bonesaw.

 

“First off, that’s not everyone. Second off, this isn’t a democracy, Jack’s boss and his word is final. Third off-“ Stained tries to snap back, but was interrupted by Jack.

 

“Good morning, Little Poppet.” His voice rang out.

 

“Good morning, Jack!” I say back on instinct. I feel kind of slimy now.

 

“Oh, good morning Bonesaw, Siberian.” Streak greets us, while Stained doesn’t even acknowledge us.

 

Wait, my name is either Bonesaw or Siberian? Who named me?

 

“Good morning to you too… you” I end awkwardly. Look, I had to answer quickly, okay? The strange woman nods at Streak.

 

Stained lets out a chuckle at my awkward end, while Streak’s eye twitches in genuine annoyance while she dramatically leans back like I struck her.

 

Jack, still confusingly confused, lifts his eyebrow as if to say ‘really?’.

 

“I can’t believe this, you’ve forgotten my name, again. How?! I get that I’m newest, but I’ve been here for over a month! My name is Cherish. Please remember it and try not to-“ she gets the stare from Jack “-to use it too much…” she finishes nervously. Don’t worry Cherish, I feel ya.

 

Stained started to chuckle again by the end of Cherish’s introduction, earning a glare from Cherish.

 

Jack stands up all of a sudden and starts to walk out the front door, “We’ll decide where to stop outside later, alright? Bonesaw, sweetie, start to pack your stuff into the van, alright? Alright.” He leaves, Stained leaving with him.

 

“Fucking Shatterbird” Cherish sighs, standing up and walking up to me and, apparently, Siberian.

 

“Language!” My voice exits me without my permission. Why did I say that? I’m sure at this point that not only were there physical changes, but mental ones. Fuuuuuuuck.

 

Cherish just sighs again and gestures for me to lead. Uh oh.

 

Well, uh, maybe I can ask…?

 

“Hey, I’m still kinda tired, do you remember where I put my work?” My work?

 

She sighs, again, and leads me and Siberian to the door directly across from the room me and my mother figure slept in.

 

Cherish opens the door as Siberian puts me down so I can enter.

 

…

 

Jesus.

 

Okay, there are a few spider boxes-

 

Helper to be used in surgery, controlled via remote control, can be used for manipulation of objects, injections, and harvesting.

 

-a pack full of surgical equipment, a pack full of more specific materials to be used, and most importantly 4 people, all seeming to be college age. All of them appear to be brutalized and partially gored. Only two of them, a woman wear a torn tuxedo with long brown hair missing the skin from her neck down to her waist, with bits of metal sticking out of her-

 

Control frame allows Bonesaw to force her control on those in one.

 

-as well as a beaten face, and a man wearing a hoodie and jeans, with half of his body seeming to be one big third-degree burn-

 

Mixing substance 13 with water, then coating will revert the damage. Mixing 7 with 13 and water will renew burnt nerves, causing extreme pain.

 

-along with a biomechanical eye-

 

Acts as a substitute human eye, provides excellent vision, can be removed and replaced with no damage to other functions.

 

-and tattered shoes appear to be alive. I could inference this from the fact the other two aren’t breathing and these two started to quietly sob when I walked in.

 

Who was I before yesterday?

 

Okay, I’m a sympathetic person, but I gotta make it seem natural with both Cherish and Siberian in the room with me.

 

I start the conversation while helping my spider boxes pack my surgery equipment into several more bags in the room.

 

“Heyo, I’m back you four, did you all sleep well?” That was a bit too cruel, but it works.

 

Or maybe it didn’t because the two alive ones just started crying more.

 

“…uh, we’re leaving today so, uh, quiet down, pick up a bag, and come on?” What do I do in this situation? 

 

They seemingly calm down in an instant and all four go to pick up the bagged equipment.

 

“…Okay let’s go.” Alright, past me was definitely an evil monster, so what if I try to cheer them up, be agreeable and nice? Ooh, I can get Cherish‘s help, she seems sociable and I don’t think she shoved robots in their skin to control them like puppet while they were awake.

 

“Hey Cherish?” I start.

 

“Yeah?” She questions.

 

“I need help with… these two here, they don’t seem to be in the best of moods and I want them to cheer up a bit, can you…” I trail off meaningfully.

 

“I gotcha.” She replies, and suddenly the two are smiling. What? That was terrifying, but maybe I can learn a little more about them? Maybe we can even be friends!

 

“Hey, what are your names?” I oh so discreetly ask.

 

“Well, little miss monster, I don’t really feel like telling you my name.” The woman cheerfully replies, before laughing like she told an inside joke between the two of us.

 

“The name’s Nonya.” The man replies. Finally, an actual answer. 

 

While I’m smiling and Cherish chuckles to herself we arrive outside, where I’m reminded that Siberian is right there behind me by her casted shadow.

 

Outside packing things into a van while discussing something is a lady with spots on her cheeks, Shatterbird, Jack, the robot, and one of the largest, and kind of beautiful actually, creature I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Chapter 3: A Talk about the Fish and Balloons

Summary:

Bonesaw watches her family, while learning valuable lessons from Mannequin and Jack.

Notes:

I have returned with another chapter!

I know that the chapters individually are kinda short right now, but I don’t want to stretch a chapter beyond my abilities right now so they may stay at 1k per chapter for awhile, but in the future I can hopefully make them longer, I want to aim for 3k per chapter.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy and thank you all for the feedback!

The large creature turns on the lights in my brain. I really want to examine the damn thing, open it up and see the thing’s insides. Actually, looking around, with the exception of Siby behind me, I want to tear everyone here apart and use what’s left to… do something, but the creature has so many complex parts to it that I just want to stuff it in a box and gradually tear it apart over the course of at least a week.

 

In short, I want to tear big biological thing apart.

 

The robot is also interesting because I’m half sure that it isn’t a robot, just a shell with the person inside. I’m a bit disturbed that instead of being disturbed by this, I’m just vaguely impressed and want to figure out how.

 

The robot is using some sort of sign language which I actually kind-of understand. Thank you, odd knowledge and instincts!

 

‘Brockton is an easy target, but besides the Protectorate leader and their healer, they won’t amount as much as, say, Hollistan’ the robot signs, I think Cherish mentioned the leader earlier, Armsmaster I think it was?

 

Jack looks back at me after the robot finishes, smirks, and tells the girl with the scarred cheeks what the robot said. The girl looks back at the robot and quivers.

 

“I understand b-but… the entire reason I joined was to… and… and both Panacea and Armsmaster have potent powers with larger specialties, they can do more than most others could, please!” Scar girl seems incredibly distressed, I can think of some ways to stop that. Wait, no, shut up instinctive knowledge.

 

“Mannequin, I hate to argue on this side, but I do actually agree with Mimi here-“ Mimi physically recoils at Shatterbird’s use of her name, odd “-and I think we should hit Brockton because of just how convenient the place is.” I have the feeling that Shatterbird’s opinions are usually law for her. Wonder why she changed her mind.

 

“I agree, thank you Shatterbird.” Says the reason. She seems to like Jack so I guess that makes sense.

 

‘Leader, I know convincing arguments have been thrown around but-‘ Mannequin starts, but is interrupted.

 

“There isn’t anyone there strong enough there for me.” The large creature’s rumbles out of its mouth-

 

Three mouths

 

-out of its three mouths.

 

Mimi looks terrified of the beast right now, but she actually takes her shot.

 

“T-t-there’s actually a few-“ and Jack metaphorically slaps the gun out of her hand before she can shoot.

 

“Actually, there is a powerful cape currently in Brockton that could definitely make a mess of you.” Jack states offhandedly, like he’s listing stuff off a routine check instead of throwing Mimi, Shatterbird, and probably Cherish a life line.

 

Speaking of Cherish, she started making her way over since Shatterbird started talking, looking unbothered.

 

“So! I think Brockton Bay, Massachusetts is our one and only place to pay a visit?” She prods and purrs.

 

‘No, we have not finished the discus-‘ and Mannequin got cut off again. Poor guy gets like no respect, huh?

 

“Alan, please, unless you have any actual arguments, please stop talking.” What I find most disrespectful of all is that Jack hasn’t actually looked in Mannequin’s direction this entire time. Also, his name is Alan, not Mannequin?

 

For some reason, that looks like it shut him up. Poor guy, I still wanna figure out how he works via vivisection though so maybe I’m in the wrong too.

 

“We’re all in agreement?” Jack asks, and he looks directly at me for some reason. What, I’m a child, keep arguing in front of me like good parents.

 

Every one gives off some sort of agreement and shuffles into the van. The large creature disappearing in feels like a magic trick or something.

 

Siberian (she startled the life out of me when she grabbed my hand by the way) led me into the backseats of the van.

 

It looks like Cherish is driving. Badly, but she’s trying.

 

Finally, room to talk. There’s probably more important information to learn, but this has been killing me.

 

“Hey, Alan, what does your shell do?” I ask him, not knowing any better phrasing than that.

 

He flinches and brings over a… sphere for some reason.

 

He extends a blade out of his pseudo pointer finger and attempts to pierce the sphere with the obviously deadly weapon, and he fails, not even a scratch.

 

Then he grabs one of my dead puppets and cuts upwards from its midsection like it isn’t there, hell, he got the control frame too.

 

So it’s just hard armor? I don’t see- oh, why did you open that window? Was that a button? Ok, you threw it out of the window. Well, that wasn’t very help-.

 

The damn thing blows up and fucking evaporates its surroundings. What the fuck?!

 

With the exception of Burnscar, no one seems to even care. What was that?

 

‘You’re THE biotinker, so I don’t know your exact specialty, but mine is closed circuits and environments’ he explains to me, and despite being in disbelief, I learn that me and him are both biotinkers, but with different specialties? Wait his specialty is- oh, he’s just cool goo in those shells, isn’t he?

 

Something I should’ve mentioned earlier is the fact that Jack hasn’t looked away from me since I started talking, and he’s smiling like a, bleh, proud father.

 

“So Poppet, are you excited to meet your new big sister?” Fuck, what did Cherish say about me earlier?

 

“Yeah, I can’t wait! Panacea is an inspiration to everyone, I can’t wait to learn from her! We’ll have so much fun together!” I blurt out, hoping that made some sort of sense.

 

Jack looks delighted at my response, while my puppets and Burnscar shivered, so… success? Wait, why am I vying for fucking Jack’s affection?

 

“Are you excited Jack?” I ask.

 

“Oh yes, I’m very excited.” He says and doesn’t elaborate further. I’m not letting you off that easily.

 

“Really! Why?” I push, showcasing my, absolutely adorable, puppy eyes at him. Please, you three, stop flinching.

 

“Ah, well, I have a feeling that we’d have a lot of fun and learn some new lessons along the there.” What does that even mean?

 

“Do you have any plans for when we arrive Bonesaw?” And there's his snapback. Dammit, fuck, okay, what can I do? Instinct! Give me an idea!

 

…

 

Please?

 

…

 

Alright, what’s something suitably scary and creative I can do? Well, I still want to tear everyone apart. Why do I want to do that? To see them inside out. Them popping like balloons? 

 

I go to tell him, but he raises an eyebrow and instantly I know that’s not gonna cut it. What do you want from me? 

 

Wait, actually, what if it spreads. It could spread via the gore when touched. Ooh, what if popped slowly, like a limb starts to fill, then after like half a minute it pops and spreads it before spreading to other body parts.

 

…

 

Number 3, come here.

 

…

 

Hip bone’s connected to the, Back-Bone~

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

…hm?

 

What the-?!

 

Why am I covered in blood?!

 

Why is Jack smiling like a maniac?

 

What happened to my slashed puppet?

 

What the hell is in this syringe?

 

Injects a disease spread via skin contact that causes delayed swelling then popping of the swelling body part. Popping spreads gore out more effectively.

 

What the hell did I do?

Chapter 4: A Uncle’s teachings

Summary:

Bonesaw prods and Jack shoves back.

Notes:

This chapter feels a bit too fast-pace, but I’m still proud of it.

Thanks for reading and for your feedback!

Okay, let’s think of the positives to my current situation.

 

Jack seems pleased with me, so he’s not really a threat, right now. Probably. Maybe?

 

I have cool powers? I think that besides the fact I just cannibalized a dead body I was moving around by puppeting it with a metal exoskeleton to make a horrific pathogen, they seem pretty neat.

 

Um…

 

I don’t think Mimi’s gonna move against me, I just did horrible things to a corpse in front of her. I get the feeling that the large creature is curious about what I made too, so… actually, I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

 

Okay, that’s all the good, what about the bad?

 

…

 

We’re going to skip past the bad, because nobody wants a Debbie downer.

 

“What have you concocted, Little Artist?” Little Artist? Huh, that sounds kinda right actually.

 

“Well, I took my broken puppet-“ now that I’m looking, there he is, missing his head, still standing off to my side, “- and took his head for ethmoid, occipital, and frontal bones and the arachnoid, and pia mater tissues, coated them with substances 6, 18, 35, and 105 for at least 8 minutes, taking them out, and then used a mixture of 7 and 10 to melt them down into a paste!” I gesture 2 play dough cups full of the paste, and my syringe before looking back at Jack.

 

Jack has this far off 1000-yard stare which makes it obvious he blanked out and has not returned. Psh, he can’t handle this genius.

 

“Um, th-that’s really cool Bonesaw, but… what does it do?” Mimi speaks up. Oh, unlike that dumb creep Jack, Mimi actually paid attention, but I don’t want to reward Jack for not listening, but Mimi did ask…

 

“Well Mimi!-“ Mimi flinches, ow “- You know what a Balloon is, right?” She nods, slowly, “ Well, balloons pop, and with this, people will too!” I finish with gusto.

 

“Bonesaw. No offense to you, but that explanation was sorely lacking. Could you actually explain what it does?” Shatterbird asks at me. I see what Cherish meant.

 

“Mmm, nope! If you wanted more, Jack should have listened!” I say, pointing at Jack.

 

Everything is silent for a bit after I say that. Everyone is staring at me in shock. Especially Jack.

 

Jack looks like I just revealed I fed him his friend and family. 

 

Shatterbird looks like I personally offended her, Mimi, Alan, and the creature all look surprised, and Siberian seems kind of impressed by me.

 

Huh, what just happened?

 

“Ah, sorry sweetheart, I must’ve stayed up a tad too long last night.” Jack covers up. Wait, no backtrack, what?

 

“Respect your parent, Bonesaw.” I’m starting to think something’s up between Shatterbird and Jack. Shatterbird’s being a bit too clingy with him.

 

I stare at Jack and he meets my stare from across the room, both of us black-faced. He shakes his head and smirks at me, before launching into conversation with Shatterbird about her selected recruit. Siberian pats my head and goes to sit near the larger creature.

 

I, on the other hand, am still reeling.

 

I woke up today with no memories other than this isn’t me, I’m a part of some really bad people, I’m a really bad person, I’m some sort of mad Doctor, and on top of all of that I’m sure that Jack knows something I don’t.

 

One thing at a time, me and Mannequin can make things, Cherish controls people’s emotions, Shatterbird has some sort of telekinesis, and the big thing in the van with us is so biologically complex that I can’t look at it for more than five seconds.

 

We have powers… we’re evil and have superpowers… holy shit, we’re supervillains.

 

I’m a supervillain, and an awful, immoral one at that if my puppets are any indication.

 

Okay, new goal, stop being such an awful, immoral supervillain. How do?

 

Okay, first concession, stop hurting people like I hurt my puppets.

 

“Poppet, there are parahumans fighting outside the van, be a dear and deal with them, oh, and make sure to make it entertaining.” Jack stops his conversation with Shatterbird to tell me, like he knew what I was thinking. He smirks. Fuck.

 

I open the door leading to the driver’s seat to see a fuming Cherish, glaring ahead in front of her.

 

Directly in front of us is a three way fight between some sort of sound manipulator, a woman teleporting around shooting lasers, and someone quickly running around and trying to punch people.

 

Okay, I have three parahumans, a fuming Cherish, a Frankenstein’s doctor power, and an obligation to deal with the three parahumans in an “entertaining” manner.

 

I might be a little fucked. 

 

Okay, just once more than. Just one more atrocity committed against people with lives and people who care about them.

 

Okay what do I have on me?

 

Needle traps

Acid teeth capsules 

Poison vents

Reinforced mesh

Smart blood

Redundant organs

Neural master protection 

Prehensile spine

Pain switch

Dead man’s plague switch

Berserker defense 

Artificially loose joints

Nerve control reinforcement 

Advanced artificial eyes

Improved immune sys-

 

STOP! SHUT UP! WHY IS THERE SO MUCH?! 

 

Okay, alright, I’ll deal with all of that later. Let’s stop focusing on all of that, and focus on what I can make instead. I made the Poppy disease (shut up, me, it’s a great name) less than ten minutes ago. 

 

How did I come up with the plague? Easy, I can come up with characteristics I want and let the rest make itself up. What do I want? I want to make something debilitating and flashy. 

 

While debating with myself, Cherish has been gradually cooling down, and woke me up from my excellent strategizing by leaning back with a chuckle. Confused, I look back to the fight and learn that they have escalated.

 

Before, it was more like they were sparring, play fighting even. Now though, it looks like they’re actively trying to kill each other, and if I don’t do something soon, they’ll succeed considering how the sound manipulator is already missing her arm.

 

Okay, quickly I run back into the cabin, command my ruined puppet and spider boxes to come to me with packs to make a temporary lab.

 

Okay, remember instinct, disabling, air borne, flashy, quick to work, and quick to make.

 

I grab substance 38 and 105, mix it in, add 10 once bubbly, add 10 milligrams of water once it stops.

 

I take a milligram in a syringe and inject it into my slashed puppet’s pinky and watch the puppet yellow and crust.

 

I take a clock and shirt out of one of my packs, add substance 22 to the shirt, and let that sit while I disassemble the clock.

 

Twenty seconds later, I have in my hand a biomechanical grenade, ready to use.

 

I quickly leave the van seeing that the guy running around has a few sizable holes in his torso, and he’s shrugging them off like they’re nothing-

 

Regenerative, dense muscular and skeletal structure, moving faster than should be possible with average state

 

-the sound manipulator hasn’t fully recovered from her first injury, but she hasn’t taken further injury, and the teleporter is still in the fight, but he’s bloodied and hunched over.

 

Internal damage sustained, possible internal bleeding and ruptured digestive track.

 

Okay, I have to be quick. I go to throw the grenade but stop myself due to an embarrassing realization.

 

I’m a child with a child’s throwing arms.

 

I open the driver’s side door, drag Cherish out, and hand her the grenade.

 

“What.” She seems annoyed that I interrupted her viewing from the driver’s seat, but tough luck, help the child throw her chemical weapon.

 

“Can you throw this-“ I hand her the thing, even if it’s obvious she doesn’t want me to, “- into the center there?” I point over to the fight.

 

She seems disturbed, but actually a bit excited to throw it. As she strikes a pitcher’s stance and throws the grenade in an impressive arc towards the ground.

 

Before the thing lands, I shove her back into the seat and before closing the door.

 

It lands and sprays out a bright yellow gas that catches all three in its reach.

 

The sound manipulator and the teleporter are immediately down on the ground screaming, their skin turning yellow and cracking, bleeding from their everything.

 

The regenerator has clumps of their flesh just falling off and is vomiting blood.

 

…

 

Real moral, Bonesaw, real Moral.

 

I call my spider boxes and puppets to me and direct them to disassemble a nearby abandoned car, and I tell Cherish I’ll be busy for a bit.

 

I look around and sigh. It’s not even… 4pm?

 

Internal clock

 

Oh, of course. I sigh, again, and remark to myself to get to work.

Chapter 5: Tea Time with Corona

Summary:

Bonesaw learns what parahumans are while having tea time with her dolls.

Notes:

I’m back once more!

Nothing overly special about this chapter, but I’m trying to… well, you’ll probably see.

I hope you all enjoy and thank you for your feedback!

I won my first fight about thirty minutes ago, it was a two vs three and I did most of the work. Which considering me being a child and them being adults, is really saying something. That something being how completely and utterly I beat them so fast without even a scratch on me.

 

I made the bomb, I won fair and square, shut up.

 

Anyway, point is, thirty minutes and three new puppets later, we were basically ready to go.

 

But Jack gave me an hour, so an hour I’ll take. 

 

I told everyone to stay in the van because I couldn’t get rid of all the airborne contagion, but the creature, Mannequin, and Siby all apparently decided that they didn’t care and ran off to somewhere, so maybe Jack had a different reason to stay.

 

I technically have seven puppets now, technically because my slashed one is basically garbage at this point, and my one other dead one is going to start rotting if I don’t do anything by the end of today.

 

I go back into the van and ask Mannequin if he has anyway to preserve a body, and before he can respond the creature snorts-

 

Expelling pure nitrogen instead of carbon, does not need to breath, purely emotive

 

-and fishes out a large metal box from behind him with my and Mannequin’s name on it. I open the box-

 

Gaseous substance freezes biological material in time 

 

-and find that there is already a body in there-

 

Dense muscular and skeletal structure, open skull exposes dormant corona pollentia 

 

-an apparently dead parahuman already in there, one with the source of his powers exposed, lovely.

 

Looking at his Corona Pollentia, his seems to connect with other Corona and alters his physique.

 

I feel already incredibly knowledgeable about Corona Po- no, about parahumans in general, but it all feels like theory I know is true instead of practice.

 

I really want to practice.

 

I can do so much with his Corona.

 

I shove the undamaged dead one inside and close the lid before I lose myself to my… power? That feels right, before I lose myself to my power.

 

I walk back out, grab slashed puppet, and decide now is a perfect time to figure out both parahumans and my puppets. Two birds with one bird carcass.

 

“I don’t suppose you three will tell me your names, will you?” I, very politely, start.

 

The three just glare at me without saying anything, rude.

 

Wait, oh.

 

“You can all speak at medium volume, except you loud one, come over here and sit down.” I’ll give her a new arm in exchange for a quick vivisection, I’m sure she won’t mind.

 

“You’re a fucking monster, you know that?” The regenerator immediately told me.

 

“Language!” I shout back. The sound manipulator sits down in front of me, time to learn! I have the time and a non-power interactive parahuman. I can afford this

 

“Is this a game to you?” The regenerator asked me a stupid question, in my opinion.

 

“Ye-Yeah! You little winch!” Apparently the teleporter agreed with the regenerator, and with a unique piece of vocabulary too.

 

“Language. And of course not, what about this seems like I’m playing a game?” I genuinely ask, I even tilt my head for good measure, just in case. I inject the manipulator with an anesthetic.

 

“WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO TO JENNIFER!” The teleporter roars at me, she should really calm down, it’s not healthy to be that angry all the time. 

 

“I’m just gonna open her up real quick, then I’ll close her back up. Heck, I’m gonna give her a new arm for her troubles.” I got nothing to hide, well, besides the fact I wasn’t Bonesaw yesterday, but that’s background noise at this point.

 

“O-oh, well, what did you do to us?!” She seems surprised I actually answered, but she still came up with another question.

 

“The crusted skin? Don’t worry about it, at this point, it’s just cosmetic.” I answer while I work the skin off of Jennifer’s head. My two living puppets I brought from the house just look tired, while the two parahumans look disgusted and horrified.

