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“Not intelligent.” Unfortunately, murder was off the table. It was entirely off the table given that Brick was forced to question the alien for more information on the new threat. 

Fortunately, the Martian knew plenty on what the sequids were and how they worked.

“You said…” Unfortunately again, that ‘plenty’ wasn’t panning out to be as useful as Brick needed it to be. “‘Not intelligent’, right?”“Yes!” Shapesmith beamed his way. “Yes, correct once agai—”“Then you said ‘they plan’. Brick’s arms were folded, the red-suited young GDA agent circling the Martian. “How much intelligence do they have before a host?”“That…” Shapesmith’s mouth hung open for a second. “That is something I am not sure about.”“So, Which. Is. It.” Brick grunted the words syllable by syllable, eyes narrowed.“Both?” Another smile was sent his way as the Martians’ hands looped and layered into each other; joints joining and fingers going soft where fingers shouldn’t.“Both isn’t an answer.” Red eyes narrowed again. “You skipped a step. Swarms don’t sync up out of nowhere. What’s the hub?”Somebody in the room snorted. By the sound of it, Brick figured it had to be Bulletproof but he couldn’t be bothered to doublecheck. No, the leader of Team Trinity was too occupied on the same thing he had been for the last four or five minutes; listening to an alien explain his own screw-up in a screwed-up order."It is — " Shapesmith paused after just two words — both of them not useful — and swallowed the back half of whatever that sentence had been before going a different way. "One mind. That is all it requires. I do not know much before that but the stories of the Sequid Swarm have been passed down to every young Martian. One intelligence in the swarm to connect to, and every Sequid in that swarm gains access to it to coordinate. No more millions of animals, just one organism with millions of bodies. They coordinate. They overwhelm. They — "

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. They stop being a problem and start being an army." Bulletproof had more than a snort to offer this time, the hero’s arms folded as he floated up at Invincible’s height. "That's what I'm hearing."

"You are hearing correctly, yes.”

“So, uhhh, these squiddy things…” Boomer had his eyes back on the screen. "How many are on that ship?"

Rudy stepped forward, hands on the console as he made a quick adjustment. The supergenius tapped a few keys, movements precise and fingers quick, and all at once, the ship shrank down into the corner. “By my estimate, given the size of the ship making its way here…” 

Brick blinked up, attention torn from the Martian as the screen was filled with column after cascading column of estimates.

“This is what we have to expect from the attacking Sequids. Low band. Medium band. Upper band.”Red eyes tracked to the upper band, rings of his eyes contracting as he took in the number of digits there. It took less than a heartbeat for him to double back and read it a second time, Brick almost unable to take it in. That’s… It was bigger than the average population of countries in the world — excluding outliers at least — more digits than most of them had people.“Oh.” Boomer’s mouth held the shape as he simply stared.Oh, was right. Twenty-five million…

That wasn’t just a number you could brush off.And from the lack of a smile on Butch’s face, even he couldn’t ignore it either.

"How'd all this even happen anyway?" Monster Girl slumped back into one of the console’s chairs. "Like, Shapesmith has been on this team for months now. And nobody mentioned the planet full of brain bugs until today."

"Once again. " Shapesmith’s laugh was no less nervous than before. "That part might be somewhat my fault."

“Might be.” Amanda raised an eyebrow, Monster Girl clearly not buying a word of that from Shapesmith. "Somewhat."

"On the mission, I traded places with an astronaut.” The alien lowered his head under matching glares from Cecil, Black Samson, and the Immortal. “With one of the astronauts. On the mission to my planet, the one named Rus Livingston. He was lagging behind and seemed to have interest in Mars. So, I took his shape."

“...” Amanda blinked. “You left a guy on Mars.”“I did imply that.” Shapesmith raised a finger. “At least this time.”

