"All hands to the tower, all hands to the tower!" rang out over his earpiece. "We are currently making a Class S announcement to the Protectorate, requesting assistance from all cities." The sirens began howling, and the lights flashed to indicate the path to the nearest Endbringer shelter.

"What's the Class S, Lisa?" Danny asked, opening the throttle on the low-slung supercar. He veered up onto the sidewalks after using a dozen eyes to make sure it was clear, zooming around a knot of traffic then barreling through an intersection without slowing.

"The Slaughterhouse Nine. They hijacked a train and are headed this way. I don't have eyes on Shatterbird, so I'm assuming she's close. Stay away from windows, secure anything you've got with glass components. Druid, lose the glasses. Everyone else, be careful about your helmet visors."

"Belay that," Armsmaster cut into the transmission. "There are no silica components in the helmet visors. But keep in mind most of the electronics could potentially fail, depending on how small a glass component that Shatterbird can affect."

Danny looked up at the glass canopy above his head. It was probably some sort of transparent ceramic. And even if it wasn't, he trusted his armor to protect him against falling glass. And he didn't wear his glasses under the helmet, so he was all right. "I've never heard of anyone calling a Class S threat for the Nine," he said.

"They do qualify," Lisa said. "And you guys would be stupid not to ask for help. Now if you will all excuse me, I'm signing off. I'm a consultant not an employee, and I think that the Nine coming in is a good reason for me to go out."

There was silence a moment, and then Velocity spoke up. "Okay, I'm on the console, however long that lasts. Shatterbird is hell on electronics. Someone give me a plan."

"Divide and conquer," Dauntless said immediately. "It's a big city, we'll get them separated and do this systematically. So far I'm not seeing any response to the Class S summons. We've got warnings going out on all frequencies and the sirens are going. We're going to try to keep the Nine separated from potential victims, barricaded safely away. If they're coming in by train, they'll be starting out in the north of the city, the trainyards. We are not working containment, we are working to corral them away from each other and play them off each other. These are fractious and temperamental individuals, we can break their teamwork and maintain our own."

"Do we have a current roster for the Nine?" Aegis asked.

"We do," Velocity said. "Jack Slash, Bonesaw, Siberian, Crawler, Shatterbird, Burnscar, Ravager, Hatchet Face, and Mannequin."

"Weak links?" Battery asked.

"For behavior and morale, Crawler and Ravager are listed as the weak links. For combat and threat, Burnscar and Ravager are listed as weak links."

"Sounds like we should focu-" Whatever else Battery was going to say was lost when the canopy of the car imploded, showering him with shards of glass. The car shut down, something in its control computer broken. The comms had a squeal of feedback but it died down in a few seconds. Danny pushed the canopy open and stood, staring around. The scene was the same as far as the eye could see, every bit of glass broken to razor-sharp slivers. Cars were undrivable, skyscrapers looked like ruined tombs. People fled through the streets, clutching at bleeding wounds. Danny turned and ran for the Protectorate tower, glass still falling in tinkling waves from its curved facade.

"Dauntless, permission to assume coordination duty as in previous Class S incursion," he said when the comms recovered.

"For what good it does you. There's no console, and we're on our own. The Protectorate is not sending reinforcements, there's a chance that the Ash Beast is nearing some major cities and they need our forces ready to deal with that. I think popular opinion is that the Nine are a team of villains, like any other, and not a real Class S."

"Fuck. Okay, Armsmaster where are you?"

"Workshop. Kid Win's with me."

"Perfect," Danny said. "I need a replacement console. Something portable and operable by mice."

"It'll be ready sooner than you expect, I've got a small batch of nano-assemblers for electronics work, and Kid Win's got some multi-purpose software that can do what you need."

"Thanks. Velocity, time to get you out on your feet again. Vehicles are inoperable and speed is of the essence. Take a set of ear-comms and get to the Shearsea shelter, get a comm-link to Dinah Alcott. Then run some more to Trainwreck, Circus, Uber, Leet, Parian and Panacea. Dauntless, I need a recon of that hijacked train, and I'm going to ask you to run a comm-link to the asylum so I can talk to Oni Lee. Assault and Battery, you guys are the first line of harassers, you get north and be ready to slow down the Nine as they leave the train. All other personnel converge on the tower so can coordinate from there, we need to be ready to move with the changes."

"Roger," Dauntless said. "Okay, I've got the extra comms, heading north for recon." Danny looked up in time to see a golden streak flash through the air headed north, stretching left from the Tower as far as he could see, and then fading. He jogged the last block, and stepped carefully up the stairs to the front door lest he slip on glass. The lobby was a ruin, the windows broken across the floor, mixed with blood, the wind blowing humid through the room. But the Wards were standing there, staring at him. Clockblocker seemed apprehensive. Aegis seemed overly confident. Flechette was staring at him with unmasked animosity. Benthic had her armor locked, standing in the position she posed for photographs in.

"Okay," he said, tugging off his helmet. "First things first, I've got to issue a battlefield promotion. Aegis, you're a Protectorate hero as far as I'm concerned, not a Ward. You'll be paired up with Miss Militia until I say otherwise. Clockblocker, that makes you the leader of the Wards. Unfortunately, you're not going to be featured this time like you were against Leviathan, without Skipjack and Dispatch I'd be risking your life asking you to get within arm's reach of these monsters. If I can get Parian on board, we'll talk about recreating the last seconds of Leviathan and hope that the Siberian isn't nuclear too. Flechette?"

"Fuck you."

"I deserve that and worse. I'll keep you alive to cuss me out later. Now, you're one of my five plans against the Siberian, and one of my best ones, so this is kind of the lynchpin of the strategy. So I need to know the exact and precise limitations and capabilities of your power."

"Five plans for Siberian?" Browbeat scoffed. "Most people only have one, and it's 'run away'."

"Nano-disassemblers, Flechette, Hatchet Face, Crawler, Clockblocker," Danny recited. "And if those all fail, then run away."

"I need you to explain the order you listed those in," Clockblocker said, hands on his hips. It was a common pose for Aegis. Clockblocker probably thought of it as a leader's pose. So he was trying to think like a leader, including understanding the whole plan and also making sure that everyone's safety was considered. He probably considered it a problem that he was rated fifth, would think of it as giving his safety more consideration than his teammate Flechette.

"In order: the nano-saws can take apart any physical matter we've tested them on, and they can be set in place and remotely activated, so they're the first line of defense for Siberian, the no-risk high-probability answer. Next is Flechette, a ranged attacker that can hit anything she can see and can kill anything she can hit. It's a natural choice, especially if we team her up with Vista to buy her plenty of space to make a getaway. Hatchet Face is capable of canceling any power, and he's fairly easy to manipulate. Low risk, high probability, but more time consuming and more involved than getting Flechette to bolt Siberian. If Hatchet Face fails, I instigate the Crawler to attack her, given enough time he can kill anything, but the problem could well be that in doing so he gets even tougher than Siberian, and we're not nearly ready for that. Failing those, Clockblocker is the next choice, sneaking him in somehow so he can touch her and set her up for a finishing attack, probably defaulting back to Flechette for that. Plans for sneaking Clockblocker in close include -"

"Okay, I get it," Clockblocker interrupted. "It's fine. But Siberian is just the obvious threat, not the real threat. Jack Slash has always been the Nine member to watch out for. He's kept himself alive since the beginning, and nobody else has."

"Every member of the Protectorate and Wards is armored heavily enough to deflect any of his knife attacks," Danny said. "Honest, I consider him as a non-combatant, a coordinator like me, but not a viable threat in the conventional sense."

