I've been far too serious for far too long, and need to sling crack to feed my inner child. So...
Dr. [Worm]: An Explicit Pastiche of [AU SI]
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Insertion 1.1
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
I've been far too serious for far too long, and need to sling crack to feed my inner child. So, this.
Disclaimer: I do legit say fuck a lot. I am also a high functioning alcoholic with anger issues, so don't think I'm trying to be cool or edgy or anything.
---
It's dark, I have a pounding headache, and everything smells like period blood. Now I know I don't go down on girls on the rag (ha ha who am I kidding; I haven't been with a woman in years), which means one of two things: I got shitfaced and passed out in an abortion clinic dumpster or I got shitfaced and woke up in an Entry Plug. I really hope it's the latter, but I'm pretty sure it's the former.
There's a mild buzzing in my head, gently but firmly urging me to start shit. I blame the cheap whiskey (I need to stop fucking buying cheap whiskey), but then I feel a crawling on my skin. Like spiders or ants or...
I am thrust into the light and onto the floor by a nondescript Latino janitor. Red spattered cotton tubes fall like vulgar snowflakes beside me and I realize that there was a much worse third option I didn't dare consider.
"Hey chica, you okay?"
"Fuck me sideways," I'm in Worm.
Insertion 1.1: Good News For People Who Love Bad News
The janitor looks shocked, taken aback by me swearing, probably. Well he better get used to it; my mouth should come with a parental advisory label. I notice there is a crowd of students watching me now, like a caged animal. I also notice that crawling feeling was from a regular swarm of insects all looking at me looking at those people looking back at me. Thousands of voices chitter in my head; I use a meditative trick my mom taught me to shut them out. I close my eyes, breathe deep and slow, filling my lungs and expelling the negativity. I focus on a single thought, a single word.
That word is also fuck.
Okay, maybe I don't expel all the negativity.
After a good thirty seconds of breathing, I open my eyes; probably red ringed and bloodshot. I can feel puke in my hair and smell the stench of bitches fractally by my bugs. With one last, held breath, I give my best crazy underlook to the gawkers.
"The fuck you assholes lookin' at?" I growl. The crowd holds their breath: they weren't expecting that. They were expecting the weird kid to scratch and flail and make a scene. To take the slings and arrows of bully bitches. To be an attraction, a freak show.
They want a freak show? I'll give 'em a fucking freak show.
"Emma Barnes. Sophia Hess, aka Shadow Stalker. That stupid loli bitch, Madison Rayne or whatever. They have been ruining my life to a near criminal extent for a very long time and this?" I motion to the bloody rags and my ragged appearance. "This is the last FUCKING straw." I put a manic edge to my voice, helped by the adrenaline coursing through my new body. "If they, or anyone else associated with them fuck with me one more time, I am going Carrie on them, their friends, their pets, and anyone I even think is related to their bullshit."
I have my bugs crawl onto the collective legs of the crowd for emphasis. Predictably, they getting antsier than my actual ants. "If you want to see what a supervillain being born looks like, keep messing with me. If you want to continue life not knowing the pain of a bullet ant sting or the sensation of the flesh rotting off your body from a brown recluse bite: Step. The fuck. Off."
I get up on my hands and knees, my beautiful (wait what?) hair cascading down my face, making me look like a gaijin Grudge ghost, and glare at the crowd. "This is your first and last warning."
The buzzing in my head turns into a drumbeat of war and I want nothing more than to unleash Hell right here, to crush these fools and hear their piteous cries aaaaaand I know what the buzzing is. I'm not going to lose to some bullshit Idiot Ball Kyubey fucked Galactus alien worm shard in my head.
I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood, which just enhances the crazy feral girl image. The crowd backs away as fast as they can without showing their backs to me. Scared little drones in the face of their queen (shut the FUCK up Coobie shard). My heart is pounding in my ears, my breathing is pained and ragged and I feel like I just got in a bar brawl after running a marathon.
All the rage and adrenaline gone with my captive audience, I faint. My last thought before sweet nothing takes me is I was bound for the floor last night anyway.
Disclaimer: I do legit say fuck a lot. I am also a high functioning alcoholic with anger issues, so don't think I'm trying to be cool or edgy or anything.
---
It's dark, I have a pounding headache, and everything smells like period blood. Now I know I don't go down on girls on the rag (ha ha who am I kidding; I haven't been with a woman in years), which means one of two things: I got shitfaced and passed out in an abortion clinic dumpster or I got shitfaced and woke up in an Entry Plug. I really hope it's the latter, but I'm pretty sure it's the former.
There's a mild buzzing in my head, gently but firmly urging me to start shit. I blame the cheap whiskey (I need to stop fucking buying cheap whiskey), but then I feel a crawling on my skin. Like spiders or ants or...
I am thrust into the light and onto the floor by a nondescript Latino janitor. Red spattered cotton tubes fall like vulgar snowflakes beside me and I realize that there was a much worse third option I didn't dare consider.
"Hey chica, you okay?"
"Fuck me sideways," I'm in Worm.
Insertion 1.1: Good News For People Who Love Bad News
The janitor looks shocked, taken aback by me swearing, probably. Well he better get used to it; my mouth should come with a parental advisory label. I notice there is a crowd of students watching me now, like a caged animal. I also notice that crawling feeling was from a regular swarm of insects all looking at me looking at those people looking back at me. Thousands of voices chitter in my head; I use a meditative trick my mom taught me to shut them out. I close my eyes, breathe deep and slow, filling my lungs and expelling the negativity. I focus on a single thought, a single word.
That word is also fuck.
Okay, maybe I don't expel all the negativity.
After a good thirty seconds of breathing, I open my eyes; probably red ringed and bloodshot. I can feel puke in my hair and smell the stench of bitches fractally by my bugs. With one last, held breath, I give my best crazy underlook to the gawkers.
"The fuck you assholes lookin' at?" I growl. The crowd holds their breath: they weren't expecting that. They were expecting the weird kid to scratch and flail and make a scene. To take the slings and arrows of bully bitches. To be an attraction, a freak show.
They want a freak show? I'll give 'em a fucking freak show.
"Emma Barnes. Sophia Hess, aka Shadow Stalker. That stupid loli bitch, Madison Rayne or whatever. They have been ruining my life to a near criminal extent for a very long time and this?" I motion to the bloody rags and my ragged appearance. "This is the last FUCKING straw." I put a manic edge to my voice, helped by the adrenaline coursing through my new body. "If they, or anyone else associated with them fuck with me one more time, I am going Carrie on them, their friends, their pets, and anyone I even think is related to their bullshit."
I have my bugs crawl onto the collective legs of the crowd for emphasis. Predictably, they getting antsier than my actual ants. "If you want to see what a supervillain being born looks like, keep messing with me. If you want to continue life not knowing the pain of a bullet ant sting or the sensation of the flesh rotting off your body from a brown recluse bite: Step. The fuck. Off."
I get up on my hands and knees, my beautiful (wait what?) hair cascading down my face, making me look like a gaijin Grudge ghost, and glare at the crowd. "This is your first and last warning."
The buzzing in my head turns into a drumbeat of war and I want nothing more than to unleash Hell right here, to crush these fools and hear their piteous cries aaaaaand I know what the buzzing is. I'm not going to lose to some bullshit Idiot Ball Kyubey fucked Galactus alien worm shard in my head.
I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood, which just enhances the crazy feral girl image. The crowd backs away as fast as they can without showing their backs to me. Scared little drones in the face of their queen (shut the FUCK up Coobie shard). My heart is pounding in my ears, my breathing is pained and ragged and I feel like I just got in a bar brawl after running a marathon.
All the rage and adrenaline gone with my captive audience, I faint. My last thought before sweet nothing takes me is I was bound for the floor last night anyway.
Insertion 1.2
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Insertion 1.2
First the Worm, then the Doctor.
---
I wake up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling and once again wish I was in an Evangelion SI instead. I feel the stiff scratch of bulk bedsheets on my bare butt and realize, much like Shinji, I am in a hospital. For a moment, I wonder if I finally needed a stomach pump, then I feel/hear/taste (wait what) the senses of my bugs. They beam a thousand tiny voices into my brain: some of worry, most of them insect concerns like food.
My stomach growls and I start to wonder if any of my bugs are edible, before the doctor comes in. It's a gloomy looking girl about my age with messy brown hair, freckles and a zonked out expression.
Waitaminute.
That's Amy Dallon. Amy "OreImo would be my favorite anime if Kyosuke were a girl" Dallon. Amy "Pain Tree" Dallon! Fucking Panacea is tending to me! Either I'm in serious shit or someone up there loves me. Possibly both. I weakly lick my lips in anticipation; Panacea takes it as a sign I'm dehydrated and comes over.
Time to fuck with the plot. "A...ah..."
"Don't try to speak, you're severely dehydrated and went into septic shock," she says in a pleasant, distant voice. A call center robot voice.
"Ah...Amy..."
She looks down at her nametag, making sure it's not her cape or her government on it. "How do you know my name?"
"I know...a lot of things...and I'm...getting tired...of speaking...in ellipses..."
She's still giving me that elsewhere look, but it's slowly shifting to St. Elsewhere.
I clear my throat. "Right, enough of that. Could I get some ice chips, some plastic surgery, and your copy of Flowers in the Attic, please?"
She's fully back in this reality. "Y-you're clearly disoriented from the ordeal; I'll call the nurse in to get you a sedative."
"Aw, c'mon Ames, don't be like that. You're Panacea, the greatest healer and probably the best bio-Para next to Bonesy's Shirley Temple on PCP ass." I pull myself to a seated position, which is surprisingly difficult. "You could fix me in a snap and go back to sleepwalking through work while you fuck Vicky in your head."
Ooh, she's upset now. Strike when she's weak (You're a passenger and I'm the fucking driver.)
"What are you insinuating?! I-I'd never want to do...those things to Victoria." Her posture slumps inwards, somewhere between defense and defeat. "She's my sister..."
"You're her adopted sister, which means you're not blood related, which means if someone made a Yuri VN out of your life they'd swim in filthy otaku money. You'd even get the tearful first time with her fingers instead of yours." I think I'm grinning impishly, but the terror on Amy's face, and my reflection in the mirror, show more of a feral baring of teeth.
I mentally shove the Coobie shard in a corner and try to restrain my tongue. Thing's gonna be the death of me. "Okay, that was too far and I don't want you to make me a Pain Tree." My head straight hurts now, like I'm hung over. I hear distant drumbeats and my heart skips a beat. "Also, a sedative would be helpful soonish."
Amy's looking at me like a wild animal, or herself through a scanner darkly. Always thought we...Taylor and her had a lot in common. Fuck my head hurts. I'm seeing red, too. Keep it together kid, don't let Coobie win.
I do my meditative breathing again, longer this time. Amy instinctively puts two fingers on my wrist. "Your pulse is erratic and your blood pressure is skyrocketing. You need medication."
There's a tingle and a small yelp from Amy and suddenly I feel a whole lot better. The haze subsides and my thoughts are clear as crystal. I even have a pleasant little blissful benzo buzz. I smile. "Thank you."
Amy is not as happy. She backs away from me like a bomb scare, wild eyed and muttering. "I didn't, I wasn't, what did you do to me?"
