Ellie can work with that.

Now, about creating those clones. Are they going to start with Genesis or go gather representatives from the various factions first?

Genesis clones probably wouldn't feature in that plan; they're more just for overkill amounts of firepower and potential interestingness. The group they'd target is already gone.

Ellie is free to start with Genesis if she doesn't mind having her attention split during the planning for the kidnappings.

They're still in the 'subtle' phase, right? Which means no killing extraneous capes during the kidnappings, which means Ellie isn't all that interested in helping plan them. Just let her know what you want her to do when you've got it worked out.

Noelle is extremely unhappy about creating clones of her friend. Creating clones at all, for that matter. But she can't feasibly resist very successfully, and definitely not without losing control.

Genesis' hand sticks to Noelle's bulk and sinks part way in. She's nearly as horrified as Noelle is.

The Genesis clones get vomited out one by one, naked and misshapen. The later ones are closer, in the vein of a bulbous head instead of a stretched-out skeleton, but none would pass for Genesis herself. They aren't paraplegic, for one reason or another. When they start going into their comas most create forms that could pass for Genesis', with most making different tradeoffs of duration versus size versus biological plausibility. Some stay at least halfway conscious. They're not all strictly stronger than the original, but there's a wide variance. Most are undetectable differences from the outside. Ellie can get some mileage out of comparing their shades. 

Very interesting.

Test the first: Can she collect their shades normally?

Yes. After collecting the second she can compare the differences in full detail.

Unfortunately, after collecting the first she goes from a mostly-neutral enemy who shares some goals to a direct threat. Genesises three through five attack her. (Geneses? Leviticus through Deuteronomy? Whatever.) She has a pretty good sense of what kinds of creatures they could make, by comparison to the clones she did kill. But her knowledge of what these creatures can do is limited to "that one can fly and that one spits acid; what tradeoffs would my shades have had to make for those." The clones do manage to hide the projectors behind Noelle but they don't like their odds.

It's not as though they can meaningfully hurt her through the Crawler shade. She removes the original Genesis from the fleshy mass and has her other two shades mop up the detritus.

Maybe they could eventually come up with something Crawler had never been exposed to. But it's not as if they had time to experiment.

Noelle looks sick, not without reason, but she kept her head throughout and can confirm that some of those were clones of clones. So that's that question answered, she adds.

Yes.

Does she have any degree of control over the clones?

Not directly. None have ever tried to hurt her and she thinks they'd try to protect her, but she can't puppet them or enforce orders. Clones of Genesis would probably respect her tactical judgment because Genesis does.

If she makes a new clone now, will it also attack her?

Probably. Now that the original knows she'd just kill the clone, so will any subsequent clones.

Kind of puts a damper on experimentation. Well, she can still go slowly and see if any interesting powers crop up. After all, she doesn't care about physical appearances.

Noelle suggests using a clone as the source in place of the original. It might mean more variation, in addition to letting Genesis not have her wrist stuck sinking into monster.

Worth testing. As long as the clone will remain docile for the duration.

She won't, but can't actually do much about it with all four appendages stuck.

Eventually Burnscar drops in, having gotten bored with the planning since it basically amounts to who's going where, and volunteers to be cloned because why not.

Sure, could be interesting. Let her just clear away this clone first.

Burnscar clones all have different varieties of the power. Hotter and a different color flame. Faster acting mental changes. Finer control with less firepower. Water instead of fire. That one has a shade that looks like something to do with the mover power part, but it's hard to tell for sure because she vanishes right away.

...That was maybe a predictable variation. They should go inform Jack of this new complication.

"Well. That's not good. Cherish, do you think you can correct your colleagues' mistake?"

"I wasn't watching there, wouldn't recognize the clone's mind unless it stands out in a crowd..."

"If the emotions looks like Burnscar's when she's been using her power?"

"Then definitely not; there's hardly any emotion there."

"Then we have a problem. We can devise a punishment for you two later, for now we need to move before Burnscar's evil twin sets anything in motion. Burnscar, you're with Shatterbird and Mannequin going after the Teeth. Get a cape other than Butcher, it doesn't really matter which one. If you can do it without being recognized so much the better. The Keres is with Cherish, getting whatever heroes are on patrol at the moment—I want them alive, no disintegrations—while the Siberian and I handle the Ambassadors. Bonesaw will take Blasto easily, I expect."

She nods acknowledgement.

Presumably Cherish handles tracking down the heroes?

That and making sure they don't radio base until it's too late. The fact that these are the non-recognizable members of the Nine makes that easier.

Or it should.

"Scared and urgent. They're running back to HQ. The emergency is probably us, maybe Accord saw Jack and called them."

"Or the clone was spotted. We need to cut them off, prevent them from getting back."

"I could make them stop running, I don't think I could do that and stop them from saying something weird over comms. Think you can fake being the Travelers? A false trail can't hurt."

"As long as they don't see me or the shades. Drop a sun in their path, jerk them around."