On another note, Legend clearly has some other powers kicking around for him not to have been dusted by Khonsu.

 

Right, but, in my eyes, they don't. I'm terrible with names, but what's-his-face, the guy who went crazy after his family died. He was going to solve world hunger and such. He had amazing powers with biomes. He could have ended the world himself. Yet, not only did Skitter beat him... from my understanding he'd yet to do anything truly awful. Jack was pretty much the same way, until he learned about the prophecy.

Maybe it's selective memory here, but when they were first introduced, I was under the impression the S9 were a bunch of murderous loons who got on the front page of a newspaper when they killed a dozen or so people. Grusome and horrific, sure, but nothing so dire as to warrant the full attention of the PRT.

Now, they're on the same level as an endbringer. I just don't think they deserve it. They were never that big. They only became big because they needed to be for the arc after Behemoth. Every new "evil" thing they do inflates them further, but really, if these guys had been around before Skitter got her powers, which they were, why didn't the world end already?

The endbringers feel right, because they're pretty consistent. Even the Yangban would make a better S9, considering they're a state-sponsored group with more complex motives.

 

They killed hundreds, if not thousands of people, in Brockton Bay alone. And that was probably the least catastrophic S9 event in a long time.

 

A bunch of goons that killed a dozen or so people? What about Shatterbird or Bonesaw? They have have been shown to be capable of widespread attacks that could kill hundreds or thousands, or more.

The Slaughterhouse 9 are an S rank threat for the same reason Nilbog is. Just because they aren't on the level of an Endbringer doesn't exclude them from that. They can't deal as much damage (though arguably, a few of them could easily rack up a phenomenal death toll to challenge the Engbringers). Arguably, they're an S Rank threat because they simply not been put down. The group has shown such tenacity and lived as long as Behemoth.

They hit without warning, the group changes to include new powers as members die, they are creative with their attacks in a way the Endbringers aren't, They represent death and a possible fate worse than death to the populace.

Let's not forget that the SH9 hit Brockton Bay just after its population had been devastated by Leviathan. Imagine how much higher their death toll would have been without. But that's another thing. They hit after Leviathan! They are human and have no compunctions about hitting where people are weak and everyone knows it.

 

I think I remember reading in one of the previous chapters that as he becomes faster and essentially a beam of light(or something like that) he stops aging. So I assumed that he just went to near maximum speed while trapped in the time bubble so that he would survive.

 

In Legend's Interlude, it is explained that he has a breaker power that allows him to enter an "energy state". While in this state, he shuts down cognitively, while absorbing energy of all kinds, which is later used to heal his body. This protects him from being torn to shreds by his own flight powers, and mitigates all but the most powerful attacks.

I suppose that he entered this state upon being trapped by Khonsu. The years didn't affect him physically, and mentally the whole ordeal would be nothing more than a long rest: "even the boredom of traveling for years was nothing if his conscious mind shifted into a rest state".

 

Ahhh, that's right. I even read that when I went to check his powers before posting. Didn't put two and two together! Thanks.

Another note. The way Gray Boy greeted Bonesaw and the rest of the 'Nine' seemed odd. Any bets on his power somehow allowing his consciousness to transcend death or whatever happened to him? It seems that the Gray Boy that is there is really... Gray Boy.

 

It's been addressed already, but I wanted to add that Jack specifically has rules against weapons of mass destruction and the like. He is more concerned with the art of what he does than inflicting the maximum possible damage. He made an exception with the miasma to make Tattletale's challenge interesting and he doesn't really like Shatterbird's boring city wide attack she always does but tolerates it to keep her in line.

That's why the idea of Jack disbanding the S9 is so terrifying. Without his guidance they'll all basically turn to indiscriminate destruction.

Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing if Wildbow can pull off this new huge S9 as well as he (she?) did the original, smaller group.

 

Is Wildbow really a girl? Or is it like with Shezza?

 

Wildbow is a man. I think some people just assumed that since the main character is female the author must be as well.

 

I got a bit confused because Innomine (hope I spelled the new name right) referred to Wildbow as 'she' a few pages back. Frankly I'm less curious about his/her gender than I am about how he/she can write so much so fast.

Also, I don't know what you're talking about. Shezza is totally a woman.

 

People assumed Wildbow was female because the name can be read as slightly feminine. That, and I think Wildbow was initially coy about his sex and other personal details, because he doesn't want his story and characters to be judged by who their author is. Or examining his personal opinions/experience and mapping it onto the story. He wants the story to stand on its own. There's no: "He writes female character well... for a man", or "His Catholicism is clearly influencing his take on the Passengers".

edit: So there's no confusion, I don't know what, if any, religious background Wildbow has. The Catholicism thing was made up.

 

All of the characters in this story are amazing. Its rare to find both genders done well, like in this fic.

 

Quite the chapter. I think Jack's probably having way too much fun with this to take any attempted communication from a Chuckles seriously, for fear of ruining his game too early.

 

To answer the gray boy question:

His power seems to be that of reality manipulation: he can choose what state of being he is in. How do we know this? For one, such a power would allow him to clothe himself, or to restore his personality to its original state (as opposed to being a Bonesaw construct), or to restore himself to perfect health (we see he doesn't struggle with walking after his release from the vat, unlike the jack and the others).

Also, his flickering powers are much like the one adopted by the eidolon clone in the echidna fight. Those "flickering powers" allowed eidolon to clothe himself and the alexandria clone, heal himself, and arm himself with a knife (choosing a state of being where he is armed with a knife, where he is uninjured, where he is clothed erc). The fact that, as the clone reveals, cauldron gave gray boy his powers, means eidolon would know a fair bit about his powers, and it is unsurprising that he would use them himself.

Gray boy's powers being as such would also explain why bonesaw calls Gray boy's powers "as unfair as they came" I.e. Broken/gamebreaking. What's more broken that reality warping itself?

Btw Gray boy gives me a Johan Liebert vibe - incredibly clever, manipulative, and attracted to breaking people psychologically by undermining their ideals and beliefs.

 

Yeah, that passenger pep-talk wasn't ominous at all...

 

This, combined with the passenger dialogue makes me think that the end of the world might revolve around Taylor. Perhaps all this training, going up against the nine in an end-of-the-world situation, is exactly what has to happen for her to get a second trigger event - perhaps one that destabilizes the connection with the passengers. Maybe Taylor is actually the catalyst for the end of the world.

 

That wouldn't make sense though, because Dinah would then say, "Killing/keeping Skitter out of the picture of the end of the world makes it not happen."

Which would be pretty freaking amazing for a fanfiction spinoff of worm. What if Dinah had predicted shit like that way back, and the PRT had her in some #1 must die now list?

 

Yeah I had the same thought as you, Rymrock. I think that it's possible that Dinah might be misinterpreting the numbers surrounding Skitter's involvement with the S9. It's possible that Dinah's own biases are affecting how she's viewing the situation. Also: I somehow doubt that she's going to get a second trigger event. I do however think that chasing Jack Slash and constantly being exposed to his particular brand of insanity won't do anything good for her.

Whether Skitter directly causes the apocalypse or not, she's going to be on the front lines.