Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

You wake up to discover yourself symmetrical once more. Which is to say, Bonesaw chopped off your other hand while you were unconscious. You find that you don't particularly care. Not because you're a badass - though if Rune asks, that's definitely what you're going with (Rune's dead too). No, you're just... numb. Your family is dead. The last legacy of Fenrir is gone from the world. What are hands? You haven't needed hands in months.

You sort of wish you were the sort of person who could just curl up and die. Giving in to despair sounds really nice right about now. You can't, though. Jack has to die first. Leviathan too. You're not allowed to die until they do. And, the plan must go on. You've passed the halfway point of the S9's trials, and it only cost you everything. Their powers will be yours. It must have been worth it.

Turning your head, you learn that you're roommates with Murder Rat, and she's been watching you sleep. What is there to say about Murder Rat? A disgusting abomination, who was captured by the S9 and surgically combined with her nemesis to form a Frankensteinian amalgam with the powers of both. That her battlecry of 'did somebody order cheesy puns?' will never again ring out proves that no person brings only evil to the world, not even Bonesaw.

No, the gallows humor isn't really cheering you up either. You'd really prefer some other roommate. Any other roommate. This one smells like rotting meat, and the way its face has been sculpted into a snaggletoothed approximation of a rat's snout leaves it constantly drooling. B-minus work, Bonesaw. At least it was content to stand next to your bed rather than creepily lean over you, so it's not drooling on you.

It even looks gross to sorcerer's sight, all splotchy and undead-colored. You didn't realize undead was a color until now. She's also full of tinkertech, but so were Shatterbird and Burnscar and Jack. Simply a consequence of being around Bonesaw for any length of time. You don't spot any cybernetic enhancements in your own body, but you imagine you'll get some as soon as you pass your initiation.

"Do you have a test for me?" you ask the abomination. It twitches a bit at the sound of your voice, but doesn't otherwise respond. When you wave your hand elbow-stump in front of its face, it squeaks in surprise and teleports across the room in a burst of smoke.

That's Mouse Protector's power sure enough. The nemesis was... uh... Ravager, right. You remember. So named for her ability to inflict extra-awful wounds on people. You wonder if you'll be able to study both powers, or if whatever crazy brain surgery combined the two capes left them too mixed up for you to separate. Which power would you prefer if, if you could only get one? Teleportation is nice and all, but you can sort of fake that with shadow dodging already... And an improved wounding power would go really well with Crusader's, now that you think about it.

You decide to put the matter aside for now. Siberian would be a much higher priority even if you hadn't gotten a three day head start on studying her power. And before her you have to focus on Jack, because his secret Thinker power is the most dangerous of all. Steeling your resolve, you get out of bed. You still have three tests to go. Perhaps by the time you're done you won't have feet either. Which is fine, you can fly.

Ah. Looking around the room, it becomes clear that whoever put you to bed didn't leave you any clothes. You frankly have no idea whether this is some subtle torture or part of another test, or if they've just spent so much time around Siberian that they've forgotten that modesty is a thing. Whatever. It's fine. What would they even see? This isn't your real-

You flinch as your eyes settle on the constellation of stitched-up wounds covering your stomach, instinctively curling up to cover yourself. That's- maybe you could use a sheet to- No, you berate yourself. Let them see. Let them remember, when you eventually kill them all. If this is a test, you'll not fail it. You can't imagine how the penalty could be anything worse than what has already happened to you, but your imagination has already been proven to be insufficient.

Squaring your shoulders, you leave the room. Murder Rat doesn't try to stop you, or move at all. It just stands there, staring at you with its beady little eyes.

On the other side of the door is a spacious living room, the most notable feature of which is Crawler. Not a Case 53, despite appearances. They say he was human once, before compulsive use of his adaptive regeneration power made him grow into a chitinous monster the size of Fenr- a horse. Six legs, six arms (or maybe four legs and eight arms, depending on how you count), mandibles, tentacles, eyes all over the place... You really would have preferred to get your regeneration from another source, but it's not as if anything matters anymore.

