Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

blackarrow · Apr 10, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
Yes, Being Taylor is suffering.
There is also the term I like to use: "It gets worse".

Worm should have 2 mottos: 'Either way, its going to be bad' and 'Being Taylor is suffering'. Perfect mottos for a perfect story.

blackarrow · Apr 10, 2018

ExNihilo said:
Wrong kind of romantic, unfortunately. It's not a huge spoiler, but I don't think we've talked much about Taylor's Mom, so I'm holding off.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say but its good that you didn't spoil it. Thank you.

ExNihilo · Apr 10, 2018

blackarrow said:
Taylor and Kid Win

As a main character, Taylor is shipped with just about everyone, but as far as wards go, I've seen Taylor shipped well with all of them except Vista and Gallant. Kw is probably of my favorite though.

blackarrow said:
Fog can turn into a fog

I'll give him that, it's aweful predictive. I don't think anyone else in B.B. has such a predictive name.

Velocity too,

Assembler · Apr 10, 2018

ExNihilo said:
As a main character, Taylor is shipped with just about everyone, but as far as wards go, I've seen Taylor shipped well with all of them except Vista and Gallant. Kw is probably of my favorite though.

I've seen a NSFW fic which started out Taylor/Gallant and soon turned it into a three-way with Vista. The relationship didn't last and Taylor started dating Amy instead. All these relationships were sexually open.

ExNihilo · Apr 10, 2018

Assembler said:
I've seen a NSFW fic which started out Taylor/Gallant and soon turned it into a three-way with Vista. The relationship didn't last and Taylor started dating Amy instead. All these relationships were sexually open.

Um. I'm not sure how to respond to that. Uh. Vista's very young.

blackarrow · Apr 11, 2018

Assembler said:
I've seen a NSFW fic which started out Taylor/Gallant and soon turned it into a three-way with Vista. The relationship didn't last and Taylor started dating Amy instead. All these relationships were sexually open.

I'd personally refuse to read that fic because it would turn Taylor and Gallant into pedophiles and this is disturbing as HELL. I refuse to read any romantic fic (NSFW or not) where a child/or blood related siblings are involved. I'm very triggered by this, even more triggered than I'm by non-con or extreme kinks. But if Vista is also enough, like 16-17 years old, then I'm ok. And Taylor X Amy would be such cuties together

.

blackarrow · Apr 11, 2018

ExNihilo said:
As a main character, Taylor is shipped with just about everyone, but as far as wards go, I've seen Taylor shipped well with all of them except Vista and Gallant. Kw is probably of my favorite though.

I'll give him that, it's aweful predictive. I don't think anyone else in B.B. has such a predictive name.

Velocity too,

Don't tell me she's also shipped with Armsmaster or Kaiser or her own father. That would be a little disturbing, especially with Danny (Ewwwww)

Tattletale also have a kind of predictive name. And Clockblocker.

Assembler · Apr 11, 2018

blackarrow said:
Don't tell me she's also shipped with Armsmaster or Kaiser or her own father. That would be a little disturbing, especially with Danny (Ewwwww)

Tattletale also have a kind of predictive name. And Clockblocker.

Fine. I won't tell you there's people who write Taylor/Danny.

AmbarGriss · Apr 11, 2018

People who write fanfiction are crazy sometimes, but there are very good ones from time to time
Like "Queen of Blood" where Taylor is a vampire, its a lot lighter and softer than the original Worm, believe it or not and also pretty good.

blackarrow · Apr 11, 2018

Hello, pals, The Butcher of Reviews report on duty with 7.08 | Worm. I was thinking seriously about Taylor being shipped with everyone and I'm trying to imagine how a Taylor X Rachel or Dog Fleas ship would work. Something like:
Taylor: Understand, Rachel? You and me...girlfriends. You're my girlfriend, I'm your girlfriend. Come on, its not that hard.
Rachel: I dunno.
Taylor: We're like mother and father only the father is also a mother.
Rachel: You're fucking with me.
Taylor: Not yet...I mean, let's kiss, you'll understand faster this way.
Rachel: What the fuck this means?
Taylor: What? A kiss? Well, when you love someone the most you have to kiss them. This is how a healthy relationship works.
Rachel: Its that all? Kiss what I love the most?
Taylor: Yep.
Rachel: If you fuck with me, Brutus will rip your head off "start kissing all her dogs. ALL OF THEM" Done, I kissed what I love the most. Now we're...girlfriends for real?
Taylor "facepalms" : Ewwwwwwww.

That would be one HELL of an relationship!

So, last time, Purity's MOTHERLY RAGE managed to destroy Brockton Bay Zoo, along with other buildings, and a lot of animals escaped from there. Three of those animals, a tiger, a wolf and a mutated cricket (as tall as a human) attacked Grue and Skitter, challenging them to an unwanted fight. Let's see if Grue and Skitter will survive to this wild assault.

Stormtiger raised one hand in the direction he'd come and created a blast of wind to clear a path through Grue's darkness and reveal Hookwolf and Cricket.
"Fancy this," Hookwolf chuckled, looking down at me, "We decide to attack the blockades and avoid being hemmed in like the ABB was, and we happen upon you?"
"Not looking for a fight," I told him.
"Stormtiger, find the others of her group." Hookwolf snarled, apparently not considering my words worth responding to.

"Can't," Stormtiger spoke, from where he stood above me. "Not smelling them."
"You smelled her."
"And I smelled the two uniforms from the ambulance. Other one's bleeding, sitting near the ambulance somewhere over there. Darkness boy isn't around anymore or I'd be able to smell him."
He was wrong. My bugs could feel Grue out there. If the driver had been injured, that might account for why Grue had lagged behind. But Stormtiger couldn't smell Grue?
Hookwolf turned to me, "The dog girl. Where's Bitch?"
"Not here."
"I know that," he growled. His hand dissolved into a mess of knives, hooks and spearpoints, then solidified into an oversized claw with fingers as long as his torso. He flexed them experimentally. How did you even classify that? Ferrokinetic shapeshifting?
I crawled backward a few feet, trying to maintain distance between us. Stormtiger reached down and blocked my retreat with one blade-covered hand.
I looked up at Stormtiger and spoke, "We split up earlier today. One of our members had a source, we heard about the email that went out when the news stations and papers did. Decided it'd be better to back off, just in case." No harm done by admitting that much.
"Don't believe you," he snarled. "Doesn't explain why you're here."
"That's because-"
I stopped as the two of them turned away. The 'paramedic' a few feet from Stormtiger had bolted, and was drawing a gun as she ran toward the closest patch of darkness. As she got close to her destination, still running, she turned on the spot and raised her gun to fire at Stormtiger and Hookwolf.
Hookwolf barely reacted as the bullets punched into his chest, and even that was just the inevitable force of being shot. Stormtiger raised one arm as if to protect himself, but the bullets were already veering off before they could hit him, leaving a trio of hazy trails in the air where they had turned.
"Handle her, Cricket," Hookwolf spoke, pressing a hand against his collarbone where a bullet had struck him. The scarred girl with the buzz cut dashed forward, reaching behind her back to draw two scythe-like weapons, each only about as long as her forearm.

SURPRISING, these animals can TALK LIKE HUMANS!!!!! What a twist! On a serious note, Hookwolf have a badass powers, he can turn his body into metal and weapons, he's like a walking, talking human weapon. But he doesn't seem to me so smart, Skitter alone can defeat him if she were to fight one against one. After all, she defeated Lung and Bakuda, and those two were MILES SMARTER that this wolf-dog of a man. Cricket have scythes as her weapons, imitating the cricket's legs from behind. But still I didn't see her use her power, yet. The paramedic soldier is pretty badass for a non-powered woman, she managed to shoot Hookwolf even if it was pretty useless because of his metal body. But still, I have to respect her for her bravery. Now she should shoot Cricket before she'll get killed by her. Unless Cricket is able to defend herself with her scythes, dodging the bullets, she seems more vulnerable to bullets than Hookwolf.

Coil's soldier turned to fire at the incoming villainess, but Cricket ducked to the right, then evaded left, in time with the noise of the gunfire. The distance between them closed rapidly. I didn't see what happened next, as Coil's soldier disappeared into the darkness and Cricket followed her in.

Hookwolf turned back to me, "Suspiciously competent for an ambulance driver. Pretty fucking sure that's one of Coil's people. What are you doing with her?"
I didn't answer.
My bugs reacted to a funny noise from the direction of Cricket and Coil's woman, but I couldn't hear it myself. Grue's power did strange things to sound. I had more immediate concerns.
Hookwolf dropped his hand to his side, and I saw how the bullet had penetrated skin, but had failed to get any further than the interlocking grid of metal that sat in place of Hookwolf's muscle. He smiled. "I was hoping you wouldn't answer. It means we get to interrogate you."
Options, options, what were my options? Bugs? They were around, but I got the impression that Hookwolf wasn't going to suffer that much if I swarmed him, and Stormtiger had some kind of aerokinesis, which was bound to be pretty effective against the lightweight bugs. Knife, baton? Not much better. These guys were capable in hand to hand. I wasn't.
Where was Grue? I felt out with my power, and found him at the back of the ambulance with the driver. Whatever he was doing, I hoped he would do it soon. I needed his help.
I looked for Cricket, and found her in the blackness, dragging Coil's soldier back toward us. I saw her emerge from the darkness, one of the miniature scythes buried in the woman's upper arm, the other buried in her thigh. With a full-body effort, Cricket swung the woman forward and pulled the scythes free. Coil's soldier rolled onto the ground before Cricket. If her powers didn't give her an edge in fitness, she was pretty damn fit for her frame.
Was Coil's woman dead? No. The woman was breathing. She was making lots of short, fast breaths, not moving, but she was breathing.

Wait a minute, wait a minute....Hookwolf is NOT that stupid as I believed him to be. He quickly guessed that the BRAVE female soldier was Coil's man...I mean woman. Hmmm, this ASSHOLE is full of surprises, isn't he? And Cricket is a SAVAGE. She almost killed the woman soldier. Also, she can dodge bullets, which is a great skill. Those MURDEROUS ASSHOLE are pretty powerful, even without Purity, Night and Fog helping them. I'm not sure what you can do, Skitter, your bugs are pretty useless against metal, wind and a bitch who can dodge fucking bullets. Unless Grue will do something about, you're pretty screwed. OMG, your day sucks sooooooo bad, this might be the third worst day of your life, after the one when your mother died and the one with the locket

. Being either Taylor or Skitter is SUFFERING.

Hookwolf watched for a second before turning back to me. "Maybe I'll give Stormtiger some practice at getting answers out of people. Those claws of his? They're compressed air. Every second, he's drawing in more air, shoving it into that claw shaped space, to make them denser, harder. And when he releases it…" he offered me a low chuckle.
Come on, Grue. I couldn't handle this alone.
"Want to see what happens when one of them is buried inside you when he turns it into one of his blasts of wind?" Hookwolf asked. Again, the low laughter at my expense.
Grue was moving toward me with purpose, now. I stirred bugs from the ground around him to place them on his body, get a sense of what he was doing. He was carrying something three and a half feet long, nearly a foot wide, a rounded off shape that was all smooth metal.
Shit.
I flipped over and scrambled away. Stormtiger was behind me, and he kicked me in the back as I tried to rise up and start running, shoving me back to the ground, hard. I was glad for my mask as my face bounced off the pavement.

Go with it. Remembering the tips Brian had given me during our sparring session, I used the fact that Stormtiger had created a bit more distance between us and continued to move away as fast as I could manage.
"Running?" Hookwolf laughed, "You can try."
"Gun oil," Stormtiger called out, whipping around to face Grue. "I smell gun oil."
Grue hefted the long metal object back with both hands, then flung it forward. He didn't drop both his arms as he let go. Instead, he used his left hand to follow up with a directed blast of darkness to cover it as it rolled into the clearing.
I clamped my hands to my ears, painful as it was with the bandage on my right ear.
Grue's right hand was already withdrawing a gun from his jacket pocket as he backed up.
His arm jerked twice as he fired the gun at the oxygen tank he'd fetched from the back of the ambulance. The first shot missed. The second didn't.
It was so quiet I thought I'd been deafened by the sudden explosion. Hookwolf's delayed scream of pain and rage was a bittersweet relief.

Hookwolf is a SADISTIC MAN BITCH, who enjoy laughing at people pain and have a great pleasure to torture them. FUCK HIM. This bastard deserve to die along with his psychotic buddies, Stormtiger and Cricket. I won't feel bad at all if Grue will actually manage to kill Hookwolf with the explosion of the oxygen tank. The only nazi I'd feel sorry for if she'll die is Purity. Yes, maybe she killed a lot of people in those buildings that she collapsed, but at least she had a motivation- to take her daughter back (a desperate mother can become a monster for her child) and she didn't seem to enjoy taking lives. Hookwolf would have laughed when the cameraman died. Still I want Purity to be punished for her crimes, send to Birdcage, but she'll lose her minds there without Aster and will start killing her cellmates and end up being killed by someone more powerful than her. Also, I remember Fenja and Menja, they didn't seem so bad back when they helped Skitter and Kaiser.