"I had to do a report on that guy," Gallant said. "Everyone underestimates him, and they die because of it. I really, really think you should rethink your opinion on him."

Danny paused, looking at the sincere young man. "Okay, a researched opinion is worth more than my offhand opinion. We'll upgrade him to a wildcard, and work to observe him and specify what it is about him that makes him so much more than he seems. In the meantime stay clear of him and try to get rid of his accomplices so we can concentrate on him."

"Thanks," Gallant said, nodding.

"Dauntless to Druid," the earpiece said. The other hero's voice was pitched to carry over high wind, Dauntless was probably high up to keep a safe distance. "The train's already come in, they just plowed it full-speed into the railyard, there's wreckage everywhere. I can't see any of the Nine, even with the extruded view and infrared scope."

"Throw some lightning bolts into the wreckage and see if they're hiding in there," Danny said. "Shake the bushes."

There was a pause, and then the man came back on. "Nope, no reaction. Suggestions?"

"They've gone to ground, and need to be rooted out by the ground forces. Hit the asylum, recruiting Oni Lee in is more important than doing flyovers and hoping to get lucky."

"Druid, this is Assault. We're approaching the Trainyard, where do you want us posted up?"

"Um, take position near 20th street and keep an eye out, you're the leading edge right now."

"Whoops, gotta backtrack, overshot 20th. We'll be in touch."

"Druid, this is Velocity. Pull your leading edge back to the southeast, Jack's not heading straight south from the Trainyards. He's left a message carved some billboards out here."

"What's the message?"

"Give us the mouse."

Druid paused, trying to figure out what mouse they could be talking about. And then he clicked to it.

"Mouse Protector?" he said in his comms. "Is there something you want to tell us?"

"I didn't think they'd come after me," she said. "Honest, I thought they'd blow this off and I'd be scot-free! And then they showed up and everything's happened so fast and-"

"You should have told me that's why you were in town!"

"You kept secrets too, and I wound up taking part in your fights!"

"I punched a rapist in the head so hard he forgot his mother's face, but you were on the run from the Slaughterhouse Nine! This is not equivalent!"

"Lover's quarrel," Clockblocker quipped towards his team.

"Look, get over here and help me think of a plan. If they want you, we can bait a trap, that's something we didn't have before. Assault, Battery, drop back to tenth by Cornwall, and be really careful. We're maneuvering and navigating while the Nine are in the city. Take no chances, and I mean no chances, got it?"

"Got it boss," Assault said. Mouse Protector appeared at Danny's side, in full armor with sword and shield. She bit her lip as if mustering the nerve for a real apology, but Danny just gave her a nod while he checked the next incoming message.

"Gambler online," Dinah Alcott said. "I'm in a shelter, with a point two percent chance I'll be in personal danger until I leave."

"Good to have you, Gambler," Danny chuckled. "Thanks, Velocity."

"No sweat. I've got a view of some fires to the north, that's probably Burnscar up by Calvallo and Victoria, give or take a block."

"Armsmaster here. I've got your console, it'll be ready in two minutes. Get up here, it'll be waiting for you."

"Elevator's out, gotta take the stairs," Danny replied, heading for the stairwell. "Gambler, what are the odds that the Wards can take Burnscar out without casualties if we sweep them up along the Boardwalk and then west through the Docks?" He jogged up the steps, and was glad that his knees felt better than they had since he was a teenager. He owed Panacea many more thanks. Mouse Protector trotted along behind him, dogging his steps like a bodyguard.

"Um, twenty-two percent point eight seven three and change."

"Never more than one decimal point. Okay, what are those odds if they bear west to downtown then north to Burnscar's location?"

"Eight point nine percent."

"I didn't expect to get better than ten," Danny admitted as he rounded the landing for the observation deck. "Okay, Wards, roll out. West to Victoria then north. Vista, get them there fast. Browbeat, find something you can use as a shield, and something you can use as a projectile. Benthic, your priority is observation and situational awareness, watch their backs. Clockblocker, think defensively. Flechette, think offensively. Gallant, you're our utility player, if you get a shot at her try to use your empath-blasts to calm her down, shake her out of this burn-happy rage. Support each other, and be alert. All of your armor should be fully fireproof, so she's a low threat to you but a high threat to the city, and the real danger is that she may receive backup. Got it?"

"Got it," Clockblocker said. "We're moved out. Streets are clear, Vista's power is at full strength, we're making ten blocks for every one."

"Perfect. Anyone else have a report?"

"Dauntless here, navigating bureaucracy. Should be just a few minutes more."

"Thanks. Assault? Battery?"

"Battery here, Druid. Still no sign of them. I've got throw cameras deployed up and down the block, with motion sensors, and we're not seeing anything."

"They may have slipped the line. Leave the cameras in place and drop back five blocks."

"Roger."

"Velocity here, handing off comms to Uber and Leet."

"Thanks. Uber, Leet, you hear me?"

"We hear you. We're just not sure about being hooked in on a Class-S defense, it's not really our idiom, you know?"

"You're too modest. Uber, do you have access to a sniper rifle with a scope? You may be our best shot at taking out Hatchet Face or Shatterbird, and if we can get you a clear fire lane you might be able to cut their movements off."

"Um, I don't have one on me, but I know a place I can break in."

"Break into it. We're on Class-S protocols and you're a defender, all normal rules are suspended. Leet, what kind of gear do you have ready access to?"

"A really cool server for playing MMO PVP that I thank Genova was in a soundproofed room, a bunch of mind-control lights that are broken now, an awesome arm-mounted grappling hook launcher, an infinite supply of business cards in my pocket, a stone pickaxe that can get through most walls in a few seconds and can probably be used about fifty times or so. And, a huge stack of failures, like the shrinking armor that leaves the wearer regular size, or all these ray guns that are going to explode if anyone pulls the trigger. That's what I've got on hand."

"So, a lot of booby traps," Wharf Rat said. Mouse Protector snickered. He suppressed an in appropriate grin himself at her. "I can't think of any of the Nine we'd be able to trick into shrinking armor, so leave that off. Stand by with the ray guns, the grapnel, and the pickaxe, and see if you can cobble something together that would help us, maybe by neutralizing one of the Nine."

Armsmaster cut in. "Maybe something that can detect and counter a broadcast resonant frequency, I haven't started on anything like that yet, and it'd be able to take Shatterbird off the board."

"Hmm, I'll work on a design. Can't predict the deadline on that right now, I ll let you know when I know."

"Uber here, got the gun."

"Great. Post up on the top of the Protectorate Tower, it'll give you a straight shot right down Lord Street and you'll be able to pick off anyone crossing it."

"On my way."

"Carefully, if you please, with expert stealth."

"Oh, yeah, right."

"Assault here, we've got eyes on Crawler. He's headed your way, not quickly, and not subtly."

"Don't engage," Wharf Rat said, pausing on the stairs. He turned towards Mouse Protector, pulling something out of an inside pocket of the Druid's cloak. "Here, take this, drop it outside in Crawler's path. Be careful, come back to me immediately after, okay?"

"What is it?" the woman asked, turning the small device over in her hands.

"It's the most benign thing that Bakuda ever built," he said. "And if I'm lucky, I can take out two of the Nine with it. Now get."

Mouse Protector took the device and then started back down the stairs, much faster than Danny was able to climb them. She vaulted straight from landing to landing, descending to the ground level in just seconds. "Showoff," he said into his comm link. "Okay, Assault, Battery, keep relaying his location to Mouse Protector and myself, but stay out of danger.

