Manton/The Siberian
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. It’ll be worth it. Don’t think about it. Just focus on the projection. Don’t think about it. The RV lurched as it hit a pothole and Manton heard a disgusting squelching sound from his abdomen. Bonesaw made a cute growl and frantically grabbed a tool from one of her spiders. “Hey!” Leaning over his cut open chest, she began applying paste to-stop thinking about it! “Watch where you're driving! Now I’m gonna have to redo his internal obliques again!”
“Blame the government.” Cherish snarked from the front seat. “It’s not my fault they can’t fix their roads with how much taxes we’re paying them.”
Bonesaw hadn’t gotten around to making face masks to disguise the more human members yet, so Cherish was taking the first driving shift. Most people didn’t realize it, but the Nine were actually some of the most experienced roadtrippers in the world. This was hardly the first time they’d moved across the country on short notice. The Nine knew how to be stealthy on the move, though usually it was more of the ‘kill all the witnesses’ kind of stealth, and less of the ‘sneak under the radar Mission Impossible style’ kind.
Manton wondered if any kids had ever looked out their windows to see Jack Slash at the wheel. He’d always tailed behind them in a van and kept the Siberian projection away from the windows, so he wouldn’t know.
Shatterbird snorted from the passenger seat. Her glass costume had been exchanged for a pair of skinny jeans and a Metallica t-shirt. “We don’t pay taxes, idiot. Slaughterhouse Nine?”
Cherish shook her head. “Still not my fault. This piece of junk is bigger than what I’m used to driving. I sense emotions, not-”
“In one thousand feet, use any lane to turn slightly left onto CA-70 East Main street.” Google Maps helpfully interrupted.
“Okay. Does anyone else find it weird that Google Maps exists here? Didn’t it come out in the two thousands?”
The Siberian flickered and disappeared as Manton got too distracted by Bonesaw removing a chunk of muscle and feeding it to one of her spiders. He pried his gaze away from the horrifying sight and reformed her, making sure to direct her invincibility to cover every part of the van. He wasn’t reacting as badly as he should’ve. The original Manton’s memories were very… comprehensive… when it came to experience with blood and gore. He was able to push through it. He just wasn’t sure his newfound acceptance of literal cannibalism was a good thing, or a bad thing.
Wow. I never thought I would seriously consider that question before.
Shatterbird rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her seatbelt. “Yeah, it’s weird. Just keep your eyes on the road so Bonesaw doesn’t accidentally stab Manton to death. And it was two thousand five. I know it, so you should know it.”
Bonesaw began digging around with a scalpel and some blood sprayed onto her apron. “Thank you Shatterbird! Now everybody shut up. This is the first surgery I’ve done in a moving vehicle where I didn’t want my patient to die. I’m so excited!”
“Use any lane to turn slightly left onto CA-70 East Main street.”
Manton started to reply to that very worrying statement, but Bonesaw flicked out a needle and stabbed it into the base of his neck with zero hesitation. He tried to speak but all that came out was a soft wheezing sound. She giggled. “Now now, Mister Manton. That means you too. I’ve got a lot of work to do! You really haven’t been taking care of yourself huh?”
As they got close to their next turn, Cherish began to carefully turn the RV into the right-most lane, only for a black minivan to cut in front of her with no warning. She slammed on the brakes and the RV lurched again from the sudden deceleration. “Are you kidding me!”
“Damn it, Cherish!” Bonesaw's childish façade broke as she yelled and almost fell onto Manton’s head. One of the spiders shot up and caught her before any damage could be done, her apron brushing up against the exposed muscle. He tried to keep calm, but the yelling and sudden stops were not helping. “This isn’t funny!”
“That wasn’t me! Stop blaming me for everything!”
Burnscar let out an exaggerated groan and turned over in her spot on the couch. Grabbing another throw pillow, she held it against her exposed ear and mumbled something unintelligible. Manton felt an odd sense of jealousy. He had to lay on the floor so the cushions didn’t get stained, not that some of them hadn’t already.