Wasting no opportunity, Grue marched forward, gun in hand. Stormtiger had been farther away, and lay face down on the ground, bleeding badly but intact, from what I and my bugs could see. Grue stopped, aimed, and shot him once in each leg.
"Hey!" Cricket's voice was strangled, strained. I wondered if one of the injuries that had given her one of those scars had done something to her vocal chords. She lowered one of the scythes toward Coil's soldier. "I got a-"
Grue covered her and her hostage in darkness and turned toward me and Hookwolf. The message was clear. He wasn't negotiating. I was pretty sure I couldn't have made that call, even knowing that stopping for the woman's sake was almost inevitably going to lead to a worse situation.
Hookwolf staggered to his feet. He'd taken more damage from the blast than anyone, and his skin hung off in tatters around the arm he hadn't yet transformed, most of the trunk of his body and his thigh, with lesser damage over the surrounding area. Beneath the tatters of skin, as I'd seen with the bullet wound, there was only blood-slick bands and blades of metal. Hooks and knives all laid side by side in the general shape of human musculature.

Hookwolf thrust his damaged arm out to one side, and the muscles unhinged like a swiss army knife, revealing still more blades and hooks that unfolded, swelled and overlapped to cover and patch the injured area. His arm grew with the use of his power, and the resulting limb was three times the normal size, ending in what looked like a two foot long fishhook.
"Skitter," Grue called, "Run!"
I climbed to my feet and hurried toward him. Hookwolf turned to face me, then lunged my way, closing more distance than I might have anticipated. I abandoned my attempt to rejoin Grue and headed to my left, straight into the darkness.
My bugs dotted the surface of a mailbox, three paces into the blackness. I ducked around it as Hookwolf blindly followed me in. Swinging blindly, he struck a fire hydrant, but no water was forthcoming. He lunged left, gouging chunks of brick from a wall, then he leaped right, striking the mailbox and cleaving it in half.
I was already scrambling in Grue's general direction, the mailbox well behind me.

FUCK THIS, Hookwolf's powers are NUTS. He can turn his whole body into metal and weapons and hooks, even his musculature. He's like a fucking Terminator that you just can't put down for good. He's a SCARY piece of metal shit. Good that Stormtiger is down, we still don't know what will happen with the female soldier and Grue (MY MAN) is AMAZINGLY BADASS as always, going to great lengths to save his friend/sister like. He's so damn protective towards Skitter, he'd die for her (and his teammates and his sister) if its necessary. He's more heroic than a lot of heroes I read about

.

I felt a surge of relief at realizing that Cricket had abandoned her hostage in favor of going after Grue, to initiate a brief exchange of blows. Unfortunately, my relief was short lived, because the combat wasn't brief in a good way. Grue fired the gun twice, and twice she dodged the bullet, standing only ten and seven feet away from the barrel. It wasn't superspeed, either, though she was quick. Her movements were simply too efficient, and if there was any delay in her reactions, I wasn't seeing it.

He swung a punch as she closed in. Cricket leaned out of the way, then swung her scythe to rake him across the chest. From the way he staggered, I knew she'd struck home. He jabbed, she avoided it as though it were easy, then followed up with two more swings, and he failed to avoid either. He staggered back, clutching one arm to his chest.
He blanketed the area around them in darkness, filling the clearing, and Cricket immediately switched to swinging blindly and ferociously around herself as she advanced toward where Grue had been. Grue backed away, but this had the unfortunate effect of putting him closer to Hookwolf, who was doing much the same as Cricket. Grue turned and ran to create some distance and avoid being hemmed in.
Then every bug in the area reacted to that sound I couldn't make out, the one I'd heard when Cricket went after Coil's soldier. It was loud enough for them to hear through the darkness, but… entirely out of my range of hearing.
I couldn't say for sure, but I got the impression the ones closer to Cricket had heard it a fraction of a second sooner.
"Grue!" I screamed into the oppressive shadow. "Move!"
Cricket turned toward him and lunged in one motion, bringing both scythes down in an overhead swing. Grue moved out of the way just in time.
"She has radar!" I shouted, my voice barely audible to myself. Didn't matter. Grue could hear me.
Cricket passed one of the mini-scythes into one hand and then used her newly freed hand to wipe bugs from her skin. They were gathering on her, and she was starting to feel it. Good.
Again, that pulse emanated from her. She maintained it this time, and my bugs began to suffer for it. Their coordination suffered, they began to move slower, and their senses – such as they were in the darkness – began to go haywire.
After a second or two, I thought maybe I was starting to feel it too. A bit off-balance, nauseous. Grue was hunched over, his hands on his knees, but I wasn't sure if that was Cricket's power or the injuries she'd inflicted. From the way Cricket was moving, I gathered that she couldn't see us. Was it echolocation?
Did it not work if she simply blasted the noise continually rather than use it in bursts?
Annoying as it was that everyone seemed to have a way of dealing with my bugs, I was at least putting her in a position where she couldn't both find us and deal with them.

Cricket KNOWS HOW TO FIGHT. And its impressive. Also she have super-reflexes as part of her power. I'm a bit confused about the radar thing. Its a gadget made by tinkers (because it sounds more powerful than a normal radar) or its part of her power? She can make bugs useless and people nauseous with this radar, and Skitter and Grue have some very real problems to defeat her. Let's not forget about the Terminator Hookwolf who's....somewhere, fumbling through darkness, like a blind dog

.

I was having trouble getting a sense of her powers. I'd heard of her, seen pictures, read up on her on the wiki and message boards. She was rarely more than a footnote, typically a suspect in a murder or arson case alongside Stormtiger and Hookwolf. Never had I come across something like 'Cricket has limited precognition' or 'Cricket is a sound manipulator'.
The bugs started to fall away from her, losing their grip or ability to navigate through the air. Knowing our advantage would soon disappear, I advanced towards her, drawing my knife. I checked on Hookwolf, and found him scaling a building a distance behind me. Was he trying to rise above the cloud of darkness to spot us or get his bearings?
I was three paces from Cricket when I felt the sound die off, then resume again for one brief second. Another radar pulse.
"Careful!" I shouted, adjusting my momentum and hurrying to back away. Too slow. She was already pivoting to swing at me. The handle of one scythe struck me in the side of my throat, the actual blade hooking around behind my neck to halt my retreat. Before I could do anything, she pulled me toward her.
I stumbled forward, and she adjusted her grip to swing the other scythe up and into the side of my stomach.
I doubled over and crumpled to the ground.
Grue shouted something, but his words didn't reach me through the darkness.
Cricket emitted another radar pulse, then lunged for Grue. She caught him in the arm, this time. Then she backed off, going for the continuous, sense-warping noise to put my bugs on the fritz once more.
Grue raised his borrowed gun and his arm bucked with the kick. Cricket was oblivious as the gun fired off several times in a row, but whatever she was doing with her power was screwing with Grue's ability to aim. None of the bullets struck home. He stopped. Either he was out of bullets, though it seemed too soon for that, or he wanted to conserve ammunition.

I climbed to my feet, feeling my side protesting in agony. The blade hadn't penetrated my costume, but the sides of my stomach weren't armored and the cloth had done little to soften the jab of it, even if it had prevented me from being cut or disemboweled. Cricket was bigger than me, stronger, and she knew how to use her weapons. It had hurt.
When I was sure I could move without falling over, I lunged, knife in hand.
I'd hoped that if I was quick about it, I could act before she used her radar again. I wasn't so lucky. She was already moving by the time I realized she'd made another pulse of noise, scythe points whipping around toward the side of my head, where my mask provided only partial coverage. I had too much forward momentum to avoid walking straight into the incoming blades.
I half-fell, half ducked, and instead of driving my knife into her back like I'd intended, I wound up burying it in the side of her thigh. Whatever technique let her dodge bullets, it apparently didn't work if she couldn't see.

Cricket is kicking BOTH Grue and Skitter's asses, OMG. I don't know if to laugh because a parahuman weaker than Lung is able to beat Skitter up or to cry because of their situation, maybe both. Too bad Regent wasn't there, he could have made her drop her scythes by snapping his fingers. Or Tattletale, to inform them (and me as well) about the mystery surrounding Cricket's normal or supernatural radar. At least Skitter managed to injury her but I'm sure this wound will be nothing for Cricket, like a simple scratch.

As much as it might have hurt, she didn't waste an instant in hefting her weapon to retaliate and swinging down at my head. I wasn't in a position to get out of the way.
Grue caught her by the wrist mid-swing and pulled her off-balance before she could follow through.

She moved fluidly, considering the blade buried in her upper leg. She reversed her grip on her weapon with her free hand, stuttered her power to create what I took was another radar pulse, then readied to swing it at Grue.
I twisted the knife, and pulled it out of her leg with a two-handed grip. Or, to rephrase, I pulled the knife through her leg, dragging it horizontally through the meat of her thigh, toward her hip, and out.
She toppled, and Grue put his hand on my shoulder to pull me back away. Cricket lay on the pavement, pressing her hands to her injury.
"You okay?" Grue asked me, as he cleared the darkness within one foot of the both of us.
"I'm bruised but yeah. I should be asking you that question. How bad is it?"
He banished the darkness around his body, and in the gloom, I saw how the blades had neatly cut through his jacket and t-shirt to draw criss-crossing lines of red across his chest. An uglier wound marked his right arm from elbow to wrist, all the more visible because the cut had extended to the cuff of his costume, leaving the sleeve to hang loose around his elbow.

Ok, Skitter injured the Cricket bitch pretty good, but not bad enough to kill her. She hurt MY Grue, she deserves to die :rage:

. Nobody hurts my fictional boyfriends and walks away like nothing happened. Anyway, they survived this savage battle for moment, because now they might be attacked by Hookwolf. Let the fun continues

.

"Looks worse than it is. I've fought people like her before, in sparring and fighting classes. She was showing off with the first few cuts. Shallow, inflicting pain, not really meant to disable or deal real harm."
"That's stupid," I muttered. "I'm glad, but it's stupid."
"She probably didn't think about it. I'd bet it's something she learned and incorporated into her style while fighting for a crowd." He looked over in Hookwolf's direction, then winced at how the movement pulled against his injured chest. "We should go."
"Agreed."

Grue opened a path in the darkness for the faux paramedic, we checked that she was alive, and then helped her limp to the ambulance, with me doing most of the heavy work for once. I hurried to grab some first aid supplies, packing ointments, pills and bandages into a bag. Coil's soldiers retreated back toward the police barricade before I was finished, each supporting the other.
Grue flooded more of the area with darkness while I gathered most of the swarm back around myself. I left only the bare minimum of bugs necessary to navigate the sightless world of Grue's power and the ones I needed to track Hookwolf's presence. There were more I couldn't touch because they were caught helpless in the endless, subsonic drone that Cricket still emanated, but I had enough that I could deal. We hurried away before Hookwolf thought to attack the spot where the ambulance had crashed.
We were nearly four blocks away before Grue felt it safe to dismiss the darkness around us. Rationally, I knew we were safer in the shadows, that it would prevent most ambushes, but a primal part of my psyche was glad to be in the light and noise once more.
I shot Grue another worried look as we walked. "Looks like it's my turn to give you some stitches. You going to be okay?"

Grue pretends to be more badass than he's already in order to make Skitter less worried for him than she's already. This is sweet! I'm glad the brave female soldier survived, Coil should give her a fucking medal for fighting against 3 parahumans and surviving (in the same manner that sniper fought against Oni Lee and took him down like a pro). Amazing how much I like Coil's super-soldiers but I hate their boss

.

"Fuck." He touched his chest tenderly, not giving me a direct answer. "What were her powers? Overclocked reflexes and what was it you said? Radar?"
"Enhanced reflexes is a better guess than what I'd come up with. She was making some sort of subsonic drone. It was the source of that disorientation effect. She could use it like echolocation or something."
"It's times like this I can say it's worth having Tattletale on the team. I hate not knowing someone's powers."
We stopped at an old church with boards up where there should have been stained glass windows. Litter and more than one half-full trash bag occupied the ground at the base of the building. Together, we walked inside.
Regent was perched on the lip of the stage beneath the altar. Tattletale sat on the back of one of the benches, her feet resting on the seat. Bitch paced at the rear of the church, the point farthest from the front door, and her dogs moved like gargantuan silhouettes in the darkness of the aisles. If it weren't for the light filtering in between the plywood on the windows, I wasn't sure I would have known they were there.
"Grue!" Tattletale leapt from her seat. "What happened?"
"Ran across Hookwolf, Stormtiger and Cricket. Those three like to cut people," Grue spoke. "We were lucky to get away as intact as we did."
"Sit," I ordered Grue. Hissing between his teeth, he pulled off his jacket, then turned his attention to his T-shirt, which was sticking to his chest with the blood that had leaked from the cuts. Rather than have to remove his helmet and drag the cloth over his injured chest and arm, he tore his shirt where it had been cut, and pulled it off in tatters. He sat down, shirtless, his helmet on. I began getting the stuff out to clean his wounds.