"Clockblocker to Druid, Burnscar is out of the fight. Currently frozen, tying her up with lots of bent metal and putting out the fires so she can't teleport, and containment foam on top of that."

"Clear," Danny said. He realized belatedly that it was probably unreasonable for him to assume that these teenagers would kill someone without direct orders, and now he felt stupid asking them to kill someone they had already captured. He made a note to clarify his orders going forward. "Okay, Wards stand by at that location until she unfreezes, we need to confirm that she's thoroughly captured and safe. If she's safe, bring her to the tower for interrogation. If she cannot be safely contained, your highest priority is to not let her escape. Lethal measures are pre-authorized."

There was a pause. "Understood," Clockblocker said. Danny could hear disappointment from his daughter's silence.

He pushed open the door to Armsmaster's lab, and stepped inside. "Wh-... you've made changes," he said, somewhat overwhelmed.

"We have indeed," Colin said, from the cockpit of his armor. It was entirely different from before, taller and bulkier. It moved through the workspace with an eerie elegance, its mass shifting from moment to moment. As each leg stretched forward it was long and slender, with thin struts that connected it to the other leg. And as it touched down those struts snapped shut, telescoping as they pulled plates and pillars and levers from the other leg towards it. Whichever leg was bearing weight was strong, whichever leg was not was light and fast. Nothing wasted or idle, every part of the armor was in use to its full potential at all times. The hips and thighs of the armor bristled with small jointed arms with rotating toolsets on them that whirred and wove around the piece he was working on, a mass of tentacles emerged from the chest right under his viewport and turned the component he was working on, supporting it and rotating it so the various tools could get to work. The shoulders and main arms of the suit fluttered with vanes like a beetle's wings that opened rhythmically, and inside the glass dome that he was working in, Armsmaster's face was lit up with lines of light and specks that were projected from the internal holography as it displayed coded information in extremely dense formats that only he truly understood. The two main arms reconfigured constantly, joints appearing and disappearing behind sliding panels as they moved to always the perfect length and angle and presenting a vast array of tools that seemed to turn themselves inside out to slide away when they were done. "Your console's on the counter by the door," Armsmaster said. The room was full of raw materials, shelves full of different gauges of wiring, sheets of metal, simple machine tools to craft housings and other simple devices while the suit was making more complex components.

"What are you working on?"

"Multipurpose nano-saw weapons," Colin said without looking up. Inside his dome his hands were sketching diagrams in the air, and the onboard computers were interpreting them in real-time to take their instructions for the creation process, dozens of limbs all working in concert using his predictive software to find the optimal way to follow his instructions. "Yo, Kid, you're up."

Inside the dome, Colin rotated hard to the left, swinging and turning at the same time as Kid Win appeared from the right, rotating into place. They shared a suit of armor, swapping out active control of the suit as needed, the other sitting in the design space to work on abstracts. Kid Win spared Danny a nod as he began manipulating the builder armor. "It won't look like much at this iteration," Kid Win said. "Just a spike with a button. But they should be good for melee attack, defensive parrying, a thrown weapon, and a remote-deployable attack kind of like a mine." He paused, looked up again. "I heard once that you like mines. Anyway, if this test model works out the way we hope, we should be able to crank them out every few minutes, and we'll have real weapons for this fight."

Danny nodded, and grabbed the console to head downstairs. He did not do it as fast as Mouse Protector. And a squad of rats streamed into the stairwell ahead of him, bearing a tablet computer that they'd carried out of his bedroom. He scooped it up and led the way down, circling around.

"Trainwreck online," said a new voice. It was somehow gruff but also nasal. "Circus is here too, but I think she's a listener not a talker."

"Understood. Circus, if you need to signal confirmation, just press the signal button on the bottom of the comm link. Trainwreck, what's your status?"

"The city's stuffed full of broken cars, so I slammed something together. It's fast and it's tough and it's strong, but it's going to degrade fast and the components are going to burn out if I don't replace them, and I'll start losing speed, then structural integrity."

"Got it. Well while it lasts get you and Circus here to the tower, we're going to equip and direct from here."

"Dauntless here, Oni Lee is fitted with a commlink. Took longer than I expected."

"Understood, I'll take that from here, can I get you to support the Wards at their location? I'm a bit paranoid about them hitting backup."

"Will do," the Protectorate leader said. Danny walked down the stairs, past the ground level, and down to the basements.

"Oni Lee, this is Wharf Rat," he said into that channel. There was silence from the other side. "Oni Lee, I want you to get someplace safe, where there is nobody nearby that you could hurt and nothing important that you might damage, someplace like the roof. Find a place like that and when you do that, I want you to use your new teleportation power, the one you learned after you killed Butcher. And use that teleportation power to get to the roof opposite the Protectorate Tower. All hands, let me know when Oni Lee arrives at that spot."

"Clockblocker here, Burnscar is safely contained. Shall we begin transporting her?"

"Carefully, and cautiously, move her to the tower to be interrogated. Gallant, stand ready to calm her." He climbed through the broken grate and into the storm drains, navigating his way through the tunnels. He wanted to get rid of the armor, it didn't feel right. Like it was a lie he was tired of telling. But for the meantime, he needed any protection he could get against knives, fire, acid, axes, claws, broken glass, and poisons. He remembered early in his career when the idea was to hang out a block away from the action, dressed inconspicuously, but against the Nine there was no place that was safe and no anonymity. But being forced to stay in the armor just made him come to terms with how badly he wanted to be rid of it, and the cloak, and the technology. After two lefts and a right and some careful maneuvering around a broken section of pipe, he found the first-generation tunnel buggy. Oak and maple, sheet plastic and staples. No engine, no headlights, no radio. He slid the tablet and the console replacement into the cargo section with a couple dozen of his smarter rats, and then he climbed in through the hatch and sealed it up. He put his feet on the pedals, and rode out.

First order of business was Crawler. The Druid appeared in the street, standing calmly with his hands folded behind his back as the murderous behemoth approached. It turned its ponderous head towards him, staring with big black compound eyes. "You've no scent," the monster said, its various mouthparts moving intricately as it spoke in its garbled voice.

"No, because I'm not here," the Druid said. "I just wanted to ask you a question."

"What question?" the Crawler demanded.

"Are you getting what you want?"

The thing laughed. "All I want is the best fight I can get, so I can get stronger than anyone ever."

"And are you getting that?" the hologram asked, calmly.

"I'm.. I can do it any time I want," the monster replied. It sounded unsure of itself in a strange way, confused.

"It sounds like you could take what you want, and you have chosen not to," Druid said. "So is that really what you want?"

"Of course it is! And I can take it whenever I want! I can fight them right now!" it bellowed, spitting flecks of acid from its razorlike mandibles. The street hissed from the spittle, bursts of acrid green smoke rising from the contact. The Crawler heaved its bulk around, facing west, and charged. At high speeds its various legs moved in segments like a centipede, tentacles lashing as it swept down the street. The Druid's projection flickered and faded, and a small mouse ran out of hiding to grab the miniature projector and carried it down to the storm drains, where it was picked up by its master and tucked somewhere safe. The tunnel-buggy rolled out, keeping pace with the Crawler's charge.

"Armsmaster to Druid: Mannequin is down and out. He came at me through the air vents. This guy's even better at infiltrating a space than you are. Anyway, he didn't seem to expect that every aspect of this armor also has a combat utility."

"Watch out for tricks, Mannequin's a bad one about outmaneuvering enemies and working deceptively."