 

“…uh no, not, not that. Why can’t we move unless you tell us too…?” She trails off the question, watching as I crack Jennifer’s skull open like an egg and peek in.

 

Jennifer also has a Corona Pollentia like the corpse in the freezer, but hers is more… compressed? It isn’t as spread out as the other one was, but this one has those weird spines too. Her Corona seems to alter her physique too, but it’s not full body like with the corpse, hers connects directly with the auditory cortex. Her Corona seems to be able to project her will onto the surrounding air via waves of vibration. I really want to graft the corpse from the freezer into her.

 

“Huh, oh, I installed control frames into all of you.” I state offhandedly. I wonder, besides the brain, are there any other deviations in her physique? I start to work her down from the head.

 

“What? What’s a control frame? What do you mean ‘installed’?” The regenerator cuts in, looking incredibly concerned.

 

“They’re metal exoskeletons that psycho built into our skeletons with needles stuck into our brain. She put me and Tracy’s in while we were awake.” The guy with the burnt side stoically states.

 

“Well, they’re a little more complicated than that-“ I start the lesson, but am interrupted when the teleporter yells at me, scaring me a little because who the hell yells at a child?

 

“YOU FUCKING WHAT!?” The teleporter yells, clearly she’s upset about the control frames. Well, maybe if she knows what they look like and that they look professional will calm her down?

 

“Language.” I stop peeling Jennifer and open her skull some more, showing the complex web of metal covering her brain and sides of her skull, all of which following Jennifer’s nerves down into the rest of her body. I follow this up by going to her neck and pulling the sternocleidomastoid and sternothyroid away from each other to show off the shiny metal skeleton with several wires connected.

 

“The spined neural lattice is the main controlling unit due to how little it damages the body while allowing orders- actually, that’s all I’ll tell you about the lattice, besides that I can have them grow in themselves when placed on the exoskeleton! The exoskeleton is fairly simple, it’s melded to your bones and can force movement via manipulation of the skeletal system. The exoskeleton is actually pretty painful when it does activate, but it usually shouldn’t.” I tell her while pointing to the relevant spots in Jennifer. I’m really proud of this actually, as it’s basically seamless when looking at Jen’s insides, despite how much volume the frame takes up.

 

I look back at my audience and watch as the regenerator starts to through up again, which is weird because I thought I fixed that.

 

“Anyways, I think we got sidetracked, what are your names and why were you all fighting out… here?” I ask while I inspect her lungs, both of which have 5 layers each, all of them are the same size.

 

“…” The teleporter seems to have been shocked by my explanation, which now that I think about it, was incredibly crass and insensitive. Why did I use their friend as a showcase of the control frame? Said frame’s design being one of the most inhumane things I’ve thought up so far. So far?

 

“Well, freak, the name’s Kend.” He tells me, all my other puppets looking at him surprised.

 

“Ah, hello Kend, my name is-“

 

“Ken’d-eez nuts fit in yo mouth!” He finishes, laughing directly at my face, sending spittle while all my other puppets flinch.

 

“…You know, you remind me of Wendy.” 

 

“Wendy?”

 

“Because you’re going to love when’dee-z nuts slap you across!” I take my swift revenge, because screw him. Besides, deez nuts aren’t bad words, just an implication of a bad word. It doesn’t count!

 

The regenerator looks at me like I’m disgusting and recoils. The teleporter pales further, while the other two stare at me with wide eyes.

 

“You’re not just a monster, you’re insane and delusional too, huh?” He monotonously states while leaning away from me.

 

“Ugh, you’re all so difficult!” I’m out of time too, so I gotta start packing anyway. I start to put Jen back together and craft my slashed corpse into a better arm than she ever had for her. 

 

It takes a quiet 5 minutes before I’m done, and by then I can hear the creature sprinting over.

 

Ugh, I quickly started the process of putting Jen back together.

 

“What’s that? Why’s it rumbling?” The teleporter seems to be panicking again. She really needs to calm down.

 

“It’s Crawler, of the Slaughterhouse 9.” The man with the burn marks helpfully replies. So the creature’s name is Crawler, huh?

 

“That’s enough out of all of you for now, quiet down.” I order, I finish up Jen, stand back up, send my puppets and spider boxes back to the van, slide into the passenger seat next to Cherish, and wait.

 

Now, how can I disrupt the Slaughterhouse’s plans in Brockton?

Chapter 6: The end of a Roadtrip

Summary:

Bonesaw wants to know if they’re there yet while she plans to take the family inheritance

Notes:

Viola, new chapter!

I’m really proud of this chapter, this might be one of my better ones so far.

We’ve almost arrived in Brockton Bay, so I’m gonna have to figure out how to action with some real stakes.

I hope you all enjoy and thank you for the feedback!

I’m bored.

 

You wouldn’t think it, but powered supervillains aren’t big on conversation.

 

Outside of tinker projects, Mannequin’s kind of boring.

 

“What’s your favorite color?”

 

‘…gray.’

 

“Gray’s a nice color, mine’s Rose Red! I like it because I think it’s pretty and it can be used in so many projects! Why do you like gray?”

 

‘…It can be used in many projects.’

 

“Cool, cool. Do you have a favorite project?”

 

‘…’

 

“…I don’t have one either! I like all my projects equally! After all, a parent can’t have favorites!”

 

‘…’

 

Shatterbird’s busy and kind of…

 

“Ah, Bonesaw, what a surprise, what do you want?”

 

“Oh, well I-“

 

“Shh, did you hear that?”

 

“Um, no?”

 

“Look, see that?”

 

“…the road?”

 

“Yes, very good, the road. The road is bumpy, do you know what that means?”

 

“…”

 

“Go on, what does it mean?”

 

“…You have to pay attention to the road?”

 

“I have to pay attention to the road, very good. If I could, I’d give you a lollipop. Scamper off now.”

 

Mimi also seemed busy.

 

“Mimi!”

 

“…”

 

“Hey, Mimi!”

 

“…”

 

“Mimi?”

 

“…”

 

“…are you okay?”

 

“…”

 

“Hello?”

 

“…”

 

Cherish was asleep, Crawler smacked me without looking when I tried to talk with it, and Siby just stared at me and, no offense to her, but she didn’t seem to want to communicate in any way all that much.

 

Jack’s around here too, but…

 

I look over to him and see him smiling directly at me. 

 

I have a feeling that our conversation will be unproductive.

 

Anyway, point is, I’m bored and everyone else is bad at conversation.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t tried to talk with anybody not apart of the Slaughter-ers.

 

“Jen, you can talk at a low level. How was your day going before, all of this?” I ask her.

 

“My day?! What the fuck?! Why can’t I move? How do you know my name?!” She asks at a quiet volume. Finally, a conversation partner, a real treasure in this day and age!

 

“Language! I already explained that, it’s the control frame, and your teleporting friend over there told me. But, really, how was your day?” I inform her.

 

“It was terrible- no! We’re not moving past all of that! What do you mean Hellion told you? What did you do to her? Where are we?” She asks, providing many paths into our interaction. Goes to show that murder really kills your social skills.

 

“Her name is Hellion? That’s a pretty cool name, I’ve just been calling her teleporter. She’s actually just right there and she seems to be doing fine-“ I point behind Jen to Hellion, “- and we’re in the Slaughter-van, my turn! What exactly is your power? Have you noticed any differences outside of you actively using your power since you got it? What’s the regenerator you two were fighting‘s name?” I ask her, conversation does require both parties to contribute after all.

 

“… if I answer, will you let us go?” She asks with a glimmer of hope in her, dented, eyes.

 

“Of course! Just talk with me.” ‘Of course’ is a neutral statement, kind of. So I didn’t lie, at most it's an omission of the truth.

 

“Ahem, well, the regenerator is Wukong, and my name is Heel. I control the voice waves I control, except for right now, apparently…” She trails off, looking disheartened. Oh no! I don’t want her sad, I need her to like me for Brockton or my (stupendous) plan won’t work!

 

“Don’t worry Heel! You still have your power, I’m just stimulating your Corona Pollentia to keep it busy. To be honest, I don’t think I can take away powers. I can make it seem like I can, but from what I can tell, your Corona Pollentia doesn’t actually provide you your powers, it’s just an adapter for you to access and control your powers.” I cut myself off before I get too into it, this is for her, not me.

 

“So you’re a trump on top of a master?” She asks, much to my befuddlement.

 

“What do you mean? What’s a trump? I’m a master?” I ask her.

 

“Yeah, the PRT power designation stuff, it means your power deals with other powers. Masters control minions.” She tells me, looking more confident than she was before. Boom, I’m amazing.

 

“Oh, what are buildy powers called?” I ask.

 

“Those are tinkers, why do you ask? Are you a tinker?” 

 

“Yup, I’m the best tinker who ever tinkered!” I boast while striking a Superman pose.

 

“That’s really cool, do you know what your specialty is?”

 

“Specialty?”

 

“Yeah! What do you specialize in making? I told you my power, so tell me yours, it’s only fair.” She informs me. Well, fair’s fair, I guess.

 

“I specialize in… the medical field? Surgery? I’m not entirely certain what I specialize in.” I tell her.

 

“…Did you open up my head to install your… control frame?” She asks.

 

“I opened up a lot more than your head to install the frame.” I tell her.

 

“…What was your name again?” She asks me.

 

“Bonesaw.”

 

“What group were you a part of?”

 

“The Slaughterhouse 9, if I remember correctly.”

 

“What are you going to do with us?” She asks meekly.

 

“Well, lean in real quick.” I tell her as I start to lean closer myself.

 

“I’m planning to use you five to become the new leader of the Slaughterhouse 9.” Outside the murder-y bits, the members seem nice enough, but there are a few wrinkles in my coup d’état.

 

First off, Jack’s gotta go. This point is non-negotiable, considering that it seems like he’s the leader right now, and a controlling one at that. He won’t appreciate being dethroned and considering how he seems to just know, it’ll be a struggle, especially since any time I try to kill him, he seems to be able to get out of it somehow. He’s sitting too close to Shatterbird for a gas attack, he’s standing too close to Crawler and Siby for an ‘accident’, and he refuses all of my offers of ‘improvements’ to my previous works under the under the guise of ‘not wanting to upset the balance too much’ and ‘not making things boring’. He’s definitely aware

 

Second, I gotta do something about Crawler and Siberian. My power seems inoffensive to them, at least if used directly, unlike the other, fleshy, vulnerable members. Crawler seems to regenerate adaptations? It came back with thicker fur on the bottom of its paws and claws that were still growing back at an unnatural pace which, looking at him across the room sleeping-

 

Does not require sleep, sleeping readapted in response to deficient mental stimulation 

 

-his claws are a different pigment than they were when I first saw them this morning. Siberian is a whole other can of worms, as she doesn’t seem to actually be biological in nature and she also remains… unchanged? Static? Invulnerable? She’s unfazed by the environment and takes most physical laws as suggestions. She ran directly through a tree without any indication of pausing, scaring Mimi helping me back into the van so bad she threw a fireball at her. I don’t think Siby noticed.

 

The last problem is reputation. I honestly just kinda want to change our appearances and call it a day, but this is a superhero world, it definitely won’t be that easy. Also because I think everyone here is not only actually insane, but they’re weirdly dedicated to the life of a supervillain, and I agree with them, I want to be a super-person too. There’s a bunch of other little things as well that messes with the easiest solution, but we’ll skip past that.

 

How does one rebrand a group of serial killers so they aren’t chased down and arrested and/or killed?

 

Either you don’t and just become too scary to poke or we find someone with a better plan.

 

The best I can do is to look around Brockton for someone and, failing that, spreading caches of potent plagues that’ll spread and get everywhere if people don’t do what I say.

 

I’ll cause a bunch of chaos and use my puppets to assassinate Jack, and call it a day.

 

Nothing could go wrong.

 

“You’re going to take leadership?” Heel sputters disbelievingly.

 

“Keep it down, and yes, that is what a coup d’état is.” I reply.

 

“You, Bonesaw, are going to kill Jack Slash?” She reaffirms. Dumb name.

 

“Yup, that’s right, and the five of you will be my tools used to personally dispatch him.” I tell her.

 

“…What’ll happen if you take over?” She asks, still obviously confused.

 

“Well, Silly, we’ll stop being serial killers, settle down in Brockton, and we’ll all be one big happy family!”

 

“So you’ll stop hurting people like you hurt us?”

 

“Not unless provoked, no.”

 

“…Alright, I’ll help you with your plan.”

 

“Great! Ooh, this’ll be fun! I’ve never overthrown a supervillain group before!” I, quietly, exclaim to her.

 

“Just let me keep my ability to ta-“ Heel starts, but is interrupted.

 

“We’ll enter Brockton in 5 minutes Jack!” We hear Shatterbird call out from the driver’s seat to Jack, who seems to be in conversation with a disturbingly intrigued Crawler. He smiles, stands up, and starts to make his way to the front of the Van.

 

While making his way over, he stops next to me and Heel, looks at Heel before he seems to stifle a laugh, and then his scary, dumb, smiling face turned to me.

 

“I’m looking forward to our Brockton visit. Good luck, my little Bonesaw.” He tells me, before pulling me into a hug.

 

I’m frozen, did he overhear me and Heel talking? No, he doesn’t have any of my more unique add-ons and he hasn’t given any hints that his power helps him hear, as he hasn’t reacted or shut down my plan since I started talking. Is he reading my mind? Is that his power? No, if he could, he would have asked about where I misplaced my identity this morning. What the fuck can he do and how does he know?!

 

He lets go and walks to the driver's seat, leaving me with a deep seated crippling fear of him.

 

How does he know?!

Chapter 7: Saving money with Roommates

Summary:

Bonesaw becomes acquainted with her roommate and plays dolls with her

Notes:

Hello! It has come to my attention that my Chapters aren’t updating correctly, so I have taken drastic action and changed a 4 to a 6.
This chapter should not have that problem.

We’ve finally arrived at Brockton, beware of bugs, thinkers, and a side of self-justification!

I hope you all enjoy this chapter and thank you all for the feedback!

We arrived in Brockton with little fanfare. We drove in, found some warehouse, Jack told Mannequin to do the thing while calling him Alan, he went in, came back out, and then we drove off.

 

I feel like we’ve been driving in circles for the past hour. Every time we choose a place to stay, Jack tells Shatterbird no for no reason, and Shatterbird follows because she’s Shatterbird. Fucking Shatterbird.

 

We finally arrive in front of a decrepit and abandoned house. Where, presumably, we will be staying.

 

Crawler stays in the van, presumably because he’s of a… generous size, not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just more to work with!

 

Me, Siberian, and Cherish all walked in and we realized that this house was occupied.

 

A man missing his pants, but wearing a long duster was out like a light on the floor, another man wearing a cowboy hat with a strap is draped over a nearby gross looking chair, a bored looking woman wearing at least 3 different hoodies is sitting against the wall next to the cowboy.

 

Cherish walks in like she owns the place and she doesn’t seem surprised in the slightest about her, but the Siberian seems pleasantly surprised. Concerning.

 

“Excuse me miss, but can we stay the night? It’s awfully cold out.” Cherish asks, acting out shivering at the last sentence.

 

“It’s not my house, do what you want.” The woman looks at Cherish with lidded eyes and answers.

 

“Oh? This isn’t your house? Then why are you and your… friends here? Did you break in?” Cherish presses.

 

“No we-“ She’s cut off when the Siberian runs at her.

 

She sees and looks terrified for a second before she goes to vaguely confused boredom.

 

Siberian reaches her, picks her up by her arm, and starts to, messily, dismember her while she’s still alive and aware.

 

“Siberian, I wasn’t- you’re not going to listen to me anyway, are you?”

 

The Siberian doesn’t even react to Cherish’s question, grabbing the woman’s former left leg and starting to chew. She’s a cannibal too, option one of my plan is seeming more and more likely to occur the longer I spend with my makeshift family.

 

“Fucking typical!” Cherish exclaims. Hey!

 

“Language!” I tell her.

 

“Oh fuck off.” She replies, and this time I just give her a water-y glare.

 

“What’s going on?” The amputee missing all her limbs  asks while still looking bored. If I don’t do anything thing soon, she’s going to die from her wounds.

 

The Siberian ignores her and starts to look around the room, sometimes picking up random items and inspecting them like they have some sort of value.

 

While she’s doing that, me and Cherish travel closer to the lady with more sweaters than limbs.

 

“Sorry about my… compatriot over there, anyways, you were about to tell us why you all were squatting here?” She asks the woman as her face seems to switch from looking bored to looking at Cherish in awe and her fight or flight response kicks in, if the blush is anything to go by. Huh, I forgot Cherish was able to do that, that god past me solved that flaw.

 

“O-oh! W-well, me and Johnny, that’s the man wearing the cowboy hat over there, wanted to make some more money before tomorrow, so we could buy some food. We decided to… prostitute ourselves to make said money because, well, what did we have to lose? The man with the duster, who was shit-faced by the by, offered to pay us $720 per hour if we came as a package deal, and we most certainly did come as a package deal for that amount. So that’s why we’re here, do you need anything else miss…?” The woman trails off with an obvious question directed at Cherish.

 

While she’s been talking, I’ve cut the excess off her limbs, filed down the bone, and smeared substance 8 mixed with 13, creating a jam looking substance, and smeared it over the affected. She never gave an indication of feeling that so I’m gonna have to treat her for shock. Wait…

 

“Language.” I say to the woman absentmindedly while digging through my pack for substance 3, which should stimulate her blood into rapidly cannibalizing what fat she has to make blood.

 

“Oh, my bad, sorry about cussing in front of your child, ma’am.” The woman barely looks at me when she says this, eyes honing back onto Cherish.

 

“Oh. My. God. You- did you not see my kid here when you started blabbering about prostitution?! She’s only 10! She’s not ready for things like this! What’s the matter with you!” I have the syringe and substance in my hands when Cherish ruffles my hair while crying. She can cry on demand? Can I cry on demand?

 

Lacrimal shielding 

Lacrimal toggle

 

Yes, apparently. I fill the syringe with 3 and make my way behind her.

 

“I’m- I’m so sorry! I just- I didn’t notice her and-“ the woman’s cut off.

 

“You didn’t notice her? You didn’t notice MY child, who is dutifully tending YOUR wounds?” Cherish towers over the woman as she says this. Way to use your power, little sis. That’s right, you’ll be little sis, I have all the control in this relationship, you just don’t know it yet.

 

While Cherish bullies the woman, I stick the syringe just beneath her cervical spine and inject. 

 

Then I quickly pull out a needle, coat it in substance 55, and jab it into the woman’s larynx, leaving it there.

 

This time the woman noticed.

 

“Huh? Oh, your child just stabbed me in the neck. What’s wrong with my voice?” The woman quietly asks Cherish.

 

“As your doctor tonight, I have successfully treated all wounds you’ve acquired in the past hour and quieted your larynx- your voice using a custom substance. You should expect to live your entire lifespan, congratulations!” I tell her while striking a classic doctor pose, I don’t have anything for a clipboard so I just mime one. I finish off with a little jump.

 

“She won’t squeal? Alright, miss, I’ll let up, this was fun.”

 

The amputee freezes in place before she slowly looks down at herself, then she looks at me, before looking back at Cherish.

 

She starts crying all of a sudden. Fuck, this must be traumatic for her, but I pride myself as a Doctor in all aspects, and doctors have bedside manners.

 

“Hey, look at me, calm down. Everything is going to be fine. You won’t be hurt further and I’ll even replace your limbs later, it’ll be fine, alright?” I tell her a whole lotta white lies, but look at her! I’m not gonna put down even further.

 

“Hey, focus on me, what’s your name?” I keep her mind occupied.

 

“I-I-It’ss, I-It’s Eri-Erica.” She stutters out, that’s good, she’s talking, I can work with this.

 

The Siberian walks back into the room, accidentally(?) steps on duster coat’s head, continues like she didn’t even notice, picks up her former right arm, and walks back further inside.

 

Cherish, who is standing outside of Erica’s line of sight, is silently dying of fucking laughter, because of course she is.

 

Well, doctors care about bedside manner, but you know who doesn’t? Artists. Professional Artists usually aren’t even around to see the reactions their craft brings and I am more of an Artist than a doctor.

 

I rub my temple in exasperation and walk outside to the van.

 

When I enter, only my puppets, Crawler, and Jack are inside, all are asleep.

 

Jack cracks opens his eyes, winks at me, before twirling a knife, and going back to sleep.

 

I shiver and wake my puppets.

 

“Huh? What…?” Heel starts.

 

“C’mon, we had an accident, grab the big metal box and follow me.” I order.

 

5 minutes later, we’re back inside the house with five more mutilated people and the tinker equivalent of an ice chest.

 

All of my puppets are looking around, but only one is able to voice their shock.

 

“What did you do?” Heel asks in disbelief.

 

“It wasn’t me, it was Siby! She was hungry apparently.” I inform her.

 

“Wukong, Suit woman, Hellion, pack the body in the freezer.” I order them

 

“…where are we again?” Heel asks, Wukong and Hellion perk up at the question.

 

“We’re in Brockton Bay, Massachusetts. Why?” I ask her.

 

“Just curious. Hey, can you let the others talk too?” She asks.

 

“Sure, but you gotta use the magic word.” Gotta teach my toys manners after all.

 

“Please?” 

 

“Please what?”

 

“Can you let the others talk as well, please?” She, very politely, asks.

 

“I was looking for an abracadabra, but please works fine! You may all talk at low volume.” I joke and order.

 

“About time.” Wukong grumbles out.

 

“Heel!” Hellion quietly exclaims.

 

“Hellion!” Heel acknowledges her.

 

Hellion goes to hug Heel before realizing she’s stuck shoving a body in a freezer with someone she’s recently fought to the death and a skinned woman at the order of a child sociopath at the moment.

 

Luckily, Heel took mercy on her, walked over to her, and gave her a half hug, using her worse arm instead of the one I gifted her. C’mon! I’m proud of that arm.

 

“Are you okay? I thought the psycho killed you after she used you to showcase her damn, invasive, metal skeleton.” She asks Heel, wildly misconstruing my actions and creation.

 

“Language!” I assert.

 

Hellion flinches at my voice and falls silent.

 

“Where’s did the Siberian?” Burn mark asks.

 

“Tell me you and your friends name, and I’ll tell you.” I smugly declare

 

“I’m Mark, this is Tracy, where’s the Siberian?” Mark insistently asks.

 

“Oh, I didn’t actually expect- Actually, this is great! I can finally stop calling you Suit woman and Burn mark- Wait, burn mark, your name’s Mark. Ha, Burn Mark.” I say, emitting joy out of my everything.

 

“Bonesaw, focus.” Heel insists further. Oh yeah, forgot about that part.

 

“She’s further into the house just looking around.” I say simply. My statement is confirmed by the sound of a wall crumbling further inside. Followed by Cherish shrieking in surprise around there as well.

 

My dolls and the amputee flinch in surprise at the sound while I’m stuffing said amputee’s remaining arm and leg into the Closed Circuit Biological Freezer Box™.

 

“Who was that? Was it another of your victims?” Hellion glares at me.

 

“Nah, that was Cherish.” I say

 

“H-Her name was Ch-Cherish?” The amputee asks.

 

“Yup!” 