"Did you guys run into trouble?" Grue asked.
"Just enough that we've been getting a little restless. Bitch took down some thugs, but they scattered, and word's probably out that we're in the area."
"Purity?" He asked.
"She's out there," Regent spoke, in his characteristic distracted, disaffected manner, "We saw the lights and heard the noise as she was knocking down more buildings. She moved away from this area a little while ago."
Tattletale turned to me, "Here, give me that. I'll work on his arm."
I duly handed over the cleaning solution and some antiseptic wipes. I heard Grue mutter, "Shit, I hope Cricket isn't the type to put poison on her weapon."
"Don't say that!" I gasped, horrified.
"Not to worry, either of you," Tattletale sounded exasperated. "My power says no."
I nodded, but my heartbeat was still cranked up a notch from that momentary alarm. When I glanced up from the stash of medical stuff I'd grabbed from the ambulance to see how Tattletale was doing with Grue's arm, I saw Grue's skull-visor pointed at me. Was he looking at me? What was he thinking? What expression was on his face?

See, boys and girls! That's the reason why they NEED to take Tattletale after them all the time. They'd enter completely blind in a fight without her around. If I were in their place, I won't go anywhere without Tattletale, not even to a mundane villain meeting. The irony of fate: Brian took care of Taylor's wound before the fight and now Skitter is taking care of Grue's wound. Gosh, I hope Purity will not start throwing beams of light over your church because this is the last thing you'll all need now.

"I'm thinking guerrilla strikes," Grue spoke, turning to Tattletale, "We have the dogs, we use their mobility to harass, catch any roaming groups off guard, take them down, disappear before reinforcements or heroes show."
Tattletale shook her head, "One problem with that."
"Which is?"
She pointed at his chest. "You may not be poisoned, but you've lost some blood. I'd lay even money that you'd pass out if you did something as high exertion as riding the dogs."
"Don't take a bet with Tattle," Regent chimed in, "She cheats."
"We need to end this fast," Tattletale said. "Not just because of Grue's injuries, but because Purity's going to wipe out our neighborhood soon if someone doesn't stop her. We take the most direct action we can."
"Direct action," I echoed her. I didn't like the sound of that.
"We go straight for Purity."

"Fuck that," Grue shook his head, "There's no way."
"Way," Tattletale retorted. "It's not pretty, it's risky, but it's our best bet at ending this, one way or another. Thing is, we've got to move fast or our opportunity will disappear. Skitter, we'd better get started on the stitches, I'll explain while we do it."
I swallowed, nodded, turned my attention back to the bag of medical stuff, and found the needle and thread.
"Like you said before," I told Grue, quiet, pulling the pre-threaded needle free of the spool, "Let me apologize in advance."
"Damn it," he muttered.

Fuck that indeed, Grue. They'll go straight for basically Supergirl, they won't stand any slightly chance against her as long as she's empowered by light. Maybe Tattletale will find a way to return Aster back to her, this is the only way to stop her. I'm sure that Purity will stop this madness once she'll have her baby back into her arms, if not, then she's fucking nuts and she deserves to be killed by whoever can kill her.

Good night and sleep well, pals, tomorrow with another fuckery of a battle to review

.

ExNihilo · Apr 11, 2018

blackarrow said:
Hookwolf is NOT that stupid as I believed him to be

That is his goal. He's rough around the edges(understatement of the year), but making people underestimate you is a good strategy.

blackarrow · Apr 11, 2018

ExNihilo said:
That is his goal. He's rough around the edges(understatement of the year), but making people underestimate you is a good strategy.

Yes, he kind of tricked me first time when he made his appearance. Back then he seemed like a stupid savage. The same thing I can say about Lung too. First time he didn't appeared so smart to me. I'm more afraid of smart people who pretend they're stupid (Hookwolf, Lung) than of smart people who're trying their best to impress with their intelligence (Kaiser, Coil). Well, all of them are dangerous but at least you can find ways to protect yourself against someone that you know as being smart than against someone who pretends to be stupid, despite being smart.

blackarrow · Apr 13, 2018

Hello, friends. I'm deeply sorry for not posting anything yesterday but I had a very busy day and I was so tired at the end of it that when I started to read this chapter 7.09 | Worm I was afraid that I'll fall asleep on my desk. Not only Taylor should have awful days, after all

. Okay, back to the fun. Last time, Grue and Skitter barely escaped alive from a very pissed off Cricket and a blind cyborg (Hook)wolf and they meet the other three teammates in a church (now, I'm becoming curious if any of Undersiders is religious; if there's a single religious Undersiders, I think is Lisa, I just can't others see being not even remotely religious. Especially Rachel). Now they're going to take down Purity. I have very low hopes that they'll succeed doing this if they have to fight against her, maybe only if she'll lose her light energy and become weak, but at least they can give her what she wants the most.

"You going to be okay?" I asked, as Grue zipped up his jacket. With his t-shirt removed, he was wearing the leather jacket over his bare, freshly stitched skin. I couldn't imagine it was remotely comfortable.
"I'll be fine. Let's end this ASAP. Bitch? The dogs."
I winced. I wasn't looking forward to riding. It was too soon after our previous escapade, and I was still sore.
Bitch whistled and pointed, and we headed out the front door of the church. The moment we were outside, Grue hauled himself up onto Judas' back, and I could see him hunch over for a moment in pain.
"Seriously, are you going to be-"
"I'm fine, Skitter," Grue spoke. He was creating darkness around himself, and his voice had that hollow quality to it. "Just drop it."

The 'drop it' line hit a little too close to home, echoing what I'd said at the mall after Brian's rejection, and once or twice after that. I was made acutely aware of that little rift I'd generated in what had been a fairly easygoing friendship.
Regent and Bitch were climbing onto Brutus, while Tattletale was examining her phone. That left two dogs to ride.
I looked at where Grue sat, and decided it would be less awkward if I didn't ride with him. I approached Angelica, extended my hand for her to sniff, then climbed onto her back.
"Tattletale," Grue spoke. "I thought we were in a hurry."
She put the phone away, then climbed up behind Grue.
"Coil?" I guessed.
"Yep."

They're going to hunt down nazis and establish a new series of Nuremberg trials, this is what they're going to do. Undersiders- The Champions of Justice (seriously speaking, they're doing more heroic stuff than Protectorate itself, at least with ABB and trying to stop Purity's rampage). I wish you success, even if its going to be a hard fight, with a next to impossible victory. Now, I'm more and more curious about Coil's real name, Yep, this sounds a bit stupid compared with all the shit going on, but sometimes, the most stupid and useless crap make me hella curious, for unexplained reasons

. This is how I roll. I'd die laughing if Coil is his name for real and not a codename. I can imagine a scene when Coil's mother gave birth to him:
Nurse: Congratulations, you have a healthy snake baby. Its a boy.
Coil's Father:.... "faints".....
Coil's Mother: Awwww, so cute. I'm gonna call him... Coil.
Next day, Coil's Father asked for a divorce, accusing his wife of cheating him with a Naga.

This is Coil's sad childhood story. Fatherless (his natural father rejected him because he wasn't "enough snake"), everyone was afraid of his snake like features and his mother hated him because he stopped being cute once he grew up. This must be the explanation for his shitty behavior. Poor misunderstood soul

.

"And he's saying?"
"To be careful."

Grue gave a hand signal, Bitch whistled to give the dogs the order, and we rode.
Angelica was happy to follow the others, which freed me from the burden of getting her to follow my instructions. That only left me the task of holding on and ignoring the ache in my leg muscles and stomach.
Tattletale was able to give us a general idea of which direction Purity was, using her power, and it only took us a few minutes to spot the telltale pillar of white in the distance. Purity's light, not aiming at a building, but lashing out.
As we got closer, the situation became clearer. Purity, a flare of white against the backdrop of the gray sky, was surrounded by other figures, easy enough to make out with their predominantly white costumes. New Wave.
The leader of New Wave had named herself Lady Photon, but in the wake of New Wave's founding, and the revealing of their secret identities, the media had latched on to the idea of a superheroine mom and dubbed her Photon Mom. It was apparent to anyone who followed cape news that the name really bugged her.
Lady Photon's daughter and niece were in the air with her. Laserdream and Glory Girl. Mother and daughter shared the same general powers; flight, the ability to raise forcefield bubbles around themselves, and the ability to project lasers from their hands. As a consequence, their fight with Purity was something of a light show.
Below, it seemed, there was an all-out war.
As she targeted Glory Girl, one of Purity's blasts of light slammed into the edge of a rooftop. Debris showered down, but was deflected by a bright blue forcefield. That would be Shielder's power at work. He fought alongside Flashbang and Brandish, and I could identify Krieg, Victor, Othala and Alabaster in their immediate vicinity. Further away were Night, Fog, Panacea, Vista and Clockblocker.

The nazis are there and they're fighting with almost the entire Dallon family and two of the Wards. So, I was right about Dallon family sharing similar powers: lasers, flight and forcefield. It wasn't hard to guess, judging by their codenames alone. It looks like parahumans' children inherit their parents' powers, or something similar with. Interesting detail. I like Photon Mom BETTER than Lady Photon. I imagine her as a mother hen who's trying her best to protect her family, but also one who keeps an eye on them all the time. Cute

.

"Around!" Tattletale pointed over Grue's shoulder.
Wordlessly, Grue steered Judas into a turn. Bitch, astride Brutus, a bit ahead of Judas, looked over her shoulder and turned to join them. Angelica was happy to follow after. Together, we detoured left to a side street running parallel to the ongoing battle.
"Why?" I called out.
"Safer!" Tattletale replied, without turning to face me.
A crash behind me made me duck. Manpower, a powerful seven foot tall athletic figure decked out in white and yellow, had been thrown through a brick wall. Maybe more than one. He seemed unhurt, but he was a fairly durable guy. Personal electromagnetic shielding, if I remembered right. He was still struggling to his feet after we left him behind.
"What's our plan!?" I shouted, raising my voice to be heard as one of Purity's blasts crashed down to the street to our right.
"Get her attention!" Grue replied. He pointed, "Up!"

Bitch whistled, and Brutus surged forward in our pack. Brutus turned partway into an alley and leaped. He latched his claws on one wall of the building, half turned, then leaped across to the neighboring building. Zig-zagging upward, he ascended to the roof in a span of seconds.
Oh hell no.
Judas followed, and Angelica was only a heartbeat behind. If I'd thought our travel over the rooftops on our last escapade had been rough, this was sadistic. Or masochistic. It depended on where I assigned the blame.
We reached the rooftop just in time to nearly be squashed by a huge chunk of building that dropped from the sky like a meteor. Angelica lurched under me as she leaped to one side.
New Wave's fliers and Purity weren't the only ones in the air. Aegis was also up there on the side of the good guys, but Purity had backup from Crusader and Rune.
Crusader was flanked by a half dozen translucent replicas of himself, each armed with a ten foot long spear. He could use his power to generate ethereal simulacrums of himself, a legion of ghosts, if you wanted to be dramatic. I was more willing to peg them as some sort of semi-sentient forcefield molded in his shape or some telekinetic energy infused with fragments of his ego.
Whatever. The important thing was that his images could carry him up into the air, letting him fly, and they could pass through walls, armor and other solid barriers to impale you with those spears of theirs.

Aegis, the Immortal Zombie hero is there too. Great

(I personally liked Carlos during the Protectorate Interlude, he is a nice guy who was standing up for his team). This is such a cool battle, even if I might get blind from all the light show going on if I were there. Crusader doesn't have religious powers but he still seems like a crusader soldier, judging by his weapon of choice- spear. His power is a bit similar with Oni Lees, meaning that he can create doubles of himself able to help him in combat. But unlike Oni Lee, his clones remain there (probably as much as he wants) and they have ghost- related properties. SCARY power to have, he can create an army of himself and fuck everyone up with it.

