Fragmentation (Worm AU, Changer!Taylor)
- Thread starter Kadath
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm taylor hebert au fiction
KleverKil'Vanya
Ortillery Operator
Order manipulation?
GameDragon
Too Hot To Handle
- Location
- Challenger Deep
And Coil prepares to shoot himself in the foot. Genius.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
God dammit, Armsmaster. Next time just listen to your highly competent, likeable, and far more socially experienced second-in-command.
Also, I'm a little disappointed Sophia didn't get killed before Taylor regained consciousness... oh well.
EDIT: Danny is going to be a mess.
Also, I'm a little disappointed Sophia didn't get killed before Taylor regained consciousness... oh well.
EDIT: Danny is going to be a mess.
- Location
- It's a whole new world we live in
Seriously, his timelines only really change from things he can effect directly. What was he able to pull?
- Location
- The world
Like, pointing to Taylor about sophia's location and ward schedule?
- Location
- It's a whole new world we live in
I thought she was following Sophia around since her death? At least, that's how I read that mall scene?
- Location
- usa
She should make her cape name Tailor and get into business with Parian.
- Location
- The world
Should have been more clear, my fault. Sorry.
That word 'like' should be appended with 'maybe'. It is baseless hypothesis after all.
After all, Coil does collapse his timeline if either he had achieved a better result in one timeline, or if the other timeline is in compromised situation. It's not necessarily he had to do something in one timeline that affect Taylor.
- Location
- Australia
Interesting...
So, I assume Taylor isn't just limited to the bugs that are currently alive, so she needs a colony, and I presume she needs a minimum amount of bugs to exist? Otherwise it would be impossible to ever permanently kill her, just slip away into the ants in the ground. Or is she just a disembodied consciousness moving though an area and grabbing all the insects along the way?
So, I assume Taylor isn't just limited to the bugs that are currently alive, so she needs a colony, and I presume she needs a minimum amount of bugs to exist? Otherwise it would be impossible to ever permanently kill her, just slip away into the ants in the ground. Or is she just a disembodied consciousness moving though an area and grabbing all the insects along the way?
Last edited:
Kadath
Sinnamon Roll
- Location
- Somewhere
She's still getting a feel for her powers.
zhuull
SB still lying to protect Racists what else is new
And Brockton Bay is still considering the best way to welcome their new Insect Overlord.
Remember Big Sister Skitter is always watching!
AnimalKrazed
Caw Caw!
- Location
- Above You
I think what Coil did was order the activation of the Master/Stranger protocols and slide Armsy some false information saying that the swarm of bugs was a tinker effect or something.
Yeah, I think Coil sees a potential recruit here. She is already disinclined towards the PRT, pushing some more might cause her to consider... alternatives as it were. However, I think this might be to early for his taste to take over the PRT. I doubt he feels confident enough in his control over the criminal underworld or local politics to make his move. Thus it is unlikely he would allow the local PRT branch to collapse, and would instead move to prop it up if he has to. Of course, the arrogant bastard is not omniscient, so he might well have made a serious mistake here.
StatelessGem
Bane of the Iron Lords
There are many things I like about this. Except Coil. Because FUCK COIL.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
This. If Armsmaster had a device to no-sell changer powers, Lung would already be in the Birdcage.
- Location
- USA
Not gonna go back and pick out all the individual posts... but I think this is based on a misconception. It seems to be that everyone believes Armsmaster has a hard counter for changers, which I wouldn't put past him to try if I'm being honest even if he couldn't manage it, but what I think he meant with the manton comment is that if she'd been a changer, HER manton limit would not have allowed her to stay as the swarm when he activated the BUG ZAPPER invention Miss Militia mentioned, like when Shadow Stalker is forced back to solid form when she gets hit with electricity. Its not a hard counter to CHANGERS, its an attack against the bugs and Manton Limit would force a swarm changer to change back. Now, the OP can bring down WOG later and correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I read things...