 

“She’s the teenager with the dyed hair?” Tracy hesitantly asks.

 

“She’s a teenager? I guess that makes more sense.” I just thought her power had something to do with her appearance and that people had to look at her for her power to activate. Guess that explains why the three under my command tried to kill each other.

 

“Th-That FuCKING BITCH!” The amputee yells.

 

“Stop cussing!” I yell back.

 

“That Bitch! Fucking Masters! Fucking Parahumans! Gah, fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” The amputee completely ignores me and goes off on a tangent. Heel runs over to her to calm her down, but by the end, the amputee's just sobbing into Heel’s chest.

 

“Bonesaw, what have you done this time, and please, actually explain instead of being needlessly petty.” Shatterbird, standing at my 5 o’clock three feet behind me, suddenly says.

 

“AH! How did-? When-? How long wer-? Never mind, I’m just cleaning up after Siby and Cherish.” I suddenly exclaim upon seeing Shatterbird. How long has she been standing there?

 

“Ah, well, we’re starting early tomorrow, so get some sleep, you’ll be taking the last watch.” She says, before walking further in and yelling at Cherish.

 

I stand there in silence for a bit before directing my dolls and spider boxes to carry my stuff further into the house.

 

Tomorrow is going to be a loooong day.

Chapter 8: Interlude: A, Injury

Summary:

Amy hates her job and decides to go out with her crush.

Notes:

My first Interlude! I’ve never written one of those before.

I hope you all enjoy and thanks for any feedback given!

I hate people.

 

“Please! My son has to be healthy and uninjured by tomorrow or his team will have to go without him and lose!”

 

A lot of people say that, half of them are just joking around, half of the half who aren’t don’t know what they’re talking about.

 

“I promise, I won’t be back in here again, just this one more time. I’m gonna get clean, I promise.”

 

I actually, genuinely hate humans. I hate talking to them, I hate helping them, I hate seeing them.

 

“Make this quick, yeah? I got a date later this evening, and not even Leviathan's gonna stop me.”

 

They’re selfish, greedy, inefficient animals who only know how to take and take.

 

“There you are! Finally, who’s dick do I have to suck for some faster service!”

 

They’re mean and vulgar, every interaction with them takes something from you, whether that’s literally or figuratively.

 

“Sorry, I got a sprain and just wanted it healed quick, you know. Thanks.”

 

I hate people for one reason above all.

 

“Thank you! I’ll remember you, just say the words and it’ll be done!”

 

I hate them for being better than I ever could be. I hate them for being able to do more than maintain. I hate that they can develop actual relationships with other people. I hate them for being clean. I hate that they can do good.

 

“Thank you! I didn’t know what I'd do with a break, Levithan knocked out a lot of jobs, and the new ones are mostly physical labor. I owe ya one!”

 

The only thing I hate more than other people is me, because I’m the worst of them all.

 

“Fucking Parahumans.”

 

Outside of S-class threats, I probably have one of the highest kill counts in the world, and nobody is even aware.

 

“You’re the reason I was fired, the least you could do is to fix my lungs.”

 

I’m a hateful person, I’m an ugly person, I’m barely even a person.

 

“Hey, Amy!”

 

I’m worse than a murderer, I’m a creep, I’m a monster. I’ve killed more than Nilbog, and I want the only person who’s ever been nice to me to-.

 

“Amy!” Victoria shakes me out of my brooding.

 

“Vicky, hi, what’s up?” I try to lean against the wall as I say this, realize I’m standing in the middle of the roof of the makeshift hospital, and just kind of awkwardly stumble in place. Smooth.

 

“I gotta take you to the clinic set up at… Shin and Nicholas? Yeah, Shin and Nicholas! It’s the one in the Docks.” She clarifies 

 

Ah, great, more healing.

 

“Let me just tell Jean and I’ll leave with you.” I tell her, before walking back inside. Vicky floats after me.

 

Lucky.

 

I’m going through the rooms, looking for this Clinic’s manager, when Vicky starts up a conversation.

 

“So, you've been having fun?”

 

“Yeah.” No, I hate this place.

 

“Cool, it must feel nice to actually be doing something right now. I mean, other than moving you from place to place.” She begins again.

 

“Yup, it feels awesome. Is Carol and Mark busy?” I throw Vicky a rope.

 

“Dad’s still unresponsive, but it feels like Mom is either out or tending to him. It’s… really quiet at home, so I’ve been going around policing crime!” Vicky states while striking a pose mid-air.

 

I almost forgot about Mark. I could fix him with a touch, it wouldn’t even be hard, it would solve so many problems, Carol and Vicky wouldn’t be so stressed and there would be another hero on the streets doing good. But I can’t because ‘Panacea doesn’t do brains’. Because if I do, what’ll stop me from just doing whatever I want when I want to?

 

“Oh… do you know how Aunt Sarah and Crystal are doing?” Let’s divert from us right now, talk about a different cause of depression.

 

“Aunt Sarah’s mainly out helping Mom. She’s sometimes at the house caring for Dad when Mom’s gone and she seems to be on the phone with Mom a lot. From what I heard, Crystal’s thrown herself into her schoolwork and when she’s not she’s out heroing.” Vicky explains.

 

“Hm.” I sound out.

 

“Yeah…” She agrees.

 

The conversation awkwardly ends, as I continue to look for Jean while Vicky follows.

 

I’m about fed up and am going to leave without informing her when I bump into her, literally.

 

“Ah.”

 

“Oof.”

 

Jean remained standing up, but I land on the group, because of course I did.

 

“Panacea! Are you okay?” Jean asks, fuck her.

 

“I’m fine.” I grind out

 

“Oh, well, excuse me.” She says before she starts to walk away.

 

“No, wait, I was looking for you. I’m needed somewhere else.” I hurriedly tell her.

 

“Alright, you can go, we’ll be fine for a while.” Jean says without even looking at me.

 

I hate people.

 

Vicky glares at Jean until she turns the character.

 

“What a bitch.” She comments 

 

“It’s fine, let’s just go.” I start walking back up to the roof, but Vicky interrupts me.

 

“Are you sure you have to take another shift right now? It’s almost midnight, I know you’re passionate about your work, but I don’t want you to burn out.” Where’d this come from? She’s never been this observant before. My face feels hot.

 

I hate myself.

 

“If I don’t, a lot of people are going to be angry.” That’s an understatement, a lot of people are going to be too dead to be angry.

 

“Pft, who cares about what they think? C’mon, let’s go eat at Fugly Bob’s and go home. It’ll be fine, it’s just a few hours, what could happen?” She argues. I know I shouldn’t, I know this is selfish, I know this is wrong. But…

 

It’s just a few hours, I’ve already let thousands, if not millions die. What’s a hundred more?

 

It’s fine, it’ll all be fine, nothing bad will happen.

 

I nod to Victoria, and she squeals in joy.

 

“Yes! It’s been so long since we went out to eat together! I’ll call and tell the other place, c’mon let’s go!” She exclaims before spreading her arms out for her to pick me up.

 

I love Victoria. I hate myself.

 

I forward to Victoria, conceding to her.

 

It’ll all be fine, there’s always tomorrow.

 

I can always just do more tomorrow.

Chapter 9: Family Dinner Plans

Summary:

Bonesaw gets Creative!

Notes:

Directly affecting canon starts next chapter! (Probably)

I like this chapter, but I feel I’ve given Bonesaw too much of an advantage over Jack, so I’ll have to solve for that soon.

I hope you all enjoy the chapter and thank you all for any feedback!

I wake up being shoved off my makeshift bed.

 

“Oh-ack!” I knew I should’ve removed sleep, Crawler’s right there, I could just copy him, but ‘noooo Bonesaw, sleep feels and is good for you’. I’m not taking Heel’s advice on sleep ever again.

 

Instead of hearing Cherish’s gloating, Shatterbird’s sarcastic posing, or even Jack’s slimy, gross voice I hear a very meek apology.

 

“a-AH, Bonesaw! I’m so, so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to shove you out of your bed- I’m sorry!” Mimi was apparently the one to deliver my rude awakening, never expected it from her.

 

“It’s alright Mimi-“ I start but Mimi cuts me off.

 

“It’s Burnscar! Please, call me Burnscar. B-But you don’t have to, it’s okay to call me Mimi if you want, it’s just, you know I’d prefer it if- never mind, I’m sorry!” Burnscar word vomits all over me, right after she shoved me out of my bed and woke me up.

 

I sit up, grab my brush, and stare at her for a bit.

 

She goes from worrying, to visibly shaking, to actually crying, all while I just stare at her.

 

Finally I sigh, and call over a few spider boxes to brush my hair.

 

“It’s okay Burnscar, I don’t care all that much about you pushing me off my… bed, and if you wanted me to call you something else, well, why didn’t you say so earlier, silly?” I finish off by sticking my tongue out and winking at her. I have my charm to keep and polish after all.

 

“Oh… okay.” She finishes, lamely.

 

“So! What did ya need, Burny?” I ask her. I wonder what she needs?

 

“Ah, it’s your turn to be on watch.” She tells me. Shatterbird did say something about that, didn’t she.

 

Actually, this could be a good first step, get my first out of seven on my side.

 

“Burnscar! Before you go back to sleep, I have to talk to you about something.” I tell her.

 

“Huh? Um, sure. What’s wrong?” She hesitatingly asks me.

 

“Well, Jack recently informed me that there’s a master/trump in the bay who can control fire animals which ignore parahuman powers, and he didn’t want me to tell you because he thought it’d make the game interesting, but…” I trail off, implanting that seed of doubt into her. Go on, take the bait, you know you to~!

 

“He what?! Oh no, oh god, wh-what do I do? I-I just wanted to see Elle at least once, what, what if- I’ll die! Jack was going to get me killed before I get to- Bonesaw! Bonesaw, what do I do?!” Wow, she fell for that hook, line, and sinker. I expected to need a bit more convincing, but this is good too. If she fell for this that easily, it’ll probably be for the best.

 

“Burny, calm down. I know that right now, it might seem hopeless, and I have a solution, but I need to know, what exactly is your power?” I push so I can make up something believable.

 

“I-I control fire, am immune to high temperatures, and can teleport through fire, I, also… Actually that’s it.” She finishes. Alright, I can work with that.

 

“Alright, I here’s what I can do, I can make you further redundant, I can put a tracker on you, and I can allow you to play dead. If we put all of this together, if you’re ever ‘killed’, you’ll survive and I can put you back together afterwards.” I can, and actually will do that.

 

“A tracker?” She asks suspiciously. Shit, I’m gonna lose her, gotta reel it in.

 

“Don’t worry, it’ll work like a hot or cold thing, I won’t know your exact location, and I’ll only use it if I think you’re on the brink, I pinky promise!” I stick my pinky out for her. Please, please, please take the promise.

 

She stares at my pinky like it’s a coiled snake before reaching out with her own pinky and shaking, yes!

 

“Alright, I’ll put you under by the window while I’m taking watch, is that okay?”

 

“…yeah, that’s fine.”

 

“Okay, and remember, Jack didn’t want me to tell you so don’t say anything to anyone, okay?”

 

“…okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Alright, team!” Jack starts out with a smile, it’s the first time he smiled all morning actually.

 

“We were going to do the usual, but I was thinking, and I feel like we could do something more… creative. So here’s what we’ll do.” He begins.

 

“Bonesaw, that poppy plague you made, spread it some and have it delayed by a few hours. Oh, and decrease it’s… infectivity? Yes, it’s infectivity.” It’s infectiousness, but I can do that easily.

 

“Mannequin, I need you to infiltrate the local PRT base and take hostage one Thomas Calvert, shush him, and then kill him. If you can’t find him, wait until you hear Shatterbird’s scream, and then introduce yourself to Armsmaster.” He tells Mannequin, and Mannequin just leaves. Uh, shit, was I supposed to get a move on too?

 

While I call for my puppets and spider boxes, Jack, smiling wider than he was before, continues.

 

“Shatterbird, in an hour, announce us, focus on the local neo-nazis and don’t let up on them until at least 3 are dead.” He instructs. Shatterbird, like the suck up she is, salutes him and flies off as well. I hand both Wukong and Hellion a glove, a face mask, and a play dough cup each, give them some instructions and warnings, and send them off.

 

“Crawler, there’s this deep lake next to what’s left of that preppy school, to the north of that lake there’s an underground base. Inside is someone as big as you who's able to hurt, they’re name is Noelle. Be quiet and dig into the place, when you reach the base, go loud.” He finishes, before he pauses and adds, “And when you do, yell ‘I said not to tell’.” Crawler huffs and… quietly crawls off, the fluff and claws obviously being more than for show. By the was, that was an oddly specific thing to add. Who the hell is Thomas Calvert?

 

“Bonesaw, Burnscar, Cherish, with me.” He says, before he walks out the back door into the backyard.

 

I step over the blood stain of where the cowboy used to be, I think Shatterbird killed him, and follow after Jack.

 

“So, why did you want to come to Brockton again?” I ask Cherish.

 

“Ah, thank you for reminding me, Bonesaw.” Jack says, before he hands me a… this is a bomb.

 

It looks like one of Mannequin’s, but this one is a small box with 8 small holes, all on the same side. I don’t actually know it’s a bomb (it isn’t my tech), but I just feel like it’s a bomb, and this is confirmed when I go to ask and Jack nods before I can say anything with a big grin on his face. Creep.

 

“Cherish, this is the bomb you requested, have Bonesaw install it.” He tells her before hurrying along.

 

I’m about to start when I realize that I forgot my lab. How the hell did- whatever, it’ll be fine, I don’t need to know where my lab is to access it, but just in case…

 

I call my dolls and Spider boxes to me and tell them to bring my stuff with them.

 

“Um, aren’t we going to wait for- you know…” Burnscar trails off when Jack just turns to her and stares with that stupid smile wiped off his face.

 

“They’ll be fine, they’ll know where to find us before it’s too late.” He says while glaring at Burnscar and walking off, with Burnscar quickly following.

 

He obviously knows about what I did, so why did he- oh, I have a time limit, I can’t do what I did with Burnscar to Cherish.

 

Cherish watches as my lab arrives and she sighs exasperatedly.

 

“Alright, let’s get this over with, I have a family reunion to attend.” A family reunion? Does she not see us as family? Oh well, that just means she’s more open to education.

 

I may not be able to do much, but in the short time I’ve known Jack, he’s actually been very helpful. He loves to teach me things, lots of things. But one lesson always stood out.

 

Jack taught me art requires Creativity.

Chapter 10: Bring your Niece to Work Day

Summary:

Bonesaw goes to Jack’s workplace and meets his coworkers

Notes:

Heyo! It’s me, I have returned with the longest chapter yet!

I modeled this chapter pretty heavily after Plague 12.4, but I’ve changed a few things and weakened both sides in certain ways. So it should be different but it will most likely evoke a sense of Deja vu.

I hope everyone enjoys this chapter and thank you everybody for the feedback!

When Cherish woke up, she seemed to realize something was wrong.

 

I should clarify, nothing was wrong, but I feel like trying to convince her of something like that would just make her more convinced something was wrong.

 

Now, with Cherish looking at me, she squints, looks at my closest doll, and then back to me. Obviously this means that she’s experiencing confusion. Did I mess up somewhere…?

 

No 

 

Of course not, I performed perfectly, so why is she looking at me like that?

 

“…How long was I out? Did I die? Is this hell? This is very generic if it is.” She asks with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Hey! Don’t be rude!”

 

“Hey! Don’t be rude!”

 

Me and my doll exclaim this at the same time, meaning the timing is flawless.

 

“…Whatever, I don’t care, Jack said we had to hurry, right?” She asks nonchalantly while looking at my doll. Hey, eyes over here buddy!

 

“What! Come on, you can’t have moved past this that fast!” I exclaim.

 

“What! Come on, you can’t have moved past this that fast!” I make my doll say this like it’s some kind of muppet.

 

“You do crazy shit all the time, this is barely anything.” I just got here yesterday, who the hell was this before I moved in.

 

“Language!”

 

“What do you mean this is barely anything! Look at this! How did I even do this?” I say.

 

“I don’t know and I don’t care. You’re one of the most powerful biotinkers in North America. I know at least three parahumans off the top of my head who can clone themselves, now c’mon, lead me to Jack.” She declares blank-faced, like she didn’t just discredit half of my morning 

 

“Do you know how expensive this was?” The doll asks.

 

“This is less like cloning and more like a remote puppet!” I say.

 

“I had to cannibalize 3 entire cars for this while not alerting anybody!” The doll says.

 

“And your reaction was to ask if you were in hell and then moving on?” I ask.

 

“Yeah? Look, I don’t really give a shit about-“ she waves a hand at me and my doll “-this, this is nothing. I know where everyone I know is in this dump, Shatterbird is about to attack the entire city in a few minutes, hell, that plague you made yesterday morning is more impressive than this. Now c’mon, Jack’s starting to feel impatient and I really don’t want to piss him off.” She tells me and starts to walk off.

 

Me and my doll don’t say anything as we stare at her walk off before one of us walks after her with half of the spider boxes, Hellion and Tracy.

 

I catch up with Cherish and just quietly walk next to her. She can sense everybody in the city? That’ll be useful later.

 

Jack and Burnscar got surprisingly far and it took a bit to catch up with them, but when we did, they were standing in front of the entrance to a random warehouse.

 

He barely looks at Cherish before giving me a smile, as if to say ‘watch this’.

 

He kicks open the door revealing 4 people wearing costumes who seem to be waiting for us to enter.

 

From right to left (I can read anyway I want!) there’s a young man wearing some sort of fancy red and gray armor reminiscent of baseball armor, a teen boy wearing a spiky crown, a porcelain mask, and a puffy renaissance shirt holding a short staff while striking a pose, a blonde teen girl wearing a skin-tight purple, black suit with a domino mask, and a smile reminiscent of Jack’s, and at the very left is a girl wearing professional, dark looking bug armor.

 

“This is not an exit.” Jack says for some reason.

 

“This is not an exit. Kudos for the reference.” The blonde in the purple says. Reference? To what?

 

“I try.” He says back with a smile, and she smiles back. Seriously, what reference? Never mind, I don’t want the answer, they’re both just old and creepy.

 

The place falls silent and I take the time to further inspect those in front of us. The man in the armor and bug girl are both stock still, but in different ways. The man is slightly quivering, while the girl’s unnatural stillness is definitely power assisted. The other two are acting unbothered, but renaissance keeps looking over at Cherish, while the blonde is standing a little too close to bug girl. I wonder what their powers are. 

 

“What’s this? Someone thought they had a clever idea. A little hope and inspiration there. Even some boldness.” Cherish voices. That doesn’t sound like her.

 

“Oh? Who?” Jack ask, but he’s already singled the bug girl out.

 

“When I looked at her with my power, before, I called her the Worm.  She spent a lot of time being as low on the food chain as you can go while still being able to move around under her own power.  As low as someone can get while still having an identity of their own.  But she’s realized she’s poisonous, dangerous in her own unique way.  She’s useful , like a silkworm or an earthworm.  She’s even realized she’s not alone, so long as she looks for friends among other dirty… contemptible creatures.  Speaking of which, I forgot to say hi, little brother.” Jesus, that sounds like she prepared it beforehand.

 

“Fuck you, Cherie.” Renaissance says. That actually makes some sense and, from what little I can see, I definitely could’ve figured that out.

 

“Language!”

 

“English!” He snarks.

 

“Are you sure? Didn’t sound English.” I snark back.

 

“Oh yeah? What did it sound like?” Oh, he came to play, I wish I had an actual comeback prepared.

 

“I’m not sure and I honestly don’t want to know.” I say. He looks like I just stroked his ego.

 

“Bonesaw, I swear to Scion, shut the fuck up.” Cherie calmly tells me.

 

“Language, but I got it, shutting up.” I say.

 

Everyone is silent for a bit, before Cherie coughs and starts back up.

 

“Fuu-dge, where was I?” 

 

“You just cussed out Regent.” The blonde girl says rather smugly, like she’s proud she has basic attention skills.

 

“Screw?” She looks at me and I nod, “Screw you both, ahem… f-luck, alright. Point is, the worm found her worth somewhere worthless, and she doesn’t want to acknowledge said worthlessness, and she probably never will.” She was definitely reading off a script, but at least she can improvise.

 

“Smooth, I take it this oh, so clever worm is Skitter?” Jack asks, asking solely to be polite. When did he-? Oh, last night.

 

“Yup.” Cherie pops her mouth as she says this.

 

“Skitter, listen. If you even look suspicious, Bonesaw will pop you like an unwanted pimple before you can even realize what happened.” It’s true, I can do that, I’d just have to get closer first.

 

“He’s bluffing.” The purple one calls out.

 

“He’s really not.” Cherie rebuffs.

 

“The same goes for the rest of you. Some of you seem like you could kill me pretty easily, but even without Bonesaw, we have Burnscar here and I don’t think any of you are fireproof.” He declares.

 

That seems to put Skitter and purple girl down.

 

“How are our potential recruits?” Jack asks Burnscar.

 

Burnscar seems to be stunned at being put on the spot before sputtering out.

 

“Me? Oh, well, I don’t really… care, BUT, they seem promising, all of them are oddly powerful.” They are? Maybe I don’t have a solid grasp on powers yet, but I feel like there are better than… slow nerve control? Canine empowerment? Limited ferrokinetic transformation? I understood Panacea and Armsmaster but Regent- Oh, Regent!

 

“What about you, Bonesaw? Do you have any test prepared for our candidates?” Don’t rope me in, old man.

 

“I have a few ideas, but no one will fail my tests.” I do actually have a few ideas, all of them are actually moral- well, as moral as you get.

 

“Really? Why’s that?” You know what Jack, I will answer that.

 

“I designed my tests around a difficult, existential, personal choices. If you can get over yourself, they’re the easiest thing in the world.” I say with my eyes closed while stroking an imaginary beard.

 

“How quaint.” Jack comments with little interest.

 

“Hey, murder and mutilation gets old, alright?” I tell him with some venom in my voice. Both me and Jack notice the Blonde in purple perk up at this, notice we notice, and settle back down.

 

“Huh, that actually sounds kind of funny, what’s Jean-Paul’s test?” Cherie asks with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Something about familial love.” I tell her without much resistance or fanfare.

 

“Lame!” Regent exclaims.

 

“That is kinda boring.” Cherie says

 

“Did the dog girl meet the Siberian yet?” Jack asks.

 

“Yes. She did.” Skitter states, and it is a statement. It felt more solid than everyone else’s words.

 

“A lot going on this early in the morning, so many meetings, yet not a single one invited us, can you believe that?” Jack asks out of nowhere. He does that a lot, doesn’t he.

 

“Of course we didn’t invite any of you, but can you really blame us? We were discussing how to kill you.” The one in purple tells us, like she’s discussing the weather while pointing at Jack.

 

The one in the red suit looks at her in shock while Skitter flinches.

 

Jack, like the weirdo he is, laughs weirdly hard at her declaration. 

 

“Jack, I know you’re old but pay attention, your reputation is on the line.” I loudly whisper to him in mock horror, while I cover my face with shaking hands.

 

Jack pauses for a second, looking genuinely angry, before the moment passes, and he continues like he didn’t hear me.

