"The fights are incidental. We only care about the deaths."

"They usually go together. Sneaking around can get you some, sometimes you even get to pick. Not sneaking around can let you collect an entire hero team while using the powers of the last one. Or villains; we're not picky."

"What if we do not wish to join you?"

"I think you will. If not, the other members rush you through the interview process anyway. It's not unheard-of for people who don't want to join to survive."

"What is the interview process?"

"It's very...rigorous. Each member sets a test. Can be hard or very hard, depending on their opinions. If the candidate fails, they exact a forfeit. Always major, sometimes fatal, occasionally worse. But since you're my nominee, I have no compunction about telling you that it's perfectly acceptable to decline to participate in a test and simply fight anyone who presses the issue.

"We accept your offer."

This would look like an evil grin even if it were on a face not belonging to Jack Slash. "I thought you might. Anything you want to take care of before meeting the rest of the team?"

"We were about to begin creating a replacement for the drones we lost at Toronto before you knocked."

"I'll take that as a no, then. Much better than interrupting you once you've started. Besides, they're here." An elevator dings, audible through the open door.

She opens the door fully, and stands aside to let Jack and the rest enter.

Some of them are recognizable, others less so. It varies by infamy. Crawler's unmistakeable. He's also outside the window. There aren't many elevators that work for him. Then there's the Siberian, and the other end varies all the way down to a completely unfamiliar friendly-looking girl with a red streak in her dark hair.

The Slaughterhouse Nine. Right here in front of her. Not how she was expecting this day to go.

"We would extend our hospitality, but we have only just arrived here ourselves."

"No problem at all. Introductions!

This is the Siberian, and Bonesaw, Mannequin, Shatterbird, Crawler, Burnscar, and our newest recruit, Cherish. Me you've met. Everyone, this is the Keres. They're up for Hatchet Face's spot, depending on how all this goes."

The black-and-white striped woman has no visible shade at all. Even though the Siberian definitely has powers. The absence is a bit distracting.

It's like Dragon's suit, except for the part where it doesn't seem plausible. Some sort of projection? You'd think that sort of thing would have been noticed.

"A pleasure to meet you all, we're sure."

Bonesaw is the first to pipe up. "Jack says you collect powers! Do you have any good ones for art, yet?" Bonesaw's idea of art is pretty widely known to tend toward the biological.

"That is not a criterion by which I have been filtering. The tinker called Cask, perhaps." She brings forth the relevant shade.

She peers at it. There's not a whole lot of information to be gleaned that way; the ghost is at most a vague metaphorical depiction of the powers and even less clear to people who aren't Ellie.

"Well that's something. I'm sure you'll get more."

"Perhaps you would like to suggest some possibilities?"

"There's– oh, but I wouldn't want you to have to kill her. Maybe the tinker in Boston, even though he makes his own canvases. Oh! Or Nilbog!"

Jack laughs. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. There'll be plenty of time to plan collaborations after she's joined."

Ellie smiles at Bonesaw.

Bonesaw smiles back.

One of the others looks up from where she's staring at a flame encircling her hand. Burnscar. She intones in a flat voice "Seems OK. So when do we start the testing."

"Whenever you're ready."

"I'm not," says the same flat voice. "Don't know what you're afraid of yet."

"Nothing you'd be capable of doing."