this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[wormcan]

"Ideally he wouldn't even know it was you, but plasma is pretty non-distinctive. Everyone ready?
Go."

[from_scratch]

Plasma! Plasma all over you, Crawler! (And a protective layer of liquid nitrogen mist so it doesn't set other things on fire.)

[wormcan]

Crawler reacts predictably, by launching himself out while being both enormous and on fire. Some of the more telekinetic capes slow him down a bit for Cam to trap him, while everyone else takes aim.

[from_scratch]

Gelconcretegelconcretegelconcrete. It is so helpful of Crawler to be midair so he can be gelconcreted on all sides.

[wormcan]

On most sides, that is. The near side is getting vaporized by the arsenal of bizarre weaponry as fast as Cam puts it there until he stops doing so. The lead cape flies above Crawler, watching all sides of the cube, while the more offensively equipped squad members concentrate fire on the front.

As the various deadly weapons go off two humanoids charge through the mass. Heroes go down, most of them briefly. The two white figures, one tall and the other enormous, pick apart their opponents to distract as many of them as possible.

[from_scratch]

Cam interpolated Crawler with water as soon as the heroes started firing, but now they've got company and he needs to be paying attention to those. The contents of all of Mannequin's compartments can be joined by some lava, maybe he won't even leak - Siberian, um - well, he can try to get some replaceable part of himself between her and something she's trying to get at, see how it fares. Indestructible object, unstoppable force...

[wormcan]

The giant figure flops down, and does indeed not even leak. When the unstoppable force hits the indestructible object, the second one moves. Cam's wing is unharmed, certainly, but having it slapped out of her way doesn't look comfortable. And now there's a set of pointed nails gouging toward Cam's eyes.

[from_scratch]

But his wing is unharmed -

Cam reaches for her and surrounds her with fingernail.

It's still attached to his hand.

[wormcan]

And the Siberian is bound in place.

"In place" is relative, of course; her own fingernails glance off his eyeballs and inflict exactly as much damage as he's capable of receiving.

While the remaining members of the Nine join the Siberian—Bonesaw directing some thing that looks like a centaur with both halves having been human, Hatchet Face targeting the capes, and Jack Slash laughing in the distance—Crawler takes partial cover behind the remaining concrete. Few people are firing at him, under the circumstances, and he's visibly regenerating the large fraction of his body that he's missing. A guttural laugh comes from his direction.

[from_scratch]

Cam is significantly less mobile with a Siberian in a keratin bubble which must of necessity stay attached to his hand, but he can still make things. Jack Slash: be dead, you suck. Hatchet Face: also be dead you also suck. Horrifying monster: be dead, your life is a tragedy.

...Bonesaw, you are what, ten, fuck.

"Oh my god I'm such an idiot," Cam blinks, and Bonesaw is surrounded shoulders down in solid Leviathan core and so is enough of Crawler that he can't move anywhere.

He can try that around Siberian's remaining freedom of motion in the fingernail bubble, too, see if he can detach his hand.

[wormcan]

Those who were commanded to be dead are suddenly liquefied.

Now that Bonesaw isn't moving, she's a target. A few blasts glances off the Endbringer material, and when she sings out "Deadman switch!" everyone stops firing.

The Siberian is completely obscured by the Endbringer core filling the rest of the bubble. She's not even moving; apparently it's tougher than she is. Which is good news in the moment and very bad news long-term.

[from_scratch]

Well, that's... also a reason not to kill a small child.

If the Siberian's not moving Cam can summon a nail scissor and detach her bubble from his hand.

"I assume you have some sort of condition for getting rid of it," he remarks, "or there's really no point."

[wormcan]

"Not killing me is a good start. Jack always said using plagues is unsporting, but with this one the whole point is that it doesn't get used."

"Kill her anyway," one of the capes says. "She killed Ascendant, and who knows how many others. Whatever she's got isn't going to get through a wall of that stuff."

[from_scratch]

"Dude, she's like ten. She can go the way of the Wicked Witch of the West if she lets her plague loose, till then we can entertain the hypothesis that Jack made her do it. Anyway, who says her deadman switch is on her person?"

[wormcan]

"He has a point. It might not be."

"She looks like she's ten. She's been doing this for years, and she's Bonesaw."

[from_scratch]

Cam produces Bonesaw's birth certificate.

[wormcan]

"Nope! Actually ten. Well, twelve," says, apparently, Riley Andersen who was born in Minneapolis twelve years ago.

[from_scratch]

"She'll be thirteen this November. Hi, Riley. Besides not killing you how do we get rid of your deadman switch plague?"

[wormcan]

"If there were another way it wouldn't be much use, would it.
How to convince me to turn it off, I hadn't thought that far ahead." Bonesaw frowns. "Jack would know what to say."

[from_scratch]

"Well, he was a grown man who ought to have known that if you embark on a campaign of serial killing somebody might decide to melt you. Look, I didn't kill you and I could've and I didn't know at the time you had a deadman switch, perhaps you can extend enough good faith to brainstorm ways to get rid of it. For example, if it is in a container somewhere, it could come to be in more layers of container."

[wormcan]

"I could turn it off. But right now it's keeping me alive, it and you, and I'd rather not have it be just you."

[from_scratch]

"It can't keep you alive forever. You're stuck; I'm not sure how you're telling it to stay put, but I don't think you can do it indefinitely from here without making a mistake. Do you have another solution you'd like to transition to?"

[wormcan]

"You let me go, and I go do something else?"

[from_scratch]

"I don't think I can sell anybody on that plan, Riley."

[wormcan]

"Well, I'd have said you let me go and I go do the same things, but that sounded even less likely to work."