Except manton limits are personalized by the shard in question, and don't involve that at all. A manton limit is someone who creates fires being unable to create a fire inside someone's head, because the shard can't really distinguish between the cape's head and anyone else's head, so it just bans doing it at all. Or Faultline being unable to cut living material(again, because the shard can't tell between the cape and others).
The Manton limit is a trend enforced by and outside source, not a natural law. You can take advantage of an individual cape's limit if you know it, but you can't assume that because they're a cape that you understand what it is.
Not to mention that there are a bunch of capes known to be powerful primarily because they lack a manton limit. Narwhal, for example, can create forcefeilds inside you to if she wishes. I think it's implied that case 53's and cauldron capes can be the same way(due to dead shards).
As for Armsmaster making a device that no sells a catagory of capes...no, that's just stupid no matter how you slice it. Scion wasn't really able to do that: he could counter a given cape completely, but had to change what he was countering based on who he was fighting.
- Location
- USA
I agree it would be a foolish assumption to make, especially with meta-knowledge on shards and how they act, but I don't think it's out of character for Armsmaster IN UNIVERSE to make the assumption that he knows better. And again, I said I don't believe he made a hard counter for changers, I just said I wouldn't put it past him to try. I think what he actually used was the aforementioned Bug Zapper and he made a foolish assumption about manton limits and that she'd have one or that he could intuit what hers was. Foolish since he's obviously been proven wrong on that fact.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Cape is a changer who disperses into a cloud of bugs;
I attack the bugs with a zapper, killing most of them;
Changer is forced back into human form;
If Cape doesn't go into human form, they aren't dispersed into a cloud of bugs.
It's a somewhat sensible tactic, although I think killing the swarm might kill the changer in that imagined case?
- Location
- Elsewhere
Shadow Stalker turns into a cloud of shadow.
Zap with electricity.
Shadow Stalker turns back.
Changer turns into cloud of bugs.
Pull out the bug zapper!
It's not exactly air-tight logic, but it's a reasonable hypothesis.
Risky to test though.
Except that they'd know some of this because they've been studying capes for going on 50 years. They don't know the exact internal mechanics of some of this, but they can see the observable effects. They'd know that the manton limit is inconsistent both in application and in effect. And Armsmaster has to deal with this kind of thing every day. You're saying that the head of the Bay protectorate doesn't know that manton limits are poorly understood? That even in capes with similar powers, how the limit is expressed, if at all, can vary?
Making bad assumptions happens. But this is like an expert heart surgeon being unable to tell the general area the heart is in and instead starting the heart transplant by cutting open the crown of the patients head. Why the fuck would that happen?
The assumption there is that the changer can go back. That's somewhat unwarranted, given that there are cases where a cape cannot turn off their power: ash beast, grey boy, glory girl to name a few. The bug zappers do make sense, but it should be more for containment than trying to get her to change back.
It's pretty shitty logic, given that capes work differently.
I mean, look at Aegis and Alexandria. Both are brutes, so they can take the same thing, right?
Oh, wait, Alexandria get's hit by Leviathan and is moved back. Aegis get's hit by leviathan and is turned to paste. Obviously an extreme example, but they'd know that Aegis is less capable as a brute than Alexandria, that's why they have ratings after all. So why do you assume that this new cape is similar to Sophia, especially when their powers are already vastly different (one can make herself less dense, the other is a cloud a couple blocks across made out of bugs)?
Chapter 1.3
Kadath
Sinnamon Roll
- Location
- Somewhere
Fragmentation 1.3
I sat on the far end of a repurposed interrogation room opposite the two-legged people in our little gathering. On the other end, most of the Brockton Bay Wards had taken up position around a solid-looking table or by the equally solid-looking door. They weren't particularly on guard per se, but they weren't exactly off guard either. They all had their masks on, and not just for my benefit. My dad was here as well. He still looked numb from the initial shock of seeing me.
