A/N: Border of [Life / Death] - Bring back this dead fic!
My research had me look up dates, recent events, and other such things. I found no news of local bank robberies, bombing sprees, and the streets were very clearly not flooded. All of this pointed to the conclusion I really should have come to earlier, that I had been dropped in right at the start of canon or so. Meaning the weekend was when things started to happen.
Which is why I was currently floating several hundred feet over the apartments near the warehouse and dock district, despite it being well past bedtime on a Saturday night.
I was quickly growing bored of using portals to open peepholes and spy on the various civilians in the area. Everyone was just too… mundane. The most interesting thing I could watch was that one Korean kid play what must be the local equivalent of Starcraft, and marveling at how terrible he was. Eventually his angry yelling grew tiresome, though, and holy shit I was bored.
And that's my excuse to why I cheered when a fireball erupted below me, in a small alley with way too many bugs in it.
As the fire cleared, I saw the silver-scaled form of Lung start looking around for a moment, before suddenly turning to look up at, yep, the roof Skitter was on. Idly, I grabbed a tub of popcorn from somewhere, and promptly shoved a handful into my mouth. Unless something was different, Taylor would be able to handle this by herself. I leaned back in the air, and watched.
… Shouldn't Lung's crotch have rotted off by now? Come to think of it, there were a lot less bugs left. …And he's right behind her and okay fine I'll do something.
I waved my salt-covered hand, and a gap opened beneath Lung, taking him by surprise as he fell in. He'll be delivered about twenty miles west and a thousand feet up. That should take care of that, and Lung would be back in time to make sure Bakuda didn't go crazy.
Hm. I guess I could say hi. I slowly floated down to the rooftop where the girl lay panting and out of breath, letting a couple small bugs land on my clothes. After a minute, she struggled to stand up, but I gave her a bit of distance.
Taylor, or Skitter, turned to face me. "…Uh, thanks, I think." Good grief, she was almost as bad as Halbeard.
I waved my hand at her. "Don't mention it. And don't worry, I only sent him out of town. Power vacuums are so messy."
"Who are you?" She blurted out the question. "I mean, I haven't heard about any teleporters in Brockton Bay."
I tilted my head as I looked at her. "One could ask the same of you, bug-girl," I smirked. "But you can call me Yukari."
"...It's hard, to find a heroic bug-related name. At least one that's not already taken."
"I would imagine so," I replied. I heard the sound of claws against stone. "Ah, but we have company."
Taylor must have detected the incoming hounds as well, since she turned to face the monstrous dogs and the Undersiders atop them.
The teenaged villains slid off the dogs, Regent and Bitch staying in the back as Grue and Tattletale walked a bit closer. I noticed the way that Bitch was making sure to face me; seems she was able to sense that I wasn't exactly human anymore.
Tattletale, or rather Lisa, or Sarah, whatever, glanced back at Rachel and frowned, before turning to face me.
…She's totally trying to get a read on me right now, isn't she?
Hmmm. Wouldn't this actually be a good opportunity? Lisa would be trying to get out from under Coil's thumb, but she lacks both knowledge of what it is, as well as the chance to do so. Coil's power is actually laughably easy to avoid for someone who could arbitrarily kill him at any moment without warning. Hell, I could actually set up some conditions to killing him, to shape what he's willing to do. If his timeline gets closed whenever he tries to kidnap Dinah, he'd probably get the message that something didn't like that.
…Did it say something about me, that I was perfectly calm thinking about repeatedly killing someone? I felt like I should feel something, but all I could feel about it was…. Meh.
As I was distracted, Grue spoke up. "I thought Lung was supposed to be around here. Did you two take care of him for us?"
I gave a light shrug. "He's in the next town over."
Grue turned to Tattletale, whose frown was deepening by the second. "You teleported him. No… Portals?"
Turning to Lisa, I smiled. "Well, that's part of it, yes. But first, Tattletale, I have an, ah, business proposal for you." I saw the girl freeze at that.
Grue piped up next. "Oh? What, you got a job for us?"
"Hm. Call it a partnership proposal. And it's for her, not necessarily the group. Though", I said as Grue crossed his arms and Tattletale frowned, "it's possible that there'd be a place for you too."
"If you're talking what I think you're talking about, maybe." Turning her head to look at the distance, she winced. She fished a burner phone out of her pocket, before tossing it to me. "I'll give you a ring sometime, but for now we need to run."
I caught the phone and waved them goodbye. The group quickly clambered up the monstrous dogs and bounded off, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and then out of sight.
Beside me, the bug girl shifted to look at me. "Why did they need to leave so suddenly?"
"Probably because they don't want to meet the heroes right now," I said as my ears heard the approaching rumble of a motorcycle. "What, you can't really have expected to fight Lung and not make your debut, can you?"
Taylor stiffened suddenly, and I could see the bugs in the air growing more frantic in their patterns. Her silence told me the trurth.