"He thought he was attacking your backline, rooting out your tinker support. He thought that killing me was the surprise move. And I'm looking over his armor, it's everything you'd expect. If this is a ruse, he's put as much work into this ruse as he has into his own personal transformation. This guy is a testament to the idea of efficiency taken too far, the way he's packed this armor tight. He's even excised parts of his brain so there'll be room for other components. Sheesh. I'll study this, but I'm treating him as much as a cautionary tale as anything else. Maybe I can get some usable, sane ideas I can integrate into the armor systems or base defenses. It's a shame, he was probably the best tinker of his generation before the Simurgh killed his family. He was going to be the guy that saved the human race, giving us shelters that could survive any attack."

"Dauntless here, I've got a positive visual ID on Hatchet Face. Looks like he's trying to break into one of the population shelters."

"Can you shoot to disable?"

"I could take out his arms," Dauntless replied.

"Do that. Leet, got a job for you and your grapnel gun, we need to haul Hatchet Face to where Siberian is."

"Send someone by for it, I'm busy neutralizing Shatterbird's powers."

"Boss, it's Velocity. I just found Parian and Panacea, handing them commlinks now. Do you want me to get the grappling hook and run it over to Dauntless?"

"Don't bother," Trainwreck said. "I can get there in a few minutes and just pick him up and carry him away. He can't do anything to my powers until it's time for me to repair my armor."

"Thanks. Triumph, Miss Militia, Aegis, the Wards will be arriving with Burnscar. You three handle the interrogations, keep Gallant close. Carefully and with no room for mistakes."

"Okay," Dauntless said. "I just disarmed Hatchet Face. Twice. The wounds are cauterized, he won't bleed out."

"Sure," Triumph said. "Hey, did you bump Aegis up to the big kid's table just so you wouldn't be the new guy anymore?"

"Never crossed my mind," Danny lied smoothly. "Gambler, what are the odds that Crawler kills Siberian?"

"Um, thirty-one-point-nine percent, actually."

"We might not need Hatchet Face, but if nothing else we can keep him around to take out Crawler after the fact," Danny said.

"It's weird, you hear about Siberian being fully invulnerable, and unstoppable," Battery said. "Like a force of nature, worse than an Endbringer all by herself. And to think that Crawler has a credible chance to kill her. He's tough, very dangerous even for a villain, but you never hear about him in the sort of context of Siberian and Endbringers, he's just not at that level. Have we just always underestimated his ability to adapt to someone else's powers?"

"Parian here, do you have instructions for me and Panacea?" cut in a new voice.

"Yes, whip up a great big horse, I need you two mobile and well-defended. Have some bodyguards ready. Your telekinetic constructs are one of the only weapons we've got that Bonesaw doesn't have a countermeasure for. Get to the Protectorate tower and stand by."

"Triumph to Dru, Oni Lee just appeared in a burst of flames and explosions."

"Thanks. Oni Lee, stand by while Mouse Protector marks you."

"Seriously?!"

"Just do it, you're going to be supplying him with weapons while we fight here. Armsmaster, do we have a spare suit of armor that would fit him?"

"Some experiments that I was working here, could be remodeled to fit him if I had his measurements."

"Got it. Mouse Protector, mark him and then lead him to the Armsmaster's workshop. Oni Lee, follow where she leads you, got it?"

"m," was the smallest sound that the comm link could carry.

"Oni Lee, are you recovering faster this time? That'd be great, we could really use you at full strength for this fight," Danny said. "You make me proud."

"Uber to Wharf Rat, I've got a visual on Shatterbird."

"Take the shot, no hesitation."

"Locked in. Leading. Firing." The comm link carried a muffled version of the gunshot. "She's hit, but I missed center body mass. Looks like it's got her in the shoulder."

"Fire again."

"Locking, leading, firing," Uber said, and the shot rang out. "The leg this time, she's dropping out of my sight. She's flying west, juking to spoil my shot."

"Stay alert. You said west?"

"Yeah."

"Crawler's heading west," Danny mused. "We haven't seen Jack, Bonesaw or Siberian at all, the three core members, and we've been concentrated on the east near the tower. It looks like Mannequin and Burnscar and Hatchet Face were deployed to slow us down and keep us looking in the wrong places, probably Crawler too. Tell me someone has started interrogating Burnscar."

"We're on it," Aegis said, murmuring into his earpiece as if to keep someone from overhearing. "But we're going slow to keep from getting her worked up."

"Good thinking. Jack probably uses her rage to keep her in line with the rest of the Nine. Keep her calm, give her some water to drink, remind her that she doesn't owe them anything."

"Got it."

"Okay, everyone not re-equipping or interrogating at the Tower, reposition west. Current rendezvous point is the City Hall, center of downtown. That should put you close enough to the action to get involved while maintaining a discreet distance. If the fight is further west than I think, we'll reposition rendezvous. Parian, give Uber a ride, Trainwreck take Circus. Gambler, stay put. Leet, how are we with that invention?"

"It's coming together faster than you'd expect, the principle is simple enough. Probably inside the next couple hours, depending on the tests."

"Stay on it then. Wards, get to City Hall. Be safe and be careful when you travel. Assault, Battery, Velocity, same rendezvous. Holy crap, I just realized: where is New Wave? Shouldn't they be here?"

Panacea spoke up. "We all got hit pretty hard by Shatterbird. We, uh, were shopping for lighting fixtures in a big-box home improvement store. There was glass everywhere. I got them mostly patched up, but every one of them wanted to stay in the shelters and sit this out."

"Oh, damn, I didn't even realize. I just sent Velocity to fetch you, I didn't think that I'd be pulling you away from wounded family."

"It's not really the wounds, it's... there's been a lot of stuff this last few years. Personal stuff with the family. It's been bad, times have been tough. And they put on a brave front, flying around on patrols and occasionally grabbing a car thief, but they've been lacking confidence lately. No wins, and so many personal tragedies that it feels like I'm the only one who's been miraculously unaffected. And the work I've been doing with you, well it helps a lot. I want to help, but they just need some time to recuperate."

"Thanks for telling me," he said, and then switched channels. "Okay, all units stand by, situation is developing over here." He slowed the tunnel-buggy, and listened in through his rats.

Crawler loomed out from between two buildings, over four figures that were walking down the street, looking for something. Jack and Bonesaw walked hand in hand, with the Siberian right behind, carrying Ravager under her arm. The deformed lunatic had its claws bound behind its back, and blood drooled from its face. "It's time," Crawler gurgled. "It's been too long, I've waited too long. You and me, mute."

Siberian turned and looked at Jack, who sighed. "Crawler, why right now? Just give us a few minutes and you can have them both."

Druid popped up out of the grass at the side. "You're just a few minutes away and you had Crawler posted all the way across the city? That's dirty pool, Jack."

Jack Slash turned towards the hologram. "Ah, the Druid. The man with the rats and the lies. Have you been talking to my Crawler?"

"I didn't lie to him, Jack, I just asked him to answer a question for himself. Not for me or for you, just for himself. I asked him if he was getting what he wanted. And it turned out that he wasn't, Jack. You were keeping him from getting what he wants."

"No more!" Crawler bellowed. "Jack, don't get in my way!"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jack Slash said, stepping aside graciously. "Bonesaw and I will be on our way. Whichever one of you lives, come join us for the last part of our field trip." He took hold of Ravager's bindings and led him away. Druid collapsed into light, and the rat whisked the hologram projector away.