Strictly speaking, I wasn't actually sitting down. There was an awful lot of me, and not a lot of space in this room. I only had a small portion of my swarm, only a few pounds of the cuddlier types of bugs, in the space. It was getting hard for me to make a distinction between me, Taylor, and me, the multitude of flying, crawling, and squirming creatures. I knew where they all were, I could direct them, and could receive sensory signals (such as they were) from them. As it stood I would have compared my current posture to sticking your head through a window while the rest of you just buzzes around.
Stands there, I corrected myself. I'd have to watch my words so that people didn't think I was some kind of weirdo, or worse, another Mouse Protector wannabe.
"Bumblebee?" Vista asked.
"No way." I replied.
"Stinger?" Clockblocker asked.
"Taken." Kid Win responded, not looking up from his laptop.
"Crawler?" Clockblocker asked again with no hint of irony in his voice.
"You know better than to joke about that." Vista grumbled. Clockblocker made a sound that was halfway to a scoff.
"Anansi?"
"That's a warlord in Congo." Kid Win answered after a moment. The woman in the picture on his screen had a lot of limbs.
"Widow?" Clockblocker said, pleadingly this time.
"I'm going to have to veto that." Dad sighed. We would have shared a look if I, you know…
Clockblocker snapped his fingers.
"Clockroach! You can be my sidekick!"
I bounced a beetle off his visor and he flinched away. I felt kind of bad afterwards. He had just been covered in a couple hundred insects of varying size and species, and he was at least acting friendly at the moment. That said, I had a hard time relating, and I knew somehow that the friendliness wouldn't last.
"Slugbug!" Kid Win exclaimed. Vista punched him in the shoulder.
"Slugbug… uh. Brown. You're very brown, Taylor."
"Skitter, Swarm, Drone, Ladybug, Buzz, Buzzkill, Heartworm, The Fifth Beetle, Butterfly…" Clockblocker trailed off. "I don't think you're going to be able to find a name that doesn't scream 'villain' or 'eight year old girl'."
"Oh joy, we're on the news. Who wants to see the damage?" Kid Win asked, rubbing his arm.
I still wasn't sure about spending time with the Wards, especially since I could tell that dad was just putting on a brave face for them. Maybe it was a trait he'd picked up from his friends at the Dockworkers' Association, but he couldn't bear to let anyone else see him cry. There was also the fact that he was being held there by them. He wasn't being detained, he wasn't physically restrained, but he was "under PRT witness protection." And I wouldn't leave without him.
How did I feel about all this? Drained. Emotionally and physically. I could feel flies and moths giving out one by one, having reached the end of their lives or their energy stores. They fell, but didn't weigh enough to hurt themselves when they landed. It took some concentration, but I was able to keep cycling old flyers out with new or freshly-fed ones. I was held here, but I wasn't about to let the PRT see clear skies. I would endure.
Kid Win dragged the volume control up. I maneuvered a patch of sleepy bees over his shoulder and winced inwardly at the live feed. I hadn't really taken the time to study the effect my efforts were having on the PRT headquarters, but the image was decidedly biblical. The contrast with the squeaky-clean reporter in the foreground was almost amusing.
"Terror and tragedy: two words no parent should have to associate with their child. I'm coming to you live just a block away from the PRT roadblock that has remained in place for the past eight hours, disrupting normal traffic flow and interrupting work for dozens of businesses in the area. As you can see, the parahuman who has identified herself as Taylor Hebert remains in PRT custody. The PRT have yet to release an official statement commenting on the shocking display of brutality this morning, and insider sources have hinted that the PRT is still considering its next move. As the citizens of Brockton Bay wait for their response, the question on everyone's mind is "How could this have happened?"
Winslow Public High School educates a population of students which is frequently underserved and, some would argue, practically invisible. Many of the students from the Docks area are routinely swept up, willingly and unwillingly, in gang-related crime. In this volatile environment, it is perhaps unsurprising that disaster was waiting to strike. On January 3rd, the very first day of school after the winter holiday, a fire alarm was pulled on the second floor, and after firefighters cleared the building, Ms. Hebert was recorded as absent from all her classes. By the next morning, she was officially declared missing by the BBPD. Forty-eight hours after that, her heartbroken father was forced to confront the fact that the search had been called off.