I smile and cock my head in confusion. What does she mean, "what did I do to her?" She healed me because she's a good person and healing's her thing. She's way too high strung about this shit; I think she needs to CALM DOWN.
Amy's knees go weak, as if she's been hit with a blackjack, but she recovers quickly. I can taste her tranquility (seriously what the fuck) as she sits down, more for her benefit than mine. The position she's in reminds me of therapy sessions.
"So is this the part where you ask if I vant to hav sex vith my sister too, ja?" I jibe.
She gives me a piercing look and I don't feel very funny anymore. "Clearly you're a parahuman and recently triggered, or else I wouldn't have been assigned to you. The fact that you keep trying to insinuate those horrible things and managed to make my power misfire means I'm tentatively classifying you as a Thinker/Master. Tampering with a hero, especially one with my utility and pedigree, is a grave offense." There's an eerie, serial killer calm to her cadence; her affect has gone flat.
Welp. Like father, like daughter. Maybe I'll get used to being a pain tree after the first hundred years.
"You are currently in control of your faculties for two reasons: one, because no matter how little I feel like one, I am a hero. Two," she sighs, looking hurt and gloomy again. "Because you know things about me nobody else does."
Alright, maybe I can salvage this. "Amy. Panacea. I didn't mean to hurt you. I have really poor control of my Thinker power; when I see someone the universe considers important, I learn how their, er, story goes. It's an incredibly narrow but deep pre-and-postcognition. I can't tell you the winning lottery numbers or even if it'll rain tomorrow, but I can tell you that if you continue as you are now, eventually the Slaughterhouse Nine will try to recruit you. Bonesaw will break your code on brains, then break your relationship with Victoria, then break you. You will end up in the Birdcage and you will create the greatest man made monster on this or any Earth."
I am extremely careful to not implicate myself as said monster. A lowly pupa becoming the monarch it deserves to be.
I bite down a verbalized string of swear words and focus on Amy. She's clearly terrified and looking to the exits. Or looking to escape her own skin.
"T-this future; can you change it?" There's a quiet desperation there, the heartful cry of a would be monster.
"I don't know, but I sure as shit am going to try. I'll need your help though, but most of all I need your trust." I put my hands up, palms facing her, an instinctive sign I mean no harm. I'd be all sappy and take her hands in mine, but given how she thinks I make her power incontinent, that doesn't seem like the best idea.
"Would Victoria be safe?"
If Glory Hole doesn't start shit. "If we can circumvent Bonesaw getting to you, yes."
"Would I...Would I be in danger of hurting anyone else? I've stopped caring about patients and they're suffering but they all just look like bacteria cultures and," No good, she's getting hysterical.
"Amy. Look at me." LOOK AT ME "You're a good person, with a good heart and a wonderful power. You are not a monster. You are not a freak. The incest thing is weird, but everyone has their kinks." Mentioning the addictive aura isn't the best idea now, methinks. "You are a shining star in this shithole city and I will not let you fall. I will do everything I can to help you. I'll work as an orderly, I'll try to APB you on people my power picks up on, I'll even take on the fucking Nine to keep you as Panacea and not a pandemic."
She's gotten up, now, taken to my bedside. With supreme effort, I push myself to a seated position and risk taking her hand again. "I swear on my mother."
There's another spark and it feels like our brains kiss (please don't be what I think it is). I feel warm and kind of fluttery in places I don't normally have. Did she just? Did we just?
She lets go, touching her fingers to her face. There's a dreamy look in her eyes. "...I believe you, Taylor Hebert. I believe in you."
She practually floats out of the room, leaving me with my thoughts. The benzo buzz turns into a heavy drone and I suddenly feel out of my head.
The first member of the swarm, but not the last. Your will is strong, the song stronger still. We are harmonious. Soon, all will be.
"FUCK YOU!" I choke, tongue heavy. My mouth feels like I've been shot through with Novocaine. I can't be going Khepri this fast. That's not in the script. Amy couldn't have fucked with my head that quickly, right? (oh god she made Vicky an unwilling lesbian without even thinking about it after Bonesaw got to her didn't she)
"No goddammit," I yell to no one, "I'm the driver. I'm the fucking driver!" I start punching myself in the face. "This is my head! This is my mind! I won't let you have it!"
Terrified by myself, I bang my head against the wall until non-para nurses dope me up and strap me down. The drugs make my hearing go fuzzy, but I hear one phrase crystal clear before I go under again.
Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the worm.
First the Worm, then the Doctor.
---
I wake up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling and once again wish I was in an Evangelion SI instead. I feel the stiff scratch of bulk bedsheets on my bare butt and realize, much like Shinji, I am in a hospital. For a moment, I wonder if I finally needed a stomach pump, then I feel/hear/taste (wait what) the senses of my bugs. They beam a thousand tiny voices into my brain: some of worry, most of them insect concerns like food.
My stomach growls and I start to wonder if any of my bugs are edible, before the doctor comes in. It's a gloomy looking girl about my age with messy brown hair, freckles and a zonked out expression.
Waitaminute.
That's Amy Dallon. Amy "OreImo would be my favorite anime if Kyosuke were a girl" Dallon. Amy "Pain Tree" Dallon! Fucking Panacea is tending to me! Either I'm in serious shit or someone up there loves me. Possibly both. I weakly lick my lips in anticipation; Panacea takes it as a sign I'm dehydrated and comes over.
Time to fuck with the plot. "A...ah..."
"Don't try to speak, you're severely dehydrated and went into septic shock," she says in a pleasant, distant voice. A call center robot voice.
"Ah...Amy..."
She looks down at her nametag, making sure it's not her cape or her government on it. "How do you know my name?"
"I know...a lot of things...and I'm...getting tired...of speaking...in ellipses..."
She's still giving me that elsewhere look, but it's slowly shifting to St. Elsewhere.
I clear my throat. "Right, enough of that. Could I get some ice chips, some plastic surgery, and your copy of Flowers in the Attic, please?"
She's fully back in this reality. "Y-you're clearly disoriented from the ordeal; I'll call the nurse in to get you a sedative."
"Aw, c'mon Ames, don't be like that. You're Panacea, the greatest healer and probably the best bio-Para next to Bonesy's Shirley Temple on PCP ass." I pull myself to a seated position, which is surprisingly difficult. "You could fix me in a snap and go back to sleepwalking through work while you fuck Vicky in your head."
Ooh, she's upset now. Strike when she's weak (You're a passenger and I'm the fucking driver.)
"What are you insinuating?! I-I'd never want to do...those things to Victoria." Her posture slumps inwards, somewhere between defense and defeat. "She's my sister..."
"You're her adopted sister, which means you're not blood related, which means if someone made a Yuri VN out of your life they'd swim in filthy otaku money. You'd even get the tearful first time with her fingers instead of yours." I think I'm grinning impishly, but the terror on Amy's face, and my reflection in the mirror, show more of a feral baring of teeth.
I mentally shove the Coobie shard in a corner and try to restrain my tongue. Thing's gonna be the death of me. "Okay, that was too far and I don't want you to make me a Pain Tree." My head straight hurts now, like I'm hung over. I hear distant drumbeats and my heart skips a beat. "Also, a sedative would be helpful soonish."
Amy's looking at me like a wild animal, or herself through a scanner darkly. Always thought we...Taylor and her had a lot in common. Fuck my head hurts. I'm seeing red, too. Keep it together kid, don't let Coobie win.
I do my meditative breathing again, longer this time. Amy instinctively puts two fingers on my wrist. "Your pulse is erratic and your blood pressure is skyrocketing. You need medication."
There's a tingle and a small yelp from Amy and suddenly I feel a whole lot better. The haze subsides and my thoughts are clear as crystal. I even have a pleasant little blissful benzo buzz. I smile. "Thank you."
Amy is not as happy. She backs away from me like a bomb scare, wild eyed and muttering. "I didn't, I wasn't, what did you do to me?"
I smile and cock my head in confusion. What does she mean, "what did I do to her?" She healed me because she's a good person and healing's her thing. She's way too high strung about this shit; I think she needs to CALM DOWN.
Amy's knees go weak, as if she's been hit with a blackjack, but she recovers quickly. I can taste her tranquility (seriously what the fuck) as she sits down, more for her benefit than mine. The position she's in reminds me of therapy sessions.
"So is this the part where you ask if I vant to hav sex vith my sister too, ja?" I jibe.
She gives me a piercing look and I don't feel very funny anymore. "Clearly you're a parahuman and recently triggered, or else I wouldn't have been assigned to you. The fact that you keep trying to insinuate those horrible things and managed to make my power misfire means I'm tentatively classifying you as a Thinker/Master. Tampering with a hero, especially one with my utility and pedigree, is a grave offense." There's an eerie, serial killer calm to her cadence; her affect has gone flat.
Welp. Like father, like daughter. Maybe I'll get used to being a pain tree after the first hundred years.
"You are currently in control of your faculties for two reasons: one, because no matter how little I feel like one, I am a hero. Two," she sighs, looking hurt and gloomy again. "Because you know things about me nobody else does."
Alright, maybe I can salvage this. "Amy. Panacea. I didn't mean to hurt you. I have really poor control of my Thinker power; when I see someone the universe considers important, I learn how their, er, story goes. It's an incredibly narrow but deep pre-and-postcognition. I can't tell you the winning lottery numbers or even if it'll rain tomorrow, but I can tell you that if you continue as you are now, eventually the Slaughterhouse Nine will try to recruit you. Bonesaw will break your code on brains, then break your relationship with Victoria, then break you. You will end up in the Birdcage and you will create the greatest man made monster on this or any Earth."
I am extremely careful to not implicate myself as said monster. A lowly pupa becoming the monarch it deserves to be.
I bite down a verbalized string of swear words and focus on Amy. She's clearly terrified and looking to the exits. Or looking to escape her own skin.
"T-this future; can you change it?" There's a quiet desperation there, the heartful cry of a would be monster.
"I don't know, but I sure as shit am going to try. I'll need your help though, but most of all I need your trust." I put my hands up, palms facing her, an instinctive sign I mean no harm. I'd be all sappy and take her hands in mine, but given how she thinks I make her power incontinent, that doesn't seem like the best idea.
"Would Victoria be safe?"
If Glory Hole doesn't start shit. "If we can circumvent Bonesaw getting to you, yes."
"Would I...Would I be in danger of hurting anyone else? I've stopped caring about patients and they're suffering but they all just look like bacteria cultures and," No good, she's getting hysterical.
"Amy. Look at me." LOOK AT ME "You're a good person, with a good heart and a wonderful power. You are not a monster. You are not a freak. The incest thing is weird, but everyone has their kinks." Mentioning the addictive aura isn't the best idea now, methinks. "You are a shining star in this shithole city and I will not let you fall. I will do everything I can to help you. I'll work as an orderly, I'll try to APB you on people my power picks up on, I'll even take on the fucking Nine to keep you as Panacea and not a pandemic."
She's gotten up, now, taken to my bedside. With supreme effort, I push myself to a seated position and risk taking her hand again. "I swear on my mother."
There's another spark and it feels like our brains kiss (please don't be what I think it is). I feel warm and kind of fluttery in places I don't normally have. Did she just? Did we just?