Rune was the source of the debris that had struck us, which was rising back into the air as I watched. A teenage girl in the service of Empire Eighty-Eight, Rune was a powerful telekinetic capable of lifting nearly a ton. Several things weighing up to a ton, judging by what I saw. She hovered in the air, crouched atop a piece of building as big as a garbage truck, with more similarly sized pieces of rubble orbiting her. The drawback to her power was that she needed to touch things before she could move them with her mind, but that seemed fairly inconsequential right this moment.
The pair of villains were running interference for Purity, distracting and trapping the heroes to set them up so Purity could blast them out of the sky. Purity was too high up for us to interfere with, which meant we had to find another way to get her attention.
Regent handled that for us, sweeping his arm to one side. Rune slipped from her position on her floating piece of balcony. Another
gesture from Regent, and the girl was left hanging from the side.

"Don't kill her," I told him.
"Right," he looked up at the girl. Seeing her struggle, he shouted, "Better make sure you can land somewhere safe! I'm dropping you in three seconds!"
The rock drifted in our general direction, and we backed the dogs up. When Rune was over the rooftop, Regent swept his hand to one side and brought her down to a painful landing.
"Fuckers!" the teenager in the cowl and robe screamed, "I'll squash you!"
The big pieces of rubble in the sky above drifted our way. One suddenly stopped levitating and dropped.
We were already kicking the dogs into motion, leaping to the neighboring rooftop, when the debris struck with a series of crashes that suggested the debris had punched through the roof and even the one or two floors below it.
Crusader was apparently too occupied covering for Rune's sudden absence to come after us. That meant that all we had to worry about was keeping from being crushed by Sabrina the teenage nazi.
Note to self: I apparently wasn't one of those capes that was good at the repartee, banter or name calling.
One piece of debris soared over our heads, then plunged to stab downward through the roof in front of us. The dogs were agile enough to leap out of the way.
In the heat of the moment, we didn't anticipate it rising again.

Rune is pretty similar with Terra from Teen Titans, only much weaker than Terra. She also is an ungrateful teen bitch. Instead of saying "thank you" to Regent for not killing her, she continues to attack them. Nazis are nazis, you can't talk with them, you can't reason with them and even when you're nice with them, they still fuck you up. I like the idea of Sabrina the teenage nazi, good name calling, Skitter. Not as good as Glory Hole, but its okay. Also, reminds me of one of my favorite fantasy tv series

. Good memories.

The debris thrust up through the edge of the building's roof, and the dogs had to skid to a halt to avoid treading on crumbling rooftop. With the damage the building had sustained, our footing grew unstable. The ground sloped, Angelica scrabbled for a grip, and then the section of roof beneath us began to slide down toward the street.
Brutus pulled clear easily enough, but the continued drifting of the piece of debris forced Bitch to direct him down toward the alley, off the rooftop.
The rest of us had a harder call to make. We were sliding off a precipice, and it was a good ten story drop to the street. The nearest and only available rooftop to leap to was the one we'd just left, which was in ruins.
Judas, I saw, managed to clutch the edge of the sliding raft of rooftop and get the leverage for a jump. Brian, Tattletale and Judas reached the alley, where they could rebound off the walls until they reached relative safety.
I was about to urge Angelica to do the same, when that drifting debris of Rune's shifted position to block off the alleyway. Another of Rune's pieces of building approached from her direction, promising to smash us if through some miracle, the section of roof Angelica and I were standing on didn't break free.

But we had another option. If I could only convince Angelica.
"Go!" I shouted at her, kicking my legs. She pushed forward, and the movement only accelerated the decay of the fractured rooftop beneath her paws, prompting it to slide and tilt.
Angelica ran toward the building to our right. To the right of the alley. She clearly intended to leap to the building face, use her claws to dig into position there… and there would be nowhere to go from there. Even if she could hang there indefinitely, or scale the wall back to the street, Rune would scrape us off the wall with a levitated piece of rubble.
I grabbed a horn at the side of her head and hauled on it, pulling her left. She resisted, hauled right, but I tugged again.
"Go!" I shouted at her.
She lunged straight for the floating piece of debris. Her claws latched on it, and for a moment, we hung there, Angelica in an undignified pose with her upper body hanging onto the thing, back legs dangling.
It drifted downward, slow at first, then faster, as though Rune couldn't support the weight of us and the chunk of building.
Angelica scrabbled for a grip, pulled her body up and forward, and found the footing to leap.
We reached the alley, Angelica found footing on the wall, and then made her way safely to the ground.
As we landed heavily, I fell from Angelica's back. My hands were stiff from the deathgrip I'd just maintained, and my legs were a wreck.

Right, Skitter being a badass monster dog rider that would give few lessons to professional horse riders ANYTIME

. The Undersider that I'm worried the most for is Grue, he has an ugly chest wound that was just stitched by Skitter and it might open at any give moment. If someone will cut him again or will hit him brutally, he will be out of fight. Or from intense effort. Grue, please, resist, don't kill my poor heart.

Still, hard to complain.
"You okay?" Tattletale called out.
"Yeah. You guys?"
"Not so hot," Grue replied.
He was leaning against a wall, with Tattletale at his side. Darkness radiated from every part of his body but his chest, and I could see how he'd unzipped his jacket to investigate the damage. He was bleeding from the cuts on his chest.
"Fuck, I knew you weren't good to go!" I struggled to my feet and rushed to his side. "You pull your stitches already?"
"Other things to worry about!" Regent called out. "Incoming."
I looked, and sure enough, Night and Fog were striding into the alleyway. Night sported high heeled boots that clicked as she walked, and there was the gender difference, but the two were otherwise very similar. Cloaks, cowls, no logos or other decoration. Gray for him and black for her.
"Retreat," Tattletale spoke, "Just don't turn your backs to them."

Oh, God, Bri...Grue's situation is getting worse.

Keep fighting, you NOBLE human being. Night and Fog are there and they're dangerous as always. Judging by Tattletale's words, they seems like....WEEPING FUCKING ANGELS (no alien species in the entire Doctor Who series scared me as much as those bastards did. I had to watch their episodes with my eyes half-covered. They downright TERRIFIED me). It wasn't enough that I was already creeped out by Night and Fog, now I'd be scared shirtless by them when someone would simply mention their codenames. Still not nearly as scary as a mannequin parahuman

.

Fog moved forward, his limbs and legs dissolving into a cloud as he advanced on us. His pace was slow, only a little faster than we moved walking backward.
Bitch had to whistle twice to get a growling Angelica to retreat. The dog seemed set on protecting her master, attacking this threat, and was slow to obey.
The fog reached her, and we heard a strangled yelp, an unnatural sound from the throat of an unnatural animal. I saw Bitch start forward.
"No!" I caught her shoulder.
I might have argued, told her why she couldn't or shouldn't attack, how useless it would be against a man that turned to a sentient gas. I didn't get a chance.
While our attention was on Angelica, Night took the opportunity to blindside Brutus. He was thrown bodily into our group with enough force to to bowl us and even Judas over. Night just stood there, standing straight, heels together, one arm outstretched in front of her. I hurried to my feet, my legs and knees aching, putting one hand on Brutus' shoulder to steady myself. It was then that I saw the damage she'd done to him.
A dozen gouges criss-crossed his side, each wider than my handspan. One of the gouges had even shattered some of the protective bone plating. Brutus exhaled slowly, shuddering.
She'd done that?
I sent my bugs at the woman, but the delay Night had created had bought time for Fog to get close. His mist blocked the path to Night, reduced the woman to a faint silhouette, and where the cloud passed, my bugs were crushed alive in midair. The mist swelled forward, and we backed up as best as we were able.

I checked our escape route. It was blocked by none other than Night herself. Had she teleported? Cloned herself? No, it wasn't cloning. I couldn't see her silhouette anymore.
"What the fuck is this woman?" I asked, "Tattletale?"
"You know how the Manton effect could maybe be a psychological block that comes parceled with our powers?"
I nodded, once.
"Okay, well, imagine that this woman got powers that let her turn into something so wrong that she's got some sort of mental block that keeps her from transforming if anyone can see. Maybe because she's so ashamed of being seen like that. When nobody's looking, though, she's a monster. Lightning fast and all sharp."
"That's…"
"Not even remotely close to the truth," Tattletale confessed. "But it's the best I can offer you. Don't take your eyes off her."
"Right."
I began massing my bugs. I was going to need to catch Night off guard, debilitate her enough to take her down before she retreated to safety. Swarm her, swat her down, then we'd figure out how to deal with Fog.
A bit optimistic, but it was a plan, anyways.
Night reached into her sleeve and retrieved a canister. I recognized it immediately.
A flashbang grenade.
"Tattletale?"
"I see it," she murmured her response. "Grue, we're going to need you to cover this shit."
I felt a ton of weight suddenly press heavily against my back.
"Grue!" Tattletale shouted.
Grue had fallen against me, and he slid from that position to staggered to the ground at my side, landing with his hands and knees on the ground.
"Blood loss," Tattletale intoned. "Fuck, Grue, pay attention, you've-"
Night pulled the pin from the flashbang and threw it high into the air above us.

OH..............GODNESS. THIS IS HORROR, ABSOLUTE AND UTTERLY HORROR. Night is a parahuman Weeping Angel, everytime when someone turned their back to her, she turns into a literal monster. That's how she killed that brave cameraman: Fog effectively blinded him, she turned into a monster and ate the poor man alive, along with his clothes. Now I understand everything very clear. Night is the SCARIEST parahuman so far. Lung is nothing compared with her (not in terms of power but in terms of creepiness). And now she's using a flashbang to blind everyone so she can transform. Skitter might be able to "keep an eye" on her using her bugs- as long as they're not killed by Fog, of course. Grue is too injured to be able to help them

. On the positive side, you all have Tattletale with you, this personified Wikipedia that is indispensable in any fight. Maybe she'll find a solution to put this MONSTER down.

Bye for now, friends, I'll continue later with another chapter.

ExNihilo · Apr 13, 2018

blackarrow said:
no alien species in the entire Doctor Who series scared me as much as those bastards did.

Eh, I thought the Vashna Nerata were worse.

AmbarGriss · Apr 13, 2018

If you can see Night, she can blind you
If you can't see Night, she can kill you.

blackarrow · Apr 14, 2018

Hello, boys and girls and non-binary friends, welcome to a new chapter review 7.10 | Worm that might be an excellent crossover between Worm and Dr Who. Because we're dealing now with FUCKING WEEPING ANGELS, and we don't have a Doctor to save our earthling asses (btw, I think Taylor would make a GREAT companion for the Doctor. He'd be impressed FOR SURE by her awesome survival skills, determination, willpower and brilliant mind+ her superpower. They'd make such a cool team

Someone should write a fanfiction about. PLEASE). My worst fear in Doctor Who is incarnated into a nazi supervillainess that I hope is going to DIE as soon as possible only for this reason alone. Night, you should STOP EXISTING. You have no right to exist, no right to breathe to same air as everyone else, including your teammates. You're just a horrible monster who scare the crap out of me, giving me a HARD time to read this chapter. FUCK YOU AND YOUR STUPID EXISTENCE!

Whether I shut my eyes or suffered the effects of the flashbang grenade, the effect would be the same. The moment we took our eyes off Night, she'd become what Tattletale had termed 'all monster'.
I opted to have more control over my temporary blindness, clamping my hands over my ears, dropping into a crouch to shove my face against my knees, eyes wrenched shut. I sent every bug in my immediate vicinity toward Night, in the hope of slowing her down even a fraction.
The flashbang went off while it was still over us. The last time I'd been around one when it went off, I'd had a wall between me and the detonation. I wasn't so lucky this time. It wasn't just bright and loud. The blast rattled through me, left me dizzied, unable to balance, almost incoherent. It was scarily like the concussion I'd endured.
Night was already moving. My bugs were my only sense that still worked, but they couldn't get a grip on the surface of her body.
She moved too fast, and her skin was smooth and oily, slick with some sort of lubricant. The result was that I couldn't really make her out in the darkness. I only got flashes, the vaguest sense of how she was put together. I was reminded of the ink blots I'd seen during my brief stay in the mental ward. Every fraction of a second, it was a different set of ink blots, a different shape, all edges and angles and sharp points, entirely up to interpretation.

She struck at Judas a half-dozen times in the span of a second, her limbs flashing out and striking hard enough that I could feel the vibrations in the air. Judas staggered away from her, colliding with me and one of my teammates. I felt Judas' crushing weight against my own body, the raw meat feel of his flesh and the stone hardness of his bones smothering me, before he shifted his weight and lurched back her way.
From the way Judas' movements followed Night's as she moved back, and the rigidity of his face and neck, I knew he'd managed to get a grip on her with his teeth. He weathered the hits as she continued to thrash him. He seemed to be getting the worse end of the exchange, but he'd taken away some of her leverage.
Blinking, I tried to focus on Night, but I saw double. For several long, terrifying seconds, I was unable to bring what I was seeing into focus.
Judas was thrown against a wall, and went limp. The furrows Night had carved into his face left more gouges than untouched flesh, his face a mess of shattered bone and hamburger meat. With Judas' bulk out of the way, I could make out Night, backing away. My bugs settled on her, and she pulled her cloak up to shield her face, still walking backward.
Snapping my head around to check, I saw our escape route barred by Fog's mist. I could see Angelica's silhouette in the midst of the cloud. Bitch and Tattletale were struggling to drag Grue back away from the advancing mist. Grue, too weak to stand, was trying to use his darkness to wall Fog off. Grue might have stopped Fog entirely, except he was so weak that his darkness was dissipating almost as fast as he produced it. Fog slipped through the largest gaps and continued a slow but inexorable advance.

