- Location
- edinbrugh
For sure. Also super interested in this.
Guess she could change every bug in the area into bees and it would be basically the same effect?
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Nemesis [Worm AU]
- Thread starter BeaconHill
- Start date
Guess she could change every bug in the area into bees and it would be basically the same effect?
13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
Probably because I hosted using Discord and they changed things so people would stop using them as an image host. I'll see about fixing it.
Edit: Should be fixed now.
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The bank job contains a possible hint if she tries to keep it semi-low-key: morphing her bees to have higher performance in ways that are difficult for casual observers to see and acceptable under cartoon logic.
Though one immediate question is who gets to see Endbringer battle footage? If it is limited, then she might be able to go all-out and have the Protectorate actively hide that from the public.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
IIRC the PRT try and hide footage from the Endbringer attacks as to not ruin civilian morale over how bad they actually are, and so that people can keep up the feeling that Endbringers are like hurricanes and other natural disasters, they would never happen to you so who really needs to care about them
Kryslin
[Has Delusions of Authorship]
- Location
- Mythic Iowa
13th Bee's is fine for me, but imgur.com appears to be having isssues, either by accident or design (probably by design. I seem to remember something about how their image hosting was changing...)
(13th Bee's worked because they fixed it in between your post and my response...)
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As everyone who's been watching Fallout is thinking..
I want to see 🪳 start rapidly mutating and growing giant size. They proceed to attack, Behemoth loses his 💩, screams and dives back in his 🕳 like Bugs Bunny and tunnels right TF out.
Cockroaches of unusual size dive in hole and follow him. Any left behind, continue to grow and burst, relieving everyone watching. Who proceed to go home, call an exterminator, and shower repeatedly.
I want to see 🪳 start rapidly mutating and growing giant size. They proceed to attack, Behemoth loses his 💩, screams and dives back in his 🕳 like Bugs Bunny and tunnels right TF out.
Cockroaches of unusual size dive in hole and follow him. Any left behind, continue to grow and burst, relieving everyone watching. Who proceed to go home, call an exterminator, and shower repeatedly.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
That was where I was aiming. If she could merge cockroach and tardigrade, she'd have a pretty decent way to perform close-in S&R and distraction for other Capes in the fight.
Edit:
Well, as others noted, it's more a case of, "whatever QA and Insect together will let her get away with." And considering that she seems to be very much in a positive light with them, if she thinks tardigrades would help, she'd likely get a Shard green light to proceed.
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- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Her range of control really doesn't lend itself to area evacuation, other than moving groups to an evacuation point for another Cape to take over for the long shift.
Getting out of the short-range choke-points close to the danger is a big deal. Just a few miles is a world of difference both for immediate danger level and for difficulty of getting further away.
But it is a problem that she would have to do it as a single swarm rather than being able to continuously stream bees in and out of the danger zone.
17: "Rescue"
New
BeaconHill
Lost Among Carbon Fields
Nemesis
Chapter 17: Rescue
Chapter 17: Rescue
[ Emma ]
It was a strangely mixed group that gathered in the circle in Pilgrim Park, all of us crammed into a twenty-foot ring marked out on the grass in spray paint. Most of the heroes showed up, the Protectorate and most of New Wave too, except for a bunch of Wards whose parents hadn't signed the permission forms. Thankfully, Sophia wasn't one of them – she stood next to me, looking ready for anything, costume immaculate for all that she'd thrown it on alongside me in the PRT room back at Winslow. We'd be separated, though. Behemoth was not her best matchup, but she could help with search and rescue. What surprised me was that there were actually a few villains, too. A handful of Undersiders. Purity – I figured she was still pretending to be a hero. But they definitely saved the best for last.
See, Bumblebee showed up, clutching a big fat bee in her arms like it was a body pillow. I didn't laugh, but only just. She was so gonna die. It was a shame, I wasn't done with her... but then, it sure would be funny, wouldn't it? The bee who thought she could fight Behemoth. I'd pay to be able to watch, but I was sure we'd be separated. I was actually good, after all.