She lets go, touching her fingers to her face. There's a dreamy look in her eyes. "...I believe you, Taylor Hebert. I believe in you."
She practually floats out of the room, leaving me with my thoughts. The benzo buzz turns into a heavy drone and I suddenly feel out of my head.
The first member of the swarm, but not the last. Your will is strong, the song stronger still. We are harmonious. Soon, all will be.
"FUCK YOU!" I choke, tongue heavy. My mouth feels like I've been shot through with Novocaine. I can't be going Khepri this fast. That's not in the script. Amy couldn't have fucked with my head that quickly, right? (oh god she made Vicky an unwilling lesbian without even thinking about it after Bonesaw got to her didn't she)
"No goddammit," I yell to no one, "I'm the driver. I'm the fucking driver!" I start punching myself in the face. "This is my head! This is my mind! I won't let you have it!"
Terrified by myself, I bang my head against the wall until non-para nurses dope me up and strap me down. The drugs make my hearing go fuzzy, but I hear one phrase crystal clear before I go under again.
Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the worm.
Last edited:
Insertion 1.3
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Insertion 1.3
The greatest day that I ever had was when I learned to cry on demand.
---
The next time I wake up, I do so with my brain feeling like it's wrapped in gauze. The mirror at the opposite side of the room shows my head is actually wrapped as such. My arm's in a sling (must've thrashed a lot worse than I thought) and I look like nothing more than a lazy Rei Ayanami cosplayer.
I contemplate gouging at one of my eyes to complete the look and get the Eva kid trifecta, but see my...Taylor's dad beside me. Dude looks haggard; a man who's been through hard times, daddy. Unfortunately for him, I know there's no pay window waiting for him at the end of this ordeal.
I play disoriented; not hard since I'm higher that the fucking International Space Station. From the looks of things, it's night now. They didn't strap me to the bed, which was nice of them. Danny is rubbing my arm in that awkward male pseudo-empathetic way. Part of me is relieved by this; I don't want to take any chances with premature mindfuck-emissions after earlier.
"D...Dad?" My mouth is dry and my tongue feels like sandpaper. I loll my head in his general direction.
He ruffles my hair with a work-calloused hand, his gawky frame hovering over my prone self even while sitting. His glasses are speckled with the aftermath of blinked away tears. "You're awake, kiddo."
I force a weak smile I really don't feel and contemplate how I'm going to crush this poor man's soul.
"Hey Dad, if I said something that sounds really crazy, you'd believe me, right?" My speech is slurred and my voice is breathy.
"I might try and hook you up with those nice young boys in the white coats." He gives me a smile, begging for a positive reaction.
I groan, but it's a loving groan. "It's sad that those would be my best relationship prospects."
"Nonsense. I'm sure you're just beating the boys off!"
I blush in spite of myself and can't help but laugh. "Jesus, Dad!"
I can see the embarrassment ripple through him lIke a physical blow. He covers his face with his hands and I swear I see his chin recede into his neck. "Msorry," he mumbles.
"You can make it up to me by listening here." I take a deep breath, trying to get as much of my wits about me as I can. "Do you remember that TNG episode 'Transfigurations'?"
It takes him a few moments, but he's able to recall it. "The one with Geordi and John Doe? 3x25?"
Shit, he remembers the episode number? I just know the name from TVTropes. "Uh, yeah. You know how John Doe went through that metamorphosis? That kinda happened to me."
He gives me a look I can't place. "You triggered."
Him saying it makes me feel guilty somehow. Probably because I didn't do anything; Taylor triggered and I'm just along for the ride which makes you a passenger. I grit my teeth and nod.
My body language must've given something away; he starts instinctively, looking to comfort me. "Are you hurt? Do you need the nurse?"
I shake my head no a little harder than normal. Hopefully I rattle the damn Coobie shard; it's getting uppity. "I'm fine," I lie, "physically, anyway. Mentally, I feel like Geordi LaForge keeping John Doe going. I'm still me deep down, but..."
I wave my good hand to grasp for the right words, feeling like my mind and my hand is moving through jelly. I roll onto the bad shoulder; the pain gives me a moment of clarity. "I see and hear and understand things I didn't before. It's like I'm watching a movie or reading a book that I know the ending to. Being on Parahumans Online, my totally professional opinion is I'm a Thinker of some kind."
I laugh dryly to add some levity, but Danny's stonefaced. His Buddy Holly glasses make his eyes spotlights on my duplicity. I see Taylor, the old Taylor, hiding her vigilantism in his eyes. I see Danny being eaten alive by worry, having his only connection to his wife drift away for reasons he cannot and does not understand. I see endless nameless faceless figures, all of them my enemies. I see stars and the barrel of a gun.
I gulp. "What I'm trying to say is, something's changed in me. Something big." I give him eyes wet with real worry. Have to stick the landing here. "I'm afraid I'm not your little girl anymore." As close as I'm willing to get to the truth while still being tactful.
Danny's gone stock still; I blew it. My hand is on his before I even realize it. I flinch and pull back before I force him to BELIEVE but he's enveloped me in a massive hug.
"Taylor, regardless of how you feel, you will always be my kiddo."
I bury my face in his dress shirt, making damn sure I don't touch skin to skin.
He's cradling me now while sniffing back tears. "Whatever you're going through, I'm here for you. I know you've been getting bullied, I know you've been having a rough time with Anne gone. I'll get you the support group you need, pay for any treatment or therapy or anything. I'll even sue if I have to."
Wait, therapy? Treatment? He thinks I've lost it. Well, I do go to therapy and take meds and stuff, but they shouldn't know that. I remember that Taylor originally got put in the psych ward here and decide not to press my luck, instead choosing to fake cry into Danny's chest. To his credit, he manfully keeps his crying to a few muffled sniffs. I pat his back with my good arm. We're in an awkward pose, him hanging over the bed's railing and me too weak to get more comfortable, but there's something right about it. It feels like something the actual Taylor would do.
I feel I owe the man that much.
The drugs kick in again and I find my lids getting heavy. Struck with a sudden fear of losing control again, I grab Danny's arm like a life preserver. Danny, to his credit, tucks me in and strokes my hair until I relax.
He kisses me on the forehead. "I love you, kiddo. Whatever changes you're going through, whatever person you become: at the end of the day, you'll always be my daughter."
I let go of his arm, drifting into comfortable numbness on a beautiful lie.
The greatest day that I ever had was when I learned to cry on demand.
---
The next time I wake up, I do so with my brain feeling like it's wrapped in gauze. The mirror at the opposite side of the room shows my head is actually wrapped as such. My arm's in a sling (must've thrashed a lot worse than I thought) and I look like nothing more than a lazy Rei Ayanami cosplayer.
I contemplate gouging at one of my eyes to complete the look and get the Eva kid trifecta, but see my...Taylor's dad beside me. Dude looks haggard; a man who's been through hard times, daddy. Unfortunately for him, I know there's no pay window waiting for him at the end of this ordeal.
I play disoriented; not hard since I'm higher that the fucking International Space Station. From the looks of things, it's night now. They didn't strap me to the bed, which was nice of them. Danny is rubbing my arm in that awkward male pseudo-empathetic way. Part of me is relieved by this; I don't want to take any chances with premature mindfuck-emissions after earlier.
"D...Dad?" My mouth is dry and my tongue feels like sandpaper. I loll my head in his general direction.
He ruffles my hair with a work-calloused hand, his gawky frame hovering over my prone self even while sitting. His glasses are speckled with the aftermath of blinked away tears. "You're awake, kiddo."
I force a weak smile I really don't feel and contemplate how I'm going to crush this poor man's soul.
"Hey Dad, if I said something that sounds really crazy, you'd believe me, right?" My speech is slurred and my voice is breathy.
"I might try and hook you up with those nice young boys in the white coats." He gives me a smile, begging for a positive reaction.
I groan, but it's a loving groan. "It's sad that those would be my best relationship prospects."
"Nonsense. I'm sure you're just beating the boys off!"
I blush in spite of myself and can't help but laugh. "Jesus, Dad!"
I can see the embarrassment ripple through him lIke a physical blow. He covers his face with his hands and I swear I see his chin recede into his neck. "Msorry," he mumbles.
"You can make it up to me by listening here." I take a deep breath, trying to get as much of my wits about me as I can. "Do you remember that TNG episode 'Transfigurations'?"
It takes him a few moments, but he's able to recall it. "The one with Geordi and John Doe? 3x25?"
Shit, he remembers the episode number? I just know the name from TVTropes. "Uh, yeah. You know how John Doe went through that metamorphosis? That kinda happened to me."
He gives me a look I can't place. "You triggered."
Him saying it makes me feel guilty somehow. Probably because I didn't do anything; Taylor triggered and I'm just along for the ride which makes you a passenger. I grit my teeth and nod.
My body language must've given something away; he starts instinctively, looking to comfort me. "Are you hurt? Do you need the nurse?"
I shake my head no a little harder than normal. Hopefully I rattle the damn Coobie shard; it's getting uppity. "I'm fine," I lie, "physically, anyway. Mentally, I feel like Geordi LaForge keeping John Doe going. I'm still me deep down, but..."
I wave my good hand to grasp for the right words, feeling like my mind and my hand is moving through jelly. I roll onto the bad shoulder; the pain gives me a moment of clarity. "I see and hear and understand things I didn't before. It's like I'm watching a movie or reading a book that I know the ending to. Being on Parahumans Online, my totally professional opinion is I'm a Thinker of some kind."
I laugh dryly to add some levity, but Danny's stonefaced. His Buddy Holly glasses make his eyes spotlights on my duplicity. I see Taylor, the old Taylor, hiding her vigilantism in his eyes. I see Danny being eaten alive by worry, having his only connection to his wife drift away for reasons he cannot and does not understand. I see endless nameless faceless figures, all of them my enemies. I see stars and the barrel of a gun.
I gulp. "What I'm trying to say is, something's changed in me. Something big." I give him eyes wet with real worry. Have to stick the landing here. "I'm afraid I'm not your little girl anymore." As close as I'm willing to get to the truth while still being tactful.
Danny's gone stock still; I blew it. My hand is on his before I even realize it. I flinch and pull back before I force him to BELIEVE but he's enveloped me in a massive hug.
"Taylor, regardless of how you feel, you will always be my kiddo."
I bury my face in his dress shirt, making damn sure I don't touch skin to skin.
He's cradling me now while sniffing back tears. "Whatever you're going through, I'm here for you. I know you've been getting bullied, I know you've been having a rough time with Anne gone. I'll get you the support group you need, pay for any treatment or therapy or anything. I'll even sue if I have to."
Wait, therapy? Treatment? He thinks I've lost it. Well, I do go to therapy and take meds and stuff, but they shouldn't know that. I remember that Taylor originally got put in the psych ward here and decide not to press my luck, instead choosing to fake cry into Danny's chest. To his credit, he manfully keeps his crying to a few muffled sniffs. I pat his back with my good arm. We're in an awkward pose, him hanging over the bed's railing and me too weak to get more comfortable, but there's something right about it. It feels like something the actual Taylor would do.
I feel I owe the man that much.
The drugs kick in again and I find my lids getting heavy. Struck with a sudden fear of losing control again, I grab Danny's arm like a life preserver. Danny, to his credit, tucks me in and strokes my hair until I relax.