I apologize in advance for being such a scaredy cat but this whole situation is downright TERRIFYING to me (now try to imagine how SCARED I'd be by a mannequin parahuman if Night managed to already make me crap my pants- figuratively speaking, of course

I think I'm going to let YOU review in my place the chapters where that THING will appear. Deal?

). Night already becomes a monster that can't be seen, but can be vaguely described through Skitter's bugs and is not pretty at all. Skitter can't even use her bugs to keep Night under observation because she's using her cloak to shield her face. Smart move...THING that should never exist in the first place. Poor Judas but I'm not so worried for him because Bitch can heal him by turning back to his normal physiognomy, unless he might be killed, which is....something that I'd prefer to not think about. Grue tries to fight despite being injured...Grue, you're doing your best, man, you're the best, everyone knows this, but don't exhaust yourself, you're not God, you're not Scion, you're just a human with a HUGE willpower and an even BIGGER heart, and you deserve more than a lot of people here to live and be healthy and happy...

Stop making sacrifices all the time.

Night was still struggling to get away from the bugs as they navigated around the folds of her cloak and the coverage of her mask.
Drawing my baton, I started to advance on her. Night was human like this, vulnerable.
She drew her hand from her sleeve. Another canister with a pin in it.
"Regent!" I shouted.
He snapped his hand out, and Night's arm bent in a palsied, twisted angle. The grenade fell to the ground, and Night fell on top of it.
I thought that Regent had been the cause of her fall, until I saw her raise her head, her good hand holding the grenade, pin held in her teeth through the fabric of her mask.
She pulled the pin free, and black smoke began billowing from the upper end of the canister.

It was suicidal, perhaps one of the dumbest things I'd done yet: I charged her. She was already standing, holding the canister out in front of her to ensure the plumes of colored smoke obscured her quickly. I struck at her hand with my baton, knocking the smoke grenade to the ground. I stooped for it, but she stepped forward, blocking it with her body, seizing my shoulders.
She wrestled me to one side of the alley, perhaps to try and push me away and buy time for the smoke to build up, maybe for another angle. I wouldn't find out, because I brought my baton against the side of her face. I got a sense from the feeling of the hit that she didn't wear any armor or protective wear beneath the cowl and mask.
Night staggered from the blow, and I drove my shoulder into her. It wasn't as effective as I'd hoped, but I did get her far enough away from the canister that I could duck down and scoop it up in one hand.
I dashed away, past her, and she struck me from behind. I knew from the magnitude of the impact that she wasn't in her human shape as she hit me, and for one paralyzing moment, I suspected I'd made a terminal error.
The blow was enough to knock me to the ground and make me roll a half-dozen times before I could stop myself. I cast a glance over my shoulder as I stopped. Night was there, and the residual smoke from the canister that surrounded her had apparently been sufficient to block my teammates' view. Stupid of me to turn my back. I was lucky that she hadn't had more than a second or two in her transformed state to act.

Skitter fights against the THING that should not exist. She managed to give Night some good kicks but Night is a pretty good fighter in hand to hand combat (like all minions nazis I saw so far) and she knows how to defend herself against Skitter. Fuck this and now she's going to transform again. Skitter, don't turn your back to her. Keep your eyes on her, no matter if she's trying to blind your with her grenades. You should not allow her to finish her transformation. Try to steal her cloak- or destroy it, then she'll have her face uncovered and you can watch her with your bugs (note: if I'm starting to speak caveman at one given moment, I have an excuse: Nfucking- Ifucking- Gfucking- Hfucking- T).

I scrambled to my feet, not taking my eyes off her, and rapidly backed up. A piece of the armor on my back dangled from where she'd cleaved through it, swinging against my backside in time with my steps. I held the smoke grenade low, to minimize how much it obscured my vision. When I'd backed up enough that there was an alley to my right, I threw the smoke grenade away.
Night stopped following me, then swept her cloak up to shield against the bugs that still swarmed her. I couldn't go as all-out as I normally might with my swarm, without risking that I'd obscure my own vision of her and give her another opportunity to transform.
Second try, then. Baton in hand, I charged her.
She was thrashing beneath her cloak, six or so paces away. The bugs were nipping and stinging flesh. Good. One or two more good hits with the baton, she'd be disabled.
Night bent low, and I thought maybe she was down for the count.
Then she swept her cloak off and threw it up into the air. It opened wide and momentarily filled my field of vision.
I heard her footsteps, two normal ones, heels clicking rapidly as she ran, then the noise of claws scraping against hard ground. She tackled me, keeping the fabric between us, and my baton slipped from my grasp as her weight slammed into the trunk of my body.
The cloth of her cloak caught on my right hand and face. An angular arm with too many joints seized my right leg, another two latched onto my right arm and neck, respectively. Her grip and proximity to me held the cloth in place, kept her obscured. I was hefted high into the air with a speed that dizzied me.

OH My GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never stole anything in my life, I never tortured people, I never beat up children (as an adult), I never killed anyone (not even an animal)....Then, WHAT I DID TO DESERVE THIS HELL OF A CHAPTER? What the fuck I did? Or maybe I died and now I'm in hell and I'm forced to read THE HORROR to infinity and beyond until my brains will turn to mush? "breathes" I hate this THING who can fly, have a lot of limbs, claws everywhere, is super-fast, super-strong and have oily unnatural skin. I hate IT. The worst character and power so far. Skitter, do something about that damn cloak, cut it in small and useless pieces with your knife- if you can escape first from Night's "hug", of course.

She dropped me, making me grunt as I landed. Above me, my bugs touched her very human body. I struggled to pull the cloth free, but it caught. After a few seconds of ineffectually trying to remove the cloak from myself and see what was happening, I was almost frantic. I brought my own bugs down on top of myself to get a better sense of what was happening.
Hooks. The black fabric of the cloak was woven with black-painted hooks at regular intervals. She'd worn that layer facing the outside.
"You're boring people, you know," I heard Tattletale's voice, and felt a fractional relief. I focused on pulling the hooks free. Not that many were caught on the fabric, but there were some caught on the textured exterior of my armor, others on the straps that held my armor in place, a couple in my hair.
"I saw your info. Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt. First located in Hesse, Germany, moved to London, then Brockton Bay, Boston, then Brockton Bay again. No kids. Cat. Nothing interesting about you, besides the obvious. I'm thinking you even have your dinners on rotation. Chicken and rice on Mondays, Steak and potatoes on Tuesdays? Something like that?"

I pulled the cloak free and held it in my hands. I saw Tattletale on the other end of the alley. Fog had advanced quite a bit, but
Regent and Bitch had apparently gotten Grue up on Brutus' back, and both Brutus and Judas were with them, Brutus moving painfully slowly, while Judas was apparently blind or nearly blind from the damage to his face. They all stood not far behind Tattletale, masked by traces of the smoke from the smoke bomb.

Tattletale comes to save Skitter' ass. And maybe everyone's ass, depends of how she's planning to take this THING down. Night should have a vulnerability, as everyone else and if Tattletale will find about it, she might be screwed, as she needs to be. So, Night is married with Fog, their last name is Schmidt, they're cat people (poor cat, it doesn't deserve this fate, to have a Weeping Angel taking "care" of it) and....something really "shocking and unexpected"... they're germans (duh, entire Empire88 seems to be composed of germans- I told you, Wildbow, this is kind of a racist thing from you to consider all nazis being germans. I personally have a deep respect and admiration for german nation and I'm 100% sure that there are more germans who are against neo-nazism than admirers. Even in the past, most of the german population have no idea how bad Hitler would be for them- by dragging them into a bloody and devastating war- and everyone else and they honestly trusted him at the beginning. Then, it was already too late for them to stop him from implementing his demented plans. But this doesn't mean that they're collectively guilty for what happened, for what their CRAZY and MONSTROUS leaders did back then. I salute all german readers from here "hugs").

Night stood closer to me than the others. I could see how she had various pieces of equipment strapped to her hips, forearms, and back. Grenades, canisters, knives, something that looked like spray paint. She swatted at the bugs that were crawling around her face and eyes, but her attention was on Tattletale. I could have stood, maybe, but I didn't want to draw her attention.
"So I was at a loss to figure out how to fuck with you. You're two dimensional. Until I remembered that you left the Empire when Purity did. And when she came back? So did you."
Night cocked her head a little to one side, listening. Again, she slapped at the bugs on one side of her face. Her face didn't feel swollen, from what my swarm was conveying. Her eyes were open, blinking closed when a bug touched her eyelash. I suspected she healed back to perfect condition whenever she entered her other form, which would include cleansing herself of any toxins or allergens.
Night looked down at me. Pale blue eyes.
"Hey!" Tattletale spoke, "Pay attention!"
Night drew a knife from a hip sheath. She bent down over me. I dropped her cloak and struggled to reach behind my back for my own knife, but she was faster. The blade pressed against my throat. My hand caught her wrist, stopping her from going any further. I was pretty sure my costume could take a cut from a knife, but if she found the gap where my mask was separate from the body portion of my costume that extended around the lower part of my neck, she could slide the blade through with no difficulty.
"Damn you!" Tattletale shouted. I was only aware of Night's unwavering, unblinking gaze, the feel of her wrist in my grip. Then the gunshots.
Night didn't even scream. She dropped partway on top of me, falling onto her side, her weight on my legs.
The villainess lay there, silently writhing, hands behind her back. Blood welled from holes in her lower back and the space where her buttock met her thigh. I glanced at Tattletale, who had her gun raised, looking slightly surprised and disturbed by what she'd just had to do.

The THING tried to kill Skitter, but was killed by Tattletale instead. She WAS KILLED by my girl!

Its pretty amazing, I didn't expected her to die so fast, but its good that my prayers have been listened. Finally, the Dark Weeping Angel is down for good- I hope, maybe she's just injured but that wound doesn't look very good to me

Don't be sad, Tattletale, yes, you took a life, but you took a life that didn't deserved to exist in the first place. I won't count this as a murder, but as cleaning the air of something that polluted it. Something very dirty and impure. "claps" Well done, Tattle, well fucking done!

Any sense of relief I felt at Night being taken out of action was short lived.
Too bright to look at, Purity hurtled down from the sky to land just beside Night and me. I saw her raise one hand toward
Tattletale and the others, energy welling up.
The blast of light momentarily blinded me, and it struck me just why Purity had Night and Fog working as part of her personal squad. There were no happy coincidences there. She must have calculated how their powers could collectively work together. Her light and Fog's mist could blind their foes, with Night leveraging any opportunities gained. Alabaster and Crusader? Probably intended as the front line, to slow the enemy down, take out the problem targets and buy time for the core group to do what they needed. Or to do what they were doing now, and occupy enemies elsewhere.
When I could see again, I tried to grasp what had changed and what had happened. Dust filled much of the alley, Night stood beside Purity, unhurt, and my teammates were on the ground. No blood. Nobody dead or dying. At least, nobody that hadn't been dead or dying when Purity arrived. I was getting worried about Grue. He didn't look nearly as lively as he had two minutes ago.
A channel had been carved out of the brick wall to Purity's right. Motes of light still danced around it. An intentional miss? No. It would have been Regent throwing off her aim.
"Purity! Kayden! Not looking for a fight!" Tattletale called out. She raised her hands, her gun dangling from one finger by the trigger guard.
Purity just raised her hand, and more light began glowing in her palm.
"Dale and Emerson!" Tattletale added.
Purity didn't lower her hand, but she didn't shoot either. "What?"
"Aster." Tattletale stood up, "She's at Dale and Emerson. Outskirts of town. The PRT has a safehouse there, for when a villain's after someone, or in case some member of the Protectorate or Wards gets outed, and their family needs a spot to stay."

