Neither does he, but the point is this is going to be fun.

When they arrive, they walk up to the visitors' entrance and knock. They haven't been hiding at all, just having Cherish suppress the frequent bursts of panic whenever they get recognized, so they might as well be polite about it.

Appearances are important. She has a cloak on, mostly covering the matte black multi-segmented drone armor she created. Three of her shades shadow her every step.

For some reason they don't open the door for the visitors. How rude.

This building doesn't have a force field around it like some places, but it does have some automated tinker defenses. Mannequin climbs, almost slithers up into the ceiling rafters the first time containment foam opens fire.

She puts up forcefields in front of the nozzles that have revealed themselves.

That doesn't hurt.

The building is impressively empty, considering how little time they had to evacuate. Cherish identifies some people on a higher floor, probably heroes planning a last stand. The duplicate capes are being detained downstairs, thoroughly locked up but guarded only by non-capes. Going up is the higher priority, but it's not like it's very time-sensitive.

If the capes are up, Ellie is in favor of going up.

Predictable, but it's probably also the tactically better choice, so.

When they arrive, they can pretty much see immediately that the heroes know they're doomed. Doesn't mean they won't fight. All the moisture gets sucked out of the air around the Nine. It has no effect on the Siberian, who's in front, but the cape in white is widening the area. The metal Ward rushes forward, his hands forming long blades, and chops at the squishier-looking members of the Nine. One of the Wards, a girl of fifteen or so, is already unconscious. A tinker with...a  bow, really? is launching arrows at the same targets. No one wastes energy on the completely invulnerable people.

She has her lightning shade target the metal one, and swaps the bow tinker for one of the ones he's chopping at.

He stops, whether because of good reflexes or maybe that's just what happens when he gets electrified. Either way, he doesn't hit his teammate. (Burnscar does, though. One down.) The swap also leaves Shatterbird next to a Ward with a lightning bolt costume, who frantically grapples at her. Once he's touching her with both hands there's a loud zap and she goes down. But so does he, a glass spike in his back, and he stays down. Two. An armored figure descends on her, but whatever. Shatterbird can take care of herself.

The unconscious girl's eyes snap open. She looks every bit as scared as she ought to, but she keeps her gaze steady while she looks over the Nine. "You have no idea what you're dealing with, do you."

"Are you going to enlighten us?"

"The way things are going it's probably better than not doing that, yes." 

One of the other capes takes advantage of the break in festivities. He cries out, and what looks like an entire wall rushes toward the Nine. It clips Ellie, Burnscar, and Shatterbird, whose opponent ducked out of the way. They get knocked painfully back until the wall hits Siberian and stops. Nothing Bonesaw can't fix later.

The girl glares at him. "Not now, Railgun, I'm monologuing."

She continues, "anyway, I don't know how much research you did coming in, but I'm Roulette. See the future. Kinda. Let's see, you could get away," she looks at Burnscar, "most of the rest of you wouldn't, and huh. There's even a chance the Siberian doesn't. I thought it was nothing you hadn't faced before except more so; maybe that means I was wrong."

Swap Burnscar for this Roulette, reach out and grab her, interrogate the shade for the nature of the power.

Roulette is already dodging, in the direction that gets her away from Ellie starting from Burnscar's position. The metallic cape grabs Burnscar's head in a very literally viselike grip. "I suggest you listen. I kind of want to hear what she's got to say, and I can't imagine you want that less." (Burnscar teleports out to one of the nearby small fires. She has already spent any time at all in this room.)

Jack is paying attention, and the other Nine look more like they're selecting targets.

Very rude of the metal one. He maybe needs more lightning, for a value of maybe that means definitely.

He grits his teeth and sparks. It's not obvious whether or not lightning even can do serious damage.

Roulette looks back at him for a few seconds, and then keeps talking while backing away from the Nine. "Armies of capes. Two armies of capes, like if everyone at an Endbringer fight went up against everyone at a different Endbringer fight instead of the Endbringer. Your team wasn't part of either side, more just caught in between. Both wanted you dead, but I think they prioritized it differently.

(The Burnscar clone appears out of mostly nowhere and lets loose a concentrated blast at Shatterbird. Jack pulls her out of the way just in time and the clone vanishes.)

"Her too? Wow, no one wants to let me talk.

I know some of you might like the sound of a battle like that, but most of you shouldn't. You're not infinitely better than other capes."

Ellie is one of the ones who likes the sound of that.

It's probably to do with Noelle. Clones against people trying to contain them, maybe. Easy enough to avert, Ellie can just claim the power before they make additional clones.

"For the...seven?...of you who want to avoid that, you should probably know that it matters what you do right now. Today. I'm super not thrilled about agreeing with you guys on anything, but I don't want a massive battle to happen either, so." Deep breath. "I guess I'm giving suggestions to the Slaughterhouse Nine."

She gets Ballistic's shade out, and sends a piece of debris flying at Roulette.

It's Jack who blocks it. A swipe of his knife rings off the projectile just enough to throw off her aim. "Hey now, let the rest of us make an informed decision. Crawler, that goes for you too. Though, to be fair we have been leaving her entirely in too much control of the situation." A few slashes and Roulette is on the ground with a scream and a lot of blood. "You aren't bluffing, I hope?"

"What kind of moron tries to bluff the Slaughterhouse Nine?"

"The kind who mistakenly thinks they have nothing left to lose. Carry on."

She takes a minute to collect herself. "It's...by fighting us, you..."

A figure in a blue and white lightning costume bursts through where a wall-sized window used to be. Pre-Shatterbird.

Legend beams out enough rays that they can't easily be counted. All have the same effect in different ways. The ones directed at Slaughterhouse Nine members push them backward, the ones at surviving heroes curl around and shove them out the window where he came from. It probably hurts, but they're in a hurry.

Roulette's voice mutters "oh thank God, I thought I was going to have to make something up."

"Should have let me kill her, I could have told you if she was bluffing."

Smoke blaster up to cut Legend's visibility.

Legend has notoriously good vision. But he's mostly not shooting at them; he's concentrating on rescuing the people who can still be rescued. He essentially drags them all to the window in the time it takes for the Siberian to leap at him, and then he gets distracted dodging. Briefly.

Take the opportunity to switch the closest ally for the closest hero she can see, then hit the spot with a chaos blast.

That's Roulette. Most of the others were in a position to go along with what Legend is trying.The others jump or are pushed out the window, trusting Legend to catch them. They don't notice the switch until after it's too late.

Not a total loss, at least. Is Legend coming back?