Crawler led with a flurry of claws, but they hit Siberian like he was swinging balloons against a brick wall. He bared his fangs and sprayed her down with acid, but it slid off of her naked body without a mark, pooling at her feet and etching the ground. She stepped aside onto solid ground, and stared at him as he slashed again, putting several tons of his body weight behind the blow, only to snap his talons and break his forelimb at the elbow. He snarled as the wounds healed back, and he bellowed "Fight me! Fight me like you mean it!"

She stepped forward without flinching and swatted at him, cracking his shoulder with one swing and caving in his ribs with another. The broken bones popped back into place and he flailed at her with his massive tree-trunk of a tail, but she stood still and let it break against her. She reached up and seized his jaw in one hand and his ear in the other, then jerked so his neck snapped. "More!" he bellowed, healing immediately. "Why are you holding back!"

She punched, and her arm sunk in up to the elbow, then swept it out to create a nasty gaping wound that healed in heartbeats. She kicked at his ankle and broke the leg, forcing him to stumble, but nothing stuck. "You're not showing me your power," Crawler roared. "I'll kill the old man if you won't stop me!" he declared, and turned away from her, sniffing deeply and then galloping to the north. Siberian leaped high, arcing over him and landing in front of him, her feet tapping lightly against the ground as she set down. She swung a punch at his head that sheared his jawbone off and sent it spinning to the side, crashing through a storefront. He laughed and gurgled and lunged forward, past her. She leaped again, putting herself in front of him, and she grabbed a car and slammed him sideways across the shoulders, throwing him across the street hard enough to demolish the building. The roof of the massage parlor caved in over him, but he shrugged it off with no effort. His skin was starting to flicker in patches, and he bellowed out his laughter as he ran around her and forced her to corral him again. She stopped him in place with an open-handed slap to his chest, then she braced her other hand underneath him and then hurled upwards, flinging the massive creature hundreds of feet into the air. He dwindled to a tiny black wriggling figure, and then began coming back down.

The Siberian stared, watching him fall, then leaped, leading with one hand spread open with her long fingernails leading. She punched in one side of him and out the other like a bullet, the force of her entrance cracking his heavily-reinforced spine, her exit forceful enough to yank out several vital-looking organs joined together with stringy-looking gray meat. He hit the ground with a massive crunching sound, and rolled to his feet, already mending. His skin seemed to jump, pulsing outwards. And the outward pulses were monochrome, the markings of his body rewritten in bold black and white designs like her stripes. "More!" he screamed, jubilant and victorious. "Give me all of it!" He ran north, with Siberian following, and rats following her, and Danny following them.

She landed on his back and started ripping, her hands plunging in and shredding whatever she could grab, yanking bones or organs or just gobbets of flesh and throwing them to the side like a dog digging a hole through his body. But on each of the pulses, her hands would not penetrate, his flesh temporarily as invulnerable as her own. And then the pulse ended and she slipped through. But the more she did, the faster the pulses came, the longer they lasted.

"He's absorbing her power," Danny mused. "But her power isn't in her flesh, it's forming a field around his body, encasing him in a Siberian shell. And she did not take him seriously until he threatened the old man. Hmm," Danny thought, and cast his rats about. The streets were empty, there was almost no interference, no confusion. There were only a handful of human scents in the area. Himself, Jack, Bonesaw barely qualified, Ravager, and one figure up ahead. Slowly, quietly, he pedaled ahead, covering the sound of his travel with the sound of the two monsters killing each other in the street.

The man wasn't that old, mid to late fifties probably. But he was very poorly taken care of, a sickly bum with a long hobo beard and ragged clothes. The man sat in the driver's seat of a beat-up minivan, his hands on the wheel as he stared down the way towards the two titans that brawled for his life. Rats chewed through the rubber seals on the doors in seconds and bit through the fiberglass to let themselves in, squeezing in. The man's hands tapped on the steering wheel. On one hand, a tattoo of a white bird, the mark of someone who had been caught in a Simurgh attack, a warning of unpredictable insanity. On the other hand, the Cauldron symbol. The man had powers, was Simurgh-touched, and the Siberian thought his life was of paramount importance, and the Siberian's power was a projected power. The parts clicked together for him. The van was half-full of rats before they attacked. The first attack went to his carotid artery, teeth sinking deep. The man screamed, and the Siberian disappeared, teleporting to the van, ripping the driver's side door away and hauling him out. The rats clung to him in a carpet, biting everywhere, wounding as deeply as they could. Blood streamed down to the concrete as the Siberian worked frantically to shake the rats off of him, sweep them away with her hands. His flesh tore as her strength ripped the rodents away without disengaging their jaws. With multiple arteries opened, it was only taking him seconds to bleed out.

The Siberian flickered in an eerie mirror of the Crawler, and then she was gone.

"Holy fuck," Danny Hebert breathed aloud. "I think I just killed the Siberian."

"What?!" Armsmaster blurted out. "How?!"

The rest of the channels burst out in hubbub. He had left the all-call signal engaged when he stood by to watch Crawler and Siberian fight. He cut off their chatter and stepped in to address them again. "Okay, Jack and Bonesaw, Ravager and Crawler are all over here. I'm out by Captain's Hill, near the radio station."

"You mean out by the substation?" Gambler asked.

"Oh," Danny said. "Oh, shit, they're here for the Travelers. That's what Jack and Bonesaw are looking for."

"More power to 'em," Trainwreck said. "Those guys are kind of jerks. If Jack and his moppet think that it's worth it to go after them, then maybe the Travelers will at least wound them a bit to make our jobs easier."

"Anger much?" Browbeat asked.

"Let me tally real quick," Velocity said. "Siberian's dead, Mannequin's dead. Burnscar is safely in custody, Hatchet Face is disabled and contained, and Shatterbird is badly wounded."

"And Ravager is apparently being held as a captive by Jack and Bonesaw," Danny added. "And Crawler may be completely off script."

"Do we... do we have them on the run?!" Velocity said, stunned into disbelief.

"Enough to move the rendezvous point up," Danny said. "All units at City Hall, move up to the Medhall headquarters. Uber, move up to City Hall. Armsmaster, how's Oni Lee?"

"Almost done fitting him. This armor includes dozens of force-field projectors embedded in it, overlapping. They've got a recharge capacitor so they can pop back up as soon as they're knocked down. It's optimized against big hits, works to cushion the blows to something manageable. It's intended for heroes with enhanced durability like Assault or Triumph, but it should work for Butcher too."

"His name's not Butcher," Danny reminded the inventor. "He's going to need a dozen of Bakuda's grenades, something with real hitting power, and a pair of those nano-saw spikes."

"That part's already taken care of," Colin said. "Right now I'm just making alterations so he doesn't rattle around inside this thing. An inch of leeway can make it impossible to use a limb, power armor isn't easy regardless of what you've made people think, Druid."

"Got it, thanks. Triumph, anything on the Burnscar interrogation?"

"Nothing that's making any sense. Apparently they've had an interest in Brockton Bay for weeks, Bonesaw made them go visit and kill a bunch of people for answers, including some guy named Blasto whose power is so much lamer than I expected. And then Ravager told them to go kill Mouse Protector, and when Mouse ran here to hide out Bonesaw flipped out in a happy way and insisted on coming here as fast possible. But Jack hates being told what to do, so he's going to make Ravager suffer for telling him what to do, but he's still after Mouse Protector. I think it's a pride thing. Anyway, she's calmed down, she's drinking some juice, and has shared some information about how to nullify her powers and how to contact her old psychiatrist. Gallant has been working wonders over here."

