That, Cherish can answer now. Noelle ate them. They're alive in there, and absolutely horrified out of their minds even more than Noelle is, but it's how she's keeping contact with them.

Yeah, in retrospect it makes sense that not everyone would have seen that already.

That makes it a little harder. Other Siberian is going to have to go first.

And the other Siberian is exactly as hard to get rid of as the Siberian. If they successfully distract Legend they could make that the world's fairest fight, and get them then? Again assuming they want to.

Well, what even is their objective at this point?

Mostly? Fun. That and not dying. Reputation, but on that front the gain would be "Slaughterhouse Nine created three or four separate disasters" regardless of how much effort it does or doesn't take the heroes to correct this one.

"Siberian? You're probably better at Siberianing than the copy, think you can kill her for good while Legend goes after the Genesis projectors?" She hesitates, but then nods. "Keres, kill Noelle if you can but if not go for the originals. Crawler, if she had anything that could hurt you she'd probably have tried it against Butcher."

Finally. Lethality authorization. She nods.

Who to pick? Fire and chaos seems a good mix, duplicated twice more once Legend and Other Siberian are neutralized.

Jack asks if Cherish has started yet, then shouts. "Genesis isn't a changer! Kill the projector and the monsters get out of your way!" The Butcher looks much less internally conflicted than the last time around, but he starts blasting.

The nearest building implodes. Then the next nearest. Then the next, and the next, until there's a growing radius of debris. Most everything nearby has been cleared because of the ongoing cape fight. But they didn't evacuate everything. Legend has extremely good vision. He keeps mechanistically targeting one building after the next, while Cherish and Jack look on.

The Siberian charges her equivalent and both vanish, only to reappear soon after and repeat.

That's her opening. She splits off two copies, and spreads out to encircle Noelle before opening fire. And chaos.

Noelle screams. Both Noelle and the monster she's attached to. Burnscar's blasts burn away some of the spare flesh, but it regenerates when she lurches away. Damsel's has more luck; whatever it hits simply isn't there any more. The downside is it doesn't operate from what might be called a safe distance so it doesn't penetrate far enough.

If she keeps the fire big and distracting, it ought to be safe enough to approach a little closer. With one body still at a safe distance, to recall into.

Noelle is bigly distracted. She recoils in pain, but Ellie is on both sides of her. Doesn't do much.

The cones of destruction creep closer together and do progressively more damage.

...then there's a shove from behind. One of her stumbles into a tentacle, which rams her into the side of the monster. Both her other bodies spontaneously die. Mostly spontaneously. Three Othellos vanish again.

No no no no no-

Out, she need to get out, not be touched- Shade, burn it, blast it, kill it-

Taking the shade doesn't work. It's not obvious why, it's right there and she's touching it, but her power doesn't seem to recognize that it's available to seize. Burning is a very questionable choice, but blasting cuts deep. Whole cones vanish from in front of her, but she needs every last bit separated– And then the Siberian is back, and her next blast does nothing. Noelle visibly regenerates from the inside out.

And after that, Noelle vomits again. A copy of her, with three Sprees as a distraction.

Nearly perfectly formed, too. Were she not lacking the original's drone armor, it'd be hard to tell them apart.

Her task is obvious. Stop the Nine from further threatening Noelle. Either by killing them, or driving them off. Start with killing, see how far that goes. She splits into three copies, with the teleporter. One to get Crawler, one to get Bonesaw, and one for Jack. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Jack somehow manages to get off a knife beam at each of them. More aiming for speed than fatality, but it gives the others time to respond. In Crawler's case that means creating acid that burns everything around him except himself, making him a much less appealing target for touch-based anything. Bonesaw instead pulls out two vials and shouts that you don't want to find out what this does if she breaks it.

She sacrifices her offensive slot for the metal shade, and goes after her targets again.

The acid still burns, but at least there's no pain. But it's very acidic and with a few globs of it that body loses the ability to move before she gets to Crawler. Bonesaw apparently doesn't trust whatever's in her vial against the metal power, but Burnscar bails her out. Every metal has a melting point. (Jack, meanwhile, is casually dodging and occasionally landing a knife flat against a joint. It's really not great for mobility.)

She reconsolidates, and blinks out of melee.

Bonesaw is still vulnerable if she keeps the metal up, but she needs the others distracted. Fortunately, she has allies.

She'll find the knives came with her. It'll take a minute to absorb the blades into her body enough to be flexible, and Jack presumably has a limitless supply of them.

Most of her allies have already been dismantled by Mannequin and Shatterbird. The Othellos are the main exception; neither villain can get a good shot until after there's been at least one chance to try to stab them in the back. The other exception is the Siberian, who is of course busy canceling out the other Siberian.

Hm. She splits again, this time with Citrine. Three wide fields, one that will cancel out Shatterbird's power, one that will limit Jack's knives, and one that will suppress movement generally for everyone but the Othellos.

It's going to take time for each body to tune the field to a power. Minutes, probably. Longer since she's being watched and targeted.

More clones would be a helpful distraction. Meantime, she will concentrate as best she can.

Not only is everything on fire, but it's also on acid and glass. Glass can't affect her. The others can. Her bodies start to melt, though more slowly than when they were being specifically targeted.

The Siberians annihilate each other again, and both come back only to vanish again. Very insistent about their indestructibility, them. The Butcher's ring of destruction is still expanding. Arc, really; back when this was a Teeth base it was relatively close to the harbor. But he hasn't found the Genesoids yet.

And next time there's a Siberian-less window, a very angry metallic Keres bursts forth from within the beast.

She whirls around and starts blasting the body with chaos, bringing forth a burning sun and sending it into the cavity she just vacated.

Oh, this will never do. She abandons the Citrine project and gets her own offensive shades and blinks down.