For all too many cases, this is the end of the story. A family shattered, and the survivors left to pick up the pieces. In Taylor's case, the story took on a macabre twist. At 3:45 this morning, local business owner Jessica Schubert called 911 to report seeing a swarm of bugs possessed of "a malevolent intelligence." Soon, other reports came flooding in and the PRT announced their suspicion that the bugs had a parahuman source and that they would be increasing patrols to locate the offender. It wasn't until many residents were on their lunch breaks that the source made herself known. Before we show the next clip I'd like to warn that our more sensitive viewers may find this content disturbing."
Kid Win muted the feed.
"I don't think any of us want to hear that again." He said matter-of-factly.
Dad finally spoke up, and it was to very unsubtly change the subject.
"So all of you go to Arcadia then?"
Smooth, dad.
Still, the awkward conversation flowed. Clockblocker tapped his fingers idly on the surface of the brushed steel table around which most of us sat. Browbeat leaned by the door and tried to look interested, though I could hear the sounds coming from the earbuds he had hidden under his hoodie.
I nodded gratefully to Kid Win, though it looked more like the swarm in the room dipped in the air.
It was telling that the Wards were all crowded into this interrogation room with me and none had apparently seen fit to visit Sophia. Or Shadow Stalker, I supposed. I was still coming to terms with that. Most likely to put me at ease, Kid Win had informed me that she was in a cell and wearing an electrified set of handcuffs. Apparently her shadow state didn't interact well with live current, so she wasn't going to be getting out on her own.
The idea that she had gotten away with so much for so long galled me. It made a lot of sense in retrospect. The stonewalling from the administration, the silence from the staff: it all came back to a sickening loyalty to my longtime tormentor.
It wasn't hard to envision this situation being mirrored in thousands of other Winslows across the country. How many other divisions were hiding the crimes of their members? What had Armsmaster been getting away with? What secrets did Miss Militia have hiding behind her compassionate facade? What demons did Eidolon have?
There was far too much I didn't know. I had barely paid attention to the news when it came to capes before, but now? Now I was one. A "monstrous cape," to boot. The kinds of capes who couldn't walk down the street out of costume without turning heads.
Not that I'll be walking down the street at all unless I can change back.
I had a fuzzy sort of image of what shape I was before in my mind.
Tall, with an elongated sort of underdeveloped thorax (I still felt sore about that part).
Thin legs--
Whoops, too thin, can't support the weight.
And a lump at the top.
There!
I realized belatedly that the conversation had halted. Everyone at the table was staring. Vista at least had the good grace to not let her mouth hang open.
Had I changed back?
I felt a stirring in my heart. After a moment's consideration, I reattributed the sensation to a helicopter landing on the roof.
"Did it work?" I murmured.
"Is that… you? I mean, is that what you're going to look like now?" Dad breathed.
I centered myself and looked over at the one-way mirror, which I had been avoiding since we entered the room.
What I saw was a black column of invertebrates clutching each other so that they formed the crude shape of a person. The squat legs shifted constantly to maintain its balance, and beetles swarmed across its surface. It looked more like a melted wax figure of a person than I had been imagining. I realized with some embarrassment that I had forgotten to add arms.
I sighed. The sound of dozens of cockroaches hissing made Clockblocker jump. Dad winced.
"No, it's just a bunch of bugs." I answered glumly. As if to illustrate my point, the puppet toppled over. Gallant danced away from the spray of bugs and edged around the table towards Kid Win. "I think this whole thing is me."
Gallant leaned over Kid Win's shoulder to unmute the news stream.
"Dude." Kid Win squawked at the intrusion. The indignation faded from his face as he heard the voice of Victoria Dallon, also known as Glory Girl.
"-ly disgusting, this is against everything New Wave stands for. I, for one, will be looking over my shoulder a lot more often with the Protectorate still at large."
