He's not in pain, courtesy of Twelve. But he's crumpled at odd angles even before the blast removes one of his legs at the knee and damages the other. There's actually a lot of blood; it might be bad if he dies.

Nothing a bit of cauterization can't fix.

It actually is; Burnscar's fires aren't enough energy to break through, which means he just absorbs them. But some of that energy automatically goes to repairing his body, so it kind of works.

"We could hold him indefinitely now that he's down. Bonesaw, were you planning to use Hatchet Face for anything? I'm thinking we could hide them both, with a countdown so Butcher breaks free once we're long gone..."

"That sounds like the optimally chaotic way to deal with him."

While everyone else is going about arranging that, or just happens to be facing the other way, someone taps Ellie's shoulder from behind.

She whirls around, shades at the ready.

He talks in a hushed voice, apparently having complete faith that that's enough to keep him from being overheard. By the Slaughterhouse Nine. Who are right there. "Hi. I'm Christof. I'm taking him, but figured you wouldn't mind missing out on the chaos." He starts picking up Legend. It's a bit of an effort, possibly because of his complete lack of superpowers.

"...Not especially. Where did you come from, and where are you taking him?"

Christof shrugs. "He's Legend. Weird things just kind of happen around him. Um, we don't have long before Cherish notices me, so while I'm here–" he gives her a name, a place, and a time. "And leave this for her teammates if any survive." It's a slip of paper, with a letter C on it. Or possibly U. Or omega. Depends on point of view.

"That's not an answer to my question."

"No, it isn't. I'm from– oh, here they come." He points behind her to where Jack and Cherish are rounding a corner toward them.

And of course he's gone by the time she turns back around. Pretty obvious in retrospect.

That's what she gets for not shooting first. She palms the note away for later inspection.

"...huh. What happened to our legendary Butcher?"

"...He was right there. I only turned around for a moment."

"You didn't decide to claim his power and vaporize the body and fool Cherish into thinking there was someone else here? You're sure?"

"Do I look like that much of an idiot, Jack?"

"No, but the other question is who managed to sneak up on us and this seemed like the right order to ask them in."

"One of the Othellos. A teleporter of some type. An Eidolon."

"Could be, but none of those really fit very well. I heard you get startled then stop, and someone else seeming oddly calm."

"Plus you didn't kill them," Jack adds. "Not that you need another Othello after that explosion, but it seems out of character for you."

"He didn't have any powers. I was fairly sure I would be able to catch whoever dropped him off when he left again, but the second of distraction your arrival provided proved sufficient for the escape."

"Interesting. A teleporter somewhere else, then, maybe with a restriction about being seen? A sufficiently different Othello variant that can send passengers? That's far too speculative, of course."

"The Othello is unlikely. Seemed as though he was working for an outside party."

"That strongly suggests we need to get out of here. What about him implied that?"

"Call it a gut feeling."

"I've learned the value of those over the years. So, an unpowered agent of an organization that is not the heroes pops in and leaves with a member of the Triumvirate as soon as we get him disabled.

Shockingly well informed, and we need to be somewhere else. Anyone disagree?"

(Mannequin doesn't; he's been thinking the same since the stunt with the Protectorate base.)