Sounds like fun. And they have a pair of moles inside already.

And as much extra firepower as they need.

They could walk in right now and the non-mole Boston Protectorate couldn't do much about it. None of them had really fantastic powers and numbers won't save them. The only question is whether Legend came in person ahead of the reinforcements from New York or Brockton Bay.

Is that a question their precog has an answer to?

Hunch's guess is more of the form "I have a good feeling about this," so probably no Legend yet.

Then it sounds like they're good to go.

Unless they resurrect Crawler first!

...Yes, or they could do that.

Getting the body to restart is harder than usual, since Crawler has a completely bizarre physiology. And very heavily armored; she has to ask the Siberian to act as a scalpel a couple times. (Jack asks if she's sure he won't come back immune to Siberianing; she's pretty sure he won't.) Eventually Bonesaw and Ellie manage to get his hearts going, but he's not moving or thinking, or even regenerating.

So when she strips someone of their power, she's taking more than just that. Interesting. He feels... empty inside, somehow. Like a bag waiting to be filled.

She brings forth Crawler's shade, willing it to attach itself not to her body, but the one in front of her.

The shade flows through until it overlaps with the body. Bonesaw is poking around in one of Crawler's brains and can't see the shade but looks surprised at exactly the moment when Ellie feels the shade accept the host.

Crawler starts regenerating and opens his eyes.

"I suppose I ought to ask if killing you outright counts as passing your test, or if you want me to take a do-over."

Blink. "Why, do you have something that would hurt me?"

"I'll take that as a no."

"Also, where are we?"

"Boston. We've taken every local faction down a couple of pegs and are planning to go after the Protectorate directly before their reinforcements get here."

"Huh. Okay."

She's sort of going to missing having that power at her disposal.

Jack doesn't suggest cloning Crawler and having her kill the clone. Wouldn't want her getting too powerful too fast; this is good. When she suggests it the stated reason is that they did turn a bunch of clones loose to cause havoc. If the Nine start killing clones, that turns into a bunch of factions united against them. Annoying.

So at this point they actually aren't waiting on anything much. Prisoners secure, thanks mostly to Bonesaw, and isn't that an ugly sight. With the exception of Butcher, who they're bringing with them. She's not an ugly sight yet. Onward!

Onwards. At some point during the transit while there are no clones nearby, Ellie approaches Jack.

"If they decide they can protect Noelle better by trying to get rid of us than by helping us, we will be in an equal amount of trouble."

"We'll always have the option of just leaving; only one of them has a grudge against us in particular. But you're right. Of course, the other factor to consider is Noelle herself. She wouldn't want to be rescued by them and forced into producing an army; she'd rather be dead."

"She doesn't have any direct control over them."

"No, but can you imagine them trying to rescue her by force? That would be hilarious."

"And likely to end with us being simply smothered by the sheer mass of clones produced."

"Oh, I'm sure we'd win. We have Siberian. Crawler. You. Besides, their goal in this scenario isn't to kill us in particular unless we're fighting to exterminate; they just want to capture their leader."

"Fair enough."

"Not that we'd have to stand by and let them, of course. When we take the Protectorate headquarters we'll be declaring a game of king of the hill, and Noelle is an excellent card to keep up our sleeve."

(Jack may be used to rule sets best described as "Calvinball.")

Ellie has no direct playground experience with which to contradict his interpretation of the rules.