There wasn't any warning when the teleporter showed up – there was no time. Someone appeared on the spray-painted X mark in the center of the circle, and suddenly we were all standing somewhere else, on a parking lot outside a stadium in the middle of Denver, overpasses crisscrossing overhead. The teleporter didn't say goodbye, either – just vanished for her next run. Bumblebee melted into bees the moment we arrived. It was anyone's guess if she'd actually fight or just find a corner to hide in until the danger was gone. It'd be smart to hide, but then Taylor wasn't smart.
The rest of us were caught up in a teeming crowd, spray paint on the ground ushering us onto the stadium's field. PRT functionaries passed out armbands at the entrance. Even in a stadium, it was crowded and noisy. Capes were flexing their powers, setting up, preparing for the battle. It made the place seem a bit of a light show. The jumbotron was turned on, but nobody was on it – I figured they'd be giving us some sort of presentation, it seemed like the PRT always had to. Still, it took a long time. They really were relying on Armsy's early warning gadget these days – no way could they have taken this long to get started before. We just stood there, watching capes trickle in, listening to the occasional inane announcement.
"Would whoever is responsible for all the bugs, please tap the button on your armband?" called one voice, a rather hassled-sounding woman. Hmm... I did know a cape with bugs who showed up for this, but was it her or someone new?
After a few moments, I shook my head. I bet it was someone new. If they were bringing enough bugs to make people nervous at an Endbringer fight, no way could it be Taylor.
~~
[ Taylor ]
A firestorm howled around me as I flew through the air – for the first time in a while, in my human body and my yellow-and-black minidress, on the back of a bee.
Below me was a boxy concrete building with a chunk torn straight through the roof and walls, jagged rebar sticking out like a smashed cage. An Endbringer shelter. And inside were three hundred and eighty-six civilians.
I'd been doing a whole lot in this battle. Performing medevac with giant moths. Using enormous bugs as, basically, barriers. Roadblocks. Standing in Behemoth's way. I liked being a hero for once. But this was a different kind of problem.
If I could move the civilians the way I'd been moving my medevaced heroes, this would be easy. But I couldn't, not here. The civilians weren't heroes, they weren't trained, if they saw giant moths they might panic. Or, worse, fight to be the first evacuated. And I couldn't go too quickly, either. This close to Behemoth, if I got any of the civilians into his line of sight, there was no chance he wouldn't shoot them down. And if I presented too big a target, too many exposed civilians in the streets, he'd come my way. I needed to pace myself. To take this slow. All of that meant keeping the civilians calm.
And that meant Bumblebee.
It also meant some very careful crowd control. I was glad I'd studied this.
The crack was on the southwestern corner of the building. It was big enough to get a large bee or two through at once, or a bee carrying a person. The ceilings were two stories high, though, so I had lots of extra vertical space, and the shelter wasn't quite at capacity, which meant I had room to spread people out.
All right. Let's do this. I started sending in the bees – small bees, I could get them in much faster – but then I dove in, too. For a second, I was absolutely surrounded by the fuzzy little guys. But before too long, I emerged into the top of the shelter.
"Hey, everyone!" I said, speaking into a megaphone to be heard over the din of fighting that was far, far too close. I winced as a fireball zinged over one of my heads. But I could slow him down long enough, I thought. "We're going to have to move you out of here, and you'll get to ride on these giant bees!" I started to merge the bees back together again, into ones big enough to carry a person, and the crowd started to roar and cheer and shove for position. "No, don't — stay calm, there are enough bees for all of you! Just spread out, spread out, the bees don't have room to grab you if you're all crowded together!"
The bees that were pouring through the crack in the walls were all starting to combine now, massive bees forming up into a loose grid overhead.
"Everyone, stand underneath a bee! If it moves, follow it! Don't fight – there will be enough for everybody!" Of course, people were fighting... but then, bees were still trickling into the room, and I could pretty easily split a group of two by just adding a second bee. There would be enough for everyone. I had an incredible amount of mass in this fight – I'd never needed to be so big before.
I absolutely did now. The fight outside was still raging, smoke and sparks swirling as a half-dozen of the best Brute-Movers in the world and I tried to hold him back. Three enormous mantises that absolutely dwarfed the human-sized capes flying around them, though surprisingly nimble when they needed to duck Blaster shots or Tinker beams shooting in from outside.