As soon as he sees you he bounces your way like an eager puppy (sturdy floors in this place) and burbles something unintelligible at you.

"I'm afraid I didn't get that, friend," you say calmly.

"Yoo. Skahb. Nee. Wiff. Yoo. Khoweh," he enunciates carefully. His adaptive regeneration clearly didn't consider social awkwardness something it needed to protect against when it remodeled his mouthparts.

Stab him with your power? "I can do that," you say. He's literally asking you to activate his power so you can study it, of course you're not going to refuse. "You don't have a trial for me?"

He produces a strange burbling laugh and musses your hair (his giant claws lacerate your scalp) (you stop the bleeding).

"Yoo khill Nannekhin. Ghoo enouch foh nee!"

Killing the examiner gives bonus points. If you'd just... if only...

With a cry of something that doesn't quite manage to be anger, you start stabbing Crawler with your mind-hands. Over and over and over. You don't even try to hold back your tears. What's he going to do, call you a crybaby? He can't even pronounce the word!

"Ghoo! Ghoo!" Crawler shouts as you slice off a mandible.

"Die!" you scream. "Just fucking die!"

Crawler laughs happily, turning around to present new parts of his body for stabbing. Despite the blurring of your mundane vision, sorcerer's sight remains clear. A small corner of your mind calmly catalogs everything you see as his wounds close and his flesh slowly transforms to resist spatial warping.

Crawler wants to become completely invulnerable to all harm

---

Bonesaw is in the kitchen, performing surgery on a mortal and humming happily as she works. The blond little Mengele-in-Wonderland (unless Mengele was a nice doctor?) is fairly eye-catching in her blue dress and bloodstained apron, not to mention the tinkertech cybernetics. There's so much of it! She's like an inside-out Armsmaster. But despite that, your attention is more drawn to the swarm of scuttling football-sized spider-robots assisting her.

You stop in the doorway and quietly marvel at the way they are able to carry out complex tasks and respond to verbal commands. Especially impressive considering that they must have been built entirely without using silicon, or they'd never survive Shatterbird's little performances. Something about them nags at you... You swear you've seen this kind of tinkertech somewhere before, but nothing comes to mind.

Because you're content to silently study her helpers (are those organic components? Must be. But they still register as tinkertech to sorcerer's sight), and Bonesaw is absorbed in her work, it takes her several minutes to notice you. When she does, she eeps and claps her hands over her eyes.

"Why are you naked?" she demands.

"Because I had no clothes?" you suggest. Crawler didn't remark on your state of dress.

With her lips set in a grimace of unhappiness and her left hand still covering her eyes, Bonesaw points you at a pile of corpses in the corner. The corpses are wearing clothes. Lovely. Because that won't be covered in blood and shit or anything.

Still, mustn't piss off Bonesaw. You manage to salvage a short red halter top (you'd have preferred something that actually covered your stomach, but the other options were too gross) and a knee-length black skirt. You draw the line at wearing corpse panties, though.

"Why do you care?" you ask Bonesaw once you're done changing. You point at her surgery victim. "He's naked too."

"That's different," Bonesaw says firmly. "That's work."

"Siberian is-"

"Siberian is different too!" You suppose that's fair, her teammates must know she's just a Master projection.

"Crawler is also naked," you point out.

"Shut up! Go away!"

Bonesaw wants to know where powers come from.

---

You settle down in the living room alongside Crawler and Hatchet Face (who is also undead, but not an amalgam). The others must be out and about testing their own recruits, you suppose. There is no conversation - Crawler has curled up like giant pillbug and is presumably napping, and Hatchet Face doesn't respond beyond surly grunts, and shakes his head when you ask him for a test.

Hatchet Face is (was?) a hulking, shirtless beast of a man, named, you suspect, for the way his face looks like someone took a hatchet to it. He has an incredibly unfair set of powers that makes him the ultimate anti-Brute: He combines a respectable Brute rating of his own with a power-nullifying aura. It doesn't stop Blasters from throwing ranged attacks his way - it has no effect on magic lasers already in flight - but any cape who ventures too close will find themselves temporarily mortal. And usually dead soon afterwards.

