I still believe that the transition is jarring in a way that it needs to be corrected, and with that in mind I will continue applying what (little) influence I have on Wildbow to add that timeskip interlude arc to the mix. Honestly though, I think he's already planning to add some meat in there.

 

She's becoming an administrator.

Queen Administrator.

 

He was, and Cody was a Traveler, so most people are fingering the Simurgh's portal as the ultimate cause behind Accord's untimely death.

Weren't the Undersiders with him when he took down Siberian? If Parian, Foil, and Bitch were coming he could've taken the same ride. That's the main reason I was surprised he wasn't included: not only is he a hard Siberian counter with a ton of utility besides that, but he was right there with other people that got drafted into the attack. Maybe Taylor was afraid his power was dangerous enough that he could be the end of the world? Foil and Chevalier are dangerous in a similar way though.

 

How exactly is Clockblocker a hard counter for the Siberian? It's just a projection. Manton can turn it on or off at will, so any blocks Clockblocker makes are completely ineffective.

 

I thought Grue was always shown to be the person that could cope when forced into a position of power but wasn't really capable of it. He wasn't particularly the 'really strong willed guy.'

Not a hard counter but the only -real- counter they have. Besides that, do we have any info on how far away from Manton the original projection must be? If CB can keep breaking Siberian then they can home in on the Manton clone.

 

He probably can't stop the projection due to Clockblocker freezing time rather than restricting movement.

 

Everytime I see 'Clockblocker', my mind reads it as 'Cockblocker.'

 

I believe that's the intention. Clockblocker said as much waaay back. Said he got in trouble for picking his name and how it was too late for it to be changed.

 

There is no physical entity known as the Siberian. Look at the fights with her, especially the one where Alexandria lost her eye; they did everything from spraying her with foam to collapsing buildings on her. You can't stop the Siberian, bitch.

Well, you can if you find Wally.

 

Clockblocker's power provides a defense against a Siberian projection. Presumably, Manton is unable to project into the structure without touching the frozen object.

Clockblocker also provides a momentary offence-- he can short out the Siberian projection momentarily, but presumably not disable it completely. I believe Worm has stated, in a WoG somewhere, that Foil would be able to short out a Siberian in a similar manner, temporarily of course. Would be akin to a flicker.

 

However long the disruption from Clockblocker lasts, it was long enough to get the Kinetic Kill on the Manniqube. There has to be some intrinsic recovery period I think, or couldn't one of the Mantons in the cube just have reset his Siberian, stuck her inside the cube, and made it invulnerable again? If Foil causes the same sort of problem then they have Siberian covered, I suppose.

 

Huh. Did not know that Clockblocker's power disrupted projections. Wonder if it's a standard Breaker power thing that they can disrupt other powers.

 

Holy shit, Taylor just killed a toddler.

 

Headshot on the Aster.

I found Grey Boy underwhelming - and Howdy is right: this arc seems incredibly rushed.

 

Grey Boy's power seems fairly similar to Cody's, only he leaves the mind untouched. Interesting.

 

A bit of wham chapter. Grey Boy feels underwhelming-- horrifying, but not enough to be feared by Jack. If he's basically invulnerable, like he told Purity, I wonder how the original got killed? Or contained instead of killed, maybe?

And I don't think his power would work on Scion. Scion has been shown to be invulnerable to every power so far-- he even managed to break the 'inviolable' forcefield that Eidolon put up, which is the most intriguing part to me, since brute force has never been shown to even touch the stuff Clockblocker freezes. And Eidolon's forcefield was compared to Clockblocker's power.

 

lol'd.

Also, Rachel's gonna die.

 

I think this Grey Boy is not quite as bad because he's a clone and actually takes instructions well. All of his "imperfections" that probably made him difficult to work with have been ironed out.

Also, Taylor just shot a toddler. The baby sister of (probably) her closest friend at this point in time. Dang.

 

Pretty sure her own mother tried to throw her out the window of their apartment rather than let Gray Boy get his hands on her, so I'll chalk this up as a mercy killing.

Still sucks for all involved, though.

 

When Purity said afterwards "I had to try" or whatever, I thought maybe what she was hoping for with throwing Aster out the window was giving her a trigger event that would let her survive. Long odds, but considering that Aster is a third generation cape and her mother can fly it was probably a better option than going with Grey Boy.

Taylor has really gone into the deep end now. It's funny that she's probably doing worse things as a hero than she ever did as a villain. I'd agree that Rachel is probably going to die now but I just hope Defiant survives. He's actually my favourite character right now which is amusing as I really didn't like Armsmaster - Wildbow is really good at character development.