 

“Don’t worry, my dear Tattletale, I’m very aware, and even know about your own awareness.” Jack says, naturally.

 

“The only thing you need to know about us , Regent, Skitter, is that you take a test, one from each member, some of us, like the Siberian and Mannequin, give out the same test every time. Mannequin will have to sacrifice something, while the Siberian waits until half of the candidates have died and then she hunts the rest.” Jack provides some information for his and Cherie’s candidate.

 

“I hope Siby doesn’t catch either of you, I watched her dismember someone in under 30 seconds. It was honestly really impressive!” I warn.

 

“As for me, well, I go last and act as the final decider. My tests are unfair by design.” Jack adds in.

 

“So, what? We fail the wrong tests, or we win them all, just to be killed by you?” Regent asks sarcastically.

 

“Ah, don’t worry, if I feel you’ve tested enough, my test will be harmless and, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you probably won’t succeed in all the tests, no one really does.” Jack cryptically purrs out. Careful Jack, you’re showing your roots.

 

“Say, what about my sister?”

 

“Calm down now, she’s your recruiter, revealing what she planned would be cheating.” He says with a thin-lipped, but large smile.

 

“No cheating, huh? You know, I’m curious. She got me involved, I kind of want to know, what was her test?” Regent pushes.

 

“She killed Hatchet face, and Crawler took that as his challenge passed. I distinctly remember Bonesaw being plenty creative. Could you remind us, Cherish?” Jack cruelly asks, and considering how badly Cherie flinched, it really goes to show that he’s the group’s tumor.

 

“Oh, well, um. Ahem, Bonesaw was a tad upset about Hatchet face and decided to infect me with… something . That fucking parasite took away my powers and would take them away permanently if I didn’t drink a fuck ton of blood!” She starts by grinding the words out, but by the end, she’s turned and started to yell at me.

 

“… Language?” I say hesitantly. Wow, she got angry fast. She got angry at me fast.

 

“YOU FUCKING-!”

 

“Yes, I believe that was what you said last time, with no specifics. She didn’t seem very confident afterwards. The Siberian started her test near the end of yours, and she passed that too, being caught twice in that state. It was genuinely impressive.”

 

Cherie hasn’t stopped glaring at me, but her eyes occasionally flicker over to Jack. When they do, I can’t read the emotion within them, that’s her thing, not mine.

 

“Shatterbird prefers the more psychological. After 5 days straight of no sleep and constant panic, Shatterbird gave her five minutes before she locked her in a dark room with no food, little water, and a single shard of glass. The shard was always edging a little closer to her, just keeping her vigilant, never stopping, never relaxing.” Jack says this like he’s giving out one of his favorite lectures, he’s even spreading his arms out, as if to invite the whole world to listen, even if it's only for a little bit of time.

 

“She failed Burnscar’s test, not spoiling that one, it isn’t as effective if you know about it. But that left two final tests. Go on, show them.” He orders Cherie.

 

She flinches, but I guess the thing with the blood parasite past me definitely lied about loosened her up, because she follows up without arguing.

 

She lifts her shirt and- on her back is, if I’m being honest, a really shitty tattoo. It has two gross, unhealthy looking women, with the words ‘want me’, ‘take me’, ‘please desire me’, and other such variations, all of it framed by rotting, torn flesh. Ew, I’ll ask if she wants me to fix that when I win.

 

Jack points to her front and- Jesus, she has two.

 

“Mannequin’s test was the one that got to her. All the others could be avoided in some way, but willingly blemishing her body, that was what broke her and made her one of us. Liminaly, at least.” Jack tells them.

 

I can hear Regent laughing his ass off from over here.

 

“What about you?” Skitter asks.

 

“I’m going to be honest with you, it would be near impossible to replicate Mannequin. He got her at just the right moment, hitting just the right nerve. But I feel I’ve topped it. Turn, Cherish.” She does as he says and shows the four the other hideous tattoo.

 

“I made her do all the tests all over again. I even got Bonesaw to bring back Hatchet face.” He gives me a half hug while he says this. I go to subtly jab him with something, but he’s already moved away.

 

Skitter and the boy in the red armor are actively looking away from her, while Regent is still giving the occasional chuckle.

 

“I thought you screwed yourself sis, but I didn’t expect to see it this fast by your own hand! Sis~!” Regent mocks her.

 

“Yeah, well, I’d threaten you, but the nine could do so much worse.” Cherie says, as she shoves her shirt back down in a dull anger.

 

“Why don’t you do it yourself? Why do you have to rely on them?” The one in purple asks. What is she doing?

 

“…What are you planning? I can literally feel the smugness radiating off of you, why are you so confident?” Cherie has her eyes narrowed at the purple one, like she’s a ugly bug on the sidewalk with wings. The ‘stay the fuck away, don’t hurt me’ kind of bug.

 

“Cherish, I’m rather curious, why don’t you answer Tattletale’s question.” Jack excitedly chirps.

 

“Screw off, old man, you’re getting predictable. You want to keep things fun for yourself, and so instead of walking the path, you drag everyone with you down the road instead, because otherwise it would be too easy. Why not just have Siberian kill everyone? They won’t be able to stop her, that’d be traumatic. They might even go to you, just to make a deal, just to make her stop!” Cherie’s obviously been pushed off too many cliffs today, and it isn’t even past 10am yet.

 

“She’s trying to manipulate you. Now who’s underhanded.” Tattletale finishes by looking over at Regent.

 

“Doesn’t change the facts.” Regent says simply.

 

Tattletale leans a bit away, towards Skitter, and pretends to be mock offended.

 

“I’m aware.” Jack tells her, his smile a tad strained.

 

“You’re aware, huh? Were you aware she’s playing the long con? She’s setting you all up, using her power to wrap you all around her fingers. Six months is all she needs to attach you all to her, permanently.” Tattletale reveals. Jeez, that didn’t seem like a very smart thing to say, especially considering the expression on Jack’s face.

 

Cherish looks between Jack and Tattletale in horror.

 

Jack looks genuinely upset. He’s rubbing the bridge of his nose, his head down and his eyes closed.

 

“Disappointing.”

 

“And that’s not even all, your little Bonesaw there is pla-“ 

 

Tattletale stops talking all of a sudden, while Skitter and Regent are both splattered with blood. Tattletale collapsed from the sudden pain.

 

Tattletale seems to have developed several wounds on her person. A cut going through her right cheek, giving her a permanent frown, she’s missing her left pinky, and left ring finger, and her knee looks as though it’s been slashed, giving her a, probably permanently, limp.

 

Jack is standing next to me, twirling a bloody hunting knife in his hand, while looking pleased with himself.

 

Tattletale was mutilated by Jack from a distance.

 

What the fuck? What was his power? What did he just do?

 

Skitter is hurryingly, and badly, tending to Tattletale. Regent looks startled and has taken a step behind the ruined Tattletale, and red armor has opened one of his little pockets and brandished a few, small, metal balls?

 

“I was looking forward to it too. Me and Bonesaw had a plan in mind, see? We’d see how she’d do and how she’d deal with Siberian, then Bonesaw’s safeguards would kick in and release us and watch her realize. To see the face she’d make, that’d make everything worth it, and that little girl just spoiled it all.” Jack states with a sneer.

 

“You knew?” Cherish asks, looking at Jack in horror.

 

“Clearly.” Jack says haughtily. Regent has started to help Skitter tend to Tattletale, while red armor has become even more tense.

 

“But- there wasn’t any- you didn’t- but my power-.” Cherie fails to start.

 

“Exactly! You wouldn’t have noticed a thing, Bonesaw made sure of that, and it would have surprised you! So much preparation ruined!” Jack laments to himself. I remind myself again, Creep.

 

“What are you going to do with me?” Cherie mutters to Jack in terror.

 

“Nothing too bad.” Jack tells Cherie conversationally. 

 

“Add more pressure.” I hear Skitter say from across the room.

 

“I’m trying!” I hear Regent say back.

 

“I’d focus on her cheek, she’s going to bleed out from it in an hour!” I shout across the room.

 

They glower at me, before actually taking my advice and moving to her cheek. Huh, another point to moi.

 

“I wouldn’t bother, she’s most likely going to die here, but you can try.” Says Jack, completely undermining what I just said.

 

“Anyway, let’s get down to the Brass tax.” Jack continues.

 

“I am here to issue Warnings.”

Chapter 11: Good Quality Art Supplies

Summary:

Bonesaw wants to be a Good Girl

Notes:

I’ve come back! This chapter felt weird to right, but I like this one.

Thank you all for reading, and thank you for all the feedback.

When we walked into some random warehouse, I honestly thought we were going to set up a trap or something. He gave everyone (except the Siberian) complex orders to execute and even a time and place to execute them.

 

When we walked into some random warehouse, I didn’t expect Jack to use the four supervillains (Skitter and Regent look evil) to boost his ego.

 

I didn’t expect it, and I’m half sure that no one else here besides me and Jack himself noticed. They’re all too busy to notice.

 

The Four across from us are terrified of us, and so are Tracy, Hellion, and Cherie. Burnscar is also scared, but she seems more nervous than she is scared.

 

Point is, everyone’s too scared of Jack to realize he’s playing us.

 

“I am here to issue warnings.” Jack announces to the room with a smile.

 

Except me, I’m the only one able to stop him!

 

“Careful, Ballistic. These warnings are going to save a lot of people, it would be terrible if they didn’t get out…” He trails off, facing the man with the metal balls, while looking directly at me. Is that a threat? Is he threatening me? How did he know? Is that a part of his power? Knowing? How does that translate to hurting someone a distance away?

 

“Anyway, where was I? I seem to have forgotten in my old age, can someone make me aware again?” He states, leaning back in the air.

 

“You were warning us.” Ballistic states tensely, gripping a metal ball tight.

 

“Ah, yes! The warnings! Don’t worry, there are only two, not much to remember, but please, pay attention!” He says this while looking directly at Skitter, who has looked up and is simply staring at Jack, her face unseen behind her mask, but she meets Jack’s stare.

 

“First warning is a simple one, meant to discourage Candidates, and I guess you three- or two now, from working together. Bonesaw is here to facilitate this. Go on, show them.” He puts a hand on my shoulder as he says this, like an encouraging parent.

 

I get what he’s talking about and, disguising shoving him off as fishing through my apron’s pockets, take out a syringe filled with my poppy plague.

 

“This is a crowd killer I spread to some random people in Brockton. I’ll admit, it’s a bit cliche, but I was put on the spot for this, alright?!” I jokingly act out being offended at my own criticism. No one except Jack laughs at that. Actually, everyone who didn’t know about this until now (and Tracy) look horrified. This is worse than crickets, heck even Burnscar and Cherie look a bit put off.

 

“Good girl.” These words freeze me in place for some reason, making it hard to breathe. I lock myself in place until it goes away, looking on the outside like nothing’s wrong.

 

I think I hear Skitter say something, but it feels distant, like it was far away.

 

A voice I know is Jack’s begins to talk and I retreat further inside.

 

 

I-I can’t…

 

 

Who’s…

 

 

 

Why is…

 

 

 

Where is she?

 

 

 

Why is she gone?

 

 

 

Was it because I was Bad?

 

 

 

How do I…

 

 

 

 

I tried to…

 

 

 

 

 

I am a good girl…

 

You’re not

 

 

I AM a Good Girl……

 

No, you’re not

 

 

 

I AM!

 

You never will be

 

 

 

I, a—a~am…

 

You simply are not 

 

 

 

 

I’mma good, gri~l…

 

You ar-

 

Shut up

 

You aren’t-

 

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP  SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT U-

 

“Bonesaw?” Burnscar asks.

 

The four across the room are gone, the only thing left behind is a large puddle of blood on the floor.

 

Jack and Cherish are talking, talking’s actually a generous term for what they’re doing, Jack is talking at Cherish while she stands there looking scared and depressed. Cherish is scared, because she was bad to Jack.

 

Besides a new slash mark on Hellion’s stomach, nothing about my hostages- my dolls, they’re my dolls, nothing has really changed about my dolls other than that they look stressed. They’re still standing against the wall, like I told them to. They’re good dolls.

 

Mimi is standing next to me, looking nervously at my forehead. She’s concerned for me. She’s a good doll.

 

I’m a Good Girl.

 

I unlock my pose, before looking at Burnscar.

 

“Yes Burnscar?” I ask politely, because I’m polite, Good Girls are polite. 

 

“Are you okay? You have, um, a…” Burnscar points at her own forehead.

 

After she says this, I realize that my forehead’s wet. I go to wipe it, feeling a odd bump, before I realize my head is covered in smart blood.

 

I pull out a mouth mirror and look at my head through the glass.

 

In the center of my forehead is a small metal ball, smaller than an eye, but big enough that it becomes one of the more prominent features on my face. The ball has dug itself deep into my head, and if any of the meat on my neck mattered, it definitely would have killed me.

 

Part of how smart blood works is that it understands what it’s doing. Its tinker origin allows the blood to move in ways that most liquids can’t, along with the ability to lose impurities gathered on its own.

 

If I was paying attention, like a Good Girl, I would have been able to stop any sort of blood-letting. But I wasn’t, and now the ball in the middle of my frontal bones is leaking.

 

I can do better. I’m a Good Girl!

 

“It’s fine. Tis’ merely a flesh wound.” I crack a joke. She looks disturbed by me for some reason, but I don’t bring this up, because I’m polite.

 

“Oh… Alright? Well, do you know who they were?” Mimi- Burnscar asks me.

 

“Them? From what I remember from… Jack, is that Regent, the boy with the crown, has shi-… has slow nerve control, is Cherie’s candidate and sister, and he’s a part of the Undersiders. Skitter and Tattletale, bug girl and Jack’s victim, are also a part of the Undersiders. I don’t actually know anything else, but that just means we’ll have to ask them ourselves! Are you excited? I am, I can’t wait to make more do-Friends!” I info dump Burnscar like she info dumped me. That’s actually a great idea! If I want to ki-… take down jAcK, I’ll need to gather all the materials I can! 

 

“Oh… No, that’s okay Bonesaw, I’m not interested in the Undersiders all that much, I’m just here to see Elle.” Burnscar tells me. She already has a friend here? That’s so cool! I wonder if Elle could help with JAck?

 

“Can you tell me about her?” I press. 

 

“NO! No, not Elle, don’t touch her!” She spits out at me. Elle must be a good friend if Mimi cares this much, she can definitely help me!

 

“Okay, I won’t touch her, I pinky promise!” I tell her while sticking my pinky out towards her. I’m lying because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, hurting my family’s feelings is bad, and I’m not Bad, I’m a Good Girl!

 

“… pinky promise.” She hesitates before she sticks her pinky out as well, seeming to gain confidence that I won’t do her wrong.

 

“All right, places everyone! The festival is about to start once more, so get to your candidate with their tests before the iron even strikes!” Jack tells us with a big grin on his face while he walks out, Cherish stumbling after him.

 

Burnscar hears this, and is about to run off before stops and she turns to me.

 

“… Thank you, I’ll see you later.” She says before in a burst of fire, she disappears.

 

The warehouse is silent for a moment, before me, my puppets, my boxes, and a few new vials of blood leave the warehouse.

 

Time to pay Panacea a visit.

Chapter 12: Play date at a Friend’s house

Summary:

Bonesaw has a play date with Amy while Photon mom watches over them.

Notes:

New chapter!

I’m proud of this one, I feel like I replicated some of Worm in this chapter.

Thank you all for reading and any feedback given!

Panacea, Amy Dallon, of New Wave, a family hero group outside the government, they’re based around accountability, as none of them hide their identity. Amy has touch-limited biokinesis, making her essentially a faster me who’s limited only to bio-materials. If she weren’t a hero, she would be incredibly powerful, able to kill with a touch and tinker with the flesh.

---

That said, she only seems to use her power to heal, not even improve, just healing. Why?

 

Well, when I asked jacK, he said it was because she had rules, rules that she follows so she wasn’t bad.

 

And while that’s a great reason, she's obviously going about it wrong. I mean, limiting herself making all her stuff sterile is fine, but brains? It’s just another organ, an important one, yes, but it’s the processing organ. It’s one of the reasons she’s so powerful, and she ignores it! She doesn’t even heal brains, if her step dad is anything to go by.

 

Really, what I’ve prepared for her will be good for everyone, including her.

 

Me, my dolls, and my boxes are speedily, but stealthily, making our way over to the Dallon’s. While we travel, I’m having to do a simple surgery on the recent forehead injury that would normally take maybe a minute, but I’m having to run and stay hidden while I’m doing this, making it take a bit longer.

 

“Where are we going?” I hear Tracy ask me.

 

“The Dallon’s house, I gotta get there before Shatterbird can announce us, ‘cause I’m pretty sure that mundane remote communication will stop working afterward.” She’s going to attack the entire city with glass, and I have a feeling that the remaining structures won’t survive that.

 

“Why?” Hellion asks this with a sneer.

 

“A few reasons, I gotta play along with Jack, or all pretenses will drop, I came up with a test that’ll be beneficial for everybody, and I actually really want to meet her! Panacea, I mean.” I tell them. Pop! There the ball goes! I’m gonna keep it! Now I gotta fill in the hole. I start to pinch the injury with the hand holding the mouth mirror and pull out a pair of tweezers.

 

“Why did you pick her? Isn’t she just a healer? They’re rare, yeah, but…” Hellion trails off with the question.

 

“Oh, she’s a whole lot more than a healer. If she went all out, she could be worse than Nilbog! But she doesn’t, because she doesn’t want to be a Bad girl.” I say without much thought. We’re almost there and I don’t want to introduce myself with a bloody crater in the middle forehead. I drag everything left back into place with the tweezers, put those up, and bring up a mixture of 13, 7, and 3, and pour some of the liquid into the crater.

 

“Panacea isn’t Nilbog! She’s a healer! She saves hundreds of people daily!” Tracy shouts at me. 

 

“Of course she isn’t Nilbog! Didn’t you hear me earlier? She didn’t want to be bad, like Nilbog is. It’s a good thing too, since his stuff’s life span is degenerative, while Amy’s isn’t.” I say. The crater starts to bubble and fill, before it stops. Viola! Like brand new!

 

“Do you even know what Panacea’s powers are?” Hellion asks

 

“Do you?” I ask her, before the three of us stop in front of a nice suburban looking home.

 

“Hellion, react to any attacks on any of our persons.” I order, before I ring the doorbell.

 

I hear someone from inside say something, before it goes quiet for a second, and then the door opens, revealing a older nice-looking woman with straight blonde hair and a heart-shaped face.

 

“Ah, hello! Sorry, the other Dallons aren’t home right now. My name is Sarah Pelham, can I help you in some way?” The woman says while looking at Tracy, before catching sight of Hellion, sucking in a breath, and looks back to Tracy.

 

“Oh! Um… sorry, but can we… come in?” Tracy awkwardly stumbles.

 

“Of course! Come in, come- oh! Who’s this?” She asks while looking at me. Uh oh, what do I say? I can’t call my self fucking Bonesaw. Um…

 

“My name is… rrrrr…” I can’t come up with a name! Is this where I fall? We’re going to have to go in loud, aren’t we? I start to pull out a vial, but am interrupted by Tracy.

 

“Riley! Her name is Riley. Say hello Riley!” Tracy saves. Thank you Tracy! I’ll make it up to you later!

 

“Hello!” I say childishly.

 

“Hello, Riley! My name’s Sarah, are you hungry?” Sarah asks, opening the door to let us in. Infiltration success!

 

“Yes, Miss Sarah.” I drone.

 

She lets us inside the Dallon’s house, closing the door behind her.

 

While we make our way towards the kitchen, I spot a comatose man laying down on the couch with a blanket draped over him. Is that him?

 

“Miss Sarah! Who’s that!” I point at the couch.

 

“Hm? Oh, that’s the superhero, Flashbang! He’s a part of New Wave, do you want to know his superpower?” She asks. I’m running out of time, I gotta hurry.

 

“Miss Sarah, are you a superhero?” I ask in awe, stepping closer to her while clasping my hands.

 

“Why yes I am, young lady. My superhero name is Lady Photon.” She says with a chuckle.

 

“Can I… Can I hug you?” I ask her.

 

“Of course you can, sweetie. Bring it in!” She says with a smile, while she goes down onto her knees and spreads her arms open for me to enter.

 

I come closer and give her a hug.

 

“Huh? What’s that smell?” Sarah asks, before she falls forward, paralyzed.

 

I get out from under and start to shuffle through her pockets before I find a cellphone. Bingo.

 

I open the thing up and start to go through her contacts.

 

“Spider boxes! Go dismantle any electronic devices in the house and bring them here!” I order them, and they skitter throughout the house to do as they were told.

 

“Whaaat…?” Sarah voices.

 

“Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay, I promise! Tracy! Hellion! Bring the kitchen table into the living room and put Sarah on top of it, strip her.” I order, finding Amy Dallon in the contacts and tapping it.

 

It rings, ringing, ringing, ringing…

 

Click!

 

“Yes, Aunt Sarah?” I hear a girl on the other side. I move to the makeshift surgeon table and put Sarah under. Time to start. 

 

“Is this Amy Dallon?” I ask, you can never be too sure after all. I coat a scalpel in substance 8 and cut Sarah open with it from under the jaw and all the way down. 

 

“Yes? Who is this?” Amy says from the other side, voice audibly laced with suspicion. I start to tinker with what used to be an oven to turn it into the general exoskeleton hardware.

 

“Who I am doesn’t matter that much, what does matter is that I have a comatose Flashbang and Lady Photon and require your attention.” I tell her. I strip the muscles off the bones of her limbs and extremities, before melding the exoskeleton onto the bone, I then insert the receiver and processor within her ribcage, behind her lungs. Now I can start with the more complicated stuff.

 

“You require my attention? Are you threatening to kill them?” Instead of getting scared, she seems to just get angry.

 

“No exactly, but I can currently see Sarah’s bones, so…” I trail off. Sarah apparently had a bad liver. Had, because I fixed it. I’ll get her to thank me later.

 

“…” On the other side, Amy is silent.

 

“Don’t tell anybody, okay? If you do, I’ll kidnap them both, okay? I’m at your house. So come over quick, and you might want to ditch any glass on you, you’ll see why soon.” I hang up and hand the phone to a spider box.

 

“Put this outside. The rest of you, board up the windows.” I order, and they do as told. Good.

 

I spend a while longer inside of Sarah before closing her back up and jabbing her with something.

 

I stand up and head to the couch, sitting next to Flashbang’s head.

 

I take out a powder, pour it into a vial with water, and fill a syringe with the stuff.

 

“What…?” I hear Sarah say from the table.

 

“Good morning, Aunt Sarah! How are you feeling?” I ask.

 

“I’m feeling… What are you doing with that?” She asks, sitting up and looking at me.

 

“I’m gonna test Amy with this, why? Are you curious?” I prod.

 

“Uh…” Sarah is looking around the living room, noticing the windows and spider boxes.

 

“That's great! A lot of people say curiosity is what makes people human! It’s mostly philosophers who say that, and I can prove that it really isn’t, but it’s the spirit of the phrase, not the-“ I start but am interrupted by Sarah when she starts to charge a laser aimed at me.

 

“What did you do?” Sarah asks stern faced, flying farther away from me.

 

“Stand down.” I order her, and she does. She looks confused for a second before her face changes back to stern.