The reporter hid his pleasure at receiving such a juicy sound bite well.
"And Ms. Hebert herself?"
"We're actually here to see her. And provide medical aid and legal counsel. And moral support!" She shouted over her shoulder and I realized that the feed was on a two second delay. "You go, Taylor! Stay fierce! You're gonna be the new queen bee from now on!"
Some part of me found her antics ridiculous, and another, uncomfortably large part of me was fixating on the pun. I decided to answer, letting the evening's crickets and cockroaches carry my voice to her. Soon, the camera jerked up to put the bulk of the swarm in the center of the frame.
"Queen maybe, but I've got a whole lot more than just bees over here."
Glory Girl smiled at my reply.
The smile was short lived, since in the same motion she noticed her mother stalking towards her and Panacea. Without another word, she scooped Amy up in her arms and rose out of the camera frame. My bugs tracked the three of them to the edge of the roadblock as they approached. Based on the gestures, I gathered that they were having an argument, though Panacea was staying out of it.
The reporter turned back to the camera, his face composed and professional again. It switched to a side by side view of him and the KBBB news anchor.
"Thanks Chris, we'll be standing by for you to report on location on any development in Queen's story as part of our twenty four hour, up-to-the-minute broadcast." She finished crisply before looking down at the papers in her hands as the station logo flowed onto the screen.
Clockblocker glanced over at the thicker part of my swarm.
"So, want to make it three for three and reveal your secret weakness on live TV too?" He grunted as Vista elbowed him in the unpadded area under his armpit.
I studied my dad's face. It looked like he had aged years in the weeks since I had last seen him. When things finally quieted down, we would have a lot to talk about.
I sat on the far end of a repurposed interrogation room opposite the two-legged people in our little gathering. On the other end, most of the Brockton Bay Wards had taken up position around a solid-looking table or by the equally solid-looking door. They weren't particularly on guard per se, but they weren't exactly off guard either. They all had their masks on, and not just for my benefit. My dad was here as well. He still looked numb from the initial shock of seeing me.
Strictly speaking, I wasn't actually sitting down. There was an awful lot of me, and not a lot of space in this room. I only had a small portion of my swarm, only a few pounds of the cuddlier types of bugs, in the space. It was getting hard for me to make a distinction between me, Taylor, and me, the multitude of flying, crawling, and squirming creatures. I knew where they all were, I could direct them, and could receive sensory signals (such as they were) from them. As it stood I would have compared my current posture to sticking your head through a window while the rest of you just buzzes around.
Stands there, I corrected myself. I'd have to watch my words so that people didn't think I was some kind of weirdo, or worse, another Mouse Protector wannabe.
"Bumblebee?" Vista asked.
"No way." I replied.
"Stinger?" Clockblocker asked.
"Taken." Kid Win responded, not looking up from his laptop.
"Crawler?" Clockblocker asked again with no hint of irony in his voice.
"You know better than to joke about that." Vista grumbled. Clockblocker made a sound that was halfway to a scoff.
"Anansi?"
"That's a warlord in Congo." Kid Win answered after a moment. The woman in the picture on his screen had a lot of limbs.
"Widow?" Clockblocker said, pleadingly this time.
"I'm going to have to veto that." Dad sighed. We would have shared a look if I, you know…
Clockblocker snapped his fingers.
"Clockroach! You can be my sidekick!"
I bounced a beetle off his visor and he flinched away. I felt kind of bad afterwards. He had just been covered in a couple hundred insects of varying size and species, and he was at least acting friendly at the moment. That said, I had a hard time relating, and I knew somehow that the friendliness wouldn't last.
"Slugbug!" Kid Win exclaimed. Vista punched him in the shoulder.
"Slugbug… uh. Brown. You're very brown, Taylor."
"Skitter, Swarm, Drone, Ladybug, Buzz, Buzzkill, Heartworm, The Fifth Beetle, Butterfly…" Clockblocker trailed off. "I don't think you're going to be able to find a name that doesn't scream 'villain' or 'eight year old girl'."
