"They're coming out!" Miss Militia's comlink sounded in her ear. She'd sent Glory Girl back to stay with the reserves. Hannah understood the need for secrecy, but Glory Girl, even with the training she received, was too likely to get killed if she had to fight the Nine alone. The guards had turned and were running for the highway. Behind them, teenagers in school clothes and older people wearing good clothes burst from the building, running with the odd jerky gait that said they were being puppetted.

But not their mouths. Bonesaw must have released control of their vocal chords and their screams and pleas for help rose into the air.

"Firing nonlethals," a voice said, and several of the guards were taken down by confoam grenades…

And then they were shrieking, swelling, melting the skin bubbling and sliding off their bodies.

"Fuck!" There was a moment of silence. "All PRT units, the hostages are boobytrapped. Try not to engage."

"This is Dragon. They are part of a network. I'm trying to find the key to shut them down. I'll be busy. Launching Snuffout."

Suddenly dozens of missiles flew over the neighborhood, each one bursting, releasing a thick, chilly mist. Hannah didn't understand all the whys, but the effect was clear enough—only fires being actively maintained by a parahuman could exist in that.

But Burnscar was one of the most powerful pyrokinetics on earth. The explosion of flames blasted the mist back, even as some of Burnscar's "bodyguards" staggered and fell, still trying to remain with her even as they screamed in agony.

Contrary to most, Hannah didn't usually enjoy using her guns to kill.

There were exceptions. Like this. Her weapon morphed into an automatic grenade launcher. She pulled the trigger and round after round slamned into the ground where Burnscar was. The madwoman was used to being able to easily teleport and this time she couldn't. She raised a wall of fire, but most of the shells passed through it, detonating around the Slaughterhouse member.

Suddenly, Burnscar went flying, and moments later, Hannah's weapon morphed into a Istiglal rifle, and then Hannah opened fire with the 14mm rifle, new rounds appearing as fast as she pulled the trigger. Two hit Burnscar's torso, and Hannah walked the rest of the rounds up to her head, the last round obliterating Burnscar's head.

Hannah did not normally enjoy killing.

Today was an exception.

"Burnscar—FUCK!" Hannah rolled to her side. While she'd been killing Burnscar, Hatchet Face had taken the opportunity to get close to her. He'd used his teammate as a decoy.

Hannah desperately tried to keep him away, her gun morphing into a P90. They were too close for the bigger weapons. But even though three hit Hatchet Face, he didn't go—

And it was then that a six-limbed figure out of nightmare struck Hatchet Face from the side.

My imitation genestealer had its orders, and it didn't matter that I had lost contact with it. It attacked Hatchet Face with claws and teeth.

I didn't expect it to win. Hatchet Face was a powerful Brute and I couldn't directly guide my minions inside his field.

I didn't have to.

The first thing the genestealer did was to burst several bags of fluid on hatchet face. Pheromones, collected from my swarms.

And they had a very simple effect as I sent thousands, hundreds of thousands of my bugs after the brute. Not all of my cards merely caused insects to follow an individual. Now, every insect that scented the material, would attack it—and whoever had it on them. The brute killed my genestealer, just in time to vanish under an absolute vortex of furious insects, digging, biting stinging, every one he killed replaced by a hundred more. And none of them controlled by my power.

If he had stayed with Burnscar, he could have protected her from Miss Militia and she could have protected him from my insects.

But that wasn't how the Slaughterhouse worked.

That made them vulnerable.

And then Crawler came roaring out, Mannequin loping by his side. The crazed tinker was ducking down, using Crawler's mass for cover. If he could get clear, Mannequin was one of the more likely members of the Slaughterhouse to be able to make it on his own.

But now that they didn't have Hatchet Face, I could deploy Abbott and Costello. The two hive tyrants came charging out from the wooded area I'd used for cover.

Unfortunately, Amelia hadn't been able to duplicate a lot of their game powers. The "Warp" wasn't something that was easy for her power to encompass. Well, unfortunately for Amelia and I. Chris and Dennis had not so covertly sighed in relief.

But she could still do a lot. The two hive tyrants sent a spray of deadly iron projectiles, fired from an organic rail gun, at Crawler. Crawler laughed and took it.

As expected. I was the diversion, not the main show.

"Is that all! I thought you could hurt me!" he bellowed and charged Abbott. The tyrant kept shooting, but pulled its bone sword, plasma gathering around it.

Not magic plasma—Amelia had figured out how to create organic power storage cells and projectors. She'd confessed that her power seemed to be working better than ever before.

But now I was the tyrants, and the genestealers, busily keeping the helpless slaves of the Nine "fighting" until Dragon could break the code that was controlling them, and the swarm, rising up into the air over the skeleton that had been Hatchet Face. Abbot dodged and sliced down with the sword, while Costello opened up with a short ranged bio-shotgun, knocking Crawler into the side of a building. Mannequin turned and ran for it, but then a blue armored form and golden tressed flier landed in his path.

Armsmaster and Glory Girl. I guess they'd switched out. Assault and Dauntless were involved in dealing with the victims, keeping them fighting without triggering their self destruct system.

Not my fight. I kept fighting Crawler, sending insects into his eyes as he evolved defenses so fast I could watch them arise.