“Bro…” Bulletproof slapped a hand over his pace. "You left a guy on Mars.”“I already said that.” The Martian let his finger fall. “Besides, I did not leave him with the Sequids. I left him in a habitat, with supplies, and I fully intende—” All the looks aimed his way shut him up halfway through that sentence. “...okay, I don’t know what I intended.”“Alright, so we’ve already established that all of this is Shapesmith’s fault.” Brick aimed a red-eyed glare at the alien in question.

Shapesmith sank down about an inch. "Yes."

"Ha!" Butch pointed a gloved finger at the sad-looking alien.

"Dude." Boomer was up in the air in a blur, elbowing his green brother in the ribs; a crack of sound loud enough to echo in the quiet. 

"What?" Butch whirled on his brother, gloved fists clenched tight. “What’d you do that for?”

"You can't laugh when somebody’s upset."

"What? Why not? ‘Sides, he’s the one that got a whole planet covered in brain bugs." 

Shapesmith’s weak smile spread across his face again as Butch kept pointing his way. "N-not the whole planet…Rudy turned his head. “Oh?”“There are many sections the Sequids would rather not touch."

“Hm.” The clone of Rex turned aside again. "An important distinction, but not presently a useful one."

Cecil cleared his throat, the dry rasp enough to drag attention and discussion back to him and the oversized screen. “Let’s make one thing clear. The ship is still far enough away that we’ve got time to strategize like this. Not much, but enough.”

“Not trynna sound dumb or nothin’, but we got nothing that can blow that shit up before it hits dirt?” The black man in orange folded his arms tighter. “Like at all?” Bulletproof’s question forced a click of the tongue from Cecil, the old man turning to face them all with a trademark scowl locked and loaded. “Nothing we currently have is meant for that sort of scale.” “Why not?” Invincible’s question came calm as any but the frown on his face was enough to tell a story. “Don’t you guys have like an orbital platform, with lasers or something? My mom told me you used one on my dad that hurt him.”“We had one orbital platform of that make. Before your father destroyed it. Four hundred billion of your mother’s taxpayer dollars down the drain.” The grating in Cecil’s voice might as well have been real to anyone else, but Brick had to hide a smile at how heavy the old man was pouring it on. Five months later, they had four more for the price of that one alone, and another in production on top of the others, so he knew Cecil wasn’t that mad. 

“And beside all that…” The GDA Director paused with a sigh set free. “The platforms were made for terrestrial targets. The Global Defense Agency might have teleporters but this isn’t Star Trek, people.”“...oh.” Mark’s frown lightened, his face still down for an entirely separate reason now.“Besides, kid, you’re stuck on the idea we want to crack it open in the first place. That thing could be a carrier with two hundred other tiny ships packed in the ribs like a Russian doll. And that’s assuming a few of those parasites don’t survive vacuum and re-entry. Just one makes it to ground and you might as well consider the planet done depending on how fast these things breed."“Rather fast.” Shapesmith nodded again. “Extremely fast with a mind behind them.”“There you go.” Cecil’s mouth twitched. “And then we’ve got an imminent Code Black on our hands.”

"The odds of us handling that...”

"Would be significantly worse, Robot. Which is why all those other plans some of you keep throwing around? Already tossed out of the window." Cecil nodded at Mark and Rudy both before jerking a thumb behind him, the image on the screen still large and foreboding. "You get on that thing, find Livingston, get him off the hive, and then you grab on tight to your ankles and hope beyond hope that this doesn’t end up with humanity enslaved without even a fighting chance."

"Assuming it works.” Dupli-Kate’s mutter didn’t go unnoticed. “We’re stuck on hope, I guess.”

"And if it doesn't?" Shrinking Rae chimed in, the size-changer beside her teammate. “Hope doesn’t seem like the best gameplan here.”

"Then I’m expecting every single one of you do what you do best. Improvise." Cecil's mouth moved slightly. “You improvise like the fate of the goddamn world depends on it.”