"How-"
"You worked alongside me when we were dealing with the ABB. Your subordinates and allies have as well. You know I have my sources."
"Don't believe you. You have no reason to tell me this, you told everyone-"
Tattletale interrupted, "We didn't tell the media that stuff. I'm even a little pissed about it. Not just about us getting blamed, but that they didn't just attack you, but your families? It's fucked up. Entire reason we came here was to set the record straight and get you your kid back."
"Kaiser said-"

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!! My joy was short lived. The Weeping Angel is still alive and unhurt thanks to Purity's intervention. She can heal herself once people can't look at her, her monster form also have healing properties. The only way to kill her is to keep shooting her while looking into her eyes, or to slash her with a sword or a long knife or to simply cut her in half (or better in small pieces) with a chainsaw. At least Tattletale decided to return Aster back to her mother which is a thing that they should have done long time ago, in this way this useless fight would have been avoided. And many innocent lives would have been spared. It looks like Kaiser lied his subordinates about Undersiders, claiming that they're guilty for the emails. Either Coil didn't talk to him, admitting his responsibility as he promised to Tattle or Kaiser LIED like a bastard manipulator he's. Knowing how BAD both men are, I can't really eliminate any supposition.

"Kaiser thought he'd get more out of this debacle if he turned you against us, first, before directing you at the people or person who really sent the email."
Purity shook her head.
Tattletale added, "It's up to you. Who are you going to trust, when Aster is on the line? Me, or Kaiser?"
That was her argument? I started to move to where I could attack Purity if it came down to it. A spearpoint pressing down against my collarbone stopped me. I looked up and saw Crusader behind me.
Purity dropped her hand to her side. She told Tattletale, "You're coming with me."
"Didn't expect any less. But you're letting my team go, and this destruction stops."
"And how do I know you're not just sacrificing yourself for them?"
"Because whatever else you might be, Kayden, you somehow, in some warped perspective, see yourself as an upstanding person.
And if I wasn't an honest person when it counted, I wouldn't trust you to hold to that. Make sense?"

It didn't to me. It was circular reasoning. I wouldn't have listened if it were Tattletale trying to convince me The question was whether it would get through to Purity.
Purity stared at Tattletale for a long time. I was acutely aware of the spear at my chest, which Crusader could thrust through my costume and into me with a momentary use of his power. How easily Purity or Fog could give Night the opportunity she needed to slaughter my teammates.
"You're aware of the consequences if you're wrong?"
"I'm not stupid," Tattletale spoke, "You take out your anger on me, I wind up dead or maimed."
Purity stepped forward and grabbed Tattletale's wrist.
"The others walk," Purity spoke to her subordinates, leaving no room for argument or discussion. She wrapped one arm around Tattletale's ribs, and they were gone in a flash of light, a trail of firefly-like lights dancing in Purity's wake.
In that same momentary glare that had carried our teammate and Purity away, Night had moved into the midst of our team. She
had a knife held with the blade pointed out of the bottom of her fist, pressed to Regent's throat.
"I get it," Regent replied, with a disinterested tone, "You could kill us right here. May we go?"
Night sheathed the knife and walked through the group to Fog, who was gathering himself up in a human shape again, turning away to exit the alley. Crusader, on the opposite side of us, was rising back up to the sky.

I breathed a sigh of relief as Purity's squad disappeared. I held my breath again when I saw Grue and, further down the alleyway, Angelica. Grue's darkness was reduced to mere wisps around his body, which I took to be a bad sign. Hurrying toward him, I retrieved my cell phone, went down to the bottom of the contact list.
It rang three times before it picked up. I heard ambient noise, maybe a fan, but the person on the other end didn't respond.
"Coil," I spoke, "It's Skitter. We need that doctor of yours. Fast."

I'm glad that at least Purity's minions are listening her. They're pretty disciplined. Ok, so Tattletale will give the desperate mother her baby back, Purity will have to leave the city because she can't stay there anymore and everything will be fine. I'm not sure what Kaiser will do further, but he should run away as well or he might end up getting killed or in Birdcage. He have no future in Brockton Bay anymore.

"Can you get to the same location as last time?"
"I don't know. Grue and the dogs are hurt. We may need a ride."
"I will arrange it. Expect a call from the driver shortly." He hung up. Not quite so friendly as the last time we'd talked.

I set to helping Alec steady Angelica while Bitch worked with Judas, who'd been effectively blinded in the fight with Night. She guided his head and shoulders under Angelica's body, so the smaller 'dog' was draped over him.
Once Angelica was in position, I hopped up behind Grue and helped him turn him over, to examine his chest. I applied pressure and used the remainder of the bandage I had in my utility compartment to try to staunch the bleeding. When I talked to him, asked him to verify that he was okay, his replies were monosyllabic and fairly nonsensical.
Between Judas's canine burden and the damage Brutus had apparently sustained to his side, the two dogs moved slower than I normally walked as they plodded down the alley.
Every moment was nerve wracking. I kept waiting for someone in the Wards, New Wave or Empire Eighty-Eight to find their way into the alley, spot us and pick a fight. Worse, I harbored grave concerns that Grue might stop breathing.
The phone call from Coil's people came when we'd reached the beach – the closest spot I could think of that would put us out of line of sight in the continued fighting. I directed the guy on the phone to our position, and in my nervousness, I had to get them to verify, twice, that they'd safely made it through the barricade without any trouble. All we needed was another ambush at the barricades from more of Hookwolf's underlings.
The moment the pair of ambulances arrived, we loaded Grue into the back of one, the three dogs into the other. Brutus and Judas had shrunk, having shed the layers of added bulk, and were more or less alright underneath it all. Angelica, though, had been in Fog's mist, and wasn't any better even though she was almost normal size. She'd inhaled the mist, drawn it into her lungs. I could only surmise that it had consequently made its way into her bloodstream, and from there, to the rest of her body. Only time would tell how much damage Fog had done to her from within.
I went in the ambulance with Grue, and watched as they gave him extra blood and tended to his chest. Between my first time job patching up his chest, the fact that he'd torn it open, and my haphazard attempts to wad it with bandages and stall the blood loss as we retreated from the scene, it was a mess. I cringed, feeling guilty, waiting for one of Coil's medics to call me on something I'd done wrong. They worked in silence, which was almost worse.

The dogs will be fine, Skitter, stop worrying for them. Even Angelica will be ok, if Bitch might be unable to heal her, I'm sure that Coil have some great vets who'd do a good job with her

. Better be worried about Grue, he looks AWFUL, he might die in any given moment, even with all Coil's medics around him.

I sent Tattletale a text:
Frog A. Got Coil's people to pick us up. Brian is getting help. Dogs are mostly ok. Text me back.
We pulled in behind the doctor's office, and Tattletale still hadn't replied. I was surprised that the ambulance with Bitch, Regent and the dogs hadn't come with us.
The doctor was a cranky old guy that Coil's medic referred to as Dr. Q. He was a thin-lipped man, about my height, which made him fairly small. His hair was either recently cut or he got it cut regularly, was slicked close to his scalp, and seemed too dark given how old his face and hands were. He took over for the medics as they carted Grue in, and they left with a nod to me. I nodded back, unsure of how else to respond.
I stood by Grue's bed with my arms folded and watched. Dr. Q checked the work the medics had done in suturing up Brian's chest and muttered to himself that it was competent. When he'd verified they hadn't screwed up, he took the time to clean Brian's chest and remove the remaining threads from the first job.
"The bug girl," he finally commented.
"Yeah. I'm really sorry about bringing the bugs to your place, last time. I see they're gone now."
"They are," was his response.
I nodded. I checked my phone again. Still no response from Tattletale.
Minutes passed.
"Okay," he pulled off his latex gloves, "Nothing more we can do for this lug. You unhurt?"
I shrugged, "More or less. Got jabbed in the stomach, I have my aches and pains, hurt my ear earlier, but I already got it taken care of."
"I'll verify that for myself."
He checked my stomach, which required me to take off the top of my costume, and he prodded the bruise Cricket had left me with cold, dry fingers. Then he had me remove my mask to examine my ear. Apparently, he didn't deem Brian's job satisfactory, so I was sat down on a stool so he could clean it up.
He was partway through the job when my phone vibrated. I read it and heaved a sigh of relief.
Tattletale:
Avocado c. she got what she needed. omw

See, Taylor? Everything is fine now. The dogs will be fine, Tattletale is fine, Purity got her baby back and is fine, Aster is back to her mother and is fine, Brotckton Bay is FINE AGAIN (in fact, it was never really fine

) Theo will have his little sister back and he'll be fine, Brian (I SO HOPE) will be fine, even the Weeping Angel is fine. Love FINE endings. Now I'm going to have a very unpleasant sleep because Night will haunt my night, my dreams, my everything. Thank you, Wildbow, I much appreciate what you're doing to me.

Good night and sleep well FOR ME, my friends.

blackarrow · Apr 14, 2018

ExNihilo said:
Eh, I thought the Vashna Nerata were worse.

Hey, fellow whovian "hugs"!

Those "piranhas of the air" can kill you so fast that you won't feel anything. Not so scary once you die so freaking quickly. On the other side, The Weeping Angels can zap you into an random past (forcing you to lose your family/friends in this way) and feed off the energy of years you would have lived in their present- which means fuck your life completely, without killing you. Better to get killed than losing your mind because you lost everything in your life. Besides they're pretty hard to be avoided or next to impossible to be killed.

ExNihilo · Apr 14, 2018

blackarrow said:
Now I'm going to have a very unpleasant sleep because Night will haunt my night, my dreams, my everything

IMO, every reader has one villain that they react most poorly to. You haven't met mine yet, but as I understand it, Night isn't an unpopular choice on that part.

Mannequin, mostly, but Shatterbird has a certain elegance of destruction to her.

Also, I've found the Night-Fog combo to be very interesting. It completely no-sells a lot of low tier capes, but once you start ranking higher up, they're almost a non-threat. Think Armsmaster: 99% says he has an air filtration system and glare correction lenses, and tintertech halberd is more than enough to take them down. But imagine in an alternate world where Night and Grue team up-Grue blinds everyone, and boom, all gone. Scary. (Am I making things worse? Sorry!)

Captain Usoland · Apr 15, 2018

blackarrow said:
Hey, fellow whovian "hugs"! Those "piranhas of the air" can kill you so fast that you won't feel anything. Not so scary once you die so freaking quickly. On the other side, The Weeping Angels can zap you into an random past (forcing you to lose your family/friends in this way) and feed off the energy of years you would have lived in their present- which means fuck your life completely, without killing you. Better to get killed than losing your mind because you lost everything in your life. Besides they're pretty hard to be avoided or next to impossible to be killed.

I was always freaked out by both of them, but the Silence REALLY got me scared.

blackarrow · Apr 15, 2018

Hello, friends, welcome to a new review 7.11 | Worm. To my surprise, I survived

the last chapter (even if I had a pretty hard time to do it) and now I'm very decided to....continue surviving through the other chapters. Hard challenge but I'm not going to run away from it. Ok, before I'll start, I want to have a little fun imagining a day in the life of Schmidt family (I'm gonna call this ship Foggy Nights- I know I have a pretty bad imagination when it comes to ships' names but it worth to keep trying

), especially a day when mrs Schmidt wants to be a little kinky with her dear husband.
Mrs Schmidt: Mein schatz, I feel a little kinky tonight. Aren't you curious to find out what its about?
Mr Schmidt: Of course, meine geliebte, what do you have in your mind?
Mrs Schmidt: Blindfold. I want to blindfold you right before we're starting to make love.
Mr Schmidt:...."stares".....
Mrs Schmidt:........What?......
Mr Schmidt: Blindfold? BLINDFOLD? Not this kink, nein, nein, nein....."screams like a little girl then runs away'
Mrs Schmidt:...."disappointed".....Men........

So, ladies and gentlemen, this is a day when Mrs Schmidt tries to spice their relationship, but her husband doesn't find her idea to be great. Poor Night

. Being an abomination of nature and having kinks is hard and nobody understands.

The skeleton of a building loomed over us. Girders and beams joined together in what would become one of Brockton Bay's high rises, twenty stories tall. At the base of it was a sea of crushed stone, with innumerable bulldozers, piledrivers, loaders, mixers and graders standing still and dark. The only light came from the buildings and streetlights on the surrounding streets.
Tattletale put key to lock and let us through the fence that surrounded the site. She held the gate open as Grue, Regent, Bitch and I filed through, followed by Judas and Brutus. The two dogs were nearly normal in size, nothing that would raise alarm if someone saw us at a distance. When we were through, Tattletale shut the gate and reached through the gap to put the lock back in place and click it shut.
Gravel crushed underfoot as we made our way to the unfinished high rise. Tattletale pointed to a hatch, surrounded by a rim of concrete. The hatch itself had a yellow warning sign reading 'Drainage', sporting images beneath of a man wearing a hazmat suit and a man wearing a gas mask. She fiddled with the keyring to get the right key, undid the lock and raised the hatch. Stairs led down into a darkness that looked and smelled very much like a storm drain.
As we descended, the smell got stronger. We passed through a door with metal bars, and then traveled down a long hallway. The room at the end of the hall was small, with one other door and a small surveillance camera in one corner. The door we faced had no handle, forcing us to wait. It took about twenty seconds before someone opened the door for us. One of Coil's men.
The interior of the sub-basement had none of the smell of the previous chambers, and consisted of two tiers with walls of poured concrete. The upper level we stood on was an arrangement of metal walkways that extended around the room's perimeter. Crates and boxes filled the level below, and I could see fifteen or so of Coil's people down there, sitting on crates or leaning against them, talking among themselves.