"Oh joy, we're on the news. Who wants to see the damage?" Kid Win asked, rubbing his arm.
I still wasn't sure about spending time with the Wards, especially since I could tell that dad was just putting on a brave face for them. Maybe it was a trait he'd picked up from his friends at the Dockworkers' Association, but he couldn't bear to let anyone else see him cry. There was also the fact that he was being held there by them. He wasn't being detained, he wasn't physically restrained, but he was "under PRT witness protection." And I wouldn't leave without him.
How did I feel about all this? Drained. Emotionally and physically. I could feel flies and moths giving out one by one, having reached the end of their lives or their energy stores. They fell, but didn't weigh enough to hurt themselves when they landed. It took some concentration, but I was able to keep cycling old flyers out with new or freshly-fed ones. I was held here, but I wasn't about to let the PRT see clear skies. I would endure.
Kid Win dragged the volume control up. I maneuvered a patch of sleepy bees over his shoulder and winced inwardly at the live feed. I hadn't really taken the time to study the effect my efforts were having on the PRT headquarters, but the image was decidedly biblical. The contrast with the squeaky-clean reporter in the foreground was almost amusing.
"Terror and tragedy: two words no parent should have to associate with their child. I'm coming to you live just a block away from the PRT roadblock that has remained in place for the past eight hours, disrupting normal traffic flow and interrupting work for dozens of businesses in the area. As you can see, the parahuman who has identified herself as Taylor Hebert remains in PRT custody. The PRT have yet to release an official statement commenting on the shocking display of brutality this morning, and insider sources have hinted that the PRT is still considering its next move. As the citizens of Brockton Bay wait for their response, the question on everyone's mind is "How could this have happened?"
Winslow Public High School educates a population of students which is frequently underserved and, some would argue, practically invisible. Many of the students from the Docks area are routinely swept up, willingly and unwillingly, in gang-related crime. In this volatile environment, it is perhaps unsurprising that disaster was waiting to strike. On January 3rd, the very first day of school after the winter holiday, a fire alarm was pulled on the second floor, and after firefighters cleared the building, Ms. Hebert was recorded as absent from all her classes. By the next morning, she was officially declared missing by the BBPD. Forty-eight hours after that, her heartbroken father was forced to confront the fact that the search had been called off.
For all too many cases, this is the end of the story. A family shattered, and the survivors left to pick up the pieces. In Taylor's case, the story took on a macabre twist. At 3:45 this morning, local business owner Jessica Schubert called 911 to report seeing a swarm of bugs possessed of "a malevolent intelligence." Soon, other reports came flooding in and the PRT announced their suspicion that the bugs had a parahuman source and that they would be increasing patrols to locate the offender. It wasn't until many residents were on their lunch breaks that the source made herself known. Before we show the next clip I'd like to warn that our more sensitive viewers may find this content disturbing."
Kid Win muted the feed.
"I don't think any of us want to hear that again." He said matter-of-factly.
Dad finally spoke up, and it was to very unsubtly change the subject.
"So all of you go to Arcadia then?"
Smooth, dad.
Still, the awkward conversation flowed. Clockblocker tapped his fingers idly on the surface of the brushed steel table around which most of us sat. Browbeat leaned by the door and tried to look interested, though I could hear the sounds coming from the earbuds he had hidden under his hoodie.
I nodded gratefully to Kid Win, though it looked more like the swarm in the room dipped in the air.
It was telling that the Wards were all crowded into this interrogation room with me and none had apparently seen fit to visit Sophia. Or Shadow Stalker, I supposed. I was still coming to terms with that. Most likely to put me at ease, Kid Win had informed me that she was in a cell and wearing an electrified set of handcuffs. Apparently her shadow state didn't interact well with live current, so she wasn't going to be getting out on her own.
The idea that she had gotten away with so much for so long galled me. It made a lot of sense in retrospect. The stonewalling from the administration, the silence from the staff: it all came back to a sickening loyalty to my longtime tormentor.