Because it does. Brick tilted his head. "Do they share pain?"Everyone looked at him, Shapesmith especially. “Wha-”“It’s a linked hive mind, like you said.” Red eyes blinked as they slid from Shapesmith to Kate and back again. “I burn a thousand of them at once, what happens then? Do they all feel it? The host feel it? Is it one-way, like intel down and nothing back up stream or…?”“I-I…” The Martian blinked, looking oddly green in a way that had nothing to do with his normal alien form. “Uhhhh…”Brick wasn’t done though, still waiting for an answer. “Is it just information they share or sensation?”

"...Ah, I do not know.""You lived with them for—"“I lived with them. I did not test them.”

Useless. Brick’s lips curled, a snarl almost leaving him before a blond head of hair bounced up in front of him with a question ready and aimed.

"Do they pop?" Boomer let it fly with a laugh. “Like they’re wet, right?”"They are somewhat wet, ye—"

"YO. Yes.” One hand pumped the air. “So, if I hit a bunch of 'em with a shock, do they pop, or do they just, you know, kinda— " He made a motion with both hands that made his point clear enough even without words. "Squish."

"...I think squish?" Shapesmith managed, looking even greener.

"Awwwww, that's way worse."

"What happens if I grab the guy and just yank?" Butch curled his fingers, adding to the game of charades with a wet sound that Brick felt was entirely unecessary. "Like really yank?

"I…I do not know how to answer that question."

As usual, and as it always would till the heat death of the universe more than likely, Butch’s smile promised nothing good. "That's not a no."

"...I’m not sure how to say yes?"

Brick glanced over to see Rudy typing something down into a pad, a little running list with bullet points and everything; the header enough to raise a pair of ginger eyebrows. "Robot."

"I am simply recording th-"

"You're recording Butch."

"His question had a non-zero amount of merit."

Brick stared back at the other redhead. "His question was can I rip a guy in half." Which wasn’t even a question, because he obviously could. It was the should that his brother didn’t exactly care or know to voice. Hard to tell with him sometimes.

"Alright, everyone. This is less complicated than we’re making it right now." Cecil's voice came down flat over the top of everybody. "No two ways about it. That ship reaches Earth, we're fucked."

Butch put his hand up.

Cecil stared at him. "...Butch?"

"So we just kill all of them?"

Brick bit back a sigh, another example of the should vs could from Butcher Mojo once again on display; always the part he needed clarified. 

"Literally no one’s gonna tell you no, kid."

"Shit, boss.” A grin wide enough to match a watermelon split Butch’s face. “That's all you had to say."

“Jesus Christ.” Monster Girl let out a long breath. “You’re such a little psycho, you know that?”

Butch's arm swung around, an accusing finger right at Monster Girl. "You turn into a giant green monster and eat people!"

"I don't eat people!"

Butch huffed, arms folding over his chest. "Well, you look like it, ugly.”

“Ugly?” Amanda pulled a face, the girl glaring up at Butch. "Big words coming from someone who looks like they stuck their tongue in a socket!”Boomer cracked first, a laugh bursting out somewhere to Brick’s left.

Butch didn’t.

For maybe a half second, Brick’s little brother just stared at Amanda with the blankest look on his face, like he was still figuring out what the insult meant.

Then his mouth moved anyway. “Takes one to know one!”

Amanda blinked back, a whole second of silence before — “What does that even mean?!”

Brick let all the extra talk slide past his ears, Boomer’s laughter still bouncing off with it as he turned his attention back to the on-screen marker that had crawled another few pixels while they were talking. 

"Hey." Butch cut himself off halfway through a shouting match with Monster Girl. "Anyone seen King Explosion Murder? Where’s he at?"

Brick bit back a sigh as half the room turned at the question, Bulletproof mouthing the words that just left Butch’s mouth. The Immortal actually opened his mouth to ask. “...who?”Cecil's jaw worked once. "…Rex Splode has been on medical leave for a few days. He'll be back in a few hours."

"Medical leave from what?"

"Doctor-patient confidentiality." Cecil went on, turning away from Butch as if he had anything close to a medical license. "He wouldn't be on this mission anyway. Now, let's get you all to space."