Behemoth's fist shattered one of my mantisy chests, and my human body flinched. Worse, he stepped closer in, bringing the entirety of the bug into its kill radius. I couldn't save any of the biomass. It fell to the ground as an enormous smoking corpse. It's not like I needed the bugs – turned out my power wasn't too particular about whether I actually digested what I ate, so I could munch on leaves or even drink water and then immediately split into more bugs – but it still wasn't a fun way to die.
But Behemoth hadn't made it to the shelter yet, and I still had time. Bees were still pouring into the room. Most of the people were still fighting to stand under the ones that had already arrived. But when the first person actually got a bee all of his own, I swooped down and picked him up.
"There we go!" I called. "Like that!"
The civilian had to hang there around the ceiling for a little while, waiting for the last bees to enter. But before too long, they did, and people started to pour out of the crack, one at a time but as fast as they could go. The fighting was still going on outside – I winced, as Behemoth absolutely walloped another mantis with a fireball, most of it turned into bugs and reformed but I still lost a lot of biomass – but more and more bees were making it away, civilians safely in tow as their bees sprouted better sets of wings and began to sprint toward the aid station.
It took time, in an environment where every moment could be some of these peoples' last. It took me one hundred and twenty-seven seconds to fully evacuate the shelter through that little crack in the ceiling. But when I did, I felt a relief like nothing I'd ever felt, telling jokes as Bumblebee.
I'd saved people. And it felt so good.
I followed the last civilian out on the back of my own bee. I just hung there in the air for a moment, watching the civilians receding into the distance. Behemoth, finally getting around me and the barrier capes, shot a fireball at the empty shelter in what could only be a fit of pique. It blew an even bigger hole in the wall, and the whole building started to crumble, to no effect. He didn't bother shooting at me... probably because he knew by now that it wouldn't work. Then he stomped off, to whatever other target he was looking for next.
Then I turned to see a flying cape approaching me.
"Thank you," he breathed. He was probably a Brute, in a big primary-colored muscle suit, skintight and skimpy and streaked with dirt. It had been a while since I looked up Denver's capes, but I thought he might be a local. "Thank you, Nirgali, I thought that whole shelter was done for."
I raised a hand sheepishly, rubbed at the back of my neck. Nirgali was the identity I'd mostly been using this fight – my 'hero' identity, my scary identity. I couldn't exactly tell everyone I was Bumblebee when I was re-enacting two dozen monster movies simultaneously... but now I had the reverse problem. "You're welcome," I said. "But I'm just Bumblebee, not... anybody else. Anyway, gotta fly!" I turned into bees and zipped away, waiting until I was a fair distance out before turning back into the enormous dragonflies that had been my mainstays in this fight.
~~
[ Emma ]
"Go!" I yelled, as a line of capes streamed underneath a collapsed building ten stories high held up by pink gemstone bracing, its still-recognizable facade bent like a trick mirror through the curved gems. I let the others get out in front of me – I had to drop the building, carefully – but then Behemoth looked back at me and snarled, and a ball of fire formed before him. It blasted right past me, and for a moment I almost taunted him. Then it smacked straight into the pink gemstones behind me.
In a moment that seemed to last for hours, they shattered – and the building came tumbling down, concrete and glass and everything else falling down upon me. Even with all my strength, I fell, caught helpless in the avalanche of rubble. I couldn't see, couldn't hear, tumbling over and over, coughing and hacking through the dust as I tried not to inhale any dust... or rebar. I remembered only too late to try and protect myself with crystal, to keep it out of my lungs and my eyes.
And then the noise and the motion stopped. And I was alive. When the dust settled and I'd cleared my throat, my head was just barely sticking out of a pile of rubble that had spread all the way across the street. Everything hurt... but it seemed like I was still in one piece, even if something was broken. Maybe everything was broken. Something told me I didn't want to try moving far. I lifted my head up – and it was hard, slow and painful in a way nothing has been since I became a cape – just to see Behemoth standing there, gloating.