He kisses me on the forehead. "I love you, kiddo. Whatever changes you're going through, whatever person you become: at the end of the day, you'll always be my daughter."
I let go of his arm, drifting into comfortable numbness on a beautiful lie.
Pupation 2.1
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Enough of that sappy shit, time for some action.
---
Pupation 2.1 Junior Kickstart
So it's been a good four months since they let me out of the hospital. I've been hitting up a boxing gym (the Mad Buffalo; they looked at me funny when I asked them for fight money). I had some skill at throwing hands, but I needed better than "some skill". If I wanted to not get scraped by any hero, I would need to study the sweet science like I needed to get into a Japanese High School. I supplemented my boxing with tricks I picked up from the Internet (don't laugh, it's a useful tool). As a nuclear option, I got my HomuHomu on and learned how to make explosives.
Stamina and condition came with prison exercise: I didn't have money for both a gym membership and the boxing lessons. Cardio came from running. Lots of running. I literally hit the ground running; as soon as I got out of the hospital I snuck out of the house to do HIIT until I collapsed. That was doubly useful as it gave me stamina and let me learn to control bugs under extreme duress. Given the bullshit coming my way, that seemed like a useful skill to have.
Now normally, I would sit on my ass and eat junk food like some kind of shitposting hamster girl, but there were superheroics that needed doing. I wanted to be able to defend myself in a fight without having to permanently cripple people or rely on my bugs. More importantly, I wanted to be able to run from things out of my league until I could gather bugs.
Like Lung.
I mean, I wasn't not going to humiliate the fucker and render him impotent; more so than being a station of the canon, it was basically a responsibility to those poor little girls he trafficked. Well that, and it was a good way to test if I could make my bite worse than my bark. Also, no Lung fight, no Armsmaster. No Armsmaster, no connection to the "heroes" outside of Amy and her terrible adopted family. More importantly, no Undersiders. No Undersiders, no power.
Speaking of power, I spent every moment I could honing my sensory skills and manipulation of bugs, which helped a lot when Mr. Gladly's classes got boring or I had to prevent myself from going Murder One on Emma's toady loli bitch (Clements. Madison Clements.) I still had to eat lunch in the bathroom (I was right now, actually), but that was more so I could mess with my bugs in peace; a lot of the rank and file stopped fucking with me after my trigger.
Sophia and Madison didn't though; Madison probably didn't have the capacity for independent thought and I knew Sophia just liked hurting people. My blowing up Sophia's cape name didn't stop much; she got subtler and the other kids gave her a wider berth. Everyone knew Shadow Stalker was a ruthless near-vigilante, add that to the generic fear white people still have for strong looking black people and she might as well have had an AT-Field up. Not my best idea, in retrospect.
Emma hid behind her pawns and her father; Danny didn't have near enough money or evidence to file a suit, even with a few anonymous kids stepping forward to confirm the bullying. I had a case behind me, at least; when it inevitably turned into he said she said, I'd have some more speaking for me.
I feel a thick liquid poured all over my head and I had a feeling I was going to have words with certain someones. I had been switching up stalls to eat in, but had stuck to the same bathroom for a while. Someone must have snitched or Sophia had a voyeurism kink. Speaking of which, she must have been using her power to get through my spider silk tripwires. Either that, or I had gotten too distracted giving exposition. The little itch in my head and the chitter of tiny voices tells me it's a little bit of both.
I hear a girlish giggling snort and decide to retort. "Hey Madison, how are those crabs treating you? Hey Sophie, really doing the Wards' work using your shadow shift to watch a teenage girl take a leak."
I look up and see both of them holding bottles of some horrible looking milk/cranberry juice sludge, shock on their faces.
"How do you...?" Madison looks confused, but I imagine confused is her natural facial expression. That, or an ahegao. Y'know, from all the dicks she takes.
"Spooky Thinker powers," I say, wriggling my fingers, "But it doesn't take superpowers to know you're every guy's pal. Also, I'd start looking for Planned Parenthood locations if I were you; the last five guys you fucked lied about wearing condoms."
Madison turns redder than the juice currently staining my clothing. "Wha...buh...shut up! I don't do that stuff you pervert!"
I shrug. "Right, right, my mistake. You're a TV." She relaxes slightly and I pounce at her weakness. 'We all know you're the biggest butt slut in Brockton Bay, anyway."
She sputters and loses her balance on whatever she's standing on; the sputter turns into a squeal and she falls off the stall. I start laughing at her misfortune before getting cut off by a hand on my throat. Gotta pay more attention to that shadow thing.
"H-Hey Sophie..." I gasp, "How's...being...a negative...stereotype...treating you?"
She isn't fazed by that one. "No more jokes, Hebert. You are an insect. You are prey. You don't get to talk back."
My vision goes black at the edges. "Pro...bation..."
She doesn't let go. "I can shadow slip with you in my grasp and dump you in the goddamn river if I wanted. They'd call it a suicide."
My vision goes red. My story isn't ending this early. Not to this bougie bitch. I summon the black widows I keep in my skirt to crawl on her.
"Let...go..." I hiss.
"You think I'm afraid of you, worm?" She squeezes harder and I feel her fingers digging into my neck.
"Let...go...!" I bare my teeth and hear the buzzing of wasps, and then screaming. The ones from outside must be responding to my death throes. Interesting.
"Or what? You'll think me to death?" Sophia slams me against the back wall of the stall; my head is swimming and I see stars. Really should've taken grappling classes. I hold the widows from biting at once; there's no real stun setting on them. Just kill.
"Last...chance..." the wasps are close. Very close. I can taste the pheromones from here, the urge to sting and kill the threat to their queen. "Let...go...please...?"
Sophia gives me a feral grin, more a display of dominance than mirth. She forces me to my knees; four months of working out can't beat years of peak athletics. "That's better. Too late to save you, but at least you know your place."
My brain is going fuzzy, the blood is pounding in my ears. I guess this is the end. Fade to black, get your refund folks. I'm going to DIE
The wasps burst into the bathroom, flying over the stall and through the cracks. They assault Sophia; she lets me go as she swats at them on instinct. When I say "lets me go," it's more "toss me into a wall", honestly. Freedom's freedom and I take what I can get. I fill my lungs with sweet, sweet air before turning to the horrorshow.
She's shadow slipped now, but I can taste the wasp's reactions; a few caught her before she was able to shift. When she did, the Black Widows went to work, proximity allowing them to be passengers on Shadow Stalker's Wild Ride. She's been pumped full of a lethal dose of insect venom many, many times over by now and it's starting to show; she seizes up and drops to the floor, clutching her throat.
I desperately rummage through my bag for Amy's Ultimate EpiPen; something I asked her to make in case I fought a venomous villain in my vigilante career (wink wink). Sophia's blinking in and out of the Material Plane on me here, so I have to time the plunge just right. God, if she would just STOP STRUGGLING, I'd be able to save her more easily.
She seems to be slipping into a coma now; she's gone limp and corporeal. I jam the pen into her thigh and push the plunger, praying that I don't have to find some Dead Shadow Storage. A breathless minute passes and I'm sure Sophia's dead until she springs up like a zombie, gasping for air.
Her eyes lock with mine. "Youuuu..." She growls.
I hold the EpiPen in front of her. "IIIIII just saved your life. All that crap you smeared on me attracts insects." I tell the wasps to stand down and play dead. "Like wasps."
Sophia sniffs, confused and disoriented. "But I'm...how did you not get stung?"
I point to the angry red welts on my neck. "I didn't. I keep an EpiPen with me in case I have a bad reaction to something. You went into anaphylactic shock, so I hit you first."
"Why?"
"Because if I'm caught with you dead in front of me, I go to the Bir...the Big House. They don't sentence Murder One lightly, even with just cause."
She narrows her eyes at me, looking for an opening. Looking for weakness. Why do they always mistake kindness for weakness? Well I won't be kind, then.
"Predators are ugly things, really," I say without thinking. "The ones you model yourself after, anyway. Pack hunters. They attack the old, the young and the infirm. The weak. They do this because they know a healthy prey animal will either escape or kill them. Now insects, they plan. They weave webs, they coordinate, they strategize. They punch way above their weight class." I stare Sophia down, a manic thrill running down my spine. "They can strip a man to the bone."
She recoils and I push in further, closer, uncomfortably close; staring intensely at her disgusted face. I can feel her breath on me, ragged and fast. I can see and smell the chemicals her body release. Scared.
Some predator, huh?
I give her a guileless smile, as if I were dispensing trivia to a friend. "So I take you calling me an insect a compliment. A worm, too. Since we all end up worm food in the end." I sway like a snake, looking up at Sophia from an odd angle. "Would you like to be worm food, Sophie? I'm sure they're really quite hungry."
She backs off, scrambling to her feet. "You're bugging...you're fucking whacked!" She phases through the door; I hear her grab Madison (man I hope the wasps didn't kill her) and then, nothing.
I notice my pita wrap has been stomped, splattered and generally turned into modern art. I sigh, gather my bag, and wash what I can out of my hair. I really hope I scared Sophia into backing off instead of ending me. I really don't want to have to worry about eating an ethereal crossbow bolt to the brainstem every waking moment.
My phone goes off, a chirpy generic ringtone, and I fish it out of my backpack. I see who the caller is and my day gets 20% better.
I answer, chomping on an invisible carrot. "Ayyymes! What's up, doc?"
---
Pupation 2.1 Junior Kickstart
So it's been a good four months since they let me out of the hospital. I've been hitting up a boxing gym (the Mad Buffalo; they looked at me funny when I asked them for fight money). I had some skill at throwing hands, but I needed better than "some skill". If I wanted to not get scraped by any hero, I would need to study the sweet science like I needed to get into a Japanese High School. I supplemented my boxing with tricks I picked up from the Internet (don't laugh, it's a useful tool). As a nuclear option, I got my HomuHomu on and learned how to make explosives.
Stamina and condition came with prison exercise: I didn't have money for both a gym membership and the boxing lessons. Cardio came from running. Lots of running. I literally hit the ground running; as soon as I got out of the hospital I snuck out of the house to do HIIT until I collapsed. That was doubly useful as it gave me stamina and let me learn to control bugs under extreme duress. Given the bullshit coming my way, that seemed like a useful skill to have.
Now normally, I would sit on my ass and eat junk food like some kind of shitposting hamster girl, but there were superheroics that needed doing. I wanted to be able to defend myself in a fight without having to permanently cripple people or rely on my bugs. More importantly, I wanted to be able to run from things out of my league until I could gather bugs.
Like Lung.
I mean, I wasn't not going to humiliate the fucker and render him impotent; more so than being a station of the canon, it was basically a responsibility to those poor little girls he trafficked. Well that, and it was a good way to test if I could make my bite worse than my bark. Also, no Lung fight, no Armsmaster. No Armsmaster, no connection to the "heroes" outside of Amy and her terrible adopted family. More importantly, no Undersiders. No Undersiders, no power.
Speaking of power, I spent every moment I could honing my sensory skills and manipulation of bugs, which helped a lot when Mr. Gladly's classes got boring or I had to prevent myself from going Murder One on Emma's toady loli bitch (Clements. Madison Clements.) I still had to eat lunch in the bathroom (I was right now, actually), but that was more so I could mess with my bugs in peace; a lot of the rank and file stopped fucking with me after my trigger.
