There's the creature from her visions again. A short flash of all its discarded cells combating each other—

Crawler's shade doesn't even recognize that there was an attack. Certainly it doesn't regenerate the lack of physical damage; it's hers now. Not his. The ground shudders when Crawler's body hits.

"Does that count?" she asks with a half-smile.

Crawler doesn't object.

"You killed him! Now you've got to help me bring him back."

"Oh? And how will we be doing that?"

"I don't know yet. It mostly worked with Hatchet Face, but Crawler is a little bit different. We can figure it out, it'll be fun!"

"Is this another test?"

"Those aren't supposed to be fun. I guess, if that's what it takes."

"Let us be on with it, then."

"If you need more tinkers just say. I'm sure no one would mind a detour, and I can put Crawler on ice." She looks at the body, roughly the size of a small car. "Lots of ice."

"Outside of you, the only one with an applicable talent I am aware of is the one in Boston."

"Not the barrel one? Oh well, we were probably going to hit a big city next anyway since we were about to have all Nine; it might as well be Boston. Right?"

She looks to Jack, who says "be patient just a little longer; she hasn't finished joining yet."

"Could I not say I decline any further tests, and fight anyone who wishes to press the issue?"

"If you wanted to risk it," Burnscar threatens.

"Do you know what your test would be yet?"

The fire around Burnscar's hand has been gradually growing since Ellie mentioned fighting her. "You know what, never mind," she says flatly. "Let's just do it this way." A pool of fire spreads out around her feet, and she disappears into it.

So that's a no, then. If Crawler is not already immune to fire, Ellie will be very much surprised. This ought to be easy.

She leaves to look for the fire Burnscar emerged from, summoning Crawler's shade. The nature of this power means that it does not follow behind as a distinct entity. Rather, it wraps around and through her, a ghostly image of the horror she killed.

Crawler had adapted to fire, but not just fire. She feels herself mutating, the extra mass coming out of nowhere, until she's exactly the size of the Crawler body on the ground.

There's a trail of small fires. Burnscar decided on a whim, so no setup ahead of time. The problem is that she doesn't have to be going linearly: she's appearing and disappearing between fires to lob small fireballs and expand her list of places she might be at any given time.

Ellie does have to travel linearly, her teleport is limited by line of sight. She stomps out fires where she can, and tries to catch up with Burnscar. She only needs to get one hit in.

Yeah, but she's enormous. Crawler may have been deceptively fast, and all that experience transferrable to her, but that doesn't mean hard to avoid.

Burnscar's easily avoiding her but hasn't tried anything offensive yet.

Then she will continue to cut off lines of retreat as she finds them.

Her opponent has plenty of time to wait for an opening. The first time Ellie is standing over a big enough flame while prioritizing the fires next to her, she erupts from underneath. She's directing concussive blasts upward—how does that even work, it's massless—and jolts her vertically. Then does it again, and again.

"Stop," she says, an Edict-enforced command.

After using her power enough to knock Crawler around, Burnscar is in no condition to just stop. Whatever the penalty was isn't slowing her down.

Ellie lands with a crash, completely unharmed. Bonesaw's voice shouts "Not here!" but Burnscar's not listening. Ellie's Crawler-sized bulk suddenly vanishes, along with all her shades.

What the hell- Bonesaw said something about resurrecting Hatchet Face. Must be it.

She can't get shot by a fireball in here, but Burnscar can still ring the place in fire. She needs to get out now. She runs through, pulling at Crawler's shade all the time, wanting it up as soon as she's able to.

Burnscar is launching obstacles at her the same way she moved her when she was Crawler-sized. A piece of a tree trunk here, a rock there. Much to Bonsaw's dismay. None are very accurate as weapons, but it's more than enough to make her think twice about running straight through.

And then a knife appears in Ellie's leg. "Our dear Burnscar wasn't the only one who hasn't had a go yet, remember."