Why the heck didn’t Manton reveal himself to Bonesaw for upgrades earlier? Wasn’t she his surrogate daughter or something? Manton checked his memories.
Holy crap. Jack Slash was a scary guy. Nevermind, I totally get it.
“You should have just hit ‘em.” Jack suggested from the back, looking up from his game of chess with Mannequin. Speak of the devil and he shall appear. He pointed to the Siberian, who was crouching with one hand on the door handle and the other on the floor. “We are invincible right now.”
“No. I have a better idea.” Through the Siberian’s eyes, Manton saw Cherish wiggle her hand toward the minivan. A few seconds later, the minivan turned its blinkers on and started to pull over.
“You can do that?” Jack sounded surprised. “Wait, that’s awesome. Just make everyone in front of us feel guilty for slowing us down. That would cut an hour or two off the commute at least.”
Cherish flapped her hand and Jack suddenly shrank back into his seat, a remorseful look on his face. The display of casual mind control sent a shiver down Manton’s spine. “I’m not going to master random people so I can pass them on the highway, Jack.”
He shook himself off and grinned. “You just did.”
“Yeah.” Cherish shot a glare behind her before quickly refocusing on the road. “In revenge. That guy deserved it.”
Manton tuned out their bickering and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the feeling of his insides shifting as Bonesaw integrated the standard membership upgrades. He’d begged for them to knock him out so he didn’t have to be awake for this, but they’d insisted. They were in enemy territory, and might not be able to wake him up in time in case of an ambush. It was also the only free time they would have for a while. Hence, the in-transit surgery that he was trying hard not to think about.
Bonesaw started humming to herself, carefully applying paste that looked like it had the consistency of melted pizza cheese. "♪ The foot bone's connected to the... leg bone. The leg bone's connected to the... knee bone. The knee bone's connected to the... thigh bone. Doin' the skeleton dance. ♪"
The Siberian flickered out and he had to reform it again. Really hard not to think about.
Also, the Nine were definitely not driving this route at this time in canon, so it would only take one mundane car accident and they’d be stranded without transportation. RVs weren’t common, and there wasn’t much else that could hide Crawler. It wasn’t like they could keep him in a pokéball, ironic as that would be.
Before getting Bob’ed, Crawler had used to complain about his power refusing to give him stealth adaptations. He’d gotten a compression resistant skeleton from being crushed, acid saliva from being trapped in containment foam, fire resistant scales from the pyrokinetic parahumans that were way too common for some reason, bulletproof eyes from being sniped, immunities to the majority of neurotoxins, and so many more mutations he'd stopped counting after fifty. His power went above and beyond no matter what tried to kill him. Why not camouflage? Because that’s what this world needs: an invisible acid panther bear monster.
Even Bonesaw had thought that was ridiculous, and that was saying something.
The point was the van needed to be invincible at all times, which meant Manton needed to be awake the entire trip. All two days of nonstop travel. Everyone else got to sleep in shifts. Even Jack, because apparently his intuition had woken him up in time to dodge a trap before.
Not Manton though. Despite the broadness of her specialty, Bonesaw didn’t have a sleep substitute. But she did have a lot of drugs, so he was going to be hooked up to an IV bag filled with liquid that kept cycling through the colors of the rainbow. She called it Unicorn Juice, and swore it probably wasn’t addictive. Manton figured that was as good as he was going to get.
They were still arguing. Burnscar had joined in at some point and was complaining about the noise waking her up. Mannequin and Crawler still seemed fast asleep, having traded their humanity for the blessing of turning off their hearing manually.
It wasn’t even two hours into the drive yet, and he was already hating it. Why did Bakuda have to start so early? Couldn’t she wait one more day before going full Al Qaeda?
Bonesaw finished sewing his chest back together and pulled down his pants with a practiced tug. A brain-spider crawled onto him and stabbed him with a syringe while she cut open his left leg, smiling up at him. “Don’t worry! The numbing should last up to sixteen hours or so. We’ll be done in three!”
This better be worth it.