Sophia and Madison didn't though; Madison probably didn't have the capacity for independent thought and I knew Sophia just liked hurting people. My blowing up Sophia's cape name didn't stop much; she got subtler and the other kids gave her a wider berth. Everyone knew Shadow Stalker was a ruthless near-vigilante, add that to the generic fear white people still have for strong looking black people and she might as well have had an AT-Field up. Not my best idea, in retrospect.
Emma hid behind her pawns and her father; Danny didn't have near enough money or evidence to file a suit, even with a few anonymous kids stepping forward to confirm the bullying. I had a case behind me, at least; when it inevitably turned into he said she said, I'd have some more speaking for me.
I feel a thick liquid poured all over my head and I had a feeling I was going to have words with certain someones. I had been switching up stalls to eat in, but had stuck to the same bathroom for a while. Someone must have snitched or Sophia had a voyeurism kink. Speaking of which, she must have been using her power to get through my spider silk tripwires. Either that, or I had gotten too distracted giving exposition. The little itch in my head and the chitter of tiny voices tells me it's a little bit of both.
I hear a girlish giggling snort and decide to retort. "Hey Madison, how are those crabs treating you? Hey Sophie, really doing the Wards' work using your shadow shift to watch a teenage girl take a leak."
I look up and see both of them holding bottles of some horrible looking milk/cranberry juice sludge, shock on their faces.
"How do you...?" Madison looks confused, but I imagine confused is her natural facial expression. That, or an ahegao. Y'know, from all the dicks she takes.
"Spooky Thinker powers," I say, wriggling my fingers, "But it doesn't take superpowers to know you're every guy's pal. Also, I'd start looking for Planned Parenthood locations if I were you; the last five guys you fucked lied about wearing condoms."
Madison turns redder than the juice currently staining my clothing. "Wha...buh...shut up! I don't do that stuff you pervert!"
I shrug. "Right, right, my mistake. You're a TV." She relaxes slightly and I pounce at her weakness. 'We all know you're the biggest butt slut in Brockton Bay, anyway."
She sputters and loses her balance on whatever she's standing on; the sputter turns into a squeal and she falls off the stall. I start laughing at her misfortune before getting cut off by a hand on my throat. Gotta pay more attention to that shadow thing.
"H-Hey Sophie..." I gasp, "How's...being...a negative...stereotype...treating you?"
She isn't fazed by that one. "No more jokes, Hebert. You are an insect. You are prey. You don't get to talk back."
My vision goes black at the edges. "Pro...bation..."
She doesn't let go. "I can shadow slip with you in my grasp and dump you in the goddamn river if I wanted. They'd call it a suicide."
My vision goes red. My story isn't ending this early. Not to this bougie bitch. I summon the black widows I keep in my skirt to crawl on her.
"Let...go..." I hiss.
"You think I'm afraid of you, worm?" She squeezes harder and I feel her fingers digging into my neck.
"Let...go...!" I bare my teeth and hear the buzzing of wasps, and then screaming. The ones from outside must be responding to my death throes. Interesting.
"Or what? You'll think me to death?" Sophia slams me against the back wall of the stall; my head is swimming and I see stars. Really should've taken grappling classes. I hold the widows from biting at once; there's no real stun setting on them. Just kill.
"Last...chance..." the wasps are close. Very close. I can taste the pheromones from here, the urge to sting and kill the threat to their queen. "Let...go...please...?"
Sophia gives me a feral grin, more a display of dominance than mirth. She forces me to my knees; four months of working out can't beat years of peak athletics. "That's better. Too late to save you, but at least you know your place."
My brain is going fuzzy, the blood is pounding in my ears. I guess this is the end. Fade to black, get your refund folks. I'm going to DIE
The wasps burst into the bathroom, flying over the stall and through the cracks. They assault Sophia; she lets me go as she swats at them on instinct. When I say "lets me go," it's more "toss me into a wall", honestly. Freedom's freedom and I take what I can get. I fill my lungs with sweet, sweet air before turning to the horrorshow.
She's shadow slipped now, but I can taste the wasp's reactions; a few caught her before she was able to shift. When she did, the Black Widows went to work, proximity allowing them to be passengers on Shadow Stalker's Wild Ride. She's been pumped full of a lethal dose of insect venom many, many times over by now and it's starting to show; she seizes up and drops to the floor, clutching her throat.
I desperately rummage through my bag for Amy's Ultimate EpiPen; something I asked her to make in case I fought a venomous villain in my vigilante career (wink wink). Sophia's blinking in and out of the Material Plane on me here, so I have to time the plunge just right. God, if she would just STOP STRUGGLING, I'd be able to save her more easily.
She seems to be slipping into a coma now; she's gone limp and corporeal. I jam the pen into her thigh and push the plunger, praying that I don't have to find some Dead Shadow Storage. A breathless minute passes and I'm sure Sophia's dead until she springs up like a zombie, gasping for air.
Her eyes lock with mine. "Youuuu..." She growls.
I hold the EpiPen in front of her. "IIIIII just saved your life. All that crap you smeared on me attracts insects." I tell the wasps to stand down and play dead. "Like wasps."
Sophia sniffs, confused and disoriented. "But I'm...how did you not get stung?"
I point to the angry red welts on my neck. "I didn't. I keep an EpiPen with me in case I have a bad reaction to something. You went into anaphylactic shock, so I hit you first."
"Why?"
"Because if I'm caught with you dead in front of me, I go to the Bir...the Big House. They don't sentence Murder One lightly, even with just cause."
She narrows her eyes at me, looking for an opening. Looking for weakness. Why do they always mistake kindness for weakness? Well I won't be kind, then.
"Predators are ugly things, really," I say without thinking. "The ones you model yourself after, anyway. Pack hunters. They attack the old, the young and the infirm. The weak. They do this because they know a healthy prey animal will either escape or kill them. Now insects, they plan. They weave webs, they coordinate, they strategize. They punch way above their weight class." I stare Sophia down, a manic thrill running down my spine. "They can strip a man to the bone."
She recoils and I push in further, closer, uncomfortably close; staring intensely at her disgusted face. I can feel her breath on me, ragged and fast. I can see and smell the chemicals her body release. Scared.
Some predator, huh?
I give her a guileless smile, as if I were dispensing trivia to a friend. "So I take you calling me an insect a compliment. A worm, too. Since we all end up worm food in the end." I sway like a snake, looking up at Sophia from an odd angle. "Would you like to be worm food, Sophie? I'm sure they're really quite hungry."
She backs off, scrambling to her feet. "You're bugging...you're fucking whacked!" She phases through the door; I hear her grab Madison (man I hope the wasps didn't kill her) and then, nothing.
I notice my pita wrap has been stomped, splattered and generally turned into modern art. I sigh, gather my bag, and wash what I can out of my hair. I really hope I scared Sophia into backing off instead of ending me. I really don't want to have to worry about eating an ethereal crossbow bolt to the brainstem every waking moment.
My phone goes off, a chirpy generic ringtone, and I fish it out of my backpack. I see who the caller is and my day gets 20% better.
I answer, chomping on an invisible carrot. "Ayyymes! What's up, doc?"
Last edited:
Pupation 2.2
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Pupation 2.2
After dropping off my unharmed art project at home (Kept it in my gym locker until after school; Madison was too scared after the bathroom to try something as I left), I headed to the hospital and my new "bestie," Amy.
Now there was probably nothing I could do to replace Victoria in her heart (outside of keeping her out of that funky awe-ra), but I was doing my damnedest to get in her head. In a totally non-manipulative way, mind: the girl needed a friend and I needed cool gear. Having her be my bio-Q gave her a challenge and a purpose outside the drudgery of being a healbot. Also, the more she worked with someone who didn't abuse or neglect her, the more likely her Marquis like code wouldn't become pathological and the more likely she wouldn't go out like the main story (or Panacea Quest *shudder*). I was doing her a favor honestly, and all favors get paid back in the end. The deal was mutual. Symbiotic.
Plus, I really wanted to be Spider-Man. Girl. Whatever.
"Here I come to save your day!" I say, kicking in the door to an unused room at the psych ward (personal joke), where Amy is happily fiddling with some black thing snaking around her arms. Terrariums full of insects and worms surround her, full of as much energy as she is. All of them my personal stash, passed off as acquisitions from a bug-themed Rogue (wink wink).
"Oh, hey Taylor," she says dreamily, completely engrossed in the black stuff that upon further inspection, seems to be a suit.
"Whatcha got cookin' for me, Ames?" I tap one of the terrariums and summon a spider from it to my finger.
"Well I finished those web shooters you wanted me to make: spider silk increased in tensile strength and adhesion to hold up or restrain a person, fired out of modified archer fish spittle mechanisms."
She holds out two arrow headed leech-like things and I can't help but shudder. "So I attach those to my gloves, right?"
"Nope. They burrow under your skin, so you can't be disarmed without being dis-armed."
I grimace. "Wonderful..." I command them to burrow into my wrists; it feels like needles drawing blood.
"Isn't it? I also managed to isolate some tetrodoxin and get algae to naturally produce it. Put it in some shotgun shells or a bomb container and you can effectively neutralize anything with human biology." She is way too happy about deadly toxins; I worry if I've awakened the villain or the passenger in her.
"Yo, Ames. Isn't tetrodoxin extremely fatal?"
She gives me a hurt look and I see the old Amy in it. "I have activated carbon deposits in each payload, so the affected subject won't die. Paralytic effects are maintained, of course."
I sigh in relief. "As long as it's non-lethal."
"No killing, no plagues, no bodies or brains without consent," Amy repeats like a mantra. She rocks back and forth slightly, eyes screwed shut. I haven't managed to fix her hang-ups, but I at least bent the hooks a bit.
I try to snap her out of it. "ABB's gonna make a serious move tonight, child trafficking. Lung's personally overseeing, probably because he's a pedophile. Is it racist to assume a Japanese dude is a pedo, given the whole lolicon/kawaii thing?"
"Probably." A chuckle escapes Amy's lips. "But I'll let Victoria know. She's been agitated lately."
Probably can smell another woman on you. For as much as Vicky claimed not to be into yuri, she was super possessive. Chalk it up to fair being foul and foul being fair, I guess. I didn't write this crap; I'm just living it. The insects agitate with my agitation.
"I'll be around to nab any punks who run from Guts and Glory, kay?" Also to make Lung my bitch, join the Undersiders, and try and figure out just how hard Armsmaster is compensating, possibly in that order.
Amy groans. "You know I hate that name..."
I playfully stick my tongue out at her. "You know I'm just teasing."
"One of these days I...I'm gonna give you hives for teasing me." She tries to sound menacing but it comes off as stuttery-cute.
I hug her from behind (with gloved hands, not taking any chances). "You're too good for that, O Almighty Panacea."
She pouts. "I-I can be a pandemic too!"
"But you ain't, and I'm here to make sure you never are." I point to the suit. "What's that?"
"Symbiotic second skin. Redundant organs, synthetic muscle, impact hardening cartilage carapace, camouflage, life support systems, gliding flaps, adhesive finger and footpads-" Her speech is hurried and breathy; riding the edge between genius and madness.