But then, like a hard rain, dozens, hundreds of needles fell on him. I pulled my tyrants back. What was about to happen wouldn't discriminate.

"You think these—" He fell silent as the needles sank into his skin, Armsmaster's nanothorns penetrating through the skin, even as Amelia's biological payload was released.

I'd been told that her weapon had required the personal authorization of the president to use on American soil. After this fight, it was only to be used during Endbringer fights.

Well, after this fight it would only be needed for Endbringer fights.

The FBI and PRT profilers agreed. Crawler was a masochist. More importantly, he was trapped in a body that could no longer feel. He wouldn't try to escape.

And he didn't. He kept fighting, until the rear of his body just… popped like a balloon, a strange substance emerging. My tyrants backed off. I could see dozens of mutations trying, and failing to adapt to Amelia's hell-plague.

"I can… feel?" Crawler sounded confused and then spoke no more.

I turned away from them just in time to see the end of Mannequin. The tinker had unleashed weapons, including something that looked like a remote controlled buzzsaw. Glory Girl was cut in a dozen places, but she wasn't fighting like I'd been her fight when I'd first become a hero. She was dodging, not trusting to her invulnerability, trading places with Armsmaster. Mannequin traded a dozen blows with Armsmaster, tried to entangle Glory Girl in his extensible arms, but then he was trapped between the two and Armsmaster's nanothorn blade sliced right through the tinker's armored body. But he didn't stop there, but kept chopping until Mannequin looked like a pile of silver and red scrap.

"This is Dragon, their code has been cracked and the self-destruction systems suspended."

The people who had been fighting us were collapsing, without any sign of melting. Amelia could purge them, and I saw PRT troopers running forward with isolation bags.

"Does anyone have eyes on Jack, Bonesaw or Shatterbird?" That was Alexandria. She looked around. "Jack isn't in the building."

Just like always, I thought. Now it was time to see if we could break Jack's string of impossible escapes.

"We should have stayed." Shatterbird was flying above them, Jack and Bonesaw on a flying "carpet" made of shards of glass.

Taking Shatterbird was annoying. She was hardly the most interesting member of the Nine, but without the Siberian, Jack needed a member with the kind of power that could stand off the PRT.

A well, once I've rebuilt the Nine, I can reassess her place in it. But for now she's—

A purple loop of energy shot up from the ground, looping around Shatterbird's body, and just yanking down. Shatterbird shrieked in rage, and then the loop just twisted around her body and suddenly there were pieces of Shatterbird falling from the sky.

Jack took a leap from the disintegrating carpet, Riley and her spiderbots following him.

How did we get caught so easily? Jack hadn't even noticed the ambush until it had been launched. But that wasn't any mundane. That was…

"Uncle Jack, look out!" Jack twisted to the side, Riley's warning barely coming in time to save him as a glaive spun through where he'd been.

He'd seen that—oh, Brockton Bay's very own monster cape.

Jack smirked. They never belonged, no matter how hard they tried. Slipping under his skin would be the work of moments. After all, how did he know what his girlfriend really thought behind her smiles?

"Trollhunter, is it?" Jack called to the trees around them. "Are you up for some banter?"

"No." And then a hulking form was flying out of the trees at him. Jack looked up, feinted to the left, and then slashed out to catch him in the throa—

What the hell? He missed! Jack sent out his power again and now it was scoring metal, sparks flying from the monster's shield, but now he had hit the ground and was moving for Jack. Riley shrieked behind him, the sound cut short.

"It must be difficult, being a monster. Tell me, are you certain Shadowdancer loves you? After all—"

"You talk too much." And then Jack was dodging back, frantically trying to parry the sword with his knife and power. It wasn't working, why wasn't it working? He always knew the right thing to say.

But then Trollhunter slipped through his guard. The blade stabbed into his stomach, emerging from the other side. Jack dodged back, the sword pulling out with a wet sound. Riley's upgrades were keeping him alive, but then the Trollhunter slammed him against a tree, and with two savage motions, shattered his elbows. Jack shrieked as his arms fell uselessly to his side.

"You don't want to do this, we're alike—" Then that big four fingered hand was slammed over his mouth, his jaw creaking.

"Door to Merlin."

Moments later, they were in a… cell? This is the Birdcage, how is he— And then Jack's thoughts slithered to a halt as he stared at the Fairy Queen and Merlin.

"Trollhunter," Merlin said. "Holding a man's mouth shut isn't something we do in front of the Fairy Queen."

Yes, let me talk—And then, moments after Trollhunter pulled his hand away, Merlin made a gesture, and a gag appeared. No! I can talk my way out of this! He could see what he needed to say to the Fairy Queen, even if now he realized that Trollhunter and Merlin were… different.

A single glance showed Shatterbird's head on the floor. The Fairy Queen followed his gaze. "Indeed, Speaker to the Fae, the Glassworker now rests with us. Be content. Your time upon the stage has come to an end."

NO! I—and when whatever Jack Slash might have said was rendered irrelevant as he felt himself being pulled. The last thing he heard was the Trollhunter's annoyed voice.

"'We're alike?' seriously, where did he get his script, a Saturday Morning TV show?"

And then all was dark.