 

“You’re a master.” She states, glaring at me.

 

“I’m a little more than a master, but I guess I am. Do you still want to know?” I ask her. She’s new so I can forgive the slip up.

 

“…Yes.” She says.

 

Before I can answer, the front door opens and I hear someone run inside.

 

“No talking.” I order Sarah, before turning to the living room entrance and calling out, “We’re in here!” After I say this, I take the syringe and jab it into the back of Flashbang’s neck.

 

Two people come into view of the living room door. When they do, I visibly toss the syringe away and turn to them.

 

The more obvious teen in the doorway is wearing a white costume with long curled bright blonde hair wearing an enraged expression is floating, she looks like she’s barely holding herself back at the order of the other girl. The other teen is wearing a white cloak with a Red Cross symbol over the front, she has brown curly hair that goes down to her chin, her eyes are brown, almost red, and she’s staring me directly in the eyes.

 

“Hi, Amy! I was the one who called, do you want to know what I just put in your father?” I cheerfully ask her as I sit next to Mark.

Chapter 13: Bad behavior is rewarded with Punishments

Summary:

Vicky was bad in front of Bonesaw’s current guardian while Amy and Bonesaw were playing a game.

Notes:

I took a bit of inspiration from Skitterdoc’s mosquito blood finder for this chapter.

This chapter was fun to make, mainly cause I can start to cash in on some earlier plot points. Makes me feel smart!

I hope you all enjoy reading this one, and remember, I appreciate all and any feedback given!

“Aunt Sarah! What happened? Are you and dad okay?!” The flying teenager asks Sarah.

 

Sarah doesn’t verbally respond, but she points at me and does this weird hand motion. Uh oh, didn’t stop her from communicating, just talking. Let’s nip this in the bud.

 

“Attack me, and I’ll get your Aunt to fly away and kill herself. Slowly. So tread carefully~!” I tell the both of them. 

 

The blonde one reacts like she just noticed me and is obviously surprised at my appearance, while Amy just narrows her eyes at me.

 

“You? You did this? You’re, like, Vista’s age. Look, little girl, just point me towards the real culprit and we can go find your parents. Did the one with the weird skin do this? You can tell me, okay?” The flier condescends towards me while looking at Hellion.

 

Hellion looks angry at the entire room at the comment.

 

“Who are you?” Amy asks me, she hasn’t stopped glaring at me since she’s laid her eyes on me.

 

“Ames, you’re not really believing her, are you? It’s obviously the weird looking one.” The stuck-up blonde reprimands her. Amy still hasn’t looked away from me.

 

“You want to know who I am? Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out in… 2 minutes, but enough about that! Isn’t there something else you want to ask?” I dodge and prod Amy, metaphorically I mean, not literally. I’m not touching her unless she’s unconscious.

 

“What else do we want to ask?” The flier asks with narrowed eyes. If she keeps interrupting us, I might have to take her away for a while.

 

“What did you do to Mark and Aunt Sarah?” Amy asks, also ignoring the blonde.

 

“I did very different things to both of them, you’ll have to be more specific.” I say this in a condescending manner to her, like a teacher scolding their least favorite student.

 

“Okay then, what did you do to Aunt Sarah here?” The flier asks this with a slight smirk.

 

“I installed a basic control frame in her.” I say this so bluntly that it seems to stun the preppy girl for a bit. Amy takes the time to ask another question.

 

“What did you do-“ Amy starts but is cut off by a loud, but quiet noise, not too unsimilar to a scream if you can hear the right frequencies. The house starts to shake to go along with this. There’s a shattering sound outside and it continues for a full minute, during which Amy collapsed to her knees with her hands on her ears and her eyes closed, the flier’s eyes shot open and she left to go look outside, returning quickly and covering Amy with her body, Sarah’s eyes open in realization as her eyes look over to me, all the while my dolls just look tired, like they expected this, but are disappointed anyway.

 

As for me, I just locked my pose and waited. Is that how Shatterbird’s power works? Ultrasonic frequencies? That gives me a few ideas. 

 

The shattering and shaking stop suddenly, so suddenly that everyone was quiet for a minute more, before I interrupt that silence.

 

“Go on. What did I…?” I lead with what she began with, leaning forward excitedly, like she’s about to tell me a big secret.

 

“That… that was Shatterbird, you’re Bonesaw!” The flier shouts looking incredibly startled.

 

“Bingo! That’s me! And do you know why I’m here in your home with your father and Aunt?” I push further.

 

They both just stare at me, before the blonde's face sets in determination and she shoots towards me.

 

Before she can reach me, a beam of light shoots through her shoulder, a golden force field surrounding her shattering at the same time.

 

She falls onto the ground in front of me screaming and holding the spot where her right arm used to be.

 

Amy’s screaming too as she runs up to the blonde, but unlike the blonde, she’s screaming in horror.

 

The blonde is screaming in agony, as the wound bleeds way more than it should have.

 

Hellion’s hyperventilating and seems like she just got back from a workout. Her hand pointing out from her at where the blonde was flying.

 

“Victoria! Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, it’ll all be- calm down!” Amy is at Victoria’s side healing her, but Hellion’s power must have some trump aspect because it’s healing slower than I expected.

 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-“ Victoria has not stopped screaming since she was hit. Dramatic much? There are two parahumans in the room with the capacity to heal even the very recently deceased, and one of them is her sister.

 

While Amy is distracted, I get off the couch, and start to walk towards the entrance, trying to stay out of her lunging range.

 

Once I’m in a position I feel is safe, I call all my boxes and dolls towards me.

 

“Amy- AMY! HEY, AMY!” I try to make my voice audible over Victoria’s screams and fail. Goddammit, this would’ve been so much easier if people just talked first instead of going straight to punching.

 

Conveniently, Amy decides that right now is the time to knock Victoria out so she won’t further destroy her voice.

 

“There we go- Amy! Do you want to-“ I start and she interrupts me.

 

“Fucking tell me or so help me god, I’ll give you every disease I know.” Amy says impatiently, not even looking at me as she tends to Victoria.

 

“Language! Ahem, well, as you may know, the nine is a nomadic villain group, and with that comes a high fatality rate. That’s why we’re doing a recruitment drive, and you’re my selected recruit! Cool, eh? Anyway, every current member of the nine is going to test you to make sure you’re up to snuff, and this is my test!” I say proudly.

 

“Killing Victoria?” She grinds out.

 

“What? No! That was her fault! She shouldn’t have charged me! No, your test is your dad over there.” I point to Flashbang, who has not moved an inch since everything.

 

Amy stops tending to Victoria and looks up at her dad, laying on the couch as still as a statue.

 

“Go on, check on him.” I tell her, and she does just that. She’s quiet for a while, before she suddenly sucks in a breath.

 

“As you know, he suffers from clinical depression. It should be an easy fix for people like us, but you haven’t fixed him yet, why? I understand you have your hang up with brains, but it’s so limiting! There are so many good things you can do with brain manipulation! With this being the most obvious example! So, instead of fixing him myself, my test is to make you fix him! I gave him a parasite that travels to and nests within the brain, it’ll kill him in 16 minutes. You can fix him, meaning you have to heal his brain, or alternatively, you could do nothing and let him die. It’s your choice.” I am finally able to explain to her. Jeez, they were uncooperative!

 

During my explanation, Amy turned to me, her glare melted into a stare by the end of my explanation.

 

“…Yup! That’s it I guess…” I awkwardly finish off. Not knowing what else to add.

 

She hasn’t looked away from me at all. Alright! Time to leave!

 

“I’m just gonna… go, okay? See you later, okay!” I call my boxes and dolls and exit the house, first task completed.

 

Outside, the relatively put together neighborhood has been demolished, buildings that looked stable look like several bombs went off inside, glass and desecrated corpses litter the streets, with the only nearby notices being people loudly breathing in pain and the wind.

 

Me and my dolls take in the sight, before we hear footsteps to our left.

 

I turn to see Heel, Mark, and a small, rough looking woman with unnaturally oddly pale hands peeking through the sleeves of the several sweaters she’s wearing.

 

Heel and Mark are stoic, while the woman is glaring at me without much energy.

 

I hold my hand out and Heel hands me a small powder packet.

 

I walk to Hellion, and run the packet under her nose.

 

“Hellion, follow the trail back to my other me quickly and stealthily. Tracy, Lady Photon, do the same, but instead of a trail, follow Hellion.” I order this while handing Hellion the packet.

 

Tracy looks incredibly nervous, while Hellion glares at me.

 

Sarah looks terrified, like I’m about to tear her apart and put her back together.

 

I am going to do exactly that.

 

Sarah picks Tracy up and quickly flies after a teleporting Hellion, leaving me with three different dolls to use.

 

I suck in a breath and take out a vial of blood, and gesture for the three to drag a few bodies towards me.

 

“Heel, Mark, Gretchen. How are we feeling?”

 

“…good.” Heel says hesitantly.

 

“Fine.” Mark spits.

 

“Absolutely Terrific.” Gretchen grinds out sarcastically.

 

I’d hope so, I had my attention split on them for a while. Now both Mark and Gretchen are cleared for basic parahuman fighting, heck, at this point, Gretchen basically, kinda is a parahuman. Thank you, cooler member guy, I‘ll always remember you!

 

I make a small, rodent-like creature out of one of the bodies, and turn the rest into what amounts to one big, physically powerful four legged creature the size of a small car, with only several eyes on where the neck is supposed to be with the help of my boxes.

 

I have the stunted rodent drink some of the blood, and points its head outwards past the bay towards next to a large school building.

 

I know I called it not much earlier, but any kind of nerve control is pretty scary, and not to mention bug control! I could do a lot with someone like Skitter in my gallery.

 

Me and my menagerie start to walk.

Chapter 14: Roughhousing and horseplay

Summary:

Bonesaw gets into a fight and gets hurt.

Notes:

My first ever fight scene!

This chapter felt a bit weird, but also really correct.

Any feedback would be appreciated and thank you for reading!

Helmets were first coined as such by humans as head armor. Helmets protect the head by absorbing impacts received that would have been received by the head. Obviously, helmets don’t absorb everything, but for the most part, they can be life saving. If a helmet you’re wearing ever breaks, that means that not only was it doing its job excellently, but it also just saved your head, and therefore your life.

 

This is also how skulls generally work, but on a lesser scale. Not because skulls lack the capability of a helmet, they were practically designed around helmets, but because skulls also provide structure to a head, and if a skull ever breaks, it’ll lose its structure and cause the one with a broken skull to die before the body could repair it. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that what the skulls protecting can’t really take any impact.

 

In my opinion, this is a massive oversight. Why is both the brain and skull so fragile? Why do skulls have two conflicting functions? Now that we’re thinking about it, why is this all located within a fragile, obvious target on top of a torso? Who designed this?!

 

I fixed the oversight located in the obvious target, along with a whole lot more, but something I neglected, twice now apparently, is that it doesn’t change the fact that it is an obvious target. I’m actually pretty sure this is a positive, but still, an oversight.

 

The reason I’m thinking about this now is due to the large metal pipe that flew and clocked me in the side of the skull. Sending me to the ground.

 

Said pipe was not blocked by any of my dolls. Fucking- of course.

 

The damage wasn’t as bad as the metal ball, but the flesh and skull there would be spongy for a while.

 

I go to stand back up and am sent back to the ground by a slash at my back created by… air.

 

“Heel, Giant, attack! Gretchen, Mark, protect me!” I yell out the order while laying face first on my side. 

 

I go to stand up and am interrupted, again, by a high-frequency noise, followed by someone attempting to stab me in my already injured back. The stab fails to do any real damage, but it does succeed in shoving me down. I hear several whooshes, followed by a loud scream farther away from me, followed again by a decompressing of air.

 

I finally succeed in standing up, only to stumble back due to being shot in the head. Bang! This time though, I catch myself, and look at who fired.

 

Standing on a small derelict building is a large, buff man wearing a red and black boring costume holding a large gun (I’m a doctor and artist, not a soldier, what do you want from me?!). 

 

Bang!

 

He fires, again, and hits, again, hitting the exact same spot again. I now have a bullet where my brain should be.

 

I look over to Gretchen and Mark in time to see Mark grab and pummel an odd-looking woman wearing a cage on her face.

 

“Gretchen! Bring me that one’s body with the head intact!” I order, pointing at the man with the gun, who’s lined up another shot.

 

Bang!

 

I attempt to dodge, and fail because I can’t dodge bullets, but the bullet only bruises me this time, so it’s a win in my book.

 

The man is now focused on Gretchen, who is now speeding towards the house he’s on top of at breakneck speed.

 

I look over at Heel and Giant to see them fighting two others. Heel is screaming at a shirtless man wearing a tiger mask. The man is standing still with his arms spread to his sides, the air around him chaotic, but between the two of them, Heel looks completely fine, while the aerokinetic looks incredibly strained.

 

On the other hand however, Giant is being worn down by some sort of telekinetic flying high out of reach. Giant was a rush job, alright? Hindsight is 20/20.

 

I hear something dropped to my right, and I look over to see a broken man on the floor, obviously dead, with Gretchen standing over him.

 

“Good girl, Gretchen!” I praise her, but this just seems to piss her off for some reason.

 

“Don’t. What now?” She demands, jeez, what a mood killer.

 

“Can you shoot a gun?” I ask her, pointing at the telekinetic.

 

Gretchen stares at me for a second, before a sinister friendly smile forms on her face.

 

She rips the gun from the dead man, tearing off an arm as she does, and takes aim.

 

Bang!

 

She missed, but cage lady noticed, and broke off from Mark, who besides looking cut up is no worse for wear, and started to head directly towards us, the noise emanating from her increasing in its severity and giving me a small headache. How? Noice shouldn’t affect me like this.

 

When she gets close enough, I spit at her and lunge.

 

The flesh the spit hits fizzles and melts off, but the lady only flinches and hissed. The wound distracted her enough for me to dig my sharp nails into her skin. Causing her to hiss again before she promptly collapses. 

 

Right before she does however, my ears pop, and my head screams at me. No damage though, so I’m guessing the effect is heavily power assisted instead of her being able to just create the cause.

 

Bang!

 

The telekinetic and all of her objects jolt and start to fall, with the telekinetic screaming. The bullet wasn’t lethal, but she did just get shot, so I guess that makes sense.

 

The tiger man, noticing this, parries a sound wave with air (is that how that works?), runs toward her while attacking Giant in a slashing motion, grabbing her, and then blasting away, leaving cage girl and dead guy behind.

 

Me and my dolls are silent for a minute, waiting for them to return, before we relax.

 

“Was wondering when we’d be attacked. You become a lot more suspicious when people know to look for you, huh?” Gretchen sarcastically asks me.

 

“Bonesaw, I have to agree with Gretchen. We were just walking down the streets of a city we publicly declared enemies less than an hour ago with little protection. It’s like you were asking for it.” Heel adds on.

 

“Great leadership. That said, do better.” Mark states with his arms crossed.

 

“Says all of you! You guys didn’t say or do anything and you are the protection! I’m just a child!” I snap back. I did as well as I think I could in that situation, what did they want from me!

 

“Your first impression to all of us was to mutilate us and take our bodily autonomy.” Heel states with a deadpan. I do not have a response to this, so into the ignorance bin it goes!

 

“Well, besides that awful fight, I now have two parahumans at my disposal!” I yell excitedly.

 

All three flinch at my excitement.

 

I call my spider boxes and tell them to collect resources. I then order my dolls to do their jobs and protect me while I do this.

 

The buff man’s Corona Pollentia looks weird. The thing looks bloated and grabby, if that makes sense. It’s reminiscent of Heel’s in some way, but where Heel’s affected her physiology and affected her environment, the man’s doesn't do any of that and is instead able to latch onto a target and take… something through a connection. I said it before, but where Heel’s and the other man’s, now Gretchen’s, Corona were dense, his is bigger and less dense. His was definitely a mental power of some kind.

 

Cage lady’s, on the other hand, feels like a cross between the buff man’s and Heel’s. Hers isn’t as bloated as the buff man’s is, but it’s still bloated and is denser. Hers also affects the environment, but it also seem to be able to latch onto targets.

 

I’m looking at the two, still deep in my studies, when I have an amazing idea.

 

What would happen if I put two powers together?

 

In theory, as long as I periodically maintain them, and they actually use their powers, it would definitely be possible to put two together. Considering how intact and alive cage lady is, she would have to be the control point if I want a doll instead of a vegetable, and it might take a while. Do I really want to put time I could be using to visit the Undersiders into this experiment that might not even work?

 

I direct my dolls to drag the two into a random nearby building and get to work. I’m on a time crunch after all, and I still have to repair my dolls. And improve Giant because it was pathetic during the fight, serving only as a distraction.

 

Five minutes later, and my spider boxes begin to bring in materials to my makeshift lab, and I’ve barely gotten started.

 

Oh well, good art takes time, and nothing mediocre is going to take out Jack! Speaking of…

 

“Mark?” I ask the man while I carefully bring both cage and buff’s mental, and power facilities together in cage’s open chest cavity.

 

“Yes?” Mark seems surprised I asked him out of the three of them. That’s not good! I want him to feel included too, or I wouldn’t be a very Good girl at all.

 

“Do you know what Jack’s power is? And while we’re at it, the rest of the nine?” I ask him as I essentially tie the two Corona’s together.

 

“Well, you’re obviously a biotinker, but a lot of people think you’re a medical tinker. The Siberian’s invulnerable, Crawler has adaptive regeneration, Burnscar’s a pyrokinetic teleporter, Mannequin’s a closed specialty tinker, Cherish has some sort of emotion power, Jack can extend knifes, and Shatterbird is a wide-ranged silica kinetic.” He finishes off.

 

Both Gretchen and Heel are looking at him in awe, so that apparently wasn’t common knowledge.

 

“I was a PRT officer before this.” He answers the silent question.

 

“Are you sure that’s Jack’s power?” I press.

 

“No actually. Most people I’ve talked to say that he probably has some sort of secondary power if he’s survived this long, but the big wigs upstairs always shoot us down.” He answers stoically.

 

“I think he’s just kinda lucky to be honest. I don’t think he’s that interesting comparatively to the other nine.” Gretchen states.

 

I look at Heel and she seems to agree with Gretchen.

 

Hmmm… I think Mark is right, and I think Jack has some sort of mind reading power.

 

“I think he can read minds, like, as an actual power.” I theorize to Mark.

 

“If he could, it might explain why he keeps the nine check so well, but he can’t.” Mark finalizes. 

 

“Why not?” I ask.

 

“Too much information to process for the human brain. Only the Simurgh can read minds, and she’s an Endbringer.” He says self-assuredly.

 

“What? Too much information- no. That’s obviously not how powers work.” I laugh to myself as I say this, because what he just said is ridiculous. Too much information- Heel is projecting her will from a small tumor in her head.

 

“What do you mean? It is too much information for the human brain to process.” He defends. Omigod, he’s serious!

 

“Powers aren’t processed, or even fully used with the brain or the Corona Pollentia.” I wasn’t entirely sure how, think it came from this body’s instinctive knowledge, but I knew this from the first time I opened the tinker cooler and saw Gretchen’s used Corona.

 

“Then where is it processed?” He asks this like he’s trying to teach a toddler that no, two plus two does not equal five.

 

“In the… passenger, I guess? I don’t have an exact word for it, but basically, from what I figured out is that a parahuman has a natural link to their specific passenger, the Corona filters the passenger, so when you use your powers, you can use them how both you and your passenger want them to be used, and passengers usually default to hosts, because they don’t really have personalities. I’m pretty sure that if you took away a Corona, your powers wouldn’t be stripped, they would just act much stronger and outside of your control. Heck, a passenger might start to bleed into you yourself, changing how you look and act. Does any of that make sense?” I ask my audience.

 

Mark and Heel looked like I just admitted to eating babies, while Gretchen just looks slightly concerned.

 

During this all, I have not stopped operating. I think I’m almost ⅛ done too!

 

“So… what you’re saying is that powers are alive and independent of their parahumans?” She greatly simplifies.

 

“Kinda, yeah, I guess?” I say awkwardly. I crush a few of buff guys bones to make for a convincing coolant both the body and powers will accept.

 

“FUCKING WHAT?” Heel yells at me.

 

“Language!”

 

 

Chapter 15: Red plus Blue equals Purple

Summary:

Bonesaw plays with a cool new toy and cool new friends.

Notes:

I’ve returned!

Thank you all for the support, your eyes, and your feedback!

“Stop ignoring me! Powers are alive?! How does that work?!” Heel has not shut up since I revealed her passenger to her. I thought I was bad occasionally, but sheesh.

 

“I already explained it, didn’t I?” I asked without looking at her, bringing my attention to my creation.

 

On the wooden table, standing at an incredibly tall height, was a woman with short blonde hair covered in stitches, four eyes (half blue, half brown), 4 long ears reminiscent of a fantasy elves, and on her bug-like elbows are an extra, fully functional, forearm. All her hands faded to an inky black, with her fingers being long and sharp. 

 

Of course, this is just the external stuff, but I’m pretty proud of her on that alone.

 

“No, you really didn’t. You dropped that bomb on us and basically dropped the subject like it wasn’t worth your time.” Mark says, looking a bit peeved. Well excuse me! I don’t have all the answers! If I could get my hands on another trump, then maybe, but not right now.

 

“Look, it’s complicated, okay?! I need more research material to answer your more complex stuff!” I yell, kind of fed up.

 

“So you don’t know?” Gretchen presses eagerly.

 

“I mean- not entirely-“ I begin to defend, but am interrupted.

 

“So we can’t even trust your word on this?” Heel closes in.

 

“You can! Look, that’s not important right now. What is important right now, is this!” I dramatically present the creature as I say this, incredibly proud, and why wouldn’t I be?

 

“Is she going to be more like us, or more like Giant? Because both Cricket and Victor were neo-nazis.” Gretchen comments. What?

 

“What?” I voice.

 

“They’re nazis?” Mark reiterates.

 

“Yup, loud ones too.” Gretchen says this as she mimes looking at her nails.

 

“…why?” I ask.

 

“…why they’re nazis?” Gretchen clarifies, looking somewhat confused.

 

“Yeah,”

 

“… I don’t know.” Gretchen says this slowly.

 

“… Well, to answer your initial question,” I completely move past that by moving to a different topic.

 

“I dunno.” As I say this, I grab a short metal rod with an odd glowy bit on both ends.

 

“Holy shit! You don’t know anything, unless it serves to disturb us!” Gretchen snaps, looking a little irate.

 

“Language! And besides that, isn't it more fun to learn as we go than me just telling you?” Not even I believe that.

 

I jab the metal rod into the creature’s neck, and the thing spasms, it’s eyes shooting open.

 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- “ the thing’s voice sounded like someone loudly whispering into a bad gramophone with the volume turned way up.

 

I take the rod away, and watch the thing collapse back onto the table breathing heavily.

 

“ WHY WAS THAT YOUR METHOD OF WAKING HER UP?! ” Heel yells at me from the other side of the table.

 

“I don’t know if this one is a person, an animal, or a vegetable, okay?!” I yell back defensively.