But just like Blaster powers, sorcerer's sight works perfectly fine as long as you keep your distance. Since his aura is always active, you'll be a power nullifier yourself soon enough. With him and Crawler in the same room... you still can't pretend to convince yourself it was worth it.

You keep getting distracted by the occasional spider-robot scuttling past. Just where- Oh! You know what they remind you of: The shielded processor core Dragon installed in the Smaug. You'd been too busy to give it more than a glance at the time, but it was definitely similar. So Dragon, whose gimmick is copying other people's tinkertech, is secretly using Bonesaw's designs? That you're pretty sure are made with real people-brains? Fucking heroes.

You sigh. You suppose you can't really complain too much about that one, not when you're copying S9 powers right now.

Wait, something else doesn't add up. As in, literally doesn't add up. Shatterbird. Siberian. Burnscar. Mannequin. Jack. Bonesaw. Murder Rat, Crawler and Hatchet Face. That's nine people already, why were they recruiting?

"What's wrong with Murder Rat?" you ask Bonesaw when she shows up. You'd assumed the twitching and drooling and general unresponsiveness was inherent to the undead condition, but Hatchet Face, for all that he is surly and taciturn, is like the original novel Frankenstein's creature to Murder Rat's shambling movie monster.

Bonesaw mumbles something too quiet for you to hear.

"What was that?" you ask.

"It was the first time I combined two people," Bonesaw repeats marginally louder, blushing fiercely. "I've learned a lot about tissue rejection since then!"

"I guess she doesn't count as a proper member of the nine?" you say.

"She used to," Bonesaw says grumpily. "Before she got all manky."

"And he..?" you gesture towards Hatchet Face.

She shakes her head. "Mister Jack says dead people can't be proper members anymore."

"I guess you're the only one left to give me a test, then."

"Mm," Bonesaw agrees. "I'm still thinking about it."

---

There's a note taped to your left stump, in a cipher only you can read.

You have the necklace. Summon the knife.

You glance down, and note that you are in fact wearing Faultline's necklace. You send it Elsewhere with a thought. You hesitate for a moment before bringing out your knife, though. Drawing a weapon while surrounded by three nominally non-hostile members of the S9 seems like a terrible idea. No, bad Taylor. Don't question the notes. The notes are always right.

You call forth the Knife, letting it drop into a mind-hand at your side. You're not sure what the next step is going to be, but the note wouldn't call for the Knife if a regular cutting implement would suffice. You send your power into the Knife, charging it fully. The room lights up with a golden glow-

That's odd. The room suddenly got a lot brighter, and everyone is looking around in confusion. You feel a mind-hand fade as it tries to grip something and finds only air. Something strange is clearly going on. No wonder the note called for you to summon the Knife. You reach out for it, only to find nothing. Oh no! If you can't obey the-

You look at your left wrist in confusion. You swear there was something important about it. It's still missing a hand, you knew that already, that's not it. What's going-

Bonesaw's head falls off.

You jerk back in surprise and you chair tips over backwards. Graceful crane stance lets you turn your fall into a smooth backwards somersault, springing to your feet and into mantis form without a single wasted motion. You're clearly under attack, but how? Sorcerer's sight shows nothing.

"Stranger!" comes Bonesaw's voice. You look down to where her head is lying on the floor. She's a lot less dead than most people would be in her position. There's a white cyst growing above her left eye. When it reaches the size of a grape, it pops - no, explodes would be a better word. A fine white powder flies out of it and spreads to coat the room.

Instantly your sorcerer's sight shuts down, you stop being graceful, your mind-hands fade into nothing and you stumble as you forget how to properly maintain mantis form. Aisha appears in the middle of room, holding a knife that glows like the sun. A lot of things suddenly start making sense.

"Get her!" Bonesaw shouts.