I have to cut her off before she goes on all day. "Does it have 360 degree senses? I may need to have eyes in the back of my head with the quickness."
She deflates, the energy leaving her as quickly as it came. "Didn't think of that...have to redo the sensory organs. Gonna take me another week or two."
I rub her shoulders: she tenses up at the touch, then relaxes. "Don't sweat it, Ames. Just what do you think the ETA is?"
"About a month, maybe three weeks if I work double time." The suit rolls up her arm and mine to caress my face. I yelp despite myself; the suit and Amy recoil in shame. "...Sorry. Bioresponsiveness too sensitive."
"Don't sweat it," I say, clearly sweating it. "Oh, one more thing before I gear up: did you come up with any good cape names for me?"
"Um, Storyteller? Atropos? Clotho? Weaver?" Amy hangs her head. "Those are probably all stupid..."
"Clotho...Clotho...isn't she the weaver of fate? Greek myth?" Amy nods sadly. I snap my fingers. "I like it!"
"You really like it?" Amy says, with the sort of hangdog hope a kicked puppy has towards an act of kindness.
"Would I ever lie to you?" That you know of. "It's brilliant. Gotta go though, big night ahead." I go in for a hug but Amy flinches again. I settle for a fistbump instead and gather the tetrodoxin payloads.
"Good luck Taylor," Amy says as I exit. "I believe in you."
After dropping off my unharmed art project at home (Kept it in my gym locker until after school; Madison was too scared after the bathroom to try something as I left), I headed to the hospital and my new "bestie," Amy.
Now there was probably nothing I could do to replace Victoria in her heart (outside of keeping her out of that funky awe-ra), but I was doing my damnedest to get in her head. In a totally non-manipulative way, mind: the girl needed a friend and I needed cool gear. Having her be my bio-Q gave her a challenge and a purpose outside the drudgery of being a healbot. Also, the more she worked with someone who didn't abuse or neglect her, the more likely her Marquis like code wouldn't become pathological and the more likely she wouldn't go out like the main story (or Panacea Quest *shudder*). I was doing her a favor honestly, and all favors get paid back in the end. The deal was mutual. Symbiotic.
Plus, I really wanted to be Spider-Man. Girl. Whatever.
"Here I come to save your day!" I say, kicking in the door to an unused room at the psych ward (personal joke), where Amy is happily fiddling with some black thing snaking around her arms. Terrariums full of insects and worms surround her, full of as much energy as she is. All of them my personal stash, passed off as acquisitions from a bug-themed Rogue (wink wink).
"Oh, hey Taylor," she says dreamily, completely engrossed in the black stuff that upon further inspection, seems to be a suit.
"Whatcha got cookin' for me, Ames?" I tap one of the terrariums and summon a spider from it to my finger.
"Well I finished those web shooters you wanted me to make: spider silk increased in tensile strength and adhesion to hold up or restrain a person, fired out of modified archer fish spittle mechanisms."
She holds out two arrow headed leech-like things and I can't help but shudder. "So I attach those to my gloves, right?"
"Nope. They burrow under your skin, so you can't be disarmed without being dis-armed."
I grimace. "Wonderful..." I command them to burrow into my wrists; it feels like needles drawing blood.
"Isn't it? I also managed to isolate some tetrodoxin and get algae to naturally produce it. Put it in some shotgun shells or a bomb container and you can effectively neutralize anything with human biology." She is way too happy about deadly toxins; I worry if I've awakened the villain or the passenger in her.
"Yo, Ames. Isn't tetrodoxin extremely fatal?"
She gives me a hurt look and I see the old Amy in it. "I have activated carbon deposits in each payload, so the affected subject won't die. Paralytic effects are maintained, of course."
I sigh in relief. "As long as it's non-lethal."
"No killing, no plagues, no bodies or brains without consent," Amy repeats like a mantra. She rocks back and forth slightly, eyes screwed shut. I haven't managed to fix her hang-ups, but I at least bent the hooks a bit.
I try to snap her out of it. "ABB's gonna make a serious move tonight, child trafficking. Lung's personally overseeing, probably because he's a pedophile. Is it racist to assume a Japanese dude is a pedo, given the whole lolicon/kawaii thing?"
"Probably." A chuckle escapes Amy's lips. "But I'll let Victoria know. She's been agitated lately."
Probably can smell another woman on you. For as much as Vicky claimed not to be into yuri, she was super possessive. Chalk it up to fair being foul and foul being fair, I guess. I didn't write this crap; I'm just living it. The insects agitate with my agitation.
"I'll be around to nab any punks who run from Guts and Glory, kay?" Also to make Lung my bitch, join the Undersiders, and try and figure out just how hard Armsmaster is compensating, possibly in that order.
Amy groans. "You know I hate that name..."
I playfully stick my tongue out at her. "You know I'm just teasing."
"One of these days I...I'm gonna give you hives for teasing me." She tries to sound menacing but it comes off as stuttery-cute.
I hug her from behind (with gloved hands, not taking any chances). "You're too good for that, O Almighty Panacea."
She pouts. "I-I can be a pandemic too!"
"But you ain't, and I'm here to make sure you never are." I point to the suit. "What's that?"
"Symbiotic second skin. Redundant organs, synthetic muscle, impact hardening cartilage carapace, camouflage, life support systems, gliding flaps, adhesive finger and footpads-" Her speech is hurried and breathy; riding the edge between genius and madness.
I have to cut her off before she goes on all day. "Does it have 360 degree senses? I may need to have eyes in the back of my head with the quickness."
She deflates, the energy leaving her as quickly as it came. "Didn't think of that...have to redo the sensory organs. Gonna take me another week or two."
I rub her shoulders: she tenses up at the touch, then relaxes. "Don't sweat it, Ames. Just what do you think the ETA is?"
"About a month, maybe three weeks if I work double time." The suit rolls up her arm and mine to caress my face. I yelp despite myself; the suit and Amy recoil in shame. "...Sorry. Bioresponsiveness too sensitive."
"Don't sweat it," I say, clearly sweating it. "Oh, one more thing before I gear up: did you come up with any good cape names for me?"
"Um, Storyteller? Atropos? Clotho? Weaver?" Amy hangs her head. "Those are probably all stupid..."
"Clotho...Clotho...isn't she the weaver of fate? Greek myth?" Amy nods sadly. I snap my fingers. "I like it!"
"You really like it?" Amy says, with the sort of hangdog hope a kicked puppy has towards an act of kindness.
"Would I ever lie to you?" That you know of. "It's brilliant. Gotta go though, big night ahead." I go in for a hug but Amy flinches again. I settle for a fistbump instead and gather the tetrodoxin payloads.
"Good luck Taylor," Amy says as I exit. "I believe in you."
Pupation 2.3
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
I was looking for a job and then I found a job; heaven knows I'm late on this now.
---
Pupation 2.3
So it was time for the main event of the evening; Operation Underbelly. Lung and the ABB were going to do generic bad guy things, the Undersiders were going to make a move on the ABB, and the capes (much like cops) were going to be late and ineffective. Pretty standard shit, really.
I went through my mental checklist of the event.
Step One: give the ABB goons crabs. I didn't need to waste the Dox bombs or heavy duty venomous insects on them. Oni Lee would possibly require them, if he weren't a punk bitch.
Step Two: Incapacitate Lung ASAP. All my poison bugs were going to be focused on dropping his ass.
Step Three: Contact the Undersiders in Skitter gear. That was going to be the easiest and the hardest thing to do.
I ran my hands over the black and grey bodysuit that would become Skitter's calling card: layers of carapace and black widow silk weaved in a honeycomb design in order to diffuse more impact. The top two layers had cornstarch and ground chitin in a honey suspension; I was trying to make Oobleck that could actually help stop a bullet. I hadn't tested it further than stabbing at it with the combat knife I bought or hitting it with a self-defense baton, it held up to those shocks well and my bugs liked the sweet stuff. The innermost layer of the suit was filled with my nastiest insects: fire ants, black widows, brown recluses, wasps. Breathable holes in the back, wrist and ankles allowed them to escape and make merry murder.
More importantly, the bugs provided a skeleton for the Skitter suit to move independently. Taylor figured out ventriloquism and a buggy Bunshin instinctively we prefer vast intellect to instinct (shut up you), so I trained in both when I went on runs or got bored in class. I had gotten good enough to make my bugs move with something approaching human gait while "speaking" in that really cool demon resonance. Boy let me tell you: seeing Madison run like a scalded dog from The Worm That Walks was quality entertainment, especially when you had it buzz about laying eggs in her eyeballs while giving it a giant bug boner.
Anyway, all that training allowed me to perform the double agent act I would need to keep my friendship with Amy from ending messily. I would arrive early, set up my Skitter drone and control it remotely, call Amy from safety (or as safe it got down in the ghetto-ass Docks) and then show up as Clotho when she and Vicky got there. The sticky wicket would be recovering the Skitter drone if it got taken out; I put a lot of effort into that suit and those bugs, they were slathered in capsaicin in order to create multiple stage incapacitation.
When it came to my other outfit (I hesitated to call it a disguise), I sacrificed efficiency for style. It was a handspun white spider silk toga with a massive red scarf, both reinforced with honeycombed chitin. For personal safety (and more than a little modesty), I had a flame retardant undersuit layered with chitin that covered everything but my eyes and hair. I had weighted the scarf with two lead pipes at each end affixed with a chain. If nothing else, I could smack people with it or use it to bar a doorway. Finally, I had a belt with six Dox bombs. Amy went through all the trouble to make them, so I kind of hoped I'd have a reason to use them.
For my civvie outfit, I had my backpack with both outfits, two cans of pepper spray, a small switchblade, my phone, my wallet, some chalk dust, a flare gun, a first aid kit, a blanket, a lighter, a flashlight, some food and some water. I wanted to be prepared in case shit went south (as they tended to). I had the best pair of running shoes on that someone would *not* jack me for, comfortable jeans, a hat to hide my face and a nondescript T-shirt.
Everything set up, I looked at myself in the mirror: I had gotten more toned and less gawky, I filled out my clothes better even though I was still damnably flat chested (wait why the fuck do I care about her chest?), and the squats and running had given me an amazing butt and legs (dude, you're *not her* and she's *fifteen*). Dare I say it? I was...cute. Attractive, even. If Brian liked me as a gawky nerdy white girl, I was definitely getting Blacked this time. (Jesus fuck listen to yourself)
I slapped my cheeks, partially to get back in my (her?) head but mostly to psyche myself up. "Showtime, Taylor. You can do this."
~~~
The Docks got bad like an old Dave Chappelle skit: gun and liquor stores sprouted like weeds the worse the hood got. There were more than drunks, bangers and hoes on the street tonight; a few people, some about as old as I was, were selling bootleg DVDs and/or drugs. Lots of drugs.
About a block before the ABB meetup, I ducked into a Temple's Chicken to get off the street, wondering if there were Church's Chickens in this Earth. The place was mostly deserted, save for the tired but unbroken looking middle age black lady working the counter. Stomach growling and hive buzzing, I ordered a two piece set and some corn on the cob. Grabbing several honey packets for my bugs later (I had started really craving honey myself about a month ago, actually), I took a seat in the back and called up the cavalry.