—
Cherish peered out the window. “Crap. How tall are we again?”
“Huh?” Manton snapped out of daydreaming about how awesome the fight with Bakuda was going to be and looked over at Cherish. “I think I’m six feet one. Why?”
“No. Not how tall you are. How tall is the RV?” Cherish turned into the parking lot and pointed at the drive-through entrance. “Because that’s a nine foot height limit, and this thing is pretty tall.”
“Uh.” He had the Siberian stand up and framed her with his hands to estimate the distance. She’s five feet eight inches, so a little more than one and a half Siberians? He tried to figure that out for a bit before giving up. It was just too close. “I don’t know. Why are you asking me? I’m a scientist, not an architect.”
“I joined less than a week ago. You’ve been with the Nine for a decade.”
Manton crossed his arms defensively and frowned. “Well I don’t know what to tell you. I was too busy being a proxy cannibal homeless guy and never bothered to check. Ask Jack.”
“Jack’s asleep. Idiot.” Manton blinked in surprise and checked through the Siberian. Sure enough. Bonesaw was curled up on the floor, hugging one of her spiders to her chest with another clutching her leg. Burnscar still hadn’t removed the pillow from her head and Shatterbird sat on the end of the couch, head resting on her arm. Jack had claimed another all for himself and hung an arm off the edge, snoring quietly. Mannequin and Crawler hadn’t moved at all, the former piled in a heap in a corner and the latter taking up the space in the back.
Manton caught himself staring at Bonesaw’s cuddle pile. That should not be as cute as it is. “Whatever. We can order take out. Nobody should recognize either of us.”
Cherish sighed and pulled into a parking space. The sun had long since set and the lot was almost empty at such a late hour. The RV was way too wide, so she straddled the line and took up two spots. Manton doubted McDonalds would care. “I just feel like something will go wrong. It has to. We’ve got six worldwide famous serial killers with superpowers in the back, and this is not the nicest neighborhood. I had to pulse hesitation at a few guys who I’m pretty sure were gangsters.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Manton shrugged and took his seatbelt off. “We’ve got the Siberian. They’ll be fine. Where are those guys now?”
“Oh. We’re a few miles away already.” They quietly got out of the vehicle and started walking up to the entrance. “But there’s a parahuman and three people with him driving around a few blocks in that direction.” She pointed forward and to the left. Manton turned his head and saw a series of apartment buildings in the distance. “Don’t think they’re coming here. I’m still worried though.”
“Then we just gotta go fast.” Manton winked at her and held the door open. “Lucky for us, this is fast food.”
Cherish rolled her eyes as she passed him. “That joke was bad and you should feel bad.”
The pair of definitely-not-mass-murderers entered the McDonalds as casually as they could act. Cherish executed the look perfectly, of course. Manton assumed living with Heartbreaker did that to you whether you wanted it or not. He did his best to follow her lead and checked their menu. Finding what he was looking for, he let out a relieved sigh. They still had fish sandwiches, even with Leviathan patrolling the seas. Apparently Endbringers were not enough to stop the great Micky D.
‘They still have the Filet-O-Fi-”
‘They still have the Filet-O-Fi-”
Both of them paused. Manton was about to call jinx and hesitated, feeling self-conscious. Cherish smirked at him. “Jinx!”
It took him a second before he realized what happened. “Damn it, Cherie. That’s freaking cheating.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said innocently, striding over to the register. “So, does Mannequ- ahem.” She cleared her throat at Manton’s pointed look. Luckily there wasn’t anyone at the counter yet. “Whoops. Do you think Manny even wants any? I’m pretty sure he’s on a diet.”
“He can eat. It just takes a while and he doesn’t have to do it all that often.” Manton explained, sitting down in an empty booth and stretching his legs out. “Order all eight meals. If he doesn’t want it, we can give it to Ned. After all…” He winked at her again. “He’s a growing boy.”
Cherish let out an involuntary laugh and Manton pumped his fist in triumph. “Gottem. Who’s the emotion manipulator now?”