Hatchet Face is closest and goes to grab her, but his motion is slow and clumsy. Everyone in the room just lost their powers, and he is used to superhuman strength. Aisha makes no attempt to escape. She reverses her grip on the knife and leaps to meet him, going for his eyes with an overhand stab.

Hatchet Face manages to jerk his head to the side, and her stab turns into a clumsy slash. With any other weapon it would simply have left a gash and bounced off his skull, even without his Brute powers. Your knife, however, enters just above his left temple and cuts across to exit through his right cheek, taking half his head clean off in the process. Hatchet Face falls.

"No!" you shout. That was a power-nullifying Trump she just broke. You were studying that!

Though their bout lasted barely more than a second, Crawler still used the opportunity to close the distance. Unlike his twice-late compatriot, he is not overly impaired by the dust. His power created his monstrous body, but does not maintain it.

Aisha spins around to face the next threat, but she's too late. Crawler is already upon her. A desperate backhanded slash sends one of his arms flying, but then it's over as Crawler fastens his jaws around her bicep and bites down.

An even exchange, in theory, but whereas Crawler mostly seems non-plussed that his arm isn't growing back, Aisha falls to the floor, screaming and convulsing as his acid saliva eats into her shoulder.

Shit. That was really stupid of her. You did not ask for a rescue attempt. Why did she think this would be a good idea? What do you do now? You want to rush over and help her, but an overt display of sympathy would be a terrible idea.

Bonesaw gets up and walks over to Aisha. Her head is back on her shoulders, but it's clearly a work in progress. She has one spiderbot on each shoulder, working to reconnect things in her neck. A third is clinging to her back with two of its legs jammed into her spine just below her neck. Judging by the way her walk is more of a shamble, you'd guess her spine hasn't been reattached yet and the spider is steering her body manually in the meantime.

"You've been quite the naughty girl, haven't you?" she sing-songs over the screams. You think you detect a slight strain underlying her cheer, though. She might have taken the decapitation a wee bit personally. "What should we do with you, hm?"

You walk over to join her. You should do something, come up with a clever plan. If you had your powers, you could (probably) kill everyone in the room and (maybe) drag Aisha off before Jack or Siberian came back. But even that wouldn't work. With the amount of blood she has lost - and is continuing to lose - you'd never get her medical attention in time. Her life is entirely in Bonesaw's hands.

It seems Bonesaw has had similar thoughts, because the spider on her back detaches and skitters over to Aisha. It stabs a needle-leg into her neck (she grows still as the injection takes effect, but knowing Bonesaw you'd bet it was a paralytic rather than an anesthetic) then goes to work on stopping the bleeding from her missing arm.

"What do you think?" Bonesaw asks, taking you by surprise.

"You're asking me?"

"She's your teammate, isn't she? Such a daring rescue attempt, she must really care for you." She looks thoughtful for a moment, then claps her hands as an idea hits her. "Yes! I've decided. Choosing her punishment will be my test for you! If I like your idea, you pass!"

"...and if you don't like it?"

"Oh, then I've got a pretty good punishment for both of you!" She glances towards the room you woke up in, where Murder Rat is presumably still drooling on herself. Right, nice to know the stakes.

A plan occurs to you. You really hope it's not terrible and can save Aisha's life, because that insubordinate suicidal retard is the closest thing to family you still have.

"She fought pretty well, didn't she?" you venture.

"She broke my Hatchet Face!" Bonesaw responds, pouting.

"Yeah, that was naughty. But still, she fought well. I think we should reward her for that."

Bonesaw stares at you silently, trying to work out where you're going with this. You nod to yourself.

"Yes, a reward. I think you should fix her up, better than ever, and send her home. She lost an arm, and there's a perfectly good arm right there, just lying around." You indicate Crawler's severed arm.

Bonesaw's eyes widen as she catches on to where you're going with this. "Ooh. But no, that wouldn't work. Crawlers blood is all acid-y and nasty. And the cells! He's barely human at all anymore, you know. I vivisect him every so often to check."