I warned Amy about Armsmaster or whoever sniffing for glory specifically to get Vicky riled up. If she started shit with the Protectorate, it'd push her towards antiheroics and give me more time to get the Skitter drone gone. If she started acting as a vigilante rogue, it'd make Amy feel better about being a rogue and more distrustful of asshole moralistic authority (*coughCarolcough*). Hopefully, when I tried to flip her to the Undersiders, I'd get Vicky as a package deal, or at least not as a complication to Amy's fragile mental state. Or Vicky would just splatter me for "corrupting" Amy after Ames gave her a dick or something equally weird and fetishistic. High risk, high reward. If I was going to sin, I might as well sin boldly.
That done, I finished my food and went into the bathroom to change, having to stop myself from reflexively going into the Men's room. I took out my Skitter suit, rousing the bugs to action and tossing it out the conveniently placed window into the night.
RISE
I felt the bugs move in sync, the suit stretching and moving around them. The bugs I had been gathering at the edge of my consciousness gave witness to the Skitter suit filling out to the facsimile of a person. With only a thought, they gathered around the Skitter drone, providing it the mobility of the swarm and a protective cloud of insects. I could feel every insect within the range of the drone as if they were touching me, crawling lighting on my skin. I cried out in a joyous, wordless song and more insects converged; each one causing my synapses to fire with newfound power. My senses had extended to a few blocks, I could taste the night, feel the brush of sea air on fine tuned follicles myriad times over. I had never felt so alive!
Come to me, my children, The Skitter drone buzzed, Attend your Queen.
I came to my senses straddling the toilet seat, biting my lower lip and caressing my face. Ants were crawling up my legs and my inner thighs. I felt warm and tingly and very, very confused. It honestly felt like when I Mastered Amy, which made me immediately worry for the black lady's sense of selfhood. I ran out of the bathroom and peeked around the corner; she seemed to be not mind whammied. In fact, she looked happier and was humming a song I couldn't place.
Just to be safe, I grabbed my stuff, sent my drone into action and left. I was halfway out the door when the cashier called out to me.
"Keep ya head up honey. I believe in you."
Fuuuuuuuucking hell. "Y-you too..." I broke out in a run, almost stumbling over my own feet.
Do not fear what you are meant to be, child. The caterpillar does not fear pupation, nor can it arrest the process.
"I'm...I'm not a fucking caterpillar," I growled under my breath. My vision was doubling between me and the drone. My tongue laid heavy in my mouth. "Fuckin'...fuckin' gonna do this Lung thing..." I stumbled into an alley, head buzzing. The Skitter drone had found a vantage point already, I hadn't ordered it to do so.
The fly that struggles only gets entwined further.
"Go hug...a white...dwarf..." I barked at the air. "You're...passenger. I'm...driver!" My anger served as an anchor, centering me to the now. I grabbed on it that anchor and bludgeoned myself back to reality. The reality was my drone had already launched an attack; my bugs were already crawling on the incapacitated bodies of ABB muggle mooks. I could sense some unusual topography from my venomous bugs and heat. Lots of heat.
Wait, that felt like a dong. My mouth was feel-tasting dong. Dragon dong. Oh god, my bugs were on Lung's...and his...
I retched. They were in his eye sockets, in his mouth and throat and ears and nose. Brown Recluses were devouring his entire crotch. I had, or the drone had shown no mercy. He was on the ground, writhing in pain and belching fire; his body wracked with transformative paroxsyms. He was down for the count, at least for the moment.
I chuckled between heaves. "Well that's the last cock I eat." My legs gave out on me, so I sat on the concrete. "Thank god something worked."
A loud explosion shook me from my reverie. My bugs saw three new figures: all of them kids. Waitaminute, I made up that child slavery thing.
Didn't I?
I heard the front most kid, a Shirley Temple looking little girl, speak through my bugs. "Ugh, fuck that pedophile bastard and fuck riding freight. Star, Prince, We've got an appointment to make."
She bounced on her toes before *bouncing* off the ground with frag grenade force. ABB mooks went flying as and amongst debris. A volley of danmaku darts covered her flight, as a garish little girl and a stern little boy emerged from a ruined freight crate.
Time out. Stern boy, clown girl, filthy mouthed loli thing...I knew these assholes. Bambina, Starlet, August Prince. The Terrible Threes. Vegas villains.
The fuck are they doing here?
---
Pupation 2.3
So it was time for the main event of the evening; Operation Underbelly. Lung and the ABB were going to do generic bad guy things, the Undersiders were going to make a move on the ABB, and the capes (much like cops) were going to be late and ineffective. Pretty standard shit, really.
I went through my mental checklist of the event.
Step One: give the ABB goons crabs. I didn't need to waste the Dox bombs or heavy duty venomous insects on them. Oni Lee would possibly require them, if he weren't a punk bitch.
Step Two: Incapacitate Lung ASAP. All my poison bugs were going to be focused on dropping his ass.
Step Three: Contact the Undersiders in Skitter gear. That was going to be the easiest and the hardest thing to do.
I ran my hands over the black and grey bodysuit that would become Skitter's calling card: layers of carapace and black widow silk weaved in a honeycomb design in order to diffuse more impact. The top two layers had cornstarch and ground chitin in a honey suspension; I was trying to make Oobleck that could actually help stop a bullet. I hadn't tested it further than stabbing at it with the combat knife I bought or hitting it with a self-defense baton, it held up to those shocks well and my bugs liked the sweet stuff. The innermost layer of the suit was filled with my nastiest insects: fire ants, black widows, brown recluses, wasps. Breathable holes in the back, wrist and ankles allowed them to escape and make merry murder.
More importantly, the bugs provided a skeleton for the Skitter suit to move independently. Taylor figured out ventriloquism and a buggy Bunshin instinctively we prefer vast intellect to instinct (shut up you), so I trained in both when I went on runs or got bored in class. I had gotten good enough to make my bugs move with something approaching human gait while "speaking" in that really cool demon resonance. Boy let me tell you: seeing Madison run like a scalded dog from The Worm That Walks was quality entertainment, especially when you had it buzz about laying eggs in her eyeballs while giving it a giant bug boner.
Anyway, all that training allowed me to perform the double agent act I would need to keep my friendship with Amy from ending messily. I would arrive early, set up my Skitter drone and control it remotely, call Amy from safety (or as safe it got down in the ghetto-ass Docks) and then show up as Clotho when she and Vicky got there. The sticky wicket would be recovering the Skitter drone if it got taken out; I put a lot of effort into that suit and those bugs, they were slathered in capsaicin in order to create multiple stage incapacitation.
When it came to my other outfit (I hesitated to call it a disguise), I sacrificed efficiency for style. It was a handspun white spider silk toga with a massive red scarf, both reinforced with honeycombed chitin. For personal safety (and more than a little modesty), I had a flame retardant undersuit layered with chitin that covered everything but my eyes and hair. I had weighted the scarf with two lead pipes at each end affixed with a chain. If nothing else, I could smack people with it or use it to bar a doorway. Finally, I had a belt with six Dox bombs. Amy went through all the trouble to make them, so I kind of hoped I'd have a reason to use them.
For my civvie outfit, I had my backpack with both outfits, two cans of pepper spray, a small switchblade, my phone, my wallet, some chalk dust, a flare gun, a first aid kit, a blanket, a lighter, a flashlight, some food and some water. I wanted to be prepared in case shit went south (as they tended to). I had the best pair of running shoes on that someone would *not* jack me for, comfortable jeans, a hat to hide my face and a nondescript T-shirt.
Everything set up, I looked at myself in the mirror: I had gotten more toned and less gawky, I filled out my clothes better even though I was still damnably flat chested (wait why the fuck do I care about her chest?), and the squats and running had given me an amazing butt and legs (dude, you're *not her* and she's *fifteen*). Dare I say it? I was...cute. Attractive, even. If Brian liked me as a gawky nerdy white girl, I was definitely getting Blacked this time. (Jesus fuck listen to yourself)
I slapped my cheeks, partially to get back in my (her?) head but mostly to psyche myself up. "Showtime, Taylor. You can do this."
~~~
The Docks got bad like an old Dave Chappelle skit: gun and liquor stores sprouted like weeds the worse the hood got. There were more than drunks, bangers and hoes on the street tonight; a few people, some about as old as I was, were selling bootleg DVDs and/or drugs. Lots of drugs.
About a block before the ABB meetup, I ducked into a Temple's Chicken to get off the street, wondering if there were Church's Chickens in this Earth. The place was mostly deserted, save for the tired but unbroken looking middle age black lady working the counter. Stomach growling and hive buzzing, I ordered a two piece set and some corn on the cob. Grabbing several honey packets for my bugs later (I had started really craving honey myself about a month ago, actually), I took a seat in the back and called up the cavalry.
I warned Amy about Armsmaster or whoever sniffing for glory specifically to get Vicky riled up. If she started shit with the Protectorate, it'd push her towards antiheroics and give me more time to get the Skitter drone gone. If she started acting as a vigilante rogue, it'd make Amy feel better about being a rogue and more distrustful of asshole moralistic authority (*coughCarolcough*). Hopefully, when I tried to flip her to the Undersiders, I'd get Vicky as a package deal, or at least not as a complication to Amy's fragile mental state. Or Vicky would just splatter me for "corrupting" Amy after Ames gave her a dick or something equally weird and fetishistic. High risk, high reward. If I was going to sin, I might as well sin boldly.
That done, I finished my food and went into the bathroom to change, having to stop myself from reflexively going into the Men's room. I took out my Skitter suit, rousing the bugs to action and tossing it out the conveniently placed window into the night.
RISE
I felt the bugs move in sync, the suit stretching and moving around them. The bugs I had been gathering at the edge of my consciousness gave witness to the Skitter suit filling out to the facsimile of a person. With only a thought, they gathered around the Skitter drone, providing it the mobility of the swarm and a protective cloud of insects. I could feel every insect within the range of the drone as if they were touching me, crawling lighting on my skin. I cried out in a joyous, wordless song and more insects converged; each one causing my synapses to fire with newfound power. My senses had extended to a few blocks, I could taste the night, feel the brush of sea air on fine tuned follicles myriad times over. I had never felt so alive!
Come to me, my children, The Skitter drone buzzed, Attend your Queen.
I came to my senses straddling the toilet seat, biting my lower lip and caressing my face. Ants were crawling up my legs and my inner thighs. I felt warm and tingly and very, very confused. It honestly felt like when I Mastered Amy, which made me immediately worry for the black lady's sense of selfhood. I ran out of the bathroom and peeked around the corner; she seemed to be not mind whammied. In fact, she looked happier and was humming a song I couldn't place.
Just to be safe, I grabbed my stuff, sent my drone into action and left. I was halfway out the door when the cashier called out to me.
"Keep ya head up honey. I believe in you."
Fuuuuuuuucking hell. "Y-you too..." I broke out in a run, almost stumbling over my own feet.
Do not fear what you are meant to be, child. The caterpillar does not fear pupation, nor can it arrest the process.
"I'm...I'm not a fucking caterpillar," I growled under my breath. My vision was doubling between me and the drone. My tongue laid heavy in my mouth. "Fuckin'...fuckin' gonna do this Lung thing..." I stumbled into an alley, head buzzing. The Skitter drone had found a vantage point already, I hadn't ordered it to do so.