“Oh my gosh. Stop.”
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
—
“I hate everything.”
Bonesaw’s contraption made a soft whirring sound as it ever-so-slowly pumped a little more of that vile substance into his veins. The color of the liquid of unending torture shifted from blue to hot pink as Manton glared at it.
“I hate myself. I hate my other selves. I hate this plan. I hate this van. I hate this damn machine. I hate my fake zebra daughter.” Bonesaw moved out of the way and Manton could see his bloodshot eyes from his projection. His vision seemed to split, one half completely fine and as invincible as ever, while the other half, his real eyes, constantly focused and refocused on random things without his input.
That wasn’t even the worst part. Nor were the occasional hallucinations, muscle spasms, fluctuating migraines, urges to eat large quantities of table salt, or the constant need to stretch his legs.
No.
The worst part was he was still fucking awake. “I hate Wildbow. I hate Bakuda. I hate Coil. I hate whatever ROB sent us here. I hate the United States highway system. I even hate McDonalds. I. Hate. Everything.”
“Oh my gosh. Can someone shut him up?” Crawler’s voice rumbled from the back. With deceptively little noise, Mannequin’s neck chain retracted in a blur and connected his head to his torso with a click. He nodded and pointed at Manton, then mimed zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key.
Manton directed both of his glares at them. “You cannot silence hate.” He and his projection spoke in unison. “Not until I smash Bakuda’s filthy head into the pavement and scatter her remains across the boat graveyard. Then I will have my revenge, and my rest.”
“Oh, let him vent.” Jack interjected from the driver’s seat before taking another bite out of his sandwich. The rest of them patiently waited for him to finish. Well, most of them. Manton was quiet because he was listing more things to hate in his head. Jack swallowed. “Mmm. That’s so good. Manton’s complaints are understandable. If that’s what it takes to make sure nothing interrupts us before we reach the bay, then we’ll just have to deal with it.”
“I hate airport security. I hate how tractor drivers are so slow but drive on public roads anyway. I hate the entire grimdark genre.”
“Ugh. How much longer till we get there?” Shatterbird asked, spinning a few shards of glass above her head as she stared up at the ceiling. “It’s been almost two days, right? I’m so freaking bored.”
“I hate Worm fanfiction. I hate everything. I hate whoever invented RV’s. I hate… shit. Here comes another migraine.”
“Um. Let’s see.” Manton continued swearing as Cherish leaned over to check the arrival time. She pulled her hair back and let the screen illuminate her face. “Oh. Not that bad. We should arrive at-”
“No!” Everyone—except Burnscar, who hadn’t woken up yet—jumped at the sudden double shout. Manton glared at them around his hands rubbing his forehead and had the Siberian speak for him. “I don’t want to know! Time passes faster when you’re not watching it.”
Jack recovered first and nodded, keeping an eye on the road. “That’s a good point. A watched pot never boils and all that. Needless to say, we’re pretty close. Someone wake Burnscar up please. The show is about to begin and I don’t want anyone to have morning grogginess when we get there.”
Manton flipped him off and Shatterbird groaned. “Do I have to? She almost set my hair on fire last time.”
Mannequin pulled himself back together and got up, saluting Shatterbird and walking over to Burnscar’s pillow fortress. His footsteps made no sound on the floor. It was eerie, Manton thought. Like a mime. A homicidal, nine foot tall, robot mime. Shatterbird gave him a thumbs up and closed her eyes. “Thanks man.”
“Um. Mister Manton?” Bonesaw tugged on his arm to get his attention. Once she had it, Bonesaw stepped back and clasped her hands together, looking slightly down and lightly scuffing the floor with her shoe. Her blonde ringlets bounced with the motion. It was absolutely adorable, despite the bloodstains. “Can you maybe not kill her? I wanna stick a P.I.M.P. down her throat so I can leach off her bomb stuff. Pleeeeeeeeease?”
She pouted up at him, eyes wide and almost sparkling.