"Are you saying you couldn't come up with a solution for that?" you scoff, disbelieving. "You, the greatest doctor in the world?"

"Well, I could- but then- oh! What if..." Bonesaw trails off, muttering inaudibly to herself. Tinker sniped.

"Yes! I figured it out. Almost. I could separate the bloodstreams, and make a mechanical shoulder with a modified placenta for nutrient and oxygen exchange. There'd still be a teensy bit of acid leaking back into her regular bloodstream, though." She frowns at the inelegance of the solution, but brightens up when she realizes the upside. "She'd be in constant pain!"

"She'd really hate you for doing that, then," you point out.

"Yep." She's smiling, that's a good sign.

"She'd hate me too, for betraying a teammate like that. Why, she'd probably want revenge." Please go for it, please go for it, please go for it...

"Oh! She'd come after us!"

"Yes. She'll abandon everything that used to be important to her and stop at nothing to hunt us down. And when she finally catches up to us she will be all 'you turned me into this' and 'I stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back' and 'I am the monster that hunts monsters!'"

Bonesaw giggles as you mime having a giant monster arm get in the way of your pompous brooding antihero poses.

"And that," you continue, "is when you turn to Jack and say 'happy birthday!'"

"Oh, mister Jack will love it! You have the best ideas, Taylor!" Then she suddenly turns somber, and walks over to put a hand on your stomach "I'm really sorry about your daughter," she says softly. "But there wasn't enough left for me to do anything with."

Fuck. Don't cry in front of Bonesaw. Don't do it. "Thanks," you say, the words thick in your throat.

Bonesaw has already turned away, smiling and humming to herself once more as she starts harvesting spare parts from Hatchet Face's corpse. "Gonna need more optic nerves," she says, half to herself. "Be a shame if she couldn't see through the eyes." Right, Crawler has extra eyes on his arms.

Speaking of Crawler, he's been doing absolutely nothing to stop his own bleeding. He seems downright fascinated by the concept of a permanent injury, alternately licking at he wound and shaking it about to spray blood-acid across the wall. The room is getting quite smoky as a result.

"Bonesaw!" you shout. "Can we have our powers back? Crawler is going bleed his way through the floor if he doesn't start regenerating soon."

"Right! Sorry, forgot all about it!" She sends a spider to inject each of you with a counter-agent. You send all three mind-hands reaching across the room in different directions, as if stretching a sore muscle. One brushes over your no longer glowing knife where it lies forgotten in a corner, and you send it Elsewhere. No one notices. The perfect crime, except for the part where it accomplished nothing, killed a power nullifier before you could study him, and left your best friend horribly maimed.

"Murder Rat!" Bonesaw calls. "Fetch me a pregnant woman!"

---

Spoiler: Flechette-o-vision

Being hunted by Crawler is a strange experience, because ultimately he does not want to hurt me - quite the opposite, in fact. Every so often he leaps out at me from ambush, hoping to startle me into shooting him, and breaking off the attack when I don't. But I can't get complacent. Sooner or later he will tire of this... Siberian-esque approach, and resort to torture or hostages to compel me to wound him.

This time, I'm prepared. I saw him snuffling around outside, tracking my scent. I've learned how he hunts. I know where he will come from, I know what he'll do, and I've prepared the ground. Yes, I have orders not to use my power against him. But those orders assume I'm still the silly girl who engaged an Endbringer with crossbow bolts.

Right on cue, Crawler leaps straight through the wall. I activate my power.

"Fhe-uh?" His battlecry turns into a grunt of surprise as his feet touch the ground, and are destroyed. I never did get the hang of creating arbitrary patches of death-ground... but laying out a sheet of plastic and empowering the top side of it with the touch of a toe? That I can do.

Despite his surprise, he reacts quickly. Even as he keeps falling into the death-ground and his legs and lower body are destroyed, he manages to reach out an arm beyond the edge of the effect. His claws bite into the floor as he tries to lever himself up.