The fly that struggles only gets entwined further.
"Go hug...a white...dwarf..." I barked at the air. "You're...passenger. I'm...driver!" My anger served as an anchor, centering me to the now. I grabbed on it that anchor and bludgeoned myself back to reality. The reality was my drone had already launched an attack; my bugs were already crawling on the incapacitated bodies of ABB muggle mooks. I could sense some unusual topography from my venomous bugs and heat. Lots of heat.
Wait, that felt like a dong. My mouth was feel-tasting dong. Dragon dong. Oh god, my bugs were on Lung's...and his...
I retched. They were in his eye sockets, in his mouth and throat and ears and nose. Brown Recluses were devouring his entire crotch. I had, or the drone had shown no mercy. He was on the ground, writhing in pain and belching fire; his body wracked with transformative paroxsyms. He was down for the count, at least for the moment.
I chuckled between heaves. "Well that's the last cock I eat." My legs gave out on me, so I sat on the concrete. "Thank god something worked."
A loud explosion shook me from my reverie. My bugs saw three new figures: all of them kids. Waitaminute, I made up that child slavery thing.
Didn't I?
I heard the front most kid, a Shirley Temple looking little girl, speak through my bugs. "Ugh, fuck that pedophile bastard and fuck riding freight. Star, Prince, We've got an appointment to make."
She bounced on her toes before *bouncing* off the ground with frag grenade force. ABB mooks went flying as and amongst debris. A volley of danmaku darts covered her flight, as a garish little girl and a stern little boy emerged from a ruined freight crate.
Time out. Stern boy, clown girl, filthy mouthed loli thing...I knew these assholes. Bambina, Starlet, August Prince. The Terrible Threes. Vegas villains.
The fuck are they doing here?
Pupation 2.4
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Good news, bad news: the good news is I got fired. The bad news is that I have an update.
Wait...
~~~
Pupation 2.4
Well fuck me running, this was about to get live. Lung was still out of it, his body twisting and boiling as the adaptive nature of his power tried to keep up with the creeping doom violating his...everything.
But that wasn't the issue here.
The issue was three terrible little kids throwing a wrench in the train on the way to a station of canon.
In the immediate sense, they created a vector that turned a simple false flag op into a three way clusterfuck. Clearly they weren't on the ABB's side, but they sure as fuck weren't mine and even more surely wouldn't be on Guts and Glory's side. They were a dangerous unknown.
More personally, I was pissed they were ruining my plans. I had this all sewed up and was about to get to the congratulatory self-fellatio, but then these assholes had to show up. I didn't plan for this; hell, I barely remembered these assholes existed! At this point, I should have been getting awkwardly hugged by or hugging Amy and I would be too, if it weren't for these damn meddling kids!
I fumed in silence, using the salt to regain focus. No use crying over spilled milk though, so I gathered the swarm to the Skitter drone. During my sulk, August Prince had started moving to the exit, presumably to open the gates for his partners. I couldn't stop him directly due to his power, so I had to improvise. Luckily, improvisation was a trait I shared with the burgeoning supervillain whose body I had taken residence in. Summoning some spiders to me, I hand them a Dox bomb they proceeded to wrap in spider silk, carrying it like a poisonous palanquin out to the control tower. He'd have a nice little present waiting for him, the creepy little bastard.
Meanwhile, Starlet had started laying down suppressive fire for Bambina kicking Lung while he's down. That was useful, I guess? It gave time for G&G to get here and it was funny as hell to boot. Bambina's got a mouth on her, I'll tell you. After the third minute of straight invective, she just started making up swear words.
She got up to "candle sniffing fuckfence" before her and everyone else's attention was drawn to an earth shattering entrance. Who would it be but Glory Girl, set in the Standard Superhero Entrance Pose she worked for weeks to perfect, an in costume Amy clutching onto her for dear life. Even from here, I could feel GG's presence; the closest feeling to a true blue superhero in this godforsaken city. Yeah, she was an arrogant idiot with no self-control who passively mindfucks everyone she cares about, but I was in a universe where the poor man's SEELE are the "good guys" and Johnny Depp playing at being The Joker is an Apocalypse-class threat.
When all you had was shit, you couldn't really ask for Chardonnay. If nothing else, she could be a useful ally. As long as she didn't learn about the whole "Mastering her adopted little sister" thing, of course.
"Here we come to save the fuck?" GG's boast died in her throat, alone and unheralded, as she gazed upon the madness before her in utter confusion. I didn't blame her; shit was cray. Since she was the smart member of Guts and Glory though, I immediately began to fear for whatever stupid shit Amy may have decided to do.
I ran up to the two of them, dissociating my Skitter drone. A massive figure beat me to the punch, chop blocking Glory Girl with the sound of a truck hitting a slab of beef.
"Great timing, assholes." I sighed. How nice of the Undersiders to show up. Must've been fashionably late. I went to shield Amy (fat lot of good it'll do against Bitch), checking her for injury.
"You okay, Ames?" She looked up at me like a wounded deer, brushing hair from my face with a gloved hand. It's...intimate. Uncomfortably so.
"V...Glory Girl. Where is she?"
The brief blast of pants-shitting terror I feel denoted her closeness. In point of fact, she was currently holding off the slavering jaws of what can only be considered a Dire Dog.
And now she was pulling its jaws apart, like how you kill an alligator.
And now she was getting double teamed by Bitch's other pet.
I bit back a mean-spirited bestiality joke. "She's fine. Busy, but fine. ABB's taken care of, but as you can see," I directed her attention to Bambina, who has moved on to kicking the lifeless bodies of ABB mooks, sending them flying with explosive force. "There's another villain group here. Anti-ABB, but still villains. Looks like the ABB got set up."
"Opportunistic diseases," Amy said, sending shivers down my spine. "Cancer to kill cancer."
"Hahah, yeah..." Gotta change the subject. "You alright with making a soporiffic, Ames? Shirley Temple over there's gonna get tired of kicking those guys around soon enough."
She gave me a terse nod.
"Alright Ames, on three. One."
Darkness began to creep into the edges of my vision. I bit the inside of my cheek for focus. Need to keep the bugs away from me. "Two."
"Three." Everything went dark and I immediately started panicking. Shit, was she barely holding back the agent? Was she already that eager to go biohazard?
"I don't know who you are, but I can't have you causing trouble for us." There was a voice in the darkness, husky and hood rich, coming through like a depth charge in deep water.
Well the good news was Amy didn't knock me out.
The bad news: I was about to get beaten by a Grue.
Wait...
~~~
Pupation 2.4
Well fuck me running, this was about to get live. Lung was still out of it, his body twisting and boiling as the adaptive nature of his power tried to keep up with the creeping doom violating his...everything.
But that wasn't the issue here.
The issue was three terrible little kids throwing a wrench in the train on the way to a station of canon.
In the immediate sense, they created a vector that turned a simple false flag op into a three way clusterfuck. Clearly they weren't on the ABB's side, but they sure as fuck weren't mine and even more surely wouldn't be on Guts and Glory's side. They were a dangerous unknown.
More personally, I was pissed they were ruining my plans. I had this all sewed up and was about to get to the congratulatory self-fellatio, but then these assholes had to show up. I didn't plan for this; hell, I barely remembered these assholes existed! At this point, I should have been getting awkwardly hugged by or hugging Amy and I would be too, if it weren't for these damn meddling kids!
I fumed in silence, using the salt to regain focus. No use crying over spilled milk though, so I gathered the swarm to the Skitter drone. During my sulk, August Prince had started moving to the exit, presumably to open the gates for his partners. I couldn't stop him directly due to his power, so I had to improvise. Luckily, improvisation was a trait I shared with the burgeoning supervillain whose body I had taken residence in. Summoning some spiders to me, I hand them a Dox bomb they proceeded to wrap in spider silk, carrying it like a poisonous palanquin out to the control tower. He'd have a nice little present waiting for him, the creepy little bastard.
Meanwhile, Starlet had started laying down suppressive fire for Bambina kicking Lung while he's down. That was useful, I guess? It gave time for G&G to get here and it was funny as hell to boot. Bambina's got a mouth on her, I'll tell you. After the third minute of straight invective, she just started making up swear words.
She got up to "candle sniffing fuckfence" before her and everyone else's attention was drawn to an earth shattering entrance. Who would it be but Glory Girl, set in the Standard Superhero Entrance Pose she worked for weeks to perfect, an in costume Amy clutching onto her for dear life. Even from here, I could feel GG's presence; the closest feeling to a true blue superhero in this godforsaken city. Yeah, she was an arrogant idiot with no self-control who passively mindfucks everyone she cares about, but I was in a universe where the poor man's SEELE are the "good guys" and Johnny Depp playing at being The Joker is an Apocalypse-class threat.
When all you had was shit, you couldn't really ask for Chardonnay. If nothing else, she could be a useful ally. As long as she didn't learn about the whole "Mastering her adopted little sister" thing, of course.
"Here we come to save the fuck?" GG's boast died in her throat, alone and unheralded, as she gazed upon the madness before her in utter confusion. I didn't blame her; shit was cray. Since she was the smart member of Guts and Glory though, I immediately began to fear for whatever stupid shit Amy may have decided to do.
I ran up to the two of them, dissociating my Skitter drone. A massive figure beat me to the punch, chop blocking Glory Girl with the sound of a truck hitting a slab of beef.
"Great timing, assholes." I sighed. How nice of the Undersiders to show up. Must've been fashionably late. I went to shield Amy (fat lot of good it'll do against Bitch), checking her for injury.
"You okay, Ames?" She looked up at me like a wounded deer, brushing hair from my face with a gloved hand. It's...intimate. Uncomfortably so.
"V...Glory Girl. Where is she?"
The brief blast of pants-shitting terror I feel denoted her closeness. In point of fact, she was currently holding off the slavering jaws of what can only be considered a Dire Dog.
And now she was pulling its jaws apart, like how you kill an alligator.
And now she was getting double teamed by Bitch's other pet.
I bit back a mean-spirited bestiality joke. "She's fine. Busy, but fine. ABB's taken care of, but as you can see," I directed her attention to Bambina, who has moved on to kicking the lifeless bodies of ABB mooks, sending them flying with explosive force. "There's another villain group here. Anti-ABB, but still villains. Looks like the ABB got set up."
"Opportunistic diseases," Amy said, sending shivers down my spine. "Cancer to kill cancer."
"Hahah, yeah..." Gotta change the subject. "You alright with making a soporiffic, Ames? Shirley Temple over there's gonna get tired of kicking those guys around soon enough."
She gave me a terse nod.
"Alright Ames, on three. One."
Darkness began to creep into the edges of my vision. I bit the inside of my cheek for focus. Need to keep the bugs away from me. "Two."
"Three." Everything went dark and I immediately started panicking. Shit, was she barely holding back the agent? Was she already that eager to go biohazard?
"I don't know who you are, but I can't have you causing trouble for us." There was a voice in the darkness, husky and hood rich, coming through like a depth charge in deep water.
Well the good news was Amy didn't knock me out.
The bad news: I was about to get beaten by a Grue.
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