Manton was about to cave and agree, weakened by the headache and powerless before the cuteness, before he frowned and did a double take. Wait a minute. Her eyes are actually sparkling. She’s literally weaponizing cuteness by manually controlling her tear ducts and facial muscles.
Then he thought about what she was asking.
“Fine. Your terms are acceptable.”
Bonesaw’s expression switched to one of infectious joy faster than Manton could blink. “Yay! We’re going to have so much fun together!”
Holy crap that’s unnerving.
—
“Bonesaw?”
“Yes Mister Jack?”
“Can I have a drumroll please?”
She looked up. “Is it time?”
“Heck yeah it is.”
Bonesaw smiled wide, raised her hand high, and dramatically snapped her fingers. Three robo-spiders rolled around and unfolded like droidekas, Bonesaw giggling in delight as they lined up in front of her. Together, they began to bang out a rapid beat on the floor while she pulled out a pair of forceps and pretended to direct them like an orchestra, getting everyone’s attention. Probably. Mannequin didn’t move at all.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Bobhouse Nine. The moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Jack announced with a bad impression of a circus ringmaster. He pointed out the window at a sign just up ahead.
Manton snapped out of his daze and looked through the Siberian’s eyes. Is it over?
They passed an elaborately painted sign, illuminated in the night by floodlights, that said ‘Welcome to Brockton Bay!’, and Bonesaw swung her arms down, ending the drumroll with one final clang of metal on metal. Shatterbird and Cherish cheered. Crawler let out a deep, happy laugh. Mannequin reached up and flicked his head around like a bobblehead. Burnscar rolled her eyes. It’s over.
“We made it! Welcome to Brockton Bay everyone. Somehow we crossed the country without anyone dying, which quite frankly was more than I was expecting. Chicago kind of freaked me out there. Now.” Jack’s tone turned serious. “Everyone remember the plan?”
That was the moment Manton remembered the plan, and the joy that had swelled in his heart at the prospect of a good night’s sleep died a horrible, lonely death. It’s not over. Damn it! Why?!
“Yes sir, Mister Jack!” Bonesaw shuffled in her seat happily as her spiders folded back up.
“Great. Cherish? Do you have a location on our first two targets?”
Cherish adopted a meditative pose and closed her eyes.
…
“Cherish?”
She smiled and opened them. “I have everyone’s location. That was way easier than I thought. Parahumans stick out like a lighthouse in clear weather. Keep going straight and I’ll tell you when to turn. Manton, I’ll tell you when the fight starts. She isn’t too far from here.”
“Well, it better be soon.” Manton replied, closing his eyes and fighting to prevent his fingers from twitching too hard. It was a losing battle. “The moment we have her I’m taking the antidote and impersonating a coma patient. In case anyone wanted to know, hell is real, and it’s a road trip.”
“You’ll be fine.” Jack said dismissively. “She isn’t going to take hostages or anything. You’ve got quite the reputation, after all.”
This was it. Everything came down to the next few hours. All the plans, contingencies, educated guesses, tinkertech projects, and everything else the Bobhouse had worked on since the meeting in the garage. It all led to this. Once they revealed the Nine were in Brockton Bay, all of their knowledge of the Worm timeline went out the window. They still had the advantage. Their powers were versatile enough to have an answer to the majority of threats, and the knowledge of personalities and details of powersets would still be reliable, but that wasn’t a guaranteed win. It wasn’t even close. There were so many scenarios they couldn’t account for completely. Out of town capes not mentioned the story, Scion noticing something somehow, Cauldron’s Path to Victory, the Faerie Queen, the character development of people derailing because of their actions, and so much more. They were still a big fish in a small pond, but not the only one around. The game wasn’t over yet.
So they schemed and plotted and researched and argued, knowing the fate of the world rested on their shoulders.
And trusting that, when it all inevitably fell apart, they’d be strong enough to still come out on top.
“Um. Jack?” Cherish spoke up from her pose. Her eyebrows furrowed and she pursed her lips. She looked concerned. “We might have a problem. Dinah’s awake, and she’s really, really nervous.”