Signs point to no.

Then she can see what new powers she's turned up. Touchy-zappy, the archer, and Roulette.

Roulette's power is nowhere near as useful as she was portraying it. When used, it shows several possible futures. Number and length depend on a lot of things: time since last used, how well rested she is, how close this is to a combat situation. It could plausibly have shown a future where Noelle's clones started a war, but the picture wouldn't have gone into things like who wanted whom dead how urgently. And she would have been out for a long time if she went for a long-term prediction like that. Unless the potential fight is imminent? Mostly Roulette used her power to experience several futures in the same amount of time and get more practice with firearms or trigonometry.

The archer is a tinker. Not the most inspired but few strict limits, so long as the product is for a bow or an arrow. Tinker arrows might freeze the target, zap them, or explode after someone dramatically catches it.

The electric cape isn't strictly touch range; the zap just more powerful that way. He stored up charge by rubbing his hands together, and is strictly less powerful than her existing lightning cape.

"She was lying, if you were still wondering."

"About which part?"

"The armies, unless that situation is going to crop up within the next hour or so. More likely she saw Legend's arrival, and was playing for time."

"And they did know about Noelle, from the Burnscar copy, so it wasn't too outlandish a guess.

We could always resurrect her like Crawler to retaliate."

"I've already killed her once."

"And you're only at what, three thinker powers? Probably don't want to spare this one."

"Not especially."

"Fair enough.

Let's see, Bonesaw, how's your project coming along?" He checks, and can't tell by looking but Bonesaw describes it as working well. "Shatterbird and Burnscar are raising the flag, so to speak. You've got some copies of Burnscar's power, could join in. Or bring Noelle here."

"How much longer are you going to leave her alive?"

"Until we leave, most likely."

She leaves to go fetch Noelle.

When she gets there, Noelle's gone. So are the other prisoners.

Well. That's unfortunate. Any sign of where they went or how they got away?

They didn't exactly leave a note. It's not even entirely obvious which group they is. They did leave the bodies of unpowered members of the Teeth.

They'd be a place to start, at least.

She should go back and tell Jack.

When she gets back, Siberian has leveled most of the nearby buildings and Shatterbird has set up an architecturally questionable numeral "9" above the Protectorate base. It's lit from the inside with fire, to add to the effect. She can't see where Butcher fits into all this, but that's not supposed to be visible from the outside anyway.

Jack is not entirely surprised; they did talk about this on the way over. Has to have been a kidnapping by clones, but which and where. Involving the original Teeth is interesting, even if it was just as cannon fodder.

It makes a certain amount of sense. Until they could get to Noelle, the clones had limited numbers, and the Teeth are probably the only faction crazy enough to help. They should also check up on the Blasto.

It's not a question of crazy; it's motivation. There must have been some carrot. Unless it was just sticks of course, in which case the craziness isn't relevant.

Jack deploys Cherish, along with Ellie in case there's an ambush. They get to Blasto's lair and Cherish confirms it empty. The largest Teeth hideout, though, is packed. Large groups of very similar people, mostly driven by fear, anger, hate, and all that. They do also have Noelle. No one spots them, but if they go kill some clones the only drawback is letting the rest know the Nine know where they are...

If they can't cut off the source, any thinning of the herd they do will be meaningless. Better to return in strength.

It's tempting to capture one for interrogation, but they can do that any time. Back to Jack it is then.

And he's probably going to want to leave them be to increase the chaos level?

Well, maybe. That chaos might not be credited to them. They could try just saying "look what we put there" but the clones and Noelle herself are perfectly capable of denying it. It'd be a completely separate disaster, barely better than an earthquake. The other option would be sending Siberian to pick up Noelle and move her. Every last clone would try to stop her, but, well, Siberian.