It wasn't hard to envision this situation being mirrored in thousands of other Winslows across the country. How many other divisions were hiding the crimes of their members? What had Armsmaster been getting away with? What secrets did Miss Militia have hiding behind her compassionate facade? What demons did Eidolon have?
There was far too much I didn't know. I had barely paid attention to the news when it came to capes before, but now? Now I was one. A "monstrous cape," to boot. The kinds of capes who couldn't walk down the street out of costume without turning heads.
Not that I'll be walking down the street at all unless I can change back.
I had a fuzzy sort of image of what shape I was before in my mind.
Tall, with an elongated sort of underdeveloped thorax (I still felt sore about that part).
Thin legs--
Whoops, too thin, can't support the weight.
And a lump at the top.
There!
I realized belatedly that the conversation had halted. Everyone at the table was staring. Vista at least had the good grace to not let her mouth hang open.
Had I changed back?
I felt a stirring in my heart. After a moment's consideration, I reattributed the sensation to a helicopter landing on the roof.
"Did it work?" I murmured.
"Is that… you? I mean, is that what you're going to look like now?" Dad breathed.
I centered myself and looked over at the one-way mirror, which I had been avoiding since we entered the room.
What I saw was a black column of invertebrates clutching each other so that they formed the crude shape of a person. The squat legs shifted constantly to maintain its balance, and beetles swarmed across its surface. It looked more like a melted wax figure of a person than I had been imagining. I realized with some embarrassment that I had forgotten to add arms.
I sighed. The sound of dozens of cockroaches hissing made Clockblocker jump. Dad winced.
"No, it's just a bunch of bugs." I answered glumly. As if to illustrate my point, the puppet toppled over. Gallant danced away from the spray of bugs and edged around the table towards Kid Win. "I think this whole thing is me."
Gallant leaned over Kid Win's shoulder to unmute the news stream.
"Dude." Kid Win squawked at the intrusion. The indignation faded from his face as he heard the voice of Victoria Dallon, also known as Glory Girl.
"-ly disgusting, this is against everything New Wave stands for. I, for one, will be looking over my shoulder a lot more often with the Protectorate still at large."
The reporter hid his pleasure at receiving such a juicy sound bite well.
"And Ms. Hebert herself?"
"We're actually here to see her. And provide medical aid and legal counsel. And moral support!" She shouted over her shoulder and I realized that the feed was on a two second delay. "You go, Taylor! Stay fierce! You're gonna be the new queen bee from now on!"
Some part of me found her antics ridiculous, and another, uncomfortably large part of me was fixating on the pun. I decided to answer, letting the evening's crickets and cockroaches carry my voice to her. Soon, the camera jerked up to put the bulk of the swarm in the center of the frame.
"Queen maybe, but I've got a whole lot more than just bees over here."
Glory Girl smiled at my reply.
The smile was short lived, since in the same motion she noticed her mother stalking towards her and Panacea. Without another word, she scooped Amy up in her arms and rose out of the camera frame. My bugs tracked the three of them to the edge of the roadblock as they approached. Based on the gestures, I gathered that they were having an argument, though Panacea was staying out of it.
The reporter turned back to the camera, his face composed and professional again. It switched to a side by side view of him and the KBBB news anchor.
"Thanks Chris, we'll be standing by for you to report on location on any development in Queen's story as part of our twenty four hour, up-to-the-minute broadcast." She finished crisply before looking down at the papers in her hands as the station logo flowed onto the screen.
Clockblocker glanced over at the thicker part of my swarm.
"So, want to make it three for three and reveal your secret weakness on live TV too?" He grunted as Vista elbowed him in the unpadded area under his armpit.
I studied my dad's face. It looked like he had aged years in the weeks since I had last seen him. When things finally quieted down, we would have a lot to talk about.
Free legal representation by the accountability
team... well, Danny's going to be free to go very, very quickly.
team... well, Danny's going to be free to go very, very quickly.