"Good work there. Bonesaw and Jack are headed for the Travelers.. dang, I bet this is about those murders. Remember, months ago when they first went to the sewers, the substation was shut down because the workers were becoming deformed and psychotic, killing anyone they could and looking like horrible monsters. Whatever happened to those people, Bonesaw wants it for herself."

Danny pedaled forward, took two lefts, and started infiltrating rats into the storm drains and sewers, spreading them out ahead of him to see what there was to see. And he saw Crawler excavating, digging with long claws and immense strength to rip away the earth. He was growling something at Jack Slash, but Danny couldn't make out the exchange. They were standing near the ladder that led downward, but it wasn't clear why they weren't taking the ladder. "I've got eyes on Jack, Crawler, Ravager, and Bonesaw and Shatterbird. Looks like Bonesaw stitched her up before she could bleed out. She smells funny, I think she's on some stimulants to make up for blood loss. All units converge one block east of the substation, and do it carefully and stealthily. I want to pin them between us and the Travelers if we can, by surprise. Armsmaster and Kid Win, stay where you are and work those weapons. Let me know when Oni Lee is ready to ride. Triumph, Miss Militia, Gallant, Aegis, stay with Burnscar. Everyone else move to, um, the base of the water tower just east of Captain's Hill."

"All units?"

"Even you Leet. Whatever you've got left, you can finish it in the field. Dauntless, he's going to need a lift over here."

"Got it Druid," the team leader said. He sounded tense for the first time, now that this was drawing close.

"Finishing touches on Oni Lee's armor, get Mouse Protector to lead him outside before he does that explosive teleport."

"Mouse, did you get that?"

"I got it, fetching him now."

He waited, watching, as the assembled teams pulled up into position. There were four Protectorate heroes back at the tower, and two Wards. One little girl in a shelter, helping out however she could. Out in the field, four local Protectorate heroes plus one from out of town, four local Wards plus one from out of town, one member of New Wave, five former villains, and one rogue. And himself, plus whatever assistance they could get from the Travelers. Against five members of the Slaughterhouse Nine. He watched his console board, the indicators for his team approaching the position, even as he sent out updates to the Protectorate headquarters and a stream of requests for Class-S backup. There was no response, and it looked like the parahumans of Brockton Bay were on their own. Leet and Dauntless were first, then the Wards, then Parian and Panacea, then Trainwreck and Circus with what was left of Hatchet Face towed along and then set at a safe distance away. Then Oni Lee and Mouse Protector, then Assault and Battery with Velocity hanging back to arrive with this friends. Uber hotwired a car and arrived soon after, driving slow to avoid all the broken glass and stalled cars.

And about then, he finally got some rats into position to see into the sublayer of the substation. It was a massive round chamber with tunnels leading in and out, with a crude camp set up at one side with tents set up and layered bedrolls that looked unwashed. There were suitcases of clothes lying open willy-nilly, and all of it was dingy and dusty as living in the sewers had taken its toll. Four Travelers uniforms were stacked to one side. And there were five teenagers in there, living rough in these terrible conditions. The tall thin one was probably Trickster, judging by the smell of his cigarettes. The tall muscular one was Ballistic, the only one that matched the profile. There was another boy, a long-haired pretty-boy who was laying out a row of sliced bread to make sandwiches a dozen at a time, with cellophane clingwrap ready to bundle them up. A small girl was slumped in a wheelchair, looking utterly exhausted, and so was Sundancer as she held her orb of sunfire steady on one tunnel of the substation. A rank stench of burning meat emanated continuously from the ball of superheated flame, and a continuous roaring warbled up and down, seeming to form angry words. The Travelers had clearly fallen very, very far. They all appeared exhausted and worn thin, their nerves shot and their morale even lower than the sewers themselves. Trickster had a nervous tic in his right hand, and Ballistic was rocking himself in place.

And then the wall caved in, spilling dirt and tumbled stones and pouring sunlight into this place. Crawler swelled through the gap, and the others came in behind the monster. Somehow seeing sunlight in there was even more wrong than seeing the Travelers there. Sundancer looked over her shoulder, and saw the intruders. She wavered, and the sunfire wavered. "Oh, no, you're Jack Slash," she quavered. "Please, please don't..."

"I am Jack Slash!" he pronounced with a wide grin, tugging his lapels, then he dropped one hand onto Bonesaw's shoulder. "And my little darling here is most, most interested in what's on the other side of that," he said, gesturing at the sun-bright fireball.

"You can't," Trickster said, hauling himself upright, his eyes pleading. "You can't, we can't..."

"Boring," Bonesaw said, and gestured to Shatterbird. The woman nodded, and stained glass chips lifted from her costume and rotated around her, swirling like a glittering tornado. They streamed out and shot across the room to Sundancer, turning sideways at the last second to hit her with the broad sides instead of the cutting edges, throwing her against the wall. The fireball collapsed, and revealed a wall of charred meat on the other side. Bonesaw stared at it as it regenerated, her face lit up like she was seeing a world of ice cream and Disneyland. "Amazing..." she said in an awed hush.

The meat turned pink as the burnt edges healed to raw wounds, then swelled forward in a massive surge. Powerful clawed feet slammed to the ground, gouging the concrete, and gaping maws and mouths yawned open all around its body, tentacles roiling and coiling near the left shoulder. A woman's torso emerged from the top surface, with long brown hair and eyes of utter madness. The truncated torso would be about twelve feet tall just by itself, but it was utterly dwarfed by the sheer enormity of its lower body. It howled something wordless and well past meaning, reaching for the parahumans gathered in front of it. Jack strolled around to gaze on it from different angles, his boots crushing Oliver's sandwiches without a thought. "My god, Crawler, it's even bigger than you. Heals faster, too."

"A good fight," Crawler growled, its voice ecstatic, its flesh still pulsing with the Siberian's power.

"Don't," Genesis pleaded. "You have to stay back, you can't let her touch you, you can't let her feed... she was biting her own legs off and eating them, regenerating the leg and growing bigger. She was so hungry, and she was trapped, and we couldn't bring her food fast enough, she started cannibalizing herself. She's growing more backwards than forwards, we don't even know how big she is really, trapped in that tunnel all this time. We burned her front end off, or I form something she can't eat and jam her up. It keeps her from eating and growing and getting hungrier. But you have to stay back, you have to!" Her voice cracked on the last few words, stress and strain and fear taking over.

"Well, Bonesaw?" Jack turned to her. "This was your field trip, you wanted to see this. What's your call?"

"When confronted by unknown circumstances," the small blonde girl said confidently, "experiment."

"I thought so," Jack grinned, then hauled Ravager to his feet and thrust him forward. The tentacles lashed out quick as snakes, tangling around him and pulling him into the flesh. It didn't bother with the mouth, just hauled him right up to the leathery hide that was suddenly gelatinous and membranous. Ravager yelled as he was sucked in, and then he went quiet.

"Oh shit," Trickster said, and then he reversed himself with Shatterbird and made a run for it, sprinting up the sloped exit towards the sunlight. Jack slipped a small craft knife from his sleeve and made a short sideways motion, and a line of blood appeared across the backs of Trickster's thighs and he stumbled, fell. The other four Travelers and their housemate just stared as the thing in the wall continued lurching and reaching, then the massive gristly mouth on the left opened and vomited out a stream of foul-smelling ichor and four humanoid figures. They were naked and disfigured, some of them resembling Ravager in a vague way. One had a face made almost entirely of a mouth filled with sharp teeth and long talons for fingernails, one was hunched with a tumorous hump on its upper back, and the air shimmered as it breathed, a shimmer that was growing at an exponential rate. One was covered in thick gnarled skin like keloid scars, the last one was almost human looking except that one arm and one leg were withered and infantile.