All that's left of him is the arm, one shoulder and his head, but he's already starting to regenerate. I kick his hand as hard as I can - and scream, as I feel my toes breaking. But his claws lose purchase, and his head falls into the death-ground.

I let myself fall over in the other direction, landing on my butt. Ow, ow, ow, ow. Shouldn't have kicked him with my bare foot! Ow. I should get out of here right now, before any of his friends come looking for him, because I'm certainly in no condition to run away again.

Looking over at the death-ground, all that's left of Crawler are three clawed fingers lying by the edge. With his head gone they don't look to be regenerating anymore, but I scoot over and toss them in anyway, just to be sure.

It's not until my power wears off and the death-ground returns to being innocuous plastic sheeting that it truly dawns on me what happened. I did it. I killed Crawler. I survived. And - a small laughs escapes my lips as something occurs to me that hadn't previously - wasn't his bounty somewhere north of 15 million dollars?

Thank you Quicksilver.

"You're back!" Bonesaw shouts happily as Burnscar enters the room. "What did you think of my candidate? Isn't she great?"

"She failed," Burnscar says simply, with no emotion apparent in either her face or voice.

"Oh no!" Bonesaw emotes enough for both of them, clapping her hands to her face in distress. "You didn't kill her, did you?"

"No. I killed her sister in front of her."

"You're the best!" Bonesaw launches herself at Burnscar for a hug, causing her to stagger backwards and almost lose her footing. "I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but I have really high hopes for this one."

Burnscar doesn't try to extricate herself, instead returning the hug with a surprising intensity, leaning down to nestle her face against Bonesaw's shoulder and petting her hair. Huh. You would not have pegged Burnscar as a cuddler. They're almost cute, if you completely ignore all context.

But you think nothing of it, until Shatterbird comes back and is hugged in turn. She sighs and rolls her eyes, but also spends several minutes cuddling before Bonesaw extricates herself.

"I would not have picked either of those two as the touchy-feely type," you remark to Bonesaw after Shatterbird leaves.

"Oh, Shatterbird used to give the worst hugs until I installed automatic cuddling protocols in her spinal override harness," Bonesaw says cheerfully. "But that reminds me..."

Bonesaw hugs you. Eurgh. There's a certain smell about people who use the not-so-fresh blood of their victims as a fashion statement, that really can't be ignored at this range. But you do your best to be a good hugger even without hands, because you'd like to minimize the amount of overrides in your spine.

---

Spoiler: Evil-Taylor-o-vision

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *gasp* hee hee hee hee *gasp* ha ha-

Spoiler: Aisha-o-vision

I poke Evil Taylor with my foot. When I described Taylor's scars and injuries, she started laughing and didn't stop until she literally passed out from lack of oxygen.

When she comes to, she looks confused for a moment before breaking down into laughter again. She writhes on the floor, struggling for breath and clearly in pain, but she simply can't stop laughing.

I think I may have broken her. I mean, I know she's an evil clone who gets off on Original Taylor's suffering, but isn't this a bit excessive?

"Getting dis-armed isn't that funny," I say sullenly, glaring at my own monster limb.

"Not... the... hands..." Evil Taylor gasps out.

"Yeah? What so funny then?"

"Sworn... not to... say." Then she abruptly stops laughing, looking completely poleaxed. Without another word she scrambles to her feet and staggers out the door.

The fuck was that about?

Spoiler: Jack-o-vision

Bonesaw insisted on accompanying me as I went to test her recruit, no doubt intending to cheat on her behalf. She's been positively giddy about adding the 'healer' to our merry band. How could I turn her down? Cheating is but the spice that gives games their flavor, and I admit to almost being giddy myself. Such a perfect recruit!

Not her power - dear Riley has already brought the mortality rate of the Slaughterhouse distressingly low, though it's outweighed by the new options she has brought to the table. To imagine what they'd do, together... A team of nine- well, eight Crawlers and a Siberian. I'd have to completely change the nature of our games to find any challenge at all!

