If there's something she has in mind that she wants to do to all of them. It's a pretty wide area. Won't get all of Spree's clones, but they're not much of a threat without him anyway.

She wants to slow time way down for all of them, then use the dead bodies as counterweights to switch out Animos and Spree and deathtouch them. Any obvious reasons for this plan to fail?

Citrine's power thinks she can do it. It'll take some extra fine-tuning to make sure Trickster's power works across the boundary, but she's got time. Butcher is busy arguing with Jack and Blasto about why the Protectorate was in league with Accord and whether that was the real Burnscar.

Then she'll take the time, and set it up properly. Nice and neat, and the opportunity for a clean getaway from Butcher.

As soon as she does it Jack takes off Trickster's mask. "Told you it'd be easy. I do want to see what Bonesaw can come up with for this one. If you could shut down her teleportation?"

"If you like." She brings out Animos, and aims it at Butcher, dismissing Citrine's field.

She's probably going to have to keep reapplying that until they get back to Hatchet Face, but it's functional. Blasto leaves in a different direction, telling Jack he's going to spread the word that the Teeth started it by opening fire on Citrine.

It's the best solution she has. She keeps the effect active on the way back.

"That was enjoyable."

"Extremely.

Plus we've beheaded most of the opposition. A predictable success all around, really."

"Will they bring in reinforcements?"

"The Protectorate definitely will. Legend, probably. We do rate Triumvirate interference and he's closest. Accord might bring backup too; he does have allies outside the city."

"Good."

"Legend is fairly hard to kill."

"One never knows until one tries."

"That's the spirit! Of course, he hasn't managed to beat us either."

When they get back, Bonesaw starts gleefully investigating the inside of Butcher's head. And now they don't need the original Blasto anymore, so the Keres can join in! (It's not actually that much help. Blasto's plant-animal hybrids may be mechanically interesting, but plants don't have much neurology. Not that this is what Bonesaw would want to hear.)

Alas. Still, it is important to face reality as it is. Bonesaw will have to come to terms with remaining a uniquely gifted generalist in this field. Ellie will still offer what knowledge she can share, limited as it may be.

It's still just a matter of time. Maybe they can hit the Toybox later for that one brain tinker.

She is not averse to the idea.

Bonesaw thinks she could arrange for someone to kill the Butcher safely. Safely-ish. It'd be by constructing them a bunch of redundant neural pathways, and deactivating them as soon as the Butcher powers jump. They other fourteen personalities would still be there, just locked out of actually affecting anything or talking to the holder.

But safely killing the Butcher isn't interesting enough. She'll come up with something.

If the person who 'safely' killed the Butcher in that way was themself killed by someone else, would that person then get the full fifteen personalities with no barrier?

Oh yeah definitely. Unless someone did the same for them.

It could be quite interesting to arrange for one of the heroes to unexpectedly inherit the mantle of Butcher.

Bonesaw grins. That sounds like a plan. Not the hero part; that happened before and didn't do much, but the unexpectedness. If she keeps the Butcher unconscious but stably alive and hanging by a thread, they just have to arrange for the heroes to have some collateral damage...

And for that they need to know where the heroes are going to be. Well, Jack did want a spectacle.

Has he had any ideas for what the particular nature of that might be?

He's thinking the Protectorate base. They're down a couple members and this wasn't their most heavily garrisoned city in the first place; capturing it should be pretty doable. If they declare victory while sitting in there, preferably nice and dramatically, it'd have to carry some extra weight. Liberal application of fire and glass at scale, and they can be sure of getting attention.