The grinning clawed one moved to the side of the thing in the wall and started scratching at the concrete, drawing a thin puff of powder as it gouged the surface. A second later, more powder streamed down, the gouges deepening, growing, joining, even while the thing scratched more and more, creating a cascade effect. It was trying to burrow into the wall to free its creator. Rats and bugs were pulling themselves out of the ichor and vomit, mad-eyed things that didn't respond to his control, grown large and ugly and sick-looking. Sundancer held her hands out, conjuring another ball of fire.

"Don't," Jack Slash said towards her. It was curt and brooked no argument, but she tried anyway.

"Please, we have to, or it will-"

"Don't tell me," Bonesaw said. "I want them to show me!"

The hazy air from the hunched figure washed out to Sundancer, and her ball of fire flickered out. "Oh," she said, blinking rapidly. "I don't.. I'm gonna pass out." And she dropped sideways to the ground.

"It denatures the air," Bonesaw said, nodding. "Like the way that Ravager's attacks would create spreading wounds, that thing's every breath shuts off the oxygen that its breath touches, a spreading cloud of, hmm, looks like carbon monoxide. Or just non-bonding oxygen. It's gonna kill us all in a minute, Jack, get rid of it."

"We could just send it out into the world and see what it does there," Jack suggested.

"Asphyxiation's boring Jack!" she said, stamping her feet.

"Fine," he said, and flicked his knife to open the thing's throat. It gasped as it died, and the haze dissipated.

"It clones them," the small tinker said, staring. "Instantly. And it makes them all grody. And psycho, even if they're not already psycho. And it changes their powers some, too. Oh, Jack, this is the best present you could ever give me!" she squealed, jumping up and down and spinning in a circle before she lunged to give him a giant hug. "Thank you Jack!"

"Anything for you, darling," he said. "Shame it's down in this sewer though."

"Controlled environment," Bonesaw waved his objection away. "Not laboratory conditions, but who really wants laboratory conditions? This lets me compare data properly. But Ravager is gonna get boring. Start throwing these losers in," she said, gesturing around at the Travelers.

Danny hit the control console to reposition his colleagues, a cautious slow advance to close the gap without the Nine or the Travelers or the thing in the wall hearing them. "Leet, Uber, over here," he said, indicating a particular spot by having rats lead the way like Lassie while he spoke into their headsets. "Uber, we're going to need an expert structural engineer, can you take care of that?"

"Can do."

"Good deal. Leet, hook the hostage with your grapnel and be ready, then get about ten meters down from here. Trainwreck, you stand with them to control the hostage if anything goes wrong. Now, everyone in Armsmaster-made armor, muster up at the ramp, be ready to breach." Danny took a deep breath to calm himself, centered himself back away from the conflict. It didn't help much, since it just pulled him back to the awareness that he was trapped inside a suit of restrictive armor with a faceplate only an inch from his eyes, inside of a coffin-sized vehicle on his belly, inside of a concrete tunnel under twenty tons of dirt. He had never been claustrophobic, but this was exactly the sort of situation that turned people into claustrophobes. He un-centered and concentrated on what was going on around.

"We're not going without a fight," Trickster promised, crouching low. He pulled out a wad of tissues from his pocket and they switched places with a long sharp knife. Sundancer pulled herself to a standing position and got ready to call the sunfire. Ballistic looked up with hollow eyes, his hands hovering near some debris on the ground. Genesis huddled backwards, unable to call her power on such short notice. The fifth member, the long-haired pretty boy, shrank back against the walls and tried to be inconspicuous.

"Kkrraauussssee," the thing in the wall groaned through gritted teeth. Its hair hung in front of its face, its naked arms were long and wiry, and its eyes were still entirely mad, but it could speak.

"Shit, Noelle," he said, looking up at her with pleading eyes. "We tried, you know. You know? We really did try. Tried everything. We just-"

"Ttrruusssstteedd yyoouuuu," the giant mad thing hissed.

"And I think that young Krause here knew that he couldn't be trusted," Jack Slash said. "A man who calls himself Trickster is a man who knows he shouldn't be given trust, and for him to lead a team like this, well..." he trailed off, still grinning. "Come on, Krause, haven't you let enough people down? Why don't you do the right thing?"

Krause stared up at the giant creature, Noelle, as a bundle of tentacles unfolded from the thing's shoulder and stretched towards him. He seemed resigned and defeated, accepting the grip of the tendrils as they wrapped around him. The suckers of it tore at his clothing as they lifted him up off his feet and reeled him in, and blood ran from his skin.

"Krause, don't!" Ballistic yelled, and with a sweep of his hand he launched a barrage of silverware like it was bullets straight at the bundle of tentacles. The metal implements tumbled in the air, and they didn't chop the tentacles through so much as pulp them with sheer focused force. Krause was dropped to the floor and Noelle roared from five mouths as the tentacles regrew, lashing towards Ballistic.

"No, damn!" Trickster shouted, and then he and Ballistic switched places, Krause taking another assault from the sucker-arms as they lashed him and began dragging him back. "Get out of here!" he yelled at his comrades.

"Don't," Crawler said, moving with surprising swiftness to cut off their retreat, pinning the other Travelers in the chamber, too close to the thing in the wall. One reaching hand was the last part of Trickster to get pulled into the squishy membranous flesh of the Noelle creature, and then he was but a fading shadow in the translucent flesh, pulled deeper into its mass. Sundancer's lip quivered as she watched her monstrous friend envelop and consume their mutual friend. Ballistic's fatalistic expression matched the one that Trickster had just held.

"Time is of the essence guys," Danny reminded Uber and Leet and Trainwreck. He watched through the rats as they worked, but it was two steps forward one step back.

"Hey, wise guy, this is not nearly the ideal tool for this job," Leet protested. "As you'd know if you bothered playing any kind of-"

"Please don't stop working," Danny murmured in Leet's ear, and the tinker grumbled as he went back to work.

The Ravager covered in thick ugly scar tissue raked its ragged fingernails down Genesis's leg, and she stared in horrified fascination as the wound festered and bubbled with infection, the skin peeling bloodlessly back. She did not protest or wriggle as the creature pulled her up into its arms and carried her towards Noelle. Shatterbird made an imperious gesture, and the long-haired pretty boy walked forward with his hands up, staring up at his friend as he walked into her reach, ready to be consumed. Bonesaw was crouched over the dead Ravager with the tumorous hunchback, expertly cutting open the skull and chest cavity as the Travelers were fed to Noelle.

"Fascinating," she breathed, her face alight. "The brain structure is almost entirely intact, only tiny variations. The organ structures are nearly as complete. Far better examples than the skin and gross anatomy of the limbs. So, either she creates clones that are much more perfect in the brain and vital organs than they are in the aesthetics, or the internal cloning process is self-selecting to the most viable clones!"

"Can't let this go any further," Danny muttered. It was hard to find the right timing, he wanted to wait another minute but if Noelle swallowed Sundancer and Ballistic another minute would be too late. "Breach team, make an entrance."

Dauntless was the first one in, flying above and lashing out with his spear that fired a beam of coherent golden lightning down at Jack and Bonesaw, but he didn't account for Crawler's uncanny speed as the giant monster interposed itself, taking the blast on its wide flanks. Assault and Battery and Velocity were in next, holding lethal-looking tinker weapons that they swept around to cover the room, picking their targets. The Wards appeared behind them, Vista contorting the space so quickly that they seemed to teleport. She compressed the physical dimension of length and width, so that one step carried them twenty feet each, then released the compression so the world was back to normal. Clockblocker was at her side, and Browbeat and Benthic and Flechette. Most of them held tinker guns except Flechette who still had her heavy crossbow. Oni Lee appeared in an explosion, holding two white plastic batons that blurred the air around them, dressed in black armor with a curious gold webbing spread across every surface. Dauntless let up the lightning blast and erected his force field. "Let them go, Jack. We're taking you in."