No, it's her soul that calls to me, grown so small and bitter by her own hand. Some - like that prideful, scheming Poltergeist - simply beg to be broken, but she screams to be rebuilt. To think that someone like her would pretend to be a healer, and quietly nurse her petty sorrows, her neglect and unrequited lust... when she could have made the city her plaything, and held the world at ransom. It would almost be funny, if it wasn't infuriating.

When I can reach out to someone like her, and make the scales fall from their eyes... I imagine it's how the prophets of yore must have felt, that sense of touching something greater than oneself, of purpose fulfilled.

We find her in a park, sitting on a bench beneath a weeping willow, and doing just that. A bit on the nose, I feel, but she won't be the first recruit with a taste for amateur dramatics.

Something feels wrong, though. I look around as we approach. The park is unusually green - situated as it is on hill on the inland edge of the city, it managed to retain most of its topsoil despite Leviathan's best efforts. But nothing else appears out of place. Curious.

"Hi!" Bonesaw says cheerfully.

Panacea looks up, and while there are tears streaking her face, there is also anger, and determination. I yank Bonesaw away as the shrubbery next to her explodes into thorns and acid. The weeping willow constricts, branches weaving together to form a protective cage around the 'healer'. Clawed tentacles erupt from the other trees nearby, far too thick and fibrous for me to cut with the knives I'm carrying right now. Every blade of grass turns inside out to reveal serrated teeth.

So that was what the feeling was. I throw Bonesaw over my shoulder and turn to run, keeping well away from any trees or bushes. The grass-teeth are far sharper than they have any right to be, and I have no doubt I'm leaving bloody footprints behind. I rather liked those shoes, too.

"I love it!" Bonesaw exclaims happily. "It's so pretty!"

A gravel path up ahead promises salvation. Or... if I was her, would I leave such an easy way to escape my sharktooth grass? No, instead of stepping on the path, I leap across. As I sail over it the ground falls away to reveal a line of monstrous insects the size of cattle lurking below. Antlions? When I land safely on the other side they start clawing their way out of their pit traps to give chase.

There's a strange burning feeling all over my body.

"Flesh-eating pollen?" Bonesaw says. She claps her hands in glee. "I knew she had it in her!"

"Could you-"

A white fog erupts from Bonesaw's body, surrounding us both. When it dissipates, the burning feeling is gone. Leaving only one slight complication.

"I'm blind," I remark, though I don't stop running.

"I'll steer!" Bonesaw says. She clambers up onto my shoulders, then starts pulling on my left ear. "Tentacle trees ahead!"

---

"That was amazing," Bonesaw says as she fiddles around in my eye socket. "That had to be better than whatever test you had in mind, right? She can join now, can't she?"

The world explodes into random colors before settling down into a moldy, half-ruined apartment as she reattaches my optic nerve. Not somewhere I'd like to spend any length of time, but this is just a quick stop for a fresh set of eyes before rejoining the others.

"We won't be recruiting her just yet, I don't think. No, it's time for us to move on." She was indeed magnificent, and embraced her true powers much quicker than I expected. But there are practical considerations.

"Why?" She adds a pout to her frown of concentration as she reattaches the various little muscles to my new eyeball. "If she isn't ready yet, I want to help her!"

"Now now, poppet. You've already shown her the way, wouldn't you want her to develop her art on her own? Besides, she needs to calm down a bit before we approach her again, or she might start releasing doom plagues. Could you win a doom plague duel against your 'big sister?'"

"I..." Bonesaw bites her lip. "Maybe?"

"Mhm. And would there be anyone else left for you to practice your art on, when you were done?"

"Fine!" She rips out my other eye with a bit more force than is strictly necessary. "But we're coming back soon!"

"Of course." The heroes will thoroughly disown her after that little display in the park, and what villains remain will shun her out of fear. By the time we come back she might join up from sheer loneliness.

Despite my reassurances, Bonesaw remains sullen throughout the remainder of the operation, and is still pouting as she offers me a mirror.

"I like the color," I decide. "Much obliged!" I give my trussed-up donor a friendly slap on the back.