 

“ WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?! ” 

 

“Well, obviously-“ I start but-

[Query]

[Query]

[Insubordination]

[Destination]

[Query]

[Collaboration]

[Trajectory]

[Agreement]

-am interrupted by my pose unlocking itself and my mind essentially printing the last 11.304 seconds of my general memory and thoughts onto a physical record. HAH! Trick me once, shame on you!

 

Me and Mark were the only ones left standing. Mark himself seemed to be a little curious about what just happened, but otherwise, it doesn’t seem like he cares too much.

 

Heel quickly gathered herself and stood up. She seemed to be somewhere else for a short time, before she gathered herself and regained her stance.

 

Gretchen was straight up on the floor looking up at nothing. Just staring straight up without blinking. She’ll probably be fine.

 

“…Whaaaaaat?” The thing on the table asks.

 

“Boo yah! I’m the awesomest, most spectacular tinker ever!” I humbly state. I just made a new parahuman.

 

“Ugh, that fuckin’-“ “Language!” “-sucked.” Gretchen says from the ground, slowly getting back up.

 

“Miss? Are you okay? Do you know who you are?” Mark asked with a disinterested kind of concern, like an overworked doctor who hates both his patients and job.

 

“Nooo! Wheeree’ssss Oophiilllliaaa? Jaaaake?!” My beautiful creation yells.

 

“I don’t know who those are, but they matter no more! Welcome to my gallery… Reverb!” I came up with a name for it on the spot. I based it on Cricket’s power and Victor’s introduction (ie, shooting me with a gun, a loud gun).

 

“Myyy naaaaame’ss Meeel -… Viic-… Criiick-… aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA -“ Reverb begins to scream for literally no reason. What? Is something-?

 

“Bonesaw. You may seem to forget this at times, but body dysmorphia exists.” Heel states with a tired glare pointed at me. Oh yeah! Completely forgot about that! I just gotta reassure it!

 

“Reverb! Don’t worry about your body! It’s way-“ Heel, gently, slams a hand against my mouth, but it’s too late. The reassurance has already set in.

 

“Whaat diid yoouu dooo tooo meeee!” Reverb asked calmly, before it attempts to lunge at me, and fails due to the safeguards I implemented.

 

“I-“ I start.

 

“You just got Bonesawwed.” Gretchen strikes a pose as she says this.

 

“Gretchen!” Heel yells at her.

 

“What? She’s a nazi!” Gretchen defends.

 

“Are you a nazi?” I ask Reverb.

 

“-STRIING YOOU UP BY THEE INTESTINES AAND-“ Reverb is still expressing its gratitude for the awesome body I gave it.

 

“It doesn’t sound- okay, maybe a li- you’re right, so wha- what is that even supposed to mean ? Language!” I rapidly backtrack from my initial statement at hearing words I didn’t even know could exist coming from Reverb’s caged mouth.

 

“Bonesaw, I never thought I’d say this, especially to you of all people, but you can make her shut up.” Mark tells me. Huh? Oh yeah!

 

“Stop talking!” I yell out the order.

 

Stripped of its ability to talk, its power, and its ability to attack, Reverb does the respectful thing, and points all four of its middle fingers at me.

 

“Mature. Anyway, listen! You may be a bit confused, but I can catch you up to speed on you! You’re a hybrid parahuman, which is two or more parahumans I combined to make a better one, you’re welcome by the way. Your name is Reverb, the predecessor of Cricket and Victor, and now, you’re mine!” I finish with a large grin.

 

Reverb is crying and glaring at me, obviously wanting to give me a very enthusiastic hug, but being held back by the safeguards.

 

“I understand that you’re angry, but I just want you to know that you now require periodic maintenance by a biotinker with my specialty and knowledge of how you work and what to look for.” I tell Reverb not out of malice, but necessity. Unlike the others under my command, Reverb not only has two separate powers combined but, more importantly, it still tries to attack me in any way it can. Theoretically, if every parahuman was a dog, Reverb would be a rabid dog constantly high on steroids.

 

I have to give it some incentive to work with and protect me instead of ripping me limb from limb.

 

“You may talk now.” I tell it.

 

“Fuuck yoouu!” Reverb yells at me.

 

“Language!” I yell back.

 

“Bonesaw?” Heel asks me.

 

“Yes, Heel?” I ask back.

 

“I hear people coming near here.” She warns.

 

“You can? Like, toward us or…” I trail off.

 

“I don’t think they noticed us.” She speculates.

 

“Are they right outside? If we left right now, would we see them?” I further ask.

 

“Thee monsteer waants moore maateriials .” Reverb drones.

 

“Please don’t make me a willful accomplice.” Heel backtracks.

 

“What? No, don’t worry. I don’t kill people for the materials. I gotta have a good reason, and besides, I already did everything I can here.” I present the entire room as I say this, indicating to me, Giant, Mark, and Reverb specifically. Made a parahuman, fixed up wounds, and improved Giant a bit. 

 

“…alright, well, no, not right now, they’re opposite of where we’re heading.” Heel answers.

 

“Let’s head out now then before they get here.” I pull out the rodent as I say this, finding the direction has changed, is constantly changing and has gotten incredibly close, evidenced by its squeaking.

 

“…hm, that’s weird.” I remark.

 

“ Bonesaw! ” I hear someone yell. Their voices came from everywhere and sounded chittery.

 

“Yes?” I politely don’t react and ask with a head tilt.

 

“Fuckin’ Skitter.” Gretchen states.

 

“Skitteer! ” Reverb yells

 

“ I’ve come to bargain. ” Skitter states.

 

“Fuckin’ Skitter.” Gretchen restates with an angry nod of the head, like this is expected of Skitter.

 

“Not the smartest move, no.” Mark agrees.

 

“Sure! What would you like to bargain for?” I start.

 

“ Tattletale’s injuries. Heal her without tinkering with her. ” Skitter states.

 

“She’s desperate if she’s coming to you.” Mark tells me.

 

“What are you offering?” I ask.

 

“ … Coil, a powerful thinker. ” She states simply 

 

“Skitter, no offense, but not only do I not know who that is, but that’s, at most, one parahuman. Plus, if you can get him to me, he’s probably not that powerful.” I tell her.

 

She’s silent.

 

“Tell you what, bring me with you and protect me. I’ll even come alone, but you have to listen to me, alright?” I offer.

 

“ …Heal her first, then ditch your tools. ” Skitter requests. Geez, she feels more villainous than me, and I’m the (former) serial killer.

 

“Deal!” I say, and then I turn to my gallery.

 

I take out another smell packet and run it under Heel’s nose.

 

“You know the drill, take Reverb, Giant, Mark, and the spider boxes with you.” I tell her.

 

Heel sighs, but she does as ordered and leaves, taking everything but Gretchen with her.

 

“C’mon.” I tell her.

 

We walk out the building

 

The bloody street sits silent, filled only with cracks and debris.

 

“Skitter? Where are- oh!” I begin, but am surprised when a large pile of debris turns into four people, a dog, and a wolf.

 

Skitter and Tattletale were the most obvious of the group. Skitter was already jogging towards me with Tattletale in her hands, Tattletale was half-unconscious, her wounds badly put back together, and leaning onto Skitter with an arm pulled over her shoulders.

 

Behind them, walking behind is a woman in a black, red, sun-themed biker’s suit and helmet, and a another woman wearing a brown, cozy looking jacket with a beagle mask.

 

“Fix her.” Skitter orders while laying Tattletale down in front of me.

 

“Yes ma’am!” I say this while saluting, and am about to get to work when I realize that the three of them are staring at Gretchen.

 

“Don’t worry about her, she’s just here to take my tools when I’m done.” I inform them.

 

They don’t look too reassured by this, but the dog girl and Skitter look back at me.

 

“Hey, I’m not happy about this either.” Gretchen defends.

 

Looking at Tattletale, I take stock of her injuries. Her most obvious injuries are the open left cheek, missing right pinky, missing right ring finger, and the slashed knee. I can also very clearly tell she’s going to die of blood loss soon, very soon.

 

“Gretchen, go socialize, I gotta get to work or she’ll die in a few minutes.” I say while already starting. I may be able to fix the recently dead, but not without permanent damage. Permanent damage I can’t replace because brains don’t work like that.

 

“…ahem, hello, Gretchen? I’m Sundancer, this is Bitch, Skitter, and Tattletale.” Sundancer starts, not out of interest, but just to do something.

 

“Are you really trying to start a conversation with me? Alright, yeah I’m Gretchen, I was drafted by Bonesaw into the nine when the Siberian ripped off my limbs while that master bitch made me ignore it.”

 

“You’re not here willingly?” Skitter asks.

 

“No, but I figure I’m stuck with them unless Bonesaw herself untinkers me, and even then, I might still be stuck. Bonesaw gave me Axe Head’s passenger or whatever, so I’m not only Bonesaw approved, but I’m also a parahuman.” Gretchen states leaning back against the house and reaches for something in her pocket. Upon realizing I took her cigarettes, she scowls and just stays there.

 

“Passenger?” Skitter asks curiously, the most emotion I’ve seen her present since Tattletale mouthed off.

 

“We never got it out of Bonesaw, but according to her, powers are alive and have wants different to the parahuman it’s housed within.”

 

“Powers are alive?” Sundancer asked disturbed.

 

“Bonesaw thinks so, and I may’ve only known her for, like, five hours, but I feel like she’s too full of herself to lie about this. Also, she caused two trigger events without the trauma, so she knows something .” Gretchen states, before she pauses.

 

”Mostly without trauma, according to her, so she might just be insane.” Gretchen adds.

 

“You, and…” Skitter trails.

 

“Fenrir’s chosen, minus Hookwolf and Othelia, happened upon us and decided Bonesaw was an easy target. Stormtiger and Rune got out, but Bonesaw got Victor and Cricket. She shuffled everything into this house and turned the two of them into a freak. She called her Reverb. After she woke up, she triggered.” Gretchen explains.

 

“Jesus.” Sundancer takes a few steps away from me as she says this, rude.

 

“You want me to give her new fingers?” I ask.

 

“Yes.” Skitter says.

 

They watch on silently as I cannibalize the rodent to make two new fingers.

 

After I finish, I put all my tools in my apron, take it off, and hand her the apron and a packet.

 

“See you in a bit, Gretchen!” I wave. She scowls at the motion, but she does leave at an unnatural speed.

 

I look back at the group.

 

“She’s allllll fixed up, let’s go!” I say excitedly.

Notes:

Jeez, Reverb’s speech is hard to format.

Chapter 16: Interlude: C, In a Bind

Summary:

Coil has had a bad day, and it’s barely noon. Typical

Notes:

I have returned! I won’t die THAT easily! Mwahahahahah!

I’ve arrived with an interlude this time, and I honestly feel this one’s pretty good!

While we’re at it, I have a question.

Different fandoms. Besides Worm, what are your favorite fandoms? Mine’s Danganronpa!

Once again, thank you all for the support, feedback, and attention span!

This morning began like any other. I woke up, shut off my power, and split again.

 

—

 

I called off Creep, and got dressed in my regular work clothes, an average but nice looking suit with a tie (yellow today).

 

I dressed in casual clothes, a simple T-shirt, jeans, and coat. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

 

I stepped outside and into my Lincoln, and without preamble, simply started on my way.

 

I stepped outside and into the black Chevrolet waiting outside for me, signaled for Creep to start, and began to change into Coil, my privacy protected by the heavily shaded windows.

 

I arrived at the PRT HQ, parked my car, and walked inside.

 

I arrived at my destination as Coil, and quickly got out of the car as my schedule is plenty backed up as it is. The Travelers, Tattletale, the murders last night, the recent drain in funds, repair after leviathan, repair after the ABB, and the E88’s recent overconfidence.

 

I greeted Angeline at the front desk, walked further inside, past the other employees, through the large hall, and into an office, my office. I sat down in front of my computer, and started it up. Thomas’s life right now is, for the most part, unoccupied. I can, however, begin some investigations into items on my agenda with the PRT database.

 

I greeted Mr Pitter, and walked into my pet’s room. She looked up at me from her cot.

 

I first look into the murders, as it seems like a relatively fast case to solve.

 

“Seven questions.” I state.

 

“Five and candy first.” She states.

 

“Six and extra after.” I lied.

 

“Deal.”

 

It seems the most common theory among the other analysts is that a new cape popped up from levitation. I agree with this, mainly due to the fact that these don’t match any preexisting group’s or parahuman’s MO.

 

“How likely am I to die today without use of my power?” I begin with the cautionary question.

 

“68.7092%” She says, before her eyes go wide.

 

That is… an unusually high number. Usually the number is around 1.027%.

 

Spurred further on by my pet’s higher number, I immediately began a small, but thorough investigation into E88’s most recent activities.

 

“Chances that if I do die today, would it be someone under my employ?” A broad, but effective question.

 

“33.63709%” She says.

 

That’s unfortunate. I could easily narrow it down if they were.

 

“Chances the most likely to kill me without my powers do not commonly reside within Brockton?” 

 

 

“78.98%” 

 

The computer freezes, and the ac cuts out. Odd. Even odder is the sounds coming from the vent. I stand up, grab a pistol, and take aim.

 

“Chances my killer is a thinker, master, or stranger?” I ask

 

“43.2091%” 

 

The sounds are growing closer. The more I listen, the more deliberate the sounds are, the more obvious that whatever’s coming closer is inorganic and much larger than a rat.

 

“…” Let’s see what’ll happen first, that timeline’s a throwaway anyway.

 

“…He’ll end the world in 2 years, 99.8729%” She tells me wide-eyed.

 

“!” What?

 

The vent lid drops from off the ceiling, revealing a faceless, ceramic man, with custom knives and chains silently moving about his form.

 

Mannequin.

 

“Will Crawler or Mannequin end the world?” I just need confirmation.

 

I let out several shots, he remains unmoved. He drops down into the room. I almost run to the door before I realize that people are currently trying to get in due to the shots. I’m locked in.

 

“12.7094617%. It’s Jack! Jack Slash!” She yells out.

 

The parahuman who’s only ability is to make knives long? Either he’s been lying about his power all this time, unlikely, or he’s going to do something. With another Niner maybe?

 

Mannequin seems to let out a silent chuckle, before bringing his seven fingered, sharp hand up his featureless head and mimes a shush, before he slowly steps toward me, cornering me behind my desk.

 

I close this timeline.

 

—

 

“Chances that-“

 

“92.7294%. Ow!” She says out of nowhere.

 

—

 

I speed out of the room with my pet’s wrist in my hand as composed as I can, taking out my phone while moving toward the travelers room, communicating to everyone I come across to activate protocol 13-4.

 

“What did you just ask?”

 

“Uwaaaa, it hurts!” She seems to have over extended.

 

“Answer me!” I’m obviously starting to lose my temper, but I don’t care.

 

“Tattletale, the Slaughterhouse is in the bay, where are you? Can you get here now?” I need people here now.

 

“Wha-“ she begins, but I don’t let her finish.

 

“Time sensitive, if you can, get here now.” I do not have the time for her. I hang up just as I see the Travelers. Most of them at least.

 

“The Slaughterhouse are in the bay, where is Ballistic?” Hurry up. We-

 

“Chances that the nine would turn against Jack with this information.” She answers in the fetal position, clutching her head, goddammit.

 

“One more-“

 

A loud noise comes from nearby-

 

A loud noise comes from far away-

 

“HERE’S JOHNNY!”

 

“Here’s Johnny!”

 

The very building seems to shake despite being underground. The very pipes make sounds, the lights flicker, and it gets so much louder.

 

Genesis passed out immediately at the sound and reformed herself as an intimidating, large humanoid creature that looked like a cross between Genesis herself and a carnivorous mannequin. 

 

The building seems to experience a mini-earthquake, the lights occasionally flickering.

 

Pet immediately screamed out and began to yell out random percentages to unvoiced questions. Too many in such a short time has her spurt blood out of her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, followed by a final scream of agony and her passing out.

 

“WHERE IS SHE!”

 

“Where is she!”

 

—

 

For the next several minutes, we hear the large monster rant and rave while he audibly breaks something every two seconds, loudly.

 

He’s apparently looking for Noelle so he can fight her, who is in a different base.

 

“YOU SHOULDA KEPT YOUR MOUTH SHUT COIL!”

 

He also doesn’t like me specifically for some rea- Mannequin told me to shush too, didn’t he? They probably know my power then. Motherfucking- goddammit.

 

“Coil. What’s going on? What did you do?” Trickster is looking at me in rage, like he just heard me admit that I planned Noelle’s torturous power myself and am the reason for her suffering. Considering him, he might actually think that, because of course he would.

 

“The Slaughterhouse has arrived and took a particular interest in both me and Noelle.” I state succinctly. I have to be a voice of reason, and I can’t do that if he talks over me.

 

“What?! Why?!” Sundancer asks.

 

“You have to kill him! He’s going to kill almost everyone otherwise!” Pet cries out.

 

“She’s talking about Jack Slash. We need to kill him before he leaves Brockton bay.” …I know that I said it, but I have a feeling that this is a really bad idea, and it seems like everyone else here thinks that too.

 

“…What’s the plan?” Trickster, unusually reasonable, asks me.

 

“We’re going to consolidate our forces, and then attempt to recruit from literally every group we can, including the nine itself.” I declare.

 

“… that sounds-“ I hear Sundancer start.

 

“Fucking terrible. It’s bad and lacking. You’re suggesting to use Kaiser and Jack Slash to kill Jack Slash. Here’s a better plan. We hide or leave.” Trickster spits out. I would actually agree with him if not for one glaring issue.

 

“If we do that, what are the chances of the world ending?” I ask Pet.

 

“99.987%” She says, before she crouches down, holding her head and making the occasional weird noise.

 

“…what?” Genesis voices.

 

“Jack Slash is going cause the end of the world.” I elaborate.

 

“… We came here to fucking cure Noelle! Not save this goddamn rock!” Trickster says this, looking irate.

 

“I’m afraid that Noelle currently lives on this goddamn rock.” I, stoically, answer him.

 

“So we have to find and kill the leader of the Slaughterhouse nine, the only one who has survived since the beginning of the nine?” Sundancer reiterates.

 

“That’s what he’s saying.” Genesis more says this out loud than actually answering her.

 

“Tha- wha- yo- the fu- AAAHH!” Trickster has what I can only really equate to an aneurism.

 

In the middle of Trickster’s tricky mental breakdown, my phone begins to ring. Oh joy, I wonder who it is.

 

“Hello?” The fact I am now ignoring Trickster seems to only worsen his condition. It is very telling that neither Genesis nor Sundancer went to help him, but no one is going to point that out.

 

“Coil.” I hear Skitter over the line. That’s odd, I was prepared for Tattletale.

 

“Skitter. What’s-“ I’m rudely interrupted by Skitter.

 

“The Slaughterhouse has begun their attack. Tattletale has been severely injured by Jack and is currently incapacitated and bleeding out. Shatterbird is going to attack in eight minutes.” Skitter hurries out. What the fuck?

 

“Where are you currently? We’re consolidating.” Keep it short.

 

“Tattletale, Regent, and Ballistic are currently making their way to your base, W Krippler st currently. I’m making my my through neighborhoods and warning as many people as I can.” Not the smartest move, but workable.

 

“Understood, call us to pick you up when finished.” I immediately hang up and dial a different number.

 

“This is the PRT reconstru-“ The woman starts.

 

“Felix-44-trinity, protocols 13-4, 13-6, and 13-7. Patch me through to ED.” I interrupt and am immediately patched through.

 

“Three non-hostile parahumans on W Krippler st, one is severely injured, bring them here and treat them.” I hang up immediately after I say this.

 

I spend the next few minutes, using my power on and off, to gather as much information as I am physically able to and having everyone in the building isolate any glass, while Trickster and Genesis leave to potentially speed up the recovery of those missing under my employ.

 

During this, my question is partially answered by Grue, Imp, and Bitch entering the building.

 

I can’t do much with Grue and Bitch right now, so I’m going to put them up for defense and glass removal.

 

A van eventually pulls up, one with odd looking windows (they’re plastic), and several people enter the building, finally.

 

Now that we have more parahumans available, we can start sending out feelers.

 

I begin to dial Skitter’s number into my phone but-

 

IT GETS SO MUCH LOUDER, A SCREAM, ONE BEYOND THE HUMAN VOCAL RANGE RINGS OUT, ASSULTING EVERYTHING WITHIN ITS PATH FOR LONGER THAN IT EVER SHOULD HAVE

 

This continues for a minute, a minute that feels like an hour, but it eventually stops.

 

The phone in my hands had no glass externally, but the insides are wrecked. I have no way to contact Skitter, I need to call back Trickster to find her.

 

While I do exactly that, I walk over to the small group that’s arrived.

 

Despite the noise, the mercenaries are still at work, keeping this facility running, keeping Tattletale alive, and guarding the facility.

 

Speaking of Tattletale, she does look like she got into a knife fight with hook wolf without a knife, in spandex.

 

Odd knowing that these injuries are permanent, can’t undo these. Oh well, as long as she’s alive, I don’t actually care that much.

 

“Hey boss, have any healers on standby, I think Jack vaguely alluded to Tattletale here dying of her injuries.” Regent starts out. Would she die of those injuries?

 

“I got even more worried when Bonesaw gave them advice on how to help her.” Ballistic added on.

 

Despite being heavily bandaged, she’s still heavily bleeding. That’s extremely inconvenient.

 

“No, I’m afraid that I’m currently lacking in healers.” Ones a dead racist and the other is extremely volatile and honestly S-class powerful. Not many options.

 

“Okay, well, will she at least survive.” Regent honestly just looks vaguely annoyed. Where’s the honor among thieves?

 

“Probably not.” I can get a replacement, but not right now, during when I need extra bodies.

 

“You’re just going to let her die?” Ballistic asks, and Regent seems interested in my answer.

 

“If I could, I would bring her back to full health, but I can’t.” I tell them, and that’s actually true.

 

“Welp, guess that’s it. Sorry Tats, you had a good run.”  Regent pats Tattletale’s shoulder as he says this.

 

It’s silent for a second before the door slams open, revealing a slightly scruffier than usual Skitter.

 

“That was fast.” Ballistic says.

 

Trickster walks into the room after Skitter.

 

“Ah.” Ballistic realizes.

 

“What’s Tattletale’s status?” Skitter asks, stopping by Tattletale’s side.

 

“Coil says she’s probably gonna die and he can’t do anything about it.” Regent answers before I can.

 

“Mundane treatment won’t work?” Skitter asks.

 

“I’m afraid not ma’am.” One of my mercenaries answers her.

 

“Healers?” She presses.

 

“Othelia’s dead and Panacea wouldn’t heal Tattletale if a gun was pressed to her head.” I answer. I have actually tried that before, that would’ve been a very rough month. It gets even worse if it’s to her sister’s head, so many biological bombs and mastered parahumans.

 

“So that’s it? Both of the healers are unavailable and we can’t help her without powers?” Skitter asks unmoving. She’s already seen as an intimidating leader, now I just need an extra thinker, I wonder if I can force a trigger…

 

“What about Bonesaw?” Skitter asks. What?

 

“What?” Ballistic asks blank-faced.

 

“Excuse me?” Trickster looks extremely confused.

 

“HAH! Yes! I agree, let’s visit the little psycho and ask her to ‘pretty please fix our good friend Tattletale that your leader murdered’!” Regent looks incredibly amused by the idea. There are ups and downs when working with a Vasil.