It roared – I couldn't help but take it as laughter – and began to lumber away. Soon, all the capes followed. No one had time to stop and help, just like I didn't have time to help all those who had fallen around me before.
The sounds of battle grew quieter and weaker, until eventually I couldn't hear them at all, and the only noise around me was the wind whistling through the ruins. After a few moments, I also noticed a steady drip, drip, drip.
I lowered my head to see a pool of red, soaking into the rubble around me.
Oh, fuck. That... wasn't good.
I was strong. I was. I'd been on the front lines almost since the battle started. I'd saved people – even my shattered gems didn't seem to hurt Behemoth any, but as a barrier they could protect the people who could. And I could fly, and I was a Brute. So I'd been right in the middle of it.
But that... didn't necessarily mean I would survive this.
Then I looked up at a strange rustling sound, to see an immense moth circling overhead, red crosses marked on its fuzzy white wings. Nirgali, I realized, as the bug landed atop the rubble before me.
They'd found whoever had the bugs, and he'd been all over the battle. Every once in a while Nirgali would make these enormous, Godzilla-sized insects – didn't seem like they did much damage to Behemoth, even with the exotic bugs I only found out about when I was researching Taylor, but he could be large and in the way. Sorta like a barrier, like me, except with a really, really, really big bug. And it never seemed like he took any real damage, either. There were always more bugs.
I hadn't seen him doing that in a while, though, mostly because he'd switched to medevac. All these giant fluffy moths zooming around, like Mothras but nice, carrying dead or dying capes in their arms.
I, uh. I figured I was one of those now too.
But for all the time I'd spent thinking about that, it seemed like Nirgali wasn't actually doing anything to help me. The moth was still just sitting there, perched on a concrete beam. Looking at me with its big black eyes. I couldn't help but feel judged.
It... was going to rescue me... right?
But every second mattered, and it was just sitting there. Watching and waiting, as time ticked on. Why was it waiting? Why wasn't Nirgali doing anything? I... I hated this. I was trapped and helpless – I tried in a sudden desperate spasm to free myself, to push out of the rubble with my limbs or my crystal, but all that managed was a wave of pain that nearly knocked me out – and this bastard was just watching! I wouldn't have done that—
Yes, I would. I know I would.
I grimaced, my head sagging back down again. The next thought, painful and intrusive, sliced through my mind like a blade no matter how much I wanted to stop it: If he knows anything at all about me, why would he save me? I wouldn't save him.
I could feel something oozing down my face. I knew I was a bitch. And I liked it. I liked giving people what was coming to them. Taylor and all the rest of them... it was fun. But maybe it was coming home to roost, now. I didn't know who Nirgali was... but I felt almost like I ought to, somehow. He seemed oddly familiar.
Besides, who would care, if he just left me? For all that I was popular... I didn't really have any friends, did I? Anyone who would help me now, or miss me when I was gone?
I mean, I had loads of friends at school, basically anybody who was anybody, but... that was different. Transactional. They wanted things from me. I wanted things from them. None of them actually cared. Definitely none of them would come within a hundred miles of an Endbringer fight just to help me. Even Madison – it'd been more strained, these days. With me and Sophia together, I figured she was starting to feel like a third wheel.
At least there was Sophia. She loved me, and I thought I loved her. She'd come to the battle, but I had no clue at all where she was. Definitely not a frontliner, not with her power and her vulnerability. If she were here, she'd help, but she wasn't, and – I looked down to see even more blood, painting the old concrete red – no chance she would be, in time. And even her... I didn't think she'd realized yet, but I hadn't been treating her very well lately, had I?
I looked up again, into the moth's big black eyes. Who are you? I couldn't ask, with no breath in my lungs. Why won't you...
Three more moths landed beside it, and the moment they hit the rubble, their bodies changed. They became mantises, enormous ones, tall and spiny. They took positions around me, and with one heave of their big spiked arms, they lifted the rubble off of me, the old wall of the building just barely holding together in their grip.
The moth lunged underneath, wrapped its legs around me – it was almost astonishingly soft, like a stuffed animal, and I found myself smiling just a little as it did – and with its wings frantically beating, my broken body scraping painfully against the ground, it launched us out of the ruins, through the smoke, and up into the sky.