It looks like Coil have a subterranean base, hidden well enough so nobody to be able to find it. Nice thinking, asshole. I hate your personality and your total lack of moral values but I have to admit that your mind is brilliant (I have a weakness for intelligence. I'm almost sapiosexual

). Also, Grue is FINE right now, he survived his wound and this is the best thing to read at the start of this chapter. Ok, let's leave our "heroes" alone for a while and let's talk about why I find Night the scariest character so far. I think you need some explanations and I'll not shy away from explaining my reactions. Night represents UNKNOWN and unknown pretty much scare me. I mean, I wasn't afraid of Lung, despite being a parahuman able to turn into a FUCKING DRAGON because I knew that he can turn into a FUCKING DRAGON. I knew his power and what he was capable to do and his weaknesses. I'm not afraid of Menja and Fenja because I know that they turn into giantesses, I know that Hookwolf can turn any body part into metal and so on...But I don't know, I still don't know in what kind of monster Night is turning everytime when nobody is looking at her. I have only small details about her monster form but its not enough for me to make a general impression, I don't know her weaknesses while in this form, I don't know how she kills her preys (I suppose she's eating them but this is only a theory, because she might have other ways to kill them), she's a BIG UNKNOWN. This is what make me to be so afraid of her, more than by anyone else. The mystery surrounding her power, my inability to see how she truly looks like or what she truly can do. Until another monster who's equally creepy or creeper (I'm looking at you, mannequin parahuman) than her will appear, Night is the character that will make me want to pray for anyone who's unlucky enough to confront her, even other villains (I'd be scared of her even if she was a hero, I fucking swear). Alright, now that I clarified how my weird mind is working, lets get back to the story.

Each soldier was outfitted in a matching uniform: shades of gray and some black, hard vests with raised collars to protect their necks. Only a few wore their balaclavas, and I could see a variety of nationalities in a group that was mostly men. All of the soldiers had assault rifles somewhere nearby, slung over shoulders with straps and leaning against walls or crates. Polished steel attachments on the underside of each gun's barrel contrasted with the dark gunmetal tone of the rest of the equipment.

The man who had opened the door for us inclined his head in the direction we were to go. We traversed the metal walkway, and passed more of Coil's soldiers. I saw one squad of six below us was gearing up, pulling on masks and checking their guns. Five seconds later, we passed Circus on the walkway, in a costume and makeup of red and gold. Oblivious to us or our passing, she was leaning against a wall by a stack of cardboard boxes, standing intimately close to a young soldier with close-cropped red hair and an ugly scar running down one side of his neck.

We found Coil at the end of the walkway, talking to four people who most definitely weren't soldiers. Each wore a suit, and none seemed the type to carry a gun. There was a heavyset woman, a man who must've been fifty or sixty, a man who stood no more than four feet tall and a blonde woman who barely looked out of high school.
"Cranston, can you have it for tomorrow?"
"Yes, sir," the blonde woman replied.
"Good. Pearse, the soldiers?"
"Squads Fish, Nora and Young are suited up and ready for your okay," the short man spoke.
"And the replacement recruits?"
Pearse handed Coil a set of folders, "I've put post-its on the most promising. We need two to make up for one soldier that was recently injured, and one that decided to skip town."
Coil tucked the folders under one arm, "Good. Duchene, I'll talk to you later tonight about our preparations. The rest of you, I'll see you tomorrow night."
The suits marched off, with all but the fat lady passing us to go the way we'd come, along the metal walkway. The woman headed down the stairs to the lower area with all the soldiers, and a group of people that weren't in uniform flocked to her. People with clipboards and crowbars. The construction crew?
"Undersiders," Coil spoke, "You've recuperated this past week?"
"More or less," Grue replied. He had his arms folded.
"Excellent. And what do you think?" He gestured to the underground complex around us with a sweep of his arm.
"It's impressive," Grue spoke.

Ok, Coil is also a very good organizer and disciplined leader. He must be of japanese or german descend

. I won't be surprised. People seem to listen him even without being necessary for him to manipulate them. He knows how to talk to them and...he must paying them pretty well, of course. A week passed from the last events and everyone seem to be ok which is awesome. I wonder why Coil called Undersiders to his underground base. Another job for them to do? But ABB and Empire88 are FINISHED. They must take down the Merchants as well, right? Because now Merchants must fill the emptiness that the other assholes left. Right, so next mission: Fuck some parahuman druggies' lives even more than they already fucked them themselves

. I won't feel bad for them. Not a bit.

"Once things are set up, some of this will be a base of operations for the Travelers, the rest of this space serving as a place my men can meet before they deploy."

"Right," Grue replied.
"So. I expected a reply once you felt you were healed and ready for more work, or if you decided on a reply for my deal, but I got a sense this isn't quite that."
Tattletale spoke, "We can't keep doing this, Coil."
It was hard to tell, but I suspected that did something to knock Coil off his stride. "Hm. Elaborate?"
"We keep getting through these fights by the skin of our teeth. We're not up to it. Just a few days after we helped take down the ABB, a situation that had two of our members facing down Lung and Oni Lee, we were up against the Protectorate, the Wards and
Empire Eighty-Eight in the span of forty-eight hours. Even with your people and your powers to help, we're not strong enough for this."
"I see," Coil turned to face the lower section of the sub-basement and look down at his people. He rested his hands on the railing,
"Are you terminating our arrangement?"
Tattletale shook her head, "We'd rather not, but it depends on what we agree to here and now, in this meeting. We talked this over for the past week, and I'll be blunt. The one person who wasn't keen on taking your deal changed her mind, but the rest of us now have some serious reservations. And it's not just the issue of our safety."

Coil nodded. "Well, let me start by saying I'm pleased to hear about your change of heart, Bitch. Can I ask what prompted it?"
Bitch shot Tattletale an irritated look, clearly unimpressed that Coil had been informed on our negotiations. Still, she gave him a response. "Decided it wouldn't be so bad to get help with my dogs. I still think you're full of shit, but way I see it, you can be as full of shit as you want, so long as I get what I want."
"I suppose I'll take what I can get." Coil sighed a little, "Which leads me to our subject of discussion. Would I be right in assuming these reservations our Tattletale has mentioned have something to do with me, and how I operate?"
Grue and I both nodded.
"And you're among these individuals with doubts, Tattletale?"
"Sorry. I've worked with you for a while now, I know what you can do, I even like and respect you. What you're going for. But this last play of yours was fucked up on a lot of levels."
"Yes," Coil conceded, turning back towards us, "You're right. Too heavy handed a maneuver. A tactical nuke where a rocket launcher might have sufficed, with undeserving parties suffering for being too close to the real targets."

Ok, sorry, Circus, for not giving you a warm "hello", I almost forgot about you while I was concentrated on the purpose of this visit. I like how Bitch still doesn't trust Coil, seeing behind his facade of a polite and APPARENTLY regretful man (I said "apparently" because I don't trust a single word coming from Coil's mask covered mouth. He doesn't truly regret what he did, otherwise he wouldn't have done this- he's smart enough to see the consequences and effects of his actions; his regrets are completely and utterly EMPTY) and even Tattletale DARES to call him out on his shit (maybe she isn't controlled/blackmailed by him as I believed her to be OR he's cunning enough to allow her some free will while the other Undersiders are present, so they'll not suspect anything).

"Us, and the families of the members of Empire Eighty-Eight that you outed."

Coil nodded, "So the two main points we need to discuss are the apparent carelessness of my maneuver against Empire Eighty-Eight, and the risk your group has been facing in the field. That said, if these issues are addressed in a satisfactory manner, would I be right in thinking you are prepared to accept my deal?"
Tattletale glanced at each of us, myself included, then told Coil, "Maybe."
"Good. Shall we walk? I'll be more able to answer your second concern when we get to the other side of this complex." He stepped away from the railing and extended a hand, inviting us to join him. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, leading us around the end of the room to the walkway opposite the one we'd traveled to reach him.
"First off, apologies are in order," Coil spoke, "Your concern over the way I outed the Empire's members is entirely deserved. In truth, it was a plan I had begun before I even knew of your existence, Undersiders. My initial attempts to divine the secret identities of my enemies were slow to bear fruit, and my hired men often underwent weeks of investigation only to find they had been barking up the wrong tree.

"For almost four years, I have invested funds and time in the possibility that I could find the weak point of my enemies: their civilian lives, the faces under the masks. For years, I was disappointed. In my early days, I had less money to fritter away, my facility with my own power was not what it is today, and many of the failures on these fronts were costly.
"As I began to amass my fortunes, this became easier. I could hire better investigators, pay the right people to divulge information and unseal court records. Pieces began falling into place. With my recruitment of Tattletale, I was able to avoid a number of wild goose chases. It was still slow, and the turnover rate of Empire Eighty-Eight was frustrating, especially as I aimed to have the complete picture, with no member of Kaiser's empire left unmasked. My efforts with the local heroes were no better, if for different reasons.
"For some time, aside from regular payments and some direction, my attention was elsewhere. It was only two weeks ago that I was contacted by my investigators and told that I had what I wanted on Empire Eighty-Eight. To have it come together at that time, when the Empire was one of the sole barriers remaining before me, it seemed to be serendipity. I jumped on the opportunity."

Ok, on the bright side I'm glad that a group of dangerous asian nazis was destroyed and another group of dangerous german nazis was destroyed as well, but on the dark side, Coil became the most dangerous supervillain so far and he might be even worse than both ABB and Empire88 combined. His intelligence is SCARY in its brilliance (maybe he's a tinker and a parahuman genius because he seems to have genius level intelligence. I still don't know nothing clear about his power, damn it, except that he can control destinies yet he can't exactly control destinies. But please, don't spoil it, I want to find out and understand it by myself

. Thank you) also he's ruthless, he doesn't care about anything but himself (and maybe his loved ones, if he have), he's formidable patient and a hard working man in order to reach his purposes. He's an amoral gifted piece of shit of an competent leader. I'm literally scared of him. While he's not creepy as Night, he's the kind of man who would do anything to win or save his skin if he'll fail, and when I say ANYTHING, I mean it. Even if he'll have to blow up the entire city with all its citizens inside, he'd do that if he'll consider this action as being necessary. And I'm so scared of people like him....

In fact, you'll never meet literal monsters like Night in real life but there's a lot of Coils among us, especially the ones who hold the power political-wise.

Grue spoke to Coil's back, "And you forgot about us. What it might look like."

Coil turned his head, "Yes. I'll admit I am not proud of my failure to see the bigger picture, and I assure you, it is not a mistake I am prepared to make again."
"That's it? You say 'I'm sorry' and we're just supposed to accept it?" Regent spoke for the first time since we'd arrived.
Coil stopped, and we were forced to stop or we would have walked right into him. He spoke, "If you accept my deal, I will undertake no plan of this scale without first consulting you, the Travelers and the independent villains that work for me. It is my hope that you would be able to inform me about any flaws or unintended consequences regarding my schemes."

Grue unfolded his arms, "I can't say for sure. Maybe."
I spoke, "I like the idea, but no offense, I'm not sure I trust you that far. And don't say that Tattletale would find out and tell us if you bent the rules and tried to slip something past us. She's not infallible. Sorry, Tattle."
Tattletale shrugged at that.
"I'll leave you to think on the idea," Coil spoke, "There's no action or gesture I can really take that will earn your trust in one fell swoop. All I can do is to work with you, giving you no more reason to distrust me."
"Sure," I replied, noncommittal.
"Now, that leaves one us final issue to remedy. Your worries for your safety. I wish to show you that you are in good hands, and I'm prepared to reveal one of my secret weapons," Coil came to a stop outside a door.

Secret weapon? This sounds ominous as fuck, almost as ominous as anything related to Coil. He either have there a super-bomb, a super- missile, another kind of super-weapon OR a very powerful parahuman that he's using as his secret weapon (either by forcing them or have them willingly offering their services in the same manner Travellers are doing). But I'll find out what is about tomorrow because its too late for me to continue. I know...cliffhanger, I'm sadistic with myself but....I can't do any shit about, sorry.

Good night and sleep well, my cool friends.

ExNihilo · Apr 15, 2018

No major comments, on nothing in particular. Coil is a piece of work though, isn't he?

AmbarGriss · Apr 15, 2018

Ohohoho, I can't wait.