 

“… It might work…” Pet says, what?

 

“Really?” Trickster looks incredibly skeptical and I don’t blame him.

 

“No more questions… hurts… the nine might betray Jack… especially with the end…” Pet trails off, still collapsed in on herself. Annoying.

 

“The end?” Skitter asks. After Tattletale and some of those under my employ have pointed it out, I occasionally find myself thinking about how the girl doesn’t emote or move correctly.

 

“Jack Slash is the cause of the end of the world, if he leaves, that’s it.” I inform her.

 

“Ah shit.” Regent says out loud.

 

“What?” Poor Ballistic is still so confused.

 

“Bullshit is what it is.” Trickster has, in the time I looked away from him, pulled out a cigarette, and is now smoking in my base.

 

“… He is?” Skitter asks

 

“Yup.” Trickster answers for me.

 

“Any specifics?”

 

“Nope.” Trickster answers.

 

“… fuck.” Skitter sounds out.

 

“Fuck indeed.” Trickster answers.

 

“Careful, we’re about to see Bonesaw, aren’t we? Language!” Regent laughs out, like this is a big joke to him.

 

God motherfucking dammit.

 

Stop attacking the Bay! It’s mine goddammit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

Coil’s tiring to write, not because of his personality, but his power. It’s like writing two different stories at the same time and interrupting yourself every so often.

That said, I feel pretty good about him, so worth it. For now…

Chapter 17: Plans and Parents

Summary:

Bonesaw’s (Bug lady’s) plan is finally revealed, and it’s… not the most thorough, but her mom reassures her.

Notes:

Viola! Another one!

You know, I don’t actually have a concrete plan to take down Jack.

 

It sounds and feels stupid, but… to be honest, I was just going to dog pile him with enhanced parahumans and humans. 

 

I only really realized my flaw in thinking when talking to the small group I joined on a whim.

 

“… why did you want to come with us?” Sundancer eventually ventured after some time.

 

“Do I really need a reason?” I ask her with a big smile.

 

“…” Sundancer does not answer my question, which by the way, is rude.

 

“Actually, better question, why did you come to me for healing instead of Panacea?” I ask them.

 

“She wouldn’t have helped.” Skitter cuts me off.

 

Bitch (I’m going to call her anything but that) snorts at this, and then she glares at me. What?

 

“… Why not?” I push.

 

“Jack Slash is going to end the world.” What the fuck? I thought this was small talk, who the fuck says that out of the blue.

 

When Skitter said this, she stopped, turned around, and stared me in the eyes. 

 

“… That’s not good.” I say back to her. 

 

“…” Everything goes silent after that.

 

“…”

 

“That’s it!?” Sundancer suddenly yells.

 

“I didn’t know how to respond! She just dropped that on me!” I defend.

 

“So the world ending due to your leader is only ‘not good?!’” Sundancer asks, looking incredibly stressed. Who spat in her Cheerios?

 

“I obviously don’t want the world to end, but it was so sudden! I got whiplash is all! How do you know he’s going to- actually, I could see him ending the world. How does he do it?” I ask.

 

“We don’t know.” Skitter, the awesome conversationalist she is, helpfully chimes in, followed by her turning back around and continuing to walk. The rest of us follow her.

 

“… How are ya gonna do it?” I ask, hoping that she’ll actually give me useful information.

 

“They don’t know. Still thinking.” Bitch snorts, letting her voice be heard for the first time by yours truly.

 

“We have the barebones of a plan.” Skitter tells me and Bitch.

 

“Then, what’s the plan?” I’ve always wanted one of those, and Skitter seems to know what she’s talking about.

 

“… It’s sensitive information.” She says without hesitation, none at all, not even a pause or stutter.

 

“Sounds smart.” I remark, after all, she definitely- is that why she went to me for Tattletale? She needs a thinker to make a plan? Is that how she knew Jack is going to become death, destroyer of worlds?

 

It’s silent for a while longer as we walk to… where are we going?

 

“Are you going to go against-“ Skitter starts.

 

“Where are we going again?”

 

“We’re going to one of Coil’s bases. Will you mutiny?” Skitter asks another question without pause for my interrupting.

 

“Yup! So will Burnscar and Cherish!” I basically have them both locked down, I just need to tune up Cherish and get Everybody else. Hmm, now that I’m thinking about it, how am I going to take Siberian or Crawler? A master of some sort? I’ll look around for somebody to be volun-told.

 

“Really? That easily?” Sundancer has been looking increasingly more frazzled since when we started talking.

 

“Yup! To be honest, I was already kinda planning to… you know… coup d’état.” I answer.

 

The entire group stops as I say this, and they all look at me, even Bitch’s dogs.

 

This goes on for several seconds, before someone breaks the silence.

 

“And who says we’re unlucky? We just scored!” A young woman wearing a demon mask standing behind me suddenly says. What? When did… is this another attack? Why are these people so violent? Back in my day…

 

“Imp.” Skitter says this with the same monotone voice with the same dead face, or as close as one can get while wearing a mask, as she usually does, but it somehow sounds like an accusation.

 

“Skitter.” Imp proceeds to mimic Skitter’s monotone and dead face as she says this.

 

“Why are you…” Skitter, for the first time since I met her, trails off. Something’s being left out there.

 

“Coast is clear, and I just felt like it.” Imp glanced at me when she answered. She answers to Skitter, so she’s her ally. Skitter and Imp are leaving something out to not tip me off.

 

“Where did you come from? Actually, what’s your power?” I pull out the puppy eyes as I say this.

 

“Your mom’s place.” She says. How fucking dare she. She’s smirking as she says this. How dare she talk about my mother like this.

 

I’m going to have a lot of fun with her later.

 

Wait, why am I so angry over this? I don’t remember my mom at all, so why would this set me off? Unless- 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The man with the odd smile is still staring at me and mom. He hasn’t left, I don’t think he ever will, I’m so tired, and mom… mom doesn’t look like mom anymore.

 

“Hurry. You have time. You can fix her, can’t you?” The man implores.

 

I definitely could fix her, I have everything thing I need to as well, heck, I’m not even doing too bad myself, I could fix her and be done with that.

 

I could fix her, but why should I?

 

The man and his friends will just ruin her again. Ruin it again. Is the person on the ground really a person, let alone my mother anymore? She looks nothing like that.

 

I could fix her- it, but it wouldn’t mean anything. I been doing this for days, and it never meant anything. Fix mom, fix Drew, fix dad, fix Muffles, fix dad, fix Drew, fix Muffles, fix mom, over and over again, no stopping and no breaking, all while the man watches me, all while his friend wait for me. It doesn’t amount to anything. What do I do? I’m so tired, mentally. I can help myself along on the fly, but I’m still so drained. I’m so tired, please let it end.

 

“Come on, you can do it. Don’t you love your mommy?” The man whispers the question to me.

 

I can do it, he’s right, there’s no reason for me to stop, why would there be? I love my mommy after all. But… is the thing on the floor really my mommy? If I stopped loving it, could I stop? I’m so tired. Tired, Tired, Tired.

 

Mommy- thing that used to be mommy tries to say something, but the materials used to make up her face aren’t conducive to speech in the slightest.

 

I think I know what she’s saying anyway.

 

“No.”

 

“No?” 

 

“I don’t love her.” I answer, looking away from the thing on the floor, I don’t know why.

 

“Alrighty, say goodbye, then.” The mister tells me.

 

“Goodbye, mommy.” I follow. I’m so Tired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stare at the Jack wannabe in front of me, my expression intentionally dead. They both need to die, I wonder what would happen if I did to them what I did to Reverb? Could I backseat them in their own body? Yes, I could- I will do that.

 

“Uh, hey? I know I’m not the best with jokes- who am I kidding, I totally am, but it was just a ‘ya mama’ joke. So don’t get your panties in a twist.” The demon in front of me speaks.

 

Skitter works with her too, right? Directly, both Imp and Skitter- both the Undersiders and the Travelers, right? They work for someone named Coil, someone Skitter is willing to betray.

 

Am I going to need to remove them? Like an unwanted tumor, one that spreads and causes the body to collapse?

 

I’m going to be busy for a while, huh. I need to get rid of Jack and everyone under Coil.

 

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe it really was just a joke. That’s probably it, it’s probably really silly of me to assume otherwise.

 

“Imp.” Skitter growls it’s- Imp’s name slowly and quietly.

 

At Skitter’s tone, Bitch and her dogs also react, one of them becoming bigger and more biologically dense. Slowly, but the organic material coming from nowhere makes it intimidating adorable all the same.

 

“Sorry, sorry! Not my fault neither of you can take a joke.” She mumbles the last part under her breath, I don’t think she meant for me to hear it, but I did anyway, because I’m awesome. I’m an awesome tinker that can make and fix anything!

 

Except mommy. 

 

“Pshhhh, Hahahahahahahahahah.” I burst out in laughter, after all, it’s only polite to laugh at others' jokes.

 

My laughing goes on for a full thirty seconds, no one interrupting me, and why would they? That would be rude, and the joke was for me, not them.

 

On my other end, I also burst out laughing, no one in my gallery interrupted me either, not even Heel.

 

Good dolls.

 

“HAH! That was a pretty good…” I trail off looking at the woman, who seems to have gotten a considerable distance away from me.

 

“…ya mama joke?” Imp answered my question with another.

 

“YES! It was a great mama joke. Awesome, excellent, superb! But you didn’t answer my other question. What’s your power?” I ask again, looking her directly in the eyes with my award-winning grin to put her at ease.

 

Everyone else had also gotten a considerable distance away from me as well, so polite of them.

 

At my question I see Sundancer shiver, and both Bitch and her dogs silently growl.

 

I can’t see Skitter right now, she’s behind me.

 

“…I’m really sneaky.” She states, not really answering my question, but giving a satisfying amount of information.

 

“That’s so cool! I wish I was that sneaky! I didn’t even notice you were here with us until you said something!” Compliments, compliments, compliments. Everybody likes compliments.

 

“That’s enough. Bonesaw, could you get the other members to turn against Jack too?” Skitter interrupted our conversation with a valid question. Could I convince them like I did Burnscar, or get lucky like Cherish?

 

“I’m not too sure what I can do about Mannequin or Crawler, but I could probably get through to Shatterbird and Siby.” I could definitely do something about Shatterbird, but Siby I would have to convince with words. Yuck!

 

“Good. Once we’ve shown you the bunker, go do that. Someone will wait there to meet back up once you do.” Skitter informs me. She’s so cool, I wanna be just like her when I grow up. I can make that happen too, just watch.

 

“Are we not going to-“ Sundancer starts.

 

“No. Shush!” Imp tells her before- what? Where did… the woman go? She was definitely here, but… what?

 

“…How many of you came to bargain with me?” I ask Skitter. There were definitely more people here, weren’t there? And where did Tattletale go?

 

Wait, where did Tattletale go? She shouldn’t be conscious yet, but she’s not here. Where did she go? When did she go?

 

“Me, Sundancer, Bitch, and her dogs came here to ask for your assistance.” She says, her mannerisms unchanging as she lies to me. There was definitely someone else here.

 

I heard her use a power designation earlier. A Thinker. It feels important for some reason. Is Skitter a thinker? She has bug control, but how was she able to detect and talk to me through them?

 

She’s aware of her surroundings, that much I’m sure of. She walks confidently, like she knows where she going in this… district? It already looks wrecked, and while me, Heel, Giant, Mark, and Gretchen were navigating the area, we had to backtrack several times due to the debri and damage done to the roads.

 

Surroundings… is there someone else following us? It wasn’t Skitter or Bitch who teleported in front of me, and I don’t see what what Sundancer’s theme has to do with teleportation. It definitely wasn’t the lady who was here earlier, I don’t know why, but I just know it wasn’t her.

 

The walk continues on silently, none of talking, until we come upon a large, intact, gray, concrete structure with two large doors.

 

The building looks like it’s sloped, and like like it doesn’t have more than one floor.

 

Skitter stops and points to the large bunker.

 

“That’s an Endbringer shelter, and it’s also one of Coil’s bases. Once you’ve… convinced your other teammates to defect, all of you should come here. We’ll be doing the same with everybody else in the bay to do the same. Once everybody’s gathered, we’ll go on the offensive. Understood?” Skitter runs down her plan to me, and I nod in the affirmative.

 

An actual plan for my goal! Finally! So I just have to make everybody defect and help Skitter with her part of the plan, easy peasy. 

 

The group begins to run off to… somewhere else, leaving me all alone.

 

Well, not me me. I was never there, I’m still at my makeshift with my dolls and toys. Speaking of toys, the one I used to meet up with the group is starting to break down.

 

I gotta use it for something useful before it breaks down completely, considering I won’t be able to make another of these for a while. Controlling two bodies at the same time is incredibly annoying and kinda hurts.

 

The doll begins to walk off in a random direction, let’s see what we can find.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 18: Dollhouse rules

Summary:

Bonesaw (the one doing most of the tinkering) gets annoyed with both herself, and her dolls.

Notes:

This chapter feels kinda weird.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like it, but it feels like fluff to me.

Anyways, thank you all for your attention and for taking up my attention!

Organisms, when you break it down to simplistics on an outside perspective, are pretty simple. Things go in, the organism moves around, and less stuff comes out. Of course, organisms aren’t actually that simple. This process is actually inaccurate in some ways, but is in general useful when you don’t need specifics.

 

Heck, if you want to really nick-pick, the word organism isn’t even accurate when used in the example, as it only counts for the animal kingdom. 

 

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I seem to have run into a roadblock.

 

“Stop staring at me, I almost got it.” I say out loud.

 

“Didn’t say anything, but sure you do. I’m sure every second is just an investment.” Wukong happily replies from across the room, absolutely covered in his own blood.

 

Another problem I have with organisms of the animal variety is the size limit. I can, for the most part, completely ignore the reproduction and growth requirements needed for an animal the size of a truck or Crawler, but weight and energy are kinda screwing me over.

 

If I were to make another Crawler, I’d have to cheat somewhere, if not everywhere, or else its own weight would crush it's everything, and even if I could make that work, the energy requirement for the thing to be able to effectively fight while being able to carry itself would require an entire human adult like every hour and a half.

 

“Aren’t you desperate? Just swallow your pride and make a plant instead, it would solve all your, and my, problems.” Wukong chimes in again, bringing up the same goddamn point, again.

 

“Aren’t you listening? I can’t do that! You can’t shapeshift and I can’t work with plants.” I rebound for the hundredth time.

 

“I can shapeshift, just not to your ridiculous standard.” Wukong reminds me.

 

“Shuddup and get me a few more pounds.” I say, not actually giving out an order. He’s one of the more frustrating, but surprisingly obedient dolls.

 

This is proven by a chuckle, followed by a whole bunch of noises, noises that are currently sending every other conscious doll into disturbed shivers and empty retching. Most of them can’t actually throw up, but I, for the most part, didn’t touch their brain meats.

 

Speaking of plants, I was very frustrated when I figured out my power designated both mechanical and botanical creations of the same level. So I can work with plants, just not very well and it’ll all look pretty shabby.

 

I wish I knew exactly what my specialty was, but all of my dolls claim that I’m just the biotinker. I’m obviously not going to correct them, but it was impressively unhelpful.

 

Wait, what’s that? You want to know what I’m making? That’s an excellent question.

 

You ever start an easy project, one in which the subject of the project is one you’re skilled in, and it begins easy at first, but eventually you walk directly into a wall made WTF-ness?

 

Well, while trying to recreate a pseudo-Crawler, I ran directly into that wall, and am currently in damage control mode.

 

It was probably a fool’s errand from the very concept, but at least I tried, and now I know. No more Crawlers. See, tangible progress to my goal!

 

On my other end, I hear an explosion, followed by a whole lot of screaming. That seems like an interesting place to go.

 

Back on this end, I realize that I’m obviously going about this the wrong way. Quality is overrated, why not have more quantity?

 

“Hmmmm~… Sarah!” I yell.

 

“…” 

 

“Sarah~!” I playfully yell out.

 

“…”

 

“Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! Sar-ah! Sarah! Photon Lady-!” I begin to yell her name on loop, before she eventually gets fed up.

 

“What!” She grinds out the word like it personally spited her.

 

“You think I should make fliers or crawlers?” That’s crawler with a lowercase c!

 

“…”

 

“Go for the crawlers.” I hear Gretchen very unsubtly whisper to Sarah.

 

“Crawlers can probably cover less ground, pick those.” I wouldn’t have even noticed Mark said this if it weren’t for my enhanced senses.

 

“Knowing her, crawlers are probably the worse option somehow.” Hellion angrily states while glaring at me.

 

“Why don’t you just do both?” I hear Wukong ask me over the sound of him taking off another of his limbs.

 

“Wukong, please.” Heel stoically pleads with him.

 

“I was already going to do both, I just want to know which I should make more of.” I answer. Despite him being a nuisance, he is pretty agreeable.

 

“…crawlers.” Sarah spits out.

 

“Alrighty!” I excitedly answer as me and my spider boxes get to work disassembling and reassembling the failed creation.

 

“Um…” Tracy starts.

 

“What?” Hellion asks, sounding irritated.

 

“…Where is Reverb?” She asks.

 

“Who?” 

 

“She’s talking about the mish-mash.” Gretchen helpfully informs.

 

“Bonesaw told her, and I quote, ‘Go find the nearest large gathering’. That was almost half an hour ago, we must be in a very isolated area.” Mark recounts.

 

“We are in no man’s land.” Gretchen states.

 

“No man’s land?” Heel asks.

 

“It’s Hellhound’s territory.” Sarah says.

 

“Who?”

 

“She’s talking about-“ Gretchen looks directly at me, a motion I reflect, “Bitch, of the Undersiders.” She finishes.

 

They all glance at me to see my face scrunched in on itself.

 

“Why isn’t anyone in Bitch’s territory?” Mark asks.

 

“The dog-fucker chases everyone out.” Gretchen says, before pausing and looking over at me.

 

…wait, that’s not a name!

 

“Language! Also, stop insulting our local allies! We don’t have many of those!” I yell out, finally.

 

“You don’t have a problem with Bitch, what’s so wrong with dog-“ Hellion starts out, wiping the grin off my face.

 

“Don’t you dare! Ahem, for your first question, it’s her name, can’t correct you on someone else’s name.” I definitely can and am very tempted to, but I won’t, because I believe in the right to free speech!

 

“Dog-fu-“ Hellion begins to say.

 

“You aren’t allowed to talk for the next ten minutes!” I quickly order. God bless ‘Merica!  

 

“Some people never learn, do they? You know, it reminds me of-“ Wukong began.

 

“You shuddup for ten minutes too!” I order again.

 

It’s quiet for a bit as I work on the fun-rats and eye-gulls.

 

“Why do you do this?” Sarah asks.

 

“Do what? You’ll have to be more specific.” That’s the first question she’s asked me since we left her house. Well, the first cohesive one.

 

“…Do you not see anything wrong with what you’re doing? At all?” She goes down a different, unexpected route of questioning. 

 

What?

 

Am I doing something wrong right now?

 

“… I began making… this with unrealistic expectations?” I say hesitantly.

 

I see Hellion mouth the word ‘psycho’ in response.

 

“What are you planning to do after this?” Mark inquires.

 

“Well, bug lady said to recruit all the other Niners, so we’ll be going around looking for Shatterbird and Siberian.” I reply.

 

“Why just those two?” Heel asks.

 

“They’re the only ones I feel I can recruit that I haven’t already recruited. If we’re lucky, maybe I can nab Mannequin, but Crawler… to be completely honest, I don’t think he cares. He doesn’t seem to really care about anything except fighting and following Ja… following Jack’s orders…” Why is Crawler following Jack? Actually, why do any of the nine follow Jack? Burnscar, Mannequin, and Crawler all seem like the violent unstable loner types, you know the ones. 

 

Can he actually read minds? According to my dolls, that’s impossible, but it’s my best guess so far, so I’m rolling with it.

 

“Uh, why… nevermind.” Tracy awkwardly trails off.

 

Gretchen just turns to her, points at her own head, and wiggles her finger a bit. Weirdos.

 

“Once Reverb comes back, we’ll-“ I resume.

 

And am interrupted when several people break through the ceiling and land a little away from us.

 

At the front of the group was a tall woman wearing what looked like a gold and red medieval guard’s uniform with one of her eyes blindfolded. She also carried several very heavy and scary looking weapons with her, most prominently a battleax as tall and wide as she is.

 

Next to her are a man wearing a generic red bodysuit with red armor incorporated into it. He stands loosely, like he’s getting ready for a brawl, and sharing an occasional look with the woman beside him. Said woman is wearing a blue version of the man’s suit with a bright cyan circuit board design along with it. Unlike the man, she’s standing almost as still as Skitter does.

 

A little behind them was a very large and muscular man wearing a blue bodysuit with gem design on it. Looking at him a little closer, I realise that his muscles seem distinctly unnatural. I’m also realizing that there’s a plethora of other biological inconsistencies about him.

 

At the very back are two figures, one familiar and one not.

 

Standing next to Reverb is a man who looks as though he’s meant to be treading through the desert. He has a notable white mist surrounding him. Looking at him, the first thing to come to mind is just how… dry he is.

 

Reverb, as mentioned before, is standing next to the dry man, but what I didn’t mention was the large snarling grin adorning that beautifully handcrafted face. Said face was coming off as very traitorous right now.

 

“I found a group!” Reverb announced. 

 

As she does, the lady at the front takes the battleax off of her back, and wields it one-handed.

 

Uh oh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 19: Bruised knees fade away in time!

Summary:

Bonesaw is bullied by a bunch of meanies!

Notes:

Heyo, it’s me, I’m back!

I’ve got a bit of a longer chapter this time, and I learned that I’m probably not great at fight scenes, but I feel it’s the thought that counts.

By the way, it’s been a month since I first posted so… hooray!

School recently started back up again, so updates might be even weirder than usual.

As always, thank you all for reading and for your feedback!

After guard lady takes the battleax of her back, we all go into a standstill. Mostly.

 

As soon as I realized what was happening, I sent out an airborne virus that essentially makes the body rapidly produce mucous. You may think, ‘Bonesaw, that sounds like it’ll just be annoying to deal with in a fight’, and usually, you’d be right, but I did something kinda funny.

 

In a usual situation, mucous builds up somewhat slowly with a limit. Not only that, but snot production is not super high on the body’s priority list, so when you begin to run out of resources, the body slows down production to save on those valuable resources.

 

As you may have guessed, the virus removes the limit, the slowing of production, and speeds up production so much, it’ll only take like, half a minute before the nose is completely put out of commission. Mucous also lines the esophagus, so breathing will be downright impossible in minutes.

 

However, the feature I find the most interesting is auto cannibalization of the body for further resources. The makes it so you will sooner die of malnutrition than suffocation. Malnutrition that happens in mere minutes.

 

I’m pretty proud of it.

 

While I was doing that, dry guy’s weird white mist surrounded the entire opposing group, obviously doing something, but I’m not sure of what.

 

I also watched as Reverb vacated the room as fast as she could. Meaning she dropped her one-liner, and then she blurred out the room in less time then I had to react. I really gotta work on my specific orders.