Oh, I realized. He was always going to help me. He was just waiting for the other moths. I sagged, relieved, into the moth's fluffy legs, as the battlefield spun and twirled beneath me. Behemoth was shooting twin pillars of fire and lightning into the sky, bright against the looming mountains behind, and it looked so cool and so beautiful, so much like a rock concert, that I almost laughed. Must be getting a little bit loopy, I decided absently.
The moth started to descend toward a collection of tents – what I could only assume was medical – and I mercifully, finally, passed out.
~~~~~~
This chapter was beta read by Fwee and LithosMaitreya, who receive medimoths. Fluffy!
I'm very glad to finally have this all finished. The bees have been impatient for weeks now. They've been roaming around my back yard. One even made it into my house. Hopefully this is enough to appease them for the moment... 😅
And one more plug for my main fic: featuring robot people, futurism, and revolution: Take the Future, a fic for The Talos Principle 2, already fully first-drafted and updating weekly until it's done.
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- Location
- That place over there.
When she moves her range outside of a human body it "goes to sleep" (some sort of coma type effect)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-6cIy_s8pQ Mythbusters did it, cockroaches did not too bad (better than any mammal would) but by far not "the only thing left" or 100% survival.
I love the self-depreciating tone of this line, She evacuated an endbringer shelter full of panicked civilians cleanly and orderly in 2 minutes, something just as impossible as any tinker beams, and she feels like she should have done better. That's just so Taylor.
Ooh now I'm hoping for a redemption ending.
Man QA is probably really happy with the multirole Goliath that Taylor is acting as
Also I imagine someone is going to figure out that nirgalie and Bumblebee are the same person or atleast related and be further tilted on the scale of keeping her friendly because A probably reducing Casualties in endbringer fight immensely but also just being very Scary and an S Class Cape in a fashion analogous to Legend but with Bugs instead of all the Lasers
Also I imagine someone is going to figure out that nirgalie and Bumblebee are the same person or atleast related and be further tilted on the scale of keeping her friendly because A probably reducing Casualties in endbringer fight immensely but also just being very Scary and an S Class Cape in a fashion analogous to Legend but with Bugs instead of all the Lasers
- Location
- Oklahoma
Just proof that if Taylor ever says "I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy" that she super means it.
Really though, we're talking about the girl who would stab Leviathan in the ass with no durability powers at all to save a teacher she hated. There was never any chance that she'd leave Emma dying on the ground.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
By "someone", do you mean "everyone in Brockton Bay except Emma"?
globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
Well, that was a flex she will have over her head one day. Big moral victory
- Location
- Earth
When Taylor is found out it'll be
"No, you misheard his name! It's Nirgabee! He's the parabee I took with me to the rally point!"
"No, you misheard his name! It's Nirgabee! He's the parabee I took with me to the rally point!"
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Armsmaster: I've mentioned before that humor villains often hold back a lot. (Shows Behemoth footage.) This is what Bumblebee is capable of. We still do not know if that's all she's capable of. If you need me to explain to you in small words why we are not going in hard after Bumblebee, raise your hand.
- Location
- Louisville KY
- Pronouns
- He/Him
For arguments sake, I want to point out that Gladly wasn't the only civilian in the shelter at that point. If it was him and nobody else there, we really don't know if she would have ran back into the shelter. Also, thanks for reminding me of one of the saddest parts of early Worm. That's where Judas and Brutus went down while Rachel was trying to save Taylor.
GG, Scion. You couldn't have gotten there like 15 seconds sooner?
I think the Brute wasn't sure, he just was going with the name of the known Bug cape that he knew was there since he saw the bugs carrying the people from the shelter. Taylor was just trying to tell them that she's a completely DIFFERENT bug cape. Now, it's questionable if she was believed but the attempt was made.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Whatever you need to tell yourself, Emma
That tooootally wasn't Taylor going "I could... but I shouldn't. But, hear me out: I could though.... God damnit, why do I have to be like this. *saves her*"
His end goal is the total destruction of a large number of alternate earths, you've got to expect a certain amount of malarkey out of the lad.