ExNihilo · Apr 15, 2018

AmbarGriss said:
Ohohoho, I can't wait.

Next chapter. Leviathan Cometh.
-And then a Miss Militia interlude. Which is nice, but really breaks up the flow.

Neither can I.

Vayhle · Apr 16, 2018

Worm is so good, enjoying you live-read blogging.

blackarrow · Apr 16, 2018

Hello, people, and welcome to Part 2 of this chapter 7.11 | Worm. Last time, we found more about this hella powerful, hella smart and hella ruthless super-villain codenamed Coil (I'm still expecting him to start hissing out of blue at one moment in conversation). This guy would make Kaiser and Lung extremely pissed off because they'll NEVER be so cunning, manipulative and dangerous as him

and worse, he seems to be successful (at moment) in his plans while Lung is having fun in Birdcage and Kaiser might keep him company there anytime. I saw an AWESOME fanart with Coil Coil with Cold Coffee (I don't read the comments because of possible spoilers) and he even have a mug of cold coffee with NUMBER 1 VILLAIN of Brockton Bay (any other villain, try to BEAT THIS). The only thing I can criticize at this picture is that his canon mask is completely dark, it doesn't have any yellow lenses (I still don't understand how he can see through it but maybe he have gadgets incorporated or his powers help him) but I like this version. He looks badass, evil, creepy and bussiness like. Exactly how I imagined him to look. Even if I hate him (and not that kind of "I love to hate him" but more the kind of "I want this guy to die a slow painful death or to have a fate worse than death") I won't say no to an Interlude dedicated to him. I want to see his civilian life, to know his name, his job, his family, friends, to see how he treats them, and to know what else he's doing when he's not in his villainous power-obsessed mode. I wonder if he have a human side, something that would make me stop wanting at every 5 seconds to strangle him to death. Now back to story and Coil's secret weapon.

A soldier stood nearby, smoking a cigarette.
"Fetch her," Coil ordered. The soldier nodded, squashed the cigarette against the wall, pocketed the butt and went through the doorway.

Coil walked over to the wall where the soldier had extinguished the cigarette and used his thumb to wipe the smudge on the wall away. He spoke to us, "If I told you I knew where Kaiser was hiding out from the heroes, alongside his bodyguards and perhaps a handful of his lieutenants, that I wanted you to defeat them in a nighttime ambush, this would be an example of the sort of situation you're concerned about facing?"
"Yep," Tattletale replied, "Even with your power-"
"-You have your worries, yes," Coil finished for her. "Forgive me if I do not elaborate on the subject of my abilities, or give Tattletale permission to do so. We- ah, here she is."
The soldier came through the door, with a girl in tow. Twelve years old or so, she had dark circles under her eyes, and straight, dark brown hair that was in need of a trim. She wore a white long sleeved shirt, white pajama bottoms and white slippers. She didn't make eye contact with anyone, staring at the ground. Her right hand gripped her left elbow, and the fingers of her left hand drummed an inconsistent beat against her thigh.
Coil bent down and pushed the hair away from the girl's face. She looked at him, then looked away.
"I need some numbers," Coil spoke, gently.

OH....MY....GOD....I hate this, but I was right about the possibility of Coil kidnapping a powerful parahuman to use as his secret weapon. Oh, no, and is a child, a 12-years old girl

. And she looks so bad, its like she's not allowed to rest because she's always forced by Coil to use her power. She looks nervous and agitated and she doesn't like Coil and/or she's afraid of him. Godness, it looks like Coil doesn't have a human side if he treats like this a poor, defenseless child

. I'm kind of afraid to read further because I'm sure that this child will either start to cry in fear or refuse his request and he'll order to his people to punish her and he'll punish her himself and my heart will break in dozens of little pieces (no, I have to admit, I'm not resistant when I see or read about child abuse- even in Harry Potter, when Harry

was abused by Dursleys

, I almost cried during those scenes

. I can read about/watch so many frightening and demented things, but child abuse is kind of too much for me).

"I want candy."
"Alright. Candy after six questions."
"Three," she grew more agitated, turned as if to walk away, then turned back in his direction. She was fidgeting more.

"Five questions. Is that fair?" Coil turned and sat on the metal walkway, beside where the girl stood.
"Okay. Five."
"I'd like these people," Coil pointed at us, "To go fight Kaiser, tomorrow night at eleven in the evening. You remember them? The Undersiders. And you remember Kaiser? From the pictures I showed you?"
"Yes. You asked me this before."
"I did. But I want the Undersiders to hear what you say. Give me a number. How would they do, without my help?"

Oh, this poor child seem to have MATH based powers (exactly the kind of powers I "like" the most, GREAT) that she uses to predict the future. With the help of numbers she can see if Undersiders would win or fail in a confrontation with Kaiser. That's the reason why Coil kidnapped her, she's basically his Oracle. Poor kid

she demands candy. I just hope that is a real candy and not something related to drugs, but knowing Coil, I think he's also drugging her. This is getting worse and worse, guys....

"Forty-six point six two three five four percent chance they all come back. Thirty three point seven seven nine zero one percent only some come back. That's one question."
Coil paused to let that sink in, then looked up at us, "She calculates possibilities, we think she does it by seeing all the potential outcomes of an event in a fraction of a second. Her power categorizes these outcomes and helps her to figure out the chance that a given event will come to pass. It isn't easy for her, and I try not to tax her abilities, but you can surely see why this is so valuable."
I hugged my arms close to my body. When I glanced at the girl, I caught her looking at me. I looked away.

So they have pretty good chances to survive together but this is not the thing that matters the most now. What it matters most is that this poor child is ABUSED by a completely HEARTLESS man and if I were in Skitter's place I'd rather try to kill him (and risk getting killed by him or his people in the process) or just run away with tears in my eyes. I would be unable to stay there and watch. I think that Skitters suffers a lot because of her body language and I wonder if Tattletale knew about this thing. If she knew I hope that she's going to have a very good reason to accept this to happen without trying to stop it. I just can't see Tattle as an inhuman bitch, I refuse to see her this way.

"Candy, now?" She started to bite at her thumbnail. Looking at her other hand, I saw her nails were bitten to the quick.
He moved her hand away from her mouth, "Four more questions, pet, then candy. Tell me the numbers for the same situation, but if I sent the Travelers instead."
"Sixty point two one zero zero nine percent chance they all come back. Forty-four point one seven four three percent chance but someone gets hurt or killed."
"Good girl," he turned to look at us, "The Travelers are powerful, so it stands to reason their chances are higher. But I've found that your group benefits more from a use of my power. Pet, tell me the numbers for the same scenario, for both the Travelers and the Undersiders, but let's say I was helping them in my usual manner."
"That's two questions. Two teams, two questions. No cheating. I get really bad headaches when I try to get too many numbers."
"Okay. Answer those two, then there's one more before you get your candy. I just need to know the chances that the teams will come back intact."
The girl nodded, a little too quickly and eagerly, "Those people there have a thirty-two point zero zero five eight three percent chance to come back with nobody dead or seriously hurt if you help them. The Travelers have a forty-one point-"
"No, stop," Coil stopped her, "That doesn't make any sense. You gave me different numbers before. Those numbers are lower than the ones they'd have if I didn't help."
"It's the numbers in my head."
"The numbers are wrong, pet."
She shook her head, raised her voice in a surprisingly sudden fit of anger, "No! They're right! You just don't want to give me any candy!"

You know what? I don't care about numbers anymore, I can't even concentrate over them when I feel so sick at stomach right now. Candy is drug, otherwise she won't be so desperate after it. She's ADDICTED. Coil also calls her PET. WHAT THE ACTUALLY FUCK? You treat her like she's an animal, not a human being, stop calling her like this, you sick fuck. God, he kidnapped her, keeps her drugged, forces her to use her power despite giving her headaches and maybe torture her if he isn't happy with her answers....I have a feeling that he's doing even WORSE things to her, things that an grown-up man should NEVER do to a child and yet they're people who are doing these...I can see Coil being this kind of man :anger:

(why is he calling her "pet" if not for perverted purposes, whatever is treating her like an animal or....)

Coil put a hand on her shoulder. She pulled away, but he held her firm. He had to raise her voice to be heard over her squeals, and he shook her just a little to be sure she was listening, "Last question, then you'll get your candy, I promise."
She began to settle, and Coil was calmer when he spoke again, more like his usual, reasonable self, "Just give me the number, again, if I sent the Undersiders out to fight Kaiser, without giving them my help. What percentage, that they come back intact?"
"Twelve point three one three three percent-"
Coil stood, swiftly. He turned to the soldier that stood nearby, "Give her what she wants."
The soldier guided the girl back through the door.
Coil muttered to himself, "There's some anomaly at work, here. The numbers can't skew that much, that fast. More than a thirty percent drop…"
"Coil?" Tattletale spoke. She looked a little pale.
"Tattletale, do you know why the numbers would change? Does your power tell you anything?"
She shook her head, started to speak, but was interrupted.
"Then go," he ordered her, ordered us. "I will contact you later, and we will finish this conversation then."

"I-"
"Please," he stressed the word, "See yourselves out. This situation, whatever it is, demands my attention."
Tattletale nodded. Together, we headed around the walkway to the door we'd come in. We were halfway up the stairs to the hatch when Regent commented, "Well, that was surreal."

So, Tattletale doesn't know about this poor soul....That's good to know, this is the only good thing about this chapter. I wonder why the numbers dropped. I'm thinking that Undersiders will decide to say a BIG FUCK TO YOU AND YOUR BARBARIC METHODS TO TAKE THE POWER to Coil then do the things on their own, without demanding his support in any way. They'll leave him and fight against Kaiser by themselves and will not be so successful anymore...They changed their mind about Coil when they saw his treatment towards the child and in this way, the future changed as well. I think I understand how the clusterfuck of numbers is working.

"Not the word I'd use to describe it," I replied, quiet.
"What's her deal? Is she like Labyrinth? Powers fucked with her head?"
I looked at the others, then turned to look at him. I couldn't help but let a little venom seep into my voice as I asked him, "Are you dense?"
"What? She said she got headaches, Coil said it was hard on her, using her power, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think there's something going on mentally, especially seeing how she acted."
"The candy she was asking for was a euphemism for drugs," I spoke, and saying it aloud made it somehow more real. I hugged my arms tighter against my body, "He's keeping her strung out so she'll cooperate, give him his numbers."

"I don't think-"
"Shut up," I cut Regent off. "Just shut up. I- I can't argue with you on this. Please."
He stopped. I looked at the others. Grue had his arms folded, and was standing very still. Bitch just had her usual angry look.
Tattletale looked pale, even for the single lightbulb's worth of light we had in the stairwell. She wouldn't meet my eyes.
"You'd know if you watched the news," I told Regent, "If you read the paper. I hate that I have to explain this, when I don't even want to think about it. She's the missing kid. Remember our bank robbery? How we were weren't even front page news because an amber alert took priority? That was her. Dinah Alcott."
The revulsion and anger that was welling up in my chest and throat made me want to throw up, hit something, right there. Some of that emotion, a lot of it, was directed at myself. I looked to Tattletale, "Tell me I'm wrong. Please?"
She broke eye contact, which was answer enough.
"Get it, Regent?" I asked him, "The bank robbery was a distraction for the local capes, so Coil could be sure to get away with taking the kid. We played a part in that. We made that happen."

I was right about candy. Again "sighs". So, the poor kid's name is Dinah. I like this name, sounds innocent enough, just like her. And now I understand why Coil send them to rob the bank. He didn't wanted documents from the bank, he only wanted Dinah. He kidnapped Dinah while heroes were busy with Undersiders. Well planned

. Fucking well planned

No, don't blame yourself, Skitter, you're not guilty for what happened. Not a single Undersider is guilty, they had no idea what that MONSTER actually planned. You're all tricked and used by him, just like everyone else. What Undersiders should do now? Make plans to defeat Coil and save Dinah. Dinah should be saved and you all have to make this effort. If I were Skitter (my best friend often compares me with Taylor, telling me that I have a lot of Taylor in me- sounds weird, I know- but I personally know that I will never have her brilliant mind, cold blood, her crazy pain tolerance and...I'll never lie my parents or disrespect them; yet I like to put myself in her shoes from time to time and try to see if she thinks like me or I'm thinking like her), so if I were Skitter, I'd do ANYTHING in my power to save Dinah. That's it.

Thanks God this chapter ended. I seriously didn't like it for reasons easy to understand from my review. Even worse than the chapters with bullying. Now, I'm not so sure anymore I'd like to read Coil Interlude. But I'll read it, I have to. Good night and sleep well, my friends "hugs everyone".

Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

SPACE!

Rocking the life

SPACE!

Rocking the life

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

SPACE!

SPACE!

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

SPACE!

SPACE!

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

SPACE!