 

As soon as they enter, Gretchen takes aim with Victor’s gun, Heel bends back while facing them, and both Sarah and Hellion point their hands toward them.

 

It’s mostly silent between all of us, the silence only being broken by Wukong, who has not taken the surprise intrusion as a signal to stop sawing off his limbs, continuing the very loud sound of the wet saw severing his left arm.

 

I didn’t order him to do that- fuckin’- of course.

 

“… Hello! I’m Bone-“ I begin a greeting.

 

“Bonesaw, we in the PRT and Protectorate have insider knowledge that reveals that your death will set off a chain of events resulting in the death and injury of thousands. Therefore, your kill order has been rescinded and has been replaced with a type-2 Quarantine order. If you lay down any tinker equipment and release those in your thrall, you will be released to the parahuman asylum under constant observation instead of either specified execution or punishment including but not limited to imprisonment. Will you comply?” Guard lady interrupts. 

 

Did she just read me the superhero version of my Miranda rights? Those are some surprisingly depressing Miranda rights. So these are superheroes? 

 

“… Can you tell me who I’m being arrested by?” I ask.

 

“No.” Guard lady answers.

 

“… Why not?” I ask.

 

“Are you communicating you lack the will to comply? We will be compelled to use force in retaliation if so.” Guard lady answers

 

“Wait! I didn’t say that! Just- Gretchen! Who are these people?” I quickly sputter out.

 

“The lady with the helmet is Challenger, red guy’s-“ Gretchen boredly began.

 

“Assault and Battery.” Assault points to both himself and the blue lady as he says this. Hah, their names would be pretty funny if they weren’t about to assault and batter me.

 

“… Yeah, them, I don’t know who the other two are though.” Gretchen finishes.

 

At Gretchen’s words, the big, blue shapeshifter seems to deflate slightly, but dry guy doesn’t react.

 

“… Sere?” Heel asks.

 

At this, dry guy looks over at her, before his gaze snaps to Wukong, who waves at him.

 

The shapeshifter deflates further at this.

 

“You two know each other?” Assault asks, still standing in his loose brawler stance, but he’s moved in front of Battery, blocking Gretchen from being able to take a shot.

 

“After his little incident? In my hometown? Yes, we do know each other.” Heel apparently does not like Sere.

 

Speaking of Sere, he hasn’t looked away from Wukong since he noticed him. In response, Wukong stops the self-mutilation, stood up, and started popping the bones in his neck, sounding out several loud, resounding cracks throughout the room.

 

“Enough! Will. You. Comply?” Challenger reiterates with a loud, resounding boom.

 

She seems pretty confident. And able to breathe. They all seem pretty able to breathe. Why isn’t the disease working?

 

I’m gonna have to fight again, aren’t I?

 

Ugh.

 

“I just have one quest-“ I begin.

 

However, I’m interrupted when the Challenger broke into a run toward my dolls, followed by several tendrils of mist, while the Shapeshifter ran towards me.

 

“Initiate!” I yell out.

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Wukong’s skin and muscles shrink and dry up. That’d suck to be hit with.

 

I send all forty five of my fun-rats and all seven of the eye-gulls at the shapeshifter, and turn my attention to the three who haven’t moved.

 

Looking over only Battery has her attention on me, but it’s somewhat hard to see them, as the mist surrounding them has heavily thickened. I also notice little tendrils of mist traveling towards my dolls.

 

I can see Assault through the mist constantly moving around, blocking actual bullets being shot from Gretchen.

 

Sere is still standing there looking at Wukong, but his hand is outstretched towards him.

 

I loosen the quills located in my forearm, and throw them towards the group of three, before turning back to the shapeshifter.

 

He’s murdered nine of my fun-rats already in the time I’ve looked away. They’re supposed to function more as scouters and saboteurs than calvary and defense, okay?! I didn’t even finish making them all!

 

I run back up to the unborn corpse the size of a van, and start tearing out chunks of bone and flesh. I’m in a bit of a rush, so the blood gets everywhere. My dress and apron are going to be a bit of a pain later. Unless I- FOCUS BONESAW!

 

As I start sculpting the chunks into a vaguely cone-like shape, I look back over to the fighting happening.

 

The first thing I notice is how the shapeshifter has almost finished off my rats and took down a few eye-gulls. Fuck.

 

Second thing I notice is how much closer Assault, Battery, and Sere are to me, their previous positions still in play. At this distance, I can see that Battery is staring dead at me. Double fuck.

 

Third thing I noticed is how badly my dolls are doing against Challenger and the white mist. The mist isn’t shriveling limbs like it did, and is doing to Wukong, but whenever the mist touches a doll, they flinch and scream. Some of them are even missing entire limbs, courtesy Challenger. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

 

I quickly run up to the shapeshifter and stab my flesh drill into his- well- flesh.

 

He screams for a second, catching the attention of rest of the protectorate. Everyone barely stuttered, quickly getting back into positions, but Heel was able to blast back Challenger into Wukong. Challenger tensed and shook, before her arm was grabbed by Wukong, who decided that it would be pretty funny to throw her across the room. Her arm now has a fun new joint that she should probably get fixed, but she stands right back up and charges at my dolls, the mist nearby becoming thicker as well.

 

Speaking of mist, tendrils have started to come my way, but I’m noticing that the mist surrounding the group of three heading towards me has become smaller and less dense.

 

The scream also seemed to have Assault distracted, as Battery’s arm is now hanging limply at her side. Go Gretchen!

 

After his three second long scream, he stops and stands ramrod straight.

 

I point at Assault, he’s blocking Gretchen’s shots.

 

“KILL!” I yell, and he follows.

 

Battery and Sere look incredibly alarmed at this, but all of Assault’s focus is on Gretchen.

 

I leave them to that while I run outside, reach into my apron, and bring out an odd looking object that looks like a blue orange.

 

I stab the thing open with a scalpel, throw it on the ground, and peek back inside. 

 

While I was gone, it seems as though Assault was incapacitated, if not straight up dead, as he’s being carried around by the shapeshifter, who probably cured himself. Not only that, but Challenger seems to have put Gretchen in her top priority, as the two seem to be playing a superhuman version of tag. 

 

That said, whatever the white mist is has started to take a very notable toll on all my dolls, if I don’t end this soon, I’ll be down a Mark, Heel, and Sarah.

 

I just gotta-

 

“YOU SONNUVA BITCH!” I hear Hellion yell, before a flash temporarily lights up the room.

 

Uh, what’d she-

 

THUMP

 

I look over to the group of three, then four, and considering how Sere now has a large circular hole where his face and everything behind that should be, it’s three again.

 

Challenger, upon realizing what happened, runs back up to the small group, throws Sere’s now dead body over her bad arm’s shoulder, and sprints pretty fucking fast out of the ware house, followed also pretty fucking quickly by a Battery and an Assault holding shapeshifter.

 

Before they leave the new vaguely Challenger shaped hole is the wall, Battery tosses something towards me.

 

Something that was beeping.

 

I immediately fall flat on my ass, before scrambling away from what was probably a bomb.

 

What was away from the bomb were my dolls.

 

They all either look stoic, vaguely traumatized, or tired. Or they’re unconscious.

 

They’re kinda far away though, I don’t think they could- HELLION CAN TELEPORT!

 

“HE-“ I started, but then there was a loud popping noise, and then I couldn’t feel my legs. 

 

My remaining conscious dolls’ light conversations immediately stop as they all stare in horror at whatever took my legs, even Wukong looks disturbed. Tracy, who by the way was missing during the fight, fainted and fell out from the cupboard she was hiding in.

 

I turn around to see a world colored in black, white, and gray. A very still world, one my legs decided was way better than my body, considering the fact that half of my calves are separated from me and have been plunged into the… stasis bubble.

 

Well… let’s look at the upsides. 

 

I don’t think the group of heroes are going to come back, the blue orange is going to drag Reverb back eventually, and none of my dolls-

 

Squish

 

I look down to see the dry, beaten up corpse of Giant. It resembles a popped balloon more than a… Giant.

 

… none of my self-aware dolls were destroyed!

 

“Bonesaw… I-I can’t believe they’d… we need medical attention over here!” Tracy calls out to me. Oh, right, on a timer.

 

I go to stand up and fall right back down because I lack feet and about a quarter of both my legs right now. Annoying.

 

Eh, easy fix. I’ll just- what happened to my Pseudo-Crawler corpse?

 

The thing looks like a bigger… version… of what Giant looks like.

 

And what Wukong looked like for awhile.

 

Didn’t that Sere guy focus kinda heavily on him? I thought it was Challenger, but it was probably Sere summoning the white mist. A mist that apparently sucks the water out of everything, going by the corpses.

 

That’s probably how the three of them were safe from my disease, and shapeshifter is a shapeshifter. How was Challenger able to survive?

 

“Bonesaw! Get your ass over here!” Hellion yells, honestly looking like a mother duck making sure the other unconscious dolls are okay. 

 

I’ll just get my spider boxes! I barely used these things out of my strategy to keep my mystery, and not because I forgot I had them.

 

I whistle, and only three appear.

 

…I had like twenty, where are the rest?

 

Looking around, I see that the path Sere, Assault, and Battery were following have the occasional corpse littered about.

 

Well, whatever, this should be enough.

 

I grab onto two of the bots before I command them to drag me over to the group. Everyone is oddly silent during this.

 

Boom!

 

Everyone except my boxes looks over to the direction of the sound.

 

The noise was a little too close by to be comfortable. We gotta get out of here, fast.

 

“Wukong, get over here!” Gotta work fast, or I’ll be…

 

“Yes? What wisdom do you-“ Wukong begins to ask, seemingly ignorant of our current situation.

 

“Stay still!” I hissed and got to work with my bonesaw.

 

Once I got the arm off, I immediately began designing new legs for myself, but half way through shaping them, I realized the flesh is kinda… weird.

 

It’s not that I can’t use it, it just doesn’t want to be used, and not only that, but in the time I use to create a processor for the stuff, I’ll probably be killed by whatever made that explosion.

 

Okay, didn’t need legs anyway, could get new ones anytime, except now.

 

Well, I guess we could just head out like this.

 

“Bonesaw! Most of us are missing limbs- I don’t have a left arm -and three of us need immediate attention and assistance, do something!” Hellion yells at me. Well, what does-

 

Okay, the limbs I could just stitch back on, but I need some material to help the other three. I could take some extra flesh from my dolls, but it’d weaken them, and they’re all kinda my main weapons. Alternatively… Well, I wasn’t using the rest of my legs.

 

And so, I turn the bonesaw on myself and cut a bit above the knees. After Wukong’s thing with the mutilation, I’d assume they’d be a bit used to it, but I guess seeing a child do it hits differently.

 

After I extracted the material, I quickly cut them into small chunks. After that, I reach into my apron and gather one of my more… melty diseases, along with a few of my other substances, and start mixing.

 

Once that’s all done, I shove the flesh in their mouths and have them swallow the mixture.

 

Hellion and Tracy are looking at me in horror.

 

“Jes-us Christ.” Gretchen says.

 

“What?” I ask.

 

“Lass, they’re talking about how you just fed them human child flesh. No matter how… psychotic the child is, it’s a tad morally reprehensible to eat child meat.” Wukong clarified.

 

“Why didn’t you use Wukong’s! At least he’s an adult, I don’t want this hanging over Heel’s head!” Hellion screams at me in outrage.

 

“I can’t use his flesh for this.” I told her.

 

“You used it to make the thing in the corner.” She points over to the ruined remains of the pseudo-Crawler.

 

“That’s because I only used his flesh. It’s… unconductive to most other forms of organics.” He is basically made of flesh-eating, self-replicating bacteria. I wouldn’t be surprised if the shapeshifter from earlier is experiencing some difficulties. 

 

“Fuckin’… just stitch our limbs back.” Hellion orders me.

 

“Language! And you got it!” I give her a thumbs up.

 

It goes quiet as I just sit there staring at her.

 

“Well?” Hellion impatiently presses.

 

“Oh! Can you help me with this? Got no legs.” I state innocently.

 

She stares at me for a second before she groans and begins to teleport throughout the room and dropping limbs at my feet broken knees.

 

Now, let’s get this started!

 

BOOM!

 

Let’s get this done quickly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 20: (NOT A CHAPTER!)

Notes:

Heyo, it’s Me once more!

Sorry about not posting in a while, but I just wanna say that I’m putting this story on a sort of hiatus.

So, uh, I WILL update this story again, but not for a while.

I just wanted to put this notice up, I’ll take this chapter down later once I figure out where I’m going with this story.

~

Chapter 21: Bubble Baths are better

Summary:

Bonesaw and her dolls recover and figure out what to do and where to go for the day.

Notes:

...

Heeeeeyyyyyy, whazzup folks!

Hope no one minded the, small. absence too too much.

This chapter ain't much, but I got a few ideas of what I want to do with this story.

That being said, thank all of so, so much for the love and support this story received.

So, yeah, Thanks to everyone reading, enjoy!

Luck is a nebulous and superstitious concept thought up entirely by people as a way to explain why good and bad things happen to them. It does not exist, can easily be disproven, and is honestly a bit lazy.

 

BOOM!

 

Despite all this, people have hammered down luck into jobs, lifestyles, games, everything!

 

Faintly in the distance, we hear a whole lot of screaming, followed by a bunch of loud, flashy sounds, followed by the screams becoming… not louder, just more.

 

Luck, as a concept, may be easily disproved, but at the same time it’s also a completely believable and solid concept.

 

Tracy flinches every time we hear something big moving around. She’s a surprisingly adept early warning system with Heel down. Worryingly, she’s counted at least three different sources, and we only have Crawler as an “ally”.

 

The reason I’m going off about luck is mainly due to the amount of things happening around us without actually coming into contact with and the distance we had to travel from No Man’s Land to the Bay part of Brockton Bay. Fun fact, they’re literally on opposite sides to each other.

 

“Wow, you know, this street looks like you tore through it.” Gretchen remarks to me while dragging our unconscious on a makeshift sled. Ironically, she’s probably right. This little section of town was probably hit by my poppy disease, considering how the street is completely covered in blood and gore. I actually couldn’t recognize the ground beneath, or some of the walls. Must’ve been populated. How Lucky, am I right?

 

I blame all of this on the fact I lost my lucky Mary Janes… and most of both of my legs.

 

Wukong ‘accidentally’ slips on some of the gore just as we’re exiting my… work, and manages to catch himself before he fully falls flat on ground. How lucky.

 

He does not manage to catch me from falling off his shoulders and straight into an especially mushy spot on the ‘floor’.

 

He has done this four times while crossing gore street, no one else has slipped. Not even Tracy, and she tried to throw up when she saw this street.

 

“Whoops! My bad, it must be the new limbs, still getting used to them, you know?” Wukong cheekily excuses himself with the same goddamn excuse.

 

Neruoregeneration includes nervous memory, included with parahuman ability. 

 

I literally opened him up and told him how his ability works, and his medical flaws (He’s got a severe pineapple allergy, by the by. When I told him this, he smiled and told me that it’s his favorite food).

 

But you know what? I don’t even care, the ground comfy, makes my power feel nice and fuzzy, and I can actually hear the bay from here. Once we get there, I can fix up my dolls properly and finally start on my awesome quest to… subjugate sounds kinda bad, I just wanna… reform them, yeah, my awesome quest to reform the slaughterhouse!

 

“Little F-Fucking Creep.” Hellion loudly mumbles in my direction while fiddling with a scary looking knife she plucked from… somewhere. I don’t even try to refute that, I can feel the weird smile on my face. 

 

“Language.” I say more out of obligation than anything. Tracy looks sick again when I start making gore angels in the gore.

 

Wukong looks decidedly stoic as he picks me back up by the back of my dress. Like an angry cat. The disrespect.

 

“Gretchen, I know you’re annoyed with me, but please tell me we’re almost there.” Tracy hurriedly asks her for bajillionth time.

 

“Trace, I swear to- Yes, we’re like right there, you can hear the water, aren’t you, like, our look-out?” Gretchen bites out at her. I wanna say she’s being rude, but Tracy’s gotten kinda chatty since the super-police ambushed us.

 

Speaking of the super-police, apparently Reverb’s pretty fast considering the blarnge (blue orange) didn’t work. I’m guessing she ran out of its radius before the scent got to her. That definitely won’t become a problem in the future, and as such I definitely am not trigger-happy with a specialized strain of airborne bacteria designed specifically to incapacitate her, no siree! 

 

“F-Fucking Finally.” Hellion says and teleports forward before I can say anything.

 

Tracy rushes after her while Gretchen just sighed and trudged along.

 

Wukong pauses for a second before grinning. How do I know he’s grinning if he’s holding me away from him?

 

“Wanna see a trick, immoble one?” Wukong asks me quietly, smiling audibly.

 

“Wha-” I begin before he winds back and THROWS me over the fast food restaurant (Fugly Bob’s, it’s called) towards the Bay.

 

“FLUFFING TOASTER STRUDEL! YOU BLINDING GENETIC DEFICEN-” I’m cut off as I land directly into the Bay, face first, because of course I do.

 

Five minutes later, an unconscious Heel, Mark, and Sarah are submerged in the definitely unhealthy water of the bay while Hellion and Gretchen deliver garbage bag after garbage bag (courtesy of Fugly Bob’s) of gore to me. The water at this point was honestly more blood than water where we were.

 

“That… Doesn’t look very healthy.” Tracy says, pointing at the blood coming out in the newly formed cracks in the trio’s skin. 

 

“I won’t bore you with the details, but you know how people sweat to regulate body temperature? This is basically the same thing, but instead for excessive amounts of… we’ll call it bad blood, but it basically can’t hold most of the stuff blood actually has in it, really it can only hold plasma, which while they can survive with just the plasma, they’ll be totally reliant on the back-up oxygen resourcer, their blood won’t be able to clot, and they’ll so be so weak to diseases, the common cold would murderize them. Not a particularly good life to be living, no?” I joking ask after my spiel and look back to my audience.

 

Wukong isn’t even looking at me and Tracy has this wide-eyed 1000-meter stare that screams ‘what?’

 

“...Okay, uh, what’s- uh- what about your…” she trails off pointing at what's left of my legs. 

 

Good news! I’ve started growing them back, I missed not needing to be carried be Wukong, he’s terrible at carrying me. Bad news, I gotta find out how to mimic metal with only biomaterials for an acceptable exoskeleton before we leave, not to mention that the process looks…

 

“Last bag here- J-Jesus, your legs look like like a t-teenager’s face, you look like you have more p-pus than anything there.” Hellion comments as soon as she pops in.

 

The less said about how the process looks, the better.

 

All of a sudden, Sarah shoots awake, beginning to cough her lungs out, which in turn wakes up Mark to join her in her coughing fit.

 

“Good mor-” I’m interrupted when Sarah looks at me, stops her coughing, and splashes me with bloody water. After, she looks horrified at being submerged in what, to her, looks like a vat of blood.

 

“What… the fuck-” She begins.

 

“Language!” I butt in.

 

“Bonesaw-” cough “-what happened? Why is there so much… where are…?” Mark asks, visibly more put together than Sarah, but obviously still confused. 

 

“We went straight to the Bay after the battle, and all the stuff is from… that damn street. I liked Fugly Bob’s, you know? Me and… nevermind.” Gretchen quickly summarizes.

 

“Hey, C-Creep, why i-Isn’t Heel w-waking up.” Hellion rudely addresses me.

 

“Her body was still adapting to that new kidney, her old one could be knocked over by a stiff breeze.” I quickly excuse myself. “She’ll wake up eventually, just throw her over your shoulder and Gretchen can pick me-” I start to give out orders, and am interrupted by Wukong picking me up, once again, by the scuff of my dress.

 

“Dontcha worry, I gotcha, little lass.” He smiles at me.

 

I am not comforted.

 

“What does she want from us?” Sarah asks Hellion instead of me, for some reason.

 

“W-We have the barebones of a p-plan, but if we a-actually succeed, w-we could take out the nine, permanently. We just gotta t-turn the rest of t-the nine over to Bonesaw and l-let it do it’s thing.” … did she just refer to me as an it?

 

“So we just gotta hunt down the rest of the nine?” Sarah, still covered in blood, raises an eyebrow. 

 

“Actually, we also have to-” “Y-yes, I vote w-we go after the B-Bird first.” Hellion bulldozes my attempt to clarify that, no, we actually have more than just that to do.

 

“Are you sure? Cherish seems like the better option, not only is she a potent master, but we don’t have many fliers. Shatterbird’s no slouch, she might wipe the floor with us right now.” Mark provides.

 

“Um, Bonesaw said she already got to Cherish, and even if we chose who to after, how would we find… any of the nine?” Tracy asks.

 

SCHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

All of us jump at the scream and look over towards… “Captain’s Hill” Sarah and Gretchen provide at the same time, all the way on the other side of town.

 

Currently, it seems like a very colorful tornado is erasing that part of town, and all of a sudden, Mark seems pretty reasonable.

 

“...Hell no, give us a better option.” Gretchen, quite politely in my opinion, requests a better option than that from the universe.

 

Apparently, not only is the universe sentient, but it’s also a petty asshole, because almost immediately afterwards, we hear a whole lot of loud noises behind us across the Bay.

 

I immediately recognize Crawler fighting… those aren’t people.

 

I can immediately tell, even from across the Bay, that these things barely count as facsimiles of people, but the weirdest thing about them is the fact they all have powers, powers that seem to be connected to each other, based on how all the tall red haired ones (not all of them have hair, but not all of them have skin either, bad design) all have the same variation of ‘spawn mini-sun’ with some changes to how the power looks, but it’s all the same concept.

 

Someone cloned a bunch of parahumans, biologically independent from the looks of it, and sent them after Crawler.

 

…Is that, like, actually possible? Can I do that?

 

Can copy and remake copies using original subject as reference

 

…what about memories or powers?

 

…Nothing…?

 

…Well who am I more scared of at the moment? Shatterbird, the city-wide silca-kinetic who is currently busy erasing Captain’s Hill and whoever was on it, or Crawler, the unyielding bio-monster who, considering how fast it’s running through clones, would probably turn all of us into our own gore street faster than we could say ‘what’?

 

…could I choose neither?

 

Still being held up by the scruff of my dress while my legs heal, I go to tell the group exactly that, but catch Tracy nervously, but weirdly skillfully messing with Hellion’s scary knife.

 

Tracy, not even looking away from Crawler’s rampage, flips the scary knife through her fingers.

 

A bit like J a c k, actually.

 

…

 

“... We can do it, we just gotta believe! We’ll start with Crawler and just… circle back around to Shatterbird, we just gotta be determined!” I begin to attempt to try and motivate my motley crew.

 

They all look at me like I’m suicidally stupid and insane. More than usual.

 

Hooo-boy, pep-talks and rallies are more than two sentences, and not my strong suit.

 

Luck is just not on my side, huh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

Heyo, small note, I probably won't touch "Chapter 20"'s (NOT A CHAPTER), despite what it said, hope no one minds.

Here is a bit of relevant news, expect a weeeeird schedule for updates. Could take a month, or I could randomly pop up with a new chapter everyday for a whole week... probably not, but you know.

I'm pretty sure no-one'll notice but I slipped some In Stars and Time references in there.

 

Once more, Thank you everyone for reading and for your feedback! I look forward writing more!