"I still have two hostages here," Jack said. "Let's handle this like hostage negotiations. You throw down your weapons, and you can pick which of these two I'll release."

Dauntless paused, listening to his earpiece. "Sundancer is our pick, send her over," he said, and nodded to his team. A dozen tinker weapons clattered to the floor near the remaining members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.

"Now you know who the favorite is," Jack said to Ballistic, and he nodded to the Ravager that held Sundancer's shoulders. The creature shuddered at the idea of letting prey go, but it complied and released her. "Now then," Jack said, "I'll let the other one go if the Druid will show himself."

A hologram flickered to life in front of Battery. "You'd give up your last hostage just like that?" the Druid asked. Danny didn't bother wondering how Jack Slash knew he was close by. He was more concerned with wondering why he had bothered to get this close. Scouting with his rats was a big reason, certainly. And the lack of Protectorate resources like he'd had during the Leviathan battle was a factor. But some of it, he was certain, was due to Mouse Protector and her insistence on the hands-on methods, and Glenn's constant harping on the need to 'maintain a presence'.

"Who's giving up hostages?" Jack grinned. "I'm trading them. Everyone you've sent in here is my hostage."

Noelle vomited forth a stream of foul sickly fluids, and bodies tumbled out with them. One was almost the spitting image of Trickster, save for his wrinkled and withered skin, another was a clone of the same man but with his hands and feet ending in tumorous stumps like cauliflowers. One was a frail young woman whose legs were twisted together and almost braided, dragging behind her like a serpent's tail as she hand-walked out into the room. Things began appearing in the air, small amorphous shapes with fast-beating wings and long beaks like a hatchet's blade, hovering above the snake-tailed girl. The last shape was doughy and unfinished, with the same squishy translucent skin as Noelle's lower body. It stood but made no other moves until a giant mouth on the monster opened and a tongue coiled out to drag the protoplasmic figure back in.

"You give up Ballistic, they're free to walk out of here, and I join you down in there," Danny said, asserting the terms.

"Yes, that sounds fine," Jack said. "But everyone else stays put, your heroes and my villains."

A minute later, the Druid pushed open a manhole cover and slid it to the side, climbing easily up the ladder and pausing only slightly to slide the cover back into place. The armored figure with the swirling cloak strode across the street and the grass with a long, easy stride, barely sparing a sideways glance towards where Uber, Leet, and Trainwreck continued their work. Panacea and Parian sat on the other side of the ramp, looking distinctly nervous. No words were exchanged and the figure strode down the ramp, stopping immediately at the bottom. The armor settled into place, locking the joints and fixing the same eerie stillness as before the fight with the Undersiders. The speakers hidden on the sides of the mask let Danny speak out.

"Okay, Jack, I'm here."

Jack Slash nodded, and Crawler shoved Ballistic towards the exit. The two remaining Travelers left at a run, clearly glad to be out in open air again. The leader of the Nine turned back towards the Druid. "So, at least I abide by my deals, Druid. So, what do we do now? We're clearly at an impasse."

"I don't see how," Danny replied. "You've got three of your people plus the monsters, and I've got eleven heroes here with armor that makes them impervious to anything you can throw at them. The armor is proof against knives, syringes, poison, diseases, shards of glass, Ravager's fingernails, and whatever it is that your fake Genesis is doing over there. Only Crawler is any threat at all, and Oni Lee alone would completely destroy him. You know that Noelle here is insane, and whatever influence you have over her and her creations is not going to last long. They're grateful to you for feeding them, but you've got about ten minutes before that gratitude is all used up."

"It's not about the people, it's about the position," Jack Slash said. "I'm in a winning position. I've got Noelle here, and now that she's awake and fed she is going to destroy this city. At this point it's a question of whether I kill you and she kills your city, or whether you kill me and then she kills you and your city. That's the impasse, sorry if that was unclear before." His grin was wide and bright above the jagged points of his goatee.

"And, what, you think Crawler is going to help you with this?" Danny scoffed. "He came all this way because he thought that he could fight whatever made the monsters. But now he's here and he sees that Noelle is just big and squishy, and she doesn't even fight she just feeds. You've broken too many promises to him, and still you're counting on him to save all your lives."

Crawler growled and shifted position, its massive moon-eyed head swinging towards Jack Slash.

"Says the man who's counting on the continued loyalty of a team he has pushed around for months," Jack sneered back. "You've hid secrets from them, you've stolen their recognition away from them, and you've even betrayed them, but you still think of them as loyal pawns when you're counting your minions against mine."

The Protectorate heroes turned to see his reaction, Flechette even bringing her crossbow around to point more at him than at the Nine.

"I have flaws," Danny admitted. "Some grievous ones that I will have to answer for soon. But nothing I've ever done compares to what you did to Bonesaw."

The little girl raised her head up, startled, and looked back and forth between the two men as if confused.

"You're not worried about Bonesaw, you're worried about Noelle," Jack countered, snarling. "But she knows you're going to kill her and all of her creations."

"I thought Bonesaw was important, but if you'd rather change the subject, we'll play it your way. Hey Noelle," the Druid called out, raising his voice without turning away from Jack Slash. "Has Jack here done anything at all about getting you free, or does he like you trapped right where you are." The tone wasn't really that of a question.

The mad-eyed monster swung to face Jack, a snarl playing across its lips.

"And do any members of the Protectorate think they'll be better off than Noelle if they continue working with you?" Jack chuckled. "I'm sure they look at this massive powerhouse stuffed into this tiny tunnel full of rats, and they know exactly what it feels like. Always doing what they're told, feeling a never-ending pressure from all sides, shown off when it suits you, and stuffed down whenever they're inconvenient."

The armored heroes murmured amongst themselves, glancing back and forth from their huddle towards the Druid who had turned their whole world upside down and who never stopped telling them how to do their jobs. Flechette glanced from Noelle to Druid, and her stance was grimly determined.

"And what, you expect them to join your little mischief army because killing people is, what, fun?" Danny shot back. "Do you understand that your entire justification for your idiotic destruction sounds like it was ripped from the pages of a fifteen-year-old malcontent's secret diary? Did you read the first two chapters of some Nietzsche and decide you had the world figured out?"

Jack tapped a knife against the corner of his jaw. "Hmm. You're good at this. Soon you could be as good as I am, honestly. We could keep going for a while, raising the stakes, putting the pressure on, see whose loyalties wind up on either side. I could probably pull a few of yours away. The crossbow girl for sure, maybe the three speedsters. You might get Crawler. But you know what? I don't think we'll do that, because ..." he paused, staring at the Druid. Danny stared back, and the two men figured it out at the same time.

"You're stalling for time, too," they chorused.

Author's note: I want to start now by thanking everyone who has commented and offered reviews. It has thrilled me to read all these kind words... with a special shoutout to who inadvertently predicted certain elements from this chapter. And also I offer my thanks to those who have been recommending this story to others and promoting it; thank you. I intend to keep posting chapters on a one-on one-off schedule until the whole thing is up, likely just a little over three weeks at this rate. As of this time my first draft is closing in on the story climax and I have finally gotten a look at what the ending is going to be.