#chapter 12.8

"Maybe he carved away a bunch of the Norwegian coastline with a spoon." And he managed to do it without disturbing those lovely crinkly edges that won an award for Slartibartfast.

Ahaha, that’s a good point!

I looked around, and it was Grue I looked at while I spoke.  “Having everyone in the Docks spread out like this, over this wide an area?  It’s a problem.  We’ve got single families living in warehouses and factories that could comfortably house three to five families, and they’re dealing with problems that we could handle far more easily as a group.  And there’s the logistics of it, getting supplies to everyone when there’s only three to six groups of people on a given city block.  I want to bring people from the fringes in, so we’re not so spread out.  Get everyone working for the collective good.  Build a community and tie everything to a smaller area.”

That makes a lot of sense. If this plan extends far enough, it would also put a lot more people within the range of Skitter’s bugs.

“There’s going to be resistance,” Grue spoke.  “People aren’t going to want to move, and they’re too spooked about run-ins with Chosen and Merchants to trust one another.”

Of course. There’s always going to be stubbornness and fear. I doubt the patriarch is going to like this.

“If-” Sierra started, but she stopped when Grue snapped his head around to face her, intimidated.  She tried again, “If she’s going to try it, now would be a good time.  Word’s getting out.”

About the Mannequin fight, like what brought these former ABBs to Skitter’s doorstep? Or?

“About what, specifically?” I asked.

“You fought Mannequin, you said you’d make him pay, and then you did.  And you did it to save people, people from the docks.  I think people are realizing you’re for real.”

Yep. She’s proven herself, proven that she’s willing and capable of really protecting them.

I shook my head.  “I don’t even understand how.”

Sierra seems to get it, at least.

“Still think you’re moving too fast.  Like I said earlier, there’s no good reason for it.”

“Dinah’s a good enough reason for me.”

I’m mostly with Grue, thinking Taylor is focusing too hard on Dinah, but I get where she’s coming from. She feels responsible for the whole thing, so she feels she has to correct it at any cost to her own well-being.

“Maybe.  But you’ve got to find time to relax, get some sleep, maybe have some fun.  Or you’re going to make mistakes, and you’ll set yourself back days or weeks in your plan.  Slow and steady wins this race.”

“No, that’s not exactly right,” I responded.  “Long story short, once upon a time, I wanted to be one of the good guys.”

“Then I didn’t. The end.”

“What happened?”

“Took me a while, but I decided I’d rather have the likes of Tattletale and Grue at my back instead of siding with the sort of people who follow Armsmaster.”

Yeah, though a lot of those people do seem to be a bit more decent than Vriskmaster turned out to be.

And, hell, even he seems to be getting a redemption of sorts, with more recent chapters showing his better side.

Well, what about the Crystal Gems versus the Slaughterhouse Nine? Or, well... just Shatterbird, honestly.

Amethyst is dead. Just fuckin’ dead, immediately. Shatterbird’s power works on her gem, which is made of the same material as glass, silicon dioxide.

The same goes for Jasper if she’s involved, and it might affect Peridot, Lapis (if she’s involved - I left her out last time) and/or Garnet (but not her components) depending on how purely silicon the materials need to be.

Connie and Steven may have their phones in their pockets, which could cause severe injuries.

Pearl might be able to counter Shatterbird’s sand control somewhat, though I doubt it. Pearl’s sand control seems to be significantly weaker.

But sand isn’t the Gems’ biggest problem (though it absolutely is one for Steven and Connie, who have actual flesh to tear at). It’s that they generally seem to be particularly weak to piercing and slashing damage, and there’s almost nothing Shatterbird does better than piercing damage. Garnet’s future vision would help her dodge, but there’s only so much that can help when you’re a big target.

The Gems’ best bet, unless she’s not involved or has been shattered from the get-go, is Lapis. It’s worth noting that her composition is the most complicated one, as lapis lazuli isn’t a crystal, so if more non-silicon elements being involved reduces the efficiency of Shatterbird’s power, she’s less likely to be shattered than Peridot or Garnet (and Garnet is a special case since we don’t know whether her composition is that of garnet or those of a ruby and a sapphire).

But there are reasons I left Lapis out last time. She’s not a Crystal Gem, just affiliated with them, and she’s hella overpowered as long as she’s in her element. Lapis is on par with Leviathan, maybe even stronger. She’s capable of draining the ocean and making a tower to space out of its water. If she’s involved, survives the initial Shattering, and there’s water around, she can easily sweep away Shatterbird and all her glass.

Basically, what I’m saying is that you don’t even need the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine here. Unless they have Lapis on board, the Gems are almost certainly fucked.

It makes a load of sense. Skitter’s a villain who lacks muscle willing to work for a supervillain. They’re muscle who lack a villain to work for. The pieces fit together beautifully.

I wonder what Lung would think if he learned that parts of his gang had gone to the annoying bug kid for work.

“We heard you took on Mannequin,” the girl said.  “That’s ballsy.”

It really was.

“Thanks,” I said, in my driest tone.  Stupid as it was, that statement meant something to me.  Nobody had really congratulated me since my fight with Mannequin.  I hadn’t congratulated myself.

Yeah, see? It was a victory.

It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that they respected me for what had happened with Mannequin.  A victory was a victory, but people had gotten hurt, I’d gotten hurt.